james 2:1-10, 14-17
September 10, 2006
Don't you hate a smarty-pants? I mean that person who tells it like it is-- doesn't mince words, says what they think? They may even say the things you wish you had the nerve to say, but nobody wants to be known as a big mouth.
Well, James is one of those. He's like that pebble in your shoe. Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation, thought the book of James was useless, if it were up to him, he would have left James out of the Bible entirely. James calls us to accountability, and that's uncomfortable. Essentially he's saying, "practice what you preach, people!" And we would agree, but we don't like it when somebody points out that we may not be practicing what we preach.
Some of you know, that like any other organization, the United Methodist Church has come up with a slogan. Everybody knows that the mainline church is declining in numbers, and so there's a campaign to try to reverse that. Maybe you've seen the well-done commercials on CNN and other cable stations through the year, advertising the UMC and what we stand for. In the past few years, they've come up with the slogan, "Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors..." to define what we are about as United Methodist Christians.
I wonder what James would say to us about that slogan? We say it, but do we do it?
And I don't mean United Methodists only, I mean any church that professes Jesus Christ, that claims to follow his teachings. Do we live out what we believe? Do we practice what we preach?? Not just the church, but as individual Christians?
I went to a Christian College back in the mid-80s. I went to the first one that sent me a catalog, I didn't really look into it, didn't shop around, I figured all Christian colleges would be the same. I just wanted to be with like-minded people. I hoped it would be like summer camp for 4 years. I was a nerd in high school, a goody-two shoes, and I wanted to go to a college where I fit in better. I assumed I'd find that at a Christian college. I figured we'd all get along, support one another, encourage one another and build one another up.
The very first day I was on campus, I was told, #1 that the United Methodist Church was going to hell, and #2, that God doesn't call women into ministry and it's precisely because they ordain women, that the UMC is destined for hell. Hmm.
College ended up being a difficult experience, to say the least. I was not one to rock the boat or speak up back then, so at that time I gave up on my call to ministry and tried to fit in. However, during the spring semester of my junior year, I had to take a class called Methods of Social Research, in which we were split up into groups and asked to come up with a group research project. I don't remember exactly how my group came up with its idea -- the others insist it was my idea, but I'm highly doubtful. What my group decided to do for our project was to dress up as punk rockers and attend 5 different churches on Sunday mornings. Three of us were the punk rockers and the other three pretended not to know us, and observed the congregations' reactions to us. We wanted to see how people would respond to the way we looked. We didn't act any differently, we carried Bibles, we sang the hymns, said the creeds, said the Lord's Prayer. We tried to behave like regular church members.
But we looked very different.
I wore skin tight, black and pink tiger-striped leggings with black lace stockings and black and gold high-heeled shoes. I had on a ripped T shirt that was splattered with multi-colored paint. Over that I wore a black sequined jacket that I got at a Thrift store, and wore matching black lace gloves and lots of chains around my neck. Hanging from my ears I had huge silver crosses. My hair was shorter then, and I loaded it up with lots of gel to make it stand up straight, highlighting it with blue hair paint. I used lots of dark eyeshadow and eyeliner around my eyes so that I looked a lot like Cat Woman, and finished it off with black lipstick.
I looked horrible.
My friend Bob had spent a lot of time on South Street in Philadelphia, which was a punk rocker's hangout, so Bob was our costume and make-up consultant. None of this was a big stretch for Bob.
It took me two hours every Sunday morning to get my make-up and hair done.
As I said, we only had 5 weeks, so we went to 5 churches. We got a variety of responses, walking into those churches. In one church, we sat down close to the front. People stared. They didn’t even try to hide their reactions. Little kids pointed at us and whispered, mothers tried to shush them. One man walked past me, took one look at me and his face screwed up in horror as he said very loudly, “My God!” and walked on.
During the sermon, the pastor gave an altar call. Nobody came forward, but he kept inviting.
When we talked to him a couple of weeks later and told him who we were, he admitted that he’d given that altar call for us specifically. His wife said she was in the back praying that we would go forward. The pastor said quite honestly that when we walked in, he took one look at my cat-like eyes and said to himself,
“There’s going to be a battle with Satan today!”
At another church, people pointed at stared, but didn’t use the Lord’s name in vain--at least in our hearing, and they didn’t come anywhere near us.
Later, we waited in the pastor’s office to speak with him--because as part of our project, we were to talk to the pastor about ways we could get involved in the church. While we were waiting, the pastor’s little boy--a cute, curly-headed blond boy, came into the office, looked up at me and grinned a toothy grin. He took my hand, placed a stick of gum in my lace gloves and folded my fingers over it, skipping away.
The whole thing became very personal. Even though we knew who we were, we all felt the reactions to us when we went to these churches. We felt the rejection, the disgust, the unwelcome. On top of that, the three of us were all people who felt unwelcome at our Christian college, even as ourselves.
Finally, we went to a United Methodist Church in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I was a little nervous about that, being a United Methodist myself-- I wanted the UMs to look good. My hands were really sweating in those gloves that day.
Soon after we settled into our pew and tried to breathe during the announcements, the pastor got up and asked all visitors to stand. Well, there was no way we could pretend we weren’t visitors! So we stood. He asked us to introduce ourselves. The others looked at me, and in the moment I was unanimously appointed the spokesperson for the group.
We hadn’t planned on having to talk…
I gave our first names and we quickly sat down. The pastor said that he was really glad to see us and said we were “welcome.” After the benediction, I bent over to pick up my Bible, anxious to get out before the Methodists incriminated themselves! But when I looked up, I realized we were surrounded. Each end of our pew was blocked by members of the church! They came to us, asking all kinds of questions: Where did we live? Did we have jobs?
Some of them gave us their phone numbers, offering us rides to church, or a home-cooked meal. Others told us about the Young Adult Sunday School classes, and that the Youth Group needed some adult sponsors-- I thought THAT was interesting!
Again, my classmates kept their mouths shut the entire time, and I was forced to make up answers to all the questions about who we were. The pastor himself came to us, and told us that he makes a mean lasagna and that he’d love to have us over to the parsonage sometime. His wife reiterated the quality of his lasagne and said it was worth the trip!
Once we finally broke free and got back to the car we realized we’d stayed after church for an hour talking to people! All of us were moved. We all wanted to be a part of this church. We all felt welcomed and loved. It had become much more than a class project. We felt the presence of Jesus in that congregation in a profound way that changed all of us.
A couple of weeks later, we went back to the church office to speak to the pastor. We went as ourselves this time, and he didn’t recognize us at all. Again, my classmates left it up to me to tell him who we were. When I told him, he didn’t say anything at first. Then he leaned back in his chair…. and laughed!
We told him about our other church experiences, how it got to be personal, how we felt bad going into those other churches and being treated the way we were, just because of how we looked. And we told him how we felt at his church, how all of us were kind of misfits at school, how we didn’t fit in very well at our Christian school, how each of us had a hard time finding a church home while we were away at school. We told him how we all wanted to come to his church.
The pastor, Pastor Frank, stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. He told us that in another month, he was moving. In fact, he said, he was leaving the ministry altogether. He told us the church had been through some rough times during his ministry there. He'd done some unorthodox things himself in the effort to get the message of the Gospel across. One thing he’d done was dress up as a homeless man and visit each of the houses of the members of his Administrative Council. They didn’t recognize him, and every one of them refused to give him something to eat .
They were not too happy to find out later that it was him.
He did other things like that, too, that didn’t go over well. As a result, he said, the church had split. Many families had left in anger, and the ones who remained had lost hope. Some even had said that it felt like Jesus was no longer among them. Then Pastor Frank brightened up. He had an idea. He asked us to come back on a Sunday morning to tell the whole congregation what we told him. That we had experienced the love of Jesus among them
in a way that changed us and encouraged us. He told us that he believed that God had sent us to them to encourage them, to tell them that Christ was still among them, that they still had the Spirit in them….
So a couple of weeks later, we went back on a Sunday morning, dressed as ourselves. Nobody in the congregation recognized us. Nobody knew that anything special was happening that day until Pastor Frank got up and read from Hebrews about entertaining angels unaware.
Then he introduced us as someone who had a story we needed to tell them. Again, shy old me was appointed to be the first to speak; to break the news of who we were and what we’d done.
When I finally told them who we were, I paused and looked around the congregation. Slowly people smiled, then broke out into laughter, like a ripple across the congregation. Some covered their mouths. I went on to tell them how profoundly we had felt Jesus’ love for us through them… Then the others in our group got up and told their stories as well.
After the benediction, we were surrounded once again, there at the front of the church. People came up to us crying. Little old ladies told us they’d been so worried about us, that they had prayed for us after we didn't return.
One woman said, “I can’t wait to go home and tell my husband— He was here that day, and he thought you were disgusting!” And she laughed a somewhat devilish laugh.
The people thanked us, and they, too, said that they believed that God called us together through this school project, to encourage each other in the faith, and to remind each other that God loves us all.
We went to the parsonage after worship and ate some mean lasagna fixed by Pastor Frank, took pictures of him and his family, and enjoyed an afternoon of laughter and visiting.
St. Francis of Assisi once said,
“Preach the Gospel at all times,
and if necessary, use words…”
I think we all know that the most powerful way to preach the Gospel is by living it. We hear lots of words, but they mean nothing if they’re not lived out. That’s what James calls us to--to preach the Gospel with our lives.
Are our hearts, minds and doors really open?
Do we welcome the stranger?
Do we welcome the one who isn’t dressed up?
Do we cater to those who we know can make a generous offering?
Do we want new members so that we can build each other up in the Gospel, do the work of Christ in the world? Or do we want only new members who can give the church lots of money?
We all need love. We all hunger to belong, to be accepted for who we are. And we all hope that here, of all places, in God’s house, in Christ’s body, we all hope that it is HERE where we can find God in each other, and the love of Christ in each other’s embrace.
Jesus said, "when you do it to the least of these, you do it to me."
We never know when Jesus will show up or what he’ll look like when he does. So let’s not turn anyone away from the loving, life-giving arms of Jesus. Let’s live up to the commercial, to the slogans. Let’s live what we believe.... because there are lives and hearts at stake….
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Sermon: "What Is There to Lose?"
WHAT IS THERE TO LOSE?
Romans 8:26-39
September 3, 2006
"All things work together for good for those who love God."
That verse reminds me of some of the sayings that we've come to know; little phrases or mantras of wisdom to get us through-- proverbs that others have passed onto us. Maybe you can think of some too:
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle."
"It must be God's will."
"There's a reason for everything."
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Or when someone dies, people may say: "They're in a much better place." "God must have needed them more than we do." "They were just too good for this world." And many of these statements are spoken by people who have good intentions, who want to help, who just need to say something. But all too often, these statements don't work, do they? And if they don't, then sometimes we might feel guilty about questioning their truth....
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle." Have you ever questioned that? I have! What about all those people in psychiatric wards and institutions? What about when someone takes their own life? What about the death of a spouse or a child? What about a fatal car accident?
"It must have been God's will." How is it God's will that a child suffer and die? How is it God's will for someone to get cancer? How it is God's will for anyone, much less a young person, to die in a car accident??
"There is a reason for everything." Is this true? Is there a reason for the senseless suffering and horrors that happen in the world? Do we believe in a God whose will it is to kill a child? A youth? Or to make good people suffer? Is THAT God's will? And if that's God's will, what kind of God are we talking about? Certainly not one who created all that is good and right and holy. Certainly not a God who is Good, who is Love, who is Compassion, who is Mercy. How can any form of evil be God's will?
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Well, I've seen plenty of people who aren't physically dead but who are walking around dead inside, traumatized by some event, some loss, some senseless tragedy. It doesn't seem to make them stronger.
The thing is, with all these statements, there are times that they ring true, but there are plenty of exceptions to all of them as well. I'm convinced that we hear the worst blasphemies when someone dies:
"God needed them more than we do." Isn't that pretty selfish of God to give us someone so precious and then snatch them away?
"They're in a much happier place." Well, that's true, but maybe right now I can't be happy for them because I want them HERE, and God knows that.
"They were too good for this world." What does that say about you and me that are still here?? Or the people that get to live long and healthy lives? Does that mean that we're not good enough for heaven?
When my friend died suddenly from cancer at the age of 39, I told God he was mistaken if he thought I could handle this. It was the first time I really doubted that God knew what he was doing, especially if God thought taking Sandie away from her family was ok for any of us. I went through a real faith crisis. People said God wouldn't give me anything that I couldn't handle! I prayed for her, she had young children who needed her. She was a good person, with a lot of good gifts to offer the world, a very loving person. There was no good reason for her to die. At the time, I couldn't handle it. I felt betrayed.
Have you been there? When you realize that all those proverbs that you memorized don't stand up to real life? When you face the exceptions to those words of wisdom?
"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." One might think that if they are bombarded with tragedy then maybe they don't love God enough. Maybe they're not good enough. Another difficult passage is the verse following that, verse 29: "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called."
When I was in college, and most of you know I went to a Christian college, my roommate was from the Christian Reforemd tradition, who believe in predestination. According to my roommate, they believed that God predestined people for heaven and some for hell, that no matter what we do in this life, if we are predestined for hell, we're doomed anyway, and so the best we can do is simply... well, hope for the best. We got into a lot of heated arguments, because as I said, how can God be good and loving and just and create people with the intention of sending them to hell?? Why would God assign heaven or hell to someone ahead of time? So that a murderer or rapist could go to heaven, while a saint goes to hell, just because God predestined it that way?
We never came to an agreement, but in my studies sine then, I've come to realize and be assured that that's not what Paul OR God intended at all. Paul never meant, I don't believe, for those words to be taken as a doctrine that God chose some and didn't choose others as if we're all a part of some cosmic game of chance. In actuality, the verse says that God foreknew us and predestined us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. When the Bible speaks of God knowing humans, it means that God has a relationship with humans, a purpose for us and a plan. Look at the Old Testament. God had a plan all along, and people kept messing it up, kept throwing it back into God's face-- because we and they have a choice to refuse our destiny. But it is the destiny of us all to be God's children, to live according to the example of Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to claim that and run with it or to throw it away and do our own thing.
From the beginning, God marks all of us as God's own at our baptisms. We are marked from birth as God's children. What we do with that is up to us. We are free to blow it, or to embrace it. And in time we have the opportunities to choose for ourselves whether we will claim our destiny or choose something else that will always be so much less. The whole context of Paul's letter to the Romans focuses on the struggle between doing God's will in this world and doing our own or somebody elses'. It's about the hell we often go through in order to finally claim our destiny.
"All things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." That doesn't mean that if we behave, we won't face trouble. A few years after pauls' letter to the Romans was written, Christians in Rome would be led into the coliseum, torn apart by wild animals for entertainment. They would huddle in the middle of the arena and pray and sing and maybe even weep as the animals move toward them while the people in the stands cheer and call for their blood. Looking into the jaws of death, those Christians would possess a peace that passed understanding, because they knew who they were, and to whom they belonged and no one can take that away. I bet they were scared! I bet they were scared to death, even in the midst of that peace of knowing God's presence; even in believing that they would soon be with Christ. We can stand firm on faith even while our legs are trembling, when our stomachs are churning and our world seems to have fallen apart. When there are no good answers to our questions.
Why do good people suffer and die? We don't know. But we do know that God understands the horror of that, for God showed up in the flesh of Jesus Christ-- the essence of goodness, holiness and perfection-- the essence of God. And Jesus' reward for staying true to the Gospel he lived and proclaimed seemed to be a vicious death at the hands of his enemies. But God raised him from the dead to say, "death never wins. Evil never wins."
Jesus walked through the fire ahead of us, to show us that life conquers death, and by his spirit, we, too, can triumph over death. If I've learned anything by growing up-- and I'm still working on it!-- it's that life is messy and unpredictable, life doesn't fit a set of easy rules, that if you do this, this will happen, and if you don't do this, that won't happen. It's not that simple, in fact, life is sometimes very hard and disappointing, but that doesn't make the promises any less true. Human proverbs don't stand up to the reality of this world, but God's promises ultimately do.
Verse 35 says, "as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." It's a quote from Psalm 44, verse 22. It's a psalm of God's people trying to do God's will in a world that seems awfully allergic to it! It's a psalm of unshakeable trust in God no matter what, it's about how trying to do God's will in this world will put us at odds with the rest of the world, but we will go on trusting God nonetheless.
My friend John in Florida once said to me, "The impossible just takes a little longer." And that's one of my new proverbs. The impossible just takes a little bit longer....
because.... "who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword? No... in all these things we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us. For I am convinced (and Paul ought to know!) that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor power nor height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord..."
What have we got to lose?
Romans 8:26-39
September 3, 2006
"All things work together for good for those who love God."
That verse reminds me of some of the sayings that we've come to know; little phrases or mantras of wisdom to get us through-- proverbs that others have passed onto us. Maybe you can think of some too:
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle."
"It must be God's will."
"There's a reason for everything."
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Or when someone dies, people may say: "They're in a much better place." "God must have needed them more than we do." "They were just too good for this world." And many of these statements are spoken by people who have good intentions, who want to help, who just need to say something. But all too often, these statements don't work, do they? And if they don't, then sometimes we might feel guilty about questioning their truth....
"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle." Have you ever questioned that? I have! What about all those people in psychiatric wards and institutions? What about when someone takes their own life? What about the death of a spouse or a child? What about a fatal car accident?
"It must have been God's will." How is it God's will that a child suffer and die? How is it God's will for someone to get cancer? How it is God's will for anyone, much less a young person, to die in a car accident??
"There is a reason for everything." Is this true? Is there a reason for the senseless suffering and horrors that happen in the world? Do we believe in a God whose will it is to kill a child? A youth? Or to make good people suffer? Is THAT God's will? And if that's God's will, what kind of God are we talking about? Certainly not one who created all that is good and right and holy. Certainly not a God who is Good, who is Love, who is Compassion, who is Mercy. How can any form of evil be God's will?
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Well, I've seen plenty of people who aren't physically dead but who are walking around dead inside, traumatized by some event, some loss, some senseless tragedy. It doesn't seem to make them stronger.
The thing is, with all these statements, there are times that they ring true, but there are plenty of exceptions to all of them as well. I'm convinced that we hear the worst blasphemies when someone dies:
"God needed them more than we do." Isn't that pretty selfish of God to give us someone so precious and then snatch them away?
"They're in a much happier place." Well, that's true, but maybe right now I can't be happy for them because I want them HERE, and God knows that.
"They were too good for this world." What does that say about you and me that are still here?? Or the people that get to live long and healthy lives? Does that mean that we're not good enough for heaven?
When my friend died suddenly from cancer at the age of 39, I told God he was mistaken if he thought I could handle this. It was the first time I really doubted that God knew what he was doing, especially if God thought taking Sandie away from her family was ok for any of us. I went through a real faith crisis. People said God wouldn't give me anything that I couldn't handle! I prayed for her, she had young children who needed her. She was a good person, with a lot of good gifts to offer the world, a very loving person. There was no good reason for her to die. At the time, I couldn't handle it. I felt betrayed.
Have you been there? When you realize that all those proverbs that you memorized don't stand up to real life? When you face the exceptions to those words of wisdom?
"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." One might think that if they are bombarded with tragedy then maybe they don't love God enough. Maybe they're not good enough. Another difficult passage is the verse following that, verse 29: "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called."
When I was in college, and most of you know I went to a Christian college, my roommate was from the Christian Reforemd tradition, who believe in predestination. According to my roommate, they believed that God predestined people for heaven and some for hell, that no matter what we do in this life, if we are predestined for hell, we're doomed anyway, and so the best we can do is simply... well, hope for the best. We got into a lot of heated arguments, because as I said, how can God be good and loving and just and create people with the intention of sending them to hell?? Why would God assign heaven or hell to someone ahead of time? So that a murderer or rapist could go to heaven, while a saint goes to hell, just because God predestined it that way?
We never came to an agreement, but in my studies sine then, I've come to realize and be assured that that's not what Paul OR God intended at all. Paul never meant, I don't believe, for those words to be taken as a doctrine that God chose some and didn't choose others as if we're all a part of some cosmic game of chance. In actuality, the verse says that God foreknew us and predestined us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. When the Bible speaks of God knowing humans, it means that God has a relationship with humans, a purpose for us and a plan. Look at the Old Testament. God had a plan all along, and people kept messing it up, kept throwing it back into God's face-- because we and they have a choice to refuse our destiny. But it is the destiny of us all to be God's children, to live according to the example of Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to claim that and run with it or to throw it away and do our own thing.
From the beginning, God marks all of us as God's own at our baptisms. We are marked from birth as God's children. What we do with that is up to us. We are free to blow it, or to embrace it. And in time we have the opportunities to choose for ourselves whether we will claim our destiny or choose something else that will always be so much less. The whole context of Paul's letter to the Romans focuses on the struggle between doing God's will in this world and doing our own or somebody elses'. It's about the hell we often go through in order to finally claim our destiny.
"All things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose." That doesn't mean that if we behave, we won't face trouble. A few years after pauls' letter to the Romans was written, Christians in Rome would be led into the coliseum, torn apart by wild animals for entertainment. They would huddle in the middle of the arena and pray and sing and maybe even weep as the animals move toward them while the people in the stands cheer and call for their blood. Looking into the jaws of death, those Christians would possess a peace that passed understanding, because they knew who they were, and to whom they belonged and no one can take that away. I bet they were scared! I bet they were scared to death, even in the midst of that peace of knowing God's presence; even in believing that they would soon be with Christ. We can stand firm on faith even while our legs are trembling, when our stomachs are churning and our world seems to have fallen apart. When there are no good answers to our questions.
Why do good people suffer and die? We don't know. But we do know that God understands the horror of that, for God showed up in the flesh of Jesus Christ-- the essence of goodness, holiness and perfection-- the essence of God. And Jesus' reward for staying true to the Gospel he lived and proclaimed seemed to be a vicious death at the hands of his enemies. But God raised him from the dead to say, "death never wins. Evil never wins."
Jesus walked through the fire ahead of us, to show us that life conquers death, and by his spirit, we, too, can triumph over death. If I've learned anything by growing up-- and I'm still working on it!-- it's that life is messy and unpredictable, life doesn't fit a set of easy rules, that if you do this, this will happen, and if you don't do this, that won't happen. It's not that simple, in fact, life is sometimes very hard and disappointing, but that doesn't make the promises any less true. Human proverbs don't stand up to the reality of this world, but God's promises ultimately do.
Verse 35 says, "as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." It's a quote from Psalm 44, verse 22. It's a psalm of God's people trying to do God's will in a world that seems awfully allergic to it! It's a psalm of unshakeable trust in God no matter what, it's about how trying to do God's will in this world will put us at odds with the rest of the world, but we will go on trusting God nonetheless.
My friend John in Florida once said to me, "The impossible just takes a little longer." And that's one of my new proverbs. The impossible just takes a little bit longer....
because.... "who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword? No... in all these things we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us. For I am convinced (and Paul ought to know!) that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor power nor height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord..."
What have we got to lose?
Small Is Tremendous
A WORD FROM PEGGY
A few weeks ago we went to the Concert at Harmon Park in Kearney, to listen to Zoe Lewis and The Rubber Band. The name itself was worth going for! However, they proved to be a delight, with their music and their stories. It was FUN. One of the songs that has stuck with me is “Small is Tremendous.” Part of this is due to the fact that as Zoe sang out, “It’s the little things!” the audience responded loudly with “that make the biggest sense!” But it’s true, isn’t it? Think about it. It is the little things. As we listened to the music, I noticed two little girls dancing their hearts out in the grass near the stage. They were lost in joy, waving their arms, giggling, their curls bouncing, their feet shoeless, and they just let the music scoop them up and take them somewhere beautiful.
Music is one of those “little things” that keeps me going. It soothes me when I’m anxious, it inspires me when I’m dull, it gives me joy. It connects me to people. It’s easy to forget what’s most important in this life, when there’s so many “big” things coming at us: bills, terrorism, war, taxes, stress at work, stress at home, etc., etc. It’s easy to get consumed by all that and lose our vision. But it’s the little things that make the biggest sense. A new baby, wide-eyed and drooling on their mother’s shoulder in a restaurant. A little kid who catches your eye at a reception and starts playing hide and seek with you behind their father’s leg. The joy of people being together, laughing, teasing, telling stories, loving each other by simply being there with one another. Hearing about one of your own doing mission work in New Orleans, and helping to support him. Having your child get through their first day of junior high and still smiling! Seeing someone come out of their shell a bit and try something new. Realizing you have a friend who would do anything for you, and you for them. Having your 12 year old say, “let’s do something together as a family.”
Larry and I went tent-camping for a few days for our 15th anniversary. Wow. Three whole days, just the two of us! It was delicious. I love camping. Everything takes time, you can’t rush it. You have to work together to get the tent up, or to get food prepared. You need to gather wood and sticks to make a fire, and it’s a wonderful feeling when it finally burns!! You have to slow down to camp. We met a couple from California who were moving to North Carolina in a well-used camper. We met a retired state trooper who told us a story of realizing he was laying on a bull snake when he was doing a stake-out. We met bikers coming back from Sturgis with their brand new T-shirts.
Mustard seeds. Jesus likes the little things too. Because he knows it’s the little things that make the bigger things possible. A kind word. A gentle touch. A friend for life. Having someone love you for who you are. A cup of coffee with your favorite people. A broken friendship mended, the past forgiven. Sitting around a campfire with people you love. Seeing your family in Christ every Sunday and at potlucks and Bible Studies and birthday parties and anniversary celebrations and at the Concert in the Park. There’s a lot of things in this crazy world that don’t make sense. But it is indeed the little things that make the biggest sense!
Peggy
A few weeks ago we went to the Concert at Harmon Park in Kearney, to listen to Zoe Lewis and The Rubber Band. The name itself was worth going for! However, they proved to be a delight, with their music and their stories. It was FUN. One of the songs that has stuck with me is “Small is Tremendous.” Part of this is due to the fact that as Zoe sang out, “It’s the little things!” the audience responded loudly with “that make the biggest sense!” But it’s true, isn’t it? Think about it. It is the little things. As we listened to the music, I noticed two little girls dancing their hearts out in the grass near the stage. They were lost in joy, waving their arms, giggling, their curls bouncing, their feet shoeless, and they just let the music scoop them up and take them somewhere beautiful.
Music is one of those “little things” that keeps me going. It soothes me when I’m anxious, it inspires me when I’m dull, it gives me joy. It connects me to people. It’s easy to forget what’s most important in this life, when there’s so many “big” things coming at us: bills, terrorism, war, taxes, stress at work, stress at home, etc., etc. It’s easy to get consumed by all that and lose our vision. But it’s the little things that make the biggest sense. A new baby, wide-eyed and drooling on their mother’s shoulder in a restaurant. A little kid who catches your eye at a reception and starts playing hide and seek with you behind their father’s leg. The joy of people being together, laughing, teasing, telling stories, loving each other by simply being there with one another. Hearing about one of your own doing mission work in New Orleans, and helping to support him. Having your child get through their first day of junior high and still smiling! Seeing someone come out of their shell a bit and try something new. Realizing you have a friend who would do anything for you, and you for them. Having your 12 year old say, “let’s do something together as a family.”
Larry and I went tent-camping for a few days for our 15th anniversary. Wow. Three whole days, just the two of us! It was delicious. I love camping. Everything takes time, you can’t rush it. You have to work together to get the tent up, or to get food prepared. You need to gather wood and sticks to make a fire, and it’s a wonderful feeling when it finally burns!! You have to slow down to camp. We met a couple from California who were moving to North Carolina in a well-used camper. We met a retired state trooper who told us a story of realizing he was laying on a bull snake when he was doing a stake-out. We met bikers coming back from Sturgis with their brand new T-shirts.
Mustard seeds. Jesus likes the little things too. Because he knows it’s the little things that make the bigger things possible. A kind word. A gentle touch. A friend for life. Having someone love you for who you are. A cup of coffee with your favorite people. A broken friendship mended, the past forgiven. Sitting around a campfire with people you love. Seeing your family in Christ every Sunday and at potlucks and Bible Studies and birthday parties and anniversary celebrations and at the Concert in the Park. There’s a lot of things in this crazy world that don’t make sense. But it is indeed the little things that make the biggest sense!
Peggy
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Sermon: "When We Give Up" 8/27/06
“WHEN WE GIVE UP”
John 5:1-9
Faith United
August 27, 2006
My father had a lot of stories from his ministry over the years
but one story in particular was famous in our family
Dad was notorious for being complimentary
to the point of being ridiculous
My oldest brother, as a child, tells how he went along on a visit with my Dad
to the home of a woman who was bed-ridden
She looked terrible, she didn’t eat properly, she was in bad shape
and my father would always say to her,
“Millie, you’re looking great!”
Well, Millie never looked great….
But Dad told us Millie’s tragic story
When Millie was a young woman,
she went out for a ride with her husband
on a Sunday afternoon
Something ran out into the road, perhaps an animal of some sort
and her husband slammed on the brakes
causing Millie to be thrown forward and bump her head
It didn’t even cause a mark on her forehead,
there was no blood,
and after she recovered from the sudden surprise,
she rubbed her head and insisted her husband take her home
When she got home, Millie went to bed… and never got up
Doctors came to the house and examined her
insisting that absolutely nothing was wrong with her physically
She’d get mad and insist on getting yet another doctor
Millie spent her and her husband’s entire savings on doctors
till at the end of her life, they had nothing
Still, doctor after doctor, nurse after nurse, insisted
there was nothing physically wrong with Millie
and yet she refused to get out of bed… for 50 years
until she died of natural causes…
Nobody ever figured out exactly why Millie chose
to spend the rest of her life in bed,
but still my father would visit her faithfully and say
“Millie, you’re looking good these days!”
to which Millie would just shake her head, roll over
and groan….
We don’t know much about the man by the pool
We don’t know his name
but he was one among many that day, there by the pool
It was a holy place
Perhaps a bit like the spring at Lourdes in France
to which thousands make a pilgrimage each year
This was the Pool of Bethzatha, some translations call it Bethsaida
still others call it Bethesda
and I read somewhere that when Franklin D. Roosevelt
was driven through Bethesda, Maryland
upon hearing the name and knowing the story
of the healing pool in Jerusalem
He chose that site to build a hospital
Well, legend had it in Jesus’ time, that at certain seasons of the year,
an angel would descend and stir the waters of the pool
If someone immersed themselves in the pool
as the waters were disturbed,
it was believed they would be healed….
Sounds pretty superstitious to us, now
but they took it very seriously
and beliefs like that were very common back then
and still are in some places…
The ancient peoples also believed in the holiness of water
especially the holiness of rivers and springs
water was very precious
Because it wasn’t as easily accessible as it is for us
now, in the United States…
You can imagine how the congregation looked every day
at the healing pool…
The crippled, the arthritic, the paralyzed, the diseased,
the epileptic, the asthmatic, the weak, the broken
the hopeless, all gathered among the five porticoes
around the pool
day after day after day
To the sensitive soul, it was a miserable place
a massive display of human suffering and pain
Every day, the man came, just like the others,
how, we’re not sure,
but somebody must have carried him on his mat
and left him there to fend for himself
perhaps scoffing at his futile attempts
After 38 years, or even much less than that
you’d think he’d give up
why bother?
On the other hand, what else did he have to do?
If he had no friends, he was paralyzed
he had focused on getting well and that alone
for 38 years,
then what else was there in his life?
Some scholars suggest that the 38 years parallel
the amount of years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert
after having escaped Egypt
Some say the journey took 38 years
because the Moses was a man and wouldn’t ask for directions!
But this man with no name also lived in the wilderness
his life for 38 years
had been so empty, with no direction
day after day, hour after hour
waiting for healing that just didn’t come
I wonder, did Jesus recognize him?
If he’d been there for 38 years,
then perhaps Jesus had seen him before
on his visits to Jerusalem, even as a boy
It says Jesus knew that he’d been there a long time
maybe he did recognize him
But I wonder, why didn’t anyone have pity on him?
Did someone drop him off every day?
And if so, why didn’t they stay and dip him in the waters of healing and grace?
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked
And it sounds like a dumb question, even a bit cruel
Would he be here if he didn’t want healing?
Would he keep coming somehow if he didn’t really
want to be healed?
“Sir,” he said, “I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up,
and while I am making my way, someone else
steps down ahead of me.”
It’s painful---‘Sir,’ he says, ‘I have no friends to help me…’
His mat was there, the mat that he used as a bed
the mat that carried him for the last 38 years
but who carried the mat to this place?
And why didn’t anyone else, who brought sick loved ones to the pool,
why didn’t THEY help him get in the water?
Isn’t it true that sometimes we get so used to the way things are
that we no longer see what’s wrong with the picture?
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
The man never answered the question
He simply gave his excuse as to why he wasn’t well
why he still sat by the pool, still paralyzed by some unseen curse
He didn’t say “yes”
He just told Jesus what he had probably told countless others
It wasn’t his fault, it was always somebody else’s fault
that he couldn’t have a life, that he couldn’t be healed
After 38 years, I imagine he was very bitter about his lot in life
and so the question that Jesus asks is an honest one
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
Have you ever been stuck?
Stuck in a bad situation?
With an illness that takes all your strength—
whether physical or emotional,
a bad marriage, a bad friendship, a bad job….
and you see no way out?
It’s easy to just give up
say, well, it is the way it is, I have no choice…
maybe they were told they’d only live a certain amount of time
or maybe they was a family trait that was inevitable
or maybe they were told over and over that they were losers anyway
that they’d never amount to anything
She would always attract men that beat her
he would never be able to give up drinking
he would never get off welfare
never get an education,
never get a decent job
Why bother?
“Do you want to be made well?”
And there’s that voice in our heads sometimes
that says, “I’ll always be this way, I can’t change.”
“Do you want to be made well?”
Jesus asks the poor, paralyzed man laying on his side,
his eyes watery and bloodshot
staring into the pool that was so close,
and yet too far….
Did you notice, though, the man never asked for healing?
He didn’t even ask Jesus to put him in the water
to stay with him until the water was stirred…
Maybe Jesus knew something…
He knew that being healed would not be instantly wonderful
being healed would change everything
The man would have to see himself in a whole new light…
Not as a poor, helpless, invisible, neglected paralyzed man
but someone with the freedom to walk, to stand up and MOVE…
to DO something… to LIVE
Is that what really kept him out of the troubled waters of the pool?
Is that what kept him from asking for help?
What would it mean to his life for him to be healed?
…to stand up and WALK??
To look people in the eye, face to face
instead of always looking up at them from the ground?
It’s a good question for all of us…
“do you want to be made well?”
Is it worth it to you to be healed?
Especially when it will change everything?
The door will be open, the path made clear
No more excuses about why you’re unhappy or broken
or stuck…
If we’re given the freedom to walk, to stand up and move
then suddenly we have to take responsibility for what we do
and what we don’t do
It’s no longer someone else’s fault
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus says
And the man doesn’t answer… it’s a big question
all he can see are all the reasons why healing isn’t possible for him
But Jesus says, “Stand up, take up your mat, and WALK!”
Jesus looks down at this shriveled man
laying on the hard ground
and tells him to do the impossible
Stand up…. take up your mat, and Walk!
Pick up the mat that has carried you all these years
and YOU carry IT
and get moving…
The man must have looked at him like he was crazy!
Perhaps Jesus was the first one to really look at him
to see him out of the many
to have the audacity and the compassion
to bluntly ask him,
“do you WANT to be made well?”
Immediately, it says, the man was set free
He stood up, something he hadn’t done in 38 years!
He took up the mat that he laid on, and that man… walked
Heads turned.. “isn’t that…?” “No, it can’t be..” “The man, lying by the pool….”
“But… how?”
Well, you’d think there would be an uproar, a cheer
A celebration
The man who was a permanent fixture by the pool
was now walking!
The one who people turned away from
because he was too painful to look at, too pitiful…
How did it happen? Certainly they clapped him on the back,
gave him a hug, lifted him above their shoulders
gave thanks to God for making the impossible possible!!
Well, no…
Actually, he hadn’t walked very far, didn’t even get any blisters
before some church people approached him and
said to this man-- who hadn’t walked for 38 years
who hadn’t carried anything on any day of the week
for 38 years---
The people of the church pointed their self-righteous fingers
and said,
“don’t you know that today is the Sabbath??
It is not lawful for you to carry your mat on the Sabbath!!”
and they waved their Bibles at him…
Being healed, being set free can get us into trouble
Other people don’t like it when somebody else gets a good thing
Well, the poor guy, in his usual form, said, “I didn’t do it!
That man TOLD me to! He told me to stand up
and take my mat and walk!”
Jesus had slipped into the crowd
not wanting to call attention to himself
and now the indignant and legalistic religious people
began to search for Jesus
And thus began the witch hunt for this prophet
who claimed equality with God…
who had the audacity to set people free on the Lord’s day
When someone is set free,
when someone gets new life,
chances are there’s somebody else who isn’t happy
Someone who can’t celebrate someone else’s liberation…
And what did the man do with his new life?
Did he appreciate it?
Did he ever say “thanks”?
Did he have more compassion for the disabled
and the suffering invisible ones in the community?
Did he look at them and remember what it was like
and reach out to help them GET UP?
After 38 years he must have felt pretty useless
and maybe he was…
No where does it say that he was grateful
no where does it even say he wanted to walk…
no where is there evidence that he was a man of faith
or cared to have anything to do with Jesus
after he made him walk…
so, did he DESERVE it?
Did he DESERVE to be healed?
Did he DESERVE new life?
Do any of us DESERVE it?
It’s not about us…
it’s not about who we are, or how faithful we are
it’s all about who Jesus is
And Jesus wants abundant life for everyone
even the person we don’t see anymore
who’s been sitting on his butt for 38 years
Is there something blocking your way?
Is there something keeping you from walking
or even dancing in the footsteps of Jesus?
Keeping you from having the life that Jesus wants you to have?
“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks
We may give up
on our world, on our children, on our institutions
we may give up on our own lives
But Jesus never gives up
“Do you want to be made well?” he asks
And before we can even answer
we may just find ourselves doing a dance step
we didn’t think we knew….
John 5:1-9
Faith United
August 27, 2006
My father had a lot of stories from his ministry over the years
but one story in particular was famous in our family
Dad was notorious for being complimentary
to the point of being ridiculous
My oldest brother, as a child, tells how he went along on a visit with my Dad
to the home of a woman who was bed-ridden
She looked terrible, she didn’t eat properly, she was in bad shape
and my father would always say to her,
“Millie, you’re looking great!”
Well, Millie never looked great….
But Dad told us Millie’s tragic story
When Millie was a young woman,
she went out for a ride with her husband
on a Sunday afternoon
Something ran out into the road, perhaps an animal of some sort
and her husband slammed on the brakes
causing Millie to be thrown forward and bump her head
It didn’t even cause a mark on her forehead,
there was no blood,
and after she recovered from the sudden surprise,
she rubbed her head and insisted her husband take her home
When she got home, Millie went to bed… and never got up
Doctors came to the house and examined her
insisting that absolutely nothing was wrong with her physically
She’d get mad and insist on getting yet another doctor
Millie spent her and her husband’s entire savings on doctors
till at the end of her life, they had nothing
Still, doctor after doctor, nurse after nurse, insisted
there was nothing physically wrong with Millie
and yet she refused to get out of bed… for 50 years
until she died of natural causes…
Nobody ever figured out exactly why Millie chose
to spend the rest of her life in bed,
but still my father would visit her faithfully and say
“Millie, you’re looking good these days!”
to which Millie would just shake her head, roll over
and groan….
We don’t know much about the man by the pool
We don’t know his name
but he was one among many that day, there by the pool
It was a holy place
Perhaps a bit like the spring at Lourdes in France
to which thousands make a pilgrimage each year
This was the Pool of Bethzatha, some translations call it Bethsaida
still others call it Bethesda
and I read somewhere that when Franklin D. Roosevelt
was driven through Bethesda, Maryland
upon hearing the name and knowing the story
of the healing pool in Jerusalem
He chose that site to build a hospital
Well, legend had it in Jesus’ time, that at certain seasons of the year,
an angel would descend and stir the waters of the pool
If someone immersed themselves in the pool
as the waters were disturbed,
it was believed they would be healed….
Sounds pretty superstitious to us, now
but they took it very seriously
and beliefs like that were very common back then
and still are in some places…
The ancient peoples also believed in the holiness of water
especially the holiness of rivers and springs
water was very precious
Because it wasn’t as easily accessible as it is for us
now, in the United States…
You can imagine how the congregation looked every day
at the healing pool…
The crippled, the arthritic, the paralyzed, the diseased,
the epileptic, the asthmatic, the weak, the broken
the hopeless, all gathered among the five porticoes
around the pool
day after day after day
To the sensitive soul, it was a miserable place
a massive display of human suffering and pain
Every day, the man came, just like the others,
how, we’re not sure,
but somebody must have carried him on his mat
and left him there to fend for himself
perhaps scoffing at his futile attempts
After 38 years, or even much less than that
you’d think he’d give up
why bother?
On the other hand, what else did he have to do?
If he had no friends, he was paralyzed
he had focused on getting well and that alone
for 38 years,
then what else was there in his life?
Some scholars suggest that the 38 years parallel
the amount of years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert
after having escaped Egypt
Some say the journey took 38 years
because the Moses was a man and wouldn’t ask for directions!
But this man with no name also lived in the wilderness
his life for 38 years
had been so empty, with no direction
day after day, hour after hour
waiting for healing that just didn’t come
I wonder, did Jesus recognize him?
If he’d been there for 38 years,
then perhaps Jesus had seen him before
on his visits to Jerusalem, even as a boy
It says Jesus knew that he’d been there a long time
maybe he did recognize him
But I wonder, why didn’t anyone have pity on him?
Did someone drop him off every day?
And if so, why didn’t they stay and dip him in the waters of healing and grace?
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked
And it sounds like a dumb question, even a bit cruel
Would he be here if he didn’t want healing?
Would he keep coming somehow if he didn’t really
want to be healed?
“Sir,” he said, “I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up,
and while I am making my way, someone else
steps down ahead of me.”
It’s painful---‘Sir,’ he says, ‘I have no friends to help me…’
His mat was there, the mat that he used as a bed
the mat that carried him for the last 38 years
but who carried the mat to this place?
And why didn’t anyone else, who brought sick loved ones to the pool,
why didn’t THEY help him get in the water?
Isn’t it true that sometimes we get so used to the way things are
that we no longer see what’s wrong with the picture?
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
The man never answered the question
He simply gave his excuse as to why he wasn’t well
why he still sat by the pool, still paralyzed by some unseen curse
He didn’t say “yes”
He just told Jesus what he had probably told countless others
It wasn’t his fault, it was always somebody else’s fault
that he couldn’t have a life, that he couldn’t be healed
After 38 years, I imagine he was very bitter about his lot in life
and so the question that Jesus asks is an honest one
“Do you WANT to be made well?”
Have you ever been stuck?
Stuck in a bad situation?
With an illness that takes all your strength—
whether physical or emotional,
a bad marriage, a bad friendship, a bad job….
and you see no way out?
It’s easy to just give up
say, well, it is the way it is, I have no choice…
maybe they were told they’d only live a certain amount of time
or maybe they was a family trait that was inevitable
or maybe they were told over and over that they were losers anyway
that they’d never amount to anything
She would always attract men that beat her
he would never be able to give up drinking
he would never get off welfare
never get an education,
never get a decent job
Why bother?
“Do you want to be made well?”
And there’s that voice in our heads sometimes
that says, “I’ll always be this way, I can’t change.”
“Do you want to be made well?”
Jesus asks the poor, paralyzed man laying on his side,
his eyes watery and bloodshot
staring into the pool that was so close,
and yet too far….
Did you notice, though, the man never asked for healing?
He didn’t even ask Jesus to put him in the water
to stay with him until the water was stirred…
Maybe Jesus knew something…
He knew that being healed would not be instantly wonderful
being healed would change everything
The man would have to see himself in a whole new light…
Not as a poor, helpless, invisible, neglected paralyzed man
but someone with the freedom to walk, to stand up and MOVE…
to DO something… to LIVE
Is that what really kept him out of the troubled waters of the pool?
Is that what kept him from asking for help?
What would it mean to his life for him to be healed?
…to stand up and WALK??
To look people in the eye, face to face
instead of always looking up at them from the ground?
It’s a good question for all of us…
“do you want to be made well?”
Is it worth it to you to be healed?
Especially when it will change everything?
The door will be open, the path made clear
No more excuses about why you’re unhappy or broken
or stuck…
If we’re given the freedom to walk, to stand up and move
then suddenly we have to take responsibility for what we do
and what we don’t do
It’s no longer someone else’s fault
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus says
And the man doesn’t answer… it’s a big question
all he can see are all the reasons why healing isn’t possible for him
But Jesus says, “Stand up, take up your mat, and WALK!”
Jesus looks down at this shriveled man
laying on the hard ground
and tells him to do the impossible
Stand up…. take up your mat, and Walk!
Pick up the mat that has carried you all these years
and YOU carry IT
and get moving…
The man must have looked at him like he was crazy!
Perhaps Jesus was the first one to really look at him
to see him out of the many
to have the audacity and the compassion
to bluntly ask him,
“do you WANT to be made well?”
Immediately, it says, the man was set free
He stood up, something he hadn’t done in 38 years!
He took up the mat that he laid on, and that man… walked
Heads turned.. “isn’t that…?” “No, it can’t be..” “The man, lying by the pool….”
“But… how?”
Well, you’d think there would be an uproar, a cheer
A celebration
The man who was a permanent fixture by the pool
was now walking!
The one who people turned away from
because he was too painful to look at, too pitiful…
How did it happen? Certainly they clapped him on the back,
gave him a hug, lifted him above their shoulders
gave thanks to God for making the impossible possible!!
Well, no…
Actually, he hadn’t walked very far, didn’t even get any blisters
before some church people approached him and
said to this man-- who hadn’t walked for 38 years
who hadn’t carried anything on any day of the week
for 38 years---
The people of the church pointed their self-righteous fingers
and said,
“don’t you know that today is the Sabbath??
It is not lawful for you to carry your mat on the Sabbath!!”
and they waved their Bibles at him…
Being healed, being set free can get us into trouble
Other people don’t like it when somebody else gets a good thing
Well, the poor guy, in his usual form, said, “I didn’t do it!
That man TOLD me to! He told me to stand up
and take my mat and walk!”
Jesus had slipped into the crowd
not wanting to call attention to himself
and now the indignant and legalistic religious people
began to search for Jesus
And thus began the witch hunt for this prophet
who claimed equality with God…
who had the audacity to set people free on the Lord’s day
When someone is set free,
when someone gets new life,
chances are there’s somebody else who isn’t happy
Someone who can’t celebrate someone else’s liberation…
And what did the man do with his new life?
Did he appreciate it?
Did he ever say “thanks”?
Did he have more compassion for the disabled
and the suffering invisible ones in the community?
Did he look at them and remember what it was like
and reach out to help them GET UP?
After 38 years he must have felt pretty useless
and maybe he was…
No where does it say that he was grateful
no where does it even say he wanted to walk…
no where is there evidence that he was a man of faith
or cared to have anything to do with Jesus
after he made him walk…
so, did he DESERVE it?
Did he DESERVE to be healed?
Did he DESERVE new life?
Do any of us DESERVE it?
It’s not about us…
it’s not about who we are, or how faithful we are
it’s all about who Jesus is
And Jesus wants abundant life for everyone
even the person we don’t see anymore
who’s been sitting on his butt for 38 years
Is there something blocking your way?
Is there something keeping you from walking
or even dancing in the footsteps of Jesus?
Keeping you from having the life that Jesus wants you to have?
“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks
We may give up
on our world, on our children, on our institutions
we may give up on our own lives
But Jesus never gives up
“Do you want to be made well?” he asks
And before we can even answer
we may just find ourselves doing a dance step
we didn’t think we knew….
Friday, August 25, 2006
How Does Your Garden Grow?
July 17, 2006
I don't know anything about mustard seeds except the ones I have in my cupboard, which I don't think I've used since I made pickles about 10 years ago. (Do mustard seeds expire?) I've never had a reputation as a great cultivator of plants and living things. (Although Sarah is still going strong...I'm happy about that) I had a terrible reputation when I first moved into my own apartment, of killing houseplants. I just couldn't keep them alive. My college roommate, Marlene, got married and I was a bridesmaid. She gave the wedding party a houseplant each and said it represented her marriage. She wanted us to nourish the plants and be a part of nourishing her marriage through prayer. I told her if her marriage was the houseplant in my care, her marriage was doomed. The marriage is still going strong, the plant died a long time ago. Not long after the wedding, as I recall.
As a symbol of putting down roots, Larry and I decided to put in a garden for the first time in 14 years. Neither of us know a whole lot about gardening, despite the fact that I grew up in the Garden State (I'm still clueless as to how NJ got that nickname...). My church member, George-- who has defied death many times through prayers and just plain stubbornness-- tilled the area for us with his fancy little tilling machine. However, good ol' George assured us that nothing was likely to grow there on the "south side" of the house. (Nebraskans have a thing for identifying directions at all times. What IS that?) Well, we planted tomato plants, green beans, onions, cucumbers, lima beans, and yellow squash. Larry said that not all of it will come up, so we better plant extra yellow squash. I said just one packet of seeds. He said two. We planted two. After all, according to George, nothing was likely to grow on the "south side" of the house.
Jesus was really impressed with mustard seeds; how tiny they are and how they flourish into a pretty impressive plant. I, however, am impressed with yellow squash seeds. The garden... has flourished. George says our tomato plants look better than his, and he said it with a little indignation. But the squash?? Yikes. Every bit of it came up. I think birds could even make their nests in those squash plants and find shelter for their young. We have eaten squash every day for at least three weeks now. We've cut it up and frozen pounds of it, given away piles of it, and still it keeps growing. It's very important, we learned, to pick squash on time, lest you get fairly good sized yellow baseball bats, which are a little more difficult to cook. Sometimes I just stand at my kitchen window and look out at the garden... and giggle. I helped DO that! It is a small garden of prosperity. Abundant food. More than one little family can eat. By the time we get through the stuff in the freezer, I imagine we would have eaten yellow squash every possible way there is to fix it! People ask us what we did! I say, "we put the seeds in the ground!"
Meanwhile, the cornfields are full of corn that goes over my head. Everywhere we drive, there are acres and acres of corn, waving in the breeze. In Kearney, various farmers are selling sweet corn out of the back of pick-up trucks, along with watermelons, cucumbers, and I suspect: squash. Everywhere you look in rural Nebraska, the earth is producing of itself. Farmers are working hard out there in the 100 degree heat, as they have been for a long time, making things grow and beginning to gather the earlier harvests. We're eating fresh green beans, tomatoes and cucumbers and SQUASH that we had a hand in growing. Larry's ready to pull the squash plants, but I won't let him just yet. The plants are so tall and green and wave in the breeze-- when there is one. They make me look good; like I knew what I was doing. But all I did was put the seeds in the ground and put some water on it. The earth did the rest. I love Nebraska for a lot of reasons, but I love living where people are so close to the earth. Where the earth is a part of their everyday lives, and for so many, the way they make a living by the sweat of their brow. It's not an easy life, and it's certainly not a way to get rich, but the farmers I know do it not just because their parents did it, but because it's in their blood. It's who they ARE. They can't NOT do it. And people who live close to the earth tend to be a lot more real. They tend to have a respectable awe for life and death and the power of the weather. Here you see a storm building long before it ever gets to where you are. Or you can see where someone ELSE is having a storm that never comes your way. Lightening provides a pretty remarkable light show, right in our own front yard (which faces EAST, by the way). We ate the first tomato out of our garden tonight. Larry, Sarah Gene and I cut it in three pieces and celebrated the unique lusciousness of that first harvested tomato from our own garden. All three of us have worked in that garden; planting, weeding, watering, picking. No tomato could be more delicous.
I can't relate to what Jesus said about mustard seeds, because I've never planted one, and I'm not sure the ones in my spice rack would do anything. But I'm impressed with yellow squash seeds. A little tiny seed, with all that life potential in it, just waiting to be planted, watered, and given a home in the rich brown earth, to just let go and do what God intended it to do. Another thing I didn't know was that before a yellow squash becomes a squash, it is a big, bright yellow flower. The FLOWER turns into a vegetable that can be fried, steamed, put into casseroles, and made into patties. How cool is that?
I know that my it's not my gardening skills that is producing this bumper crop of vegetables. But it is awesome to participate in creation so directly! It is wonderful to plant a seed and see what God will do! So I try to apply that to everything else in my life. I'm just here to plant seeds, and watch God do God's thing. I can't do a whole lot on my own, I just use what God gives me and wait to see what happens! Pretty amazing when you stop and pay attention. And the harvest is delicious!!
I don't know anything about mustard seeds except the ones I have in my cupboard, which I don't think I've used since I made pickles about 10 years ago. (Do mustard seeds expire?) I've never had a reputation as a great cultivator of plants and living things. (Although Sarah is still going strong...I'm happy about that) I had a terrible reputation when I first moved into my own apartment, of killing houseplants. I just couldn't keep them alive. My college roommate, Marlene, got married and I was a bridesmaid. She gave the wedding party a houseplant each and said it represented her marriage. She wanted us to nourish the plants and be a part of nourishing her marriage through prayer. I told her if her marriage was the houseplant in my care, her marriage was doomed. The marriage is still going strong, the plant died a long time ago. Not long after the wedding, as I recall.
As a symbol of putting down roots, Larry and I decided to put in a garden for the first time in 14 years. Neither of us know a whole lot about gardening, despite the fact that I grew up in the Garden State (I'm still clueless as to how NJ got that nickname...). My church member, George-- who has defied death many times through prayers and just plain stubbornness-- tilled the area for us with his fancy little tilling machine. However, good ol' George assured us that nothing was likely to grow there on the "south side" of the house. (Nebraskans have a thing for identifying directions at all times. What IS that?) Well, we planted tomato plants, green beans, onions, cucumbers, lima beans, and yellow squash. Larry said that not all of it will come up, so we better plant extra yellow squash. I said just one packet of seeds. He said two. We planted two. After all, according to George, nothing was likely to grow on the "south side" of the house.
Jesus was really impressed with mustard seeds; how tiny they are and how they flourish into a pretty impressive plant. I, however, am impressed with yellow squash seeds. The garden... has flourished. George says our tomato plants look better than his, and he said it with a little indignation. But the squash?? Yikes. Every bit of it came up. I think birds could even make their nests in those squash plants and find shelter for their young. We have eaten squash every day for at least three weeks now. We've cut it up and frozen pounds of it, given away piles of it, and still it keeps growing. It's very important, we learned, to pick squash on time, lest you get fairly good sized yellow baseball bats, which are a little more difficult to cook. Sometimes I just stand at my kitchen window and look out at the garden... and giggle. I helped DO that! It is a small garden of prosperity. Abundant food. More than one little family can eat. By the time we get through the stuff in the freezer, I imagine we would have eaten yellow squash every possible way there is to fix it! People ask us what we did! I say, "we put the seeds in the ground!"
Meanwhile, the cornfields are full of corn that goes over my head. Everywhere we drive, there are acres and acres of corn, waving in the breeze. In Kearney, various farmers are selling sweet corn out of the back of pick-up trucks, along with watermelons, cucumbers, and I suspect: squash. Everywhere you look in rural Nebraska, the earth is producing of itself. Farmers are working hard out there in the 100 degree heat, as they have been for a long time, making things grow and beginning to gather the earlier harvests. We're eating fresh green beans, tomatoes and cucumbers and SQUASH that we had a hand in growing. Larry's ready to pull the squash plants, but I won't let him just yet. The plants are so tall and green and wave in the breeze-- when there is one. They make me look good; like I knew what I was doing. But all I did was put the seeds in the ground and put some water on it. The earth did the rest. I love Nebraska for a lot of reasons, but I love living where people are so close to the earth. Where the earth is a part of their everyday lives, and for so many, the way they make a living by the sweat of their brow. It's not an easy life, and it's certainly not a way to get rich, but the farmers I know do it not just because their parents did it, but because it's in their blood. It's who they ARE. They can't NOT do it. And people who live close to the earth tend to be a lot more real. They tend to have a respectable awe for life and death and the power of the weather. Here you see a storm building long before it ever gets to where you are. Or you can see where someone ELSE is having a storm that never comes your way. Lightening provides a pretty remarkable light show, right in our own front yard (which faces EAST, by the way). We ate the first tomato out of our garden tonight. Larry, Sarah Gene and I cut it in three pieces and celebrated the unique lusciousness of that first harvested tomato from our own garden. All three of us have worked in that garden; planting, weeding, watering, picking. No tomato could be more delicous.
I can't relate to what Jesus said about mustard seeds, because I've never planted one, and I'm not sure the ones in my spice rack would do anything. But I'm impressed with yellow squash seeds. A little tiny seed, with all that life potential in it, just waiting to be planted, watered, and given a home in the rich brown earth, to just let go and do what God intended it to do. Another thing I didn't know was that before a yellow squash becomes a squash, it is a big, bright yellow flower. The FLOWER turns into a vegetable that can be fried, steamed, put into casseroles, and made into patties. How cool is that?
I know that my it's not my gardening skills that is producing this bumper crop of vegetables. But it is awesome to participate in creation so directly! It is wonderful to plant a seed and see what God will do! So I try to apply that to everything else in my life. I'm just here to plant seeds, and watch God do God's thing. I can't do a whole lot on my own, I just use what God gives me and wait to see what happens! Pretty amazing when you stop and pay attention. And the harvest is delicious!!
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