Engineering My Faith

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on September 4, 2022. Based on Luke 14:25-33 (with a little look back at Luke 14:15-24).

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Before I begin with this passage, I’d like to back up. The parable immediately before today’s reading is about a man who gave a great dinner and invited many, but they didn’t come. One said he had just bought some land. Another said he had just bought some oxen. And another said he had just been married. Possessions, work, and spouse—all barriers that kept people out of his party.

Then in today’s passage, Jesus says we must hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, life itself and all our possessions. Wow, that’s kind of a lot. Jesus asks his disciples not just to believe certain things, but to change their whole lives for his sake. He was trying to build a new world, one disciple at a time, and his new world would need to be so different that his followers had to abandon everything that tied them down.

Try to put yourself in the frame of mind of those first-century followers. Father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters—basically, your family, and therefore your clan and tribe. At that time and in that place, family, clan, and tribe defined your identity. They enabled you to function in normal society. The Roman government provided security in the form of an occupying army, but your family provided everything else. Jesus was saying, no, you’re not part of that family, you’re part of MY family. But by the way, so is everyone else, so take what you know about supporting those who are related to you by blood or marriage, and apply it to those who are related to you by MY blood.

Jesus knew it wouldn’t be easy. He told his disciples to take up their cross, which was a way of saying, be willing to die for the sake of my vision of a new world, God’s realm here on earth.

These days, we don’t have an occupying Roman government who crucifies rebels and dissenters. We don’t rely so explicitly on our families to support us. So how can we translate Jesus’s message to modern America?

Well, let’s start by thinking about our priorities. How do we decide what matters? How do we choose what to give up and what to hold onto? Our highest priority should be Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. That word, Lord—it means that he is in charge, and he sets the priorities. Well, as I said a month ago, Jesus has not yet appeared on clouds of glory, so we have to rely on what people wrote about him 2000 years ago, plus the Hebrew scriptures that witness to another 2000 years of people’s encounters with our God. Jesus told us how to interpret those writings. He said, in Matthew’s telling, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” So whenever we have a question about how to interpret the Bible, or how God is leading us, we should discern what it means to love God and love our neighbor.

One way to show our love of God is to worship. As many of you know, I went through some training that resulted in a certificate in Congregational Leadership from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. One course was on Reformed worship. Since Calvin’s time, we have followed a fourfold ordo. That is, regardless of the details of the order of worship, we follow a basic structure comprising Gathering, The Word, The Eucharist or Thanksgiving, and Sending. Within that structure, there are some things that are not negotiable, and others that are highly flexible. The gathering phase must include confession, along with assurance of pardon. It is not considered worship if the scriptures are not both read and preached. But which version of the Bible? Who does the preaching, and what does it even mean to preach? I assert that what we did in Fired Up!, reading the verse and discussing it, counts as preaching. Some preachers use media clips. Some sermons are five minutes, some are an hour. Oh, and what kind of music do we use? Where do we meet? When do we meet? Everything else is flexible.

I’m going to take a page out of Susan’s book and use the PowerPoint a little. Carey Nieuwhof is an author and consultant in church leadership. He recently re-posted a blog with a list of things churches must be willing to give up:

1. Music
2. Politics
3. Style
4. Buildings
5. Money
6. Time
7. Our lives

This is tough. Let’s start at the top: music. Now, I love it when Lorie plays the organ, and I love the anthems the choir sings, and I love most of the hymns we sing. But, I don’t listen to any of that when I’m in the car, and I’m guessing most of you don’t either. Classical music stations are dying around the country. That’s just not what people listen to. Now, you could argue that worship should be different from pop culture, but I should remind you that at least some of the hymns we sing would have been considered pop culture at the time.

Politics. Nieuwhof was particularly targeting those churches who preach that being Christian means Thou Shalt Vote Republican, but I need to remind myself that being Christian means that I should owe no allegiance to any political party. As I saw on the church near my house, we are saved not by a donkey or an elephant, but by the Lamb. Both Jesus and his apostles like Paul preached not that the political structures should be changed, but that we are called to live in a different kind of kingdom. Yes, participate in politics, yes, rely on your beliefs including your religious beliefs when you vote, but no, Jesus was neither Republican nor Democrat. His message transcends any box that a political party would put him in.

Style. By that, Nieuwhof means that we shouldn’t fight about whether the carpets should be blue or gray or brown. I would also say that we need to relax about what people wear and how they look. Two people I have invited to worship over the years have asked me what would be considered appropriate. I’m not personally a fan of tattoos or piercings, but I tolerate Jesse’s and so should we all. On the flip side, I attended a retreat at a Jesuit center, so I attended Catholic Mass. Smells and bells—if they don’t have incense, it doesn’t seem like worship. Shorts and T-shirts are fine for the congregation, but the priest better be wearing his full liturgical vestments.

Buildings. Most of you have heard me say that this sanctuary was designed by a sadistic madman. NOTHING is straight. You all think it’s normal, but it really isn’t. The overall shape is a rhombus with 60° angles north and south, 120° angles east and west, instead of right angles like a normal building. You come in on the side and then have to scoot along super-long pews that are not very comfortable because of the hard wood across the middle of your back. OK, I’ve said my piece, and I’ll try to let it go. But the basic point is, this space is not terribly welcoming to visitors, especially those who are unchurched. It’s intimidating. The chapel is nice and intimate, but dark, so dark. But I’ve been in wonderful worship services in a city park or a church camp. God is there just as much as God is here.

Money. We are searching for an installed pastor, and people are rightly worried about where the money will come from to pay them. Any organization needs to have regular income to fund their operations. We’re also in the midst of a capital campaign. I’m not going to tell anyone how much they should give, but Nieuwhof’s point is that we need to put our money—individually and as a congregation—where we think it will serve God best. The church budget is ultimately a theological statement.

Time. I invest a lot of time in working to build God’s kingdom in visible ways, like preaching. Plenty of other people invest their time in the Church in ways that are similarly visible, and many others in ways that are hidden. But beyond that, we should be willing to organize our lives so that time with God and with God’s people is our top priority.

And finally, our lives. That’s what Jesus meant by taking up your cross. He didn’t mean to wear a little lapel pin like I do, or a necklace or earrings like some people do. He meant, live your life in such a way that you will be building God’s kingdom here and now, even if it means giving up your time, your money, your relationships, your status, your reputation, and ultimately even your life.

I think I’ve mentioned the so-called pilgrimage I’m on called, “Find Your Inner Monk.” The basic theme of the program is to identify your priorities, and then build your life in such a way that reflects those priorities. Just as a church budget is a theological document, so is a personal budget, and so is a calendar. If I say that a stronger relationship with my wife is one of my priorities, but then spend fourteen hours a day at the office seven days a week, well, obviously that relationship is not a priority. If I say that sharing God’s love with people outside this congregation is a priority but never talk to any of them, then that must not really be a priority.

A recent illustration in a Find Your Inner Monk lesson used Legos. Let’s suppose you have a limited supply of Legos, like this small set of 221 bricks. You build all of these things that are shown and use up all the bricks. Then you have an idea of something better to build. Well, the only way to proceed is to take apart something that you’ve already built. You can’t build something better without tearing down something good.

In the same way, we have a limited supply of time and money. Well, we can get more money, I guess, but each day, we have only 24 hours to spend, and some of it needs to be spent on sleep. How we structure our lives, how we spend our resources, how we act in the world, will determine the impact that we have.

I’d like you to imagine a world in which this building doesn’t exist. A world in which we don’t gather on Sunday mornings at 9:45. A world in which we don’t have any paid staff—no Jeff, no Lorie, no Katie, no Tina, no pastor, no preschool, nothing. Would we build what we have now? Would we hire the same sadistic madman to design our sanctuary? Would we have pews? An organ? Would we start a preschool to serve our community? What would we do?

Some friends of mine are in that exact situation. Wayne, the leader of my elk hunting party, and Patrick, a pastor, are starting a new church called CrossRoads. Since January, they have been meeting in a classroom in McNutt Hall on Saturday evenings. Right now, as I speak, they are having their first worship service in their new space. After considering all of the alternatives, they ultimately decided to rent the former Vineyard space. They surely won’t have pews. I don’t know what they will do for music; while they met at McNutt, they would use YouTube. The space they are renting has a sound system but no organ. What will be their style of worship? Patrick was educated as a Baptist, so I suspect their worship would be recognizable to anyone out of that tradition, but I can almost 100% guarantee they won’t use incense. Liturgy? Choir? Probably not.

But CrossRoads is still meeting on Sunday mornings in a dedicated sanctuary, because of tradition. Let me describe another possible vision of worship. Imagine a group of perhaps a dozen individuals. They meet on, say, Tuesday night in the back room of Hoppers. They place their food and drink orders, maybe including beer and wine, maybe not. While they’re waiting for their food, the one person leads them in a prayer of confession, and then they talk about some things going on in their lives or in the world, and someone leads them in a prayer of thanksgiving and supplication. Oh, the food is here. A quick prayer of blessing, and then while they eat, someone reads a Bible passage. That person also gives a little bit of context to the passage and how they interpret it, given both that context and what’s going on in their lives and in the community. A conversation follows, with people contributing how they understand it. Some of them have read the passage ahead of time, others haven’t; some of them have studied the Bible a lot, others are brand new. Some are used to just being told what to think and struggle to embrace uncertainty, where others openly challenge orthodoxy and traditional ways of interpreting the passage. As the meal wraps up, and the server clears the dishes, someone pulls out a portable communion set, blesses and breaks bread, and passes the bread and cup around for communion by intinction. Now they have all been fed both physically and spiritually, so it’s time to go. A brief unison prayer—the same one every week, one that reflects their shared beliefs and mission in the world—and they depart. Some stroll down to Soda & Scoops, others hurry home to deal with young kids. Maybe a few who don’t have to get up early the next day stay and hang out at the bar.

Is that worship? Is it any more or less worshipful than what we are doing now? Is God any more or less present in that gathering than they are with us? Would it have more or less impact on the lives of those who gather? Would it be more or less accessible for people who do not currently attend a church?

I believe that such a service would be worship that is acceptable to the God that I love. I believe that it would reach different people than we see worshipping today. More people? I don’t know. More meaningful? I don’t know. But we need to be open to the leading of the Spirit to explore these kinds of worship experiences. We need to let go of everything we think is necessary but is ancillary to our true priorities: loving God and loving our neighbor. James Clear once wrote, If you’re unwilling to adapt to the future, you’ll justify the past. What we do each Sunday, and where we do it, is our past. Let’s open our hearts and minds to a future where we open the doors of God’s kingdom to everyone who needs to know the God we love. Amen.

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Preached on August 7, 2022, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Luke 12:32-40.

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I would like to open with a reading from the book of Daniel, chapter 7, verse 13. “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.” Throughout the Gospels, Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, which is a reference to this glorious vision of a Messiah coming on clouds of glory. This is usually what people imagine when they think about the second coming of Christ.

But now, here’s a condensed passage from Matthew 25. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. … He will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry… or a stranger…?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’”

Jesus is indeed coming to us. Day after day, He comes to us. Someday, perhaps we will see him coming on clouds of glory, but every day, he comes to us in the hungry, the stranger, the prisoner. As Luke says, like a thief in the night, the Son of Man is coming at an hour we do not expect. So our task is to be ready when Jesus shows up.

How can we be ready? Well, I’d like to use gardening as a metaphor. I hit on this image a few weeks ago, and the more I think about it, the more richness I see in it. So don’t be surprised if you hear me talking about gardening for many sermons to come. I’ll probably just scratch the surface of it today.

There are many kinds of gardens, just as we are all different. Our garden comprises two half-barrel containers and a few other pots—all container gardening, so that Rhonda can tend it. Her parents’ garden up in Illinois is something else entirely. They probably have a total of a quarter acre, with that good Illinois soil. Rows of tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, asparagus, and probably other things I’m not remembering. Whatever garden image you can keep in your mind is fine for our purposes this morning, but I’m mostly thinking of something more like my in-laws’ garden with a lot of diversity in it. They also have an orchard that they’re trying to get going.

Gardens have different plants for different seasons. Most are annuals. My father-in-law starts tomato plants from seeds indoors in about February, which is way too early. They fruit at a certain time in mid-summer, and when they’re done producing, they die. Other annuals produce earlier or later in the year. Still other plants are perennials that take multiple years to produce, like asparagus and strawberries. Fruit trees are the extreme example. Depending on the tree, they can take several years to produce fruit reliably.

Spring is a time for putting plants in the ground. As I said, my father-in-law starts his tomato plants indoors and eventually transplants them to the garden. The biggest challenge every gardener faces is timing. Too soon and your plants will die in a late frost. Too late and they’ll scorch in the summer heat without producing. You can look at the historical trends and plan, but you also need to be aware of deviations. Whatever the root cause, climate change is a fact, and any farmer will tell you that they have made adjustments for the changes in the environment. What used to work just fine is no longer appropriate. Growing seasons have been shifting around, while weather extremes have become less predictable. You can think you’ve done everything right, and still fail because the weather does something unexpected.

In the same way, the spiritual climate has been shifting. Several centuries ago, daily life and the rhythms of Roman Catholic worship were deeply intertwined. These days, the spiritual and secular spheres are almost entirely separate. That forces each person to figure out how best to plant their garden by seeking spiritual and religious experiences and organizations. In turn, each church needs to continually re-invent how it will respond to the different forces acting on their parishioners’ lives. Things that were once taken for granted, like everyone having Sundays blocked off for worship, are simply untrue today. The climate is changing, but people still need the fruits of the Spirit, so God is still at work.

Timing: What is the right time to plant something new in your spiritual garden? Only you can decide. There are trends you can look at, but each person’s spiritual life is their own. For example, many people turn to God in times of crisis. That’s great, and totally appropriate. God comes near to the broken-hearted. When we are suffering, often, we are more open to God, more fertile soil. But in my case, I joined this church in 2008 and encountered a crisis in 2012. I needed those deep roots grown during the springtime of my spiritual life in order to weather the storms that came later on. As another example, I just started a new position on campus as department chair. This is probably NOT the time to also add a new spiritual practice to my life. Instead, it’s a time to continue the practices that are the most helpful in growing my relationship with God.

Which brings us to summertime in the garden. In the spring, the gardener prepares the soil and plants the plants. In the summer, the garden needs continual attention: weeding, watering, thinning, and pruning. If you grow things from seeds, it’s common practice to plant extra seeds as a hedge against poor germination, so it is essential to remove some plants to allow others to thrive. In the same way, some plants like blackberry bushes will naturally put too much energy into growing long branches and producing too many fruits, and so they need to be pruned in order for the fruits to be of sufficient quality. Weeding is essential as well to make sure the good plants have sufficient space and resources to grow.

If all goes well, you’ll be able to harvest from your garden throughout the summer. This is about the time of year when I ask, Why are we doing this? Gardening is a lot of work. If I want a tomato, I can go to Walmart any day of the year and buy one. Well, Rhonda is a tomato snob. She won’t eat those Walmart tomatoes. Hothouse tomatoes, hybrids designed for size and appearance and ability to ship around the country, rather than quality and taste. She wants garden tomatoes for their taste and firmness. I’ll admit that the tomatoes she is able to grow, even in containers on our driveway, are superior to the tomatoes I get at Walmart.

I think that’s part of the answer to why we are here. Yes, you can read books about God, you can pray at home, and so forth, but it is in our encounters with each other that we achieve deeper, more meaningful, mutually-reinforcing relationships with God and with each other. When we put our faith into practice, whether in worship or in service, we are toughening it up and deepening it, and ultimately producing better spiritual fruit. Of course, we have to resist the urge to turn our church into a greenhouse instead of a garden. It is tempting to focus on caring for each other and to not worry about what’s going on in the world. It is tempting to treat this space as a refuge that is disconnected with the rest of our lives. It is essential that we bring our whole selves to God, and also that we incorporate God in our whole selves—our work, our families, our community relationships, and so forth. We shouldn’t only focus on God when it’s convenient for us or treat God as someone we only turn to in times of need. Instead, we should be continually tending our garden in our personal summertimes to produce fruit that will sustain us through our long, dark winters.

Because we know that winter will come. When we were visiting my in-laws recently, they had more tomatoes than they could eat in a month. Why? Well, someday, they won’t be able to go to the garden and pick a tomato. Instead, they’ll have to pull a jar off the shelf. They turn the tomatoes into salsa and pasta sauce and tomato juice and chili sauce and other things that they can use throughout the cold, dead winter. They are able to live off the produce of the summer throughout the winter, just as I was able to lean on God during my crisis because I had built my relationship with Them during a summertime period in my life.

So, what season are we in, as individuals and as a congregation? Well, we know that whatever season we are in, another one is coming. When winter comes, the tomato and cucumber and bell pepper plants die, but the well-prepared gardener doesn’t. The gardener knows that winter will come and prepares for it, but also knows that spring will come. Winter is not a time to mourn the loss of the garden, but a time to anticipate the new growth that will come with the spring. It’s a time to lean on the produce of the summer while preparing what new things you will do in the spring.

Let’s return to Luke’s Gospel. Jesus said, “Blessed are those…whom the master finds alert when he comes. … You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Most days, Jesus comes to us not on clouds of glory, but as one of the least among us. He comes to us in the poor, the sick, the neglected, the outcast. Does he find us ready? Ask yourself: Have I learned what I need to learn, so that when I encounter someone in need, I have the spiritual depth to help them? Have I harvested some spiritual fruits from my garden so that I am ready for whatever comes my way?

I know I talk about The Mission a lot, and I’m sorry to keep retreading the same path, but the plight of the homeless is very much front-of-mind in this community right now, and that’s also the place in my life where I encounter those in need. Part of the challenge of homelessness is that the actual problems people have are not the problems we might think they have. We might think they’re lazy or drug addicts or mentally ill or something like that. The truth is that most people who are homeless find themselves in a bad situation with no safety net. They lose their job, or can’t find a job that pays enough to cover rent and utilities, or get divorced, or need to flee from an unhealthy or abusive home, or have a medical emergency. Consider this: the main treatment that Rhonda takes for her primary-progressive MS has a list price of over $68,000 annually. I couldn’t possibly pay that without insurance. Cancer treatments often cost that much or more, sometimes MUCH more.

My point is that people become homeless for a number of reasons. I have educated myself, and continue to educate myself, on both the practical issues and spiritual issues at play so that I can be compassionate and supportive when I encounter someone who is homeless. In a similar way, each year, there are articles about the lived experiences of incoming college freshmen to help faculty and staff relate to them. I have never personally experienced racism or sexism, but there are books and articles that I’ve read to help me see the world through the eyes of Blacks and Asians and women of all races. Those are things that I do to tend my spiritual garden. Producing good fruit requires more than just prayer and study and worship. It requires preparing yourself to receive Jesus however he comes to you—whatever age, or ability, or race, or language, or gender. Jesus will come. Will he find you ready?

If he does, we are promised that he will serve us at his heavenly banquet. Let us each strive to be prepared to meet Jesus, not just on the Last Day when we receive the promise of Easter, but on each day as we see God in the people we encounter. And let us turn now to the Lord’s Table to receive a foretaste of that heavenly banquet, the product of human hands that connects us with the divine food and drink of Jesus’s body and blood. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on July 17, 2022. Based on Colossians 1:15-29.

This is pretty close to a statement of faith for me. It encapsulates the essence of my beliefs, which are also reflected in Romans 8:38-39. After I wrote this sermon, I read an article by Keith Giles that is also based on the this passage from Colossians, with a similar conclusion.

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Last month, I threatened to give a full explication of the doctrine of the Trinity. Well, today’s topic is predestination. John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is the most famous, or perhaps infamous, aspect of Presbyterian theology. These days, Calvinist thought is also studied extensively in Baptist circles as well, maybe more than in Presbyterian seminaries even.

Calvin believed that God made an unchangeable decree from before the creation of the world to save some people, the elect. They were predestinated for eternal life in the glorious kingdom of God. He also believed that the others, the reprobate, would be barred from access to salvation and sentenced to eternal death.

The first problem this doctrine creates is the uncertainty. Am I one of the elect or the reprobate? How could I possibly know? The so-called Protestant work ethic was one response. If you are successful in this life, it must be because you are one of the elect; if you are unsuccessful, it must be because you are one of the reprobate. So people started working hard to be successful to “prove” that they were among the elect.

I find this whole concept repulsive. Why would God choose before the founding of creation to create people who are destined for eternal death, with no hope for salvation? To me, that seems the height of evil, not of goodness. How can I worship a God who has already, arbitrarily, decided to send people to Hell? Calvin made sense of it by asserting total depravity: all of humanity is deserving of Hell, so really it’s good news that anyone goes to heaven. But I just can’t get behind that. I can’t accept a doctrine that claims we are all completely, totally, irredeemably evil. I mean, we were made in the image of God, through Christ. There must be goodness in us.

In the centuries since Calvin put this doctrine forward, many theologians have struggled with it as well. I have come to accept Karl Barth’s analysis. Barth argued that yes, God predestined who would be saved, and chose Jesus Christ. Through Christ, then, all things are reconciled to God. Now, that’s a theology I can accept. In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” This world is broken and sinful, so we experience pain and death. Yet we will be made alive through Christ, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to Godself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” Amen.

Barth himself did not believe in universal salvation, but that’s the logical endpoint of his argument. I read a useful analysis that uses sets and predicates and logical contradictions and so forth. I won’t subject you all to that, partly because I didn’t finish reading it. I will instead appeal to love. Through Christ, reconciliation is available to all people and indeed all creation. God’s grace is an unconditional gift. Why would a loving God withhold that gift? I do believe that we need to accept that gift of love and salvation and reconciliation, but where I differ from some of my evangelical colleagues is that I do not believe that death is the end. Death is not the end of the opportunity to accept it. If God’s kingdom is eternal, our lives are just a blink of an eye.

In a way, Calvinist predestination revives the Gnostic heresy. The Gnostics were a faction of early Christianity, in the second and third centuries, who were ultimately cast out as heretics. They believed that the God of Israel was indeed the creator of all material things, but that all material things were inherently evil. Humans have the divine spark within themselves, which is good, but everything else is evil. Jesus came to teach “secrets” to a select few that revealed how to escape the evil of the world. This dualistic worldview was rejected when Christianity settled on early creeds like the Nicene Creed. We believe instead that Jesus was both fully God and fully human, and that all things were created through Christ who is the Word, the divine Logos, who has redeemed creation. The world is broken, but is not inherently evil. God is present in the world just as God is present in the heavenly realm.

But dualistic thinking survives, and Calvinist predestination survives, in part because the concept of grace is so amazing that it seems too good to be true. The New Testament teaches that Jesus offers forgiveness to anyone who asks. Some people struggle to accept that forgiveness, either for themselves or for others who they perceive to be undeserving. I recently re-read The Second Mountain by David Brooks, who grew up as a cultural Jew with a lot of exposure to Christianity, but as an adult was functionally agnostic. As he was working on an earlier book, he came up with the idea of “participatory grace,” which is kind of like meeting God halfway. He thought, Well, maybe if I do some good things and stop doing so many bad things, then God will complete the work. His colleague and future wife rejected this out of hand. There is no participation necessary for grace. God’s grace is a gift, freely given, available to anyone who will accept it. We can choose whether or not to accept it, and when, but ultimately, it is a gift. We don’t need to do anything to earn it. Jesus already did what needed to be done. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, “through Jesus, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” The work has been done. The gift is waiting to be unwrapped. We can delay and defer entering God’s dominion by accepting this gift, or we can turn towards God now and experience the joy of God’s love. What we can’t do is earn any more love than God already has for us now, nor can we lose our place in God’s family.

We also can’t choose who receives the gift of God’s grace. Apparently, there is a dispute in some Christian corners of the internet about serving communion to the unbaptized. This was a debate in PC(USA) several years ago. Also, there are many churches that only accept certain kinds of baptism as being sufficient to earn a right to the sacrament of communion. Roman Catholics only accept Catholic baptisms; Baptists and many like-minded denominations and non-denominational churches only accept adult baptism. This policing of the Lord’s Table is exactly the opposite of what Jesus taught. It’s exactly the opposite of what Paul taught. They taught that all are welcome at the Table: whether saint or sinner, Jew or Greek. Jesus was criticized for eating with tax collectors and prostitutes, but he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” If our Lord’s Table were only available to those who were worthy, we would never celebrate communion. Instead, we know that Jesus Christ makes us worthy. Jesus makes us “holy and blameless and irreproachable” before God.

Elsewhere, Jesus taught that we must be born again, or born from above. This is usually interpreted to mean that we must have a conversion experience, where we have some vivid encounter and turn our lives over to God through Jesus. In the Pentecostal tradition, this is accompanied by speaking in tongues and other gifts of the Spirit. But again, this is not something that we can choose to do. Did you choose to be born? I know I didn’t. For all of us, someone chose that we would be born, but we didn’t make the choice ourselves. In the same way, we cannot choose to be born anew into God’s family, it just happens. We are given the gift of membership in God’s family whether we like it or not. We can only choose whether to embrace the love that flows from God, or to reject it.

So, why are we here? I mean, why do churches exist, and why are we worshipping together in this particular church this morning? Well, we cannot choose who receives God’s gift of grace, but we can be conduits for it, the tangible expression of God’s love in another person’s life. We come to church in part to experience that love, and in part to prepare ourselves to share that love with others. Pastor Osheta Moore wrote, “The whole of Jesus’ ministry was to establish a community so convinced of their Belovedness to God that they proclaim the Belovedness of others.” We should strive to become ever more mature in Christ, always better examples of God’s love to those we meet.

The whole of Jesus’ ministry was to establish a community so convinced of their Belovedness to God that they proclaim the Belovedness of others.

Pastor Osheta Moore

Let me share a brief story as an example. A couple months ago, I had a conversation with someone who was feeling a sense of despair. She was bombarded by things that she didn’t believe, but that still wore her down. Things like, “Bill Gates engineered the coronavirus so he could use the vaccines to implant microchips in everyone, which are the Mark of the Beast and will doom us to the lake of fire.” I shared with her my theology—my belief in the ultimate salvation of all creation. The central message and core teaching of the book of Revelation, and indeed the whole New Testament, is that in the end, God wins. Things may look bleak right now, but in the end, God wins. I saw her again last week, and she said that conversation was a turning point for her. Instead of despair, she has hope and is investing in expanding her business. I expressed gratitude, then said, That wasn’t me, that was God. God used me on that day to share with her a message of hope that she needed to hear. You never know who you might impact or in what way God may use you to share a message of hope, and love, and reconciliation with someone who needs to hear it.

But also remember that everyone is on a different path and can only hear that message in a certain way that makes sense to them. I’m an advisor to Common Call, the campus ministry that we co-sponsor with Christ Episcopal Church. Common Call is part of the Campus Ministries Association. We are a very small player compared to the Christian Campus Fellowship, the Baptist Student Union, and so forth. We are also theologically quite different from the rest. I stay active in CMA, though, and support the efforts of all of the ministries because each student needs to find a way to God that makes sense to them. Some people need to be told what to believe. Some people need to experience the gifts of the Spirit to believe that they are really accepted by God. Some people need to hear words of absolution from a priest after confessing their sins. But some people also need to hear about a God who loves them already, who welcomes them wherever they may be on their personal journey of faith. We provide a safe place where students can express their doubts and questions, and in doing so, grow into an adult, personal faith instead of a fragile, received faith.

Paul taught us what our role is. The word he used to describe himself is diakonos, which is variously translated as minister or servant or even waiter. This is the word from which we get the term “deacon.” Paul writes that he is a servant of the gospel, for which he toils and strives with all the energy that Christ powerfully inspires within him. Paul had a hard life, and yet all of his writings are filled with love and joy. He knew that the hardships of this world were a part of his education as a servant of the gospel. They toughened him up so that he could reach more and more people, and indeed, his words have inspired billions of Christians for two millennia.

Paul was literally a servant for the gospel, like a waiter bringing food and drink: the body and blood of Christ to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In his time, there was an ongoing debate about whether a Gentile had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian, and he always taught that the answer is no. Christ’s grace is sufficient. There is no longer any need for the cultural markers of Judaism, like circumcision, for through Christ, all things have been reconciled to God. Paul didn’t really need to teach anyone anything in order for them to one day be welcomed at Jesus’s heavenly banquet. But he traveled the Mediterranean sharing the riches of the glory of the mystery of Christ’s gift to all of us. He revealed this mystery to both Jews and Gentiles, a mystery hidden throughout the ages. God has always been present in the world, for Christ is before all things. But until the coming of Jesus, God’s presence was invisible. Jesus came to reveal the glory of his presence in the world, and his presence in each person.

Now, we are called to continue to reveal that glory. Jesus is no longer visibly present, so it is up to us to show his love to all of God’s beloved children. Paul urges us to stay true to the gospel truth, that all things have been reconciled to God, that we are part of God’s dominion, that Christ has made us holy and blameless before God. Let us strive to grow into mature Christians, confident in God’s grace freely given, and acting as conduits for that grace so that all people may know the love and joy that comes from full participation in the kingdom of God. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on July 3, 2022. Based on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20. Read from NRSV, but Bible Gateway has NRSVue.

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In the last session meeting, we were talking about editing the MIF and someone, probably Susan, said, “As long as you don’t add anything about handling snakes.” I said, “Obviously you haven’t read the lectionary passage for July 3.” Well, I promise you, we won’t be actually passing venomous snakes around today.

But I do want to talk about the animal images in this passage. When Jesus first sends out the seventy, or seventy-two, disciples, he says they are like lambs among wolves. Wolves are apex predators. They chase and test their prey looking for weakness. They will eat small animals, but also large game like deer and elk. When they are hunting large game, they hunt as a pack that separates out and surrounds its prey. Some attack the prey from the rear while others seize them by the nose. Their success rate is actually not very good, but that’s small consolation to a shepherd who has a large flock of sheep to protect.

Later, Jesus says that he gives his disciples power over snakes and scorpions. Both of these animals are venomous and solitary. Snakes prey on small animals like lizards, rodents, and birds. Only the very largest pythons prey on larger animals like a small deer. No snakes actively hunt humans, as far as I know. Scorpions prey on insects, spiders, centipedes, and other scorpions. The largest scorpion species lives in South Africa with a maximum length of about 8 inches. Venomous snakes and scorpions are dangerous and scary, but they will only strike humans in self-defense. They live in dark places, secluded places. Any disturbance seems to be life-threatening to them, so they will sting or bite if they cannot escape.

We humans are not so different in that way. Like all animals, we have the fight-flight-or-freeze response to threats. If you think about things that you fear, the ultimate root of the fear is a fear of Death. Sometimes that’s obvious—I’m not really afraid of heights, but I am afraid of plummeting to my death. Sometimes it’s less obvious. I’m currently doing something that many of you wouldn’t: talking to a crowd of people. For most of human history, being in this position would mean the possibility that I would be cast out of the tribe, and being an outcast was practically a death sentence. We humans need each other to survive. In modern society, if I’m cast out of one group, I can join another, and either way, I still have access to the provisions of other humans. But in prehistoric society, if you were cast out of one group, you had to fend for yourself in a dangerous world, finding your own food and water, defending yourself against predators like wolves.

So even though there is no actual risk to my life right now, many of you would not be willing to do this because of a deep-seated fear. That same fear also prevents us all from talking to people who are different from us. We fear being rejected or attacked. Or if we do talk with strangers, it’s usually about something inane like the weather. We fear being any more open about what truly matters to us. Being rejected over something close to our heart feels like a form of death.

In the face of this fear, Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs. That way, each person always knew that at least one other person accepted them. But at the same time, he told them not to take any supplies or provisions with them. Instead, they were supposed to explicitly rely on the hospitality of others. That put the disciples deeply into a situation that feels the most dangerous, one that depends entirely on remaining in good standing with your “tribe.” He sent them with a message of peace and healing.

Historically, Christian missionaries have traveled the world as colonizers. They went places like Africa and the Americas, intent on converting the “savages” into good European Christians. They sought to change everything about the “savages’” culture. But that’s not what Jesus teaches. He said, Take nothing with you, and eat what you are given. Immerse yourself in the life and culture you encounter. Like Paul said later on, become a Jew to the Jews and a Greek to the Greeks for the sake of sharing the Gospel message of love and peace and reconciliation.

Jesus sent the seventy-two to the places where he was going himself. As they carried his message, they prepared people to receive Jesus. In the same way, we are called to go where Jesus is heading, to prepare people to enter the kingdom of God that is at hand.

But Jesus warned them all that he was sending them out like “lambs among wolves.” For some reason, whenever someone preaches a message of love, reconciliation, and inclusion, they are attacked. We see that all across America. Churches and denominations have split and are splitting over issues related to inclusion. Our politics are dominated by competing visions of who is worthy of inclusion in American society. We are too often led by people who teach hate and fear instead of love.

Yet the disciples survived. They came back joyous at their success. Although Jesus warned them that the evil of the world would be like wolves on the hunt, the reality is that evil is more like a snake or scorpion—not actively hunting us, but reacting when disturbed.

I’ve mentioned that I was once a big Ayn Rand fan. Well, I disagree with most of her philosophy now, but she did have one insight shared in The Fountainhead that I have kept. She wrote,

It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions, the thing that had created the building against things that made the play possible—two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple statement—two forces that had fought since the world began—and every religion had known of them—and there had always been a God and a Devil—only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil—he was not single and big, he was many and smutty and small.

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, Part 3, Chapter 8

In our work to build a better world, we are not fighting against a great and powerful evil force. The devil we fight is Legion, many and smutty and small. These days, conspiracy theories are rampant—the world is controlled by a Jewish cabal, or the Freemasons, or the Illuminati, who are manipulating financial and political institutions to oppress us all. But the truth is, nobody is in charge. There are just a lot of people who want to control their little dominion, whether it’s something in their workplace or something in their community. The Mission struggles against people in the community who aren’t evil, they just value their own property more than some particular human lives. When threatened, they react. They lash out. They call Ashley to cuss her out, or they call their council representative. They’re not bad people, just misguided or misinformed.

After the disciples have some success, Jesus says, you know what? The world isn’t full of wolves, it’s full of snakes, and you have power over them. The power of God’s love is the antidote to all of the hate and fear of the petty tyrants who seek to control their dominion. The kingdom of God is at hand! People who seek control will one day succumb to God’s reign. It may seem like a loss to them, and so they may fight to stay out of God’s kingdom. But one day, God will win. That’s the ultimate message of the New Testament: in the end, God wins.

The antidote to hate and fear is love. In the passage just before this one, the traveling party is rejected by a Samaritan village and James and John want to call fire down on them. Jesus stops them, and then in this passage teaches us what to do. If someone rejects you, they are actually rejecting God, and their rejection is punishment enough. They won’t enjoy God’s presence in their lives. So just let them be, and move on. Love them, but protect yourself by withdrawing. If you call down fire from heaven, like Brother Jed used to threaten on college campuses around the country, you are simply strengthening their will to resist. If you love them, maybe you’ve planted a seed. Maybe one day, they will be ready to hear God’s message of love. Until then, let them remember you as someone who wanted them to experience the fullness of life in the kingdom of God. Let them remember that God loves them, just as they are, and desires a place in their hearts and a place in their lives.

It’s also possible, though, that when you share God’s message of love, you will be welcomed. Jesus said, Don’t move around from house to house. What he meant was, Build deep relationships. Get to know people, really know them. Open yourself up to them, and let them be open in return. Both of you will leave the encounter a little closer to God. Everyone is made in the image of God and reveals something about God’s nature. Everyone has a different perspective formed by their unique life experiences. As you learn about them, you will see God more clearly. And through the encounter, you will probably learn something about yourself, too.

I just listened to an audiobook called, This Is Day One. Very good book—highly recommended. Anyway, the author makes a point of collecting stories from people. He was on a train asking people about their lives, and a bartender overheard the conversations. One question he asked was, “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned?” The bartender eventually came over to him and told him her answer, and then said, “Until I heard you ask, I never realized I knew it.” As we encounter people, their experiences, their questions of us, and their relationship with us reveal to us something about ourselves, too. Maybe they will challenge some preconceived notion that we need to abandon. Maybe they will remind us of something we learned so long ago that we have forgotten it. Maybe they will force us to consider the consequences of some belief or action from a different perspective that will start us on a growth trajectory. Regardless, if we approach people with open hearts and open minds, we will be changed for the better, and grow more into the people that God desires us to be.

In that way, we experience glimpses of the kingdom of God that is at hand. It’s only available to people who will risk themselves for its sake. Jesus didn’t say to his disciples, Go build a place where people can gather and invite them to hear you preach. He said, Go where I’m headed and join new communities and get them ready for me to come into their lives. Risk yourself. It will be dangerous, but it will be OK because I will be with you by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Another thing I heard recently is this: If you make a choice because of fear, it will feel good now. If you make a choice because of love, it will feel good five years from now. As a congregation, we are at a turning point. We can keep everything the same as it is, out of fear that any change will offend someone or cause conflict. We can focus on people who are just like us, so we don’t have to change how we worship or how we act. We can have a bland image in the community, figuring that way, nobody will have anything to criticize. Or, we can boldly love. We can remember that the Gospel is not just for people who were raised in the church or for people who look and dress and act and think like us, but is for everyone. We can share our love, which is really God’s love, with people who challenge our views, who have different ways of understanding God, who connect to God in different ways. If we act out of fear, it will feel good now, but a few years from now, there will be no First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Instead, we need to boldly love. We need to be filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. We need to go where Jesus is going and love who Jesus loves. We may encounter snakes and scorpions along the way, but the Holy Spirit empowers us to conquer all of the evil of the world. We will be protected as we continue Jesus’s mission to build the kingdom of God, right here, right now. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Trinity Sunday, June 12, 2022. Based on Romans 5:1-5 and John 16:12-15.

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On this Trinity Sunday, I am going to thoroughly explain the complete theological principle of the Trinity in a way that everyone understands. Oh, sorry, I left out a word in that sentence. I am NOT going to explain the complete theological principle of the Trinity. I don’t think anyone truly understands the doctrine, and I don’t think anyone can really understand it until they meet God face to face.

But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the implications of our belief in a triune God. In our scriptures today, we hear some hints of understanding. Over the centuries leading up to the writing of the New Testament, God revealed their triune nature. We rehearse this revelation in the church liturgical year. Our year starts with Advent: a proclamation that God the Father is sending his son. On Christmas, Jesus is born. Now we have two persons of the Godhead. We learn about Jesus’s early life and ministry, then encounter Lent. Here is where we learn that Jesus came to reconcile the world. Lent builds to the climax of Easter, when we celebrate God’s victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ, his Son.

Wait—what is the nature of God’s son? As in Greek and Roman mythology, is he a demigod? Or fully human, or fully God? The answer that Jesus reveals, throughout the Gospels and especially in his Farewell Discourse just before he is killed, is that God the Father and God the Son are distinct persons, but the same. Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him. We’re starting to see the mystery of the Godhead. Two persons, but one God.

On Pentecost, we meet the third person: the Holy Spirit. Now God has been fully revealed. The Holy Spirit is sent by God the Father and God the Son, and so is a distinct person, but speaks on behalf of the other two. The Holy Spirit has been with us all along—she is Sophia, divine Wisdom calling to us; she is ruach, divine breath giving life to all creatures great and small—but like breath, we didn’t notice her until she appeared like tongues of fire.

Today, we celebrate the full revelation of the mystery of the Godhead: three persons, one God. We will spend the next few months discussing the implications of God’s presence in the world. So today, let’s reflect on what we learn from the fact that the Holy Spirit has been sent to us.

The Overton window is a principle in political theory that describes the spectrum of political discourse. At the center of the window is today’s policy. To make it concrete, let’s use tax policy. On either side of nominal, there are popular policies. Many people would agree on adjusting tax rates up or down a little, especially on other people. On either side of those popular policies, there are sensible policies; in our tax example, these are the kinds of things you would read about in mainstream outlets like the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. Moving further out from center, you get acceptable policies—ones that can be discussed but probably will never happen—then radical, then unthinkable. Nobody in America would seriously discuss a 0% flat tax; hardly anyone in America would propose confiscating all income over a certain level, at least not if they wanted to be taken seriously. Actual change happens at the popular level—slight modifications to present policy—and then the Overton window shifts. That’s why modern American tax codes look so different from, say, taxes in 1800. Along the way, we even had a Constitutional amendment. If a time traveler went back and proposed the modern tax code in 1800, they might be tarred and feathered. We also see the Overton window in action in the current gun policy discussion. There are things that are worthy of discussion; wholesale confiscation is off the table and would just be a distraction. The Senate acts to keep the window from shifting too far or too fast.

Society is like a huge ship that only turns slowly. Institutions are like that, too. Consider the PC(USA) Book of Order versus what John Knox believed and organized. Or consider our Book of Confessions. If you read the Scots Confession and compare it to the Confession of 1967, you’ll see some common threads, but a lot of differences. We no longer find it acceptable to denounce Romanists, for example.

The Overton window is at work in each person’s life, too. I would venture to say that nobody here believes the same things or acts the same way as when they were teenagers. In fact, some would argue that a problem in certain sectors of Christianity is that people have stunted understandings of God that were totally appropriate in their youth but haven’t changed as they matured. Young people latch onto all sorts of strange things. This might surprise you all, but I was a big Ayn Rand fan in my youth. Some life experiences have changed the way I look at the world. I’ve grown in my faith and in my approach to serving my community.

I’ve been volunteering at The Rolla Mission for four years now. Well, before that, I occasionally took overnight shifts, but after Easter in 2018, I started serving lunch on Fridays. Prior to my joining, there were no services at all on Fridays, so we started out just being open for four hours, 10-2. In those early days, I was constantly learning how to plan and how to cook. Some days, I only served seven or eight plates. We used paper plates and plastic silverware. Many days, I was the only volunteer, and at the time, Ashley was the only staff member.

Now, I think there are six full-time staff and two or three people supported by Goodwill. We use real plates because we have enough helpers to wash dishes. I will often serve close to 50 plates at Friday lunch, which is actually kind of a low spot in the week. If I walked in today to volunteer, I don’t know if I could handle it. But because I started when I only had to cook for about twice as many people as my own family, and when there weren’t many crises to deal with, I’ve been able to grow with the Mission and feel comfortable serving there.

The same principle also applies to our interpersonal relationships. I am naturally an introvert. In the old days, Rhonda was the social butterfly and I just tagged along. But over the last decade or so, basically since I moved to Rolla, I’ve gradually emerged from my shell and chat with clerks at the store, or with people passing by my house, or people across campus, etc. I’ve grown in my ability to see God’s spark in the people I meet, and to love them through the Holy Spirit.

A big part of my growth has come from some unfortunate circumstances in our family. As Rhonda’s health and abilities have declined, we have all had to adjust to a new reality. We’re not unique in that way—everyone here has suffered in some way. Paul reminds us, though, that suffering leads to endurance, which leads to character, which leads to hope.

When I first read that, I thought, wait: don’t you need endurance before you encounter suffering? But then I reflected on what I’ve gone through. It was the suffering in my life that strengthened me to endure. It’s like working a muscle, or like any of the other changes I mentioned. As our lives have changed, I’ve grown more endurance, and that endurance has given me the ability to see others as people who also have suffered in other ways. That’s the character that Paul promised, an openness to being in relationship with people who have suffered from the brokenness of this world.

Suffering leads to hope. Wait, what? How can suffering make you hopeful? We typically think of hope as a cognitive thing, a goal-oriented approach to life. I’m going to apply for a job, or plant a garden, or try whatever else, and I hope it works out. That sort of thing. The hope Paul is talking about, though, is hope that flows from God and God’s gifts. When we endure suffering, we realize that God is there with us. God walks beside us, dwells within us, and carries us when we cannot continue. God gives us hope, a hope based on knowing that no matter what happens to us, God will carry us through. We may walk through dark valleys, but God’s promise is that we will make it out the other side.

Just as we have all suffered, we have all been richly blessed. Not blessed with riches—this isn’t the Prosperity Gospel. But richly blessed with relationships to God’s people. If nothing else, we have each other, right? We experience the gift of God’s presence in and through each other as we worship together and join in fellowship together.

God’s presence in our relationships gives us hope because it reminds us that our triune God is still active in the world. God is still creating, still redeeming, still sustaining us all. God was revealed most clearly in the person of Jesus, but continues to reveal their nature by the Holy Spirit that dwells among us.

In the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus say, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” This is again the Overton window at work. Jesus knew that there was no way to explain to that group of first-century Jewish disciples all the glory of God. Even today, two thousand years later, we cannot comprehend the fullness of God’s mysterious glory. So Jesus promised that the Spirit would keep working through God’s people to help them learn more of the truth. Eventually, we will see God face to face and truly comprehend the extent of God’s love. In the meantime, the Spirit flows through us all to guide us.

I had a conversation with my brother recently about a lot of things, one of which was the nature of scripture. There are people who believe that the Bible was essentially written by people taking dictation from God. If you know anything about the history of how the document made its way into the pews here, you know how ridiculous that is. We don’t even know if the letters attributed to Paul are authentic and we have no original copies. We don’t really know who wrote the four Gospels or many of the epistles. The Old Testament is even more murky, in part because of the lateness of its written form after centuries of oral tradition. Plus there’s the issue of language and culture that shaped the Bible.

Instead of being the literal words issued by God, I regard the Bible as an authentic expression of ancient peoples’ encounters with God. Maybe they understood what God was trying to reveal, maybe not; maybe their understanding was correct at the time but doesn’t translate to our current reality. So how do we know what to believe? Well, Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit, whom he called the Paraclete: an Advocate, or a Helper. The Holy Spirit guides us to understand the capital-T Truth. God is still speaking by the Holy Spirit, sometimes directly to individuals, sometimes through committees or other gatherings, sometimes through scripture.

We have hope because we know that God is still speaking. God is still active. God is the great do-er of existence. God is the creative force within us all, the voice of truth, the spirit that binds us together.

God’s primary activity is to pour forth love. How do we determine the Truth revealed in scripture? How do we determine our path in the world? Love. Always love. If there is one word that describes the Trinity, it’s love. When you are considering how to interpret what you read or hear, or considering what church policy should be, or considering what decision to take in a tricky situation, ask yourself: Where is love in this? The Great Commandment is to love God and love neighbor; the New Commandment in John’s Gospel is to love each other as Jesus loved. God is revealed in the way we love each other.

Sometimes you’re confronted by a person you don’t understand, who has different lived experiences and a different perspective. In my work on campus, my volunteer work at the Mission, and my interactions with people in the community, I see lots of people who have led very different lives than I have. I could judge the decisions they make, or the attitudes they have, or the beliefs they hold dear. To the extent that they are hurting themselves or others, judgment is necessary. But if they’re just different, my goal, not always achieved, is to see them as God sees them: with love. How can I be more loving towards them? OK, I don’t understand why they think or act the way they do, but I don’t have to. God doesn’t ask me to judge them, just to love them.

Judge not, lest ye be judged. Jesus was cautioning us that God’s will is that everyone be in loving relationships with each other, just as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in loving relationships with each other, so tightly that they are one God. But Jesus knew how hard that is, this side of heaven, so he sent us the Holy Spirit as a Helper. God is still speaking, still working, pouring forth love, revealing Godself in each person we meet. Let us all seek to be channels for God’s love, to see the divine spark in people who are different from us, and to live into the unity in diversity that our triune God exemplifies. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Acts 2:1-11, Romans 8:14-17, and John 14:8-17, 25-27.

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In Genesis, we read about God interacting directly with certain individuals. Then in Exodus, God speaks with Moses and, through him, creates the nation of Israel. God must have thought their work was done, that they had set humanity on the right path. Like a parent who thinks that once their kids graduate high school or college think that their job is done and their kids are on the right track. But the reality for a parent is that the job is never really done, and the reality for God was that the nation of Israel was clearly not aligned with God’s plan for them. You can almost see God shaking her head through the time of the judges, and through David’s sins with Bathsheba, and through the dissolution of the kingdom of Israel and then Judah. Geez, I told them what to do, and they just don’t get it. Someone’s got to go down there and straighten them out.

A big part of the problem is that we have God’s divine spark within us, but it gets swamped by our sinfulness and brokenness and worldly desires. God the Father just can’t understand that, having never been in human form. So Jesus came down here to experience humanity, in all it’s beauty and ugliness. He was tempted just as we are, so like the recent ad campaign says, he gets us. He learned what life is like as a human being and is now our Advocate to God the Father.

A few problems remain, though. For one, Jesus could only be on earth as a human being for a few short years. Whether he was crucified at the age of 33 or lived to be 100, he would only be among us for a short time in the span of human history. For another, Jesus could only be in one place at a time. He really didn’t travel very far in his life. Some estimates say he walked over 3000 miles, but that was in a region that measures about 100 miles in extent. A region much smaller than Missouri. Then there’s the issue that while Jesus could become our Advocate in God’s realm, we need an Advocate here on earth.

So after Jesus departed, he sent the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can be everywhere at every time. She can work through us to heal our human relationships, and in doing so, she can really learn how humanity works from the inside. Jesus was only one person, but the Spirit can be in and among us as a group.

Today we celebrate the birthday of the Christian church. On the first Pentecost after Jesus’s death and resurrection, the first disciples had a vivid encounter with God. The Holy Spirit descended upon them with a sound like rushing wind and an appearance like fire.

I have never personally had such a vivid encounter, nor have I had any visions like Peter or Paul reported. I’d like to share with you one time that I felt God’s presence in a special way, though. It was June 2015. Jesse and I went to an interfaith worship service at Pride STL. This was immediately after the Obergefell decision on marriage equality, so the mood was jubilant, to say the least. The interfaith service was led by the Metropolitan Community Church, whose choir is great but with a music style that I don’t much care for. Let’s just say the songs they sang would never fly here. There were speeches by secular humanists and a homily by a Polish Catholic priest.

Then Rabbi Randy spoke. He talked about the tradition of breaking a glass at Jewish weddings. That tradition is intended as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Why is it a part of a wedding? Well, as Rabbi Randy said, if you ask five Jews, you’ll get five reasons. But he said that he sees it as a reminder that even at a time of ultimate joy over the union of two people in love, this world is broken. I don’t know why, but at that moment, I had a sudden awareness of God’s presence. God was in me, in that gathering of people who all had different understandings of the Divine but who all sought greater unity and to heal the brokenness of this world.

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection was a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris in the 1600s. His schooling was limited at best and he spent most of his time in the priory working in the kitchen. And yet, he was a great spiritual teacher whose writings were gathered into a book, The Practice of the Presence of God. He wrote:

[A]fter having given myself wholly to GOD, to make all the satisfaction I could for my sins, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He; and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world. Sometimes I considered myself before Him as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge; at other times I beheld Him in my heart as my FATHER, as my GOD: I worshipped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business, as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of GOD.

The Practice of the Presence of God, First Letter, by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

That is the essence of the Christian life. Continual awareness of God’s presence in the world. God doesn’t live in this building. God isn’t only revealed on Sunday mornings, or only in mountaintop experiences like I had in that St. Louis city park. God is everywhere. God is in all things, and as Brother Lawrence taught, we lack awareness but can develop a sense of God’s presence through continual practice.

Jesus had that awareness and calls us to follow him. In his Farewell Discourse, he first explained that he had to go away, but then promised the disciples that he would send the Paraclete, a word translated as Advocate, Helper, or Comforter. The Greek word parakletos is analogous to a Latin legal term, advocatus. It referred to someone of high social standing who would speak on your behalf. When I read the description of the role, I was reminded of CASA, the Court Appointed Special Advocates who work on behalf of children who cannot navigate the legal system on their own. In the same way, the Holy Spirit works on our behalf in this world that is broken and beyond our comprehension. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as speaking through us, guiding us. Yet at the same time, the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma that are translated as Spirit both mean wind or breath. Like the wind, the Spirit flows where the Spirit wills. Like breath, the Spirit gives us life and sustains us all.

The global Christian church is in decline. But one segment, one expression of the Christian faith is growing: Pentecostalism. The Pentecostal tradition dates back in one sense to that first Pentecost, but in another sense has its roots in Wesleyan holiness movements. The Holy Spirit started peeking through. In 1817, Jarena Lee was at Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The preacher was suddenly unable to speak, and Jarena was moved by the Spirit to stand and preach. She was the first African-American woman to preach publicly, speaking to mixed-race audiences from the mid-Atlantic to New England and Canada. Remember, this was a time when slavery was legal and neither African-Americans nor women could own property or vote.

The big turning point came almost a century later in 1906 at the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. Charles Parham had split from the Methodist Episcopal Church in Topeka and tutored William J. Seymour, who then moved on to Los Angeles. After being rejected by the local church that was meant to be his host, Seymour led worship services that were marked by all of the signs we associate with Pentecostalism, like speaking in tongues. They were able to keep their momentum for about 7 years and then kind of fizzled out. But their legacy was widespread, with existing denominations like the Church of God in Christ and new denominations like the Assemblies of God carrying on the flame of Pentecostalism. Today, there are 644 million Pentecostal and charismatic believers worldwide, 26% of all Christians. While the global population is growing at a 1.2% rate and Christianity as a whole just slightly faster at 1.27%, Pentecostal strands are growing at 2.26%, close to double the population growth rate, and accelerating.

Why? Why are charismatic expressions of Christianity growing so much faster than traditional ones? There are lots of reasons, but I think the critical one is their awareness of God’s presence. They experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in a tangible, sometimes dramatic way.

Now, I’m not suggesting that one must experience the baptism by the Holy Spirit, accompanied by speaking in tongues, in order to be saved. As I’ve said, I believe in universal salvation. I am suggesting that we can all become aware of God’s presence in the world, and be empowered to share that awareness with others.

There are many ways to experience God’s presence. One path is described by Brother Lawrence, by the anonymous author of another classic work called The Cloud of Unknowing, and others in the contemplative tradition: centering prayer, apophatic prayer, wordless prayer that seeks God as God, not for God’s gifts. I’ll admit that I struggle with that. I pray regularly, but really struggle with contemplative prayer. Another path that I’m working on is kataphatic prayer, wordy prayer, in which I communicate with God whatever is on my mind. Something I started recently is to pause throughout the day and pray the Prayer of St. Francis. That’s a way to re-center myself on God and on the way I want to be more Christ-like. Using a fixed prayer relieves me of the need to think of what to say and just dwell in the moment. You might want to try something similar, maybe with the Lord’s Prayer or the Serenity Prayer or Thomas Merton’s prayer or any other prayer that speaks to your heart.

Another way to experience God is through scripture. People have different understandings of the nature of scripture, but I believe that it is a recording of ways that people throughout history have experienced God. By reading about their experiences, perhaps you can catch a glimpse of God in the world. There are lots of different ways to approach scripture regularly. I use a book called Year of the Bible that identifies a few chapters to read each day, and I read it every night. Usually, there are two Old Testament chapters and one New Testament, or sometimes a psalm or two instead of the New Testament, or sometimes more chapters if they are short. It takes me about 15 minutes, more or less. That allows me to skim the surface of the whole story. Another way is to use the daily lectionary, which is a two-year cycle that hits the important parts of the Bible just like the weekly lectionary we use in worship. The nice thing about using the daily lectionary is that there are lots of resources available if you want devotional studies or prayers.

But maybe reading isn’t your thing, and maybe you have a hard time centering yourself and quieting your mind for prayer. Why are we here today? So that we can experience God through other people. We experience God through worship, and we experience God through Christian fellowship. Each person reveals to us another aspect of God. Our unity in Christ’s body lowers the barriers between us and allows us to enter deeper relationships with each other and with God.

And above all, we can experience God if we follow Jesus’s new commandment given earlier in his Farewell Discourse: Love one another. Love is from God. Love IS God. In loving, we participate in God’s continuing work to reconcile all people and all things and welcome them into God’s eternal realm. We can experience a glimpse of the heavenly realm HERE and NOW if we have love.

In the Tower of Babel story, we read about people who were self-reliant and productivity-oriented. God said, Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them, and so the LORD scattered the people. We were not created for doing things and building things. We were created to love. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples turned from self-reliance to God-reliance. If we depend on God and God’s love, then nothing will be impossible for us. The Holy Spirit will move with us, bind us together, flow through us, and advocate for us. And we will experience a glimpse of God’s heavenly realm now, God’s eternal presence waiting for our awareness. Amen.

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