Category: Sermons - Page 2 - We Get There By Walking

Who Do You Think You Are?

In the end, this morning may just be about parsing words.
The musings of someone who, at least in part, uses words to make his living.
Because of that I realize you may walk away shaking your head.
And, wondering what in the world I was talking about.
How is that for an introduction?
Maybe it’s a way to let both of us off the hook.

When I was in elementary school I lived at 222 Third Street. Half a block from the Aspinwall United Presbyterian Church which was located on the corner of Center Ave. and Third Street where my parents were members, and where, eventually, I became a member. What I remember from my growing up there is when I thought about or talked about or heard someone else talk about church, either we were talking about the building or about what happened on Sunday mornings between 9:45 and Noon. I don’t ever remember consciously thinking about or talking about the possibility that church was anything more than that. That church was something which stretched beyond Sunday morning and pushed into the rest of the week. I don’t remember being taught that church was something about who we were and how we were connected to each other and to the larger community around us. Church was a place where we went. My hunch is what was true for me was, and maybe is, true for you as well. And, I am sure it is the public perception when those beyond our doors hear and use the word church.

All this hit home for me a couple of years ago in a staff meeting.
We were sitting around the table in the Conference Room planning and coordinating what was going to be happening on Sunday mornings. We were talking about who and what and when and how when people came to church. That is when it hit me (and this is where I begin to parse words). We were thinking and talking in ways which mirrored and reinforced the perception of church I had growing up which I don’t think works anymore. At least not in the same way it did 50 years ago when everything else except churches were closed on Sunday and when the cultural expectation was, if it was Sunday morning, you were in church.

After that staff meeting, I quit using the word church when I talk about our being here on Sunday mornings. Instead I say we are gathering for or coming to worship. If and when I use the word church I want it to be about who we are and how we live when we walk out these doors and into the rest of the week and not about who we are and what we do for an hour on Sunday morning.

I very much like the language the Session adopted several years ago to describe Bedford Presbyterian Church both for us and for others. You can find it on our website and we should probably use it more often. I added it to our bulletin for this morning.
It reads…
Bedford Presbyterian Church. Progressive. Inclusive.
Then this…
More than just Sundays.

And, as long as I am parsing words, this.
Maybe you have noticed, but maybe not, I don’t even use the word church very often anymore.
For several reasons. Partly because of what I said a moment ago and its association to a building or to Sunday mornings. Partly because of the negative connotations, some deserved; some not, that the word carries in the larger context and culture around us. And, partly in response to the what I perceive to be a growing need among us. Instead of church, I have been using the word community and/or community of faith.

For years, sociologist have been documenting the trend in our country away from a collective accountability and responsibility. Away from an understanding of community and towards individualism. Towards me and mine first.
Indicators of that trend surround us.
The pervasive distrust in institutions.
In the rise of that sense of whatever works for me.
In the isolation and sense of nowhere to turn people feel especially when faced with tragedy or unexpected uncertainty. All of which leaves a gap in our lives and in our social interactions.

For sometime now, I have wondered if who we are as a called people of God, is not to step into that void and to help people make connections with each other. Both inside these walls and in the larger communities around us. To rebuild that sense of community which has been lost in so many other ways. In the words of the prophet Isaiah with which we began our worship:
To be the ones who help restore the streets in which we live.
That rebuilding or building happens in multiple ways.
Worship, yes.
But also all those other activities which connect us to each other and to the communities around us. Everything from choir to quilting to helping families at the food pantry select the food they want and need so they have enough to eat next week.

So, this morning, let me leave you with this question.
Who do you think you are?
As we plunge into the fall with all of its activities and commitments, and as my retirement at the end of October gets closer, this is your question as much as it is mine.
Maybe more your question than mine.

Look around.
How do you see yourselves?
How do you understand who you are?
How do you put words and hopes around who God is calling you to be?
Then, how do you begin to live those words from dreams into reality?
I ask because I believe this is true.
You are called to be…
We are called to be…
The repairer of the breach.
The ones who restore the streets in which we live.
And, in the midst of the chaos and confusion and awfulness and awesomeness of the world around us…
You are called to be God’s chosen generation.
God’s peculiar people.
For the sake of the world God continues to love so very much.

Faithful Imagination

Welcome back from your summer wanderings which I hoped included some significant and meaningful sabbath time. Time to rest and to take a deep breath. Time to reflect and recharge and reconnect. And now to be ready for fall with all it will bring and hold. Now we are back.
And with that, what about this as a place to begin!

Filled with threats and warnings.
And angels and demons.
And battles and judgement.
And finally triumph (at least for a few).
Complete with all of the drama of Tolkien’s Return of the King or JK Rowling Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, we finally get to this:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See the dwelling place of God is among mortals.
The Holy One will dwell with them as their God;
They will be God’s peoples, and God will be with them.
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more.
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more..
For the first things have passed away.” (Revelations 21: 1-4)

This morning I would like to think with you about imagination.
God wiping away every tear from your eyes.
Mourning and crying and pain being no more.
God’s Kingdom come.
Daily bread enough for all.
Swords into plowshares and weapons of war remade into tools with which to harvest food.

In the introduction to the Book of Revelations, the last book in the Bible and the last writing in the canon of Christian scripture, the editors of the Oxford Annotated Bible, write this:
The book of Revelation, or Apocalypse, is a fitting close to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, for its final chapters depict the consummation toward which the whole biblical narrative of redemption is focused. It may be described as an inspired picture-book that, by an accumulation of magnificent poetic imagery, makes a powerful appeal to the reader’s imagination. Many of the details of its pictures are intended to contribute to the total impression, and are not to be isolated and interpreted with wooden literalism.

It is probable that the author put the book in its present form toward the close of the reign of the [Roman] Emperor Domitian (A.D. 81-96). It was then that Domitian began to demand that his subjects address him as “Lord and God” and worship his image. For refusing to do so, many Christians were put to death, others were exiled and all were threatened.”

That is the context for that vision of what we believe is to be.
Surrounded and seemingly overwhelmed by the misuse and abuse of power. By persecution. And, threats. And suffering. And sacrifice. In the midst of all of that, this…
A new heaven and a new earth for the old, what was and what we know, will have passed away.

Now back to today.
And to you and me.
And to Bedford Presbyterian Church.
And to the communities in which we live.
And to the places where you work.
And to the country as it is.
And to the world entrusted now to our care and keeping.
With eyes wide open to what you see and to what is, with all of its confusion and chaos and uncertainty and questions, in your best and your most faithful moments what do you imagine might be?
What vision for your life or our life does your faith stir up within you?
What do you sense or see God calling you towards?
Calling us towards?

I am serious.
I mean this as more than an intellectual exercise.
This, I believe, is a part of what it means to be a Christian. A person of faith. To see, at least some small portion of your life and world, the way God imagines and intends life and world to be. Then to turn towards and to hold onto that vision.
So, I wonder…
What is tugging at the edges of your heart?
What is stirring in the depths of your spirit?
When you pray for yourself what do you pray for?
When you pray for our country what words do you use?
Do you wish people were more kind to each other?
Do you wish there was more dialogue and less shouting?
Do you envision a world where there is less hunger?
Less violence?
Less hatred and racism?
A world where all have enough and all have a place?
What?
May I ask?

That was step one.
This is step two.
If it is true, which I believe it is, that we are called to be partners with God in God’s ongoing work in the world, then what can you do to step towards that vision of tomorrow which God has placed in your heart or mind or soul.
Wishful thinking is not enough here.
Waiting for someone else or waiting for God is not who we are called to be.
Thoughts and prayers without moving your feet gets us nowhere.

As I was writing this sermon I remembered and then googled this quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. “Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
Is that the way it works?
You start where you can and go from there?
Each of us doing our part.
Each of us doing what we can.
Pointed in the direction of God’s Kingdom come.
If you imagine the world as more generous, how do you practice generosity today? If you imagine the world where all have enough, what choices and decisions are you making today to help make that happen tomorrow? If you imagine a world less fractured by racism or sexism or tribalism, what are you doing to understand those subtle tendencies at play in your own life and how they are at work in our communities and then doing what you can to grow and change?

So much of what this congregation does in the larger community started that way. Twenty nine years ago, three high school young women convincing the Session to support the Midnight Run which then made space for us to envision and risk the Emergency Shelter Partnership which, once we started it, no one in our communities has died due to exposure. And, believing all should have a safe place to live or sleep leading to our building or repairing homes in Yonkers and Peekskill and Grundy, VA and Colcord, WV, and Bedford, NY and in Nicaragua. And with eyes to see the community and world around us leading to the first Laundry Love in Mt. Kisco a couple weeks ago.

Is that how it works?
Start where you are and go from there?
Then one day…
Maybe.
Beyond me and maybe beyond you, but someday that day will be when…
And, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
And, Death will be no more.
And, mourning and crying and pain will be no more.
For the first things have passed away.”

May it be so, O God.
May it be so.

Food For The Journey

This simple story caught my attention.
Her husband was near the end of his life and receiving care from hospice. Being Roman Catholic, she had asked their parish priest to come by each day so they could celebrate the Eucharist and receive the sacrament together. After the bread and wine were blessed and shared, she would lean in close to her husband and whisper, “Food for the journey.”

Besides being touching, this story caused me to pause for another reason. It has been a long time since I thought about and reflected on my life in terms of journey which, after all, is an important and powerful Biblical metaphor.
Abraham and Sarah leaving their home and journeying to the land God had promised them.
The Israelites journey through the wilderness.
Joseph, Mary and Jesus journey to Egypt and then back.
Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem.

I have spent a considerable amount time thinking about my life in terms of getting older. And, being a grandparent and not just a parent.And, in terms of my health and energy level and my no longer being able to do what had come naturally and easily for so long. And, as you can imagine, I have been thinking about my life in terms of our upcoming retirement and what that will mean both in terms of stepping away from a position and role which has defined my life for so long and towards that which comes next. All that, but not journey.

So, in the couple of weeks or so since I stumbled across that story, here is what I have been thinking about. If journey is an meaningful metaphor for our lives…for my life…
Where am I going?
Where do I want to be going?
Where am I called to be going?
Not in terms of place, but in terms of who I am as a person and who I am as a Christian.
Am I just who I am?
After all these years now just set in place? Carved in stone?
Or, is there still room for growth?
For depth?
For understanding?

I am good at tasks.
At setting goals for work.
Thinking of new programs to try and identifying new needs that await our response. But I am not so good at setting goals or benchmarks for who I would like to be as a person.
More kind.
More compassionate.
More patient.
More understanding.
To listen better before I respond.
More of an awareness of God…of the Holy…in each and all of the moments of life as it is.
I found myself thinking about that quip, “If you don’t know where you are going any road will do.” Like me, are you more likely to be on any road rather than on a road which matters?

This past week Bruce Reisdorf, of Clark’s Funeral Home in Katonah, called and asked if I would do a funeral for a woman who had passed away. Last March she had celebrated her 100th birthday. The family, Bruce said, was not particularly religious, but they wanted a Protestant minister present to say a few words. As I thought about what few words I would say in a situation and setting like that, I found myself turning to these words from Psalm 90.
The days of our lives are 70 years.
Or perhaps 80 if we are strong.
They are soon gone and we fly away.
So teach us to number our days, O God, that we might gain a heart of wisdom.
Is that where I should be going?
The journey I/we should be on?
Being mindful of the days which I have?
Gaining a heart of wisdom?

Like most of my sermons, this morning I probably suggest more questions than provide you with answers. Offer you more ponderings than certainties. Trusting that if you and I ask our questions honestly and well we will find our ways to answers which work for us. That we will discern something of what God is trying to say to us. So as the story with which I began got me thinking about journey, it also got me thinking about that food for the journey.
What is it that sustains me?
What is it that keeps my faith alive?
What is it that deepens my gratitude?
What is it which increases my awareness of the other?
My awareness of the Holy?

I look back better than I see ahead and so in looking back, here is what I know to be true for me.
My faith is sustained by serving others and making a difference.
Not by committee meetings or To Do lists.
My faith is sustained by pounding nails or mixing cement.
Working side by side with others doing what I can to make a difference.
And, my faith is sustained by being outdoors.
By walking in the woods.
By listening to waves crash on the beach.
By looking up at the stars.
When I am inside too long or sitting too long I lose my way.
My faith is sustained by writing.
Sermons. Prayers. My blog.
Each helps me to put words around what I am thinking and feeling and trying to understand.
Maybe that which has sustained me in the past and helped me to get this far will be that which sustains me for the tomorrows which are yet to be.

I know my way is not your way. While our destination may be the same, the food you need to get to where God is calling you to be will be different.
For you it may be music.
Or daily devotions.
Or some type of more formal study.
Or keeping a journal.
Or prayers and prayer partners.
Or making sure these doors are open so any who need it can walk in.
What is important, I think, is that you are mindful of the journey and aware of what sustains you. That you pay attention to what you need as that daily bread that moves in the direction of the Kingdom of God. Towards who and where God calls you to be.

She leaned close and whispered in his ear.
Food for the journey.

What Are You Going to Do Today?

This week on our Twitter and our Facebook pages, Megan Hansen, who manages our online communication, posted a reflection written by MaryAnn McKibben Dana entitled Kick With Your Left Foot. The springboard for her reflection was a podcast she heard about the 1999 Women’s World Cup Soccer final in which the US National Women’s team beat China in a penalty kick shootout. The winning goal was scored by Brandi Chastain. Any of you who follow soccer at all may remember that moment and that kick and Brandi Chastain’s reaction. But what caught MaryAnn Dana’s attention was the fact that just before Brandi Chastain walked onto the field to take that kick, her coach told her to take the kick with her left foot. Something she had done hundreds of times in practice, but never in a game. Especially a game and a moment of that magnitude. Chastain followed her coach’s instruction. Took the kick. With her left foot. Scored the goal. The rest is history.

Ms. Dana ends her blog post with this:
And that’s how life works, isn’t it.
We do what is ours to do, day by day.
We pursue our “craft,” whatever that might be;
we explore what it means to be our authentic selves;
we learn, we engage in rituals and traditions,
we practice so that at moments when we are most needed in our communities and families, we are ready to give our best effort for the sake of tikkun olam, the healing of the world. As Danusa Veronca Goska writes, “When we study the biographies of our heroes, we learn that they spent years in preparation doing tiny, decent things before one historical moment propelled them to center stage.”
Tiny, decent things.
Tiny, decent, surprising things.
Tiny, decent, surprising things…so we’re ready to jump in, with either foot forward.

Which brings me back to today.
And, to the Bible.
And, to you and me.
And, to our claim and calling to follow in the way and the spirit of Jesus, who, if Matthew’s Gospel is to be believed, spent his time and energy healing and teaching and bringing something of God’s Kingdom close.
Tikkun Olam.
Healing the world.
Little by little.
One person.
One step.
One household.
One community.
At a time.

One of the scribbled notes on the file folder in which I keep sermon notes and ideas is:
“Quit thinking you have to be Gandhi.”
Which, I think, means this.
Quit thinking you can’t do anything about it because the problem is too big.
Quit thinking you are just one person.
Quit thinking that someone else with more time, more energy, more influence, more power, more clout will be the one to jump in to fix it or solve it or do it.
Quit thinking you have to be Gandhi.
Or, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Or Nelson Mandela.
Or, Jesus.
Instead, remember it is…
Tiny, decent things.
Tiny, decent, surprising things.
Tiny, decent, surprising things…that make us ready to jump in, with either foot forward.

In that same file folder as the scribbled note about Gandhi, I found this written by Emilie Townes, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Studies in Religion and Theology a Yale Divinity School. She writes:
Ultimately, I believe that somewhere deep inside each of us
We know that perhaps the simplest, yet the most difficult, answer to the challenge of “what will we proceed to do with the fullness and the incompleteness of what we have brought to this time and place” is:
Live your faith deeply.
Now I am not talking about perfection.
I’m talking about what we call in Christian ethics, the everydayness of moral acts.
It’s what we do every day that shapes us and says more about us than those grand moments of righteous indignation and action.
The everydayness of listening closely when folks talk or don’t talk to hear what they are saying.
The everydayness of taking some time, however short or long, to refresh ourselves through prayer or meditation.
The everydayness of speaking to folks and actually meaning whatever it is that is coming out of our mouths.
The everydayness of being a presence in people’s lives.
The everydayness of sharing a meal.
The everydayness of facing heartache and disappointment.
The everydayness of joy and laughter.
The everydayness of facing people who expect us to lead them somewhere or at least point them in the right direction.
The everydayness of blending head and heart.
It’s the everydayness of getting up and trying one more time to get our living right.
It is in the everydayness that “we the people” are formed.
And, we the people of faith, live and must witness to a justice wrapped in a love that will not let us go and a peace that is simply too ornery to give up on us.

So…
What are you going to do today to claim your calling and to follow in the way and spirit of Jesus?
What are you going to do today…
To heal?
To help?
To teach?
To bring God’s Kingdom close?
One person at a time.
One moment at a time.
One household…your household…at a time.
To heal the world…
Your world…
Our world…
This world…
Just a little bit?

Remember it is…
Tiny, decent things.
Tiny, decent, surprising things.
Tiny, decent, surprising things
That make us ready to jump in, with either foot forward.

Paying Attention

This reflection by Anne Hillman was read as a part of the worship service we attended at the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church on our way home from our summer work trip. It caught my attention and made me lean in a bit more.
We are all on a journey together…
To the center of the universe…
Look deep
Into yourself, into another.
It is to a center which is everywhere
That is the holy journey…
First you need only look:
Notice and honor the radiance of
Everything about you…
Play in this universe. Then
All these shining things around you:
The smallest plant, the creature and the objects in your care.
Be gentle and nurture. Listen…
As we experience and accept
All that we really are…
We grow in care.
We begin to embrace others
As ourselves, and learn to live
As one among many.

In other words…Pay attention.

And, this story from Matthew’s Gospel.
As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed [Jesus]. There were two blind men sitting by the roadside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” The crowd sternly ordered them to be quiet; but they shouted even more loudly, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!” Jesus stood still and called them, saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him.

In other words…See.

The writer Anne Lamott says there are only four kinds of prayer:
Please.
Thank you.
Help.
Wow.

Being here this morning, I wonder how you pray.
Now I lay me down to sleep…?
Our Father, who art in heaven…?
The Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord…?
Do you…
Fold your hands?
Close your eyes?
Speak out loud?
Be a quiet as you can?
Is your prayer…
Grace before a meal?
Your morning meditation?
Or, Oh my God… whispered as you hear the headlines in the news?
Or, maybe you just wait for Sunday morning and for Heather or me.
After all, while I am 100% sure it is not true, on countless occasions I have been asked to pray because I have “a direct line to the Almighty.”

What got me thinking about this was something I saw a couple of weeks ago.
A line by the poet Mary Oliver who wrote:
Attentiveness is the beginning of all prayer.
Again…
Attentiveness is the beginning of all prayer.
I used to think prayer was about talking God into something.
Something I wanted.
Something I thought I needed.
Something someone else wanted or needed.
Or, asking God for something and then sitting back and waiting for God to do what I had asked.
But. like my line to the Almighty, I am pretty sure that is not what prayer is all about.
Mary Oliver’s observation rings true for me.
What if prayer is really about learning…
To pay attention.
To see.
To notice.
To look around.

Could it be that merely paying attention becomes our prayer.
Paying attention to the crisis on our borders.
Paying attention to food you are about to eat.
Paying attention to the refugees in makeshift camps cut off from their homes.
Paying attention to the state of your soul.
Paying attention to those who are hungry in our community.
Paying attention to those who sit across from you at the dinner table.
Paying attention to those whom you know who are battling disease.
Paying attention to the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the breeze.
Paying attention to the systemic racism around us.
Paying attention to the money you spend and the checks you write.
Paying attention to those who continue to rebuild their lives in Puerto Rico.
Paying attention to pace of your day.
Paying attention to those who struggle to make ends meet.
Paying attention to the beauty of the flower.
Paying attention to the violence in Nicaragua.
Paying attention to the embrace of another.
Paying attention…
Because there are still bushes which are burning.
And that still, small voice waiting to be heard.
And there are still angels masquerading as strangers.
And visions which remain to be seen.

The Gospel reading this morning was about two blind men consigned to sitting each day in the dirt on the side of the road, beggars hoods pulled up over their faces so others would not see/notice/pay attention to their blindness. Two blind men who defy all the cultural norms by crying out to Jesus. And, then, when rebuked, crying out even louder. Then when asked by Jesus what they want, they reply, “Let our eyes be open.”

Maybe we, too, sit in the dirt on the side of the road.
Blind.
Lost in some darkness around us.
Not able to see that which is right in front of you.
What happens next?
They asked for their eyes to be opened.
May we be wise enough to the same.
To open our eyes.
To see again or maybe to see for the very first time.
Then to move our feet.
And to allow our lives to follow where our prayers first lead.

And God Said…

Two weeks ago, as we were recognizing and celebrating high school seniors who were graduating, one of the things I said to them was “You don’t have to read the Bible cover to cover, but know the story. Know enough of the Bible and enough about the Bible so when situations arise in your life you have a touchstone or a reference point around which to make a decision or to help you figure out what now or what next.”
Then, this happened.
It was Monday morning.
I was taking our dog on her morning walk.
I was a bit anxious because Monday is the day I work on the bulletin for the following Sunday. Writing the Opening Sentences and Prayer and selecting the hymns helps me think more about the sermon and overall focus of our worship. On most Mondays I have at least a glimmer of an idea about what I want to be thinking about in terms of worship and sermon.
But, last Monday I had nothing.
No spark of an idea.
No scribbled notes to fall back on.
Nothing.
Only walking the dog.

Then it happened.
A verse from the Bible.
“And God said…”
I sure it popped into my mind because I was struggling to make sense of the news of children being separated from their parents and housed in detention centers and what that must feel like for both parents and children. And, what it felt like to me as a citizen of this country. And, because my faith and my understanding of God is often the way I think and try to make sense of my life and world I found myself asking where God might be in all of it.
And so the Bible verse.
What would God say?

Still walking the dog and still not clear about the bulletin or about this morning, as I thought more about what God would say, another similar verse from the Gospels popped into my head. Jesus has been invited to dinner at Simon’s house. A woman of questionable integrity bursts in, washes Jesus with her tears and dries his feet with her hair. Simon, the Pharisee who had invited Jesus to dinner is aghast. Just as he is about to say something Jesus turns to him and says, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
Which added to my pondering.
What would Jesus say to us, I wondered?

Then back at my desk, a third verse.
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.”
My understanding of the Hebrew is that the word in this verse which is translated ‘hear” implies much more than just hearing a sound or a sentence. More than hearing the birds chirping or a door closing. The Hebrew word implies these three things: hearing and understanding and acting. If you have not understood and not acted, you have not heard.

So, there I was.
Three verses.
And God said…
Simon, I have something to say to you.
And, Hear, O Israel…
Then there was the bulletin and the hymns.
Then several days thinking about those three verses.
Thinking about what God is saying and about what Jesus might want to say to me and to us and about whether or not I was really hearing.
Which brings us to this morning.
Now, it is your turn.
Let me invite you or pull you into the conversation.
Believing God still speaks or the Spirit still prompts what do you hear God saying?
To you in terms of your own life?
What you are thinking about and pondering and trying to discern?
Or in terms of who we are as a community of faith with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other and where and how God might be wanting to say something to us?

Tags

Several things I believe: