All Creation Sings! Series

Created for Relationships—Genesis 2: 18-24; Mark 10: 2-5, 13-16

In Genesis 2, God decides that man needs a helper because being alone is not a good thing. So, in response, God creates all the living things, and allowed man to name them, but they are still not right for a helper. I think…this week…I’ve learned the answer to this. On Friday, I took my cat to the vet for a yearly checkup. This is never an easy outing, and I double dreaded it this year. Thankfully she is all good minus being chubby and cantankerous. It was the 7-minute ride there and back that truly brought the nightmare. [SLIDE] 

On the drive over, I hear the familiar “uck, uck, uck,” sound that signals an impending throw up. And sure enough, the cat carrier took a hard hit. The vet very kindly wiped her down and cleaned/replaced the padding in the carrier for me with a towel. On the way back, I opened the top of the carrier for her to poke her head out. For a minute, all was well, then she climbed out and got very still. My cat, who has to take a fiber medication to help her go to the bathroom did the biggest number two ever between my seat and the center console. To top it off she walks over and tinkled on my lap right after. 

If I wanted all this, I would have adopted a child and not a cat. Send help, O Lord. And yet, two hours later I have this sweet, purring kitty snuggling up next to me while I work acting like she hadn’t been a complete terrorist that morning. God created us to be in relationships. Whether it’s family, friends, furry family, romantic relationships, or otherwise, God has created us as relational creatures. [SLIDE]

In Genesis 2, which is a retelling of the creation story, we see that man is alone in the garden God has created. God, in an attempt to help this, creates a number of other creatures to keep man company. And while they are all nice, there’s still something missing. God has to create a help which mirrors the man, made in the image of the man. When man sees woman, made in man’s image, he rejoices. “’At last!’ the man exclaimed. ‘This one is bone from my bone, flesh from my flesh!’” Pause here to think for a moment. The man is beyond excited to see a creature made in his own image. Remember that humanity is made in the image of God, and how pleased God must be with that creation, and how hard it must be when we go against God. That’s why we use the image of a child rebelling against a parent because of the overwhelming grief. [SLIDE]

But now I want to challenge you a bit. Many of you came from backgrounds where this story of woman being pulled from man’s rib was taught as women are lesser than or weaker than a man. I grew up hearing it. But it’s not true, especially if you look at the original language. The word for “help” used to describe woman is “ezer.” That is not a subservient word. It is also the same word used when the Bible says God is the help of humankind. God intended this relationship to be an equal partnership based on love. The concept of hierarchy in a marriage, and the man ruling over woman was introduced in Genesis 3:16—when sin entered. Power, ruling over, hierarchy…all those are marks of sin, not God’s design. 

But this introduced another problem for all of our relationships—strife. Sin replaced the blissful harmony that God intended with contention, strife, and a struggle to maintain the joy of being in relationships with one another. We see from the outset that God gave human’s wide abilities to make decisions in relationships. After all, a human named every one of God’s creatures and also called them good. But when sin came into the mis, that decisions making capability also became very problematic because it, too, was corrupted. 

We fast forward then to our Gospel lesson. Sometimes, the lectionary gives me really good scriptures. And sometimes it gives Jesus’s most incredibly uncomfortable teachings on divorce, which if I were picking scripture, would CERTAINLY not be in the mix. But let’s consider for a moment literalism versus sarcasm. The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus. John the Baptist had been imprisoned and executed for challenging King Herod’s divorce and marriage to his brother’s wife. They were now hoping to trap Jesus in the same political conundrum. What Jesus says is that a breakdown in relationships, whether marital or other, comes from a place of cruelty and hard heartedness. Two people who are being loving, kind, and gentle with each other do not tend to dissolve a relationship. 

Jesus advocates to the religious leaders that the role of faith in marriages, relationships, families, and other connected relationships is to participate in healing and reconciliation, never exacerbating when cruelty and hard heartedness strike. I remember a story years ago. A man and wife had been married for 5 years. He came in one night and gave her divorce papers. The cause of the breakup was because she kept eating potato chips in bed and he was tired of the crumbly bits. This is the kind of hard heartedness, flippancy, and frankly strange behavior Jesus was targeting in his words. Relationships fail because people often look for reasons to be hard hearted or difficult instead of coming back to the question of loving their neighbor and being kind one to another, tender hearted and forgiving. [SLIDE]

But Jesus doesn’t stop with just marital relationships. We get another story where the disciples turn parents and their children away. Children in that day were never supposed to be that front and center in public. But Jesus welcomes them in. Children were expected to be dependent on the father and obedient in this time. In using this example Jesus emphasized the profound need for the people to be in a relationship to God…wholly dependent and reliant on God. 

Relationships tend to be hard and messy. Some of us would say our dating lives look like a comedy sitcom. Some of us struggle in friendships. Some of us have family that we cannot be around because there’s old trauma, hard heartedness, and toxic behavior. Some of us have failed marriages that we may not want to talk about without adding a little humor to soften the sting. Make no mistake, living in relationships with one another is a supremely difficult task. 

But faith is a relationship. God called us out of the old behaviors of how faith was practiced in Jesus’s day. We don’t have the rules, regulations, and requirements. We have a relationship. And we have God’s Spirit with us. If you live in love which is giving, kind, gentle, joyful, honest, and all good things, relationships can be beautiful thing our lives. But Jesus warns us that hard heartedness, coldness, cruelty, and the assertion of “I’m right!” can sneak in and make life difficult. In those moments we come back to how Jesus lived and related to others, and the love and care he showed. [SLIDE]

Nothing proves the messiness of relationship’s more than my own grandparents on my dad’s side. When I was in high school, I was in our living room, and you could see their house from our windows. This is the joy of growing up rural. Midafternoon on a Saturday, I watch as my grandfather takes the trash out to the bin. Suddenly I hear my grandmother yelling, “I’m going to divorce you, you sorry old man, I’ve wasted 50 years in this mess.” He turns to yell back, “Ah, shut up you mean old woman.” And suddenly a shoe, pan, or hairbrush (I can’t tell which) comes flying out of the house towards him. 

A couple of hours later I walk over to make sure there’s not a homicide scene. I can see through the kitchen window into their living room. They’re sitting together on the couch watching and old John Wayne movie just as happy as 75-year-old couple married for 50 years can be. There was no doubt they loved each other. But love and relationships can be messy. [SLIDE]

As difficult as it may be, the whole of the stories in the Bible are a message to us on how to live in relationship—both with God and with one another, for we are created in God’s image and placed on earth to live together as God’s children. So may your relationships be filled with prayer, love, and may you be the one to reflect that image of God to all. 

WORSHIP VIDEO https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1697817214337036

Mr. Rogers Series

Exploring the Neighborhood—John 14: 1-6a

            History is filled with people trying to create the kingdom of God somewhere on earth. Doomsday cults, strange offshoots of more common religions, fake prophets and preachers, and folks who just want to disappear into the woods have all tried at one time or another to say they are the kingdom of God, the only city on a hill on earth, or their leaders say they are divine somehow. Most of them have a rather catastrophic failure rate. The Crusades failed to make Jerusalem the kingdom of God in the Middle Ages. Other failures include the People’s Temple in Jonestown, Waco, the Shakers, the Koreshan Unity, and so on throughout the ages. 

            The problem is that Heaven is not on earth, and it will not exactly be found on earth. My grandmother says caramel ice cream is “heaven on earth,” but that’s about as close as we’re going to get. And yet this idea of the kingdom of God on earth still exists. To truly understand it, we must realize that that it is more than a physical location. We need to look within. That kingdom of God is within us as we live our lives following Jesus each day.

            In some ways, I believe Mr. Rogers made his “Neighborhood,” which is often called “make believe,” a sort of image of God’s kingdom. Mr. Rogers grew up in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and aside from being bullied early on in school had a very privileged and happy childhood and adulthood. His neighborhood looked like and reflected much of his upbringing in Latrobe. Because that life was good for him, he wanted to share it as the heart and soul of his work with children. Conflicts were resolved, everybody found a way to be happy and live well, and all feelings were worked out in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. But there was also a deeper point. 

            Jesus says to us in the scripture for today, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” We always get a little caught up on the “way” part of that and leave off the truth and the life. We tend to jump on the bandwagon that if we believe, we get Heaven, and we’re done. But what’s the point of believing in Jesus if we have no intention to live like him following the example he gave us? Yes, Mr. Rogers created a little make-believe community that he wanted to be like a slice of heaven for children, but the true lessons are in the way he lived his life, following Christ. Christ is still the way, the truth, and the life.

            If you want to find the kingdom of God here on earth, it lives and dwells in each one of us, when our faith encourages us to live and be more like the example of the Savior we believe in. Fred Rogers believed in patterning his life on that of Jesus, and following him in everything Mr. Rogers did. Heaven is the reward of a life of faith, but it’s not our mission. Our calling is to be Christ-like in a world that is cruel and often-times ugly. The kingdom of God is within you. It is you. Luke 17: 20-21 says, “One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God come?”

Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.” For the King James members, it literally says that the Kingdom of God is within you. 

            So how do we live as the kingdom of God, if it is us? Jesus spent his time on earth teaching, healing, loving, and helping. If you want to see the example, look to Mr. Rogers and the neighborhood he created. In the idyllic world of make-believe, he created episodes that addressed turmoil and strife with peace balloons to send a message of hope. In a time of racial strife, he put his feet in the pool with a black man. When war threatened the neighborhood, he had smart women in the characters go and find out that there was no looming threat. He called in the show for investments in education and childcare over bomb-making, and for hope and peace in the background context of the Cold War. 

            But Mr. Rogers also lived that outside of the make-believe neighborhood. He wrote constantly to children and young adults. He highlighted Jeff Erlanger in his wheelchair as just a normal kid. When the cameras stopped rolling he continued to live what he spoke and displayed on the show. 

            When we give belts and clothes to the donation bin, give food for the food bank, when we collect for the rescue mission, we are being the kingdom of God. When we sit and talk with those who are different form us, when we listen in love, when we set a wider table and invite more people to join in, we are being the kingdom of God. The hardest work of faith is not getting into Heaven. That only takes you believing. The hardest work of faith is life we live here on earth. Can people look at the life we lead here on earth and know that we meant it when we said, “I believe, and I will follow Jesus?” 

            I’m reminded of my favorite Flannery O’Conner short story when I read this scripture, and in preparing this sermon. It’s entitled “Revelation.” In it, we meet Mrs. Turpin, a pig farmer, who seems to misunderstand her faith a bit. She tends to look down on others she sees as less than her. The first part of the story sees her at the doctor’s office with her husband, Claud, to get some treatment. She puts people in the waiting room in their categories according to how she perceives them: the “lady” in the room, the white trash, the commoners, those less than her because they don’t own a home or don’t have land. 

            Mrs. Turpin engages in polite conversation with each of them, but the reader is given her innermost thoughts on each person, and the thoughts are typically less than kind. But there is a girl, Mary Grace, who keeps staring at Mrs. Turpin as if she can read every thought. The girl then throws a book at and attacks Mrs. Turpin, choking her. Once subdued, Mrs. Turpin asks her what she has to say, and the girl, Mary Grace, says, “Go back to the hades you came from, you old wart hog.” 

            Later that day, Mrs. Turpin goes to the farm to feed the pigs. She interacts briefly with the hired help, then goes to the pen, still stewing on the altercation and words of Mary Grace. She then has quite a confrontation with God, challenging God on how all of this should work. She is then given a vision of a vast horde of souls marching into heaven. At the front of the line are the bands of “white trash, black folks, freaks, disabled people, the intellectually challenged, dancing and singing in joy and hope for the promise of Heaven. At the very, very back of the line are the ones she says, "who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right." While she was so busy with the “proper order” of things, she forgot the ones whom Christ ministered to, the least of these, our brothers and sisters. 

            Jesus said unto them, “I am the way.” But Jesus didn’t stop there. He added, “I am the truth, and the life.” The hope and promise of our faith is Heaven, a place of holiness and perfection. But the kingdom of God is within us, and we have a calling here on earth, to live every moment as if we really do believe in Christ. The hardest part of our faith is not the belief, but the living from then on. 

            Mr. Rogers once said, "If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person." And what they should see in meeting us is Jesus. 

Worship Video https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=754249043493622

Mr. Rogers Series

Sharing as Act of Love—I Kings: 17: 8-24

Sometimes, life is a bit confusing. As a child, we are taught to share from a very young age. [SLIDE—CHILDREN SHARE] When we cling to a toy, parents and teachers will remind us that we need to share our toys with other children. When we cry or fuss as children, we’re told, “Tell me what’s wrong.” Sharing feelings, sharing what we have, sharing our lives are all concepts taught to us as a kid. And then we grow up, and adults are routinely trained in the world that sharing is bad—keep, save, and store up everything. [SLIDE—GREEDY ADULT] And in our society and economy, if you’re not somewhat greedy, you’ll starve. Adults are also told to stop sharing our feelings and thoughts unless you’re paying $200/hr to a therapist. Whatever is going on, hide it, and be professional. 

But Mr. Rogers plugged children and often adults back into this idea of the power and inherent goodness of sharing. To share is to love. Our scripture in I Kings for today supports that idea that sharing is very powerful. A little context is needed, however. Growing up, we were taught that this was a story right in the heart of Israel’s rebellion against God. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were on the throne, and Israel had turned to the worship of false gods, namely Baal. There was a drought as punishment for the wickedness and faithlessness of the people. 

But to understand the power of this story, we have to zero in on one key fact. [SLIDE—WIDOW MAKING BREAD] This widow in whom Elijah seeks refuge is not Jewish. She most likely did not believe in God; instead, she was probably a follower of Baal. And she lived in Queen Jezebel’s hometown in Phoenicia, or modern-day Lebanon. More importantly, however, she was poor. In Elijah’s day, widows were considered the poor of the poor. She was a destitute woman, at the point of eating the last food and preparing to starve to death. There was nothing left for her to spare and no societal expectation for her to do so. But she still, out of a heart of generosity and God’s inspiring, shared her final resources with Elijah. But a miracle happened. Because she followed God’s call, her oil and flour never ran out. Their act of sharing led to them being saved and not starving to death. 

As people of faith, we see two types of sharing in this story of Elijah and the widow. She shared her resources, the last bit that she had with Elijah, in faith that God would provide just as Elijah said, but he also shared with her. Shortly after this exchange, her son dies. But through Elijah’s prayers and intercessions, God restores life. [SLIDE—SON RESTORED TO LIFE] She shared her resources with Elijah, and he shared something spiritual with her: the hope that comes from the God of life. 

The lesson for us is clear—being strong, healthy people who live our lives as God would have us means that we are to share. First, we are to share resources. I am grateful in my life for those who have shared with me. In college, I didn’t laze around—I worked. I taught piano lessons one or two days per week. I played at the Lutheran church every Sunday morning. I worked summers. I sometimes substitute taught at the local Christian school. I sometimes played dinner music when asked. But when you go to a private school, no matter the music or merit scholarships you may get, it’s expensive. And if it weren’t’ for my mother and my uncle sharing generously, I don’t think I could have paid the bills. 

As people of God, we should be troubled by the fact that we live in a world where goods and wealth are hoarded while children go hungry. This happens in the richest nation in the history of the world. In Acts 2, we read of a church that shared every resource together—food, goods, talents to build a place where God’s faithful flourished. In a system where greed is the fuel which powers everything, we must be the ones who seek love, sharing, grace, and giving to those who suffer. Had the widow in I Kings rejected Elijah’s words, God’s last remaining prophet would have gone hungry, turned away. The world we live in operates according to greed. We must respond with kindness and generosity just like a Savior who has given life so generously to us. 

But we must also share the spiritual aspect of our lives. When the people who knew Mr. Rogers most were asked when they saw him most vulnerable and human, they answered with stories of him sharing feelings. When his long-time housekeeper was at the end-stages of cancer, he wept loudly. When his friend Henri Nowen, a theologian, died, or his director on the set died, he cried inconsolably. He also often addressed anger and ways to safely work through it. For Mr. Rogers, feelings mattered, and they were part and parcel of what was holy. 

But Jesus also shared his feelings—he wept at Lazarus’s tomb, and he unleashed a righteous anger in the defiled temple. The writer of the book we have studied along with this sermon series said this about Mr. Rogers, “Grief wasn’t a burden to be lifted or a problem to be prayed against. It lived among the intricacies of loss, waiting patiently for the work of healing, meanwhile, [unbothered].” 

Too often we are hesitant to share the places we feel vulnerable. When the widow’s son died, she came to Elijah and said this: ““O man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son?” Her words were filled with pain, suffering, shame, and blame over the death of her son. All of her emotions were racing—she both accuses Elijah and blames herself. 

Sharing faith and love. Sharing through how we live and feel. And for his part, Elijah does not hold back. He cries out to God, saying, “O Lord my God, why have you brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?”

Too often we’re taught not to be honest, direct, or even question God. But here, Elijah, one of God’s most significant prophets in the entire Bible, does just that. It is never disrespectful to openly share your pain with the God of all love and comfort. And truth be told being honest with God makes for a much better relationship with God. If you’re mad, God knows it anyway, just be honest. 

Sharing is one of the most powerful tools we have in faith. In sharing our resources, talents, and abilities, we help a world in need. We alleviate suffering, just as Jesus did when he was on earth. No one wants to hear about faith if they’re hungry, worried about where they will sleep, or are so overwhelmed with suffering that life doesn’t make sense. But we are also called on by God to share spiritually as well. That means talking about feelings, understanding how to manage anger, acknowledging and working through hurts, and talking about how faith has helped us. In a world that is so overwhelmed by everything, we need this stories of courage and hope more than ever. And in this sharing, we find love. 

I want to share with you this clip of Mr. Rogers talking about sharing and working together, hear the words he says at the end. [VIDEO CLIP][FINAL SLIDE AFTER] Remember those words when you share and help others and when you share from your spirit as well: I’m proud of you. You know that. And as Mr. Rogers always said, “I like you just the way you are.” May we be willing to share of our gifts and our spirit, for to share is to love.

Worship Video https://www.facebook.com/share/v/otyg4M8QdMGSkq4C/?mibextid=KsPBc6

Mr. Rogers Series

In Some Ways, We Are Different—John 13: 3-5

            One of the most beautiful phrases in hymnody is from our anthem, “All things bright and beautiful, all things great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.” It’s a bright and cheery reminder of a Loving Creator during a week filled with sadness, pain, and terror. Some of you, I know, have struggled with bad news and continued issues of great difficulty. And in the backdrop of the daily routine of surviving, we watched the unfolding of yet another school shooting, this time far too close to home. In the time the church has had Facebook, I’ve posted close to ten times some form of thoughts and prayers following a mass shooting, and that’s just the ones where I was able to post.

            There are many dozens of ways we can respond: rage, sadness, blame, fear, becoming despondent. But at the root of it all is a sense that life is a cheap commodity. [SLIDE] In a 1999 acceptance speech for the TV Hall of Fame Induction, Fred Rogers had this to say: “Last month a 13-year-old boy abducted an 8-year-old girl, and when people asked him why, he said he learned about it on TV. ‘Something different to try,’ he said, ‘Life’s cheap; what does it matter?’ Well, life isn’t cheap. It’s the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that … to show and tell what the good in life is all about.”

            But now I want you to focus in on the young man who is with him—Jeff Erlanger. And I want us to watch the first time he and Mr. Rogers met on the set of Neighborhood. [PLAY CLIP]

            The truth of life is that in some ways we are all different. We have different types of “raising,” some different ideas and beliefs, personal tastes. Some of us have differences in ability be it physical or cognitive. Some of us are different colors, ethnicities, from different countries. And each time we encounter the ways in which we are different, we need to remember that song, “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”

            There is no one and nothing on this planet that God did not create, consider, and call good. There is no human outside the love of God, and there is no soul that is unable to find redemption in his or her Creator. What we struggle with in our modern world is understanding the value of life, and the kind of respect and maturity of faith it takes to value life over believing that life is cheap.

            This was no different for what Jesus dealt with. Look at the Disciples—a tax collector, gruff fishermen, Peter the denier and stubborn one, Judas, a betrayer. They were a very different and unique group of twelve in the context Jesus lived in. But Jesus valued those who were different and outside. He spoke with and blessed Samaritans and the Gerasenes, and others who were not quite as close to the fold. In many ways those who sought Jesus the most were all very different people.

            And how did Jesus handle them? In our Gospel for today, we read how the Savior of the world, the Prince of Peace, the Son of God took off his robe, put a towel at his waist, filled up a basin with water, then washed the feet of his followers, then dried them off one by one. [SLIDE] And I have to wonder, that if the Son of God can stoop down and wash the feet of his followers, why can’t we? The problem in our day and age is that too many people pick up a weapon instead of stooping to wash feet. The single goal of any weapon is to kill and destroy, but no one ever died from a little humility and grace in life.

            In seminary we talk about two types of sin—our own personal shortcomings, and systems of sin in this world which we can’t escape. A perfect example is an entire world fueled by greed. If we don’t participate in that world in some way, we’d starve. One of the most devious types of sin that permeates our world is this belief that difference is something evil, or something we must categorize and segregate or isolate. It makes us believe that people different from us are going to somehow harm us or take from us. But I’m going to ask the question, if we encounter someone very different, radically different from us in this life, who created them?

            The hardest thing to accept in this life is that the same God who created the victims in this tragedy Wednesday also created the 14-year-old who killed them. Now, this idea doesn’t mean we ignore or fail to punish bad and evil behavior. But it calls on us to ask ourselves some hard question: how many times have we picked up weapons, whether it be a gun, a pen, or our words, instead of stooping to wash our neighbor’s feet?

            I remember an old judge went on a rant one day. We were close enough I could fuss and debate with him outside of court. He hollered one day about participation trophies, and how all the kids are ruined because they get participation trophies instead of actually working for something. So, I looked at him and asked, “And, Judge, who gives a fourth grader a participation trophy? Because I doubt that child bought it themselves.” Children will mirror what they see. A child doesn’t just conceive of taking up a gun and killing people one day. He or she has learned violence from somewhere.

            The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The same God who created you created the human who is different in every way from you. The same God who created each and every living, breathing thing on Earth and called it good, calls upon us to recognize that life is not cheap. It’s a beautiful gift.

            In 1984, Mr. Rogers wrote a song that speaks directly to this. You heard a version of it with him and Jeff Erlanger. Here are the original words, “It’s you I like, it’s not the things you wear, the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like. The way you are right now, way down deep inside you, not the things that hide you, not your toys beside you, but it’s you I like. I hope you’ll remember even when you’re feeling blue, that it’s you I like.”

            Until we agree with one voice that a child should not be bullied or taught violence, mental health struggles should be discussed and treated appropriately, that violence is a sin and not an answer, and that all of God’s creation is beloved and made in the image of the Creator God, we will continue to see evil done. We will continue to see weapons taken up, more weapons than any human society could ever need. We will continue to see violence plague us. The answer to life’s struggle is not to see who is stronger, a better fighter, more powerful, and who can exact pain and suffering with mastery because life is cheap.

            As Mr. Rogers said to a full audience, life is not cheap. Life is a precious gift. And that means every single life no matter how amazing or how wasted the potential may be. God created every single one, and God loves each and every one. Suffering in our time and day will not end unless we are willing to make a radical change. It’s past time for us to put our weapons away and choose to stoop down, tie a cloth to our waist, fill a basin with water, and wash the feet of our neighbor. I pray we all make the right choice.

Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/3836078396612062

Mr. Rogers Series 1

Loving Others; Loving Ourselves—Matt.22: 36-40; I Cor. 13

            It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Won’t you be my neighbor? I sometimes wonder if Mr. Rogers thought of this verse about loving your neighbor as he sang this tune every show for over 30 years. Being a good neighbor was of utmost importance to him. So, if I were to ask you what is at the foundation of our faith, you might answer a cross, an empty tomb, or if you’re a bit more theology school minded, you may say justifying grace and prevenient grace, or if you grew up Baptist or “bapticostal” like I did, you might have heard, “Once in grace, always in grace.”

We usually fall back on the things we’ve known or learned in our sermon/Sunday School journey. But in the Gospel of Matthew for today, we hear Jesus tell it simply. The foundation of our faith, the most important commandments as Jesus says are these: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Or as one teacher said to me—"Love God, your neighbor too, and be a little gentle on yourself from time to time.”

            Mr. Rogers spent 33 years of his life teaching children…and by extension their parents and adults…how to be healthy, loving, and well-adjusted people in this world. He didn’t thunder from a pulpit, nitpick over theology in a classroom, or anything like that. Instead, he looked right into a camera to thousands of people and said, “I love you just the way you are.” In 1979 he wrote, “When we hear the word that we are not lovable, we are not hearing the Word of God. No matter how unlovely, how impure or weak or false we may feel ourselves to be, all through the ages, God has still called us lovable.” Why is love so important to us as followers of Christ? And how do we practice it as God would have us do?

            All throughout the New Testament, the writers stress the importance of love. Here, Jesus teaches that loving God first and foremost and loving our neighbors are two of the most important and consequential actions of our faith. All of the law, the words of the prophets, literally everything known and written in the faith hangs on these two commandments. They are our standardized test for how we live our faith. I Corinthians 13 tells us that all the speaking abilities, prophetic abilities, knowledge, faith, and generosity in the world are all for naught, all useless, if we don’t live in love.

            How do we live this? Well, love is patient. Love is kind, never jealous, nor boastful, nor proud, nor rude. Love works in kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, earnest hope, justice, and never giving up. And in particular, we are told, love does not demand its own way. Too often we say, “I love you, but…” A wise English teacher once said that anytime you add however, but, or qualifier like that to a sentence, you plan on negating the first part of that sentence.

            Imagine if we say, “I love you, but you have to do this the way I want.” It implies that if we fail or do differently, we are no longer loved. Jesus acknowledged shortcomings, faults, failures, growing places, but Jesus also offer a caveat-free, condemnation free forgiving, redeeming love for all of us. This is why I can’t stand the theologically false statement, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” It ain’t in the Bible. And it’s wrong. In fact, the Bible says, God did not send his son into the world to condemn it and tells us to judge not or we’ll be judged too. It's not our job to hate sin, judge sin, fix sin. It’s our job to love people, then let them and God worry about what they’re doing. I John 4:8 says that if you don’t know love, then you don’t know God, for God is love. That’s our calling.

            In the 1950s and 1960s America went through a rather ugly period on love, gentleness, and race relations. It was the beginning of the end for a system that kept people of different skin colors separate physically and socially. It was a time where white and black people couldn’t even share a pool at a motel. When protestors got into a pool at a motel to show that nothing earth-shattering would happen from sharing a pool, the manager poured acid in the pool as payback

            Thankfully, no one was hurt. This kind of hatred, though, wasn’t forever ago. It occurred in 1964. Here’s a photo of the two men who were in the pool. They’re in their 70s now, and still remember the pool, the acid, being jailed wet and in just a bathing suit, but most of all, they remember the hate they felt and could not understand.

            Into this tense, unjust, and unloving atmosphere, Mr. Rogers spoke words of love and nurture. He said, “Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” Then on a make-believe hot day on his show, in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, he put his feet in a pool. And he invited the police officer to join him. It was the first time people had ever seen a white person and a black person share a pool together on television.

[SLIDE]

            Love, you see, is connected to justice, patience, kindness, gentleness, and not being demanding, rude, or belittling. I Corinthians 13: 6 says [Love] does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.” Perhaps drawing upon these words in Corinthians, Fred Rogers said once, "Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now."

            How do we practice love as followers of Christ? First, we remember that love is sacrificially giving. The example is that Jesus suffered for us and the world. Second, love is not filled with caveats, buts, howevers, or any other qualifiers. If you qualify your love, then it becomes worthless and a clanging cymbal at best. Love is not a tool (or weapon) to fix people. It’s a disciplined practice of people who claim to follow Jesus—who is, as one hymn said, “The King of Love my Shepherd is.” Love and judgment cannot coexist in the same place. One is redeeming, and other is condemning. We don’t get to do either. Our mission is to love others like God loves them and tell them that God loves them. Period. End of story. Anything else can be worked out between them and God.

             In a world of hate, anger, injustice, politics, and irritability, may we be a Mister Rogers, reminding folks that God calls on us to do two things—and these two things are the foundation of all the law and prophets as well as the very fabric of our lives of faith. Love God with all your being. Love others as well. If you want a little glimpse of the power love has to make a difference, we need look no further than Officer Francois Clemmons (which is the actor’s real name) who dared to put his feet in the same pool as Mr. Rogers on national television.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqSBqfDgOsQ

            “Love is fragile as your tears; love is stronger than your fears. When you heart can sing another’s gladness, then your heart is full of love. When your heart can cry another’s sadness, then your heart is full of love.” Every moment we live and breathe is an opportunity to share the God’s love. Don’t miss the opportunity.

Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/1059288895906637

Be Careful What You Ask For

I Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14; Eph. 5: 15-20

            I hear a lot of people saying these days, “Oh I’m going to get my life together,” or the alternative, “I’m going to get my life in order.” Typically, the person telling me this is on day three of not knowing where the laundry is, 2 packs deep into a dinner of Oreos and a stick of gum for lunch, followed by enough coffee to cause them to hear the color blue. Or my favorite was the email a coworker shared with me, “Dear Jenny, I’m sorry, I have lost control of this day. Can we reschedule?” Everywhere we go, we have a sense of too much, all at once, overload, and overwhelmed.” I remember a point this week in driving back and forth to Adel for work where I simply resigned myself to the fact that I had lost all ability to manage answering emails, phone calls, and texts.

            When it comes to these ideas of getting oneself together, finding some balance, or reclaiming my time (as the phrase popularized in the halls of Congress goes), I say this…be careful what you ask for. The answer may demand something different of you instead of altering the universe to make it easier for you. And as people who love control, that’s hard.

            In our lesson from I Kings, we learn that Solomon was a good man and a good king. He followed after God’s heart and loved God. But Solomon knew his shortcomings. He knew that the job of being king and governing these people was too much for him to do alone. He would be overwhelmed. In fact, he says to God, “And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted…who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?” Solomon knew he was unable to do this alone.

            He asked God to give him and understanding heart knowing the difference between right and wrong. In essence he asks for God to help him and to give him wisdom. Sometimes, when we are overwhelmed, we focus on the wrong thing. We pray about the problem. We ask God to fix the problem, to solve it, to take us around it. Stop praying about the problem. God doesn’t fix problems, save problems, love problems, redeem problems. God deals with you. God fixes us, saves us, loves us, and redeems us. Instead of praying over problems and wasting your time there, pray for God to work in your life instead…to give you wisdom, and to know what needs to be done. To pray over a problem is to keep God at arm’s length. Pray for God’s power, strength, and wisdom directly into your life.

            Solomon asked for God to work in and through him. He didn’t pray over the many quarrels, disputes, wars, territory questions, and administration problems. He prayed that God would work in and through him. And that seems to have worked and pleased God. God says that Solomon will receive what he asked for. But because Solomon prayed for the right thing, God also blessed him tremendously.

A friend of mine was preparing to defend her doctoral thesis. It was complicated, and she was not sure she could do it between the difficulty of the subject and her fear of public speaking. I asked how to pray. She didn’t tell me to pray that she would succeed, that it would work, or that God would make everything okay like magic. This was her prayer, “Guide me O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim in this barren land. I am weak, but you are mighty. Hold me with your unchanging hand.” She couldn’t fix what she had to deal with in front of her review committee. But she could make sure she went in armed with all the power of God and accompanied by the hosts of Heaven.

Now, if First Kings gives us the prayer we need, Ephesians gives us a second round of good advice to help out. We are told not to live like fools, but to be wise and make the most of our opportunities. Sometimes, I think we become so busy and overwhelmed that we become unable to accomplish anything. Never mind getting my life together, I can’t even get a half a brain cell to focus for 2 minutes. Ephesians gives a rather sharp retort to this, “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.” The way to prevent thoughtlessness, says the Ephesians writer, is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

I had a couple of good role models on this. Every Saturday when my mom did the cleaning, and I “sorta” helped slightly as a surly teenager, she listened to Christian music. Now sometimes it was Rod Stewart or Eric Clapton, but often it was Christian music that accompanied the long list of chores. On Sunday afternoons, I would stay after the family dinner at Granny’s and practice hymn playing on her horrendously out of tune Wurlitzer piano while she did odds and ends around the house. That sense of faith and melodies of testimony echoed through the rooms filling the home with God’s spirit as the chores were done.

The two big takeaways of Ephesians are being filled with the Holy Spirit and giving thanks for everything. These are common themes echoed by Paul. It’s very good advice, but we must also be careful what we ask for here. Being filled with the Holy Spirit and being grateful in all things are hard tasks. The easiest temptation is to become angry, insular, and bitter when challenges come our way. It can be easy to be filled with a whole lot of other things than the Holy Spirit when the interview doesn’t turn out right, our dreams are delayed, what we want is a fleeting reality. That’s why the hymn writers speak so powerfully. In those times, we are told to “hold to God’s unchanging hand.”

My cousin shared a post the other day on the interwebs. It said, “Pressure is a privilege. It means things are expected of you.” But as people of faith, it’s not just about what we accomplish. We must look to how we accomplish it. Anyone can succeed being drug along kicking and screaming. But do we pray that God would raise up in us the courage to meet the challenge and to lead with dignity and strength? Do we go to God, like Solomon, asking not for blessings in life, but for character and Christ-like wisdom?

God’s final words to Solomon are this, “And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commandments as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.” In particular, that life would include the “aforementioned” blessings God described. This is what Solomon had to hold onto. For us it’s a bit different. If we follow Christ, then the promise is that God is always with us—God’s Spirit rest in our very being. And that promise sees us through all the times we gather up the laundry, attempt cook healthy, try to catch up on work, calls, emails, and so on, and try to get our lives together.

Only, that Spirit of God doesn’t just rest with us; it works within us as well. As Paul said, “Be filled with the Holy Spirit.” That sounds easy, but it’s like trying to be healthy when the plate of cookies is right next to you. You may not be able to pray that the cookies disappear, but you can pray that God will help you not to go on a diabetes-inducing, cookie-eating frenzy. And if you listen, God will help.

Solomon saw his shortcomings, and he knew he needed God. His role was clear—he was now king, and there was no going back nor avoiding the challenges that lay ahead of him. But Solomon took the opportunity of God’s favor to ask God for what he needed to face the journey. You can’t always change the journey, but you can fix how you navigate it. Solomon prayed for wisdom, and God granted it, and so much more. Be careful what you ask for, but also be prepared, because God stands ready to hear you and answer you when you pray.

 Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/518099890668478

Good Advice

Good Advice—Psalm 34: 1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2

            A hard truth that I have learned as I get older is that parents really stop offering all that free advice after some point. As a teenager and youth in the early to late 20s, parents are willing to offer all sorts of advice. The problem, you see, is that teenagers and young adults are headstrong enough that they don’t listen. I know that was true for me. Youth are gung-ho, bulldozer-like in moving forward and often learning the hard way. Now that I’m in my late thirties approaching early forties, I ask for advice all the time, and I know many of my friends do the same. How long do I heat this in the oven? How do I get this stain out? What car should I buy? What’s the best way to negotiate? How do I get my taxes right? How do I avoid jury duty…and so on…

            The problem is, at that point, parents are tired and done. I can’t tell you how many times my friends have complained about the response, “You’re an adult. Go figure it out.” NO! NO! Now is when I need the help, when I’m finally smart enough to listen to it! Such is life, I guess. One of my favorite things about the scriptures, and in particular the Gospels and Epistles is that we don’t just get words of salvation and grace. We also get words of wisdom, good advice for how to live on this earth in our life’s journey. That is what today’s Epistle does for us—it provides us with some good advice.

            One of the first things we see is that faith demands a sense of change from us. There’s a whole laundry list of ways to behave properly: don’t lie, don’t let anger get ahold of you, don’t steal, don’t say hateful stuff, don’t bring sorrow to God’s Spirit, and then riding ourselves of all types of bad characteristics. Running around while filled with bitterness, rage, anger, harassing words, and slander is probably not a good way to live. It is both bad for us personally, and it ruins our ability to claim the goodness of God in our hearts.

            When we say we have faith, it should cause a change in our heart and behavior. It should lead us to deal gently with others. The same Christ whom we follow said to love enemies, love your neighbor, bless those who treat you badly, turn the other cheek, and so on. That’s a tall order. If someone is being a snotwad, I’d much prefer to smack them in the head than bless them. A friend of mine said, “Remember Jesus said to bless those who persecute you, not bless them out.” Following Jesus and living in this world requires us to give up some of the old ways of doing things.

            It reminds me of the story of a boy in elementary school. He and another little boy got into an argument, and he ended up hitting that boy pretty hard on the playground. The teacher made him go apologize for hitting the other kid. About 10 minutes later he hit the kid again. The very irritated teacher asked why he did that again. And the boy replied, “Oh it’s fine, I’ll just apologize again later.” That’s not how it works. Forgiveness and apologies are not a license for bad behavior. It’s like a church sign I saw said, “Don’t be a jerk, follow Jesus instead.”

            Instead, we are given the push from this letter to the Ephesians that we should “imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are [God’s] dear children.” The letter goes on to say, “Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.” This was a big theme for Paul. He often directed wayward or fledgling churches to mirror or imitate other churches that were following Christ closely. He also calls on people repeated to imitate Jesus. Imitating Jesus is how we live when we change these old attitudes.

            A friend of mine once asked, “So, if I’m to imitate Jesus, how do I do that because I see a lot of Christians who don’t seem so Jesus-y.” Look to the Gospels. Follow Jesus in the way he lived his life and presented a life of faith in the Gospels. He was kind and gentle with people—never condemning the woman at the well nor the woman accused of adultery. He tried to teach and help when correcting Peter and explaining things to Nicodemus. He upended the order of power and might with his teachings on the Beatitudes. None of these things are easy. Why is it we see the Ten Commandments posted everywhere, but no one posts the Beatitudes? How many places do you see that nailed to the bulletin board or on a monument in front of the building? What Jesus taught is often very hard to live, but it’s the best advice we have for journeying through this life.

            There are many examples of the struggle to imitate Jesus. How many people do you see today taking the opportunity NOT to cast the first stone. We’ve become a society which carries an entire bag of rocks ready to go. That’s not Jesus, and that’s not imitating Jesus. How many alleged Christians confuse and co-mingle their faith and their politics? Jesus said to give to Caesar what is Caesars and unto God what is God’s. They are not the same thing. How many people live in fear and dread in this world oppressed in their own mind by a lack of trust? Jesus said, “Behold, I go to prepare a place for you.” How many times do we look down on other people for their gender, race, ability, and love, when Jesus said, “Judge not lest you be judged,” and by your own hefty standards. We’d all fail on that, for Jesus reminded all have sinned and fallen short.

            Any way you go in this life if you’re not following Jesus and imitating the way in which Jesus lived, served, and taught, then you can very easily fall into the trap of becoming a jerk. I think Paul would call it a godless heathen, but jerk sounds a lot more theologically appropriate. Jesus gave us a way to live in this world. There are 7.9 billion humans in this world, and 333 million in the United States alone. We have to find a way to live and work together or life will be miserable.

            Human behavior can become exploitive, greedy, insensitive, and prejudiced. But Jesus gives us this beautiful image of a good way of life to follow. A friend of mine posted something on Facebook which said, “How we walk with the broken speaks louder than how we sit with the great.” Paul highlights the most poignant parts: don’t lie, don’t be angry, don’t be a thief, don’t go around creating a miserable existence for everyone you encounter. The scriptures tell us that the JOY of the Lord is our strength.

            Following Jesus and imitating him is not for the faint of heart. One of the reasons I like asking my mom for advice a lot more now that I’m older is I’ve learned there’s a family trait of doing things the hard way. And I’m hoping to avoid this family trait. In some ways that symptomatic of our society. We tend to do things the hard way because we don’t listen to good advice…or listen at all really. Throughout the ages, God has never stopped speaking, leading, guiding, giving wisdom and understanding. The struggle is on our side. Do we listen?

            I learned a lot of things from good advice in life. I know the importance of being friendly and kind from my mother. I know how to cook from my grandmothers, and what secrets get things done better. I know how to farm and grow crops from my grandfathers. And I know how to ride a four-wheeler ATV at breakneck speeds in the mountains without crashing from my dad. All through life, we have people who are willing to give us advice, encouragement, and little tidbits of wisdom, if we are willing to listen.

            The same is true with God. “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in [God]!” says the Psalm. “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are [God’s] dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.” The wisdom is there—take refuge in God and imitate the example of Christ. Why do things the hard way when we can follow Jesus’ way instead?

Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/1246248236741403

It's a Sign!

Exodus 16: 2-4, 9-15; John 6: 24-35

            In 1996, a comedian named Bill Engvall created a comedy routine called “Here’s Your Sign.” They were always a commentary on people saying or doing silly things. One example he told is this: “A man pulls into a gas station with a flat tire. The gas station attendant says, ‘Tire go flat?’ The man responds, ‘Nope, the other three just swelled up on me.’ Here’s your sign.” My friend’s grandfather loved it. He watched every single episode. Bill Engvall toured with Jeff Foxworthy, whose routine included, “You Might Be a Redneck If…” and Larry the Cable Guy, who said, “That’s funny, I don’t care who you are.”

            Now while my friend’s grandfather loved all three, he particularly loved the “Here’s Your Sign” schtick. So, he ended up having himself a little sign made that said, “Here’s Your Sign,” which he held up to people when they did things that might not be so smart or wise. It was cute and endearing unless you were on the receiving end of the sign being held up at you. But it was a sign, nonetheless.

            In Jesus’s day, the masses constantly asked for a sign, and not much has changed in our modern times. I heard a lady on the news the other day talk about her diet plan of prayer. God was giving her a sign by showing her visions of food to eat or giving her a sign on a restaurant menu of what foods would be good for her. We hear a lot of talk thrown around about things being a sign from God. We, just like the people of Jesus’s day, are a people who need and want signs in life. And sometimes that leads us to find signs in everything whether it’s there or not.

Jesus teaches the people in our Gospel story for today. He calls on them to believe in him and follow his teaching—the very standard lesson that seems so hard for them to understand. They ask Jesus in verse 30, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Now, these people are asking for a sign. Jesus had “heretofore” walked on water, fed over 5,000 miraculously, healed a paralyzed man, healed an official’s son, prophesied to the Samaritan woman, and turned the water into wine. Yet, they want another sign.

The problem is the people were inundated with signs. Every movement of the moon, weather event, trickster, fraud, false prophet, leader, temple priest, and soothsayer gave the people signs. People in Jesus’s day would follow anyone and everyone who showed any hint of an unexplainable sign at all. They wanted the same from Jesus…over, and over, and over. But not everything is a sign. And sometimes we are too trusting.

If we look at every single coincidence, difficulty, every single point by point, moment of each day, or as the hymn says, “in all of life’s ebb and flow,” and find signs in everything, we will be torn apart looking for directions. A pinball bounces off every directional barrier it comes into contact with. Faith is never like a pinball bouncing from sign to sign hoping for the best. Faith is found in a steadfast, dedicated endurance to following Jesus in this often-difficult world.

Sometimes we see every illness, every difficult day, every song on the radio or streaming music as a sign. There are pastors (I won’t say charlatans) who exploit natural disasters calling them signs from God. God doesn’t need a hurricane to make a point. If you recall, God often speaks in a still, small voice. When God wants your attention, you’ll know it within—in the soul. But there are voices around us and sometimes within us which make our dedicated endurance seem impossible, but Jesus said to those who wanted a sign, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” When you follow Christ with dedicated endurance, you will not be lost, hungering, or thirsting, or seeking a way through.

Sometimes, however, we struggle with what we perceive and know in our limited way as humans. Our Hebrew lesson tells how the Jewish people, now free from Egypt, turned on Moses because they believed God would not feed them—they believed the signs and voices that bounced them around from faith to fear to frenzy. Listening to every single difficult and negative voice in life had them convinced that going back to Egypt, to slavery, to oppression, to beatings, suffering, and all of that inhumanity was a good idea because they didn’t believe that the same God who parted the Red Sea in front of them could give them food in the desert. Some folks wander into the wilderness and never come out.

I remember when Simone Biles, the Olympian in gymnastics, pulled out of competition in 2021 for personal and mental health reasons. Many said she was letting her team down, letting the United States down, her career was over, and she should go away. As of this week she has 9 Olympic medals and 30 World Championships making her the most decorated gymnast in history…at the age of 27. You see, she listed to the voice, the sign that she needed rest and to recharge, instead of the voices which condemned her seeing her as only a useful tool and not as a human in need of human things in life.

            God will give you signs and directions—a calling, and the wisdom on how to move forward in life, if we listen. Jesus said to the crowd in the gospel that signs from humans and worldly things are a waste of time. Instead, he called on them to focus their attention on him. He told them that Moses did not give signs. Only God gives signs. And the bread received in the wilderness is from God, just like the bread of life, the hope of the world, is also a sign and a gift from God.

            Jesus called them to dedicated endurance not following every whimsy they perceived as a sign. He tells them to stop worrying about temporary things and to focus their time, energy, and concern on God. Now hear me when I say that I believe God gives us signs in life. I believe God directs us in this life. But I also believe we spend too much time looking for 100 different answers and not enough time actually following where God leads us. An old mentor of mine used to say, “Look for the open door. God won’t make you climb through a window or break into where you shouldn’t be. Look for the open door.”

            Instead, we should approach life with a dedicated endurance to following God. Look for the open door and then set your life and faith to following where God is calling. Faith is not a life of signs and wonders. It’s a life of dedicated endurance to living in a Christ-like way in this world, sharing the good news, helping those in need, and representing the kingdom of God here on earth.

            My English teacher in high school had a big poster in the front of room. It read, “Don’t let your mind wander, it’s too little to be left alone.” As a teenager, I found that insulting because teenagers know everything, right? As an adult with moderate anxiety who reads entire scenarios of doom and gloom into every single email, text message, or conversation, I think I get it now. Everything in life is not a sign from God. God gives us the pathway, the open door, and a calling forward in life. We respond with the dedicated endurance to where God is leading in faith.

            Let me finish up with this. Maybe everything in life isn’t a sign from God, and maybe God isn’t like the comedian holding up a sarcastic, “Here’s Your Sign” at us. But if you need evidence that God will open the door, consider this. In 2011, Rev. John Carroll said I should consider the ministry. I advised that I was happy at the piano, and unless there was a burning bush, there was no way. Rev. Carroll asked what a burning bush looked like, and I said a unanimous vote at First Christian, believing that would never happen in a Disciples congregation. But sometimes God holds the door open for us, and says, “Alright, let’s go.” May we be ready.

 Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/1560241597896257

Food and Faith

Food and Faith—II Kings 4:42-44; John 6: 1-14

            Today’s topic is a favorite of many of us…food. Down in the South, there is a saying when it comes to mealtime and whether or not one is hungry. People will say, “Oh I know how to eat now.” This week, however, I experienced a moment when I didn’t know how to eat. While at Jekyll Island for my conference, I was invited by a coworker to “crab night” where we eat crabs and low country boil type of food. Now, let me preface this with…this Appalachian boy grew up far enough away from the ocean that “Fresh Seafood” was listed in the freezer section of the grocery store. I am quite the novice at eating crabs and peeling shrimp.

            As everyone else set in eating away with their nutcracker and little gadget utensils I’d never seen, I’m sitting there utterly confounded. I’m hoping my friend who grew up in Miami whose family is of Bahamian descent will take pity on me and help me, but no help cometh my way. So, I begin without any care or caution cracking, opening, and pulling apart these sea creatures. Honestly, I looked like a hot mess with crab bits flying everywhere, and ate more shell than crab, so after one, I focused on anything else on the dinner table. I was incredibly grateful for the fellowship even if I became the featured entertainment at dinner.

            Jesus often uses food as a way of teaching or making a point in the Gospels. That is because food is one of the few areas of life where we have to have it to survive, and we actually enjoy it. We’re appreciate air, but in the end, it is air and we simply breathe it. We need other bodily processes, movements, baths, and so on to survive, but they done come with the same creativity, passion, and craving that food has in our lives. Three things stick out from our lessons today: gathering, generosity, and greatness.

            First, we read that “a huge crowd kept following [Jesus] wherever he went because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick.” John tells us that wherever Jesus went, the crowds were there. They were his entourage or his groupies coming to see the miracles that Jesus would perform. And when they gathered here, the first question Jesus asks is what are we going to feed them? If you go into any southerner’s house, the first thing you will probably be offered is some kind of food and drink. It’s to restore, nourish, and provide hospitality.

            The church is the same. We come here to be fed—literally in the Lord’s Supper, and figuratively in prayer, praise, and Word. Jesus’s words have a double meaning—literally he was asking how they planned to feed those gathered, and underneath it, he knew that in addition to the bread and fish, they were going to get their faith fed as well that day. Rule of thumb for the church—when you gather people together, feed them physically and spiritually.

            Here we do that both in the parlor snacks and in nourishing the soul. And truthfully, we should feed the physical hunger first, because no one who is hungry or hangry will listen to a nourishing word, nor should we hold them hostage to a sermon before we offer food. When Jesus gathered people, he almost always fed them—here in the miracle story, at the Passover before the crucifixion, at the wedding in Cana providing the wine more so than food. He gave examples of wedding banquets, went to dine with Zacchaeus, told of fig trees, fields of grain, and grapes. Jesus connected gathering with feeing those who gathered both with actual food and with faith examples.

            But a bigger point in this gospel story is the generosity at work. There was no way Jesus and his disciples could afford to feed over 5,000 people. But there was a young boy who had some bread and fish. And from that small bit of food, thousands were fed. Some scholars say that this was a true magical miracle where a small bit of food was miraculously replenished every single distribution. Other scholars say the miracle was in Jesus convincing a greedy people to share what they had with one another until all were filled. It’s another point that where it’s less important how Jesus did the miracle. Focus on the lesson—the generosity.

            In 2020 in Georgia, 562,000 children ages 18 and below faced food insecurity and hunger. And 426,000 children in Georgia live in poverty. At some point in the scriptures, Jesus advises that the poor will always be with you. But here, here in the Gospel of John, the first question Jesus asks is, “How do we feed these people?” And it is the generosity of a likely rather poor boy who had some small fish and barley loaves. How do we know the boy was poor? Barley was the bread of the impoverished. Wheat was the bread of the wealthy.

            In a world focused on wealth and power, Jesus calls us to practice generosity. There’s a bit of a tradition in Appalachia, where I grew up, and the South where I now live. If someone invites you to dinner, you bring something with you. That practice held true at crab night. I brough some specialty honey, another brought a key lime pie, a third person brought some local cheese and fruit, and the final one cooked the food. If we want to live in a world of kindness and Christ-like ways, then generosity must be our common practice, and we must no longer tolerate things like hunger and poverty where resources are abundant.

            And finally, we read of greatness. Jesus gathered the people, showed them generosity, and in response, they saw his greatness. John’s Gospel tells us, “When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, ‘Surely he is the Prophet we have been expecting!’” John leans heavily into the miracle side of this story. We’re told that Jesus already knows what he’s going to do here. We’re told that the bread is distributed first, and five loaves feed over 5,000 people as well as two fish following. It’s described as a “miraculous sign” which is often attributed to the most unexplainable things Jesus does.

            We’re also told that the scraps of bread are gathered because there should be no waste. Interestingly they don’t gather the fish in John, do you know why? You ever smelled leftover fish in the Middle Eastern heat? Not even Jesus can do a miracle on that mess. Part of Jesus’s ministry is that there is generosity, greatness, authority, and nothing wasted. No one and nothing go unnoticed or ignored by Jesus. Instead of throwing out the leftover bread, Jesus gathers it so that more may soon be bed.

            Faith is the same—we practice generosity, and no one goes ignored or unnoticed. Living our faith means everyone gets a seat at the table and the opportunity to know and experience Christ for themselves. II Peter 3:9 reminds us that God does not want any to suffer or perish physically or spiritually, but calls on us to offer a word of hope that might nourish every soul. Lest you wonder about it, the Great Commission itself says that we are to teach and share to the ends of the earth, setting a table, preparing a meal, and generously practicing the love and welcome of Christ with all whom we encounter.

            There’s a saying at my friend’s church: “We meet to eat, and we eat to meet.” Dinner with my coworkers was an amazing experience of fun and fellowship and conversation. I may still have no idea how to eat a crab without being miserably awkward. But I can guarantee you I felt welcomed at the table. Who do we invite to gather at our table? Who receives the generosity of our food and our faith? Who comes to be nourished from our faith and experience and learns of the greatness of God to love, heal, and save? Jesus has set the table for you. Now go and share the goodness of God with others.

Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/7814083108688639

You Belong

“You Belong” Psalm 24; Ephesians 3: 1-14

            “Kia Ora” is the way one greets another person in the traditional Māori language of New Zealand. In general, it means, “Hello.” But there’s a deeper meaning. It acknowledges a welcome to the whole person—where they come from and especially who they come from. It is a welcoming hello to a person as well as a blessing that sees both the physical and spiritual aspects of the person. This a custom shared across many faiths and cultures. In high church they begin with, “The Lord be with you,” to which the congregation responds, “And also with you.” In Arabic, whether religious or social, the phrase is “As-Salaam-Alaikum,” meaning, “Peace be upon you.” In Jewish tradition, it is “Shalom Aleichem.” And here, we usually say, “Howdy, y’all!” Different cultures, similar greeting.

            Each of these greetings communicate a welcome that speaks to the physical presence of the person as well as the spiritual aspect to the person. And all of them communicate something beyond simply saying welcome—it’s a sense that you belong to the community. Paul wrote in our Epistle for today about such a sense of belonging. In the early days of faith, it was generally believed that following Jesus was open to Jewish people, and not necessarily Gentiles. In order to properly follow Jesus, Gentiles must convert to Judaism, be circumcised, then find Christ.  It was a long and difficult process that did not go straight to Jesus but took a roundabout road. Paul challenged that notion with an expansive idea of belonging and welcome.

            Paul writes, “And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children.” He goes on to write that essentially both belong to Christ equally, in the same way. This was an incredibly challenging idea to the more Jewish-oriented members of faith and astounding to Gentiles who were always considered outsiders. But Paul was a big advocate of people coming directly and personally to God. He wrote over and over again of this sense of belonging to God’s family, children of God, heirs of God. Paul’s understanding of Christ was personal, relational, and intimate in the way a close and trusted family member would be.

            The church should practice this same sense of welcome and belonging. Our mission and work should reflect what Paul writes here. We should usher folks “boldly and confidently into God’s presence.” When I was in Danville, Kentucky, I played a couple of services for a local church which shall remain nameless. It was not the Disciples of Christ church, so don’t worry. I asked one of the townspeople I was friends with to describe this church. Her response was a smile and to say, “It’s one of the nicest country clubs we’ve got.” That’s not what church was intended to be. Paul reminds us that God’s purpose in everything was that the church display God’s wisdom. But the church should also display that hello, welcome, and convey the idea that you belong.

            The reason for it is found in the Psalm. The words of our hymn, “This Is My Father’s World” are echoed in Psalm 24…”The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to God.” We belong here because the Creator created us, fashioned us, and placed us here in the world to belong. If people feel like they don’t belong at church, in our presence, or in this world, then we have failed at one of our most basic callings from God. The Good News was not meant to be guarded or limited. Paul teaches of God’s plan that the Good News should be expansively told and the House of God to extend a wide welcome telling all—Gentile and Jew—and everyone alike, “You belong.”

            The truth is you and I belong here not because of a human invitation, or membership policy, or conversion letter. We belong because the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it—and God has created it all. I feel like we could have done without wasps and cockroaches, but I guess they’re God’s little critters too. The church is the very representative of God’s welcome and belonging here on earth. Sometimes we struggle with people who are different, but I imagine the admission of Gentiles was a hard pill to swallow for the Jewish churches in Paul’s day. Yet God gave a mission and a calling that included both.

            Many believe Paul wrote this letter from prison as he references trials and suffering. His plea from captivity was that the church would not be factious and contentious separated by Jew and Gentile as well as other factions. He encouraged them to be THE church, perhaps different in practice and style, but united in Christ as the head and foundation. Though Paul respected the diversity of Corinth, Ephesus, Jerusalem, and Galatia, he called on them to understand that there were not different Jesuses, different churches, different organizations. There was neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, woman nor man, for all are one in Christ. There is THE church and THE faith to which we belong.

Paul’s pleas are echoed in another letter from jail. In May of 1963, at a time when racial strife was at its peak in the United States, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his famous “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.” His words draw on the theme penned by Paul centuries earlier. Dr. King wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly....Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” His meaning is clear and unambiguous—you belong. I think American educator Edwin Markham sums it up nicely in his poem, “He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in!”

One of my favorite things about New Zealand was the work being done to bring some harmony and mutuality between the indigenous Māori people and the English settlers. For several years, there has been a concerted effort to use both the English word as well as the Māori word for different things. Streets, cities, trash bins, everything with a label has both languages on it to offer that sense of mutuality and understanding between the two cultures. It’s a testimony of how two very different peoples can live, work, and exist together in a relatively small space on the island.

Paul understood how important this was. He worked hard to connect with the different peoples and cultures to whom he told the Good News of God’s love. He made himself part of the family and fabric of the places he went. He adapted and conformed to make the Good News understandable and relatable without compromising the truth. It was never about Saul the former Jewish Pharisee telling this story of a Jew named Jesus whom they killed. It was about Paul, the Apostle, telling the Good News of love, welcome, and grace found in the person of Jesus and the hope of a risen Savior who welcomed Jew and Gentile, white and black, poor and rich, native or immigrant, all peoples everywhere. And we are given that same calling as Paul the Apostle, to tell the Good News of a Savior who offers love, grace, and hope to everyone.

The church must be about the work of sharing the Good News, no matter to whom, what background, or where they came from or presently find themselves. The Good News is for every single person on the planet. It is our mission to usher people boldly and confidently into God’s presence and to leave them filled with hope and welcome in a church designed for all. So, Kia Ora. You belong here.

 Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/809124414620159