Growing Disciples

In the March Newsletter I introduced and wrote about the Vision Statement for Children, Youth, and Family Educational Ministry at FPC. Because I believe it is important to the ministry of this congregation I would like to put it in front of you again.

The Vision of Christian Education ministry at FPC is to grow disciples; by providing experiences and tools that support the Spiritual growth with in families as well as offering experiences for enriching faith within the FPC community.
While this Vision Statement focuses on ministries of Christian Education I believe the concept of “growing disciples” is not limited to Christian Education ministries. In fact I believe that “growing disciples” can and should take place in all areas of church life including but not limited to ministries of mission and worship. Children and youth need to be involved in worship and mission opportunities. Children and youth learn by watching and participating. Thus, it is important that they not only feel welcomed by adults in worship and mission opportunities but are able to participate fully in these ministries. As adults we can make children and youth feel welcome by speaking directly to them, including them in our conversations, listening to them, and smiling at them. We can help them more fully participate by helping them follow along in worship, answering their questions, and working with them to complete a project. Pray and watch for more ways you can help our children and youth feel welcome and participate in the life of this congregation.

They also need, when appropriate, to be given leadership roles these ministries. In the coming months you will begin to see more of our children and youth taking leadership roles in worship. They are already singing and playing with New Spirit as well as providing special music. They will also be ushering, taking offering, and running the PowerPoint slides. It is my hope that we will provide more leadership opportunities for our children and youth in all areas of our church life.

I believe it is vital to our congregation and to the growth of our children and youth that are fully integrated into and engaged in the life of this congregation! I pray we can continue to find ways to make this happen.

Look Around

John 4:1-15

She poked her head through the doorway and looked around. The shadows were short in the noon sunlight. No one was out in the narrow alley except for the usual pack of stray dogs digging around for a few scraps while everyone else was inside to escape the afternoon heat. The path to the well looked deserted, as it usually was at this time of day, so slowly, with empty jars and the weight of the world on her shoulder she stepped out and made her way to the ancient watering hole.

She’d been coming to the well alone for a while now. Before, the other women just glanced at her curiously. They had all heard about her and were pretty certain they knew enough to make a judgment. That’s when the whispering started. She knew it was about her since no one ever came to share the juicy tidbits in her ears. The rumors started making their way from woman to woman about her string of romances. Eventually they just stayed away from her, coming early for their own water or waiting away from the well until she was done before coming to pull their own water. She wasn’t good, wasn’t pure, just wasn’t right to be around. They kept their physical distance, almost as if they were afraid her condition would rub off on them.

It didn’t take long for her to take the hint, and instead of enduring their scrutiny she just stopped coming to the well in the morning when it made sense to come. They didn’t have to make a rule to keep her out; she could tell by the way they treated her when she was there that at best they just didn’t know what to do with her, but at worst they didn’t want her there at all. Ignored, beginning to believe the lie that she didn’t belong, she just stopped trying. Instead she waited until there was no one at the well before she left each day to draw her own water.

Cast aside, ignored, avoided, barred from the everyday tasks and common community and relationships others shared, she never expected a kind word from a stranger, especially not a religious one. Those are the ones who usually hurl judgment instead of acceptance, anger instead of compassion, who build walls and barriers instead of showing her the way to refreshing new life.

He looked around when he entered Sychar. It was hot and dry. The disciples were hungry, but Jesus had other plans for the moment. He looked around and noticed a woman weaving her way quickly and silently through the barren streets. She carried a water jug, so he made a beeline to the well, Jacob’s well, and waited for her where she was sure to come.

He didn’t go to the religious house and wonder why she didn’t walk in looking for her. He didn’t announce his presence and wait for her to come seeking what he had to offer. He looked around and he saw who was clearly left out of the local synagogue, the local community, and he made sure to go to her, to give her the living water he had to offer. He sought after her and welcomed her when no one else would.


Find more videos like this on Deep and Wide


The church that really wants to make a difference looks around. The church that really wants to invite new members, encourage new life, and share the love it receives from Jesus looks around for those who are left out, those who are despised or even just ignored. The church that really wants to grow deep and grow wide is willing to open its doors and its minds to people who look and act a little different and is willing to be changed by them. A church that isn’t willing to do this IS willing to die.

When I was in college the church I was a part of provided “adoptive families” to students in the campus ministry. I was paired with a lovely older couple, Otto and Betty LeBron. When I announced to the LeBrons that I had changed my post-graduation plans and decided to enter seminary they were excited and supportive. They also laid before me what I believe is part of my call from God. With tears in their eyes they told me of one of the deepest pains in their lives.

Their grandson Rick and his family had no church home. They had tried a few churches over time, but nothing had ever worked out. It’s not that anyone told them outright that they couldn’t come. No one made a rule to keep them out. They could just tell by the way they were treated that churches just didn’t know what to do with Rick who had various medical problems and lived with developmental delays.
They didn’t know how to include him in Sunday School. They didn’t know what to do when he reached confirmation age. They didn’t know how to welcome him comfortably into worship, and worse than not knowing, they didn’t try to learn. Ignored, beginning to believe the lie that he didn’t belong, they just stopped trying. When I told the LeBrons I was going to seminary they asked me, they charged me to make the church better for families like Rick’s.

My relationship with the LeBrons and the call they delivered to me was in my heart when I accepted the call to this church because of the relationship with the Bridge, and it has been with me ever since. I have shared this story with some of you and maybe even in worship once before, but always without a more concrete way to move forward. As long as I have been here I have seen in this congregation special gifts for a ministry of hospitality, education, and worship with families like Rick’s, families who are sadly missing from churches all across and beyond our denomination. However, the way to share these gifts has not been obvious to me. A deeper relationship with and spiritual offerings for the Bridge community even made it to our garden of ministries last spring, but again without a clear vision for carrying these ideas forward.

It seems, though, that God may now be planting seeds in this garden. Late last week I was invited to be a part of a meeting that will be taking place this coming week. The meeting will include a pastor and representatives from Bethel Lutheran Church and a worship leader from another local congregation who is also the mother of a teenage girl who was diagnosed with autism at the age of four. There is interest among this group in developing an ecumenical ministry in Hudson that will reach families that are touched by autism and other developmental special needs.

Looking around at all of our church memberships at the same time we can see that the numbers don’t add up. We can see there are people missing, people who have a very special need for loving and supportive community, for messages of hope and grace, for rest and renewal and drinks of living water. There are people in our community, but not in our churches who need to know that God loves them and calls to them, and that the rest of us need their gifts of patience, compassion, advocacy and love in our churches. We have looked around and seen people like Rick and his family who are on the fringes, and we feel called to go to them and embrace them with the love and acceptance of Christ’s body on earth.

I ask for your prayers this week as I am part of these initial inquiries and discernment. I ask that you will also prayerfully look around, especially outside of our church family, and try to see who is missing. Pray that God might show us how we can meet them without judgment where they are and welcome them into our midst to share the love of Jesus, the living water. I don’t know where these conversations will take us. I pray though that they will take us right to the well where we will meet Christ in each other. Amen.

Before the Beginning

Jeremiah 1:4-10

It’s probably no wonder that these words from Jeremiah spoke to me this week. It is good to be back here in worship with you all after being on a blessed maternity leave for the last 12 weeks. While I was away, in addition to introducing Margaret to life on earth and doing my best to simply keep her alive, I took the opportunity to worship at a number of different churches. It was a blessing in many ways, being able to worship God from the pews instead of from the pulpit, but at the same time it also left me longing to come back here to our worship, our community. It was an interesting feeling being away from the place to which I have been called, and while I was able to learn a lot of new things to bring back to us, it feels good to be home.

Margaret’s only been in our house for about 12 ½ weeks, but it’s already hard to remember what it was like before she was born. It’s been almost a year since we knew she was coming, but in a sense she’s been a part of us since even before that. Before she was forming in my womb, well before she was born, we knew we would want a third child to complete our family. She was a part of us before she was here; she was being planned for before she ever existed. We didn’t know who she would look like. We didn’t know what her personality would be. We didn’t know she would have Karoline’s reddish newborn hair or William’s huge, huge eyes. We didn’t know she would THANKFULLY sleep through the night as hard as her mom and dad, but before she was born, before she was formed in my womb, we knew she would be in our family.

“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb…” “Before you were born…” Yahweh, our God, spoke to Jeremiah. Before he was a presence on this earth, Jeremiah was already in God’s mind and heart. God was working together a particular set of gifts for a particular kind of ministry and, I like to imagine, just waiting for the right time and place to set them down in creation put together in just the right person. God claimed Jeremiah for ministry to the nations; it was a part of his life even before his beginning.

Christians point to this particular passage and this claim in some of our deepest deliberations and debates. God’s call to Jeremiah is cited in relation to issues as varied as abortion, predestination, human sexuality, and whether or not God has “a plan (including a particular vocation) for my life.” We regularly accept that the promise and claim of this call isn’t just for Jeremiah, but that it applies to any of us in our walk with Christ. What if, though, these words aren’t just for Jeremiah, and they aren’t just for each of us, but what if they are for ALL of us? Together. The church. This church.

Now the word of the LORD came to First Presbyterian Church in Hudson, Wisconsin saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were a thought in the mind of the new founders of Hudson I knew you existed. Before you were born I consecrated you. Before you built even the old building downtown on 3rd Street I blessed you. I appointed you a prophet to the town, to the state, to the nations!" What does it mean for who we are and what we do that God has been here before us hoping for us to be here, too? And what is it we have been appointed to do?

Another thing I did this summer while on maternity leave is attend a large portion of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly. This is the biennial meeting of our largest Presbyterian governing body with voting delegates from all over the county, including Barb Van Loenen from this church. During the Assembly meetings they would periodically show videos that are shared on a website developed in response to an item of business at the last GA in 2008. The website is called “Deep and Wide” since the initiative is a commitment on the part of the entire denomination to help grow Christ’s church deep and wide through evangelism, discipleship, servanthood, and diversity. These were essentially some of the same goals we discerned as a congregation last spring in our visioning process together. Over and over again we talked about wanting to “go deeper” together in faith and knowledge of God. We talked about wanting to expand our congregation’s impact wider into our community and throughout the world, as well as expand the reach of our membership. Videos shared at GA and on the Deep and Wide website show the specific efforts of churches across our country to grow in these ways. I’d like to share two of these videos with you this week and next.

Find more videos like this on Deep and Wide

I believe the story of this first church sounds somewhat familiar to our own story from the recent past, but still has something to say to us as we move forward. I heard in the telling of their story two of the important steps they took as they discerned their way forward.

The first is one you will hear in every video on that website of churches in transformation. They prayed. The conversations that led them to new life weren’t just the conversations that happen around committee and session meeting tables. They were conversations with God. In order to find new life in their church, in order to offer life to others in their community and claim resurrection life for themselves, they had to deeper than a connection to the ones with whom they share life on earth. They had to strenghten their connection to the One from whom all life comes. They had to get in touch with God who formed them each in their mother’s wombs, the Spirit who sustained the congregation for well over a century, Christ who redeemed its life when the doors were about to close.

The second thing they did was pointed out by the narrator. Knowingly or unknowingly, they rediscovered their roots as a congregation. When they started in Oklahoma City in the 1800s, we were told, they were a church on the outskirts of town. They were a church ministering on the edge, where newcomers were arriving. They weren’t necessarily downtown in the hustle and bustle of city life, but instead were located where new growth was happening, helping to develop a spiritual community where a new community was being built.

Greystone Presbyterian Church found its life renewed when it got in touch with God AND God’s purpose and call to them. Before they were formed God knew they could address a particular need. Really God created them to do just that. Before Greystone was born or reborn, God blessed them with a purpose. They have found new life by doing what God has created them to do.

In the 9th grade I played in the Florida All-State Orchestra under the direction of a brilliant conductor and inspiring leader. On our last day of rehearsal, right before we began the last run through we would play of the William Tell Overture before our final concert, our conductor spoke to us about this experience. "Never again," he said, "will this moment exist. Never again will this orchestra play. Even if we had a reunion 10 years from now, some of you wouldn't come, and even those of you who did wouldn't be the same people. Never again will this exact orchestra be assembled to play this piece, so play it like you were made to play it."

The First Presbyterian Church of Hudson has been here for over 150 years. In looking back over our history, even to the earliest days of this city and this church, we might be able to discover some part of our purpose for today.

One piece of our history that is alive and well today is our commitment to working with other churches and traditions. In our earliest days we partnered with what is now the United Church of Christ congregation in Roberts, WI. Currently we have ecumenical partnerships with many congregations - First Baptist Church, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and as of last Sunday Mt. Zion Lutheran Church in our NETworks youth ministry and many other churches in our participation in the Backpack Program, the SOURCE, and the Ecumenical Men's Breakfast.

Secondly, churches begin for a number of different reasons. Greystone, we heard, began as a Sunday Schook, a mission to the unchurched children on the outskirts of town. They church that grew into the Cathedral in St. Paul, MN, I understand, began as a Catholic mission to the Native Americans, not necessarily as a congregation of settlers in the area.

Our church, however, did begin as a church of newcomers to the area, although we were not the first church in Hudson. We formed when a group of people were looking for a different way of worshping, serving, and thinking about God's relationship with people - - not a better way or more correct way, but a different way. our church offered people a different way to think about and live their faith in Christ in a tradition that values personal discovery, discernment, and pondering of God's grace that takes place in community. Maybe that Spirit of question and journeying toward God in a supportive community is a purpose we need to reclaim as we move forward.

The faces in this congregation have changed year to year, and will continue to change as some saints pass into God's glory and new saints are born into our family or join us along the journey. But before we were formed in the womb God knew us. Before we were born into this time God consecrated us. We have been assembled in this way for God’s purpose. We have been appointed as a garden of welcome, to shelter, heal, nurture, and grow together toward God. No other church can fulfill the call God has given to us. Before our beginning this is what we were made to do. In Christ's name, let's serve like we were made to serve.

In the Spirit's Steps

Acts 16:9-15

We’ve been making our way, these last few weeks, through the accounts of the early church in Acts. As I have prepared for worship I have been asking the Scripture – “How did the early church do it? How were they church together? How did they go about God’s work in the world?”

The stories that have demonstrated the answers each week have been dramatic. Peter and the apostles were thrown in jail for teaching about Jesus. Despite the threat of the long arm of the law, they are STILL witnesses to what they have seen. And then there’s Saul, a notorious persecutor of the Christians who is blinded by a vision of Jesus, yet finds his way to faithful Ananias, who follows the Lord’s call to minister to this dangerous enemy of his faith. Then last week Peter is given visions of animals and food descending on a blanket from heaven. He hears the voice of God and has the courage to stand up to his fellow believers with a message of inclusivity beyond their imaging.

Jail. Visions. Voices from heaven. Divinely-inspired dreams. It seems like the folks in the old days had all the fun!

Hear this story about a woman, a good and faithful Christian. She’s a member of her church, the first or second to raise her hand for most jobs. We’ll call her Susan. She worships most Sundays, and has for about a decade. She’s one folks know they can count on not only for committee work or to serve on the session, but for last minute jobs like greeting on Sunday morning, because they know she’ll be there.

But somehow, even with all her activity in the church, Susan feels that something is missing. She somehow senses, and secretly fears, that despite all this church activity, she’s not much different than her friends who don’t attend church at all, the ones who go to yoga or Spinning at the Y on Sunday morning instead of attending any church, the ones who travel with their kids to soccer games or even just sleep in instead.

Susans or Samuels are all around us. Probably they even ARE some of us. They are the faithful who “wonder when their ticket is going to be punched, when they are going to experience the changed life they’ve been promised and expected to experience at church” (Reggie McNeal, The Present Future). They are the faithful, dedicated saints of the church who hear God’s call to the ministries we undertake, but wonder if maybe there isn’t supposed to be a little something more to who we are as the church.

Now hear this story about a few first-century travelers who have set out on a journey. They are on fire as they are led by their tireless tour guide, the Holy Spirit. You know the type. When I was little Disney World was crawling with them. Young men or women from Brazil or Japan or any number of other countries. They had perfected the art of walking backwards holding a small flag of their country high in the air, while smiling for the entire day and leading a herd of tourists from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland to Frontierland. They had energy like no one else in the park and could make standing in a 30 minute bathroom line look like fun. No one in those tour groups ever looked bored. Their guide’s enthusiasm was infectious.

The traveling conditions of our ancient trekkers are tough, funds are tight, and there is frightening opposition to the group they represent in some of the places they plan to visit. Yet despite all this, they set out with conviction and faith. They’ve poured over the map in preparation for the journey and know exactly where they will go and what route they will take, retracing the step one of them has already taken for some of the trip. But then one night, in the middle of their trip, one has a vision, a itinerary changing vision. They believe the vision is calling them to proclaim the Good News in a way different than they had initially thought. Their tour guide has a better plan, so they immediately change their plans and set off in a new direction.

With faith and dedication and a commitment to sharing the message, story and life of Jesus Christ with others, they continue on a completely different journey than they planned without really knowing what they might encounter along the way. The plan to check up on some previously planted “new church developments” has turned into something altogether different as they make their way to a new continent with their message about Jesus.

What faith. What dedication. What a commitment to sharing the life of Jesus Christ with others.

Contrasting the stories of modern-day followers like Susan to early church followers like Paul, we see a marked difference. Jesus’ early followers were alive with the fire of the Holy Spirit, whereas many of us today seem to lack that fire, passion, and conviction. We claim that the world is a different place; our responsibilities keep us tied down. At the Synod meeting I attended recently someone lamented being constrained by our polity. I’ll be the first to admit that the Presbyterian way sometimes seems slow and closed off, but I think we’re passing the buck if we blame all our frustrations on an organizational structure.

Perhaps the real difference is that followers of Jesus in the early church were clear about what they were called to do, whereas today many of our traditional, mainline churches lack that clarity. Followers in the early church were clear that they were to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, as we heard in today’s reading. How Paul and his cohorts accomplished this purpose can be instructive to us if we seek to reclaim and increase a passionate, fiery faith.

In the middle of their journey, Paul saw a vision. Now, Paul has had experience with visions before, remember. In his former life he was struck blind by a vision of the resurrected Christ asking him why he was killing Christ’s people. Paying attention to visions has made him a new man, a man of faith, a man with a calling from God, passionate about what he has seen and experienced, passionate enough to want to share it with the world. Again and again in Acts, Paul’s passion spring directly from his willingness to listen for and act on God’s word. If we are to rediscover the fire of the early Christians, we, too, must be willing to listen and act on God’s word.

Do we take the time to talk AND listen to God through regular prayer and silent Holy listening? If and when we sense that God is leading us in a certain direction, do we test out that direction, seeking affirmation from church, family, friends and other trusted sources? We sometimes tease about our Presbyterian polity, but this is the point of it! To gather people of faith to discern the leading of God’s Spirit around particular areas of ministry, and then to test what we have discerned against the understanding of the Spirit-led community? If it what we have seen or dreamed does indeed seem to be God’s gentle hand acting in our lives and our discernment is affirmed, are we bold enough to act, or do we let fear, complacency, routine, or something else stand in the way?

We must listen for, trust in, and act on God’s Spirit in our lives and in our midst if we are to reignite a fire in our faith.

Another way Paul proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ was by going to where the people were. “On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.” They did not stay in a synagogue, or put up a new sign outside the synagogue and wait for people to come. Rather, they went out to where the people were.

If we are to rediscover the fire of the early Christians, we too must reach outside of our established church. We cannot just open our doors and wait for people to come in. We cannot simply mow the lawn or make a new sign and wait. Instead, we must look at the needs of the people in the community, the places where there is hurt, where there is need for support and loving community, where there is spiritual longing, and reach out to address it. It is our responsibility as people of God. It is where our tour guide is leading us.

Sometimes it’s more comfortable to stay in here, though. In here, we know what to expect. We know our friends; we know our fellow travelers on the way. In here, we can have control over the culture, the traditions, the rules, and the expectations. Out there, it’s all changing and changing faster than we can imagine. The culture is decreasingly “religious,” but increasingly “spiritual,” and frankly we don’t know how to address that. It’s more comfortable to keep our ways and trust what we know, but searching out the unknown ways to proclaim Christ’s message and share his love beyond our church building is mandatory. In doing this, we will find the fire of faith rekindled.

Lastly, when Paul proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ he didn’t limit who was to be reached. The vision that brought Paul to Macedonia was a vision of a man who asked him to come over and help. Yet, as the story develops, he finds something different, “a certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God. … The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.”

If we are to once again become on fire with the gospel message, we must not limit God by defining the people we are called to reach. We can seek the unexpected person who might be longing for the transformative message of Christ’s love, and risk sharing the gospel message. We must be open to the idea that the Spirit may take us to unexpected people in unexpected place. She may pull us into relationship with people who are sitting outside the gates, outside the church, outside the usual relationships and organizations of society. Following the steps of the Spirit may bring our journey to places we never imagined to go, meeting people we never imagined to know.

With whom might God be calling us to share our faith?

Let’s return to Susan, the woman with whom we began with, who was feeling as if she wasn’t growing and changing despite her church activities, despite her commitment, despite her faith. I imagine Susan could be any of us; Susan could be many of us. Story after story, study after study, tells us there are people like Susan in many congregations, people who aren’t experiencing the spiritual transformation for which they hoped. As one Christian missiologist observed, “They came to us seeking God, and we gave them church instead.”

Many congregations, despite their best intentions, seem to have lost focus and give those seeking Jesus a slate of church activities rather than avenues for spiritual growth that can be truly transformational. In our visioning process this is exactly what we are trying to avoid. We have a whole slew of church activities out there on the walls and it would be easy to let that process simply re-organize the things we have always done. Yet that is not the point. The point is to discern what steps the Spirit is calling us to make. The point is to discover our areas of passion and commitment. The point is to try together, as a congregation, to get a vision for what God is doing in our midst and calling us to do in our community, in our world!

Our church, like Christian communities of faith throughout all time and space, exists to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, to share God’s love that is forgiving, accepting, healing, and free. We, as people who are a part of this specific and global community of faith, must ensure that our activities are in alignment with this purpose and in step with the Spirit’s leading. By refocusing on this, we can transform the smoldering embers of faith into brilliantly burning flames.

Who's the Boss?

This Easter season we are going to spend some time in the book of Acts, or more fully, the Acts of the Apostles. These are the accounts of the very earliest church, the actions and activities of those men and women who were closest to Jesus and his resurrection and those who had experiences with him after the resurrections.

Through their experiences we will try to discern some of the marks of resurrection communities. In light of what had JUST HAPPENED, in light of their experience of Jesus who died and rose again to bring forgiveness and new life, what did they do and value as people of faith? What did they emphasize in their ministry and how did they respond to Jesus’ promise of the power of the Holy Spirit and command to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Our series of encounters with the early church over the next several weeks will give us insight into how these first apostles interpreted and enacted the resurrection in their life together. What did it mean and what does it mean now to be an Easter church?

Acts 5:27-32

Peter and the apostles were becoming regulars in the Jerusalem county court system. Their names were appearing pretty regularly in the police blotter section of the local newspaper. It was almost impossible NOT to notice how often they were running into the authorities, and most people were probably wondering just why they didn’t lay low for a while. If they would just let the dust settle a bit, the air clear a tad, this would all just blow over and Peter and the rest of them could just fade into the crowd again. They didn’t have to make it so hard on themselves by constantly rubbing their teaching and the name of Jesus in the faces of the temple leaders. This was the third arrest and trial for some of them in what had to have been just the first few months since Jesus’ death and resurrection.

What had gotten into these men? One almost has to assume they were either brave or stupid. Either courageous or clueless. They knew they were wanted men so soon after the death of Jesus and then the disappearance of his body. They knew Jerusalem was buzzing with rumors and questions about what had happened, and was anyone going to do anything about it. Yet, they weren’t exactly doing their part to stay out of the limelight. In fact, they seemed to be doing everything they could to get back into it.

Stupidity seems out of the question. There were enough of them, one would hope, for SOMEONE to have the smarts to realize they were in a virtually powerless minority in Jerusalem. Even as they added to their numbers daily, the opposition still had the religious hierarchy, local leadership, and ear of the Roman government on its side. Their cluelessness would have had to have been of such astronomical proportions it’s impossible to believe they persisted because they just didn’t know what they were up against.

It had to have been their bravery. It had to have been their courage and their confidence in their message. It had to have been, Scripture tells us at the first trial, the power of the Holy Spirit that filled them. It wasn’t their outstanding education, the authorities are quick to point out. It wasn’t the armies that backed them up. It was the Holy Spirit, promised to them by Jesus before he made his ascension to heaven. It was the Holy Spirit, given to them in an upper room with the wind and fire of God. It was the Holy Spirit, constantly with them as they healed and taught and received believers into their community, that gave them the boldness they needed to stand up against the authorities in Jerusalem, authorities that had to face head on to follow Jesus’ command to be his witnesses first in Jerusalem, before spreading out to “all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Going against the established authority is never easy. The large scale examples of civil disobedience in India that countered colonialism, South Africa that struggled against apartheid, and the United States that supported the Civil Rights Movement highlight this in a monumental way. Yet even on a much smaller scale we know this to be true. Swimming upstream is never easy. Ignoring or purposely contradicting conventional wisdom, society norms, and the cultural myths we all seem to live under may not change laws, but on the individual or even community level the struggle feel like one is trying to move mountains.

In recent months there have been efforts to change our cultural vocabulary, to remove the “R” word, a word formerly used to describe people with developmental disabilities, from its now common use as an insult or description of something thought to be ridiculous. Peg Gagnon, who we know as the director of the Bridge for Youth with Disabilities, made a public plea for support in this effort through the local newspaper. Others in our community and around the country have spoken out to try to change what has been accepted as normal, but is recognized by many as offensive, harmful for public discourse, and just plain wrong in the human family.
Other movements such as the fair trade movement, in which we participate as a congregation with fair trade coffee, exist to try to resist the public urge to save my own money even at the expense of someone else’s loss further down the supply chain. Going “green” has become a popular marketing term, but real, lasting participation in the attempt to reduce our impact on the beauty and complexity of God’s creation is a lot harder to accomplish in a culture that values quick, easy, disposable products and the “new and improved” over the “old and good enough. Trying to live life ordered after an authority different from the one in power is never easy, even if it’s ultimately beneficial, and those who attempt to do so, to keep themselves on track, have to keep asking themselves the question “Who’s the boss?”

“Who’s the boss?” Peter and John asked the first time they were arrested and brought before the leaders in Jerusalem. Was it the religious authorities? Was it the occupying government? Was it tradition that claimed healing could only happen in a certain way, by a certain name? Who’s the boss? To whose authority should they defer?

“Who’s the boss?” the apostles had to ask themselves as they decided whether or not to continue this ministry of witness and proclamation. Do we follow the rules and save ourselves? Do we continue to teach as Jesus told us we would do? “Who’s the boss?” they had to decide when they were released from prison in the middle of the night by an angel. Do we go home and go to bed or do we follow the command and put ourselves right in the thick of things, right in the temple teaching with every free minute and every ounce of energy we have? Who is the boss?

Peter speaks for them all when they are confronted for a third time. Peter answers for them all the question that has been following them for months. Who is the boss? Who are they going to obey? “We must obey God rather than any human authority,” he declares for the apostles. We must follow a command that comes from beyond human laws, human tradition, and human reason. We hear the word from Jesus, we have seen the authority of God, and it stands far above the authority of anyone on earth. Bravely, courageously, Peter declares that the apostles stand under a different authority, one that flies in the face of all conventional wisdom and common understanding of how the world operates, and then he shows them all exactly how as he shares with them the gospel he knows.

First, “God of our ancestors raised Jesus.” God who has existed long before any humans alive now is in charge. God who has ruled the universe before these temple leaders were appointed or born into their positions, God who has seen empires rise and fall, conquer and be conquered, build themselves on greed and power only to be destroyed from the inside out by the same, this God is our authority. Our authority is the one who has been faithful even when we are not. The authority we obey is not based on the power of the sword, the threat of physical punishment, or fear of incarceration. It is not decreed by law or convention or coercion. The authority we obey is eternal and unseen, but trustworthy and steadfast. It may seem unbelievable that we would do all of this, risk our freedom on earth, but we have seen for generations upon generations that God is in charge, God is faithful still, and God is our ultimate authority in life and in death.

Second, in Jesus is given repentance. It sounds ridiculous. Repentance is a gift? Turning around, literally turning ones back on an old way of life. Running from what we know and have known is supposed to be some kind of joy? Besides, everyone knows a troublemaker is a trouble maker. Everyone knows there’s no way to change that kind of life, that kind of person. Everyone knows that you must lie down in the bed you make, and once you’ve made it, there’s no real way to change it. No matter how hard someone tries, we are told again and again, they will never break the cycle in which they live.

Yet Peter says his authority gives repentance. Peter says the gift of God is the chance for new life. Peter says that in Jesus is a way to start over, get a clean slate, turn in the right direction and begin the journey again, putting one foot in front of the other walking in the way of God instead of the way of the world. Peter says this comes from obeying the authority of God instead of the authority of the world.

Third, from God we also receive the forgiveness of sins. Revenge may be the predominant human way to respond to pain inflicted, but it’s not God’s way. An eye for an eye isn’t the way to operate anymore. There isn’t “closure” in seeing someone else suffer just because we also have suffered. Guilt should not be our motivation for anything, because by the grace of God, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we created beings find our forgiveness from our Creator. We are set free from our offenses. We are liberated from that which ties us down and prevents us from living lives of compassion and peace. When the world says we deserve nothing but the pain we get, God gives forgiveness instead. When the world says we should lord our power over those who have hurt us, the gospel Peter preaches says we should forgive instead.

And lastly, but most importantly because it is the source of all the rest, “God of our ancestors RAISED JESUS!” We go back to the beginning of Peter’s short sermon to hear the most important piece of it all. God who has been faithful and eternal when everything else is fleeting, God who turns lives around, God who forgives and calls us to do the same, this God is our authority for all life on earth and in heaven, because THIS God has done the impossible. The world says death is the end. The world says that keeping our hearts beating is the answer to everything, because once they stop it is all over. The world says there is nothing more than the years we spend alive on this earth, but God is the authority the apostles choose because in God they have seen this wisdom defeated.

“God of our ancestors RAISED JESUS!” Peter insists, and because of this God gets their loyalty; God gets their obedience. God gets their life’s work because God raised Jesus from the dead. God overcame the most certain belief that the world has ever tried to hold onto, that death is the end, that death has the last say, that death is the final authority. In Jesus, God looked that supposed authority in the face and defied it. For that reason, the first among all the rest, for that reason, in God alone the apostles will put their trust. God alone will they obey.

The Easter church, the people of Jesus in those earliest days of faith in him, saw no one and nothing else worthy of their obedience, but God. Conventional wisdom had flown out the window. The norms of society had been turned on their heads. The undercurrent of cultural opinion could no longer pull the apostles along, because God in Jesus had shown another way – another way of treating people, another way of loving, another way of living and worshiping as the people and the community God created us to be.

The Easter church, God’s resurrection communities then and now, exists to obey God, not the world around us. We exist to be witnesses to the good news of life that can change direction, sins that can be forgiven, faithfulness that can outlast generations, and life that goes on beyond death. We exist to share this good news through our words the give hope and our actions that show love and justice that others may find the peace, grace, and joy by our witness. All that we do and all that we say, the way we worship God, the way we treat one another, the way we serve others should show our obedience to God who showers us with grace the world says no one deserves, love the world says no one can return, and mercy the world says will never exist. Then we will be the church of Easter. Then we’ll be showing them who’s the boss!

Recently I have been reflecting on the three “gardens” of hospitality, compassion, and worship in the parable that the Session created for our congregation. All three gardens are necessary for our congregational life and are all connected to one another. It strikes me that my work with you as your Director of Education and Mission Outreach is relevant to all three of these “gardens” or ministries. I want to say a few words about how I see this occurring in each of the three ministries.

Ministries of hospitality are “ministries that welcome people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, meet them where they are in faith, and equip them for living their faith.” Much of the Christian Education work I do is seeking to meet the members of this congregation where they are. Then based on where you are in your life’s journey provide resources and opportunities that support and challenge you to grow in your faith both individually and as a congregation. Another aspect is providing resources and opportunities that equip you to live out your faith this complicated world. I have to continue to remind myself that this requires me to get to know you individually. I want to know your story, your needs and your desires. This year, as much as possible, I am trying to spend time with a wide variety of this congregation in different situations. So don’t be surprised if I plop myself down at your table on Sunday morning.

Ministries of compassion are “ministries that seek to recognize the brokenness of the word and individuals within it and reach out with Christ’s love to bring hope and healing.” For me this defines what “mission outreach” is. In mission outreach we seek to recognize and understand the needs of our community, our nation and our world. Once we have done that we discern how we can use our passions, strengths, and skills to respond effectively to those needs. My role is to assist you in recognizing and understanding the needs as well as working with you to establish and grow ministries that can address some of the needs and brokenness.

Ministries of worship are “ministries that assist the people of God in praising God, acknowledging the divine presences, and responding to God’s claim and redemption.” You might have asked yourself how my work in “education and mission outreach” is relevant to ministries of worship. Well you are not alone in your questioning as I too have reflected on this. My work is relevant to worship ministries primarily through worship education. For example this year the elementary children spent four weeks of Sunday School learning about worship as well as creating elements our Sunday morning worship liturgy. As adults the more we understand why, how and who we worship, we are able to more fully participate in worshiping God.

I want to challenge you to reflect on the ways your passions and God given gifts are relevant to each of these areas of ministries.

A Scriptural GPS

A friend of mine, while trying to navigate her way to a job interview in rural Vermont plugged in her trusty GPS, Global Positioning System, to help her find her way. It did its job, or so she thought, finding the quickest, most efficient route from her home in Massachusetts. However, as she though she was nearing her final destination at a little church in a village nestled in the mountains, she encountered this road sign on a snow and ice covered road. Apparently she wasn’t the first out-of-towner who naively trusted her GPS to help her find the way.I guess they haven’t programmed those magical little devices for the magic of winter wonderland.

The lawyer Jesus encounters in Luke’s gospel is also looking for an efficient path. Not wanting to waste any time or energy on unnecessary tasks, he asks Jesus for the correct route information. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is the quickest way from here to there?” he wonders. “What is the bare minimum I have to do to get where I want to go? Exactly how many people are my neighbors?”

The priest and the Levite in the parable, however, seem to know exactly where to go. They are trusting whole-heartedly in the GPS they have been given – the accepted rules and traditions of the culture and religions. Seeing the mangled man in the road ahead, their navigational devices immediately recalculate their routes for them, draw for them detours that take them to the other side of the road.

Strict laws against touching the dead, which is what the traveler looked like, would have reasonably prevented them from intervening. A priest presumably on his way to intercede for others in the complex world of ritual and sacrifice would have defiled himself and made himself completely useless to the faithful who depended on his actions if he had touched a corpse along the way. Likewise a Levite, whose job came to him by his bloodline, meaning there are a limited number of men in the world who could do what he did, could not make a similar risk to his ritual status, to his level of purification. The GPS they had been given for living their lives told them to do exactly what they did, avoid this man, dead or close to it, in the road. The expectations of their roles came with certain understandings about what they should and shouldn’t do, and touching an unclean man, even if it could save his life? That just didn’t seem acceptable at the time.

The church gets sucked into the mindset sometimes, too. We get caught up in the trap of trying to act acceptably in our community. At the very least we are tempted by the cultural GPS in the same way. Voices out there speak and try to tell us that our realm of activity and circle of care shouldn’t stretch beyond our walls. They shout that working for social justice and the fair treatment of other is outside the acceptable scope of our ministry. There are those who argue that that church should keep to the church and just care for its own.

There are even those who make that argument within the church. Why should our congregation or our denomination speak up about conflicts in other lands? Why should be engage in the debates about health care or civil rights or human trafficking? Why does the church speak about responsible investments or legislative advocacy? What does the church need to say about fair wages or fair trade? The church, cry voices inside and out, is perfectly suited to care for its own, for our own, so why should the church, why should Christians meddle in affairs beyond our walls? Why should we care beyond our family, beyond ourselves, beyond our local neighbors?

“How much is enough?” these questions are asking, just like the lawyer who tests Jesus. “Is it enough to pray for the people who are hurting in our congregation? Is it enough to pool our resources to try to help each other out of tough financial situations? Is it enough to feed our friends with physical and spiritual food when they are suffering and mourning? Is it enough, Jesus, to care for the people we know, we love, with whom we worship?

Or do we need to go further? How much is enough? Is it enough to serve dinner to our youth and the youth of our neighboring churches? Is it enough to collect food for the struggling families at the school down the road? Is it enough to venture a little further and serve a meal at the homeless shelter? Is that enough, Jesus, to care for the anonymous people we hear about, we pity, with whom we share a community?

Or do we need to go further? How much is enough?

The Samaritan certainly went further. His GPS, both geographical and cultural seems to be completely broken because no Samaritan would EVER have accepted a route that took him through this Jewish territory. It just wasn’t done. Samaritans didn’t like Jews; Jews didn’t like Samaritans. The bad blood between them dated back hundreds of years. There was no reason this Samaritan should have been walking this road against all cultural, all political, all social expectations. These people don’t mix, and any useful Samaritan GPS would have kept this man OFF this road.

It was dangerous for him to be there. He was looking for trouble in a foreign land, traveling through a territory that was culturally, ethnically, and religiously different from everything familiar in his life. The people back home would certainly tell him if they could that this was not wise, not safe, not acceptable by any of their usual standards. He deliberately put himself right in the middle of a setting where he was bound to meet someone very different from himself, and it was likely to be a risky and life-changing encounter. As he travelled that road and approached the half-dead man in his path, what he then chose to do can only be described as an act of compassion.

That much is enough, Jesus says. That much is real compassion. Compassion isn’t about just loving and caring for the people everyone expects you to love and care for. Although that is CERTAINLY a starting point. Caring for our family, caring for our church community, the poor of our city and country, the families that are struggling in our immediate neighborhoods (because they are there and here whether we choose to see them in the road or not) is certainly the beginning of compassion. It just isn’t the end.

Compassion is risky, vulnerable behavior. Compassion is opening ourselves up to the idea that there are people who are very different who we are called to serve, and there are people who are very different who are called to serve us. Compassion is not limiting ourselves to the acceptable, predictable, efficient path of life and faith, but opening ourselves to detours and longer routes. Compassion is about searching for the more difficult journey with hidden opportunities to love others with our actions in Jesus’ name. Compassion isn’t a thought we have or a belief we apply to some theory about who Jesus is and what he wants us to do. Compassion is real life action.

After decades of studying the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and especially their struggles to exist with each other, author Karen Armstrong began to see something that seemed off the mark in our contemporary practices of our faith traditions. Armstrong noticed that people of faith spend a lot of time worrying about what we believe with our heads, what the Qu’ran calls zanna, by her definition “the self-indulgent guess work about matter that nobody can be certain of one way or the other, but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian.” She argues that while we spend all this time and energy on thinking about our belief in our head religion is really about behaving differently. “Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something. You behave in a committed way, and then you begin to understand the truths of religion. And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action; you only understand them when you put them into practice.”

This disconnect, she proposes, is part of the reason so many people in the world, particularly so many who claim to be a part of the three Abrahamic faiths, find themselves as odds, even very VIOLENT odds, with one another. At the core of all of our faiths is a call to compassion, a call to loving care for all people on earth. Unfortunately for all of us in all of our faiths, we have gotten really good at saying what we believe about compassion, but really pretty bad at acting that way.

That’s why when Karen Armstrong won the 2008 TEDPrize, an award given annually to an individual or organization with “One Wish to Change the World,” she used her $100,000prize money, corporate support, and a public forum to draft and promote the Charter for Compassion. In the words of the charter project:
“The Charter of Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems. One of the most urgent tasks of our generation is to build a global community where men and women of all races, nations and ideologies can live together in peace. In our globalized world, everybody has become our neighbor, and the Golden Rule has become an urgent necessity.
“The Charter, crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ has failed the test of our time. It is not simply a statement of principle; it is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time."
The drafters of this Charter invite the world, individuals and organizations, cities and nations, churches, temples, and mosques, religions and denomination, to adopt it, making a lifelong commitment to live with compassion.

Listen now to the words of this charter.

The website for the Charter for Compassion includes an interactive section where individuals around the world share stories of compassion they have received or offered– ranging from an individual in Vermont who started a low profit company to give away technology to classrooms around the world to a woman in West Virginia who paid for the groceries of a single mother in line in front of her at the grocery store when she overheard that the woman’s food stamps weren’t valid for four more days. These stories and testimonies challenge us to recognize the places we have experienced the compassion of others, and, as Christians, the places we are called to share Christ’s compassion through our lives.

The culture in which we live is constantly trying to guide our steps toward an efficient and comfortable present and future. The GPS of societal norms will never cease attempting to send us on fast-moving highways that avoid all deviations and detours from the acceptable path, roads that keep us segregated into communities, friendships, churches, and families with people just like us. However, if we program ourselves along the GPS of scripture, if we are guided by the route of a Samaritan walking on the completely wrong road, we will find ourselves traveling in the way and footsteps of Christ. Then maybe we can begin to answer through our actions the question Jesus begs us to understand - - “Who ISN’T my neighbor?”

(Karen Armstrong quotes are from her acceptance speech from the 2008 TEDPrize.)

RSVP

Isaiah 55:1-9
Luke 14:16-24It was going to be a GREAT party. It was going to be better than GREAT. It was going to be fantastic! Many had been invited. Not a whole lot of responses were received, but really, people don’t RSVP any more anyway. It was going to be a GREAT party.

The house had been scrubbed top to bottom. The courtyard had been swept and swept again. The ground was free of all those little stone that get stuck between your toes and beneath your feet in sandals. Someone had crawled on hands and knees to make sure they were all removed from the site of the party. The animals that had been fattening for months were back from slaughter, and the choice cuts of meat were prepared. They had already begun to be licked by the flames of the cooking fire as they turned slowly on the spit. The host and his family had been scrubbed from top to bottom, too, clean and shining with excitement over the celebration that was just about to beginning.

At the appointed hour, the time when the guest had been invited to arrive, they went to the door to receive the blessing of their guests come to celebrate and enjoy the party with them. With a grand sweep, the door was opened…and no one was there! Just the bustle of a busy street at the end a of a long day. Servants going to collect the evening’s water, merchants trying to sell the last of their fresh wares, closing up shop for the night, worker of different kinds making their ways home to be with their own families for the night.

Not one invited guest stood waiting for the party to begin. Not one was there to celebrate and enjoy. Imagine the disappointment, the discouragement, frustration and even sadness of the host. The invitation had gone out to MANY. The promise of a GREAT, no, a fantastic party had been made. Hours of preparation had gone into the occasion, but when the time came, no one had arrived to celebrate. Come the invitation had said, but all he got were excuses in response. Celebrate with me! Come and enjoy! Come and rejoice for a while.

“Come”, says our God, “Feast at my table.”
“Come,” says our God, “and listen to me.”
“Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”
“Come and follow me.”
“Come let us sing to the Lord.”
“Come and see what God has done”
“Come and hear the message from God.”
“Come to God’s presence with singing.”

Come, our invitation to worship beckons. Come and celebrate with God and one another, but often we, too, respond with excuses. I’m tired. I can do it alone. It’s too early after a long night. It’s too late for everything I have planned for today. There’s too much to do to get ready for the week. I did too much this weekend. I don’t know enough. I haven’t relaxed enough. I don’t believe enough to show up to worship God. I don’t believe enough to go to that party.

We don’t really think of it that way, but really worship is a party. It’s something we do together, not even just something done up front here by others on our behalf. It’s not a lecture surrounded by some good music. It’s not even a spiritual gas station we frequent to simply fill up our tanks for another week. Worship is a party, a celebration, complete with an invitation from God to come and rejoice, give thanks, sing, even dance if we’re ready for that. Worship is the time we gather as a community to do together what we can and we should also do alone – wonder and marvel at the glory of God, pray and meditate on the gift of God’s Word, offer our lives and ourselves in grateful response, celebrate the grace and mercy of our faithful Savior. And like most parties that I have been to, the more we give of ourselves to the energy of the party, the better it gets for us all.

But we’d never know that if we didn’t show up. The guest who didn’t think they were ready never got to taste the scrumptious food of the great banquet. The timing wasn’t right. Things weren’t in order at home. Schedules conflicted with the gracious invitation of their host. They just weren’t ready.

And who is when lives are busy and calendars are full. Who is when there seems to be so much to learn about God it’s really a bit overwhelming? Who is ready when there are so many questions unanswered? Who really is ready when sometimes the music isn’t the kind of music I like? When sometimes questions are asked that I’m not ready to hear? Who is ready when other things in life seem more pressing, more important, or maybe just more fun, more satisfying than coming to the party that God hosts? Who is ever ready anyway?

Well, in the parable someone was. A whole lot of someone’s were, actually. When the host heard that his guests weren’t coming, when he discovered that his carefully planned festivities, his delicious food, his gracious hospitality weren’t going to be accepted, he didn’t start wrapping everything in plastic wrap, resigned to eating leftovers for weeks, he sent out new invitations. He sent his servants out to find the guests who WERE ready to enjoy what he had to offer. He sent them into the streets and alleys, into the worst neighborhood, to the gates of the city where the poor and destitute lay waiting for something, anything, from the people who passed by. He sent his servants out with an open invitation to anyone who wanted to come, taste, and see. And the revelers came pouring in.

The best guests, it turns out, may not be the ones who are best prepared, whose lives are in perfect order, who think they have the time or ability to get everything ready before they show up to celebrate, because these guests will never actually make it to the party. There will always be one more job to do, one more house to check on, one more task to complete, one thing to learn. We’ll never be ready enough. Our lives will never feel in order enough.

The best guests, it turns out, are the ones who know their imperfections, but respond to the host’s invitation with a resounding, “Yes!” Come, you who are thirsty - - Yes! I will drink of your living water. Come, you who hunger - - Yes! I will eat from your banquet table. Come, you who are tired - - Yes! I will rest in your arms. Come, you with heavy burdens - - Yes! I will share them with you and others. Come, all of you, and rejoice and give thanks - - Yes! Even in my weakness, I will come and celebrate with joy and gratitude for the abundant blessings that are spread before me. Yes! Not just in spite of, but because of our imperfections, we will worship God.

The invitation is all over Scripture. It’s all over our worship service. We come and worship, not because it is our brilliant idea, but because God has laid the perfect spread before us. We come and worship because God has invited us, God calls us to gather here imperfectly. We come and confess all that stands in the way of this worship and our relationship with God, not to beg for our admittance into the party, but because the promise is there, the invitation has already been sent, and God wants to forgive everything that divides us from one another.

We come and worship because by the water of baptism, God welcomes us to the party even before we know what the party is all about, even before we can understand, even when we have tried to understand, but that understanding lays beyond our reach. We come and worship because the blessings of hope, the challenges of discipleship, the comfort of grace are abundant in God’s Word. We come and worship to share in the feast that Christ our Lord spreads before us, to come to the table of welcome, the table of life, the table of salvation, as imperfect and broken people, made whole as we celebrate and rejoice in the blessings that are promised in this spiritual food.

Seating Arrangements

Luke 14:1, 7-14
Hebrews 13:1-3, 15-16

My pastor in college used to say that the gospel according to Luke was “just one dinner party after another.” It seems true when you read through it. Jesus is ALWAYS eating with people in Luke. He is always at table with someone, and USUALLY that someone is the wrong person. It isn’t but a few verses past the portion that we read today that the Pharisees and scribes are grumbling and complaining that this Jesus is always sitting and eating with sinners. Apparently they have already forgotten that not too long before he was sitting at table with THEM.

When Jesus tells these parables we have heard he is sitting with all the “right” people, at least, in their own minds and in the social and religious pecking order. For once, he is sitting down with some “respectable” folks for a Sabbath meal. He is, however, anything but a picture perfect guest. Looking around at the people who have gathered, watching their behavior and their attitudes, instead of just sitting down or, more likely, reclining to share a meal among this cultured and learned gathering, Jesus decides to tell a couple of stories, some parables that comment on what he is observing. He holds nothing back – critiquing both about his host and the other guests.

The guests are enacting every dinner party host’s nightmare. Have you ever been to a wedding with a well-thought-out seating arrangement? Maybe you have even been behind that seating arrangement process. It’s not easy, deciding who should sit next to whom. Will it be a table of people who have known each other for years or a table of people who share the same interests? Will husbands sit next to wives or will couples be scattered around the table? It’s never an easy process setting up the seating arrangement for a party, and it seems that there’s always at least one person at every party who thinks he or she has a better idea, and the place cards start shuffling. The seating arrangement is knocked out of order.

Jesus sees these people already at work at the Sabbath meal. He notices that the guests are beginning to jockey for position at the table, rearranging the seats trying to make sure they are next to the right person, and, even more, importantly in the right position. Seating arrangements were very particular in Jesus’ time. The host or the honored guest had a particular place of honor, and everyone present knew the status of everyone else present based on their location at the table in relationship to the guest of honor. The closer you were seated to this guest, the more respect you deserved. As soon as they arrived at the party the Sabbath guests begin to try to rearrange the placecards to get themselves seated in the right place, a place of high honor, may be higher than they deserve Jesus warns.

Humility, Jesus’ story tells these guests, is far more important than honor in the sight of others. It’s better to put yourself at the bottom of the pile than to make assumptions about your worth over others. It’s better to show honor, show love really, to all others than to try to take that honor for yourself. The best seating arrangement is the one where you place yourself in service to others, thinking of their needs before your own, holding them in highest honor.

Jesus’ next comments are for the hosts of the party. The guest list, he says, is a bit off. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” Extending kindness to our friends is all well and good and enjoying the fellowship of those we know and love is wonderful in its right time, but true HOSPITALITY comes when it is extended well beyond our usual range of comfort, well beyond those whom we can expect to extend it back.

An introduction to the Canadian people by Tom Brokaw that aired during the Olympic coverage this week recounts a story of just this kind of hospitality. It caught my eye in particular because a close friend of mine was the recipient of the amazing hospitality and grace that was the subject of the story. On September 11, 2001, my friend, a seminary classmate, and his family were in the air somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on their way back to the US when the Twin Towers in New York City were attacked. Like hundreds of other flights, theirs was forced to land in Canada when US airspace was closed.

This family found themselves, along with passengers and crews from 39 other flights, temporarily grounded in Gander, Newfoundland, a rural town of about 10,000 people. The story of welcome and hospitality my friend told was just as Brokaw reported it. This small town opened itself whole-heartedly to their unexpected guests, 6,600 unexpected guests. Passengers were housed in the school, and when that didn’t seem to be enough local residents showed up to take individuals and families home with them, not just for warm showers and hot meals, but even to stay in their own beds instead of on mats on the gymnasium floor.

Back in September of last year, when Tom Brokaw was in Gander gathering information for the story that just aired the mayor of Gander, Claude Elliott, commented on why this story was so interesting in his country and ours. He said, accurately I think, “American people are not used to people helping them and not want to get paid for it. They find this unusual.” I also believe the flip side is true. We aren’t used to offering help to others without wondering or asking “What’s in it for me?”

There was nothing in it for the people of Gander. They didn’t open their town and their homes because they expected financial reimbursement or even a chance for the same hospitality to be offered back to them. Their guests were from all over the country, all over the world, even, so they certainly weren’t expecting an invitation back to dinner from those whom they served. They offered their hospitality warmly, selflessly, and sacrificially with no regard for when or how they might be repaid, when or how the invitation might be returned.

This is the way Jesus calls for hospitality to be extended. In fact, Jesus and even as far back as the Torah, the Old Testament law, calls for hospitality that is even MORE radical than this. Not only are the people of God called to welcome travelers who are stranded at their doorsteps, but they are to go out and seek those who are outside of any usual positions of power, those who are purposely EXcluded from usual society, those who are injured, broken, shunned, and disconnected. These are the people God’s people are called to welcome. These are the people we are told to invite into our homes, our church, and our lives.

Hospitality, Jesus teaches, is not the Martha Stewart cooking, organizing, bed sheet ironing industry we often imagine. Hospitality is not about a mint on a pillow or a “free” pair of slippers when you walk into the room for which you have paid. Hospitality is about being open to the friendless, welcoming the stranger, making room for those who are different from us, and not trying to turn them into us, but letting them find out who they are in our midst, giving them space to be who God called them to be without threat of judgment or pressure for repayment.

Not only does Jesus teach this, but it is part of the ancient laws even as far back as Leviticus. “You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God,” it is written (Lev. 19:34). It’s just that Jesus took this hospitality to a whole different level in his ministry. Besides the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, Jesus associated with all sorts of unsuitable people. In Luke he sits with tax collectors who cheat the public. In John he spends an inappropriate amount of time with a Samaritan woman with more than her share of male companions. Jesus lets another questionable woman anoint his feet. He makes himself ritually impure by touching lepers and the dead.

And apparently, he expects the same from us. He says as much in these parables. When we are the hosts, when we the church are opening our doors to the community and the world, our list of invitees isn’t supposed to look just like our membership roster. When we, his disciples are trying to serve others, our scheduled visits shouldn’t come from our Christmas card address list. Those we seek to serve in the name of Christ, should be those who are on no other lists, those who are forgotten, ignored, or even purposely shunned. That is the unique and challenging call of Christ.

And likewise, when we are invited to be the guests, we should never find ourselves to be like those guests at a wedding who presume to have a better idea than the host. We shouldn’t show up and try to change the seating arrangements to make ourselves look better. We should never be so mistaken about who we are or what honor we bring that we try to place ourselves in a higher position than another. The call to humility is the call to place others above ourselves.

Granted neither of these has ever been easy. Christians have been struggling with them from the origins of our faith. The believers in Rome, even just fifty years after Jesus death, were struggling with this as they waited for what they thought would be Jesus’ imminent return. In the letter to the Hebrews, the community is reminded to be strong and faithful in following Jesus’ example. Even they are already having trouble as they tried to figure out what it means to be the true community of Christ. Yet, the wise elder sends them this advice, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Let mutual love continue. Remember you are in this community, this church, together. No one person is any higher or better or more exalted than another. No one deserves more honor or respect. No one is more right or more holy or more important than any other, but instead each should humble himself or herself to the other. Don’t mess with the seating arrangement by trying to put yourself above others. Accept your seat. Even choose one below another and serve someone else for a while. Each should regard the others with such dignity and respect and love and honor that your love for all will grow and be sustained.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Send your invitations far and wide. Welcome those you don’t know, those who need the company and the meal more than any others you may usually choose. Invite the people who will never invite you back, so that when you serve it is out of love for God and for others, not because you hope or know you will be served in return. Let some new guests in to the table. Guests who have never tasted a feast like this before. Let them eat and be filled and know the goodness of God through your welcome and invitation without judgment.

St. Benedict lived in the 6th century and founded a monastic order whose monasteries and abbeys are still thriving today. Guests are ALWAYS welcome at Benedictine communities, with or without a reservation, with or without an explanation. Benedict, in his rule says, “A monastery is never without guests” and goes on to pose this challenged: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.” Presbyterian writer Kathleen Norris, who has made several stays with the Benedictines, writes that “if it regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, it is a monastery. If it doesn’t, it is not.” (Amazing Grace, p. 263-264)

Could this not also be a description of a REAL church? “If it regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, it is a church. If it doesn’t, it isn’t.” In the vision it discerned for this congregation, the session described our church at its best, as God is calling us to be, as a welcoming garden. In coming up with this description they reflected on the gifts we have been given, the things we do well and with a Spirit-inspired passion.

Hospitality is a call from God to each and every Christian, and it is one of our calls from God as a congregation - - to open our doors, our hearts, our minds, our lives to any and all who walk through them. It is a call to go out and seek those who are welcome in no other place to make sure they have a place at the table. Once they are here, once they are at the table, then we must remember that all of us are actually the guests. All of us are hosted by someone far more important, far more honorable, far more loving. Taking our seats as servants of one another, then and only then, can we worship and serve the living Christ among us.

May God’s gift and challenge of humility and hospitality be ever visible and obvious in our life together. Amen.

Fresh Visions

Isaiah 40:18-23
Luke 13:18-19

At each meeting of our session this year, we have spent time studying at least one of the confessions, or creedal statements, of the Presbyterian Church. Last week the Westminster Confession and Catechisms were up. Westminster was written in the mid-17th century in England. It has all the hallmarks of a document written by a culture on the cusp of the Enlightenment – the age of reason. Listen to this question and answer from the Westminster Larger Catechism (question 7, from the section called “What Man Ought to Believe Concerning God”):

Q. 7. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty; knowing all things, mos twise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

Well, that just clears it all up for you, doesn’t it? After that bit of inspiration why don’t I just take my seat and we’ll call it a sermon? (Don’t get excited, I actually have a little more here to share.) The Westminster authors, God bless them for the work they did for the church, did more than write one of the most defining documents of American Presbyterian history. It could also be said that they left us with a beautiful example of why words aren’t everything. Or at least, some uses of words aren’t everything for inspiring faith and action.

The endless galleries and churches, and even volumes upon volumes of books, filled with sacred art, the innumerable compositions of music that have flourished through the ages tell us that theological tomes and philosophical descriptions haven’t cut it alone in sharing the faith within or outside of the body of Christ. Sometimes a picture is needed, or a musical experience, to get a different kind of idea about what God is like, or how the Spirit is guiding God’s people. Sometimes an image is needed to catch the visions of Christ’s ministry in a way that an academic dissertation would NEVER be able to do. And sometimes even just a different kind of writing or telling, sort of painting a picture with words, can even do the trick.

Jesus told MANY parables. The gospels are dripping with them, and for some that is exciting because the descriptive and sometimes even cryptic language excites them with endless possibilities. Others hear another parable coming and groan like the disciples occasionally did, “Why, Jesus, do you teach in parables?” Deciphering the message isn’t always easy. Yet somehow it seems like you get more in the long run because of this. In fact, I think you can get a new and fresh meaning just about every time you come to a parable where a little (or a lot) more is left to the imagination.

Jesus’ parables are quite often about the kingdom of God, instead of simply God, the divine being. In talking about the world under God’s reign, instead of just describing divinity, he gives us plenty of opportunity to find ourselves in the vision. Jesus’ kingdom parables are a snapshot of the divine reality, or better yet an active movie clip, a short depiction of how the world would operate if everything was moving along according to God’s divine will and purpose. The WHOLE PICTURE gives us our fresh vision, how people or animals or plants interact, not just what individual parts of the story are doing, and usually this comes with a twist or something unexpected to help make the point. Also, as parables about God’s kingdom, Jesus’ parables can often set up a mission statement for God’s kingdom bearer on earth – the church.

The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed. The twist comes right up front. The kingdom of God, the realm of the almighty, the same God about whom Isaiah spoke as so big that people look like grasshoppers from the heavenly throne, is like a mustard seed. Not only that, but the kingdom of God is something that is buried in the ground, sowed in a garden. It isn’t set on a pedestal overlaid with gold and dripping with silver jewelry. The seed is sowed in a garden, in the ground.

It is placed deliberately in a designated place. It was planted for a purpose. It was planted to grow, and it was planted to grow in that very place. There is great intentionality in this particular vision of God’s kingdom. It isn’t haphazard. It isn’t an accident. The tree does not grow by chance. The seed was taken by someone and sowed in a garden, a place where things are expected to change and nurtured and cared for while they grow.

And grow it did – not a small plant from a small seed, but a huge plant, a tree even came from that tiny little brown ball pushed down into the earth’s soil. The tree’s branches spread invitingly into the air, attracting birds who made their nests among them. The tree is more than something beautiful to look at. The tree does more than just produce the seeds it needs to perpetuate itself. The tree exists so that others will come to it, find rest and shelter, build their homes among it, and become a part of the picture and activity of the garden. The diversity and life in the garden expanded to include others because of the transformation of the seed.

This is the kingdom of God, Jesus says. This fresh vision, this picture of activity and growth and nurture and attention and intentionality -- This scenario of taking care of one another, of growing beyond what seems possible in order to serve in ways that seem natural -- This description of purpose and surprise and service -- Even this understanding that development and movement forward, transformation from the tiny seed to the welcoming tree, takes time (that tree didn’t grow in day) -- This is the kingdom of God, Jesus says, and this is the kingdom of which we are a part.

Back in September, the leadership of this congregation took a retreat to begin to define what our next set of congregational goals will be. It has been a longer process than I first anticipated, but at the same time I think it has been a more challenging process, too. There are stages in life when goal setting seems easy either because the goals are more obvious or because the pressure is higher to make a decision. When this congregation was housed in an older building, where bats joined choir practice and stairs made accessibility an issue, the decision, while certainly not a quick one, was probably a little clearer. The options, at least, were probably a little more obvious, even if the final decision was not.

When a young person graduates from high school, again the choice may not be easy, but at least the opportunities are somewhat well-defined: education can continue formally through some sort of additional schooling, entering the workforce can be the next step. When our backs are against a wall, decision-making time and the definition of choices often becomes clearer, and the need to act seems more crucial.
However, when in life, there is no immediate crisis, when there is no major discernable fork in the road, clarification of new goals becomes a bit trickier, it seems even more challenging because the sense of urgency just isn’t as high. Why rock the boat, we may ask. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

But the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in a garden. The garden existed. I assume that means something was growing. It doesn’t sound like it was an empty plot of land just begging to be filled. There was something there, growing, going along just fine without one more seed to be sowed. But someone took that seed anyway, and planted it in the garden. Someone decided that something new needed to be done to add to the garden, enhance it, develop it, give it a new and continuing purpose no matter how “just fine” things seemed to be going. The kingdom needs transformation to continue being the kingdom of God.

As the body of leaders in this church, back in September, the session took on the task of writing a sort of “kingdom parable” for our congregation. Pulling from the image of a garden, based somewhat on the biblical bend toward things of nature and based a LOT on the beauty of a number of gardens on this property, the guiding vision and setting for the parable is a garden. Hear the parable, try even to close your eyes and see the fresh vision, the purpose and call from God that our leaders discerned for this congregation:

“In the kingdom of God, our community of faith is called to be a welcoming garden planted and sustained by the Spirit of God. Many hands work as one to plan, sow, nurture, and harvest. Inviting diversity, we bloom in all season of life. With compassion for those who are weary, we provide continuous shelter, healing, support, and growth. From the abundance of blessings we receive, we celebrate and share with those close and far the nourishing and life-giving love of our Lord.”

The parable came after we worshiped and studied together, after we celebrated the ministries of our present and past and dreamed of ministries for our future. It is a vision of our congregation as one that has been purposely put in this place and is fed and nurtured and tended to by the Spirit of God. It is a place where many are called to the variety of tasks that it takes to maintain a garden, each with a job in any season or stage of life. The vision of our ministry takes note of God’s particular call to reach out with compassionate care for others, offer welcoming hospitality to all who come our way, and worship God with thanksgiving and celebration for the abundance we are blessed to share.

It is a rich and faithful vision of what this part of God’s kingdom is called specifically to do in this time and place. There is room for the diversity of our members and friends, but also a unifying purpose to provide a place of rest, a place of growth, and a place of engagement with God and with the world in which we live. This is our fresh vision for First Presbyterian Church in Hudson, Wisconsin. Where within it do you see yourself?

Yesterday there was a gathering here in the church to begin answering that very question. Members of the congregation who attended and even those who sent their ideas, but couldn’t attend in person, shared ministries about which they are passionate, items they couldn’t imagine NOT being in our garden. They also shared new ministries toward which they feel a tug or call from God, new ways to engage our congregation in faithful ministries that will help us follow God’s call as it has been captured in our fresh garden vision.

Many of us thought this would be one of the final steps in the process of understanding the new goals God is setting before us, but I think, in the end, while it moved us forward, the specifics of those new goals are still a couple of months away. We did begin to identify specific gardens or ministries that will help us follow God’s call, that will give our family of faith the opportunity to get involved in the vision in specific areas of passion and energy. We determined there are multiple areas of ministry that will help us answer God’s call to be a compassionate, hospitable, and worshipful congregation, and now the next step is in the hands of the session.

In the coming weeks the session will be working diligently (and immediately, our first meeting since Saturday will be coming up on Tuesday!) to reorganize our structure to fit the needs of our new vision, prioritize some of the on-going and developing ministries of the church, and plan how they will best communicate the specifics of our goals with the rest of the congregation. Please hold the session of this church in your prayers. Please lift them up into the light of God that they may seek God’s direction for this church and no one else’s. Please encourage them with your words and your support as they take the task before them seriously and spiritually.

Please also be prayerfully preparing yourselves for the exciting future that is coming. There are some amazing faithful ideas on the table that will tap into expressed interests to serve our community and our world in new ways. There are ideas that will help us grow closer to God and one another. The difficult part will come, however, as we decide which seeds we will plant in our garden and which seeds will have to wait or which existing plants will have to be thinned. Our garden cannot be sustained by just throwing seeds on top of seeds on top of seeds. We will have to be careful to use those plants that can live alongside each other, not competing for important resources of time, energy, and talent, but complementing each other with the right balance from among our members and friends. Be prayerful in the coming weeks and months as we are all engaged in discerning God’s leading for First Presbyterian Church.

In worship for most of Lent, we will dig around a bit in the dirt of this garden. Using more parables from Luke’s gospel we will explore the three aspects of God’s call that the session discerned in September – compassion, hospitality, and worship. Again, those who were here yesterday discovered that it takes a variety of ministries in different areas for us to follow that call, but when they listened to the places where our congregation’s greatest passions seemed to meet our world’s deep hunger this is the call that they heard. Each week we will look at one of these portions of our call that as a united congregation we can see and follow the fresh vision before us.

May God’s grace surround us, Christ’s passion inspire, and the Spirit’s presence lead us as we tend to God’s garden in our midst.