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.

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.