the Resurrection of Jesus and the Goodness of God's Creation

Alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed alleluia! 

But before he was raised, Jesus died.  He died just as he told them he would.  He went to Jerusalem at Passover and became victim to the religious and the romans, hell bent on crushing rebellions and dreams.  They had to stop him from becoming bigger than he was, a mere Galilean peasant with grandiose ideas and a following of naïve and needy souls.  He told them it was going to be that way, that it must be that way.  He told them that he would die and in three days rise again.  They hadn’t believed him though.  They had chosen not to believe it because they loved him, they needed him, they expected more than death from him.  Accepting mortality and death is hard for any of us.  We hate death and how it robs us of ourselves, our loved ones.  Besides, they expected that he was the one to set right what was wrong with the world.  They believed that he could change the world, heal the wounds, reconcile the wrongs, fix the broken.  Usually putting that much hope in a single human being is a bad idea, never ends well.  But they believed that he had the power to change everything, if he stayed alive and accepted his role as the anointed King.   They believed that he was messiah, a holy king sent by God himself to restore the kingdom of Israel, to abolish the powers that threatened daily existence, to release prisoners, heal the sick, give hope to the dying.  They had reason to believe in him; he was healing and teaching with power and authority and what he said and did was Good, very good.  His goodness seemed to include all kinds of people; jews, pagans, men, women, children, ethnic minorities practicing other forms of Judaism, soldiers, tax collectors working for the roman empire, prostitutes, lawyers, the wealthy and the poor.  Everyone was invited, but few were willing to accept. No one wanted to be with those people. What he offered was life for the ages, but not without cost.  Discipleship was about serving others, giving freely and generously, accepting the other, loving the enemy.  Following his path might mean to reject one’s own family.  Putting God’s mission first.  Putting my wants and needs last.  He called fishermen and zealots and tax collectors and not-so-trustworthy followers.  And he entrusted them with his work of healing and forgiveness. He said, only in becoming the last, the least, and the loser does one get into God’s kingdom. For those who did believe this, the last thing they needed was a dead rabbi.

it was good

Where do we see power?  Governments?  Armed forces?  Wealth? Sheer numbers of people?  In the mind of the individual?   

St Patricks cathedral in New York is directly across from Rockefeller center and at the entrance to Rockefeller center is the great sculpture of Atlas holding up the world. ON Good Friday, the doors of the cathedral are opened, and you can see the great cross from the street.  Turn in one direction and there is the mythical atlas holding up the world, turn in the other, and there is the one broken by the world.  Which image speaks the truth?  Is the world upheld by our godlike strength or by the crucified love of God?  Upon that decision everything, simply everything must turn.” Father Richard Neuhaus, Death on a Friday afternoon.

palms. both leaves and hands.

On Palm Sunday we hear two stories about Jesus. Both involve Palms.  Palm branches strewn in his path and the palms of Jesus’ hands, nailed to a cross.  Two different palms with two different meanings.  

The first of these stories is the story of Jesus triumphal entry into the capital city of Jerusalem for the festival of Passover.  Jesus enters on a donkey with crowds shouting blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna to the son of David.  Jews awaited a Messiah to liberate them from foreign rule and establish true worship of their God Yahweh.  Their God was a deliverer who had delivered them from the Egyptian Pharaoh and from Babylon.  The history of their God Yahweh was that of redemption and freedom from oppressive foreign rule.  What God had done before, God would do again according to God’s covenant promises to Israel.  God would send an anointed King with God’s power.  This King would rule forever and would usher in an age of peace.  Passover, the Jewish memorial celebration of the Exile from Egypt represented the hopes of the Jews.  Passover inspired people to take up the cry for justice and the hope for Messiah to come.  Passover was revolution time and often led to violence and Roman crackdown to quell it.  Already before Jesus of Nazareth one such Messiah had been killed by the Romans.  

the water

The story.  John 4

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 
(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 
‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ 
(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, 
‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”,
 you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. 
Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, 
who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 
Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 
but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. 
The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up 
to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that 
I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman 
answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, 
“I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now 
is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him,
 ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, 
but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 
Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will 
worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, 
for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, 
when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, 
for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those 
who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him,
 ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, 
he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is 
speaking to you.’

 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking 
with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking
 with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city.
 She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything 
I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’They left the city 
and were on their way to him.

 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 
But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 
So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him 
something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him 
who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, 
then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields 
are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and 
is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 
For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.”I sent you to reap 
that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered 
into their labour.’

 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, 
‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him,
 they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. 
And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, 
‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

Thoughts

On the surface this gospel is about water.  Since March 22 was world water day, it ought to be about water.  1.2. billion people do not have access to clean water. The amount of water you use to take a five minute shower is more water than half the people in the world have for the whole day.   It is hard for us to imagine what it is like in the developing world for women and girls who spend hours of their day fetching water from a well miles from their village.  African households spend 26% of their time fetching water.  5000 children die every day from water-borne disease.  Often girls cannot go to school because they must fetch water for their households.  Our access to clean water in the U.S. is a gift that we can so easily take for granted.  Waiting at a well for a drink of water is not something with which we can easily identify.   The average American uses 400 litres of water daily; the average European uses 200 litres; in the developing world 10 litres.  We can reduce our use and waste of water, remembering how so many suffer for lack of the most important substance on earth.  No water, no life. Its as simple as that. 

lies, promises, and Jesus

1st Sunday in Lent

Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written,
“One does not live by bread alone,
   but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’

 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you”,
   and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’ 
Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’

 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
   and serve only him.” ’ 

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. 

We begin every season of Lent hearing the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  The forty days of Lent find their origin in this story and its relation to its predecessor stories about Israel’s 40 year journey through the wilderness, Moses’ and Elijah’s forty day sojourn on the mountain of God, and Noah’s 40 days in the Ark.  Jesus’ responses to the devils’ tempting offers  are all derived from the book of Deuteronomy, a law book describing true, loving obedience to God.  Jesus’ answers are the answers of a well-versed rabbi.  He knows the scripture and how it applies to his situation.  Jesus is tempted, and unlike his biblical forerunners, Jesus does not take the forbidden fruit.  As we heard in the Genesis 2 story, Adam and eve believed a lie and ate the fruit God told them not to eat.  Sin, understood as disobedience to God’s will, is preceded by a lie—a lie about God and a lie about human kind.  

Transfiguration. Why mystery is essential to faith

Transfiguration: Matthew 17

I love the mountains.  They are sacred to me.  The sounds, the views, the sense of grandeur they convey; science has only increased their beauty, showing us how they formed over thousands of years, millions of years ago from receding glaciers.  There are people in Tibet that consider some mountains the location of the gods, too sacred to ascend.  They pray to the mountains.  For thousands of years people have gone to the mountains for holy moments.  Mountains are not full of natural resources to exploit, they are full of the awesome presence of GOD.  Mountains are often the sites of holy encounters.   Have you ever seen something inexplicable?  Something so strange that you could hardly describe it?   Have you ever been so awe struck by something that you saw that you had to tell others, maybe even written down the details so as not to forget it? The Transfiguration of Jesus is a hard story to swallow.  It sounds like Loch Ness monster spotters meet UFO devotees.  And even more important, It sounds too much like other stuff that happened before in the bible.  It sounds like the gospel writers are busy trying to prove Jesus’ identity with a story that is so sort of supernatural that we modern skeptics can’t possibly believe it is true.  As if the resurrection were not enough. 

the whole gospel

"It would be worthless to have an economic liberation in which all the poor had their own house, their own money, but were all sinners, their hearts estranged from God, what good would it be?
There are nations at present that are economically and socially quite advanced, for example those of northern Europe, and yet how much vice and excess.  The church will always have its word to say:  conversion.  Progress will not be completed even if we organize ideally the economy and the political and social orders of our people.  It won't be entire with that.  That will be the basis so that it can be completed by what the church pursues and proclaims; God adored by all, Christ acknowledged as only savior, deep joy of Spirit in being at peace with God and with our brothers and sisters."  --Bishop Oscar Romero.

are you worried?

Jesus says, "So do not worry about your life."  Are you worried?  Really?  Why?

You have insurance; homeowners, auto, health and life.  Yes life insurance, financial security for your family in the tragic event of your premature death.

And grocery stores full of food you did not have to labor over, grow, harvest, process, can, haul, or stock on shelves.  How much food is wasted daily because it was not purchased before its sell by date expired?  You have food, I suspect, in your house on a shelf or in a freezer, that you will not eat today or tomorrow.  I bet you have at least a week’s worth of food in your house right now, maybe more. I do. 

And closets and dressers with clothing you did not have to make.  Some that you do not or cannot wear.  I do. 

And a bank account. I do.

And a pension or retirement savings account.  You have investments. I do.   

And a credit card. I do.

And social security. Maybe I will?

You have what you need for today, maybe even for tomorrow. Knowing this, are you worried?  I am.  

love your enemies

We continue to hear Jesus teachings from the fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew.  We have been dwelling on these words for three weeks now.  So Rabbi Jesus teaches us how to live a holy life as God’s people.  If you are like me, the idea of being or becoming holy sounds a bit-farfetched, awkward, and unlikely.  Holiness is for Catholic nuns or priests or something.  Or the holy-rollers, the holier than thou religious sort, who judge others by their self-righteousness.  I don’t want to be like them.  But I do want to become like Jesus, to live according to God’s will  When Jesus says be perfect, he does not mean be perfect. It is not moral perfectionism, but rather an acknowledgment that God sets some people apart as an example for others.  Not that some of us are better than the rest, but that God has given some people an identity with a mission or calling—to imitate Jesus.  We continue, then, to ask the question, What does it mean for a blessed person to bless others?

Jesus says:  Do not resist an evildoer.  Turn the other cheek.  Give your cloak.  Go the second mile.  Give to everyone who begs of you.  Do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.  This sounds like we invite people to take advantage of us.  It sounds like becoming willing victims to abuse, violence, and highway robbery.  It sounds like letting bad people walk all over you.  It sounds like a series of bad advice.

In honor of President's day, I have a couple of Lincoln and Washington tales to tell.  

life or death. talking and acting like Jesus.

Matthew 5:21-37.  Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Life and prosperity, death and adversity.  No less than life and death are on the table in the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy. As we listen to the Scriptures, as we consider what the Master Jesus is teaching us, we recognize that this word was about matters of life or death.  For the Jewish community, life and death hang in the balance.  The seriousness of the law makes me think of God as a powerful judge and Jesus as a high power district attorney.  Are we the defendants, the disciples the twelve jurors, our neighbors, our accusers? There is a way in which these texts can be heard in that context.  What would the heavenly court say about us?  Do we not stand condemned according to our sins?  Does Jesus raise the bar in order to accuse us, to show us how weak we are, to expose our misbehavior?  Do we stand before God then, accused, convicted, sentenced to death?  We are happy with the grace-filled, merciful and loving Jesus.  But ethical Jesus challenges us to think about what we are doing, what others are doing in our world. As God’s blessed ones, how do we live, how do we behave?

Blessed are you.

Matthew 5: 1-12 The sermon on the mount

The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.  ~William Arthur Ward.

 

When we think of teachers, we think of formal education, school, professors, and homework.  School is something that we complete, that we finish.  So what does it mean to be a student or disciple of Jesus?  We are going to find out.  What is Christian education and who needs it?   

It all started on Saturday when I slipped on the ice and sprained my ego, I mean ankle.  Then on Sunday, Jonah fell and split his head open, needed stitches.  Then Cherie had a disasterous trip to the grocery store, in which she dumpled an entire bag of dog food in the checkout aisle.  Can you say clean up on aisle 12?  Then my computer failed. I was going to say died, but I don’t want to over-humanize the machine. It’s not human.   It was one of those weeks---like someone has it in for you, when trivial things cause frustrations that turn into self-pity.  Why is this happening? Ugh.  Not now.  Not me. Not today.  I am important.  I have things to do, places to go, people to see.  You know the feeling? The whole, “Why am I being cursed” feeling?  The feeling that you are not blessed, that someone up there has it in for you.  Then I see Linda Shelley, who has good news about her cancer fight and she tells me how blessed she is.  Blessed.  Sick with cancer, having just come from chemo, and she is blessed.  Man do I have a ways to go.  I think I was also able to be a blessing a couple of times this week.  I delivered food to some neighbors.  They genuinely seemed grateful that I came, listened to their stories, felt their pain, tried to help.  I was blessed to be a blessing a couple of times this week.   

Be our Guest. Christians and hospitality

I enjoy being a guest.  It is the nature of my vocation that I enter into the homes of other people.  I love to visit people. I like to be received.  It is good to be on someone else's home turf.  Often, I am the recipient of some gesture of welcome---a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, a comfy chair.  When I came here five years ago, my wife and I intentionally welcomed the congregation into our home.  We invited people over for dinner.  We had an open house in the summer time.  With rare exception, our openness to others was not reciprocated.  We go out to eat with a few couples from the church annually. When our second and third children were born, people brought food to us.  We enjoyed many wonderful home-cooked meals that way.  But nobody came to eat with us.  And rarely have we been invited to another home.
There have been occasions when we sought to get people together around a meal for fellowship and discipleship.  But people have been reluctant to take part.  People are closed off, private, afraid of getting to know others.

Jesus' maps

If we are to become seekers after and followers of Jesus, then we must become familiar with His ways.
His ways are ancient, marking paths thousands of years old.  I have not walked where Jesus walked.  I have not been in the Galilee region, or in the city of Jerusalem.  I have not been to Israel or the middle east.  We may not literally go there, as pilgrims to a place.  But we can find ourselves following after Him.
The first step is to encounter Jesus, called the Christ.  To do so will require digging into history, religion, ancient cultures and traditions, biblical texts and spiritual experiences.
We will begin with Jesus, as He comes to us in the bible. We will call this a primary map.
The gospels tell the story of Jesus' adult ministry, arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection.  Two of the four gospels include infancy stories.  The Gospel of John develops a more cosmic identity, giving Jesus the status of divine creator.  Jesus is light.  Jesus is God incarnate.
IN the gospels Jesus teaches and heals people.  Jesus feeds the hungry and raises the dead to life.  He restores sight to the blind. He calls disciples, students to come after him, learn and imitate his ways.  Jesus teaches them how to pray, how to share, how to serve others.  Jesus tells parables, stories that interpret human experience from an alternative view.  Jesus favors small things, weak things, poor things.  Jesus sees the value in a single sparrow, in the artistry of a flower, in the subtle power of a single seed.  Jesus recognizes injustices, systems of evil and oppression that threaten life.  He confronts and seeks to dismantle those systems.
Jesus is baptized and practices the Jewish Passover.  He observes Sabbath, even while breaking or changing the rules that governed human behavior on it.  He upholds the sanctity of marriage and the goodness of children, even while he eats with prostitutes and invites condemned criminals into paradise.
Coming next...the gospel of Matthew.  Rabbi Jesus and the way of poverty, humility, and peace.

Searching

Geocaching is a new game of hide and seek that people play with their handheld GPS device.  A GPS helps you to tsrack and locate a hidden object, the coordinates of which have been entered into the GPS' navigation system.  Caches are usually small containers with trinkets in them, prizes for the seeker/finder.  There are hundreds of thousands of geocaches around the world.  People are seekers.  We like to find things and be found. We like to use our minds, our intuition, and our tools to find our way.  Searching is in our DNA. 


"For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer... I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?"  (From the movie "Contact", with Jodie Foster.)  Searching for meaning.  Asking why.  It's what sets us apart.  We have the capacity to ask questions, to search, to discover, to assign meaning to an experience or event or object.  We make sense of our world.  


In a Google world, where an engine searches millions of pages of digital content to provide the searcher with the best results for their inquiry within seconds, we expect to find answers instantly and easily.  Is everything available  through Google?  Is there nothing hidden that cannot be found with the click of the mouse and the stroke of the keys?  
"You have searched me out and known me," sang the biblical Psalmist thousands of years ago.  God searches for people, too.  God seeks us, even as we seek after the mysteries of life.  We seek God to make sense of the things we cannot Google for understanding.  
I am reading a book right now called "Enough: Why people starve in an age of plenty."  I think that is a question worth asking.  Why do people starve in an age of plenty?  Why, if there is enough food for everyone on the planet, do 26,500 children die daily from preventable diseases related to hunger?  Google that.  If you Google the world hunger about 49 million hits emerge.  That's about how many Americans suffer from food insecurity, a lack of adequate resources to provide food for their household.  I think we could spend our lives searching for a way to end hunger in the world.  

Searching for the truth about life, we travel, we read, we explore ideas, we pay attention to events and people.  Most people need a Google or a GPS to navigate their way in the world.  We need direction, guidance, a map.
I like to think that searching, though often personal, is not best done in private.  It is best done in the company of other searchers.  Geocaching is a great family activity. 
Searching for the truth about the world, ourselves, and God is something we do best in conversation with others.  It is better not to search alone.  Lonely searching too often becomes wandering, which can prove fruitless, aimless, and direction-less.


The biblical story is about a way.  From beginning to end, the biblical story is a journey filled with movement and obstacles and misguidance and redirection.  
Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."  What is the way of Jesus?  How does Jesus teach us to seek after God?   Where does Jesus go?  What tools does he offer for navigation?  What are the maps Jesus' uses to direct His people into the life God intends?  By carefully reading the bible we can come to see these maps.  They do not provide a single-lane highway, easy-to-travel approach.  We will need to use our imagination, intuition, and collective resources to find the way.  On the way, we might also be found.  


The Christian community believes that the way is Jesus.  The way to peace.  The way to compassion.  The way to justice.  The way to death.  The way to life.  Jesus is the way there.  Getting on the way with Jesus is what church is about.  It is about finding one's way in the world with Jesus as our master.  He shows us the way.  


Coming up in the next post... Using Jesus' maps: ancient practices that give direction.    
  

An education

  

Sermon for Epiphany 4 2011

The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.  ~William Arthur Ward. 

When we think of teachers, we think of formal education, school, professors, and homework.  School is something that we complete, that we finish.  So what does it mean to be a student or disciple of Jesus?  We are going to find out.  What is Christian education and who needs it?   

It all started on Saturday when I slipped on the ice and sprained my ego, I mean ankle.  Then on Sunday, Jonah fell and split his head open, needed stitches.  Then Cherie had a disastrous trip to the grocery store, in which she dumped an entire bag of dog food in the checkout aisle.  Can you say clean up on aisle 12?  Then my computer failed. I was going to say died, but I don’t want to over-humanize the machine. It’s not human.   It was one of those weeks---like someone has it in for you, when trivial things cause frustrations that turn into self-pity.  Why is this happening? Ugh.  Not now.  Not me. Not today.  I am important.  I have things to do, places to go, people to see.  You know the feeling? The whole, “Why am I being cursed” feeling?  The feeling that you are not blessed, that someone up there has it in for you.  Then I see Linda Shelley, who has good news about her cancer fight and she tells me how blessed she is.  Blessed.  Sick with cancer, having just come from chemo, and she is blessed.  Man do I have a ways to go.  I think I was also able to be a blessing a couple of times this week.  I delivered food to some neighbors.  They genuinely seemed grateful that I came, listened to their stories, felt their pain, tried to help.  I was blessed to be a blessing a couple of times this week.    

The Master teaches.  And on this occasion, he speaks blessing first.  He will teach morals and commands and encourage a particular way of life.  But he begins with blessings.  The Beatitudes are a reminder.  Not that people in mourning are blessed.  Or that the poor are.  Or that those who are pure in heart or peaceful are blessed.  It is not a reminder that God only blesses these types of folks.  Jesus is offering a blessing to the people who had gathered to listen to him teach.  In the beginning of his first teaching event, he offers these blessings.  Matthew’s gospel includes five teaching discourses, in which Jesus offers an alternative way of life for God’s people.  Some scholars believe that Matthew is claiming that Jesus is the new Moses and the five teachings are the new Torah.  Torah are the first five books of the old testament and represent the core teachings of Judaism about life in relationship or covenant with their God, Yahweh, with each other, and with their neighbors.  Jesus’ first discourse is called the Sermon on the mount, because he is sitting on a mountain.  We will hear the entire sermon over the next few weeks.  It gives the Christian community a snapshot of the core values or principles by which the Master Jesus lives; teachings he demonstrates in his own life and expects his followers to imitate in theirs.  If Moses’ teaching begins with the ten commandments—the thou shalt nots.  Then Jesus teaching begins with the Beatitudes, the blest are theys.  Contrast these ways of talking about God.  The former reveals God as a supreme law giver and judge who presides over the people as a stern parent, with serious rules to be obeyed.  The latter reveals a God who blesses those people who are the least likely to feel blessed.  The ones who may seem to be cursed. God favors them.  When others might look at their situations and say, what did they do?  And don’t we sometimes judge ourselves negatively too?  That we don’t deserve to be blessed, that we deserve whatever crisis comes our way?  When life feels like divine punishment or has gone to hell, that is when God’s promise to bless is given.  Jesus teaches that the suffering ones will be rewarded; that the peacemakers will be God’s children; that those who grieve will be comforted; that the weak will have the world handed to them. 

Christian education begins with blessing.  It begins with God’s welcome and God’s promise to give us the fullness of life.  And it continues with the master Jesus teaching us how to live in that grace, how to become not only recipients of blessing but bearers of blessing for others.  There are so many masters out there competing for your allegiance.  Christians take Jesus as their master.  We are apprentices in his ways.   

I was blessed with the resources to obtain formal academic degrees, both my bachelors and my masters degree.  But Christian education is deeper; it is training the Spirit to will what God wills, to love what God loves, to care about the things God made, to tread a little lighter on the earth, and to bless others more than you curse. Christian education shapes one’s identity as a baptized child of God.  How do we live as bearers of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven?  How do we show mercy, offer peace, and receive pure hearts?  How do we endure persecution as Christ’s people, doing justice and loving mercy by standing with the outcast and the sinners?  How do we stand for human dignity and demand that al people receive respect and a little compassion? Christian education is lifelong training in how to live the golden rule, how to love others, love God, love the world.  For the next few weeks, we are in for a Christian education, as we listen to the master. I know this kind of training is not a sprint, but a marathon.  It is lifelong development and formation as God’s people.  Join us as we grow in our knowledge of God’s blessings and in our resolve to follow Him.  And before you go today, tell someone how God blessed you this week. 

Amen.  

Micro-church: a post-congregational expression

I grew up going to church.  My parents became Lutheran members of a congregation in Illinois and found a Lutheran congregation that shared the same name when we migrated to New York State.  I was a member of Our Saviour Lutheran in Rockford, by baptism; and of Our Saviour, Utica, by transfer and by confirmation.  I became a member of Grace Lutheran and of Zion Lutheran by letter of call as ordained pastor. I loved weekly liturgy and started assisting the pastor in the worship service as a teen.  I was weird, compared to my peers.  I was weird, compared to adult members.  My faith life was activated.   I listened and believed.  And I loved potlucks, Lenten services, and singing in the choir.  I never thought I would become critical of the Lutheran Christian culture that formed me.  I do so out of a deep, abiding love for Jesus and his church.  I do so out of a sense of obligation to serve Him and the church I love.  I have loved and benefited from congregational life.  I appreciate a sense of belonging to a people and a place, a holy dwelling place where God's promises are spoken and received.  The familiarity of a particular congregation and its sanctuary/building is emotionally comforting in the face of an ever-changing world.

Micro-Church DNA Continued:Who is Jesus?

"The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God." Gospel of Mark 1:1.  The micro-church is evangelical.  But it is not evangelical in the political, Americanized, televised sense of the word.  It is evangelical because it is formed as a result of the gospel announcement made by Jesus, embodied by Jesus, and concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  The gospel is the announcement about God's rule and its implications for all creation and especially humankind, a public announcement that occurred in 1st century Palestine/Israel through the ministry of Jesus.  The micro-church consists of people who have been captivated, inspired, changed, and called to act by and in response to Jesus.  The life of the micro-church is found in the story of Jesus.  That story is offered four ways, but four witnesses, four storytellers, four narrators. They tell unique aspects of one story.  Much of what each says overlaps and complements the other narratives.  Some differences give unique character and flavor to the stories.  These gospels are not biographies, so much as personal accounts of Jesus and the people he encounters along the way.  They are also theophanies, revealing or showing the world something of the divine or of God's identity and character.  Jesus and God the father are consistent characters in the narrative of the gospels.  To the gospel writers the God who is present and revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures appears in the work and teachings of Jesus.
For the micro-church, encountering this Jesus in the narrative of the gospels and in the unfolding of life's story, is a core part of who we are and what we are called to be and do as church.  Jesus is not an historical figure or a hero of faith or a martyr.  Jesus is God's son, the lamb of God, the good shepherd, the light of the world, and the resurrection and life.  Jesus is the way, to live and to die. Jesus is what life is about.  The meaning of life is the story of Jesus, who shows us what it means to live a full and complete human life in full and complete union with God.  Why is Jesus so central to a micro-church's dna? There are other things that shape modern churches, including human traditions, building designs, cultures and languages. Jesus is included in these things, too.  But to say that Jesus and the gospels were coopted for the purposes of Constantinian religion is an understatement.   More about that in a bit...

small, apostolic , rooted: the micro-church

The smallest of seeds...

In shaping a vision for the future church, there are some things we identify as core values, essential aspects, part of the DNA.  The future church will not jettison or abandon the ecclesial past, so much as it will reframe and reimagine what the "old, old story" means given the postmodern situation we find ourselves in.
Without deconstructing a whole lot of what church has been about or addressing every attribute of the psotmodern global context we are in,  I hope to begin forming an ecclesial  structure for the future of our life and work as people of faith.  Much work has already been done by Phyllis Tickle, author of "The Great Emergence", Brian McLaren, and many others to identify the reformation of the church that is occurring at this beginning of the next millenium. They have already identified and unpacked this contextual landscape.  They are exegetes of culture, cultural liasons, and ethnographers of this age that give language to what we experience and know as people living here and now.  Something is emerging in Christianity that departs from or reframes what preceded it in light of that new cultural landscape.  Congregations, denominational bodies, and even megachurches are recognizing that former ways of doing church, the paradigmatic systems we've accepted as the only ways to be church, are failing to embody the gospel message in ways that connect, resonate, and give life to God's world. From church scandals to massive oil spills, the world is crying out for a message of hope lived and expressed by an inspired and inspiring people who are willing to devote themselves to living a better way.  No current religious system is free enough from the limits we have imposed on ourselves to fully embrace an alternative way.  We have a way of gauging corporate success.  Drifting away from methods proven effective is tantamount to suicide.  But what if those tried and true formulas for being church no longer work?   What if attracting people to build an institution that requires more people to sustain it and manage it for the next 100 years doesn't work?  Is there another way of being church?

Micro-churches

In the future, the Christian community will return to its apostolic roots. These roots are spiritual, incarnational, missional, and relational.  The church will not build multi-million dollar campuses to serve the religious needs of insatiable consumers.  The church will not consist of a program staff doing ministry for haappy church-goers.  The church will not be held hostage by power players who follow human traditions while abandoning the justice and joy of Jesus. The church will not abandon its mission to serve the poor, the outcast, the sinner, and the refugee. The church will not neglect its responsibility to serve and protect the earth.  The church will bring hope and healing and reconciliation to people whose lives have been diminished and broken by those who claim authority over others for their own selfish benefit.  Perpetuating broken systems of injustice will not be the ministry of religious institutions calling themselves "Christian".    

 After a long captivity, people of faith are beginning to reimagine the hope and promise of Christian community.  The church is an organic reality, like a small plant emerging from the soil.  We are being planted once again.
A church is now emerging that values hospitality, grace, and humility over self-righteousness, exclusion, and tyrannical moralism.  This church is not mega. It is not the fastest growing anything.  It is not seeker-sensitive, though all people are welcome to belong.  It is not relevant or hip.  It is ancient, small, subtle, but powerful.  It is the micro-church.
Cell churches and house church movements have been emerging since the 1970s.  They have even deeper historic roots.  But the future of the church is not based on cultural trends.  The future church belongs to God and is a spiritual movement to restore the most natural expression of ecclesia, as it was imagined and embodied by Jesus and His first followers.   What is a micro-church and how does it operate?  read more after the jump...

a new day in the blog universe

Welcome back. I am renewing this blog and restoring its original name "koinonia 21c." Communities are formed in spaces like this now. Blogs are sites where relationships can happen. I hope that this site can bring together a community of friends who share a desire to live like Jesus, the bearer of God's power, the power of self-emptying service.  Koinonia is a Greek word used in the biblical narrative of the New testament to describe the way the first followers of Jesus lived a common, corporate, way of life. They shared.  They served one another. They helped one another navigate the forces that threaten to overwhelm and devour us.  They fed one another. They breathed together, conspiring to bring healing, reconciliation, and hope to a broken and suffering world.  They became a movement, a collective consciousness, a body of believers with a mission.  This mission was not coercive, militant, or colonialistic. It was a movement for peace, for love, for healing, for joy.  It was a spiritual movement to confront powers and systems of injustice with an alternative way. For more about this relational way of being together, read on...