"A New Wardrobe;" Sermon for December 27th, 2015 by Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

Sometimes sentimentality can go overboard… You come to learn this once you begin the arduous task of moving! Clothing can be the biggest culprit for we find ourselves saving clothes we can’t fit a quarter of ourselves into any more purely as both a reminder and guilt trip to lose weight or we keep them to keep ourselves into the past, a past we seemingly can’t let go of…

Moving is all about change and it requires our undivided attention and obedience. It also requires a lot of spiritual and physical discipline as well as, most importantly, HOPE!  Hope can be so much of the discipleship journey’s levee upon our calling but at times daunting to keep on, keeping on!  Another Christmas has past but is its message opening up a new door in our hearts? Is the coming of Christ into our world encouraging us to put something new on?  Not just putting on new shoes to guide our feet down a new path but donning a whole new wardrobe…

A wardrobe all about that great light breaking not only into the darkness of the world but into that chasm of the soul needing the most light! God will always be opening those doors; it is only Satan working through our stumbling blocks that close them.  Someone was teasing me, the other day in a very dark and sarcastic way by saying that the flooding and awful weather in Oregon was for my behalf… Yikes!  I certainly don’t believe that yet alone want to join in the humor of that.

There have been many deaths and closed doors on my spiritual formation journey as a disciple of Jesus.  I, however am not unique for we all have our challenges laid before us.  We feel the pain of it throughout our “being” BUT God sees and knows far greater and His Saving Grace keeps that eternal flame of Hope going whether we can handle it or not.  The life given to us by God the Father, is not at all to be of formalities and routines as we have unfortunately burdened the original joyful purpose of life to be.

The original joyful purpose of life is that Word—Joy which in the Biblical Greek as mentioned before shares the same or similar meaning to Grace. Living into Grace requires us to put on that New Wardrobe… We are funny about clothing though aren’t we?  98% of my wardrobe is about comfort, I have far too many t-shirts and way too many pairs of jeans and a slowly growing collection of vestments!  Does that betray a one-track mind? Being human, we find our niches but fight tooth and nail when we have to be pried out of them!

And sometimes the prying bar God uses to help us spiritually grow is painful! But think about how wonderful it can be when you allow yourself to completely change!  What are you really missing from your past anyway? Of course it’s always going to be stored somewhere… because we can’t let go of the Old Nature…  It’s there as both the devil’s advocate as well as God’s leverage for teaching us true wisdom.  Speaking for myself, God is telling me over and over to give Illinois another chance…. Which whether or not I am struggling with that, I must open my heart to HEAR His Words.

Being children of Grace and promise challenges us to see inward change as the beautiful redeeming light of God reaping that New Nature so beautifully planted by Christ Jesus, the Lord.  Who we are today and who we will become tomorrow is how the Word lives on within us, through us and for His Gospel. For as the Gospel writer John paints so powerfully: “¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

This Gospel snippet is not from today’s Gospel but says something powerful about what words do shape us. Are we or should we still claim to be a culture or society that is shaped by God’s Word?  I don’t think that we are anymore. For the many things we surround ourselves with feed everything but the soul to serve God’s will. We were chosen but not in the way we assume being “chosen” to mean in God’s plans for us.

Donning that New wardrobe is radical and beautiful.  St. Paul uses such encouraging words to reach out to the Colossians in this regard, he says: “¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

What does compassion look like for you?  Where does it take root in the story of your journey to serving God & neighbor?  Is it serving at church or something as simple as emptying out an old closet of clothes donating them as a belated Christmas gift to the needy? Well a lot of those ‘80’s/ ‘90’s style mini skirt dresses as well as those numerous coats went to the Salvation Army that ironically had dust atop the hangers in my closet from not being worn just kept! This is trivial but life is not. Life is what you make it to be and is even more promising when God’s voice is heard in the heart & opens up those doors…

Compassion and Love are the light of God shining brightly in this dark world.  This light is strong enough to shine over and above “Black Christmas” protestors, political circus debaters and ISIS put together when we rebuild from within. The Peace of God that surpasses all understanding will be something we WILL truly know once we are intentionally obedient to allowing Christ to work within and through us.

Kindness will no longer be the stranger to our hearts once we grow beyond ourselves and into God’s plans.  How can we be kind if everything is about us and what we want or need?  This is from the ruler of this world’s intentions for us.  No person is an island unto themselves whether we occasionally enjoy that unholy gospel of “I, Me & Mine,” or not.  It is in the little things we think are “trivial” that reveal the beauty of God’s Grace active in our lives.

Humility and patience is something Satan greatly challenges us to avoid for if we indulge in that world unto the self—why be humble to anyone yet alone harbor and build understanding that requires time? God has always challenged me to grow into patience for my sin is still seeing the glass half-empty and wondering when it will be refilled. Instead of wondering and waiting, BE and DO—this is the Heart knowledge wisdom Christ Jesus is trying to teach me!

There’s a few more days left now that my husband & I have to completely clear out of our old apartment.  Each and every time we go back in there, another memory floods in. You still see all the furniture where you had it even pieces you’ve already given away. You see the areas on the carpet your cats loved rolling on.  You can’t seem to help still seeing the stains and scars of a few years stay in a small, far northwest suburban townhome in the Chicagoland area. They will always be with you but they don’t have to rule you. We do move on as the days move forward, our years collect and our days and seasons change.

But just like those clothes we wore as teenagers, they’re out-grown, over-grown in fact when we realize, beautifully discover we are to wear something truly New! The coming of Christ into our world and into our lives isn’t something we should just say happened 2,000 something years ago but something that continually renews daily in our lives as Grace.

Let us pray,

Gracious and Loving Father,

Help our hearts be shaped by Your Word

For Your Word brought us life and renews our lives daily

May we spiritually grow to don the wardrobe of compassion, love, kindness, patience and humility

May we truly be and become a worthy priesthood

Living faithfully into each twist and turn

Our paths before us reveal—Your Gospel imperative, true purpose for us all

For it is through Your saving Grace we have New life

Amen

December 27th, 2015; First Sunday of Christmas; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon by Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins

Psalm 111; Exodus 13:1-3, 11-15; Colossians 3:12-17 & Luke 2:22-40

Finally the link to the sermon being delivered at the 2nd Grace Hub house church service at its new location in Wheeling, Illinois! :
https://youtu.be/Hjj-gjCJfe0

"Soulful Witness;" Sermon for December 20th, 2015 by Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine or think about that the Gospel writer St. Luke was actually a travelling co-church planter with St. Paul…  He in some ways has become a legend with several speculations about what he did in historical times.  Some accounts say that he was a Physician others say that he was the artist responsible for inspiring the famous painting of Jesus in St. Catherine of Sienna’s monastery called the “Mount Sinai Jesus.”

How God’s Word speaks to us, works through us is amazing but we don’t take enough time to think about that…  That Sinai painting is the one painting of Jesus that for me truly and spiritually represents Jesus.  It was the one image that I always have to have hung by my bedside to have watching over me and that is the first thing I see that makes my soul rejoice and declare: “See, God, I have come to DO Your will!”  That movie about the little boy meeting Jesus and describing the painting another little girl did is in the same category.  Though the Jesus in that film looks like the “Barry Manilow” Jesus in my opinion but this is what those two children were inspired to see.

Speaking of inspiration, I don’t know about you but I think one of the first questions I’m going to ask Jesus when I get to heaven is: “Ok, what really happened in the Book of Acts?”  And Jesus will point to a cloud and say: “Sit back and relax, it’s a long story…”  St. Luke is an amazing testament to how he painted the story of Jesus coming into our world.  He technically had no eye-witness account at all to what actually had happened BUT the Holy Spirit gave his soul a witness to proclaim, and let me tell you, what a witness!  He very brilliantly captured, brought together St. Peter’s eyewitness and his own heart’s conviction of Jesus together to truly tell the story of Jesus to inspire disciples everywhere in the wilderness of the Gentile world!

Mary the Mother of Our Lord or as the Orthodox would say the Theotokos, was like Luke an ordinary person that God chose indiscriminately to “DO His Will.” Elizabeth was just her cousin another average person who would bore Christ’s coming into the world’s herald: John the Baptist.  A voice of defiance, BOLD witness who heard God’s voice to his heart that he needed to get people to prepare the Way of the Lord!

Both women were witnesses to God’s extraordinary work in our lives.  The baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaped with joy.  Joy is another Word that in just hearing it on one level we think of desire and of pleasure…  But that is our human nature to do so.  Joy in the context of speaking about God literally means GRACE.  The Biblical Greek basically has both words sharing the same understanding.  Isn’t that amazing?  And truly I am sharing all of this information not to be an “intellectual Pez dispenser of Biblical knowledge;” I share it in order to open the ears of Your soul to deeply discern the meaning of that revelation.

Verses 46 & 47 are amazing when you think about it…  The soul is the seat of life granted, created by God to us for we are His children of Grace and promise!  Promise for the Lord knows we have a hard time listening to Him; but He still is working on us to lay down the Old Nature that naturally rules us to beautifully spiritually be shaped to see sacrifice and offering in a completely profound mind blowing way!

How do we understand sacrifice and offering today?  I think its original, Godly purpose has been destroyed by our justifying sin.  We have intellectually usurped the Gospel to answer and justify our political, social and economic “justice” over the freely responsible servanthood the Gospel calls for us to BE and willingly DO.  We have allowed this to not only deny the peace of God to rule in our hearts and actions (Shalom) but we have willfully and defiantly responded with gracelessness.

Just take in a few days of the news… protests, demanded firings, educational strikes, raising taxes, political circus performances and what not during the most important time of year for us all… God coming into our world!  The story, His continuing work in our ever-growing IN-gratitude for all that was GIVEN freely to us!  How awful and frankly disturbing… but here is where we are 2,000 something years later after the profound entry of Christ Jesus into our lives.

And it is hard to find “Joy” yet alone Grace in the world right now…  ISIS’ rising and latest activities prove how the ruler of the world is moving through his minions.  Satan’s rise is something we’ve been turning an indifferent eye to for it is the season to shop and be “politically-correct” about the “holidays” lest we offend one another. It’s NOT about us, but that’s where its at.

It’s hard to find peace when there is too much of the “worldly ways” not only acting as stumbling blocks but robbing our hearts to KNOW God’s peace.  There has been no peace, not much anyway and when you look at those boxes holding your ornaments, a tree parts just sitting there collecting dust in your living room.  There is a deep sadness in wondering about it all and expecting… but not as God is hoping for you to see or do. 

It’s been nearly four years since my husband & I put up our Christmas tree.  The last time was right after we lost our house and moved up to Mundelein for me to finish seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity school.  Quite a contrast though in circumstances—out of tragedy, we willingly chose to see Christ’s love, calming peace and Grace restore us—He shined upon both of our hearts a new beginning!

This year is no different… out of political motivations and evil indifference I was robbed of my first solo church call as well as I lost the position due to this call at Great Lakes as the CREDO Chaplain.  My heart is still broken on some levels especially if I allow myself to dwell on the evil I “eye-witnessed” and spiritually felt trying to drag me down…. BUT we were blessed by friends to find a new apartment here in Wheeling, to painfully and slowly move into a New Beginning. 

It is a wilderness, much like St. Luke and St. Paul’s wilderness journey into planting churches, building disciples and whatnot but it is through the sacrifice and offering of Christ that renews and restores us to carry on! God is with us—He is that great and glorious star—the main event in our center/ core of being the soul.  And if I can’t carry on; I would be letting the world rule my soul and spiritually wither and die!

I recently have been spiritually immersed in my tasks as a Franciscan postulant; the most recent being to study and spiritually ponder upon a Nativity scene… Christmases from long ago bring both tears of joy and sadness in remembering those days of innocence and remembering my grandparents’ wonderful Christmas tree and a giant under the tree Nativity set.  In the frenzy of moving I recently came across some wonderful close up pictures of it and then packed them up… I can’t find the box right now… lol, C’est La Vie!  BUT my heart has the image and the moment embedded upon me.

That white Christmas tree with the blue and gold ornaments and lights and this huge bulky wooden set surrounded by handmade painted ceramic sculptures of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the animals and yes the Wise men.  My family was marginally Roman Catholic at best and didn’t know about or practiced that the Wise men should be put out on the Day of Epiphany…  But hey, just now Biblical and historical scholars debated and decided that there were probably a dozen or more of “wise men” from a variety of areas from the East.

That Nativity set was sadly lost several years ago when my grandparents’ old house’s basement flooded with a collapsed sewer problem…  Most of the basement was destroyed by the flood in the late 70’s, their tree, their 1960’s “Rob and Laura Petrie style” furniture and many memories of dancing and running around in the basement to Ramsey Lewis’ ‘Sound of Christmas’ album from 1961.

That Nativity set brought joy and hope to then an innocent child who had no clue what kind of promise their lives would be striving to live for yet alone the peace of Christ Jesus who does indeed surpass all understanding! But who are we living for if we can’t live for God, sacrifice for Him? He, who gave us LIFE and soul to paint His Gospel imperative into the future for the whole world to be RESTORED and renewed for a Godly righteousness not a worldly one!

Let us Pray—

Gracious Lord,

May we come to Know the peace You bring

And truly rejoice in the Grace You have freely given us

You have set us free from sin, death and the power of evil

Help our hearts to be shaped by and through the light shining from Your face, Your peace and Grace

May our lives be and become a humble offering to You sacrificing the will of the world out of love for You and our neighbor.

AMEN

Below is a link to my favorite Christmas song from my childhood:

https://youtu.be/8TNtmeouPVU

December 20^th, 2015; 4^th Sunday of Advent; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon By Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, pos FODM

Psalm 80:1-7; Micah 5:2-5; Hebrews 10:5-10 & Luke 1:39-56

The picture above is from 2011's Christmas.

"In the Midst of Rising;" Sermon for December 6th, 2015 by Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

The prophet Malachi ends today’s Old Testament lesson with a beautiful verse that says: “Return to me, & I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts.  But you say, How shall we return?” It sounds like the people are struggling not only in understanding but dealing with simply being in the midst of their humanness.

Something you’d never hear from the health-wealth Gospel preachers is that the Christian journey is not easy and challenges, nearly calls us to embrace suffering and sacrifice in order to hold towards the hope and promise of God’s plans for each and every one of us. No matter how much we try to make change for ourselves and draw up plans for the future… God turns around and changes the path and plan whether you like it or not!

Preparing for Jesus’ birthday has always been a difficult time of the year speaking for myself.  In fact much like a statistic, I’m one of those people who join the many who are usually fairly distressed and depressed this time of year.  For the past 3 years, you couldn’t rally me to muster the energy to even consider putting up a Christmas tree. Though my husband Phil thinks the little Lucy and Linus tree we bought at a novelty store at least expressed some Christmas cheer. This year is going to literally be different, for things have changed—some not for the better as well as some as a teaching moment in God’s timing.

No matter how many years you have notched on your belt of schooling, it is important to realize that God is always going to be teaching us daily and leading us where we are not spiritually ready or comfortable with treading. Is that considered suffering? Or is it truly better for us to say it’s about growing.  The Christian’s spiritual formation journey is all about growing and going with the Good News!

A good example of illustrating the pain of spiritually growing into the disciple that Jesus wants you to be and become can be seen in metaphor in that old Star Trek movie from 1984.  In the ‘Search for Spock,’ the crew of the Enterprise venture onto the planet that was “created” by the Genesis project.  Since they had previously jettisoned Spock’s casket to the forming planet, little did they know that he was being “recreated” along with everything else on the planet.  By the time the crew of the Enterprise ‘find’ the “new” Spock in the midst of growing they notice that he is in intense physical pain, the act of rapidly growing that is…

The premise of the film as science “creating” as well as the rapidly growing Spock makes an interesting parallel to how we want to both control every aspect of our lives as well as we think we can control what we are to learn and grow from…  This is the human condition—our life versus God’s plans for us.

A part of preparing the way of the Lord and His refining fire of Grace to shape our hearts, is trusting in that fire to do its work.  Trust is a difficult thing, for we don’t like or want to harbor the faith sometimes the situation at hand requires us to, in order to trust in God’s timing and His plans. We want, what we want, when we want it—sounds like consumer America doesn’t it?

Riding those waves of Kairos time or God’s timing can be painful because we’re impatient, we’re “expecting” and we can’t trust something we can’t control! But God is calling all of us to turn those tears into Baptismal affirmations of the task we all have at hand.  We have to allow those tears to build us up.  Satan wants us to allow the tears to dissolve us into despair and hopelessness.  God’s love however is using those tears like that winnowing fork clearing the floors of our hearts struggling and congested with doubt, fear and sadness!

Something wonderful is on the horizon and IS coming! Here it is, the Good Lord Jesus—God with us; soon coming into our world! This is our daily story as well—God IS with us and has plans for us. No, He doesn’t send us a memo or email or agenda on what’s coming up… these things are revealed in how our hearts are growing in faith alongside that wonderful Grace so freely given BUT calling us to be accountable.

It has often been said that our homes become a spiritual shell to “encasing” aspects of who we are on this earthly sphere…  When you dream about them, it is even more telling of where you are on that seemingly endless, long and winding road. Truth be told in these dreams, those houses are never completed or even at some times of my own journey, crumbling and unstable.  When times are better, the walls are tall, firm and seemingly unshakable…

That foundation of the self, built by a faith always seeking understanding… Is the cost of discipleship and that fire we must not fear but embrace if we are to truly be and become all of what God plans for us.  St. Paul in today’s snippet from Philippians rises above the situation of his imprisonment and writes the most freeing, gracious and encouraging letter to his church in Philippi.  His prayers, compassion and instruction reinforce our intentional obedience to Love both God and neighbor from a spiritual fruit that does indeed produce a harvest of righteousness.

Where you are in your life’s journey you could treat as a prison or you can see it as a new opportunity. Speaking for myself again, sometimes I feel I’ve lived in Illinois way too long… 47 years to be precise! & I dream of living somewhere out west like Arizona, Texas or California.  God however, for the meantime, is having me stay put!

 In the ‘Search for Spock,’ Spock eventually gets back to his current age and the Genesis project ironically ends in failure since the planet dies and implodes upon itself.  We must hear Jesus’ words from another Gospel here, however: (Luke 21:33) "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my Words will never pass away."

The context may be different but the Words of Jesus are what we confess to follow even through those valleys and over those mountains.  This means moving on from the Old Nature and its ways and rising into a New beginning with a New Nature which is the hope and promise of New life through Christ Jesus reaped. This is a beautiful hope and a beautiful challenge.  We must think in terms of WWJD, what would Jesus do as well as we must personally say WWJDD—what would (a) disciple (of Jesus) DO?

Living into what would a faithful disciple of Jesus do is developing heart knowledge.  The heart is not only the 1^st church where the Holy Spirit is set to work but it is that very place that develops our relationship with God.  The head comes in later for we need to harvest a great faith in the heart and then discern prayerfully how we are to respond—the fruits of Grace.

God asks so little of us but to be accountable.  If we could truly live into the prayerful humility He is hoping we would grow and learn from… we would indeed become fine vessels for the Lord! Just like that refining fire that prepares and shapes the many colors and forms of glass together, we are to be a transparent vessel.  Transparent in our actions and goals which are the Mission of the Lord’s—His Gospel imperative and transparent in our Love—Love God and neighbor with the fruit of our faith, lives rededicated to His service.

I’ve always admired John the Baptist.  He’s not only a rebel who couldn’t keep his mouth shut but he is someone who never gave up.  He didn’t stop preaching, baptizing and helping others begin the preparations… What we need to take away from his example is much like the story of the Phoenix.  Out of the ashes of our despair, fear and sadness—God is reaching out His hand lifting us up, helping us to rise above it all for a much greater plan and purpose on the horizon!

The tears shed upon those ashes, return the ashes to the earth to soon help burgeon forth New Life.  Forgiveness begins with a contrite heart and this takes time—we will not know the day or the hour.  Life doesn’t come with a crystal ball, nor should it ever!  There’s nothing to see except our fears, doubts and desire to control…

The brilliant novel by George Orwell, ‘1984,’ ironically of the same release year of the ‘Search for Spock’ film; paints a universe twisted and perverted by the desire to control.  The book is purely political fiction but look and think about how political we have become in our actions and desires? Whom do we serve, if all it ever is to be is about us?  How can we grow if we assume we’ve arrived already? We can’t control history, God does and we have to get that straight!

This is even happening in the ‘church’ of Christ today—where we all gather supposedly in support of one another and of supposedly God’s mission?  How supportive is it when we hurt God’s servants with political lies and slander? How supportive is it when we dismiss people because they’re too old, or not a leader they can control?  How Christ-like is it when we turn the church into our own “genesis project” of agenda and self-concern?

What reason then, do we have for holding faith—if Christ is not only not the reason for the season and the refining fire to our heart’s need for His knowledge and purposes… What are we then, doing? Where are we going? We are building our own death bed! St. Paul and John the Baptist are great models for us for both kept God’s mission in the forefront at the daily battlefields of the Christian journey. What really mattered was Christ, it was the advent of a New Life in more ways than one for all the world to see and come to know.

Let us pray—

Loving and ever Gracious God,

May we always be prayerfully and humbly obedient

To those Words that will never fade away

If we keep You at the center of our lives’ journey

May we not fear those new twists and turns

Encourage us and allow us to KNOW Your love

As that guiding New light upon the advent of our New Lives

Refined in Your ever-teaching fire

For our benefit and Your mission in the world’s glory.

AMEN

December 6th, 2015; Second Sunday of Advent; Year C; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon by Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, postulant FODM

Psalm 66:1-12; Malachi 3:1-7; Philippians 1:2-11 & Luke 3:1-20

Below is a link to the sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub Lutheran Orthodox Church's house service at 8am:
https://youtu.be/HQ5Bz7s7cUQ