Jesus Never Created A Country Club...

Jesus never created a single country club.

Not one.

If we want to follow Jesus in our churches,

we cannot insist on exclusivity.

We cannot look down our noses

at newcomers, like bouncers,

and decide 'they' don't fit in

We cannot snark about them

over coffee hour

and then lament

about our declining numbers

We cannot seek to uphold the

White, affluent aesthetic--

the sand upon which

so many congregations

have built their houses

over the past century.

We cannot be divorced from

the neighborhoods surrounding us--

if the people around us

are not like us

and our relationship with them

is mostly, 'get off our lawn,'

then we have failed

to be the servant leaders

Jesus asked us to be.

Jesus Didn't Say

I'm not preaching this week, but I have some thoughts bubbling on the lectionary:
(you can find the text here: Forgiving 70x7)

Jesus Didn't Say

Jesus didn't say, "Feed the deserving." Jesus said, feed the hungry.
Jesus didn't say, "Clothe the deserving." Jesus said, clothe the naked.
Jesus didn't say, "Welcome the deserving."  Jesus said, welcome the stranger.
Jesus didn't say, "Visit the deserving." Jesus said, visit those who are sick and in prison. And not just those who were wrongfully imprisoned, but those in prison, period.
Jesus didn't say, "Forgive the deserving." Jesus said, to forgive those who hurt you, not just seven times, but seventy times seven.

The rhetoric of today, which is not unlike the rhetoric of Jesus' day, is that if you have problems, particularly problems related to poverty or marginalization, you must have done something to deserve them.  Therefore, by deserving the mess in which you find yourself, you do not deserve the public's help; you are a waste of resources; you have no value.

The thing about forgiveness is that by its very essence, it isn't deserved.

As Christians, we are to love not only our friends but our enemies. We are to risk looking foolish in order to carry out acts of love as we live out the kingdom of God here on earth.  If we are too afraid we might be taken advantage of, if we become too obsessed with only helping those who 'deserve' it, we cannot practice love.  We cannot practice our faith.  Our churches become meaningless, no better than country clubs or 'members only' exclusive societies. Our closed hearts and closed doors create further harm in the lives of those who already hurt.

The foundation of our faith is loving, caring for and forgiving others beyond what they deserve, because we ourselves are already loved and forgiven far more than we will ever deserve.

Enough

Although I'm not preaching this weekend, the Gospel story of the little boy offering up his five loaves and two fishes to feed the crowd of 5,000 has been very much on my mind lately. Let's take a moment to talk about that.

When I was a child at church camp, our pastor read this story and asked us, "What did this actually look like? Imagine this with me: did the bread and fish magically pop up out of nowhere? Where did it come from?" Then he admitted that he kept some of his favorite snack mix in his shirt pocket, where most folks wouldn't know that he had it, but it was something to tide him over if he ended up working late. He imagined that most folks in Jesus' day might not head out to the edge of town, a long walk, without also packing a little extra food along, "just in case." What if that miracle was sharing? Perhaps folks didn't want to admit they also had extra food along, since they were surrounded by a crowd that also might be hungry, and no one person could possibly have enough to go around. However, perhaps as they saw the example of this little boy, as that basket came around, perhaps many people there were inspired to share some of their extra food as well--and what little extra each person had, was really more than enough to meet the needs.

Do you ever look at the world, especially in these past few weeks, and feel overwhelmed at the needs? Topping the news has been the tens of thousands of children fleeing the violence and crushing poverty of Central America. Meanwhile, I've been learning so much about our local homeless and hungry population, and the numbers there are daunting as well: long waiting lists at each of our existing shelters, thirty families with children in just one of the elementary schools who are living in their cars, sixty or more people living under the bridge. Long lines at the food pantry, and too little food to go around.
It would be quite easy for us, either as individuals or as one congregation, to look at it all and say, "we just can't make a difference, we don't have enough in the face of all this need."

Yet I think it is so important to notice what Jesus *didn't* ask, either of the boy or of the disciples. Jesus did not ask anyone to bake all the bread and catch all the fish by themselves. Jesus did not ask anyone to go buy all of the food from the nearby village, which would have cost far too much and been too cumbersome to transport by any one person, or even all twelve disciples--who realized this as well. Jesus didn't even ask the little boy to give up all his meals forever, so that others may be fed. Instead, Jesus simply took that little bit of a snack, and blessed it. Even had there been nothing left over, the boy would have been slightly inconvenienced for a few hours at worst.

Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the sheer amount of need around us, let's just start by asking ourselves: what are our five loaves and two fish? What is something that may actually seem like a little something to us, that could be blessed by Jesus and become something so much more? What can we share in such a way that it does not diminish us, but instead inspires others around us to share as well? On our own, we can only do so much. But working together, each of us sharing our little somethings, and combining those gifts with the whole body of Christ, we may even find ourselves in the midst of miracles.

Peace,
Le Anne

The Gift of Christmas

Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20

On the Occasion of Christmas Eve, which we celebrated at our friends and neighbors, Peoples' United Methodist Church, after evacuating our worship space due to heavy flood damage.

Friends, this is the Christmas in our church that even the youngest children of our congregation will probably talk about with their grandchildren, years from now.

I want to venture a story with you tonight, that let's say, Mary and Joseph were looking forward to celebrating the birth of their first child in their own home, in familiar surroundings.  Sure, the news of Jesus' coming had been unexpected, but let's say that like all good parents, they did their best to prepare for the new baby.  Joseph was a carpenter and they were a newlywed couple, so we could safely assume the house was probably newly built and filled with well-crafted furnishings, made just for them and their new family.  I would even guess that Jesus had a fine little wooden crib waiting for him, up in their home in the Galilee.  And Mary had probably spent the past several months preparing all sorts of baby clothes and blankets and diapers, and anything else you might need for a first-century nursery.

Dining at home with family and friends, typical first-century home.
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PikiWiki_Israel_18496_Nazareth_Village.jpg

Photos of re-enacted first-century household life: dining and making textiles.
Source: http://www.100words.ca/?m=201211&paged=2

In such familiar surroundings, I imagine that these expectant parents also thought their folks would come over to bring them casseroles, keep the house tidy and help change diapers those first few days.  Maybe they thought the first people to welcome their new baby and hold him would be Grandma and Grandpa, or maybe Aunt Elizabeth and newborn cousin John.  

Now imagine all that, nursery prepared and all--that right as you were getting ready to celebrate the birth of this child--something BIG happens, that is unavoidable, and you have to leave your home behind.

Where would they go?  And how would they celebrate the birth of that child?

I am going to guess that Mary and Joseph never imagined they would share the birth of their son with sheep and goats, cattle and donkeys, or having a bunch of shepherds fresh out of the fields, or strange travelers from a foreign country showing up, not even with casseroles, but instead with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  (That is, air freshener and embalming spices, but at least the cash might come in handy?)

And I imagine that even though they had to travel to Bethlehem for this census, that they thought they'd at least be going home relatively soon, say, maybe a few weeks.  At any rate, there's just not that much stuff you can pack up and put on the back of a donkey along with mother and child.  So the news that Herod was coming for them and they would have to flee Egypt for a couple of YEARS, must have really been...well, beyond words.  So much for celebrating a birth as planned!

Well, I'm also going to venture that for those of us who are gathered here tonight, we can kind of relate.

We can relate, right?  A beautiful new church, halls all decked, tree all trimmed, banners up, choir tuned and ready, to celebrate the birth of Jesus--and then something BIG happens.

And yet, most important of all, despite all the disrupted plans and scrambling to make do, then and now--the most important thing to remember in the midst of our human worries, is this:  the gift, the greatest gift, has still been given to us.  God gave us his Son, Jesus Christ, to teach us how to love one another.  It was Jesus that brought together such an unexpected collection of people together in an unexpected place.  And the unusual circumstances and the enormous obstacles they faced together, and the reason for which they did so--only add to the richness of the story of this first Christmas that we tell over and over again, to our children and our children's children.

We might feel we're having a manger experience of our own tonight, but really, we are in the finest room in the inn--anywhere in town!  Here we are surrounded by warmth and comfort, and banners, and advent wreaths, and inside decked halls and there's a place for us, and for the kids, and for the choir, and all of us can celebrate this birth of the Christ child together.  And together, we can say the words of Isaiah, that:

A child has been born for us, a son given to us...and he is named Wonderful Counselor...Prince of Peace.

We have been given so rich a gift this Christmas.  We are surrounded by family and friends and neighbors.  We have been given such extravagant hospitality from our dear friends here at Peoples' Church.  We've been given willing and dedicated volunteers to help make everything better, even in the face of many challenges.  Certainly these last few weeks we've walked in darkness, but we have also seen a great light.

Sure, this Christmas isn't like what we'd planned, but it is still beautiful, and meaningful, perhaps even more meaningful, than if everything had gone according to plan.  And we're not alone; we're with each other, and we're also here among our friends.  And above all, God is with us--Emmanuel; bringing hope, joy, love, and peace to us and to all the world.  May we, like Mary, in the midst of all this excitement and chaos, may we treasure these things in our hearts, on this Christmas night, and always.  Amen.

For All The Saints (Even The Rascally Ones)...

Luke 19:1-10
look this up on bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.com

On the occasion of All Saints’ Sunday, and the dedication of our new hymnals

In between our All Saint’s day liturgy and dedicating our new hymnals and celebrating communion and everything else we do this day, lies the Gospel story of a man named Zaccheus.

Now, Zaccheus is described as a tax collector--and in those days one might just as well have added, a corrupt tax collector.  It was understood that they all were.  In fact the Gospel says he was the chief tax collector, and he was rich, which meant that he was really corrupt--because they didn’t pay tax collectors all that great; they earned their money by extorting extra off the peasants of the land.

Zaccheus was hardly righteous, a most unlikely saint.

And yet somehow he is a beloved little villain in the Bible--maybe because he was so short, or maybe because he was up in that tree, or perhaps because of that famous children’s song.  Sing with me if you know it:

Zaccheus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way He looked up in the tree, and said:

Zaccheus, come down, for I’m going to your house today.

I’m going to your house today.

(That’s probably the second song I learned in Sunday School when I was about three years old, right after ‘Jesus Loves Me.’)

So you might even say he’s the character not that you love to hate, but that you almost hate to love.

Ah, but there’s the problem.  The crowd gathered there knows all about Zaccheus, and they don’t love him.  He’s done them wrong.  They’ve got his number, and he’s making Jesus look either naive or incredulous, hanging out with him.  Maybe they’re even trying to warn him: Look out Jesus, you’re about to get scammed here.  He’s no good.

Then, in front of the crowd, Zaccheus says he’ll give half his possessions to the poor and pay back four times as much of whatever he’s defrauded anyone.  This means Zaccheus in on the hook for a lot of dough, and he’s about to become a very poor man.

And that is perhaps a better definition of the saints, those all-too-human and fallible, maybe even rascally, folks we know and love.  People that aren’t perfect, but have known love and shown love.  People who have not matched every footstep as Jesus’ disciple, but who still try to follow as best they can, knowing that it is not their perfection that is counted, but God’s grace.

On this All Saints’ Day, we remember those whom we have loved who have died and gone to their heavenly home before us.  Sometimes we might wonder, particularly if our loved one had his or her troubles, will we see them in heaven?  Yet I believe God’s grace is sufficient, and finds even the most rascally ones to transform.  By that day, we will all see with new eyes, and all that blurs our vision now will fall away, and all we will see is love for one another.  That task has been completed, because we are reconciled to God in the resurrection.  And knowing God’s grace for us, grace while we were still sinners and hadn’t done one thing to deserve it, can transform our lives right now, causing us to do the most generous and amazing things for others, even if nobody else thinks we ever would.

Jesus says, the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.  Not the perfect, not the self-righteous, but the lost.  Zaccheus had it all, but he was so very, very, lost.  Whether we are half as lost, or even if we’re twice as lost, there is hope in this life.  In the most unlikely times and to the most unlikely people, Jesus shows up.  Jesus might even say, “I simply must stay at your home today.”  And in the hosting, we will find joy.  It may not make us rich, at least not as the world counts it, but we will find joy.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this week:

Those struggling this week with a reduction of food stamps

For those transitioning to long-term care facilities, or to Hospice

For those providing care for a loved one with a long-term or terminal illness

When Young People Leave the Church

Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

Friends, if you haven’t heard, over the past few weeks, there has been an awful lot in the media, especially the religious media, about young people leaving the church.  It has been on the minds of every pastor I know.

Now, I want to say, that these articles are nothing new.  Right now they talk about Millenials leaving the church, but a few years ago, it was about Generation X leaving the church, and before that, there were actually articles about Baby Boomers leaving the church.  Well, I know that my audience this morning is primarily Baby Boomers, as well as folks who are in what’s called the ‘Greatest Generation,’ who survived the Great Depression and World Wars.  But friends, I know that many of you, because you have told me so, are worried about young people not being in the churches.  Sometimes you are worried about your own young people, your grandchildren and children, not being in church.  So I know this is on your hearts, even if you haven’t seen the news.

In fact, the way you feel about this might even be well described in today’s scripture readings, when you’ve tended the young vine and given it every form of nurture you could, and saw how strong and vibrant it grew for a time, and now you’re left shaking your head and wondering, with a worried heart, what exactly happened?  You might even feel, if you’re the parent or grandparent of a child who is no longer involved in church, like you live in a house divided, like the Gospel says, two against three.  You may even be looking around this room, and many of you do tell me you notice more gray heads in here now than there used to be--and you may be wondering how to interpret the present time.

So let’s talk about that.

First of all, I should say that at age 35, I am firmly planted within Generation X, and I have spent a fair amount of my pastoral career helping interpret the actions of adult children my age and younger, such as Millenials, to parents, who are usually Baby Boomers.  And I don’t actually mind this, it is kind of fun.  But if you find yourself in this category, I want to first say, relax.  More often than not, your kids are actually fine.

When to Worry:

Granted, there are times to worry.  If your kid is heavy into drugs, drinking, gambling or crime, headed on a path to destruction, then yes, it is time to worry.  In fact, not having a church might be the least of their worries at that moment.  Even then, Jesus still loves them and they probably still love Jesus, but the depth of their problems is making it hard to focus on that relationship right now.  What they might need more than anything in that moment, is you and a strong network of friends who can be that love of Jesus to them, truly invested in their well-being and recovery.

When NOT to Worry:

However, I also believe, and it has been true for me and most of my pastoral colleagues, that there is some need for young people to become independent and define themselves, not only in becoming independent from you, but also even from ‘Mother Church.’  After all, there is more to the world than you have taught, or your home congregation has taught, however lovingly, and to an extent it is healthy to take time away and question those things, and decide which parts to carry forward--just as we all here probably do not do everything exactly as our parents did, now that we are adults.

And I have to confess, that while I did go around to lots of churches of different backgrounds in my twenties, I admit I also spent a fair number of Sundays just simply sleeping in.  Part of that was being at work until two or three am the night before (if you’re curious, I worked at both a bar and grill and a Pizza Hut).  Other times, it was sheer laziness, or the opportunity to go to brunch. I spent plenty of time worshipping at the “Church of the Holy Comforter,” complete with pillow.  And all of this was knowing full well I was going to be a pastor.  Perhaps, in part, because I was going to be a pastor, and would never sleep in on a Sunday again.  

And, granted, some young people are still in the church!  As a young person, when I was in church, I hated having it pointed out to me that very few young people came to church.  Sometimes I felt it was hard to be seen for me, and not just my age.  More on that in a moment.

There are a few things though, that I think we as Christians, should probably talk about first:

Organized religion has a lot to answer for, and I’d almost be more worried if your kid hadn’t noticed.  Let’s list the things....clergy sexual abuse.  Homophobia.  Sexism.  Racism. No drinking, dancing or playing cards.  Corruption, and million-dollar preachers on corporate jets.  Hating people of other faiths.  Bombing abortion clinics.  The list goes on and on.  And when you see Christians on TV, not just in the movies, but speaking as experts on the news, they tend to be the most hateful and least reasonable.

I’ll admit I cringe, even as a pastor, at the word ‘Christian,’ because of the deeply nasty, negative connotations it carries. Sometimes, when a person says, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” what they mean is, “I have faith, but I don’t want to be lumped in with the extremists.” Not always, but often enough.

It’s almost never about not loving Jesus.  It is often about how to follow Jesus faithfully in a world where churches and Christians don’t often seem like friendly and welcoming places that really want you.  It’s hard to belong to a church and call yourself Christian when doing so may make you look like you identify with the people who are hateful and intolerant.

That’s the big, wide picture.  Now let’s talk closer to home, just being a younger adult, looking for a new home church in their new adult life:

An Invitation to Life Together:

Finding a new church can be as intimidating as finding a life partner.  And your church probably is, in a way, your life partner.  A young family says to a new church the things that you say to a new spouse: “I want to raise my kids with you.  I want you to be there when I’m hurting, and I want to be there when you’re hurting.  You and I share the values that I think are the most important.  And, we can really have fun together.”

There are some other things about the home church.  Especially given that everyone has graduated and moved on, well, you don’t really belong to the high school youth group anymore.  You also don’t really belong at the senior ladies’ coffee, no matter how cute they think you are.  It’s, um, a little like moving back into your parents’ basement.  Or maybe worse, back into your old bedroom.  Sure, there’s a little comfort in the familiarity, but everything has also changed.  Sometimes, finding another church is like moving into somebody else’s parents’ basement.  In the ‘social real estate,’ you don’t have to ‘own’ a whole big thing to feel like a real adult, but it helps if there’s at least a little something that’s really yours, which you can claim for yourself.  It’s similar with church.

It’s hard to come back and be the only one like yourself.  We might say, “bring more people like yourself!”  But it’s just not that easy.  For those of us at different life stages, it’s like being the only single person when all your friends are married now.  Or being the only couple with kids when everyone else isn’t at that point.  Or, it’s like being the only widow in your bridge club, or anywhere else you used to socialize as a couple, and everyone else in your social circle still has their husband.  You all still love each other, but it’s honestly very awkward.

As churches, we have to do our very best to make it not awkward.

Just a few more things:  It’s not all about the music, but it is just a little bit about the music. And, it’s not all about the technology, but it’s a little bit about the technology.  It’s not all about the liturgy and tradition, but it’s a little bit about the liturgy and tradition.  Simply put, everybody has to take turns, just like in any family.

There are churches that are all about the new music, technology, and traditions, and they do attract many young people.  Young adults can also outgrow them when they become older, and some do.  We don’t have to get rid of everything we hold dear, but we do have to make room for young adults--and not just at the kids’ table.

I want to break away a bit from the age groups and talk more about the life stages.  After all, I’m 35, and I have tiny kids at home.  Other people my age have teenagers at home.  Yet other people my age aren’t married, or have no kids.  We’re at totally different life stages.  Jorge’s in his early fifties and has small kids at home.  The other guy his age here is Tom, who has grandchildren the same age.  Same age, different life stages.  Which is not all bad.  In fact, sometimes that is the glue that can help bridge the generation gaps.

Finally, I’d like to talk about how the world has changed.

Fifty years ago, in reality, life was probably simpler.  There was a time not so long ago you could marry straight out of high school, get a job that supported your family, and live on one income, freeing up (usually the wife) to raise the children and be active in the church.  This all helped people who were raised in the church to stay in their same churches, or at least easily join a church and find your place.  Now, it’s not right to get married so young.  You have to get your education.  Both spouses usually need to work full-time to make ends meet.  This leaves a lot less time to volunteer everywhere, including the church, and many young families are pulled in so many directions that they don’t have any real time together.   I’ll be honest--many churches today exacerbate that problem, because we are built on a model that worked really well for the baby boomers, fifty years ago.  

A lot of times, young people come back to church when they have kids, who have faith questions, and they don’t feel equipped to answer them on their own.   They need to learn alongside their children.  They need mentors to be their own heroes of the faith, people to tell them and show them how it is possible to grow meaningfully in our lives of faith.  When church can be a place that families are truly together,--and not again pulled in all different directions, there is a real blessing that we have to offer today.

The Good Gardener

Friends, the good news is (and there is always some good news somewhere) is that God, the constant gardener, is a good gardener, who still loves everything God has planted.  God has regard for the young vine, and also for us.  Where we have wandered, where we have failed, and where we have failed to welcome the wandering--God still nurtures us.  God still loves us, and calls us together as one people, all family, all children of God.

Prayers This Week:

For those facing addiction, and their families

For those wrestling with mental health issues

For those recovering from stroke

For those struggling to find a church home

For all who travel

For children and teachers preparing for back to school

Beyond Things

Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

What This Message Is Not About

It would be so easy to preach this week’s Scriptures as a pointed stewardship lesson, that God blesses us with so many things that we should be ready to give everything to God, and by the way, we have a mortgage on the building, so, you know, be generous....right.  Give as you feel led, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.

Instead, let me talk a bit about parenting.  After all, the Gospel story starts off with a sibling dispute over the inheritance--something that causes a great deal of pain in families.  And you can definitely hear the parent in God’s voice speaking throughout the passage in Isaiah.

Let’s Talk About The Kids

My family and I went back to our old neighborhood this week, and pretty soon all the parents were hanging out talking about our kids--sharing both the joys and the frustrations.  Many of you know that banter.  And I wonder, what if God talked about us the way we talked about our kids?  How would that sound?  “Oh, you know, Adam and Eve, they were so cute and agreeable at first, but then they made a total mess out of my garden--so I put up a gate to keep them out of there--but then they just went out and made even bigger messes, I can barely keep up with it all!”

Well, God does often talk about us as though we were God’s children, because we are.  And we really hear that today in the reading from Hosea.  We hear how God raised us up like a child, and such vivid imagery:  I taught them to walk, I held them in my arms, I healed their injuries, I lifted them like infants to my cheek, I fed them.  Can’t you just see that?

And yet, that relationship was mired in pain.  For as much as God tended and nurtured the children, they ran away from God, and found themselves increasingly mired in trouble, and wouldn’t turn back and seek help, they put their trust in powers, like powerful political alliances (aka “friends”) that would ultimately betray and destroy them.

Hosea:  The Perfectly Dysfunctional Family

I noticed that several folks commented (but nobody complained!) that some of the usual Bible readings were absent last week while I was away.  Part of the reason for that was they were kind of doozies.  The upshot of the story was that God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, and then have a couple of kids which he was supposed to name, “Not My People” and “No Pity.”  Well, ouch.  God’s point in this was to create a totally dysfunctional family, where there is no love, no mercy, and no fidelity, to serve as a metaphor for what had gone wrong in the relationship between God and God’s people.  Granted, this didn’t go over well: mostly because it was weird, and also, as far as God’s people knew, it was a time of relative prosperity.  Everything was going great, so, what’s the big deal?  In reality, things were about to go horribly wrong in ways even they could see: As the scripture reads, the sword rages in their cities and they are in danger of returning to captivity and repression.

When Things Go Horribly Wrong

I think most of us have known situations where a child has been raised lovingly, and still somehow ends up down a wrong path that leads to their destruction.  Perhaps the most frequent metaphor today would be drug addiction [CBS This Morning 8/5/13 reported on the new heroin epidemic].  But there’s any number of things that could happen, that are truly frightening.  And for those of us who are parents, we may wonder if there is any reason we would ever abandon one of our children, or even kick them out of the house.  Perhaps ultimately, and realistically speaking, if the child was endangering the others who lived there, to protect the rest of the family, we might have to say, “you can’t come home right now.”  Now, I don’t want to ever think about any of that happening to my kids--who are rascals, but they’re also so young and innocent right now--but it might.  I can parent to the best of my ability, but I realize that even as a pastor, my family and my children are not immune to the ills of this world.

And that’s where we hear and understand God speaking through the prophet Hosea in today’s reading.  [Insert your own children’s names here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick:

“How can I give you up, ____________?  How can I hand you over, ________?  

[Insert your own name here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick.

Insert the name of anyone whom you love deeply, and you begin to get the picture....yes, I think we can begin to tap into those feelings and relate.

The good news is, even when we have done things to break God’s heart, God doesn’t write us off.  God instead chooses compassion and continues to invite the rebellious child home.

++

It’s Not About the Little Things

Sometimes, our relationships are painful, but nothing huge and tragic has caused it.  Sometimes, things just ‘get in the way’ of our relationships.  Not just material things, like the inheritance dispute between the brothers in the Gospel story, but things, you know, stuff that happens, and builds up, and forms into walls and barriers between us that are so hard to tear down, without tearing each other down in the process.

Granted, it’s easiest not to let those walls get built up in the first place--to handle the issues while they’re small, and not let them blow up into big things.  When those little things get blown up, then we know the relationship is in trouble.  After all, even churches die, not because they ran out of people to invite, but because they got caught up fighting over little things like the carpet and blew all their energy, and pffft, there they went.

Who among us doesn’t have a relationship we wish could be better?  Who among us doesn’t have words or mistakes we wish we could take back?  

All these human divisions, God seeks to break down, bridge, or transform.  We’ve talked in the past few weeks about those walls of animosity between Jews and Samaritans--folks who were really two sides of the same coin; and today Paul speaks to us of Greek and Jew, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian (and who are those guys anyway--we’ve forgotten, because the division didn’t really matter)!  God is inviting us to not let those little things--and they are really little things, that we make into big things--stand in the way of love.

Beyond Things

So let’s talk about that Gospel verse again, but in a non-traditional way.  Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to build bigger barns--or churches, for that matter.  Really it’s hoarding, or at least not sharing, that is the problem.  We have a beautiful new facility, and God does call us to share it--to share our sanctuary, share our classroom space, even our lawn, and not keep it to ourselves.  Things will probably get dinged up a bit in the process, and we’re going to need two things:  a good-sized can of touch-up paint, and a load of graciousness.  After all, it isn’t really our building, but God’s.  When we can overlook the little things, and use wisely the big things we have been given, all of our relationships, and all of us individually, are deeply blessed.  God wants for us far more than we can imagine.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this Week:

For all who struggle with addictions; mental health concerns; and for all who are facing abuse of any kind.

For those who come to harm when working in far-off places.

For our Sikh brothers and sisters as they remember the shootings in their sacred space one year ago.

For our PCUSA friends who are gathered at the Big Tent conference in Louisville, KY this weekend.

For all who are traveling

For all who are ill or injured

For those who are dying, and for those who are grieving

For peace in our world

Lyrics for the Lectionary:

When reading the Scriptures this week, consider the following:

A Thousand Years, Christina Perri (Hosea)

Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotiye (Hosea)

Paradise, Coldplay (Hosea, Luke)

How To Save A Life, Fray (Hosea)

Feel the Tide, Mumford and Sons (Psalm)