Faith Hall of Fame – Hebrews 11.32-40

Posted on December 22, 2014 by taylormertins

Hebrews 11.32-40

And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets — who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.

Today we conclude our Advent Sermon Series on “New Beginnings.” This is the final Sunday leading up to Christmas day, and over the last few weeks we have prepared our hearts and minds for the coming of God in Christ. We began with Abram being called into a strange land. Next we looked at Samuel being called by name in the temple. Last week we explored Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. This morning we conclude by looking at the Faith Hall of Fame from Hebrews 11.

And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Fletcher Swink, Sam Stanley, Zig Volskis, Patricia Meadows, and the other pastors — who through faith endured frustrating congregations, proclaimed God’s presence, fought for justice, became mighty in honor, and brought people to the Lord.

Hebrews 11 contains what I call the “Faith Hall of Fame.” The entire chapter is devoted to the great leaders and prophets from the Old Testament and their willingness to stand up for God even when it meant certain doom. They so fervently believed that God was with them, that they were willing to embark on new beginnings when others refused to obey.

The closest thing we have to a Faith Hall of Fame here at St. John’s can be found in our parlor next to the narthex. Inside you will discover a picture of every pastor that has had the good fortune to serve this church since 1954. From Fletcher Swink to yours truly, every pastor has been framed and dated, hung with care, and honored with a spot on the wall.

Have you ever taken the time to look through the pictures? It was one of the first things I did when I was newly appointed, and frankly the room terrifies me. Whenever I sit in the parlor with a group of people, I feel the heavy gaze of the pastors, they look down from their Faith Hall of Fame, and I can’t help but wonder what they think of me.

Marshall Kirby begged me my first week to give him a picture so that he could put me up with everyone else. I hesitated. For weeks he bugged me about getting the picture, about having it be just the right size and tint to blend in with the others. But I continued to put it off. I kept making excuses about how busy I was, or about the priorities I needed to focus on, but the truth is, I didn’t feel worthy of going on the wall. I had been here for such a short amount of time and felt that I hadn’t done anything that earned me a spot in the Hall of Fame.

When I’m in the parlor, when I experience the St. John’s Hall of Fame, I think about all the things they must have gone through to bring this church to where it is. I think about Fletcher Swink starting the church down the road at the Auto Parts store. I imagine that it required a tremendous amount of faith to believe that God had call him from Durham, NC to Staunton, VA to start a new church; to make something of nothing. How many nights did he pray for God to send him people, how many afternoons did he spend worrying about the new building project, how often did he confront frustrated parishioners about his sermons?

When I’m in the parlor, when I experience the St. John’s Hall of Fame, I think about Patricia Meadows being appointed as the first female pastor. I wonder about how hard she had to work to gain the trust of the people, what lengths she had to go to to reignite the flame of faith. I imagine the deep prayers she offered to God about sending new sheep to her flock, the lonely days of sermon preparation, and the terrifying moments of standing by the graveside with friends and family from the church. How often did she wrestle with her call when she felt persecuted, how many days did she spend praying for the people of our community when they were no longer able to offer their own prayers, how did she feel standing up against the injustices around her?

I wonder about all the pastors of this church, and what they went through for God’s kingdom. What was it that set them apart? What did they do that helped to grow and nurture faith in this community?

Last week I was standing in the parlor, admiring the past, when I realized how similar our Faith Hall of Fame is to the one listed in Hebrews 11.

The people of Israel’s past were not of special value. Gideon was hesitant and timid when he was called by God; Barak had to be shamed by Deborah into fighting for the Lord; Jephthah is remembered mostly for his rash oath; Samson was weak of mind and conscience.

Similarly, there is nothing particularly special about those who have served our church. Though undoubtedly unique, they contained no special powers that set them apart from other clergy. Each of them had strengths and weaknesses that became manifest while they served the church.

Our pastors, and the heroes from Israel’s past, were set apart because they did all things “through faith.” They worked knowing that the real significance of what they had done would never be seen in their own time, but something that would come much later. They suffered through persecution and injustice because they believed in God’s goodness even when the world claimed the contrary.

We remember the ways our pastors have suffered: Angry emails/letters about inappropriate sermons, knowing glances and whispers from the committee members in the parking lot (where the real meetings happen). Shouts and finger pointing during counseling sessions. Years of loneliness serving a church full of people who cannot see the pastor as anything other than pastor. Doubts when preparing funerals for people in the community.

We read about all the ways the faithful of Israel suffered: torture, mocking, flogging, chains and imprisonment. Stoned to death, sawn in two, killed by the sword, wandered about in the skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, and tormented.

This is what evil does to the good. It attacks at the core of our being, shakes our faith, and encourages us to doubt. Yet, reading these words and remembering our church’s past should bring us courage and hope. We see in them the willingness of people to go and risk it all for God. Pastors who remained brave and faithful when others tried to break them down. Prophets who spoke the truth when others sought to kill them. We see in them the true courage that faith can develop.

It only takes a moment to see this tremendous faith in the world today, people standing up against injustice when the world argues the contrary. Consider the droves of people standing with their hands up and holding signs that say “Black Lives Matter” in response to Ferguson. Consider the droves of people standing shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ community during Pride marches in response to fanatical attacks against sexuality.

We remember and read and see the ways people suffer for God’s kingdom and we commend them for their willingness to go and be grace for the world. God sends into our confused and cruel humanity his messengers and prophets. God sends them into the midst of the wolves so that we might not be left to our evil ways, that we may see in them hope for tomorrow, and in response turn back to the God of mercy.

Yet all these, though they are commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. Whether Gideon, Barak, Fletcher Swink, or Zig Volskis, their completion depends on us. Their faith rested in God who would fulfill his promises. They served the Lord as an anchor cast into the days ahead; faith is built on hope for the future.

Abraham’s faith would have been in vain if his descendants never made it to the Land of Promise. Samuel’s faith would have been in vain if he had not responded to God calling him by name in the temple. Paul’s faith would have been in vain if the resurrected Christ had not appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

Apart from us they cannot be made perfect. The completion of those from the Faith Hall of Fame depends on us. We can fulfill their faith even today by going out and being Christ’s body for the world.

We remember the past of scripture, and the past of our church, but we are not to idealize it. We cannot be blind to the mistakes of those who came before us, or allow the past to fasten its dead hand upon us, binding us down to fruitless ideas, ancient prejudices, and old failures. We look back so that we can look forward. Just because “thats the way we’ve always done it” does not mean “thats the way we must do it now.”

Yet too often we forget how indebted we are to the past. We neglect to remember how faithful Abram, Samuel, and Paul were. We brush aside all the pastors who worked with every fiber of their being to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth. Every good thing that we have and enjoy was consecrated by the sacrifices of the past. We have faith because the people of the past passed it along to us. So today, we in our turn cast our anchors into the future. Without those who are to come after us, without the youth of our church and without the children of our preschool, we shall not be made perfect.

We are who we are because of the past. We will become what God intends for us because of the legacy we pass on to the future. Our new beginning comes when we cast our hope into the future of God’s kingdom, when we stand up for something new and different that breaks from the past, when we take steps in faith knowing that God is with us.

God is with us. In a few days we will gather again to celebrate Christ being born into the world to be God with us. We will look to that lowly manger and remember that God came to dwell among us and encourage us to be brave people of faith who remember the past and cast our hope into the future. Our purpose does not depend on our own power, but on the strength of love that comes from the Lord and in community with one another.

I still feel uncomfortable whenever I’m in the parlor. Sets of eyes follow me from the past, and I see in them everything they went through to bring our church to where it is. I believe in their hope cast into the future. In all of you I see the seeds that they planted long ago that are blossoming into true discipleship today.

I see my picture on the wall and feel unworthy. But that’s when I remember that it’s not about me and it’s not about what I do. It’s about what God does through me. It’s about what God does through you. Amen.

The Advent of Paul – Sermon on Acts 9.1-9

Posted on December 15, 2014 by taylormertins

Acts 9.1-9

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Today we continue with our Advent Sermon Series on “New Beginnings.” These few weeks of Advent are integral to the life of our church community in the sense that we are preparing our hearts, minds, and souls for the coming of God in Christ on Christmas day. We began with Abram being called to go to a strange land, and then we looked at Samuel being called by name in the temple. Today we continue by looking at the Advent of Paul.

Most pastors love to talk. They spend their Sundays standing before the gathered people proclaiming the Word of God with the hope of it becoming incarnate. It takes hours of preparation, study, and prayer to craft a sermon and many pastors find excitement and fulfillment when they are speaking. Whether they are preaching from a pulpit, leading a bible study, or huddling together in prayer, words are at the foundation of what we do.

Most pastors love to talk, and when you get a group of us together, sometimes the talking never stops…

I was at Licensing School, a required element to become a Pastor in the United Methodist Church, but frankly it could’ve happened at any clergy gathering. The routine is typical, everyone tries to size one another up based upon appearances, we try to guess what kind of churches are represented; Is this their first career, second, or third? What kind of call story do they have? Did she have all that gray hair before she became a pastor? We are usually forced to sit with people who we have yet to meet and then comes the ice breaker questions that will hopefully move us from strangers to friends.

The familiar questions focus on our ability to share our call narrative. I like to call it the elevator speech. In the time that it takes you to get from the lobby to the top floor, can you share how God has called you to ministry?

Here is my elevator speech:

“Born and raised as a United Methodist in Alexandria, VA, I began wrestling with a call to ministry when I was in high school. There were a number of formative experiences that led me to believe that God was calling me to ordained ministry including: being the crew chaplain for a Boy Scout High Adventure trip in Philmont, New Mexico, creating and leading a youth band for my home church, and helping to organize a weekly youth bible study. However, my awareness of the call truly came into focus when one of my dear friends died in a car accident right before Christmas. As we mourned her death I found myself comforting those around me with words that were not my own, and one night I was pulled to my knees on the sidewalk along Ft. Hunt Road to pray. I prayed and prayed and when I stood up, I knew there was nothing else in my life that I could do other than proclaim the Word of the Lord through ministry.”

I have had to tell it so many times that I have learned how to include just the right amount of details in just the right amount of time.

For others, this process can take multiple elevator rides. They go on and on about the ways God has called them, and when I was at Licensing School I learned a lot about the people I would be serving with for the rest of my life.

“You call that a call story? My husband left me right before the cancer came back. My children had grown up and moved off to different places with their own families and I was all alone. I went to support groups, and tried to keep a positive attitude but nothing was working. It was then that I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and put my whole trust in his grace. Later, when I beat the cancer, Jesus told me to become a pastor and share the Good News like he had done with me.”

“You call that a call story? I was killing more brain cells than Paul was killing Christians when God called me to a new life in Jesus Christ. The bottle was my bible. Jose Cuervo and Jim Beam were my best friends and were with me through the important moments of life, though I could never remember any of them. It was deep in the trenches of one of my worst benders that Jesus told me it was time to live a new life, that he had a mission for me, and I haven’t had a drink since.”

These call stories went on and on with every new story going deeper and farther than the last. The more I sat and listened, the more I realized that I was doing the same thing, and that we were trying to “out-Paul” one another.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I love the story of Paul on the road, but sadly, we have too often used it to judge what Christianity is supposed to look like.

Flannery O’Connor, the American writer, once said “I reckon the Lord knew that the only way to make a Christian out of that one was to knock him off his horse!” Her statement gets at the heart of the matter for Paul’s conversion, but oddly enough there is no horse in the story.

But that helps to show how “well” we think we know the story. It has been told so many time in such a variety of ways. Most of the art depicting this scene has Paul falling off his horse, when this is a detail missing from the scripture. Regardless of equine presence, the story is one that captivates us even today.

The first detail we learn about Paul is that he was a young man who watched over the garments of those who stoned Stephen. But he was not just any young man, not just an innocent bystander. He not only approved of Stephen’s death, but also led a violent persecution of the budding Christian community.

Paul was enemy number one to the church, and God would turn his life around to become evangelist number one.

While he was threatening and murdering the disciples of God, Paul went to the high priest and asked for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any Christians on the way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. He was not just a concerned citizen, Paul was an active go-getter against the subversive community, willing to go above and beyond his duty.

It was on the way to Damascus that a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” Paul’s companions that were traveling stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. After being helped up from the ground Paul could see nothing, so his friends had to guide him the rest of the way to Damascus.

Some have subjected this story to psychological reflection about the inner-turmoil bubbling within Paul’s soul regarding his willingness to kill Christians. They see the Damascus road experience as an inward struggle that results in a changed life.

However, the details of the narrative argue the contrary. This is not an account of what was going on within Paul, but rather a story about a man who was encountered by something outside of himself. Conversion has to do with being approached by God, and being changed in the process of the encounter.

Paul was helpless and totally dependent on others after encountering Christ on the road. God, meanwhile, spoke with a disciple named Ananias in Damascus. He was commanded to go and meet the man from the road, Paul from Tarsus, lay hands on him so that he might recover his sight. Ananias hesitated knowing the kind of wrath and destruction that Paul had brought on his fellow Christians, but the Lord insisted “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles, and kings, and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

So Ananias went and laid his hands on Paul to restore his sight. Paul was then filled with the Holy Spirt, was baptized, and regained his strength. Through the power of God made manifest in Ananias, Paul went from being an enemy to being a brother; his life was completely turned around.

When pastors get together we can attempt to “out-Paul” one another. We strive to substantiate our call stories by comparing it with the one who was confronted on the road to Damascus. I have seriously heard people begin their stories with, “It was like I was on my own road to Damascus when God called me to a new life…” This story has become the prototype for many Christians, and we use it as a lens by which we judge others’ calls to different forms of discipleship.

This is a problem.

It is a problem because we forget that the radical kind of change worked in Paul is something that Christ does, not us. Sometimes we become so concerned with the desire to convert others that we foolishly put all of the responsibility on our shoulders when God is the true agent of change. We can show people the door of faith, but God is the one who gives them the strength to walk through it.

It is also a problem because it is not universal. The story of Paul on the road to Damascus is wonderful and miraculous, but it should not lead us to conclude that every conversion is basically the same.

Different people come to Jesus along different routes. When we consider the wealth of conversion stories from scripture, in addition to the tales of fellow Christians in our lives, it become self-evident that God calls individuals according to his will, not a singular story by which all others should be judged. Paul was called in a way that was proportionate to the life he was living – he needed to be knocked down in order to start a new life. But not all of us have lived like Paul.

The one thing that is universal regarding the story of Paul on the road is that meeting God changes the way we see everything. When we encounter the divine we become dependent on those already versed in the faith, we need Ananiases to help guide and nurture us when our vision has been turned upside down.

God met Paul on the road to Damascus and changed his life forever. God brought me down to my knees on a cold December evening when I was sixteen years old and changed my life forever. God spoke through Gabriel to a virgin named Mary about her bringing a baby into the world which changed her life forever.

Paul’s story is a great. It is full of beautiful details and demonstrates God’s power to change lives. But his story is not the only one. The Old and New Testaments are filled with stories about people whose lives were changed by God in incredible ways. Our church is filled with people who have encountered the good God in ways that are beyond our imaginations.

Whenever we meet God, whether through a particularly poignant moment, the reading of scripture, or the deep thoughts of prayer we embark on a new beginning. Like Paul, everything gets changed and we see the world a little more clearly, we see God’s grace manifest through the friends and family around us and we realize the deepest truth about Christmas – that God does not leave us to our own devices. Amen.

God With Us – Homily on James 5.13-20

Posted on December 10, 2014 by taylormertins

I was recently asked to speak to a local group of ICM Chaplains about the importance of carrying our faith into the workplace. It was an honor and a privilege to speak with such great chaplains and enjoy an evening of fellowship together. Below is the homily I preached for the occasion.

James 5.13-20

Are any song you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

She walked with a limp and was struggling under the oppressive humidity. Employed by the church as a custodian, the older woman largely kept to herself but you could tell that she was remarkably lonely. I had taken the time to express kind greetings throughout the summer but they never developed into a conversation. I was serving as an intern at a rural church in the deep recesses of Western North Carolina and I spent most of my days exploring the Great Smokey Mountains instead of sitting in my stuffy office reading over my sermons for Sundays.

Her loneliness was palpable enough that I finally decided to do something about it, and one Thursday morning toward the end of my time I invited her to come on hike with me along a creek right outside of town. I had been part of the church long enough to know that the building itself often casts a shadow over the lives of the people who call it home, and if you really want to get to know someone, you’ve got to go somewhere else.

She walked with a limp and was struggling under the oppressive humidity. I offered her my water bottle while we sat along the creek and let our feet cool off in the water. While sitting side by side I realized that I knew nothing about her outside of her name, but over the next thirty minutes I learned more about her than anyone else in town. Without prompting, without asking any questions, she started to spill forth details that had remained buried for a long time. I learned that she had been a writer in Chicago pursuing truth wherever possible, I learned about her desire to have children but had a husband who felt otherwise, I learned about the husband’s pension for physical punishment, I learned about the night he had one too many and beat her so bad she wound up in the hospital with a limp and brain damage, I learned about how she fled to escape his wrath to North Carolina, I learned about how she could only find work as a church custodian because of her physical problems, I learned that she felt alone, afraid, and empty.

We prayed. We prayed and prayed out in those woods. We spilt tears into the creek and we asked for God’s peace. Before we returned to town, my curiosity was too strong to not ask the question on my heart: “Why did you tell me all of that?” I asked. “Because you didn’t ask, you just listened.”

He came to the prayer meetings but never said a word. Every Wednesday morning the family men would sit in one of the parlors at the church and pray for one another before leaving for work. 40 such men had grown to value their time spent with God and one another to help them through the day ahead. We all listened about the problems at home, the children who refused to listen, the bosses who ignored their hard work, the financial struggles, and the crises of faith. It was a time of great vulnerability for us to share our doubts and frustrations without a sense of shame or judgment.

He came to the prayer meetings but never said a word. He never shared his frustration, never offered to pray. He just sat silently in the corner, sipped on his coffee, and left silently at the end of the meeting. That was the routine until one morning when he approached me and asked if he could take me out to breakfast. 20 minutes later I found myself sitting at the Birmingham Country Club in Birmingham, MI with a man who made more in a year than I will make in my entire life. He told me he had cancer, that he had not told anyone else, and that he didn’t know what to do. We prayed together while our coffee grew cold and asked for God’s grace to rain down on us in all things. Before we returned to our cars, my curiosity was too strong to not ask the question on my heart: “Why did you tell me all of that?” I asked. “Because you’re not the pastor, and I felt I could trust you.”

Icicles were beginning to form in my beard. The Christmas trees stood brilliantly arranged on the lawn of St. John’s UMC, with snow caught on the branches while families perused the plentiful selection of White Pines and Frasier Furs. I located one such family with two young children examining a tree near the end of the row. I offered to pull it off the line so they could examine from all angles and imagine it in their living room. We began talking about Staunton and what it means to be a true Stauntonian when they shared with me their desire to find a local church community. “We just moved here,” they said, “and we were hoping to plug in and meet some new people.”

“Well look no further than St. John’s” I began. “We’ve got services on Sundays, a wonderful Preschool, and people who are full of love. However, the pastor isn’t worth a can of beans.” They leaned in closer and asked with a whisper: “Well, then why do you come here if the pastor is so bad? “Because he is me. What makes our church wonderful are the people who attend, not the one who stands at the front.”

ICM: Industrial Commercial Ministries. Your mission is to be a caring presence in the workplaces you serve. You bring faith to the people as a sign of God’s love and presence. I love what you do, because you are called to be just like me, which is to say, you are called to be pastoral in the places that matter most. One of the failings of the modern church is the relegation of faithful living to one hour a week on Sunday mornings. We have diminished the role of Christian discipleship to the worship of God alone, which has allowed us to forget that we have put on Christ Monday through Saturday.

In my experience the most transformative moments in Christians’ lives take place somewhere other than church. My role as a pastor is to equip the people of God to be the body of Christ for the world. As chaplains you have the distinct privilege of sitting and praying with people in the midst of terrible valleys and incredible mountaintops. You, more than pastors, are deeply entrenched in the true mission field of 21st century Christianity.

The end of James contains one of the most beautiful calls for Christians to act like Christ: “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Being a Christian is not just about coming to church. Being Christian requires a commitment to confessing our shortcomings with one another, seeking help for the struggles of life no matter where we are and no matter what we do. Being a Christian requires us to be God’s loving and forgiving presence for people who feel they had been abandoned to the cruel fates of the world.

I give God many thanks for the work that you do as chaplains. You get to sit along the creeks of life, soaking your feet in the water, while listening to people open up about their pasts in a way that can be healing and transformative. You get to pray with people who have been dealt heavy blows regarding family issues, hopeless diagnoses, and financial burdens. You get to make Christianity wonderful by being the body of Christ for the world in the world.

I believe the Holy Spirit is moving through all of you. I believe God has done some incredible things through your willingness to meet people where they are. I believe the future of Christianity will be largely dependent on people like you who make the world become flesh in the way you live your lives.

This season of advent is perfect reminder for those of us called to be chaplains. We wait for Emmanuel, God with us, so that we can share that incredible good news with others: God is with you.

Amen.

The Advent of Samuel – Sermon on 1 Samuel 3.1-10

Posted on December 8, 2014 by taylormertins

1 Samuel 3.1-10

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Today we continue with our Advent Sermon Series on “New Beginnings.” These few weeks of Advent are integral to the life of our church in the sense that we are preparing our hearts, minds, and souls, for the coming of God in Christ on Christmas day. Last week we looked at Abram and his call to go to a new and strange land, a call for a new beginning. Today we continue by looking at the Advent of Samuel.

Chapel time is the best. Every week our little preschoolers gather here in the sanctuary to a hear a story from the bible and how it can relate to their lives right now.

The first week I had them gather in the choir loft with the lights turned off. We talked about the beginning of creation and how God spoke the world into existence. I then encouraged the kids to scream, “Let there be light!” as loud as possible, and only when the volume was sufficiently over the top, I cut the lights on in the whole room. Another week we made chicken noodle soup together and talked about Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a cup of stew. Another week, I had the kids do push-ups and sit-ups in the center aisle to build up their strength for a wrestling match. One by one they came forward and wrestled with me, just like Jacob wrestled with God on the banks of the Jabbok river.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I gathered with the children in the basement in preparation for their Thanksgiving feast. Chapel time that week was going to be all about communion. The kids made their way into the yellow room, and I sat down with them on the floor next to a table with the bread and the cup.

“Good morning my friends! Over the last few weeks you have been learning about the first Thanksgiving with the pilgrims and the Native Americans, about how they shared their food and ate with one another. We remember that great meal this week as many of us will sit around a table with our families and friends to share what we were thankful for. But a long time ago, way before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, there was another very special meal.”

“Jesus had been with his friends for a few years and this was going to be his last night with them. I’m pretty sure that they spent time that night talking about what they were thankful for, especially for Jesus. And when they were done talking, Jesus took a loaf of bread and gave to his friends to eat, and then he took a cup and shared it with his friends to drink. He said that he was giving himself for them, so that they would always know how loved they were.”

At the moment I couldn’t believe how well the kids were paying attention. Usually someone gets distracted, and therefore distracts the rest of the kids, but that morning they were all listening and hanging on every word.

I then asked the children to pray with me over the bread and the cup and I shared communion with them. I tried very carefully to limit the amount of times I called the cup Jesus’ blood, but of course I let it slip and one of the kids shouted: “Are we really drinking blood!?” “Well, yeah, but its also grape juice” “Oh man I love grape juice!” One by one they came forward with their hands outstretched to take a piece of the bread and then dip it in the cup and then received it. For every child that came forward I looked at them in their eyes and whispered, “God loves you.”

After we finished the kids made their way to the red room to begin their feast when I discovered that Debbie, our Preschool Director, was crying. Worried that I had done something wrong I went forward to comfort her and was shocked when she shared why she was so upset: “Taylor, that was beautiful. You have no idea how precious it was so see those children line up for communion. This might be as close as some of them will ever get to understanding that God loves them.”

This might be as close as some of them will ever get to understanding that God loves them.

Years from now I can imagine one of our Preschool students entering college. Though fully endowed with the knowledge of scripture and the willingness of this church to be there for him, he never enters our doors after he leaves the Preschool. High School is tough for him as wrestles with understanding his identity. Try as he might his grades are never good enough, his friends are never close enough, and no matter what he does he feels empty. Without having a true sense of direction, he applies to college and leaves home without looking back with the hope that this new beginning will be better than high school.

Sadly, it is not. College life is filled with even more people, and he feels less and less important. He falls through the cracks of campus life and spends most of his time alone in his dorm room. He still has the bible that we gave him so long ago, but it remains unopened on his shelf. One night, however, one of his roommates invites him to a campus ministry service. Reluctantly he attends, and is underwhelmed by the service.

The music is okay, and the message is all about spreading the Word of the Lord, whatever that means. He sits and listens attentively but he knows that he will never come back. But before the service ends, the pastor brings out the bread and wine and starts talking about communion. Immediately the boy is brought back to that morning sitting on the floor of the yellow room listening to a young bearded pastor talking about communion. While his mind is flooded with memories from the past he makes his way up to the make-shift altar and stretches out his hands to receive the body and blood of Christ while the pastor whispers, “God loves you.”

I can imagine that even after that incredible service the knowledge of God’s love didn’t stick. The boy meets his wife in college, gets married, graduates, and moves to a new city for work. Yet, even after his family grows through the arrival of a few children, even while he is secure in his work, he still feels like something is missing.

He tries different things to find fulfillment in his life: he joins a civic organization, he volunteers at a local soup kitchen, he even helps a boy scout troop. But nothing seems to fill the void he feels in his life.

One day, however, a neighbor invites him to the community Methodist church. He laughs while responding about how he went to Preschool at a United Methodist Church but the neighbor insists that he comes to worship.

The man sits with his family in church, stands when he’s supposed to, sings when he supposed to, he even prays when he’s supposed to. He listens attentively to the announcements and the sermon, but most of it feels lifeless and repetitive. The pastor then moves to the table and invites the congregation to partake in this beautiful and precious meal that Christ has offered us without price. She says: “This table is the one true place where we can find fulfillment because in the bread and wine we see what Jesus gave for us on the cross, we see his truest and deepest act of grace. We are living in a time when the word of the Lord is rare, but at this table you can find what you’re missing, because here you discover the glory of God.”

With tears in his eyes, the man walks forward. He remembers that day so long ago sitting on the cold floor in the basement of our preschool, he remembers that night in college when he walked up toward the altar. The emotional wave is almost overwhelming and as he stretches out his hands the pastor whispers, “God loves you” and for the first time, he believes it.

People have heard the call of God in many different ways. Samuel heard it while he was sleeping in the temple and it took him three times to recognize that God was the one calling his name.

The word of the Lord was rare in those days, and it took an incredible act of faith to recognize that God was planning to do something incredible. Samuel did not identify his call when he first heard it, it had to be repeated and it had to be interpreted for him by the old priest Eli.

Only when Samuel was able to respond with: “Speak, for your servant is listening” would he embark on a new beginning to be a prophet of the Lord. Part of the incredible beauty in this nighttime calling is the fact that God does not give up on Samuel. Though he clearly misses the location of his communication, God continues to call to him in an intimate and loving way.

One of the hardest things in the world to accept is that God loves us. In our heart of hearts we know, more than anyone around us, what we have done wrong and how we have fallen short of God’s glory. We see the mirrored reflection of our brokenness and we see someone unworthy of God’s love. Sometimes it takes more than a simple affirmation, it takes more than just a preacher babbling from a pulpit, it takes more than a bumper sticker or a billboard to remind us that God loves us. We need to hear it over and over and over again because it is true and remarkable.

I believe we are living in a time, just like Samuel, when the word of God is rare. We attempt to fill the emptiness in our lives with superficial commodities, we assume that money, power, and importance can make us feel whole. We foolishly hope that we can root our identity in a culture that ignores the outcast, in a country that neglects to embrace the democracy that we so worship, in a socioeconomic system that punishes the poor while rewarding the wealthy.

Now, more than ever, do we need to recapture that spirit of wonder and joy that a young man felt in the fuzzy hours of the morning when he heard his name being called in the temple. We need to discover the truest new beginning that comes when we remember that our identity is rooted in God. We need to let our discipleship be a living witness to others so that they can feel God’s love through people like us.

It was during another time when the word of God was rare, a time when governments oppressed the people they claimed to fight for, when a poverty stricken couple was forced to travel to a strange town for a census decreed by the emperor. In Bethlehem, when visions of God’s glory were not widespread, Mary and Joseph huddled together for warmth, believing the world had abandoned them to an awful fate. In the depth of their loneliness and fear, God came in the flesh to remind them that they were loved.

This table, where we gather, might be the closest you ever come to knowing that God loves you. When you feast on the great gift that was first given on Christmas, you are just like that child from our preschool, just like that questioning college student, just like that empty parent, and just like Mary and Joseph in the manger. This is where God makes all things new.

So if you remembering anything from today let it be this: God loves you. God loves you. God loves you.

Amen.

The Advent of Abram – Sermon on Genesis 12.1-9

Posted on December 1, 2014 by taylormertins

Genesis 12.1-9

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abrams took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord apprised to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

Today we begin our Advent Sermon Series on “New Beginnings.” Advent comes from the latin adventus which means “coming.” These few weeks are integral to the life of our church in the sense that we are preparing our hearts, minds, and souls, for the coming of God in Christ on Christmas day. This season lends itself to new beginnings, not just in our church, but in each of our lives. This morning we begin with the Advent of Abram.

—

“Wow,” he exclaimed a little too loudly as he began gripping deeply into my shoulder. I found myself staring at one of the groomsmen from the bridal party. We had spent the better part of an hour attempting to line everything up for the wedding during the rehearsal and were now at the Mill Street Grill for the rehearsal dinner.

Wedding rehearsals are crazy; a conflation of friends and family gather together in a church they have never seen, and listen to a pastor they have never met, telling them where to stand and what to do. In no other aspect of ministry is the metaphor of a shepherd and his sheep more appropriate than when I plead with the groomsmen to pay attention and start acting appropriately. Things would go so smoothly if the groomsmen would act like the bridesmaids.

Anyway, I was staring at the groomsmen when he began to lay on the compliments about how well the rehearsal went and how impressed he was with my disposition. “I can’t believe you’re a pastor! I mean, dude, you’re younger than me! And the way you pray, it sounds like you’re actually talking to God, and for real that was awesome.” I will admit that people are rather honest with me, particularly when the rehearsal dinner has an open bar.

A little later another young person from the bridal party came forward to introduce herself and began opening up about her faith. “It has been a long time since I was in a church, but hearing you speak and seeing how serious you are about all this has reignited my faith; If I lived around here, I would want to worship at St. John’s.”

Still later another young man from the wedding walked over and began speaking to me through jovial chuckles and slaps on my back. “Now man I have got to ask, that good looking girl with the blue eyes, are you two together? Cause if not I would love to get her number.” To which I replied, “Till death do us part” and I walked away.

Conversations as a pastor are often one sided: people bring their own sets of questions and baggage about the church and they are looking for me to confirm their suspicions. “Are you really allowed to be married?” “I never knew pastors could be so young” “What do you think about the Catholic church?” are all frequent elements of dialogue.

However, toward the end of the night, after the last call had been made from the bar, yet another groomsmen came forward. At this point I was getting tired of the same trivial conversations about how I knew the bride, what it takes to become a pastor, and how long had I felt called to the ministry. I am sure that I sighed as he came forward, but his question was unlike any of the others…

“How long have you been serving here?” “It’s been about a year and a half” “Is it still everything you thought it would be?”

To follow a call from God may be a costly matter, particularly when it leads to a lonely road. Abram was tasked with following the call of God to leave everything based on God’s Word.

One day, an ordinary day, the Lord told Abram to go from his country and his family to the land that God had prepared with the promise that God would make of him a great nation, he would be blessed, and his name would become so great that he would be a blessing. So Abram went.

The simplicity of “so Abram went” is one of the most deceptive phrases in all of scripture. The extraordinary nature of those three words are lost in Genesis 12 if we gloss over it too quickly. Abram was free from indecision, self-doubt, or stubbornness. His willingness to go is the opposite of what took place in the garden of Eden, and demonstrates a radical dependence on the providence of God.

Abram must turn his back on what had been the familiar and the friendly to go out toward the unwelcome and the unknown. His life would be forever changed in his decision to respond to God’s simple push, something that changed the history of humankind.

The call of Abram is not unlike the many callings that God places in each of our lives. It might not come in the definitive and spoken Word as if from the wind, but there are subtle moves and pushes that God does in order to bring about his will on earth. Many people prefer to stay where they are and as they are rather than to try hard to arrive at something different. Once they reach a level of comfort in their lives, they become content with keeping their eyes trained on the dirt instead of gazing up into the stars.

People of apathy appear throughout the bible, people who might have made their lives significant but never wanted to put their effort in to change. The likes of Esau, Jonah, and Solomon grew complacent with their blessings, and stopped dreaming about the future. Their failure was not generally aiming at anything bad as it was in the fact that they did not aim strongly enough at anything!

Abram could have been apathetic, but instead he responded enthusiastically. He took his wife, his brother’s son, and all his possessions and set forth toward the land of Canaan. When he arrived, God made it clear that this would be the place of his offspring, and Abram made an altar to praise the Lord.

Abram might have accepted the divine message with the momentary enthusiasm of a man who is proud to feel that he has been singled out for something special, but quickly cools when he finds where he must go.

“Is is still everything you thought it would be?” As soon as I was asked images from the past year and a half floated through my mind – the baptisms, the deaths, the weddings. The tears spilt in my office, the dreaded phone calls from the hospitals, the shaking hands gripped in prayer. The kids laughing in the Preschool, the palms outstretched for communion, the knocks on the door that carried the weight of the world.

Has my enthusiasm cooled? Is this call to ministry everything I thought it would be? I always dreamed about the sermons that would get people to shout AMEN! from the pews. I dreamt about the people who I would help bring to the light of Christ, people whose lives would be radically transformed through God’s Word from this church. I dreamt about all the positive affirmations I would receive from people at the back of the sanctuary following worship.

The more time I have spent following this call from God, the more that I have realized how similar it is to Abram’s journey. Responding to God is not about the results, packed pews, lots of money in the offering plate, and people lining up to commit their lives to Christ. Responding to the call is about walking the lonely path, standing up for what is right, and calling all of us, including myself, to live better and holier lives.

Moreover, the call is not just for pastors, but for all of us as Christians. God is not looking for people to say all the right things at the right times, people who will proudly place money in the offering plates, people who have perfect posture in prayer. God is looking for disciples who are willing to say “yes” when the world says “no”, people who fight against injustice, and go into the unknown like Abram.

God tells Abram that he will be blessed in responding to the call. The bible makes it very clear that a person can know and recognize their blessedness not when they have managed to get rid of all the dangers and risks and burdens, but when they have been given great and gallant strength to bear them.

The collective group can only move forward when an individual breaks the path ahead. On every level of life there must be a pioneer. Joseph had to dream dreams that went beyond what his brothers wanted, Moses had to stand before the Lord and plead for the forgiveness of God’s people, and Jesus had to push his friends further and farther than they ever wanted to go.

Only when people are brave enough to rise above the crowd, only when they set out on new beginnings, do they follow the roads of freedom for their souls.

The past week has been filled with frightening examples of our need to start standing up against the crowd mentality of our culture:

We need a new beginning when it comes to the foolishness of sitting around a family table to give thanks, to then punch one another in the face while wrestling for Black Friday deals.

We need a new beginning when it comes to a nation flocking to Facebook to express their opinions about what is going on in Ferguson, when they neglect to create real and meaningful relationships with those around them.

We need a new beginning when it comes to our denomination meeting for a day of “holy conferencing” about homosexuality when we keep talking about it as an “issue” instead of it being about people.

We need new beginnings all around us, and its up to people like you and me to listen like Abram and start walking down the strange new road.

Wherever Abram went he built an altar to the Lord. While responding to the call of God he recognized the importance of worshipping the Maker in whom we live for the true blessings of life. Having a new beginning implies understanding that worship is important for the cultivation of one’s soul. We gather here in this place week after week to hear the Word of God and respond to it in our lives, we gather to feast on the Word so that we can encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ to take radical steps of faith into new beginnings just like Abram.

Abram left it all for a new beginning in a new place. He traveled as the Lord commanded and wound up in the hill country on the east of Bethel. Many years later a young virgin named Mary and a man named Joseph traveled to Bethlehem for a new beginning in a new place. They traveled as the Lord commanded and wound up in a village without space at the inn, but brought a child into the world who changed everything.

“Is it still everything you thought it would be?” the man asked. I thought for a long time before I responded, reflecting on all that has happened to our precious church over the last year and a half. “No, its not everything I thought it would be. It is so much harder. But thats why its worth it.”

Amen.

The Talent Show – Sermon on Matthew 25.14-30

Posted on November 17, 2014 by taylormertins

Matthew 25.14-30

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave, you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

I have an idea. We are going to start things off in the sermon a little differently this morning. Instead of sitting patiently and attentively while I spout off about theological ideas and anecdotes, we are going to do an activity…

In the parable of the talents, the master gives to the first slave five talents, the second slave two talents, and to the third slave he gives one talent. During the time of Christ, a talent was worth more than fifteen years of wages for a daily laborer; therefore this was a tremendous amount of money. So, here’s our activity: I want us to imagine that we are the modern equivalent of the master’s slaves, and we are going to discuss what we are going to do with the talents. If you’re sitting in the front third of the sanctuary I want you to imagine that the master has given you $50,000. In the middle third I want you to imagine that the master has given you $20,000. And the back third I want you to imagine that the master has given you $10,000. (If you remember anything from worship today, let it be this: It pays to sit near the front!) Anyway, I would like you to break up into groups of three or four and discuss what you would do with the money for the benefit of the kingdom of God. Begin.

Okay. The master would like to know what you are planning to do with his talents…

Of course, in the parable things work out a little differently. The master has decided to go on a great journey, and entrusts an incredible amount of money to three of his slaves. He provides them with five talents, two talents, and one talent, to each according to his ability. After the master leaves the five talent slave goes off and works hard with his talents and makes five more. Likewise the two talent slave goes off and works hard to earn two more talents. However the one talent slave went off and dug a hole in the ground to hide his master’s money.

The master returns and is greatly thrilled with the first two slaves. He rewards their trustworthy and hardworking nature by placing them in charge of many things, and then invites them into the joy of their master. But with the one talent slave, the master is very disappointed. The third slave was afraid of his master and saw that he was harsh, so he hid the talent in the ground. To which the master replies, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own interest.” The master takes away the one talent and orders the slave to be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Out of all the parables that Jesus shared with his disciples, this one has probably been more abused and misused than any other. Once any parable is abstracted from the proclamation of the kingdom, misreading is inevitable. Jesus shared a story about a shepherd who goes after the one sheep that is missing – God rejoices in seeking out those who are lost, even if they appear insignificant. Jesus tells another story about a young man who squanders his inheritance and comes back to his father begging to be welcomed as a slave and the father throws a great banquet for the return of the prodigal – God, though harsh, is a loving, reconciling, and forgiving presence.

The parable of the talents however, has been twisted around to fit the arguments of many pastors and theologians throughout the centuries. For instance, this passage has been cited, in prosperity gospel churches, as a defense for why God wants us to become wealthy; God blesses us money so that we can make more money! Additionally this scripture has been used to claim that the poor are poor because of their own faults and problems, God gave them all the opportunities in the world to become rich, but they failed to pull themselves up by their boot straps and make something of themselves.

Jesus is not using this parable to recommend to his followers that we should work hard, make all the money we can, to give all we can. Instead, the story is a judgment against those who think they deserve what they earned, and a judgment against those who do not know how precious is the gift that they have been given.

The slaves did nothing to earn their five, two, and one talents. They were given as gifts! What becomes crucial is how they regarded the gifts and what they did with them.

A professor of mine in seminary named Stanley Hauerwas is widely regarded as a radical ethicist in the church. He has made some stunning proposals throughout his career about the need for the church to be the church and reclaim a sense of its radical nature in order to return to its mission for the kingdom of God.

Stanley Hauerwas

He argued that we, as pastors, should never perform funerals in funeral homes because the services of death and resurrection should always take place where baptisms happen. He argued that we, as pastors, should never marry strangers off the street but take the time to know them intimately before bringing them together in holy marriage. He argued that we, as pastors, should remove American Flags from sanctuaries because the flag’s presence blurs the line between what our country expects of us, and what God requires of us. But one of the strangest proposals he ever made has to do with money and the church.

When we receive new members we often have them stand up here in front of the church like Tom and Linda will do a little bit later and take vows of membership. They promise to serve the church with their time and gifts for the glory of God. We then applaud them and shake their hands after the service.

Hauerwas believes that we should add a new requirement to membership. Whenever we receive new members, they should stand in front of the entire gathered body and announce how much money they earn in a calendar year… (pause for dramatic emphasis)

“Hi, I’m Taylor Mertins. Born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, I am a transplant to the Staunton region and I really enjoy the pace of life here. I serve as a pastor in the United Methodist Church and I make $36,500 a year.”

His reasoning behind this is two-fold: It would allow the church to have greater transparency regarding the wealthy during times of need. If everyone knows who the bigger earners are, they can seek them out when someone in the community is in dire straits, or if the church needs immediate help with something.

It would also allow the church to recognize the great gaps of wealth within the local congregation regarding the rich and the poor. When a family joins that make very little during the year, it would allow us to know who it is that we can truly help by consolidating our resources. We, as Americans, do such a good job at trying to cover up our socioeconomic status that we are blind to those who are in need in the pews next to us.

What do you think? Should we adopt his plan here at St. John’s?

I’m not so sure. I understand his idea on principle, but I believe that it would result in us abusing one another and it would prevent us from viewing everyone as part of the body of Christ. If you discovered that one of the humble women in the church was a millionaire wouldn’t you treat her differently? If you discovered that one of the men who appears very wealthy has no money at all, wouldn’t you treat him differently?

Yet, at the same time, I really like Hauerwas’ idea. It would push us to be more vulnerable with one another about what we have to offer, and what we need. So I’m going to offer a slightly different proposal. What if, when we received new members, we required them to share their talents with us?

Jesus’ parable of the talents uses money, but in the big picture it has nothing to do with money at all. God, as the master, has given each of us unique abilities and talents that we have been tasked to use in the world for the kingdom. To some he has given more talents than to others, which is to say the hand is not the foot, nor is the arm like the leg, in the body of Christ. Yet everyone has been blessed with some talent that is beautiful, wonderful, and incredibly important.

Jesus’ disciples are called to do the work that Jesus has given us to do — work as simple and hard as learning to tell the truth and learning to love our enemies. Such work is the joy that our master invites us to share with him.

The slaves that earned more with their talents did so because they worked with what they had. No effort is made to describe how the slaves doubled their talents, but that they worked hard with the talents the master had given them. However the one talent slave rationalizes his failure to do anything with the talent entrusted to him by blaming the master! How often are we guilty of the same thing? —Blaming God for the failures that are indeed our fault.

Since the beginning of the church is has been a routine for Christians to excuse themselves by protesting that their gifts are too modest to be significant. How can little ole me possibly do anything for God’s kingdom?

Let me assure each of you of the contrary: You have been given gifts, wonderful and unique talents, that are begging to be used in the church for the world, and in the world for the church. You might not recognize them as such, you might feel insecure about whatever they are, but God has endowed you with the gifts so that they can be used. If you hide them inwardly, if you dig a hole in the ground, you fail to make good on the investment that God has made in you.

Jesus insists, through the parable, that the talents that God has provided us are to be used and implemented to their full ability. Christian discipleship is not something that we can just hope our pastors or churches can carry us through, but instead requires hard work. It demands that we take a good look at our lives and talents and ask how we can put them to use for God’s kingdom.

What talents do you see in your life? Are you a teacher who has the gift of sharing the Good News of God’s Word with others? A carpenter who has the gift to repair and shape shelters for others? A prayer warrior who has the gift to pray for our church, our community, and our world? A financially savvy individual who has the gift of helping others learn how to manage and invest their money? A nurse or doctor who has the gift of healing and presence?

I see a church full of Christians who have gifts that God has given.

Church should be like a great talent show where we share with others what God has given us, so that we can them employ those gifts for the kingdom. What are you doing with your talents?

Amen.

Think of the Children! – Sermon on Psalm 78.1-8

Posted on November 10, 2014 by taylormertins

Psalm 78.1-8

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open in my mouth a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a decree in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children; that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children, so that they should se this hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

I love when scripture is straight-forward. With the amount of passages in both the Old and New Testaments that remain ambiguous, it is remarkably refreshing to encounter a text that is so simple with its claims and expectations.

Listen up! Open your ears to what I’m about to say regarding the mighty acts of God. I will remember for us the forgotten sayings from the past, we will not hide them from the children, we will share with them all the wonders of God. The Lord commanded our ancestors to teach our children, so that they would indeed teach their children, so that none of us would forget what God has done. Above all, let us not fall back into the rhythms of our distant ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, nor was their spirit faithful to God.

What follows our reading from this morning is a record of history in song. The psalmist sets up his challenge: to remember the mighty acts of God for the future generations; and then declares the history of God with God’s creation. The tradition, the narrative, is so strong that the psalmist will not depart from it, since his purpose is to instruct rather than to entertain. That old old story has become so important to him, that he will tell it to the best of his ability for the sake of God’s people.

As I read the words to Psalm 78 this week, I couldn’t help but wonder about what we are teaching our children. If our desire to instruct the future generations regarding the mighty deeds of God is as strong as this Psalm claims, then how are we living that out today in our faith and in our church?

On Tuesday morning, with the words from scripture percolating in my heart and soul, I made my way down to the Preschool to welcome our children into the building. I’ll admit that opening the door for our students is one of the things that I look forward to most during the week. The children are always so excited about entering the classrooms for the activities and learning that will enrich them. Whereas many parents have to drag their high-school students out of bed, banging pots and pans, even dumping water on them to wake them up, the Preschool students see school as something worth celebrating and waking up for!

It brings me so much joy to see their smiling faces every morning, to hear them shout “Pastor Taylor!” and run over to give me a hug as if they thought that they had lost me forever, to see them walking with their parents or guardians hand in hand hopeful for the day ahead. When I look at them in the morning I can’t help but think about the future generations of the church, and our community. In the basement of our building, we have the privilege of shaping, molding, and nurturing those who will one day take care of us.

Anyway, when the children arrived on Tuesday morning they came in with their normal excitement and made their way to their respective classes. I usually try to sneak back down around snack time for the selfish purpose of receiving some carrots with ranch dressing, or pretzel sticks, and I often ask each of the children what they had been learning about that morning.

“Pastor Taylor, I learned about the letter “G.” Goofy, Girl, Grass, and Grapes!”

“Pastor Taylor, I learned that spiders have eight legs and make a web to catch their food!”

“Pastor Taylor, I learned that we stole the land away from the Indians and forced them to move across the country!”

On Tuesday morning, every one of those children looked at me when I walked in, and shouted, “Pastor Taylor, we learned how to vote!” The teachers had set up a voting booth in the yellow room, and each child had the opportunity to vote on their snack for the day: Pringles Chips, or Oreo Cookies (obviously Oreos were victorious). Every child had the opportunity to go behind the curtain, place their vote in secrecy, and then received an “I Voted!” sticker.

Downstairs in the basement we work on educating the future generation on the important things: Letters, Shapes, and Numbers; Animals, Plants, and Weather; Hygiene, Responsibility, and even Civic Duty. However, sometimes we get so caught up in the education of our youth, that we lose sight of what God has called us to do. Because right now I know that every child from our Preschool can tell you why we vote, and how we vote, but I know that only a few of them can tell you who Jesus is, and what he came to do. What does it say about our culture when more people now recognize the McDonald’s Golden Arches than they recognize the cross of Jesus Christ? What does it say that we train our children regarding voting procedures, but we do not teach them how to pray?

I have very fond memories of growing up in church. I loved the change in the liturgical seasons, and the different colors around the altar. I loved getting invited up to the front of the church once a month to receive communion. I loved getting to hear the choir sing with passion on a regular basis. I loved church because it was fun.

Yet, I can’t really remember what I learned. I know that when I was much younger, we, the kids, were only allowed to stay in the sanctuary until the “children’s sermon” and then we were escorted out of the sanctuary to the classrooms to work on arts and crafts as if whatever was happening in worship was for adult audiences only; Aldersgate UMC Rated PG-13

I remember learning about the big stories, the ones that everyone knows: Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, Jesus and his disciples. But there are so many things about church that I never learned.

My grandmother remembers her mother placing a coin in her hand every Sunday so that she would place it in the offering plate. From a young age she was habituated into the practice of giving back to God out of the abundance that she had. But by the time my mother came around this was not something that was instilled in her, and therefore it was not instilled in me. I have no idea whether or not my parents ever gave money to the church because it was not something we ever talked about.

What I do remember is a story that one of my pastors told about receiving a letter from a young boy in the congregation. The boy had been mowing lawns in the community and his parents had talked to him about the importance of tithing so that boy collected 10% of his lawn-mowing earnings, and placed them in the offering plate inside of a ziplock bag. The way my pastor told the story was so powerful that it got many of the adults crying. Look at the faith of this young boy and his willingness to give back to God!

But when I think about that now, I don’t see it as something special, in fact I see it as something rather ordinary. The fact that it was something so deeply celebrated as a rarity is another testament to the fact that we have neglected to tell the story of God’s mighty acts to the coming generation. They recently did a study at my home church and they discovered that only 25% of the people who attend worship give money to the church. That means that 3/4 people in the pews let the offering plate pass right over them. What are we instilling in the future generations that allows them to witness the incredible acts of God in the world today? How are we sharing the story with others so that we remember who we are and whose we are?

Instead, we hope and expect that others will just figure it out on their own and that they will know to give 10%, that they will know how and when to pray for their enemies, that they will place their hope in the resurrection in the midst of death. We so desperately want to privatize everything in our lives that we don’t want to talk about our prayers, we don’t want to talk about how much we give to church, and we don’t walk to talk about when and how we doubt.

When I was in seminary we were required to take a class on preaching. For weeks we gathered in the basement of the Divinity School listening to our professor lecture on the importance of proclaiming the Word, and then we were asked to preach in front of our peers on assigned texts so that they could critique our style and form. One day however, our preaching class went on a field trip to one of the local funeral homes in Durham, NC. The point of the visit was to help prepare us for the sermons that we would be preaching at funerals, offer advice on how to interact with funeral home directors, and talk about the theology behind death.

We walked through the facility from the basement where they did the embalming to the chapel where they held smaller services. And when we passed through one of the rooms, I noticed that a coffin had been prepared and opened for a viewing that would happen that afternoon. I stopped to pay my respect and offer up a brief prayer when I saw one of my friends frozen in place with her gaze locked on the casket. At 27 years old, she had never seen a dead body. Even with all the training and reading, the practice and focus, she was completely shocked by the sight, and I had to physically help her out of the room to continue the tour. I can remember her muttering under her breath as if she was unaware that she was actually speaking “death is so real.” I learned later that she had never been to a funeral and seeing that embodiment of death for the first time came as a frightening and almost overwhelming dose of reality.

What does it say when we keep our young people from experiencing death through funerals? Are we so afraid of death that it blinds us from the hope of the resurrection? Are we so concerned about how it might affect the coming generation that we neglect to instill in them the story about how God conquered death through Christ on the cross?

Of course, this isn’t just about teaching children the stories. It’s about all of us, whether we’re nine or ninety. We gather here in this space to remember, over and over, the great acts of God in the world. We move from creation, to redemption, back and forth, to remind one another what God did for us, and what God continues to do through us.

The psalmist, so long ago, believed in retelling the story to help shape the people of God. The psalmist believed that in going back to their origins, by remembering who they are and whose they are, they would always find the living God. When we retell the story we become a people of habit and pattern, we become shaped by the Word to be Christ’s body in the world today.

We tell the story to open our eyes to how God has provided us with so many blessings that we respond by giving back to God our tithes and offerings. We tell the story so that we can open our hearts to the ways that we can love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. We tell the story so that we can open our souls to the great cosmic victory over death and remember that we have the hope of the resurrection.

If we want the coming generations to be steeped in the Word of the Lord, if we want them to remember the glorious deeds of God, and his might, and the wonders that he has done, if we want them to be a people of hope, then its up to us to share the story with them.

Amen.

Sinners and Saints – Sermon on Psalm 34.1-8

Posted on November 2, 2014 by taylormertins

Psalm 34.1-8

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those to take refuge in him.

Tomorrow will be my 6th funeral. Betty Lancaster, Georgeanna Driver, Brandy Garletts, Russ Wisely, Dick Markley, and now Chris Harris. I can remember the way my heart raced when I got the phone calls when each of them passed, I can still see their families in tears during the funeral, and I can still remember the sensation of the dirt in my hand when I dropped it on the caskets at the cemeteries. Without a doubt, preaching and presiding over funerals is one of the greatest privileges, and most difficult challenges, that I have as a pastor.

I am invited into one of the most sensitive aspects of a family’s life when I find out that someone has died. Those moments in the car on my way to a home or hospital, are filled with prayerful silence as I ask God to use me as a vessel of his grace and peace with a family who is in the midst of grief. You never know what to say, because there is nothing to say. You sit and listen, you provide the loving comfort of presence, and you pray for everyone you can think of.

Today is All Saints’; a day for us to remember those who have gone on to glory over the last year from our church, and from all of our families and friends. It is a hallowed time where we reflect on the ways that our friends and families shaped us into who we are today. It is that precious day when we give thanks to God for putting them in our lives, and then welcoming them back into his eternal arms. All Saints’, like funerals, is a time for us to speak truths about the lives of those close to us, with the hope of the promised resurrection.

No matter what, funerals are always difficult. Funerals are a remarkably sensitive time for families and you have to be very careful about what you say, and how you say it. Yet even with the fear and trembling that comes with proclaiming someone’s life and death, I do look forward to sharing stories that help to reveal the character of the person’s life that we are remembering.

For instance:

The first time I met Brandy Garletts was early in my time here at the church. She was older and had been moved to a rehabilitation center when I went to visit her. I spent way too much time worrying about what I would say to this stranger for the first time, what her impression of me would be, and how could I speak words of hope in her situation. When I made my way to the facility, after finally finding her room, she motioned for me to sit across from her to lean in closer. Before I could even open my mouth to begin speaking all the prepared thoughts that I had, Brandy asked me a question that I was completely unprepared for: “Are you a registered voter?”

There I was sitting across from an incredibly sweet woman, someone that many people from our church have admired and looked up to, prepared to talk about God, faith, and grace, and she wanted to find out if I was a democrat or a republican.

Brandy was a fiercely strong woman and fought for what she believed in. Asking me about my political ideology was indicative of the life she lived; always looking for new opportunities to make the world better for others.

Or I could tell you about a story that Russ Wisely shared with me in my office: “Many years ago,” he began, “we had another young pastor. Fletcher Swink had just graduated from Duke Divinity School and was sent to Staunton for his first appointment, just like you. In the beginning everything was great. Fletcher provided strong leadership, the church was growing, and we started to build the property that we are now sitting in. However, one day, Fletcher called me because he had a problem and had no idea what to do. He had performed a wedding for a young couple in Staunton, his very first, and only after signing the marriage certificate did he realize that he had not filled out the proper paperwork to legally marry people in the state of Virginia. He was at a loss for what to do, so I told him to come with me to the courthouse; I knew the judge and figured we might be able to work something out. When we brought the matter to the judge he looked at me and he asked ‘Russ, what do you think we can do?’ and I told him that we could sign the paperwork and just change the date to have happened before the wedding, to which he replied, ‘sounds like a good idea to me.’

I sat there in my office stunned. Here was this older man telling me a story about how he had manipulated the legal system just to cover for a young pastor who had made a mistake. Was he telling me this story to make sure that I didn’t make any mistakes? Was he trying to scare me about the responsibilities of leading the church? I sat there in my chair, unsure of how the story would conclude. Russ then looked at me right in the eyes to finish, “That happened nearly 60 years ago. I helped Fletcher because it was important. I want you to know, young man, that I am here to help you as well. If you need anything I want you to call me.” And with that he stood up and prepared to leave my office. Only then did I realize that I never said a word.

Russ Wisley sacrificed for others and was willing to work behind the scenes to make things happen. Whether here at church or in the community, Russ would help anyone he could, because he believed in the importance of supporting others.

What has struck me most about the lives we have celebrated over the last year, the people who we are remembering today, is that they understood the words from Psalm 34; their lives were a reflection of God’s goodness and they lived as saints for others to follow.

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Saints are those who can speak and live in such a way as to point to the Lord in all that they do. They give thanks to the Lord their God for the blessings they have received and give back to others from their abundance. Saints recognize the presence of God and do whatever they can to share that experience with others because they know how life-giving it can be.

“O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.” Saints do what they can to benefit the greater community and not just their own lives. They are not content with having a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” but see the great gift that the community of faith can be. They worship together to praise the Lord of hosts, and exalt his name. At church they sing from the depth of their being, and greet others in Christian love. At home they pray fervently for their lives, for their friends and family, for their enemies, and for their church. They strive to magnify the Lord in all that they do so that others can know how life-giving it can be.

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Saints understand that God has continued to seek them out throughout the years, and take the time to respond to God’s great calling. Instead of remaining complacent with their faith journeys, they seek out the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the knowledge that in doing so, the Lord will answer. Instead of just hoping for good things to happen because they live good lives, they take leaps of faith to encounter the living God who will deliver them from fear. Saints believe that going to the Lord reorients all expectations and priorities and they encourage others to go to the Lord because they know how life-giving it can be.

“Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble.” Saints know that life is not always easy, and that there will be times of suffering. To follow the commands of God, to live by the beatitudes, implies a willingness to see the world turned upside down where the first will be last and the last will be first. They do not let their sufferings get the best of them, but instead they remember that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. They encourage others to not give in to the suffering in their lives but to firmly place their hope in Jesus Christ because they know how life-giving it can be.

Our saints have lived lives worthy of emulation. The more I learned about their discipleship as I prepared for their funerals, the more I wanted to live like them. I was struck over and over again by how deeply rooted they were in their faith, and how much they worked to live like Jesus. However, that’s not to say that our saints have been perfect; even Jesus’ family tree is filled with broken and battered branches.

On All Saint’s Sunday, we remember the saints, and let us be sure to remember all of them. Not just the wonderful and psalm-like moments from their lives, but the bruised and blemished moments as well. Not just the saints from our church family that have died, but all the saints who have witnessed to God’s love for us.

Who do you think of when you hear the word “saint”? Do you picture Mother Teresa, Augustine, or John Wesley? Do you think about people who lived perfectly pure lives? Or do you think about the people in your life who have simply encouraged you in your faith?

Those who we remember today were both sinners and saints. There were times that they fell short of God’s expectations, there were times that they did not practice what they preached. There were moments that they neglected to praise and and magnify the Lord. But God has a crafty way of turning sinners into saints.

God almighty, maker of heaven and earth, has done, and will continue to do, some incredible things through the sinners in our midst. You might remember those that have died for all the negative, bad, and embarrassing things that they did, but God saw them in their sinfulness and saw potential. God has used our saints to change our lives for the better by shaping us into the disciples we are today.

The pulpit is a wonderful vantage point. From where I stand I can look out on the gathered body of Christ and take in the view in one fell swoop:

When I look out from here I see a church full of sinners. I see the brokenness that many of you have shared with me, but have refused to share with anyone else. I see the fights, frustrations, and failures that haunt so many of you on a regular basis. I look out and see the doubts that cloud your faith, the temptations that draw you away from God, and the selfishness that drives you away from one another.

But at the same time, when I look out from here I see a church full of saints. I see the body of Christ praising the Lord through prayer and song. I see the humble souls that are thankful for the blessing of life. I see the love, life, and vitality that invigorates so many of you toward wholeness. I look out and see the radiant faces that shine with God’s glory. I see a church that is full of people willing and excited to work for God’s kingdom.

So, like the psalmist says, let us come to the God’s table; see and taste how the Lord is good. Remember all of those who have gone before us to a table such as this, to take refuge in the Lord.

Let us also give thanks to the Lord for putting the saints we remember into our lives. For helping to shape and mold them out of their sinfulness and into saintliness. For their desire to share the Good News with us so that we might know what grace is really all about.

And let us hope and pray that God would continue to give us the strength to be saints for others in spite of our sinfulness. So that one day, God willing, the church will get together to worship the Lord and give thanks for us after we die.

Amen.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? – Sermon on Matthew 22.34-40

Posted on October 26, 2014 by taylormertins

Matthew 22.34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

What a great question. The bible is full of teachings, so many in fact that a number of passages contradict. It details the history of God with God’s people from the beginning of creation, through the patriarchs, politicians, and prophets. The law is complex and detailed at times with provisions for how to treat one another, and behave faithfully. Are we to live by all of the commandments equally or is there one that stands alone? “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment, the one that stands alone as a beacon under which all the other laws pale in comparison. The lawyer is looking for a solitary answer, yet Jesus refuses to name only one; for Christ the love of God and neighbor are inseparable.

Jesus said to the lawyer, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

What I want to know is this: What does it actually mean to love God and neighbor?

A number of years ago I was flying back from Guatemala after a week-long mission trip when I had one of the strangest encounters with love. In order to save money the church had purchased tickets from all over the aircraft and none of us were sitting together. Frankly, after a week of building stoves in the remote highlands of Guatemala I was perfectly fine sitting away from everyone; we smelled, we were irritable, and we were tired. When I boarded the plane all I could think about was the thrill of falling asleep and waking up back at home. My seat was located toward the front of the coach section on the left side, the middle of three seats. I arrived before my seat-mates, and when it was clear that they were a married couple, with me in the middle, I offered to move to the aisle so that they could sit next to one another. Big mistake.

Don’t get me wrong, they were remarkably kind and in good spirits. They had been vacationing together in Guatemala at a resort and were full of joy and happiness. I think they were in their early sixties, and though they had been probably married for a few decades, they looked like the trip had helped them to fall in love all over again.

From what I remember our conversation was pleasant, they told me about their resort, I told them about the stoves we built, they talked about the exquisite food, I told them about my Peanut-Butter and Jelly sandwiches. They asked me about my calling to ministry, and I asked them about their family. Without a doubt the funniest moment occurred when the steward came by and asked what we would like to drink; I was prepared to ask for a ginger ale but they insisted on purchasing me a glass of wine. When I told them that I was not yet old enough to drink alcoholic beverages they giggled and and exclaimed, “well sweetie, we won’t tell anyone,” right in front of the steward. Needless to say: I did not have a glass of wine.

Anyway, when the inflight movie started up on the headsets in front of us, I was dismayed to discover that the entire plane would be watching the romantic comedy “P.S. I Love You.” Now even if you’ve never heard of the movie, thats fine, suffice it to say that it is a romantic comedy with apathetic acting and a very limited narrative; within the first five minutes you know exactly how the movie will end. I decided to rest my eyes and catch some Zs but the couple next to me were hooked. With their headphones plunged deep into their ear canals they kept asking each other questions out loud, “Wait was he her husband?!” “Oh poor thing, what will she do now?!” “Do you think he’s right for her?!” Try as I might, I was unable to fall asleep. When the movie finally ended I muttered a quick prayer to God, thanking him for delivering me from the captivity of the couple sitting next to me, but that’s when the kissing began.

I’m not talking about your simple peck on the lips of affection, but full-on “sitting in the back seat of a car at a drive in movie” kind of kissing. All I can remember is forcing myself as far away as possible in my seat in order to clear myself from being hit by a wayward arm or leg. It was awful. I tried listening to music, I tried reading from a book, but there was nothing that could distract me from the love fest happening to my left. Suddenly however the husband stopped kissing his wife, pulled her away from his face and said with completely sincerity, “PS I Love You honey” and they commenced kissing to an even higher degree.

How are we supposed to love God and neighbor? Are we called to be filled with the Romantic-Comedy-kiss-your-spouse-on-an-airplane kind of love?

Love, in my opinion, is one of the most over-used and underwhelming words that we use on a regular basis. We teach our children to be careful with their hearts and affection unless they are in love. We wait to value a romantic relationship as something with a future only when we love and feel loved by the other. Even in our preschool I witness our children hugging one another and talking about love as if it is a prerequisite for friendship.

In the church, sadly, the call to love God and neighbor has become so routined in Christianity that we have become numb to it, or only view it superficially. When we hear that we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t ask what it means to love, we just want to know who are neighbors are supposed to be!

In a time when the word “love” is greatly abused, it is important to remember that the fundamental component of biblical love is not affection, but commitment. Warm feelings of love and gratitude may fill our souls as we consider all that God has done for us, but it is not a warm and fuzzy feeling that Christ demands of us. Instead, love for God and neighbor is a stubborn and unwavering commitment. We do not have to feel affection for our neighbor, nor for God; to love our neighbors is to imitate God by taking their needs seriously.

It is true that God loves us in an affectionate and sweet way. He has called us by name and breathed life into us. But most of God’s love for us can be summarized as putting up with us in spite of all our faults and shortcomings. God has stayed with us when we no longer deserved his presence.

Pre-marital counseling is a privilege in my profession. I must admit that in the beginning I was afraid of pre-martial counseling sessions, but now I really enjoy them. I used sit with couples without having been married myself, but now with 6 months of married life experience, I am an expert! There is something indescribably precious about getting to meet with a couple before their wedding to talk about the deep realities of life-long commitment. When we gather together, it is a time of holiness and vulnerability that, I hope, will help them in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

I also greatly enjoy those counseling sessions because I get to ask questions that would otherwise be completely inappropriate in any other circumstance. If I’m feeling particularly gung-ho I begin with the zinger: “tell me about your last fight.” Couples upon stare back at me in disbelief, or claim that they have never fought. Or I begin with a standard question turned upside down: “Why in the world do you want to get married in the church?” I inform them that we could get in the car and drive down to the courthouse and they could be married that afternoon; it would be easier and cheaper. So what is it that makes you want to get married in a church?

All of the questions I ask are aimed at trying to get them to start thinking about life beyond love. Because when I ask why they want to get married, I almost always hear “because I love her” or “because I love him.”

Love is nice, but love is not enough.

At least not the kind of love that we have been habituated into through Hallmark, Romantic-Comedies, and Trashy Novels. Love, to us, often has more to do with lust and affection than it does with commitment and patience.

Love is not enough because she is not going to look that good in ten years, and nor will he. Whatever physical love you feel for each other, it will change. You think you know each other? You think that love is enough? Just wait till you wake up next to them every morning for an entire year, or he starts snoring every night, or she forgets what you asked her to do week after week.

Are we supposed to love God and neighbor the way we are called to love our spouse? Yes, but it is a type of love that we often lose sight of. It is not the way the world tells us to love, but a love that we learn from God.

For centuries Israel disobeyed the God who brought them out of Egypt, the God of their ancestors, yet God’s love remained steadfast. For centuries the church has disobeyed the Word of the Lord and let sinfulness run rampant. When we act on behalf of the Lord for our own selfish purposes, when we make a mockery of this beautiful thing called the church, when we refuse to go to God in our prayers, we neglect to love the God who loves us in spite of what we do. God has put up with people like you and me for centuries, he has be stubbornly present with us, and thats what love is all about.

Christ calls us to be stubbornly loving with our neighbor, who, by the way, is everyone, with unwavering commitment. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Catholics, and even Baptists. Blacks, Whites, Heterosexuals, Homosexuals, the rich, the poor, the strong, the weak, the elderly, and the youthful. Loving the neighbor must teach us how to love God. Jesus has radically pushed us into a way of being where we are told to love all our neighbors, even our enemies, and we can only do so when we imitate the kind of love that God has for us.

Someone this week put it this way: It is often easier to love someone than to like them.

Truly to love God is to love the neighbor; truly to love the neighbor is to love God.

You might not like what God is doing in your life right now, you might want to cry out with clenched fists in anger about God’s presence, you might feel that God has abandoned you. You don’t have to like God to love God.

You might feel like the people closest to you have ignored your needs and have stopped listening to you, you might feel like the outcasts in our community don’t deserve any of your time or energy, you might feel like your neighbor has done something to you that is beyond forgiveness. You don’t have to like your neighbor, to love your neighbor.

It sure is a strange thing to follow Christ. How bizarre is it that he has turned the world upside down and called to the first to be last and the last to be first? How weird is it that he has shattered the world’s vision to be replaced with God’s imagination?

My friends, let us be stubborn with our patience, unwavering with our commitment, and radical with our love toward God and neighbor.

Amen.

What’s Right With The Church? – Sermon on Philippians 4.1-9

Posted on October 12, 2014 by taylormertins

Philippians 4.1-9

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

What’s right with the church? Easy sermon topic… I thought. I was having lunch with a some friends a few days ago when I casually mentioned the theme for our worship service this week, and shared with them my desire to accentuate the positive aspects of communal Christianity. I realized that this sermon was going to be very difficult to write when I asked them to share their ideas about what the church is doing right, and the table remained silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. What’s right with the church?

Two weeks ago Sue Volskis walked into my office before our lectionary bible study and in addition to the crossword puzzles that she so graciously gives to me, she handed over a manuscript. The title read: “What’s Right With The Church; a sermon by Zig Volskis; May 17, 1987.” She had been going through some of Zig’s things and found a sermon about the state of the church that he had preached the year before I was born. Whatever I had planned to do for the rest of the afternoon was placed on the back burner and I dove straight into his writing.

It is a beautiful sermon, and I wish that I could have been there to hear it in person. Instead of focusing on all the negative elements of church life, of which there are plenty, Zig dedicated the sermon to looking at the positive and life-giving elements of the body of Christ that is the church.

Zig proclaimed that as a child he would have responded to his question with the church bells and music. They both represented the energy and depth of the worshipping community through sounds and music. The music of church reassured the people that God was the one in control, even if the world claimed the contrary.

As an adult, Zig claimed that his answer had changed over a career of serving the church for thirty years. The first and foremost thing that is right about the church is that it endures! Empires come and go, churches are destroyed by war and exodus, yet the body of Christ endures. With all its blindness, and plundering, for all its refusal to use its enormous resources, the church, nevertheless, has sought to minister to human need in a thousand different ways. And for untold numbers of persons the helping hand of the church has been a life-saver.

Zig ended the sermon with a call to those who love the church: make more room for it, bring to it your best and highest devotion. And to those who are not sure about the church: you will not find perfection here, but come in anyway, and help us make it better. There are so many things right about the church that the things that are wrong don’t really matter that much anyway. Amen.

On Monday morning I read through our scripture lesson for today, part of Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, and I kept hearing Zig’s words in my mind. Paul, like Zig, could have listed all of the things wrong with the church and then implore the people to be better. He could’ve listed their sins and talked about the importance of temperance and self-control. But he didn’t. Like Zig, Paul instead calls the people to focus on the goodness in their church lives. Let your gentleness be known through your living. Remember that the Lord is near, and don’t worry about the trivial moments of life but instead go to the Lord in prayer and the peace of God will guard your minds and souls. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

This is not a call to ignore the negative, nor is it a command to turn a blind eye to the problems of church. Paul is instead offering the church a way of understanding the world through the beauty and joy of what church can be.

Take it from a young pastor – there are plenty of problems in the church; from here at St. John’s to the global church. Churches are broken because they are filled with broken people. I could stand up here this morning and outline the depth of our depravity, I could talk to you about the problems facing the Middle East, we could talk about the Ebola Crisis, I could share with you the remarkably inappropriate comments I heard other clergy make this week about homosexuality. We could spend our church service focusing on all the negative but we already do enough of that.

It is nearly impossible to turn on the television, open a newspaper, or get online without being bombarded with the problems of the world. And if the media is so inclined to mention something about the church is it almost always a controversy or a reminder of our brokenness.

So today, I want us to be different from the world. I want to follow Zig’s example, which is to say I want to follow Paul’s example, and talk about what’s right with the church.

I never had a choice about being a Christian. There was a never a time in my life where my family was not part of the church. Some of my earliest memories are of Church services, living nativities, and sitting at the altar during children’s messages.

As a kid I would have answered the question by saying the church is fun! Where else do we get to spend time on a weekly basis hearing about the incredible stories of God with God’s people? Where else will adults make fools of themselves for the sake of sharing the Good News with young people? For me the church has always been fun and I therefore had no reason to choose something else to do. The continued presence of the church in my life, and its influence over my actions and decisions, is a reminder that (unlike the popular American perspective) the choices made for us and in spite of us are often of more lasting consequences than the choices made by us (Willimon, What’s Right With The Church, 35-36). We like to think that we choose God, when in fact God is the one who chooses us.

What’s right with the church? The church is the place where people discover and live-into the reality that God has gone looking for them. I might experience God in the middle of the woods, or in the loving embrace of a friend, but church is the place where I learn the language to articulate those experiences. My eyes are opened by the church regarding how to experience God in this place, and in the world. The community of faith proclaims the Word so that we can absorb it, and live it out in the world. The people who gather as Christ’s body reach out to us in love through God’s will to call us in.

As I got older I might’ve answered the question by saying that the church’s music is awesome! Whether singing the incredible hymns from the hymnal, or wailing on the drums during a contemporary worship service, I have always loved church music. The words and tunes that we rely on every week articulate the faith of scripture and the value it plays in our lives.

I love those moments when I find myself whistling a tune, or mumbling through the lyrics of a song only to realize that it fits perfectly with my present moment. Sometimes the music of church gets the better of me and my emotions runneth over. Some of you might not realize it, but I stand behind this pulpit when I sing the hymns, so that, just in case I start crying, none of you will see it.

The music of our church is awesome because it can bring us to tears, bring smiles to our faces, reignite the flame of faith, and give us goosebumps. I love the music of church because it is so unlike the music we hear Monday through Saturday; it encourages us in our faith.

While in seminary I might’ve answered the question by saying the church is a radically alternative community. This place in unlike anything else you can experience. The church at its best is a place where everyone can belong regardless of anything else in your life.

Paul calls the church “a colony of heaven.” We are like an island of one kingdom in the midst of another. We exist communally because we could not survive on our own, we need others to help us stay accountable to the grace that God has poured on our lives. We work through our faith and live together in harmony as an alternative community where the world, for us, has been turned upside down.

We are a strange group of people who are more focused on others than ourselves, we believe the first will be last and the last will be first. In this alternative community we are habituated by love for love. In baptism we take vows to raise children in love and faith, in marriage we take public vows to help the new couple remain accountable to God and one another, in funerals we offer honest and truthful words about someone’s life, death, and promised resurrection.

But if you asked me today, right now, “What’s right with the church?” My answer would be: it’s incarnational. In the incarnation God took on our human flesh in Jesus Christ to be both fully God and fully human. Our church is incarnational. We gather together to hear the Word of the Lord and let it become flesh in the ways we live our lives.

The church is the fundamental location for discovering and receiving the peace of God. This peace is something that is beyond my ability to describe with words, but it is a peace that the world cannot give; money cannot by it, nor can we earn it through social positioning. The peace of God comes from God as a gift, peace which surpasses all understanding. It is a comfort that soothes every fiber of our being, while at the same time electrifies our existence into something new, bold, and incredible. In church we confront the living God who first breathed life into us, who walks along the paths of understanding with us side-by-side, and will stay with us no matter what.

The incarnational church refuses to be moved by the expectations of the world, and instead remains committed to the love of God in our daily lives. We who have been Christians for any reasonable amount of time can remember others who have lived before us a life that was full of incarnational joy, people who heard the Word and let it become flesh in their lives. We are better, stronger, and fuller Christians for having known and watched such fellow disciples. And now we have the same opportunity to be a source of incarnational joy and life to others with whom we come in contact.

What’s right with the church?

In spite of its obvious corruptions and imperfections, it is the church that reminds us about the love of God that will not let us go, as it points us toward the true home of our souls.

So, let me say to you who love the church: make more room for it, bring to it your best and highest devotion. Pray fervently for its renewal and commitment toward being Christ’s body in the world.

And let me say to you who are not so sure about the church: You will not find perfection here, but come in anyway, and help us make it better. Help us open our eyes to the way the living God is moving and speaking in the world so that we can continue to be the body of Christ for the world.

There are so many things right about the church that the things that are wrong don’t really matter that much anyway.

Amen.