What Really Matters

 

This week’s scriptures talk a lot about money and about where our ultimate care and safety lie. 1 Timothy 6 reminds us that what matters is to have our basic needs met. Wealth is not a basic need and can deceive us into thinking it is what the “Good Life” is really about. As verse 10 warns: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”

Jesus takes it further in the Gospel reading, telling the story of a poor man named Lazarus who sat outside the doors of a rich man’s home. Lazarus begged for even scraps of food but received none. When he died, the angels carried Lazarus to heaven. When the rich man died he…well, he wound up in a whole other place. Seeing Lazarus by Abraham’s side, he called up and asked Abraham to send Lazarus down to give him a sip of water because he was tormented by flames. Abraham said that the chasm between the two was now too great. The rich man asked if Abraham would send Lazarus to warn his brothers of the fate that might await them. Abraham responded, “They already have Moses and the prophets, what more do they need?”

I believe we are given all we need to live a good and faithful life through the scriptures. Jesus lays out a teaching to show us a way to live more deeply in love with God and others. There are those in our life who live in such a way that the truth of the Gospel’s claims is confirmed. Are we willing to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching? Are we willing to order our lives so that—no matter our wealth or poverty, health or disease—we will make Love our highest aim and our greatest commitment? Are we willing to order our lives so that this Love will connect us to others in profound ways?

Love compels us to share all we have with others. Love sees those the world overlooks. Love responds to the needs around us. Love is active. Love creates connections, bridges, and relationships that build beloved community.

May you allow Love to open your eyes, your heart, and your hands so that you can see those around you, listen to their voices, and share the love of Christ in tangible, life-changing ways. In this way, may you find your life enriched in ways money alone cannot provide.

To Move Through Our Adversities

I love to read. As a bishop, I am finding myself with little time to read as much as I like, so summer travels always include a pile of books. This summer, one book I read was by “Brighter By The Day: Waking Up to New Hopes and Dreams” by Robin Roberts, the co-anchor of Good Morning America. It is a wonderful devotional book, grounded in Roberts’ faith as a Christian. Roberts has been quoted as crediting her parents with instilling in her the “"three 'D's: Discipline, Determination, and 'De Lord.'

In the book, Roberts is honest not only about her triumphs but also her failures and adversities, including serious life-threatening medical diagnoses: “We may not fully understand why catastrophe has befallen us, and that’s okay. Our job isn’t to comprehend it. It’s to redeem it for good.”

That line jumped out at me. I don’t believe God inflicts horrible things on us. I don’t believe God sends fire or flood or famine or disease. A loving God wouldn’t try or treat us in that way. Being a human and walking and growing in the world leaves us open personal and natural disasters, disease, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

To focus on trying to understand “Why did this happen to me” can tie us in knots and leave us frustrated, depressed, and disempowered. Instead, where do we find God companioning us through the catastrophe? Who is walking with us as we move through grief? Who is cheering us on as we take another step towards sobriety? How is God offering us sustenance as we face the brokenness of our lives?

The God who rose Jesus from the dead makes plain to us that this is the God who truly makes all things new again. Not even the crushing blow of death can prevent God’s love from bursting from whatever tomb catastrophe has tried to bury us in. Ours is not to ask “Why did this happen to me?” Instead, turning from whatever may have befallen us, how do we move through it to the other side? How do we find the healing path? How do we integrate what we have experienced to make us even more than we were before, increase our capacity for compassion, enrich us for deeper empathy, and help us be more tender with others who are going through their own hard times?

May you find comfort and hope from these words from the Psalms: “Weeping may endure for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

The Servanthood of a Queen

 This week the world joined the United Kingdom in mourning as Queen Elizabeth died. There have been so many anecdotes about her life over the past several days, but what has stood out for me has been the way her faith shaped her life and leadership.

In her coronation speech, the Queen made a request to all those listening: “I want to ask you all, whatever your religion may be, to pray for me on that day, to pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve Him and you, all the days of my life.”

She was crowned Queen at the age of 25. As the weight of the crown was placed on her head, she was well aware that the weight of servanthood was also being placed upon her. For the rest of her life, her purpose was to serve.

As I think about this, I realize that in her life we have a clear example of discipleship: when we follow Christ, we shift the focus of our lives from self and instead seek to better the lives around us through the love of God found in Christ Jesus. We might not live in a castle (or many castles) or be a head of state, but each of us possesses within us the mark of Divine Love bestowed upon us by our Creator. Each of us has a unique purpose and mission that no one else possesses. Queen Elizabeth was clear about hers, and it guided her every single day. How about you?

“Billions of people now follow Christ’s teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them because Christ’s example helps me see the value in doing small things with great love.”—Queen Elizabeth

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.

MAY WE STAND FOR LOVE?

 I am sitting with one more email from a queer person who is scared about the stated intent of at least one Supreme Court member and countless Republicans who want to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which gave LGBTQ+ couples the legal right of marriage. They are asking if they should move up their wedding plans in the hopes their marriage can be grandfathered in should such a ruling occur.

For those who are not LGBTQ+ and are married, can you imagine what it feels like to have the love you share, which brings you so much joy and bears so much fruit in the world, outlawed? Can you imagine being stripped of the rights you share as a married couple (which include but are not limited to):

• Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
• Making medical decisions if your spouse becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.

• Making burial or other final arrangements.
• Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
• Receiving a share of marital property if you divorce.

• Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
• Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
• Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
• Obtaining priority if your spouse needs a conservator--that is, someone to make financial or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.
• Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
• Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
• Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
• Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.
• Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
• Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
• Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
• Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.

• Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
• Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.

(from https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html)

 

I grieve a society (and a church) that fails to honor and support love. I grieve couples that feel an urgency to marry because they fear they might lose the chance to do it in the future. I grieve couples that have built a life together that cannot rest in the security legal marriage provides but must yet again defend their love from attack.

In a world so divided by hate, may we stand together for love?

Death Is Entwined With Life

 

This weekend was Bishop Wilbur Choy’s funeral. Like so many episcopal elections in the Western Jurisdiction, his was historic as the first Asian American elected a bishop in the UMC. 

 

This has been a season of death. From COVID’s claws to nature’s fury to war’s destruction, the cloak of death weighs heavy. Lent, too, is a season where the specter of death is uncomfortably close. It begins with the imposition of ashes, marking and reminding us of our mortality. It ends in the darkness of a tomb. 

 

We can’t escape death. We are marching towards it our entire life. 

 

And while the final death blow is ever before us, throughout our life we experience little deaths. Relationships change. Our bodies change. The world we once knew is no more.

 

Death is entwined with life. 

 

Some deaths are needed and welcomed: killing off tumors, germs and viruses or habits and relationships we finally realize are hastening our demise. Others are unwelcomed, unexpected, and feel unwarranted. Yet, these, too, hold surprises for us.

 

Helen Keller once said: “Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.”

 

We who follow a crucified yet resurrected Christ know that death is not final. There awaits, on the other side of every death, new and fuller life. Of this, the apostle Paul writes, almost mockingly: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (I Corinthians 15: 55)

 

What are the things within you that are preventing you from the promise of new life? What can you, must you let go of to receive the blessing of resurrection?

GRADUATE INTO LIFE-LONG LEARNING

It is that time of year! Looking over the posts on my Facebook newsfeed, I can almost hear the brass band playing Pomp and Circumstance. You know the tune. Have you ever been to a graduation that didn’t play it? 

 A fun little fact about Pomp and Circumstance: Edward Elgar composed it in 1902 to be used for the coronation of Edward VII of Britain. He was the son of Queen Victoria. Yale University used it in the 1906 graduation when Elgar was given an honorary doctorate (but they used it as he left the stage after receiving his award, not walking up to it). Not to be bested by a rival ivy league school, Princeton then used it, and then the University of Chicago followed by Columbia. Pretty soon everyone was using the tune and I suspect your school did as well. 

 So it seems like every family is having a graduation this weekend: I have seen pictures of high school graduations, college graduations, law school graduations, seminary graduations. The one set of pics I have yet to see are pre-school graduation photos, but I know they are coming! 

With graduation comes an understanding that one has mastered something: a discipline or a field. There is all too often an underlying assumption that one has arrived, that learning is finished and living begins. But one quickly discovers that learning is a life-long task. No matter what one’s work is, it continues to entail new lessons, new ways of doing things, an integration of new information. 

 And even living one's life requires one to be a life-long learner. Many of us who surf the internet are not digital natives. We came of age in the dark BC age, Before Computers. Imagine what our lives would be like if we didn’t commit to learning new technology. During COVID, online worship would not exist. We would not be sharing in each others joys and concerns and holding one another in prayer. 

 Just like our work and our daily living requires us to be life-long learners, so does our faith. I have met too many people who think that once they have been confirmed, they have arrived and there is no need to continue to study scripture and grow in the faith. But what I have observed over the years as pastor, is that they have been left with a faith that addresses the life challenges of an 8th grader rather than an adult. Adult crises come as they do to all of us: death and disease, failure and heartbreak. But that 7th grade faith doesn’t provide a strong foundation to weather the stormy seas of life. 

  A mature life requires a mature faith. 

 Jesus spent three years teaching and training his disciples, helping them to encounter God and others through a new lens of love. But his teaching didn’t stop with his crucifixion and death. The risen Christ continued to teach his disciples, to both confirm the truth of his teaching but also to encourage them to go deeper still. And Christ requires the same of us. 

 Proverbs 4: 13 reminds us, Take hold of instruction, do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.”

 Life-long learning bears the fruit of wisdom. Wisdom that is grounded in God and helps us navigate life’s challenges. Are you a life-long learner? What do you do to continue to grow spiritually as a disciple of Jesus? 

 Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday but for we who are United Methodists, it is also another special Sunday: Aldersgate Sunday. This Sunday celebrates the day John Wesley experienced the assurance of his salvation. Now, Wesley was a very learned man who studied scripture as well as theologians. But it wasn’t until he was attending a bible study on Aldersgate street in London that he felt his heart strangely warmed. He later wrote that while he was listening to someone read Luther’s preface to Romans, “he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." 

 This broke open not only Wesley’s heart but his life in Christ. It was not the conclusion of study, but the beginning of an even deeper dive into his growth as a Christian. 

 Wesley developed an understanding of the means of grace. While God’s grace is available to all of us and is unearned, we are to lean into this grace so that our faith might be strengthened and confirmed.

 The means of grace are divided into works of piety and works of mercy, and include both individual and communal practices. Works of Piety include things like reading, studying scripture, attending worship, fasting, Christian conferencing, and sharing the sacraments. Works of mercy include visiting the sick and those in prison, feeding those who are hungry, doing the work of justice and seeking to end oppression in whatever forms they take. 

 The means of grace, these works of piety and mercy, are ways we United Methodists keep growing in our faith as we experience God’s saving grace for our lives. Being grounded in this grace helps our faith remain vital and robust, ready to meet whatever challenges we face in life. I want to encourage you to not think of Sunday school as something we ever graduate from, or a final point of arriving at something called faith. Instead, utilize the means of grace to keep your faith flowering, growing, maturing, gaining increasing wisdom, this day and every day.