Sermon Talk Back Part 3

 

So far this week we have looked at the Sermon on the Mount as a whole ~ tried to see the forest for the individual trees.  We have named and notices what in the Sermon frustrated us or fascinated us or caused us to suppress a yawn…even as you wondered if it was okay to bored with a Jesus sermon??

 

Yesterday, I invited you to examine and explore the spices on the shelf of your soul and on the shelf of our church.

 

Today, I invite you to listen to your own soul.  Your life is preaching and proclaiming a sermon right now.  Your words, actions, prayers, volunteering, resting/renewing (which is holy because God rests on the seventh day and calls that space “sacred”), friendships and family, conversations, connections, and ways you embody God’s image ~ all that on the spice shelf of life is your sermon.

What are you preaching?

 

So often, we narrowly define/confine a sermon to words spoken by some preacher on Sunday morning.  But a sermon is the art of creatively and faithfully living our belovedness.  Sermons are the creativity of the Creator let loose in our lives each day.

 

What sermon would you like to preach today?  What words would you like to share at the meeting on your calendar or lunch with a friend?  What if we lived our life with the attention and intention that we are preaching always, using words when necessary (which is sometimes attributed to St. Francis).  Or as Paula D’Arcy says, “God shows us disguised as your life.”  Or Parker Palmer who encourages you to listen to your life.  To be awake, aware, paying attention to what you say or don’t say, what you do with enthusiasm and where you grit your teeth, who are the people like a fountain filling your life and who are the people that are like a drain emptying all your emotional energy.  Your life is a beautiful mystery, not to be solved, but experienced and explored and experimented with ~that is the invitation of Lent.  You are invited to put on an apron alongside God to let loose in the kitchen of your soul ~ to try a new spice or combination of herbs.  To notice what gives you comfort and what challenges you ~ and your own tolerance of each of those moments.  Your life is the sacred space for the Spirit swirling, may you sense that truth today and throughout this Lenten season.  Amen.

Sermon Talk Back Take 2

 

As we continue to reflect on what has stayed with us in the Sermon on the Mount, I want to circle back to a few of the images I find most powerful, especially in the season of Lent.  Today, Matthew 5:13-14.  When I preached on this passage, I offered the question, what is on the spice shelf of your soul?  I suggested in that sermon that as a church our spice shelf contains our Covenants of Racial Justice, Creation Justice, Open and Affirming/Celebrating.  Also, we have our core values of justice, faithfulness (growing in the image of God for the sake of the other), worship, welcome, belonging and caring.  The reality of spices is that you can mix and mingle different amounts to alter/adjust the taste.  Just as there is a big difference between a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon in a recipe, so too, with our core values.  Or if we keep reaching for only one of our core values or emphasize only one of our covenants, that will begin to change the flavor of life at our church.  And, the more difficult reality is, just like spices, we all have different taste buds.  What is “enough” salt for one person will be bland to someone else.  So too, what is “enough” worship for one member feels like we are scratching the surface for someone else. 

 

Here is the difficult/demanding question: Who gets to decide the recipe of faith at First Congregational UCC?  To be clear, it is not the pastor!  In a Congregational system the power is in the people.  Members of the church have a voice and vote.  Which means you have to talk to others!  Which means, you must listen to each other!  Which means, because of that part about love later in chapter 5, we are called to care for each other.  This is hard, holy work.  Especially in a culture where we prize individuality and where we live with the Burger King slogan, “You deserve to have it your way.”  Where our leaders demand and decree, my way or the highway…that they are the bus driver and can kick you off.  When you look over the spice shelf of our church, which spice(s) do you find yourself connecting with first ~ how do you prioritize the words above?  Which one do you wish we could use sparsely or sparingly?  Which one, like salt, can you not get enough of?

 

And what are the spices on the shelf of your soul?  What are your values?  If you are unsure, look at your calendar and credit card statement.  For where your treasure and time is, your heart will be there also. 

 

Today, pause and reflect on the values that contribute to the recipe of life and how we might let God, who is the master chief, rummage and roam and create a feast for our souls in these days. Amen.

Sermon Talk Back

 

For the last several weeks we have strolled, and sometimes stumbled, through the Sermon on the Mount.  We have encountered passages that invite us to consider the spices on the shelf of our soul ~ being salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-14).  We have been stretched by words that we wanted to resist or object to adopting in our lives about loving our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48).  We have heard Jesus invite us to wade in the water in concrete ways of faithfulness, forgiveness, fasting, generosity, and prayer.  And last week, we heard the final image of Jesus, who suddenly became a building contractor, teaching and telling us to be careful where we build our lives. 

 

What part of the Sermon on the Mount from these morning meditations still sticks and stays with you?

 

What part of the Sermon on the Mount do you still wrestle with (like the teaching on divorce or worry)?

 

What part of the Sermon on the Mount frustrated you or fascinated you?

 

What did you hear in the Sermon on the Mount?

 

Notice, I am not asking you to rate or rank the Sermon on the Mount ~ which is our cultural default mode.  I am not asking you to give three stars or a thumbs up/down.  I am asking you, what happened in your soul as you marinated and meditated with me on these words?

 

Remember, this is not a Rubix Cube puzzle to solve.  You never finish the Sermon on the Mount.  I don’t think we can ever say, “Yup, mastered everything Jesus just said…now on to world peace.”  Jesus is expanding and expounding on what it means to love God, love neighbor, and love self.  That those are not three separate or segregated activities, they are twisted and tangled.  You cannot easily categorize and compartmentalize loving God, others, and yourself ~ they feed off one another.  Plus, life is not stationary or static.  For example, you may have a good day loving that annoying co-worker, only to have that particular individual frustrate and flummox you in an entirely NEW and creative way the next that sends you right back to square one.

 

Today, spend some time reflecting on where we have been and where you are at with Matthew 5-7.  You may want to go back and re-read the Sermon on the Mount one more time, just to refresh and renew and remember the vast ground Jesus covers in just these three chapters.  May God, whose love never lets us go, abide and awaken you to let this Sermon rummage, roam, and be release in your life this week.  Amen. 

Prayer

 

God of words and wisdom that confound and comfort us, sometimes we feel both puzzled and want to praise at the same time, thank you for the Sermon on the Mount.  Thank you for challenging us to not let the gospel of the world where ‘might makes right’ be the only truth we cling to and live from.  Thank you for the words that remind us You hear our prayers, especially when we are frustrated that life isn’t turning out how we plotted or planned.  Help us, O God, hold life loosely and lightly.  Help us find ways to laugh and sing as honest prayer.  Help us listen for You trusting that Your voice isn’t always heard amid the shouting and strain of the day.  Guide us with Your grace, fill us with Your love, let our souls be infused and inspired by You.  In the name of the One whose sermon stretches us into Your sacred image.  Amen.

House of Your Life

 

Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!

 

I remember singing a song in the cherub choir as a child.  The words seared into my memory still: “The wise man build his house upon the rock and the rain came pouring down!” 

 

The question is to look at the foundation of your life?  Where are you building?  What are you building?  Remember that how you spend your day is how you spend your life.  What materials are you using, which is to say, pay attention to your words and actions.  What resources are you sharing and which resources do you cling tightly to until your knuckles turn white?  Pay attention to your life today, with God as a building inspector.  Take time to investigate the cracks and crevasses and corners filled with cobwebs.  How is the basement of your life?  What is down there that maybe you need to let go of?  How is the living room, your heart and soul?  Is the interior house called your life tidy or cluttered and chaotic?  How is your mind, perhaps spinning or swirling with too much information? 

 

Hear these words from Henri Nouwen, “This image of God inviting us to God’s home is used throughout scripture. The Lord is my house. The Lord is my hiding place. The Lord is my awning. The Lord is my refuge. The Lord is my tent. The Lord is my temple. The Lord is my dwelling place. The Lord is my home. The Lord is the place where I want to dwell all the days of my life. God wants to be our room, our house. He wants to be anything that makes us feel at home. She is like a bird hugging us under her wings. She is like a woman holding us in her womb. She is Infinite Mother, Loving Host, Caring Creator, the Good Provider who invites us to join him.” 

 

Your life, and mine, is the unfinished house in which we live, says author Philip Simmons.  May this wisdom help and hold you as we with Jesus say, “Amen”…may it be so…to the Sermon on the Mount.  Amen.

Ashes to Ashes

 

Happy Ash Wednesday, everyone!  First my birthday and now Ash Wednesday, when will the fun stop?!?  Here.  The fun stops right here as we begin Lent which is that church season drenched and doused in guilt and apparently not eating meat on Friday for some reason?  I know it was about giving something up to symbolize Jesus’ loving sacrifice, but I wonder if Jesus would rather we give up hurting and harming and treating each other as less than fully human. Lent is a holy (sometimes hard) season to be honest about the places where we do not see clearly.  The coming forty days shine a spotlight on where you and I (being human size) do not practice what we preach, where we resist and downright refuse to love another human being because of who they are or what they believe or how they hurt us! 

 

As we begin this holy season of Lent, hear these words from Jesus:

 

 Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.  Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone?  Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake?  If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will God will give good things to those who ask!

 

What are you asking God for right now?

 

When was a time you asked God for something and it felt like the answer from the Holy was, “No!”?  Perhaps you prayed that a family member would be cured, or a marriage would be reconciled or that as people we would stop killing each other!  While I do not know for certain, it makes sense to me that people in Jesus’ day were praying the Roman Empire would be overthrown.  We know people came to Jesus pleading, which is to say praying, for healing ~ so do we.  And we know that Jesus didn’t heal everyone.  Prayer can be contradictory.  On the one hand, we know God is not Santa Claus or a Genie or a vending machine giving us what we want.  On the other hand, our most fervent prayers are often for others who we love to be freed from pain, suffering, discrimination or death.  Hold the messiness and un-answerability of this passage ~ because I don’t think this is a puzzle we can solve, but a mystery we seek to live with lots of questions and doubts and faith.

 

Keep reading with me ~  In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

 

What was one action you offered another in love this week?  Did it feel like love was returned or did the person trample on your tulips or make a sarcastic, snide remark?

 

Where is one place today you can enter the room with love?

 

Finally read this with me ~

Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

 

For me, these two verses help shed and shine light on what we have read above ~ not just today but all the way back to the beginning of Chapter 5 over the last several weeks!  This way of Jesus is not a highway we zoom down, but a twisty, turning, difficult dirt road with ruts and bumps that damage the suspension system in our logic and disrupt us in ways we’d rather not discuss.  To be sure, I think the gate to God’s way is wide open!  You don’t have to show your baptism card or badges on your heavenly sash or show that you are worthy.  You are welcome.  There are no qualifications, no resume and cover letter needed, no gate keeper.  Jesus welcomes you as you go stumbling through the gate single file into the spaciousness of God.  What is on the road right now for you?  Look around your life on this Ash Wednesday.  Open your heart and be held by a mystery that knows your prayers, doubts, disappointments, joy, anger ~ that great stew in your soul ~ spiced with flavors from your life from the spice shelf of your soul.  Amen.

Back to the Sermon

 

Okay, enough with the philosophical birthday stuff from yesterday, we have a Sermon on the Mount Series to complete here ~ gotta love my inner Protestant work ethic voice sometimes.  We are wrapping up and winding down the Sermon on the Mount this week with chapter 7 where Jesus starts off, Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.  Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

 

Well thanks for that uplifting wisdom, Jesus.  I think someone woke up with a case of the “Grumpy Dwarfs”.  Fun Bible Nerd fact ~ the word hypocrite means actor.  This reminds us of the question, where are we playing a role right now in our lives?  Where have we adopted a ‘fake it til you make it’ mentality?  Where do we think we have ‘it’ (meaning life, faith, politics, people, the world, the universe) figured out ~ not realizing our point of view is a view from one/single point!  We all have a log in our eye and unfortunately we don’t see it.  Our mind has adjusted to it.  And because we have a bias toward confidence and competence; because we tend to think being prophetic is making a ruckus and calling other people out; because we believe that information leads to transformation (which doesn’t always work, even though that is our favorite or only tool/technique to use).  Because of all of this, we cling to our logs and point out other’s splinters.  We proclaim that we have it all together, even as our inner voice and color commentary annoyingly points out our fumbles and stumbles ~ that we don’t want to hear.   Today, sit with your beautiful beloved brokenness.  Today, be human size and let others be human size too.  I know we hurt and harm each other.  I know people’s words and actions leave wounds and we want to strike back with eye-for-eye justice, enough with this turn the other check stuff, Jesus!  We want to score points on an imaginary score board and we want, like Burger King says, to have it our way, right now!! 

 

Sit with this quote from Edward Friedman, ““The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change.” 

 

Sit prayerfully with the truth that this applies to you and me as well!  How willing are you to change?  Wait, you think, why would I need to change?? 

 

Be still with the Sacred who is not finished with you or me on this day and in this month.  Amen.