Sunday, May 26, 2019

Opened Hearts


 Acts 16:9-15  NRSV

 During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. 13 On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14 A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 15 When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.
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We hosted a workshop here yesterday, Ethics Training for Clergy, a mandatory training for Disciples and United Church of Christ ministers.   Because ministers were coming from all over Northern California, some drove down on Friday to avoid a long drive followed by a 6 hour workshop and another long drive home.  One stayed at my house Friday night.  Over coffee Saturday morning we were talking about how much fun we had in seminary learning about the various occupations and relationships in Scripture. 

Take Lydia, for example.  She was a dealer in purple cloth, which may not seem like a big deal, until we learn that purple cloth was very rare.   Purple dye was made from the shells of sea snails and it took about 12,000 snails to make enough dye to color the trim of a single garment, making purple dye prohibitively expensive.   Sometimes too expensive even for royalty. It is said that one emperor wouldn’t allow his wife to buy a shawl made from purple silk because it literally cost its weight in gold!   So Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, would have been a very wealthy woman, with plenty of room in her house for Paul and his companions on the journey.  At some point on that Sabbath day, Paul baptized her and her household, so she was most likely a widow who was the head of both business and home.  Unusual perhaps, but not unheard of.  

Lydia is described as a worshiper of God, a Gentile believer like Cornelius.  She had gathered with others by the river to pray and worship, and when Paul spoke, “The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said”.    

The thing about Gentile believers is this.  Although they had learned the Law and the Prophets, and some of the history of the Hebrew people, they did not have centuries upon centuries of certainty about who and what the Messiah would be.  They had heard what the Prophets said of the coming Messiah, but their expectations weren’t formed by a lifetime of study and preaching.  They could open their hearts and minds to the idea that a wandering rabbi who was executed as a criminal could be the Messiah much more easily than someone who has been taught from birth to expect a Son of David - a warrior king who would liberate the Jews.   Lydia, a Gentile believer, had her heart opened by God to hear about Jesus, and to accept what she heard as Truth.   

It can be very hard, maybe close to impossible, to accept a new truth over something we have been taught was true our whole lives.  Very often we are quite fond of the things we believe to be true, to the extent that we may be unwilling to listen to anything that would suggest our truth may not, in fact, be totally accurate.  I sometimes see perfectly reasonable conversations on Facebook and blogs degenerate into name calling and rudeness over whether certain statements are factual.  It almost always reminds me of a story my mother told - entirely too frequently - about walking into the room where my sister and I were supposed to be napping only to find us standing up in our cribs yelling at each other, one saying No and one saying Yes.  No one ever knew what that was about.  But we were toddlers.  We didn’t know how to discuss things rationally.    We had to grow up and learn to allow new ideas help inform our decisions.    Thirty some years later, when I realized I had serious issues with alcohol and drugs, God pointed me in the direction of the Twelve Steps in order that I might change my life entirely.  And, I believe, in order that I might even change what I believed to be true about God.  According to the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous, “To improve ourselves takes effort, and since there is no way in the world to graft a new idea on a closed mind, an opening must be made somehow.”  (NA  White Booklet  pg. 10)  For me, that opening came through the words of other people who had come to believe in a loving and forgiving God.  

Making change is difficult and requires more than just a decision. It requires action.  I imagine that the slogan “All means ALL” was discussed pretty thoroughly before this congregation adopted it.  And if all we had done was tell ourselves that we believed this to be true, nothing would have changed.  But when we started advertising it on our website, some amazing things happened.  Because we didn’t just say it.  We embraced that truth - that in this place, All means ALL.  We were able to welcome more new people who brought with them incredible gifts of music and prayer and artistic talent and babies and ministries of all kinds.  We found ourselves producing a new generation of loving Christian people, who don’t allow minor differences like race or ability or orientation or gender identity or sex or marital status or age get in the way of seeing Christ in each other.  But before we could go forward with this new thing, we had to allow an opening in our hearts and minds.  

In Lydia’s case, that opening was made by the Lord.   In the case of a young man from Indiana, the opening came in a less direct way.  Vince Amlin, co-pastor of Bethany UCC and co-planter of Gilead Church Chicago, tells this story.  My first Sunday in Bloomington, I signed up for a small group at First United Church. It met weekly for a year, which, at age 21, seemed like the most radical commitment to Christ one could make.
When we came to the story of Lydia, the curriculum taught that we can be faithful wherever we are. While Paul gets shipwrecked and thrown in jail for his evangelism, Lydia and her family are baptized and keep selling purple cloth. It's enough, the book said, to do our work—whatever it is—faithfully.
"I don't believe that!" I declared. "I think God wants something more. I think God wants us to give our whole lives to ministry!"
To their credit, no one called me an arrogant twerp. Instead, my pastor said, "If that's what you're hearing, maybe you should listen."
Three months later I took my first job in ministry.

But you know, that curriculum Rev. Amlin talks about was right. We Christians, all of us, are called to serve God the best we can doing whatever it is that we do - faithfully.   We are not all called to the ordained ministry, which is good, because we need people to be in the pews and the choirs and out doing God’s work in the community.  But we are all called to make whatever we do a ministry, a way to serve God.  Whatever it is that we do - teaching or social work or law enforcement or building septic tanks or massage or cooking in a restaurant or landscaping or nursing or housecleaning or helping people look beautiful  - what ever we do, we do it the very best we can as an offering to God.   We may believe that we aren't good enough, or don't have the right gifts, or don't have time, to serve God.  But we are good enough.  And our gifts are the right gifts.  And we have every moment of every day in which to serve God.  So let us all open ourselves to letting God use us in our daily occupations to bring God’s kingdom to life, here.   Let us open our hearts to God, and offer ourselves to God, just as we are. 



Sunday, May 19, 2019

Who is invited?


Scripture   Acts 11:1-18  NRSV

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 

11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

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It was early days for the Christian Church.  Technically, it wasn’t a church yet. It was still considered a sect of Judaism, like the Essenes.  Jesus followers still obeyed all the Laws of Moses.  They worshipped in the Temple, made the required sacrifices, and paid their tithes as they always had.  The difference was that they believed the Messiah had come, and the other Jews did not.  So they were trying to spread the word about Jesus among their fellow Jews.  And when the apostles and other believers in Jerusalem heard that Peter had not just baptized Cornelius and his household, but eaten dinner with them, they were shocked and they called upon Peter to account for his actions.   I mean, Cornelius, although he believed in the God of Abraham, had not yet become fully a Jew, so a devout Jew could not, by Law, enter his home or eat with him, because he was still considered unclean.  They were, quite naturally, concerned about Peter’s disregard of the Law.  But he told his story, and he asked them, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?  And truly, they had no answer for this, because he was right!  And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”  

Even the Gentiles. I got interested in that word, Gentiles.  It comes from a Latin word that means “of the same family, nation or clan.”  The Hebrew word used in the same context is “goi” which means non-Jew or stranger, and is used in the Old Testament “to designate nations that are politically distinct from Israel”.  (JewishEncyclopedia.com)  It’s used in the New Testament to mean not-Jewish.  But it is also used by Mormons to mean not-Mormon.  Even Jews are Gentiles, to a Mormon.   Anyway . . .

This was a new thing, a new idea, a new beginning for the Church. I think it might even be seen as the actual beginning of the Church as we know it today.  Because this is the first time that the apostles and the other believers started to really look at spreading the Good News outside of their own family.  Yes, Jesus had preached to Samaritans, and had performed healings and other wonders for Gentiles, like the Canaanite woman (the one who told him that even the dogs can eat the scraps dropped from the Master’s hands) and the centurion’s servant.  But it had not really occurred to these early followers of Jesus that the Good News was really intended to be spread to all the world, not just the Jewish world.  God’s love and grace was universally available!  This was a radical break from the past. This Jesus opened up God’s love to all – and not just Jews.  In Acts 10:34 Peter said, “I truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God”

Not only that, but adherence to the Laws of Moses would no longer be the deciding factor in who could and could not be part of this new movement.  Peter’s dream had made it clear that the idea that God had changed things in Jesus.   Matthew 5:17 tells us that Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets.  I come not to abolish but to fulfill.  And later, in Matthew 22, he repeats the two greatest commandments, Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as you love yourself, and says  “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  From this point forward, acting in accordance with the intent behind the Laws of Moses would become more important than following the letter of the Law.  Paul will argue that faith is more important than the Law or works.  Things are getting very different for those early followers of Jesus.   They will keep fussing for a while, over who is and is not invited to sit at the Table with them, but over time it will become clear that salvation through Jesus is available to all people, regardless of who they are or where they come from or what they eat . . .  

I like British tv shows.  One of the shows I enjoy is called “Rev” (episode 2 season 1) It’s the story of Adam, an Anglican priest in London, the vicar of St Saviors, a very large beautiful old church, in a poor neighborhood, that’s kind of falling apart, has maybe 20 people in the congregation on a good Sunday. So it can’t really support itself, which worries Adam and upsets his bishop.  In one episode Darren, a very handsome, charismatic, evangelical young priest, asked if his congregation could use St Savior’s while their building was undergoing renovations.  He offered a 10,000 pound donation (about $13,000 US), which immediately got the bishop’s approval, of course.  So he came to St Savior’s, moved out all the pews, and replaced them with couches. He added screens, a vegan smoothie bar, Christian hip hop, and brought hundreds of very excited, young, well-dressed, financially well off people. Within a couple of weeks it was clear that he thought it was only right for him to take over St. Savior’s entirely because he had a bigger (and therefore more important) congregation .  . . . But he held to a more rigid interpretation of Scripture than is common in the Anglican church.  He taught that homosexuals were not welcome in church, that having women in leadership was unacceptable.  He wanted to ban an old man from church for pinching a girl. (Ok, everyone agreed he did wrong, but banning him from worship?)  He thought the homeless folks and the mentally ill folks who were part of the old congregation probably needed to find a different place to worship.  Father Adam and the bishop turned him away, along with his very large, very generous congregation, because they could not, in good conscience, allow him to reject people in the name of Jesus. 

The sign outside says “New Beginnings Available.”  For the early church, Peter’s experience with Cornelius was a new beginning.   A voice from heaven had said to Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  And the leaders in Jerusalem agreed.  If God accepts even the Gentiles, so must we. 

In his letter to the Ephesians 2:14-15 Paul encourages the Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians to make peace with each other saying, “For [Christ] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace. 

One new humanity in the place of two.  Everyone is invited.  Everyone is welcome.   No one is asked to leave.  Even if they pinch a girl. Even if they are homeless.  Even if they suffer from mental illness.  Even if they are an addict.  Even if they get arrested for domestic violence.  No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, you are invited to worship in this place. You are invited to join us at the Lord’s Table.  You are invited to begin again - every day if necessary.  Because we are all works in progress.  And we reject no one, because Jesus rejects no one.   All are welcome in this place.  All are invited to join us at this Table.  Because we are Disciples of Christ,  a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.  As part of the one body of Christ we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.

Sunday, May 12, 2019

A Woman's Work (is never done?)


 Scripture   Acts 9:36-43   NRSV  

36 Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas.   She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37 At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40 Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. 42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

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Poor Dorcas.  Couldn’t even die in peace.  They just had to bring her back so she could keep doing the good work that she was so well known and loved for. Right? Seriously, the power of women and women’s work to change the world is unparalleled and undeniable.  Peter recognized that, because in her own small way Dorcas was changing the world around her.  She cared for widows who had no one else  - no husband, no son, no community or church safety net to help them.  All these women had was Dorcas.  God also recognizes that, for God gave Peter the power to bring her back to continue her good work and to teach others what it means to be a Christian woman.

I was really tempted to use a picture of women working in a sweat shop to go with my title, but you know, that’s not really what this is about.  This isn’t about labor, or equal pay for equal work, or husbands doing their share of caring for home and children, or human trafficking or any of those other modern issues that concern us.  This is about doing for others out of love.  This is about a servant of the Lord being so greatly loved that they could not bear to lose her.  This is about the power of prayer, so that God’s work in the world may go forward unimpeded.

In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) many important movements have been started by women in prayer.  The National Benevolent Association began when Sarah Matilda Hart Younkin gathered a group of six women to pray for the plight of the homeless and helpless. Congregations had their Widow’s Mite collection and Dorcas Society to help the needy in their own city, but these six women recognized that a national denominational organization was needed.  There was no such thing anywhere in the US at that time, but they were nothing if not determined.  They collected $86.76 to begin their work building such an organization.  They started small, helping one needy person at at time, then founding an orphans home, and building from there.  It would be 12 years before the National Convention of the Christian Church would recognize the organization as an official agency of the Church.  Today the NBA is “an expansive network of direct-service providers and residential facilities.” If you want to know more, I have a book.   (Inasmuch: The Saga of the NBA.  Hiram and Marjorie Lester)  And there is a website (https://www.nbacares.org/history)  

Global Ministries is a combined effort of the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ to do overseas mission work.  It also began with one woman’s prayer.  During her prayer time in April of 1874 Caroline Neville Pearre was convicted of a call to initiate a women’s organization.  So she gathered a group of women to address the mission and ministry that was then lacking in the church, forming the Christian Women’s Board of Mission to serve both home and foreign mission.  In the first few years they sent missionaries to Jamaica, France, and India as well as a mission for former slaves in Mississippi.  The CWBM quickly outpaced the floundering men’s missionary societies and grew until it replaced the men’s mission organizations altogether and became an official agency of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  If you want to know more, I have a book.  And they have a website ( https://www.globalministries.org/.)

The Christian Women’s Fellowship grew directly out of the Mission Board and thus celebrates its 145th birthday this year!  Every congregation had some ladies’ society or other, but there was no national organization, nothing to tie all those separate groups together.   In 1947 a plan to do that was forming and in 1949 an organizational meeting of the Christian Women’s Fellowship was held to “work toward a more effective organization of women, with three emphases:  worship, study and service.  All women of the church were to be considered members of the organization. “ (Tucker and McAllister, Journey in Faith, pg 417).   Although the name has changed from Christian Women’s Fellowship to Disciples Women, the focus has never changed.  Gatherings of Disciples women focus on worship and study and service, both in the local congregation as well as regional and larger gatherings.  And, you guessed it, if you want to know more, I have a book!  Plus - they have a website (https://www.discipleshomemissions.org/congregations/disciples-women/)  

And for anyone who likes history as much as I do and may wonder about the role of women in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) I have a book!  Written and edited by women.  (In the Fullness of Time: A history of women in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)  Craddock, Faw, Heimer.  1999)

Dorcas was devoted to good works and acts of charity.  So it should come as no surprise that prior to the founding of the NBA so many congregations had something called a Dorcas Society to help the needy.  Through all the years when so many churches did not allow women to hold positions of leadership or authority, women were nonetheless leading the Church’s efforts to care for the hungry and homeless, widows and orphans, the elderly, and those who needed to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ, following where Dorcas led.  It is no wonder that Peter was led to revive her, to bring her back so that her work could continue.  

Make no mistake, women’s work is never done!  And I don’t mean that in the ‘work all day and come home to cook and clean’ sense.  I mean the work of compassion.  The work of caring.  The work of teaching gentleness and love to the next generation.  Yes, men can teach those things.  But in our present society, and speaking very generally women are typically the ones who teach children in their earliest years about playing well with others, sharing toys with their siblings, saying please and thank you.  Sadly, we are seeing a decline in those teachings.  At last year’s block parties, when children were given a bag of popcorn or a brightly colored cross, they rarely said thank you. Even when asked, “What do you say?” more often than not we got a blank stare.   If children are not taught the basics of getting along well with others in their early childhood, they will probably grow to adulthood not knowing.  They need to learn these things - if not at home, then at school, or even here, in church.  Because all of these things stem from the love commandment.  All of those things fall under te heading of treating others as you wish to be treated.

In his monthly article in the First United Methodist Church newsletter, Ken Robison talked about angry arguments over public safety at a recent city council meeting.  At the end of that meeting, he said, some pastors got up and spoke for peace.  He noted that “those of us who believe in the Christian message of love, grace, and forgiveness understand that peace in a community cannot come solely from more policing. . . . Let us ponder how safe our city would be if children learned from their Mothers the value of God’s love, peace and grace.  If they listened to their Mothers about showing love and respect for their fellow man.  Remember the words of Jesus . . .”Love the Lord your God with all your heart an all  your soul and all your mind and all your strength . .  Love your neighbor as yourself.” . . . How great would Mother’s Day be if all their children heeded this message.   

This passage tells us that many came to believe after Peter revived Dorcas, and perhaps that was because of this miracle that God made possible.  But I like to think that it was Dorcas’ example that prompted interest in the Gospel.  Because  Dorcas lived out the love commandment, doing for those widows according to Jesus’ instructions.  Through her love and good works she taught the people around her what is expected of a Christian. Like many other women of the church, from the earliest days of the church right up to today, she mothered those around her, giving of herself that all might know about God’s grace and love and forgiveness.  Like so many who followed and still follow in her life’s example, she was a woman who answered God’s call, and devoted her life to God’s service.  Let us be like Dorcas.  If we are tired, may our commitment to God’s work be revived as Dorcas was, so that we may be God’s loving hands and feet in today’s world.