Resurrection Life

Towering Cedar or Lowly Weed? Mark 4: 26-34

2 Pentecost 2009

Mark 4:26-34
“Towering Cedar or Lowly Weed?”
Pastor Chris Enstad

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love Jesus’ parables. The root word of “parable” is parabalo from which we get the word parabolic, that half arc that carries with it the sense of some kind of motion and that is indeed what these teachings of Jesus were. Stories of the kingdom of god lobbed into the middle of our everyday lives like verbal hand grenades with the pin pulled. One way or the other, when one hears these parables something is going to happen.

I love these parables of Christ because they resist the human temptation to make moralistic or legalistic rules out of them. We can’t take them and demand anything specific from each other in order to “be Christian”. Indeed, Jesus’ parables take all of our assumptions and turn them on their head yet do so in a living way that begs us to stay close, to hear them over and over again to to stand in wonder at this amazing Word of God that can change us and our world.

And that is another thing about parables that I love. While they resist us attaching moralistic rules to them they also deny us the opportunity to just sit in our pews and nod our heads in assent or shake them in disbelief. They are not philosophical issues for us to decide to agree with or not in our head… these parables, when heard by a believer, create movement, they require us to change our assumptions, our values, our priorities, our attitudes and our actions towards each other and our neighbor. Is God ruling or not? If God is ruling then we better tune our ears to hear just how that rule sounds and change our hearts to show love to each other and our world in a radically different manner then we are doing right now.

So here we have Jesus looking around himself and his surroundings and to answer the question, “What will is the kingdom of God coming to earth like?” The answer becomes this, God’s coming to this world should be compared to a person sowing a field.

Huh? Come again? You are telling me that the kingdom of God is like a farmer waking up one day, looking out at his or her field, and deciding that it’s time to plant some seeds? Well, ok, we can handle the agrarian theme it fits contextually with Jesus time… so we’ll listen a bit longer. So the person slept and got up night and day and the seed did what seed does, and the earth did what the earth does, and things started to grow. And when the grain was ripe the farmer went into the field with a sickle to be a part of the harvest.

Jesus, I think you may have lost us there. Would you care to try again?
Sure, Jesus looks around, let’s see let’s see what can we compare the kingdom of God to… hmm… do you have a spice rack? Umm, yes. Where’s that jar of mustard seed? Here you go. Ok, Jesus says, as he dumps one little mustard seed into his hand, the kingdom of God is like this mustard seed.

This small seed grows into a large bush and those who need rest use its branches.

Is it any wonder Jesus pulled the disciples aside to explain these parables to them. At least we don’t need any explaining. You guys get these things right?

No? But I must because I’m the expert right? Well, guess what, when it comes to the parables Jesus puts us all on even ground. These things are not meant to be easy and they are supposed to be disturbing. They are meant to kick us off center and create some kind of response whether that response be belief, disbelief, thankfulness, or frustration.

Let me give it a shot and keep in mind that how these parables hit you might be different than they hit me and tomorrow our perspectives may have switched places.

The church growth movement really took off these past 30 or 40 years. Much emphasis was placed on, many conferences attended, books written, committees put together, people and money enlisted, to get our congregation bigger. But guess what? The church growth movement is now being seen as a product of the unhealthiest parts of our culture. The same culture that landed us in this recession is the one that said bigger is better and successful equals big and if we keep adding staff and programs so that there is always stuff going on it will feel alive and big and that’s good right?

Guess what, that model of church was wrong. It felt good, it looked good, it went after what people felt they “needed” but what it failed to do was produce a Christian who could take charge of their own faith, who knew how to nurture, feed and sustain themselves. Bill Hybels out at Willow Creek was the first to discover this but closer to the Ltuheran church is Walt Kallestad down in Arizona and for him it took a heart attack to bring about a change of heart. If we work just a little harder to get just a few more bodies in this building then we will be successful. Turns out workaholism is not a model for being the church either.

No, church growth does not equal church health and I think that’s what we’re being called to in this new era. As congregations grow larger folks start actually becoming disconnected from each other, from God, from God’s Word and from what it means to truly be a Christian living fully in the world. Church becomes something you do or a place you go on Sundays and Wednesdays and all of those other hours in the week are given over to a God-absent, faith-starved, joyless life where your neighbor goes hungry or naked, your kids succumb to anxiety and depression, and the marriage failure rate is at 50 percent. Does that sound healthy to you?

So what if we listened to these parables with the ears of a Christian wondering what it will look like when the kingdom of God comes? What if we listened to these parables with the ears of a person for whom church the way it has been done made them only more tired and frustrated and with that call of lament, Jesus, what are we supposed to do? And is it worth it?

Well, then here’s what I would say… look at what the sower is called to do and then look at what God does in that first parable. The sower sows, then he sleeps and wakes, day by day, and the growth happens. He takes care of himself and God does what God is supposed to do. And when it is time for the harvest, that farmer is there in the field ready to help. Plant the seeds, take care of yourself, get ready for the harvest. That strikes me as a good deal different then the way we do kingdom work isn’t it? Man.

And that second parable, that one will convict me until the day I die. You know I am just like any other person when it comes to my ideas of Jesus, God and heaven. I walk around all day looking up looking for the big, the bold, the beautiful I’m looking for the cedars of Lebanon, for God who stays far away from my life and just sits to judge if I’m good or bad, and for Jesus to have a big letter S on his chest to come as superman to kill all my enemies.

Today I hear of a God come near in Jesus Christ, who would find his victory in his death, talking about the kingdom of God as a common weed, a shrub.

Instead of looking up we should be looking down brothers and sisters. Our junior and senior high students are on mission trips this week and that is one of the best things that happens on those trips… no one can predict just how they will go but one thing is for sure. That hustle and bustle of a crazy, unhealthy life where all anyone is taught to care about is me, myself, and I goes bye-bye for a few days and the gear shift is dropped a few gears to get these kids to slow down and look around and then get to work making their neighbors lives just a bit better.

Because you know we treat people much the same way we treat our faith. We like to hang out with the flowers, not the weeds. We like to hang out with people at our social level or higher and have little time or effort to expend on the least, the lost, or the lowly.

But you know what, that is where the kingdom of God spreads its power in wonderful and amazing ways, often despite our efforts. I had my driveway repaved and guess what those weeds found their way up and through the smallest of cracks. And that drought last month… my grass got brown but the weeds? Nope… more than ever.

That’s why this parable disturbs me but then causes me to give thanks to God. For the work of planting, sleeping, waking, and harvesting and for the kingdom of God that is already at hand despite all of my assumptions about what Christianity should look like, how God should do God’s work, how I should do my work, and how Jesus should do his job… through all of this is that thread of truth. The kingdom of God has spread its branches so that all of you who are tired of this crazy and insane life we have built for ourselves might find rest. Rest in the arms of the One who spread his arms for you and for me on the cross and who beckons us, even today, in the bread and wine, to come find our rest.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: lectionary, sermons

A Word About The Picture

I was thrilled to see the picture of these people launching their boat as an option on this typepad blog. One of the beautiful things that Tim Lull spoke of before his untimely death was about the "jewels in the Lutheran crown". His main point, which I took to heart and am carrying with me to this day, was that the Lutheran Church has built an amazing and beautiful boat. The theology is dead on, the craft would be able to hold the whole world if the flood were to return. And yet, and yet, we have never, as a Church, figured out how to get the thing out of the boathouse. Endless debates on trivial matters have held us back from transforming the world into a ragtag army of forgiven sinners out there serving our neighbor regardless of our own status, reputation or standing. I think the world likes us to remain mired in the litmus test debates because that keeps us safely in our boathouse. The world "likes" this and thus "likes" us. But we need to get into the business of being hated. How dare we associate ourselves with the least, the lost, the lowly, the excluded? Who do we think we are? I want to get the dang boat into the water and start fishing. How about you?

What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets. Oh-oh.

7 Easter 2009
John 17: 6-19

“What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets”
Pastor Chris Enstad

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

I want to beg your pardon to try something with you this morning… a little experiment in interactive church. The early church didn’t have things like pulpits and set apart preachers but were places for mutual edification, people offering their different facets of faith and life to one another and in that way sharing in the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of God’s family that was given to them in baptism. So, that being said, I want you to turn to a neighbor and think about the last time either someone told you, “I’ll be praying for you” or you said that to someone else. What thoughts went through your mind when you heard those words being said to you or if you said them to someone else did you actually pray for that person and do you believe that God answered that prayer? Take a few moments to share with a neighbor.

Here’s another question, “Raise your hand if you have ever added yourself or someone you knew to a prayer chain here or somewhere else?” Keep your hands up how many others could or should have added himself or herself or someone they know to a prayer chain here or somewhere else?

Thank you.

I tried that first question out on a friend of mine. I asked him, “What do you think when someone tells you they will pray for you?” He answered me, “Yeah right”. There are several ways we respond when someone tells us they will be praying for us, sometimes we are thankful because we know we need those prayers and we are in a relationship with that person that means that we know that they mean what they say. But other times I will pray for you can sound like a safe way to close an uncomfortable conversation or to confront a reality that we don’t have any other words for. When someone says to us, “I will be praying for you” it usually will get some kind of a reaction out of us. Thankfulness, disbelief, uneasiness, gratitude, peace… knowing we are the subjects of prayer causes an emotional response.

Today we get to sit in on someone else praying and that someone is Jesus. And the amazing thing about this prayer is that he is praying it for you and for me, Jesus is praying for us. What does it mean for us to be a community for which Jesus is praying? What does it mean for us that we have landed on Jesus’ prayer chain? I think the implications for how we live our life together and in the world are huge. I mean here is God’s only begotten Son praying to his Father for us… do you think God would ignore that prayer? I titled my sermon today, “What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets” but I could have added two more words to that title, “oh-oh”. This morning I want to stop for a moment and examine just what it is that Jesus is asking God for on our behalf and then, yes, stop and think about what it means for our lives together and in the world.

The first prayer request is that God might keep us in his name, the name he gave to Jesus Christ and that Christ then gave to us in our baptism. So that we might be one, as Jesus and God are one.

Wow wow wow. Protect them in your name. How can we even pretend to go back to the way things used to be in our lives today, brothers and sisters, knowing that we are protected in the name of God? I get blown away and then I get sad and then I get blown away again when I realize just what this implies… that I have full right to go about my life on this earth under the protection of God’s name and not just a God or one of many God but God, the God who created heaven and earth. If God kept that prayer and our faith tells us that he has, then that family that asked you to help them a few weeks ago, they get your help, that sticky conversation with your brother or sister that you have been avoiding for lack of confidence or courage, you’re going to have it, that idea of I’m going to church has to go out the window because guess what, you are the church.

And Jesus’ prayer implies that we are doing all of this in unity. “So that they may be one, as we are one”. There is no solo actor here, no little group of individuals each of us doing what we think is right, there is a unity to the body of Christ and that unity is granted to us by God under his name. We don’t get to decide who is in and who is out and just like your regular families you might be surprised or even disturbed to find out who else shares your name and who just might be showing up at the family reunion but nevertheless, the opportunity to hear this prayer is also an opportunity for us to realize that we cannot waste time trying to be gatekeepers for God’s family or trying to protect God’s name from the people on whom it might land… Jesus has bigger plans for us then squabbles over who belongs and who doesn’t… Jesus’ body wasn’t broken and his blood was not shed for us to keep on giving ourselves over to the endless and demeaning debates on what it means to be a Christian because guess what, the job isn’t ours anyway. God protect them in your name and make them one, as we are one.

The other request that is so amazing to me is Jesus’ request for God to “Sanctify us in the truth.” And what is the truth? God’s word is the truth. That short little prayer request, that God might sanctify us in the truth and that God’s word is truth is so big and so bold and so full of grace and mercy that it makes me wonder why this prayer didn’t become the true Lord’s Prayer?

To be sanctified means to be made holy. So Jesus is asking that we might be made holy. The part that we often mess up is that we start thinking that the job of becoming holy is our job. So we set up all of these endless schemes and projects and systems of accountability to hold each other to principles that we have deemed to be holy and then we keep score don’t we? Who is the better Christian and who is not? The conversations that I have had with Christian leaders who are neck deep in systems like these really creep me out because they neglect the Word that is the truth and that Word is the Gospel and the Gospel is this, that while we were still dead in sin Jesus Christ died for us. The Gospel is that good news that God knows that we are sinners and there is no good reason for us to pretend otherwise. When we have confession and absolution at the beginning of our worship services we are merely saying aloud what God already knows. Whenever we even try we are more than likely to fail… if we try at all… and don’t even get us started on the things we should have done and don’t even know we should have done.

It is into this reality that Jesus was sent to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. We are forgiven sinners. There is no need for us to walk around moping or boasting that life is either too hard by God’s rules or that we have the whole life thing figured out and if we you only did what I do you would find yourself a happier, more prosperous, a more better you. No, the better us is the one who walks freely into the world not surprised that sin exists but equipped and protected by the word that God already knows all of that and despite the power of sin and death saved you and saved me. We are forgiven sinners.

And that isn’t even the main point of that amazing sentence. The power of sanctification is not to be overlooked but it is whenever I get mixed up in the idea that I am somehow responsible for figuring out what it means to be a Christian or get down on myself for not living as holy a life as some other guy out there Jesus prayer comes back into my head and I remember one thing. Jesus does not pray for us to sanctify ourselves in some kind of passive aggressive prayer that he knows we are overhearing, “God I pray that those wild kids might learn to follow your commandments.” No, the amazing thing about this prayer is that it reminds us that it is God who does the sanctifying. God, sanctify them in the truth, your word is the truth. Our job is to get ourselves to wherever this word is and then let God take over… this word of God is truly a living thing it is a powerful thing and it is a word that can bear little control from us.

And towards the end of those verses we heard read this morning we find that word “send” again don’t we. No matter how many ways we look at it Jesus refuses to allow us to think about our lives as Christians fulfilled by getting ourselves into this building once and awhile but reminds God and us that we are being sent into the world, just as Jesus Christ was sent into the world a world that knew him not and a world that will hate us. Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to live a life knowing that we are all screw-up and despite that God has done an amazing and beautiful and phenomenal thing for you and in that thing comes God’s eternal protection and the signature on that policy belongs to God? There is just absolutely no way around it, our lives as God’s children are out there in the world and to get that world to hate us. How dare we treat everyone as our equal, unified in the name of the Lord? How dare we hang out with the least the lost and the lowly with no question as to how they got there but sharing the love of God in word and deed with no concern for our own reputation or status? Who do we think we are, God’s called and sent people?

Brothers and sisters what Jesus prays for Jesus gets. I believe that the answer to Jesus’ prayer is you.

Technorati Tags: lectionary, Easter 7, sermons

Striving To Be All That We Are: 1 John 3:1-7

3 Easter 2009

1 John 3: 1-7

Striving To Be All That We Are
Pastor Chris Enstad

Brothers and sisters grace to you and peace from God our Father our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Did you catch that? It’s easy to let it slide right by us as Bible verses read on a Sunday morning often do. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Hold on just a minute here ‘o author of John surely there must be something we must do first in order to earn the right to call ourselves God’s children. How can you say that we already are God’s children? But what about living good and virtuous lives? What about the rules, what about our traditions, what about judging each other as clean or unclean in or out, with- the- program or just not going along with the show?

Maybe what John meant to write is, “See what love the Father has given us, that we might be called children of God; and that is what we might be.”

For too long the Church has lived as though Jesus Christ didn’t really die for our sins. Well, sure, we say we believe but we live as though we still have the weight of the world and life on our shoulders. We like to think we follow the great commission, you know, how Jesus sends his disciples out into the world to baptize in the name of the Trinity… but the reality is that we kind of like the way our church feels now not too big, not too small with familiar faces showing up for things and no one too outside the norm showing up or asking the wrong kinds of questions or forcing us to think about ourselves in a new way.

Now that’s a harsh assessment of the Church, and it is ok if you get a little offended, but I want you to try it on for just a moment. Is the church a club where rules both written and unwritten are expected to be followed and where some kind of culture of we show up to be taken care of is at work or is it a mission training center that recognizes that you are already God’s children and that we are here to equip you to live even better and even deeper into who you already are and that includes talking about things like life and death and jumping into God’s story which involves a huge amount of risk but no, not really because all it means is that this place isn’t someplace you belong to but it is a place you come because you already belong to each other. It’s a family reunion and this is the gazebo in some ways… there’s fellowship, some kind of speech, some singing and dancing, a meal, and then you are returned to your lives refreshed and ready to go about your daily lives but always knowing that your name isn’t something you had to earn, that family crest, it is someone you already are.

And all of what I just said is just about the first verse!

Can I do one more?

“The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” Matthew Henry, that great 17th century Presbyterian non-conforming British minister once wrote, “These poor, humble, and despised ones are the favored ones of God.” The children of God are not the honored, expounded, honored and celebrated in the world. Congregations of people who strive to be known in the world usually have rejected either implicitly or explicitly their true love, Jesus Christ. They live lives and do church in ways that their culture or community or world has decided is “Christian” and forget that the true life of a child of God is lived in the shadow of the cross… it is lived in the emptying out of reputation and status for the sake of the lost, it is the picture of the sheep going out of the fenced in pasture into the world knowing that their shepherd is the one who has claimed them and named them and saved them already. The world, in its current configuration, cannot figure out what to do with these rag tag armies of God’s children who seek to serve and to love and to save with little regard for their own status and reputation.

Brothers and sisters, we are living our lives between the font and the heavenly banquet table. In our baptisms we were joined to Christ and our membership in the family of God was bestowed on us not because of anything we did to deserve it or earn it but solely out of the love of Our Father who so loved us that He gave His only Son to die for us. And then, then we approach this table to receive this body and blood of Jesus, a foretaste of the feast to come when we will dine face to face with our Savior. The communion table is a waypoint in our journey; it is a touchstone where we are forgiven, fed, and nourished to return to our lives lived out there in the world.

And this church is being called to be out there. The life of this church is not restricted to Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings or the myriad other programs or opportunities that have come to be seen as our “church time”. No, the life of the church is in the world. It is vulnerable, it takes risks, and it plunges headfirst into real life… and that’s a dangerous proposition because that means a life lived beyond our control, our goal setting, our expectations but it is a life lived knowing that we are baptized and fed with just a foretaste of the feast to come… a taste of everlasting life that is intended to leave us wanting, seeking, yearning for more.

So when the author of John moves on and writes about purity and sinlessness he is not talking about more rules and regulations, he is not even talking about morality, he is talking about the result of a life lived taking the promises of the font and the table and this very Living World seriously. If you have this name, “child of God”, how can you possibly not want to free yourself of any hindrance, and hesitation, and yes, any caution that would keep you from God’s presence?

So what does this mean for us here in this little gazebo called Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church of Plymouth? What does it look like to be a community striving not become known or even honored, what does it look like to be a community that wants its building not to be a club but an outpost where missionaries are equipped to live their lives in that striving to better be who they already are?

My sense is that just as with my own children it will be a descriptive and not prescriptive community… by that I mean that as anyone knows with children you cannot raise them in a one size fits all mentality, it just doesn’t work. Berit is not Liv and Liv is certainly not Berit and yet they share my name and they are a part of my family. What works for Liv does not work for Berit, what works for me probably won’t work for you. But I can describe what this family looks like so let me try one description for you:

One of the downfalls of a church that doesn’t take its bestowed identity seriously is that they get the “child of God” idea just fine but then becomes the child who has moved back into their parents basement and never quite gets its collective act together to move out and live their own lives! So how about a church that comes together to be equipped to live in the world? How about a church that wants to Jump Into God’s story but then recognizes that that story continues out beyond the walls of the church building but is fully present in the world? How about a community that isn’t satisfied with the consumer mentality of “getting something out of church” but is striving to learn and serve and grow into its identity as God’s children in the world, a world that will not know it? And that that becomes our worship? No longer can we ask each other “so what did you get out of worship today” but we can ask each other “So, what did God get out of our worship today?” The consumer of our worship life is not us but God. We give, God gets. The consumer of our life in the world, then, is not us but our neighbor. We give, they get.

Our identity is not something we earned or even chose but was bestowed on us at the font, “Child of God, you have been marked with the Cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.” And the life we live between the font and the heavenly feast, that, that is our worship, our offering, our thanksgiving, our response to God’s crazy, amazing, lavishing love and grace.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: sermons

The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning: A Review

Before we go any further I want to say two things that I have never said about a book on "spirituality" or "religion" or "theology"
1. I read this book in one sitting.
2. I found myself passing the book to my wife to read a paragraph or two, she would read a bit further, find something else amazing, and pass the book back to me.

In short, this book is the good stuff.

Brennan Manning is the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel, if you haven't read it you can pretty much guess what that one was about from the sound of the word "ragamuffin". Ragamuffins are the lowly, despised, rejected ones of the world, you know, the ones God favors, the ones that Jesus sends us to bring back into the house, the ones we miss over and over again. Well, while that book may have described a recipient of the Good News, The Furious Longing of God is their creed.

In this book Manning presents a God, Father, Abba who longs so furiously for His children that he comes and gets us. This is a book that will blow the dust off of the faith while convicting us in our stupor.

Each chapter has two discussion questions, so this book may be used in a small group. Warning to all "small group pastors" out there, if you release this book into a small group it may end up being like throwing a grenade with the pin pulled. One way or the other, something's going to happen. I will quote one of his discussion questions:

"There is the 'you' that people see and then there is the 'rest of you'. Take some time and craft a picture of the 'rest of you.' Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions."

I appreciate Manning's going after this idea of the reversing of the arrows in terms of our relationship with God. For all of our seeking and fasting and "spiritual development" there is this lost (to us) idea of the gathering storm of bliss in the revelation that God longs for you, little ragamuffin you, right where you're at. Questioning you, fundamentalist you, absent for these many days you. You. Read it, pass it on, take Manning's suggestion and drop it in a used book shop or leave it at the coffee shop. Obviously all of our sermons and long range plans aren't doing the trick, here's a try from a slightly more chaotic and oh-so-needed point of view.

"The Furious Longing of God" (Brennan Manning)

Technorati Tags: Book review, Brennan Manning, life, religion

Does Not Play Well With Others: Palm Sunday 2009

Mark 11, 14, 15

Does Not Play Well With Others
Pastor Chris Enstad

Palm Sunday is one of the most jarring Sundays of the church year for me. Starting with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and ending with the crowd shouting, “crucify him” all in one hour. And with many of the same people yelling those things too!

But there are many reasons that I love the way that Mark tells the Gospel story one of them being the structure of the story that takes place between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his betrayal by Judas. Mark makes this story rush in on us; he catches us up into the crowd and then it’s kind of like someone has pushed the fast forward button on the DVD player but not the super fast forward just the one that nudges it about 2 times faster so you can still kind of see what’s happening but your brain is not quite processing the details.

I mean listen to this cascading series of events that take place between the moment of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem and his handing over to the Romans to be tried and executed:

The first thing Jesus did after his arrival in Jerusalem was condemn a fig tree for not producing fruit even though it was out of season. This was how Jesus put Israel on notice. It was an immediate broadside against Israel for not producing the fruits of faith. Then he cleansed the temple throwing the moneychangers out, yelling that they had turned his father’s house into a den of robbers, overthrowing tables… not the picture of Jesus that we have today and certainly not the Jesus that the religious leaders and authorities were waiting for. And then there was that teaching on prayer where Jesus upended the teachings of the authorities yet again you know they had turned God into some kind of errand boy who only worked for those who followed the rules the best according to the authorities and so when someone asked God for something and didn’t get it those in charge would say well, you just aren’t a good enough person, you need to do this and this and this and then maybe God will answer your prayer. Well, Jesus took that idea and stood it right on its end. No, that is not what a life in worship of my Father looks like. Align yourself with the Father’s kingdom and your prayers will start to reflect that reality and that life is one lived in forgiveness and trust and hope. If our lives are aligned with the reality that Jesus Christ died on the cross wouldn’t our prayers reflect that faith?

He then turns the religious leaders challenge to his authority back on them with a discussion of the greatest commandment. He tells the parable of the wicked tenants who killed the Son of the Landlord foretelling his own death at the hands of those at work in his father’s field. He challenged the Sadducees lack of faith in the resurrection with the words, “God is the God of the living not the dead.” He denounced the scribes for devouring the homes of the widows and saying long prayers for appearances sake. He lifted up the tiny offering of the widow as evidence of her faith for giving out of her want over and against those who gave just a tiny portion of their abundance. He foretold the destruction of the temple and his own persecution. He taught about the end times but then warned people not to try to guess if they would come sooner or later. He warned that one could not tell when the Son would return but that we all must stay awake.

Is it any wonder then that this Jesus who was welcomed in triumph is, all of the sudden, being plotted against?

For the authorities and priests and scribes Jesus’ presence was undermining their authority over the people… as many church leaders find even today I might add… when Jesus Christ is truly preached and taught and lived it can overthrow our own control and overwhelm our mightiest expectations. Oh, we would prefer the Jesus who was conforming and controllable, who lived up to our expectations not this Son of God who is tearing down traditions, rules, and conventions because God was here to restore his creation to his will not ours and that means dying brothers and sisters. Someone had to die are you willing to do that? You’d rather have the rules and regulations so you can tell who is in and out, we’d rather have a list of busywork to do so we can avoid confronting what really needs to happen. Jesus had to die to bring us back into God’s presence. We have to die to ourselves so that we too might live. Oh man oh man.

But perhaps, perhaps it was the anointing of Jesus with the oil that was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Perhaps it was this extravagant act of worship, a jar of nard worth a year’s wages opened and upended on Jesus’ head. "Could not this bottle have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor?"

“Of course,” is the only answer Jesus could give. "But I am with you now"… you see, we always miss the point. We can serve serve serve but it is in the worship of God in Jesus Christ, and not just the victorious Christ of Easter but also the Jesus hanging lifeless on the cross that demands our attention first. We have to make a life of the worship at the foot of the cross that will spring forth fruits of service and worship that come as a result of that faith not as a prerequisite of it.

Brothers and sisters we cannot handle a God like this, a God who reminds us that the first commandment is the most important… you shall have no other Gods but me. Not your job, your house, your spouse, your reputation, your kids, their schedules, even service to the poor are only misfired attempts to do life on our own terms and not in worship of the God who gave his only Son to die for you.

So yes, this is an incongruous Sunday but I think it must be a necessary one to have to spiritually and physically jam us into readiness for the week and the life and the death ahead of us.

Amen.

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The Jesus we want vs. the Jesus we got

I'm working my sermon for Palm (Passion) Sunday and thought I'd throw these thoughts up here for y'all:

The Jesus We Want:
All Powerful
Enables us to live our lives as a cheerleader for *our* goals, *our plans/needs/wants*
*Teaches* us how to be/do good
*Helps* us in *our* priorities
*Validates* our traditions, rules and regulations.

The Jesus We Got (or were given):
Came to *die* (glorified in death not in his life)
His death radically *imposes* God's priorities over ours
*knows* we can't be or do good or he wouldn't be here in the first place. His presence is *judgement*.
Is here to show us what it means to live(die) a life of worship to God and it ain't about "going to church" folks.
*Breaks* our traditions, rules, anything that comes between us and God. Christ is the only *mediator* that could do what he did and that is win us back to God.

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Thoughts on Organic Community: Participation

In this chapter Myers dwells on the idea of "responsible anarchy" which is a way of saying that community needs to be about individual participation rather than representative participation.

In short, church leadership spends way to much time "getting" people to participate rather than trying to understand "how" people participate.

People want to be a part of something in organic ways and not as a cog in a "master plan".

Healthy organic environments have five elements:
1. People participate as individuals not as teams or groups
2. People participate in a decentralized, local way
3. People participate with the whole of their lives
4. People participate in a way that is congruous with they way they are asked
5. The aggregate of participants becomes "known" as the team or group acts, thinks, and makes decisions.

The above are direct quotes!

When I've been a part of a church-directed group it has almost always felt like "work". It's one more thing on my plate and I have to clear out everything else on my mind or heart to be a part of it. It is a duty not a joy. I realize that this is because I'm being asked to work for someone else's plan and not what I feel I am called to do! I think this is the feeling of the majority of church-folks who are enlisted to check a box on a card to fulfill a need that the church feels but not one to which I am called.

Organic community demands of its leaders to let go of the reins and see where the Spirit is blowing in the gifts and talents of the people who have gathered in that particular space at that particular time.

Well, you might say, how does one measure these things and how can we be accountable to one another?

Thankfully, Myers will address that in the next chapter. What we measure and how we measure it will be a reflection of what we think is important. Are numbers important or are the *stories* important? How much of the Book of Numbers was devoted to numbers and how much to the story of God's relationship with Israel?

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Salvation on a Stick: John 3: 14-21 (First sermon at Mt. Olivet-Plymouth)

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Organic Community: Patterns

Myers' chapter on Patterns is simple yet subversive. He lifts up the age-old dialectic between "prescriptive" and "descriptive" communities. Using family as a model the healthiest families are ones that realize that each member is an individual. In my own life I can tell you that our daughters are two different kids and they each must be parented in different ways. That doesn't mean one set of rules for each but it does mean that I don't make Berit follow Liv's schedule and visa versa (I can only imagine trying to get Liv to go to sleep at 7!). We recognize that patterns are different for each person. We follow descriptive models for how we wish our family to be within which each of us is a free individual yet members of each other.

So why then do congregations force individuals into prescriptive programs that hinder individual freedom and, in fact, cause awkward or uncomfortable interactions that one must bear to get "through"... confirmation being a prime example? The church growth movement is another prime example. All of these models, all of these books, all of these programs that will "work"... and yet, what we forget, is that those books are usually written about the experience of ONE community of individuals that found something that worked for them! We take a descriptive experience, package it up, sell it, and market it. A pastor or leader then buys that book and it becomes a prescription for a community that is made up of completely different individuals in different contexts and different reasons for being there.

Organic community seeks to look for many patterns to connect people to God and each other.

Small groups are another model that works for some but not all. What worked for some becomes institutionalized into, sometimes, the *only* way of belonging to a community.

Myers lifts up Edward Hall's idea of "proxemics" or how people use space. There are four ways we use space: public, social, personal, and intimate.
Healthy people need connections across all four proxemics.
Public belonging: think sports team fans who wear the jersey. This identifies them as part of a tribe but usually no more than that.
Social belonging: Places you reveal small bits of yourself. Your hairdresser, personal trainer, work colleagues. Social belonging gives you windows or opportunities to decide to move into more personal or intimate belonging. Social space also helps us practice our story.
Personal: More private stories are shared. Think of your close circle of friends or the friends who know more about you then anyone else and hold that in trust.
Intimate: These are the people who know the real you. All of your warts and pimples, joys and sorrows. There are very few of these intimate relationships in a person's life. Healthy people have very few of these so you do not need to manufacture them to be a healthy person.

Now you can't manufacture a prescription to move people from one space to another! that would not be organic. It is simply helpful to know and realize that forcing people into spaces they are not asking for nor are they ready for is traumatic and manipulative. I have had that reaction in terms of Teen Encounter Christ weekends where young people are forced from public space (high school) to intimate space in the matter of three sleepless nights and days.

Church leadership can respond to this not by manipulation but by being open to creating spaces that reflect people's needs and then watching to see how they are used. What would it look like for a new member class not to be assigned a small group but to be introduced to the congregations spaces and patterns and then watching how those members interact with them? All connections are important, Myers reminds us, so remove the bottom-line discussion and start to be curious about all of these individuals God has called into your community. What do they have to offer? What is their story? Where are there connections to be made?

Myers key terms for this idea is "relaxed intentionality"... create the environment and then validate people as they naturally connect to each other in public to intimate ways. And one must never forget that God is mixed up in this work as well! Why try to take His hand off the wheel? Our catechism in the Lutheran Church teaches us that the Holy Spirit, "calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies us." Why do we so often, as church staff or leadership, try to be the ones who call? Who try endless ways of "gathering" busy folks until we are the ones who burn out? Who take it upon ourselves to enlighten the masses and then decide what it means to be a true "member" of the Church?

That's the main reason I wish to see myself as an environmentalist in the church not a programmer or even a "leader". The leadership can intentionally work to create these spaces and help folks off the assembly-line mentality of the church as factory rather than a laboratory or a greenhouse where God is at work, not us!

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