Time to Be Brave

     Have you seen the commercial?  I don't really remember what they were trying to sell me; probably some sort of electronic thing. It was about "Annie who wanted to fly." A girl did some video editing to make some special effects to make it appear that she could fly.  Aside from the fact that I love flying, dream of flying and am sure that in when I enter into the eternal presence of God and I leave this body behind I will be granted the ability to fly, aside from all that I really like the song in the advertisement.  It's "Be Brave" by the Strange Boys. 

Oh, I had to be brave

*You gotta be brave

Oh, I had to be brave

*You gotta be brave

Oh, I had to be brave

*You gotta be brave

Don't seem like no choice to me.

Not normally visible
this is one of many labels
Pastors hide behind for
fear of success.

     Turning 40 last year and then 41 recently got me to thinking...(mid life crisis?) What am I doing?  I am in a great position to really do good things, great things even.  Jesus made this promise to his disciples that we would do greater things than he did when he was here in the flesh.  So why haven't I done these great things.  Martin Luther King Jr. was 39 when he was assassinated. Look at what he was able to accomplish before he was 40.  It may seem ludicrous of me to compare myself to MLK and really I am not.  However, he realized more of the potential that Jesus said we all have.  I am not saying that I am as good as MLK, I am saying that he has raised the bar that we should all strive to exceed.  Sure adopting four children and forever changing the course of their life will have an immeasurable impact for generations to come, but I could have done that if I were still a pizza guy.  We all rise to the challenges that are before us.  With that said, however, the challenges we face are largely our own choosing. 

      Dr. King could have been complacent; Rachel Corrie could have remained silent; I could have happily raised my two children and been a good maintenance pastor of what ever church the bishop sent me.  So here I am in Ludington, Michigan. I've been here for over a year.  It is time to submit reports and describe, in numbers, what we have been doing as a congregation for the past year.  Did our membership go up or down?  What is our average attendance?  As long as the numbers look good, I look good.  As long as I don't damage the congregation, everything will be okay.  Is this the greatness that Jesus called me/us to? I think not.  

Time to drop our excuses at the foot of the cross.

     There is a hunger for something more.  I want to be a part of something that has meaning.  God has called me to this place at this time.  My task is to figure out what my purpose is.  That purpose will not be discovered by dutifully filling out forms and maintaining the institution.  Our purpose is discovered when we are interacting with as many people as we can; loving them; serving them.   So what is holing me back?  The fact that I haven't been given authority to administer the sacraments outside of my ministry setting? The fact that, because of my particular clergy status, I have no official membership in any church or spiritual community? I tire of my colleagues making excuses for not being faithful servants of Jesus.  I tire of hearing about non-cooperative administrative boards.  I tire of hearing about a lack of resources and a lack of willingness to reach the unwanted and the marginalized.  You are pastors, my brothers and sisters, I am a pastor.  The bishop may have laid hands on you and said, "take thou authority" but authority does not come from the bishop or any other human.  We have been called by God to do God's will.  

     "Okay Jon. What would you have me do?"  Sorry, I am trying to figure that out for myself right now.  I know that time spent in the parsonage, in my study or making the rounds of the shut-ins will not yield anything new.  The thing that needs to be done has to be sought after. It has to be tracked down.  We have to stand in its path and risk being crushed by it if we want to really make a difference.  We have to put ourselves in a position where being brave is the only choice we have. Just like Jesus.  

Julian's baptism

Juliana's baptism

    

Nowhere to Hide

John 6:56-

I cannot do anything on my own! There is not one thing. The life I live is possible because of the community around me. The health of the economy depends on people actively participating in it. The food I buy is purchased with a paycheck given me because I fulfill a function. Food that is grown and produced that provides a paycheck for those who grow it; purchased at a store who earn a paycheck for providing their services. I stand in this pulpit, in this Church, on this piece of land because people before me prepared the way.

I preach from the Bible of which the newest parts were written 2000 years ago. Preacher's have been standing in this place <Or in Similar places> trying to be faithful to the faith that has been handed down to them.

All that comes down to this moment, in this, place, right now. The present moment is the only one we really have and God is asking us to be faithful to Him. To cultivate the seed that others have planted before us and to plant seed that will grow the tree, that will bear fruit that we will never eat in this lifetime.

Do I feel adequate to the task? Usually not! Do I trust God bring out the best in whatever we do? Absolutely!

Oh Lord, you examine me and know. You know when I sit down and when I get up; even from far away you understand my motives. You carefully observe me when I travel or when I lie down to rest; you are aware of everything I do. Certainly my tongue does not frame a word without you, O Lord, being thoroughly aware of it. You squeeze me in from behind and in front; you place your hand on me. Your knowledge is beyond my comprehension; It is so far beyond me, I am unable to fathom it. Where can I go to escape your spirit? Where can I flee to escape your presence?

This is from Psalm 139. Nowhere to run no where to hide usually implies trouble and fear and danger. But here, 'nowhere to run and no where to hide is a wonderful thing.' It means we cannot pretend to be anything but who we really are with God. God knows your strengths and your weaknesses. He knows your victories and your failures. God loves you more than you can possibly love yourself, which may not be a very high bar to clear sometimes.

We all fail. We all fall. When we do we can either trust in God's love to pick us up, build us up and start again or we can let the failure define us and we can stay in the ditch that we fell in. In the story of Adam and Eve in the first part of the Bible, God gave them full access to the tree of life. They could eat freely of its fruit and live forever. They were innocent and unaware. Then came the other part of the story. They were enticed to eat of another kind of fruit which God had said they were not to eat. This was from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. When they ate it they became aware of their own nakedness. They became focused on themselves rather than focused on God. Rather than living in their innocence they hid from God in their guilt.

This story is so beautiful because it describes our human condition so well. We are given so much but through our own desire to be at the center of the universe we miss out on the abundant life.

With Jesus at the center of our lives and at the center of our Community. The fruit of the tree of life is again available to us. This is food that sustains us for eternal life. Life in Christ is something to celebrate. Life in Christ is something to share. But as we have seen in God's word sometimes there needs to be planting, there needs to be pruning, there needs to be constant attention and care given.

Over the next several months a team of people from this congregation in including John, Betty, Erin, Gary and Peg, Deann and my self will be studying and learning and being trained on some fundamental aspects of church health. This 9 month process is the beginning of the Vital Church Initiative. We want to be vital.. we want to be full of life as the body of Christ. In September we will be reading and learning about the 5 practices of fruitful congregations. Next month it will be something else. We will share what we learn and we will hopefully integrate it in the way we do ministry and share the love of Christ.

Chalk art by Rod Snow.  The cross and the empty tomb
are difficult teachings to accept to (post) modern minded people.
Yet, the truth remains that in Jesus we find life. 

This will be an intentional way of moving in the direction God is calling us. But no matter how we tweak things, no matter how many structural changes we make. None of will make any difference we our central focus is not clearly on our Lord Jesus Christ.

What Scripture says about the Lord s life affirming and life giving. Some of what scripture says is challenging but we cannot shy away from or ignore the difficult parts. What does the bible say about the idea of “once saved, always saved?” This week I got a call about the Lord's prayer. That line about forgiveness. Forgive us AS we forgive others? The question was, “does that mean that if we don't forgive others we will not be forgiven? What about all who believe in Jesus will be saved?” This is a good question. What about all the things about judgment that Jesus said? Tough stuff. What about Ananias and Sapphira? Do you remember this story from scripture? It's in the Acts of the Apostles chapter 5. It's difficult story to accept but it's there.

Peter's confession shows that even he found the Lords teaching difficult to accept, yet acknowledges that there is no place else to turn for what Jesus offers.

Jesus offers the word of life. Not just good philosophy. Not just good advise. But the Word that is the spirit of God that will live in you when you submit to Jesus Christ as Lord will give you life that will never end. Human effort is useless. Our will to save ourselves is futile. The live that Jesus gives will never wither away.

The fruit of the tree of life is still fresh and crisp. Jesus is the perfect revelation of Almighty God. In Jesus we find our salvation. Not in learning about him but about taking his life into us. But that doesn't mean that we cannot do things better as his disciples.

There are seven of us who have committed to leaning and training, but we don't go thinking that we are only seven. We go knowing that you all will be praying for the church. We go knowing that we are inextricably connected to this community and that we go only to strengthen and serve the body of Christ.

So how is it with you today on your walk with God outside of the Garden? Do you feel up to the task of cultivating God's orchard? Yes we are aware of good and evil. We do feel shame for our failures. We do work by the sweat of our brow but thank God that Jesus has offered us to eat again of the fruit of the tree of life. Where else would we want to be? Where else could we go?

Sure Footing

John 6:51-58

     We need to have a clear idea of who we are. We need to know clearly what our purpose is. We are the beloved children of God. Humanity is broken and wandering and has fallen into the muck and our loving God, our Heavenly Father became human and came to save us. Jesus came to reach out his hand to lift us out of our delusions, he came to life us out of our self-destructive behaviors, Jesus came to save us and to give us life in abundance. Jesus offers his hand with out conditions. Trusting him to save you is all that is required.

     This past Thursday I attended a memorial service of a 24 year-old-man that I first met 13 years ago. His was a sad and tragic death.

He was born with some physical challenges that he had to deal with his entire life. Sometimes they were frustratingly impossible to overcome when it came to getting what he wanted, like a driver's license. When I knew him as a high-schooler he had ideas of going into pastoral ministry and would often stop me in the halls of the church to ask me questions about the process.

I mostly lost touch with him over the last few years. I got a cryptic Face book message from him last summer, to which I replied but he didn't respond back. I had no idea that he was living in Manistee.

What I knew of him was that he had a strong faith and a supporting family. I thought that with all challenges he faced in his life that he had a good foundation...sure footing to stand strong.

But based on the decision he made it is obvious that there was pain that I did not see and there was unstable ground where I thought there was a rock.

     When you lose someone like that it causes you to ponder and to reassess. I was doing that the day after the memorial service when Alex said, “I want to go for a hike.” Perfect. That is just what I need. So he and I went up to the National Forest and hiked part of the Nordhouse dunes trail. I had never been there before . It's a beautiful place. We started by going out to the beach. We stumbled over hills of sand just to get a look at Lake Michigan which was just roaring that day with huge waves. Then we went and hit the trail. We climbed up and as we walked along the trail I was aware of the risk involved. The down side of the dune ,which was rarely more than just a couple of feet from the trail and sometime much closer, dropped off 60-100 feet to the bottom. It was pretty steep and had lots of trees. The trail is sandy and had lots of obstacles like roots across it. If one were careless it would be easy to trip and fall and get hurt pretty bad if they went over the side of the hill. Alex and I hiked for little over an hour. My senses were elevated because of the risk. I was thinking, “I want to make sure my son had sure footing both on the trail and in life.”

     Jesus Christ is the source of everlasting life. Jesus Christ is the Lord of Lords. Before he existed in the flesh He was the Logos, the Eternal Word of God. All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.

     As we stumble through life climbing the unstable piles of sand It is good to praise God for the abundant beauty that is around us in those he has put on the path with us and in everything he created. When we work to get over all the unstable ground that this life throws at us just to get to ultimately reach the lake shore it is good to have some assurance of our destination, and I'm not talking about riding the Badger to Wisconsin.

     Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

      Jesus promises eternal life and life for the world. He is offering something eternal, unchanging stable. He is giving the alternative to the instability of life. Life without Jesus leads only to death. There are some who only hear what they want to hear.

Scripture says, “Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with on another, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'”

     They were taking Jesus words literally without listening to what he was really telling them. Jesus was offering something wonderful, but because they had an agenda to discredit and to destroy they were looking for any possible way to distort his words. Why would anyone who is stuck in the muck and the filth not take the hand of one who could get them out?

     When you have been in the muck so long you begin to think that is just the way things are supposed to be. And if you can explain the muck well enough. If you can explain our human predicament well enough and if enough people listen you begin to believe that it is the only truth there is. When you are convinced that the ditch is holy and there is no other alternative to the cycle of life that you are in, then the offer of Jesus' salvation seems like a fantasy that is too good to be true.

     Some people just don't want to hear it. Jesus doesn't back down from his metaphor. “The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him.”

     We are to eat his flesh? We are to take on the sanctified nature of our humanity. We were made in perfection. We have messed up, failed and have fallen. But Jesus came to clear all that up. Jesus came in the flesh to purify our flesh. We need not be ashamed of our humanness. We need not be ashamed of our nature. God made us the way God intended and any corruption that is in us, Jesus will correct if we just reach out our hand and accept his salvation.

     Jesus says we are to drink his blood? Yes! Blood is life. We are to take Jesus life that he has offered as our own. Our life on this earth will end. But while we are here we take the life of the eternal Christ in us an live in confidence, serving our neighbors without hesitation or restraint because we know that we have eternal life even beyond death's door.

     We are going to have two baptisms. In baptism we as a community of faith welcome new members into God's family. In baptism God's undeserved love is lavished on those he has created. In baptism God offers sure footing in a world of shifting sands.

     So how is it with you today? How confident are you in your spiritual walk. How is you relationship with God?

     I invite you to remember you baptism. Not necessarily remember the day, but remember that you are a beloved child of God. Remember that God acted first in offering you a way to an abundant and eternal life.

Remember that God made you on purpose and loves you very much.