By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
Mark 4:35-40
"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"
About five years ago, when I was still in seminary, one of my very best friends had a baby. I will call her Elizabeth. Having a baby was harder than Elizabeth thought it would be. The baby cried. A lot. Elizabeth cried. A lot.
When I finally had a chance to visit her over my so-called summer “vacation” I ordered my dear friend straight to bed, took over the childcare, and held her son in my arms. It was time to calm the storm.
Three hours later I was crying! The baby was crying. Elizabeth was crying. I was training to be a pastor, but every prayer I ever knew escaped me (and I will not repeat the words that took their place!). I was completely lost. But singing, now that I still remembered. And for whatever reason those songs I learned in Sunday School came flooding back. The lullabies most of all. And I started singing (in my “those who can’t sing, preach, soprano” . . . or is it alto?) “Peace . . . peace . . . be still . . . peace . . . be still . . . peace . . . be still . . .
I did not care how badly I sang off tune that day. I just sang with all my might to that crying baby. And to the baby’s crying mother. And yes, to my crying self. And it wasn’t immediate. And it took a lot longer than I really thought it should. But finally . . . eventually . . . the wailing ceased. And the hiccups turned to sighs. And the baby became a lump in my arms. And I collapsed . . . exhausted . . . on the couch. And my friend finally got some sleep. And so did the baby.
And so did I.
I am guessing just about everyone here could tell a version of that story—from five years ago or from five minutes ago—about coming to our wits end in the swirling chaos that just won’t quit, not even for a second, and holding on to whatever gift of grace God gives us in a moment. Crying out for peace. Singing out for peace. Literally making peace so by our singing. And in an odd way by our crying. Because somehow in our singing and our crying we are finally able to relax enough to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are leaning on everlasting arms. And they are the arms of peace. And they will not ever let us go.
[choral interlude, “Riding Through the Storm”]
The thing about the winds and the wave is that they have been with us from the beginning of time. From those very first verses in Genesis, when God was beginning to create the heavens and the earth, and the New Revised Standard Version translation says “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” And of course the Newquist Interpretive Version from the Hebrew [ve·ru·ach e·lo·him me·ra·che·fet al-pe·nei ham·ma·yim] coming from a woman named “Gusti,” would translate this as the Spirit of God, the breath of God, the wind of God, according to our sacred stories, literally swooping and swirling and maybe even storming over the waters of primordial chaos. From the very beginning.
Which means that the Spirit of God has not just been calming the storm from the beginning of time, but that the Spirit of God has also been in the storm from the beginning of time. And that the Spirit of God may even be using the storm as an uncharted gift of God’s presence and grace and ultimate healing, if it can lead us to know deep in our soul that God is still with us, in good times and in bad, through the swooping and swirling Spirit that forces us to confront our deepest fears, and the peace of Christ within it that passes all understanding, and the everlasting arms of our mothering/fathering/or even best-friend-stepping-in-to-help-out-on-vacation God who will do whatever it takes to calm us in our chaos. Because even God knows what it is to take a break and rest, in the midst of the storm.
Which is, of course, what Jesus is doing on that boat in the first place. With a really long day of preaching and teaching behind him and another long day of healing and casting out demons ahead of him, you could say he is a little tired. And so he is, as we say, “asleep at the wheel” as the storm rages on . . .
And the disciples are terrified, of course, fearing Jesus has abandoned them. But in his defense, may I just point out that Jesus is a carpenter! The disciples are the fishermen! They are the ones who know about boats! What on earth do they expect Jesus to do that they don’t already know how to do themselves? And how often do we cry out to God to save us when we really already do have everything we need to survive already in our possession, as God-given gifts and talents, just waiting for a storm to give us the chance to step up in ways we never knew we could? We know that, here at Madison Square. We do know that . . .
But of course Jesus does still the storm as soon as he wakes up. And chides the disciples for their lack of faith. And then they go on about their healing mission on the other side of the Lake of Galilee. And so, in the end, must we, on the other side of whatever storm has raged—or is still raging . . . around us . . .
But here’s where the real trouble begins. Because if the Gospel of Mark is any indication, the more difficult journey for the disciples comes when the storm ends, and the waters calm, and the clouds fade, and the gentle waves lap at their hull. We start to take the other boat-riders for granted. To jockey for positions of power. To forget the mission that draws us together in the first place. That’s what the disciples do. That’s what we do, if we’re really truly honest.
Jesus asks them to do something different. Jesus asks us to do something different. Yes, we can descend into petty bickering. And miss the moment of grace in search of another crisis. And even go so far as to re-create the storm in an ironic twist that we think will bring us together to “survive” again.
Or we can celebrate all that God has done to lead us through. We can play together and appreciate one another and glorify the God who made it so. We can splash together forever in the cool, calm waters of baptismal grace that form the font of our identity. We can feast with abandon at the table of mercy that offers us such generous sustenance. We can sing boldly—and even badly!—from the word of memory and hope that helps us survive the calm. And we can walk together with one another whenever the moment arises to offer a word of comfort and care, as the people of God who really do already know how to steer this boat.
And we can survive the calm even better than we have survived the storm. Because the peace that passes understanding is with us always. Leading us forever home. Where help will always come. And we will always be held. Leaning on the everlasting arms of a God who is just as tired as we are. And is bidding us all to rest. And be at peace. And be still. I pray it may be so. Amen.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
The Guidance of the Spirit of God
By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
1 Samuel 16:1-13
“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh . . .” Peter says on Pentecost Sunday . . . “and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . and the ones among you who are young shall see visions . . . and the ones among you who are old shall dream dreams” . . . so that in all things you will seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God . . . in the name of Christ . . . Amen . . .
And so we have arrived. The final chapter of our meditation on the Madison Square mission. A meditation that began with a celebration of Madison Square’s 130th anniversary on Transfiguration Sunday, and a sermon series on the mission statement combined with Focus Groups in the Season of Lent, and has continued since Easter Sunday with a report from your Transition Team on the vision and values and priorities for Madison Square, and with the presbytery affirming that Madison Square is, indeed, ready to begin the search for an installed pastor.
You may recall, if you were paying very close attention in this period of preparation, that I never did officially preach on the final statement of the Madison Square mission: “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” And that is because I was saving it for today. The day we elect a Pastor Nominating Committee to do this very thing that ties your entire vision and mission together, which is “to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God” in calling that new installed pastor who will lead you into the future.
I saved a sermon on the guidance of the Spirit of God for this day because we really must live this part of the Madison Square mission in the next step of the interim process. We really must trust the guidance of the Spirit of God in bringing your installed pastor to you. We really must affirm together that this part of the Madison Square mission is in the end the only thing we can truly hang our hat on in any part of living out our mission as the Pentecost People who form the Christian Church.
The mystery and the promise of our faith is that we really do trust that the Spirit of God that was present in the beginning of Creation, present in the anointing of kings and the utterance of prophets, present in the baptism of Jesus, present in the birth of the church on Pentecost Sunday, present in the promise of our own baptism, present at the table that sustains us with bread and wine in abundance, present through the words of memory and hope that soar through the sacred words of ancient Scripture, is also present in the still, small voice that speaks within every one of us. In our sighs too deep for words to express. In our visions. In our dreams. And in our prophetic actions for justice and peace.
What we have learned and affirmed over and over and over again in this Spirit-led meditation on the Madison Square mission is that the Spirit of God really does call the entire congregation to the ministry of this church. Not just the next installed pastor. Or, I might add, the current interim pastor. We are, every one of us, called by the Spirit of God to the ministry of the gospel through our baptism. Nourished by the Spirit of God in our communion. And commissioned by the Spirit of God in our preaching.
And so I would even dare to say that in a very real sense it should not matter who your next installed pastor is. Because the ministry of Madison Square belongs to you, the ones God has called to worship in this sanctuary and called to service beyond these walls. Your vision is the Spirit’s vision for you. Your mission is the Spirit’s mission for you. Your priorities are the Spirit’s priorities for you. And you are the ones who will bring this vision to life, through the power of the Spirit.
It is precisely because we have been so diligent in affirming your calling as a congregation in seeking the guidance of the Spirit of God in the recent meditation on the Madison Square mission that we are finally ready to elect and commission a small group of people to serve as your Pastor Nominating Committee, in the same manner as the prophet Samuel in our Scripture lesson today, seeking just the right person to bring to you as a candidate for your next installed pastor. To support and encourage and nurture the vision God has given you, receptive always to the ongoing guidance of the Spirit of God.
The good news is we really are ready. It has been a long haul, but we really are ready. The challenging news is . . . well . . . the task of seeking a new installed pastor is just plain challenging. If we have been paying any attention to how the guidance of the Spirit of God works in our lives—and in the lives of our biblical ancestors—well, we just cannot ever predict how the guidance of the Spirit of God will lead. Or how long it will take to discern the guidance of the Spirit of God. Or if we will even like the guidance of the Spirit of God.
Take Samuel, for example. He is the biblical version of a Pastor Nominating Committee in our Scripture lesson for today. And surely he is seeking with due diligence “the guidance of the Spirit of God” in declaring who will lead the people in his own time and place. But if you remember from last Sunday’s lesson, Samuel was never in favor of this whole “king” business to begin with. He only submits to it begrudgingly. And it takes him a while to find exactly the right person.
The guidance of the Spirit of God has at least made it clear to him that the next leader for the people of God will come from the family of Jesse. So Samuel goes to Jesse. And what do they do? They worship God. Did you notice? The search for the new leader begins . . . with worship. Just like it is for us today. It is only after the worship service has concluded that Samuel actually evaluates the candidates.
Jesse brings his children forward. Which one will it be? Surely that first-born son is the one! (they all think) Groomed for greatness from the very beginning. The one who would allow them to call off the search right away and go back to a life of leisure. But “God does not see as mortals see; we look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.” The guidance of the Spirit of God is clear. The one who makes the most sense in the eyes of Samuel is simply not the one God has chosen for the job. So Samuel keeps searching. Candidate after candidate parades before him. All of them are great people. All of them are fabulous in their own way. But none of them are anointed by the Spirit of God for the particular purpose of leading the people into the next era.
Samuel becomes quite certain the task is hopeless. “Do you have any more children?” Samuel asks of Jesse. And Jesse hesitates. “Well, there is that little shepherd boy,” he says, dismissing the notion this could possibly be God’s anointed. And of course that little shepherd boy turns out to be exactly the one who is clearly anointed by the Spirit of God for this purpose: King David, himself! The one we remember today as the greatest king of all.
This, too, will be the case for the Pastor Nominating Committee at Madison Square. Once they are elected by the congregation, they will gather regularly to seek the guidance of the Spirit of God in developing a “Church Information Form” to share with prospective candidates. They will bring that form to the session for approval and then they will post that form on-line to what I affectionately call the “Presbyterian Church on-line dating service,” matching the profiles of potential pastors with churches that might be a good fit for them. The great computer in the sky will send resumes to your Pastor Nominating Committee. And pastors themselves will send their resume. And the PNC will seek the guidance of the Spirit of God in reviewing applications and sermon samples and checking references of those applicants.
They will update us periodically on where they are in the search. But under no circumstances will they divulge the confidential information they share with one another in the search. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they share the names of candidates they are considering. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they tell us when and where they have scheduled face-to-face interviews. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they enter this process with the expectation that they know from the beginning whom God has chosen for the position. That’s what Samuel did. And he was wrong. So don’t ask them!
What they will do, what they must do, in all that they do, is seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God. Just as you have told them to do in the Madison Square mission statement. They will feel excitement and enthusiasm at the beginning, just like Samuel did. And they will go through periods of great frustration and disappointment, just like Samuel did. And they will keep on seeking the guidance of the Spirit of God through every part of the search process, just like Samuel did.
And then, in the end, at exactly the right time (and not a moment before), the Spirit of God will make it very clear who the next installed pastor of Madison Square should be, just like God did with David and Samuel. And the Pastor Nominating Committee will present that person to you for your approval at a congregational meeting. And we will most definitely shout yet another alleluia!
There is no way to know, today, when the time will be. We have been advised to expect a year. Perhaps it will take longer. I doubt it will be much less. But rest assured, that day WILL come!
In the meantime we continue to celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit upon all of us for ministry at Madison Square in this Pentecost season. The summer is full of fun for our kids with Vacation Bible School. The pulpit will be filled with incredible guest preachers and children’s moment leaders and a double infant baptism in the middle of July. The Stewardship Committee continues to prepare for a congregation-wide conversation this fall about the treasure God has given to us and our faithful stewardship of it. The Finance Committee continues to assess and improve our accounting procedures one large step at a time. AND we will move forward in August with envisioning new ideas for adult education and member care. And we will do it all with gratitude and delight in the guidance of the Spirit of God . . .
Because God is still “pouring out the Spirit upon all flesh,” . . . “and your sons and your daughters are still prophesying” . . . “and the ones among you who are young are still seeing visions” . . . “and the ones among you who are old are still dreaming dreams” . . . so that in all things we may continue to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God” . . . in the name of Christ, we pray . . . Amen.
1 Samuel 16:1-13
“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh . . .” Peter says on Pentecost Sunday . . . “and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . and the ones among you who are young shall see visions . . . and the ones among you who are old shall dream dreams” . . . so that in all things you will seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God . . . in the name of Christ . . . Amen . . .
And so we have arrived. The final chapter of our meditation on the Madison Square mission. A meditation that began with a celebration of Madison Square’s 130th anniversary on Transfiguration Sunday, and a sermon series on the mission statement combined with Focus Groups in the Season of Lent, and has continued since Easter Sunday with a report from your Transition Team on the vision and values and priorities for Madison Square, and with the presbytery affirming that Madison Square is, indeed, ready to begin the search for an installed pastor.
You may recall, if you were paying very close attention in this period of preparation, that I never did officially preach on the final statement of the Madison Square mission: “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” And that is because I was saving it for today. The day we elect a Pastor Nominating Committee to do this very thing that ties your entire vision and mission together, which is “to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God” in calling that new installed pastor who will lead you into the future.
I saved a sermon on the guidance of the Spirit of God for this day because we really must live this part of the Madison Square mission in the next step of the interim process. We really must trust the guidance of the Spirit of God in bringing your installed pastor to you. We really must affirm together that this part of the Madison Square mission is in the end the only thing we can truly hang our hat on in any part of living out our mission as the Pentecost People who form the Christian Church.
The mystery and the promise of our faith is that we really do trust that the Spirit of God that was present in the beginning of Creation, present in the anointing of kings and the utterance of prophets, present in the baptism of Jesus, present in the birth of the church on Pentecost Sunday, present in the promise of our own baptism, present at the table that sustains us with bread and wine in abundance, present through the words of memory and hope that soar through the sacred words of ancient Scripture, is also present in the still, small voice that speaks within every one of us. In our sighs too deep for words to express. In our visions. In our dreams. And in our prophetic actions for justice and peace.
What we have learned and affirmed over and over and over again in this Spirit-led meditation on the Madison Square mission is that the Spirit of God really does call the entire congregation to the ministry of this church. Not just the next installed pastor. Or, I might add, the current interim pastor. We are, every one of us, called by the Spirit of God to the ministry of the gospel through our baptism. Nourished by the Spirit of God in our communion. And commissioned by the Spirit of God in our preaching.
And so I would even dare to say that in a very real sense it should not matter who your next installed pastor is. Because the ministry of Madison Square belongs to you, the ones God has called to worship in this sanctuary and called to service beyond these walls. Your vision is the Spirit’s vision for you. Your mission is the Spirit’s mission for you. Your priorities are the Spirit’s priorities for you. And you are the ones who will bring this vision to life, through the power of the Spirit.
It is precisely because we have been so diligent in affirming your calling as a congregation in seeking the guidance of the Spirit of God in the recent meditation on the Madison Square mission that we are finally ready to elect and commission a small group of people to serve as your Pastor Nominating Committee, in the same manner as the prophet Samuel in our Scripture lesson today, seeking just the right person to bring to you as a candidate for your next installed pastor. To support and encourage and nurture the vision God has given you, receptive always to the ongoing guidance of the Spirit of God.
The good news is we really are ready. It has been a long haul, but we really are ready. The challenging news is . . . well . . . the task of seeking a new installed pastor is just plain challenging. If we have been paying any attention to how the guidance of the Spirit of God works in our lives—and in the lives of our biblical ancestors—well, we just cannot ever predict how the guidance of the Spirit of God will lead. Or how long it will take to discern the guidance of the Spirit of God. Or if we will even like the guidance of the Spirit of God.
Take Samuel, for example. He is the biblical version of a Pastor Nominating Committee in our Scripture lesson for today. And surely he is seeking with due diligence “the guidance of the Spirit of God” in declaring who will lead the people in his own time and place. But if you remember from last Sunday’s lesson, Samuel was never in favor of this whole “king” business to begin with. He only submits to it begrudgingly. And it takes him a while to find exactly the right person.
The guidance of the Spirit of God has at least made it clear to him that the next leader for the people of God will come from the family of Jesse. So Samuel goes to Jesse. And what do they do? They worship God. Did you notice? The search for the new leader begins . . . with worship. Just like it is for us today. It is only after the worship service has concluded that Samuel actually evaluates the candidates.
Jesse brings his children forward. Which one will it be? Surely that first-born son is the one! (they all think) Groomed for greatness from the very beginning. The one who would allow them to call off the search right away and go back to a life of leisure. But “God does not see as mortals see; we look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.” The guidance of the Spirit of God is clear. The one who makes the most sense in the eyes of Samuel is simply not the one God has chosen for the job. So Samuel keeps searching. Candidate after candidate parades before him. All of them are great people. All of them are fabulous in their own way. But none of them are anointed by the Spirit of God for the particular purpose of leading the people into the next era.
Samuel becomes quite certain the task is hopeless. “Do you have any more children?” Samuel asks of Jesse. And Jesse hesitates. “Well, there is that little shepherd boy,” he says, dismissing the notion this could possibly be God’s anointed. And of course that little shepherd boy turns out to be exactly the one who is clearly anointed by the Spirit of God for this purpose: King David, himself! The one we remember today as the greatest king of all.
This, too, will be the case for the Pastor Nominating Committee at Madison Square. Once they are elected by the congregation, they will gather regularly to seek the guidance of the Spirit of God in developing a “Church Information Form” to share with prospective candidates. They will bring that form to the session for approval and then they will post that form on-line to what I affectionately call the “Presbyterian Church on-line dating service,” matching the profiles of potential pastors with churches that might be a good fit for them. The great computer in the sky will send resumes to your Pastor Nominating Committee. And pastors themselves will send their resume. And the PNC will seek the guidance of the Spirit of God in reviewing applications and sermon samples and checking references of those applicants.
They will update us periodically on where they are in the search. But under no circumstances will they divulge the confidential information they share with one another in the search. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they share the names of candidates they are considering. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they tell us when and where they have scheduled face-to-face interviews. So don’t ask them! Under no circumstances will they enter this process with the expectation that they know from the beginning whom God has chosen for the position. That’s what Samuel did. And he was wrong. So don’t ask them!
What they will do, what they must do, in all that they do, is seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God. Just as you have told them to do in the Madison Square mission statement. They will feel excitement and enthusiasm at the beginning, just like Samuel did. And they will go through periods of great frustration and disappointment, just like Samuel did. And they will keep on seeking the guidance of the Spirit of God through every part of the search process, just like Samuel did.
And then, in the end, at exactly the right time (and not a moment before), the Spirit of God will make it very clear who the next installed pastor of Madison Square should be, just like God did with David and Samuel. And the Pastor Nominating Committee will present that person to you for your approval at a congregational meeting. And we will most definitely shout yet another alleluia!
There is no way to know, today, when the time will be. We have been advised to expect a year. Perhaps it will take longer. I doubt it will be much less. But rest assured, that day WILL come!
In the meantime we continue to celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit upon all of us for ministry at Madison Square in this Pentecost season. The summer is full of fun for our kids with Vacation Bible School. The pulpit will be filled with incredible guest preachers and children’s moment leaders and a double infant baptism in the middle of July. The Stewardship Committee continues to prepare for a congregation-wide conversation this fall about the treasure God has given to us and our faithful stewardship of it. The Finance Committee continues to assess and improve our accounting procedures one large step at a time. AND we will move forward in August with envisioning new ideas for adult education and member care. And we will do it all with gratitude and delight in the guidance of the Spirit of God . . .
Because God is still “pouring out the Spirit upon all flesh,” . . . “and your sons and your daughters are still prophesying” . . . “and the ones among you who are young are still seeing visions” . . . “and the ones among you who are old are still dreaming dreams” . . . so that in all things we may continue to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God” . . . in the name of Christ, we pray . . . Amen.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
On Rummage Sales and the Reality of God
By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
1 Samuel 7:15-8:22, 10:17-25
Poor Samuel. He has tried so hard.
By the time we meet him in our Scripture lesson this morning, he has given every part of his life to leading the people of God in ancient Israel. He has spoken prophetically of God’s justice and love. He has led priestly rituals as a steward of God’s mysteries. He has settled disputes, led the people into battle, soothed their wounds, and kept the peace. They cannot even begin to imagine their lives without him.
But to everything there is a season, and by the time we meet Samuel in our Scripture lesson this morning, Samuel’s season is coming to an end. And he knows it. And so do the people.
So Samuel sets up a transition team. Joel and Abijah, Samuel’s two strapping sons, have more than enough wealth and training and God-given talent to take on the task. Samuel sends them off to learn the trade throughout the farthest reaches of the federation, expecting them to return to Ramah—the center of the federation in the time of Samuel’s judgeship—ready to lead upon his death.
It does not go according to plan.
While Samuel shows every indication that he has found his power directly from God’s anointing of his ministry, Joel and Abijah draw their power more from the job of judging, itself. They plunder the villages they have been appointed to serve. They take bribes for their economic influence. They twist justice at every turn in order advance their own agendas.
Or at least that is what history records. Truth be told, we never do hear their side of the story.
The bottom line is that something must be done. The question is . . . what?
It helps to understand what is going on in this Scripture if we take a step back from this tale of a transition gone south and focus on the even bigger transition going on all around the people of ancient Israel. Because at the time of our Scripture lesson, the entire political and social and economic structure of the land we still to this day call “holy” is also changing dramatically. The other, non-Israelite, tribal federations that live in the land with them have begun to centralize their governments and specialize their occupations and consolidate their militaries and emerge as nation-states. Every one of them ruled by a king.
Sociologists who study religion have begun to call the kind of sweeping societal change that is taking place in our Scripture lesson today something like a great big “rummage sale,” when people of faith re-evaluate our expected norms and practices in light of dramatic societal shifts. It happens every 500 years or so. The Protestant Reformation was an example. The emergence of Christianity in the first century as a form of post-temple Judaism was an example. And this transition from the period of judges to the period of kings was an example.
So Samuel’s pending retirement, in the context of the Really Big Rummage Sale that is swirling around their society, gives the ancient Israelites a chance to toss out what they don’t need any more and to make way for the new. Which is what the people rightly call for, even though Samuel gives them a whole lot of grief for it. And although though the first King—Saul—the one who is hidden in the pile of baggage—doesn’t work out so well, the next King—David—and the King after that—Solomon—are truly fabulous. They lead the glory days of ancient Israel. In hindsight, we can see that the people who are calling for a king do move the tradition forward. And they are to be commended for it.
The real point of the lesson of First Samuel is not about whether or not it is a good idea to transition to a king. The real point of the lesson is about whether or not we are trusting the God who has anointed the king! And every other leader who came before the king! And every other leader who will come after the king! Because the community of faith really is, always and forever, about the kingdom of God, regardless of whom God has anointed as their leader.
And it is the God who is our king, who will always and forever lead every one of us out of whatever bondage we are in, through whatever transition we are in, into whatever new life we are about to become. That is what Samuel is so concerned the people will forget if—and when—they finally get their all-too-human king.
Woe unto us if we forget it, too, here at Madison Square, as we turn toward the task of nominating and electing a Pastor Nominating Committee that will function as your “Samuel” in seeking a new installed pastor. Because as thorough as we have been in consulting the congregation in this season of self-assessment, this transition is not, in the end, about the individual pastor who will lead you for the next season. It is about the God who will guide you through every season.
And while it may have been an immediate pastoral transition that has been occupying much of our imagination in this interim period, we, like those ancient Israelites clamoring for a king in the face of Samuel’s pending retirement, do well to remember that we are caught up in a much larger transition as American Protestant Christians in the twenty-first century. Another of what the sociologists of religion call a “great rummage sale” of re-evaluating basic norms and practices in light of our own great dramatic societal shifts. And, boy, are we shifting!
While the national trends are less true in south Texas than they are in other parts of the country, the shifting reality for American Protestant Christianity is that we really are no longer a clearly culturally Christian society. And the so-called “mainline Protestant” churches are no longer the center of the society we are becoming instead. Even just in my lifetime—and I am of the “Generation X”—we have become more secular, more pluralistic, and more diverse. Changes which many of us actually might like. We are also much more consumed with a culture of individual choice, from the marketplace of consumer goods to the marketplace of ideas to the marketplace of religious practice.
We can lament the effects of these trends on our tradition, of course. And perhaps we do. We are—at least as a Presbyterian denomination—just as conflicted about “what went wrong” as the crowds and Samuel were in our biblical text for today. But the bottom line is that this shift is upon us, and it is not going away, and our challenge is to adapt our way of ministry in a new way for a new day, just like they did in ancient Israel. We just have to be clear about the God we are serving in the midst of this shifting.
Where the ancient Israelites were consolidating and expanding in response to their cultural context, we are decentralizing and diversifying and dreaming whole new ways of being church. Where the ancient Israelites were compiling their traditions into a grand narrative, we are opening up a multiplicity of new ways to tell “the old, old story” of Jesus and his love. Where the ancient Israelites were building a big temple for the common worship of God, we are learning to take the church to the people beyond the building. And there are some exciting new ways of “being church” that Christians across the country are exploring these days.
A pastor from my Interim Ministry training program is starting a church on the beach in California. Can you imagine taking the church to the people, right there along the shore of this new Lake Galilee, sharing communion and celebrating the Spirit of creation. Another pastor friend of mine in Louisville has founded an Eco-Justice worship collective, where they gather to reclaim our God-given gift of true stewardship for this creation in ecological crisis. The San Antonio version of ministry beyond borders is taking place at The Foundry coffee shop, where people young and old gather for coffee and community and the gift of God’s grace. I understand they are going out of business fairly soon, which is really too bad . . . or perhaps we at Madison Square might find a way to fill the gap?
The bottom line is that what we are learning in this great rummage sale that is the emerging 21st century version of American Protestant Christianity is that the church, itself, is a “mission field.” That we, ourselves, are rediscovering the meaning of the very “transformation” we preach. And that being on the margins of an increasingly secular society may in fact be just the kind of jolt we need to boldly proclaim the good news of God for all who are on the margins of society.
Which is, of course, exactly what the self-assessment of Madison Square has said you want to do. So let’s do it! The two things we have agreed to work on together in August when I come back from vacation are adult education and member care. One way to do that could be to say, “Well, this is what we used to do, and we got away from it, so let’s get back to it again. Or we could say this is a whole new season for God’s grace to be proclaimed, and we have bold new ideas to explore together. What new gatherings of community might God be forming in us and through us as we reach out even more beyond this sacred sanctuary? What new risks are we called to take as we let go of ways of being church that had their place and time but need to make space for something else? And what anxiety do we need to let go, in order to trust that the God who has always led us out of whatever bondage we find ourselves in is doing so again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and even with us?
Poor Samuel did not really get it wrong when the people clamored for a king. He just wanted their true king to be the God they worshiped and served. And we won’t go wrong if we remember the same. No matter what transition we are in.
I pray it may be so. Amen.
1 Samuel 7:15-8:22, 10:17-25
Poor Samuel. He has tried so hard.
By the time we meet him in our Scripture lesson this morning, he has given every part of his life to leading the people of God in ancient Israel. He has spoken prophetically of God’s justice and love. He has led priestly rituals as a steward of God’s mysteries. He has settled disputes, led the people into battle, soothed their wounds, and kept the peace. They cannot even begin to imagine their lives without him.
But to everything there is a season, and by the time we meet Samuel in our Scripture lesson this morning, Samuel’s season is coming to an end. And he knows it. And so do the people.
So Samuel sets up a transition team. Joel and Abijah, Samuel’s two strapping sons, have more than enough wealth and training and God-given talent to take on the task. Samuel sends them off to learn the trade throughout the farthest reaches of the federation, expecting them to return to Ramah—the center of the federation in the time of Samuel’s judgeship—ready to lead upon his death.
It does not go according to plan.
While Samuel shows every indication that he has found his power directly from God’s anointing of his ministry, Joel and Abijah draw their power more from the job of judging, itself. They plunder the villages they have been appointed to serve. They take bribes for their economic influence. They twist justice at every turn in order advance their own agendas.
Or at least that is what history records. Truth be told, we never do hear their side of the story.
The bottom line is that something must be done. The question is . . . what?
It helps to understand what is going on in this Scripture if we take a step back from this tale of a transition gone south and focus on the even bigger transition going on all around the people of ancient Israel. Because at the time of our Scripture lesson, the entire political and social and economic structure of the land we still to this day call “holy” is also changing dramatically. The other, non-Israelite, tribal federations that live in the land with them have begun to centralize their governments and specialize their occupations and consolidate their militaries and emerge as nation-states. Every one of them ruled by a king.
Sociologists who study religion have begun to call the kind of sweeping societal change that is taking place in our Scripture lesson today something like a great big “rummage sale,” when people of faith re-evaluate our expected norms and practices in light of dramatic societal shifts. It happens every 500 years or so. The Protestant Reformation was an example. The emergence of Christianity in the first century as a form of post-temple Judaism was an example. And this transition from the period of judges to the period of kings was an example.
So Samuel’s pending retirement, in the context of the Really Big Rummage Sale that is swirling around their society, gives the ancient Israelites a chance to toss out what they don’t need any more and to make way for the new. Which is what the people rightly call for, even though Samuel gives them a whole lot of grief for it. And although though the first King—Saul—the one who is hidden in the pile of baggage—doesn’t work out so well, the next King—David—and the King after that—Solomon—are truly fabulous. They lead the glory days of ancient Israel. In hindsight, we can see that the people who are calling for a king do move the tradition forward. And they are to be commended for it.
The real point of the lesson of First Samuel is not about whether or not it is a good idea to transition to a king. The real point of the lesson is about whether or not we are trusting the God who has anointed the king! And every other leader who came before the king! And every other leader who will come after the king! Because the community of faith really is, always and forever, about the kingdom of God, regardless of whom God has anointed as their leader.
And it is the God who is our king, who will always and forever lead every one of us out of whatever bondage we are in, through whatever transition we are in, into whatever new life we are about to become. That is what Samuel is so concerned the people will forget if—and when—they finally get their all-too-human king.
Woe unto us if we forget it, too, here at Madison Square, as we turn toward the task of nominating and electing a Pastor Nominating Committee that will function as your “Samuel” in seeking a new installed pastor. Because as thorough as we have been in consulting the congregation in this season of self-assessment, this transition is not, in the end, about the individual pastor who will lead you for the next season. It is about the God who will guide you through every season.
And while it may have been an immediate pastoral transition that has been occupying much of our imagination in this interim period, we, like those ancient Israelites clamoring for a king in the face of Samuel’s pending retirement, do well to remember that we are caught up in a much larger transition as American Protestant Christians in the twenty-first century. Another of what the sociologists of religion call a “great rummage sale” of re-evaluating basic norms and practices in light of our own great dramatic societal shifts. And, boy, are we shifting!
While the national trends are less true in south Texas than they are in other parts of the country, the shifting reality for American Protestant Christianity is that we really are no longer a clearly culturally Christian society. And the so-called “mainline Protestant” churches are no longer the center of the society we are becoming instead. Even just in my lifetime—and I am of the “Generation X”—we have become more secular, more pluralistic, and more diverse. Changes which many of us actually might like. We are also much more consumed with a culture of individual choice, from the marketplace of consumer goods to the marketplace of ideas to the marketplace of religious practice.
We can lament the effects of these trends on our tradition, of course. And perhaps we do. We are—at least as a Presbyterian denomination—just as conflicted about “what went wrong” as the crowds and Samuel were in our biblical text for today. But the bottom line is that this shift is upon us, and it is not going away, and our challenge is to adapt our way of ministry in a new way for a new day, just like they did in ancient Israel. We just have to be clear about the God we are serving in the midst of this shifting.
Where the ancient Israelites were consolidating and expanding in response to their cultural context, we are decentralizing and diversifying and dreaming whole new ways of being church. Where the ancient Israelites were compiling their traditions into a grand narrative, we are opening up a multiplicity of new ways to tell “the old, old story” of Jesus and his love. Where the ancient Israelites were building a big temple for the common worship of God, we are learning to take the church to the people beyond the building. And there are some exciting new ways of “being church” that Christians across the country are exploring these days.
A pastor from my Interim Ministry training program is starting a church on the beach in California. Can you imagine taking the church to the people, right there along the shore of this new Lake Galilee, sharing communion and celebrating the Spirit of creation. Another pastor friend of mine in Louisville has founded an Eco-Justice worship collective, where they gather to reclaim our God-given gift of true stewardship for this creation in ecological crisis. The San Antonio version of ministry beyond borders is taking place at The Foundry coffee shop, where people young and old gather for coffee and community and the gift of God’s grace. I understand they are going out of business fairly soon, which is really too bad . . . or perhaps we at Madison Square might find a way to fill the gap?
The bottom line is that what we are learning in this great rummage sale that is the emerging 21st century version of American Protestant Christianity is that the church, itself, is a “mission field.” That we, ourselves, are rediscovering the meaning of the very “transformation” we preach. And that being on the margins of an increasingly secular society may in fact be just the kind of jolt we need to boldly proclaim the good news of God for all who are on the margins of society.
Which is, of course, exactly what the self-assessment of Madison Square has said you want to do. So let’s do it! The two things we have agreed to work on together in August when I come back from vacation are adult education and member care. One way to do that could be to say, “Well, this is what we used to do, and we got away from it, so let’s get back to it again. Or we could say this is a whole new season for God’s grace to be proclaimed, and we have bold new ideas to explore together. What new gatherings of community might God be forming in us and through us as we reach out even more beyond this sacred sanctuary? What new risks are we called to take as we let go of ways of being church that had their place and time but need to make space for something else? And what anxiety do we need to let go, in order to trust that the God who has always led us out of whatever bondage we find ourselves in is doing so again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and even with us?
Poor Samuel did not really get it wrong when the people clamored for a king. He just wanted their true king to be the God they worshiped and served. And we won’t go wrong if we remember the same. No matter what transition we are in.
I pray it may be so. Amen.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Love Makes a Trinity
By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
Trinity Sunday
More Light Sunday
Celebrating the One Who Love You Sunday
John 3:1-8
“Love makes a family,” we say in our efforts to describe the great diversity of relationship configurations in which modern American society provides care and support and concern for one another. Including within the church.
“Love makes a family,” we say here at Madison Square, because we have experienced in our own congregation so many of the different kinds of ways that families may be faithfully constructed. To the point that even our efforts to compile a comprehensive list of these many configurations inevitably overlooks beloved members of our community. Which is why the final report of the Madison Square Vision and Values and Priorities statement adopted by your session two weeks ago simply states that “children from all types of families mingle naturally in worship for all ages and in our age-appropriate activities in Children’s Church.”
Which is emphatically true.
Which is why we are observing “The One Who Loves You” Day in this very moment, halfway between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
I learned of this observance when I was speaking with your Interim Pastor Search Committee about what to expect upon arriving at Madison Square. “Celebrate the One Who Loves You Day”—or “Celebrate the Ones Who Love You Day”—came about, I was told, after a member of the Madison Square Worship Committee volunteered with the children’s church several years ago. It happened to be Mother’s Day. This church volunteer thought she would do a marvelous thing by inviting the children to celebrate their mothers on that day, only to end up with one of the children weeping in her arms because that child was parented by two fathers and wanted to know why they could not be included in the celebration.
Right then and there the reality of modern families hit home for this faithful volunteer among our children. And when she took a second look around the room, she saw love making all kinds of families at Madison Square. Some children were parented by two mothers. Some children were parented by a mother and a father. Some children were parented by grandparents. Some children were parented by foster parents. Some children were parented in ways she did not know at the time.
And in that moment of simply paying attention to the parenting love of God in the lives of the children of the church, the Spirit of God transformed the family values of this faithful volunteer. And led her to conclude that if love also makes a church family, then Madison Square must update its traditions and celebrate everyone who extends the parenting love of our parenting God with the ones who need that parenting love the most.
And so we have.
On most days the ones who celebrate the parenting love of God in this updated tradition at Madison Square will likely be our children. But if we’re honest, on some days it might just be any one of the rest of us. The so-called “adults” in the room. Because don’t we all need the parenting love of God in our lives? Perhaps even more when we’re supposedly “all grown up”? Don’t we all need to celebrate the one who loves us—or the ones who love us—with the parenting love of God?
I know I do.
It is, after all, the parenting love of our parenting God that led a very adult Jesus to call God his “Abba,” or his “Father.” Or, to translate the Aramaic more accurately, his “Daddy.” Which was absolutely an update of the traditions of his time. Because the little boy Jesus knew in his bones what it was to rely on the parental love of God through his “non-traditional family” of an adoptive father and a scandalized mother. And the grown-up Jesus knew he needed to extend that parenting love of God to his own spiritual “band of brothers” (and, I would argue, more than few sisters) who would one day plant the seeds of the church family we have become two thousand years later. So he changed the way we understood God. And he changed the way we understood how to relate with God and with one another. And a primary way of expressing this change is through the language of the Trinity.
The God whose name was too holy to be pronounced became known as in the most intimate of familial terms: Father; Son; Holy Spirit, in the church’s classic Trinitarian formula. Or, as the 5th century theologian St. Augustine would put it: as Lover; Beloved; and the Love that binds them together.
And wow! What a difference that intimate, familial, ever-present divine love has made since we updated our traditions to reflect its ongoing revelation! And what a difference it can make when we continue to update our traditions to reflect its revelation today!
Because if the adult Jesus is, for all time, “God, the Beloved Son,” as we have come to know him in the church’s classic Trinitarian formula; and if the Holy Spirit is, for all time, the love that binds the Loving Father and the Beloved Son together, as the classically conservative fifth century theologian St. Augustine has taught us; then it is not at all beyond the scope of our faith tradition to say today that love makes a divine family, as well. That “love makes a Trinity,” just as much as love makes a human family or a church family.
Because it is not at all beyond the broadly accepted scope of our faith tradition to understand the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as Lover, Beloved, and the Love that binds them together, we can say with absolute assurance that the Christian view of God is that God’s very being is what we might today call a “non-traditional family.” Bound together by the grace of a mutually affirming and life-giving love for all time.
Because love isn’t what a solitary, self-sufficient God does, in Christian experience. Love is who God is! Bound up in a mutually affirming and ultimately life-giving family of grace that invites us to be “born again” into this very divinely human family. In God. And of God. In love. In all of our many configurations. Forever and ever. Amen!
And it is not at all beyond the scope of our faith tradition to say that when Jesus asks us to be “born again,” of water and Spirit, what he is asking of us is to let the Spirit of divine and steadfast love—swirling in a wind that will always blow wherever it chooses—transform our far too narrow knee-jerk reactions of what it means to be the family of God, so that we may participate in God’s triune vision for a divine home that binds our human family together in ways we can only begin to imagine.
Which is what Jesus was asking of Nicodemus in our Gospel lesson today.
The righteous, respected Pharisee, certified member of the religious establishment, Nicodemus knew Jesus was up to something divinely inspired, even when his peers put him down. So under cover of darkness, he approaches Jesus, in our text, to talk about the teaching of the kingdom of God. With the intention of bringing the clearly divinely led Jesus into the respected tradition of the elders, to which Nicodemus belongs.
But Jesus offers the exact opposite.
In the name of the God who is Lover, and Beloved, and the Love that binds them together, you can almost hear Jesus saying, I want to bring you, Nicodemus, and you, religious establishment into the updated tradition of the family of God. I want you to be “born again,” Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, as a participant in God’s holy family. And I want you to invite others to do the same.
Because what we know for sure in the story of Jesus is that spiritual rebirth really is possible. And in fact, it is necessary, for all who would keep up with the divine wind that “blows where it chooses.” And what we know for sure in the story of Jesus is that it is often the most “religious” people who need that spiritual rebirth.
The good news, for Jesus and for us, is that Nicodemus does exactly what Jesus asks him to do. He lets the Spirit of love re-make his participation in God’s holy family. Because although Nicodemus is only willing to approach Jesus in today’s lectionary text from the Gospel of John under cover of darkness, in a “secret meeting,” as a “closeted” supporter of Jesus, you might say, Nicodemus later comes out full force as a defender of Jesus among his fellow Pharisees. And he brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes to anoint the broken body of Christ after the crucifixion. And he aligns himself for all time with the kind of care for the Beloved Son of a Loving Father God that any model brother would perform when confronted with the Spirit-born grace of God’s steadfast love right before his eyes.
And the same thing can happen among the religious establishment of our day, as well.
Because the good news for us, on this Trinity More Light Sunday Celebrating the One Who Loves Us, is that the Spirit-born grace of God’s steadfast love continues to birth us over and over again as God’s beloved family. Especially as we come to the table of our parenting God in our common communion. Where there is always room for one more to “come home” and learn all over again what it is to love the one human family that we most assuredly are. Created by the God who will not ever let us go.
I pray it may be so. Amen.
Trinity Sunday
More Light Sunday
Celebrating the One Who Love You Sunday
John 3:1-8
“Love makes a family,” we say in our efforts to describe the great diversity of relationship configurations in which modern American society provides care and support and concern for one another. Including within the church.
“Love makes a family,” we say here at Madison Square, because we have experienced in our own congregation so many of the different kinds of ways that families may be faithfully constructed. To the point that even our efforts to compile a comprehensive list of these many configurations inevitably overlooks beloved members of our community. Which is why the final report of the Madison Square Vision and Values and Priorities statement adopted by your session two weeks ago simply states that “children from all types of families mingle naturally in worship for all ages and in our age-appropriate activities in Children’s Church.”
Which is emphatically true.
Which is why we are observing “The One Who Loves You” Day in this very moment, halfway between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
I learned of this observance when I was speaking with your Interim Pastor Search Committee about what to expect upon arriving at Madison Square. “Celebrate the One Who Loves You Day”—or “Celebrate the Ones Who Love You Day”—came about, I was told, after a member of the Madison Square Worship Committee volunteered with the children’s church several years ago. It happened to be Mother’s Day. This church volunteer thought she would do a marvelous thing by inviting the children to celebrate their mothers on that day, only to end up with one of the children weeping in her arms because that child was parented by two fathers and wanted to know why they could not be included in the celebration.
Right then and there the reality of modern families hit home for this faithful volunteer among our children. And when she took a second look around the room, she saw love making all kinds of families at Madison Square. Some children were parented by two mothers. Some children were parented by a mother and a father. Some children were parented by grandparents. Some children were parented by foster parents. Some children were parented in ways she did not know at the time.
And in that moment of simply paying attention to the parenting love of God in the lives of the children of the church, the Spirit of God transformed the family values of this faithful volunteer. And led her to conclude that if love also makes a church family, then Madison Square must update its traditions and celebrate everyone who extends the parenting love of our parenting God with the ones who need that parenting love the most.
And so we have.
On most days the ones who celebrate the parenting love of God in this updated tradition at Madison Square will likely be our children. But if we’re honest, on some days it might just be any one of the rest of us. The so-called “adults” in the room. Because don’t we all need the parenting love of God in our lives? Perhaps even more when we’re supposedly “all grown up”? Don’t we all need to celebrate the one who loves us—or the ones who love us—with the parenting love of God?
I know I do.
It is, after all, the parenting love of our parenting God that led a very adult Jesus to call God his “Abba,” or his “Father.” Or, to translate the Aramaic more accurately, his “Daddy.” Which was absolutely an update of the traditions of his time. Because the little boy Jesus knew in his bones what it was to rely on the parental love of God through his “non-traditional family” of an adoptive father and a scandalized mother. And the grown-up Jesus knew he needed to extend that parenting love of God to his own spiritual “band of brothers” (and, I would argue, more than few sisters) who would one day plant the seeds of the church family we have become two thousand years later. So he changed the way we understood God. And he changed the way we understood how to relate with God and with one another. And a primary way of expressing this change is through the language of the Trinity.
The God whose name was too holy to be pronounced became known as in the most intimate of familial terms: Father; Son; Holy Spirit, in the church’s classic Trinitarian formula. Or, as the 5th century theologian St. Augustine would put it: as Lover; Beloved; and the Love that binds them together.
And wow! What a difference that intimate, familial, ever-present divine love has made since we updated our traditions to reflect its ongoing revelation! And what a difference it can make when we continue to update our traditions to reflect its revelation today!
Because if the adult Jesus is, for all time, “God, the Beloved Son,” as we have come to know him in the church’s classic Trinitarian formula; and if the Holy Spirit is, for all time, the love that binds the Loving Father and the Beloved Son together, as the classically conservative fifth century theologian St. Augustine has taught us; then it is not at all beyond the scope of our faith tradition to say today that love makes a divine family, as well. That “love makes a Trinity,” just as much as love makes a human family or a church family.
Because it is not at all beyond the broadly accepted scope of our faith tradition to understand the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as Lover, Beloved, and the Love that binds them together, we can say with absolute assurance that the Christian view of God is that God’s very being is what we might today call a “non-traditional family.” Bound together by the grace of a mutually affirming and life-giving love for all time.
Because love isn’t what a solitary, self-sufficient God does, in Christian experience. Love is who God is! Bound up in a mutually affirming and ultimately life-giving family of grace that invites us to be “born again” into this very divinely human family. In God. And of God. In love. In all of our many configurations. Forever and ever. Amen!
And it is not at all beyond the scope of our faith tradition to say that when Jesus asks us to be “born again,” of water and Spirit, what he is asking of us is to let the Spirit of divine and steadfast love—swirling in a wind that will always blow wherever it chooses—transform our far too narrow knee-jerk reactions of what it means to be the family of God, so that we may participate in God’s triune vision for a divine home that binds our human family together in ways we can only begin to imagine.
Which is what Jesus was asking of Nicodemus in our Gospel lesson today.
The righteous, respected Pharisee, certified member of the religious establishment, Nicodemus knew Jesus was up to something divinely inspired, even when his peers put him down. So under cover of darkness, he approaches Jesus, in our text, to talk about the teaching of the kingdom of God. With the intention of bringing the clearly divinely led Jesus into the respected tradition of the elders, to which Nicodemus belongs.
But Jesus offers the exact opposite.
In the name of the God who is Lover, and Beloved, and the Love that binds them together, you can almost hear Jesus saying, I want to bring you, Nicodemus, and you, religious establishment into the updated tradition of the family of God. I want you to be “born again,” Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, as a participant in God’s holy family. And I want you to invite others to do the same.
Because what we know for sure in the story of Jesus is that spiritual rebirth really is possible. And in fact, it is necessary, for all who would keep up with the divine wind that “blows where it chooses.” And what we know for sure in the story of Jesus is that it is often the most “religious” people who need that spiritual rebirth.
The good news, for Jesus and for us, is that Nicodemus does exactly what Jesus asks him to do. He lets the Spirit of love re-make his participation in God’s holy family. Because although Nicodemus is only willing to approach Jesus in today’s lectionary text from the Gospel of John under cover of darkness, in a “secret meeting,” as a “closeted” supporter of Jesus, you might say, Nicodemus later comes out full force as a defender of Jesus among his fellow Pharisees. And he brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes to anoint the broken body of Christ after the crucifixion. And he aligns himself for all time with the kind of care for the Beloved Son of a Loving Father God that any model brother would perform when confronted with the Spirit-born grace of God’s steadfast love right before his eyes.
And the same thing can happen among the religious establishment of our day, as well.
Because the good news for us, on this Trinity More Light Sunday Celebrating the One Who Loves Us, is that the Spirit-born grace of God’s steadfast love continues to birth us over and over again as God’s beloved family. Especially as we come to the table of our parenting God in our common communion. Where there is always room for one more to “come home” and learn all over again what it is to love the one human family that we most assuredly are. Created by the God who will not ever let us go.
I pray it may be so. Amen.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
The Totally Tubular Spirit of God
By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
. . . and then Peter goes on to describe the gift of God that has been given to the world in the ministry of Jesus . . . and of his devastating death through the evil of the cross . . . and of his glorious resurrection and ascension just days before the festival of Pentecost . . . and of the promise . . . of the gift of the guidance of the Spirit of God . . . that will be with them always . . . even to the end of the age. And, if we read the Scriptures carefully, through any stage of youth or old age or womanhood or manhood or slavery or freedom. The Spirit poured out on us all who are already one covenant community of the great diversity of humanity . . . united in the gift of God’s grace that can never be undone. That can only forever be truly sung in alleluia after alleluia. Which is what, I would suggest, Pentecost is all about.
This Pentecost Spirit that is poured out on every one of us is, as far as I am concerned, the greatest blessing of God that there is. It gives us the courage to pray without ceasing. It leads us to thrive beyond any vision we can possibly imagine. It says absolutely nothing can ever hold you back!
Including, of course, for Peter. Who . . . if you really think about it . . . receives the ultimate gift of the grace of the Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday . . .
And I am guessing Peter is thinking about it. I am guessing Peter has been thinking over and over and over again in these past fifty days . . . about how he denied his teacher over and over and over again . . . on that “holy” Thursday seven weeks ago . . . giving in to fear . . . and denying the very one on whom he knew for sure God’s Spirit had already been poured out. The one who had surely been anointed to “bring good news to the poor . . . recovery of sight to the blind . . . release to the captives . . . and liberty to the oppressed.” Surely Peter has been thinking in these past fifty days in agonizing detail about how he denied Jesus in his hour of greatest need.
And yet here we are . . . fifty days later . . . at the Festival of Pentecost . . . with the denier named Peter who by all rights should so easily be paralyzed by deep pangs of guilt instead becoming so profoundly filled with the poured out Spirit of the Living God that his fear has turned into triumph . . . and his guilt has turned into conviction . . . and the power of his preaching has transformed the hearts and minds of three thousand souls on this Pentecost morning . . . and the early church has been born . . . as God’s beloved children from all across the known world can hear the prophetic call of Christ . . . in whatever language it takes to speak to their spirits . . . to turn their hearts and minds away from the deep violence that . . . let’s face it . . . dwells in every one of us . . . and to receive instead the gift of the Holy Spirit through their baptism in Christ’s name. And to know in their bones that they are already one covenant community in the Spirit of the living God . . . that includes the great diversity of humanity . . . and the gift of grace that can never be undone . . . that can only be always and forever truly sung . . . in alleluia after alleluia . . . which is what Pentecost is all about . . . which is that there really is a sweet, sweet spirit in this place. And I know that it’s the Spirit of our God
Which is what we are singing two thousand years later . . . here at Madison Square . . . in whatever language we can find to anyone with ears to hear . . . that the same power of the Spirit of God that propelled that fickle disciple named Peter to a proud proclamation of the gospel can equally propel any one of us from a spirit of fear into a spirit of triumph . . . from a spirit of despair into a spirit of joy . . . from a spirit of violence into a spirit of reconciliation . . . from a spirit of mis-understanding across all our different ways of mis-communicating into a profound and prophetic peace that passes all understanding. This is the alleluia we are singing on this Pentecost Sunday here at Madison Square . . . because there really is a “sweet, sweet Spirit in this place . . . and we know that it’s the Spirit of our God.”
Of course, I don’t really need to tell you this. Just about everyone I have known to walk through the doors of this church has spoken of the Spirit of God that we all have experienced soaring through this sanctuary . . . on this particular Sunday through a great big red plastic tube . . . which I have delightfully dubbed “the totally tubular Spirit of God.” And even with the playful poking fun of this “whooshing” and “whirring” with our kids . . . did we not also experience it as powerful beyond the telling of it? This energy . . . this enthusiasm . . . this dwelling in the holy, holy, holy that has no real words to describe it. Except that all will be well . . . and all shall be well . . . and every manner of thing shall be well . . . in the words of that great 14th century mystic theologian, Julian of Norwich. Who, like Peter . . . and like so many of us . . . knew what it was to suffer . . . and to come out on the other side with a profoundly renewed trust in the guidance of the Spirit of God.
This is, I will confess, why Pentecost is my truly favorite Christian holiday. Even more than Lent. Even more than Easter. Way more than Christmas. I chose to be ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament on Pentecost Sunday because I believe so profoundly in that healing journey of faith borne witness in the transformation of Peter . . . through the trauma and grief and despair and guilt that was surely his cross to bear . . . and all the other disciples, too . . . is one that we as 21st Century Christians can parallel through the liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter and . . . finally . . . Pentecost.
Here is what I mean by that: we all . . . every one of us . . . if we are human . . . carry a cross that has somehow become ours to bear. For some of us it is violence we have inflicted . . . or endured. For some of us it is the guilt we simply cannot let go. For some of us it is a grief we think we truly cannot bear. And there is, it seems to me, an inevitable feeling of victimization that comes with whatever cross is ours. In Lent we have the liturgical invitation to bring the full weight of that suffering into the compassionate, crucified heart of God and let our crying carry us through the pain. It is the earliest stage of healing.
Then Easter, as I see it, is about survival. It is that sudden burst of adrenaline that shoots out from the pain and flat out refuses to give up. It is the sheer, raw determination not to let the crucifixion win. That insists on moving from victim to survivor . . . and claiming the spiritual and psychological transformation that comes with simply having made it through, with having overcome.
But the journey does not end on Easter. As I have said over and over again, Easter is a Season, not just a Sunday. It takes time to come to terms with survival. To be absolutely sure we really did make it. To stare down the demons of fear and isolation and victimization . . . and . . . like Peter . . . to come to know deep in our bones that God’s grace really is sufficient to cover all of our sins . . . and all of our suffering . . . and all of our fear. And that we no longer have to lay victim to despair or violence or even systematic oppression. And we don’t even have to be “survivors” anymore. Because we are finally ready to open our hearts to the great rush of the wind of the Spirit. Calming and free. Where we are fully healed. By the Spirit of the Living God. Who has given every one of us a second chance to thrive.
This is the great gift of the Spirit of God for every one of us on this Pentecost Sunday . . . and why it is my very favorite Christian holiday. Pentecost is the promise that whatever pain we have endured . . . whatever cross has been ours to bear . . . whatever guilt has kept us in chains . . . whatever law has pushed us down . . . can really truly be overcome . . . and we can really truly thrive together . . . as the Spirit-led people of God we have always been created to be.
It is true for every one of us. Every one of us. And it is even more true for this congregation. The Spirit of Pentecost was given to a community, after all . . . so that the people of the world might truly listen and speak and understand and know . . . within every part of them . . . that God had bound up their wounds . . . and given them a mission . . . and ushered in a whole new life . . . for all of them together.
Surely this is the gift for Madison Square Presbyterian Church . . . on this Pentecost Sunday two thousand years later . . . with a mission study that is now complete . . . and a set of vision and values and priorities to implement . . . and a Pastor Nominating Committee ready to be elected . . . and the survival of the church that is secure . . . and the “thriving into the future” that really can begin today.
Surely there is a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place on this particular Pentecost Sunday . . . and wherever we are . . . and whoever we are . . . the totally tubular Spirit of God, ushered in by the fabulous children and youth of Madison Square will no doubt take every one of us . . . and this congregation with it . . . to places beyond our greatest imagination . . . as one covenant community of the great diversity of humanity . . . already united in the great gift of grace that can never be undone. That can only forever be truly and completely sung . . . in alleluia after alleluia.
Which is what, I would suggest, Pentecost is all about.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?
Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?
Will you fulfill your ministry in obedience to Jesus Christ under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?
Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?
Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?
Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?
Will you pray for and seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?
Will you be a faithful teaching elder, proclaiming the good news in Word and Sacrament, teaching faith and caring for people? Will you be active in government and discipline, serving in the councils of the church; and in your ministry will you try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ?
. . . and then Peter goes on to describe the gift of God that has been given to the world in the ministry of Jesus . . . and of his devastating death through the evil of the cross . . . and of his glorious resurrection and ascension just days before the festival of Pentecost . . . and of the promise . . . of the gift of the guidance of the Spirit of God . . . that will be with them always . . . even to the end of the age. And, if we read the Scriptures carefully, through any stage of youth or old age or womanhood or manhood or slavery or freedom. The Spirit poured out on us all who are already one covenant community of the great diversity of humanity . . . united in the gift of God’s grace that can never be undone. That can only forever be truly sung in alleluia after alleluia. Which is what, I would suggest, Pentecost is all about.
This Pentecost Spirit that is poured out on every one of us is, as far as I am concerned, the greatest blessing of God that there is. It gives us the courage to pray without ceasing. It leads us to thrive beyond any vision we can possibly imagine. It says absolutely nothing can ever hold you back!
Including, of course, for Peter. Who . . . if you really think about it . . . receives the ultimate gift of the grace of the Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday . . .
And I am guessing Peter is thinking about it. I am guessing Peter has been thinking over and over and over again in these past fifty days . . . about how he denied his teacher over and over and over again . . . on that “holy” Thursday seven weeks ago . . . giving in to fear . . . and denying the very one on whom he knew for sure God’s Spirit had already been poured out. The one who had surely been anointed to “bring good news to the poor . . . recovery of sight to the blind . . . release to the captives . . . and liberty to the oppressed.” Surely Peter has been thinking in these past fifty days in agonizing detail about how he denied Jesus in his hour of greatest need.
And yet here we are . . . fifty days later . . . at the Festival of Pentecost . . . with the denier named Peter who by all rights should so easily be paralyzed by deep pangs of guilt instead becoming so profoundly filled with the poured out Spirit of the Living God that his fear has turned into triumph . . . and his guilt has turned into conviction . . . and the power of his preaching has transformed the hearts and minds of three thousand souls on this Pentecost morning . . . and the early church has been born . . . as God’s beloved children from all across the known world can hear the prophetic call of Christ . . . in whatever language it takes to speak to their spirits . . . to turn their hearts and minds away from the deep violence that . . . let’s face it . . . dwells in every one of us . . . and to receive instead the gift of the Holy Spirit through their baptism in Christ’s name. And to know in their bones that they are already one covenant community in the Spirit of the living God . . . that includes the great diversity of humanity . . . and the gift of grace that can never be undone . . . that can only be always and forever truly sung . . . in alleluia after alleluia . . . which is what Pentecost is all about . . . which is that there really is a sweet, sweet spirit in this place. And I know that it’s the Spirit of our God
Which is what we are singing two thousand years later . . . here at Madison Square . . . in whatever language we can find to anyone with ears to hear . . . that the same power of the Spirit of God that propelled that fickle disciple named Peter to a proud proclamation of the gospel can equally propel any one of us from a spirit of fear into a spirit of triumph . . . from a spirit of despair into a spirit of joy . . . from a spirit of violence into a spirit of reconciliation . . . from a spirit of mis-understanding across all our different ways of mis-communicating into a profound and prophetic peace that passes all understanding. This is the alleluia we are singing on this Pentecost Sunday here at Madison Square . . . because there really is a “sweet, sweet Spirit in this place . . . and we know that it’s the Spirit of our God.”
Of course, I don’t really need to tell you this. Just about everyone I have known to walk through the doors of this church has spoken of the Spirit of God that we all have experienced soaring through this sanctuary . . . on this particular Sunday through a great big red plastic tube . . . which I have delightfully dubbed “the totally tubular Spirit of God.” And even with the playful poking fun of this “whooshing” and “whirring” with our kids . . . did we not also experience it as powerful beyond the telling of it? This energy . . . this enthusiasm . . . this dwelling in the holy, holy, holy that has no real words to describe it. Except that all will be well . . . and all shall be well . . . and every manner of thing shall be well . . . in the words of that great 14th century mystic theologian, Julian of Norwich. Who, like Peter . . . and like so many of us . . . knew what it was to suffer . . . and to come out on the other side with a profoundly renewed trust in the guidance of the Spirit of God.
This is, I will confess, why Pentecost is my truly favorite Christian holiday. Even more than Lent. Even more than Easter. Way more than Christmas. I chose to be ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament on Pentecost Sunday because I believe so profoundly in that healing journey of faith borne witness in the transformation of Peter . . . through the trauma and grief and despair and guilt that was surely his cross to bear . . . and all the other disciples, too . . . is one that we as 21st Century Christians can parallel through the liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter and . . . finally . . . Pentecost.
Here is what I mean by that: we all . . . every one of us . . . if we are human . . . carry a cross that has somehow become ours to bear. For some of us it is violence we have inflicted . . . or endured. For some of us it is the guilt we simply cannot let go. For some of us it is a grief we think we truly cannot bear. And there is, it seems to me, an inevitable feeling of victimization that comes with whatever cross is ours. In Lent we have the liturgical invitation to bring the full weight of that suffering into the compassionate, crucified heart of God and let our crying carry us through the pain. It is the earliest stage of healing.
Then Easter, as I see it, is about survival. It is that sudden burst of adrenaline that shoots out from the pain and flat out refuses to give up. It is the sheer, raw determination not to let the crucifixion win. That insists on moving from victim to survivor . . . and claiming the spiritual and psychological transformation that comes with simply having made it through, with having overcome.
But the journey does not end on Easter. As I have said over and over again, Easter is a Season, not just a Sunday. It takes time to come to terms with survival. To be absolutely sure we really did make it. To stare down the demons of fear and isolation and victimization . . . and . . . like Peter . . . to come to know deep in our bones that God’s grace really is sufficient to cover all of our sins . . . and all of our suffering . . . and all of our fear. And that we no longer have to lay victim to despair or violence or even systematic oppression. And we don’t even have to be “survivors” anymore. Because we are finally ready to open our hearts to the great rush of the wind of the Spirit. Calming and free. Where we are fully healed. By the Spirit of the Living God. Who has given every one of us a second chance to thrive.
This is the great gift of the Spirit of God for every one of us on this Pentecost Sunday . . . and why it is my very favorite Christian holiday. Pentecost is the promise that whatever pain we have endured . . . whatever cross has been ours to bear . . . whatever guilt has kept us in chains . . . whatever law has pushed us down . . . can really truly be overcome . . . and we can really truly thrive together . . . as the Spirit-led people of God we have always been created to be.
It is true for every one of us. Every one of us. And it is even more true for this congregation. The Spirit of Pentecost was given to a community, after all . . . so that the people of the world might truly listen and speak and understand and know . . . within every part of them . . . that God had bound up their wounds . . . and given them a mission . . . and ushered in a whole new life . . . for all of them together.
Surely this is the gift for Madison Square Presbyterian Church . . . on this Pentecost Sunday two thousand years later . . . with a mission study that is now complete . . . and a set of vision and values and priorities to implement . . . and a Pastor Nominating Committee ready to be elected . . . and the survival of the church that is secure . . . and the “thriving into the future” that really can begin today.
Surely there is a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place on this particular Pentecost Sunday . . . and wherever we are . . . and whoever we are . . . the totally tubular Spirit of God, ushered in by the fabulous children and youth of Madison Square will no doubt take every one of us . . . and this congregation with it . . . to places beyond our greatest imagination . . . as one covenant community of the great diversity of humanity . . . already united in the great gift of grace that can never be undone. That can only forever be truly and completely sung . . . in alleluia after alleluia.
Which is what, I would suggest, Pentecost is all about.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?
Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?
Will you fulfill your ministry in obedience to Jesus Christ under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?
Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?
Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?
Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?
Will you pray for and seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?
Will you be a faithful teaching elder, proclaiming the good news in Word and Sacrament, teaching faith and caring for people? Will you be active in government and discipline, serving in the councils of the church; and in your ministry will you try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ?
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Carried Away
By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
Ascension Sunday
Acts 1:1-11
Luke 24:44-53
And they were continually in the temple blessing God. Even as Jesus really was leaving them. For good this time. And they really would now have to figure out how to do their ministry without him.
In the Protestant Church we forget this, I have found. Just as we forget that Easter is a season and not just a Sunday. That, according to the Book of Acts—which tradition says is the second book in a two volume narrative by the author of Luke’s Gospel—the risen Christ appears to the disciples for a full forty days after the resurrection, and not just that one that has an Easter bunny attached to it.
For forty days, the risen Christ teaches and heals a community that has been truly plunged into crisis after the chaos of the crucifixion. For forty days he binds that beloved community back together again around a common vision and values and a clear set of priorities. To the point that when he finally does leave them—for real this time—they are so carried away with the blessing of God and of one another, and they are so carried away with his promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide them in his absence, that they barely even notice he has gone.
Forty days is, of course, in biblical numerology simply a number that signifies completion. It means the risen Christ takes as long as it takes to get the job done. The ancient Hebrews, we recall, wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of promise and plenty. Jesus spends forty days in the desert in preparation for his own ministry of proclaiming the kingdom in the face of Roman occupation. And here the risen Christ spends another forty days among his closest companions to re-form them as an Easter community that bears witness to the power of God to make good from even the worst a community can endure. And to move on.
The forty days of the season of Easter simply means that they—and we—take the time they need to get ready for what is coming next. To let go of the life to which we can no longer return in order to embrace the life that is yet to come. Which is exactly what a period of interim ministry is all about. Which is exactly what we have been doing together here at Madison Square. Which has been about trusting the healing grace of God in the midst of crisis. Letting go of what can no longer be the life of this community. And preparing to embrace the life that is yet to come.
The good news is that the “blessing” is truly upon us! Here we are on “Ascension Sunday” celebrating in our Scriptures that the risen Christ—who surely ministered among this community even two thousand years later through a time of crisis that now seems so very long ago—is flying away to that home on God’s celestial shore. With a promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide us in his absence.
The healing is complete. And the disciples who love him so very much are blessing him. As he is blessing them. And they are rushing back to downtown Jerusalem with great joy. And they are continually in the temple blessing God . . .
. . . just as we are continually coming home here to Madison Square Presbyterian Church, to bless God and to be blessed by God over and over and over again. Because throughout this symbolic forty days of interim ministry we have spent so far together in the healing grace of the risen Christ, what we have found is that this congregation really is “the home for worship, nurture, education and social justice in downtown San Antonio” . . . “grounded in the core values of inclusion and diversity, while bearing witness to the unconditional love of God.”
And there really is “no place like home.”
Your Transition Steering Committee—having labored for what I am sure has felt more like forty years than just four months—has discerned with your guidance the next steps for Madison Square’s mission: unveiling today a clear vision for this congregation to rally around, with a common set of convictions and creative challenges, with common-sense priorities for mission and ministry, and a final request for you to offer one more piece of feedback on pastoral priorities in the months and years to come.
And Ascension Sunday is the perfect time to get carried away with it all!
I heartily endorse the fruits of their labor and hope you will find your own hopes and dreams for Madison Square articulated here. The Transition Steering Committee is blessing God and God is blessing us as they bring this report to you for your feedback and approval.
And while I do not wish to “steal their thunder” in the report they will share with you at the end of this service of worship, I do want to offer two key reflections that I hope will help place this report in the context of the “interim period” we have been engaged in together.
The first reflection is simply to remind us how we got here and to clarify where I expect we will continue to go in the remainder of our time together as your Pastor Nominating Committee begins seeking an installed pastor. When I arrived among you, nearly nine months ago, I saw a community of faith that, like those earliest disciples, had survived a series of losses and crises more painful than any congregation should ever have to endure. And in the Spirit of the risen Christ, I wanted to help you thrive again, to trust again, to live in joy again. What we have accomplished together in these past nine months is truly a testament to the power of the risen Christ to heal the world. I am astounded beyond words that “we have come this far by faith.”
Much of the interim journey has been “behind the scenes,” particularly with stabilizing the administrative foundation at Madison Square. Engaging in what I would lovingly call some basic “Spring Cleaning” that will allow your new pastor to come into an environment that has let go of the old and is moving toward embracing the new. The other piece of the interim journey so far has been the much more public “season of self-assessment” we have engaged in together for the past several months, culminating in the report that is before you today. The good news is that on the whole, Madison Square is incredibly united around a common set of values and commitments and hopes for the future. While those values and commitments and hopes might be expressed somewhat differently across the congregation, the truth is you are remarkably clear about who you are and who you want to be.
The more challenging news is that is that it will be extremely important for Madison Square to be honest about your size and the expectations you have for yourselves and for your coming installed pastor in relationship to your size. The common refrain we heard throughout the Focus Group process was the desire to increase programming and mission outreach here at Madison Square. There is a sense that Madison Square used to “do” more, for adults, for children, for mission, and that it is important to get back to doing those things. Or to get “forward” to doing even more things that have never been done before!
This is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. My caution, though, is to remember that “slow and steady” really does win the race. And to be honest about your current capacity for growth in programming and outreach. The worshiping community at Madison Square has stabilized in the past nine months to include approximately 115 people. Every one of those one hundred fifteen people is FABULOUS!!!! And I mean FABULOUS!!!
But 115 people will get burned out if you expect of yourselves the same kind of programming that normally accompanies a worshiping community of 150 people. So it will be important in the months ahead to clarify the highest programming priorities and to build on the base of the fabulous community that is currently present, and give thanks to God for the great many gifts of programming and mission outreach that are already at work here at Madison Square.
Of course the other great desire coming out of the Focus Groups is to increase membership. And this, too, is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. But here again it will be extremely important to stay grounded in the vision of Madison Square as a community of faith seeking to offer a “home to the home-less” (in all of the ways a person might be home-less), rather than to fall into the mentality of a small business seeking growth for its own profit or gain. I will say more about this when the time comes for the Transition Team to present its report. Let me just say here that even Jesus did not ask his disciples to become a worldwide phenomenon in the year after his Ascension. What he did was offer them hope, help them heal, bind them together, promise them the gift of the Spirit, and trust them to follow where the Spirit led.
This, in the end, is what God is really asking of Madison Square. Your mission, as has already been expressed long before you entered the so-called “interim period” is “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” To be clear about who you are and what you want, yes. But always and finally to trust the Spirit to lead you to where you never thought you could go. That is what your Transition Team has done. That is what your Focus Groups have done. That is what we will all do together, as we continue this amazing interim journey we are on. And the Spirit is coming next Sunday!
Until then, the vision is before you. The values and commitments and creative tensions are before you. The priorities of the congregation and our immediate tasks in the coming year are before you. And you are now invited to respond.
And I hope you, too, will get “carried away” by the grace of it all.
May we be grateful for the blessing . . .
Amen.
Ascension Sunday
Acts 1:1-11
Luke 24:44-53
And they were continually in the temple blessing God. Even as Jesus really was leaving them. For good this time. And they really would now have to figure out how to do their ministry without him.
In the Protestant Church we forget this, I have found. Just as we forget that Easter is a season and not just a Sunday. That, according to the Book of Acts—which tradition says is the second book in a two volume narrative by the author of Luke’s Gospel—the risen Christ appears to the disciples for a full forty days after the resurrection, and not just that one that has an Easter bunny attached to it.
For forty days, the risen Christ teaches and heals a community that has been truly plunged into crisis after the chaos of the crucifixion. For forty days he binds that beloved community back together again around a common vision and values and a clear set of priorities. To the point that when he finally does leave them—for real this time—they are so carried away with the blessing of God and of one another, and they are so carried away with his promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide them in his absence, that they barely even notice he has gone.
Forty days is, of course, in biblical numerology simply a number that signifies completion. It means the risen Christ takes as long as it takes to get the job done. The ancient Hebrews, we recall, wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of promise and plenty. Jesus spends forty days in the desert in preparation for his own ministry of proclaiming the kingdom in the face of Roman occupation. And here the risen Christ spends another forty days among his closest companions to re-form them as an Easter community that bears witness to the power of God to make good from even the worst a community can endure. And to move on.
The forty days of the season of Easter simply means that they—and we—take the time they need to get ready for what is coming next. To let go of the life to which we can no longer return in order to embrace the life that is yet to come. Which is exactly what a period of interim ministry is all about. Which is exactly what we have been doing together here at Madison Square. Which has been about trusting the healing grace of God in the midst of crisis. Letting go of what can no longer be the life of this community. And preparing to embrace the life that is yet to come.
The good news is that the “blessing” is truly upon us! Here we are on “Ascension Sunday” celebrating in our Scriptures that the risen Christ—who surely ministered among this community even two thousand years later through a time of crisis that now seems so very long ago—is flying away to that home on God’s celestial shore. With a promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide us in his absence.
The healing is complete. And the disciples who love him so very much are blessing him. As he is blessing them. And they are rushing back to downtown Jerusalem with great joy. And they are continually in the temple blessing God . . .
. . . just as we are continually coming home here to Madison Square Presbyterian Church, to bless God and to be blessed by God over and over and over again. Because throughout this symbolic forty days of interim ministry we have spent so far together in the healing grace of the risen Christ, what we have found is that this congregation really is “the home for worship, nurture, education and social justice in downtown San Antonio” . . . “grounded in the core values of inclusion and diversity, while bearing witness to the unconditional love of God.”
And there really is “no place like home.”
Your Transition Steering Committee—having labored for what I am sure has felt more like forty years than just four months—has discerned with your guidance the next steps for Madison Square’s mission: unveiling today a clear vision for this congregation to rally around, with a common set of convictions and creative challenges, with common-sense priorities for mission and ministry, and a final request for you to offer one more piece of feedback on pastoral priorities in the months and years to come.
And Ascension Sunday is the perfect time to get carried away with it all!
I heartily endorse the fruits of their labor and hope you will find your own hopes and dreams for Madison Square articulated here. The Transition Steering Committee is blessing God and God is blessing us as they bring this report to you for your feedback and approval.
And while I do not wish to “steal their thunder” in the report they will share with you at the end of this service of worship, I do want to offer two key reflections that I hope will help place this report in the context of the “interim period” we have been engaged in together.
The first reflection is simply to remind us how we got here and to clarify where I expect we will continue to go in the remainder of our time together as your Pastor Nominating Committee begins seeking an installed pastor. When I arrived among you, nearly nine months ago, I saw a community of faith that, like those earliest disciples, had survived a series of losses and crises more painful than any congregation should ever have to endure. And in the Spirit of the risen Christ, I wanted to help you thrive again, to trust again, to live in joy again. What we have accomplished together in these past nine months is truly a testament to the power of the risen Christ to heal the world. I am astounded beyond words that “we have come this far by faith.”
Much of the interim journey has been “behind the scenes,” particularly with stabilizing the administrative foundation at Madison Square. Engaging in what I would lovingly call some basic “Spring Cleaning” that will allow your new pastor to come into an environment that has let go of the old and is moving toward embracing the new. The other piece of the interim journey so far has been the much more public “season of self-assessment” we have engaged in together for the past several months, culminating in the report that is before you today. The good news is that on the whole, Madison Square is incredibly united around a common set of values and commitments and hopes for the future. While those values and commitments and hopes might be expressed somewhat differently across the congregation, the truth is you are remarkably clear about who you are and who you want to be.
The more challenging news is that is that it will be extremely important for Madison Square to be honest about your size and the expectations you have for yourselves and for your coming installed pastor in relationship to your size. The common refrain we heard throughout the Focus Group process was the desire to increase programming and mission outreach here at Madison Square. There is a sense that Madison Square used to “do” more, for adults, for children, for mission, and that it is important to get back to doing those things. Or to get “forward” to doing even more things that have never been done before!
This is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. My caution, though, is to remember that “slow and steady” really does win the race. And to be honest about your current capacity for growth in programming and outreach. The worshiping community at Madison Square has stabilized in the past nine months to include approximately 115 people. Every one of those one hundred fifteen people is FABULOUS!!!! And I mean FABULOUS!!!
But 115 people will get burned out if you expect of yourselves the same kind of programming that normally accompanies a worshiping community of 150 people. So it will be important in the months ahead to clarify the highest programming priorities and to build on the base of the fabulous community that is currently present, and give thanks to God for the great many gifts of programming and mission outreach that are already at work here at Madison Square.
Of course the other great desire coming out of the Focus Groups is to increase membership. And this, too, is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. But here again it will be extremely important to stay grounded in the vision of Madison Square as a community of faith seeking to offer a “home to the home-less” (in all of the ways a person might be home-less), rather than to fall into the mentality of a small business seeking growth for its own profit or gain. I will say more about this when the time comes for the Transition Team to present its report. Let me just say here that even Jesus did not ask his disciples to become a worldwide phenomenon in the year after his Ascension. What he did was offer them hope, help them heal, bind them together, promise them the gift of the Spirit, and trust them to follow where the Spirit led.
This, in the end, is what God is really asking of Madison Square. Your mission, as has already been expressed long before you entered the so-called “interim period” is “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” To be clear about who you are and what you want, yes. But always and finally to trust the Spirit to lead you to where you never thought you could go. That is what your Transition Team has done. That is what your Focus Groups have done. That is what we will all do together, as we continue this amazing interim journey we are on. And the Spirit is coming next Sunday!
Until then, the vision is before you. The values and commitments and creative tensions are before you. The priorities of the congregation and our immediate tasks in the coming year are before you. And you are now invited to respond.
And I hope you, too, will get “carried away” by the grace of it all.
May we be grateful for the blessing . . .
Amen.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Spiritual Friendship in a Facebook World
By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
Sermon May 13, 2012
John 15:9-17
Sermon May 13, 2012
John 15:9-17
“I
do not call you servants any longer,” Jesus says in our Gospel lesson for
today. “But I have called you friends.”
And
of course my mind goes immediately to Facebook.
For
the uninitiated among us, Facebook is a multi-billion dollar online social networking
tool—about to be traded publicly—with which you, too, may “friend” an unlimited
number of the eight hundred thirty five million other people on the planet who
also use Facebook. And join in the frenetic craze to keep in touch with those you
say you love the most through news feeds, status updates, photo galleries,
political posts and counter-political-posts.
In
two seconds flat with the click of a mouse on the wall of your “friend,” you
may “like” everything from the mundane report that your nephew got his hair cut
this morning to the reminder that your former high school sweetheart’s new
wife’s birthday just happens to coincide with Mother’s Day to the groundbreaking
news that our nation’s highest elected public official has finally come out of
the closet in support of marriage equality. Himself, of course, the child of a
marriage that would also have been illegal in the state of Texas at the time of
his birth. With Scriptural citations also abounding in support of such blatantly
prejudicial “family values.”
If
you are like me, you might “like” such groundbreaking news so much that you
would update your own status report to say something like, “It’s about time.”
Or “Alleluia!” Or “May the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) follow suit at General Assembly
this July.” And then see where your Facebook friends follow.
Some
of them will undoubtedly “like” your “like.” And they may even go so far as to comment
on your “like.” Or re-post your “like.” Or comment on their re-post of your
“like” that they “like”-d. Of course we may not want to admit it, but there maybe might be a few Facebook friends who don’t
like the “like.” Who mutter to their mouse, “there she goes again on one of her
liberal crusades.” Which would be true except that marriage and family have
always been fairly conservative values, even though the expression of those
values has evolved over time and across cultures and even in the trajectory of
the biblical witness.
So
if your Facebook friends are truly your friends,
they will know that your heart is good and your intentions are pastoral, and they
will simply ignore the Facebook “like” that they don’t like, because the
friendship matters more than the conflict. And then they will go on about their
on-line business.
But
then, of course, there are those Facebook friends who are really more like “on-line
acquaintances.” Or really just people we feel guilty for not “friend”ing in the
first place. I mean, let’s be honest, if you weren’t actually friends in high school, but they “friend” you
on Facebook twenty years later, are they really now your actual friend? I doubt
it.
These
so-called Facebook friends might scathingly “un-like” the “like” that you
really do “like.” Or even sabotage the “like.” Or if they really truly don’t like the
“like” or your comment on the “like” or the fact that you saw fit to remove their blatantly un-like-able comment on your “like,” well they might just (and I
gasp) “un-friend” you for your comment on the “like” they didn’t “like”! Or you
might “un-friend” them. Even though you were never really “friends” in the
first place!
Whew!
This is what we have become in the Facebook friendship world. Which is not, I hasten
to add, what I think Jesus had in mind when he called us his friends and asked
us to befriend one another. To love one another as he has loved us.
Don’t
get me wrong. I love Facebook. I
think it is a great tool for staying connected in a transient society. And I
have even used it to find a job on more than one occasion. But I am also slightly
worried about what all this “friend”-ing and “like”-ing and “un-friend”-ing and
“un-like”-ing might have to reveal about the fracturing fundamentals of human
connection and divine intervention we expect to experience in the basic
sociological and theological phenomenon we call human friendship.
The
fact is that we, as a species, are social animals. From the beginning God saw
that it was not good for us to be alone. We were created to live in relationship,
which is how I interpret those earliest chapters of Genesis that our marriage
equality opponents use to deny this covenant relationship for same-gender
loving couples. We were created to live in relationship.
And
yet we have become lonelier as a species than we have ever been in modern
memory. According to a 2010 AARP survey, thirty five percent of adults older
than forty five are chronically lonely, as compared with roughly twenty percent
a decade ago. And according to research quoted in an article by Stephen Marche
in May’s Atlantic Monthly, sixty
million Americans are “unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.”
We
have fewer close confidants than we used to. Twenty five percent of us say we
literally have no one to talk with about our deepest fears and hopes. Twenty
percent of us say we have only one
such friend. For an astounding total of forty
five percent who are one person away from complete and utter isolation.
Even though we may have six hundred ninety-three friends on Facebook.
And
this loneliness is profoundly hazardous to our health. When we are lonely, we
are less likely to exercise, more likely to eat to the point of obesity, less
likely to survive a serious operation, more forgetful, less able to deal with
stress, and more likely to need the care of a nursing home at an earlier age
than our less lonely counterparts. Studies by John Cacioppo at the Center for
Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago reveal that
loneliness literally affects our DNA, altering the way our genes are expressed
in our white blood cells!
In
another age a sermon on friendship might sound frivolous for a pastor and a
congregation so fundamentally focused on mission beyond our walls. But in the
age of Facebook, honest-to-God spiritual friendship is an issue of survival. And
I mean that literally.
At
Madison Square you know what it is to be “welcomed home” by the God who created
us to be spiritual friends in the age of Facebook. But I would suggestion this
community has some decisions to make about how you are going to move forward in
a new era as friends of God and friends of one another. Because the truth is
that real friendship, true friendship, spiritual friendship of reciprocal love
with genuine space for the other to live into the fullness of who God created
them to be, the kind that Jesus called for in his farewell address to his
disciples . . . well, it is just plain messy.
When
we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human
community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may be forced to
confront those parts of each other that we really may not ever “like.” Not
ever. And when we are actually really real friends with one another in this
very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may
find thoughts and words and actions rising from our own minds and hearts and
bodies that embarrass us, that shatter the myth of “spiritual centeredness” we
would all like to hold of ourselves in this house of our God.
When
we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human
community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may have to learn over
and over and over again the meaning of forgiveness and trust and love. And we
may be forced to change our minds—and our public positions—on social matters of
seemingly great controversy. Because we, like our president—or our children—now
have true friends who are gay . . .
or homeless . . . or undocumented . . . or in need of the full spectrum of
reproductive health services. And we can no longer pretend that our friends are
not human, made in the image of God.
And when we are actually really real friends with one
another in this very human community called the church--and not just Facebook
friends--we may have to believe the divine image dwells also in those with whom
we have very painful disagreements on these matters of great controversy. And
we may have to trust that someway, somehow, the love of God is enough to save
us all.
In
his book called Anam Cara, about
spiritual friendship from the perspective of Celtic spirituality, John
O’Donahue writes that “one of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be
seen.” Not only in an online profile carefully crafted to promote a public
image of perfection but in every nook and cranny of the secret soul-life within
us that holds our deepest promise and our deepest shame. And when we finally, faithfully,
freely connect with another person in the fully messy human reality of our
lives in honest and open spiritual friendship—with the gift of the grace of God
as our 4G network—our souls really can begin to flow together in beauty and
light loving one another as we really are and not who we “virtually” are.
I
think this is what Jesus meant when he asked us to be friends with one another.
To lay down those parts of our lives that seem to have such great importance
but really do not. In order to make time to be someone’s friend. And in the
process maybe save their life. Or at least their very human spirit.
Here
at Madison Square you rightly pride yourselves for prizing spiritual friendship
above superficiality. This is, truly, an open and welcoming community of faith
bearing witness to the universal and unconditional love of God. It is written
in your DNA.
But
I would suggest it is time to ramp it up a bit, especially as the report of
your Transition Team comes before you next and as you prepare yourselves next
month to elect a Pastor Nominating Committee that will seek your next installed
pastor. You have said a great many goodbyes and hellos in just the short time I
have served you as your interim pastor. Many have been wonderful. Many have
been painful. But you are a new community now. And now is the time to re-commit
this new community to the grace of rebuilding and repairing the friendships that
may have been muddled throughout this transition. Or to look around this
sanctuary and pick out someone you do not know and go out of your way to invite
that person to dinner, or lunch, or Starbucks. Or to take a risk of sitting in
a different pew next week that will place you worshiping beside a complete
stranger, and watch the love of God bind you together in ways you never
imagined. Or to approach the coffee hour fellowship after worship as an every Sunday communion in the spirit of soul
friendship. Especially today as you “welcome home” the newest member of this family
in faith. And to really . . . truly . . . mean it.
You
are my friends, Jesus says. I have chosen to see the depths of your soul in all
of its glory and all of its grit. And “I am giving you these commands,” Jesus
says, “so that you may love one another” in return.
And
so we will. And so we must.
Because
it is the only way to save the world.
I
pray it may be so. Amen.
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