Out in the wild

May 18, 2018

The writer John Eldridge, in Waking the Dead: The Secret to a Heart Fully Alive points out that out in the wild, hyenas -- the natural enemy of lions -- cannot take down a lion in its prime.

What they do is run it...they taunt it, and wear it down. 

They get the lion to a point of exhaustion.  

Then, when they see it cannot defend itself, they close in.

Out in the world we live in, we, too, have an enemy...the one whom Jesus describes as a "thief, who comes only to kill, steal, and destroy" our joy and fullness of life. 

Like lions, we, too, are attacked by an enemy -- an adversary. 

Our enemy are the evil sprits who are opposed to God's Holy and Life-giving Spirit.  

The strategy of our enemy is similar to the hyenas' strategy: to take us out. Our enemy wants to keep us from bearing the fruits of Holy Spirit in our lives -- in other words, to keep us from practicing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in our daily life.

But our enemy cannot take us down in our prime. When we are rested, and when we are resting in God, things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control grow naturally in our lives. 

So the enemy adopts a similar strategy to the hyenas. 

Run us. Taunt us. Wear us down. 

Get us to a point of exhaustion. 

And so the enemy of our day and time is to engage us in a spirit of hurry. Of busy driven-ness. 

As Eldridge points out, ask people "how's it going?" Nine out of ten people will respond, "really busy." 

The strategy of our enemy is to keep us running that way: to "get us to the point where we never take care of our hearts or pay attention to our spirit. 

"Burn them out, and then take them out."

So, as we prepare for Pentecost Sunday -- the giving of God's Holy Spirit to us -- let's pause and ask ourselves, "how rested are we?" 

"How much do we rely on God, and how much do we rely on self?" 

"How often do you do what you need to do to be filled with Holy Spirit?"

And by the way: If you hear some mocking, sneering voice saying, "are you crazy?!? How unrealistic! How selfish to ask such questions!" please hear that voice as the same voice that accused, mocked, and belittled the first people who were filled with Holy Spirit that first Pentecost.  

That voice comes only to "kill, steal, and destroy." 

Holy Spirit comes that you may have life, and have it to the fullest. 

See you Sunday, 

John

A Past, Present, and Future God

May 11, 2018

This Sunday is an unusual Sunday in the church year.

To quote Inigo Montoya, "Let me explain. No -- there is too much. Let me sum up." 

As you know, the church year 

• starts in Advent, and that's a four-week season of joyfully anticipating

• Christmas Day, when we celebrate the incarnation (taking-on-of-flesh) of God in the birth of Jesus, and we celebrate God's presence among us in the person of Jesus....

• during the 12-day season of Christmas, ending on...

• Epiphany, when God's presence among us in the person of Jesus is revealed to the wider world, symbolized by the visit of the Magi, and the season of Epiphany ends with

• Ash Wednesday and the beginning of 

• the 40-day season of Lent, which ends with...

• Holy Week's observances of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, when we commemorate God's presence among us in the person of Jesus being betrayed, crucified, and dying...which brings us to...

• Easter Sunday, a celebration of God's resurrecting Jesus in bodily form and being among us again in resurrected bodily form

• for a 40-day period, ending with...

• Ascension Day, which falls on the 40th day of Easter, a day on which we commemorate Jesus' bodily ascension into the heavenlies...

then there's usually the 7th Sunday of Easter -- which is this Sunday* -- and then Easter Season ends with...

• The Day of Pentecost, celebrated 50 days after Easter Sunday, and is a celebration of the day God sent Holy Spirit to us, which starts...

• the long season of Pentecost, when we learn how we, filled with Holy Spirit, continue being the Body of Christ on earth in our everyday lives, a season which runs all Summer and Fall ends with..

• Advent...

• ...and we start all over! 

The reason I had to kind of geek out on the church year there was to show why *this Sunday is unusual. 

In the church year, this is a Sunday AFTER Jesus' being among us in resurrected bodily form -- he's ascended into the heavenlies -- but it is BEFORE Holy Spirit has been sent to us. 

Freeze-frame this moment in the church year, and it's a time when we no longer know (can't see, touch, eat with, listen to) God in Jesus in person any more, but we don't yet know (haven't yet experienced) God in the coming of Holy Spirit.

Which is why the Collect for this Sunday is so great. It captures the past, present, and future sense of this Sunday so concisely: 

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Or as the Eucharistic prayer puts it,

We remember his death; we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory.

God is a god of not only the past, but of the present, and of the future.

And that means ours is a past, present, and future faith!

See you Sunday,

John 

Is Christianity Prose? or Poetry?

May 4, 2018

In this past Sunday's sermon, I invited you to think about the difference between a battery and an extension cord.  I asked what difference it would make in your life if you thought of yourself less as a battery "feeling drained" and in need of "recharging," and more of an "unplugged" extension cord in need of being "tapped into" or "abiding in the limitless source of love, joy, peace, patience, and generosity: the power of God. 

Now I invite you to think about the difference between prose and poetry.

Many of you were here three Sundays ago when our guest adult forum speaker Rabbi Danny Zemel spoke.

One of the things Rabbi Zemel said was that while he loved the Jewish liturgy -- the prayers recited in worship -- he disliked the way those prayers were presented on paper.

Jewish prayers, like much of Holy Scripture -- were written as poetry, not prose.

But, in order to save space and paper, when those prayers (and much of our scripture) gets laid out or presented on paper, we warp poetry into prose.

And unfortunately, whenever you turn poetry into prose, you disfigure it; you damage it.

What is wrong with a lot of Christianity has to do with Christians' tendencies over the centuries (and in our own day) to turn the poetry of Scripture and Jesus' life and teachings and our creeds into prose, until that which originated as wild, original, mysterious, expansive poetry has been degenerated into domesticated, repetitive, predictable and limited prose. 

But as I hope to explore further on Sunday, 

Part of our calling as Christians in 2018

is to rediscover 

the wildness, 

originality, 

mysteriousness, 

and expansiveness 

of God's Holy and Life-giving Word 

as that Word 

is most fully revealed 

in the Body of Christ: 

Jesus,

and you and me. 

See what I mean? 

See you Sunday, 

John