Engage us

(This sermon is based on the following scripture verses, 1 Samuel 17: 37b-55a; 1 Timothy 4: 4-16; Matthew 15: 21-28)

When I was 14 years old, a student pastor came to my congregation and discipled me as to what it means to live life as a Christian in the world. We met on a weekly basis for almost a year, and I learned a lot about life, about ministry, about sharing things with a brother in Christ, things I might not normally share with just anyone. It was during that time that I first heard God calling me to ministry. For the next 3 years or so, I did a lot of work within my home congregation to see what it would mean to become a pastor within the Moravian church. Unfortunately what I had thought that it meant to be Christian was not true. I had thought that it meant being smart, being well educated, preaching a good sermon, go to a lot of meetings in order to keep the building well maintained. It was actually kind of fun to do this stuff, but it got old really quickly.

Then, when I was 18, I spent a year abroad in Sweden and other than Christmas Eve, did not spend a single day in church. It was great! I made tons of new friends, most of who did not go to church, spending lots of time outside in the summer, relaxing in the winter, just having a wonderful time. When I came back to the United States, I went right off to college, where I joined a fraternity and lots of clubs. There was so much good stuff going on in my life, and I didn’t miss going to church at all.

One day, I was driving around as a part of my internship when I saw a Moravian church. I hadn’t been in a church in over 3 years, and something made me go back. I’m not sure what made me go, other than God. But that really isn’t the point of me telling you this part of my life. I told you this because I want to highlight the first verse we read this morning from 1 Timothy. It states that everything God created is good.

Now, if you read the first 3 verses of the chapter, which I urge you to do, you might be compelled to say that I am taking this verse out of context, but I want to tell you that one of the reasons we lose a lot of young people in church today is directly related to the fact that we as the church do a poor job of telling our younger members that everything God created is good, and sometimes that includes things which the church fails to recognize. Sometimes the church as a whole tends to say that things like music are bad, or that perhaps certain types of food are bad, or even something like sex can be negative. As a teenager, when we realize that these things in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, but that the church tells us they are, the logical conclusion is to stop attending church. If you ever do decide to go this way, you are not alone. I certainly did it, as do so many other people in our generation. But the important thing we as youth must do is continue to bring positive things which we know God created into contact with the church, in order to broaden the influence we have in the world.

I have a question for the youth today. Did you notice that what the 3 scripture verses had in common? Any guesses? That’s right… they all have youth in them. Last weekend, I went to a conference with a wonderful speaker named Mark Yaconelli who works specifically with youth.
During his presentation, he told us what we needed as youth leaders to do to engage youth today with Christianity. Most of the time we as leaders and elders think that the simple fact of having a youth group means that you are sufficiently engaged. Unfortunately, that is not true. Instead, there are 4 things that we as pastors, teachers, elders and friends must do in order to engage you in the life of the church.

The first thing we need to engage you with is the sense of Wonder. Can you imagine the sense of wonder which David had as he faced Goliath? Heck, the whole army of Israel was captured by wonder. Here is a 9 foot tall man, which is about two feet taller than Yao Ming, covered head to toe in armor with a pretty serious looking sword. I imagine that young David pretty well understood what it means to stand in Wonder, especially with the sure knowledge that God was going to be with him as he defeated this monster of a man. Regrettably, as a young person in the world today, I think it is very difficult to be in awe of anything. We spend so much time in front of screens that things happening in the world rarely intrigue us as they should. Whenever we go somewhere, we are always in a rush, always hurrying, almost never stopping long enough to be in awe of the wonders around us.

Mark Yaconelli told a wonderful story about his four year old son Joshua, who realized that his father was always rushing him to the next place he had to be. Joshua wanted to stop and look at rocks or bugs or whatever else caught his eye. So one day they were sitting around at dinner when this little child told the family that he started a new club, called the Slow Club. He was the only member, but the members of the Slow Club were committed to doing nothing fast. Everything would be done slowly, being sure to take one’s time and to be in wonder of everything around it. Mark thought it was cute, but didn’t actually join his son’s club. He went around for years, continuing to do everything at a fast pace, just like he had always done. Then, one day when they were at a camp, when young Joshua was about 10 years old, the lunch bell rang and the whole camp started to run towards the dining hall. Mark tried to hurry his son, knowing that all the good food would be gone if they didn’t hurry up… But his son invited his father with a one day pass into the Slow Club. As they slowly walked to the mess hall together, they saw a pair of rabbits, they saw lizards sunning themselves by a pond, they took in the beauty of the world around them, and for the first time, Mark, who had always been rushing his son everywhere he needed to be, realized that his son was right, and that he needed to spend more time in Wonder of the things which God created. Ever since that one walk to lunch, I believe Mark has been a member of the Slow Club.

The second thing we need to engage our youth in is a sense of heartbreak. Perhaps this seems to be a confusing quality which we should be exposing our young men and women to, but I will tell you today that it is probably the most important. In fact most parents do everything they can to avoid showing children that heartbreak is a part of what it means to be a Christian. But to engage a person in heartbreak does not mean to allow them to date and go through a bad break up. To have your heart break is to see the people which our world pushes to the margins. The gospels calls these people the poor, naked, hungry and thirsty. We must see the margins and empathize with them. Our heart must break at their condition, and we must see Christ in the people the world tells us are unworthy. The second part of engaging someone in heartbreak is to not simply to give money to those people, but to actively spend time with them, to spend part of your life’s journey on their own journey. Doing this leads to the third thing we must engage our youth in today.

We must be engaged in experiences of healing. The gospels are filled with stories of healing. We even read one of them today. A young girl was healed because of the faith of her mother. Healing can take on many forms. Sometimes it is made manifest in physical healing, sometimes spiritual. One of most profound ways an adult can engage their children in healing is through the act of forgiveness. I recently watched a movie on the Amish mothers of the girls who were killed in the school shooting. They immediately forgave the shooter who killed their young children. This is definitely a lesson we all can learn from, but those women, mothers of slain children, engaged the world in a lesson of healing. They knew they could not heal if they did not forgive. If our youth are not engaged in this, they will have a difficult time practicing it when they are leaders in the church.

The last thing we must engage our youth in is Freedom. By all accounts, Philadelphia is the birthplace of freedom, but I’m not speaking of political freedom, or the rights afforded to us in the constitution. Instead, we must be engaged with freedom in Christ. This is a different way of living which is very foreign to the world today. We must show each other that we do not live for ourselves, but for each other, because Christ lived for us.

If we listen to the words Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” I personally take freedom from the world a bit more radically than most. I love the book of Acts where we get a taste of how the first church lived, where they sold everything they had, worshipped daily, giving to those in need, and shared meals together. I wish I were brave enough to do something like that, but we can start by taking small steps of living free from the world and instead start living free in Christ. Perhaps it starts by getting rid cable TV, or perhaps it means having more meals as a family at home. However you wish to engage the young men and women in your life, showing them that there is a different way to live is extremely important.

Now, I want all the youth to stand up and face the rest of the congregation. I want you to repeat what I say to the people who promised to nurture you into Christian maturity when you were baptized.

Repeat after me:
Engage us/ in what it means/ to live life/ as followers of Jesus.
Engage us/ in the wonders of God/ and the beauty of the world.
Engage us/ in heartbreak./ Show us the margins of the world/ and how to love them.
Engage us/ in experiences of healing./ Showing us how to forgive/ people who have hurt us.
Engage us/ in freedom from the world/ and how to live a godly life.
Engage us/ please/ Engage us.



Amen.

Olympic Protests

I am fascinated by the way certain groups draw attention to their cause. Most recently, there have been protests during the Olympic torch relay. Apparently these protests have worked; because high powered political figures have either publically committed or are considering boycotting the opening ceremony. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Great Britain has said he will not attend because of China’s stance on Tibet. George W. Bush is still thinking about missing the opening ceremony, but has said that he will attend the games in order to support the Americans who are competing.

I don’t know if China even cares about such things. Perhaps in a world where a subtle public shame technique is important, but everyone who has any training in political science knows that all politics are local and such small stunts are meaningless for real change. It is the equivalent of saying “I support the troops but not the war in Iraq.”

Instead, most coverage of this issue has put the athletes in the forefront of a political battle which they seem to dislike. Half of the athletes seem to have little to no knowledge of current affairs while the others who do pay attention don’t want politics to get in the way of their performance. I guess if I was a world class athlete, I might feel the same way, but since I’m not, I can’t.

It’s time for our athletes to stand up and say, “I know I’m one of the best swimmers/soccer players/softball players/runners/athletes in the world and I have a pretty good chance to show the world yet again that the country I come from allows me to perform at my best. Because of this, I cannot compete because the Olympics are not being held in a place where this is true for all of its citizens.”

When we come from countries which promote such high standards, we ought to live up to them, even if our politicians don’t. For many athletes, this is their one shot at greatness, and sadly, I think it is wasted by the fact that they are competing. By my theory, you’re pretty good if you even make it to the Olympics…but you’re the best if you can turn them down for what you know is right.

If you leave politics up to politicians, you fail to live in a democracy. The same goes for allowing politicians to dictate what happens to athletes. If there is a single athlete who chooses not to compete because of their beliefs…there may be hope for the system after all… but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Community can change the world

My favourite part of the movie “the Matrix” is the part when Neo goes to see the Oracle. As he is waiting in her living room, he encounters a young child who is holding a spoon. The child has the spoon in one hand and appears to be making the spoon bend merely by using the powers of the mind. Neo stands a few feet away in sheer amazement. After completing lots of training, he realizes that he does not have the same capability that this young boy has. The child catches Neo staring. It seems that Neo is caught between two realities. One is that surely this must be a trick; while the other reality is that he knows that it is not, but doesn’t know how to explain it. The boy hands Neo the spoon and allows him to try. He stares at the spoon for a moment, concentrating really hard. Finally Neo gets the spoon to bend ever so slightly before it goes back to its original shape. The child smiles and tells him the secret. It is easy to bend the spoon however you like once you realize that there is no spoon. I’m pretty sure that this simple phrase is immediately lost on Neo, because it was spoken by a child, and in the other room, the Oracle, who was much more important than this child, was waiting. The interesting thing is that the oracle was the one who told him no, while the child gave him the answer to changing the world. Only when Neo realized that nothing in the world could hold him back was he truly able to master it.

Truly I tell you, the first Christians whom we read about in the book of Acts learned that when they no longer conformed to the ways of the world, the people of God grew in number every day. Nothing was able to control them once they realized this.

What made this community so different? The way that all the believers were together and having everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as they had need. Every day they met in the temple, they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Surely this is different than what it was living in a hippie commune or having the state impose Communism upon the people. Instead, this was the people who feared and loved God coming together and realizing that there is no spoon. That if they lived a life that told the people around them that “the world” has nothing to offer, that there was no spoon, then the things of the world would be defeated.

For those of you who have gone to Mississippi, you know about what it means to experience a community inspired by God. Every day there is opportunity to gather together to worship, everyday there is an opportunity to work for something other than our own money, and I think, most importantly, the opportunity to eat meals together and enjoy each others company. As I’m sure anyone in this congregation will tell you who has been to Camp Victor, this intentional community is a world changing thing.

In fact, the earliest Moravians were intentionally living in this different community in the hopes to not live according to the values of the world, but instead wanted to live as if the Kingdom of God was present here on earth. During the time of Comenius, this community lived as part of the “hidden seed”. Unfortunately we do not have much information because they were persecuted for their beliefs, but I think we must believe that their community lived differently than others around them, because otherwise that small, hidden seed, would not have made it to Herrenhut. When they finally did make it Herrenhut, the Unitas Fratrum was able to live out this intentional community the way God desired. In fact, their community drew people from many other faith communities to the Moravians because they saw that the way they lived was very similar to the way the early Christians in the book of Acts lived. Unfortunately, all these different faith communities were at odds with each other as to truly live together. The community only thrived when they lived out this life AND they learned to put aside their differences and love each other.

The whole idea that we have to love each other is more about action than thought. The neighbors of First Moravian Church of Riverside must be able to see that we love each other and more importantly, we love them, which does not include them coming through our doors as the first step. They need to come to the realization that we are not living for ourselves, which is what our entire American culture preaches, but we are living for Christ, and thus we are living for each other because we know that Christ dwells in each of us.

I have no definite answer my friends, to how we go about making visible our community of love. All I do know is that Jesus said that we, his followers, are the salt of the earth and that we are the light of the world.

These two statements are the pinnacle of what it means to belong to the people which God has set apart. Starting with Abraham, God calls us to be separate, to live differently than the rest of the world thinks we should live. The rest of the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with stories of how we have fallen short of being the people God calls us to be. Then we finally get to the New Testament, and we find Jesus, the son of God who sets people apart to be Holy. Jesus spends his ministry telling those around him what it takes to be set apart, what it means to be holy, what it means to not be of the world.

It is an awesome undertaking which can be fulfilled in an infinite number of ways. The epistle lesson for today talks about how we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God so that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into God’s wonderful light. Because we have received this mercy from God, I do know that simply giving money to a charity or food to a food bank is not enough. Instead, we must dine with the poor and the hungry. Be in fellowship with those among us whom the world considers undesirable, even if it means personal or professional disgrace. Great is our reward in heaven when we are able to live out that calling.

We must be continuing to reflect on our own community within this congregation and look to see the impact we are making on the people around us. One of the great things about this congregation is the rich family context which has been built up for many years. The early Christians who we are looking to model this morning saw themselves as a family. “Family is the dominant social model as well as a metaphor which Jesus uses to engender a specific kind of behavior.”[1]

The family model for Christian community can be a difficult one to live within. There are two main problems to building this community. First is that there are really only two ways to gain entrance into a family. You can either be born into a family or marry into one. The second obstacle is when Jesus says that he came to set a son against his father, or a daughter against her mother (Matthew 10:34-37). This might make us think that Jesus is against family, but in fact, it is showing us that in order to really be a family of believers, we must put aside allegiance to our own family and build relationships which have Christ at the center, which is what any congregation should truly be. And yet, with Christ at the center of our family, we must do everything we can to love one another. If we chose to be nice in order not to hurt one’s feelings, we will continue to be shallow in both faith and in community. Loving each other sometimes saying things which hurt, which bring about frustration or struggle, but those times are when the Sprit grows in us, it deconstructs us and admonishes us, allowing for a deeper walk with God.

This weekend, the men of this congregation went on a retreat and learned about family. We recalled times and relationships which were meaningful to us and almost everyone had a story of some sort of struggle between siblings. Because we are brothers and sisters in Christ, we must not think that everything we say must be “nice” because it hinders growth. I’m willing to guess that all of us at some point in our lives have been told the “truth in love”, even when it hurt. We must seek to do that more often, to be the community in love. “Community is the place where our limitations, our fears and our egoism are revealed to us. We discover our poverty and our weakness, our inability to get along with some people, our mental and emotional blocks, our affective or sexual disturbances, our seemingly insatiable desires, our frustrations and jealousies, our hatred and our wish to destroy. An experience in prayer and the experience of being loved and accepted in community, which has become a safe place for us, allows us to gradually accept ourselves as we are, with our wounds and all the monsters. We are broken, but we are loved. We can grow to greater openness and compassion; we have a mission.”[2]

That mission is to show the world that there is no spoon. The spoon in this case our individuality in which we attempt to exist. Once we realize that our individuality does not exist, but our love is show in the way that we love each other. When this community becomes greater than our individuality, we are a force that will change the world. Amen.

[1] Joseph Hellerman. The Ancient Church as Family (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) pg 70.
[2] Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, 2nd Ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 1989) pg 26-27.