This Week’s Sermon – Honoring the Sabbath

Hi everyone! This is my last sermon before I embark on my three-month sabbatical. I will be keeping a sabbatical blog, and encourage you to follow along with me. You can find it at:

www.korysabbatical09.wordpress.com

SCRIPTURE – Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Genesis 12:1-9

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. ”I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

SERMON
Honoring the Sabbath
Exodus 20:8-11; Gen. 12:1-9
May 31, 2009

Well, here we are. It’s May 31. You know, we’ve been talking about and planning this sabbatical for so long that I never actually expected it to happen. It’s always been something “out there” or “coming up,” but today we stand on the cusp of this new chapter in our relationship and in the life of the church.

I’ve learned through this process that a sabbatical is not a familiar concept to a lot of people. There’s something that seems a bit strange about giving someone three months off from work with pay. I don’t mind it so much but I could see where, in this workaholic world, it could seem foreign. Believe me, I feel the weight of responsibility and level of trust that such a thing conveys, and I don’t have the words to express my gratitude to you. The Sabbatical Planning Team and I have tried to provide some education and context to help the congregation understand exactly what a sabbatical is and how it is to be used.

So what is it? What are these next three months? I’ve most often heard it called a “vacation,” which I admit makes me cringe a bit. Our American understanding of vacation is going someplace warm and sunny, lounging around a pool sipping drinks with little plastic umbrellas. As Michael pointed out in his May newsletter article, vacation comes from the Latin root which means “to be empty, free or at leisure,” which means vacations are times to be free from obligations and to be at leisure (as opposed to “be at work”).

Based on that definition, I most certainly won’t be on vacation. Yes, I will be free from the day-to-day, week-to-week demands of ministry, but I am committed to doing other things like reading, writing and attending conferences, that will keep me connected to my vocation and God’s calling. In some sense I will still be working on my sabbatical, including as Michael said, “doing the work of resting,” but I will be working with a different focus and at a different pace than when I am in the office. My promise to you and to God is that I am committed to being a better minister when I come back.

Another way to speak of time away is what our friends in England call a “holiday.” To go on holiday is to take a break, to get away from the daily routines of life. I like this term because it derives from the two words “holy day.” Something that’s holy is something sacred, something set apart by God. I certainly hope my sabbatical time is filled with holiness, a time set apart by God. But I don’t do a good British accent so I can’t go around all summer saying “I’m on holiday.” That just won’t work and could get me arrested.

The term that best describes what’s happening this summer is a “sabbatical,” and it fits so well because of its biblical origin. The word obviously comes from the word “Sabbath,” which is what was addressed in our first reading today. One of the 10 Commandments God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai was to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Just as God did the work of rest on the seventh day of creation, so the Israelites and all of their workers were to do the work of rest every seven days. The purpose of the Sabbath was to honor God’s creation, to rest up from the week before, and to rejuvenate for the week ahead. Similarly, I am plan on honoring God, resting up from the eight years that have come before, and rejuvenate for whatever lies ahead. I continue to be blessed by working with this congregation, but I am also ready, albeit it three years late, to step away and allow my spirit to refill for continuing to do God’s work. I am looking forward to doing the work of resting.

But Sabbath is about more than just rest. It’s also about worship. The idea behind the Sabbath was to take time you would normally commit to work and instead commit it to God. On my sabbatical one of the things I’m most looking forward to doing is worshipping God, unencumbered by the responsibilities of my work. I can’t wait to remember what it feels like to sit in a pew for an entire service. I plan on visiting a number of other churches and doing some in-depth Bible reading as ways of worshipping God, neither of which I get to do very often while I’m working.
I’ve put a number of other activities and events into my sabbatical plan. I did that for a couple of reasons. First, I want the congregation to benefit from my sabbatical, and I don’t mean not having to listen to me preach for three months, although there may be some benefits there, as well. The work that I will be doing on sabbatical is not just the work of rest, but the work of renewal. That includes stepping back from the daily obligations to look at the bigger picture of who we are as a church by focusing more closely on our mission statement. The conferences I’ll be attending, the books I’ll be reading and the things I’ll be writing will hopefully have a direct impact on this church as we continue to explore who God has called us to be. I want my sabbatical to be purposeful rest that benefits you as well as me.

Another reason I put together a detailed sabbatical plan is because I like to know what’s coming. If this is more than a vacation or a holiday, then I need to prove it, I need to justify –most importantly to myself – why I’m taking a sabbatical. I’ve always agreed with Jean-Paul Sartre, who gave us the action-oriented “To do is to be.” But others side with the more laid-back Socrates, who said “To be is to do.” And the smartest people side with Frank Sinatra, who said “Do be do be do.” We spent all our lives doing and not nearly enough time just being. Sabbath is a time to just be in God’s presence, to be still and know that God is God, and we are not.

The reading from Genesis today is an important reminder to me and to all of us that while we may think we know where the road ahead leads us, in reality we are not in control of the future. I like to think I know what’s best, that I know exactly what’s going to happen, but I think that just makes God laugh when I say that. So while I’m tempted to point to my sabbatical plan and tell you I’ve dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s for my sabbatical, there’s another part of me that’s excited – and more than a little anxious – about what God has planned.

That’s why the Abram story is such a wonderful commentary on my sabbatical. God comes to Abram and tells him to drop what he’s doing. “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” In other words, Abram is taking a sabbatical, whether he wants to or not! And all he knows about this upcoming time is what God has promised him: God will lead the way and God will bless Abram along the journey.

Externally, I know where I’ll be going and what I’ll be doing on my sabbatical. But internally, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’ve never done this before. I’ve always been driven by my work, and now I’m stepping back to let God do the driving. I don’t like being in the passenger seat, especially when it’s my life we’re talking about, but I believe that’s one of the many lessons God has in store for me. So I am preparing for my journey. Is it scary? Yeah, a bit. But it’s also incredibly thrilling.

I’m not the only one that God is calling on a journey. This congregation is also being called to follow God this summer to some unknown destination. Michael and the Sabbatical Planning Team have put together a wonderful plan that will allow the congregation to explore along more deeply along with me the mission statement of the church. As you ponder together what it means to welcome, to equip and to share, I believe that God will be leading you into new territories, opening up new vistas, putting before you new understandings of what it means to be a community, to be Christians, to be a church. I know it’s summer, I know life is busy, but don’t miss out on what God has planned for you.

And there’s one promise we all can claim as we move into sabbatical time: We will be blessed by God. God tells Abram, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” Whatever God has in store for us this summer, we can believe that God will be walking with us and that we will be blessed through it. When we come back together in September we won’t be the same. I will be a different person, changed by my time away, and I trust you will be different as well, if you are willing to participate in this sabbatical time of rest and renewal.

While I’m gone, I also trust that you are in good hands. You are in Michael’s hands. Michael is an incredibly competent, compassionate young man with wisdom beyond his years. He will be an excellent leader for you this summer. You are in Nelson’s hands, hands that have touched the heart of this congregation so lovingly for many, many years. And you are in God’s hands. That is the safest place to be.

This morning, as I prepare to take my leave and follow God’s call, I hope you know you will continue to be in my thoughts and in my prayers this summer, and I hope I am in yours, as well. While you will be out of sight and out of contact, you will not be out of my mind or my heart. The promise that we have been given through Jesus Christ is that we are all connected together as believers, regardless of where we are. When I worship these next three months, although it may be in a different building or in a different town, we will still be praying and singing to the same God, one body united together through Jesus Christ. So I want to give you something to help you remember that (at this point in the sermon, small wooden crosses were handed out to each person). Please keep these crosses close to you this summer. Each time you see it or touch it, say a prayer for me on my sabbatical. Say a prayer for this congregation and for its leaders. And say a prayer of thanksgiving to God for giving us this time. Each time I see this cross, I will remember the holiness of my time away and it doing so I pray I will honor you and honor God.

This Week’s Sermon – Rise Up!

 Hi everyone! I hope you have a good Memorial Day weekend. For those who will be traveling, I pray God’s safety and protection for you. Be blessed!

SCRIPTURE – Acts 1:1-11

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

SERMON
Rise Up!
Acts 1:1-11
May 24, 2009

Did you know that today is one of the most important Sundays in the church? In fact, you could argue that what this Sunday represents is almost as important as some of the other Christian holidays. Culturally, it doesn’t have the commercial appeal of Christmas or the heart-overflowing joy of Easter, but in the grand scheme of God’s work in this world, what we observe on this Sunday is just as important. This is Ascension Sunday.

Ascension Sunday falls six weeks after Easter and one week before Pentecost, which is next week. As we prepare for that story about the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the Disciples, we have to first finish up the loose ends in Jesus’ story, namely that fact that he’s been resurrected and is walking around making appearances. Now what? Is he just going to keep doing this forever? Two thousand years after the first Easter would Jesus still be walking the earth, popping up here and there? “Honey, set an extra plate, I invited Resurrected Jesus over for dinner tonight.” Of course not! So we have this story at the beginning of Acts about Jesus’ ascension, which sets the stage for the disciples to take up the torch and continue God’s work.

I think I know why we don’t really celebrate Ascension Sunday. We don’t put up Ascension trees or prepare for a big Ascension dinner with all the fixin’s. That’s because what is acknowledged on Ascension Sunday is that fact that Jesus left us, it’s the day the present Lord became absent. Who wants to celebrate being left behind? Do we really need a day commemorating Christ’s absence from us? We get too many reminders of that on regular days, that God doesn’t always feel as close to us as we would like.

And yet, celebrating the Lord’s absence is just one of the many paradoxes about Christianity. A paradox is defined as “a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.” That pretty much sums up our entire belief system. Think how absurd this gathering must look to outsiders. We come together week after week with no intention of doing anything productive. The main guy puts on a dress, we sit and face a huge instrument of torture, we close our eyes and talk as if there’s someone there. We declare things we cannot prove to a God we cannot see. And then we drink coffee and eat sweets. Does that sound a bit absurd?

But remember the other part of the definition of paradox: “…but in reality expresses a possible truth.” A possible truth. Can we say a definitive truth? Not definitively. Do we really know that we know that we know what we believe is true? No more so than I can show you a picture of what the wind looks like or describe what freedom feels like. But I believe what I know about God is true, and one of the reasons I believe that is because of what happens on Ascension Sunday.

As you may know, Acts is actually the second part of a two-part book, both written by Luke to his friend Theophilus. In the first book, the gospel of Luke, the author sets out to write an “orderly account” of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But the story doesn’t end there. You can’t stop at the end of Luke. That would be like stopping the story after Cinderella lost her slipper or after E.T’s gray little body is found in that creek bed. There’s more to the story. To fully grasp the story Luke is telling, you have to read Acts.

What Acts does, particularly these first 11 verses, is it completes Jesus’ story and fulfills God’s promises. It reminds us that what God begins, God completes. What God promises, God fulfills. This episode brings closure to the story of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, and prepares the way for the fulfilling of the next promise. Jesus says in John’s gospel, “If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.” That’s what happens on Pentecost, which is what we celebrate next Sunday. The Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost – these are all evidence that God does what God promises, and as I said last week, it is in that truth that we put our hope as believers.

So where does that leave those of us who are left behind? In a sense, every since the Ascension we’ve been looking up, waiting for a glimpse of God, waiting for Jesus to return and set things right. We’re living in what theologian Karl Barth called “the significant pause,” the time in between Jesus’ first and second coming, the time where we wait with expectant hope for God to do what God has promised. As one preacher said, the disciples are now “on the clock.”

It would be a lot easier if Jesus were still here, wouldn’t it? I can’t even imagine how the disciples felt, watching their leader leave them. Who wouldn’t be gazing up after that? I imagine they probably would have stood there for days, necks craned, eyes toward the heavens, hoping that Jesus would float back down and say, “Just kidding! Let’s go get some fish.” Now what?

Now what, indeed. I’ve heard that question asked many times. Now what? The person I thought would always be around is no longer around. Now what? That security I thought I would always have is gone. Now what? The child I thought would always need me is off on their own. Now what?

Leigh and I are experiencing that. It’s hard to believe, but on Wednesday of this last week, our youngest daughter graduated. Granted, it was from preschool, but that doesn’t make the reality of it any less painful. She even got a little diploma. And her preschool teacher said to all of us parents what we know in our hearts to be true: “Life is a series of little letting-gos.” Parents certainly know that. But so do kids. Just watch any child’s reaction when the balloon they thought was tied securely to their wrist slips free, ascending into the clouds. Now what?

God heard the disciples’ hearts crying out that question, because God provides an answer in the form of two men dressed in white, who offer a gentle reproof: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky?” In other words, “Don’t just stand there; do something!” Jesus spent three years doing ministry among these disciples, teaching them and listening to them and forgiving them and empowering them. He has been preparing them for this moment, when the reins of this fledgling religious group would be handed over to them. It’s time to stop looking up and start looking around. As I heard one pastor say it, “Don’t look for Jesus in the heights; look for him in the depths.” The depths of human life, the deep, dark places in the world, that’s where the disciples will now find him.

So as we sit here this morning, experiencing our Sunday worship, I wonder if we are guilty of the same neck-craning as the disciples. Are we sitting here looking up, waiting for a glimpse of Jesus, putting God’s work on hold until we get some sort of confirmation that this paradox of Christianity is more than just a possible truth? Are we hoping to experience a presence that would make sense of the feelings of absence, a definitive, incontrovertible truth to counteract the absurdity of life?

It could be. And that’s OK. I believe all of us go through times when that’s all we have to offer, simple to be here. But the reality of life is that there will be times when Christ feels absent, when we live in the “significant pause” between Christ’s presence here on earth. And if we only spend our time looking up, I think we’ve lost the plot. We don’t have the benefit of three years of teaching from Jesus, but we have something else. We have this church. We have God’s word. We have the bread and the cup. We have each other. This is our training ground, where we can hear about and practice grace and forgiveness and loving each other, so that we can take those things into the world. But if the extent of our faith – our scripture reading, our praying, our working for justice and equality, our reaching into the depths of the world – if all of that starts and ends here, we’re just looking up.

I believe we are called to come here and look up so that we can go out there and look around. We come here each week to listen and to sing and to taste, to be reminded of who we are and who we’re called to be so we can go out and live that call. We come here to pray so we can go out there and witness. There’s nothing wrong with looking up, with seeking God’s face and awaiting with hope Christ’s return. But if we only look up, if we don’t then live out what we believe is true, we’re missing the presence of Christ in our midst.

Remember I said that this is a two-part story, Luke and Acts? That’s not entirely true. It’s really a three-part story. There’s Luke and Acts…and us. We are now on the clock, called to take the work that Jesus began and continue it, no matter now imperfectly. The answer to “now what” is the church, reaching out to comfort the afflicted, to be a companion to the lonely, to confront evil, to speak a word of truth. I like what pastor Barbara Brown Taylor says about this story. She says, “It’s almost as if he had not ascended but exploded, so that all of the holiness that was once concentrated in him alone flew everywhere, so that the seeds of heaven were sown over the fields of the earth.” Each one of us can do that, taking the work of Christ and multiplying it exponentially.

I think I have a better understanding of why Ascension Sunday is no really given a lot of attention. In this sermon alone, I’ve compared Jesus to a Disney princess, an extraterrestrial, and a balloon. There just aren’t any good Ascension metaphors. “Jesus, I need a picture. I need a comparison. I need a reminder down here on earth of what you are like so I can tell others about you.” (Look around) Oh, yeah. I see Jesus now. He’s right here. Now what? Don’t just sit there; do something.

This Week’s Sermon – Looking Forward

It’s a beautiful day here in Chicagoland! I hope you all are blessed this coming week. Here is Sunday’s sermon about what it means to live with hope. God bless!

SCRIPTURE
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

SERMON
Looking Forward
Romans 8:22-27
May 17, 2009

I remember when I was a kid living in Indiana each summer my town would have a parade. It wasn’t a big town, so the parade was usually just a string of fire trucks, a few Shriner cars, a clown or two, and then a line of cars who didn’t realize there was a parade today and got stuck behind it. We always waved to them anyway.

One of my favorite moments was right before the parade started. We would take our seats on the curb and turn toward the direction from which we knew the parade was coming. As it approached, we couldn’t see anything yet but we could hear the sirens blaring and the local high school band playing. We would crane our necks, jump up and down, stand on our chairs, say to our parents, “Do you see it yet? How about now? What about now?” We could hear the sirens; we knew it was close. But we just couldn’t quite see it yet.

That anticipation is what Paul is talking about in today’s passage from Romans. He says, “If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” I don’t know if my parents would say I was waiting very patiently for the parade, but we certainly had a lot of hope. And what clued us into the parade’s imminent arrival were the sounds, the sirens that announced its approach.

Paul references a sound in this Romans passage, but it’s not the siren of a fire truck; it’s the groan of creation. “We know the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up until the present time.” Paul is referring here to the Creation story in Genesis, when God curses Adam and Eve for their disobedience. He says to Eve, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to your children.” And to Adam he says, “Cursed is the ground because of you.” So in a way, the earth, the creation bore the weight of Adam and Eve’s sin.

The way we have treated the earth hasn’t helped matters. Now, I’m not going to tell you this morning that you need to do a better job of recycling or that you need to buy a hybrid car. Those things are helpful, but I believe what this passage leads us to is a deeper understanding of our relationship to the earth and the theological motivations that support that understanding. What do we believe about our role in relation to the earth, and why do we believe that?

I know this has been made a political issue in the last few years and folks of different party persuasions have chosen stances and sides, but I believe what Paul and other authors of the Bible are doing is reminding us that stewardship of our planet is not just a political issue. It is a spiritual issue. Therefore, we have to think about it spiritually.

I heard a speaker recently who has done a lot of work in the theology of ecology, or the spiritual understanding of how we care for the earth. His point was that when it comes to our stewardship of creation, we don’t just need a change in behavior, we need a change of ethos. An ethos is an underlying sentiment that informs our behaviors and beliefs. For example, the ethos of the 80s in America was, “Greed is good.” The ethos of Cubs fans is “Wait til next year!”

So what is our ethos when it comes to care for the earth? For too long, the ethos has been, “We’re humans, we’re awesome, and we can do whatever we want.” But now we’re starting to see some of the consequences of that ethos. Author Bill McKibben writes, “The story of the twentieth century was finding out just have big and powerful we were. And it turns out that we’re big and powerful as all get out. The story of the twenty-first century is going to be finding out if we can figure out ways to get smaller, to try and fit back into this planet.”

So how do we change our ethos? How do we fit back into this planet? As Christians, we turn to scripture to see what it has to say to us about this. That’s where Paul’s words are instructive. “The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.” The first thing we are called to do is to listen. What is creation telling us? What are climate changes and decreasing natural resources and rising landfills telling us? I know all of these things have political implications, but every political issue has a spiritual component, and as Christians we are called to discern what that spiritual component is, to listen to how God is speaking through it.

Paul says these groans aren’t an end, but are a means to a new birth. Nothing new is born without a struggle. Scripture references numerous times God’s promise of renewal for the earth. Listen closely to what the prophet Isaiah writes: “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them,” says the LORD.

How far we are from that vision! Weeping and crying are heard constantly. Infants die; children are doomed to misfortune. Harm and destruction are everywhere. These are the groans of creation. But they point to something greater, something new being born. These sounds are the sirens that herald the coming of the parade. This is not how it was meant to be. God has promised something better, something more life-giving than what we have created here on earth.

And based on these promises, Paul calls us to have hope, but not just any hope. This is not worldly hope, which is probably more like wishful thinking. “I hope I win the lottery.” That’s not the hope Paul is talking about here. Paul means the hope that is deeply grounded in God’s promises, in God’s work in this world. And our job, all we have to do, is to wait for it.

That may seem passive to us. “God is gonna fix everything; all we have to do is sit back and wait.” I heard a story once about a woman who was on a spiritual retreat but was having a difficult time quieting herself and getting in her prayer time. She saw a monk across the way who seemed deeply still, completely at peace in the moment. Later, at dinner, she said to the monk, “I really admire the way you were able just to sit and wait and do nothing.” And the monk replied, “You assume by waiting I was doing nothing.”

The waiting Paul calls us to do in this passage is not passive waiting. It is waiting with a sense of hope, which is never passive, because hope stirs us to action to work toward that for which we hope. Being driven by hope kindles in us an ethos of active participation in making our hopes a reality. Living with hope means constantly straining forward to see with our own eyes what the sounds we hear foreshadow and then living as if that hope is a reality.

I think the tension we live with as Christians is that we have been called to intercede in this broken world, to be the change we want to see, but we don’t know how to do it. When it comes to the care of the earth, if for so long we have been part of the problem, how do we become part of the solution? Biologist E.O. Wilson said, “If all humanity disappeared, the rest of life would benefit enormously.” Well, if that’s not an option, what can we do? How can we help usher in a change of ethos that will more closely reflect our call to be stewards?

One thing is clear. We can’t sit back and wait for God to fix everything we’ve broken. Not only did God create the world and call it good, but when God saw the mess we made of it, God sent Christ to renew and restore the world. And part of the message Christ brought to us was that we have a role to play in ushering in God’s kingdom here on earth. So many times when the disciples ask Jesus for help he says, “You have the means. You have the power. You do it. Feed my sheep. Go and make disciples of all nations. You do it.”

So, Paul says to us, we wait because we hope in God’s promises, and while we wait, we live as if those promises are true. If God has promised we are stewards of this earth, we live like we are stewards. If God has promised that we are forgiven, we live as if we are forgiven. If God has promised to redeem creation, we live as if God will do that, treating this earth and each other with the reverence deserved of God’s creations. We live with hope.

The truth of this scripture and all scripture is that the human situation is not hopeless. The crises in our lives, both personal and global, are not hopeless. Life is not a despairing wait for an inevitable end. Life is the eager anticipation of the realization of God’s promises, especially the promise that death is not the end. Life is the straining to see the start of the parade. It is the perseverance through the struggle of childbirth in order to experience new life. Life is not hoping for something; it is hoping in Someone, the One who promised us redemption and called us to work for the redemption of all of God’s creation. “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.” Do you hear it? Can you see it? I’ve seen glimpses. A kind word. An answered prayer. A stand taken for one’s faith. A hope realized. Do you hear it? Can you see it? Then live it.

This Week’s Sermon – Bearing Fruit

 

Hey everyone! This week’s sermon is on one of Jesus’ “I AM” statements in John’s gospel. I hope this is a fruitful week for you!

SCRIPTURE – John 15:1-8
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

SERMON
Bearing Fruit
John 15:1-8
May 10, 2009

I don’t mind being called names. When you grow up with a name like “Kory,” you get used to it. Trust me, I’ve heard it all. And I can even tolerate it when my favorite book calls me names. In the Bible, the followers of Jesus are called disciples (that’s pretty good), sheep (a bit smelly, but I get the metaphor) and sinners (that one is true, but a little blunt). I can handle being called all those names.

But I don’t like being called a branch. In John 15 Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” Hmph. I know sticks and stones can break my bones and words can never hurt me, but what about when the word I’m being called IS a stick? I don’t like being referred to as a branch because I’ve had some run-ins with these things. I’ve almost had my eye put out twice by a branch, and I’m accosted by branches every time I mow our backyard. We have a willow tree back there with long, droopy branches and mowing the grass underneath it is like going through a carwash.

So you see, I don’t get along with branches very well, which posed a challenge for me when Jesus compares us with branches of a grapevine. God is the gardener, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches of the vine. It helps understand how this agricultural phenomenon works. As a vine grows, the branches that extend from it produce both fruit, like grapes, and flowers and leaves. And the more the branches produce the flowers and leaves, the less energy they have to produce the fruit. If the gardener wants a plant to look green and pretty, he lets it grow unencumbered. But if the gardener wants the branch to produce fruit, he prunes it back to where the fruit is growing, so that all the energies of the plant are focused on producing the fruit, not wasted on the rest of the branch. A branch may look good because it has a lot of leaves and greenery, because that suggests a healthy vine. But it’s all style and no substance; it’s all plant and no fruit.

In this passage, Jesus is warning us branches about not producing fruit. We all know other people who fit this mold, people who are interested in looking good and being seen but who don’t produce any fruit. And we know we’re not like that, right? But our lives sometimes tell a different story. We get caught up in the busyness of life, running around like crazy, juggling so many appointments and responsibilities. And it feels good to be seen as busy, right? No one likes to be thought of as lazy or unmotivated. I got caught up in this mindset while planning for my sabbatical. A sabbatical is supposed to be a time of rest, but I felt guilty resting for three months. What would people think of me? So I built in some activity so that my sabbatical would be “purposeful.” But the question Jesus would ask us is this: Is all the effort producing any fruit?

Well, to answer that question, we need to define what fruit is. Paul tells us in Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So another way to ask that question is, “Do the choices we make in our lives produce those things in us, or keep them from growing? Do the things we do to keep busy give us more joy or less? Do they make us more patient? More gentle? More faithful to God and church? More loving?”

The church is not an exclusive community but an inclusive one, so we have to turn that question out. Bearing good fruit not only means what’s happening inside of us, but how that growth affects those outside of us. In other words, to bear good fruit means to live lives that help other people see that they are also branches of the True Vine. Bearing fruit means helping other people come to know the love of Christ through our behaviors and actions toward them. We are the channels, the conduits, the seeds that give life to their faith. And the more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and in control we are around them, the more they see the fruits of Christ in us, and the more the desire to be fruitful as well, to be grafted onto the life-giving vine we know as Jesus Christ. People watch us to see what kind of fruit we’re producing.

But that’s a lot of responsibility, isn’t it? It’s easy for me to stand here and say, “Go be more patient…right now! All your unbelieving friends are going to get thrown in the eternal fire and burned if you’re not more peaceful!” But you’ll be glad to know that it’s not all up to you. That’s another reason why this vineyard imagery works. In a vine, the branches are so intertwined they are almost completely indistinguishable from one another. It is impossible to tell where one branch stops and another starts; all of them run together as they grow from the central vine. The fruitfulness of each individual branch depends on the other branches and its relationship to the vine.

So to bear fruit is a corporate act, not an individual one. To God, all the branches are the same. There is no status or hierarchy; there’s no pastor branch or elder branch or committee chairperson branch that’s more important than the others. The only way to tell the branches apart is by the fruit they produce. Jesus says, “A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit.”

To God, we are all created the same. There’s no status, no hierarchy in God’s kingdom. We all come from the same source and are all connected to the same vine, Jesus Christ. The only thing that distinguishes us is the fruit we produce. This is not about unfruitful times in our past. This is about right now. What kind of fruit are you producing? Is it Grade-A, top of the line, or is it a little green? Is it sweet and juicy, or taste like sour grapes? Is the last fruit you produced so old it’s turned into raisins? If God were to take your fruit and make wine, would it be deserving of a cork or a screw-top? Are our lives producing fruit that others can see?

Of course, the irony of this passage is that to grow fruit, a vine must be pruned, must be cut back, must be trimmed of the frivolous stuff to focus on the fruit. That’s the toughest part of the passage, because no one likes the thought of being pruned. And yet, Jesus tells us that by being pruned we are made more fruitful.

What does it mean to be pruned? We have to be careful here, because it would be easy to trivialize suffering and blame God. “You lost your job? You lost your friend? God is just pruning you for better service.” I don’t believe in a God who prunes us that way. But I do believe in a God who speaks to us through our conscience and through others to help us identify where we are fruitful and where we are just being flowery. The ultimate goal of pruning is to bring us closer to God and to cut away the things that are keeping that from happening. For me, that means pruning my pride. My pride is cut back by long lines, traffic jams, answering machines, road construction, and anything else that keeps life from going the way I want it to go. During those times I can grumble and complain and turn into a crab apple tree, or I can use that time to reconnect with the True Vine that gives me life and work on producing peace and patience.

Pruning can be a painful experience. But I think we can choose to look at many situations in our life as a chance to become more fruitful. When bad things happen, we tend to say things like, “Look for the silver lining” or “God has a plan for you” or “Take that lemon and make lemonade!” But those are more than empty words, you know. They point to a choice we can make about how we view such things in our lives, even the little things. What if we saw a long line as a chance to practice being more patient? Or a traffic jam as a time to talk with God? What if we saw an answering machine as a chance to rethink the words we were about to say? Or a delayed flight as a chance to get to know a stranger and make a friend? Or, more seriously, what if we saw an illness or surgery as a chance to take our health more seriously, to treat our bodies better, to reconcile relationships that have produced only weeds and thorns? How would our perspectives and our faith change if we chose to look at these situations as an opportunity to be cut back a little so that we could bear more fruit down the road?

Faith is an ever-changing thing. If yours is anything like mine, it doesn’t grow in the same way all the time. Sometimes it grows straight, but sometimes it gets a little loopy and crooked. Every so often I need to prune out old habits or thoughts or attitudes or behaviors so that, through the power of the true vine, even more fruit will be produced in my life.

Are you the same person you were last year at this time? Of course not. Each year we grow and change based on our bodies and our age and things that happen around us. And our faith is impacted by those things as well. Your faith won’t be quite the same next year as it is now. Things will happen, little things and big things, which will change it. Some things will be steps forward, some will be steps back. But everything that happens in life gives us an opportunity to fulfill Jesus’ words: “This is to my Father’s glory; that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” I may be going out on a limb here, but I think that’s why we are here: to bear fruit to God’s glory.

This Week’s Sermon – Understanding the Word

It’s a beautiful day here in Chicagoland – finally! I’ve never preached on this interesting story before. I hope this sermon helps in your desire to understand the Bible. Be blessed!

SCRIPTURE – Acts 8:216-40

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” Then Phillip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

 The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: ”He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

SERMON

Understanding the Word
Acts 8:26-40
May 3, 2009

I remember the first time I questioned whether I was good enough to be a minister. I was at a conference right after I graduated from seminary. I was surrounded by colleagues who were much more talented than me, listening to speakers who were much more faithful than me, telling me to do things in ministry that I would never have the wisdom or courage to do. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever thought that at any moment, someone may throw open the church door, point a finger in your direction, and say, “What are YOU doing here? Don’t you know this place is only for people who have it all figured out?”

So that night, I decided to read a book I thought might help me. It was the book of Acts. Acts tells the story of the birth of the church. It’s our story, really. It’s about how the disciples, a group of rag-tag scaredy cats who thought they weren’t good enough, and probably weren’t, are transformed into a movement that spreads the good news of Jesus Christ into an unbelieving world. It’s about how God’s Spirit is poured out on them in tongues of flame on the day of Pentecost, and even Peter, the guy who denied knowing Jesus three times, becomes ignited to share God’s word. Acts is also about the peculiar ways God works in our lives, and I think this is where I most connected with Acts that night at the conference. The story of Phillip and the Ethiopian was especially helpful to me because it reminded me of some basic but very important tenets of being a person seeking to follow Christ.

In my time of doubting whether I was good enough to be a Christian, the first thing this story told me was that God believes in us enough to call us to the strangest of places. We don’t know what Phillip was doing before the angel of the Lord spoke to him. We find out later in Acts that Phillip had four daughters, so he was probably waiting in line for the bathroom or fretting over the latest boyfriend. We don’t know what he was doing, but we do know what he was called to do. Drop what you’re doing and go take a walk on a desert road at high noon.

You just never know what God is going to call you to do, do you? Abraham is minding his own business and gets called to move. Moses is tending his sheep and gets called to Egypt. The disciples are busy casting their nets in the sea when Jesus says, “Follow me.” I was working as a youth minister and preparing to start a doctoral degree when this idea of seminary popped up. You never know when God is going to call you or where God is going to put you.

I’ve been called to some pretty strange places with some very interesting people. Lincolnshire, Illinois, comes to mind. I’ve also been called to some scary places. Hospital rooms. Funeral homes. Talk about desert roads, paths that lead through the wilderness. Have you ever been called to go somewhere you didn’t want to go? Maybe to a doctor’s office. To the beside of a friend or family member. Even to church, where you have been called to serve and you’re just not sure if you’re good enough for the job.

I wonder how Phillip felt when he got this call. “Me? There? Now?” But we don’t hear any grumbling or complaining. Phillip is called by God and goes, and on the way meets this Ethiopian eunuch, an official in the court of the Queen. You just never know who God is going to put in your path, do you? This Ethiopian has a serious problem, and Phillip is just the man to help him with it. This is another part of the story that was comforting to me that night at the ministry conference. I had read a lot of things in the Bible that made sense, but I had read a whole lot more in there that I didn’t understand. And now I was being called to be the one who stands up on Sunday morning and explains it to other people? Me? There? Now?

When I was in high school a Christian friend of mine gave me my first Bible. This is it. It has a gray cover, my name embossed on the front. The day she gave it to me, I decided I was going to read it. It’s the King James version, which is of course the original language of the Bible. Everybody should read the Bible at least once, right? So that night I propped up a few pillows, got a tall glass of water and set to work. Things started out well. Genesis is a firecracker of a book, lots of sex and violence and other stuff that, as a teenager, held my attention. Exodus was pretty cool, some good special effects with the plagues and Moses parting the sea. I made it about halfway through Exodus. And then came these strange laws and obscure instructions. The Ten Commandments were OK, although at the time I questioned that “honor thy father and mother” part. But then I got to things like, “All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you. Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth. Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.” I remember thinking two things: “Who eats bald locusts?” and then “I wonder what’s on TV.” That was the end of my first attempt to read the Bible.

What I learned from that experience, and what the Ethiopian confirms for us, is that sometimes the Bible is hard to understand. If it were easy to understand, we’d all know exactly what to believe, wouldn’t we? The reason we have all these denominations is that one person reads the Bible and says, “It obviously means this” and another person reads it and says, “I beg to differ, I think it means this” and then the first person says, “No it doesn’t, you idiot” and before you know it fingers are being pointed and punches are being thrown and then I have to step in between Michael and Nelson to separate them.

The Bible is not easy to understand and trying to understand it can make us feel like we’re not good enough. If the Bible is meant to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, as Psalm 119 says, then at times it can be illuminating, but at other times it’s blinding. Sometimes scripture is like a rock in your shoe, irritating you until you decide to give it some attention. During my first failed reading attempt I didn’t even make it to the prophets, and that’s probably a good thing, because they would have scared me half to death. The verses the Ethiopian quotes in this passage are from Isaiah, who talks about slaughtered sheep and sheared lambs and humiliation and deprivation. The eunuch was confused. I would be, too. And when the Bible confuses us, we have two choices.

We can do what I did when I first tried to read the Bible. We can give up. We can say, “This is too hard! I don’t get it. I wonder what’s on TV.” And that’s an understandable response. But here’s the danger with that approach. If we don’t figure out for ourselves what the Bible says, then we have to rely on someone else to do it for us. If you surrender your own desire to understand, then the only way you’ll gain knowledge is through someone else’s lens of interpretation, and there are a lot of voices out there who are more than happy to tell you what you should believe. Turn on just about any news program or talk radio show and folks will be glad to tell you what God really thinks about our president or immigrants or human sexuality or global warming. Do we really want to let someone else decide for us what to believe?

The other option is to do what the Ethiopian did. He read, and when he didn’t understand, he asked questions. He didn’t say to Phillip, “Just tell me what to believe.” He said, “Help me understand what this means.” He consulted a knowledgeable source who gave him the tools to interpret the Bible for himself. He didn’t give up, but stuck with the scripture, even when he didn’t understand it, until God shed some light on the meaning of it. I believe the Ethiopian was one of the spiritual forefathers of our denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I say that because one of our principles of identity is that we hold the centrality of scripture, recognizing that each person has the freedom – and the responsibility – to study God’s Word within the community of the church. We believe scripture speaks to each one of us, but it may say one thing to you and another thing to me, depending on our life experiences and current struggles and questions. I’ll never stand up here and tell you what to believe, because I believe you have a brain and would like to determine that for yourself.

In order to do that, the Ethiopian had to move beyond a surface reading by consulting Phillip. We have those same types of resources available to us today. You may not have Phillip walking around, but you have pastors and teachers who are willing to sit down with you and help you ask your questions. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this Gutenberg guy, but his printing press is pretty cool. Because of that, we also have resources like study bibles, bible dictionaries and commentaries which can help us delve into the Word of God and go beyond the sometimes perplexing surface. I believe a good study bible is the best tool we can have as Christians. If you need a recommendation for one, just ask me.

It’s important to note what might happen if you dare to read the Bible for yourself. After Phillip shares the Good News of Jesus with the Ethiopian, the Ethiopian is moved to respond by asking to be baptized. That’s the thing about God’s word. If you are truly paying attention, you can’t just hear it or read it and then not react. If the Bible puts a rock in our shoe, we have to do something about it. My friend David Shirey says not all scripture calls for the same response. Sometimes it calls for thanksgiving or apology, praise or sacrifice, a change of mind or a change of heart, moving us to say or do something or to stop saying or doing something. The Bible calls for all kinds of different responses, but it always calls for a response.

For me, initially, that response was, “Huh?” Then it became, “Me? Here? Now?” And after spending time with scripture, seeking to understand it, asking questions, allowing myself to be confused and convicted, encouraged and uplifted, my response has become, “Here I am, Lord. Here I am.” You’ve heard the Word. What’s your response?