For My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation

For My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation

Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3, Luke 2:22-40

12/30/18

            Simeon was a normal person who, after a long life, was able to see salvation, salvation given, as we are told in Luke, to ALL people.  And that salvation, holding that baby in his arms, finding the peace of knowing that salvation has come to the world and for the world, he now feels he has finished his tasks here on earth, completed what he came to do, and he asks God to then let him go, “you may now dismiss your servant in peace.”   

            As we approach New Year’s eve, I often think about what tasks we have yet to do, what we have yet to see, to learn, or to accomplish here in this life time that will then allow us to go, when it is our time, in peace, work completed, job done, accomplished, finished, a whole life, bookended with a call and a response, created in love and allowed to move forward in peace.  New Years is often a time of reflection.  We reflect on our past year, but we can also use it as a time to reflect on the whole of our lives.  What have been your life lessons?  What has been your life calling?  I think these are often different: some things we are called to accomplish, some things we are called to learn. It usually is not just one thing, but I think God does call each of us to certain tasks in our lives.  I also think there are specific tasks for each life - they are not always the same for every person.  They are not always obvious, not always clear, but each of us has a call, sometimes multiple calls, throughout our lives, reasons to be here. I think we have things we are supposed to learn and things we are supposed to do. Sometimes those reasons are things that carry us through a long life, sometimes it is something that we have to learn over and over again.  And sometimes we may learn and do things early on.

            Do you know what you are being called to do and called to learn in your life?  To help you think through this, let me give you some examples.  I think I’ve had several life lessons, or things that I have found myself called to do and learn.  One of my life lessons, or something that I feel I’ve been called throughout my life to learn has been what I would describe as the call to be an adult.  While others appear called to learn to surrender to God, to let go of their egos and allow God to be the driver, I find that every time I pray for God to tell me what to do, every time I ask God to make the decisions, I hear God calling me in turn in multiple ways and through many different forms, to take some risks and chances and make my own decisions, some of which will be good and others which won’t, which I will just have to learn from.  I hear God telling me to trust that God will be with me in those choices, but that God will not make them for me.  

I’ve had other life lessons as well.  Such as facing my judgments.  Every time I have judged someone, it comes back at me, and I find I have to deal with that, face that, in my own life.   

What are your life lessons?  They usually are not things that come easily, but they are deep calls to us to be the best and most whole we can be, for God, for others and for ourselves.

            As people reach the end of their lives, I am often asked the question, “Why am I still here?  Why haven’t I been able to die?  Has God forgotten me? I feel done here, so why hasn’t God taken me?” My answer is always the same.  “Perhaps there is something still left here for you to do.  Our job then is, with your time left, to figure out what that is.”  Often a person is not able to completely name what that is, what is left undone, what needs still to be done.  But I have walked now with many people at the end of their lives and I find it is very often an amazing time of coming to terms with their lives, of reconciling relationships, of making peace with what has been and with what is. 

            As I reflected on this, I thought of Thornton Wilder’s book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2014. New York: Harper Perennial).  The book begins with these words, “On Friday noon, July the 20^th, 1714 the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.”  This collapse began an intense search into the “why” of that strange tragedy.  In particular, a monk was convinced that if we were to look at the five lives of those who died, we would see that each life was at a place where something had been concluded, that each life was “done” in some profound way, that God’s hand was in the bigger picture of the collapse because their callings, their purposes, their “jobs” here on earth were concluded and so it was simply time for God to call them home.  It is a question that many ponder.  Does everything happen for a reason?  Or at least, do we die at an appointed time?  Is there a bigger pattern and bigger picture that determines the very hour and even minute at which we will die?  Or does God call us home when our jobs here are done?  When we have finished our “tests” or our tasks and done what we are called to do, learned what we have been asked to learn?  In many ways, the story doesn’t actually answer the question about providence, destiny and fate.  In describing these lives and where they were at their final moment of death, the story causes the readers to explore more fully their own beliefs.  But it does so while leaving more questions than answers.  Towards the beginning of the book, Wilder says this about whether or not their fates, their lives and their deaths are determined, “Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.”

But more to the point of this sermon, the book ends with these words, “But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten.  But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them.  Even memory is not necessary for love.  There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

Under all of our calls, under all of our life lessons, there is a bigger call, a deeper call.  It is to listen and follow God.  It is to follow Love, since that is what God is.  It is to bridge and reconcile and heal all of life with that Love. It is to learn to embody and be and act and live that love out. Thomas Merton put it this way, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." 

Sometimes the distinction between loving God for our own happiness and loving God for God is a subtle difference. “God, help me to find what will make my life whole,” is really a question about me.  It is a question that invokes God, but it still is about me.  “God, how can I serve you?  Where would it be most helpful to you for me to be and what would serve you and your people and your world the most for me to do in that place?” is slightly, but profoundly different.  That difference, between turning to God to make our lives whole, and turning to God so that we might serve God and help God make the world whole, that is the difference between asking God to be with us, following us in our journeys, and following God. 

Simeon had seen love incarnate.  He had seen it, recognized it, allowed it into his heart. He followed God in his call.  He had been given a task, and that task was seeing, recognizing and proclaiming who Jesus was.  Anna, too, had that task.  Their proclamations were about love, were about Jesus.  And having finished their work, they were ready to depart.  They came for the one thing that would make each whole and they did it.  And as Simeon declared, he was then made ready to cross that bridge of love and to be dismissed in peace. 

How are you called to follow the way of Love?  How are you called to serve God with eyes of love rather than fear?  As we enter the New Year, my hope for us all would be to move more fully into a commitment to loving God and serving God with our whole beings.  It is the call, the meaning, the resolution that matters most.  Amen.

Being Brave, a personal reflection

     All of us have life lessons.  I've said this before.  I don't know what your life lessons are but I see my own.  One is that I am called to not judge others.  Everytime I err on this, everytime I have a judgment, something happens that forces me to see and do differently, to overcome it.  Every time. Some of the judgments I've had I find truly shaming now, so it is hard for me to share them with you, but I'll give you one example: I used to judge people who were caught in situations in which they had no idea what their spouses were up to. "How could they be so blind?" I thought. For example, we hear stories of women whose husbands are married to more than one spouse.  The women are unaware that there is another 'wife' out there, mostly because their husbands work involves travel so they just trust and assume when their husband is away that he is on business.  I used to judge that.  Until I found myself in that situation of being completely unaware of things my husband had been doing.  I learned.  Again.  I can't judge others.  I think other people have the same opportunity to learn this lesson, but some choose not to.  Too many people condemn something harshly only to be caught in the act of doing it themselves.  They had a choice at some point: learn not to judge, to have compassion for that which was hard for them to accept in themselves; or move into a fierce and violent denial that not only injured themselves but injured others too. Not all of us learn our lessons. And, as I said, I think we each have different lessons to learn.
       One of my other life lessons, another one that I think others share, too, is the call to be brave.  I read somewhere that being brave does not mean to be without fear.  Being brave, rather, is acting in the face of our fear.  And the truth is we all have different fears, so what it means to be brave will be different for each person. But for me, today and everyday, this is a lesson that is hard and not easy. Because the thing that I fear most (and I realize this may sound shallow to some of you, but it is my fear) is not being liked.  Of course there are people who don't like me.  There are even people whom I believe hate me.  The most evil person I know (and yes, I use that word in this case) is someone who preys on the weaknesses of others. He's done this with others in different ways, found the weaknesses in others and used them to destroy the other. In my case, he saw me coming a mile away and worked hard to discredit me, to make sure I was "not liked" by those under his influence.  I was powerless in the face of his charm and charisma to stop it because he forced those who wanted to be in that shiny light of his to choose between us. He used lies (like another charismatic leader we all know) but because he had this pull, this charismatic attraction, it was easy to believe his lies and harder for those blinded by his light to see truth. You would think that because I survived that, that I could have gotten past my fear of being disliked.  Add to that living through a public scandal and humiliation and experiencing cruelty beyond belief from neighbors and community members and again, you would think that I would have gotten over my fear.  But in fact, those situations only intensified my fear.  Yes, I survived both of those situations, but I did not come away unscathed.  I am all too aware of the damage that other people's dislike can do, especially when it intensifies into hatred and has a goal of the destruction of another attached to it.
        But it is in the face of this fear that I am called to be brave.  I have a prophetic calling: a call to speak out against injustice and unkindness and cruelty.  That looks like standing up for those who are poor, those who are oppressed, those who are silenced and threatened and put down.  I do this, but in a small way.  I say things in sermons and on Facebook and other places, but I limit my audience: not posting much to all of my "friends" (I often leave out the ones who wouldn't agree with what I have to say on certain issues), and I post even less to "public".  I don't want the hate coming my way.  I've been there, done that, am DONE with it.  I use the excuses in my own mind (one I discredit all the time when others use it), "I'm not going to change anybody with something I say on FB" for example. But again, I know that's a BS excuse.  Jesus, my model for what we are called to do and be in the world, does not ever refrain from speaking truth because he believes he won't convince someone else. He speaks truth, knowing he will be killed for it and choosing to do it anyway.
        I hear the call to be brave.  To speak the voice of love towards the loveless, to stand beside and up for those who would be treated badly.  I hear it, I follow it, but I am struggling to follow it in the fuller way I feel God calling me to do.
       I write this in public for two reasons.
       First, I am hoping for support in trying to face my fear.  I am hoping for your encouragement and your strength to enable me to push on when I am scared.  We cannot get support until we let others know where it is needed.  So I am putting out there that this is my fear and my need.
      Second, I am hoping that my sharing this with you will allow you, too, to think about both your life lessons and all of our calls to be brave.  I am hoping that it will motivate you to also be brave, and to be honest with yourselves about what your life lessons might be and how you might learn them with grace, openness, love and trust.  That is my hope, that is my wish for you.
      Peace to you all as we face this day's lessons.

Lessons, lessons and more lessons

      I woke up angry this morning. That doesn't usually happen. Usually I wake up appreciative of the morning quiet, the morning dark, the time when I can lay in bed and think, or pray, or meditate for a few minutes before starting the day.  But this morning I woke up angry.
      Yes, there is a reason.  I post a lot of stuff on Facebook about the constant challenges we face, and we were given more yesterday.  I paid someone to put in new linoleum in our fixer-upper kitchen.  This was supposed to be a one day job, but the man didn't finish.  That's fine.  However, after he'd left and I walked into the kitchen, I saw that there were two dents/rips in the middle of the new linoleum. I paid through the nose to have this professional install a new, beautiful, clean kitchen floor, and it is wrecked before he is even finished with it.  I know how these things go...I will whine and complain, but be told that because I didn't notice it while he was still standing there, that there is "no proof" that he did this, and that "too bad for you - it is what it is."  I know this is how it will go because this is how it has been going for us with every stumbling block we have faced throughout the move.
    One example: the movers (Stephen's, in case you want to know who NOT to use) lost several expensive items in the move: my daughter's bed, my son's camping tent, an expensive large set of pruning sheers, the legs to a table that had been made especially for me, our hand truck/moving dolly, our wagon, a broom and upright dustpan, etc. None were small.  None (except the broom and dustpan) were cheap. And when we wrote to the company and said these were missing, we were told "Too bad for you.  You didn't notice they were missing as they unloaded the items.  You didn't notice they were missing while the moving guys were still standing in front of the truck, so you are out of luck." Really? Because I just didn't have everything that was in our house so thoroughly memorized that I would notice at the moment that three men and several helpers were moving stuff that these particular things weren't among them.
     Another example - I have had a hard time enrolling the kids for school out here, especially my daughter who is now enrolled in an online program. It has been a challenge for a variety of reasons, but they are now enrolled and attending schools here. Part of getting them enrolled involved UNenrolling them from their schools in Ohio and requesting official transcripts to be sent to their new schools, etc. I did all of that, however, and thought we were good to go until yesterday I received in the mail an official letter saying that I was about to be arrested for not making my kids attend school in Ohio.  Apparently my kids are "truant" because they are living and attending schools in CA and not in Ohio any longer.
     So, as I said, I woke up angry.  And then I opened my computer and I saw that my good friend, Sarah, had posted this on Facebook, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." And I stopped.  The reality is that the stupid stuff I seem to deal with every day is just that - stupid stuff.  I am not in a war torn country. I am not fleeing for my life because of oppression or threats or violence.  I am not a refugee somewhere without work or food or a place to live. While the linoleum guy may not listen to me because I'm female (an experience I've had with other house workers and especially with car repair people), I know I still have the unfair privilege that comes with being born white. I have enough to eat. I have a lot of "stuff", most of which is a "want" and very little of which is an absolute necessity.  I have a lovely house to live in, even if it does need work. I am surrounded by family and friends and a wonderful church community who is helping me fix up the house, and care for the kids, and transition to this place.  I have work that I enjoy (and that is not something to take for granted, or something everyone has by any means).  I have three lovely, healthy children.  My parents, aunts, uncles, sister - all my family except grandparents are still living. I am incredibly lucky.  I won't say I'm "blessed" because I think God loves all of us and blesses all of us in different ways. I have to acknowledge that much of what I have is "privilege".  I was privileged to be born to a middle class family.  I was privileged to be raised in a way that valued education.  I was privileged to be born white. I am privileged to have good health in my family and in my own being. I was privileged to have my schooling paid for and to be able to worship how I want and to be able to speak out in this format about anything. And while I strive to be aware of all that I have to be grateful for, sometimes I forget that it is a privilege to have all that I have.  It is not a right. And while I will stand up for myself about the linoleum, if I am not successful, I will need to still be grateful that I have it at all. "Equality feels like oppression." Well, if I am honest, there is no equality.  I am far more privileged than most of the world. Than MOST of the world. It isn't even equality when I have to deal with this stupid stuff.  It's just little daily challenges. I am still incredibly privileged. What do I honestly have to be angry about?

    There are days when I wonder why so many challenges come my way.  I wonder why we had to go through hard stuff in Ohio and then why the move had to be so very hard.  I wonder why, daily, I have these lessons in patience, forgiveness, compassion, and presence. There are times when I would prefer to simply have a nice easy year, or month, or week, or even just a nice easy day or two.  But that isn't what I have been given in this life. Instead of ease, I've been blessed with lessons.  Instead of travel and wealth and luxury, I've been blessed with opportunities to learn. I've been given lessons that call me each and every day to be grateful, lessons that call me to breathe through those hard moments and to stay present in the now, to keep my eyes open for the good, lessons in being quiet and creating peace within so I can help spread it without, lessons in being patient and in waiting each day to see the gifts that will come, lessons in learning to trust and learning to forgive, lessons in letting go of anger and of the past and sometimes, of people I've loved.  Every day there are lessons. and for today, the biggest of those is to accept and be grateful that those lessons are the blessings I've been given.

Life as a part of a bigger journey.

      When I can step back and really see this life as a trip, as a small step in a larger path, when I can see each mistake as a lesson rather than something that has “changed my life irreparably”, and each moment as an experience rather than a decision that determines the course of my existence irreversibly; then I can relax more about the past, I am more accepting of the present, and I am less anxious about the future.  I can be philosophical about life.  When life is something to be experienced, rather than something to "get right", when I can take this moment and all moments without the seriousness of feeling each thing I do will be somehow unalterable, I can be more comfortable with making “errors”.  I can also be easier on my kids, because I can see their "errors" too as just experiences, opportunities to learn and grow on a path that is slightly different from what it might have been had they chosen differently, but still a worth while path (perhaps even more so), full of it's own adventures, challenges and discoveries.  It is their own journey to make, whatever that may look like, rather than a contest or a struggle against the forces of life with some who win and some who lose and a lot of people who get lost in the middle.  
       Paramahansa Yogandanda said, "Do not take life's experiences too seriously.  Above all, do not let them hurt you for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences.  If circumstances are bad and you have to bear them, do not make them a part of yourself.  Play your part in life but never forget that it is only a role."
       This is really hard to do.  It is really hard to not take life seriously in every moment.  But the result of taking life so seriously is regrets and anxiety and this constant feeling that we are somehow on the wrong path, we have made choices that have put us on the wrong road, we've taken turns and made mistakes that can't be undone.  Again, the other choice is to see it all as experiences.  In that case every mistake really is just a lesson to be learned; a sea of pebbles each to be picked and held for a time rather than a series of roads, only one of which is right and only one of which will lead each of us to "win" this game called life. 
       I think there are a lot of reasons why we get stuck in the "too serious" win/lose game mentality of life.  For one thing, those on the top would promote that vision, with them as the "winners" and the rest of us as losers.  It benefits them to see everything they have done (or that has been done for them) as worth the win that they claim to have done better than others. It helps them feel superior and on top at some level, and that's a nice feeling to have.
       But this other vision of life, as one of experiences and lessons and a sea of pebbles rather than a series of one-way roads allows us to see that every life is valuable, every life is a "win" of experiences, though some may be more joyful experiences and others may be hard.  It also allows for the option of picking a new pebble each day, and of not being "stuck" on the path one has chosen intentionally or through "mistakes".  I think it opens up the possibility of a life creatively lived, as we see more than just the options of staying on the path we are currently on, but instead see options for walking a different way, a unique way, one that leads to pebbles far on the other shore from the experiences we have come to know.
       I saw this posted as I was writing this essay:

       When we are able to see life as a series of experiences and lessons, we are more able to take risks.  For some those risks might include choosing a different career path, going back to school, moving across the country, getting to know someone different, forming new connections.  For me, they also include risking caring "too much", being too kind, offering compassion more often.  I can risk being hurt by others because that, too, is just another experience.  I can risk offering care and resources to others because that, too, is just another experience.  It is a chance to interact with others who have picked up different pebbles and to see what their experiences have been, what the pebbles they have chosen have given them, what a different journey might look like. 
      My goal for today is to breath into each moment as its own, to choose each moment for the experience it has to share, and to live each moment without regret or anxiety about the next.  My hope is that you, too, can find peace in each moment for its own sake.

Sunday's Sermon: Losing your Life

Losing Your Life

James 3:1-12

Mark 8:27-38

9/13/15

            Several years ago now I attended a conference called “The church we can see from here.”  And at that conference, we discussed what is happening in our churches.  Mostly the conversation focused on the general fear that seems to be permeating our churches about decline and closures.  For those who aren’t aware, the Church, big C, across denominations, is shrinking at an alarming rate.  Statistics from the Presbyterian News Service in Louisville indicate that in 2014, membership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) fell by 92,000 members.  When we expand that to look at other denominations, the stats are similar.  20 churches a day closed in the United States last year.  20 churches a DAY.  This does not include congregations that changed denominational affiliation.  This is all congregations who closed because they simply could no longer afford to stay open.  From an article written by the Presbyterian News Service in March of this year, we learn that since 2012, the U.S. dropped 7.5 million more Americans who are no longer active in religion. Over a third of Americans (35 percent) currently never attend a worship service (other than weddings and funerals).  Financially this translated into $110 Million less in giving just to the Presbyterian Church in 2014 than what had been given in 2013.  These are scary numbers.  This is a scary reality.  And it doesn’t give too much comfort to know that this is not only true in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A..  Knowing that all of the denominations are going through this doesn’t help with the general fear.  The Christian Church is on the decline in the United States.

            These facts can be depressing.  And many of us who love our church, who love our God, who love Jesus and are faith filled people often find ourselves asking that hard question, “why?” again and again. Article after article is written in answer to that question, and each gives a different answer. We can find ourselves lost in the despair of this news.  Churches typically tend to respond to these declines in one of two ways.  Many move into a survival mode, in which they begin to shut down every program that actually has the chance to reach out to folks because they are afraid of going bankrupt.  Others throw up their hands in despair, pass the buck to others in the church, bury their heads and choose not to deal with it.

            Are either of these responses what Jesus calls us to do?  I’m not asking what your heart or mind, your reason or your fear ask from you.  What does Jesus call us to do in the face of these numbers, these statistics and in the face of our own fear?

            I want to tell you the story of a small congregation that faced these same challenges.  I shared this story with our elders last month, but it is an important story for all of us, I believe.  This particular congregation struggled to stay alive, they cut staff, they cut programs, and instead of growing, of course, without their staff and programs their decline moved ever faster.  The church was located in a quickly changing urban community.  While the few members of the church were older and white, the neighborhood had become more and more inhabited by people of color and younger families.  It was a distressed neighborhood and gangs were active in the area.  The church members loved their church, but they also feared even coming to the building for their own safety.  Finally, this small church reached the point where it could only really claim about 10 elderly members, and they realized they just could not keep their doors open any longer.  But as they met and discussed the dissolution of the church, one of these faithful older members said, “Okay, we have surrendered.  We choose to give up the life of our institution.  But we will not do it for no purpose.  With the last money, and last energy we have, let’s serve this community with everything we have left.  Let’s truly give up our lives in order that the community might live.”  They began studies about gangs in the community and how other areas had dealt with them.  And after much prayer and research, they went to the school, asking for the names of troubled kids who could be part of a program that paired one of these elderly members of the church with a gang member.  They sold their idea to the school and these pairs were formed.  At first there was great fear on one side (the side of the church members), and great anger and boredom on the part of the kids.  But an amazing thing happened through their time together.  They got to know one another.  And these elderly folk gave these gang members the opportunity to serve them, to care for them, to help them with their grocery shopping and cleaning.  In exchange they helped these young people with their homework, with their studies, with tough decisions, presenting a different morality and a different vision of what their lives could be.  They believed in these young people, which in itself changed lives.  Mostly, they befriended these young people.  Can you guess the result? 

            These young people began to come to their church, and they brought their parents with them.  The church began to grow.  It is now self-sustaining. A church of several hundred faithful, committed, loving and dedicated Christians.  It is not a mega-church.  But it is a church that continues to do this ministry to the gangs, continues to reach out, a church that is relevant in the community and is doing the ministry of our God in the world. 

            The gospels tell us that the disciples who joined Jesus left everything they had to follow Jesus.  Everything.  But I would say that today it is often the most faithful who find it hard to leave certain things, to give up certain things, in following Jesus.  Are we willing to take risks with our safety?  Are we willing to give up some time to spend studying our community and identifying the greatest needs around us?  Are we willing to give up our fixed vision of what church must be or even should be?  Are we willing to give up the institution of the church as we know it in order to see what new thing God might be doing in the world and how we might become a part of it?   Are we willing to give all that we might receive the promise of new life?

            That may not sound like good news to you.  But I tell you, there are always different ways of looking at things.  One of the ways of looking at church decline is to see it as a kick in the pants, encouraging us to get out of our comfort zones and really look at what God is calling us to do.  In the 50s, new people would wander into congregations and we did not need to go out to them.  But that is not the case now.  We are no longer sought out “country club” type communities.  People don’t come to church anymore simply because it is what everyone does.  Instead, when people choose to come to church it is because they are looking for something real.  They are coming because they want to connect to their faith and to God, and to a faith community.  They are coming because they really care about connecting with something beyond themselves.  They are coming because they are looking for meaning and purpose. That is very Good News.  But it is also a challenge to us to strive to provide that for those who come.  People can choose to do many things with their Sunday mornings now.  If they choose to come to church, what will keep them here?  Do they see that other lives are changed?  And if not, why would they come?  If it doesn’t make a difference, why spend your time in this place?  As we consider this, I challenge all of us to listen for God’s voice in the current situation of our congregation and of the Church, universal.  What is God calling us to do?  What position is God calling us to have in what some may consider a crisis in our congregations?  Does God call us to look at the church with fear and to spend our energy struggling to simply survive?  Or does God call us to risk, and to change, and to do genuine, affective ministry in our community, searching out the needs of the larger community and committing to serve them with what we have?  Does God call us to look at the decline of the church as a travesty and a cause for great alarm?  Or does God call us to hear the words of Isaiah 43: 16-19 when he declares, “This is what the Lord says- he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,... ‘Forget the former things; I do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’”

            Can you not perceive it?  While many would say this is a terrible time for the church, I ask you to see it in a new way.  This is an exciting time.  God is doing a new thing!  God has chosen us in this time and place to see a new thing. 

            That’s not to say that it isn’t hard or scary.  Many have said that the Church is facing a Good Friday.  We fear the death of the Christian Church, and we cannot see beyond it to what the resurrection will look like.  But our faith calls us, absolutely, to trust that the resurrection IS coming.  As we heard in Mark today, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

            What I am saying is that the Church cannot focus our attention so much on our survival that we fail to do the work of the church, which is ministry in the world and in the community, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and loving our neighbors, all of them, as ourselves.  I am calling you, even as you keep your eyes open, to have faith that if we choose to serve God and God’s people, if we stop being afraid of death and instead really choose to live a life following Christ, that God will not forsake us, though our life as a church may look different as we seek to do God’s will and follow God’s lead.  I am calling you to pray to God for this church and for its ministry and to listen for where God is leading you in ministry.  I am asking you to search your heart for the visions you have of ministry in this place and to bring those ideas to session so that we can help make those visions and dreams that God has given you a reality.  God has called every member of this church and every member has a vision for ministry from God.  Listen to that.  Dream about that. 

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick came smashing into his side door! He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag up. The angry driver jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, 'Just what the heck do you think you're doing?' he yelled. That's my NEW car!  That brick you threw is going to cost you a lot of money...' he fumed. 'Why did you do it?'

The young boy was apologetic. 'Please, mister... I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do,'

 He pleaded, 'I threw the brick because no one would stop...' With tears streaming down his face, the boy pointed to a spot just around a parked car.  'It's my brother, 'he said.  'He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair,' he sobbed.  'I can't lift him up.' The boy asked the stunned executive, 'Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair?  He's hurt and he's too heavy for me.' Moved beyond words, the driver hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts.

A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. 'Thank you so very much,' the grateful boy told the stranger. At a loss for words, the man simply watched the boy push the wheelchair down the sidewalk toward their home... It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was quite noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He decided to keep the dent as a reminder.  To me, the decline of the church is a brick coming out of the air, calling for us to pay attention, and to be willing to risk, to give it all, in order to follow Christ.  For it is only in being willing to lose our lives for God, for the sake of God’s people, that we will find them.  Amen.

            

Life Lessons

     I am not convinced that we all have the same life lessons to learn.  Or rather, I am convinced that each individual has a unique group of life lessons that they are called to learn.  Some are called to learn surrender, some are called to listen more deeply to their hearts, some are called to trust more in Divine presence.   One of my life lessons seems to be about being an adult - in my life, God does not make big decisions easy for me by "pointing the way," at least not blatantly. It seems that God asks me again and again to be the adult in my own life, struggle with decisions and make them without being given great signs about what to do.  I ask - I ask repeatedly to be told what to do.  And usually the response I get is something along the lines of, "I call you to be an adult in this.  But I will be with you in whatever you decide, loving you, supporting you, offering grace."  Really, there are times when I get tired of this life lesson.  I want to be told what to do.  I don't want to make hard decisions.  (I am afraid of making big mistakes!)  So I "cheat".  I ask other people to tell me what I should do.  My daughter seems to have a different life lesson - hers is more surrender.  So I'll ask her to ask God what I should do.  Once again, I hear the divine chuckle as God watches this particular game that I play, continues to love me through it, but doesn't help me get out of the lesson I need to learn.  So I guess part II to the lesson for me is that we do make mistakes.  We will make mistakes.  But even in those mistakes, God loves us and works to bring the highest good out of our failings.
     But different people have different life lessons. For those who are called to learn the art of surrender, there may be more signs of what the person is called to surrender to.  And some are called to listen more deeply.
     For me, while I don't always like the life lessons, this is another occasion when I feel that the serenity prayer applies.  In greatly edited version, very specific to myself:  God, grant me the serenity to accept that I cannot change your call for me to be an adult.  Give me the courage to choose paths that may not always be the easiest, but feel they have the most God/Life/Love in them.  And give me the wisdom to know that it is okay if I make mistakes in my attempts to find the path, follow it and do so with a loving, open heart; and that you will forgive and be with me even when I fail.
   I pray this for everyone - that we may surrender to our life lessons and strive to learn them with grace.  That we may not shirk those challenges but face them with dignity and humility.  That we may have courage in facing them, and that we may accept our efforts that don't quite make the grade.  Whatever your life lessons, God is with you.  And that is a comforting thought indeed.