Lent: A Time for Incubator Faith

If you ask me, babies are just about the cutest things out there. Their fingers, toes, lips and eyes are all miniature portions of us grimy adults. Their little bodies still fresh and without blemish from the elements of the world. I have had the joy of getting to know two little babies recently, twins of a friend of mine. These two are no exception to the cute baby rule, their fingers and toes, lips and eyes are perfect. But my two new friends were a little early coming into this world; so excited to make an entrance that they had to spend some time in the hospital sleeping and eating in incubators.

Like all infants, these two were fed milk, with much time before any type of solid food would touch their lips. But besides their diet, there were many other precautionary measures taken toward ensuring their health. There were oxygen tubes, heart rate monitors, incubators, and many checks and tests by nurses and doctors. These two were examined multiple times a day with each step in growth monitored and applauded. One thing that is so wonderful and magical about babies is that their growth is hard to miss. These two little girls went from 3 to 4 pounds in about a week with the progress clearly noticeable. With cheeks filling out, multiple chins forming, and their bellies rounding, these two were shedding the equipment examining their every move. Soon enough my two friends were free of tubes and ready to be moved from the incubator. As I celebrate this day of growth and freedom with them, I think about their journey of a month in an incubator and our journey of just over a month through Lent.

In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 Paul speaks to a community which is not yet ready for solid food. This community, freshly born is still focusing their eyes, only able to see worldly things and not the spiritual. Someday, Paul says, you will be able to receive the spiritual nourishment that I have for you, but as of now you are still infants in the faith, quarreling, jealous, and clinging to the ways of the world.

And years later here we are, eyes straining to God in our midst, as we move  between focus and blurred vision of the things and people around us. In many ways, we Christians are newly born, not yet ready to stand or function on our own, but at the same time thrown right into this rough and tumble world full of jealousy and quarreling. And so for our own good we need to be watched, monitored, encouraged, and fed along the way. This holy season of Lent each year is our time in an incubator, a time for examined growth and maturity. Instead of monitors, oxygen, and periodic check-ups we are given the blessings of confession, self-examination, and the ritual of fasting. Through these holy acts we are nourished, cleansed, and encouraged until the day that we are released from this incubator season, the same day we celebrate Christ rising from the tomb. But in this season of Lent we are not yet to the resurrection day, the day of hope and freedom and new life. So let us not rush to Easter too quickly, but remain in this closely examined incubator season of Lent so we can be ready to stand on our own, see Christ clearly in the world around us, grasp firmly onto the things that are good, breathe in deeply the Spirit God, and share with others the good news of new life. Through just over a month in our own incubators, we will not be fully grown, but we will be ready for the world around us, and ready to confront what the world has for us, for we have been nourished by God.

Just the other day I was able to hold the two little girls for the first time. While before I only saw them through the incubator and stroked their tiny hands, this day I held their precious  lives in my arms. Wrapped in blankets I could feel their infant legs squirming, as muscle growth continues to develop. The excitement of new life in my arms reminded me of the excitement and unpredictability of new life in Christ, available to us each and every morning. With just a few weeks of monitoring, feeding and examining these little girls have grown leaps and bounds. And through these six weeks of Lent as my two new friends continue to grow I am encouraged in my own journey of growth.   

Re:connect The Dots

Life can get crazy. Life can get blink and you miss it, grey hairs sprouting, forget what day it is crazy. This past year has been wonderfully crazy. In May I graduated from seminary, started full time at a church in June, and then got married and ordained in October. With moving apartments, joining lives together with my wife and beginning this wonderful call as a pastor I felt like life was moving in hyper speed. Imagine Chewy and Han Solo kicking it into gear in the Millennium Falcon with stars smearing by, leaving a blinding flash of lines. But in reality each of those lines are individual stars, individual dots. Even though in my imaginary Millennium Falcon I have flown past so many stars, so many dots, and so many individual moments and events, I can now take the time to connect those dots and moments that I have passed up, those stars flashing by. And the beautiful thing that happens when you connect the dots, the stars, and the moments, is that you get a clear picture of something bigger that the individual dot that is "me". I love looking up into the cold winter night sky and connecting the dots of Orion's Belt,

the easiest constellation for me to see. And as I have been looking at the night sky recently, I get excited about re:connecting the dots and the moments in my life once again; seeing how conversations with strangers, encounters with friends, laughter and tears, time with family, music listened to, movies watched and books I have read have connected to and built upon one another and highlight the line that holds us and these moments together. Here is to taking a step back and seeing the bigger, beautiful picture that God is creating here and now among us.  

Sermon: Luke 18:35-43

A sermon from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary 2012.

Lenten Thoughts

As we near the end of the Lenten season, what I reflect upon are fish sandwiches on Friday and no chocolate for 40 days. What this really translates into is fasting of some sort. Growing up I never knew what this fasting or giving something up for Lent was all about. All I knew was that I was supposed to pick something that I love and then not eat, do it, use it, ect. until Easter. Some years this would end in epic failure not lasting a week, and other years when I was feeling especially sneaky I would give up giving something up for Lent. In the end, what Lent became for me was a time of anticipation of spring and hunting for Easter baskets.
This was, until I had a professor in college who would not shave at all during Lent. This professor, usually clean cut and well put together, would week by week come undone. As a beard owner, well former beard owner, I can truly say that his beard was not a pleasant sight. I could not figure out why this usually well kept man suddenly let go of his hygiene. I one day asked my professor why he grew this beard. It was through this conversation that he then opened my eyes to the beauty of fasting during Lent.
For my professor, his growing of a beard was a constant reminder of self examination. Each time that he would see himself in the mirror, his patchy facial hair would be a physical reminder to not just think of himself, but how his actions are affecting others. This sounded like a true fast to me, something with some substance, something that I could get on board with.
In the Isaiah passage we read tonight, we hear about the fasts which God desires. Isaiah 58:1-12, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
Fasting which points us towards our interconnectedness with one another is fasting which God desires. We are not called to fast for the sake of feeling the pain of hunger, or the pain of desiring chocolate, or even the pain of poor facial hair. What we are called to, in that moment of desire for chocolate, is to think of those who work in slave conditions to provide that chocolate for you. When you feel the pangs of hunger think not of the feasting which will come when the fast is over, but think of those who in our neighborhoods go without meals. When we go in the morning during Lent without that cup of coffee think about those picking the coffee beans at unfair wages, or decide to only buy fair trade coffee to support in a humane way those who provide for our daily needs. When you fast from watching TV, don’t just go online to watch your missed episodes, but think of the way our culture makes us slaves to certain images and ideals, think of the products we sell to our children, and think of the values which we teach them all through advertising on TV.
This truly sounds like a daunting task, any fast for 40 days is a long time. And it should seem like a large task at hand, because biblically the number 40 means “a long time”. But we should not give up hope, because just as Isaiah tells us what God wishes for our fasts, Isaiah also promises us in verse 11 that, “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.” God promises our guidance and our safety, through the long droughts of our lives. And what is amazing is that God not only promises to watch after us, but to turn our parched places into a spring of water, where all would gather for nourishment; not just satisfying our needs but serving the needs of the community
In the end, our fasting is truly less about ourselves, and more about how we live in community with one another. It is sad how I have lived on the same street for two years now and have relatively little community with the neighbors around me. I unfortunately think that this is the norm. We tend to live our lives thinking we are self sustaining, while in reality all of our actions greatly affect those we are in community with whether we know it or not. We are called to love one another at all times and in all ways as we can see from Isaiah’s description of a fast acceptable to God. I believe that when we try to live in seclusion, focusing inwards we are not truly living up to the way which God created us, in the image of God, the trinity, three in one, one in three, in blessed unity, a constant love between the Father and Son by the Holy Spirit. That is what we are called to as well. We must not turn our eyes away from our brothers and sisters, but pray that the Holy Spirit may unite us in love.
Whether you are giving up chocolate, coffee, TV, growing a patchy beard, eating fish on Fridays, or whatever you may do, make your actions one of self reflection. Take this season to prayerfully fast and look both at our present actions and forward to the joyful feast of Easter morning, the promise of God’s kingdom coming where all will be made whole. For, while we are called to share bread with the hungry, clothe the naked, and welcome in the homeless, we only do so in the great hope of the coming kingdom of God where the hungry will be fed, the blind will see, the lame will walk, and all tears will be wiped away.

Oct. 9 Sermon

This is a sermon I preached on October 9th, 2011 at 6th Presbyterian Church based on Exodus 32:1-14 and Matthew 22:1-14

As I read the Golden Calf passage along with the parable of the wedding banquet, I get the feeling that humanity needs a good counseling. A nice sit down session with legs up on the couch, discussing our issues of commitment and identity. Those really are the two issues identified in these passages, aren’t they?

In Exodus, God has just led the Israelites out of Egypt, freeing them from slavery. They weren’t just freed though, no, God intervened in such a way that God’s power and majesty was made know. God intervened in a very visible way with frogs, blood, locusts, gnats, flies, boils, thunder and hail, and turing Egypt dark for three days. God’s intervention was a cosmic intervention. The Israelites then crossed the Red Sea escaping the danger of oncoming Egyptian armies. Once reaching safety in the wilderness, the people cry out in the wilderness asking for food and water. Again God provides sending manna and quails and sending forth water from a rock. God acts as the provider. Once all of the commotion of escaping from a major world power and surviving plagues, calms down a bit God and Moses have some time to chat up on Mt. Sinai about the forming of this community. God gives Moses instructions for how the community is supposed to live. This is where our passage picks up today. Moses has been on top of the mountain for forty days and just as the instructions are being made, the people down at the bottom of the mountain are getting a little restless. They begin to ask one another, where exactly this Moses guy is. This Moses guy who lead them out of Egypt. Wait, wait a second. Did they just say this Moses was the one who lead them out of Egypt? Is this the same Moses who fled Egypt and argued with God about going back and helping out his fellow Israelites? Did the Israelites miss the whole God and plague thing? I mean, how could we ever mistake what God does for us as the qualities and actions of a person. Reading this story we would never reduce the majestic loving power of God to chance and reason, of course we would give God credit where credit is due.

But this isn’t just the Israelites story is it? This is the story of today as well. This is your story, this is my story. I have been a part of churches where this is their attitude, an attitude of separation from God. It is easy for the members to sit back and criticize the leadership of the church. It is even easier for those outside of the church to sit back and criticize. So often we look at the pastor, or the building, or the presbytery as our leader, don’t we? We begin to follow pastors words as if they are final, we go along with denominational lines simply because they are there, we allow others to pray instead of us, and those outside of the church may even say, “eh well that God thing really isn’t for me.” Now, this is not an attack on those who criticize, or even those who are apathetic, but this instead is an invitation. This is an invitation to examine what it might look like to step into God’s loving grace and to set our hearts and minds on God as our guide. With the view that a pastor, or that “someone else” is our guide we take all of the responsibility off of ourselves and we lose something very important. We lose our identity as children of God. Instead we may become children of the Presbyterian Church, or children of a certain pastor or Christian author just as the Israelites in a way became children of Moses, waiting for direction. But these other leaders do not define truly who we are, and in finding our identity in them, we lose one of the greatest gifts of God. We lose sight of the fact that God came to us in Jesus, so that we may know God and enter into a relationship with God. No middle man, no smoke and mirrors, no games to be played, God longs for us to enter into relationship with God. So I ask of you, please accept this invitation.

But first let’s take a look at the Matthew passage before we get any further. In Matthew, Jesus’ parable doesn’t even seem to beat around the bush. While the message still has some ambiguities the action seems fairly straight forward. There is a king who has prepared a wedding banquet for his son. The food was ready, tables were set, and the kings messengers were sent to invite the guests. However when the guests are first met each one goes on their own way, keeping up with their daily lives. I’d like to say that these people didn’t know what they are missing out on, but I too have unfortunately skipped my fair share of free dinners. When I first read this story it reminded me of my college years. At Westminster, a small liberal arts school, people are notorious for being over committed and unable to say no. If there were 1,400 students there might be 2,800 clubs, organizations, activities, dinners. Ok that might be an exaggeration, but there really were more events than you knew what to do with, not to mention keeping up with the school work that you were assigned. I would get e-mails every day for new events or meetings or speakers, and when I would walk into the student union building there would be flyer after flyer advertising for even more events. After a while I just came to ignore any e-mail update or flyer that came my way. I’m not sure if Jesus’ parable isn’t getting at something similar. In the parable it states that the guests made light of the invitation, one went on to his farm and another back to their business. It is very true that we have things in our lives that we need to take care of. There are bills that need to be paid, which means we need to go to work, and jobs are harder to find now, so we even have to work at finding work, and then there are relationships to keep up, children to taxi around, meals to be made, shopping to be done, and then maybe we can find time to rest, and then possibly if we have rested we might have time to notice these invitations around us.

I am the first to be guilty of this. I am teased of being a person of routine, but its true. I have a routine that keeps me sane in which I can fit in all of my tasks in the day. However, in keeping to my routine I miss many opportunities for unexpected encounters with God. But how are we to structure our lives so that we may be more aware of God? We can’t just sit around waiting, there are things that need to be done. We are students, and physicians, and teachers, and mothers, and fathers, and business men and women, and caretakers, and pastors, and architects, and you fill in the blank. These identities of ours keep us busy, very busy. Who we are determines what we have to do. As a student I have books that need to be read, papers that need to be written, I need to show up for class, and even when I’m feeling a little bit crazy I might participate in class. The same goes for all of our identities, there are tasks that need to be completed that correspond with who we are.

Lets jump back to the Israelites at the base of Mt. Sinai. Remember their problem? They wanted to make a golden calf to worship since it seemed like Moses wasn’t coming back. They wanted to replace Moses because they said it was him who led them out of Egypt. It was Moses they put their trust in. It was Moses that they wanted to follow. It was in Moses that they found their identity. But it wasn’t Moses who led them out of Egypt, was it? It was God who led them out of slavery and God who fed them in the wilderness. Their trust should have been in God, it should have been God whom they wanted to follow. When they were followers of Moses, they lost their identity as a people of God, as children of God. God even recognizes this. In Exodus 32:7 God commands Moses saying, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt are acting perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them.” When we lose our identity, we become committed to other things, or people. The same applies for the Matthew passage. There, the people are identified by their works. It makes sense that they would ignore the invitation of the king, because their identity was not with him, it was with their work. While working is good, it is needed, it seems like this parable and the golden calf story are telling us that is not where we are to find our identity. We are to find our identity in God. Through these texts we have seen what happens when we lose our identity in God, that we become committed to other things, but how should our lives look if we were to find our identity in God?

It would be so nice if I said that this identity grounded in God looked like someone just showing up to church, or if there were steps to follow. I would love that, or at least I think I would at first. I could easily take these steps and fit them into my schedule and go about my routine. But I have found through struggling in faith, that those steps aren’t the fulfillment of grounding our identity in God. And that is because our identity is that of a child of God, and a child is a relational term. Relationships take work, they take time, you can go through many stages in a relationship, and I have found that if you want a good relationship you can’t fit them into your schedule just like another item on a list of to-dos. You see, when we fix our identity issues we also fix our relationships, our commitment issues. A relationship is organic, moving, give and take, dynamic, it is life giving, it is participatory. There is a lot of work in a relationship, but there is so much life, and emotion, and reward, and you feel alive. This is true of a relationship with God as it is a relationship with any loved one. But here is one thing that makes our grounded identity in God so much more fulfilling, so much more life giving than other identities; school ends, children grow up, jobs come and go, but God is. God is the one who was, the one who is, and the one who is coming.

We are called to so much more than a stagnant intellectual thought of God. We are called into a life giving relationship with the one who loves us, created us, and knows us. Now this does not mean that we are to sit around and read the Bible all day long and forget the rest of the world, no, that would be silly. This does not mean we are to not care about our jobs or our other relationships, again, silly. This does, however, mean that our identity in God, our relationship with God influences and gives life to all of our other relationships.

Once we commit to this, to actually living in a relationship with God, it can be a hard process, a process of change, and growing pains, a process of reorganizing priorities, but in this relationship there are many blessings, comfort, and joy, true joy. And we are to be comforted that God came to us in Jesus so that we may know and see what a relationship with God looks like. This is where the church fits in as well. The church and pastors in our lives are to be guides, not someone to be followed, but someone to walk alongside us, assisting in our growing relationship with God. Like I mentioned before, a relationship with is not something that we can just plug into our schedule, a relationship is not something that we can only attend to once every now and then, a relationship is not something that is a one way street. A relationship with God is exactly the same. We cannot just fit God into our schedule on Sundays, we cannot simply come to church expecting to receive, but we must let our relationship with God spread into all of the areas of our lives, be a participatory member of the relationship, grow through prayer and thought, learn more about God through reading the Bible and contemplation, ask questions, get frustrated with God, share your joys with God, when you pray believe what you are praying.

I pray for each of you that you will come to enter into this relationship. I pray that each of us would come to enter into the beautiful banquet which God already has for us, planned and ready before we even do anything. I pray that we as a church would come to make all decisions and movements with this relationship in mind. And I pray that we may all come to know our true identities as children of God.

Psalm 146

One of my favorite Psalms is 146. I feel like I say "one of my favorite Psalms is..." a lot. That is probably true thought. They all have so much meaning and emotion just seeping out of them. However, Psalm 146 has a special significance to me over the last few months. As I have been reading the Psalms I don't just sit back and pat the psalmist on the back for his beautiful language and great imagery. Instead, like I said before, the Psalms become my prayers. The hope of the psalmist becomes my hope. Consequently my hope in God changes the way that I live my life. I try not to live in fear or the shadow of oppressive systemic evils, but I try to live in the light of God's love who is Christ Jesus.

Psalm 146:8-9

The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

As this Psalm has become my prayer God has placed opportunities in my life to help live out the prayer. I feel like we should not only pray to God four help but to pray that God would use us in God's work. When this happens however, you need to expect and believe that God will answer your prayer and be ready to respond. The other day I had the opportunity to do just that. As I was walking down the street I was approached by a man outside of the post office. His name was Leon. As Leon began talking to me it seemed as though all my life slowed down and all else around me vanished. Leon was just asking for a quarter saying that he was hungry. I was able to give Leon a few dollars before I headed into the post office. The line was long, I did not stay long. As I came outside I saw Leon was still standing there and I remembered that I had found an Eat N Park gift card in my wallet just a day before. I asked Leon if I could take him to get something to eat. What do you know, there was an Eat N Park two doors down from the post office. I was able to sit and chat with Leon just for a bit before I went to a meeting. As I left, Leon was behind me eating his mid afternoon breakfast and I moved on to the rest of my day.

Even though I may never see Leon again, I continue to pray that God use me in his work to bring about his kingdom here on earth, always hoping to live in the light of what is to come.

Psalm 135

This morning I read Psalm 135. Within the Psalm lies some of my favorite language full of imagery. The Psalmist writes:

"The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of human hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear, and there is no breath in their mouths. Those who make them and all who trust them shall become like them." (135:15-18)

The Psalmist in this passage is just taunting those who worship false gods. He places right in front of them the downfall of their worship. These things that you worship, you made them! How can you worship something that is less than you, something that depended on you to come about, something that you have complete control over? This however is the question today as well though, isn't it? Forget about all of the material things that we worship in the place of God, put that aside for now, I am sure I will comment on that some other time. But for now, think about how we attempt to control God when we worship God. Think of all of the ways which we use the Bible to say what we want it to instead of letting the Bible instruct us. Think of all of our narrow views of a very deep and wide God. Think of all of the ways in which we try to make God ours and only ours when God created the earth and all that is in it.

Let us not try to control God, but to lift up our arms in surrender and let the one who created all guide us in all that we do.