Summer Series: Compost Luke 14:15-24

Compost:  Creating nutritious soil

            Back in April, for Earth Day, I decided it was time to really get serious about composting.  This was going to be a spiritual practice for me, a way in which to be a good steward of God’s Creation.  As we have journeyed through the summer, learning more about what it means to be a New Creation in Christ, this was for me, a practice of being a part of the New Creation. 

            Compost can be seen as a parable or metaphor for the new creation, for the old is gone and is made new.  Jesus used every day images as he taught people more about God and the Kingdom of Heaven.  Being a part of the New Creation in Christ is like compost.  As you use your summer produce, take the scraps, take the parts that you don’t want to eat, take the wilted leaves and the used coffee grinds, take the bread that has started to mold, and place it together in a compost bin.  Allow it to rest, allow nature to do its part, allow it to be stirred once in a while, allow it to decompose and out of something that was seen as unusable, comes an incredibly rich soil. 

            I found this quotation that I felt connected to being a New Creation in Christ, where the old is gone and all is made new - "If a healthy soil is full of death, it is also full of life:  worms, fungi, microorganisms of all kinds ...  Given only the health of the soil, nothing that dies is dead for very long."
-  Wendell Berry,  The Unsettling of America, 1977

            In Christ, the old is gone and all is made new.  Nothing that dies is dead for very long.  We allow the parts of us that pull us away from God to die, but that does not mean that we die.  In letting go of what pulls us down, what causes stress, what might even cause hurt and pain to ourselves, we will find new life.  Compost is such an amazing example of this.  No longer can I see the tomatoes that I just didn’t get to eat or the cucumber skins or the strawberry stems, they are no longer detectable, but instead, together, they have become transformed into incredibly rich nutrients for new life to grow. 

            I’ve never thought about the parable of the dinner as related to compost until now.  But if you think about it, when read, it seems as if the right people were invited to the banquet.  It would be like making a yummy summer salad with all kinds of fresh produce right out of the garden.  But something goes awry and it seems that all the right people are too busy with other activities to be able to attend.  So the master asks his servants to go out and invite in what seems to be the least of these:  the poor and lame.  It seems like the things I would throw into the compost, the cucumber skins, the strawberry stems, the coffee grinds and the molded bread are what are being served.  Ugh, who would want to be a part of that banquet?   

That’s how people in the day and age of Jesus would have responded to this parable – this request to invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.  Ugh, who would want to attend that kind of banquet.  These are unclean people and not to be associated with.  And yet, that is who is invited.  And just like my scraps in my compost, when mixed together, when allowed to do what nature does, those scraps are transformed into something incredibly nutritious.  God’s people too, no matter what we think of others or ourselves, when brought together into God’s family, into God’s banquet, become this rich soil.  The old is gone and all is made new. 

Is there something in your own life that you might need to symbolically compost?  Something that you might be able to allow to let fallow, and from it new life be given?  Compost takes time, it takes both rest and movement.  I purchased a tumbler, so that I can mix it up once in awhile, but I can’t just put my scraps in the bin and pull out soil in a few days, it takes months.  We too in our spiritual lives need time to rest, need time to fallow, need time to rejuvenate.  Today, I chose two passages about Sabbath rest.  God knows how important rest is for this created world.  Humans need sleep, but we also need Sabbath, we need time to rest spiritually, to focus on the various ingredients of being this new creation.  To dig ourselves into the rich soil, bask in the sun, and drink the living water.  Without these ingredients, and without the time to rest, the fruit we bare will not be the spiritual fruit that God calls us to produce. 

In the ancient laws of the Israelite people, there was great wisdom in the practice of Sabbath.  It did not just pertain to people, but also to the soil, to the fields, to understanding that in order to gain a great harvest, the ground too needed time to rest.  Plant your field for six years, but on the seventh, let it rest.  We know this to be true, it is important to rotate crops and not drain the soil of the nutrients, but why don’t we believe it is true with our own spiritual beings?   Sabbath keeping is essential to keeping our inner souls, our spiritual selves vibrant in God, and God continues to mix nutrients into our symbolic soil by calling us together to worship and to celebrate the sacrament of communion.  As we break bread today, we understand that nothing that dies stays dead for very long.  The gift of communion is not just Jesus sharing of his death, but that he will not stay dead for very long.  Out of death comes new life, it is the gift of Easter, it is the gift of creation, it is the gift of God seeking to permeate every corner of our lives and our souls.  Amen 

             

Summer Sermon Series - living water

“God’s Living Water”

            As we continue in our summer sermon series on being a new creation in Christ, today we focus on water.  As seeds germinate and begin the process of growth, they need the soil, light, and water.  Last week we focused on how we need to be present to God’s light in order to grow into the God’s new creation.  God also provides us with the image of the living water throughout our scripture stories. 

            Our first reading comes from the prophet Ezekiel.  Ezekiel has various visions and one is of God’s Holy Temple.  Flowing throughout the temple is water.  This water has life giving qualities.  We are told that there is stagnant water but as this water flows through it, the water becomes fresh.  Wherever the river goes,^[b] every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. 

            Water is essential to life.  All living things need it, but water can become tainted, poisoned, dirty, polluted, and its life giving qualities can be drained away from it.  In various parts of the world, the water temperature has changed enough that the coral reefs are dying.  As an avid scuba diver, this has saddened me deeply as the once incredibly bright color underwater world is starting to turn white, called bleaching. 

            Our lives can be like this as well.  We can be so exposed to the pollution of the world around us that we become stagnant or bleached out.  Where our true and natural colors of God given passion and love has begun to fade away.   Sometimes we call it burn out. 

            Keeping ourselves immersed in God’s water, rather than the water of the world is essential to being a part of the new creation.  I just had this conversation with someone the other day, on how we often start our day by turning on the news and it can really just bring us down.  What if we immersed ourselves in something different?  What if we started our mornings with music, or something positive and life giving rather than the negative we are so accustomed to doing? 

            As many of you know, this past week was VBS.  Talk about a dose of living water.  For five days, fifty young people gathered next door for three hours of positive living.  For music, crafts, snacks, games, and story of God’s love for them.  And during this time, they were surrounded by loving adults that wanted to share God’s living water with them. 

            God’s super heroes have:  heart, courage, wisdom, hope and power.  So, even though we did not do the passage of Jesus at the well with the woman who he offers living water we lived out this passage all week.  To be God’s new creation is to receive God’s living water and then live it out through: having heart, having courage, having wisdom, having hope, and having power.  And throughout the week, the children also learned a scripture verse which was:  Do good, seek peace, and Go after it.  If we are to be a new creation in God, we should always be trying to:  do good, seek peace, and finding ways to go after it. 

            As Jesus comes to the woman at the well, and asks her for a drink, she is not sure how to do good, since she is a woman and Jesus is a man, she is a Samaritan and he is a Jew.  There are numerous boundaries getting in her way.  And as they talk, Jesus breaks those boundaries down and helps her understand that it does not matter that she is a woman or a Samaritan, that he comes to offer living water. 

            At first she does not get it, she wants to know where his bucket is and makes an excuse that the well is deep, but she does want to know where this living water is.  Jesus tries to explain to her that there are two types of water.  There is the water that we drink and there is the spiritual water of God that will fill our souls with God’s love making us whole.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 

            In many ways, Jesus is the temple of God that the prophet Ezekiel was talking about through his vision.  From the life and teachings of Jesus the living water of God flows forth.  It flows out of him into the spiritually stagnant places of our lives and of the world.  It flows out and brings life to the places that it touches, where it is soaked in where it is absorbed.  And as the Samaritan woman at the well begins to understand, she is transformed, she is renewed, she becomes a new creation in God.  She goes back to her village and proclaims that she has met a man who knows everything about her and she asks:  Can he possibly be the Messiah? 

            Life changing moments, moments where we feel something holy in our presence and we just are not sure if it is possibly of God or just a moment.  Life changing moments are happening this summer, they are happening in places like Camp Johnsonburg, VBS at various churches throughout the area, and mission trips to places like Appalachia.  How are you being exposed to the living water?  Are you at the well not sure what to do because there seems to be too many boundaries, challenges, concerns in the way?  Are you wading in the water soaking it up, open to its possibilities but not sure where it will take you?  Are you passionate about how God has called you to be a part of a certain mission opportunity and fully embracing it, seeking to make a difference not just in your own life but in the world as well. 

            One example I used through the week of being God’s super hero, is that of one of our families here at the church.  Having a mission does not have to be overwhelming, it can be something that connects to your family.  One of our families fosters puppies.  They take in dogs, sometimes for a few weeks, maybe longer until they are able to be placed in a forever home.  This is such a beautiful way to show young children how to be God’s super hero.  It involved having heart, and courage, and wisdom, and hope, and power.  It might be very difficult to let those puppies go to another home, because we may fall into love with them very quickly, but when we view it as a mission, as a calling of God, we release them to the next family knowing we have done our part in providing a temporary home for them.  

Summer Sermon Series - Photosynthesis

“Photosynthesis”

Last week, we started a sermon series on the Bible Passage – If you are in Christ, you are a new Creation.  You are a new creation.  What do you think of that?  Did you think of that?  What impact has your faith in God had on your life?  Has it made you more generous or more loving?  Has it pushed you out of your comfort zone to do things that you might not have done otherwise, such as volunteer at the Soup Kitchen or help out at a homeless shelter?  What seeds of faith have landed within your inner most being that through time have grown into outward expressions of who you are?  The seeds are there, waiting for the right conditions to begin to germinate. 

Today’s theme is photosynthesis, yes a little science lesson.  As that small little seed takes root and begins to sprout, it is able to take nutrients from the soil, but as soon as that first leaf breaks forth, a new process begins within it.  The leaf unfolds and soaks in the sunshine, absorbs the light, and then the relationship between the plant and the sun begins to produce food.  A relationship between the sun and the plant.  I still remember in second grade, I was in Mrs. Clupper’s class and we did an experiment with bean sprouts.  One jar of beans was placed in a dark closet, and the other jar was placed in a sunny location.  After a week, we checked in on those beans.  The beans in the closet had grown, but they were strangely white, while those in the sun where bright and green.  That memory has just really stayed with me. 

Something happens because of the relationship between the plant and the sun.  The plant is has something called Chlorophyll which absorbs the blue and red in the light and reflects back out the green.  So, plants that are in the sunlight are green because they are able to absorb light and reflect light back out.  Plants grown in the dark have no light to absorb and therefore no light to reflect back out, hence they are white. 

Now, think of us, think of our seed of the New Creation, as being the plant.  Perhaps we feel something growing within us, something life changing, something of faith that is calling is to live differently, such as the example I shared last week of being more environmentally aware.  Now, I can be more environmentally aware and not be a person of faith, but when I allow that seedling of the New Creation to be in relationship with the sun or the Son, it will absorb God’s love, God’s strength, God’s nurture, and reflect back out into the world a newness of great beauty. 

We are the garden of God, and as our leaves begin to unfold and we find ourselves in relationship to God, photosynthesis happens.  We are able to transform God’s teachings into life tangible ways of living.  We take words off of a page and they are infused into our being, feeding us, and calling us into the New Creation.   Each day a plant is involved in transformation, transforming sunlight into food, each day, we too should be involved in transformation, absorbing God’s presence into our being and doing the best we can to produce a fruitful life for God.  

If you pay attention, you notice that some plants grow quickly while others take a very long time.  I have an orchid that I am trying to have re-flower – and it has been months and months of these small little leaves just beginning to grow forth.  While we have plants in our yard that seem to grow several inches over night.  The same happens with us as God’s New Creation.  There are things within us that will just grow quickly, while there are other parts of us that seem to take forever.  For example. as a new creation in Christ, I am going to try to be more forgiving or I am going to try to be more open minded, or I am going to find healthy ways to destress.  These may take a longer time to develop within ourselves then donating canned food to Roxbury social services.

The only way we can let our light shine, is photosynthesis.  We must first find ways to absorb God’s light, God’s word, God’s love, God’s message for us, God’s gift of grace and reconciliation and then, and only then, can we reflect the love of God back into the world.  Jesus says:  “You are the light of the world”.  You.  His message has been a message for people for 2,000 years.  “You, are the light of the world.  Let your light shine before others.’  We are not called to just go out and do good for others, but we are called to absorb the light of God and transform it back into the world in ways that others will give glory to God.  That’s a mighty task, so how do we do this?  We begin by making sure we are exposed to as much light as possible.  Perhaps that means finding a daily devotional, or starting a prayer journal, or discerning where God is calling you to serve within the life of the church or greater world. 

Over the 4^th of July weekend, we had the opportunity to visit Mt Vernon and learn more about George Washington.  The entire time, I kept thinking how this man was, in so many ways, responsible for this amazing country in which we live.  He truly bent history as he devoted himself to a new form of government rather than serving as a king. Yes, he had flaws, such as owning slaves, but he also made provisions for their freedom in his will.  He was faced with so many decisions and could have taken this country in numerous directions.  He chose to try a new way of people a society, a new way of being a country, a new way of running a government.   Images of the New Creation abound if we have eyes to see them.   

I googled:  People who have transformed the world, and I got an interesting list of people:  Bill Gates, Martin Luther King, Jr.  Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, Einstein, Karl Marx, Hitler, Darwin, and Christopher Columbus, were just a few.  Each of these people had seeds of greatness within them, and some used those seeds of greatness for the greater good, while others used the seeds of greatness for what they thought was the greater good, but retrospection has allowed us to see tragic outcomes.   I found another site that names ordinary people that changed the world, such as Rosa Parks, JK Rowling, Susan B Anthony, Mother Theresa, and Malala Yousafzia.  This young girl has an amazing story, true courage, and shows how living in the light can truly make a difference in this world. When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. 

Various agencies seek to transform the world, everything from World Wildlife Federation to Save the Children, to Community Food Banks, to the Red Cross, environmental groups, to Disaster relief groups.  You name the area of interest and there is an advocacy group involved.  And then there are other groups, such as drug gangs, and hate groups, and organized crime that bring people together to prey upon others.  We all have the potential for good, just like plants, we are designed for photosynthesis, we have the choice of what we are going to absorb and what we are going to release back out into the world.  Amen. 

summer Sermon Series - New Creation

Plant with Care:

Today, we are starting a summer sermon series based on 2 Corinthians 5:17 – called Tending the New Creation.  This is the passage:  So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! What does it mean for us to be made new in Christ?  For many of us, it is the assurance that in and through Christ we are forgiven, that we are loved, that we are children of the covenant, included in God’s gift of salvation. 

            In the time that Paul was writing this, there were some significant ways in which people were made new.  As small communities of people gathered to live out the teachings of Jesus Christ, they had to learn to let go of some of the cultural norms that existed.  In Galatians Paul writes:  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 

            What does it mean for us to be made new in Christ?  Some people have dramatic stories of how a life of faith has had a major impact on them and they have left behind destructive choices and are seeking wholeness in life  But for many others, we may not have put much thought into how being followers of the teachings of Jesus have actually called us into God’s new creation.  Just prior to this passage, Paul explains a little more about what it means to be a new creation in Christ, he proclaims: that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

            What if we were to live for Christ? Many of us live for others, but what if we live for Christ?  What would this look like for us?  As we think about this, as we take time to ponder within our own lives and how we live and what we live for, we are going to allow the summer to be a time to let that New Creation within us grow.

            Maybe you clearly know what the New Creation is within yourself.   Or perhaps you are sensing an area of your life that you would like to change, God is always calling us into transformation.  Throughout our scriptures there are multiple suggestions as to how people of faith should live, how they should reflect being a part of God’s New Creation:  we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked – we do many of these things by volunteering, or what we like to call it in the church – mission outreach.  The scriptures also call us to be good stewards, whether that is of our treasures, our talent, our time, and the resources of our planet.  In today’s day and age, being a part of God’s New Creation might be calling us to consider the food we eat, do we buy organic or locally?  Do we compost?  Do we think about our shopping patterns?  Or perhaps being a part of the new creation needs to begin with some self-care, such as exercise, learning more about the scriptures, spending time writing, or studying. 

            The new creation calls us to embrace God’s love, love for ourselves, love for others, love for God, and love for the world in which we live.  For the summer, I have chosen for my spiritual practice of being a part of God’s new creation to be composting and eating healthy. Each of these can be seen as seedlings within God’s garden.  And seedlings need care and attention.  I started off with a worm compost, and it was an epic fail.  Somehow, I managed to kill two pounds of worms, even with very intentional nurture.  So, I decided to purchase a compost tumbler and my compost is doing great. 

            The eating healthier part of my self-care in God’s new creation is a bigger struggle.  We are buying farm fresh vegetables for the summer, but there are still a ton of snacks around the house with the children being home.  So, this is where I am going to have to work on nurturing the seedling within me. 

            Seeds, seedlings, new growth, new creation, we all know the question – which came first the chicken or the egg?  So I ask:  Which came first:  the flower of the seed?  Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.  Now, I am an evolutionist, but I do very much believe God created this world, so which ever came first, God designed it and I am lost in awe and wonder at how something so small as a seed can be transformed into anything at all. 

            If something as small as a mustard seed can become a great plant, why do we doubt that we can be something amazing?  If God designed a seed to grow into something amazing, a tree, a flower, a plant, a bush, can we not see how God designed us to be transformed into a glorious garden filled with a glorious harvest?  But first, we have to plant with care.  A mustard seed will stay a mustard seed unless it is planted. Marcia Mcfee writes:  Germinated seeds must be planted in order for roots to begin to dig deep in the soil. Is the soil in which we plant our hopes fertile? Inherent in the action of planting is an action of belief that something will come of our effort. Can we imagine what will be? This is a work of the people for the sake of those who will come. What are we planting for future generations? 

 I see the church as God’s garden.  We are all the seeds, and now we must plant with care.  We plant the mustard seed of faith within us, we patiently wait as the seed germinates, and we believe that in Christ, we are made new, that we are a new creation, that God is alive within this community and within ourselves to bring forth the Kingdom.    We also believe that our actions, when done as a part of God’s love, as a part of God’s New Creation, have a ripple effect that spread out into the greater world in ways we may never know or see.  On our bulletin cover, I used words from Mother Teresa that state?  I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters and create many ripples.  Is that now what we are called to do as a part of God’s New Creation, create ripples?  Let us be the positive ripples of change, ripples of love, ripples of forgiveness, ripples of God’s new creation. 

Our call to worship – was:

You are a seed of the word, O people,

               Bring forth the kingdom of God!

Seeds of mercy and seeds of justice,

               Grow in the kingdom of God!

Bring forth the kingdom of mercy,

               Bring forth the kingdom of peace.

Bring forth the kingdom of justice,

               Bring forth the kingdom of God!

Pentecost sermon

“A Spirit of Dreams and Visions”

            Pentecost is an invitation to change.  Change, what kind of change?  In the story of Pentecost that we have recorded in the book of Acts, the people have gathered for a traditional religious celebration.  They were doing things like they always did them, they did not expect anything different to happen.  It didn’t take long to realize something new was happening.  Some embraced the moment while others resisted and criticized what they were experiencing.  The Holy Spirit was upon them, the wind blew and people were able to understand each other even though they were speaking in their native tongues.  Something unexpected was happening. 

            The Holy Spirit is like that.  The Holy Spirit can blow into our lives and bring the unexpected and nudges us to change.  As I was spending time reading various writings about Pentecost I found this statement through provoking.  “To get the most out of the wind, you have to give it something to push against.”  We symbolize the Holy Spirit as wind, fire, and a dove.  So leaving fire out of it for a minute, when we think about birds and flying, birds wings are specially designed to get the most out of the wind.  They are designed to create resistance, by forcing some of the air above the wing and some of the air below the wing, in just enough of a change, that the air below the wing creates something called lift.  The wing of a bird, gives the wind something to push against causing the bird to lift up into the air and soar. 

            We can capture energy from the wind by giving it something to push against, such as in a windmill.  I have a leadership book that begins with this question:  Is your church a row boat church or a sail boat?  Once again, it comes back to how are we seeking to capture the wind?  Are we engineered, are we designed, to use the wind of the Holy Spirit to push us forward?  Or are we exhausting ourselves rowing, trying to do all the work ourselves and seeing very little results? 

            Designing ourselves into a sailboat church, creating ways to fabricate sails, involves change.  It involves listening to where the Spirit may be blowing, spending time in discernment and allowing ourselves to be the people the prophet Joel speaks of:  are we a people that have visions and dream dreams? 

            This past year, the Thursday morning group did a study that began with dreaming dreams.   And out of that dream we had the Thursday night Lenten dinner conversation on change.  This was a wonderful time of fellowship, of taking a look at music within our pop culture, and exploring the stages of change, of how we move from knowing we want to change to actually committing to change.  I have not forgotten that I would like to hold a congregation wide conversation about our dreams about our visions for the future and the steps of change we may have to make in order to create the sail that will allow us to embrace the energy of the Holy Spirit seeking to pour out upon us. 

            So how do we create or design a sail?  We listen for where the Spirit just might be blowing.  Just down the road for us, hopefully by the end of the summer, Habitat will begin building new townhomes.  This is an opportunity for us to reach out to the greater community in hospitality as well as finding ways in which our own gifts of time and talent may be used within this build.  We can align ourselves to what is happening around us.  Perhaps the wind that our sail was catching in the past is no longer blowing, or the wind has changed directions and we need to readjust our sail.  I believe the term is Come About.  I am not a sailor but I did learn from sailing with others, that Come About is an important statement, requiring movement from one side of the boat to the other or you just might get hit with the mast. 

            Pentecost is an invitation to change.  It is in invitation to Come About.  It is an invitation to see visions and dream dreams, but dreams will only be dreams unless we put them into action, unless we move from one side of the boat to another.   I did a simple experiment with one congregation on Pentecost Sunday – I put red streamers up on the two side rows of the church asking the congregation to all sit in the middle.  I did not anticipate the pushback I got, the resistance of asking people to sit in a new place within the church for just one Sunday.  Sometimes even the simplest acts of change can awaken us to how stuck perhaps we really are.  I admit I am a person of routine.  I get stuck in my own patterns of behavior.  I do gravitate to the same place to sit when in certain places.  But I am also learning that being flexible, being adaptive, being less resistant but more receptive to change brings results. 

            I was sharing with someone a few weeks ago, that I do truly believe God is at work within the church today, that the Holy Spirit is blowing her wind through our lives, our worship, and our ministries, and that I am open and willing to seek the ways in which we need to adjust our sails in order to allow the Spirit to push us into a new and viable future.   We are in this boat all together, and so we must all discern where to adjust the sails and move together as the Spirit asks us to Come About.  

Sermon - Psalm 139

“Knit Together”

            My grandmother was a knitter.  I remember being fascinated by her hands as she sat in her chair knitting away.  I wanted her to teach me to knit, but we did not live near her and our visits were short.  We did find one short moment in time for her to teach me enough to get me started practicing.  I can still remember the white yarn and the handful of rows that we knit together.  But then we went home and without her help, I found that I just couldn’t figure out how to keep going. 

            Fast forward many years later and I was introduced to a book called:  Knitting into the mystery.  The book works through the spiritual practice of knitting prayer shawls.  Well, I still did not know how to knit, but I had inherited a handful of my grandmothers knitting books.  So, together with my grandmother’s spirit and the guidance of the book Knitting into the mystery, I focused myself during the season of Lent to teach myself to knit.  And I loved it.  I found it so relaxing, and energizing, and rewarding.  By the end of Lent, I had created a prayer shawl.  And so I set out to make another and another. 

            I am still very much a beginner when it comes to knitting.  Back when many of my friends were having babies, I thought it would be fun to knit baby blankets.  I quickly learned that the various patterns in these blankets were more than I could handle.  So, I started making scarves.  But even in making simple scarves, I loved how each and every stitch was made by me.  Yes, sometimes the rows were too loose or too tight, or maybe I dropped a stitch here or there, but each blanket, each scarf was made loop by loop, stitch by stitch, by me, with my hands.  By the time I finished a project whether it was large of small, it was known completely by me. 

            Take the metaphor of knitting, of being stitched together loop by loop, as one piece of yarn is transformed into a beautiful blanket or scarf or sweater, and overlay it into the Psalm we read today.  There is such an intimacy in this psalm, of God knowing us completely.  From before we are even born, God is there, God is creating us, God is knitting us together in our mother’s womb.  Cell by cell, God knows us.  God designs us so that our heart begins to beat, our various organs develop, our faces form, our arms and our legs and fingers and our toes take form.  While pregnant, I signed up to receive weekly emails from a sight called:  baby center.  Each week it described the size of the baby as a piece of fruit, from a blueberry to an orange to a watermelon, week by week there was a description of the growth and transformation going on within my womb as this little being was being knit together. 

            This is one of the Psalms that I could read every day.  It is a constant reminder to me that God has intimately created this world, that God loves each and every one of us, that there is no where we can go that God is not present.  With 7.5 billion people in the world, I have had people ask me, how is it possible that God is involved in the lives of each of us?  For many, there is a struggle of believing that God could possibly care about our worries, stress, and grief.  So many feel that this world has spun horribly out of control.  Has God created this world and just left it?  Turned us human loose to let us do whatever our free will calls us to do?  Or is God intimately involved in this world, continuing to create, continuing to redeem, continuing to pour out love into our lives?

            In seeking to find a way for our minds to grasp the concept that yes, indeed, God is all around us, constantly at work within us, and within this world, think about listening to the radio.  Right now, I cannot hear music playing, but in this very room, there are radio waves waiting to be heard.  If I had a radio, and turned it on, it would start to play, and then I can change it to another station and another station and another station.  Right here in this room, there are a multitude of songs playing.  We are just unaware of them.  God is very much like the radio, able to pick up the signals, pick up the waves, and hear them as our prayers.   

            Our God is intimately involved in our lives and one way we acknowledge this is through the sacrament of baptism.  Whether we are baptized as an infant, or a teenager, or an adult, we have a liturgy that proclaims that we believe that God is at work in the world.  Baptism is not a magic forcefield protecting us from harm or illness or the temptations of this world, but it is our profession that we believe God has defeated the power of sin in this world.  In baptism we proclaim that we seek to be nourished in God’s love, in God’s grace, and to learn the teachings of our Creator through the community of faith.  Baptism is often the beginning of our faith journey, the beginning of our way of seeking to understand that God is active in the world and in each and everyone of our lives.  Throughout our lives, we have sacred moments, insights, spiritual awakenings that reinforce our baptism, that reinforce our belief that God is active in the world, that reinforces the understanding that God’s love overcomes the hardships of this world 

            This psalm is so intimate, it is universal, it speaks to the human experience of our doubts and fears and trust and faith.  We may be in a place right now where we feel we have gone to the far ends of the earth and there is no way that God is present with us.  Or we may be in the moment of awe and awareness that God is knit every cell of our body together to create us into these beings that we are.  Most of us are somewhere in between.  Embrace your own baptism, embrace the promise made when you were an infant or a time in your own life where you felt called to proclaim your faith, and seek to notice those moments when God breaks into our routines, our business, our everyday actions and reminds us that God is truly at work.  Amen.  

Lent - Dark Woods - Lost

Dark Woods:  Lost

            My earliest memory of actually being lost goes back to when I was very young.  I was with my mother at a department store and before I knew it, I had gotten separated from her.  I have this very vague memory of being taken to an office where they made a loudspeaker announcement about a lost child.  I feel like I was so scared I couldn’t even tell them my name.  But the memory is so fuzzy that I am not sure of anything other than being separated from my mom.  It was traumatic and probably the reason that reason that I just don’t do well when getting lost.  Not only do I not like getting lost, I don’t even like minor detours. 

            This past Thursday night our dinner conversation question was about routines.  I am a routine person, I have my route to work and although I have learned a few other possible ways to get here, I don’t like to stray.  On the other hand, Jeff likes to vary things up and knows all the back roads and always seems to be trying to create short cuts or alternate routes to where ever we may be going.  At first, I would panic, where are we going?  This isn’t the right way?  Where are we?  But, after a few years I started to relax and just let him drive. 

            The invention of the GPS has been, for me, an amazing gift to my personal well being.  I can plug my intended address into the gadget and off I go.  That is, when it works.  I few weeks ago I was trying to have lunch with a good friend, I set the GPS address, and off I went.  And it sent me completely in the wrong direction.  NJ is confusing with all the different townships, boroughs, and it sent me to the wrong the place.  Although I was disappointed that I missed having lunch with my friend.  At least I did know where I was as I passed at least 4 Presbyterian churches as I circled the area. 

            We can get lost physically, I’ve heard horror stories from church members at various congregations about losing children at the airport, grocery store, and other places.  Today we are exploring what it means to be lost spiritually.  Just being in the dark woods of life may make us feel lost.  But what if, when in the dark woods, we get even more lost?  When we are lost, often there are tools to help us find our way.  We are all here today, most likely with our own stories of being lost, but we did find our way home.  We have maps, we have GPS, we have cell phones to call people to come and get us, we have the ability to stop and ask for directions.  But we have to stop and use them.  If we just keep going, we may find ourselves further and further from our intended destination. 

God gives us tools as well.  Our map is our scripture and we can turn to it in times where we find we need direction in our lives.  Prayer is a tool as well, if we are willing to stop and allow ourselves the space and time to connect with God, and listen to God.  In a time of being lost, listening is essential to finding our way out.  Our first scripture reading is that of Samuel.  The text describes the day in which Eli, the priest lives, as a dark time.  Even his own sons are described as scoundrels.  It seems as if the future of the priesthood in Shiloh is lost.  Eli has grown old, his sons are not living in a way that honors God, who when Eli dies, who will continue the teachings of God of to the people? 

But even in dark times, even when all seems lost, God provides.  A devout woman, Hana has a child name Samuel and she dedicates him to the Lord and allows Eli, the priest to raise him in the temple.  One night, Samuel keeps hearing a voice and he is sure it is Eli calling him.  But Eli tells him it is not and to go back to bed.  This happens a few more times and Eli suddenly realizes it must be the voice of God calling to Samuel.  God’s voice to Samuel comes in the stillness of the night.  Eric Elnes, in his book:  Gifts of the Dark Woods, suggests that it isn’t even an audible voice, but rather in insight or a gut feeling, intuition.  If it had been a real voice, Samuel would have known that it was not Eli’s voice but that of another, but he keeps responding to Eli.  Eli is his teacher, his mentor, so that is the person to whom he turns.  Although it is not Eli that is calling Samuel, Eli serves as a guide, he continues to mentor Samuel and instructs him to listen and gives him guidance as to how to respond the next time he hears the voice. And sure enough God calls him again, and Samuel responds to the voice that he is listening and is then given a fuller understanding of his purpose in God’s plan for the future.  It will be Samuel, not Eli’s sons that will be the future religious leader of God’s people. 

In dark times, God will provide.  When we are lost, God gives us tools to find our way.  Jesus knows and understands that people can be lost.  He uses the parable of the lost sheep to emphasize this.  If a shepherd has 100 sheep and one is lost, he leaves the 99 to go find the one.  All of the sheep are valuable, important, worthy of being protected by the shepherd and gathered within the safety of the flock.  In the day and age of Jesus, the lost involved so many different types of people.  There were the outcastes, the lepers, the sinners, the unclean, the sick, the tax collectors.  It definitely seems as if more than one sheep has left the fold.  He had his work cut out for him, reaching out to the lost and embracing them, and calling them, and healing them, and teaching them.  And over and over again, he seems to say:  your faith has made you well.  Faith, even the size of a mustard seed, can be what we need to help us anchor ourselves as we twist and turn through the uncertain paths of the dark woods. 

The author of the Gifts of the Dark Woods begins his chapter on being lost with how much easier traveling is when we have an itinerary.  We want to know where we are going.  If we are traveling, we like to know what we are doing each day or where we will be.  A cruise ship cannot just drift about hoping that it will find an island for the travelers to explore.  There is a clear itinerary of ports for the journey.  God does not give us an itinerary as much as we desire to have one.  We take each day as it comes, we have choices as to how we encounter the day.  We can wake up in the morning and proclaim:  This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it, or we can stay in bed, wrestling with getting up, anxious about what may unfold.  Unexpected things happen all the time, but when they do, God is with us, God gives us direction, God calls us to listen, to ask for directions, to be present to our gut or intuition, and to pay attention to where the Holy Spirit just might be whispering to us or nudging us or pointing us in another direction.  The GPS has made my life so much more relaxed and less anxious as I drive from place to place.  Let God be your GPS as we journey through this path of celebrations and struggles, joys and concerns, peace and stress together.  Amen.