Planting Vocation; Sermon for September 24th, 2017 by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST

The beautiful hymn we just sung as our hymn for the day is both the hymn of my conversion experience and the hymn I had played at my ordination service. This hymn, ‘Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness,’ was the hymn I heard God speaking through to me, that He had new plans for my life.  God has a great sense of humor, for in this tiny little Northside of Chicago Lutheran church; his message became clear through a United Church of Christ hymn used as the choir’s processional hymn closing that particular service.  The thought and hope of a kinder and gentler world was what God knew my heart was grieving to realize. Then and there, my chrysalis shell was broke open and the New person I am today began to emerge, take shape, and take flight, like that butterfly!

Yes, my New life took off, but like the condemned roller coaster I joked about in my most recent Cursillo talk, the valleys and the mountain tops were many, unpredictable, missing rails, screws, split wood and often had many moments I was greatly discouraged.  To say, it has never been an easy journey is the understatement of the year award in my book… But thanks be to God, I kept reaching my hand out to grab at those precarious vines or I kept stepping that trepidatious foot out into the unknown, only to trust in God, to see things through.  Let’s just say again, God really pushed the envelope with me a lot… As some of my friends know as well, trust is a difficult life-passage to spiritually come to terms with!

Living a life worthy of the Gospel, is a beautiful thought from a man who may have been under house arrest in Rome for spreading the Gospel, but certainly his soul truly bared a great freedom and witness for all to spiritually grow from. Growing a mighty harvest in the heart of faith and reaping action for God’s Will and purposes takes being grounded by God as that often incorrigible, persistent voice, to carry on.  Try, what the world says, is impossible.  In my case, it would be to go back to school after 15 years out… graduate, get ordained and start planting churches! Just like Paul, I was blessed with beginning my journey to serve through church planting.  I was on the ground floor of planting three churches. The first plant I won scholarships from my seminary for, and served as a vicar, then pastor to the second and third. This first plant was the Gathering for Christ, the Gathering North, the second and the third would be my own house church and ministry outlet, the Grace Hub.

These were wonderful experiences that I learned so much from, but God started talking to me again, and said that I really needed to take an even greater leap out into the unknown, a new horizon.  This horizon’s pursuit literally uprooted me from living in Illinois for some 48 years to moving out here and take on God’s new challenge for me, serving an established church community—First Congregational United Church of Christ.  In many ways, it is like a first call, since all of my prior experiences started from ground zero. With church planting, there were definitely people, but no steeple, no money, just a lot of commitment and a real fire, spark, to start laying down that foundation! Love, sweat equity and tears of thanksgiving built all three.

First Congregational Church definitely has foundation and depth, and that’s not all on account of Grace & Don Schmiedel’s amazing stewardship archives of our church’s history!  I am joining into your family’s history most likely at the start of chapter 52, there is a lot I will be learning from you, as well as I hope to be teaching and sharing with you, the great and many things, the Lord has blessed my life to experience over the years. I am not, however, the “Miracle-Gro” to your replanting, revival, God is. My labor is purely to help you realize God's grace, and have that same Grace motivate you to reap that gracious Harvest within our community.  I am to be your spiritual gardener, compassionate ear and most importantly a fellow traveler to wherever God leads us to be and become, for His sake.

A pastor is someone who takes their gardening very seriously. Don’t forget though, this is spiritual gardening that I’m good at… not the other kind…  Spiritual gardening is a matter of the heart, it is a covenant first and most importantly made with God.  It IS a vocation, it is not a “job.” The Gospel’s work is not 9 to 5, it is every moment of your life! Just what is the difference between a job and a vocation? We hear it most profoundly from St Paul’s lips and his beautiful beginning reflections to his Philippians friends. Yes, it is true, we are in some ways prisoners to the world, and as we know, Paul was an actual prisoner. But what we must realize through our faith journey lived in fellowship here, is that we are dedicated to service as Ministry. God does not necessarily govern boards, he expects us to be team members, team leaders.  The only hierarchy that needs to exist is Christ Jesus at the center of our hearts and labors. Our service together, or teamwork are to be a labor of love for the mission and purpose of the Gospel out into the world.

That’s a very important word, teamwork.  Teamwork is the organic dynamic of a healthy, vital Body. Jesus, in his very “down-to-earth” reality parable in today’s Gospel, makes that point very clear.  When we treat our reaping of that faith-filled, spiritual harvest seriously, we are coming from the right place, that God needs us to humbly and graciously realize.  Teamwork and human nature do have their issues, though.  At times, we may be out of sync or are not trusting enough, or encouraged enough by one another, that we are all pursuing the same goal.  It is not something to be angry or grumbling about, as we hear the workers in Jesus’ parable do.  It is something we need to allow those prayerful baptismal tears to affirm our hearts, to carry on for the greater Good!

And Jesus says: “¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  Is he saying Nice guys finish last or is this the Old Nature’s understanding of Jesus last twisting statement in today’s Gospel? Hearing and understanding that through New Natured person, waiting within you to be fully realized, is Grace. It is grace working within you to be hope-filled, patient and persistent. There will always be valleys and just as time moves forward, we will always be in transition.  We will always need to be prepared to change.  Life is not stagnant and certainly, the church is not to be either!

We have wonderful things to look forward to together as the faith-filled team of First Congregational Church!  I have been praying for weeks now that the efforts of the building search committee find the most perfect place for all of our ministries needs.  I have been daily praying for all the phone calls I’ve been getting on the church office phone from people asking about our former food pantry.  I have been praying for the spirits of many here who have worked very hard, have been at times overwhelmed by the stress of their stewardship to our community.  Being and doing, “church,” is not easy work and it is certainly a hard journey…  But you are not alone, I am here for you and most importantly God is here with us all.  God’s been our greatest cheerleader and it is evident beyond the notion of when two or three are gathered.

So, remember that roller coaster I talked about earlier?  Well make sure you strap yourselves in tight—let go and let God lead us down a brand New day together, a brand New hope! Never say never, live the seemingly impossible dream—make it real by seeking God’s face. Let the abounding steadfast love of God be your strength and your resolve.

Let us pray—

Ever Gracious God,

We’ve started that New chapter together

We’ve patted down that soil and are praying for miracles

Let us truly live for You and in a way that is worthy of Your Gospel

May our teamwork together reap a mighty harvest from the heart

May everyday be shaped, transitioned, revived and renewed by Your Living Word

Now and Always—AMEN

September 24th, 2017; Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Year A; Proper 20: SOLA

Psalm 27:1-9; Isaiah 55:6-9;  Philippians 1:12-14, 19-30; Matthew 20:1-16

RCL: Psalm 145:1-8; Jonah 3:10-4:11; Philippians 1:21-30

The link below is to this special sermon from Pastor Collins' Installation at First Congregational Church
https://youtu.be/CAkE5obdb3c

Mercy’s Seat; sermon for Sunday September 17th, 2017 by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST

I remember one of the very first classes I had in Biblical Greek, near the beginning of my journey in seminary, spent one whole class session looking at the word for the mercy seat of Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross, known as the hilasterion. Of course, it became very legal-ease in theological understanding, but then, this is human nature when we are trying to think or approach forgiveness, reconciliation and accountability as a part of our discipleship formation.  The word literally means that the blood upon the covenant seat of God appeased God’s judgment or wrath.

Covenant is another one of those words, that is so wound around two things—being faith and accountability.  I don’t know how many people remember the second to the last scene from the Indiana Jones’ classic—'Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ but it showed the Nazis beginning to open the ark of the covenant only to be utterly destroyed by something they had no claim upon or privy to see in the first place.  Before all who looked were killed, one SS officer took a handful of the ark’s disintegrated parchments throwing it to the ground and claiming it be worthless… 

Both of these nuggets of thought, should spark, just how we perhaps, spiritually, take sacrifice and accountability for granted.  The church uses the word covenant, quite often for it falls right down the middle spiritually for us in coming to understand ourselves and God’s grace in action as the Body active in the world.  This past weekend, one of the main themes to be communicated to those making their Cursillo, was the example of God’s Grace in action through those serving, giving of themselves to impart a graciousness that inspires hearts and minds to begin to KNOW the love, Christ Jesus gave us.

The spiritual formation power of Cursillo which ironically was invented towards the start of World War II, was that it was to be an outlet for focusing people, grounding people who in fact, cares and has indeed, provided for all—Christ.  The other amazing power of these retreats that I have served on for the past 14 years, is how people are changed and motivated truly to become lay leaders within their own congregations and grow their congregations.  Speaking for myself, it was the initial spark to go to seminary.

One of my team mates this past weekend, had a beautiful and tragic connection to the talk she was to give.  She was to share a “fourth day talk,” that talked about the Chrysalis and the butterfly.  The story, she shared is more or less about how someone sees the butterfly struggling to break out of the Chrysalis and tries to help it out by cutting the shell open, but he accidentally cuts parts of the butterfly’s wings off. 

The way the story continued on was that the creature forgave this man for damaging her wings.  In the process of reading through this talk, the woman broke down and was fairly sure that she just couldn’t deliver it.  Not only could she not agree with the happy ending, but she really just couldn’t forgive.  She and her children were victims of domestic violence, and this story shook her to her core.  After a lot of brotherly and sisterly love and prayer, she gave her talk, and it was amazing.  It was as if her tears focused her heart back on the greater mission of what she needed the Pilgrims to prayerfully hear about forgiveness and sacrifice.

The beautiful stole you see me wearing this morning was given as a prayerful gift for my willingness to serve as one of the weekend’s spiritual directors.  The rainbow, we know today, has come to symbolize many things.  Originally, Biblically, it was the beautiful sign of God’s covenantal peace and mercy lighting the sky and bridging over all divisions spiritually and actually.  The Cursillo movement sings a song called DeColores or I’ve jokingly renamed it Hey Delores, since I’ve gotten tired of singing it too many times…  DeColores means of many colors.  Many colors are the shades within a person’s soul, light and dark as well as somewhere in between—this is just what makes them who they are.  This is God’s guiding grace that our faith has us begin to tangibly see and feel.  It is a gift.

Realizing even a smidgen of this gift is when we understand forgiveness, reconciliation.  Peter’s questioning this week to Jesus sounds almost like it is from a comedy skit at first… You can probably just imagine Jesus rolling His eyes and thinking in the back of His mind: “Oh boy, another question he just has to ask without thinking about it first…”  The bigger issue to Peter’s question, however, is our problem—we are always conditional, we always have some strings attached to everything we do.  Our own language gives it away—tolerance over acceptance, indifference over compassion, practicality over justice.  We’re only going to give, or go so far. What a tragic societal symptom, we continually resist in changing!

What an irony, as well?!  For Christ Jesus gave us so much and we are not only, or more often ungrateful and forgetful about it, but unforgiving towards our neighbors over many things. It is as if we cannot hold or honor a covenant between ourselves as a people of faith?  When the church of Christ experiences issues of conflict, beyond it being rooted in a need for control, there are issues of unwillingness and mistrust, which is more or less, a heart that will not be disciplined to being sacrificial, trusting enough or merciful.  It’s a staple challenge to the problem of being human. “We want, what we want, when we want it and the WAY we want it period…” And this same person says, if you need something from me… It’s around my conditions and best interests, first.  This only grows that illusion of control, the evil one tempts us into thinking we have or “own.” It only divides and hampers the efficacy of the Gospel to grow the church in spirit and numbers or as Pastor Dawson used to say—in butts and bucks…

These recent insights come from some reading I have been doing in my studies about conflicts within congregations, due to the secular age, current culture’s influence.  An important aspect of being able to forgive, forget and move forward in the world, is being accountable to the fact that we are the least to think we have the power or control to judge, condemn over others—that’s God’s work.  The Old Testament lesson this morning, literally has Joseph saying this to his brothers.  Leaping forward a couple of thousand years, is it just because we don’t really have enough trust and faith in God to see justice enacted?

Trust is a very hard thing…. One of the beautiful people, I am newly blessed to have made friends with, during this first Cursillo out in the desert, came up to me at the beginning of one of the team training towards the weekend with tears in his eyes claiming that he felt those from me and my issues with trust.  He then proceeded to give me the greatest bearhug I have ever felt, in my life honestly. In fact, that whole weekend was wonderful in how open people were and how the passing of the peace and prayers was frankly delightful!  Another reason, I’m glad that we pass the peace here.  Whether or not we feel too familiar with one another, or that it is distracting or overly extending, it IS the spirit moving and reinforcing our hearts WHY we gather. Maybe the world doesn’t need psychologists anymore, they just need to receive regular TLC from others?  Kind of a hippy thought, I know, but those serving and being served, in essence, are experiencing the graciousness and gift of the “Way of Christ,” as literally expressive faith.

When I was giving my first talk or rollo as they’re called, God’s spirit wrenched my heart to tears, as well.  I couldn’t help it. Just as my teammate experienced for herself, God’s unlimited, boundless, loving Grace over flowed upon me.  God’s Grace overflowed upon me through those tears to find peace with myself, to not only face that issue of trust I had as a “beef” with God, about many things troubling my heart… but to forgive and move forward with Christ as that solid rock I cannot help, but cling to!  St. Paul once again, blesses our hearts to hear a great pastoral note to consider: “. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”  So very true, do we remember that enough?  Paul continues to say:  “⁹For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. ¹⁰Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” 

Mercy’s seat was taken by our Lord and savior, at the cross, for our undeserving sake.  We may all fall short of the glory of God in walking the light of Grace, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to be accountable through His Grace for His Gospel’s sake and our need to love and care for our neighbor! Maybe we continually have to ask stupid questions like Peter and ask ourselves in prayer—what would Jesus truly want me to do?  There is so much darkness in the world, we have to keep that oil in our lamps a burnin’ bright as well as, forgive ourselves.  We need to forgive ourselves for not being the world’s version of perfection but truly strive for the spiritual formation perfection, God is counting on all of you, to pursue.

God is counting on you, this was the wonderful Sunday morning reflection I gave before I communed everyone and started the morning chapel service.  God is counting on you to make friends, be a friend and bring them to Christ.  Sound familiar?  Yes, it’s that little nagging message at the bottom of all of our bulletins as a challenge out to you to spread God’s word and yes, it came from Cursillo. I will now share a snippet of that message here since it is relative and important for all of us to strive towards…

“That everyday world is going to have that roller coaster of mountain tops and valleys.  There are going to be moments where you will be greatly challenged, perhaps even led to despair… However, things may have gone for me, God has always reached down, got a hold of me and rescued me.  He has always lifted me to carry on. He has always encouraged me to keep on truckin,’ for the Gospel… For the world needs love, it needs Christ Jesus and His Living Restorative Word, now more than ever before!  The wilderness of the world shouldn’t feel like a barren desert to tread upon… but be one, we step out boldly because truly, Christ is counting on You, on all of us, to follow through!”

Let us Pray

God of Grace and abundant mercy,

Teach our hearts, shape our hearts

To be founts of compassion, mercy and faith

Help us to trust, now more than ever, not only in ourselves but

To show this enduring, unconditional faithfulness towards others

For Your Gospel’s sake

May we strive to be a covenantal people in all we do, say and BE

For Your love is the glorious gift of Grace, that makes us whole!

AMEN

September 17th, 2017; Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost; Year A; Proper 19; SOLA Lectionary

Sermon By: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST

Psalm 103:1-13; Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

 The link below is to this sermon's second delivery at the Grace Hub Discipleship Ministries' Office

https://youtu.be/1ZI2DzHkVLQ