With the first full month of winter and all our festivals behind us. Our new year becoming this year. The liturgical calendar has us focused on unity. Our national connectional church posted an invocation or blessing or call, but it seemed a good place to start this morning:
Somos del Señor: Same Mind & Same Purpose
Here in this place we reenact and rehearse the story
of a poetic, prophetic, priestly God.
In liturgy, in litany, in prayer, in psalm, in meal, in hymns
we remember and call into the present
the story in which we live and move and have our being.
Here we are woven into the wisdom story of many generations;
we conspire with the Spirit towards a future garden
for we are grounded
in the names, dreams, signs and wonders of God’s communal story
and in this place, we become anguished poets
storied prophets
creative priest.
to each other
and to a searching world.[1]
Our purposes in Christ, our mind that is in Christ – namely to love God and love neighbor – can bring us to unity in mission and action.
[1] Cherwien, Susan Palo, “Calling Into the Present” From Glory Into Glory: Reflections for Worship (Saint Louis: MorningStar Music Publishers, 2009), 337.
This season we find the words of Paul come back again fresh to us. We can seek out agreement. It is actually all around. Few weeks ago I was running a common errand in my week. Maybe Tuesday to see how things were going with the fish or Thursday playing chess. There are many things going on in the youth center and almost soccer season.
As I turned onto Nottingham I saw more Mylar balloons than I have ever seen. Took my mind a moment to process. First the shear volume of balloons and second that they were all identical Mylar balloons. Prom season? I thought to myself. I notice things that have never happened to me before.
I have this gift and type of affliction to notice things. Much like when I was a baby novel things attract my attention. How I learned and what I was taught. And what I learned and how I was taught. Upon my return I found the electricity out and really not that many comparatively balloons wrapped around several transformers across Nottingham road.
There is good reason that I never saw that many Mylar balloons before. What good could come. I did know Mylar could put out the power. In Serbia in 1999, NATO tried out a bunch of new things. If you remember the late 90's relatively we didn't have that many hell fire missiles raining down from drones. What a name for something.
They had this idea that they could drop Mylar on the electric grid and knock it out instead of destroying the infrastructure. Transformers are hard to replace and very dirty when destroyed. So time and time again they would drop the Mylar and knock the electric out and the electrical technicians would work several days to restore power. Guess it was a nice things.
They did also drop cluster bombs on the hospital my daughter was born, but I'm pretty sure it was an accident. Many countries have long banned those weapons, but I want to tie this all back to those balloons. I was seeing something new and then something old. Didn't think that would happen again to me. Mylar brings connection to me. A weapon of war.
War and division we find everywhere. It really is just a matter of perspective. In many directions you could travel straight to a front line and see there is nothing dividing us. The words of Paul we will discuss come early from his letter to the church in Corinth.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
10 But I urge you, believers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in full agreement in what you say, and that there be no divisions or factions among you, but that you be perfectly united in your way of thinking and in your judgment [about matters of the faith]. 11 For I have been informed about you, my brothers and sisters, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are quarrels and factions among you. 12 Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I am [a disciple] of Paul,” or “I am [a disciple] of Apollos,” or “I am [a disciple] of Cephas (Peter),” or “I am [a disciple] of Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided [into different parts]? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? [Certainly not!] 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one would say that you were baptized into my name. 16 Now I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know if I baptized anyone else. 17 For Christ did not send me [as an apostle] to baptize, but [commissioned and empowered me] to preach the good news [of salvation]—not with clever and eloquent speech [as an orator], so that the cross of Christ would not be [
b]made ineffective [deprived of its saving power].
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God.
What we are to take I believe is more than the admonishment to be in perfect agreement, but the eternal truth that at no time and in no religious institution has it ever been easy. We can take comfort in the fact that the Churches that the great Paul helped found faced the same issues all the churches of Jesus Christ face.
People like to pick on religion in general in many ways. Sometimes those who feel they are the most religious see the least of God's power. People actually do see different things it is hard for us to grasp. To me yesterday I was thinking how curious that we do see at all. What an odd thing to do in general. We often hear people grateful just for that to see another day not even sure what it will bring.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] "
In our current political climate I wonder if we demand our lawyers to learn logic so well simply so they can know how to ignore it.
"but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God"
I like that combination of words. The power of God in verb form manifesting working still creating. If you were a creator would you stop?
The answer to division is dialogue. To Take part. To keep up.
Small numbers can be a challenge, but also an opportunity for everyone who is interested to take part. We are meeting this last Sunday of the month and if we can continue doing so month after month will become year after year generation after generation and 400 in 2221 perhaps. It really doesn't matter where we go as long as we go together with God.
We find this model in the heart of our reading today from Mathew:
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “[
a]Repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, regret past sins, live your life in a way that proves repentance; seek God’s purpose for your life], for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
So the simple answer seems that we just need to agree.
Here is were we find this contradiction that people find so difficult about religions. We need to work together and we need to fight for what is right. These two competing goals often have opposite requirements. I don't personally have the answer. If I did I don't think I would be here.
What we have in this institution of ours is really discipline to keep returning to the same questions until they are finally answered. It is faith that if we can continue to meet and continue to dialog we can continue to grow and get better. We can be healthier.
Thing about a church is you get what you get. Only a God could understand why we are all here.
I don't really argue with people who like to list all the evils of organized religion. I do find that any short falling I find in religious institutions I find in all institutions and all people and in myself.
Perspective is the solution and the difficulty we face. The problems we face as a world community as a nation and a local community all have a lack of long term thinking involved.
If we looked closer at the problems we perceive they are all short-term.
When we think long-term we can make any future possible. What we need is discipline and lucky enough we have one. I'll finish today with my grand fathers description of it:
Just suppose for a moment that all the workers on a building site said: "Let's forget the blue prints Let's each work out our own ideas!" When you saw the finished house (if it was ever finished), you'd laugh and say don't tell me there's a designer behind all this.
That is what has happened in the world for a good many centuries, and is still happening today.
What proportion of all the people in the world do you suppose, are following the Designer's blueprint? A pretty small number I dare say. Many, of course, don't know about it, many don't bother to consult it, and a lot of people prefer their own ideas. If the results are chaotic can we blame the Designer?
This blue print is found in the New Testament. There we can read of a God who broke through from the real and permanent world into this life of time and space by becoming a Man. He was thus able not only to give men the blueprint for living but to live it out in person. Among us in fact, you might say that he personally was the blueprint. And it becomes pretty plain as you read that if only men would live according to that design, the world would quickly recover and become infinitely better and happier place.
At present there is only a mere handful who have studied the plan and are trying to cooperate with the designer.
What about you? Do you say, "Who need the blueprint" and then try to shift the blame for all the mess on God, the designer? Or are you daily seeking to live according to God's Plan.
Consider the influence of the life of Jesus. It has been said He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He had no credentials but himself. Yet, We are well within the mark when we say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.
Jesus you see identified Himself with the great idea: He lived for a supreme objective :The Kingdom of God". He says," To this end was I born and for this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear witness unto truth." (John 18:37)
Here then my brothers is one way to make a simple life truly influential. It is to serve God instead of gold, to invest yourself in men instead of markets. It is to live for the long term instead of temporary values. It is to put the Church first instead of last. It is to identify yourself with great causes instead of petty satisfactions.
Do this and one solitary life, one small candle, however humble, becomes great in stature and matchless in it's endless influence among men.--
Jesus said,"I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Let Us Pray.
Our dear Heavenly Father we pray that thou will keep us in the center of thy will. Help us to shine for thee in a mighty way. Increase our vision - lift our horizons - intensify our zeal, that we might in all times seek they face: That we might love our neighbors as ourselves. -That we might live lighted lives. -Amen
Here we are woven into the wisdom story of many generations;
Nottingham Jan 26th, 2020
