songs of the heart: prayer for the journey

from my message on Palm Sunday, 4/1/12, from Psalm 118

So, I had a phone call from Bishop Dorff on Thursday, asking me to move to another appointment.....April Fools! I had you going there for a minute. Yes, today is April 1, April Fools Day, but in the church it is also Palm Sunday. I want you to go to your earliest memories of Palm Sunday. For me, it was like a victory parade for Jesus. We, as children, would wave the palm branches and shout Hosanna. I thought Hosanna meant Hurrah! or Yeah, Jesus! But Hosanna doesn't mean that. If you can wait just a few moments, I will tell you what it means.

What I want to get across to you about this parade imagery on Palm Sunday is that there is movement. Jesus is on a journey. We are too. Journey is a good metaphor for being a follower of Christ. Today, we are looking at Psalm 118 as a song of the heart, a prayer for the journey. This psalm would have been sung as Jesus was entering the city of Jerusalem. You see, if you were a faithful Jew and lived near Jerusalem, you would make a pilgrimage, you would travel there 3 times a year for 3 major religious holidays. This particular one was Passover, which our Jewish friends, still celebrate today. In fact, it begins this Friday night at sundown. Passover is the festival that remembers how God saved his people from bondage in Egypt. God delivers his people, and they set off across the wilderness to a Promised Land. Jesus probably had this feast with his disciples as his last meal before his passion. So the people are singing Psalm 118 as Jesus enters Jerusalem, and Jesus is living out what they are singing.

The words are familiar to many of us. I will illustrate by starting a quote, that I bet you can finish. This is the day the Lord has made...Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118, verse 24. I must confess I didn't have this message very well developed till yesterday. I was on retreat with our Stephen Ministers. I asked for their help. One of them upon reading the psalm, said, "Don't miss the joy of this passage, finding joy in the moment." That's a good word. This psalme is called a Hallel psalm, a praise God song. At the Stephen ministry training, we spent 2 1/2 hours talking about aging. What a downer! All that time talking about dealing with loss...of hair, of hearing, of movement. One of the leaders was talking about dealing with her mother-in-law, who went to an assisted care facility. One of the biggest losses she faced was that of her faith community. She could no longer attend worship like she used to. She turned to the TV. On Sunday morning, she would go to worship with the TV preachers. She told our leader, "I don't agree with most of what they say. Their theology is pretty thin. It is a gospel of success, about health and wealth. But one thing you can say for them: they're happy!" In this journey, it is a good thing to pray, looking for joy, thanksgiving, celebration. This is day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Now we come to Hosanna. Did you notice that the word was not used in Psalm 118? It was there in verse 25...if you read it in Hebrew. The word Hosanna means.....save us, help us! I have had the confirmands coming into my office this past week to have a conversation with me. I don't bring them into the office to scare them. I want to show them that they can have this relationship over a lifetime. Wherever they go, there will always be a pastor to listen and pray with with them. I ask them if there is anything we need to talk about. More than one said to me, "Pastor Lynn, is it ok if I ask God to help me with the STAAR test?" The State of Texas has just initiated a new evaluation instrument. Several of the students had anxiety over taking this test. My answer to them was "Yes." You are saying Hosanna, help us, save us. And the thing is that the more you pray, the better you get at praying. The more you pray, the more the Lord reforms and refines your prayer. It is a journey in prayer. Prayer changes things. The first thing prayer changes is YOU.

The point of this journey in prayer is to bring us closer to Jesus. I will illustrate with something I don't get to do too often, tell an Aggie math joke. I have a degree in mathematics from Texas A & M. I started in 1971 when there were not too many girls on campus. That first semester, my calculus professor was teaching about limits. He was drawing the difference between a math major and an engineering student. He said, "Imagine on one side of a room, a beautiful girl (at A & M, called a Maggie). Put a math major and an engineering student on the other side of the room. Each time, the math major and future engineer get to move 1/2 the distance closer to Maggie. So the first step is to go halfway. The next step they both go 3/4 way. The next step 7/8 and so forth. You ask the math major, do you ever reach Maggie. No....the correct answer is that between any 2 points on a line, you can always find another midpoint. You ask the future engineer, do you ever reach Maggie. He responds, You get close enough."

All God wants to do with us in prayer is to draw us closer to Christ. We are being lead not to a place, but a person. The 24 th verse....rejoice in the Lord and be glad in it, could also be traslated as be glad in him. The verses in Psalm 118 are familiar because we say one over and over again in the communion liturgy. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. In prayer, we are being drawn to Him. The psalm says, the stone that the builders have rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Jesus, despised and crucified, has become God's instrument of salvation. Jesus wants to be more than a teacher, good man, or prophet.

I illustrate by telling a story from Don Saliers, a UM pastor, teacher, & writer, who wrote in the Daily Disciplines this past week. Don was helping a mid-sized church with "pumping up" Holy Week. They asked him for suggestions. "Have you ever had a palm processional?" They hadn't. There were some fears about the weather. More about whether the children would use the palms in sword fights. But they decided to try it. Palm Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day, with perfect weather. The children took the palm branches. They entered the church, singing, Hosanna, Loud Hosanna the little children sang...Yes, there were some sword fights with the branches. But when they looked up...they saw what was at the end of the aisle. There was the cross. The mood changed. They knew that Palm Sunday was not the end of the journey. Jesus wants to be more than teacher, good man, or prophet. He wants to be Savior, the one who releases us from the past, from guilt, from shame, from the power of sin. He wants to be Lord, the one by whom we orient our lives.

Jesus goes this journey through Holy Week for us, with us. Come Thursday night, as He washes our feet. See how he changes the words of the Passover, saying This is my body, This is my blood. Come Friday night to experience several different stations, inside and outside that take us to His passion. Come Saturday night when several will be baptized here.

Jesus is on a journey. We are too. Our Methodist theology says that we are going on to perfection. The Holy Week Walk the children do today takes them close to Jesus. The early Christians were called Followers of the Way. Our vision statement says, Following One, Serving All.

I am moving, not to a new appointment, but even now after all these years, closer and closer to Jesus. How about you?

save us

3/26/12 This Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday. We use the word "Hosanna" on this day. We say it like "Hurrah!" I was reminded in my reading this morning, that it literally means, "Save us." That's what we pray today and every day, "God, Save US!"

Love,
Lynn

songs of the heart; prayer of lament

from my message on March 25, 2012, from Psalm 137

I have a very great truth to tell you. Its as true as the fact that the wildflowers this year are magnificent. The bluebonnets are so thick you can wade into them like walking into a lake. They are so thick that you can even smell them. And the other flowers are wonderful too, the reds of Indian paint brush and Mexican hat, the purples and the yellows. There is a riotous display of the goodness of God's creation. What I have to tell you is just as true, but much harder to bear.

The truth is that there is a lot of violence in the world, much of it directed at children. You have kept up with the news of this past week. An American soldier, seemingly a really good guy, leaves his post in Afghanistan with his rifle, and shoots 17 people dead, over half of them children. There is a lot of hatred in this world. The event happend weeks ago but has gained public attention, where a 17 yr old youth, gets shot seemingly because his skin was black and he was wearing a hoodie in a neighborhood where that was unusual.. There is a lot of anger in this world. A Frenchman shoots 3 paratroopers, and then 3 Jewish children and a teacher outside of their school. SOme reports say he did it to get back for all of the deaths of Palestinian children.

Maybe you can see where I am going with this, how it connects with Ps 137. During Lent, I have been preaching from the Psalms as songs of our heart. Today it is a prayer of lament, a cry of grief, sorrow, even rage. The whole range of human emotions and experiences are captured in the Psalms. The Hebrew people desired revenge. They had been taken into captivity in Babylon. Their neighbors, the Edomites had then come in and destroyed their homes and lands. The Hebrews wanted to get to back at their enemies. There is that awful last line in the psalm. I have never preached on this passage before, in 34 years. We wish this line wasn't in our Bible, take the children of our enemies and dash their heads against the wall.. This is horrible.

Hold on...be honest, Tell the truth. I suspect we have felt that way at some time in our lives. We were so angry, we wanted to get back, to get even, to exact revenge. This is theme of so many books, movies, tv shows, video games. "IF I ever get my hands on them, I will kill them.."

Our worship team meets on Tuesdays. When they asked me about the theme of this message, they replied that I could use the Hunger Games. I didn't anything about this phenomena until last Sunday when I read a review in our local paper. This trilogy of books has been on the NY Times Bestseller list for over 180 weeks. The movie just opened this week. Diana gave me a copy of the first book. I read it over Wed and Thurs. To complete my research, I went to see the movie on Friday morning for the first show at 9:45 a.m. The theater was full. What was going on? The plot is this: after a rebellion is put down, the survivors are divided into 12 colonies which are ruled by the capitol. Each year, each colony must send a male and female from their area, between 12 and 18 years of age, to represent them in the Hunger Games. These 24 contestants, children, fight and kill each other until there is only 1 winner left. The children are called "tributes." They are really sacrifices. They are to remind the people of the terribel cost of rebellion. This book and movie are NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN. It is full of violence. The truth is that we live in a world full of violence, much of it directed at children.

I will tell you a deeper truth. Anger is often a secondary emotion. If you dig underneath, you will nearly always find hurt. We've been wounded, we've been wronged, so we get angry. We resort to violence, to getting even.

As Christians, as followers of Christ, what do we do with this angeer and desire of revenge? We have the baptism of 3 children today. I was talking to the mom, giving her a warning of what the scripture was for today. I said this was one of the hardest messages I had ever delivered. Alison said, "Of course we have to speak of these things; of course we have these feelings. But you don't have to act on them. That's why we speak of them and feel them." Walter Bruggeman, a great biblical scholar says, "Unless loss is examined & understood, newness will not happen."

I am glad this psalm is in our Bible. It gives us permission to pray, even an angry prayer. We can lament a loss. Could we stop protecting God? Can we trust God with our true feelings? Do you think God is big enough to take it? Many years ago in another church, I had a couple who were both in recovery. They were both working the steps towards wholeness. They were active in worship, in small groups, in missions, in prayer. They ate right, exercised, rested. He was a mail carrier, walking several miles a day. For fun, he would run in races like today's Capitol 10K. One day on his route, he dropped dead just like that. They rushed him to the hospital. He didn't revive. I was in the chapel with his wife and their recovery community. She said, "Let's pray." We gathered in a circle in the chapel. She said, "God, sh-t, why did you blankety-blank take my husband..." She trusted God enough to be real. She got it out. Bruggeman says, "If we don't get it out, otherwise we will express it unhealthily. Also in prayer, we take the focus off of ourselves and turn it on to God."

I will tell you the truth. This passage makes me have to deal with my own desire for revenge. There is at least 1 person whom I think I can never forgive. The relationship happened in the church, of course. In the church where we reveal our deepest feelings, our soul, we can get hurt the most. What do we do with such rage, desire for violence?

I have a story for you. It comes from Bishop Dorff, who had lunch at our church on Tuesday with some 9 of us area pastors, including our District Superintendent. We had gathered because we are all working towards becoming radically inclusive, by affiliating with the Reconciling Ministries Network. This means we welcome lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgendered folks. We have 1 Sunday School class, the Journeys Class, that is so affiliated. So Bishop Dorff told us of attending worship at St. Luke's Community UMC in Dallas, where Zan Holmes was the preacher. Zan was one of my preaching professors in seminary. Zan shared the story of how his computer crashed. I know this has never happened to you. Oh, it is frustrating. What do you do? You call tech support. They connect you with someone in....INDIA. This techie takes you thru steps and menus.....and you get more frustrated. Zan was doing everything the tech guy said, but nothing was working. Finally, the tech guy said, "There is one more thing we can try, but you are going to have to trust me." "What's that?" "I can take over your computer." "You can do that from where you are?" "Yes, but when we get to this one page, there will be an icon that you must click on." "What icon is that?" "The button you will need to hit says, SUBMIT."

The only way I can pray for my enemies, to give my anger and desire for revenge is to SUBMIT. I look to Jesus, the One on the cross who said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I may never be able to forgive, but maybe Jesus can, for me, if I submit.

That's the good news I have to share...and that's the truth.

songs of the heart: prayer of thanksgiving

from my message on 3/18/12 from Psalm 107

Four...show me 4 fingers. Four will be a memory device for this sermon. This is the 4th Sunday in Lent. The 4th sermon in a series on songs of the heart, praying with the psalms. Today, a prayer of thanksgiving, taken directly from the first verse, O give thanks to the Lord, 4 he is good, 4 his steadfast love endures 4-ever. Then the Psalm says that it is God's intent to gather the redeemed from the 4 points of the compass, from the east, the west, the north, and the south. Thank God, God doesn't want to leave out anyone.

Then, as I lived with the Psalm, I found that thanksgiving comes best out of stress and distress. If you read the whole psalm, you will find 4 situations of distress: hunger and thirst, in prison, sick (really the Hebrew word means foolish), and on the stormy sea. How can I get you to remember to give thanks in these 4 stressful situations? By taking you to San Saba, Texas, where I served as pastor for 5 years. The church was literally across a narrow street from the football stadium, Rogan Field. I could have sat in the upper Sunday School classrooms and had my own sky box looking down from the end zone. The mascot for the San Saba sports teams was the armadillo. Little known fact, the armadillo has on each of its feet 4 fingers. Now, at a football game at Rogan Field, the purple and gold armadillo team would be losing, down, bruised, hopeless, but when the 4th quarter would come, they would lift their hands in a 4 finger salute. They would say, No matter how bad it is right now, this 4th quarter is ours.

Thanksgiving comes best out of acknowledging that we need help, that we are in distress. After each stressful situation in the psalm is named, there is a refrain, yes 4 times, that goes, Then they cried to the LORD, and He delivered them. Let them thank to LORD 4 his steadfast love, 4 his wonderful works to humankind.

If you don't acknowledge your distress, your need for help, it may be really hard to be truly thankful. As a child, I saw a movie about the Civil War, called Shenandoah. Jimmie Stewart played the father of this struggling family. One scene in the movie is a classic statement of not wanting help and missing thanksgiving. The father is giving the grace over the meal with all of the family gathered, Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the harvest. It wouldn't be here & we wouldn't be eating it if we hadn't done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb & morsel, but we thank you Lord just the same for the food we are about to eat. Amen.

This may not be you today. I went thru my emails on Saturday to get ready for this Sunday. As I read the 100 or so, I was struck again by how vulnerable we all are. I realized again that many of you, if not all of you, come to worship each week, acknowledging your stress and distress. In fact many people return to worship because something traumatic has happened in their lives. You may not be literally hungry and thirsty, but you may be hungering and thirsting for meaning in your lives. You may not literally be in prison, although in my former congregation about this size, I had 2 who were in prison when I left. You may be bound up in others' expectations, in a role assigned by your family system, or caught up in addiction. You may not be literally sick or foolish. You may be sin sick, as the song goes, There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. You may want more than what the culture strives for --more, better, faster, the hamster wheel of success. You may not be literally on stormy seas, but you may be tossed by job loss, death, or problem pregnancy.

Thank God, when you cry to God, God hears and answers. From our Hebrew scriptures, we find examples of this, as God takes care of his people in the wilderness by providing manna and quails and water from the rock. He sets them free from bondage in Egypt and again when they were in captivity in Babylon. When they were sin sick, God sent them prophets to show the people the way to life. God saved his people by leading them through the stormy sea, the Red Sea, and later Jonah by having a big fish swallow him.

Then Jesus comes along, and what does he do? The same saving acts. He fed the crowds with a few loaves and fishes and fed their souls with the good news of salvation. He released people from the prison of their past, as he welcomed outcasts. He healed the sin sick by offering forgiveness. He calmed the stormy sea. Remember how he walked on water, saying, Fear not, it is I. If you go to Corpus Christi, go along Ocean Dr. and see the sculpture at First UMC. It looks like a surfing Jesus, but it really Jesus standing in the front of a boat, saying Fear Not, It is I.

Still today, Jesus saves us out of our distress. Thank God. Just before spring break, I went to visit at the Summit. I tried to see Harold. I couldn't find him. He and his wife joined when I first came to be pastor here 5 yrs ago. Very shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with cancer. She went into hospice care and died. Harold stopped coming to worship. I have had a hard visiting with him since. So as I left the Summit that day, right at the exit, I was delighted to find Harold there. Most of what I have to tell you about Harold is in the public domain, and he has given me permission to tell his story. I told him how happy I was to visit him. He took me to a little gathering room, and said he had a funny story to tell me. He said that he had been attending worship services there at the Summit. There were 4 preachers who covered the 4 Sundays a month (see how the 4 keeps showing up?). Except this one Sunday the preacher didn't show up. What to do? The congregation said to Harold, You preach! So he did! He talked about the difference between faith and trust. A tight rope walker was going to cross Niagara Falls on a cable pushing a wheel barrow. He asked a man there if he knew the difference between faith and trust. No, the man replied. The tight rope walker asked if he believed he could walk across Niagara Falls pushing the wheelbarrow. Yes, the man replied. This is faith, said the tight rope walker. Now, will you get into the wheelbarrow as a I walk across? That is trust, said the tight rope artist.

So, I asked Harold how it had been going preaching. He said, I don't really preach, I just lead a discussion. Well, what have you been working on? My next discussion is on Is It Fair or Is It Right? I asked him how hard it was to preach. He said that he had never worked harder in his life on anything. He was going to his Bible, looking up stuff on line, rewriting drafts. I told him, that what made it the hardest for me was that we were always preaching first to ourselves. Harold, you are still dealing with your wife's death....Faith or Trust, Is it Fair. Thank God, he was turning to God in his grief, still working on what he believed, still connected to community. Thank God the steadfast love of the LORD endures 4-ever.

Pastor Jim recently preached here about the power of thanksgiving, about how it changes one attitudes, empowers one. He asked you to go to bed each night, reviewing the day, and thanking God for 5 things that day. I would be happy if you just came up with 4.

Know this: God is 4 us, 4 you. The steadfast love of God endures 4-ever. That is the good news I have to share with you today.

songs of the heart: from awful to affirmation

from my message on 3/4/12 from psalm 22

It is going to take me a few minutes to get to the good news, because this message is going to mirror this 22nd Psalm, which begins with what is awful. I want you to reflect on something awful. It may have happened to you. It may be something you read about. Go to that awful place. As I was driving around this past week, I reflected over 34 years of ministry and some of the awful places that had taken me. I share just one. It was on the last Sunday before Christmas out in San Saba. The tradition in that church was to go sing Christmas carols on that Sunday evening to those who were homebound or in nursing homes. Some of my ranchers had gotten a flatbed trailer with hay bales on it, pulled behind a pickup truck. We drove through the streets singing Christmas carols. At one stop, a deputy sheriff pulled up, and asked to see one of the moms on the trailer. What he told her caused her face to be crushed. I went up to her to see what had happened. She said, "My son ended his own life today." That is awful. At times like these, we pray, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me?

So I asked you to go to an awful place in your life. It may have been at work, where you walked in and got blind-side by allegations and lies, and in the span of just a few hours, you were fired, let go, terminated. And you are a good person, a faithful person, and you cry out, My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?

Or you are a student at school, and you are too slow, too fat, too short, too gay, and you get picked on. You go to worship and Sunday School. You read your Bible, but others bully you, and you cry out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Or you put your husband through school, through multiple degrees. He now has his Ph.D., and you have your Mrs. But now that he is through school, he is through with you. He decides to trade you in for a newer model, and initiate d.i.v.o.r.c.e. And you are a Christian believer, and you cry out, My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?

What's awful for you may be some big thing or it may be a lot of little things that have added up to something big. Or it may be that your reserve has been depleted. You are tired and have little energy to cope. You pray to the God who seems to have gone AWOL, who is distant and uncaring, who has gone missing. The song of your heart is one of abandonement. You cry, My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?

We have heard these words before. Who says them? Jesus. What is the context? He is on the cross. These are some of the last words that Jesus says before his death by crucifixion. Jesus prays with us, for us. Jesus joins with everyone who feels deserted by God. He joins our scream, our complaint. So today Jesus prays with the people of Homs, Syria, who are surrrounded by the army that is picking them off like ducks on a pond, crying with them, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus prays with the families who have had children killed in school shootings. He joins those parents of the stillborn child.

When things are awful, we Christians claim that God is with us, Emmanuel, because Jesus has joined us in our pain, in our feeling of abandonement. No other God has wounds like ours. The Gospel writers clearly had Ps 22 in mind as they remembered the passion and death of Jesus. We Christians have the hope that Jesus joins us in our prayer when things are awful.

There is another bit of good news that I didn't realize until I read some commentaries this past week. It was the convention of that time that when one began quoting a passage that the first words were a shorthand for identifying the whole passage. So this passage begins with what is awful. There is terror. The animals, bulls and dogs represent terrible people or demonic forces. The broken body parts communicate "I'm as good as dead." Yet the passage has a "yet." In fact more than one as the pray-er remembers that yet you are the God who has saved us in the past and yet you have brought me from my mother's womb. And the passage ends with a glorieus affirmation. The poor shall eat and be satisfied, like at this communion table today. May your hearts live forever can be better translated as "May you always be in good heart." It says that all people shall worship before the Lord who rules over all the nations. Even those who die and future generations shall acknowledge the Lord and proclaim his salvation.

I have a story that captures this going from awful to affirmation. I went to the Bishop's Convocation this past week. One of our speakers was Greg Jones, former dean at Duke Divinity School. He has written extensively about forgiveness and reconciliation. He talked about one of his heroes in the faith, Maggie who founded the House of Peace in Burundi. Maggie is a tutsi who never married, but she adopted 7 children, 4 tutsi and 3 hutu. You may remember that Burundi was a hotbed of warfare and ethnic cleansing between these 2 peoples. Her people the tutsi came to her village and demanded to know which children were hutus so that they could kill them. She refused. "God does not separate the children. They are all his." They made her watch as they killed 72 hutus in front of her. This is awful, about as bad as things get. AS they were leaving, she was desperate to find her 7 children. She prayed to God, she called out their names, and she went looking for them. She found them in the sacristy of the chapel. All 7 were alive. She decided she was going to start a new village. She found all the money she could and went to the tustis and bought, redeemed 25 more children. She began the House of Peace where children could find a safe place to prosper. It became an orphanage, a school where the older children taught the younger ones. There were shops where new skills were learned. She said that life should have fun in it. She built a movie theater. Enemies from the bush would come, "Can we watch a movie?" "Of course, all are welcome here," she replied. She built a swimming pool. ON the very spot where the children were massacred, where their blood soaked the soil, she built a pool of water of refreshment and new beginning like baptism. A man came to kill her. He pointed his AK-47 in her face. It is very hard for things to bother you when you have faced what is most awful in life. She didn't flinch. She said, "You don't want to kill me. Look at you. YOu are hiding in the bush. You don't know where your next meal is coming from or where you are going to sleep at night. Come join us." And he did. Her assassin became her driver! Maggie says, "I know I can never stop the war, but I can stop it in my heart and in the hearts of children." Over 10,000 children have come through the HOuse of Peace since 1993. Her model has been taken to many other countries in the world.

I invite you to keep praying. Especially when things are the most awful. God has a way of bringing an affirmation out of what is most awful. We Christians say that God brings life out of death, resurrection our of crucifixion. That is the good news I have to share on this second Sunday of Advent.

prayer for guidance

from my message on 2.26/12 from Psalm 25:1-10

All of us get lost sometime. All of us need help to find our way. We may need more than a map or GPS. Today in Ps. 25, we have a prayer for guidance. One commentary I read said it sets an agenda for prayer in a thorough way. The psalm is easy to follow, because it is an acrostic, that is, each verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.....22 letters ...so 22 verses. Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth...Don't worry, I am not going through 22 steps, only 3. This will be as easy as A, B, C.

A is for Ask. We need to ask for help. This is difficult, especially for us men of the male gender! We were patterned not to ask for help. I worked with my dad building hog houses from Yuma, Arizona, to Metter, Georgia. I vividly remember entering a new town, trying to find the lumber yard. My dad would say, "As long as there is some daylight left and a little bit of gas in the tank, we are NOT stopping to ask for directions!"

We find it hard to raise our hand and ask for help. I am going to be making an analogy here about raising our hands, because the text says, "to you, O LORD, I lift up my soul." Lizzie is an associate pastor in Smithville. She is in her first year there, just out of seminary. She has charge of a contemporary worship service which is led by a praise band made up entirely of teenage boys. She had a meeting with her guys to see how worship was going. "Not very good," they said. Is it the message? No, your messages are fine. Well, what about the music? NO, the music is ok. Well, what is it? The problem is that noboby raises their hands during the singing. That's it? Yes, that's it.

A few weeks later, Lizzie and her teenage boy band and several other high schoolers attended a weekend retreat at Mt. Wesley called a Mid-Winter. There was a band in the worship center leading the service. They were rocking out. Youth were raising their hands praising God. The boys in the Lizzie's band looked to their front man. He raised his hands. They raised their hands. Then they looked to Lizzie. Now Lizzie is the daughter of 2 Methodist pastors....who did not raise their hands in worship. She grew up knowing that was right for her as well. She knew that we Methodists might raise 1 hand, about shoulder high, as we sang Here I Am, Lord. But that was pushing it. They all looked to her. She raised her hands in worship.

This is what she found out. When you raise your hands, you make yourself totally vulnerable. You are exposed. YOu can no longer pretend that you are in charge. Your schedule and agenda no longer matter. We can no longer make things better by simply working harder. NO, to you O Lord we lift up our souls. We say we trust you God, not ourselves. We wait on you and your salvation. It is not about us. It is about God, about trusting in God. That's what happens when we raise our hands and ask for help.

And then God can help, when we ask. When we get out of the way and ask. It is like what Jesus says in Matt. 7, Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.

The first step to guidance is Ask. The second is Bible. B is for Bible. The Jews call their Bible the Torah. Often translated as Law, a better translation is instruction. In verse 8, it says, he instructs sinners in the way. The word for instruct is the same root as Torah. There are many synonyms for the Torah in this passage: way, path, truth, covenant, decrees. The Bible is given for our instruction.

John Wesley who founded the Methodist movement that became the UMC today said that whenever we want to know what God is like, what we are to believe, how we are to act, or the way forward, we go to the Bible first. We always read it through the lens of tradition; we can learn from the past. We read it through experience; we can use our feelings. We read it through reason; it is ok to be a thinking Christian. We read the whole Bible, not just the parts we like. We don't pick and choose. We don't take passages at random. The old preacher joke is of the struggling businessman who said that he was going to open the Bible and put his finger down and do whatever the Bible said to do. He open the book, and placed his finger down, and the Bible said, "Chapter 11." During this season of Lent, it is a good time to open yourselves to God's leading by reading the Bible. Start soaking yourselves in what God has to say. As I read the whole of the Bible, I find an arc of God's fierce love for us. I find a God who keeps trying to find another way to get us to understand how much He loves us. The last thing in reading the Bible is to read it in community. We all go to the Bible with our blinders on. We need the counsel of other Christians.

This leads to the letter C, which is for Community. We are better together than we are apart. I didn't have a good illustration for this until the confirmation retreat this past weekend. I led the youth in a catacomb worship experience on Friday night. We transformed a den in a lake house into a cave with candles. We met as 1st century Christians who worshiped under threat. We had no hymnals, so all of the music had to come out of our memories. We sang Jesus loves me, among other favorites. We had no Bibles, so we had to quote scriptures and remember stories we knew by heart. Phil. 4:13 was mentioned, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We had the sacrament of communion, serving each other in a circle. We had prayers for each other. Before I let them go, I asked them to reflect on their experience. One youth said, "This was so much better than watching TV. I needed this. The pressure of studying and sports gets to me. I feel at peace now. It is great just to be with your friends and to pray and you don't have to explain." Wow! Community is powerful.

The next day we did worship planning for a service that the confirmands will lead on May 6. They chose the hymns, the prayers, all of the liturgy for that day. At the end, I asked them to reflect again. One youth said, "this was fun." Community is fun. It is the context in which we pray for guidance. We do it together.

Ask....Bible...Community....God has plans for you that are better than the ones you have for yourself. Have fun seeking guidance.

transformed

a dialogue sermon with Tina Carter from Parker Lane UMC, on Transfiguration of the Lord, from Mark 9:2-9

I'm upset....YOU'RE UPSET, WHY?
I've been reading a book...THE BIBLE?
No, yes, that and another book called Simple Church...READING THIS BOOK HAS GOTTEN YOU UPSET.
See, I am in this cont. ed. course called Healthy Church Initiative. 12 of us pastors get together 1/month to talk after reading these books. We have 2 group leaders who are taking us thr this process of really looking at what is going on in our churches. We also have 3 laypersons from our congregation who are meeting with other laypeople for other churches reading the same bookd & going thru the sam class...THIS DOESN'T SOUND TOO UPSETTING.
I know it is just a book, words on a page. But hese particular wors have rung true to me. I have been telling some of our church leaders that this book has been kicking my theological butt. The authors talk about there being 2 kinds of church: 1 is a program church and the other is one that makes disciples. The program church is busy, it fills the calendar with good events, many that have been going on for years, and it has highly qualified staff who are loved and respected. The 2nd one has a clearly defined path that leads people to fall in love with God, grow their souls in small group relationships, & sends them out to serve others. What has me upset is that we do lots of great programs, but we don't always make lots of followers of Christ. ....OUCH
Ouch is right. We do great programs like last night's That's Amore' Y'all. It was such fun. Jean was taking tickets at the door. I don't know why, but she found found several of us males to be suspect, and insisted on doing a pat down search of us in a dark room. The 3 tenors made another appearance. Many generations came together and had a good time. We do so many programs: we have men's groups, women's groups, youth groups, Sunday School classes, Bible studies, mission projects, music ministries for all ages, and on and on. At staff meetings, we spend a lot of time just trying to fit in 1 more thing on the calendar. Do we have the space? Who will be in charge? We can tire ourselves out just working on the logistics. But what has convicted me is this: are any lives changed? Has anyone grown closer to Christ? Has anyone matured in their faith?.....I SEE YOUR STRUGGLE.
So I shared this concern with my accountability group, 3 pastor friends, this past Monday morning at 7 at Chick Fil-A. They nodded their heads. They too are busy trying to keep up with all of the church programming. They cautioned me though, saying some of the programming does lead to life-changing relationships. I agree. But some doesn't. How do we choose? What might need to be cut in order to get rid of the clutter so that people can see what is the next step in following Christ?....SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE SCRIPTURE WE READ?
Right. This is the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. We don't use that word everyday...transfiguration. I'll come back to it. So Jesus is on a high mtn, figuratively closer to God, paralleling what Moses did in summit meetings with God in Exodus. Jesus is glorified, surounded by light, so bright, no earthly light comes close. 2 major players, all stars from the Hebrew faith join Jesus. Funny side note: how do we know the identity of these 2? A pastor/scholar that I read wondered if they had their names stenciled on the back of their robes like football players' jerseys: #22 Elijah and #10 Moses. The inner circle of Jesus is with him, Peter, John, James. In the presence of all this holiness, beyond description, Peter tries to tame it with words. he tries to domesticate it with memorial structures. He doesn't know what to say. He is so afraid. My fear is that we avoid encountering the Holy with words as we go to meetings and take minutes, or as we try to hang onto something good from the past by building structures and programs adn don't want to move on. We find it hard to stay in the glory of Jesus & to simply listen to him. It is much easier to crowd our lives & our churches & our calendars with our words & our programs. We especially don't want to go down the mtn to see what happens when we follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem and to his death....SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
The 1st thing I acknowledge is that I am being changed. This book the Bible and this book Simple Church and this course Healthy Church Initiative are shaking me up. We have a meeting on Tuesday where church leaders are going to be looking at 15 goals for this congregation. All of this and more are God's way of saying, "I am not through with you yet." Sometimes, I can feel old & cynical & tired. Then God comes along with a new revelation of glory. And I am transformed. The 2nd thing is that we have the right vision statement: Following One, Serving All. We need to align what we do here with that statement. We are really robust at the serving all part. But we have lots of challenges where it comes to Following One. I confess this day that we have attracted many guests here, and some have even become members here, but I am not sure we have helped them grow in their relationship with Christ. I am not sure anyone here could even tell me what would be the next step in their spiritual journey. We have not done well at making disciples, followers of Christ. Now I would like to hear about your experience at PLUM.
OUR EXPERIENCE AT PLUM IS A LITTLE DIFFERNT. ALTHOUGH WE ARE LOCATED IN A POOR NEIGBORHOOD, WE ARE A MIXTURE OF GENERATIONALLY POOR MARGIN PEOPLE & MIDDLE CLASS POPEL WHO HAVE BEEN CALLED BY GOD TO TRANSFORMATIONS RELATIONSHIPS. SO WE ARE A MIX OF BLACK, GROWN & WHITE. WE ARE A MIX OF POOR & MIDDLE CLASS. WE ARE A MIX OF EDUCATED & NOT EDUCATED. AND THE PEOPLE AT PLUM IN GENERAL ARE COMMITED TO TEH CONCEPT THAT GOD IS TRANSFORMING US ALL IN WONDERFUL & NON-PREDICTABLE WAYS. AND WE ARE THERE FOR THE LONG HAUL. QUITE FRANKLY EVERYON WHO WAS AT THE CHURCH FOR OTHER REASONS HAS LONG AGO LEFT IN FRUSTRATION. SO WE ARE PEOPLE WHO EXPECT GOD TO CHANGE US RADICALLY THROUGH RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER AND WITH GOD. AND BECAUSE WE COME FROM A VARIETY OF BACKGROUNDS, AND ARE GENERALLY CURIOUS, WE WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EACH OTHER. WE UNDERSTAND THAT LIFE IS MESSY AND RELATIONSHIP IS MESSY AND SO WE EXPECT CHURCH TO BE A LITTLE MESSY.

ONE STORY MIGHT HELP TO ILLUSTRAT. I WAS RECENTLY WITH 1 OF OUR YOUNGERS. THIS LITTLE 1 WILL PROBABLY IDENTIFY HERSELF IN THE FUTURE AS BI-RACIAL, BUT RIGHT NOW SHE JUST SEES HERSELF AS 9. SHE LIVES IN HER FAMILY WITH HER ADOPTIVE FATHER. SHE HAS BEEN IN FOSTER CARE IN HER LIFETIME AND NOW HAS A FOREVER HOME. SHE ASKED ME, "PASTOR, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL?" AND I SAID, "YES, LOTS OF TIMES." HER RESPONSE, "FOR WHAT?' "WELL TO VISIT FOLKS, TO PRAY, TO SUPPORT STAFF WHO WORK IN PRISONS, & EVEN ONCE TO DO A WEDDING." IN HER DISGUSTING LITTLE 9 YR. OLD VOICE SHE SAID, "NO, I MEAN HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL FOR SOMETHING?" WHEN I RESPONDED IN THE NEGATIVE, SHE SAID, "WHY NOT?" LET THAT SINK IN FOR A MOMENT. HER RESPONSE WAS WHY NOT. SO I SAID, "ACTUALLY, YOU ARE KIND OF SPECIAL BECAUSE YOU KNOW PEOPLE WHO HAVE GONE TO PRISON. MOST PEOPLE DON'T GO TO PRISON. MANY PEOPLE DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYONE WHO HAS GONE TO PRISON." SHE WAS AMAZED. I WASN'T AMAZED. THE TRUTH IS THAT STATISTICALLY SPEAKING THERE SHOULD BE AT LEAST 1 FAMIL HERE WHO HAS PERSON EXPERIENC WITH PRISON OR WHO HAS A LOVED 1 IN PRISON. THERE IS SO MUCH SHAME ASSOCIATED WITH HAVING SOMEONE IN PRISON, THAT WE FIND IT HARD TO EVEN ASK FOR PRAYERS ABOUT IT. BUT IN OUR CONGREGATION IT'S COMMON. AND ACTUALLY IT'S FAR TOO COMMON FOR OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF COLOR. READ THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS. IT WILL BREAK YOUR HEART. THAT KIND OF CONVERSATION DOESN'T HAPPEN WITHOUT TRUE RELATIONSHIP. AND THAT KIND OF CONVERSATION IS TRANSFORMATIONAL FOR BOTH PARTIES INVOLVED. MY HEART WAS INDEED BROKEN THAT DAY.
We connect with your story here at WUMC as we have begun a ministry called the Storybook Project where women from here go to the prison in Gatesville to help women in white read bedtime stories on tape so that their children can go to sleep hearing the sound of their voices. I am proud of this church as we go out into the community to serve. I was scared when the Bishop appointed me here at WUMC. I was afraid we would be an isolated island of rich, white folks insulated from the rest of the world. But I have been pleasantly surprised by how engaged we are with the problems of our neighbors. Any Baby Can grew out of this congregation. Mobile Loaves and Fishes are strongly supported by WUMC. Foundation for the Homeless and so many more ministries are backed by us. I just don't want us to be a bunch of do-gooders though, another service club. I want our motivation to be because we are following Jesus.
I think our denomination has the right vision statement: making disciples for the transformation of the world. I pray that we may be transformed. I looked up the Greek word that is translated as transfiguration. It is literally metamorphasis. Our English comes directly from the Greek. I pray that we may not get stuck in our cocoon of comfortableness, of "we've always done it that way." I pray we may become the butterflies God intends us to be. Jesus was transformed on the mountain. I pray we may be also. Amen.