IT"S HAPPENING!

This week I saw the perfect Easter sign (one that every church leader—from choir member and administrative assistant to music minster and pastor, probably has tacked up in a corner of their mind):

He is Risen

WE ARE CLOSED

Happy Easter!

 

Some of us can’t wait for Easter Monday (or even Easter afternoon!). We have done our best through choir rehearsals, Maundy Thursday’s Last Supper, Friday’s Tenebrae service, prepping the sanctuary for Easter, getting ready to welcome guests to worship, and the grand finale: Easter worship! Jesus might have come out of the tomb…but by the time worship is over, we can’t wait to crawl into our bed. We can’t wait to hang a “We are closed” sign up.

But, funny thing.

Resurrection happened!

Through no effort of our own, God breaks through with the Good News that death no longer has the final say. Whatever deaths we face, God promises new life through resurrection power. And this means that anything is possible.

I always couldn’t wait to finish the Lent-Holy Week-Easter marathon and crash. But the message of new life somehow got through to the church—it is time to rise and shine and do a new thing in the name of Jesus! New discipleship programs, new outreach ministries, new mission engagements…

And I was too depleted to respond well to the signs of resurrection happening in my church.

My prayer is that you have paced yourself well this week, so that as resurrection takes hold in your church, you will be ready to engage in the new life God is bringing forth in your very midst.

This is no time to repeat Good Friday’s phrase, “It is finished.”

In fact, God’s only just begun.

How Lovely Are The Messengers…

 One of my favorite choral pieces is Felix Mendelssohn’s “How Lovely Are the Messengers”. We sang it often in my high school choir. If you haven’t heard this beautiful anthem, listen to it here: 

https://youtu.be/dR4QE0k72dw

I realize this piece, which references Romans 10: 15, 18, helped form my understanding of evangelism:

“How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace. To all the nations is gone forth the sound of their words, throughout all the lands their glad tidings.”

As I reflect on my own journey of faith, those who shared the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with me, who taught me about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, who helped me experience God’s generous grace, were (and are) truly lovely. Their faith gave them a contagious joy. They did not hide their light under a bushel but rather held it high to light the way for others.  Through them, I heard Jesus’ warm invitation to follow him. Because of their witness, I have spent my life trying to live more fully into his Way. 

These lovely messengers never spoke poorly of another. They never denigrated another’s faith. They never built themselves up by tearing someone else down. 

Instead, they kept loving people. They may have had enemies but I only heard them call people “friends”. They saw the best (meaning, they saw the God-potential) in everyone they met. And they encouraged us all to grow into it. 

This is the kind of invitational, evangelical faith I hope every United Methodist church will embody. May the life-saving, life-transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ be lived out in the lives of each church member so vividly that it will be irresistible to others. May this gospel of peace shape how we extend our ministries into the world. May we all be worthy of this description:

How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace.

What Will Your, What Will Our, Legacy Be?

This month I’ve been spending a lot of time with our United Methodist history. I visited the United Methodist Archives one afternoon at the beginning of the month. Everywhere you looked, there were pictures, artifacts, and papers about who we’ve been. Tomorrow, I am preaching at John St. UMC in NYC, which is the oldest United Methodist congregation in the United States, begun in 1766, thanks to Barbara Heck, an immigrant who noticed that her fellow Methodist immigrants were

growing laxed in their spiritual disciplines. Upon coming into a room where some were playing cards, she seized the cards, threw them in the fire, and told one of them he better start preaching! The meetings commenced and Heck designed a simple chapel for them to meet in.

Besides the sanctuary, John St. has a small museum of Methodist memorabilia. They will be bringing into the sanctuary a chair used by the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Francis Asbury, for me to sit in. All of this makes me, being such a Metho-Geek, simply swoon!

But I’ve been thinking a lot about our local churches. Each one carries a rich history. Not just baptism and funeral records, but stories of turning points in the life of the congregation, when discipleship helped everyone grow more faithfully as followers of Jesus. There are also difficult stories, when disagreements and tensions caused the cord of fellowship to not just fray but break.

What stories does your community tell? What objects help communicate the power of the story?

Our churches, however, are not merely museums of the past. It is important to know the past, so that we can understand how we are impacted by it and learn from its lessons. But churches are a living, breathing organism known as the Body of Christ. You are making history together, one that will be told by generations to come. Will they speak of a group that was willing to take risks of faith, sharing the Gospel’s Good News to those who have never heard it before? Will they hear of a wide and generous hospitality, that spilled out into the surrounding neighborhood? Will there be some who, when they were children, will speak lovingly of a nurturing community that put its resources into the generations that were still in grade school and high school, because they knew that a healthy future for the church was dependent on how they cared for the children of their day?

And as we ponder our denomination, what will we leave behind for archivists to sift through? Will there be testimonies of individuals and churches that boldly dreamed of a church that dared to live out the Gospel mandate to love God and neighbor so deeply that divisions melted away, releasing God’s love in tangible, transforming ways throughout the world? Will future scholars note how the Holy Spirit descended upon the denomination, and hearts were on fire as never before to share the Good News of Jesus Christ so that a broken world was made whole because the people called Methodist made this Good News visible? Will they speak of a time of tension in the life of the church over human sexuality that was overcome because people dared to see in one another the image of God, and chose love over division?

What will we leave behind? Each of us has a role to play in the future direction of our church, and the unfolding of Beloved Community. What is God asking of you?

Too Little, Too Late?

Rick Warren, noted evangelical and pastor of Saddleback Church, has finally denounced the anti-homosexuality bill pending in Uganda (the topic of Warren's refusal to denounce the bill has been discussed in an earlier blog).  I do believe that if this bill passes and lives are lost as a result, Rick Warren and other Christian Right leaders ought to be held accountable.

Their rhetoric, camouflaged with theological language, has spawned too many hate crimes against glbt persons.  While they are learning that their language of intolerance is growing increasingly unacceptable in the United States, they have discovered that they can export a stronger version to Africa. 

What amazes me is these leaders do not make the connection between their rhetoric and gay-bashing.  Doesn't Warren realize that when he says that homosexuality is "not the natural way" and therefore is not a human rights issue, he is providing moral fodder for the anti-gay sentiment that gave rise to the bill in Uganda?

Several years ago, the Reconciling Ministries Network was holding its convocation at one of United Methodisms holy sites: Lake Junaluska, in North Carolina.  The Institute on Religion and Democracy wrote to United Methodists, urging them to protest the meeting, using inflammatory language to rile people up. And it did. More and more conversative United Methodists, including Good News joined their battle cry, denouncing the presence of a meeting that would include glbt United Methodists and allies at Lake Junaluska.  But conservative United Methodists weren't the only ones to join in the protest. Guess who else heard the invitation to protest, and were only to happy to help?

The Ku Klux Klan.

KKK encouraged their membership to come to Lake Junaluska to protest the RMN conference, whose theme was "Hearts on Fire." The KKK changed the title to "Queers on Fire."

The IRD, Good News, and other right wing organizations should not be surprised when their hate-filled messages are taken to heart and used by extremists groups. Once you demonize a group and label them unnatural and devoid of rights, the next logical step is to rid the world of such rubbish. We have seen evidence of this cycle of dehumanization and genocide repeated throughout human history.

While Warren may have finally spoken out against the Uganda bill, I just wonder if it is too little, too late. Can he really have an impact? He has already sown the seeds of injustice--can his recent words tear up the roots he has planted?

What would be happening in now Uganda--and throughout Africa--if he had preached a Word of loving all God's children, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity?

Advent Day 3--Speaking the Word

We couldn't be more sure of what we saw and heard—God's glory, God's voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You'll do well to keep focusing on it. It's the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion. And why? Because it's not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God's Word.
2 Peter 1:19-21 from The Message

I will never forget when a seminary student visited Ecumenical House at San Francisco State University, where I was a campus minister. He took one look at our bulletin board, filled with announcements about all sorts of justice issues, protests, and symposiums, and proclaimed, "I want to be a campus minister so that I can say whatever I want!"

What he was implying was that he felt that pastoring a local church would muzzle the message he wanted to proclaim.  Campus ministry, at least through his eyes, offered him a free license to say what he wanted to.

I looked at him like he had two heads.

Preaching, offering the Good News, proclaiming the Word, is not saying what we want to say.  It is allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through us.  It is allowing sighs which are too deep for words to be filled with the breath of God and take shape as the Word.  It requires us to look at the world with open eyes and to have people in our lives who will challenge us to open our eyes further still.  With eyes wide open, we must allow our soul to be disquieted, to feel dis-ease, as we see this world, our communities, ourselves in all their flawed possibilities. It is then and only then that we can begin to bearers of God's prophetic Word.

It is never about saying what we want to say. It is about allowing the Spirit to birth the Word within us, and speaking it aloud. This can happen in a campus ministry, a local church, at your job, and in your family. Wherever we are in community with God's people, we can be bearers of this Word.