Watch Your Mouth

As we look at the Lectionary this week, we are reminded of what an awesome, holy, meaningful task we have been given - the task of speaking God's words to God's people. We have been called, equipped and sent by God. And we have also been warned by God. Take a look.

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.”(Emphasis mine)

So this week, like every other week, we prepare to preach, to speak God's word to God's people. We are called to be prophets and it is a high and holy calling. We are not called to speak my word to God's people. We are not called to speak about the latest idea that has come rolling down the road. We have not been called to drag out and ride our hobby horses in front of the congregation. We have not been called to share our amazing wisdom or our profound opinions. We have been called to do much more than that.

Our greatest challenge as pastors and as church leaders is to discover what God is saying and where God is leading. Unfortunately most of us are smart enough to do an adequate job at preaching and running a church without God's direction. Just as unfortunately, we would be doing just that, an adequate job. Instead we are charged with spending time in prayer, meditation and study to connect with God and find what He has to say about and to the church. Frankly (Or Billy) I would find it much easier to just do it myself.

Doing it myself would be easier. But it would not be better. Sad to say, I find doing things like prayer and meditation are difficult for me. Listening for and hearing God is a huge challenge. But it is what I am called to do. And I find the Scripture in Deuteronomy to be VERY MOTIVATING.

So, as you and I prepare to speak to God's people this week, let's get the message right. How about making this Sunday's sermon a sermon NOT to die for.

Copyright (c) 2009, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

Ten Minutes (Luke 2:22-40)

Edit: I must have hit send about the same time as Brian; his comments for 12/21 appear below. This post is for the 12/28 readings.... [end edit]

It appears that the posters to this site (like me) are experiencing worship services full of cantatas and children's pageants, and therefore have little sermon preparation to do--and not much to post here. Therefore, I present to you some early thoughts for Sunday, December 28 ... the first Sunday after Christmas. What follows is the first draft of my sermon. The end isn't quite finished yet, and my goal is to preach this sermon in just ten minutes (the reason why will become clear as you read). So, this is still a work-in-progress.

It seems like the decorations have been up forever. They started appearing well over two months ago, at shopping malls and amusement parks. Then, some people in your neighborhood put up their decorations (not you of course), and it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet. And all of a sudden, you found yourself humming Christmas tunes.

By the day after Thanksgiving, you couldn't help it anymore. It was time for Christmas. You made your shopping list, you opened your own box (or, boxes) of decorations, you began untangling the lights. Christmas was still a month away--but it's so hard to wait, isn't it?

Then came the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is a season of preparation, anticipation, and waiting, but when it arrived, it seemed as if Christmas was already here. It sure seemed strange to be told to wait, watch, and prepare, when we'd already seen Santa Claus make his arrival at Herald Square, and greet children at our local mall. Clergy told their congregations that it was the season for singing Advent hymns, not Christmas carols, but few would listen to such nonsense... they wanted their Christmas now.

It's just so hard to wait. It's so hard to wait for Christmas.

Simeon and Anna had been waiting a very long time to see the birth of the messiah. When baby Jesus was about six weeks old, his parents--Mary and Joseph--brought him to the temple in Jerusalem, to dedicate him to the Lord. They were met there by Simeon and Anna, who, it seems, had been waiting nearly their whole lives for this moment. Anna in particular had been waiting--worshiping, fasting, and praying--for many, many years, waiting day and night. Waiting to see Jesus. Waiting to see Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Messiah.

How did they do it? How did they wait for so long? We can't even wait for Christmas. Heck, most of us can't even wait for the red light to turn green. We tap our fingers on the steering wheel, we fidget with the radio, we do whatever we can to make those unbearably long seconds until the light changes green pass by more quickly.

When Jesus began his ministry, some thirty years later, he knew that he had important work to do. He knew that God was calling him to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the dawning of a new age, a new kingdom. With a "to-do" list like that, I'm sure he felt the urge to get started right away. But he didn't.

Instead, he went into the wilderness for forty days. And during those forty days, he was tempted to begin his ministry prematurely, to end his time of fasting early by transforming a stone into a loaf of bread. But he resisted this, and other temptations as well, and waited for the forty days to finish.

At other times throughout his ministry, Jesus waited. He waited on God in prayer. He prayed on a mountain, he prayed in the garden, he prayed at night; and much of that time in prayer, I believe, was time spent waiting. It was time spent listening for God.

Simeon and Anna, I believe, were unique individuals. Certainly God does not expect every follower of God to spend their whole lives waiting. However, a little bit of waiting would do most of us a whole lot of good.

One of the first things I did when I arrived here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church last spring was to ask you to spend ten minutes a day in prayer. It sounds like such a simple, easy request, and yet I know that it is not. I know, because I don't always succeed in taking ten minutes to pray, and I'm the pastor who made the suggestion!

In asking you to pray for ten minutes, I did not expect you to fill all those minutes with words. I did not expect you to start the timer at "Dear God," and then keep talking until, ten minutes later, you arrived at "Amen." I don't think that's how Jesus spent most of his time in prayer, and I don't think that's how we should be spending most of our time in prayer.

Some of the best prayer is sitting in silence with God, although I have to warn you: sitting in silence feels an awful lot like waiting.

If you find that you're too restless to sit, then go for a walk. Jesus went up a mountain, but you can just go around the block. Or do some activity that doesn't require too much concentration, to keep your hands busy as you pray. Some adults I know knit; some youth I know make friendship bracelets.

I often find that, for me, sermon-writing is a form of prayer. For that reason, I often write out my sermons the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper. I do eventually type them into the computer, but my typing speed is 80 words per minute, and it's just too hard to pray when you're flying along at 80 words per minute.

If you can find ten minutes a day to spend with God, to wait on God, then your life will be blessed. Of that, I have no doubt. And if a lot of us are able to spend ten minutes a day in prayer, then our church will be blessed.

It really does take some time to prepare ourselves to see the presence of God. Such things cannot be rushed. It takes time to see Jesus in our midst, to recognize the presence of Christ. Many rush through the Christmas season without ever seeing Jesus.

He's not just in the manger.

A Gift for All

By Brian Kirk

Luke 1: 26-38

There is so much one can say about this text. We could really get into a discussion over the possibility of a virgin birth, did or didn't Luke mistranslate texts from the Hebrew scriptures, but I don't really think these discussions resonate with people's hearts when it comes to the story of Mary and the visit of the angel. What always strikes me here is how radical this whole episode is -- radical in ways we might not recognize in the 21st century. This is particularly so when it comes to gender roles. Luke starts his gospel, as we might expect, with a story of a man, Zechariah. But we quickly discover that Zechariah, the doubter, will not be the hero of this story. Instead, Luke turns his attention to two female characters, Elizabeth and then Mary, both of whom are much more receptive to receiving the news of the angels and willing to play their part in the drama than is Zechariah. Oh, and don't blink or you'll miss Joseph's role in the story altogether.

These episodes set the tone for all of Luke's gospel. He's not arguing for women's liberation, of course, but rather is setting the stage for the way the gospel of Jesus will turn the current state of the world on it's head. In a partriarchal culture, God will change the world through two humble women. Later in Luke's gospel we will see this same role reversal happen as the good news is delivered first, not to the powerful, but to some lowly shepherds. Luke is the gospel writer who will tell us of women disciples, and will have a special place in his drama for the plight of the least of these, the outcast, the poor, and the outsider.

The mere fact that he centers the start of his story of Mary in Nazareth in Galilee is a reminder that this "king" will not be born to celebrity, but will come from humble origins: a small, backwoods village. Galilee was known as a place where Jews and Gentiles coexisted peacefully. Luke is reminding us early on that Jesus' mission will not be just to his own kind, but to all people -- the Jew, the Gentile, male, female, rich, poor, clean, unclean.

What are the implications here for critiquing the focus in so much of Christianity on "personal salvation?" The angel tells Mary that Jesus' kingdom "will have no end." How do we loosen our grasp on the Christ child long enough to realize that he has come for all humankind? That the peace, joy, hope, and love he brings isn't just for those who claim him by name, but for all God's children? That he comes to us not just individually, but communally, as people of faith?

I'm reminded of the story, told in so many cultures and faiths, of the way God's light became hidden inside all of us. In some versions of the story, it is sin that causes the light to fragment, with tiny pieces finding their way inside each human soul. In other versions of the story, God (the trickster) purposely hides the light so that we will go in search of it. The great challenge of life, then, is to discover that light of God within each person. Luke's Jesus nudges us in this direction, even from the start of the gospel, declaring that God works through the most unexpected people. That God's light will become enfleshed through the life of the peasant girl Mary. Perhaps the challenge of this story is to realize that, just as God's light is within all others, God's light is within us, too. And as Mary enfleshes that light in the birth of Jesus, we too are called to enflesh that light in the way we live and serve.

MIXED MOTIVATIONS FOR THE ADVENT APPEAL - FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT 2008

By Dr. Richard Guentert

[Based on Isaiah 64:1-9]

As we make preparation for the coming of the Christ child, we remember that for ages the church has prayed: “Come, Lord Jesus. Come!” It is a prayer for the Ascension in reverse. It is a prayer that the transcendence of God might make itself known in the immanence of God. It is a prayer for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in John 14: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again . . .!” It is the Advent prayer of Christians during their life-long pilgrimage through the recurring cycle of the Church Year.

Such a petition – for the epiphany of deity – is not unique to Christianity. It was also the plea of ancient Judaism centuries before it became the mantra of the Church. However, in those days it took a slightly different form. In our Old Testament lectionary text for this week we encounter such a petition – replete with mixed motives.

In Isaiah 64 the plea carries with it contradictory reasons for desiring the advent of the divine. At first, the demander’s invitation is wrathful (verses 1-2).

To paraphrase: I wish you would tear away the holy hindrances that keep your Presence from us, and make yourself known – right here, right, now, right in our midst! Come like a fire that disintegrates everything in its pathway. Come like a fire that makes water bubble and boil and become a vanishing vapor. Do this in a manner that makes your adversaries tremble and the nations quake. COME AND GET THEM!

[There is an allusion in verse three to God’s Exodus epiphany on the quaking mountain – the cataclysmic, multi-sensory scene of the Ten Commandments being delivered to Moses.]

But by the end of the lectionary passage, the invitation becomes a merciful plea . . . a remarkable reversal in the demeanor of the demander.

To paraphrase: But despite everything, you are the First Fashioner who has formed us from the dust of the earth. It was by the handiwork of your fingers that we were shaped in accordance with your will. So please don’t be too upset with us, O Divine Creator. And we plead with you not to hold our transgressions against us, all the way into eternity. We humbly beseech you to remember that we are the beloved, the work of your hands. COME AND SAVE US!

In summary, Isaiah’s plea starts out with wanting God to burst into the present as The Vengeful One, but he ends up wanting God to come as The Merciful One who has ceased keeping track of our wrongs, and tempered any long-held hostilities toward us.

In between these two differing reasons for desiring the coming of God, there is a complaint that God has been absent from the scene for far too long (verse 4). This complaint then turns to blame.

To paraphrase: “After all, our sin is due to your being upset with us; and you know that we wouldn’t have gone astray if you hadn’t hid yourself from us” (verse 5b). It actually feels like you’ve concealed your presence from us and in so doing just handed us over to our own propensities for wickedness” (verse 7b). IT”S ALL YOUR FAULT, GOD!

At first they wanted God to appear in their midst and reign down wrath on those who were undeserving of God’s grace. But in retrospect, it occurs to them (and via them, to us) that “all of us are the undeserving.”

So in this Advent season what is the motivation for our seeking the fresh appearance of Christ? – to make sure all those other folk and situations get punished by an A.W.O.L., even-the-score kind of God? – or is it make sure that WE (all of us) get made over afresh, and graced by this God of presence, goodness and benevolence?

It is the latter which is the underscored sentiment again and again and again in Psalm 80:3, 7, and 19. “Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.”

It is the sentiment of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians in chapter 1, verse 8-9. “He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

But never ever imagine that you can figure out or pre-determine the time and place of this intervention. All you can do is: “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. Keep Awake!” (Mark 13:33, 37). Prayerfulness, perceptiveness and unpretentiousness – those are the personal disciplines of preparation we are to nurture throughout this Advent season 2008.

Having The Eyes of Your Hearts Enlightened - A Meditation for the First Sunday of Advent

EPHESIANS 1:15-23

Finding ourselves on the waning side of the Thanksgiving celebration and on the eve of the liturgical season of Advent, we read the Ephesians text with the twin themes of “gratitude” and “anticipation” washing over us. We, like the writer of Ephesians, “do not cease to give thanks” for each expression of the church, and we often include the church in our prayers of thanksgiving in our Lord’s Day assemblies. Likewise, we anticipate afresh on this first Sunday of Advent the unity God wills in Christ Jesus - “to put all things under his feet and [make] him the head over all things for the church."

Some have called Ephesians a devotional meditation on the reconciliation God is making possible by uniting all things in Christ. That certainly should resonate with us as we recall the new identity statement of the Disciples of Christ – “a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.” Advent becomes a fresh opportunity for the exploration of the role that our faith plays in de-fraging the frays and foibles of our frantic affairs.

This prayer-text is a petition offered in anticipation of the kind of “wisdom” that takes notice of such unity. And it is offered in expectation of the kind of “revelation” that is attentive to the possibilities for such unity.

All of this is dependent upon a heightened capability to be aware . . . aware of what is, and aware of what more can be! The Ephesians phrase suggests that the prerequisite for this is to have “the eyes of your heart enlightened.” What a fascinating, imaginative and poetic way of stating the author’s summons to awareness. It would be like our saying: You must have the ears of your mind attuned. Or, you must have the taste buds of your spirit stimulated. Or, you must have the touch of your intuition sensitized. All our senses are marshaled in the service of discernment.

The directive to have the “eyes of our hearts enlightened” is a summons to deeper insightfulness. And it is an insightfulness that finds prophetic and messianic specificity in the Ezekiel text (34:11-24) where God is portrayed as “paying attention” – with all senses alert – to the scattered, the strayed, the injured, and the weak (verse 16). God’s remedy is the establishment of a new shepherd – David – the ancestor of the Messiah/Shepherd whose Advent we await in this season of the Church Year.

Christ Jesus is the long awaited Messiah/Shepherd whose teaching about righteousness and judgment finds its expression in the other lectionary text of Matthew 25:31-46. Having the “eyes of our hearts enlightened” we are summoned to attentiveness and life-giving ministries of care among the hungry, the thirsting, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. For as we offer mercy to any one of the least of these, we make a pleasing offering to the Messiah/Shepherd – the perfect Christmas gift, if you will.

In worship last week many sang the hymn “We Gather Together To Ask The Lord’s Blessing” (No. 276 in Chalice Hymnal). As I thought of this lectionary text from Ephesians I was stuck by these lyrics in the hymn - - - “The powers that oppress us now cease to distress us, O God be present with us, and make your will known!” That certainly must be the prayer of a fragmented world in need of the wholeness that only unity in the message and ministry of Christ can offer. May the eyes of our hearts be so enlightened. And may our Advent confidence be in the re-birth of Christ’s reign afresh – “not only in this age, but also in the age to come” (verse 21)! It is, indeed, “the hope to which he has called you” (verse 18)!

November 23 Sheepish Behavior

Matthew 25:31-46

“Lord, when did we see you like that?” When you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters you did it also unto me. And the sheep are stunned. But we weren’t trying to be religious or anything. We didn’t know. Maybe that is why there are called sheep here. They didn’t know. Aw, I just had a little left over time so I helped make the Trinity meal. Yeah, I called on some folks who were sick, but the truth is, I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say. I didn’t know I helped feed hungry people, I just dropped a few bucks into the offering plate.

God says, “Surprise. That’s the way that it works. In the end you are judged by whether or not your faith drives you to do some good for the least and the lost.”

The goats on the other hand, are equally surprised and monumentally disappointed. These are the people who thought they were going to heaven, but find out at the last minute that they are going to be on the outside looking in. They are rejected because they didn’t care for the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters. They did not respond to human suffering, so God’s judgment is harsh. And they don’t like it. “Lord when did we see you? We were waiting for you to come back? I even put a bumper sticker on my car, “In case of Rapture, this car will be unoccupied.” I read the Left Behind books, and I believed the right things, I kept my nose clean and didn’t do many really bad things.”

But the Lord says, “You don’t you get it. I said I’d return and you used that as a reason to feel smug and superior to others with that arrogant bumper sticker. Hoping to see the cars and planes crash when their drivers and pilots were snatched into heaven at the rapture, that’s just sick. Well, do I have news for you. I came back already and you missed it.”

But the goats had not been able to hear what the Lord told the sheep. “When did you come back? We didn’t see you!”

“Whenever you passed by human need, you passed ME by.”

Can’t you just hear their response? No fair. We were looking in the clouds. You never said you would be so sneaky about it. Give us a do-over!

Jesus tells them being part of this is much more than what you believe in your head. It’s what you do with your life. It is more than trying not to repeatedly break the Big Ten Commandments. It is about how you align yourself in the world. Do you align yourself with the lost and suffering, does your faith make you roll up your sleeves and get busy, or do you align yourself with those who would just make up excuses why you shouldn’t help people. Because that is easy to do.

Sometimes we can look at folks and say, they got themselves into their problems through their own bad choices. My helping just helps people abuse the system, and doesn’t teach them personal responsibility. And sometimes, there is some truth to that, but it isn’t true for everybody who is hurting and it doesn’t give us a pass on trying to reach out and do some good. Jesus seems to be saying in this passage that if you worship God and somehow are indifferent to the plight of those around you, then you are not worshiping the Bible’s God, you are worshiping a false idol, a cheap knock-off that isn’t going to do you any good at the final judgment.

It’s hard. And we don’t always get it right. This passage has been at the heart of my faith from the day I first heard it and I’ve been trying to get it right ever since. When I went to seminary from LeMars, IA, I had my first encounters with homeless people. A guy on the street asked me for money for food and I remembered that my grandfather told me not to give out money, but if they are really hungry to buy them a meal. That way you know they won’t be buying booze with the money. Made sense, don’t give them money for beer, cause that’s what I was going to by for myself with the money.

So, I take this guy to a convenience store and he asks if he can get a hot dog, an orange juice and some chips. As we approached the counter to pay for it, I was feeling like a sheep. I could just hear the words of the Lord ringing in my ears, “Well done, good sheep, enter into the joy of the good shepherd.” But the words that I really heard came from the clerk who started yelling at me for helping. “This bum gets a sucker in here every day. You just spent more money on giving him a handout than I make in two hours working this job. Idiot.”

I walked sheepishly out of the building. And I was discovering that it is hard to do the right thing. But this passage remains. It is tough, and we won’t always get it right, but we have to keep responding, we have to keep trying and not get discouraged.

With the downturn in the economy, word is out on the streets that this church is the place of last resort that people can come to to get some help. There are a lot of needy people out there, with all kinds of needs, not just financial. And sometimes it just wears me down. Some people have legitimate needs, others are running scams, and I can’t always tell the difference. And I’m trying to get stuff done, I trying to do my job and someone comes in and interrupts everything. I used to find myself getting a bit angry, but then I found a way to calm myself down. When I see their faces and I feel my blood pressure rising, I just say to my self, “Jesus Christ, is it you again?”

I already know the answer.

David J. Clark

Ankeny Christian Church

Taking Risks for the Kingdom of God

Matthew 25: 14-30

It's incredibly easy to do the wrong thing with this week's gospel text, to fall into that trap of reading through the assumptions of 21st century Americans who survive within a system of capitalism. So when Jesus tells this parable about those who invested being rewarded and the one who didn't invest being punished, it's all to easy for us to say, "Yes, it only makes sense."

But therein lies the problem. Jesus' parables didn't necessarily make sense in the way we think of making sense. There was always a twist. There was always something that made his audience stop and think, "Wait a minute! Did he say what I think he said?"

And so we might find that Jesus' original audience were not 21st Century American capitalists. They were not indeed. And principles of investment were not the same then. In that day and time, investing with the bankers was the unsafe thing to do, the risky thing to do, perhaps the wrong thing to do for someone who valued their master's holdings.

Jesus is talking about doing the wrong things for the right reasons. He's talking about taking risks, doing what might be socially looked down upon, doing what is unsafe for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Dan Mayes
http://dan-mayes.blogspot.com