Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Visitor

The Visitor
(part of a movie sermon series)
Rev. Kerry Greenhill
Highlands UMC
August 9, 2009

Hebrews 13:1-3
Let mutual love continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing that some have entertained angels
without knowing it.
Remember those who are in prison,
as though you were in prison with them;
those who are being tortured,
as though you yourselves were being tortured.


Walter Vale is a man
who has forgotten how to live.
I mean, he continues working,
teaching economics at a college in Connecticut.
He cooks dinner for himself at night.
He is trying to learn to play the piano.
But there is no energy, no enthusiasm or passion,
or even really much interest
in what he does.
At the beginning of the school year,
he just changes the date on the syllabus.
He tells people he has a lighter course load
so he can work on his next book,
but he never actually writes anything.
He has had five piano teachers
and still cannot play the piece he practices daily.
He is sleepwalking through his life.

As the movie opens,
we see the latest piano teacher
attempting to help Walter make progress.
But her methods are better suited to children
than grown men,
and when they say goodbye,
he tells her he won’t continue with their lessons.
She lets him know that learning an instrument
at his age
is difficult,
especially if you don’t possess a natural gift for it.
And she lets him know that if he does give it up,
she would like to buy his piano.

We come to find out that Walter was married,
that his wife was an accomplished classical pianist,
and that she died some years previous.
It is clear that grief and loneliness
lay heavily upon Walter.
The piano lessons are an effort to hold on
to what he has lost,
maybe even to keep the clock
from ticking endlessly forward.

But time does tick on,
and Walter’s department chair comes to him one day
to tell him he must go to a conference in New York City
to present a paper he co-authored with a colleague.
Walter protests, he can’t,
he would really rather not go,
he didn’t actually write the paper…
but there is no getting out of this obligation.

So he drives to the city, alone.
But when he enters the apartment
he has owned for more than 20 years,
he is startled to discover
a young couple living there.
After about a minute of mutual panic and confusion,
they realize that they are the intruders in Walter’s home,
and not the other way around.
The man’s name is Tarek,
and he is from Syria;
his girlfriend, Zainab, is from Senegal.
They have been living there for a couple months,
having been rented the apartment
in what turns out to have been a scam.

They immediately pack up their things and leave,
wanting no trouble,
but as Walter watches them from his window,
it becomes clear they don’t have anywhere else to go.
He invites them to stay,
at least until they can get on their feet,
and they gratefully, if hesitantly, accept.

Over the next few days,
the young couple build a tentative friendship
with Walter.
They eat dinner together in the apartment,
and Walter accepts their invitation
to go to a jazz club
and hear Tarek play djembe,
a kind of African drum.
On his lunch hour,
Walter eats in the park and discovers
two young men playing a frenzied beat
on two upturned white plastic buckets.

The next day,
Walter seeks out the drummers in the park
and you can see the rhythm is starting to get under his skin
by the way he moves his head and shoulders to the beat
while eating his lunch.
That evening,
after finding Walter tapping experimentally
on the drum in his living room,
Tarek gives Walter a lesson in djembe.
He says to him,
“I know you’re a very smart man,
but with the drum,
you have to remember not to think.
Thinking just screws it up, okay?”
And keeping a steady beat,
Tarek encourages Walter to start playing,
until Walter’s look of utterly serious concentration
softens to something like enjoyment.

Within a day or two,
Walter and Tarek have made such progress
that Walter joins in a drumline at the park,
and the spirit of the rhythm
and the energy of the beat
has people of all sizes and skin colors dancing,
their whole bodies moving with the joy of the music.
They joke about playing drums
in the subway station together—
something Tarek has always wanted to do,
because it’s supposed to be good money.

But on their way back to meet Zainab,
Tarek and Walter run into some trouble.
There is a glitch with the swipe card Tarek is using,
so he hands the drum to Walter and climbs through.
And is stopped by police
who accuse him of jumping the turnstile.
In spite of Walter’s assurances that he didn’t do anything wrong,
the officers arrest Tarek and take him away.
Walter comes back to the apartment
to tell a worried Zainab what happened.
“It was just a misunderstanding.
They said he’d be released later tonight,”
he says.
But her fear only increases:
“How could this happen?
He knows better,
he wouldn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t.
I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“No,” she tells him,
“it won’t be okay.
We are illegal.
We are not citizens.
And when they find out—”

And of course, they do find out.
Tarek is held in a very nondescript detention facility
in a run-down part of Queens,
and Walter goes to visit him there.
Zainab cannot visit,
because she would be putting herself at risk
of discovery by the authorities
and deportation.
Walter hires an immigration lawyer
to try to help Tarek,
and learns some more about his past:
when he first came to the U.S. with his mother,
their request for asylum was denied.
They appealed, and were turned down,
but Tarek never received orders
to show up for deportation.
We also learn that Tarek’s father
was a journalist in Syria,
imprisoned for seven years
for something he wrote,
and released so sick and weak
that he died just two months later.

Tarek asks Walter if he has been back to the drumline,
if he is still practicing,
and encourages him to demonstrate
what he’s been working on.

Zainab moves out of the apartment,
going to stay with her cousin.
Tarek’s mother shows up at Walter’s door—
surprised to find a more-than-middle-aged white man
who claims to be sharing the apartment with her son.
She has come to New York from Michigan
because she has not heard from Tarek in several days
and she is very worried about him.
Walter takes her in,
insisting that she stay
because he feels responsible for Tarek’s arrest.

Life in the detention facility is not easy,
and Tarek’s usually sunny mood
grows increasingly anxious
as other detainees disappear without warning,
moved from the facility
with no notice of where they have gone.
“What do they think? I’m a terrorist?
There are no terrorists in here.
Terrorists have money, support.
This is not fair.”
“I know.”
“How do you know? You’re out there.
I’m sorry.”
[Tarek gets choked up, tries to compose himself]
“I keep thinking about Zainab.
I just want to live my life and play my music.
What’s so wrong about that?”

Mouna, Tarek’s mother,
meets Zainab, and likes her;
spends time with Walter,
and grows fond of him,
as he does of her.
Although he is worried about Tarek,
Walter has come alive
through the drumming
and these new relationships.
He goes back to Connecticut briefly,
sells the piano,
and arranges to take a leave of absence
from the college
in order to spend more time in New York.

But there is no happy ending.
There is no Disney ending,
no loophole in the system,
no tough-as-nails judge
whose heart is softened
by some persuasive storytelling.
Tarek is deported,
very suddenly, without warning,
early one morning
before Walter and Mouna
can get to the detention facility.

Mouna decides she must go back to Syria
as soon as possible,
for Tarek’s sake.
Her farewell to Walter is tearful
and reluctant,
both of them having found something in the other
they had never expected to find again.

In the final scene,
Walter is takes the djembe down to the subway
where he sits on a bench in the station
and plays.
A few people turn to look
at this older white male,
college-professor type
playing the African drum,
but Walter just keeps playing
without seeming to notice or care
if they are listening.

There is no real hero in this movie,
and no real villain.
Just the story of these people,
connected for a short time,
before their lives take them separate ways.

The movie begs the question,
who is the visitor in this story?
Mouna, in New York City?
Zainab and Tarek, in the apartment?
All of the immigrants,
whose life in the U.S. has no guarantee of permanency?
Walter, when he sees Tarek
in the detention facility?
Walter, in his own apartment?
Or Walter, who starts out a visitor
in his own life?

Of course there’s not just one right answer.
But what stands out to me
is how, in Walter’s life,
the decision to extend hospitality
to two strangers,
immigrants,
foreigners—
becomes a source of rich blessing.

The verse from Hebrews today
reminds us of the story of Abraham and Sarah,
who were visited by three strangers
who turned out to be angels:
not glowing, cherubic figures with wings,
but messengers from God,
dusty from the road
in need of food and shelter,
yet carrying the gift of blessing:
the good news that Sarah
(who was so old
she didn’t take offense at the word “old”)
would bear a child,
that together Abraham and Sarah
would become the ancestors
of multitudes,
of nations that would spread God’s blessing
over the earth.

Amazing, isn’t it?
That’s the thing about biblical hospitality:
although it starts with the assumption
that it is the host who acts benevolently
toward the guest,
it often ends with the host’s realization
that the guest has given more than they received.

Just look at the stories of Jesus
in the homes of Zaccheus,
or Mary and Martha,
even the home of Simon
(the leper or the Pharisee,
depending which gospel you’re reading)
when a woman comes in
to anoint Jesus with costly perfumed ointment.

Because while Walter does what he can
to help Tarek, Zainab, and Mouna,
in the end he cannot fix
any of the problems in their lives.
But what he gains from building a relationship with them
turns his own life around.
From sleepwalking
to dancing.
From a life based in the mind—
and a life half-lived, at that—
a life isolated and lonely
transformed to a life fully embodied,
connected to others,
reenergized by discovering a new rhythm,
a beat that exists within his heart.

The point is not, of course,
that African rhythms are superior
to Western classical music,
that drums are better than piano—
or harp!
Mouna has expressed her enjoyment of classical music,
listening to a CD of Walter’s wife playing piano.
There is nothing wrong with classical music
if that is what stirs your soul.

There is something wrong
with holding onto the past
in such a way
that you cannot take a step forward.
Or with shutting down your hopes and passions
because you are afraid of the pain of grief.

Because the heart of the gospel,
in my understanding,
is the promise that Jesus made
of life abundant,
not just life that goes on forever after death,
but life that is here and now
infused with the Spirit
of love and joy and laughter,
life in all its fullness
where pain and grief are fully felt and acknowledged
in order for healing to be possible,
life centered in God’s love for all people,
all creation,
life in sync with the very heartbeat
of God.
Sometimes we need to be shaken out of our routines,
to have a new kind of experience,
an encounter with a stranger,
to realize there is still more possible
in this life.

May you be ready to receive
The Visitor who comes to your door.

Amen.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Wonder Bread

Kerry Greenhill
Highlands UMC
August 2, 2009

John 6:24-35

I’ve always liked the name Wonder Bread.
I think it’s kind of genius.
I’m not endorsing the product, mind you –
just the name.
Bread is normally so ordinary,
such a humdrum part of our daily lives—
something to keep your hands clean while eating sandwiches—
that to suggest there’s something amazing about it,
something wonderful or wonder-working,
gives my spirit a little jolt.

In Jesus’ day, especially
bread was utterly ordinary –
mostly flat cakes baked on flat stones or in pans –
and essential for survival.
It was made from scratch by family members,
very possibly by people who had picked the wheat
and ground the grain themselves.
No plastic packaging,
nothing pre-sliced or nutritionally fortified.
Nothing fancy.
But very real. Solid. Familiar.
Not much to wonder about.

Today, of course,
with the convenience of supermarkets
and fast-food sandwich shops,
it’s easy to take food for granted
(like so many other things)
without thinking about where it comes from
or how it was made.
I know I am guilty of it;
I can count on the fingers of one hand
the number of times in my life
I’ve baked a loaf of real yeast bread.

Bread is the stuff of life
whether it takes the form of sliced bread or whole loaf,
tortillas or pita,
naan or injera.
Bread is still familiar. Solid. Predictable.

Except…
there was this one time
when I was in college
and our campus ministry, the Wesley Foundation,
held a worship service in a chemistry lecture hall.
Our altar was a covered lab table.
We celebrated Communion,
as was our custom,
and David – the campus minister –
had bought a loaf of bread from the grocery store,
one that looked pretty ordinary
on the outside.

It was covered during the sermon,
and it wasn’t until David took the bread,
blessed it,
and broke it open for all to see
that the jaw of every person in the lecture hall
dropped in astonishment
and wonder.
You see,
David had chosen this particular loaf
because it was labeled,
“Rainbow Bread.”
And as David continued through
the words of blessing and remembrance
we couldn’t stop gaping
at the rings of deep purple, bright orange
dark blue and vivid green
still showing in the broken loaf.

Now, as far as I can remember
it tasted pretty much like ordinary bread.
But after the service, as we stood around talking
one by one we started to exclaim –
“Hey, did you know
that your tongue is blue?”
“Look! Your lips are green!”
“David, what is in this bread?!”
And in that service,
we all wondered
at how the ordinary
had become extraordinary
and the Holy
had broken through our expectations
of a meaningful but routine ritual
to reveal something amazing and beautiful
right before our eyes.

Jesus was kind of like that, I think.
He seemed to delight
in subverting people’s expectations
neatly sidestepping their questions,
leading them by a roundabout path
to a place of new understanding.
He was constantly stretching people’s boundaries
pushing them out of their comfort zone
asking them to believe the incomprehensible
to trust the intangible
and to follow him on an impossible path.

Today’s passage in the Gospel of John
comes just after Jesus feeds the five thousand.
Afterwards, Jesus had gone up the mountain
for some quiet time,
and the disciples had set off across the Sea of Galilee
in a boat at evening.
The crowds didn’t see Jesus
walking to the disciples across the water,
but in the morning they realize
that only one boat set out from the shore,
and that Jesus wasn’t on it at the time,
but he doesn’t seem to be coming back down the hill
to teach or feed them again.
So the crowds head across the Sea after the disciples
and discover Jesus there with them.
You can imagine their double-takes.

As if his mere presence wasn’t enough
to make them wonder,
what he then says to them
definitely falls under the category of
“things that make you go Hmm.”

Instead of answering the question they ask,
Jesus questions their motives:
“Look,”
he says,
“I know you’re more driven
by your physical hunger
than by spiritual concerns.
But there’s something more,”
says Jesus,
“something beyond this life,
and through the Human One,
the one known as the Son of Man,
God is sending you food
for the spirit.”

Kind of a strange response to give to the question,
“So when did you get here?”

In trying to make sense of it,
the people draw on their religious tradition.
The last time someone important
said that God was sending food,
was when the children of Israel, led by Moses,
were wandering in the wilderness
after escaping from Egypt
and God sent them manna
to sustain them.

The manna was both
an answer to their physical need
and a sign
that Moses was God’s messenger.

In a time of rumbling stomachs
and uncertainty about the future,
God had come through for them,
and God’s people were reassured
that they were still in God’s hands.

The people following Jesus
are hungry too.
I don’t know about you,
but I spent enough years as a starving student
never to pass up a free meal when it’s offered.
I can hardly blame the crowds
for hoping there might just be one more
miraculous feeding.

Instead
Jesus tells them
of a bread that does not perish
as did the manna in the desert,
but bread that endures,
the bread of God
that comes from heaven
and gives life to the world.
He speaks to them of the difference
between physical hunger
and spiritual hunger,
between the bread that fills the body
and that which fulfills the soul.

I think we know a little something today
about confusing the two.
The prevalence of eating disorders,
substance abuse and other addictions,
even the increase in obesity, diabetes,
and high cholesterol
speak to our search,
individually and as a culture,
to fill the spiritual emptiness
we all face
at some point in our lives.
Hey, no judgment here;
I’ve been known to drown my sorrows
in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, too.
The temptations we face today
in a modern and affluent culture
are quite different from those
faced by the crowds following Jesus in his lifetime
or even by folks in less developed nations today.
Bread is necessary for survival—
especially among those who are poor and hungry,
never quite secure in knowing
whether they have bread enough to last the week—
and so Jesus taught his disciples
that it was okay to pray for it daily.

And I think it’s important to note
that Jesus did actually make sure
that the people’s bellies were full
before he tried to talk to them
about spiritual matters.
It’s not that our bodies don’t matter,
or even that they’re separate from our souls.
The incarnation is all about
the spiritual becoming known through the material,
the Holy taking on flesh
and moving into the neighborhood.

But as Jesus is recorded as saying in another gospel,
the body is more than food,
the whole person is physical *and* spiritual
(and emotional and intellectual)
and so people cannot live by bread alone.

As Simone Weil,
20th-century Christian mystic, activist, and philosopher,
“The danger is not lest the soul should doubt
whether there is any bread,
but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself
that it is not hungry.”

Seeing spiritual hunger for what it is,
naming it and realizing it cannot be satisfied
by filling the belly
or dulling the senses
is the first step toward finding a path
of genuine spiritual engagement.
But you have to know you’re hungry first.

And the crowd doesn’t really seem to get that.
They’re still focused on the prospect
of not being physically hungry ever again.
Which is why they’re probably even more confused
when Jesus tells them,
“I am the bread of life.”

What a weird and wonderful thing to say.
Have you thought about that?
What it means to think of Jesus
as the bread of life?
To feed on him in our hearts.
To take him physically or spiritually into ourselves.
To draw nourishment from him,
knowing that it is life-giving
in a way that endures.
A little bit later in the chapter,
when Jesus talks about how his followers
will have eternal life if they eat his flesh
and drink his blood,
the disciples say, “This teaching is difficult.”
Which may be the understatement of the year.
On the other hand,
a lot of Jesus’ teachings were difficult.
He didn’t dumb things down,
or “keep it simple, stupid.”
He spoke in metaphor and parable,
image and story,
sometimes seemingly incomprehensible,
leaving room for his audience
to come to their own conclusions.
He taught in rich layers of meaning
in a way that reminds me of a hearty, whole-grain bread.
Sometimes you have to chew on it a while,
break down the tough or fibrous husks
to get to the nourishing kernel inside.

If Jesus is the bread of life,
how does he fit into your food pyramid?
Is he a quick sugar-fix snack when your energy is low?
Dessert that you only indulge in occasionally?
The vegetables your mother always made you eat
even though you thought they were disgusting?
Is Jesus your secret addiction
or your comfort food?
Your guilt-laden diet regime
or your healthy, daily lifestyle?

Because this image reminds me of the phrase
learned years ago in school,
“You are what you eat.”
What we take into our bodies
becomes part of us,
determining whether we are healthy or not,
whether we have strength to go about our daily lives
or are weak and cranky from hunger.
The same is true for our spiritual diet.
Without the sustenance God offers,
we are at risk of starving to death.

“I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me
will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me
will never be thirsty.”

The bread of God
is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.
Life abundant, surprising,
colorful and unexpected.
A real kind of Wonder Bread.
No wonder that the people said to Jesus,
“Give us this bread always.”

Amen.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Win or Lose

Highlands UMC
March 8, 2009
Rev. Kerry Greenhill

Mark 8:31-38

31Then he began to teach them
that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering,
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and after three days rise again.
32He said all this quite openly.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33But turning and looking at his disciples,
he rebuked Peter and said,
“Get behind me, Satan!
For you are setting your mind not on divine things
but on human things.”

34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them,
“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross
and follow me.
35For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel,
will save it.
36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world
and forfeit their life?
37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words
in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Heavy stuff.

Like the thought for meditation today,
this text is a difficult word for us;
it probably doesn’t feel much like good news.

There is judgment in it,
and suffering.
There is rejection and death,
and hard hard choices
that we may or may not understand.

This Lent we are focusing on the theme of “turning,”
the original meaning of repentance.
This story is a turning-point in Mark.
Jesus goes around Galilee healing and exorcising demons,
teaching and proclaiming the good news of God
and the coming of the reign of God.
So far, so good.
Immediately before this scene,
Peter has proclaimed Jesus to be Christ.

Amazing. Jesus praises him highly.
But when Jesus explains what that will mean,
Peter rebukes him
and Jesus calls his head disciple Satan.

Harsh.

You kind of get the idea
that things are only going to go downhill from here.

And of course, in terms of Jesus’ popularity,
and the rejection, suffering and death he has just explained,
they do.

The way we talk about having to “bear our cross” today
has become a sort of joke,
or a sign of the minor forms of suffering
that people understand to be “martyrdom”:
we often mean to say,
“look at how holy I am
by putting up with this terrible situation.”

It can apply to something as trivial as an irritating in-law,
chronic allergies, or – more dangerously –
sometimes to a situation of abuse
or unhealthy and unhappy relationship.
I’m pretty sure that none of these are what Jesus meant,
that he was in fact trying to tell us something essential
rather than trivial
about his kingdom.

Because of the views and values of our culture today,
we risk grossly misunderstanding the message of Jesus
if we don’t consider the context
of the ancient world.

“Take up your cross” should not be interpreted
to mean that any suffering we face
is God’s will or God’s plan,
or that those who are oppressed or abused
should suffer in silence
because suffering is redemptive.

Quite the contrary.

In ancient times, suffering was not an exception
but the norm;
it was simply how life was.
Life was hard: hunger and disease were endemic,
the vast majority of people lived in poverty
that we in the 21st-century U.S. can barely imagine.
The Romans were taxing the life out of the lands
and peoples they had conquered.

Many women died in childbirth;
many children did not live to see their 5th birthday.

So you had to be able to endure suffering
if you were to survive.

There was no great redemptive value in suffering itself;
it was simply part of the human lot in life.

In the Gospel of Mark, the author makes clear
that the present age is a time when evil forces
still have power in the world,
but that Jesus has come to proclaim a new age,
a time of God’s rule.

This is what the title “Son of Man,”
or “The Human One,”
is all about.

Remember, the Son of Man is a figure
from the prophet Daniel’s visions,
indicating the “one like a human being”
who inaugurates the kingdom or reign of God
after the human kingdoms or empires –
represented by beasts, not humans –
all fall.

Jesus takes this phrase and applies it to himself
several times in Mark,
though often in what seems to us an indirect way.

So Jesus is going about proclaiming the new age
through his ministries of healing, exorcism,
feeding, and reconciliation,
making visible the values of God’s kingdom
and demonstrating the power of God
to end the illness, disability, alienation, grief
that are part of ordinary, daily suffering,
for God desires wholeness and right relationship
for all people.

In other words,
everyday suffering is not part of God’s desire.

But though Jesus proclaims and initiates the new age,
God’s power is not yet fully established,
and so Mark shows what it means to follow Jesus,
to live as part of the community of God’s kingdom:
resisting the powers in charge of the world by following Jesus
and proclaiming the reign of God over the reign of Caesar –
that will bring suffering of a different kind,
in the form of persecution.
That is to be expected
and even, in other gospels, seen as blessed.

Because to be a disciple of Jesus,
a student and follower of the one called Messiah,
is to understand that God has different values
than those of the culture around us.

Jesus’ answers to what it means to be a disciple
and what it meant for Jesus himself to be Messiah
are as unacceptable now as they were then;
this is a vision of failure.
We are called to be losers in the eyes of the world.
But everything around us says “Be a winner!”

Relinquishing status and power
in favor of service to others
is not easy.

But trust in God offers the promise
of life abundant in Christ,
a life beyond death
and a life participating in the timeless life of God
here and now.

The root meaning of sacrifice, after all,
is to make holy
(by giving wholly).

We can become part of the economy of production,
contributing to the common good
by giving of ourselves,
instead of only participating
in the economy of consumption,
taking and taking and taking.

Denying oneself in ancient times
would have related more to giving up
one’s kinship identity
from the family of origin or marriage
in favor of the family of choice in Christ.
It wasn’t so much about individual ego –
that’s a modern concept.

But there is a literalness about the second part:
many will lose their physical lives
for the sake of the good news,
starting with Jesus himself.

The church as the Body of Christ is peculiar,
unique in its calling:
to bear witness to the love of God
as revealed in Jesus Christ,
and to initiate God’s reign on earth
by implementing signs of the reign or kingdom of God
in our faith community
and working for them in the wider world.

Signs like choosing forgiveness instead of vengeance,
as in the case of the Amish community in Pennsylvania
that forgave the killer of five young girls.

Signs like seeking justice for janitors,
offering hospitality to immigrants,
refusing to take up arms against an enemy,
speaking out on behalf of those
who have no voice or power.

We bear witness to God’s love
not through words alone,
but also more holistically,
whether we realize it or not,
through every decision, action, behavior, and relationship
in our lives.

We are stewards of the gospel,
the good news of God that Jesus proclaimed
(to bring sight to the blind, proclaim liberty to the captives,
bind up the brokenhearted, announce the year of Jubilee).
How we live,
the visible and incarnate form of our discipleship,
will tell the world whether the gospel is true
and a radical way of life in the world,
or just another philosophical or moral theory.

So when we talk about stewardship,
we’re not primarily concerned
about those of us who will be out of a job
if the church doesn’t meet its budget.
We are interested in how the church as the Body of Christ
is in mission in the world,
proclaiming the Good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

And we as the Body of Christ are called
to be a counter-cultural movement,
not conformed to this world
but hearts transformed by God’s renewing of our minds.

We are called to resist
the death-dealing powers of the world:
consumerism, militarism, nationalism, fear,
knowing that these choices will put us at odds
with many of our friends, family, coworkers.

Resistance is never easy;
by definition, it implies opposing forces.

It sounds risky.
Dangerous. Radical. Extreme.

For some, it is, and must be.
In the first few centuries,
it meant just following Jesus could get you killed.
Later it meant resisting
the cultural accommodations of Christianity
in the Roman Empire
by fleeing to the desert
to take up a life of discipline
either in solitude or in community –
each option presenting its own set of challenges.

Jesus knew how hard this would be,
and while he didn’t sugarcoat it,
I think he also had compassion
for the struggles his followers would face.

He knew how seductive the powers of the world can be –
he confronted them face-to-face in the desert.
And if we can hold onto any of the sense of victory
in the meaning of the empty tomb,
I think we can see the Resurrection
as proof of the power of God
working through faithful people
to overcome the death-dealing powers
that are opposed to God’s reign.

Taking up your cross today
would sound something like
“take up your electric chair,”
take up your hangman’s noose or your FBI file,
take up a symbol of shame and death
imposed by the powers of the empire
and carry it with you
as you expose the truth about God’s reign,
the Kin’dom of light and life
and God’s love and justice for all.
It doesn’t mean submit to your daily suffering
as though God wants you to be unhappy
because you are imperfect.

It means God is at work in the world
to end the suffering of illness and alienation,
the pain of oppression and injustice,
the grief of loneliness and of death.

But it also means
that living out God’s kin’dom in the world,
which is still in the hands of the powers
that rely on people staying fearful
and numb and downtrodden,
will draw the opposition to stand against you,
and you must know this in advance
if you are going to try to shine a light into the darkness.

Because when you knowingly take up your cross,
turning your back on your family identity,
the privilege that comes
from participating in unjust systems,
and all the pressure to just be “normal,”
understanding that you may well lose everything—
that is when you can live fully
in God’s promise of abundant life,
knowing that clinging to anything, even life,
will diminish it, will strangle it,
but letting it go…
that allows it to break open
like a seed in the ground
and be transformed.

It begins by acknowledging
that we are complicit with the powers of the world –
we all buy clothing that is cheap
because it was assembled in other countries
where wages are lower;
most of us eat food that contains additives
or relies on animal exploitation
or traveled hundreds of miles
to keep us in bananas through the winter.

I am complicit, and I cannot judge you.
I can only repent of the ways in which I sustain these forces,
and try each day to make choices
that increase the power of God’s reign
and diminish the power of the world.

Resistance is as radical as
Christian Peacemaker Teams,
traveling to countries where war, corruption, and violence are the norm,
and standing in the way of violence
to draw attention to it and defuse it.

Or as radical as living in a new monastic community,
such as the Simple Way in Philadelphia,
where members give up personal belongings
to live together in intentional community,
to share all things as the original disciples did,
and to be in service to those in need
and participate in work for justice in the name of Christ.

And resistance can be as simple
as a victory garden in the church flower beds;
or looking the homeless man or woman in the eye
and buying them a cup of coffee instead of driving by;
or deciding not to buy new clothes or go to Starbucks
or eat dinner out so often;
it can mean choosing recycled, biodegradable,
organic, union-made, or longer-lasting goods
instead of cheaper products;
or increasing your charitable giving
even though your 401K has lost half its value.

Losing your life to save it
is giving up security
for the promise of wild adventure with God.
It is giving up the trappings and distractions
that numb our fears and anxieties
for the dangerous gifts of silence, stillness, emptiness.

It is deciding not to forfeit our lives
for the sake of the world
as the demonic voices offer it to us.

It is choosing to risk everything,
win or lose,
knowing that loss and grief are not the end
so long as we trust in God’s care.

As we journey through the wilderness this Lent,
I challenge you to consider:
what cross are you taking up for the sake of the gospel?
What in your life are you willing to risk,
even to lose,
to follow Jesus more faithfully?

You might just win it all.

Amen.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Keep in Touch

Keep in Touch
February 8, 2009
Montclair UMC, Denver, CO
Rev. Kerry Greenhill

Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39

I sent out my annual Christmas letter by email this year.
On January 6th.
Among my friends, I was not the last to do so.
After all, we save paper, save money on stamps,
and reduce the clutter on other people’s counters.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
It used to be that keeping in touch
meant writing letters
with pen and paper
or perhaps a typewriter;
making an occasional long-distance phone call
and lots of visits –
I know many of you remember those days
and don’t understand why no one writes letters any more.
The ways we keep in touch today
don’t have much to do with actual touch:
email, cell phones, text messaging, facebook
virtual communities are springing up all over
and people are communicating their whole lives
to an unseen, unknown audience (or readers)
through blogs (weblogs), vlogs, YouTube,
webcams, Twitter updates and chat rooms.
We seem to be a society
that has overdeveloped the technologies for communication
and risks neglecting real face-to-face relationships.
Yet I think the human instinct for physical connection will prevail.

Touch is something we literally cannot live without.
It is necessary for human life.
It signifies relationship, presence, intimacy.
It can bring healing, wholeness, wellness, health.

Jesus was a great practitioner of touch.
He touched those who were considered
“untouchable” by society,
healing the sick, those troubled by demons,
even those who had experienced disability since birth.
More than the physical cure, though,
the touch of Jesus restored people to wholeness:
he restored them to relationship with others,
to connection with their community.

In today’s story from Mark,
We continue straight on from last week’s reading –
it’s the Sabbath,
Jesus has gone to synagogue in Capernaum,
and cast an unclean spirit out of a man,
provoking awe and wonder among those who are gathered:
he teaches with authority!
Meaning, his ability to put words into action is unmatched.

Jesus then goes home with Simon & Andrew;
it turns into a “working lunch,”
as religious leaders sometimes have with their parishioners.
Learning that Simon’s mother-in-law is ill with a fever,
Jesus touches her, takes her by the hand,
and lifts her up – described in language that calls to mind
both Jesus’ body raised up on the cross
and the Eucharistic bread lifted up for blessing
in the last supper
and our remembrance of it.
And she is healed of her fever,
and gets up and serves them.

Do we bristle that Simon’s mother-in-law, who isn’t even named,
is healed of a potentially life-threatening fever
only to get up and go about the domestic chores
of serving these male guests?
I think we can be pretty confident
that this story about Jesus is not trying to teach us
that women should focus on household chores
rather than taking the time they need to be well.
There are plenty of other stories
about the ways in which Jesus sets women free
from the bondage of gender-restricted domestic roles,
to counteract a possible misinterpretation here.
No, this unnamed woman,
defined by her dependence on her male relations,
is touched by Jesus
and restored to life and service.
This is not about getting on with domestic servitude,
but being freed for servant ministry.
I’ll come back to that in a minute.

Jesus knew how to keep in touch with others.
I mean, we have no records of any letters he may have written;
we don’t know if he did follow-up visits
with those he had healed
to ensure they were making a full recovery.
But he was in touch with the reality of people’s lives.
He knew about the pain and suffering
of those who were unseen and untouched
by most of society.
He came to synagogue and cast out a demon.
He went to Simon and Andrew’s house
and healed Simon’s mother-in-law.
When the Sabbath was over at sundown,
he healed the dozens or hundreds who came to the door
seeking healing, wholeness, restored relationship.

But he also took time apart from the crowds,
while it was still dark,
seeking out a deserted place to pray.
He knew he needed to keep in touch with God.
This is a pattern that is repeated throughout the Gospels:
Jesus teaches, heals, engages people
and then he withdraws to pray.

It’s the disciples who want Jesus
to be more than in touch:
they want him to be constantly available,
defined by the expectations of the crowd,
anxiously trying to please others,
easing their own anxiety.

Sound familiar?
When thinking about our communication technologies today,
what worries me even more than their touchlessness
is that there seems no limit
to our belief in the goodness of reachability,
of perpetual sharing of what was once considered private.
We have lost a sense of boundaries.
Reality TV shows, Blackberrys and iPhones
have us convinced that fulfillment in life
means constant connection with as many people as possible,
or at least availability to all people at all times.
I’m as drawn in as anyone of my generation –
I love the way Facebook allows me to know
what my friends from all stages of my life
and now located all around the world
are doing at any given moment,
and the way they can comment on my own “status updates”
in real time.

More and more, our world is being drawn into the belief
that “community” or “intimacy”
is defined not by depth of communion
or the hard work of living together in love,
but by the surface area of our lives
that is available for public consumption.

There’s a website called LarkNews.com
that offers fake news stories,
satire with a Christian flavor.
Their current edition includes the following article:

LEWISTON, Maine — Recently, several hundred members of Holy Trinity Church watched pastor Jeremy Woods eat breakfast, work on his sermon and make a Starbucks run. Woods had just joined a growing group of pastors who are broadcasting their lives 24/7 on the Internet.
"When I first heard of going live I thought, 'This is the future of pastoring but I'm not sure I like it,'" Woods says. But after a month he says he "totally digs it."
"It's the next step beyond blogging or even live blogging," he says. "It's about sharing life."
The trend is believed to have started in 2004 when Rick Givens of New York's West Side Church decided to make himself "more accountable and accessible" by webcasting every waking moment live. But his pioneering effort has forced other pastors into awkward decisions. Donald Taylor, 37, of Nebraska didn't want to go live, but relented because of pressure from his board. He hated his first week.
"It was like being in prison. You never have a moment to yourself," he says.
But soon he began to enjoy having a constant audience. His wife particularly likes it because "he behaves more," she says. "It's like having God looking over your shoulder. You never know who's watching."

Jesus models for us
the importance of staying in touch
not with the crowds who define social norms and expectations,
but with God,
the Source of Life.

I suspect many of you are more faithful than I am
about making time for God in your lives.
Don’t be shocked!
Ministers often feel that our whole work life revolves around God
and we forget that we need to relate to God
not as an object, the theme of our vocation,
but as the Holy One who actively calls us to this sacred work,
and who wants to remain in relationship with us,
as Someone who might actually have wisdom to share with us
as we travel this journey together.

This keeping in touch with God can happen in different ways.
For some people, reading the Bible brings them close to God
and allows them to hear God’s Word for them in new ways.
For others, prayer is like a conversation,
describing what is happening in their lives
and asking for God’s help and guidance.
Still others know God’s presence most through stillness and silence,
Resting in God’s love without the need for words.
Perhaps you keep in touch with God by walking in the park,
or spending time with your grandchildren,
volunteering to help those in need,
or gardening or cooking or building things or creating art.

Keeping in touch with God is important
not only because God wants to stay in close relationship with us,
but also because it is how we become our best selves.
God loves us unconditionally:
the everlasting, Holy One of Israel,
renewer of strength and unsearchable of understanding,
is the one who redeems us and sustains us
for the work of building the kingdom,
the work for which God created us and to which God calls us.
But as humans with a tendency to turn from God
and to miss the mark of what God desires for us,
if we only keep in touch with ourselves
and with the people around us,
we run the risk of being driven
not by love
but by fear.
We are anxious creatures sometimes.
And when a bunch of anxious people get together,
they like nothing better than to spread the anxiety –
after all, then there are more people to carry the burden, right?
The problem is that anxiety multiplies.
Misery loves company,
not always so it can feel better,
but sometimes so others can feel just as bad.

We see that happening here with Jesus and the disciples.
Jesus has a very successful day on the trail,
having just begun his campaign for the kingdom.
Exorcisms, healings, teaching with authority:
all received well and giving him a big surge in the polls.
And then he disappears.
Now, Simon, Andrew, James and John
have only recently been drafted onto Jesus’ team.
They’ve only seen him in action a little while,
and this is the first time he’s pulled this stunt on them.
It won’t be the last…
but they don’t know that yet.
They get up early in the morning to plan the day,
maybe grab some breakfast before the healing clinic opens again,
and Jesus is nowhere to be found.
He’s vanished.
Panic sets in.
Where did he go?
What is he doing?
What if we can’t find him?
What will the people think?
We’d better find him, and fast!
So they hunt him down,
and find him,
predictably to our ears
but apparently a surprise to all of them,
spending time alone in prayer.

When they meet up with Jesus,
the disciples can’t quite admit
how scared they were
about his absence.
Everyone is searching for you,
they tell him.
We weren’t too worried,
but all those people out there—
those who are sick, the ones with demons—
they didn’t know what to do!
You’d better come back fast
and get to work helping them
before they get too worried.

But Jesus isn’t fazed.
He’s been keeping in touch with the Creator,
waiting upon the Lord,
renewing his strength
through communion with the everlasting God.
He has been refreshed
in his understanding of what his purpose is.
In response to the disciples’ anxious clinging, he says,
Let us go on to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also;
for that is what I came out to do.

Perhaps Jesus knows that if he stays in Capernaum,
people will become focused on his ability to heal
and to cast out demons,
and they will cling to him as a wonder-worker,
not looking to God to renew their strength
and not empowered to serve one another
as Simon’s mother-in-law is.

You see,
what is interesting to me
about the healing of this unnamed woman,
is that her immediate response is not worship,
not words of gratitude,
not wonder or amazement,
but immediate commitment
to self-giving service.
The Greek word translated as “serves” in this verse
is the same word translated in some versions as “ministers”
as the angels ministered to Jesus at the end of his time in the desert.
It is also the word from which we get the English word “Deacon.”
Simon’s mother-in-law is healed from her fever,
and she begins a servant ministry as the first deacon.
She is the first one healed to respond so whole-heartedly.
And though Mark has yet to tell us
that what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God
is that he is willing to serve others,
and even to suffer and die,
here we have a kind of foreshadowing,
an implicit teaching of what it means
to become a disciple,
to be touched by God through Jesus:
not only to leave behind one’s family and livelihood,
but to get up and serve
on a day that permits rest
as a sign of love and kingdom commitment.

We are finite, flawed, and fallen;
We need to stay in touch with God,
for it is “waiting” for God
that will renew our strength
and reveal our purpose, our vocation,
our mission.
We, too, need to learn when it is time to move on
to continue to spread the Gospel
in other places,
whether literally moving in space,
or spiritually moving on to the next phase of our lives.
We cannot linger in the luxury
of the miracle of healing,
nor dwell in the demands of the needy crowd.
Keeping in touch with God
allows us to find our deepest, best selves,
to know how our heart’s deep joy
can rise up to meet
the world’s deep need,
not trying to fix everything
or save everyone,
but bearing witness to God’s healing touch
in whatever small way we can.
May you know God’s touch
and be empowered to serve.
Amen.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. As the season of preparation for Easter, Lent is a time of repentance (which means turning around), of walking through the wilderness and coming face to face with the things that would lead us away from God, of choosing practices that continually re-turn our focus toward God. Ash Wednesday typically focuses on remembering our mortality, and considering what disciplines will shape our lives during Lent. Here is a poem I wrote a couple years ago to mark the day.

Ash Wednesday

bend the knee
bow the heart
let dust and ashes leave their mark
the sign of cross
and grave and tomb
the earth we come from stakes its claim
we sing
we pray
we confess
we speak truth in the face of self-delusion
we sing mercy, Lord,
have mercy
we bend the knee
we turn around
and face to face
we see each other
also marked
by life in death
also claimed
by cross and flame
also humbled
also loved
also seeking
also forgiven
and we remember
we remember
we remember
whose we are
and where we shall return
and in the midst of grieving
we give thanks.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

To See Our Lives Whole

A sermon I preached last summer that was recorded on DVD and submitted to my Board of Ordained Ministry as part of my materials to be considered for ordination this year. Turns out it could have been broken into two sermons, but I've included the whole thing here anyway. Blessings!

To See Our Lives Whole
Rev. Kerry Greenhill
Highlands UMC, Denver, CO
July 6, 2008

Colossians 3:15-16

I’d like you to think for a moment
about a few questions I have for you.
How often do you experience God’s presence in church?
How about in other settings?
If God is everywhere, always available to us,
why bother coming to a church building
at a specific time on Sunday morning?
Can’t we honor God just as easily
hiking in the mountains
meeting friends for brunch
or spending time at home with our families?
Why do churches have so many different ways
of doing worship, anyway?
Is one style really better than the others?

These questions may sound familiar;
my guess is many of you may have asked them yourself
at one time or another,
or maybe someone in your life
has asked them of you.
They’re reasonable questions, after all.
How would you answer?

For all our preoccupation with worship style today,
a person might begin to think
that the form of worship is of primary concern
in the Bible, from Genesis on down.
But the truth is,
the Bible doesn’t advocate just one specific way
in which we are to worship God.
Oh, there’s plenty of concern
that the one true God of Israel
should be the focus of our worship,
rather than the gods or idols of other nations.
And the temple in Jerusalem,
the central site for Jewish worship
from the tenth century BCE
until its destruction in the first century of the Common Era,
is the focus of many of the psalms of praise
in which the Israelites take delight
in journeying to worship God.
St Paul gives instructions for celebrating the Lord’s Supper,
so that it resembles a ritual more than a free-for-all feast,
and we know that followers of Jesus
met on the first day of the week
to celebrate the Resurrection
beginning almost immediately after his death
and that over time, as more Gentiles joined the movement,
this practice replaced the Jewish tradition
of worshiping on the Sabbath, the seventh day.
We know that there were “psalms, hymns,
and spiritual songs,”
and we can pick out a few of them
from the early Christian writings that have been preserved,
but the truth is that there was a variety of worship styles
from the very beginning.
So the Bible doesn’t tell us very much
about what our worship,
in our time and cultural context
should look or sound or feel like.

If you’ve done a little church-hopping
or church-shopping, as the case may be,
chances are you’ve experienced some of that variety.
But then again, those of us who grow up
in predominantly white mainline Protestant congregations
tend to stick with what we know.
And mostly what we know here
is variations on what today is called
Liturgical Worship.
Sometimes “high-church,” sometimes “low,”
Liturgical Worship focuses on proclaiming the Word
in rational and reasonable ways,
teaching and forming committed Christians
that they might grow deeper
in their understanding of the faith
and more mature in their walk with Christ.
God is most often seen as “wholly other,” transcendent,
worthy of honor and awe:
that’s where we get our word worship,
from the Old English “weorth-scipe.”
The formality of the “liturgical” style,
with its written prayers and order of worship,
its classic hymnody that engages the intellect,
creates regular patterns in the life of faith.
Each Sunday we know more or less what to expect;
each year we move through the same seasons
of the liturgical calendar.
And at best, the Spirit works through all of these
to form our minds and hearts
into the image of God in Christ.

Yet there are those who consider “liturgy”
to be nothing more than meaningless ritual,
rote memorization of prayers or Scripture ,
hymns that are old-fashioned and incomprehensible,
even offensive to the modern—or postmodern—mind.

And so, in the past 30 or 40 years,
the “Praise and Worship” style has emerged,
bringing high-energy music
enhanced by modern technology
to overcome the stereotype of worship’s cold formality
in order to appeal to the emotions.
In place of the classic hymns,
contemporary praise choruses are sung,
with a very different goal
than the rational teaching of Scripture or doctrine:
these choruses seek to create an environment of sound
in which singers lose themselves.
Repetition serves the same function
as a mantra in meditation,
transporting participants from earth to heaven
and shaping one’s life throughout the week
as the words and music come to mind again and again.

There are dozens of other styles of worship,
or variations within the larger categories.
If you’ve ever heard a traditional African-American sermon,
or heard someone speaking in tongues
at a Pentecostal church,
If you’ve smelled the incense in a Catholic
or Anglican cathedral,
or sat in the silence of a Quaker meeting,
you know that God is not limited to any one culture
or style of worship gathering.

But still the question remains,
why is it necessary
to do this weird thing called Christian worship
at all?

It might help to define more clearly
one of the words I used earlier,
and which we use regularly here at Highlands.
Although people commonly use the word “liturgy” or “liturgical”
to refer to a particular style of worship,
or specific pieces of worship,
the origin of the word, from the Greek leitourgia,
means “the work of the people”—
originally it didn’t refer specifically to religious work,
but could mean general public works
for the good of the whole community,
such as building a road
or engaging in legislative action. (p.14)
Whenever people work together
to serve the common good,
they are performing liturgy in its broadest sense.

Of course, the liturgy of the church
has traditionally focused on glorifying God,
expressing praise and awe before the Awesome One,
and humbling ourselves before God.
But I can’t help thinking
that there’s more to it than that.

For one thing,
surely we can express our praise
and humble ourselves before God
in private, just one-on-one,
without having to get up early on Sunday
and drive across town
to sing strange songs and perform archaic rituals.
Right?
That’s what folks who identify as
spiritual-but-not-religious
argue.
So there must be some purpose
in getting together with other people
and doing this all in a particular way,
for the practice to have survived all these centuries
and to be so universally affirmed
within Christian tradition
as a “means of grace,”
to use the language of John Wesley.

But secondly,
that idea of expressing praise and awe of God,
or humbling ourselves before God,
assumes a particular kind of understanding
of the relationship between God and humanity,
and in my mind,
overlooks a great deal
about the reality of our lives.

If the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is truly Good News,
then it must be good news for our whole lives.
And while there can be great spiritual value
in remembering that we are but dust,
and to dust we shall return,
in proclaiming that God is the Almighty Creator of the universe,
and nothing we do of our own accord
will earn God’s love for us,
there are other spiritual truths
that we need to hear,
details of our lives that need the touch of the Holy Spirit,
and seasons when praising God
is the last thing we feel able to do.

How we worship both reflects and shapes
our image of God.

Now, I don’t believe that God is some distant king
enthroned in heaven, far away,
demanding our submission
controlling the events of our lives
like a puppeteer holding all the strings.

And neither is God the stern school principal,
watching our every move
evaluating whether we have perfect attendance
or are breaking the rules.
(No offense, Brian!)

No, we have come to know God as loving and gracious,
revealed in the life, teachings, death and rising
of Jesus whom we call Christ.
God has come out to meet us where we are,
to live among us as one of us,
to love and serve people like us
and even people like those whom we despise.

And so, I believe God does not need our worship
in the way that a child needs our love;
God is much bigger than that.
The Hebrew prophets testify
that God is more concerned
about how we practice mercy and justice
toward one another
than whether we perform the prescribed rituals appropriately.

But God does meet us in worship,
whether we know it or not,
whether we feel it or not.

In some ways, God is the audience of worship.
That’s right, folks,
what Pastor Betty and the musicians and I
do up here in the chancel area
isn’t primarily for your applause or approval.
Rather, we come as facilitators,
prompters to you, as the people of God,
who are the ones performing the work of the liturgy.
All that we do is designed to draw attention
not to ourselves, but to God.
Not to ask you to admire our skill,
but to open a space
for all of us to enter into prayer
and to encounter God directly.

Yet even as we recognize
that God is a primary audience for our worship,
we do want the way that we express our worship
to connect with everyone present.
Of course, our goal is not entertainment
or individual gratification,
but the full participation of all
in a life-giving and redemptive encounter with God
through the gathered community.
For I believe that corporate worship
is one of the primary ways
that we can open our hearts and our lives to God
to be formed and transformed
into the image of God
as we die to the death-dealing forces of the world
and rise with Christ to a life abundant and eternal,
a life of justice, compassion, and love.

When we can bring the whole of our lives before God
and one another
in a way that is honest and humble,
both about our joys and concerns,
our failures and our successes,
our hope and our grief,
our doubts and our abiding faith,
then we may encounter God
in healing and reassurance,
in forgiveness and reconciliation.
We gather with the community of faith
both to receive the gifts and support of others
when we are lacking, lopsided, or losing ourselves,
and also because we are all vital ingredients
in this mystical, ridiculous, half-baked thing we call church,
and there are times when we ourselves
are the gifts that others need.

We come to encounter God,
not primarily, I think, as insignificant peons
before an all-powerful monarch,
But as children invited out
by the Spirit
to meet God on the playground
and to swing side-by-side/
Or as friends invited
to share a feast
at the table and in the home
of a loving and gracious host.

Worship also offers a glimpse into the deeper meaning
of all the ways we live out our faith during the week:
We practice hospitality in offering the peace of Christ
and welcoming all to the Communion table;
we care for one another in our prayers;
we repent of the ways we fall short of God’s will
and lament the brokenness of our world,
even as we commit ourselves anew to working for justice
and the realization of God’s reign on earth.

In taking the ordinary items and actions of our lives—
bread and cup, water, music, embrace, story, song—
and revealing God in Christ through them
during a time specifically set aside for focusing on the holy,
we learn to see how all of life
has the potential to become a sacrament:
preparing a meal, washing the dishes,
welcoming the stranger, laughing with children,
speaking out for justice, or holding hands with loved ones.

At its best,
worship allows us to bring our whole selves,
our whole lives, into God’s presence
and the presence of the beloved community,
to hear the Good News,
to know God’s love,
to strengthen one another,
to see the sacred in the ordinary,
and so to encounter God,
the Holy One who came among us in the person of Jesus
and who comes among us
as Word made flesh still today.

We come to remember who we are
and whose we are;
we come to remember our mission:
to live out God’s love
and so proclaim the Good News to all the world.
We come to remind ourselves
of the Story in which we place ourselves,
God’s Story that incorporates our individual stories
into something much bigger,
full of meaning and glory.
We come to let the word of Christ
dwell in us richly,
to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;
and with gratitude in our hearts
to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

We come to see our lives whole
and to know that they matter,
to God
and to one another.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.