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What am I Supposed to Say?

12/6/2014

 
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"One of the titles by which Jesus is known is Prince of Peace, and he used the word himself in what seem at first glance to be two radically contradictory utterances. On one occasion he said to the disciples, 'Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword' (Matthew 10:34). And later on, the last time they ate together, he said to them, 'Peace I leave with you: my peace I give to you' (John 4:27). The contradiction is resolved when you realize that for Jesus peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle but the presence of love." - Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC

Scripture: 
3 A voice is crying out:
“Clear the Lord’s way in the desert!
    Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!
4 Every valley will be raised up,
    and every mountain and hill will be flattened.
    Uneven ground will become level,
    and rough terrain a valley plain.
5 The Lord’s glory will appear,
    and all humanity will see it together;
    the Lord’s mouth has commanded it.”


6 A voice was saying:
    “Call out!”
And another said,
    “What should I call out?” (Isaiah 40:3-6)


Reflection: Sunday is the second Sunday of Advent, and what we typically refer to as "Peace Sunday."  But in this time in the world, I've found it difficult to figure out what to say about peace.  


While on the one hand we know that the Christmas season can bring moments of peace and stillness as we embrace the "reason for the season" and see so many people doing good things for fellow-humankind, we know that is not entirely the truth.  For we also know that there are places like Ferguson, MO and Cleveland, OH where racial tensions tear at the seams of society.  We know there are places right here in Kansas City where hate crimes outside of a mosque bring sickness to the season.  We know there are places in Syria where war rages on, and places in Africa where Ebola continues to take lives.

Isaiah says to "Call out!" and "Clear the Lord's Way!" but what am I to "call out"?  What can we possibly say that would change these tensions and ruptures in society?  What can we say that will bring healing and wholeness, and peace?  What can we say that will remind people we may not be able to determine who is "right" and "wrong," but that God's way is different, and there is another way?  What can we say that will remind ourselves of the peace that Christ brings?

God is erupting in human history – as God has done before through his prophets and people Israel – but now in a new, incarnated way. This is a big message, but it is an unconventional, upside down one, and one that requires us to "clear the way!" As Jesus’ followers seeking peace, we would do well to remind ourselves that God-in-Christ is both among us, and coming, and if we let him deal with us, we can be changed individually and collectively.  If we let God' erupt in our own lives, then we can experience a glimpse of the peace that calls out "LOVE!"

Come, help us learn more, together, on Sunday!  We welcome all who seek the way of Jesus to the table, and to our faith community.  We hope you will join us!

Is Nobody Home? 

8/15/2014

 
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God help the outcasts hungry from birth; show them the mercy they don't find on earth. The lost and forgotten they look to You still, God help the outcasts or nobody will. I ask for nothing, I can get by; but I know so many less lucky than I. God help the outcasts the poor and down trod, I thought we all were the children of God.
                                  - Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz    



Reading: 
Thus says the LORD: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant-- these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.
                                              - Isaiah 56.1, 6-8    


Reflection:
Some two years after I defended my doctoral dissertation – just when I had begun to forget the agony of the experience and recover from the intellectual aches and pains inevitably identified with graduate study – some two years after I defended my dissertation, I learned that I had gone about it the wrong way! Oh brother! I learned that I had martyred myself beneath a heavy weight of research and writing, when the central question I posed comes with a ready made, simple answer. Jeez! Say it ain’t so.

Long story short, in my dissertation I compared the notion of salvation in the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospel of John. When I presented a paper at a professional conference two years later, a prim and proper New Testament professor informed me that the entire edifice of my work was bogus, because the Greek notion of salvation that underlies John is absent from the Gita, as is the reality of salvation itself. Wow! I explained that I had used the word salvation in my title in a general sense; as shorthand for the ultimate fulfillment of life, but since the title was already too long (you don’t even wanna know), I used the word salvation.

Upon reflection, however, I realized that my colleague had gone way beyond semantics (she probably knew the Gita is in Sanskrit) and had submitted the Gita and the faith tradition it represents to a litmus test determined by Christian doctrine… and found it wanting. I realized that she had oversimplified a complex and nuanced notion – life’s fulfillment – and managed to dismiss one of the great spiritual traditions of human history at the same time.

I share this story because it occurs to me that we are all in the habit of seeking the simplest possible answers to life’s questions – a habit illustrated so very well by my colleague - and inevitably finding that the correct answer is simple… and it’s my answer. For example, ask most any Christian what salvation means, and she or he is likely to say something like, “Going to heaven when I die.” Now, I won’t argue with that; shoot, I am really looking forward to the fulfillment of my life in union with God. I would quickly add, however, that salvation is so much more than ultimate destiny, and that it refers to God in the present tense at least as much as in the future sense; God as present reality, not just future savior. I would contend that God has our back, and this frees us to explore and enjoy the present reality of that which we call salvation.

And it ain’t just about me and Jesus either. Salvation is given expression – I would say reality – in compassion; in reaching out to others in need; to other children of God who could use a little salvation. Otherwise stated, God is saving us (present progressive tense) through the very act of reaching out to and accepting others. I’m not advocating some form of salvation through works, but I am saying in no uncertain terms that we are all in this together; that salvation is lived out in compassionate relationships.

Isaiah glimpsed something of this. Notice how the notion of deliverance, of God’s salvation, is revealed in this passage as embracing others – the foreigner (read non-Christian) and outcasts - accepting and affirming them as God’s other children. All of these will be invited to God’s holy mountain, and to God’s house of joy that shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Wow! What a wonderfully rich and nuanced notion is this thing we call salvation. And we haven’t even gotten to the Gita. Don’t worry; I’m not going there. But I will go so far as to propose that we share the prayer of Esmeralda in the Disney animated version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, that God will help the outcasts, the lost and forgotten who look to God for compassion. Because if God doesn’t help them, she says, nobody will. To which I respond, “Is nobody home?” 

Springing to Life... Again!

6/6/2014

 
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If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.
    - Proverbs 29.18 (The Message)

This is what God says, “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
                                  - Isaiah 43.14a, 18-19 (The Message)


READING: 
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues? Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?” That’s when Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out with bold urgency: “Fellow Jews, all of you who are visiting Jerusalem, listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren’t drunk as some of you suspect. They haven’t had time to get drunk—it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. This is what the prophet Joel announced would happen: “In the Last Days,” God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; Your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. And whoever calls out for help
 to me, God, will be saved.”
                           - Acts 2.1-21 (Selections; The Message)


REFLECTION:
To hear Isaiah report God’s intention to do something brand-new, you’d think God would be the source for the old saying “Out with the old and in with the new.” Somehow, I doubt this. It doesn’t sound like God’s style of expression. And besides, God never throws anything out; not babies with bath water, not old-stuff to make room for the new, and certainly not you or me. God doesn’t discard and replace things… God re-creates them. Paul understood this, and was able to pronounce with confidence that in Christ, all things have become new.

This is important to remember as our faith community concludes and affirms its discernment of God’s vision of what OPCC can and should be; God’s mission for us that will not be impossible if we choose to accept it. God is waiting and yearning to re-create our faith community, to re-invent our vision, illumine our understanding, and in so doing show us the WAY from here (of course, taking the babies with us!).

Our vision discernment retreats have been wonderful experiences in which the movement of Spirit has been obvious. This group, which included some 50 folk at one meeting or another, began by discerning the core values that guide, inspire, and empower our faith community; values that can and should be identified and intentionally woven into our walk in faith. From this foundation, the groups attempted to envision what a faith community based on these values would look like in the future; to discern what our faith community would look like when re-created from the insideOUT! The results of these retreats have provisionally issued in a Future Story; a fictive narrative that recounts the growth of our faith community. The story has two chapters. The first recounts the ways we will reach out into the larger community to assist folk in need, partner with others of good will to work for the common good, and stand for issues of justice and fairness. Chapter two recounts the attention we will give to our spiritual nurture and development, our efforts to be an intentionally welcoming community, and thus, to successfully welcome new folk into a dynamic faith journey with Christ, and the fellowship of our faith community.

This Future Story will be distributed to those in worship on Pentecost Sunday, and will be available as well on the web site and in the reception office on campus. We will read, pray, clarify, question, discuss, and revise if necessary the vision that inspires this story of a church that reinvents itself. As we discern consensus around the vision; as each of us recognizes the willingness to embrace this vision, we will celebrate it as the road map to the future. We will express it in summary form as a statement of vision and mission, and begin work on a strategic plan to prioritize goals, and give arms and legs to the vision. I have been amazed at the quality of the discernment process to this point (and the great work of our visioning team), and am excited to expand this discernment and prepare for something brand-new that is even now bursting out among us.

Let Yo' Little Life Shine

2/7/2014

 
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We would like to heed God’s words, but we only half hear them. The big drama between us makes too much noise for us to understand each other. Only in our doing can we grasp you. Only with our hands can we illumine you.

                                                - Rainer Maria Rilke (adapted)




“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. “Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures—either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working. “Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom. Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom.
                - Matthew 5.13-20 (The Message)



The passage cited above is perhaps better known (at least more broadly known) than any other from the Sermon on the Mount; at least the first part about light, that is. Most people know it, however, from the song it inspired. You know the one I mean, This Little Light of Mine. We’ve all sung it at one time or another: in children’s Sunday School, at summer camp, or in Vacation Bible School. It’s a harmless little ditty, lighthearted and casual; and it tends to bring back pleasant memories from our childhood that soothe and comfort us.

But, I must tell you; this perplexes me, because this simple, unpretentious song is inspired by one of the most challenging passages imaginable. Yet we seem to avoid its challenge by inserting our preferred interpretation of what it means to let your light shine. Whenever we sing it, we assume we know what light shine means. I remember, for example, growing up among fundamentalist-tending folk in the Deep South who interpreted the song for me as a child. “Be a good boy and do everything your momma asks you to do,” they said; and, “always, always avoid those Catholics,” whom they saw as the archenemy of all good Christians (read conservative, Protestant Christians).

As an older teen, I had advanced to a more sophisticated evangelical perspective; and the meaning of light shine was still assumed in a rather rigid sense that, surprisingly (or not) reflected the beliefs and biases of the group in which I found myself. To let your light shine meant to make sure you were different (read superior), from all those pagans who didn’t go to church. And it meant offering them the true beliefs that would transform them into faithful Christians. “Believe like we do,” they insisted, “And you will claim your ticket to heaven.”

As an adult - and a long-time student of faith, spirituality, and the Christian Biblical Tradition (among others) - I have found these interpretations lacking. They are good at spreading a rigid morality, and even a sense of superiority that any right-believing Christian can ostensibly claim. But they say little to nothing about living in community with God and other folk; nothing about walking a pilgrim pathway in the very real presence of God. So I decided to do something novel - and I invite you to do the same – I decided to turn directly to the Biblical Tradition and ask what Matthew’s Jesus has to say about light shine; and to seek other voices – like Isaiah 58.1-9a  - that provide context and content as well.

Long story short (so as not to steal my own thunder from Sunday’s sermon), both Matthew and Isaiah sketch a faith that acts; a faith that humbly looks beyond religious orthodoxy and learning about God as the primary sense of what it means to be a Christian, and recommends actually doing something to address the needs of others. Rilke (in the worship heading above) expresses this sense well in noting that we only grasp God, we only illumine God’s meaning for life, with our doing… reaching out with compassionate hands and hearts to address human misery. So, perhaps we should change the expression let your light shine to let your life shine. What do you think? 

    Permission to use and stream music in our worship services obtained from ONE LICENSE #A-730652
    and CCLI #36152
    and CSPL #143030. 
    All rights reserved.
    ​

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​7600 West 75th Street
Overland Park, KS  66204
(913) 677-4646
office@opccdoc.org
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