Words for the week: Feb 1 - Feb 8

From Pastor Sarah

Last week, my sermon focused on 1 Corinthians and the debate over eating sacrificed meat.  Paul pointed out that this raging debate wasn't really about their diets, it was about their witness.  Our actions should always be influenced by the question: Does this action show God's love? 

It's tempting to turn our faith into a morality lesson.  Certainly our faith in Jesus affects our sense of right and wrong but Jesus did not die just so we could get a new set of rules that we would then - because we're human - fail to follow.  No, Jesus showed us something beyond ethics, beyond morals.  Jesus showed us love and love isn't summarized in a list of right or wrong actions. 

Listen to the sermon here.

This week, my sermon will focus on Mark 1:29-39, where Jesus heals illness and casts out demons. As I've prayed and discussed and studied this text, it's become abundantly clear that deeply faithful people have a variety of viewpoints on what is meant by these demons.  We don't know exactly what plagued the people Jesus encountered.  Were they displaying symptoms of what we'd now consider mental illnesses?  Were they epileptic?  Were they possessed by an evil spirit that goes beyond modern scientific explanation?  Does that spirit still enter people's bodies now?  Does it operate on a more communal level?  What is evil anyway? 

I admit that I'm puzzled by what exactly Jesus was doing back then or what the corollary would be for our time.  But I can say this for sure: Jesus was concerned with healing bodies and spirits, individuals and communities.  The healing ministry of Jesus is one that can speak directly into our lives, for as we all know, everybody is in need of healing of some kind.  

1. When you think about evil and demons, what comes to mind?
2. Jesus went out in the wilderness to pray.  Is it difficult or easy for you to find time alone to pray?
3. In what way are you in need of physical healing?  Do you ever feel like you have a demon that needs to be cast out? 

Be at Peace,

Pastor Sarah

Words for the week: Jan 25-Feb 1

From Pastor Sarah

Last week, in a sermon about Jonah, I pointed out that Jonah's pouty response to the Ninevite's conversion reveals something true about all of us:  We find it easier to be righteous when we have a clear enemy.  Or put another way: it's easier to be the good guy when everyone knows who the bad guy is.

When a person you'd written off as unworthy changes, you may have a hard time allowing them to be different than they were before.  Their change means you have to change too.  Since God's mercy extends to the Ninevites, Jonah would have to accept those Niniveites were no worse than he was in the eyes of God.  Now Jonah would have to face them as equals which would mean confronting - yet again - his own shadow side.  He probably just wants to get rid of the fishy smell that lingers on his body and these Ninevites remind him, he's as in need of God's mercy as they are.

Listen to the whole sermon here:

This week, I will preach on 1 Corinthians 8. Paul wrote to a new church as they tried to figure out the rules that would govern their life together.  In their case, at issue is if they should eat meat that had been killed in a sacrifice to idols.  Since we no longer have that struggle, it's a safe, non-emotional case study for us to learn something about how to resolve conflicts within a church.

Churches can so often get polarized into our various camps that we forget that the central reason we are together is because God loves us. Church isn't made up of people who know the most or even who do the best.  We're made up of people equally in need of God's love.  Yes, we need order and rules, but it's love that undergirds them all.  As Paul writes, "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."

Questions:

1. Have you ever been so focused on being "right" that you damaged a valuable relationship?
2. How would asking yourself "what's the loving thing to do?" change a conflict you are currently in?
3. What small gift of undeserved love has someone given to you recently?

Last week this week - Jan 18 and 25

Note: each week I send a summary of last week's sermon, a preview of this week's, and discussion questions to our church email list.  I am going to try to also post these on my blog weekly in the hopes they may be useful to others.  Be at Peace, Pr Sarah
 

Last week, I preached about Samuel, Eli and the courage it takes to follow your calling.  We all are called by God to be part of the on-going project of spreading the good news of Jesus. This takes different forms: volunteering as a Sunday School teacher, being a parent, working a job you find meaningful or being the best neighbor you know how.  All people can serve God wherever they are. To paraphrase Martin Luther, if you're a plumber, be a plumber for God.  

The difficulty is that sometimes when start to see our lives as part of God's calling, it leads us into unknown and scary territory.  We can feel quite alone.  Think of how a lone dancer at an outdoor concert becomes the leader of an all-out dance party.  One person starts, but then a few people have to follow and pull others in.  When we step out in courage, we are tempted to think of ourselves as the lone dancers, but really, we're always followers.  The followers are essential - otherwise there's no party! - but the followers aren't the ones who start it. Jesus precedes us as the first dancer, giving us the courage to get on up and follow to where we hear, deep down, God is calling.  

Listen to the sermon here.

This week the texts are also about calling.  I'll preach about Jonah, that prophet who tried to flee from God's call only to find himself in the belly of a big fish.  You probably know that God rescued Jonah from that fish but you might not know the second half of the story.  "God's word came to Jonah a second time." He went where God had originally instructed and told the people they needed to change, to repent.  

This is a story about second chances.  God gives Jonah a second chance but it's not as if Jonah can now just do whatever he wants.  The second chance is another chance to follow God's will.  That means Jonah has to accept that other people - people who were his enemies - can change just like he has and receive God's mercy.  It's too much for Jonah.  The people repent but instead of rejoicing Jonah becomes angry.  His anger seems ridiculous, until I consider how often I hold onto grudges and refuse to let others change.  Jonah's example challenges us to consider why we get angry when someone else gets a second chance and invites us to ask what we do with the second chances God offers.

Questions:

1. Have you ever been angry when someone you didn't think deserved it got a second chance?
2. Have you ever gotten a second chance?  How did it change you? 
3. In Jonah, God is portrayed as angry at people's evil behavior.  What do you think God is angry about now?

Hold onto Christmas

Hold onto Christmas

My little living room is awash in nativity scenes. Just a five years ago my parents gave me my first one.   Now, I have seven.  I got two new ones last year alone: in Haiti and in Bethlehem.   Each year, it's a joy to rediscover them and prepare for Christmas.

This weekend, they will finally come down. I will pack the Marys and shepherds and donkeys back in their boxes to wait in the basement another 11 months until they take their places center stage again.

This year, I’m toying with leaving out one Jesus when I put the rest away. When I see him, it would serve as a reminder during the gloomy months of January and February that God’s promises came true.  God is with us.  It would remind me to live a Christmas life all year around.

What is a Christmas life?  It’s a life that trusts God can come into the bleakest of situations and transform them.  It’s a life that gives generously toward others in love.  It’s a life that notices the variety of people who bowed down to worship the baby Jesus and tries to build a community to do the same.  It’s a life that recognizes the miracle of God-with-us every day of the year. 

The theologian Howard Thurman wrote this beautiful poem called The Work of Christmas:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the people,

to make music in the heart.

Whenever we do something to remind others (or ourselves) that God’s love is real and life-changing - even if it’s in July - it's as if we sing a Christmas carol. “Joy to the world, the lord is come!”

Blessings on your year-round Christmas.

Be at Peace,

Pastor Sarah

What shall we cry?

Below are excerpts from my sermon Dec 7 on Isaiah 40. I wrote this having heard from people in my congregation - and experiencing myself - concern, even outrage, but also feelings of powerless as to how to respond to the decisions in Staten Island and Ferguson. What role can I play in the healing of the nations?

Living between "What shall we cry?" and "Here is your God."

"Comfort, comfort my people" says Isaiah.   God comes to us in the wildernesses of our lives through people who offer comfort.  True comfort, however, often requires something besides caring presence: true comfort requires the promise of change. 

Something very important is happening in our society.  As Christians who believe all people are God's children and therefore equally valuable, we do well to pay attention.

As the Garner and Brown cases have been brought to light, they've also brought new light to the ways, small and large, that racism is alive and well in America.  Some of you have known that for a while.  Some of you can likely add to that testimony. Others of us are just now learning how much the legacy of racism in our society is not just a thing of the past.  I wish it were over and done.  We all do. It goes against our basic Christian values to accept a society rife with racism.

But, as with many of the biggest problems in our lives, many of us feel powerless and confused about what to do. How can we be part of the change that's needed?

When God says, "Cry to the people."  Isaiah says, "What shall I cry?" He too was confused and probably felt powerless.

Feeling powerless is no reason to give up hope.  Isaiah teaches us that we are powerless to do anything in God's name unless and until God comes to us, in our wilderness, and intervenes.  This means that we have to learn to cultivate Godly patience and be honest about the wilderness life we're living.  I don't mean we should sit quietly while we watch others suffer, but if you don't know how to respond (and I confess being in that category), you can be still be faithful and prepare for change, trusting the Holy Spirit to reveal a pathway forward.  I offer these practices:

1. Pray earnestly and intentionally about prejudice in America and ask for God's help.
2. Confess.  None of us is free from entanglement in systems of privilege and oppression.  We do well to confess both the ways we've contributed and our befuddlement at how to move forward.  After you confess, know yourself to be forgiven. 
3. Listen and learn from other people, especially those who testify to the way racism affects them.  Trust the stories, even those that seem unbelievable to you. 

In all of this, we can trust God to act to make a way forward.  Eventually, even in the wilderness, the path became clear. God's freeing activity was made known and Isaiah was able to say with utter clarity: Here is your God. 

Be at Peace,

Pastor Sarah

What really needs to happen in Advent?

From Pastor Sarah - While We Wait

Advent has always been my favorite church season.  It’s one where I intentionally slow down and try to live life a bit more calmly and patiently.  I savor the darkness, the candles, the hymns in minor keys, the bible passages of hope and expectation.  My internal rhythms match the rhythms of nature. Dead leaves and cold weather make it seem like growth has halted, but in ways that we can’t easily perceive, nature’s hibernation makes way for new life ahead. 

This Advent will be particularly special as I will experience it as one who, for the first time in her life, is preparing for a child.  (My husband and I are expecting, due in May).  While we’re thrilled, we also know we have a limited amount of time until our lives change forever.  We have five months left to go to the movies without planning ahead, to sleep through the night, to get house projects done.  I’m trying to take advantage of all the time I have left and it's already making me a bit frantic.  The to-do list is long and growing longer.  I already know it will not all get done.

And so it is with the days leading up to Christmas.  We make our preparations and yes, they are important, but the to-dos will never be totally checked off by the time December 24^th rolls around.  

I received good advice about getting ready for a child:  In addition to outward preparations, I need to prepare my spirit for this change that’s coming.  It might not seem as important as painting the nursery or creating the perfect birth plan, but it’s actually more so.

That’s my advice to you too, this season of Advent. Take time to prepare your spirit. It’s so easy to be caught up in the outward preparations for Christmas - the cookie baking and tree decorating and shopping and party-going – that there’s little energy left for anything else.  New life, however, requires times of spiritual inwardness and rest.  Christmas isn’t just another deadline looming, it’s the birth of a new relationship.  You’ll be able to find more of the peace and joy that relationship brings if you take time, while you wait, to reflect on your hopes, fears, expectations, grief, and sense of mystery about what God's renewed presence in your life might bring.  

I’m going to try to take my cues from Mary. When the angel Gabriel announced that she was pregnant, she didn’t make a to-do list, she prayed for a world of justice and peace.  She visited her relative Elizabeth and they waited and wondered together.  She pondered things in her heart.  She certainly had plenty to do (like go to Bethlehem for the census!).  Still, she stayed connected to the Holy Spirit.

How can you make time, this Advent, to spiritually prepare for Christmas?  How can you let go of the frenzy and enjoy the simple moments?  How can you reduce the amount of time you spend shopping and increase the amount of time you spend in prayer, scripture study, and contemplation, “pondering things in your heart.”

In Advent at Peace, sermons, adult studies, vespers, and family programs will all focus on being connected to God’s spirit “While We Wait.” I hope these will help you be like Mary this Advent, aware of the Holy Spirit and full of God’s blessed presence.   

Note: the stained glass window is from the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth which I visited last summer.  I found the image on www.womenintheology.org.

Be at Peace,

Pastor Sarah

Moratorium on the word suicide, please.

I just saw the headline running across the screen: "Robin Williams dead at 63 of apparent suicide."  Even though Williams struggled with a variety of illnesses: cardiac disease, alcoholism, depression, bipolar, the cause of his death will likely go down as suicide. 

The word suicide is loaded.  It carries with it the taint of fault and selfishness.  Christians have argued about the eternal soul of someone who died by suicide.  It's been considered the worst of all sins.  Dante put people who commit suicides in the seventh circle of hell; they would not be resurrected.

Suicide is hard to come to terms with and hard to grieve. I think that's because when we call a death a suicide, we assume the person had a choice in their death. For many, the pain is so severe and the mental processes are so broken that there is no choice. 

Calling a death a suicide leads to stigmatization. That's why I think we shouldn't use it.

Cardiac disease can be a terminal disease if left untreated.  And sometimes, even when treated, it still kills you.  The mechanism by which it kills you is heart failure.  You have no choice.  It's never called suicide, especially not if a person has done everything "right" - eaten healthy foods and exercised etc.  Family and friends of someone who dies of cardiac disease get sympathy, not shame. 

So too mental illnesses can be terminal diseases if left untreated and, even if treated, sometimes are too powerful to heal.  The mechanism by which some mental illnesses kill you is suicide.  Suicide is how an illness kills, not how a healthy person kills.   People who commit suicide because of mental illnesses are no more at fault for their deaths than people who die of heart disease are for theirs. Their family and friends also need only sympathy and not shame.

In the past year, my husband and I have both had cousins die of a combination of mental illness and chronic pain.  You could say they both committed suicide, but that ascribes blame to them that they don't deserve.  They were both struggling as valiantly as they could against diseases that were just too strong.  They could not be healed and they died. We grieve their deaths and trust them to a loving God.  They were not at fault.

I ask anyone reading this to pause if they start to say that Robin Williams committed suicide.  Say he fought valiantly for a long time against a disease that wouldn't be healed.  Channel Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society and stand on a desk, inviting someone to look at things in a different way and just say he died of mental illness.


-Pr Sarah