ethans feet

NLC Sermon, Easter 2010

1. This is how Mark decides to end his story about Jesus?
   1. “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”
   2. That’s not really the ending we were looking for
   3. I mean Jesus is Risen!
   4. This is the part in the story when we are supposed to stand up and cheer, the music plays and the actors come out to take their bows, and we leave the theatre feeling good about life
   5. But that’s not what we get.
   6. We get, “they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid”.

1. Mark has taken great pains in telling us the story of the cross Jesus as a story of great crisis
   1. And in Mark’s telling of the story, the crisis of the cross, though re-interpreted in light of the empty tomb, is not reversed.
   2. The resurrection does not end the Jesus story in a nice neat little package, it is, in fact the beginning of a whole other chapter

1. In my experience when crisis happens in our individual lives,
   1. Or as communities or nations or whatever,
   2. Something very important, but often neglected happens.
   3. In the midst of the suffering and confusion that come with a crisis lies a sort of hole
   4. And in that hole is pain and loss, sorrow and fear
   5. But in that hole also, often, lies opportunity for a new future
   6. During a crisis the world as we know it is ruptured and in that rupture, if we have eyes to see it, a new world can become visible

1. But, in my experience, we are as people and communities and institutions decidedly uncomfortable with the hole, with the rupture.
   1. So we try as hard as we can, as fast as we can, to fill the hole and close the rupture.
   2. To get everything back to the way it was before the crisis happened
   3. We do this to save ourselves from the pain of the hole and the fear that comes from having a ruptured reality
   4. This idea came to me as I was studying Mark in seminary on an anniversary of Sept. 11^th
   5. Our world changed on that day, irrevocably.
   6. And in my view, for the most part, we did not as a culture stop and think carefully about what it meant to live in this new reality.
   7. We simply tried to get the world to be like it was on Sept. 10^th, as fast as we could.

1. Or I think of my time in hospital when one of my roommates had a health crisis, came into the hospital and found out he was diabetic
   1. His world had changed
   2. But I remember being skeptical that he was going to change with it
   3. And even more hauntingly I remember thinking how glad I was that I wasn’t him, not sure that I would be able to change my life enough to respond to that crisis

1. What I see Mark doing in the inspired way he ends the Jesus story is fighting to keep the hole open
   1. The cross is a crisis that ruptured reality for all of us
   2. The last thing Mark wants to do is fill that hole, or close the rupture.

1. Because it is in the hole that a crisis creates that resurrection and new life can happen.
   1. It is in the rupture to the world as we know it, that whole new worlds can be envisioned and born and lived into

1. Mark’s whole gospel was told in a way as to communicate that the world as they knew it was coming to an end.
   1. And now, Easter Morning it is time to envision a whole new world
   2. The cross is the crisis that forces Mark’s listeners to see that their past world was gone and wasn’t coming back
   3. The systems of power of Rome and the temple state were breaking down
   4. The dream of a political revolution and return to the Davidic dynasty were shown bankrupt
   5. The resurrection is the hint of where the new world lies
   6. The unsatisfactory way Mark ends his Gospel leaves the hole unfilled the rupture open and refuses to return the world to the way it was before.

1. And we realize that this whole time what we have been reading has been an invitation to live into this new world
   1. A while back in the story Jesus asked his disciples, “but what about you, who do you say that I am?”
   2. And I asked us to imagine that he had turned and asked that directly to us
   3. And we saw that the disciples got the answer kinda write but also kinda wrong
   4. Well now the angelic figure gives the women a command to go and tell and follow Jesus
   5. And the women fail, and I want us to imagine the angelic figure looking out to us, as if to say, they failed – what will you do?

1. One more thing about the crisis
   1. For the disciples the cross was not merely a crisis that they experienced but also one in which they participated.
   2. By this point in the story every one of Jesus’ followers (even the crowds) have betrayed him, denied him, fled his presence or fallen asleep when they were needed most.
   3. We too often find that we are in fact complicit in the crisis that befall us
   4. And when we realize that, the desire to make it all like it was before is even stronger
   5. But the need for us to see the world honestly, in all its ruptured reality, is even more important
   6. For if we are going to change, we need to see that the world has changed around us
   7. And it is precisely these disciples – Peter by name – that are invited to join the resurrected Jesus in engaging in this new reality.

1. So to review:
   1. The cross is the crisis that blows the world wide open.
   2. Mark’s ending invites his hearers to live into that new reality.
   3. And what is that invitation explicitly?
   4. To go, gather the old gang, go back to Galilee and wait for Jesus.
   5. Wait what, why Galilee?  What happens in Galilee?
   6. For that I turn to Chapter 1 v. 14

“Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  “The time has come,” he said.  “The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news.”

1. The end of the story points us back to the beginning of the story.
   1. To re-read anew the story of Jesus knowing how it ends.
   2. We are invited to knowingly follow Jesus on his path that leads to the cross.
   3. The resurrection does not nullify the tragedy of the cross.
   4. Instead the resurrection shows us that the world that crucified Jesus is ruptured and the new reality is a new world, a new kingdom.
   5. And that in this new kingdom it is not power and brutality and death that have the final say, but rather sacrificial love that leads to new life.
   6. And the way to live in line with that new reality is the way that leads to the cross, through the cross and to the promise of resurrection and new life.
   7. We learn that in our life, in the good times as well as the crises, resurrection is present.

NLC Sermon

March 28, 2010

Passion Sermon

• We serve a crucified God.  What does it mean to serve a crucified God?
  • As jennifer pointed out in her sharing of the Palm Sunday story
  • A crucified God is not a victorious God – at least not in the way we typically think of victory.
  • A crucified God is not a triumphant God – not in the way we typically think of triumph.
  • A crucified God does not promise to us that everything is going to work out the way we want it to.

• We serve a crucified God.  What does it mean to serve a crucified God?
  • It means that in the moment of our deepest despair,
  • In the hours of our deepest fears,
  • During our seasons of greatest doubt,
  • In those times in our life when the “all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good” God seems so distant.
  • In precisely THAT moment, the crucified God we serve is closest to us.

• We serve a crucified God.  What does it mean to serve a crucified God?
  • It means that when our God given passion for life & light & love & peace,
  • Collides head first into a world of death & darkness & hate & violence,
  • And leaves us flattened
  • That in that moment our crucified God is closest to us.

• When our plans for community fail to fulfill their promise
• When our marriages and families are filled with strife
• When our plans to begin a family are postponed or thwarted
• When our dreams for tomorrow are sidetracked by job loss or the inability to find one

• These are not the times when our God is furthest from us, but nearest.

• We serve a crucified God.  What does it mean to serve a crucified God?
  • It means that we serve a God that has suffered all that we might ever suffer and more,
  • We serve a God who more than empathizes with us He is present with us in our suffering.
  • Our God is not far off.  Not ever.

• Does this mean that we celebrate or even minimize suffering? No.  Especially not the suffering we see in others?  Not ever.  We fight it, as Christ did, whenever and wherever we see it.
  • We do not seek out suffering for sufferings sake.  This is not, what I believe, we see Jesus doing on the cross.
  • This doesn’t mean we act recklessly with our life either.  Jesus was strategic and intentional about when and where he stuck his neck out.
  • And I’ve been doing this long enough to see a number of examples of recklessness, even for the sake of others, ultimately bringing more suffering into the world, not less.
  • But it does mean that our life of faithfulness to our crucified God might just call us to follow him into suffering.  And when that happens He will be there with us.

• I believe that there are two paths that we can take in our life.  A path where safety is the highest goal which leads to a sort of living death.  And the path of an openness to suffering that leads to true life.
  • The only way to be safe in this life is to refuse risk.  Including the risk to love, the risk to be part of a family, a community, the risk to follow a dream, the risk to stand up for what is right.  Life that refuses to take any of these risks is not much of a life at all.
  • But the path to real life, the path less traveled, is a path that is filled with suffering and the potential for suffering.
  • To love is to increase by at least %100 your opportunities for suffering.  Every pain of your beloved is a pain of yours.
  • To love a child is to increase that ten more times.  I suffer pain already from missing the 2 year old Ethan I will never get to hang out with again.
  • To be in authentic community is to expand the circle of possible suffering even larger, and to reach out to our neighbor, to love our enemy, these things practically guarantee a level of suffering on our part.
  • To stand up for what’s right, to proclaim the coming of the KOG, to preach good news as well as repentance into a world that doesn’t want to hear either is to invite the sort suffering that Christ endured into our lives.

• To serve a crucified God does not mean we honor suffering in and of itself, but it does provide for us an image of what following this God is all about.
  • To live a life that pursues light & love & life & peace, in a world of death & darkness & hate & conflict will result in a life that has its fair share of suffering.
  • The good news of the cross, the joy of following the crucified God is not that we get to avoid that suffering but rather that when we experience it we know that God is with us.

• We have a hundred choices every day.  And most of the time we are going to choose the safest path, that’s just human nature.
  • But what I would like to suggest to you today is that the crucified God is not afraid to call you out of that safety
  • Not offering you any guarantees other then the promise that no matter what happens the crucified God is with you.

Before:

So I have come to accept the fact that I am a happier person when i have a good video game in my life. Am i proud of that, no. but i’m no longer running from it.

I think one reason might be that I don’t have many areas in my life where I can say, “that’s done, I’m finished, I succeeded, and in fact I kicked that’s arse!”

Church is always a work in progress, fatherhood has good days and bad days, but no “work is done” days, and being a home maker is, as they say, like beading a string with no knot.

But when i finish a level on a game, its done, i’m never gunna have to do it again, and there’s usually someone there to tell me how much arse i kicked!

Hello blog, I’m gunna try to neglect you less.

The week before last i preached a sermon on hope.  And it was one of those sermons (this happens to me from time to time) where all my best ideas about the subject came the week AFTER I preached it.  Oh well, good thing my congregation loves me .

Anyway, i thought i would share the most important idea i had.

See the sermon was about hope.  And the connection between hope and faith.  The idea was that when we have a “crises of faith” it’s not really an intellectual questioning of the meta-narrative of  our belief system  (though that might be part of it).  But most often our “crisis of faith” are born out of despair.

And then i talked about prayer, and how to pray is to hope, because to pray is to believe that a different reality is possible in the future.

But here’s the thing, that’s too much about tomorrow.  I mean i still believe that, but what I have come to realize is that even more important is that to pray is to acknowledge that God is “in” the present.  so I pray for my church because I believe God is “in it” and therefor it is a good worth praying for, and working for, and loving, etc.

Hope is not merely, or even primarily, a future oriented thing.  To have hope is to recognize the good in the present.

I just read a book called “How Your Church Family Works” by Peter L. Steinke.  And though at times I wished it was written with more, how should i say, strategy (some sections too short, some ideas repeated unnecessarily) overall I am glad i read the book.  The gist (for me) is this:

All churches are complex social networks (like families).  Anxiety can (and will) enter into these relationships form any number of places, external, inter-relational and personal.  The bad news is that often our church communities do not function as a collection of well-differentiated persons.  But rather, we function as a mesh of dependent and co-dependent interrelated and subconsciously triangled relationships. Therefore, when ever any anxiety enters the system it does not stay isolated wherever it enters the system but bounces and rebounds and doubles and triples itself within the web of relationships.

The good news (all though good news that comes with its own baggage it seems to me) is that the leadership of a community is in a unique position to take the power out of the anxiety by simply not entering into it.  i don’t mean by nonchalantly ignoring the problem or pretending it doesn’t exit, that’s actually a way of supporting it’s spread, but by engaging in the anxiety without being defined by it.

Of course all it takes is for the leader to have a perfect sense of who they are, what they want, who they are in relationship to others, and how their emotions are affecting them at any given moment.

In conclusion, I might say that Steink’s main definition of a leader is to be  a grown up.  They didn’t teach me how to do that in seminary.  I guess I’ll have to learn as i go.

So I had a total hand slap to the forehead moment the other day.

You see I have always used the term “missional church” without really realizing what it meant.  I mean I could have probably defined it in an academic way (I mean I’ve actually met the dude that made up the term) but I hadn’t made it concrete for myself in my setting.

And then, the other day I was thinking about my church and about how we always seem to me to be in danger of focusing on the important internal work of community formation and discipleship at the expense of the work of outreach and service.

And I thought (really for the first time) about how outreach and service, though different, both demand a posture of thinking of the person outside the church.  And then I thought that for all the other things we do well as a church, if we don’t have a posture facing toward the other then we have lost our mission.  And then i thought to myself that having a mission for any church really just means having a focus that lies outside the community that already exists in the church.  And then I realized that is what everyone else means when they talk about a “missional church”.

Duh.

If you are looking for a way to give an alternative Christmas gift, here’s a great place to start:

http://www.adventuresforthecure.com/campaigns/kupendaChristmas.html

Check it out.

For all our debating about atonement theory, reformed theology and the rest of it we often lose sight of the power and beauty of many of the original writings.  When considered with a proper sense of perspective, they are incredible resources for the church.  Here is a money quote from Martin Luther i cam across in my sermon prep today:

The “incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom.  By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh.  And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage – indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage – it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil.  Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own.  Let us compare these and we shall see inestimable benefits.  Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation.  The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation.  Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life and salvation will be the soul’s; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride’s and bestow upon her the things that are his.  If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his?  And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?

Here we have a most pleasing vision not only of communion but of a blessed struggle and victory and salvation and redemption.  Christ is God and man in one person.  He has neither sinned nor died, and is not condemned, and he cannot sin, die, or be condemned; his righteousness, life, and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, omnipotent.  By the wedding ring of faith he shares in the sins, death, and pains of hell that are his bride’s.  As a matter of fact, he makes them his own acts as if they were his own and as if he himself had sinned; he suffered, died, and descended into hell that he might overcome them all”.

– Martin Luther c. 1520

I spent this past weekend up in Boston for my first in person board meeting for the aid organization Kupenda for the Children.  I have to tell you it was an immensely affirming experience.  For one thing I am a nerd so getting lost in the weeds and inertia of budgets and strategy kind of gets me going.  But mostly it was the people.

The Kupenda board is populated with people who have simply fallen in love with this little neighbourhood in the Kingdom of God.  Kupenda supports somewhere in the neighbourhood of 500 children in Kenya born with one form of disability or another.  And every one on the board but me has gone over there (most of them more than once) and the experience has become a calling in their life to dedicate themselves to this ministry.

One couple has raised probably close to fifty thousand dollars by this point doing fund raisers from riding their bikes across the country to having a mustache growing contest in a local bar.  Another couple has planned at least one volunteer trip per year for the last several years, with all the work that goes into something like that.  Another lady has used her connections in local schools to collect resources that teachers are done with to ship to the teachers in Kenya.

And then there’s the director, Cindy, who has simply poured herself out like a drink offering for these kids.  Completely re-arranging her life to fit in the margins around her work with Kupenda.  She has been living this way for nearly a decade now and received nothing in return for it!  Thankfully this past weekend the board convinced her to take a small monthly stipend and set it as a goal to pay her full time soon.

To see these people, their passion, dedication and creativity gave me hope in the possibility of what me and my friends can do when and if we put our minds to it.

If you’d like to see how you can support Kupenda, go here.  But basically the need is money, so feel free to send a check to “Kupenda for the Children” PO Box 473 Hampton, NH 03843.  And put “General Fund” in the subject line.