Overwhelmed by God's Love Ephesians 3: 14 - 21

           How many of you have ever climbed a tree?  If you’re comfortable doing so, I invite you to close your eyes and remember that experience.  Remember where you were.  Remember how old or young you were.  Are you alone or accompanied by friends or family?  Is your climbing quick and purposeful . . . as if trying to reach a destination?  Do you move slowly, steadily, savoring the climb?  Up in the tree, do you linger or scurry back down quickly? How does it feel to remember—to be back in that place and time, climbing the tree?  If you closed your eyes, you might want to open them and come back to the here and now.

            When I was a child, we had a mature china berry tree in our backyard.  It stood right next to the fence separating our yard from the couple who lived next door.  It stood about 2/3 the distance of the yard away from the back of our house.  While my mom could see the tree from the kitchen, she would have to actually stand at the window to see me in it.  So, the tree offered some measure of privacy.  It stood opposite our garage, a separate building behind our house.  The lowest tree limb was pretty high up, and I was probably 8 years old before I was tall enough to jump up and grab onto it.  So, climbing the tree was accompanied by a sense of satisfaction built up over years of hopeful anticipation.  Holding onto that limb, wrapping my legs around the trunk, shimmying up to the limb and then hoisting my body up—the 1^st time I climbed the tree, I was perfectly content to just sit on that lowest limb—leaning against the tree for awhile.  As I grew a little taller and older, I would sometimes climb one or two more limbs up—but there were only a few limbs strong enough to hold me and long enough for me to sit on comfortably. The tree was tall and its canopy fanned out into small, limbs with lots of leaves. 

            Sitting up in the tree, I had a different perspective on the world.  I could see into the Corleys’ yard next door and onto their back covered porch.  I could see across their yard and over the Taylor’s fence. Everybody else in the neighborhood had a chain link fence.  But the Taylors had a privacy fence.  From the tree, I could spy on Tammy and her little brother, Joey. From my perch in the tree, I could see around the corners of our garage and note when my mom stepped out the backdoor to take care of laundry or put something in the trash or stand at the other fence and visit with Mrs. Setzer. Sitting up in the tree, I had a different perspective on the world.  I could see the inter-connectedness of people in my neighborhood.  Leaning against the tree trunk, I felt supported and safe.  In the canopy of the tree, I was cooled by shade and breeze.  It was a comfortable place, a quiet haven where I could be alone—when I wanted to.  I enjoyed climbing that tree. 

            The phrase “rooted and grounded” in verse 17 of today’s text reminds me of a tree, and adding love to the phrase—“rooted and grounded in love” reminds me of God.  So, this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about God and trees—comparing the two.  God is like a mighty live oak tree.  (Yes, I’m using a Texas variety—one I’m familiar with.)  When I see the beauty and grandeur of centuries-old live oaks dotting the landscape near my hometown, I think of God and the beauty and grandeur of all of God’s creation.  Like these old live oaks, God has wisdom born of years and experience.  Sturdy and strong, and with deep roots, God and the live oaks can weather changes. Like the tree’s wide expanse of branches reaching to the sky,  the length and width, the height and depth of God’s love is wide-armed and overwhelming.  Just as when we rest on a tree’s limbs, under its canopy of leaves, we are safe—safe from predators, safe from the heat, safe from prying eyes—we are safe resting in God’s loving embrace.  Just as when we are high in the tree’s canopy, we can look at the world from a different perspective, upheld by God’s strength we see the world and perhaps our lives from a different perspective—releasing our worries and concerns to God.

            God is like a mighty live oak tree.  With roots that fan out, God sends out shooters—new, young seedlings and saplings.  Connected to those deep roots, the shooters, the saplings get nourishment from the tree and the soil and the sun.  Sheltered from buffeting storms, cooled by the shade, they may survive extreme conditions.  Whether we picture ourselves as the saplings shooting up from God’s roots or as the people resting in God’s limbs, we are connected to this One whose all-encompassing love provides for, protects, nourishes, and renews us. 

            God is like the tree in the story I read to our children—The Giving Tree.  God welcomes us at each stage in our lives to loving, life-giving relationship.  At each phase of our life, God stands ready to give to us—to give us companionship, nourishment, rest, purpose—to give us grace.  Even when we accept all God offers, taking and forgetting from whom we have received, God waits.  God waits for us to return and seek and receive again.   Well, God doesn’t just wait.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God moves in us to draw us back to God.  Wherever we are, God stands ready to give all—just like the tree in the story. God stands ready to give us all that we need to be drawn into relationship with God.  God does not hold anything back.  For, in becoming human—living and dying a life of obedience and service—God, the Redeemer, the One we call Jesus the Christ—gives God’s self for us. 

            In today’s text Paul speaks to the entire Ephesian Christian community.  When Paul says, “I pray that . . . you may be strengthened in your inner being  . . . and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend . . . what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,”[1]  the “you” is plural.  Paul desires that the Christian community be rooted and grounded in God’s love—not rooted and grounded in the cosmopolitan culture of Ephesus, not rooted and grounded in the Greek philosophy of the time, not rooted and grounded in the power of the Roman empire.  It was not then nor is it now easy to live lives rooted and grounded in God’s love.  We hear of senseless violence and we are afraid.  Our culture praises independence, so we hide our vulnerabilities from each other.  Subtle messages from every direction tell us we are what we own, so we seek to acquire rather than to relate.  Tragedy occurs, and we lose hope. We are at risk of living a life rooted and grounded in fear and self-preservation.  But God desires us to be rooted and grounded in God’s love.  In God’s eyes we are saplings firmly planted in the soil of God’s love, saplings fertilized by God’s word, saplings hydrated by the waters of the Holy Spirit, saplings whose leaves are drinking in the Son-light.  We are saplings growing into strong, sturdy trees.

            Yes, this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about God and trees—comparing the two.  While we can think of God as like a tree—to get a handle on who God is and what God is like—we know that God is not actually a tree.  God may be like the Giving Tree, but God is not the Giving Tree.   God may be like a mighty oak, but God is not a mighty oak.  Who is God?  God is the all-powerful, all-loving, all-forgiving creator who can work in us and through us to accomplish God’s good purposes for the world.  Setting our sights on God, aligning our will with God’s, connecting our hearts to God’s—we can live our lives with great hope.  Hope for reconciliation, hope for justice, hope for revival, hope for the future—our futures individually and our future collectively.  May we be rooted and grounded in God’s love—with full assurance that God is able to accomplish in us far more abundantly anything than we could even imagine. 

Let us pray:

Lord, may we grow with you, new shoots reaching out, soaking up your light and warmth.  Lord, may we grow with you in all seasons, and in all conditions.  Lord, may we grow with you and bring forth fruit that is pleasing to you—from our hands reaching out to offer others your sustenance.  Lord, may we grow with you.  Amen.

Tree picture from:

 http://images.clipartof.com/small/71862-Mature-Green-Tree-With-Deep-Roots-Poster-Art-Print.jpg

prayer inspired by a prayer from: A Place for Prayer. http://revgalprayerpals.blogspot.ca/

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[1] Ephesians 3: 17 – 19 (NRSV)

Breaking down the dividing walls of hostility Ephesians 2: 11 - 22

          In the early years of our marriage, Kevin and I became friends with Bonnie and Seth.  Bonnie and I taught math together at WWH School.  Like Kevin, Seth was a graduate student, with a part-time teaching job in the university math department.  About the same age—in our early 20s, at the same stage of life—married with no children yet, all 4 of us math nerds, we had a lot in common.  Bonnie and Seth were a hoot, and we often hung out together—watching movies, playing games, and sharing meals.  One year, they invited us to share the Seder meal with them at Passover.  Yes—Bonnie and Seth were Jewish.  Because of the close relationship we Gentiles shared with these Jewish friends, it’s a little hard for me to fully understand the barrier of hatred—the dividing wall of hostility—referred to in today’s text.  But 2000 years ago, Jews and Gentiles were not as close as Kevin & I and Bonnie & Seth.

            Near the end of the 1^st century A. D., the Roman empire dominated the known world, in all areas of life.  More than one of the Roman Caesars had been “officially” deified—legally named a god and joined the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods who were worshiped.  Jewish communities thrived in large cities throughout the Roman empire, but the Jews kept to themselves.  They worshiped “the one true God” and believed themselves to be set apart by this God for God’s purposes.  Circumcising their male children, the Jews were bodily set apart.  Avoiding certain taboo foods and strictly adhering to the prescribed manner of preparing their meals, Jews were socially set apart as well.  Into their homes to share their meals and the close camaraderie around their table, Jews invited only other Jews.  They separated themselves from the unclean, unholy Greeks and Romans.  And these Gentiles separated themselves from the clique-ish, fundamentalist Jews.   Centuries of separateness built up animosity and ill-will between the two groups.  This segregation is the “barrier of hatred”—the dividing wall of hostility—that Paul refers to in verse 14. 

            But in the newly-forming Christian communities, Paul sees this barrier of hatred being torn down.  For the good news of Jesus the Christ—received in faith by some Jews in the synagogues Paul visits and received in faith by some Gentiles in the public forums where he speaks—the good news of Jesus the Christ is drawing together individuals from these two hostile groups.  Baptized into the faith and receiving the Holy Spirit, both Jews and Gentiles are meeting together in each other’s homes to worship and to study and to share the table fellowship that will later become what we call the sacrament of Communion.  The peace of Christ is bringing together these who were once separated by hatred.  The peace of Christ is uniting Jews and Gentiles in the house churches in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Colossae and throughout Asia Minor.  Jewish and Gentile Christians are becoming one—one household, one family—the family of God.

            Barriers of hatred, dividing walls of hostility . . .  Have you ever encountered these?  I have. Traveling in Israel in the spring of 2011 with a group of Presbyterians, I was confronted with this wall and its implications.  It is a wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem.  It towered above our bus as we drove through its gate.  The Israelis don’t want tourists to take pictures of it, so we couldn’t stop the bus and stand beside it.  I had to sneak this picture, as the bus traveled, from the side of the bus opposite the guard booth—camera readied in my lap, quick up to my eyes, snap the picture and put the camera away in my bag—pronto.  Not even our guide or driver knew what I was doing.  We had been told—do not take pictures of the wall!  Even now—after 11 months here in Kansas—Olathe, Lenexa, Overland Park, Prairie Village, Kansas City, KS, Kansas City, MO, Leawood, Lee’s Summit—in my mind and to my eyes, they’re all Kansas City.  I don’t know where one ends and the other begins. Houses and other buildings blur the boundaries between the cities. It is sort of like that in Jerusalem.  Houses and buildings and people expand the borders of Jerusalem until . . . it swallows up the land all the way to Bethlehem.  And then, we meet the wall.  The wall separates people—one group separated from another.  The wall adversely affects the economy of Bethlehem. 

            One of the days we visited Bethlehem, we stopped at a shop owned by a Palestinian Christian.  He proudly showed us many items he had to sell and told stories about some of them.  When he finished, he asked us for one thing—only one thing and it wasn’t “please buy something.”  Instead, he asked us to pray—to pray with him there in the shop and continue to pray—to pray for peace in Bethlehem. 

            In terms of text today’s text, he asked us to pray for the peace of Christ that tears down dividing walls of hostility that separate his family from their Jewish neighbors.  And he is confident that God will answer our prayers.  He has hope built on the work of reconciliation Christ has already done—reconciling you and me with God our creator and reconciling those ancient Jewish and Gentile Christians we read about in today’s text.  Through our prayers, the action they will move us to, and the relationships we will form because of them—God will work to break down barriers of hatred in Israel.

            Dividing walls of hostility are not only in the Middle East. What about Berlin and the southern US border and demilitarized zones in Asia?  Dividing walls of hostility don’t just separate ethnicities—Jew from Gentile; Israeli Jew from Palestinian Christian.  What about the dividing walls that separate Catholic from Protestant, conservative from liberal, progressive from fundamentalist?  Dividing walls of hostility are not just physical barriers like the one I saw of concrete and steel and barbed wire.  What about legislation and immigration policies—from South Africa to North America? What about dividing walls built with labels—pro and anti, red-neck and tree-hugger, queer and straight?  Dividing walls of hostility can be erected deliberately or they can be built unintentionally.  As noted in our prayer of confession today, we can inadvertently erect walls with our hasty words that cause conflict and tension.  Dividing walls of hostility are anything

that causes separation between us and others or separation between us and God.  What are the dividing walls of hostility in your life?

            When I became the librarian at SS Elementary, I met J.  Demanding classroom manipulatives—rather than asking for them, insisting on a rigid checkout schedule for her students, and holding onto materials she was no longer using and that others needed, J was not particularly likeable.  From day one, there was a wall between us.  I’m a person who wants to be liked.  And I wanted J to like me.  I wanted to work with her students—teaching them the same skills I was teaching the other students—not just check out books to them once every 2 weeks.  I wanted to share with her ideas and lessons I was receiving from other district librarians and sharing with other SS  Elementary teachers.  But, after each encounter with J, it seemed as if that wall was taller and thicker.  It felt like no matter what I tried, my chisel had not chipped away at any it.  That wall still stood stout. 

            Getting nowhere on my own, I finally I asked God for help with the wall.  One day, before J’s class was scheduled to come to the library, I prayed—that I could get through the next 30 minutes with J without becoming a knot of tension . . . and I did.  The next morning, in my daily devotional time, I prayed for J.  The next day, I prayed for her.  Each day, I prayed for J. I prayed—God, please change J and make her likeable.  Well, I didn’t see any change, but I kept praying.  And somehow, somewhere along the way, my prayers changed.  I began to pray for J’s well-being.  Then I began to pray that God would change me—change my attitude about her and my actions toward her.  It was a big, thick wall.  It didn’t come down quickly.  But one day, after a couple of years, I realized I didn’t bristled when J walked into the library.  I realized I was calm when listening to J. I realized I had genuinely compassion when I talked with her.  After a couple of years I realized my prayers were being answered.  God was changing me.  Over time, the wall between J and me came down.  Oh, she still made demands—of other people—there were still walls around J, but the wall between us had come down.  When she retired, J told me how much she appreciated working with me the last years of her career—how she had felt supported, encouraged, and befriended by me.  

            So there is good news! Christ has broken down the dividing walls of hostility.  Christ is still breaking down those dividing walls.  Christ will continue to break them down.

            Opening our hearts with compassion for others in pain, sorrow, and distress, we help Christ chisel away at the walls of isolation.  Opening our ears and minds to listen and our mouths to engage in respectful sharing, we help Christ chisel away at the walls of intolerance. Communicating directly—“this is what I am thinking;” “here’s what I am feeling;” “this is what I need”—communicating directly helps Christ chisel away at the walls of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misdirection.  With Christ, the walls come down.  His peace fills the space where the walls once stood.

            And here’s even more good news.  When the walls come down, we are not left with a bunch of bricks littering the landscape.  Instead, on the foundation laid by prophets and apostles—whose words we hear and whose actions we see when we read the Bible—and with Christ as the cornerstone, and using God’s love and our grateful response mixed together as the mortar, we bricks are built into something new.  Together, we bricks are built into a community, a space—where God’s spirit dwells.  Together we bricks become a space—I envision a semi-circle—open, inviting, welcoming all who seek—even the demanding Js.  We bricks become a space—like a semi-circle, a diverse family gathered together in a loving embrace—like Bonnie and Seth and Kevin and me all those years ago—laughing and eating and playing together—sharing our lives.  We bricks become a space—like a semi-circle, a community in which people are drawn to the comforting protection, the invigorating fellowship, and the renewing love of Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit.  Through the peace of Christ, divided no more, we come together.

Sermon series: Being in the Family of God--Remember Who You Are . . . Ephesians 1: 3 - 14

       I’m going to give you all a little bit of time to think about how you might answer this question. Who are you?

            Who are you?  In a culture where names have meaning, answering the question with your name may offer insight into your character or into the destiny your parents hope for you.  Names held meaning and power in the ancient Near East. The night before Jacob meets his brother Esau again—the brother he stole his father’s blessing from decades ago—Jacob wrestles with an unknown, possibly divine messenger.  Refusing to give up the struggle, near daybreak Jacob demands a blessing.  The divine messenger responds:  “What is your name?”   Jacob    “No longer will you be called Jacob—which means the one who displaces, unseats, supersedes—but now you will be called  Israel—which means one who struggles with God—for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”[1] Who are you? Jacob would now respond, I am Israel—one who wrestled with and held his own with God Almighty. 

            In the movie, Pulp Fiction, Bruce Willis’ character says, “It’s America, our given names don’t mean anything.”  And that is often true, but our surname reveals something.  It identifies our family.  So in small communities, that last name offers history, connections, respectability.  Who are you? I’m R Lentz.  Oh, the Lentz family—in Wagstaff—I know your homeplace . . . the Presbyterian church was right next to your grandparents’ house. I know your people . . . your grandfather was the one who. . . Your dad owned the . . . your uncle bought the . . . Surnames offer history & connections.

            Who are you?  There was a time when, I would answer something like this: I’m Mari Lyn Whisler; I’m a twirler.  I’m Mari Lyn Whisler, I’m a UT student. I’m Mari Lyn Jones, I’m a math teacher.  In other words, there was a time when my identity was tightly interwoven with what I did.  It was as if I thought I had to earn, I had to do, in order to be.

            Who are you? Very early in the process of discerning whether I was indeed being called by God to ministry of Word and Sacrament—I was asked to reflect on and respond to this question—Who are you?  By then my perception had changed from Who I am is what I do.  So I answered in terms of relationships:  I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a mentor, a sister, a niece, an aunt, a cousin. But first and foremost, I am a beloved child of God.  Yes, familiar with today’s text, I answered using its claim.

            The unspoken question behind today’s scripture is “Who are you?”  And the author boldly and emphatically answers for the Ephesians.  Chosen by God from the beginning of creation, you are children of God.  Singled out for adoption into God’s family, you are heirs to the family inheritance.  You are brothers and sisters to Jesus, your eldest brother.  Receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, you enjoy the down payment of that inheritance.   

            This answer to the question “Who are you?” also tells us something about the God we Christians know in Jesus the Christ.  God, the sovereign creator, “is gracious beyond the wildest reaches of [our] imaginations.”[2] Choosing to be merciful to us—not because of anything we have done or will do or can do to earn his mercy—God pours out God’s love over us—drenching us with grace as if we were standing outside in a Kansas rain shower. 

God does this, because God loves us as if we are flesh of God’s flesh, bone of God’s bone, being of God’s being.

            But sometimes, somehow, we find ourselves in a drought.  With parched throats, we can’t even call on God’s name.  Vision blurring, we see a mirage of empty, endless landscape devoid of the Life-giving One.  Weak from hunger and thirst, we cannot move our hands or knees into a prayer posture.  Sometimes, somehow, we forget . . .

Begin Lion King clip of Simba seeing and hearing Mufasa in the gathering storm clouds above the African plain—“Simba, you have forgotton who you are, so you have forgotten me . . . Remember who you are. Remember. Remember.

            Sometimes, somehow, like Simba we forget who we are. . .  So we look for reminders. Like the family crest in Celtic lands, the royal signet ring in ruling dynasties, or the special locket with our grandparents’ wedding picture inside, God has given us physical reminders—something we can see and hear and feel to remind us who we are and to whom we belong.  We see the baptismal font—filled with water, and we remember baptisms.  We see the water, we hear it splashing, we feel its wet, cool touch, and we remember baptisms.  We remember Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River and God’s voice, “This is my beloved son.  In him I am well-pleased.”[3] We remember what happens in our baptism—in the waters of our baptism we die to sin and rise to new life in Christ.  Washed in the water, we are made clean.  The pastor says, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Claimed by God in the waters of our baptism, we are a new creation.  In the presence of the gathered community and with their promises to teach us the faith, we are adopted into God’s family and enter into the community of faith.  In our faith-droughts, symbols like the baptismal font, the prayers and music of worship, the scripture read and proclaimed—these  combine to reminds us of our baptism. They combine to remind us who we are and whose we are. 

            This text says we are children of God—children—plural. The language “is not individualistic.  As beloved as we are, we are lifted up into something far greater than ourselves.  We are blessed in Christ, we are chosen in Christ, we are destined for adoption through Christ.  In Christ we have obtained our inheritance, and our hope is set on Christ.”[4] This freely given gift of Christ “is not an individual blessing but always [one meant] for the community of Christ.”[5]

            From the beginning of creation, God has been at work to draw those created in his image to close, familial relationship with God.  Covenanting with Abraham, God promised that through his family, all families of the earth would be blessed.  Using Abraham’s descendents to weave the tapestry of law and covenant that we call the Jewish faith, God prepared the foundation for the fulfillment of the law and the prophets—God’s son, Jesus the Christ.  As Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, “It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.”[6] God’s good plan destines us Christians not only for the privilege of being in God’s family but more importantly for the responsibility that kinship engenders. What is that responsibility? Discipleship—molding our lives to the form of Christ’s life.  Sitting with our gravely ill friend; putting gas in an itinerant worker’s car; stocking the food pantry; visiting a home-bound person; taking a meal to a recently released patient; sharing worship at a care home; providing a family with clothes after loss of their home; teaching our children the stories of our faith; preparing our worship & sacraments; enjoying our young people.  These are all acts of discipleship—specific tasks of serving God and neighbor.  It is in our serving that we live out our destiny.  We are blessed to be a blessing.

             “Who are you?” Chosen by God from the beginning of creation, we are children of God.  Adopted into God’s family, we are heirs with his Son, Jesus the Christ.  Receiving the Holy Spirit, we are assured of our place in God’s family.  Whose are we?  We are God’s—His “grace in Jesus Christ precedes us, surrounds us, and sustains us.”[7]

            Remember who you are.  Remember whose you are. 

            Using the opening words of “The Heidelberg Catechism,” one of the confessions found in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions, please join me in responding.

            One:  What is your only comfort in life and death? 

            Many:  That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus the Christ.[8] 

            Amen.

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[1] Genesis 32: 28 NRSV

[2] George W. Stroup. “Ephesians 1: 3 – 14:  Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word, Year B. volume 3.  Edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor.  Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p. 232.

[3] Matthew 3:17 NRSV

[4] Karen Chakoian. “Ephesians 1: 3 – 14:  Pastoral Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word, Year B. vol. 3.  Edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor.  Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p. 232, 234.

[5] Chakoian, 234.

[6] Ephesians 1:11, The Message

[7] Stroup, 234.

[8] “Heidelberg Catechism”  The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Part 1:  The Book of Confessions, 4.001

My Grace is Sufficient 2 Corinthians 12: 1 - 10

            As a child, to escape the heat of the southeast Texas summer afternoons, I watched old movies on “The Saturday Matinee” TV show.  These were mostly westerns from the 1940s; you probably remember them, the actors who starred in them, and their recurring characters. My favorites starred Roy Rogers and sometimes Dale Evans.  Roy and Dale always did the right thing.  Oh, sometimes circumstances may have conspired to put them in a pickle, but their motives and actions and words were always good. 

            Come to think of it, my earliest memories of Bible heroes are similar.  Because of his strong and pure faith in God, David bravely faced and fought the Philistine giant, Goliath.  From a burning bush, when God called Moses to free God’s people, Moses responded by leading them through the parted waters of the Red Sea.  Through a miraculous encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul’s energies and passions were re-directed, and his life was completely turned around.  No longer Saul, who persecuted Christ’s followers, he became Paul, who founded and nurtured churches throughout Asia Minor.  Such surface-level introductions to these Bible heroes present people who, like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, seem too good to be true, role models we cannot possibly imitate.  

            While it’s inspiring to hear stories of pure faith, unhesitating response to God’s call, and dramatic conversions, often, what we really need are examples of faith tinted with fear and doubt; examples of hesitant, questioning response to God’s call; examples of long, winding paths to conversion.  We don’t need models of perfection which we cannot achieve.  What we need are heroes, just as human as we are, whose flawed responses to God are still faithful.

            So, as we grow and develop in our faith, we learn about the adult David, anointed by God to be king but hiding from King Saul and fearing for his life.  As we grow and develop in faith, we learn about Moses’ initial response to God’s call—“Lord, I can’t speak in public; get someone else.  The Hebrew slaves won’t follow me; get someone else.  Pharaoh won’t listen to me; get someone else.” As we grow and develop in faith, reading Paul’s letters we meet a sometimes bitter and regretful apostle.  As we come to know these Biblical heroes in all their humanity, then we begin to see that we, too, can be faithful disciples. 

            In between Paul’s founding the Corinthian church and his writing this letter, he left Corinth to found new churches in Macedonia.  New missionaries arrive in Corinth.  Through innuendo, they challenge both Paul and his teachings.  This creates a rift between him and the Corinthian church.  In earlier chapters of 2 Corinthians, reading between the lines, we hear how Paul is pierced by the church’s defection to these new missionaries.  Reading between the lines, we hear him question their integrity.  We don’t have to read between the lines to hear his anger at the missionaries.  He sarcastically refers to them as super-apostles because they have set themselves up as better than he, smarter than he, purer than he, more devoted than he.  He responds with his own one-upmanship.  And that’s where we are when we begin our reading today.  Paul is bragging—bragging about his miraculous, heavenly vision—which of course places him in a league of his own—far outpacing these super-apostles and any encounter with God’s presence they might have experienced.  Then somehow, in the telling of this story, Paul remembers.  He remembers that not only did he have a heavenly vision which elevated him, but he also suffered from a weakness which pulled him down.  Asking God to release him from this “thorn in the body,”[1] Paul heard, “My grace is enough.  It’s all you need.”[2]  God’s answer restrains Paul from getting all puffed-up and setting himself apart from the people he serves.

            In the midst of his emotional, biting response to the Corinthians’ rejection, Paul remembers.  He stops and shares this “thorn in the side”[3] which he still bears.  Now we don’t know what exactly he refers to.  And it doesn’t matter what it was.  What matters is that Paul acknowledges his weakness, making himself vulnerable to the Corinthians.  It is in this vulnerability that God can and will reconcile the Corinthian church with Paul.

            “My grace is enough; it’s all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”  We live in a culture that tells us to be independent—not to ask for anything from anybody.  That’s the culture we live in.  But, as members of the Christian community, the church, we are called to live counter-to-the culture.  At times, we are called to be like Paul here—making ourselves vulnerable. Your leaders are making ourselves vulnerable.  We are asking for your help in doing the mission of this church—proclaiming God’s good news and sharing God’s love in order to change lives.  We are asking your help in growing faithful disciples through worship and study.  We are asking your help in welcoming people into relationships with each other and with God.  Your leaders, like Paul, are making ourselves vulnerable—acknowledging we are not the church, and we cannot be the church without you! Committing your Time, Talents, and Energy, you partner with your leaders and with God to form the strong, loving, faithful church God wants us to be. 

            Making ourselves vulnerable . . . You may feel vulnerable as you respond to the Time, Talents, and Energy survey.  You enjoy being around our 5^th and 6^th graders, but you wonder if your ideas of fun will be fun for a youth fellowship?  Never fear—planning the group’s activities, youth and leaders will discover fun together.  You’ve never played hand-bells before, so you wonder if this newly forming hand-bell choir will embrace a novice? You bet—Jeanette tells me there are already novices in the group! You want to know how our Christian faith is relevant today, but you wonder if your questions be welcomed in a small group study? Yes because questions guide the discussion! You love to sing the old hymns, but visiting a nursing home to share worship is outside your comfort zone.  Guess what, comfort comes in practice.  You wonder if  our committees really want someone new to join their work?  You bet they do; not only do they want you, they need your fresh perspective, your new ideas, your energy your enthusiasm.  We may feel vulnerable committing our Time, Talents and Energy to the life of the church, but God will use each of our commitments to build the strong, loving, faithful church God wants us to be.

            You may wonder, “Do I have to be perfect at what I volunteer to do?”  Tina, George, Richard, and Marie were recruited to be the Inviting and Welcoming team at their church.  None of them had a gift for placing names with faces, but each of them remembered the warm reception they had received as they visited and then joined this congregation.  So, each Sunday 2 of them stand at the 2 doors to welcome folks as they enter and 2 more stroll the aisles striking up brief conversations with visitors then introducing them to members.  They may have to ask someone’s name again in the introduction.  They may forget whether they’re talking to a 1^st time visitor or a repeat visitor or even a new member. They aren’t perfect hosts.  But God uses their enthusiasm and their sincere, warm welcome to ease visitors into the worship and fellowship, the study and service of their particular congregation.

            We live in a culture that tells us to be independent—to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.  That’s the culture we live in.  But, as members of the Christian community, the church, we are called to live counter-to-the culture.  Moses told God “I can’t speak in public,” so God gave him Aaron—who handled the negotiations with Pharaoh.  It is in sharing what we cannot do or what we do not have that we receive.  It is in asking for help—in being weak—that we find ourselves strengthened.  Here’s the paradox of our weakness is God’s strength.  In the body of the Christ, the church, when we ask for help, we are also offering help to others.  Responding to my need your talent is revealed—a talent that strengthens the church.  I may need to publicize an upcoming event.  Asking for help, I learn you wrote for your college newspaper and can professionally craft the persuasive, interesting, newsworthy article.  Your talent for effective communication is revealed.  Did you know the giver is strengthened by the receiver’s gracious response?  In our weakness, God’s strength is revealed.

            We live in a culture that tells us to be independent—to just get over it and move on.  That’s the culture we live in.  But, as members of the Christian community, the church, we are called to live counter-to-the culture.  We are called to acknowledge our pain, to reveal—not to hide—our suffering.  “My grace is enough; it’s all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”[4]  God’s answer to Paul is a reminder that the Christ who suffered and died on the cross suffers with each one of us.  It is a reminder that the God through whom Christ was raised from the dead has ultimate power over anything we face. We are called to acknowledge our pain, so that our siblings in Christ can share our suffering with us.  Together, we will be strong enough to walk through the dark valleys.

            No model of perfection, Paul was all-too-human.  And in his all-too-human response to the Corinthians’ rejection, he offers a realistic faith role-model.  God used this all-too-human Paul to found and build up the early churches and through his letters—which we read in the Bible—to nurture churches even now 2,000 years later.  Like Paul, we can live fully for Christ and work for God’s purposes in the world—not expecting perfection from ourselves or others, not giving up when we fail—but hoping with assurance that God is using our weaknesses to illumine God’s great strength.  Knowing that God’s grace is sufficient frees us to hope and dream, to work and play, to live and love.  Knowing that God’s grace is sufficient frees us to be faithful disciples of Christ. 

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[1] 2 Corinthians 12: 7 (Common English Bible)

[2] 2 Corinthians 12: 9 (The Message)

[3] 2 Corinthians 12: 7 (NRSV)

[4] 2 Corinthians 12: 9 (The Message)

Communion: What is it? Luke 9: 10 – 17; Luke 24: 28 – 31

            Today is the 1^st Sunday this summer when our children might remain with us throughout the worship service, and today we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  So, this week, I have been thinking about my own experiences of the Lord’s Supper from childhood until now.  I grew up Southern Baptist.  We did not celebrate the Lord’s Supper; we observed it.  It was not considered a sacrament—a visible sign of an invisible grace bestowed by God.  Instead it was called an ordinance—an act of obedience–responding to Christ’s command to “do this in remembrance of me.”  At our Baptist Church, we observed the Lord’s Supper once a quarter, at our evening worship—which was attended by about ½ the number of people who came on Sunday mornings. The table was open only to members of our congregation.  I remember one Sunday evening the pastor preached about having “to be right with God” before taking the bread and juice.  Otherwise we “ate and drank judgment against ourselves.”  He made a reference to knowing someone who had observed the Lord’s Supper without examining her life and who was now suffering ill health.  My beloved Sunday School teacher had recently been

diagnosed with kidney disease and had begun dialysis.  The pastor’s example seemed to point to her.  That Lord’s Supper sermon combined with our evening, members-only observances painted a picture in my mind that depicted the Lord’s Supper as dark—almost threatening, as somber—almost sad, and as exclusive—leaving some people out.  As a child, I did not look forward to the Lord’s Supper.

             Like many young people, when I left my hometown to go to college, I left practicing my faith behind.  A few years later, when Kevin and I first started talking about getting married, we made a vow—we would worship regularly together.  So Catholic-reared Kevin and Baptist-reared Mari Lyn began to seek a church home.  When we visited Faith Presbyterian Church in south Austin, nothing seemed extraordinary. Some people said “hello” to us when we coasted in right before worship began.  Some of the songs were familiar-ish, fairly easy to learn.  The pastor was soft-spoken and had a kind presence.  But nothing was extraordinary—until the pastor stood behind the Lord’s Table and spoke the words of invitation.  It seemed like he was looking right at me—sitting in the very back of the sanctuary.  It felt like he was speaking straight to me when he said these words. “This table does not belong to Faith Presbyterian Church.  Nor does it belong to the Presbyterian denomination.  This table belongs to Jesus the Christ.  He is the host.  He invites anyone who wants to know him better to come and be a part of this feast which he has prepared.”  An open Communion table, a joyful celebration, an abundant feast—this is what I was being invited to participate in.  But how could that be?  It was like these Presbyterians had a different perspective on the Lord’s Supper.

            What is the Presbyterian perspective on the Lord’s Supper?  First and foremost it is a sacrament—a visible sign of an invisible grace.  We see, we hear, we touch, we taste, we smell the bread and the cup.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, through these visible, tangible elements we experience God’s grace. 

            We use several different terms to refer to this sacrament. And each term reminds us of something we believe about the sacrament.  “The Lord’s Supper” reminds us that we are fed at this table. Everyone ate until they were full.[1] Just as all of the crowd was fed in 1^st our scripture reading today, all of us are fed at the table.  Our minds, our bodies, our spirits, and our emotions are nourished in this sacrament. And the disciples filled twelve baskets with the leftovers.[2]  The grace we receive here is abundant.  We do not go home hungry.  No need to build a fence around this table, for there is plenty for all.  Fed at this table, we are sent out renewed and ready to work for God’s justice in the world here and now.

            According to dictionary.com, “communion” —with a little c—is an act of sharing or holding in common;[3]  Communion connotes unity derived from intimacy.  When we refer to this sacrament as Communion—with a capital c—we recognize that when we share the one bread and drink from the one cup, we are spiritually united with one another.  John Calvin wrote that at the table, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are spiritually transported to the throne of grace where we meet Christ.  Like the 2 disciples who traveled that road to Emmaus, when we come to the table—in the breaking of the bread—we meet Christ.  Together, we are brought into his presence.  Together, we commune with him.

            Our own Lord’s Table has the words “This do in remembrance of me” carved into it.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels, eating the Passover meal with his disciples, Jesus blesses bread, breaks it and then tells them to eat it remembering him.  This sacrament is a “Remembrance.”  We remember the mighty acts of God which reveal that God created us, God loves us, and God continually draws us close to God.[4]  This sacrament is a remembrance.  We remember Jesus—his life, his death, and his resurrection. 

            In remembering the freely given grace of Jesus that reconciles us with God, we respond with gratitude.  With thanksgiving for God’s abundant love, with thanksgiving for Christ’s amazing grace, with thanksgiving for the transformation the Holy Spirit provides in our lives, we respond to Christ’s invitation to the table. In our Words of Institution, the Greek word used for giving thanks is eucharistia— “Eucharist”  thanksgiving.

            We give thanks for what has been done for us—for our salvation—the already.  And we give thanks for what will be done for us—the not yet. Luke says, “people will come from east and west and north and south to eat in the kingdom of God.”[5] The Lord’s Supper is a foretaste of the feast we will share with all God’s children when God’s justice is fully realized on earth.  The Lord’s Supper is a foretaste of the great banquet we will share when Christ comes again.

            Prepared by the reading and the proclamation of the word of God, hungry for Christ’s presence, united in love, remembering God’s mighty acts; with gratitude, and in joyful expectation, we come to the table.  We come to the table over and over again because we need to be fed.  We come to the table over and over again because we need to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to smell Jesus.  We come to the table over and over again because we need to know how much we are loved.  We come to the table over and over again because we need to remember who we are and to whom we belong.  We come to the table over and over again because we need to give thanks. We come to the table over and over again because we are needy.  And here, at the table, our needs are met by God’s ever-abundant love.

            To his disciples, Jesus said, “Allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them, because God’s kingdom belongs to people like these children. I assure you that whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will [not] enter it.”[6]  To experience God’s reign, God’s rule, we must become child-like—open to the wonder of God’s gifts, eager to receive, and trusting.  One Sunday morning when the pastor concluded the invitation to the table with “Come, all is ready,” 5 year-old Matt came running down the aisle.  He broke off a big piece of bread and dunked it into the cup.  Juice flowing down his arms, he lifted his hand to his face and bit off some of the now purple, wet bread.  Juice ran down his chin.  With a front-row seat, my initial reaction was a sharp intake of breath and a frown over the spectacle Matt was making.  Then, with a smile on her face, our pastor said, “Praise God,” and I realized what I was seeing.  Little Matt understood.  In this sacrament, God is offering us the most valuable gift, so Matt ran to receive it.  God’s love is abundant, so Matt took a big piece of bread.  Jesus’ grace covers us, so Matt soaked his bread in juice and let it run down his face and neck and hand and arm.  What was I seeing?  A picture of the Lord’s Supper—a much different picture from the one painted for me as a child at the Baptist Church.  What was I seeing? A picture of God’s ever-abundant love, God’s freely-offered gift of grace, and the eager, joyful anticipation of gratefully receiving it.  My hope is that all of us will always receive this sacrament like little Matt.  Amen.

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[1] Luke 9: 17 (Common English Bible)

[2] Luke 9: 17 (Common English Bible)

[3] Dictionary.com  at <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/communion?s=t> visited 2012-06-29.

[4] (“Directory for Worship,” in the Book of Order: the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church USA, Part II.  W—2.4003)

[5] Luke 13: 29 (New Revised Standard Version)

[6] Luke 18: 16 – 17 (Common English Bible)