Shelter in Place

You are
missed

Alone for now
Quiet these weeks
The sunlight still beams
through my morning panes
purples and blues and browns and greens
but your faces are not here now
to beam back illumination
I've seen that shine
all these years
I miss it

I miss your voices
your singing great or glad
I miss bells and brass and bulletins
I miss Riley's entrance
and Rex's handshakes
Rhonda's good mornings
Ryden's amens from his back corner
I miss the sound of water
The silence of your remembering
And the chatter of your bustling peace
I miss you hugging
and happy

I miss your
blessing
each other
and me
in that song I like

'May He guide you
through the wilderness
Protect you through the storm'

I hope you are well
I hope your own four walls
are as glad to hear your praises
as I have become every seventh day

Make sure your living room has some sunlight
Turn up your speaker so the organ sounds like mine
Pour some water and pass some bread and shake your hands
Like you do when you are here with me
Like you do when you do what you do

In that way
I am willing to share you
with your own houses
as I wait for you to
come back here
to God's

my
Presbyterians
You are missed
You are loved

'May He bring you home rejoicing
once again
into my
doors'

— your Sanctuary on Wimbish Road

By Day and By Night

Our journey with Jesus through our Lenten wilderness continues this second Sunday of Lent with a reading from John 3:1-17.  The central character of this episode is a prominent Jewish leader named Nicodemus.   His prominence in the community is noted, inversely, by the fact that he must come to see Jesus "at night."  Indeed, strange and unsettling events often happen under the cover of night.  Cars are stolen and fences are crossed and windows are busted out.  The sun's departure invites all manner of tomfoolery in this broken world.

But sometimes the Holy happens upon us at night, too.  In John 3, the darkness provides a prominent religious leader the careful cover he needs to have the kind of open, searching, curious, and even agnostic conversation he cannot have in the daytime.  Persons of some prominence often lead fairly settled lives because of their settled roles and the settled expectations placed upon them by those among whom they are protuberant.  But Jesus's ministry, particularly his healings, has prompted lots of unsettling questions for Mr. Nick, who seeks out the young, potent Preacher at great risk to his settled religious reputation.  Thanks to the gospel of John, we get to listen in on their conversation.

What questions are you carrying through this Lenten season, ones perhaps you can only reveal under the cover of Jesus' patient and listening grace?

Weaknesses

Our weekly saunter through the first few chapters of Paul's voluminous words to the followers of Jesus in ancient Corinth continues this week with a reading from 2:1-16.  "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom."  This, following Paul's earlier rebuke of all the self-important "wisdom" and philosophical posturing of every age, in light of the 'embarrassing' way God has come to us in a helpless child.

The Apostle Paul rejecting the value of lofty words is like Miss Universe downplaying the importance if outward beauty.  Paul was a smart man, an educated man, a public figure accustomed to public speech.  For him to come to a place in his life where lofty words have lost their luster is a sign, not only of some newfound humility, but of a major movement of God in his life.  It is not hyperbole to say that the death of Jesus, and the life lived by his first followers, changed everything for Paul.  And so he can say to the Corinthians Christians, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified."  The weakness of the cross is, for New Paul, the key to everything.

Paul has learned what we all must learn before God: The end of our ability to manage this life on our own is the beginning of God's way forward in and for us.  Our weaknesses, when we admit them, have the nice side benefit of accentuating God's strength.  Paul:  I tried not to dress the faith up in too much finery. They way you know your faith has been built on manifestations of God's presence as a savior, not on my cleverness as a communicator.  Only Jesus saves; never his people.

Foolishness

In these rancorous times in which we live, there seems to be a prevailing assumption that "he or she who talks the loudest must surely be Correct."  Subscribe to cable TV these days and you can enjoy three dozen channels of talking heads shouting it out about impeachment, Ukraine, Golden Globes, Pro Bowl pics, and hair care secrets.  It is striking to me that I can no longer even pump gas into my orange Jeep without enduring a screen in front of me, belting out audio selling this or news-breaking that.  So much for 5 minutes dispensing Mid-grade as a quiet chance to collect my thoughts.  Although my daddy raised me always to stay informed about this world, I'm starting to wonder if in fact willful avoidance (of so much noise) may in fact be a necessity for discipleship.  One can only take so many talking heads.   And this ... from a preacher.

Pumping gas while enduring more Opinions makes me appreciate Paul's cultural critique in 1 Corinthians 1:18–31, our lectionary reading for this Sunday.  "So what about these wise ones, these scholars, these brilliant debaters of this world’s great affairs? God has made them all look foolish and shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense."   According to the apostle, this good news about Jesus is not just one more strand of super-Serious-Opinion in an already tight knot of rancor.  Everyone scrambles to be Right in this world, and many assume that the Divine will always take up Their Case ... but meanwhile God is usually up to something different; something so righteous (i.e. according to God's own terms) that it appears ridiculous to its Cultured Despisers.  Talking Heads seem to always tighten our spirits; only a resurrecting God can loosen them.

The cross of Jesus is proof to Paul that the living God gets a kick out of flying in under the radar of what everyone assumes to be True and Right and Obvious.  The cross turns out to be an open secret in a Loud Landscape; it is a whispering God dealing with a cantankerous world by showing up in God's own way: quietly, sacrificially, passionately, from the inside out ... and as a Fool.

Guess what?  For an hour or so this Sunday, we get to turn off MSNBC and Fox and all the Other Ones ... and celebrate the absolute "foolishness" of the gospel.  How about we practice being fools for Christ in such a Serious Season?  You won't even have to pump.

United but not Confused

Christian unity is at once both a fact and a calling, an indicative and an imperative, both already-eternally-true and always-humanly-fragile.

It is the blessed indicative of the good news about Jesus that, because the Father and the Son are one (united but never conflated), and because the Son has called us by name, therefore we are now one (united but never conflated) with God and one with each other.  Unity is a gift given that precedes our choices.  Praise be to God.

But in this Christian confession, most indicatives also come with an imperative.  "It is so ... so live like it!" the New Testament often asserts.  That's what the Apostle Paul seems to be insisting in our 1 Corinthians passage for this Sunday, chapter 1 verses 10-18.  "I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose."

 Let us rejoice that the Christian movement is never a cult, wherein one is required to surrender the individual mind and forfeit one's individual will for the sake of some falsely-holy homogeneity.  No, we are called the Christian unity, not cultic uniformity.  Unity is a choice, because it is a first a gift; such unity never dissolves our differences, it merely softens them so that we no longer have to have our way on everything in order to see the way to God.  It is a choice to stand together, to work together, for seek together the word and way of Jesus.  Indeed, we are more united as one when each of us, in our own ways and in our own times, commits and recommits to loving our God and loving our neighbor.

Each week begins with the gift of unity; each week ends by our asking, How did we do?

Readiness

Speaking of Stewardship Season, here's a nice nugget of wisdom from our Presbyterian tradition:

"Those who follow the discipline of Christian stewardship will find themselves called to lives of simplicity, generosity, honesty, hospitality, compassion, receptivity, and concern for the earth and God’s creatures."

What a list.  This week I'm struck by the word RECEPTIVITY; not the first term one might associate with an emphasis on stewardship giving, inside or outside our congregation.  But I think it fits.  If one starts with the spiritually cascading truths that all is God's and all is on loan from God and all is offered back to God as worship and gratitude — and that Jesus is our leader is no doubt the exemplar steward — then good stewardship invites us to learn again and again a supple posture of receptivity.

Openness.  Nimbleness.  Readiness.   After all, one never knows what is next in this way of walking.

What opportunities for good giving will present themselves?  Where will I sense the divine Holy Spirit nudge?  When a moment of extra giving comes along, how can I trust that giving away more of the gifts of God will be good for my soul, thereby flipping the script on the tendency to grasp and cling?  Maybe you have a talent:  Are you open to new and surprising ways that our Providential God might put it to use for blessing others?  And given that we serve a Resurrecting God, full of Easter Surprises and Pentecost Interruptions, how can we each pay attention for the prompting of that same Spirit in the nooks and crannies of ordinary days?  and in the week to week of this congregation we love?

Sunday's gospel teaching is again from Luke, again it is Jesus teaching us in simple parable, and again is about a posture toward God and God's world around us that could rightly be called stewardship.  Luke 12:35-48.  Read ahead, and “be dressed for action.  Have your lamps lit!"  Jesus-receptivity and Jesus-readiness apparently call for a smart source of light.  After all, a follower of Jesus never quite knows what the morrow will bring.

That is the blessing of this stewardship business, not a curse.

Friendships as Ministry

We all have friends.

Granted, the breadth and depth of friendship may vary from person to person, but surely all of us traffic in at least a few friendships.  As such, other than our families of origin, friendships are probably the most ubiquitous of all relationships.  Not everyone is called to marry.  Not everyone raises children or grandchildren.  Most of us do not loom large in public life and therefore the benefactor of hundreds of social acquaintances.  But by virtue of the great commandment to love our neighbors as well as we would love ourselves, all of us are called to the ministry of friendship.

Our simple summer sermon series for June and July explores some themes in the Christian ministry of friendship.  We started with a refresher on the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, in some ways rescuing those familiar lines from the clutches of wedding ceremonies and repositioning Paul's teaching as direction for every Christian in every relationship -- not just for couples "in love."  Next we'll mine the collected wisdom of the book of Proverbs for reminders on the nature of friendship.  Then we'll sit at table with Jesus and his first disciples as he announces to them, and us, that he no longer calls us servants, but rather "friends."  The implications of this new and provocative nomenclature are many, so we'll take a look at what that means both for us as his friends and for others who know us as a friend.

Behind the scenes, your session is in prayerful discussion about specific areas and directions of ministry for the next five years in the life of our beloved Northminster church.  We hope to discern a handful of mission endeavors that will guide our common life and offer ministry to others in Jesus' name.  Those are sacred and important discussions, and I know we will be sharing with you soon what we are discerning and where we hope to go in the way of direction, vocation.  The ministry we do together is important.

But meanwhile, regarding ministry, it seems to me that everyone of us also has a ministry waiting for us every time we connect with our friends.  One does not always have to cross the seas or cross the town or cross cultures in order to share in Jesus' ministry of mercy, reconciliation, and love.  Sometimes his kingdom is as a close at hand as a text message, a lunch date, a golf outing, or a note.  I hope this short summer series will be an encouragement to you as you steward the friendships God has providentially placed in your life.