Thursday, March 31, 2016

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Clutter

Stuff.

If you’re like me, you have a lot of it.

It seems as if every nook and cranny is an invitation for me to stow papers and trinkets; even clothes sometimes. When those spaces get too full, I often find myself browsing a thrift store looking for a piece of furniture to store or display the stuff I have.

This past winter when I was having a moment, one of those when nothing I put on worked, I caught myself standing in the middle of a giant pile of clothes. It looked as if my closest had vomited every article of clothing I owned onto my bedroom floor.

That is when it hit me… No, really, the shelf that held my dress shirts broke and hit me in the head…

I had too many clothes.

For Lent, I decided to go through my closest and dresser and get rid of one article of clothing per day. I wanted to simplify my life.

So I had a hard talk with each item.

From my very first bow tie to the sweatshirt I had to have in college, each one went through the examination. I remembered when and where I bought the item or who gave it to me. Some items I needed to get rid of simply because, well, the hole under the armpit was larger than the neckline.

Ultimately, I asked the same two questions, “Do I really need this? Do I still have a use for it?”

Fifty articles of clothing were eventually purged from my closest and donated to the Clothing Closet that our church is hosting this weekend.

If I am honest with you, this was kind of a difficult task. Many of the dress shirts brought back memories. Many of my sweatshirts flooded my mind with memories of those long weekend getaways with friends. That holy pair of jeans (that ended up in the garbage and not at the Clothing Closet) reminded me of one of the best days of fishing I ever had.

But here is the deal, friends, the impulse to save, to make do, to find a use for things, can get out of hand. And the irony of saving things is that we accumulate so much stuff that we forget what’s there and end up buying duplicates.

Like three Chicago Cubs sweatshirts; five fleece button down up shirts; thirteen pairs of jeans (I am not proud of this); and 30+ neckties. I am still working on letting go of my many pairs of shoes. Especially those baseball shoes I have had for ten years…and I’ve only worn a dozen times…but one day I will coach again…and one day I might just need them…you know, to preach in?!?!

What sparked this issue for me is the realization of how much stuff I have and how much I depend on that stuff. I have a lot of books. While I read most of them, there is also a part of me that uses these books to impress people who see them.

Here’s the deal, our possessions may be precious to us; they may even have a lot of power over us. And they may even have a lot of meaning (like that black flannel shirt I have that once belonged to my late uncle. Though it is two sizes too big, I will NEVER get rid of it…).

But my favorite Cubs coffee mug, all those books, all those bow ties, all those (insert those items you have a tendency to collect) aren’t the ruach of God, the breath of God.

God gifted us with all we need and then asked us to take care of it. Part of this call means to be good stewards:  use only what we need and share because with God, there is enough for everyone.

Our stuff is meant to bring us joy and life.

If it doesn’t, if it gets in the way, perhaps it is time to share it with someone else.

There is freedom in letting go.

Or as Quaker theologian Richard Foster has boldly said, “The goal of work is not to gain wealth and possessions, but to serve the common good and bring glory to God.”

To bring glory to God means to make God’s presence known.

Stuff can get in the way of this.

But stuff can also add to it.


I guess the choice is ours!

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Through Stained Glass: A Holy Week Word

(this is a sermon i wrote for the Holy Wednesday service at FPC lincoln and didn't end up preaching. it is a little longer. may you be washed clean by the Christ who welcomes all at the table!)

A Foot Washing Word
John 13.1-18, 31-35

We want to get to the main event, don’t we?
The point in the evening when all the awkward greetings are over and the small talk has gotten past the weather, the Cubs, and how the kids are doing.
The point in the evening where you and your spouse forget about the argument you had over the bottle of Pepsi you brought instead of the wine as you walked up the sidewalk.
The point in the evening where you stop worrying if so-and-so will be there because, well, she tells the same stories over and over and if you have to listen to Mr. Know It All’s take on the candidate you’re most annoyed with that you might just rip his toupee off and tell him to shut it.
The point in the evening when you’re more than half way through the night and you are just 45 minute away from taking off this tie or those heels, and you can slip back into those tired sweatpants, let your hair down, and watch reruns of your favorite TV show.
We want to get to the main event, don’t we?
Some of us are perfectly fine with the small talk and rarely argue with the significant other, don’t worry at all about who will be there, and find a night in watching Netflix a bit too boring.
Some of us see the whole night as the main event and are saddened when even the trivial celebration comes to an end.
            If you’re thinking I am being a bit trite in my generalizations, you are absolutely right.
            Something needed to set us up about our foot washing experience.
            Like going to parties or events, some of us could care less about what our feet look and smell like. While there are some of us who washed our feet three times before we came and powered them with some of whatever Mary used on Jesus when she anointed his feet.
            And, there are those of us who absolutely will not let you or anyone, for that matter, near our feet.
What an extreme generalization bout foot washing, right?!
            In the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, an event that happened before the last supper, there are extremes in what takes place as well. Imagine this:
            Jesus is at the table with his disciples, all of them reclining, propped up on their elbows, dipping pita bread into bowls of savory hummus and smacking their lips; licking their fingers. The sounds of conversation fill the room, punctuated from time to time by loud laughter or the clink of one clay cup against the other. Oil lamps flicker, their light reflected in the shining eyes of the disciples, and while all of this is going on…
            Jesus gets up from the table…
            Strips off his outer robe…
            Wraps a towel around his waist…
            Pours water into a basin…
            And begin to wash the disciples’ feet.
            An extreme, unexpected action that causes a bit of a ruckus amongst the disciples. As we all know, it was the role of the house servant, not a person such as Jesus, to wash the feet of the disciples. In fact, the disciples had probably had their feet washed before. However this is different. This isn’t some servant or even one of their peers but instead this is Jesus. Their teacher. Their Lord.
            As he makes his way around the room, the disciples fall silent, until all you can hear is the splash of water being poured into the basin over dusty, callused feet.
            This is when another extreme takes place in the story. While foot washing was normal, it was expected, what Peter does was a bit over the top. Peter objects, saying “You will never wash my feet! But if you insist, wash not only my feet but also my hands and my head.”
            Jesus persists in washing only the feet and asks, “Do you know what I have done to you?”
            There is but silence.
            Jesus speaks again, “I have set you an example. If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” Despite Peter’s best attempt to be holier-than-thou or attempt to wiggle out of Christ’s intimate act of service, Jesus washes his feet.
            What do we do with this story?
            Some of us hear this story and think, “This is a story about social justice and action, putting feet to our theology.” We want to ask questions such as: “Where is it that people are broken and bruised from war, poverty, drugs, abuse, and discrimination and are in need of a healing bath?”
            Some of us might say this story is not about doing but about being. This is a story that reminds us as people of God who are committed to serving the poor in many capacities that this is a story about letting Jesus tend to us. Just as baptism inaugurates us into Jesus’ ministry of tending and washing the wounds of a broken world, we, too, are in need of the ongoing washing of Jesus and the bathing of our own weary feet if we are to have the strength, compassion, and Spirit to continue that ministry in the world.
            But because I know you all, I know what you are thinking now:  Pastor, it isn’t either/or. Mission is a healthy balance between action and theology, contemplation and justice, mission and meetings.
            There is no disagreeing with this sentiment and truth. But let me plant a seed. Let me stir the waters in the basin a little bit.
            Perhaps this foot washing in John 13 is not just a thought exercise. It isn’t simply a scene we re-create each year because “it’s just what we do.” Instead, this scene is essential not only to the identity of God in Christ but ours as a church as well.
            Jesus doesn’t just talk about love.
            Jesus doesn’t just philosophize and theologize about loving one’s neighbor and setting up benevolence funds to assist those who are “less fortunate” than us.
            It isn’t proverbial.
            Rather, it is service.
            Jesus actually kneels down and washes the disciples’ feet—and then tells them to do likewise.
            Which might be the real reason Peter objects to Christ’s washing of his feet. Jesus was showing Peter that discipleship was not only about humble service, but also about being, as one theologian has put it, a “community of equals.” No servant is greater than his master…and to be the greatest, the master must become like the servant.
            All are welcome. All are needed.
            Some of us like parties, some of us don’t.
            Some of us don’t mind getting our feet touched; others would rather sit through a three hour opera…in German…than have our feet touched.
Wherever it is we find our selves in the either/or, both/and, all things in moderation, conversation, we are all in this together. We are all invited to the table.
Tonight is a night where we look around the table and we see not only Jesus, but also Peter, who denies Jesus; Judas, who betrays Jesus; John and James, who fall asleep while Jesus is praying in the garden; and a whole lot of other misfits who will forsake him in his darkest hour of need. It is a scene that reminds us of the posture that the church is supposed to take: one of selfless service; even if it means making a scene. It is story that reminds us that the church, that the communion table, is a place where we can come—time and time again—to have our own ugliness lovingly touched and washed clean by Jesus. The reality of this story and the good news for us is this:  Jesus washes everyone, even those who are as beloved as John or as troubled as Judas.
No questions asked.
The fact that Jesus spends his last night with his friends, pleading with them to love one another in spite of their own differences and disagreements, is compelling to say the least.
Thus, to ponder what foot washing might look like—not only in relation to the word, but also in relation to those in the church who have hurt us and those we love—might take us very close to the heart of the gospel tonight.
When Christ washes the feet of the disciples, he continues what God started.
Jesus enacted love.

We are commanded to do the same.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Through Stained Glass: A Lenten Challenge

Through Stained Glass:  A Lenten Challenge

Have you ever met someone who is always questioning someone or something?

It could be sunny outside but that person would say, “But is it really sunny?”

That might be a bit of an exaggeration but I hope you get the point I’m trying to make. There always seems to be a catch or some fine print that takes what appears great and makes it too good to be true.

Like those Internet specials advertised on TV or those cell phone plans that are just $49.99 a month…and in fine print there is a clause about how you must dye your hair blue for 12 months in order to receive the discount.

What I am about to say will probably blow your mind.

In fact, you’ll probably think I’m one of those folks who is simply blowing smoke.

You ready?

Okay, here it goes:

God is love.

As Episcopalian priest Broderick Greer put it, “God is not a trickster. When God offers God's self in the person of Jesus, God is telling us who God is: mercy, compassion, and faithfulness.”

You don’t have to join a church for God to love you.

You don’t have to be a saint for God to love you.

You don’t even need to have your life figured out for God to love you.

Here is the best thing about God:  there may be seasons in our lives where we question something about our faith. There even may be a season or two when we doubt if God is even real, if prayer matters, and that church only perpetuates pain rather than relieves it.

God will never question you.

Instead, God looks upon you with mercy and promises to do something with you and within you.

Friends, there is no need to limit God to past mercies. Or, as one pastor has said, “God is an ever present help, to quote the old hymn. The gospel needs to be heard every day. The life-giving word of forgiveness cannot be proclaimed in the past tense. It was wonderful when it was announced yesterday, but yesterday's gospel is today's teaching. We need to hear the gospel afresh, every day.”

The prophet Isaiah reminds us of this when he writes,
18 Do not remember the former things,
   or consider the things of old. 
19 I am about to do a new thing;
   now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
   and rivers in the desert. 

God’s love is not too good to be true.

It is good and very true.

Whether you are aware of it or not, God has, is, and will continue to do something new in your life. Even now, God’s love is falling upon you and dwells within you.

That is the thing about God, even when we feel like we are in exile, God has not abandoned us. God is about liberation and resurrection, not punishment and condemnation.

God is about restoration and always will be.

Perhaps it is our own selves that are preventing it from happening.


Because let’s be honest, that sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Through Stained Glass: A Lenten Catholicon

Through Stained Glass:  A Lenten Catholicon

I needed worship on Sunday.

My spirit’s well had run dry.

My heart’s joy had been depleted.

But Sunday restored my hope. There was such a hum rushing through the pews the way water seeps through cracks. We, as a family of faith, had gathered to worship, to share life, and to break bread. We, as a family of faith, lived into what I think is our best gift that we can offer to Lincoln and one of the most important in our missional identity:  hospitality.

As y’all know we hosted the choir from Lincoln College. Yet I think many of you would agree that in the end, they hosted us. Their singing possessed a peacefulness that penetrated the solemnity that Lent can sometimes posses. They gave us a break from our ‘normal routine’ and they took us down to the river where we were able to drink deep from God’s goodness and mercy.

On Sunday, I believed a part of us was healed.

Did you know the church can do that?

Did you know that the church can heal?

Did you know that the church is actually called to bring healing to the world?

Did you know that you cannot only participate in this healing but also receive it?

Did you know that God wants to heal you?
         From whatever is troubling.
         From whatever burden you are carrying.
         From that broken heart.
         From the bad news you received.
         From the doubt that you aren’t as good as your siblings.
         From the busy life you have taken on without knowing.
         From burn out.

You get the point.

All of this reminds me of an interaction Jesus had at a well with a Samaritan woman. Perhaps you remember it. It is high noon and Jesus stops to get a drink of water while the disciples go ahead into the city to do what disciples do. At the well Jesus meets a woman and asks her for a drink.

From there the interactions goes something like this:
Woman:  You are asking me, a Samaritan, to get you, a Jew, a drink? No way.
Jesus:  If you knew who I was, you would. You’d never have to drink again, actually.
Woman:  Ha! You don’t even have a bucket. So please, give me this living water. (Giant eye roll!)

The interaction gets a little strange. Jesus invites/tells her to go get her husband. She can’t and Jesus reveals that he knows her history. Most sermons will depict this woman as a prostitute of sorts. But this isn’t necessarily the case. She is more likely widowed or abandoned, because men often did that in 1st century culture.

What happens next is a healing. The woman was made to be ashamed about who she was:  not only a Samaritan woman, who was viewed as an equal to a man’s donkey, but also a divorced woman. Jesus shouldn’t be talking to her. She wasn’t worthy of such acknowledgment.

Jesus has no interest in shaming her. Instead Jesus gazes upon her with sympathetic eyes and extends a word of hope, a word of healing. Jesus is not chastising her or calling her to account; rather he sees her; compassionately naming and understanding her circumstances.

I like what one Lutheran pastor says about this interaction:

While she came to the well to get water, now that she has met Jesus, "who told me everything I have ever done," she leaves her jar -- the token of her present difficult and dependent life -- behind to go tell others. She has, indeed, encountered living water, has been freed by her encounter with Jesus, and wants to share this living water with others.

Sunday I was the woman at the well.

I was thirsty and needed my cup filled up. And it was at church, among you, brothers and sisters, that my thirst was quenched.

Worship was refreshing and my spirit was renewed. That's what refreshment does for us; it renews our spirits like a cool glass of water, and moves us from scarcity to abundance in all aspects of our lives.

Friends, God wants to heal us. God sits at the well waiting for us to come. God welcomes us.

God welcomes you with open, healing arms.

My question to you is, what are you holding onto that is prevent you from being healed by God?


Name it. Then, leave it at the well.