The Sermon That Wasn't

Late last fall I was asked to preach at the church I grew up in.  Naturally I said yes.  I am one of three seminary students from my home church and it was the first time I was asked to preach here and I was just as nervous as I was excited.  I have preached lots of times in my teaching church and other places in (little) Holland, but there is something different about being in front of people who have watched you grow up, through the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly.
I was nervous, but as Mommy Glynis taught me through my years of drama in the MVPs, appropriate nervousness is a good thing.  If you aren't nervous you are too full of yourself.  This piece of wisdom was affirmed by my preaching professor last year.
I ate breakfast this morning and went off to church with my dad (sound tech) and Littlest Brother (playing prelude).  I got wired and did sound checks.  I sat on my stool behind the pulpit to get the feel for things. I talked with the person running visuals and got everything set for that.  I went downstairs and prayed with the pastor and elders.
I felt fine as I sat in the front pew next to the pastor waiting for the sermon time.
I got up, settled myself onto my stool, prayed, read the scripture, and started my sermon.  I made it through the beginning paragraphs.  Then the words on my page started to blur.  My head started to spin.  Pauses between be words and sentences became longer and longer.  Things became tunnel. The next thing I remember is coming to on the floor with people around me. I had passed out.
 First responders and nurses in the congregation revived me, and someone called 911.  The local fire department showed up first.  They put me on oxygen and I desperately wanted to finish my sermon.  They sat me up on my stool and I promptly passed out again.  Paramedics showed up and didn't give me a choice about hospital time.  I quickly found myself in a cervical collar and strapped to a backboard and in an ambulance.  I spent a couple hours in the ER getting IV fluids and blood work. We didn't get any real answers as to why I passed out, however the doctor suspects an electrolyte imbalance and if I keep watching my mineral intake I should be fine.
So in other words, my sermon never got preached.  I have yet to find a silver lining to all this or a purpose behind this. Perhaps satan didn't want the congregation to hear my message, perhaps it was just because I had been sick with an upper respiratory infection for the last couple weeks, perhaps it was random.
But I'm not giving up.  If they give me another chance, I will preach it again.  And I will keep trying until I get through it until it turns into the sermon that definitely was.

So I've been rather silent lately.  My apologies to all of you who keep coming here hoping to find something new to read and then not finding anything at all.  The biggest reason was that I pretty much slept from Thursday through Sunday.  I've gotten some sort of bug that just has me down and out.  Even if I wasn't sleeping, I was just laying there, existing.   Somehow, by the grace of G-d, I was up and able to preach on Sunday evening.  I'm quite sure that if it hadn't been for his good grace, that would not have happened.  It was a very very small group Sunday, the smallest I've every preached to.  Including the elder, the pianist, and myself there were 7 people.  I was sad at first, but then remembered the promise of our Lord "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them" (Mark 18:20).  I was blessed knowing that the Lord was there with us, even though we were few in number.  And I was blessed when people told me afterwards that they were blessed by the Word.

Tomorrow morning I head to Iowa for my Uncle Paul's funeral.  In all technicality, he is my mom's uncle, but on that side of the family, everyone is Aunt or Uncle (gender dependent) whether they are mom's cousins or uncles or aunts or whatever.  I got to see him in Summer 2010 at a family reunion.  We took a picture of the 3 (!) generations of twins in the family.  I'm so glad that we got those precious photos.

From Top to Bottom, Left to Right:  Aunt Polly and Uncle Paul, Moria and Taryn (almost 19), Arianna and Kalvin (4)

>Mine

So I should be working on translating Greek (we are working through Mark 3 for tomorrow) or prepping for my sermon next Sunday, or doing readings for class or something else productive.  But I don't want to. I mean, I do want to, those are all great things to do, and sometimes like doing all of them, but right now, I don't want to.
I preached yesterday.  It was an interesting experience.  It was at a long term care/rehabilitation facility, so mostly really old people.  The last time I preached to really old people it was at an independent living facility - completely different atmosphere! It was also one of the most laid back preaching experiences I had.  We started the service and then realized that the set-up we thought was going to work wasn't going to work.  So we moved the podium, moved the sound system, moved everyone's wheelchair...and started over.  I got compliments afterwards, so I guess that's a good thing.
I'm not going to post my manuscript like I often do, because my manuscript is becoming more of a tool and less of a crutch for me. It no longer accurately reflects what I say during a service.  Sure it gives a general idea, but that's about it.   If you really want to see my manuscript, let me know and I'll send you a copy.  Otherwise, not.
My sermon theme was from Exodus 16 and about how G-d's plan is always greater than ours and how we have to trust him when we have no idea where to turn or what the deuce is going on.
As I prepared and delivered this message I realized that it spoke to me just as much as it spoke to any of my congregants if not more.  That's a cool thing about being pastor.  Frustrating at times, but also cool.  You get to preach to yourself, but it's not really you, but the Holy Spirit through you...it's a beautiful thing indeed.  Right now I'm really focusing on the phrase ">Mine".  For those of you who struggled in math, that means "Greater than mine." Think of the ">" as a hungry alligator mouth.  It doesn't want to eat mine, it wants to eat what is greater than mine, because it is a very hungry alligator.  If you're the praying sort, I could really use prayers for clarity and guidance.  I'm feeling a call to refine my call and maybe possibly change courses a little.  Of course, that's scary.  I need to make sure it's not my plan.  Because then the alligator will still be hungry.  No one likes hungry alligators.
In other news, I feel like I'm turning into a fish.
I'm super distractable today.  I think it's because I skimped on Sabbath this weekend.  Don't skimp on Sabbath.  It's a bad plan!  Bad Joy!
Now, time for supper and back to work

Who are you?

Tonight I preached from Luke 9. I'm getting more and more comfortable preaching.  Today it was Pillar church. When I preach at Pillar, we set a podium up and the congregation sits on one half the sanctuary.  Usually that is fine.  Today though, they all sat about 6 rows back.  I wasn't okay with that. So I just picked my stuff up and moved up a few rows, and preached between two pews.  I told the congregation what I was doing and why.  Also, during prayer time no one would talk, so I called the children by name and asked them what they were thankful for.  After they shared, I told the adults that the kids could do it, so what was their problem?  The adults shared after that. :)
I have an audio copy of the CD.  If you want a copy, let me know and I'll make you a copy.  I'm not going to make a video to post here because my internet has been so sketchy lately. (currently I'm sitting on my front stoop to type/post this)
Anyhow, without further ado, here is my manuscript from tonight.  I kinda sorted followed it...not really, especially towards the end. I just let the spirit talk. Also, I've included the benediction I used tonight.

Who are you?

Luke 9:18-21

Once, when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others say that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “The Christ of G-d.”

Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone.

Who are you?  Not just your name, but you.  Who are you? Sure, you have a name.  Maybe your name even means something, but most of us are given names because our parents liked the name.   But your name is not necessarily who you are.  It is what you are called.  If I started calling you Bob or Jane, you would not cease to be who you are now.  You’d just be called something different.   After all, a rose by any other name is still a rose. So, who are you?

Somewhere we all have an answer to that question.  In fact, most of us probably have multiple answers to that question, depending on who is asking it.  Right now, I am your preacher.  Later on I will be a pair of listening ears for a friend or a roommate.  In a couple days I will be a student.  In a few months I will be a flower girl.  Throughout it all I remain someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s friend, and many more things.  So who are you?

One time I was at a family reunion with part of my mother’s side of the family. I grew up with my dad’s side of the family so I knew all of them, but my mom’s side of the family was a new thing for me.  They’d all been names on pages without faces.  At the reunion I was asked who I was.  The question stumped me.  I knew who I was.  I was Joy, a student at Central College studying German and Psychology.  But that wasn’t what family members were asking me.  My name tag told them my name.   What they were asking was who I was in relationship to them, which branch of the family I fit into.  Finally, I figured out what they were asking and grabbed a family member who knew the family better than I did to make the tie for me.  By the end of the day I knew who I was to these people.  I was so-and-so’s daughter, so-and-so’s granddaughter, so-and-so’s great granddaughter... That day people could have told me that I was anyone in the family I probably would have believed them.  That day it didn’t matter who I said I was, but who people said I was.

Jesus’ disciples are presented with a similar question on that mountain in the region of Caeserea Philippi when Jesus asked them who the crowds thought he was.  Compared to the question that was going to come, that question was easy.  Dutifully the disciples parroted back what they had heard the crowds say.  The word on the street was that Jesus was the John the Baptist or Elijah or a prophet of long ago who had come back to life.   But then Jesus changed the game a little bit.  No longer was he interested in hearing the disciples parrot back what the crowds said.  He turned to them and said “But what about you?  Who do you say I am?”   This was no longer the same question.  No longer could they parrot back what they heard on the street.  Now they had to answer for themselves.  Bold Peter turned to Jesus and confidently answered that Jesus was the Christ of G-d.   The Gospel according to Matthew elaborates on this and records Peter’s answer as being that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living G-d.

This answer, a mere 10 English words in Matthew and only 4 English words in Mark and Luke, is such a powerful confession of who Jesus was and is, that it was recorded in three of the four Gospels.   The Messiah, the Son of the Living G-d, the Christ – these were the words that were going to make all the difference for both the disciples and for us today.  The Gospel according to Matthew records Jesus responding to Simon Peter by changing his name to Peter and declaring that he would be the rock upon which Christ would build His church.     Simon Peter was no longer simply Simon Peter the ex-fisherman who had become a disciple of this radical Jewish rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus, but he was Peter, the rock upon with the whole Church was going to be built.   Who Peter declared Jesus to be made a difference and who we declare Jesus to be makes a difference too.

If we declare Jesus to be a wise teacher, we are left with a collection of wise teachings and advice on how to live our lives.  If we declare Jesus to be a prophet of G-d, we can attest more authority to his wise teachings and advice.  If he were a prophet we could even accept his new teachings such as the one about turning the other cheek instead of taking an eye for an eye.  But we wouldn’t have much more than that.  But if we declare him to be the Son of the Living G-d, the Messiah, then everything changes for us.

If we echo Peter’s declaration it no longer matters who we say we are.  It no longer matters who other people say we are.  It only matters who Jesus says we are.  As He did with his disciple Simon Peter he will also do with us.  2 Corinthians 5:17 assures us that if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come. 

The old going is a beautiful thing. When the old goes, the identities that we have created for ourselves and the names we have taken for ourselves or been given by the world go with them.  I have had the honor of walking alongside several young people who have struggled with eating disorders and self-esteem issues.  They have identities for themselves.  They have named themselves.  They call themselves worthless, fat, useless, ugly, unworthy of love, lonely, afraid, guilty, and the list could go on. That’s the old talking.  When they finally step into the new, their name, their very identity begins to change.  They start to see themselves as worth something, as beautiful, as worthy of love, as strong, and so on.  Every old identity is replaced with a new one.  No one, none of us, can make that replacement on their own.  Many try.  Many try to find their identities in the work, their relationships, their outward appearances, their talents and abilities.  But most often they fail.  When someone recognizes who they are in Christ, that’s when the new identity that will actually stick starts to form.

Living in a fallen world we all struggle with our identities, some more than others.  It would be wonderful if we were all super comfortable in our identities in Christ, but I’ve met very few people who answer the question “Who are you?” with “A child of G-d” or something similar.  More often we answer the questions with our job titles, our names, our vocations, or our roles in our families.  At least, that’s how we answer to the outside world.  To ourselves we are often not as kind may answer quite differently.  It’s when we are talking to ourselves that the more negative names, the ones that hurt the most come up.  

But those are not who and what we are called to be.  We are in Christ and therefore we are new creations.  This is good news.  Better than good news, it is great news.  In Christ we are justified.  We belong to G-d.  We members of Christ’s body, citizens of heaven, we are forgiven.  We have hope and a future and peace.  We are not alone.  We have the promise of eternal life and full life.  We are hidden with Christ in G-d.  We have new identities.

(This is where I inserted something about evangelism and how we have a choice whether or not to share the gift of a new identity with those who don’t know Christ.  Not sure what came over me right then.  It just happened.)

Jesus turned to Peter and asked him who he said he was and he turns to each and every one of us and asks the same question: But what about you?  Who do you say I am?

 Benediction

Before we close this evening I’d like to share the words on a simple praise song with you as our benediction.  It is called “I will change your name”.  Listen to these words as if the Father himself were saying them to you.

I will change your name,

You will not longer be called,

wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid.

I will change your name.

Your new name shall be,

Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming One,

Faithfulness, Friend of G-d,

One who seeks my face.

1 Corinthians 12

Typically when I'm posting a sermon manuscript I use the sermon title as my blog title, but this week my sermon didn't really have title.  Apologies to my Pre-ministerial Seminar professor who always stressed the importance of a catchy title.  I have a (sorta) good reason at least.  I'd struggled all week to write a sermon called "Expect the Unexpected".  I'd even, with permission, collected illustrations from friends to use in it.  But Saturday afternoon as I put finishing touches on my manuscript (which should have been a sign in the first place...my sermons are usually done by Thursday at the latest), I realized that I could not preach what I had written.  It was awful.  Don't try and tell me it really couldn't have been that bad, because it was that bad.  It was horrid.  So, at 2pm Saturday afternoon, I threw that manuscript out and started over from scratch.  New text, new focus, new sermon.
The funny thing is, the sermon I wrote was the sermon that had been niggling at the back of my head all week.  It was the one that I wanted to preach in the first place, but since it wasn't lectionary-based, I wasn't going to preach it.  But G-d is bigger than the lectionary.  And He always gets His way in the end.
As I sat at church tonight, watching congregants come in, praying away the headache that had showed up about 2 hours earlier and was threatening to turn into a migraine and turning myself completely over to the Spirit, a congregant named Dick came up and grabbed my hand.  Dick was beaming from ear to ear and told me that he had been hoping that I'd be the preacher tonight.  I can't quite explain how that made me feel.  It was definitely a confidence and morale booster.  These people are becoming my congregation.  These are my people, the ones who know my name and who look forward to the weeks when I get to preach.   It was a good reminder of why I'm in seminary.
Afterwards, another congregant came up to me with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes I told me that I'd hit the nail on the head.  That my overarching illustration had met her right where she was at.  Incredible.  I'd been a little nervous that I was stretching things a bit.
My confidence is building and I'm starting to stray more from my manuscript.  I still like having it there, but I'm not as tied to it as I used to be.  I even came out from behind the pulpit tonight during the scripture reading!
Without further ado, here is my manuscript.  For those of you who aren't interested in reading it, there is nothing following it so you can stop reading now. :)

Your order of worship today says that my sermon is titled “Expect the Unexpected” and that my text comes from Matthew 14.  I hope you really did expect the unexpected because I will not be preaching from Matthew 14 this evening.  Rather, I will be preaching from 1 Corinthians 12:12-28.  That passage is found on page 1114  of your Bibles.  Listen now to the word of the Lord.

Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-28 about the body of Christ.

Living in North America with modern medicine, we all have a pretty decent idea of how the body needs all of its parts to function properly, except perhaps the appendix.  We seem to do just fine without that.  We also know what happens when our bodies fail to function properly.   If one part isn’t working correctly or if one part is in pain, the entire body is affected.  Most of us don’t need reminded of that truth.  And we’ve probably all heard sermons drawing parallels between our human bodies and the church, since that is the metaphor presented in this passage.   I could preach another one of those sermons, but it wouldn’t really tell you anything new. And, if you are anything like my father or grandfather, your eyelids would start to droop and you’d drift off before I got halfway through.  So that’s not the sermon I’m going to preach.  Instead, I’m going to draw on a different analogy.  You can tell me afterwards if it worked for you or not.

I don’t know how many of you are sports fans in general or how many of you are fans of competitive swimming in particular, but I am a swimmer.  I used to swim competitively, but haven’t raced formally in almost 8 years.  That doesn’t mean that swimming has left my blood.  I think it’s there to stay.

Growing up in rural Ontario we did not have the luxury of an indoor pool. The closest indoor pool was 45 minutes to an hour away.  Instead we had the local outdoor pool which was open for about two and a half months a year, typically from mid-June until the end of August.  Which meant our swimming season was short and intense. It also meant that we didn’t stand a chance against the clubs that could practice year round.  But that wasn’t a problem because we had our own association of swim teams, all of which had equally short seasons and practiced at outdoor pools.  There have always been 6 or 7 teams in the association depending on the current political situation.

A swimmer’s season consists mostly of practicing. For the outdoor recreational clubs, such as the one I belong to, it means practices with the team two to three times a week for an hour or two at a time, and as many individual practices as you can fit it or are committed to.  But the big excitement is Saturday morning.  That’s when the rubber meets the road or in this case, the bodies meet the water.   Our swim meets are Saturday mornings, three times during the summer and one big final meet for the ribbons and trophies at the end of the year.   It takes a lot of people to run a swim meet, and unless you’ve ever been part of the organization or running crew, you probably don’t realize it.   But every person there is crucial.

This is the place I am inviting you to journey to with me.  To one of those Saturday morning meets.  Meet the people involved in running a meet.  Then I will share with you how this fits into our passage for tonight.

Firstly, there are the coaches, who never ever get enough recognition.  Most of them are volunteer coaches who donate time to coach these swimmers.  They spend time that they could spend earning money guarding at their local pool or teaching private lessons to coach the swimmers.  Not only are they at every practice and every meet, they spend time outside of that putting together relay teams, entering swimmers in meets, ordering matching racing suits if that is what the club has decided they want to do for that year, and a million other tasks that I can only begin to imagine.  The coaches are usually among the first to arrive at meets and the last to leave. They make sure their swimmers get to the right races at the right time, they encourage the first time swimmers that they really can do this, comfort the swimmers who have gotten disqualified on a technicality and go to bat for the swimmers who feel they’ve been treated unjustly.  They also have to deal with the parents, a job I do not often envy!

Secondly, there is the marshalling team.  Marshalling, when related to swimming, is the act of assigning swimmers to heats and lanes, which sounds quite simple, but it’s not. The marshalling team starts working on Thursday, inputting all entries into a computer program and assigning heats and lanes electronically.  The computer person on the marshalling team makes sure that during the first three meets that there is never a pool with just swimmers from one team in it and that heats are roughly based on time so that you don’t have the fastest swimmer in an event swimming against the slowest swimmer, because that would be a really boring race.  The computer person also strives to make sure the pool is all the way full, every time, so that the meet doesn’t drag on forever and ever.  Sometimes that means getting really.  For the final meet every heat of every event has to be arranged according to time down to the hundredth of a second.   She also gets to deal with coaches who keep trying to enter late swimmers at the last minute.

Once the computer person is done with her job the entire file is sent to the very important people on the marshalling team who print “cards” for each swimmer.  A card is like an entry ticket.  You need your card to swim your race.  It has the swimmer’s name, team, event number, and heat-lane assignment on it.   Before computers took over the world, coaches had to write all this cards by hand and marshalling just had to sort, seed and put heat-lane numbers on them.  Computers have eliminated that step.  The card printers print the cards and sort them into the marshalling box, a water-resistant file box that keeps the cards separated by event. 

Then, also on the marshalling team is the grand or head marshal and her assistant or assistants.  They have final say on which heat-lane a swimmer swims in and they hand out cards.   The grand marshal stands before chatty children and indifferent teens all Saturday morning calling names, handing out cards, and seating heats on the marshalling benches or chairs, so that they are ready for their races.  The grand marshal is responsible for always knowing what event is in the pool, which events have been called to the marshalling area and when to call the next set of events.  I don’t envy her job at all either.   Her assistants make sure that to always have the next event’s cards ready to go, deal with last minute changes such as a coach or parent pulling a swimmer from an event or no-shows.  The assistant also moves the swimmers from the final bench to the end of the pool, ensuring one last time that every swimmer is at the right lane, or if it is a hundred meter relay event, the right end of the pool, as well as the right lane. 

Thirdly, there is the starter.  He calls each heat to the starting blocks or pool edge, and starts each race with either a whistle or a starting pistol.  He’s responsible for judging false starts and takes a lot of flak from parents and coaches if they don’t agree with his call.

Fourthly are the timers.  Their job is exactly what it sounds like, timing the races.  There are 2-3 timers for every lane.  They start the stopwatches when the starter starts the race and stop them as soon as the swimmer touches in.  They also record the times on the cards.  Scoring will take the middle of the three times or an average of the three.  Timers have to stay very focussed and watch carefully.  No matter what happens, they have to keep their eyes on the swimmer in their lane. They get splashed during starts and finishes which some weeks is blessing and they wish there was more of it and other weeks a part of their job that they dread.  Without the timers, the winner of the race would be a guessing game.

Then there are the scorers.  They enter the times that the timers wrote down into a fantabulous computer program that decides who won each race and outputs a results list, in order by time, with finishing times, for every swimmer in each event.  The scorers are big fans of the computer program because it’s so much easier than sorting the swimmers based on time by hand and writing out the results list.  The scorers also assign points for the top finishers and calculate point scores for each individual team.

Then there are the lifeguards.  Sometimes I envy their job - except when the weather is miserable.  Guarding a swim meet is probably the easiest jobs a life guard will ever have since everyone competing knows how to swim.  In all the years that I’ve been involved in the swim meet, the guards have only had to respond twice –once because a swimmer dislocated his shoulder and once because a swimmer passed out in the water due to an acute asthma attack.  In both cases, the timers, coaches and runners and responded first.  The lifeguards mostly had to do the paperwork.  They don’t even find out about the routine asthma attacks, heat stroke, hypothermia and backstroke-concussions until after the meet is over, if they find out at all, but without them there, there could not legally be a swim meet.

Throughout all this are the runners.  The runners are often senior swimmers, or swimmers who have just aged out of competing but aren’t ready to let go yet.  They may be even more overlooked than the coaches, but they are just as crucial.  The runners belong to every part of running a swim meet.  They carry messages from the marshalling team to the starter, they carry cards from swimmers to timers in 25 meter events, they carry cards from timers to scoring, they post the results lists, the bring bottled water to the marshalling team and the starter and the timers and the scorers, they hold the kickboards in the water for the backstrokers so that there are no serious concussions.  They actually get to run on the pool deck without getting in trouble.

Then there are the parents.  The parents are the ones that bring their swimmers to every practice and every meet.  They are the ones that sit outside with little shelter since pools are notoriously bad at having shelter, from 7:15am until the meet is over, often early afternoon.  They are there rain or shine, hot or cold.  They bring snacks (it’s amazing how much food swimmers can put away) and extra towels and dry clothes and water and hot chocolate and sunscreen.  And they cheer the swimmers on.  Not just their own swimmer or their own team, but everyone.  Of course, they cheer loudest for one of their own.  And, they cheer knowing full well, that when you’re in the pool you can’t hear anything except for a dull roaring from around the pool.  If you’re a little swimmer struggling to finish your race, everyone knows your name and they all cheer for you by name.  If you’re a baby and get passed around a lot because your mom is on deck marshalling or timing, everyone knows which team you belong to and they always give you back.  Parents are the ones who make up almost all of the other jobs, except for runners, though sometimes a parent will be a runner.  They volunteer to time and to marshal and to help score.  Without them, none of the positions would be filled.

So, so far we have the coaches, the card printers, the marshalling team, including the head marshal and the assistant marshals, the starter, the life guards, the runners and the parents.  They’re all very important to a swim meet, but without the swimmers, there would be no swim meet at all.

The swimmers are the ones that show up to practices week after week.  They are the ones who never give up, even if they never win.  They are the ones who give up Saturday morning cartoons to go to a swim meet. They show up for a swim meet, no matter what the weather is.  And they swim.  They are in the pool for warm-ups at 7:30 am every Saturday morning - except one…Canada has a random holiday weekend the beginning of August.  There’s no meet that weekend.  They swim when it’s raining out, but not when there is thunder or lightening.  They swim when it is snowing out, which has only happened once as far as I can remember. For the record, that was not a fun meet.  They swim when it is cold and windy and the last thing anyone would want is to be wet. And they swim when it’s hot out and you can’t leave wet footprints on the pool deck because it evaporates too fast.  They range in age from preschoolers to 18.  You can start competing as soon as you can get yourself from one end of the pool to the other without assistance.  Some of them have been swimming for years, others are just starting.  Without the swimmers there would be no swim teams and no swim meets.

The church is very much like a swim meet.  There are lots of different jobs in the church and they are all very important.  If the head marshal didn’t show up for a swim meet, there would be chaos.  If the timers weren’t there, the scorers wouldn’t have any times to calculate scores from.  If the scorers didn’t figure out results, the point of the meet would be lost.  If the swimmers weren’t there, there would be no meet at all. 

Some jobs don’t seem very important.  Most people don’t even know who the computer person is, but if she didn’t do her job, the card printers and marshalling team would have nothing to work with, the swimmers wouldn’t be able to swim, the starter wouldn’t be able to start the races, the timers would have nothing to time, the scorers would have nothing to score, the parents would have no one to cheer, the runners would have nothing to run.  It’s a small invisible job, but if it doesn’t get done, everything falls apart.  If any of the jobs don’t get done, things fall apart.   It’s the same in the church.  Maybe you don’t see the cleaning staff or know their names, but if they don’t do their jobs, the church would fall into disrepair.   If the secretary didn’t do her job, you’d have no order of worship (hold up order of worship) or church newsletter and no one would know what was going on.  If people didn’t volunteer to serve coffee after the service, you’d all go home without coffee and a time of fellowship.  If no one volunteered to teach Sunday school your children or grandchildren, nieces and nephews wouldn’t have teachers.

Other jobs seem very important, but they depend on a lot of other jobs and come with a lot of responsibility.  Everyone knows who the head marshal is at a swim meet.  It’s been the same person for over a dozen years now.  But she has a lot of responsibility and puts up with a fair bit of the fall out if something goes wrong. Same with the starter and the coaches.  Everyone knows who they are, but if something goes wrong, they’re the ones who have to deal with the angry parents. Everyone in the church knows who the pastor is. The pastor also has a huge amount of responsibility and the pastor is the one who gets to deal with upset congregants as well as the everyday affairs of the church.  It’s an important job, but also a job with a lot of responsibility.

Not everyone can do every job.  Not every parent volunteer as the organization skills to be a head marshal or the computer skills to do the job of the computer person, or the resources to be a card printer, but every parent can do something, even if it is just being a team parent and looking after swimmers while other parents volunteer to be timers or runners.  Not everyone in the church can do every job.  Not everyone is called to be a pastor or a secretary or an elder or deacon, but everyone is called to something.   Paul lists some things that people within the church are called to: apostles, teachers, healers, helpers, administrators, and others.  Not everyone can do every job, but everyone can do something.

Maybe it’s been years since you taught a Sunday School class, but just because you are a more mature member of the body doesn’t mean you are no longer called to be part of it.  Maybe the thought of teaching Sunday school terrifies you, but you’d like to help serve coffee or help with an outreach program or mentor a young person.  Maybe you are a young person and don’t think you can be part of the body yet, but the church needs every part.  Maybe you can get involved helping in nursery or helping pick up orders of worship after the service on Sunday, or if you’re an older younger person, maybe you can help with Sunday school or children’s ministry.    Maybe you want to write letters to the missionaries.  I encourage you to figure out where you can serve and become an active member of the body.   The church needs you, just like the swim team needs every member and volunteer it has.  Regardless of how small or big, invisible or visible, insignificant or significant a job seems, it is an important job and keeps the body of Christ running smoothly.

You are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.  What part are you going to be?

Amen.

The Silver Lining: Romans 8:12-25

Here's the manuscript I went into tonight's service with (with two changes- this one is single spaced and everything highlighted in red was highlighted in yellow on my copy).  I'm getting more comfortable preaching so I tend to "go off book" a little more often than I did at first.  I still read a little more than I would like to though.
It never ceases to amaze me how G-d can take my stumbling tongue, my youthful words and use them to touch people.  Praise the Lord for His mighty power!

Romans 8:12-25

As I read and prayed through this text repeatedly in preparation for writing this sermon, I kept being drawn to the parts about suffering: if you live according to the sinful nature you will die, our present suffering, bondage to decay, groaning as in the pains of childbirth.  Perhaps it’s because if I’m not careful, I can be a little bit of a pessimist or perhaps, and equally likely it is because when I read this passage I hear in my head the voice of a dear friend of mine who was fond of quoting verse 18 to me in King James Version in her deepest southern drawl. Without the southern drawl, it would sound like this:

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.

If you can imagine that in a southern drawl, maybe you can get a slight idea of why it sticks so firmly in my head.   The two of us served on a mission team together many years ago in Africa, and being in Africa, sometimes times were tough: we were missing our own beds stateside, we didn’t have flush toilets, or hot running water (most days there was cold running water though), it was rainy season so our clothes almost never got dry, and there were great big huge dinner plate sized moths.  Not every day was easy, but when things got tough we’d remind ourselves that our present sufferings weren’t worthy to be compared with the glory that was to be revealed in us.

Or perhaps the parts about suffering stick out to me because when I read them there is a little piece of me that goes “wait a minute!?! Suffering?  Really?  I thought the battle was won, Jesus came, died, rose again, forgave us of all our sins and now we have to suffer?  This can’t be right.  Paul must not know what he’s talking about!”  I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we have all had moments where we’ve stopped, even just briefly to say “wait a minute.  That’s not how I thought this trusting the Lord thing was supposed to go.”  Perhaps it was when you lost your job or your house.  Perhaps it was finding out you  or a loved one had significant medical concerns.   Or maybe it was when a relationship didn’t go the way you had hoped or planned that it would.   Or a loved one died long before you thought it was time for them to go. Or perhaps when one of you children wandered away from everything you’d tried to teach them. Everyone knows what it’s like to suffer to one degree or another.  It’s not something we can compare or measure, but it is something we all know.

Thankfully this passage doesn’t leave us in a place of suffering.  It tells us that suffering will indeed happen, but along with that there is hope.  Hope of a glory to come and a hope of liberation.  If we go back to the beginning and wade through the first section about our sinful nature, we can see that our obligation is not to live according to the sinful nature.  In fact, if we do live according to our sinful natures, we will die.  Rather, when we become Christians, the power of the Spirit of G-d helps us to put to death the sinful nature and adopts us as sons and daughters of G-d.  

There is something special about being someone’s son or daughter.   If you have a father who was or is present in your life in a positive way, you know what it’s like to be able to cry out “Daddy!” or an equivalent there off.   This text uses the Aramaic term “Abba”, which translates to father or daddy or papa or whatever else one might call their father figure.   If you didn’t have a positive father figure in your life, think about your mother or mother figure and how comforting it was to be able to call out to your Mother right when you needed her the most. 

How many of us have watched a child learning to walk or ride a bike and then seen them fall?  If their parents are there, that’s where they turn to, to their Daddy or Mommy who scoops them up in their arms and comforts them before helping them  try again.  They don’t scold them for not getting it right the first time or the second time or the tenth time or the hundredth time.  They are simply there with their strong arms, ready for when their son or daughter needs them again.

That’s the kind of relationship we have through the Spirit, to G-d, our Father.  We are his dearly loved children.  And even when our earthly parents fail, which they so often do, we know that G-d will never fail.  No matter how many times we fall, no matter what kind of mess we get ourselves into, G-d will always be waiting there, with open, loving arms, ready to comfort us and set us up to try again.

Since we are children of G-d, we are brothers and sisters to Christ, in a spiritual sense, which means we are co-heirs with Christ, and, according to verse 17, if we share in his sufferings we will also share in his glory.  This is the glory that our present sufferings are not worth being compared to.  I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to inherit anything significant, much less incredible glory.  I’m one of six children.  When my parents are called home to glory, whatever is left after all 6 of us have made it through college, and we’ve cared well for our parents, will likely be divided amongst us.  But I’ve heard of people inheriting family fortunes.  It changes their lives.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. 

A number of years ago a movie called “Princess Diaries” came out.  In the movie a fairly normal teenage girl, living with her widowed mom who is an artist, receives word that she has inherited the country of Genovia. In the space of 5 minutes she goes from being a normal teenager living a normal life to having to consider whether she wants to accept this massive inheritance or not.  This inheritance, should she choose to accept it, will change her life.  

The inheritance that we, as children of G-d and coheirs with Christ, are set to receive is far greater than a county, even Genovia.  Psalm 50 tells us that our G-d, our Father owns “every animal in the forest, the cattle on a thousand hills, every bird in the mountains and the creatures of the field.”  It’s far greater than anything that we could possibly comprehend.

This inheritance is the glory that our present sufferings are not worth being compared to.  But to get to the glory, we first have to share in Christ’s sufferings.

In the next section of this passage Paul uses a powerful metaphor to explain our suffering and the fullness of glory that we will experience.  He uses the metaphor of the pangs of labor and childbearing.   Let’s read that section again.

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

I have never been pregnant, therefor I have never given birth to a baby, so I can’t relate completely to labor pains, but I was present when both of my younger brothers made their entrances into the world, and I did grow up on a farm.  As I got older, I was given the role of “alpaca midwife”, assisting the females in our herd in their yearly task of bringing new life into the world. 

In early June of this year I assisted at a particularly difficult birth.  The baby was large and not in the ideal birthing position.  The labor had been long and very difficult.  As the cria began to make her entrance into the big wide world the mother alpaca began to scream.  She screamed and screamed as we repositioned the baby and assisted her little girl into the world.  As soon as we had the little girl and were beginning all the activities necessary immediately after a birth, the mother began her gentle, calm humming again, as if nothing had pained her enough to warrant screaming just a few moments earlier.  From my limited experience with humans and my experiences with animals, I imagine that this was what Paul was talking about.  After all, Paul was an unmarried man, so I doubt he had much more experience with childbirth than I have had up to this point in my life.

We are waiting in eager expectation for the glory of G-d to be revealed, for our liberation from the bondage of decay that sweeps across our world.  We long for the day when there is no more sickness or decay or death.  No more ware, no more children being abused, no more mothers crying over babies that never saw the light of day, no more people starving.  That is the world we long for.  The weight of the suffering of the world we live in often  weighs heavily on us.  It makes us uncomfortable and we groan and cry out for it to change.  It hurts.  It feels like it will never end.  We groan inwardly and sometimes even outwardly, but there is nothing we can do to change it.  We can’t speed up the process.

 The baby always comes when it’s ready.

If Paul stopped writing there, there would be little hope, little encouragement, but he doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to give us the silver lining in this world of suffering and pain:

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

The silver lining in this passage is the fact that we can hope, that we have hope in the return of Christ.  We have hope in the fact that we are co-heirs with Christ, that there is a glory to come, and inheritance far greater than we can imagine. If we already had it, we would not be able to hope in it.  If we could imagine it accurately, it would not have the same appeal as an unimaginable inheritance of glory.

Did you ever sneak around before Christmas and to figure out what you were going to get ahead of time?  When you thought no one was looking you peaked under mom and dad’s bed or in the closet or wherever you thought they might hide the gifts.  You saw it.  That thing you had been hoping for all year, or at least all of the last two weeks.  The object that your parents told you Santa might bring if you were really good.  You found it.  You knew it was coming and would be there Christmas morning.  But then something happened.  Some of the excitement left Christmas.  You woke up Christmas morning and went to unwrap your gifts, but it wasn’t as exciting as you had hoped it would be.  You already knew what was inside that brightly wrapped package.  You were happy, but there was no anticipation.  No hope that it would be there because you already knew for sure that it was there.

If we could imagine the full glory of our inheritance we wouldn’t have near as much to look forward to.  Some of the excitement would leave.  We’d just be putting in time here, instead of hoping, waiting expectantly for our adoption as sons and daughters and the renewal of our bodies. 

When things get tough, when we feel the weight of our suffering, when we do battle with our sinful natures, we can cling to the silver lining that there is hope and that we can still have hope because we cannot fully grasp the glory that is to come.   We can wait patiently, or at least try to be patient, (when I’m hoping for something really hard, I have a hard time with the patience thing.  You should have seen me as a child on Easter morning.  Patience was not my strong point) as we eagerly hope for the glory that we one day be revealed in us, co-heirs with Christ Jesus.

Amen.

The Nature of a Servant

I preached this sermon on Palm Sunday.   I waited awhile before posting my manuscript here because I knew there was audio for this sermon recorded and I wanted be able to post a link to the audio along with my manuscript, in case people were inclined to want to listen to me preach. The audio is in two parts.  I made it into video because I didn't know how to just post the audio.  So the videos are really boring.  But here they are:  Part 1, Part 2.
And here is the manuscript:

There is a story that I have heard told many times around the dinner table or gathered with friends and family around the fireplace.   It’s a story about an old man who lived alone.  He didn’t always live alone.  Once he had had a wife and a few children, but that was a long time ago.  His wife had died and his children had all moved away, starting families of their own.  One night he sat alone gazing out the window lost in thought.   He watched as the wind blew big gusts of snow around the farmyard.  It was bitterly cold out and a blizzard was coming in.   He glanced at the fire burning in the hearth and was grateful for the warmth of his house.  As he looked out the window again he saw them.   A flock of Canadian Geese were struggling against the wind.  They had landed in the space between his house and his barn and looked like they were trying to find shelter from the impending blizzard.  His heart went out to them and resolved to open his barn and allow them to take shelter there from the storm.  He put on his heavy winter coat, his boots, his gloves and his hat.  He braced himself as he opened his door and walked towards the barn.  He battled his way to the big barn door and pulled it open.  He motioned for the geese to go inside.  Instead of seeking shelter they ran away.  Again and again he tried to convince them to go inside where they would be safe and warm and again and again they ran away from him in fear.   In that moment he wished nothing more than to be like them, to be a goose, so he could reach them.

I imagine that in some way G-d felt a little bit like that man when he looked down on of the human race, except multiplied an infinite number of times.  He had created the entire world and everyone in it.  He had knit every human together and ordained all their days for them, but then something happened and they became separated from Him.  Ever since that day in the Garden, that day when the first man and the first woman fell, the humans that G-d had created, the crown of his creation, had been separated from him.   His heart continually went out to the human race.  Throughout the Old Testament we read about G-d trying to draw the Israelites closer to Him.   While the people of Israel were in the desert, G-d gave them the tabernacle, as a way for him to dwell among them.  As time went on, He sent the prophets to draw Israel closer to himself, to direct them in the way they should go.   The prophets though were just messengers of G-d.  Even they pointed towards the coming of one greater, one who would restore Israel to a right relationship with G-d.  In Isaiah 49 we read  of one who was to come to restore Israel and to be a light to the gentile.  This was the promise the people of Israel looked forward to.  Until Christ came humankind remained separate from G-d.    It was only after Christ came that we had the opportunity to be united with G-d. 

What was it about this coming, of G-d as a baby, which allowed us to be united with G-d?  What was different about G-d coming to humankind as a baby?

Our text this evening indicates that Christ came to us as a servant.  A humble, obedient, servant.   How does this servant nature allow us to be united with G-d and what does it mean for us to have the attitude of a servant?

If G-d had chosen to come to Earth in his full glory he would have been about as effective at drawing us to himself as the old man was at convincing the geese to seek shelter in the barn.   In His full glory, G-d would have terrified us.   He would have more than terrified us.  We would not have been able to stand in the light of His glory. When the glory of the Lord was shown to Moses, the Lord hid Moses in the cleft of a rock so that Moses could only see the back of the Lord.  For no one can see the face of G-d and live.   The only way that G-d could reach us, the only way that he could draw us to himself, was to become like us.  That is what he did when he sent his son to come and live among us.

Not only did Jesus have to come as a man in order that we would not be terrified of his glory, he also had to come as a man so that he could pay the debt that we owed.  Our sins, our broken relationship with G-d, demanded repayment.   Throughout the Old Testament we read about the types of sacrifices required for sins and the intricate rituals surrounding them.  A common thread characterized all of them though:  They were temporary and needed to be repeated, over, and over, and over again.   They had to be repeated because they were not sufficient to fully pay for our sins.  They were like bandaids where we, as G-d’s people, really needed reconstructive surgery.   For a time they were okay, but in the long run, they just weren’t enough.   We read in Ezekiel and the Psalms that each of us bears the weight of our own sins and that no animal or mere human could ever pay the debt that we owed.  To borrow the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, we need a “mediator who is truly human, and truly righteous, yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is also true G-d.”

Our mediator needed to be truly human and truly righteous because a sinner could never pay for the sins of themselves or another. One who has been dirtied by sin cannot stand in the place of another who has been dirtied by sin.   He also needed to be true G-d so that he could bear the full weight of all our sins.  Being in the very nature G-d, Jesus was also able to become the high priest that could live forever and continually intercede for us.  Jesus became like a man, even though he was in nature G-d, he chose to become a human so that he could be our mediator.  We read in Hebrews 2 that he became like us in every way so that he could help us.  Because he was tempted when he suffered, he can help us when we are tempted.

This dual nature of G-d shown in Christ, truly G-d and truly human at the same time,  this coming down from heaven to be a human baby, this emptying himself of the glory of G-d so that he could bring us back to G-d, this is what the nature of a servant really is.  Think with me for a moment about a baby.  A baby enters this world as a tiny, usually incredibly cute, human being. They are completely unable to do anything on their own except cry and soil their diapers.   That is how Jesus entered our world, as a little helpless baby.  He laid aside all his glory, all the riches of heaven, which are far greater than we can possibly imagine, to become a helpless baby.  I cannot imagine anything more humbling than being completely helpless, than having to rely constantly on other people to meet your every need.

But Jesus didn’t stop there. He didn’t stop at just being a helpless baby.  He went on to live a life marked by humility at every turn. Throughout his ministry he walked among the least of society.  He touched lepers and other people considered untouchable.  He had conversations with foreign women.  He ate with tax collectors.  And then perhaps the most well-known servant story of all: During the feast of the Passover Jesus knelt to wash the feet of his disciples. The washing of feet is a super dirty job; especially considering that Jesus and his disciples wore sandals and walked everywhere. It was a job reserved for the lowest of servants.  But Jesus took it upon himself.  Even though this story is often told as an example of the servant nature of Jesus, our text tonight points to another, even greater example of the servant nature of Jesus.

Look back with me at verse 8.  Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Crucifixion in the time of Jesus was a punishment reserved so the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth, the slaves.  There was no crueler, more humiliating form of execution.   Every step of the crucifixion process was designed to bring more humiliation and pain upon the one to be executed.  After Jesus was condemned to die by crucifixion, he was flogged.  His hands were likely tied to a post as a Roman soldier whipped him again and again with a whip embedded with bits of metal.  The whip would have torn through his flesh, his muscle and much of the underlying tissue. We also know that the Roman soldiers dressed Jesus in purple robes and put a crown made of thorns on his head and hailed him as “the king of the Jews”.  The humiliation of this must have been extraordinary.  Then, they paraded him through a crowded street where his enemies could jeer at him and taunt him more.  Then, when they reached Golgotha, the soldiers would have stripped him of all his clothing, in order to add to his humiliation, before nailing him to the cross.

When our text says that Christ humbled himself to death on a cross, it was not speaking figuratively. Death on a cross was the most humble of deaths and it was the death that Jesus submitted to on our behalf.

So what does this mean for us?  What does verse 5 of our text really mean for our daily lives when it says that our attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus?   We cannot stand in the gap in the same way as Christ did because we are not truly G-d as He was. We are limited by our humanness.   I also don’t believe that we are all called to die humiliating deaths by crucifixion. For one thing, crucifixion is not routinely practiced in North America to the best of my knowledge.  For another, if all Christians were called to death by crucifixion, we’d have a lot of dead Christians. I think the key for us is humble obedience to whatever the Lord calls us to.  We have all been given different spiritual gifts and we are called to certain tasks in accordance with our gifting. Some are called to be teachers, others are called to work with their hands, others to care for the sick, others to share the gospel in foreign lands, others to work the land, others to run large businesses.  We each have a calling and that is where we are called to be obedient. It won’t look the same for everyone.  My calling won’t look the same as yours and yours won’t look the same as that of the person sitting in the pew next to you, but it is in that calling that we are called to be obedient.

Being obedient to our callings won’t always be easy.  Being crucified wasn’t easy for Jesus.  When he prayed in the garden we read that he sweat drops of blood and pled with G-d to take this cup from him. A story is told about two young Moravians, members of a religious order, who heard of an island in the West Indies that was home to a slave plantation of two to three thousand slaves.  The owner of the slave plantation is said to have said that no preacher or clergyman would ever stay on island.  These two young Moravians heard about it and following G-d’s call on their lives, sold themselves into slavery in order to reach the slaves on the island.  That was not an easy calling for these two young men to follow.  It was not a short term mission trip, but a life sentence.  Their families and friends questioned them in following their call. They thought it was crazy.  But even Peter questioned Jesus’ call to go to Jerusalem to die.

Being obedient to G-d’s call on our lives won’t always be easy.  Sometimes people will think we have lost our sense of reason, but when we allow ourselves to be humbled in obedience, that is when we will be exalted.  When James and John, the sons of Zebedee, asked Jesus to let them sit on his right and left when he came into glory, he rebuked them and said that whoever wanted to be great, must first become like a servant, the one who wanted to be first must become the last.  Our text this evening tells us that it was after Jesus had humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross that G-d exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of G-d the Father.

As we enter into this final week before Easter, when we remember the great sacrifice that Christ made for us when he humbled himself to death on a cross and rejoice in the exaltation of his resurrection, may we be attentive to the calling that G-d has on each of our lives, to the ways that he is calling us to have the nature of a servant.

Let us pray.