Sunday, March 28, 2021

Again & Again: We Draw on Courage

 John:12:1-19       Common English Bible

Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Lazarus and his sisters hosted a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who joined him at the table. Then Mary took an extraordinary amount, almost three-quarters of a pound, of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She anointed Jesus’ feet with it, then wiped his feet dry with her hair. The house was filled with the aroma of the perfume. Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), complained, “This perfume was worth a year’s wages! Why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He carried the money bag and would take what was in it.)


Then Jesus said, “Leave her alone. This perfume was to be used in preparation for my burial, and this is how she has used it. You will always have the poor among you, but you won’t always have me.”


Many Jews learned that he was there. They came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. The chief priests decided that they would kill Lazarus too. It was because of Lazarus that many of the Jews had deserted them and come to believe in Jesus.


The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him. They shouted,


“Hosanna!

Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

    Blessings on the king of Israel!”


Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,


Don’t be afraid, Daughter Zion.

        Look! Your king is coming,

            sitting on a donkey’s colt.


His disciples didn’t understand these things at first. After he was glorified, they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.


The crowd who had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead were testifying about him. That’s why the crowd came to meet him, because they had heard about this miraculous sign that he had done. Therefore, the Pharisees said to each other, “See! You’ve accomplished nothing! Look! The whole world is following him!”




What is the most challenging thing that you have ever done?


What required the most courage?


I remember clearly --- November 11 and 12th, 1989.


Nancy and I were the parents of a one-and-a-half-year-old baby --- living in a new community.


Late in the afternoon on November 11th --- it was a stormy night --- rain, lightening, high winds --- Nancy and I went to the Warsaw Community WMCA, gathering with a few volunteers to help set up chairs for the inaugural worship service for Celebration United Methodist Church.


We had made 35,000 phone calls ---- sent out thousands of letters --- drank more coffee with folk than I ever imagined possible --- with the hopes that interested people would show up.


The runway was not very long --- the conference provided enough funds for one year --- and then the funds would drop dramatically --- we were expected to become self-sustaining very quickly.


I will never forget that day --- even as I speak of it right now --- my stomach gets into knots.


I had no idea if it would work.


I was trying to start a more open congregation in a very conservative community.


As I made those phone calls --- what I heard over and over again was --- “you don’t want me – I am divorced.”  


Even though I had only been in town since June --- churches in the community were attacking me and this none-existent church from the pulpit saying that I was soft on sin – since I kept reaching out and welcoming those who had been kicked out of those churches, primarily for getting divorced.


As we finished setting up the gym with 250 chairs, I wondered --- no --- I worried --- would anyone show up?


By the time we finished --- and we headed to my car to go home and try to get some sleep --- knowing I would have to be there at 6am to turn the heat on in the gym ---

the rain had stopped 

--- and right there in front of me was the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen.


As I got into my car --- I broke down into tears.


Four years earlier --- my brother had died on this very day.


And as I sat there, I was able to thank God for sending me this sign --- this sign that everything was going to be OK --- even if I wasn’t completely sure all the time.


The gospels don’t recount any rainbows in the sky during this last week of Jesus earthly life.


Yet again and again --- we will be reminded that in the midst of all that is taking place --- God is there to fortify our courage.


As Jesus stood on the top of the Mount of Olives --- a place many of us stood just last year --- and as he looked over the beloved holy city of Jerusalem --- one has to wonder what Jesus was feeling.


Was he afraid?


He certainly knew what the likely outcome was.

DEATH

Death by torture on a cross.


John tells us that Jesus has just reminded his followers that his fate would be death.


If you follow Jesus’ story this week, the gospels tell us that it was a roller coaster ride --- not only for Jesus, but also for those who were with him.


It all began on what we call Palm Sunday.


The Rev. Denise Anderson defines what transpires on this Sunday as political theater.

She writes:

We begin the high drama of Holy Week with a reading in three parts.


. . . Everyone’s motivations are exposed and the week’s events foreshadowed.


. . . All eyes right now are on Jesus. That’s a problem for the chief priests, who then set their eyes on Lazarus to undermine Jesus. We witness what is both secret and open.


. . . Everything is now set in motion. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is a spectacle. It’s a protest, a counternarrative to the Empire’s extravagance and repression. It happens opposite the Roman governor’s own parade into Jerusalem for the Passover. It’s the people’s declaration of a different reign. The use of a donkey is Messianic imagery. This is political theater, and it would ramp up the plots against Jesus’ life.


. . . When we consider the full Palm Sunday picture, these are frightful times. So much is happening that is both hopeful and terrifying. Tensions and tears are plentiful. But the Word will remind us to “take heart.”


Again and again, we take heart amid the drama. The script is unsettling, but we have not yet reached “The End.”


We can look back on it and see the ways that John and the other gospel writers tells the story as theater, but I believe there was much more going on.


Rev. Anderson alludes to it, but one of the most provocative and profound looks at this last week of Jesus’ life is Borg and Crossan’s The Last Week.


They wrote the book, in many ways, as a counter narrative to the story that Mel Gipson presented in the movie The Passion of the Christ.


They write:  

“We intend . . . to tell and explain, against the backdrop of Jewish high-priestly collaboration with Roman imperial control, the last week of Jesus’s life on earth as given in the Gospel According to Mark. . . . Mark tells us how the story of Jesus was told around the year 70.  As such, it is not ‘straightforward history,’ but, like all the gospels, a combination of history remembered and history interpreted.”


Imagine, if you can . . . a ragtag group of peasants --- gathering together on the top of the Mount of Olives.

Across the valley is the Temple --- the dwelling of God on the earth.

The center of the world --- if not the universe


This group of peasants had made their way with other pilgrims, coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover

The Passover --- the celebration of liberation from Egypt, the promise of a homeland --- the acknowledgment that the Jewish people are chosen by God


They had come from the Galilee --- about 100 miles north of Jerusalem


As they looked at the Temple, off in the distance, Jesus climbed upon a donkey and began the decent into the Kidron Valley and then back up into Jerusalem.


People came and began shouting Hosanna.


“Hosanna!

Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

    Blessings on the king of Israel!”


And they took branches of palm trees and began to wave them as the shouted all the louder:

HOSANNA


Without a doubt --- the leaders of the temple and the Roman officials, charged with keeping the peace --- were keeping an eye on this motley crew.


But at the same time --- something else was going on.

Another parade was taking place on the opposite side of the city.


Pontius Pilate --- the Roman Governor was entering the city from the West.

Pilate had traveled with Roman imperial troops from Caesarea Maritima to provide a military presence during this Jewish festival.


Jesus’ procession seemed to be proclaiming the idea of a Kin-dom of God --- a kin-dom that lifted up the poor and impoverished, that equalized the marginalized and excluded.


Pilate too proclaimed his reality --- Pilate came proclaiming the might and power of the Roman Empire.


Jesus, I am convinced knew what he was doing --- 

I am not sure he fully understood the consequences of what he was doing.


Jesus rode in on a donkey, and Matthew reminds us this was to fulfill a prophecy found in Zechariah.

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion.

        Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem.

Look, your king will come to you.

        He is righteous and victorious.

        He is humble and riding on an ass,

            on a colt, the offspring of a donkey.   (Zechariah 9:9 CEB)



It is the very next verse --- Zechariah tells us what kind of King --- Jesus will be:

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

        and the warhorse from Jerusalem.

The bow used in battle will be cut off;

        he will speak peace to the nations.

His rule will stretch from sea to sea,

        and from the river to the ends of the earth.  (Zechariah 9:10 CEB)


This is a king who will banish war

No more chariots

No more war-horses

No more bows

This will be a king of peace!


Knowing this --- it took great courage to climb aboard that donkey and ride into the city amid the Hosanna’s and palm branches.


But again and again --- we see the presence of God --- giving Jesus AND US --- the courage we need to stand up against injustice.


On March 3rd, 2019 I stood in this very pulpit and preached the scariest sermon of my life.

(https://smconger.blogspot.com/2019/03/grace-upon-grace.html)


Like November 14-15 thirty years earlier --- this is burned into my memory.


Earlier that week, the Special Session of the General Conference of the UMC meet in Saint Louis and strengthened the discriminatory and (to me) evil language found in the Book of Disciple.


I knew that I would have to address it on the next Sunday --- and I knew --- that some people would be very unhappy about what I would say.


I wrestled with God in ways that I had never done before.

Would I play it safe and not speak what I have come to believe?

Or

Would I say what God seemed to be putting on my heart?


I didn’t sleep the night before church on the 3rd.

I wrote --- threw out and wrote again my sermon --- repeatedly.


Could I, would I --- say what I believed?


I invite you to go back and read that sermon.

I believe it was the best I have ever preached

It has been read almost 900 times on my blog 

--- I have no idea how many times on the church website


I titled it Grace upon Grace --- an illusion to John 1:16 and a constant theme of my theology professor Tom Langford.


Since then the past two years have been ones of constant turmoil

There are no easy answers as we try to expand the table to include everyone.

The signs we have put up to show: we welcome all --- over the past two years have been vandalized or stolen


I remember while in seminary, Dr Langford shared with a class an early draft of a book that he was working on --- I don't believe it was ever published --- but it was entitled GRACE UPON GRACE


It was his premise that God's grace is sufficient

That God is big enough to defend God's self and it was our job to invite people in


One of the things that has always struck me is the idea that some people actually see God's love as being somewhat limited.  

If God loves you --- there might not be enough for me.


But there is grace upon grace --- sufficient for all of creation 

--- our job is to humbly accept it and to invite others to experience it.


When you come to God's table, I hope you understand that:

          NO ONE HERE MERITS BEING INVITED

But just the same, God invites you.


As long as I am pastor at Meridian Street UMC, this table will be open to ALL.

          Straight, gay,

          Married, single, or divorced

          Black, brown, yellow, white or any other color

          Citizen or alien

          Rich or poor

          Sinner or Saint


This table will always be open


And I will do everything that I can to open the doors of the church to all of God's children.


I will support any who believe they are called by God to ministry even if they happen to be LGBTQI+


God's table is big enough --- even if we disagree

No one --- regardless of which side of this issue you are on --- is being excluded from God's table by God

We may exclude ourselves

We may think we are being excluded --- but God excludes NO-ONE!

And I promise to do my best to exclude No-one


Two years ago a devotion was shared prior to a finance meeting that has stuck with me ever since.


He talked about being on a youth retreat when the leader of the retreat, 

as they were sitting in a circle, 

turned to the person that he really disliked and said to them "I love you most of all (and then gave a reason).


As you can imagine, this young person was upset that their leader had made this affirmation to a person that they struggled with, 

because they thought they were loved most of all.  

And for a time he said he sat there in his indignation


But soon, the leader turned to him and said: "I Love You most of all . . ."


I encourage you to think of the biggest sinner you know. 

          Can you see them?

          Can you put them in your minds eye 

If you can't see anyone, then just think of me --- I am a pretty good sinner


And listen as God says to them: "I Love You most of all . . ."


And unless you can hear them say that to the one you really struggle with --- 

I doubt you can really understand or appreciate it when God says to you: "I Love You most of all . . ."


Mark Twain is often credited with saying, but the truth is it more likely was the Rev. Ernest T. Campbell --- 

The two most important days in your life are:

The day you are born

And the day you figure out why.


I am a slow learner --- it has taken a number of events to help me figure out why I was born --- but once I learned it --- it changed the way I live.


Do you have the courage to follow Jesus into Jerusalem?


Do you have the courage --- to stand up for what you know is right?


Again and again --- God gives us the courage and walks with us through the valley and into the Holy City.


Monday, March 22, 2021

Again & Again: We Are Reformed

 John 12:20-33       Common English Bible

Some Greeks were among those who had come up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and made a request: “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” Philip told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip told Jesus.


Jesus replied, “The time has come for the Human One to be glorified. I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who hate their lives in this world will keep them forever. Whoever serves me must follow me. Wherever I am, there my servant will also be. My Father will honor whoever serves me.


“Now I am deeply troubled. What should I say? ‘Father, save me from this time’? No, for this is the reason I have come to this time. Father, glorify your name!”


Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”


The crowd standing there heard and said, “It’s thunder.” Others said, “An angel spoke to him.”


Jesus replied, “This voice wasn’t for my benefit but for yours. Now is the time for judgment of this world. Now this world’s ruler will be thrown out. When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me.” (He said this to show how he was going to die.)




I don’t think I will ever forget hearing John Maxwell, at a conference on how to help navigate a church through change proclaim with such trite and yet truthful words:

“The only person who likes change is a baby.”


Even when we know change is necessary and needed --- most of us resist it.


Change is hard and often very messy.


We don’t go to bed one night saying I am going to change, and wake up the next day and be a new person.


Change is full of fits and failures.

We take two steps forwards

And three steps backwards


But slowly, over time --- things can change.


Even over the course of the 2000 years of Christianity --- change has happened

A few years ago, we celebrated the last great change in Christianity.


2017 marked the 500th Anniversary of a young Roman Catholic Priest, nailing his “95 Thesis”, his 95 ideas of change, for the church that he loved, to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.


Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called “indulgences”—for the forgiveness of sins. 


At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 

This campaign was authorized by Pope Leo X and the Archbishop of Mainz


Prince Frederick III had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg

Despite that, many local parishioners were willing to travel to purchase them.


Much to Martin Luther’s dismay --- when his parishioners returned, they claimed they no longer had to repent for their sins --- because they had purchased forgiveness.


The “95 Theses,” proposed two believes that we don’t even think twice about today --- but in Luther’s day they were seen as radical and heretical.

that the Bible is the central religious authority 

and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds


While we would accept these ideas as “orthodox” today --- when Martin Luther suggested them --- things did not go well for him.


Instead of changing the church from the inside out --- 

Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Roman Catholic Church in 1521. 


Later that same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany.  

Charles then issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence.


Eventually, his ideas --- and those of other reformers --- resulted in the split between the Roman Catholic Church and what becomes known as the Protestant Reformation.


But the reformation didn’t happen in a day.


On November 1, 1517 --- Martin Luther didn’t wake up the member of a new church.


Change takes time

And it is often painful and messy.


Denise Anderson wrote --- “change, even when welcome, means death.”


Remember, it was Jesus who said:

I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who hate their lives in this world will keep them forever.


In 2008, Phyllis Tickle, founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly, lecturer and author wrote: “The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why.”


In it she argues that Christianity is currently undergoing a massive upheaval as part of a regular pattern that occurs every 500 years, in which old ideas are rejected and new ones emerge. 

Ultimately, the old expression of Christianity is refurbished and revitalized, while a new, more vital form is created


Tickle used the analogy of “The 500-Year Rummage Sale” to describe religious change over the years. 


She argues that historically, the church “cleans house” roughly every 500 years, holding a “giant rummage sale,” deciding what to dispose of and what to keep --- making room for new things and ideas.


Tickle argues that in the Christian Era we have encounter these Rummage Sales many times.


In the Christian story the first was ‘The Great Transformation,” when a man who was called “Emmanuel, God With Us”  --- Jesus --- created a new understanding of our relationship with God. 


Five hundred years later saw the collapse of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages. In this period, the church entered an era of preservation as the church went underground with monks and nuns practicing the monastic tradition in abbeys, convents, and priories. 


Next, at the beginning of the new millennium in 1054, came “The Great Schism,” when the Christian Church split into the Eastern and Western branches that we still see today in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.  


Then in the 1500s, “The Reformation” resulted in new branches of Christian tradition, with different understandings of how people relate to God personally through direct prayer and individual interpretation of the bible.  


Every 500 years or so, Tickle says, there are tectonic shifts in the Christian tradition, resulting in huge changes of both understanding and of practice.


I would agree with Tickle as she suggest that we are plum in the middle of one of these tectonic shifts --- one of these Rummage Sales.


I don’t have to tell you --- it is a hard and messy time in the church --- whether a member of the church or as a clergy person.

Particularly in our own denomination.


Seismic changes are taking place --- and none of us --- if we are honest --- really know what the church will look like on the other side.

The only thing I can say for certain --- it won’t look like the church that was founded in Isaac Wilson’s cabin 200 years ago.


But it is not just within the church that this seismic change is taking place --- it is in our society as a whole.


The entirety of my 60 years has been one of turmoil, uncertainty, and uneasy change.

The protests of the sixties

The sexual revolution

The battle over Women’s Rights

The anti-war protests

The civil rights movement

The war against drugs

The homophobia created by the AID’s crisis

The Me Too movement

The black lives matter movement

The turmoil over LGBTQI inclusion and rights

I could go on and on, but what is the point  . . .


My lifetime has been one crisis --- one change effort --- one protest after another.


I wonder, how our great grandchildren will look back at this time in history.


When I reflect on my great-grandfather --- Steven Conger, by the way --- I often wonder where he and his parents stood on reconstruction, on slavery, and seeing people of color as being fully human?

I am afraid that I know the answer.


What will my great grandchildren think about me, and my response to the rummage sale of my lifetime?


Will they see me as holding on tightly to things that 50 years from now will be seen in a whole new light?


The prophet Jeremiah --- during a great rummage sale in the life of the Israelites wrote these powerful words.


The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors . . . No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.  (Jeremiah 31:31-34 CEB)


Jesus, like Jeremiah before him, helped reframe the covenant with God.


According to Jeremiah, our sin was already forgiven.  

But what Jesus reminds us is that we have forgotten God.


I hope you took some time to read our story from John’s gospel in the context in which it is found.


Jesus has been busy right before our story:

He has been at a dinner at the home of Mary and Martha

He had just previously raised Lazarus from the dead

At this meal he predicts what is going to happen to him


The crowds have gathered as he enters Jerusalem to shouts of:

“Hosanna!

Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

    Blessings on the king of Israel!”


And then we get to our story


John tells us:

There were some Greeks in town who had come up to worship at the Feast. They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee: “Sir, we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?”


When they find Jesus, do you remember what Jesus said?


“Time’s up. The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.


“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.


“If any of you wants to serve me, then follow me.”


For 2000 years, we have been trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus.


And, if Phyllis Tickle is right --- and I think she is --- every 500 we decide to do a house cleaning and attempt to get rid of the stuff that is keeping us from following Jesus.


Change is hard --- but the good news is we don’t do it alone.


Again and again, Jesus invites us to follow.


Again and again, Jesus invited us to be transformed

Not as a transaction --- Luther helped clear out those rummage sale items

But as a change of heart


I don’t know if you have seen David Brooks latest editorial.  It was first in the New York Times on Thursday but has been in many other publications since.  It is worth reading in its entirety.


Brooks writes about interviewing Essau McCaulley, a New Testament professor at Wheaton College.  And he reflects on McCaulley’s vision for the future.


He writes:

This vision begins with respect for the equal dignity of each person. It is based on the idea that we are all made in the image of God. It abhors any attempt to dehumanize anybody on any front. We may be unjustly divided in a zillion ways, but a fundamental human solidarity in being part of the same creation.


He goes on:

From Frederick Douglass and Howard Thurman to Martin Luther King Jr. on down, the Christian social justice movement has relentlessly exposed evil by forcing it face to face with Christological good. The marches, the sit-ins, the nonviolence. “You can’t get to just ends with unjust means,” McCaulley told me. “The ethic of Jesus is as important as the ends of liberation.”


He pointed me to the argument Thurman made in “Jesus and the Disinherited,” that hatred is a great motivator, but it burns down more than the object of its ire. You can feel rage but there has to be something on the other side of anger.


That is the ethic of self-emptying love — neither revile the reviler nor allow him to stay in his sin. The Christian approach to power is to tell those with power to give it up for the sake of those who lack. There is a relentless effort to rebuild relationship because God is relentless in pursuit of us.


“Listen carefully: [Jesus said] Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.


Again and again, Jesus offers to help us through the messy time.


I don’t want to pretend to sugar coat it

This is a hard and challenging time


Arthur Ashe once remarked

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever the cost.


And the cost as Jesus suggested --- is to be reckless in our love.


If we put our focus on Jesus --- he tells us what following him is all about: 

“Love one another, as I have loved you” 

--- Jesus will help us find the way.


Again and again --- we can be transformed.