Reflecting on the new year, 1.5.14

Lamentations 3:21-26

21But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. 26It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.


Psalm 90

1Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

2Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”

4For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past,

or like a watch in the night.

5You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;

6in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.


7For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.

8You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

9For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.

10The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;

even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

11Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

12So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

13Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!

14Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
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One of the greatest strengths of the biblical faith we share with our Jewish neighbors is the ability to take in trouble and still rest in God’s care. We don’t read from Lamentations very often. As you might guess from the title, it’s sort of a depressing book.


Lamentations is a series of poems reflecting on the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem. It is heartbreaking poetry because the poet’s heart is broken. His city, not only his home, but the center of his religious and national life has been destroyed. The city lies in ruins. Many of the poet’s friends and family have probably been killed. The dead are still lying in the street.

The poet takes it all in and pours out his grief openly, mournfully and honestly. But right in the middle of this tragic book come the words we just read together: “But this I call to mind and so I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”


There’s no covering over the shame and pain and grief. There is no disguising or pretending about the hardship that is still to come. And yet, there is still hope. God’s mercies never end; God’s love shines through even in the darkest night. We fail and fall, we suffer and we grieve, we get sick and we die. Through it all, God is faithful. Through it all, God loves us.


God is with us when things are going well, even though sometimes we’re too busy to notice. God is with us when things are just plodding along, when things are neither great nor terrible but just status quo. God’s faithfulness is great; God is steady and constant.


At the same time as God is constant, God’s mercies are new every morning. Each morning brings new joys and new challenges. There are new places we need God’s help, new failings and hurts that need God’s mercies. So every morning, every moment, God is finding new ways to show grace and love and care; we just have to open our eyes, open our hearts and receive.


The Bible teaches us about God. It also teaches us about ourselves. The new year is a natural time to reflect on our lives, on how we’ve done in the last year and what we want to do with the year to come. Psalm 90 is a great New Year’s passage because it invites us to that reflection.


God is eternal, but we are not. We ignore that fact at our peril. Our culture is so scared of death and illness that we are unable to face those things honestly or well. Instead, we rush around trying to cram as much as we can into our time while almost denying the reality of death. I’ve seen families in the hospital refuse to admit that their loved one is dying even in their last days. Most patients don’t take full advantage of the extra care available through hospice services because patients, families and doctors keep battling death long after the outcome is clear.


The psalmist encourages us to count our days so we can gain wise hearts. That means that we need to think about our life, our days and weeks and years, knowing that they are limited. Our time on earth is precious because we don’t have forever.


The trouble is, sometimes when we think of our time as precious, it makes us stingy with it, and that’s different than taking it seriously. We want to be generous with our time, like with our money and energy. We want to give freely, partly because that means we enjoy them (our energy, time and money) more than if we clutch them with white knuckles. At the same time, we don’t want to throw away our days because we can’t ever get them back.


Having a wise heart is not just about being generous with our time either. It’s about knowing our time on earth is precious and limited, but also that our impact is limited. We are fragile and, in the grand scheme of things, nothing we do will last forever either. The psalmist imagines us returning to the dust from which we came and pictures our days like grass springing up in the morning and withering away at the end of the day. Our lives, our accomplishments, the things that seem so important in the moment are fragile and temporary.


At first that sounds discouraging; it almost makes us think, “Why bother?” But ultimately it is liberating. We tend to get caught up in ourselves, caught up in our work or our family struggles or our decisions. The stakes feel so high; everything feels like an emergency, so we rush around constantly trying to manage situations to keep them from getting out of hand.


Thinking about life from the perspective of God’s time frame reminds us of that in a thousand years, whatever we are so worried about now will not matter. No one is going to remember why we were so mad at someone else. No one will care about the church budget or the rent or the election.


The moment at hand is both precious and ephemeral; both important and fleeting. That means taking our time, our decisions, our work seriously because they are precious. It also means taking them with a grain of salt because none of it lasts forever. It seems like those two things are opposites, but they aren’t. Holding on to our time and decisions lightly actually helps us make the most of them because it helps us see them more clearly, while treating every issue like a crisis makes us more likely to mess up. In almost everything we do, humans perform better if we are relaxed.


That’s where our passages come together. Our lives are temporary and precious. God is trustworthy and loving. God is faithful in hard times and in good times, and, while our lives are short, we also have the chance to be part of the work of God’s kingdom, which is eternal. God calls us to share in building up community, in making life better for others, to work for peace and reconciliation. That can be as involved as starting a hospital and as simple as saying a kind word to a stranger. Our calling as disciples of Jesus touches every part of our lives. We’re freed from the anxiety of our own lives because it’s really not about us in the end.


The new year is a great time to step back and take a look at our life. How are we doing at trusting God? Are we spending our time in a way that fits with our true priorities? Are we treating others kindly, like their lives and feelings are precious? What do you want to do differently this year?


The new year is also a time to think about our life and future as a church. As you probably know, I’m leaving this coming summer. That’s sad for me to think about because I love serving with you; this is a wonderful church. We have been a good fit for each other and we have grown together. There’s going to be a time to say goodbye to each other, but now isn’t that time.


Now is the time to think about how to use the time we have together to get ready for what’s next. We’ll be talking about that the next couple of weeks, including right after worship. Pastoral transition has not always been kind to Laurelton, but here we have time to do it right. So think about what do we need to work on together to help you take the next steps with courage and confidence.


A church is not about a pastor. It’s about a community making God’s love real through relationships and ministry. It’s about finding ways to make God’s eternal faithfulness make sense to people in everyday actions and words. It’s about growing together in trust, in faith and in love. It’s about learning to trust each other, to be honest and open with each other and to treat each other like the precious children of God we are. It’s also about having fun together because the message of faith is good news for all people.


This church has so many of the gifts the wider church and the world needs. You are relaxed and able to absorb change, which equips you well for the world we live in. You are open to all kinds of people, so you can welcome the community and invite them in to God’s story. You are committed, generous givers of time and money and energy. You have the gifts you need to thrive in ministry. This next six months we will work together to consolidate and polish your gifts and to discern how God is calling you in the next step of your ministry.


In our lives as individual disciples and our life as a church, a new year is a new beginning. It’s also a small part of the great tapestry of God’s love. God has been faithful in the past and God will be faithful in the future. This moment is full of potential for joyful, exciting ministry. So let us number our days, gain a wise heart and rest in God’s endless grace as we spend the precious time God has given us.


Thanks be to God.

The body of Christ: breaking down the walls, 10.6.13

Ephesians 2:11-22
¹¹So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

1 Corinthians 10:15-17, 11:17-34

¹⁵I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. ¹⁶The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? ¹⁷Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

11¹⁷Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. ¹⁸For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. ¹⁹Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine.

²⁰When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. ²¹For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. ²²What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!

²³For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

²⁷Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. ³⁰For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. ³¹But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. ³²But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. ³³So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. ³⁴If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come.

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            Paul’s words can come across as harsh, and I think and hope that my sermon is going to be challenging. To set the stage for that I want to remind you that when I’m preaching to you, I’m also preaching to myself. We all have room to grow together. Another thing to remember about Paul with the Corinthian church and about me with you is that I love you. Challenge is meant to help us all grow.

This sermon series is about the church. The Bible uses different images for the church because it’s a community that’s not quite like anything else. Susan preached about how the church is a family two weeks ago. Last week I preached about the church as an ambulance base or a mission station where we get what we need for our calling in the world.

This week we’re talking about how the church is the body of Christ. That means that as different as we are, everyone around the world who belongs to Christ is part of one body. We are united and connected to people we will never meet. And together we are not just a community, not just an organization, but the living, breathing body of Jesus Christ. That is amazing and mysterious. It means the church is much greater than any one of us, and it means we owe more to our fellow members than we might think because we are one, holy body together.

            Raise your hand if you’ve been a part of the church, this church or another church, for as long as you can remember.

Now, raise your hand if being part of a church is pretty new to you. Great.

            In the first century, when Jesus walked the earth and the church first began Jews and gentiles were about as far apart as they could be. The passage from Ephesians that Donna read talks about how the gentiles who became Christian once felt. Before they came to faith in Christ they were separated from God. The way people connected to God was through the rules and rituals that defined the Jewish community, and they were not part of that community.

            Then Jesus came, lived, died and rose again, and everything changed. The wall between Jews and gentiles was torn down. The Old Testament rules and rituals no longer defined who was in and who was out of God’s community. Now Christ’s call and Christ’s cross define the community of faith. It doesn’t matter where we come from, it only matters that Christ called and we answered. All people who follow Christ are one.

That means we have no business looking down on other Christians. The divisions that used to matter are overcome in Christ. Christ died to reconcile the division between Jews and gentiles. He took two very different communities and made one community in his body, putting the hostility that divided them from each other to death on the cross. That means when we are hostile towards other Christians, we’re going against the cross of Christ, and frankly, that’s not something I want to do.

           

            Of course, the early church’s division between gentile and Jewish Christians isn’t really an issue now, so for this passage to speak to us we have to think about other divisions that the church faces today. Maybe the best comparison is old and new members. As we saw a minute ago, some of us are new to being members of the church and others have been part of the church their whole lives.

            Our experiences and differences shape us, and the different perspectives that come with being a life long church member or a brand new Christian make this church stronger. At the same time, those differences do not define us, and none of us has any right to look down on anyone else. Jesus Christ himself welcomes everyone here today. Jesus’ welcome and grace is the only ground any of us has to stand on, not our background, not our parents, not our pledge or our tenure or our volunteer hours. Whether know it or not, without Jesus we are lost. We are found now because of his love, whether we accepted that love 40 years ago or just this minute. We are all one and no one is better than anyone else.

            It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative; if you’re black, white, Latino or Asian, if you know the Bible well or are just reading it for the first time, if your faith is rock solid or you have lots of doubts and questions. It doesn’t matter if you have a PhD or a fourth grade education. It doesn’t matter if you’re Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic or agnostic. Christ has broken down every dividing wall that threatens to separate us and he is the one who makes us the church. We are one in his body with all our differences and all our unique personalities.

            In our passage from Corinthians Paul focuses on class divisions, which continue to challenge churches, including ours, today. Of course, class isn’t just about dollars and cents. Class is about culture and expectations and experience. The social and economic group we grow up in shapes how we see the world in ways we can’t even see. Unless we have some experience that moves us out of the class in which we grew up, we don’t even know how limited our perspective is, because however we grow up seeing the world is normal to us.

            People who grow up in the middle or upper middle class probably have parents who put a high value on education. Those parents probably succeeded in school and a big part of their parenting was helping their kids succeed in school too. Throughout their life they saw a connection between education and success. In middle class culture there’s often a strong sense that people control their own destiny and that they are responsible for what they do and what happens to them.

            For people who grow up in a family struggling to make ends meet the world looks very different. Often, they grow up without knowing many people who have succeeded in school. That means parents don’t emphasize school because they haven’t seen any benefit from education in their own lives. Sometimes they believe that education is the school’s job, and the parent’s job is surviving, not helping with school work. Since people who have struggled to survive have had a lot of things go against them, it often feels like success is more a matter of luck or fate than education or choice. The world feels threatening and totally beyond their control.

            Obviously, there are plenty of people who straddle those two worlds and I’m oversimplifying things to make a point. The point is that where we come from impacts how we see the world in ways we don’t even recognize. For example, for an upper middle class person it makes sense to take out student loans because they believe education is a good investment that will allow them to succeed and pay back the loan. For people who grew up struggling to survive, the risk of that loan feels too threatening to make sense and the benefit seems uncertain at best.

For working class families it’s often obvious for adult children to stay with their parents because that makes it easier to survive together. For many upper middle class people the expectation is that when children grow up, they move away from home. For each group those decisions can seem obvious, while for the other they seem strange.

            In some ways rich people and poor people live in different worlds. Society separates us from each other, and we don’t often even have the chance to see the world through different eyes because we spend most of our time with people like us. And like most social organizations, the church is often divided along the same lines. There are black churches and white churches, country churches, suburban churches and city churches, wealthy churches and poor churches.

            Paul reminds us that that is not how it should be. In Jesus Christ all human divisions are conquered. The divisions that matter so much to people don’t matter at all to God. The church is the body of Christ, so however different we might look or seem, we are one in Christ. That means when we allow human divisions to divide us in the church we are tearing Christ’s body apart. When we look down on people because they don’t act how we think they should act, we are spitting on Christ’s body. When we resent someone because they see the world differently we are rejecting part of Jesus. We are one body, and when don’t act like it we turn away from our Lord.

            It’s easy to talk about unity and equality, but it’s hard to live it. We say we believe that people are equal and that everyone is welcome, but we don’t always truly believe it in our secret hearts and we don’t experience it in our lives. We won’t know how deep our differences go until we start overcoming them in real life behavior. It will be harder than we think, but we can do it because we are already one in Christ.

            Paul’s argument is theological; he’s talking about what the ritual of the Lord’s Supper means in a spiritual sense, but he’s also talking about the practical nuts and bolts of sharing a community table with people who are different. In Paul’s time the Lord’s supper was both a religious ritual and an actual community meal, think sacrament and potluck rolled into one.

The rich people in the church could start the meal whenever they wanted, and they didn’t have to worry about having enough to eat and drink. The poor members of the Corinthian church couldn’t get to the gathering until their boss let them go, and by the time they got there, there wasn’t anything for them to eat.

            Paul says that we aren’t really eating the Lord’s Supper unless we’re eating it together as equals. It is the responsibility of members of the community with more resources to look out for those with less. It’s everyone’s responsibility to make sure that everyone has enough, that everyone can share at Christ’s table. The church is Christ’s body and the communion meal is Christ’s body. If we allow our differences to divide us we tear Christ’s body apart. When we do that, this amazing meal that is a sign of Christ’s love and death and salvation will condemn us instead of bless us.

            The church is one of the few places where we have the chance to build genuine community with love, honesty and real sharing among people who are very different. Our community is more diverse now economically, politically, and religiously than it was 5 years ago. That’s going to be challenging sometimes. There are times when we are not going to understand each other, times we get frustrated because some one else just doesn’t see things the same way we do.

But difference is an invitation to a conversation. It’s an opportunity to see the world from another perspective. For this to work, for us to really be the community we are called in Christ to be we need to be willing to question ourselves. Paul tells us to judge ourselves, to examine ourselves to see if our mind is in sync with God’s truth. I guarantee if we really start learning about each others experiences we will learn some uncomfortable things about ourselves, but real growth is often uncomfortable.

When we don’t understand someone we should ask them about their perspective, and listen to each other without judgment or defensiveness. We need to open our hearts to each other and really treat each other as beloved brothers and sisters. That’s the way God sees us, that’s who God calls us to be not only when we are in this space but, most importantly, when we leave this building. We are one because we are Christ’s body together. As we let that spiritual vision shape our real life together we will have uncomfortable moments and holy transformation. As we share life with each other, we’ll discover what it really means to be the body of Christ.

So taste and see, the Lord is good. Happy are all who are called to God’s table. Thanks be to God.

The church as ambulance base

Matthew 5:1-16

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. ⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

¹³“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. ¹⁴“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

John 1:35-51

³⁵The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

⁴³The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” ⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” ⁴⁹Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

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            We’re unpacking different ways of thinking about the church in this sermon series. Last week Susan talked about one of the images we think of most often, the image of the church as a family. We’re all adopted sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ. In the church we get to know each other as brothers and sisters and we take care of each other with love.

            This week we’re looking at a very different image, which is suggested but not spelled out in the Bible. The image we’re exploring this week is the church as mission station. In John’s Gospel at the last supper Jesus says he is sending the disciples into the world in the same way God sent him into the world. After he rose from the dead he repeats the same message to the disciples: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The church continues the mission of the first disciples, so at our core we are sent into the world like Jesus.

            Mission means “sending.” We are a community that is defined by mission, defined by being sent. One theologian says it like this: “God’s church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church.” Another says, “The church exists for mission like a fire exists for burning.” If fire stops burning it isn’t a fire anymore, and if the church stops going out into the world it isn’t really the church. The church’s mission is its purpose. It’s not something we do, some extra thing that is a nice part of the church’s activity; our mission is the whole reason for our existence. The church is meaningless without our mission.

            The church is defined by mission, and the mission of the church is defined by Jesus. As the Father sent Jesus, so we are sent into the world. That means we are called to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and invite people to be reconciled to God. We are called to be ambassadors for Jesus, to introduce people to him and to let them know that they are loved and they are not alone. Like Jesus, we are called to be powerless and called, sometimes, to suffer for the message.

            That’s not just a calling for a few of us, the professionals or the religious elite. It’s not a calling just for extroverts or for elders, but for everyone. It’s not an optional, extra credit assignment; it’s a fundamental part of who we are as the church. We have different ways of following that calling based on our gifts and abilities and occupations, but we are all called to mission.

            There are two major parts of that mission we share: there’s the part we do together and the part we do on our own. We have a mission together: Laurelton has a mission on this corner to share the love of Jesus through our words and our actions. We do that through café and worship, through Christmas baskets and supper and scripture. We do it through supporting other partners in mission, like Cameron and People’s Ministry in Christ and the Community Food Cupboard.

            The point isn’t getting people into the building; it’s using the building to get the message of love into the community. The point of the building is to give us space to welcome people, space to learn for our mission, space to cook and share fellowship to welcome others and strengthen the community.

We all have a part to play in that by using our gifts and possessions to build up the church for our mission. Maybe you love to cook: come on out on a Saturday and help make breakfast for your neighbors. It’s a great way to welcome people practically to a warm space and remind them that they are not alone. Maybe you like to visit: there are so many people in our community who are hungry for fellowship, hungry for someone to listen to them, desperate to know that they matter. You can do that just by sitting down and listening while you eat breakfast.

We do mission together not only as a congregation, but with the wider church as well. We are not a big enough church to send a missionary to another country, for instance, but together the Presbyterian Church sends many missionaries to countries around the world to share God’s love through Bible teaching, healing, building schools and providing clean water. We take part in that wider mission of the church through our gifts to the denomination and through our prayers for the church around the world. We also take part through going on short term mission trips like Bob, Karen, Karen, Susan, Carl, Linn, Charlie, Sue and Allison are doing this week in New Jersey.

That’s the part of the church’s mission that we do together, and that’s an important part of the story. Maybe even more important than that is the mission we each do on our own. We all spend more time outside the church than inside it. Your main mission is in your everyday, Monday through Saturday, world. The best way to get the church’s message into the world is through you, because you are part of the church and you spend most of your time in the world. The church’s job is to prepare and equip you for that mission.

When I go to work at Rural Metro I start my shift at base, that’s 811 West Ave. At base I check in, get my gear and my truck and make sure everything I need for the day is on the truck. At base we have a big parking area for the ambulances as well as a bay to wash them at the end of the shift. There’s an equipment room where we replace the supplies we’ve used. There’s also a training room to learn and practice skills and a dispatch center where the calls come in. That base is where we go to get prepared for the mission of providing emergency care for the people of Rochester. But our main work obviously isn’t at base, it’s on the road in the city, so we only spend a small part of our shift at base.

The church is a base for mission in the same way. It’s an important place to come to be refreshed and equipped for our mission, but it’s not where we spend most of our time, and it’s not where we do our most important work.

When we come to church we gather to share stories of what we’ve seen in the mission field, new things we’ve learned, new challenges we’ve come across and new questions that our work in the world has brought up. Together we give thanks for the week of ministry, for all the things God has done through us in the world. We praise God in song and prayer for what we’ve seen and experienced. We encourage each other like my coworkers encourage each other for our work and you and your coworkers encourage each other.

We dig into scripture together for new wisdom for our work in the world; that’s our training room. In worship and in education, we bring our questions to the passages and we find new things to try out. My job as pastor is to study scripture and other resources to equip you for your ministry in the world. I can do a better job with that if you actually bring your questions to church. If you tell me what you wonder about because of your work and ministry, I can do a better job figuring out what kind of equipment you might need. Without your insight about your unique ministry and unique experience, I can only guess what will help you.

If we keep the image of the ambulance base, I’m the equipment manager and training coordinator. I’ve got tools and equipment for you, but I need you to tell me what kind of things you need for your mission. Then you go out and live out that mission in the world knowing the church will support you.

Maybe your weekday ministry is teaching kids. For that mission you’ll need stories about Jesus to remember how Jesus reaches out to kids and to others who have trouble in the world. You’ll also need some biblical tools for thinking about how education and justice are related.

Very specifically coming up, there is a special UPT evening on October 17^th at Trinity Emanuel about educating the traumatized child. There you’ll meet others who are excited about education and you’ll hear some of the unique challenges of urban education. That’s important for all of us because we are all invested in the city, so we’re all invested in our city’s children. It’s also important because even if you teach in a suburban school with lower rates of poverty and violence than the city, some of your kids bear the scars of different traumas, so those insights will make you a better, more loving, more Christ-like teacher. You will be better equipped for your mission in the school.

Maybe you spend a lot of your time caring for children in other ways. That gives you different opportunities for ministry for which you need equipment. Part of what you do is working with the kids in your care, so like teachers, you need to be reminded that Jesus loves the little children, especially for the times they are being difficult to love. You also have opportunities at the playground and elsewhere to interact with other parents and caregivers. That means you have opportunities to share the love of Jesus with people who might not know they are loved. Maybe some training around faith sharing will help you in that mission.

Maybe you spend a lot of time in a challenging workplace where everyone feels constant deadline pressure. Your mission there as an ambassador for Jesus is first, to do your job well so you can help your team perform. You can also create a better atmosphere by remembering that no matter what happens, God loves you. The more you remember that the more you’ll be able to stay calm under pressure and help others stay calm as well. You can also share love by treating others kindly. You need to be equipped with biblical wisdom on handling stress, or responding to bad behavior in the workplace.

Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are on a mission from God and the church is there to equip and support you for that mission. Our passages give us three different ways to look at that mission. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus pronounces blessings on different kinds of behavior like gentleness, peacemaking, and humility. Do those things wherever you are and you have God’s approval. Jesus also instructs us to be salt and light wherever we go. In little ways and big, at home and at work and at play, our job is to shine the light of God’s light so others can see God.

In our passage from John we see it a different way. We see John, Andrew and Phillip all introducing people to Jesus. It’s not our job to convince someone to believe in Christ, we just help make the introduction. We invite them to “come and see.” People everywhere need to see the truth: that God is love and that they matter to God. We can show them that. We can show them by treating them like precious brothers and sisters. We can show them that by being kind even when it’s unexpected. We can show them by being calm under pressure because we know our meaning in life isn’t what we produce but our being as beloved sons and daughters.

That is our mission: love God and love others. This church, this building, this community is the place we go to get equipped, encouraged and prepared for our mission. Your brothers and sisters are team members and blessed companions. So let’s enjoy the time we have together and get excited to go back out in service. Be peacemakers; be salt and light to a world that is often bland and dark. Serve and love, introduce people to Jesus and do your part to make the world just a little more like heaven. Jesus sends us in his name today and every day.

Thanks be to God.

tent making ministry and the future church, 8.11.13

Acts 18:1-11

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ²There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. ⁴Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. ⁶When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’

⁷Then he left the synagogue  and went to the house of a man named Titius  Justus, a worshipper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. ⁸Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized. ⁹One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; ¹⁰for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.’ ¹¹He stayed there for a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

1 Corinthians 9:3-7, 11-18

3 This is my defense to those who would examine me. ⁴Do we not have the right to our food and drink? ⁵Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? ⁶Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? ⁷Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk? …¹¹If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? ¹²If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. ¹³Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is sacrificed on the altar? ¹⁴In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this so that they may be applied in my case. Indeed, I would rather die than that—no one will deprive me of my ground for boasting! ¹⁶If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel! ¹⁷For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

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            The first church I served was Beacon Presbyterian Church. Beacon had about 30 members in inner city Philadelphia. I I was an intern there during my second year of seminary, and became their pastor the next year. Throughout the fifteen months I spent as Beacon’s pastor I learned a lot. I preached almost every week and I led a weekly Bible study, but with 10 hours a week around the edges of a full time job, I could never do as much as I wanted to.

When we moved to Rochester, I felt certain that I wanted a full time position so I could do more. When I heard about Laurelton, it sounded like a great fit, except that it was half time instead of full time. So I prayed about it, met with session, and ultimately started here on February 1, 2009.

            What I learned from that whole process, and this is really going to surprise you, is that God knows better than I do. I was sure I wanted a full time position but as it has turned out, not only is this church the right fit for me, being half time has been a blessing in ways I couldn’t predict. God is teaching me a lot about ministry for the twenty-first century, and God is using our work together to remind the church of Paul’s model of tent-making.

            When Paul moved to Corinth he met Aquila and Pricilla and stayed with them because they were all tent-makers. In letter after letter Paul talks about how he works with his hands so he won’t be a burden to the church. He wants to make sure that financially supporting him isn’t a barrier to people hearing the gospel. At the same time, he reminds the church that the people who dedicate their life to serving the gospel should be able to survive by preaching, even though he doesn’t want financial support himself.

            It’s a challenging balance. The church benefits from having people who can spend most of their time working for the church. People who can travel to spread the gospel, people who can dedicate years to studying and teaching, people who can dedicate their full time to building up the church. At the same time, professional church workers are expensive, and we don’t want money to keep people from hearing the gospel or growing in faith. That was a challenge Paul saw then, and it’s still a challenge now.

            Most churches in our denomination are shrinking. Churches that employed two pastors ten years ago now have one, and many churches that have had a full time pastor are finding that harder and harder to maintain. Along the way, many churches cut basically every other kind of spending before even considering letting go of their full time pastor. For those of you who have been here more than 5 years, this is a very familiar story. Many of our neighboring churches are facing the same process now.

            That sounds like a lot of bad news, but ultimately, I don’t think it is. It is going to mean some really hard transitions for a lot of people and churches, but it is an opportunity to reexamine how we do ministry in the church.

            As early as Paul’s time, there was a place for paid people in the church; it was a good investment to allow some people to dedicate themselves fully to ministry in a way they couldn’t do if they were working. There are churches now that need full time pastors and other leaders. The question to answer is what we want to pay for and why. I think there are two main ways we can look at paid ministry in the church: doing ministry for us or doing ministry with us. When a pastor does ministry for the church, that means the church is paying the pastor to do things they know the church should be doing.

            Doing ministry with the church is different, and I think that’s most of the real calling of a pastor. Paul’s line is, “equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” What that means is things like teaching, leading Bible study, having individual conversations, and moderating session meetings. It means working with members of the community to help people find and strengthen their spiritual gifts so they can grow in faith through ministry.

            So, if we think about visiting homebound members of the congregation, doing ministry for you means I go and visit those folks on behalf of the church. Doing ministry with you, equipping you for ministry, means that I work with people who feel called to a ministry of visitation to help you feel comfortable making visits. It means helping you (through the care team) organize a system so people are being visited regularly and talking with you about how visits go and what questions they raise for you.

            In terms of welcoming visitors, doing ministry for you means it is my job to be a friendly, welcoming face and to follow up with visitors to help them connect with the church. Doing ministry with you means helping you develop skills and confidence to welcome people and helping you develop ways to follow up with those visitors.

            There’s a role for both ministry with and for you, but the ministry with you is more important. In a church this size, I should know everyone at least a little and it’s important for me to stay connected with our homebound members, so I need to visit. I also need to welcome visitors. Whether right or wrong, there is something special for many people about meeting the pastor that makes them feel more comfortable and connected.

At the same time, the more important work is equipping you to visit and to welcome. After all, the real point is connecting people to the community of faith, not to me. If I am the only person a homebound member knows, they won’t feel very connected to the church. And if I’m the only person a visitor knows they might like me or not, but they won’t be connected with the congregation as a whole. Pastors come and go, but the community lasts. And feeling connected to a faith community is a blessing that far outweighs anything I can do through personal welcome and charm.

The last century the church absorbed a lot from the culture, some good, some not so good. Like in other professions we have absorbed the idea of paying a specialist to do something for us. We pay a mechanic to work on our car, a doctor to treat physical problems and a school to education our children. Sometimes we see church the same way: we pay a pastor to take care of our spiritual needs.

This creates a cycle where church members feel that many things that are a basic part of being Christian are the responsibility of the pastor because the pastor is an expert. That attitude affects things like prayer and scripture reading as well as visiting, welcoming, teaching and sharing faith. Even though the pastor’s real job is equipping the church for ministry, a lot of the way we have done ministry ended up having the opposite effect, making people feel less empowered to do ministry themselves and more dependant on paid clergy.

All Christians have a calling to live our faith in every part of our lives. My job is not to do that for you, but to help you do it better. In a church our size I think the first limit we reach is the time and energy the members have for ministry. It wouldn’t even make sense to have a full time pastor, because that would mostly increase my ability to doing more ministry for you, and the congregation would actually do less ministry. I think for Laurelton now, half time is about perfect.

            There are other benefits to our part time arrangement too. Of course, the financial piece is an important one. A part time pastor is challenging financially; full time wouldn’t be sustainable.

One of the hardest things for churches and pastors is to get out of the building and connect to people who aren’t in church. I spend half of my working time as well as my social time outside the church, so I automatically make those connections. That not only gives me more opportunities to share my faith, it also keeps me from getting tunnel vision and it keeps me connected to the wider community. Paul doesn’t talk about how the tent-making part of his time provided ministry opportunities, but I’m sure it did. My ambulance work is the same way, as is your teaching or cleaning or childcare.

            It also reminds you and me that we are the same. I am not some ivory tower professor or a spiritual champion. I am a person with faith and questions and other work obligations like you. I think knowing that I have another job makes it easier to remember that.

It also means that we can be more open about money. When we talk about the budget, my salary and benefits are a big piece of the puzzle, which means we need to be able to talk about it. When a pastor is the biggest financial obligation and you know they depend on the church, it is hard to discuss the budget honestly because the pastor’s livelihood is tied up in that. Since half of my income comes from somewhere else, I am less dependant on the church financially, which means we can talk about the whole budget more openly, at least, I hope we can.

The church of the future needs to be more flexible and more nimble than the church of last century. That’s because changing membership patterns make the big budgets and funding structure of the past unsustainable, and also undesirable. For some congregations, that will mean sharing or getting rid of their building to be more flexible. For many having a tent-making pastor or sharing pastoral leadership with another church will be part of the equation. In UPT we’re thinking a lot now about how our churches can share resources so we can all be more efficient and effective in this new century.

Whenever I think or talk about what it’s like to be a tent-making pastor I have to give you credit as a congregation for making this work well. A big part of changing from full time to part time is changing expectations. When Laurelton had a full time pastor, the pastor did more things: both more ministry with and more ministry for the congregation. You have done a great job realizing that I will not be able to do the same things. You will have to do more or let some things go, and you’ve done both. I very rarely hear complaints about what I’m not doing. Your flexibility and openness make Laurelton a really great place to work.

The flip side of that is that I count on you to let me know what I am missing, what you need more of. I make the best decisions I can about how to use my time, but if there are areas you feel need more attention, I’d like to hear that so I can reevaluate. One of the strengths of the Presbyterian tradition is that we lead together. I need you to help me be a good pastor.

The church thrives when we are all living our faith and sharing our gifts at church and in the wider world. We all have a role to play, and my role is helping your grow in faith and ministry. For Laurelton, tent making ministry is a part of our flexibility and life together. As we work together to make our church stronger, more engaged in the community and more faithful to God, we can all use our gifts as we grow in faith.

Thanks be to God.