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Beginning to think about all these
texts this morning took me back to that very first planning meeting that I was
a witness to for the very first church I served. This meeting was in the dining
room of a congregant of the pastor who I would study under for several years.
It kind of reminded me a little bit of “The Last Supper,” but also reminded me
of the early church in general. We hear a lot of good things or good moments in
the Gospels as well as in many of Paul's letters. There's also a lot of valleys
too, be concerned about though, as well.
You must wonder though, if that lack
of motivation and that itching fear on the back burner of your mind is really
just a matter of unbelief? The people that were gathered around that table,
that day, were all a part of the former church that Pastor Eric pastored many
years ago. Many of them were in different communities since then and had been
on rough journeys. Here they were coming together, not necessarily with a
complete plan of what to do… but in those cold days of early February wanted to
see what they could DO as a renewed Body.
What we might fail to realize often
enough, is how Jesus feeds us spiritually to keep us strong for those valleys and
moments of challenge, before something great is on the horizon. We still may
have cold feet even when something great is right underneath our nose, right
before us almost placed into our hands(!) We have a lack of faith or skepticism
about it. You have come a long way and those are not idle words.
Coming here almost green behind the
ears from church planting and not having served a regular style church before,
has seen both mountaintops and its valleys, but I still see Christ encouraging
me even when I feel challenged. Church planting is a completely different
animal in some senses, but spiritually it really isn't. Did you catch
that? It spiritually really isn’t different.
We keep trying to put duct tape and Band-Aids, upon the broken structure of
what church is in the world today. Its as if we haven't learned our lesson yet
alone listened enough to Jesus to change these old ways.
Changing old ways that's the huge
glowing in the dark theme for this morning. Christ confronts us with this in
the Gospel making beautiful statements of promise and an overflowing Grace through
the poetic words laid down in witness by John. The people that gathered
at that first church planting meeting at that dining room table… What a great
metaphor all wishing to partake in the bread of Life to etch out a plan for the
future. At that table the ego needed to lay down and the ears needed to be
opened as well as their hearts needed to be flexible to absorb a Melting Pot of
many ideas coming together in order to plan: “doing and being” church.
It was delightful to talk with the
pastor I studied under for a number of years asking his advice and asking for
his encouragement on many things this past week. Some things I still have a
hard time listening to in regards to what he has tried over the years, to pound
into me to do. When I do write my sermons every Friday morning I read the
scriptures and then I pace and walk and talk into my tablet to record a draft.
I am not, however, ready to go without a net and just freely be spontaneous as
they say in front of you here this morning. We need to have our thoughts
organized. It's not just a matter of practicality or mechanics, but we need to
be in sync with our calling and how we hear God which is not easy at all at
many times.
We all have a very hard time
listening to God, yet alone feel what He's trying to teach us through His Word.
We often go hungering and thirsting with such spiritual anxiety, that's we lack
connection and motivation. You had your entire church turned upside down with
closing your larger facility a couple of years back. Then you tried to merge
with another group doing things differently, leaving people falling away and
conflicted… I can't imagine the pain that that must have etched upon your
hearts for several years. And here's this “green behind the ears” Pastor coming
into your story wanting to be not only a comforting guide of God's love and
compassion, but truly be that spiritual gardener replanting you patting down
that soil and watching the growth.
Paul's letter Snippets this week to
the Ephesians must really sound heavy-handed from him. We've been hearing these
beautiful thoughts in the last previous readings of encouragement and
motivation and growth and now he's really just getting down to the nitty-gritty
of the unpleasant things that humanity has to deal with. It is that drum skin
of the Gospel that never stops beating. It is that radical uncomfortable voice
telling us that the old nature, the old ways of doing things has to die and we
need to not fear, but put on the new nature, the new self. We need to clothe ourselves
in the reality of Christ and His gifts in order to be that person, God needs us
to be.
That's a lifetime's journey living
into trying to be the kind of person God needs you to be. We're never going to
be, as that saying goes— dogs that eat glass and poop out diamonds. Life
doesn't work that way. There are no digital printers for the perfect human
being. This is important. The internet offers us everything under the sun. We
can order everything, any flavor, color, texture, etcetera blah blah blah… It
is almost decadence towards feeding the self and not really thinking about the
reality and consequences of the world that we shape with our attitudes.
Shaping the world with our attitudes…
are we doing a good job? Now that could be one of those glass half full, glass
half empty kind of questions, depending on whether your heart is falling into
faith or anxiety and unbelief. That really bad song that came out in the 80’s
reminds me of what we don't do often enough but: ‘Don't worry be happy!’ Another
song probably slightly better than that by Elton John says: ‘Don't Let the Sun
Go Down on Me.’ Don't let the Son go down on you. Let Him rise with His grace
and promise in your hearts, to make you feel secure in this new building we’re
in, to make you feel secure with not only me, but with one another because we
have a great Mission ahead here.
We have our critics out there. We
know who those people are. We don't fit their mold and they're not happy with
us with how we feel ourselves to be in regards to Jesus, yet alone “being and
doing” church… but this shouldn't bring us down! If anything, just like I said
a couple messages back, be a rebel with a Cause, that's your new niche here. Forget
all the pain of the past and put on that new cloak of Christ upon yourself. “We’ve
never done it this way,” is what closes dozens of church doors and it's even
more polarizing when denominations say: “do it this way or else…” they closed
the hearts and minds of those motivated to serve and they hurt the Body,
instead of grow the Body.
That's a good image to think about. Think
about yourselves as the Body of Christ, First Congregational, as a giant
beating heart. All these people, all of your stories wound together with
ligaments and flowing blood and a history and you've had a lot of swords
plunged into your heart, haven't you? They probably have not felt good and
they've done seemingly permanent damage but then we must remember what Christ
says: He has brought us eternal life. He is the bread of life. His body and
blood saved us in more ways than one, and we should never forget that. We
should resurrect in that promise every day of our lives, period!
I did some really fun research this
past week, where I asked one of the Elvis chapels on Las Vegas Boulevard to
just kind of observe what they do in regards to weddings…. Well let's just say
outside of me trying not to burst out laughing with some of the silly things
that they did. I did think it was interesting how people get maniacally focused
on one little aspect of doing things. All these little ministers that they had
running around with Elvis imitators and Marilyn Monroe look-alikes had to pound
out a wedding between 5 to 7 minutes. Any longer than that, they would be
behind. The one young man I talked to and followed this past week said that
they do something like 45 to 60 weddings a day, especially when it's like a
weird number day such as 8/ 8/ 2018.
The maniacal almost humorous pace of
this little wedding chapel is somewhat surreal, but it did make an interesting
statement on when you're focused on one thing, what could be done… outside of
you becoming incurably OCD, more or less, that is. When you set your mind on
the vocation of the Gospel as a disciple, member of this church you can make
great things happen. There you should have heard that promise and felt that
hope that Jesus was trying to share with His critics. These critics were
picking on Him for being Mary's and Joe's kid, and how can He say He came down
from Heaven? They just didn't understand his deep poetic words.
The poster I made for this Sunday, which
not only helps me to begin sketching out my sermons as well as do our weekly
advertising. Believe it or not, I still need to tap into that old world of my
art skills and connect images and thoughts together. The man is walking into
the burnt, dry and cracked desert of no life before him, behind him as a
rainbow of promise bright skies and fertile grounds growing things is
developing as he walks forward into this wilderness. What you should notice
that he's wearing is the cloak of the New Nature. This is what Christ has
helped him to see and put on. Part of the cloak shows wings of butterflies and
the top has the Cross of Christ. The cross of Christ is the ultimate reason we
always gather. Our lives are shaped by the victory of the cross and we are living
in that resurrected life as His children of Grace and promise. Those two drum
skin words that the Gospel continues to try to pound into our thick heads.
God is always trying to get through
to us. He tries to get through to us when we do look to the past and lament how
things didn't go right or things we could have, should have, would have done
better, if we would have listened to Christ more deeply in our hearts to keep
us encouraged and feel confident in one another. The past is gone. It's frankly,
in some senses, is dead. You can't relive that same day. There are no time
machines. I wish there was a Star Trek transporter beam, but then that's
another story. All we have is the future(!) That's very scary isn't it? We hate
that. We don't want to buy crystal balls, yet alone believe in them… or look at
tarot cards or read horoscopes, they don't really do any help at all. The
future is today and then it'll be tomorrow, and the day afterwards, and onward
and onward. Beyond decorating what are you planning to do in Ministry?
We can't afford to have a pantry for
many reasons anymore, but that shouldn't stop us from maybe serving with our
neighbors who run their own Pantry or serving with the Clark County government in
doing different things with our Brothers and Sisters in Christ. We need to be
able to put out that hand not only offering welcome but doing God's work in the
world together. The young people in the world, may not necessarily have enough
money to help do the rudimentary things of sustaining ministry but they are our
future, and we need to put our hope in them. We need to put our hope not only
in young people in the colleges, universities and abroad, but we need to really
put hope in one another. It's hard to have faith isn't it? Because it's so
scary… but really, is it scary or are we just making it that way?
The fiery haze of smoke that has
been polluting our horizons and our sunsets from the California fires, I am
sure have etched upon us fear. Would it ever come over those mountains and down
into the valley? We don't like seeing the destruction of nature, and hope that
things are going to change. Things like that yes, we are hoping for change. We
are hoping to see that the fires get put out, that are all over California
North and South. Why can't we, as well, take that same great desire of hoping
to see things change, positively with one another as we go forth as the Body?
Jesus Christ is our bread, our daily bread and He is continuing to feed our
souls, the good things that we need to truly be His disciples. Don't turn that
bread down don't look for the stale crumbs of yesterday, see the yeast rise and
the loaves form for tomorrow.
I'll leave you as one last great
impression of thinking about putting on the New self, the New Creation, the New
Nature, the New Adam and Eve that Christ wants you to tap into and be, become.
I don't know how many of you have read little weirdo scientific facts about the
human body itself, but pretty much all the skin on your body and even your
older hairs fall out, peels off, regenerates and renews continually. So, see
you're already literally becoming new, whether you like it or not! Whether
you like it or not, those are words we used to hear when we were little
children. When our parents would say: “Well, you're going to have to eat those
miserable Brussel sprouts or okra other unpleasant vegetable, that you still
probably hate today, to help you grow and become better.” Welcome to life. You
can't just go to the happy things and hope to build or find that dog that eats
glass and poops diamonds, that's not reality. You have it in you to shape the future
and be the best you can be through Christ Jesus who gives us all strength every
day. He gives us strength in every waking breath, every prayer that you say and
every tear that baptizes your heart to grow.
The soil is patted down. This is not
an old plant, that has been transferred into this fertile soil here at 2709
Horseshoe Drive, it is to be a New plant. It needs gardeners, that are renewed.
We as well, need to be a team. We need to be partners lifted through the love
of Christ to do great things together. Make it happen.
Let us pray,
Loving and Gracious God,
Help to give us all strength for
when we feel our old ways taking over.
Help us to be encouraged and
enlightened with one another
Knowing we are all human, and that
we have our valleys and our mountains to move and walk through together.
May we never let the light of Your Son
Jesus, go down in our hearts
Help us to shine into the future and
never look back
AMEN
August
12th, 2018; Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost; Year B; Proper 14 SOLA
Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
34:1-8; 1 Kings 19:1-8; Ephesians 4:17—5:2; John 6:35-51
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 10am:
https://youtu.be/56HSgKbO2nI
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