Resurrection Life

The thing about your identity in Christ is this:

2 Pentecost 2013

 

2 June 

 

Galatians 1: 1-12

 

Pastor Chris Enstad

 

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

 

Carrie and I joined about 150 other people for a truly blessed moment on Friday night.  Brooke Boon, the founder of Holy Yoga, was in Minneapolis leading a conference and so we went to Christ Presbyterian Church for worship and Holy Yoga.  It was a blessed time, preachers are not often ministered to.  But Brooke did something at the beginning of her sermon that I am going to bring in here today and that is to bring an awareness of breath into even sitting still listening to someone else speak and so we are going to do that right now.  Let’s take two deep breaths and on each exhale, a sigh.  Do that with me.

 

There.  Do you feel it?  It is good to settle into an awareness of our selves and now we can take that awareness and apply it also to our awareness of God.

 

And here’s what I know.

 

You can not be something apart from who you are.  You are who God created you to be.  It can take a lifetime’s journey to become comfortable in one’s own skin.  Or not.  Either way, you are who God created you to be.  

 

You can pretend.  You can work really hard to change.  Some of those changes will work.  Some won’t.  And you’ll learn from your failures and you will try again.

 

But your core identity has been set.  Your code was downloaded into your heart when you were baptized at the font in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  And your identity as a child of God was sealed with the sign of the cross.

 

You cannot be, any longer, something apart from who you are.

 

But other voices will tell you otherwise.  They will give you cause to question your identity in Christ.  Life will happen.  Life.  Man, if life hasn’t given you cause to ask questions about your faith and Jesus Christ then you are either really really lucky or you haven’t been paying attention.  

 

Voices in our culture will tell you otherwise.  What do you need from God?  You can worship God, if you even think you have to believe in him, out here with us in the world.  Or why even give time to faith?  What difference does it make in yours or anyone’s life?

The Galatians were running the risk of living into the identity of someone other than who they had been called to be.  Professor Mary Hinkle Shore likens it to when you are driving into a car park how the spikes in the ground drop out of the way when you are going the right direction but if you try to reverse they will shred your tires.  The Galatians were about to shred their tires.

 

Galatia is a region in the center of Turkey.  The Roman govenment put it together from people that were not related to each other.  The southern towns were put together with the country folk to the north.

 

It was the country folk who we believe Paul ministered to along with Silas.  And they weren’t even really Galatians... these were Celts who had been part of the invasion of Greece by Brennus some three hundred years before Christ was born.  These were the people that Paul was writing to.  The Celts.

 

Celtic spirituality was an easy thing for Paul to work with because the Celts Gods did not live up on Mt. Olympus like Zues.  Celtic spiritualty from the earliest days believed that the divine and the human exist with only a thin line separating them.  A liminal place.  Modern day seekers who experience faith in this way will often talk of liminal places those places where night is about to change to day or where we can sense that the spiritual and corporal worlds are interacting.  I’ve experienced that liminality along the north shore of Lake Superior but also in the city dump of Juarez, Mexico.  The key is to have eyes and hearts that are aware of just how close God is.

 

The Celts were ready, then, for the message that in Jesus Christ God had been made incarnate in man.  Ok.  Great!  We can do that.  Paul was there to preach not Gods but God, the God who created the whole kit and caboodle and the Celts in Galatia were converted.  And Paul left.

 

And new teachers showed up.  Paul said what?  Him?  But he wasn’t even with Jesus or even the disciples?  By what authority can he say those things.  No, if you want salvation you have to do it by first becoming Jews.  We have the law, we have Moses, it is to the Jews that Jesus preached.  Trust us.

 

And when he received news of this Paul tried to jump in front of the car as it was about to reverse over the spike strips.  NOOOOO.

 

Paul reminds the Galatians that God alone is incarnate in Jesus Christ and the Gospel that Jesus preached is the only word that one need hear or heed.  No extra rules, no ceremony other than what Jesus commanded.  

 

We can receive it wherever we are at and be transformed by it.  But the unique way in which any person is caught up by the Gospel is going to look different.  There is no one story that brings a person in God except the story of Jesus Christ however that story is received.  You cannot be something other than what you are.

 

And Paul reminds the Galatians, as he reminds each of us here today, we are woven together in the story of Jesus Christ not despite our differences but because of them.

 

Jew or Greek, male or female, Norwegian or Swedish, white or black, gay or straight, those differences should not be cause for alarm or even surprise but can now be received as evidence of just how majestic and amazing and diverse the Gospel was, is and will be.

 

Now breathe.   Breathe again.

 

On the seventh day, God rested.   He allowed creation to just be creation.

 

Let this Word, this Gospel good news, be.  Whoever you are, whatever brought you here, whatever awaits your return when you leave this place, you are God’s children.  A family of unique, different and beautiful people that spans the ages.

 

Amen.

 

Shaking the Dust from Your Feet: a sermon on Mark 6: 1-13

6 Pentecost 2012

Mark 6: 1-13

Pastor Chris Enstad

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

I give thanks for each and every one of you who are gathered here this morning. The mere fact that you are here at all is a testament to the power of the Holy Spirit who called you here today. Indeed, we proclaim a faith that is given to us as a gift, even to the point of finding ourselves here, gathered in this sanctuary, worshipping God.

But maybe you don’t think it took a miracle. Maybe most of you are thinking to yourself, I don’t see where the Holy Spirit was in my alarm going off and me dragging myself out of bed, into the shower and into my church clothes this morning. Or maybe it was the sharp elbows of your wife or your mother who got you into the car and got you into this building today. It wasn’t the Holy Spirit Pastor, it was my mom, it was my alarm, it was my dad saying, “you will go to church or else”. Or maybe it is just what you have been doing for sixty or seventy or ninety years, it’s like clockwork eventually those old habits of going to church on Sunday morning.

But our faith tells us that something else happens when the people of God find themselves gathered into a place like this singing hymns, praying for ourselves and others, listening to the proclamation of God’s word. Our faith tells us that it is not just the mundane habit of life that brought you here this morning, but it was the Holy Spirit who has called us together to worship God in the faith that that very Spirit has given to us as a gift.

But more and more people are falling away from having the institution of church being a part of their lives. Not only are 2/3 of our neighbors non-believers but another 25% of those who were in the faith as youth have now left the church.

Ask someone why they have left the church and you get all sorts of answers: it’s full of hypocrites, those in charge have abused their power or used their power to harm children and others, all the church cares about is itself not me, the message doesn’t mean anything to my life and my problems.

Then go and ask someone who does not believe why they do not take the question of faith more seriously and you will also get a whole bevy of responses: Christians are hypocrites, I don’t like what I see Christians saying about social issues on TV, all they want is my money, the Bible doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t work for my scientific mind, or the best is, “well, some Christian knocked on my door and said I would go to hell unless I joined their church!” Great. Our PR department is not the best at winning people over for Christ.
People don’t trust institutions like the church because they don’t trust that the church has their best interests in mind. They see us coming a mile away and whether we have a chance to even declare: no, we’re not THOSE kinds of Christians, well, their argument is made for them.

Jesus runs into much the same problem when he arrives back in his hometown of Nazareth. Here he has healing people left and right and preaching the coming kingdom of God but he gets back to his hometown and what happens? “Wait a minute,” the townsfolk say, “Isn’t this guy Joe and Mary’s kid? Didn’t we watch him grow up and aren’t those his brothers and these his sisters? Who is this guy to be claiming all these great things? This is just Jesus.”’

And Jesus marveled at their unbelief. He healed a couple people, Scripture tells us, and then moved on teaching in the villages.

Later he called his disciples and commissioned them to go out two by two spreading his message taking nothing with them but the clothes on their back. They would be utterly dependent on those to whom they were preaching and if their message was not received what were they to do? Shake the dust from the shoes and move on. Not put together a campaign chest and take over the airwaves trying to show how mighty their message was, not yell and kick and scream if people would not hear them, just shake the dust and move on, knowing that in the end everyone is accountable to God whether they know it or not.

That is the position that the church is called to take, even in this age of uncertainty. This church, you see, is not ours, it is God’s. It only exists because the spirit brought you here to this corner. If you go somewhere else to worship God, the building may stand but it would only be a building.

And while we are an institution, yes, we are not like any other institution on earth because we exist not for ourselves but for the sake of those who have yet to hear the saving Good News of God! We mistakenly puff up our chests and pound on them when we are offended by someone or something but our true posture in the world must be one of humility, of being on our knees in prayer not just for those who have yet to hear God’s saving Word but for all of the barriers we, as a church, have put up to keep people who might not be like us away from God’s word, we must confess our sins and ask for forgiveness each and every day.

And then we move on, and we proclaim God’s word again and again and again.

Remember that even Jesus’ own people had trouble wrapping their heads around the truth that this hometown boy was the Messiah of God, but, in the end, Jesus did not have to win the argument or score a point, no, in the end he took his message of freedom and peace to the cross and he died. All of humanity rejected his message, but the open tomb of Easter morning was heaven’s response. We said, “No” but God has said, “yes.”
That freeing word is the word that we are called to carry forth from this place today. It is the Word that the World is thirsty to hear. And, in the end, may our feet find themselves more and more dusty.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Technorati Tags: lectionary, preaching, Scripture

Fences

 

Last weekend was hot and muggy and we decided what better time to have two other families over to our small house to BBQ and to hang out.  We filled the kiddie pool, I loaded up the cooler with sparkling water and beer, bought a bunch of hamburgers for the grill.  We were all set.

There were six kids ranging from age three up to about 11.  We, the parents, finally convinced them to go in the back yard and play with the Franklin bat and ball.  It was going to be adult time on the front driveway with no kids bugging us for just a few minutes.

But sure enough the tweenage kid knocks the ball into our back neighbor's yard and the way I know this is because we all took note of the silence coming from back there.  Parents know that when things in the other room, or other yard, fall silent you better go check it out... because something is up.

So me and another dad walk into the back yard and wouldn't you know it the kids were having a mini-debate straight out of the movie Sandlot.  No one wanted to go into our neighbor Paul's backyard because they were afraid of him.  I have no idea why, Paul has never done or said anything mean or angry to my kids before.  I think they were psyching each other out.

Finally the kid who hit the ball volunteered to retrieve it.  He climbed through the hole we cut in our fence last summer (now that's another long story for another time) and went to find where the ball landed.  And... wouldn't you know it?  Paul starts yelling at the kid through his kitchen window, "Hey, get outta my yard what the heck are you doing here?!"

Freaked the kid out.  

He got the ball back and ran back into our yard.  Paul came out of his house and saw me standing on my hill and apologized for yelling, he was startled by the sight of an unknown kid in his backyard, but you know what?  When I grew up everyone's yard was our back yard.  Our baseball games ranged several blocks in length and games of Cowboys and Indians (that's what it was called back then) involved running skirmishes that spread across the county (in our mind's eye of course).

Fences.  Them's the culprits.  It's when we started building fences saying this stuff is mine and that stuff is yours... that's when we started losing what neighborhood is all about.

Ok, there you go.

 

 

"While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering": a sermon on the future of an established, declining congregation with great things in store for it.

3 Easter 2012

Luke 24: 36b-48

Pastor Chris Enstad

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Brothers and sisters, I bring you grace and peace in the name of our Risen Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.  Amen.

“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”  

What an amazing statement by Luke. “While in their joy they were disbelieving and wondering.”  

In truth, those could be the words stamped on the outside of just about any Christian congregation could they not?  Oh, I know that there are plenty of Christians walking around feigning certainty but, usually I find that that certainty is really a smokescreen for uncertainty.  Indeed, often times the louder a Christian shouts at an unbeliever or questioner about the faith, the more often you have to wonder what they have that the rest of us don’t.  Christ appeared in the flesh only between the Resurrection and the Ascension, so, unless you have Jesus locked away in your basement then you are in the same boat as the rest of us.

We possess a very real but a very fragile faith.  Faith in and of itself is a gift given to us by the God who created us.  But, in giving us that gift, God entrusts it to some very human humans,  frail, easily distracted, sinful, judgmental, and capricious.

I have had friends in the faith who have had awful things happen to them or to someone they love, get lost in that most scariest of questions, “If there is a God, why would he let something so awful happen to me or to that person?”  

I also have friends who have so many crazy things going on in their lives that they seek a Christian faith that is unchanging, unshifting, uncompromising.  Both of those extremes, unfortunately, miss out on the living breathing gift of the fragile but real faith granted to us by the God who created us and loved us.

Elim: A people of joy who still, at times, disbelieve or wonder about this whole God thing.  I wonder if a church put that phrase on the outside of the door if more people might not darken the doors.  A church is all too often seen by those who are questioning, those who perhaps are in active states of disbelief, they are often seen as clubs for those who have it all down pat when, in fact, if folks out there knew that, “Hey, we have questions too,” might they not join us in our journey as a church?

I wonder….
“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering”.

You know, I wonder about this whole thing all the time.  Who is this Christ that we claim has risen from the dead and what in the world does it have to do with us?

We say that we meet Jesus when we walk in the doors of this place.  Pr. Theim referred to the sign that is in the pulpit up here “That we would see Jesus”.  Well, if I’m doing my job and Pr. Marcia is doing hers and Pastor Theim is doing his, and we are meeting Christ in the flesh when we walk in here... what is keeping us from sharing that amazing news with all of the souls walking past the doors of this place.

The last verse you heard in the Gospel text this morning says, “You are witnesses of these things.”…….You are witnesses of these things.  

But, man oh man, don’t we wish we could just be witnesses and not have to testify to what we have seen?  We don’t want to be seen as being too pushy or too in your face like some other kind of Christian that we see on TV or on the street corner.  But, we can testify to the wonder of the resurrection in many other ways.

Being a believer gives us the story to tell.  It gives us the path to walk.  It gives us our way forward.

Elim is taking great steps in faith did you know that?  I don’t think we have all grasped the significance of four congregations worshipping together in the same building.  Do you know what kind of seed it is that God has planted?

Pr. Theim preached on Easter Sunday.  Some folks questioned that decision, others got it.  The way ahead for our congregation will not look or sound like the Elim of 40 years ago.  This afternoon a team made up of the pastors and 4 lay people from Lao Lutheran and Elim will gather around a meal to begin dreaming of new ways to expand our relationship with each other.  The opportunities are really and truly amazing.

But tell me this: What do you think might happen to us when we move beyond a landlord/renter relationship with Monument of Faith or All God’s Children churches?  One is a Pentecostal denomination, the other is non-denominational, what kinds of new ways of being Elim might happen when we take those next steps?  

And, what about new ministry opportunities in our community that are making themselves known to us?  We are actively putting together outreach teams for Lakeview Elementary School and Good Samaritan Speciality Health Community.  Please, let me or Shirley know if you would be a part of those teams.  

Or, how about our soon to be made, agreement with the Red Cross to become a disaster response location or with Families Moving Forward as they seek to increase the number of places homeless families can stay for a week at a time.  Or, North Memorial as they dream with us about ways we can serve as a health care outpost for them?  

The opportunities for us to make a positive structural impact on our community are amazing.

But, the question I have been holding out to our leadership is the same one I am holding out to you:

“What can Elim do uniquely better than the 1,000 other congregations in our area?  And why are we doing it?”

A pastor friend of mine put that question in an even more powerful manner: “If Elim were to cease to exist tomorrow would anyone in our city notice?”

I pray the answer to that last question would be, “Yes.”  My answer to the first two questions is from our scripture this morning: “Because we have witnessed the resurrected Jesus Christ, we have received the promise of salvation we have been commissioned today to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations.”

We are called to get over the fact that we are at once a people of joy and disbelief and are a people called to witness to our city, our families, and our world what an amazing thing God has done.

I asked our council last week to think about what kind of newspaper headlines might be written about Elim in three years time.  We had several pretty awesome submissions.  Let me share mine with you, and mind you, this is just visioning so, don’t get too freaked out:

The headline reads: “93 year old congregations closes its doors and reopens as The Oasis Church.  Come and see a multi-cultural, multi-denominational church as it works for transformation in the Robbinsdale area.  Come and experience the Oasis, a cup of cold water for your life’s journey.”

If you thought having the Laotian pastor preaching on Easter was pretty far out, just hold on to your socks.  

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen, indeed!

Alleluia, Alleluia.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: Elim Lutheran Church, Lutheran, preaching, Luke 24, sermons

Thoughts on Caine's Arcade

This video:

http://cainesarcade.com/

Is making the rounds of the internet.  I think it is a tremendous teaching tool for companies, entrepreneurs, and congregations.

The lessons I take away from a story like this in regards to church life go like this:

1. Do what you are called to do as a church.  Don't look around wondering if you're doing it right, just get moving and figure out the details as you go.  Many congregations are stuck in "talk" mode and don't ever get to "do" mode.  Caine just started doing it, and he made it his young life's mission to staff that arcade... that's what we're called to do for the Gospel Good News!

2. Find your congregation's square root button.  It slips by so fast you might miss it but did you notice that Caine uses square roots to determine the validity of the fun pass?  What's your cool button at your church?  Or did yours fall off years ago and no one has thought to clue it back on?  The highest functioning congregations are the ones having fun doing what they're doing.

3. It's ok to be proud of something you and your church have done.  We often, as congregations and leaders, don't like to wear our "Caine's Arcade" shirt to school because we're afraid someone will make fun of us.  In the church world we are reknown for eating our most promising young leaders because of the scorn heaped on them for trying something new and breaking established traditions.  The last words out of Caine's mouth in the film credits are, "I'm proud."  I think God says the same thing when we forget about the critics and the naysayers and just get to work doing what He has called us to do as congregations.  Celebrate the victories!

 

"Makings" vs. "Meetings"

Seth Godin recently pointed out that there is a huge difference between making something and meeting something. We organize and prioritize things differently if we were, say, to be meeting a train over and against making a train. Working in the church can often end up in days of endless meetings. Meetings are necessary but they invite hurried boredom, frustration and downright rudeness (for the chronically late) because more often than not creatives and producers on your staff would rather be out DOING something than sitting in a room talking ABOUT doing something.

I wonder if we might not invite each other into "makings" where the staff team is invited into a relationship where they are making something not meeting about something.  What kind of inspiration would come from that?  How many silos might get torn down when different areas of your church stop defending their turf and start making something new and exciting?

My uncle: a eulogy (of sorts)

My dad is a fraternal twin with my uncle Paul.  Paul died last week at the age of 64 of all sorts of issues but whatever they were they were complicated by Paul's addiction to alcohol.  Addiction is a disease.  I have seen all the email forwards and read all of the hard-hearted things that people have to say to someone like me who insists that addiction is about more than just "quitting cold turkey".  It is an illness and it is a terribly destructive one at that.  Families affected by alcoholism are turbulent, often crazy-feeling, and kids raised in those households enter life with two strikes against them 1. that they were raised in an unstable environment and 2. their parents aren't there to provide the kind of safety net a normal family provides.

Alcoholics need to be intervened upon by friends and family and put through treatment.  Yes, I've seen the stats and they are, forgive the pun, sobering.  But sobriety without a program is not real sobriety.  Would you believe me if I told you that to this day I am convinced that George Bush's actions and decisions were affected by his untreated alcoholism?  He exhibits many of the symptoms of what we call being a "dry drunk"... what kind of man would he be if he were in a 12-step program that led to his truly being "in recovery"?

If you or someone you love is in the midst of addiction of any kind do yourself a favor and intervene.  There are websites that show you how to do it here's one.  Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.  Paul was intervened on many times and none served to break his addiction, but we can all rest knowing that we tried.  It shows just how powerful the drug of alcohol is that not even family and grandkids can get you to turn around.  

I loved (love!) my uncle Paul.  He reminded me of Paul in A River Runs Through It not that my dad was any kind of Norman but Paul definetly insisted on raising the crazy-bar at every turn.  He was bigger than life, as many alcoholics are; but you knew that in the glint of his eye he gave a crap about you and the world.  God bless the memory of Paul O. Enstad

Reading the Bible: Day 87: Acts 22 - Romans 4 (August 31)

Well we are getting close to completing the challenge of reading our entire Bible this summer!  Some of you have already finished, I hear so way to go!

Today I am going to focus just a bit on the Book of Romans.  The entire book is dedicated to Paul's theology of the Righteousness of God over and against the unrighteousness of man.  In the letter he exhorts the church in Rome to preach the Gospel rightly divided between law and gospel.  It is this little hook, law and gospel, that launched the reformation and continues to inspire churches in their evangelistic endeavors to this day.

We live lives under the law.  Follow the rules and you will not get in trouble.  When we mistakenly bring this line of thinking into what Christ did for us we miss the point of the death and resurrection completely.  It is because we cannot follow the law, for instance the Ten Commandments, that God sent his son to fulfil the law on our behalf.  This now frees us to live new lives in him.  And so we go about our lives ministering to the needs of others and proclaiming that good news not because we have to but because we can.

So the first four chapters of Romans center on God's righteous judgement.  We are not the judge, God is.  And God has already judged mankind and found us to be lost and hopeless.  The birth of Jesus Christ, that we celebrate on Christmas, is actually a judgement day for us!  Could we make our way back to being right with God on our own?  God determined the answer to be, "no".  And so he sent his only begotten Son to get us back.

And so our righteousness is not counted to us by the number of rules we follow but by another important reformation phrase, "faith alone".  To those who believe in Christ comes the justification of the sinner... you and me.

Reading the Bible: The Home Stretch! Day 86 Acts 12-21 (August 25)

The Acts 16 story of Paul and Silas in prison is a powerful image, for me, of the life lived in Christ.  Remember that they landed in prison for healing a demon-possessed girl.  They were not imprisoned, it seems, for the healing itself but because they took away the means of making a living for the girl's parents.  For this the two men were thrown in prison.

Two things to take away from this: note that throughout the entire book of Acts, as the early church was being planted, we see the profit motive bumping up against the motive of the Gospel.  My bible finds comparisons with Simon the magician, Elymas and Demetrius the silversmith!  It does seem that pure capitalism and the Gospel are incompatible.  I am not advocating pure socialism, either, however what does a system look like where the wealthy put their hope not in wealth but in something else entirely?  Read 1 Timothy 6:17-19.  Feel free to comment on this comment as well, I'm curious to know what others think.  Truly, in the name of healing that girl, Paul and Silas actually stole from her parents... so how do those two things exist in the same world (healing and profit?)

Secondly, look at how Paul and Silas reacted to their imprisonment: by praying and singing hymns to God.  It is vitally important that we continue to teach our young people to know their story by heart so that in times of trouble they have a deep spiritual well from which to draw the water of life.  So many young people are suffering at the hands of our amoral world because they do not know enough the love God has for them.  They do not have a liturgy to draw upon.  They have not been read the Psalms.  They have not memorized the Lord's Prayer or the Creed.  How can we be surprised that they are showing the signs not just of physical but of spiritual illness?

 

Reading the Bible in 96 Days: Day 58: Isaiah 52-64 (July 28)

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is known as the Fourth Servant Song.  Christians believe it is the fourth prophecy foretelling Jesus Christ that Isaiah preached.  In these words we see the Word that would come in the form of the opposite of Israel's expectations:

"His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind-...he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him."

Every time I read Isaiah and find myself in the middle of one of the Servant Songs they give me goosebumps.  For in taking on the sin of the world, Jesus Christ, indeed, became sin, he bore our griefs and sorrows.  Our savior became nothing, and, in doing so, became everything.