God is faithful - and we have HOPE

 WAIT! What comes next? We don't know, and yet, we hope. South Durham Connections - the ministry born in collaboration - is starting Advent for All 2020, a series of messages and activities for everyone.

This week I was delighted to open up the Advent season with my beloveds at St. Philip Lutheran in Raleigh. There were two services:  The Crossing at 9 am, where the message was short because we decorated a Jesse tree. You can watch that service here (the message starts at 31:00 but the Jesse tree part before is kind of cool.)

The later service had a longer message (no Jesse tree, though) and you can see the message here.

The lectionary texts for the day are:

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

God of all times, even the bad ones, show us the hope that we can have because you are the God of love.

Greetings from South Durham Connections!  Three years ago when I was your vicar, preaching regularly and wondering what God was doing, I had only a glimmer of what was to be.

Today, there is a little more than a glimmer, and I am wide-eyed at all that has come to pass in those three years, but I still do not know what is coming next!!

I can report that the Parktown Food Hub has become a pantry leader in Durham. 
* That we now have a Vision Board of community members, 
* An active Saturday gardening program, 
* We have just hired a person to help specifically with our garden. 
* We have been serving food to 10,000 people per month (that’s over 2200 families) 
* We served hundreds of families every Thursday between the end of March and November 19 (because that’s when the weather has driven us inside)
* and on our last Thursday distribution of the year we had so many cars in the parking lot that we completely lost track of who came when… and yet… all were fed.

We were at the forefront of the McDougald Terrace displaced resident response and generated the idea that the city came to advocate:  that churches or other groups adopt hotels to work with specific groups of displaced residents.

We have partnerships with so many groups that they barely fit on one page (in two columns!) and even then we keep discovering groups that we forgot to mention.

We started a (Lutheran) food pantry and mission, in a (United Methodist) borrowed space, using a (Muslim) neighborhood parking lot, and all because our food resourcing manager had been working with a (public school) pantry and living an astonishing faith that God will provide despite denominational politics - and always at the exactly right time.

I simply do not have enough superlatives to describe what happens every day in this community ministry that God has started and that God continues to carry in the palm of that loving, grace-filled hand.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is God’s, and not ours.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that all those good things that are happening (and that this congregation has been a part of for such a long time) are not the reason for my hope.

I am keenly aware that it could all fall apart at any time.

And yet… when my mother-in-law had a massive stroke, and then died a week later, and I was gone for two weeks with virtually no notice… the work thrived and volunteers showed up.

When my hub partner and food sourcing manager Aja faced the prospect that her three middle-schoolers would be doing homeschool for the foreseeable future, and her life was turned upside down as she tried to manage everything… the work thrived and there was food.

It is all so remarkable, and so hopeful, and we are very aware that God brought us together so that our styles and priorities fit together like puzzle pieces – and the puzzle is a vision of a community that cares about all its citizens and no one goes hungry…

Our hope is not in ourselves though (no matter how perfectly we all fit.) 

We honestly do not know what is going to happen next. 

We do not know if it will be a good thing (beautiful weather and extra food on our last distribution before Thanksgiving) 

or a not-so-good thing (a thunderstorm that blew away our tent and soaked three pallets of boxes containing fresh produce.)

If our hope came only from us, or from our track record, it would be hope of the “maybe it will and maybe it won’t” variety.

And yet, that is not our hope at all! Our hope is “I have absolutely no idea what will come next and I am absolutely certain that it will be an outrageously generous gift from God.”

Because even the thunderstorm turned out that way – when community members rushed over with a replacement tent and put it up; when other volunteers came to help distribute the food; and when we learned that we DO have limits and can arrange things so that we do not have to damage our own health and lives. We only need to do what we can do.

Because everything belongs to God, and God is faithful.

Today’s message is all about hope: there will be sorrow and pain and darkness, and everything will be shaken up… and THAT is when Jesus will return.

We do not get to know when it will happen, because that would remove the need for faith. That would remove the need for a faithful God. And so we do not know – we get the exceedingly great job of a God who loves us purely and perfectly and wants us to know it.

And then in the final verse: Jesus says “Keep Awake!” Not as in “don’t rest” or “don’t sleep” or “never relax” but in a smell the roses kind of way. Pay attention to what is happening around you. And not just the frightening, alarming stuff! 

Notice the grace. Notice the people who come around seeking grace, and offer them prayer and hope.

Notice the ways that you have connected in different ways with the people in your household.

Notice how your body, mind, and spirit have adjusted to a slowed-down, less frantic pre-Christmas season.

Because in noticing, in staying awake, you will find God’s faithfulness, and in that faithfulness you will discover hope.

The hope that comes from a God who has never let us down, who has never been defeated by politics or weather, cruelty or war. Nothing we human beings have ever done have vanquished God’s faithfulness, and nothing ever will.

And so today I offer you hope. The hope of faith. The hope that comes because God is faithful.

I also invite you to participate in the South Durham Connections Advent for All.  If you go to the South Durham Connections website (soduco.org) you can download a piece of an Advent puzzle each week along with a little bit about that week of Advent. The first one is up now.

Here’s how it works:  Go here to download and print the .pdf document, read the information on the first page, then cut out and decorate the puzzle piece on the second page with your idea of what hope looks like. The “it’s going to work out great” kind of hope that comes from knowing a faithful God. 

Then, when your puzzle piece is decorated, send a picture of it to the South Durham Connections email address (on page 1). We will put them up on the website and create a community of hope.

Each week we will add puzzle pieces until we get to Christmas and assemble the whole thing. A picture of what happens when a broken world has an infinitely faithful God.

It’s for everybody, and I hope you will consider joining us!

May God’s hope and peace, love and joy fill you in the coming month!

Amen

Love in the election aftermath

Spoiler: it's like love in any other time. But still. It seems like a good moment to review the basics.

I am posting this on Saturday evening and will be sharing it with my beloveds at Springmoor Retirement Village tomorrow. It will be good to be back among them, and it is good to be sharing with you now.

The texts are:

1 John 4:7-8

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

On Wednesday I was sad. I was sad because of the ugliness in our world, sad because of the whole election season, sad because my mother-in-law died on October 26. Sometimes when I am sad I think about love. And that thinking led me to put this out on facebook:

God is love. That is how we know we are not God.

It’s pretty standard Christian stuff – especially Lutheran Christian stuff – and it is the idea that we get in our reading today from 1 John: Love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God, because God is love.

But the responses I got were fascinating:

* The rabbi who only said “ouch” – I don’t know what she meant but I am certain it was something borne out of the depth of experience in her long life. 
* The Southern Baptist gentleman who reiterated with “double ouch” – and almost certainly meant something quite different than the rabbi.
* The woman who is married to a Buddhist and was thanking me for a scarf that I gave her years ago – a *very* warm scarf – that she had been able to wear for the first time that week, saying “I love you, does that make me your God?”

And I explained that for me, “God IS love” is a symmetric relationship:  God is love, and love is God. If it is of God then it is loving. If it is loving, then it is of God. And God is always, only, immutably, unfailingly, uniformly loving.

But we human beings are not. We are not uniformly loving. In fact, the reason I came to that sentiment is that I was having distinctly unloving thoughts about a lot of people – and they weren’t even connected to politics or the election!

There are so many ways and reasons that we do not love each other. And it contributed to my sadness.

That is some impressive stuff – and the part about God always loving is really great, right?

But here I am, talking to you. People who have lifetimes of experience in loving and being loved by God. People who are so steeped in your faith that you probably can’t imagine what your life would be without it.

Love can mean a whole bunch of different things, depending on the situation. It is different for different people, both in the giving and in the receiving. Love gets really complicated, really fast.

* There is tough love – holding people accountable even when it would be less painful for us but more damaging for them if we just let it go.
* There is compassion love – when someone else is sad or hurting, and we may even act against our own (perceived) interests in the moment because love is greater than what we want for ourselves
* But there is also love of self – honoring and taking care of ourselves and not taking on other peoples’ work, doing the things that we need to do in order to be healthy and as whole as we can be. It will never be perfect, but certainly some times are better than others!

And that is why I am so, so grateful for Paul’s contribution to the matter in his first letter to the Corinthians.

You may know that the Corinthians were in a mess. They were people of faith, but were polarized around different leaders. Paul calls them to task:  it’s not about Apollos, it’s not about Paul, it’s about Jesus! It’s about loving! We are all together in this journey and are meant to love each other on the way.. It is not an accident that in the earliest days of the church “christian” was not a thing. They were just a bunch of Jews talking about The Way.

The Way that was, and is, following Jesus.

In his letter to those arguing, divided Corinthians, Paul gives them a little lesson on what love is – and is not. Not based on situations, but something a little broader. Something that we can use just to check in… am I loving right now, in this situation?

And so it seemed like this week was a good time to remember. To remember that God is love and we are not. To remember that Paul wrote to a polarized and squabbling congregation. And to think about these things:

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Patient with ourselves when we are exhausted or in pain or just not at our best. Patient with ourselves when we are arrogant or full of ourselves or wildly, wildly wrong. And patient with others when they are exhausted or in pain or not at their best – and even when they are wildly, wildly wrong.

Kind… when we could whisper and natter and gossip and cast dispersion but choose not to. When we do not have to say anything but do, something that shows a recognition and concern for the humanity in another person.

Eloquent speech, being able to anticipate what people will do or say, all the scientific knowledge in the world, even faith that is unshakable… it doesn’t do any good for anybody unless it is spoken or used in love. We can be the richest person on earth, or we can make the choice to be martyrs to that unshakable faith… but without love, Paul says, it is all for naught. 

Because love will determine how we deliver all our gifts. If we deliver our gifts without love, then we are using them as a club. The point is that we do not hurt each other, but we use all our various gifts to make things better for the people around us. We use our gifts to take care of ourselves so that we have the strength to share that love, to set boundaries, to do the things we are called to do – and to not do the things that are someone else’s calling. All in the service of making sure that as many people as possible experience as much love as possible.

Paul tells us there are a lot of things that love is not:

* Envious
* Boastful
* Arrogant
* Rude
* Selfish
* Irritable
* Resentful
* Gloating in victory

And what love will look like in action:

* Rejoicing in the truth because it is truth
* Bearing whatever comes our way
* Believing that anything is possible
* Hoping for the goodness we cannot see
* Enduring life in all it’s confusing iterations

The last part of the chapter to the Corinthians talks about how love will not end. Everything else will end… but not love. Because as I noted earlier tonight…

GOD. IS. LOVE.

God is unending, so love is unending.

We are not there yet. We see in a mirror dimly – not the fancy mirrors that we have, but the mirrors in Paul’s day, which were more like the reflections of ourselves that we see in sheet glass windows. It’s dim. You can make out shapes, and see a lot, but the details are not clear. We don’t know now, but someday we will.

In the meantime, what we know is that love is eternal. Love will last. Love is God. God is love.

And if we want an example of what love looks like in person? We can look to Jesus. The Jesus who was present at creation and who came to earth, as a human being, to show us what love looks like in action.

The Jesus who showed up for poor people and despised people. For the ickiest politicians and the widows who had no one to care for them. For the children who had no position in society. For the people who were literally kicked out of town because they weren’t healthy enough. For the blind and those who couldn’t walk, the mentally ill and the people who had absolutely no standing in society.

The Jesus who loved so much that he had to be killed, because that earthly powers couldn’t stand it. 

And this is why we believe that Jesus is divine, that Jesus is God. Because death could not hold him. Jesus loved perfectly. Jesus made it possible for us to start afresh in every moment to love our neighbors, because we are enfolded in God’s love. In the love that Jesus shared with everyone he encountered.

We cannot be Jesus. We cannot love all the time. We cannot be God. We will sometimes be confused about what to do, how to respond. 

But we are not completely on our own. We have Jesus. We can see what Jesus did, how Jesus loved, and we can have confidence that we will continue to be forgiven when we do not love.

Because we have the ultimate love. God’s love. The love that is always there for us.

And in the Resurrection we are promised that God’s love IS for us. For each of us. For us personally, and for the people we like, and for the people we do not like.

Because 

God

Is

Love.

AMEN

Listen! I will tell you a mystery!

Ella Mae Greene is changed.

What a marvelous aching mystery.

 

On October 19 we got a call - my mother-in-law Ella Mae Greene had had a massive stroke. It did not look good. A week later, Mrs. Greene left this earthly life. I loved Mrs. Greene - still do - and I love her daughter Lisa. I had briefly hoped that they might allow me the honor of officiating at her funeral but that was not to be. Still, I had things I really wanted to say so I wrote the message below.

It is a gift - a gift to my beloved Lisa, a gift to Donna, a gift to Lonnie and to all those who knew and loved Ella Mae Greene. May her memory be a blessing.

The text is 1 Corinthians 15:51-57.

Listen, ladies and gentlemen! Listen friends and family! Listen all who have ears to hear!

I will tell you a mystery.

Ella Mae Greene has been changed.

The pain and sorrow, the body that didn’t function right; the heart that ached for hurting kittens, puppies, and children; the ears that didn’t hear so well; the knees and feet that hurt… all have been changed to something else entirely. Something without pain, tears, or sorrow.

It happened in a twinkling this past Monday. You might think that a change so big would be met with trumpets and streamers, announced on all the news channels, celebrated with wild joy and delight.

But it didn’t happen that way. In fact, the nurses didn’t even notice right away when it happened. It was quiet and quick. On this side of eternity it looked a lot like going to sleep – but oh what joy was in heaven on Monday morning, October 26! One of God’s own favorites had come home.

Now, I know that you – the people beloved by Ms. Greene, the people who loved her the most – cannot yet celebrate because it is too hard, too sad, too much a reminder of how awful and broken our world is. You would not have chosen this sorrow and pain, and God has not chosen it either. 

The God who created a perfect world teeming with life abhors the brokenness that leads to death. Abhors it so much that he sent Jesus to provide a way out of that sorrow. Mrs. Greene followed that way and many of you do, too. You seek the good that can come from a God who loves you, who is watching and crying alongside you. And that God – that Jesus – is the one that has welcomed Mrs. Greene home and the one who will be with you in the coming days and weeks and months.

That God who has enfolded Mrs. Greene into a blissful eternity will also give you moments of bliss as you live out your days here on earth. Maybe it will be seeing a puppy and thinking about how Mrs. Greene could charm even the most timid and fearful animals with her quiet gentleness, or remember her Shelly-Bell demanding treats and knowing without doubt that she would get them. Maybe you will see flowers growing in a yard and remember times that she was on her hands and knees, cultivating her own beautiful gardens; planting pallets of annuals on Mother’s Day. Maybe you were one of the people who felt the light of her smiling heart shine on you as she gave you safe harbor in her home when your world was much, much more broken than usual. Maybe you will remember the endless cups of coffee, the searches for forgotten presents, the dubious gifts of oil to grandchildren, the all-night story sessions, the much-delayed facebook posts and all the other things that make a life unique and that brought laughs then and will someday bring laughter again.

Those moments – and the stories that I know you will be telling each other for years to come – will be winks from God. Reminders of the love that is there for you and for everyone. Reminders that if a broken human being can love so much, then how can a perfect God who IS love leave anyone out?

There are many, many feelings here today – appreciation and regret, happiness and deep grievous sorrow. Maybe even all of those and more at the same time.

Please – give yourself permission to feel all of those feelings because like the life of a woman who packed so much life into a mere 87 years, 10 months, and 1 day, one feeling or word or image can never capture it all.

Most of you knew and loved Mrs. Greene for a long time – possibly even your entire life. Give yourself time to sort through all that, to feel every feeling and let it be a reminder that you never would have loved or been loved as much if life was not rich and deep, wide and layered.

But as you grieve, also know this:

Mrs. Greene has been changed. In the mystery that is heaven, she is safe in the unfailing, unbroken arms of Jesus and will also rise with all of us when the final trumpet sounds. 

The God that Mrs. Greene loved created this world to be perfect, sent Jesus into that world to show us how to live when the brokenness was too much, and is now tending the places prepared for us when we too will be changed. 

The Jesus who came to show us how to live never failed to help the poor and the helpless. Those sick in body, mind, and spirit. Those who were cast out. Jesus did not focus on the people who had privilege and position, Jesus focused on the ones who were being kicked in the streets. The one who couldn’t get a fair hearing. The ones with such incredible stories that nobody believed them – and therefore nobody bothered to help.

And what it got for Jesus was death, because that is what happens to human beings. Jesus died like Mrs. Greene has died. 

But then Jesus rose! 

I remember standing in the kitchen with Mrs. Greene around Easter time one year. She looked at me with shining eyes and an almost bewildered look on her face as she said “Jesus did that for me! Can you even believe it? That doesn’t even make sense… but isn’t it the most wonderful thing of all?”

Yes, Mrs. Greene. It IS the most wonderful thing of all. She knew it and believed it.

And so in the coming days and weeks and months when the grief comes crashing in waves, remember that God cannot be tamed and that God’s love will continue to carry you through. 

When you wonder something like “what difference do prayers make anyway?” be reminded that praying is for us. God already knows what is in your heart – is in all of our hearts – and is prepared to heal our every sorrow. Those prayers are a large part of learning to love each other through the pain.

The sting of death mentioned in our text today comes from sin and there is a temptation to give up and decide that death has won. BUT DO NOT BE FOOLED. When Jesus arose in the Resurrection, the sting was healed. 

Death has not won.

Death cannot win.

Because the stinger is removed.

And Mrs. Greene is now home with her Jesus, the same Jesus who will be loving you extra special much through everything yet to come.

May her memory be a blessing.

Amen.

A Wedding Message

 On Sunday, October 25 I was honored to officiate at the wedding of J and J, a delightful couple who had planned their entire wedding during the COVID pandemic and who ran into an array of pitfalls and difficulties that would have scared off many people. But not this couple. They persevered.

After the wedding I would drive to Augusta, GA where my mother-in-law would die the next morning from the effects of a massive stroke the week before. It was a huge contrast and working on the wedding message during the grief and sorrow of watching my mother-in-law decline into death made it all the more special. A new life together for J and J, and a life well-lived as my mother-in-law left this earth as her husband had done several years before, leaving her middle-aged children orphaned.

I'm not sure I would be sharing this otherwise, but given the circumstances, it's all pretty special to me. So here it is... the readings and wedding message from the wedding of J and J on Sunday, October 25, 2020.

The Art of Marriage 

by Wilferd A. Peterson

The little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once a day.

It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating
gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.

It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner. 

***

The second reading you requested is from the New Testament of the Bible, 

In this passage Paul is speaking to the Christians in a place called Corinth who have been plagued with arguments. Paul is explaining a better way to be in relationship with one another with a rundown of the dos and don’ts of loving. Listen now:

1 Corinthians 13 

13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Can you even believe you are standing here today? 

It certainly has been a long haul. A global pandemic that keeps dragging on.

Job changes – even if you thought you are in the same job!

Uncertainty about the weather… uncertainty about all sorts of things.

Delayed planning – because that’s how it goes in a time of global pandemic.

But HERE. YOU. ARE.

Standing here in front of your closest friends and family members and in front of God. Defying the forces that would keep you apart and refusing to give in to the negatives that are so readily available to all of us right now.

Today, Josh and Jen, you have stepped forward in this time of extreme uncertainty to do something very definite.

You are getting married.

And you know, marriage is not a contract. It is not a thing that you can say “well, we said this and that, and you broke the contract, so that’s the end of that.”

What you are promising today is a vow. A covenant. 

You are promising to be there for each other, to cling to one another, to turn away from everyone else and towards each other as you move through your life.

You are also promising that when things do not go well – and I am sad to tell you that there will be times when they most definitely do not go well – then you will work through it. 

You will remember the covenant that you would be there for each other and you will work it out. You will do what it takes, because you will be married to each other. 

We have talked about how you both think that Jesus was a pretty awesome person. That Jesus showed love in ways that sometimes did not make logical sense, but that always meant so much to the people being loved. 

Even in his death, Jesus somehow managed to take care of his own needs in ways that helped him care for others. That is the kind of love you have said you want to have for each other. And the passage you picked from 1 Corinthians 13 is a very nice summary of the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated constantly.

When you show that Jesus-style love to each other it will show up as being patient and kind, not boastful or arrogant or rude. Even when the fashion is to make fun of others, you will look at each other and decide… I have a covenant with this person. I will not hurt their beautiful heart. I will love them before I throw those sharp barbs.

This kind of covenant love never ends. It rejoices in the truth – even really hard truths that mean saying “oh… yeah… I was wrong about that.”

It bears all things, including watching your beloved struggle with pain that you cannot heal no matter how badly you want to do just that. And instead of trying to fix things anyway, you turn to each other in love and support and being present for and with each other.

It means that even when you are irritable with one another you will not WANT to be irritable with one another, and at the end of the day you will always turn back to each other and soothe the hurt feelings with the balm of love.

Today you are putting away childish ways of being together and choosing the adult way of caring for each other with a self-sacrificing love.

TODAY you are making that bond. No matter what happens in the future, today is the start of your marriage, the start of loving each other with covenant love that is worth the work it will take to make it endure.

And if you can remember that covenant to love each other, then someday when your dream of having children together comes true, those children will be born to parents who are bonded together.

When those children come, and you both love them to the moon and back, my hope is that you remember that being parents is not the same as being married. The best gift you will give your children is to love each other with the covenant love you are promising today. To make a home for them that is secure because you are secure with each other.

That will mean continuing to turn to each other even when the babies are crying, or the middle schoolers are being endlessly inconsistent or your grown children are so beautiful that you hardly have eyes for anyone else.

When that temptation comes, remember the vow you are making here today. Make sure to always have eyes for each other first.

Starting today you are binding yourselves to each other legally and emotionally, spiritually and physically. Today is the day you are announcing your commitment to the whole world – your intention to practice loving each other every day in the little things and through the big things.

Remember that joy. Remember that it is the love of Jesus you seek to share. Remember each other. 

Amen.

Worship in 4 Parts: A Liturgy for Church Outside the Box

What a magnificent day today has been! The first "official" worship of South Durham Connections happened in an ecumenical, online extravaganza that included South Durham Connections, Parkwood UMC, and Christus Victor Lutheran Church. Plus anybody who wanted to tune in from anywhere else. 

In ELCA communities (like Christus Victor and South Durham Connections), today was "God's Work Our Hands" Sunday when congregations go out into the community for days of service. Since all the other churches were leaving their buildings for service, South Durham Connections came inside and Pastor Sharon led a service that compared the work of the Parktown Food Hub with a traditional mainline worship service.

The technology was not particularly cooperative but you can see the live stream here. I think you can get the gist of it though. Below is the script with video clips inserted, so you might want to consider using this to follow along with the video? It was fun putting this together and I am so grateful for all the people and circumstances who brought it together!

The focus text is Matthew 18:21-35

Worship in Four Parts:

A liturgy for life outside the box

 

Why do this?

 

Compassionate response to a difficult time for Pastor Anita

Pastor Ben asked what I was doing for God’s Work Our Hands Sunday

I said we are doing GWOH Sunday every day…

 

BUT THEN!

 

It seemed like an excellent opportunity to show how South Durham Connections is doing church – even if it looks really different than traditional church.

 

The four parts are Gathering (Greeting), Word, Meal, and Sending. Although some of the details are different, Methodists and Lutherans share a basic understanding of worship, and what I’m talking about today is consistent among Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians… the denominations known as mainline.

 

Some announcements: Today at about 1 pm we will have a garden workday for those of you who want to put your faith into action. We will have tasks spread out across the property so people can work in small groups at physical distance.

 

And now! Welcome to church! Welcome to an opportunity to see how God is working and leading and caring for us both inside a building and outside, online and in person.

 

GATHERING/GREETING

 

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,

and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

And also with you.

 

This greeting opens worship. For Lutherans it often comes after a confession or remembrance of baptism. We come knowing that we are in need and that times are tough. We come seeking relief from that brokenness.

 

At the Parktown Food Hub, people also come knowing they are in need. Maybe it’s because they lost a job due to COVID, or because a spouse has left, or because medical bills are too much. There is surprisingly little relief available to a surprisingly large group of people, but the food they get from the Hub can make a difference. Like people going to traditional worship, people at the Parktown Food Hub come, knowing of their need and seeking relief from a broken world. And in greeting, we say

 

Watch greeting video

 

Now we join in singing, a way that groups of people are bound into one as our different voices are joined. This song gives a glimpse of how we feel about the people who come to the Hub – and I hope the way that people are welcomed into traditional worship services.

 

SONG: All Are Welcome (this is not exactly how we sang/played it, but it's a lovely version of a beautiful hymn that is uber-important to Pastor Sharon and to South Durham Connections.)

 

In a traditional service, the next part of the greeting is a prayer – an expression of how we hope to be transformed. Like this –

 

Will you pray with me?

O Lord God, merciful judge, you are the inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness. Replace our hearts of stone with hearts that love and adore you, that we may delight in doing your will, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Amen.

 

Today’s prayer is asking that we delight in doing God’s will with light and loving hearts.

 

At the Parktown Food Hub, we put that delight into practice – the relationships among volunteers, between volunteers and people who come for food… it is fun to give away from a position of abundance. And abundance is in fact the life we lead. Come visit us sometimes and ask to see the corn shelf and you will understand anew what abundance can be! EVEN DURING A PANDEMIC.

 

WORD

 

In this second part of worship, God’s word is proclaimed. This can be by reading one passage or two passages or even three passages plus a responsive reading of a Psalm. Christians believe that these passages from the Bible – the sacred text of Christianity – are themselves sacred language. But they are more than sacred words, like some kind of spell book or beautiful literature (although it is, in fact, some pretty wonderful literature!)

The point of the sacred text – the Word – is to help us be transformed so that our lives are less like the broken world and more like the way Jesus lived.

Gospel – Matthew 18:21-35

The gospel of the Lord.

In our church outside the box at the Parktown Food Hub, the words inform our behaviors even when they aren’t being read out loud. God has promised that the words will be written on our hearts forever. The Vision Board of the Parktown Food Hub unanimously agreed that our guiding principle and guide in solving problems is to follow the example of Jesus. So the Parktown Food Hub is run in a way that is our best and most earnest attempt at following Jesus.

Sermon – 

I wish that you could all spend time with us at the Parktown Food Hub and in other places where church is happening outside of buildings and traditional worship services. Today I’ve invited some people who have extensive experience in that exact thing. I asked them to look at the gospel lesson and think of some experience they had that seemed related to the text – much like a pastor does in writing a sermon. We pray and listen and seek to find words to bring the living word of God into the lives of people today.

Today you will hear from David Krebs. David attends Christus Victor Lutheran and started the corn shelf, complete with the tag “bringing cornfort to all” - a play on the CVLC mission statement.

Then you will hear from Ellie Klein. Ellie also attends Christus Victor and took over the corn work from David. Ellie and her sons are often at the hub and their enthusiasm is a delight.

Next you will hear from Jennie Vaughn.. Jennie lives in Parkwood and came to us when COVID started, as she was working from home, and she rapidly grew into one of our super volunteers.

Finally you will hear from Autumn Boyer, who attends Parkwood UMC. Autumn has a knack for showing up at just the right moment, whether it is to organize our disorder or bring a tent when ours has been destroyed by a thunderstorm.

Listen now for today’s gospel lesson from Matthew as it appears in the lives of these four faithful friends of South Durham Connections and the Parktown Food Hub:

1.    David Krebs (CVLC)

2.    Ellie Klein (CVLC)

3.    Jennie Vaughn (PFH)

4.    Autumn Boyer (PUMC)

 

If you happen to see or otherwise interact with David, Ellie, Jennie, or Autumn, please thank them for being brave and stepping up to share. 

Over the next week I invite you to think about this text - this story of abundance and how experiencing grace and generosity help form you in wanting to share grace and generosity with others. Better yet, go find a way to be generous in proportion to the generosity you have received, and see what happens next!

As Jennie mentioned, today is God’s Work Our Hands Sunday for the Lutherans. The next hymn was written especially for this day and embodies the messages you just heard. Please feel free to sing along even, maybe ESPECIALLY if you don’t normally sing. Today is your day!

SONG: God’s Work Our Hands hymn

Words and music here (I'm sorry I can't figure out how to upload the beautiful organ track shared by Simon Zaleski at Christus Victor Lutheran, but the link will take you to another very nice recording. We sang verses 1 and 4.)

South Durham Connections, the Parktown Food Hub, Parkwood UMC, and (in a different location than this) Christus Victor Lutheran church have all decided that growing food is an important part of their ministries. Parkwood UMC and the hub garden in this space that you see here. Christus Victor congregation has a beautiful garden on Highway 54 in front of their building. As we move toward the discussion of the role that food plays in worship, it seemed right to move out into the garden. And here we are!

After the sermon and before the meal, many traditional church services include a creed and prayers. The creed is another way of saying “this is what we believe”, just like the examples in our sermon are ways that the people involved were revealing what they believe.

In addition, traditional services have Prayers of Intercession – prayers in which the community gathers to lift up the joys and needs of their community. At Parkwood UMC, there is the “Glory Sighting” time when people talk about ways God has shown up in their lives. 

At the Parktown Food Hub we gather up the prayers of our people, too. Much of it comes in general conversation: “I’m still looking for a job and worried about being evicted, will you please pray for me?” or “My father is in the hospital dying of COVID… it hurts so much” or “my heart is so blessed by the work you do… I give thanks for it every day.”  They are truly prayers of our people.

Sometimes we also collect those prayers on strips of plastic and put them out for the community to see in the form of a tapestry. The prayers are made public.

At this moment in our service today, we will now pause. Please take a moment now to lift up the prayers of your heart: your joys, your concerns, your hopes for healing and need for grace.

 <PAUSE FOR PRAYERS> 

Closing:  Whether we live or whether we die, we are yours. We thank you for those who have showed us faithfulness, for the knees that taught us how to bow to you and the tongues that taught us to praise you. Lord, in your mercy,

hear our prayer.

All these things and whatever else you see that we need, we entrust to your mercy; through Christ our Lord.   Amen.

 

MEAL

Offering and Blessings:

As we move into Part Three of our worship in Four Parts, traditional services have a time of offering (or, in current online services, suggestions for how offerings can be shared.) Offerings are a way of giving thanks, of sharing our concern, of participating in the life of the congregation. Offerings can be cash, ushering, participating in music, helping with communion, greeting, setting up the altar – there are many ways of giving thanks.

The same is true for church outside of the box.  We call them donations rather than offerings, but there are many ways that people make offerings:  cash, gardening, shelving food, bringing canned goods, packing boxes or bags, picking up food from stores, participating in handing out food, greeting, even making sure that we get our folders back for next time!

We welcome and urge each of you to provide financial support for your ministry of choice. If you wish to support South Durham Connections, go here. If you are interested in working with and supporting Christus Victor Lutheran, go here. If you are interested in working with and supporting Parkwood UMC, go here.

Today we also want to give thanks for some special gifts that are beyond money. 

<School kits made for Lutheran World Relief (LWR) by the CVLC congregation; this year LWR is not collecting the kits because of COVID so they will be going to children at Parkwood Elementary who have many special needs this year as they engage in online learning>

<Gourd painted by Lisa’s nephew’s girlfriend April Baughman. Her business is called Hand Painted Gourds. The gourd has the Parktown Food Hub logo on one side and the Thrivent Live Generously logo on the other, because Live Generously is what we strive to do at the Parktown Food Hub.

Blessing Prayer: We thank you Lord for the open hearts and creative talents of so many people. Take these school kits that have been made with such loving care and soak them with your blessings of love and grace. Let the children who receive the kits know that their community cares for them and is standing with them in these difficult times.

Thank you also for the gifts of April in taking the beauty of nature in the form of this gourd and decorating it in such a meaningful way. Let the beauty shine forth and touch every person who enters this place, and continue to pour out your grace and mercy on April as she continues her creative work.

We seek these blessings in the name of and in gratitude for the gifts of Jesus. Amen.

In a Sunday service, once offerings have been given the service often moves into communion (especially in those congregations that have communion ever Sunday – or at least did pre-COVID.)

It’s all about the food.

During these hard times, the communion meal happens much less often because of safety concerns around the COVID pandemic.

In our food distributions, COVID has had the opposite effect. People come hungry in all kinds of ways, and are grateful for the meals that they can make out of the food that comes from us.

And who is fed?

In church services, the ones who are fed are the ones who are present and come forward seeking to be fed.

At the Parktown Food Hub, the ones who are fed are the ones who are present and come forward seeking to be fed.

In both cases there are rituals:  for communion in a church there are words of institution, spoken and sung responses, prayers. People receive bread that has been baked and wine that has been purchased and measured out based on the number of people expected. There are often gluten-free and alcohol-free options. They are fed in lovely dishes like these, called a chalice and a paten. (In the video Pastor Sharon holds up a cup and plate - aka chalice and paten - that was a gift to her from some really special people.)

At food hub distributions we share information about the process, sometimes with menus, sometimes with reminders, sometimes with special information. But the format is pretty much the same each week. We greet those who come, we secure the food and plan for the number of people expected. We allow people to choose the food they receive based on their special dietary needs and preferences. They are given food in boxes, much like this: (in the video Pastor Sharon holds up a box of food to be given away the next day)

Pastors offer the communion meal to people in time of need that prevents them from coming to our regular distributions – hospitalization, pre-surgery, in counseling situations

We offer food to people in times of difficulty, when the need is so great that it can’t wait until our next distribution. Sometimes that is due to COVID quarantine, or job loss, hospitalization or a wide variety of situations in which the brokenness of the world goes hard on unfortunate families.

And in both cases we feed those who come. Without question – their assertion that they want to be fed is enough. Just like those who approach the communion tables in our congregations.

AND THEN! The people have been fed. They have experienced the transforming word of God. It is time to go.

This is how that looks at a Parktown Food Hub distribution when the food has been shared:

 

watch sending video

 

“Ok, you’re ready to go!”

Words of reassurance and blessing.

Not a question or a suggestion. People have received what we have to offer and it is time to go figure out what to do with it and be strengthened in the process.

The people go with our blessing and the fervent hope that lives will be better, kinder, healthier, more hopeful, and filled with joy and devoid of all the hungers because of our interactions.

Exactly what pastors offer to people who have been in traditional Sunday morning worship services. You have been nourished by the Word, eaten together, formed and prepared for transformation… and now it’s time to go.

So today I offer you this blessing:  

The God of grace bless you now and forevermore.

You’re all ready to go!

AMEN!!

Now GO! Go to the places where Jesus is saying yes… because in the words of Beyonce and her cousins:

play video

 

How do you measure up?

 Last week and this week, without any effort on my part, were a tiny little sermon series and it was so awesome that I could be with the folks at St. Philip Lutheran in Raleigh for both weeks! This week we follow up on last weeks question of "Who are you?" by pondering... "How do you measure up?"

Like last week, the message was shared in two services and both are available for viewing. The earlier service with contemporary music (aka The Crossing) video is here. (Don't worry that the first slide says August 23... it is actually the August 30 video.)

The later service with organ and choir music is here.

The texts for the day are:

Jeremiah 15:15-21

Psalm 26:1-8

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew 16:21-28

Holy Spirit come. Turn us to love in, through, and like you. Amen.

How do we measure up? That’s a good question, right?

Take Peter for example. Last week, in the verses right before today’s gospel lesson, Jesus was all over Peter with the praise. Peter became the ROCK – the foundation of the church! Impressive stuff.

Except that this week the ROCK – the foundation of the church – is accused of being Satan. By the same Jesus who called him the rock just a little earlier! I’m wondering if maybe that should be a warning for us about what happens when the needs and vagaries of the church become more important than the one in whom the church rests: Jesus.

That maybe the church can be so bad it is SATAN… but still be the church. Still be the one named by Jesus. Because it really is all about Jesus. And only Jesus. 

Last week I asked WHO ARE YOU? It was all about how who we say Jesus is says a lot about who we are.

And sometimes (like, a whole BUNCH of the time) we get the details wrong, even when we are really clear on who we say Jesus is. Even when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah. Even when we are ALL up into the church, and making sure services continue in the pandemic and we are being generous and doing good and caring for others and feeding our enemies.

Like Peter, we can still get it wrong. Because we just don’t know. Today, for example, I think Peter was being perfectly reasonable. He said Jesus! Yes! You are the Messiah!! 

But Peter’s interpretation of Messiah didn’t quite hit the mark of who Jesus actually was. I mean, let’s be real. Jesus was talking about getting killed by the church officials who were all up into the politics of the day. The church that had sold its soul to the Romans. For safety, or some such.

Peter knew that Jesus was not about that life, but Peter thought, rather reasonably, that Jesus would put an end to that political stuff. Peter was part of the group that did not love the current government; he thought things should be different. In terms of today, we might say that Peter was a Democrat – a supporter of the party not in power - and he thought Jesus was a Democrat, too. And that’s when Jesus called him Satan.

This is a hard thing. 

When the gospel presents me a hard thing, I go looking elsewhere in the lectionary. And today what I found was a lovely list of behaviors. 

A really LONG list of things that I can perceive directly:

Love genuinely

Stick to what is good

Outdo one another in showing honor

Bless our persecutors (hmm… this is getting harder…)

Share in the joys AND sorrows of others

Associate with the lowly?

Live peaceably with all???

And there’s more! It really is a long, long list.

So, um, yeah. We could just do all that, right?

Like, definitely a checklist. I love a checklist. Maybe I’ll make a spreadsheet. So I can keep track of how things are going. How we are doing. You know, this would make a great checklist to know what’s going on with the soul of my (spouse, boss, child, …. Enemy…)

And there we are. Right into the trap. The trap that moves us from being the Rock of the church to Satan’s minion.

Because the question was who am *I*?  Who do *I* say Jesus is? How do *I* live in such a way that others see Jesus?

But in the merest twinkling I have deflected away from myself – from the *I* - to judging others. I’ve taken my eyes off of Jesus to keep an eye on the scoundrels all around me.

Let’s have a little moment of silent honesty with ourselves right quick: did anybody else’s mind go to “ooooo yeah… so-and-so surely needs to hear that!”  

Did you avail yourself of the opportunity to smack a little on your favorite classmate or co-worker or family member or political target?

I did. :(

And that, I think, might be what Jesus was calling out in Peter. Because Peter thought he knew more about Jesus’ path than Jesus did, just like we so often think we know so much about another person’s situation that we completely ignore our own.

And so Jesus started talking about some pretty strange things, like how he has to die and then come back and everybody will be repaid for what they have done.  

That same idea shows up first in Deuteronomy, as God is giving instructions to the Israelites as they get ready to enter the Promised Land.

And again in Romans, today. And again in Hebrews. All in the same words:  “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.”

And OH how we love to emphasize that REPAY! Like “wait until your God gets here, then you will get it!” Because we love some vengeance. But I think maybe that’s not the emphasis Jesus intended.

Jesus – the Messiah – is indeed coming back to repay everybody.  It’s not up to us.  It reminds me of an episode of All In The Family when Archie Bunker is very upset about Edith’s cousin being a lesbian. He said God didn’t like that and she should be punished. And Edith said “BUT YOU AIN’T GOD.” The devoutly Catholic Carroll O’Connor had put this verse right into that satirical tv show.

God will repay. Not us. Nowhere does God say that we have to police each other and make people behave the way we think God wants them to.

The message is clear… we are not to think we know how God will do things.

And as we see what Jesus did – like walking into that hornets nest that he knew would get him killed – we see over and over that God’s ways make absolutely NO human sense.

When Peter cuts off the ear of a soldier coming after Jesus (probably with his fishing knife) Jesus says “no, don’t do that, that’s not my way.”

And when Jesus does in fact die, without arguing or calling down legions or rallying his followers.

He just took the torture they handed him and never once sought vengeance. Because Jesus is the only human being who could ever actually live like it – who could leave the vengeance to God.

Do you know what God’s vengeance looked like? It looked like Jesus being Resurrected. It looked like Jesus loving his disciples – even that wacky Peter, who had acted an awful lot like Jesus’ enemy – after the Resurrection by feeding them fish and giving Peter a chance to declare his love three times, once for each time he had so bitterly denied Jesus just a few days before. 

That’s what God’s vengeance looks like.

So when Paul says to give food and drink to our enemies when they are hungry and thirsty, that is God’s vengeance.

When we remove the power of racist policing forces and replace it with compassion for all people, that is God’s vengeance.

When we give up our own power and privilege so that others can live equitable lives, that is God’s vengeance.

But since it is God’s vengeance, we can’t even take credit! We cannot dip into pride about how great we are. Because all we are doing is a pale imitation of God’s actual vengeance.

On top of that, we cannot do it on our own. We just don’t have it in us. On our own we ARE NOT ENOUGH to leave vengeance to God, to consistently choose compassion, to let go of our fears and keep our eyes on Jesus.

Peter couldn’t do it when he got out of the boat to walk on water and what did Jesus do? Jesus reached out his hand and lifted him up.

But that only worked because Peter KNEW that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Peter knew he could cry out and Jesus would be there. Because remember, who we say Jesus is tells us a lot about who we are.

In a few weeks Peter would go from denying Jesus, to confessing his love directly to Jesus, to boldly calling out those who had killed Jesus with compassion and truth and offer of redemption (NOT VENGEANCE). And 3000 souls were added to the church on that day.

When we can say, in truth and faith, that we know that Jesus is the Messiah, then we will look to Jesus in our suffering and brokenness and insufficiency and fear and we will rest in the Resurrection.

Like Peter we can say… Yes, Jesus, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God and in your perfect, vengeance-free love I am redeemed. 

And in that redemption we DO become enough. 

Enough to live generously

To feed our hungry enemies

To outdo one another in showing honor

Enough to rejoice

To suffer patiently

To extend hospitality

We can live in harmony – even with the people that are criminalized.

We can associate with the lowly.

We can NOT CLAIM TO BE WISER THAN WE ARE.

Not on our own, not perfectly, but in Jesus. The Jesus who will reach out to lift us up out of the surf when we realize what mistakes we have made and cry out to be saved.

Because when we admit that Jesus is the Messiah we are redeemed from every error, rescued from the pain that our vengefulness brings into the world, transformed into people who look through the lens of love rather than the lens of fear.

We are transformed into someone who measures all the way up… in Jesus.

Amen.