Perspectives: Underwear Collection

 

Holding on to Jesus

In the Gospel of John, after the resurrection of Jesus, Mary is in the garden.  She mistakes Jesus for the gardener, but finally recognizes him.  Here is John 20:16-17:

Jesus said, “Mary.”  Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”

Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’”

The last time I read that passage, back in March, I wrote in my journal, "How do we need to let go of Jesus?"

How do we hold on to Jesus when we shouldn't? 

Maybe we hold on to incorrect preconceptions of Jesus? Maybe we hold on to Jesus, demanding forgiveness or grace when it has already been given? Maybe we hold on to Jesus out of anger against someone else, hoping Jesus will "bring us justice."

Is there a way that you hold on to Jesus that you need to stop? 

 

Recognize Jesus?

In Sunday school one day, the teacher asked a question. It was off-hand, and I think she was expecting that everyone would say, "no."

Would you recognize Jesus if he appeared today?

One person in the class answered that she would certainly recognize Jesus.  She is a person with special needs who has an intellectual age in the high elementary range.  I thought her answer was beautiful. It makes me think that she knows Jesus so well that she couldn't help but recognize him.

Would that we could all answer yes to the question.

 

Perspectives: Sprocket (our cat) in Autumn

 

Changing His Mind

Over the past five sermon posts, we have been talking about Jeremiah and the potter.  We've looked at an interpretation of the scripture that sees the passage as a communal one - not how God is shaping you or me, but how God is shaping all of us - the community.  I used it to talk about how God shapes the Church.

There was another part of what I read that talks about another aspect of the passage.  Remember that this is Jeremiah, and he speaks to the community in exile.  I imagine it was a desperate time, wondering if God had abandoned them or if God were just now powerful enough to save them.

But look at Jeremiah 18:7-8

At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. 

God might change God's mind.

We hear it often said that God is unchanging. That God is constant.  With that kind of faith, God would have a law, and when it was broken, God's response would be predictable and unchanging.  For the nation of Israel, it meant exile.

But what if God will change God's mind?

It's grace, isn't it?

Yes, I see the part that says the nation must "turn from its evil," but I think a God that never changes, that fiercely imposes the rules, would never turn back - would desert us and leave us. A God that changes would offer grace.

Thank God for grace.

Sermon - The Way, Part 5

 Each Sunday, we share a Breakthrough Prayer together.  This is a time when we invite God, through prayer, to mold and shape us as a church.  That prayer is printed in your bulletin – take it home with you and pray that prayer this week. As a community, as a church, let’s pray together.

We hear this passage from Acts, and maybe we long for God to add to our church day by day, but an increase in members is a symptom of a church that is on the way, following God. Increases in membership is not the goal – the goal is to be open to the leading of God and to be reshaped into the church God intends us to be. If we can do that – through opening ourselves up to the means of grace God offers through study, fellowship, communion, and prayer – then I believe we will find “success” in God’s eyes as a church.

Everyday, our church community makes decisions – will we follow God and allow God to reshape us or will we resist the work of the Potter?  Sometimes, as I mentioned before, there are watershed moments when the community faces choices that have a profound impact on its future life.  I can imagine for this church that when we decided, as a church, in 1844, to be a Methodist Episcopal Church, South in support of slavery, that the decision was a watershed moment.  One for which we should repent. Who knows what damage was done to God’s children as a result of that decision.

In July of 2015, our church voted by an overwhelming margin to become a Reconciling Ministries Church, stating out loud that our doors are open to everyone.  I think that was a watershed moment for us. I hope it has brought grace and hope to many.

In 1927, Fairlawn Community Methodist Episcopal Church laid a cornerstone that, along with bulletins and buffalo nickels, held hate and racism. I’m grateful that when the church closed, the misshapen clay was not hidden, but reshaped into repentance. I’m grateful that around $400,000 was added to the In Our Time Fund at their Foundation to work for racial justice. It seems to me to be a fitting turning back to The Way.

What will our next watershed moment be? I don’t know. Maybe it will be something huge, like our alignment as a denomination was in the 1844. Or maybe it will be opening our doors and our hearts to one person – one person who needs the grace of God who we can help.

May we clear the way to be clay that can be shaped by God into the church we should become.

Perspectives: Parker among the leaves

 

Sermon - The Way, Part 4

 Hear these words from Acts 2:42-47 about the early Christian Church.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[a] to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

This passage provides us with a beautiful image of the early church – a church that saw wonders and signs, that believed together and had all things in common, including their possessions. They gave to those who had need, they worshipped together, and they praised God.  And day by Day the Lord added to their number.  This community was referred to as men and women of The Way.

But how did they get there?  And how can we use that as a model to become pliable clay in the potter’s hands as a church?  What is the way we should live in order to be the church God plans for us to be?

Let’s look at verse 42 again. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

First, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings – I think we could see a parallel in our life in the church when study the Word of God.  Maybe we read devotionally at home, we attend Sunday school, Book Study on Mondays, the Reconciling Ministries study on Wednesdays, Great Decisions in its season. We hear the proclamation of the word on Sunday mornings.  In all of these ways and more, we learn about the apostles’ teachings, and hopefully, as a church, we allow the word to guide what we do, together.  We learn the way we should go.

Secondly, they experienced fellowship.  Gail Neal Hansen says, “A mark of authenticity and vitality in a congregation is the quality of peoples’ relationships and their efforts to include others in those relationships.”  How do we do that? It’s more than feeling that we are a friendly church – truthfully, those who haven’t found us to be friendly are probably not here anymore.  How do we offer radical hospitality? Greeters are a start – when someone comes in our doors on Sunday morning, a church volunteer says hello and directs them to worship. Works to make everyone feel welcome.  We can reach out before and after worship to those we do not know.  But there are more ways.  Maybe when we hand out water on hot days on the sidewalk – talk to Debbie McGinnis if you want to volunteer. Radical hospitality is providing children with food in a backpack for the weekend – hospitality is not just a welcome into the church building, it’s a welcome into community.  You are hungry, and we have noticed.  The church in fellowship is working outside the walls to make a difference.  What more can we do? Where is God leading us?

Thirdly, by breaking of the bread.  I think this is an obvious communion reference, and when we next share the bread and juice, I hope you will remember that this is part of how we prepare ourselves for transformation – it is a means of grace offered by God. But how else do we break bread together? When people come into the church on Thursday evening to share a meal during Common Grounds, we are breaking bread with the community. When we bring food for the Thanksgiving harvest altar, or donate the food of the month (tuna this month) to Cridlin Food and Clothing Closet, we are breaking bread together.  But if we as a church on are The Way together, who else should we break bread with?

Sermon - The Way, Part 3

This is an image to help Jeremiah understand that Israel is in God’s hands. This is a communal passage, not an individual one.  I don’t think this is about God, the potter, reshaping you and me as individuals, but God the potter in action in the community – and for us, I would say, God will be acting within our church communities.

If we think about Wellspring United Methodist Church again, I think the action of the Annual Conference in turning the assets of the closed church into something redemptive is evidence of God at work in this community. From 1927 until 2020, the church in New England had been remolded and transformed so that they felt a need to correct what the 1927 church had done. God’s reshaping work.

Sally Brown, in Feasting on the Word, says, “Jeremiah here is addressing primarily the life of the community, not the individual.  God means to shape the community of faith in its collective social, religious and political life to serve divine purposes.”  She goes on to describe three characteristics of God the potter.  First, God is invested in all common life – the potter has a purpose in what he is doing.  Secondly, the relationship between the potter and the community is robustly dynamic. The clay can resist the hand of the potter. The clay – the community – does not have to be reshaped. Thirdly, there are moments when the pot is removed from the wheel because the future shape is set – in other words, there are watershed moments when the community faces choices that have a profound impact on its future life.  We’re going to come back to that thought.

Have you ever held a piece of clay or even playdough and just shaped and reshaped it randomly? Just for the feel of it or out of boredom? That’s not what this is. This is God working within the community to shape it into the potential it has. As Wesleyan Christians, we often talk about “moving onto perfection” as an individual – being sanctified by God’s grace into who we were meant to be. That’s what this is – but it is sanctification for the community – for the church.  It’s God molding the church into what it was meant to be.

And what is that?  What image can we use to understand that? And how can we prepare for God’s work rather than resist it?

Perspectives: A Castle

 

The Way - Part 2

Let’s start with the passage Jeremiah 18-1-11.

18 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴ The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

 

⁵ Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁶ Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷ At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸ but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. ⁹ And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰ but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. ¹¹ Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

I think in order to explore it best, it’s good to understand the background against which it was written.  The writings we call Jeremiah were written during a time of political unrest. The book strives to come to terms with the destruction and exile of Judah in 597-582 BCE. In 597, Judah revolted against Babylon and provoked the first of three invasions and deportations.  Jerusalem, the city walls, the king’s palace, and the temple were all destroyed, as were the lives of many. 

It was turmoil. Imagine the questions that haunted the people who were exiled or who remained.  Had God forgotten his people? How could God allow this devastation? Had God turned away from the covenant? Was God less powerful than the gods of Babylon? How could the community survive?

In Chapter 18 God calls Jeremiah to the Potter’s House to watch the potter work.  I think when we hear or read this passage, we often think of how God shapes our lives. We hear about the potter being displeased with his work, reworking it into something that is pleasing to him, and we think about ourselves.  Is God pleased with us? Is God going to act as a potter in our lives, mashing the clay together and reshaping something more pleasing?

Can we set that interpretation aside for a bit?  Pay attention to verses 5 and 6: “Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Can I not do with you, O House of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”

This is an image to help Jeremiah understand that Israel is in God’s hands. This is a communal passage, not an individual one.  I don’t think this is about God, the potter, reshaping you and me as individuals, but God the potter in action in the community – and for us, I would say, God will be acting within our church communities.

The Way - Part 1

The next few posts will be a sermon I preached late this summer.

On January 16, 1927 – less than 100 years ago – a church in Shrewsberry, Massachusetts, named Fairlawn Community Methodist Episcopal Church, laid a cornerstone.  In it, they stored items that were important to their church’s story.

Decades later, after the church had become Wellspring Community UMC, they were preparing to move to a new building. They dug up the cornerstone to move it to the new location, and they discovered what was inside the “time capsule” of the cornerstone.  Most of the contents was what you might expect: Conference Journals, some 1926 change, including a buffalo nickel, newspaper articles, bulletins, and list of the founding members.  Along with these expected items were multiple pamphlets and magazine published by the Ku Klux Klan.

The church decided to keep the information about their discovery to themselves.

In 2020, the Wellspring Community UMC members voted to close the church. In July of that year, their District Superintendent was gathering information from the church for the Conference Archives and found the contents of the cornerstone. She told Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, who later said, “Fighting racism requires truth telling, confession, and repentance from us all.  We lift up this church’s history not to shame them, but as a lesson for all of us in the importance of facing the past and reconciling with it. We must start by understanding our past; that is the only way we can hope to create a present where there is true racial justice.”

A resolution was passed at the 2020 New England Annual Conference to close the church and to place the assets of the church in a fund at the United Methodist Foundation of New England called the In Our Time Fund.  The purpose of the fund is to support and sustain anti-racism work.  In addition, a project called “Cornerstone: Claiming our past, building a better future” was established and led by the former church’s district to focus on racial justice and repentance.

I tell you this story because today I want to focus on how God works with and through churches like Wellspring United Methodist Church, the New England Annual Conference, and our church to bring about transformation in the world.

Perspectives: Mountains

Back in July, I said I hoped to be back to regular blogging in August. I was, for just a little bit of time, but life pushed it to the back burner again. 

I'm working to return life to a regular routine. I hope that means blogging again.  

I'll see you next week with a series of posts sharing a sermon I wrote in September.