Community United Church of Christ (Saint Paul Park, Minnesota)

Scripture: Mark 10:17-31

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Anju is a 19-year-old woman who lives in India. Whereas most women of Anju’s age are thinking about career, wedding, and friends, Anju has decided to take vows and become a Jain nun. Before she does so, she must pass three tests. She must experience the closeness of her family, then renounce them. She must be dressed as a bride in the most beautiful attire, then let all the finery go. She must be adored by thousands, then prove her indifference to pain and beauty. We’ll see her experience as one of four profiles in the Belief video after worship today.[1]

Continue reading “A Community of Generosity and Joy” →

Community United Church of Christ (Saint Paul Park, Minnesota)

Scripture: Mark 9:30-37

I started thinking about tonight’s sermon a few days ago at the gym. (Sometimes I listen to sermon podcasts while I’m exercising—though sometimes it’s Lady Gaga.) Anyway, whenever I’m at the gym I’m surrounded by people working to build power, stamina and endurance. Body-builders honing the curve of their biceps or the square of their pectorals. Rugged women and men push around a metal “sled” with hundred-pound weights on it. Old men breathlessly battle one another on the racquetball courts. Personal trainers coach people of all body types to do just five reps more. And on the walls are giant murals celebrating strength and fitness. This modern-day temple to muscle and physique was a very strange place to “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.

But where does one go in our culture to reflect on death? Were it not for occasional funerals or driving by cemeteries, most of us could go years without much reminder of bodily decay and death. Indeed, our world actively promotes getting stronger, faster and more powerful forever. It’s not just gym culture or the physical body—“success” comes in many forms. As children we learn that what matters is getting good grades. While teenagers, we count the number of friends we have, or how soon we can get the driver’s license. Savvy professionals count our retweets, Facebook follows, blog posts and the development of a personal brand. Promotions at work and take-home pay become the measures of merit for professionals. If we are fortunate enough to reach the age and ability to retire, many feel the loss of meaning that often comes with being out of the workplace. We make up for it with cultural experiences, travel, the exploits of grandchildren, and our different areas of volunteer leadership, including here at church.

None of these are bad pursuits in and of themselves. But when they are the only things a person can dwell on, or when taken too far, they end up creating problems. Without a robust sense of mortality, our priorities get warped and we chase after ephemeral things. Those who lack “greatness” in the areas of physique or status or accomplishment live with feelings of insecurity. Those with medical difficulties feel they have to minimize or hide the trouble for fear of appearing weak. When we face the death of loved ones, if we have had little chance to encounter mortality, we can be frightened by its finality. Too many reach the end of our lives, and we resonate with the poetry of T.S. Eliot: “I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, / And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker; / and I am afraid.” Chasing after success in all the usual ways without holding these in tension with mortality leaves us fragile and fearful when our powers fail.

This is the gift of Ash Wednesday, then, and the Good News of this night. Jesus turns the measures of greatness on their head. Success doesn’t have to look like accomplishments, awards, promotions, or all the other accolades that we are taught to pursue. Nobody could collect all of those things in the first place, which means that even the most outwardly-successful person could feel like a failure. Instead, Jesus says “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” He brings a child into their midst, and says that welcoming a child is like welcoming God’s own Self. Remember that children of this time had no special status. Preacher Raquel Lettson explains, “The child is devoid of any legal rights and has no societal protection or maintenance except that which the parent can provide. The child cannot offer patronage or other critical social benefits. Ultimately, children are dependent on the goodwill of others. S/he is completely vulnerable. …To welcome one such as this is honorable. This is ‘greatness’ according to Jesus.”[1] The point is summed up another way by Oprah Winfrey: “Not everyone can be famous, but everyone can serve.”

The greatness of faith will not look like the greatness you can read about in the Forbes 500 lists. It is a greatness of compassion, of daily life lived well, of embracing those who are least and lost and left out. And we start to see this, paradoxically, when we encounter mortality. The surgeon Atul Gawande wrote a book several years ago called Being Mortal: Medicine and what Matters in the End. Gawande suggests that instead of running away from the truth about death, or hiding the mortification of the body with another dozen pushups at the gym, there’s much to gain when we face the facts of life and death. He suggests that “acknowledging your mortality is a tremendous gift. It reorders your desires. It narrows your focus, and gives you a new perspective that’s rooted in reality instead of vain hope for a medical miracle.”[2] Mortality is our reminder that we do not have forever on this earth, and that what matters most is how we serve and welcome Christ in young and old alike.

Can I let you in on a little secret then? Every year on Ash Wednesday, I hear something that scrambles my brain. As I’m marking the cross on someone’s body, someone is bound to say a gentle, whispered “thank you.” It strikes me as odd, but it happens every year. Perhaps, though, this is a quiet acknowledgment of the mystery which God is able to work through ash and dust. “Thank you” for reminding us of death, because we can thereby focus on what really matters in life. “Thank you” for acknowledging the reality of pain and loss when it seems like no place else will. “Thank you” for making space for wounds and hurts alongside worldly success. “Thank you” for the promise that even as the body declines, the spirit grows ever greater. “Thank you” for the reassurance of our faith, that nothing is too fearful for God, not even death.

Let us pray: Holy God, giver of life and conqueror of death, you know that none of us will make it out of this life alive. Open our eyes to the wisdom of Christ, that we may wear his cross of ash and join him in the great service of his way. Amen.

[1] Raquel S. Lettson, “Commentary on Mark 9:30-37” posted at WorkingPreacher.org. Available at: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2581.

[2] As described by Dan Clendenin, “To See Death Daily” post on the Journey with Jesus website. Available at http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20150216JJ.shtml.

Community United Church of Christ (Saint Paul Park, Minnesota)

Scripture: Mark 8:27-9:8

For the last five weeks, I’ve been coaching a group of people on Facebook who are reading through the Bible in a year. Genesis was fascinating for several weeks last month, and Exodus was pretty good too, but this week we’ve really hit the skids—it’s Leviticus. I’d forgotten just how many laws are in Leviticus. The book goes on for chapter after chapter with instructions for animal sacrifices, inspecting houses, dealing with skin diseases, and other unsavory topics. Yet group members bring even these readings to life with their wisdom and personal stories. Earlier this week we discussed how the beautiful and intricate priestly garments must have become horribly stained by day after day of sacrifices. It led into conversation about the marks that life’s work leaves on our clothes and our bodies. How do stains and marks give witness to the work we’ve done well (or otherwise)? One person, Carolyn, says: “I find that the marks that are left from my work as a clinical social worker (now retired) are on my mind and heart…after journeying with people through the pain of abuse, family dissolution, etc. etc. I can still feel the sadness of many of those people.” Cynthia Miller wrote about her father, who was a coal miner: “His clothes would be so dirty & greasy that my mother would not wash them at home less they wreck her washer & dryer; she took them separately to our town’s only laundromat once a week. My father worked very hard to pay for college for my brothers and me because he once said he wanted us to have the kind of jobs where we shower before work, not after. My dad is a loving & faith-filled man, and I never forget his sacrifices for our family.”[1] Both these are examples of the costs that come with serving our deep desire for another’s gladness. Ask a parent, a teacher, or anyone else whose life’s calling is much more than just work. If you love deeply, you will suffer much for that love.

Continue reading ““Listen to Him!”” →

Community United Church of Christ (Saint Paul Park, Minnesota)

Scripture: Mark 4:1-34

The American legend John Chapman was born in 1774, just before the United States was. He grew up in Massachusetts, but started traveling to explore the western frontier in his teenage years. He was a simple and good man by all accounts. Two passions animated his life and caused him to travel throughout the American frontier. The first was religion—he was a missionary for the Swedenborgian faith. The second was apples, and this is why history knows him also as “Johnny Appleseed”.

Continue reading “Seeds of Divine Life” →

Community United Church of Christ (Saint Paul Park, Minnesota)

Text: Mark 1:1-20

These days after Christmas are a little treasure that I often forget about. They exist here in an overlooked space on the calendar, a quiet little valley between the mountain peaks of Christmas and New Years. Everyone is so hurried and busy before Christmas: buying presents and wrapping them, putting up trees, making family arrangements, planning meals, and visiting loved ones. But now, when the presents have been opened, family visits are concluding, and enough sweets have been consumed to send us all into comas, we experience what feels like real Sabbath. When Christmas comes on a Friday like this year, most of us get several days before we have to go back to work, before the stock market opens again, and before we have to file year-end reports. These days of leisure following Christmas are something like the “vacation after vacation” which we long for at other times of the year. Continue reading “Good News Can’t Wait” →

Community United Church of Christ (St. Paul Park, Minnesota)

Text: Luke 2:1-20

I have what might appear to some as an unhealthy fascination with fire. I mostly keep it under control, but do light candles nearly every day of the week. There’s usually always one burning on my desk, and I can tell you the location of every stash of candles here in the church. Occasionally I’ve been teased for my preoccupation with fire, as well as my messy habit of melting one spent candle’s wax into another. I should just learn to make candles, and then I can justify this obsession as a life-enriching hobby. But at my current rate of combustion, smoke inhalation will probably get me first. Continue reading “Where the Light Shines Through” →

Community United Church of Christ (St. Paul Park, MN)

Scripture: Ezra 1:1-4 and 3:1-4, 10-13

Last weekend Javen and I spent most of Saturday on his grandparents’ farm near Dassel, Minnesota. We and almost a dozen other members of the extended family gathered together for a Swedish celebration of Christmastime. Javen and his grandmother worked together for several hours making thin potato pancakes, or lefse. I did my part by taking pictures and downing cups of glögg, a potent Scandinavian drink. When it came time for dinner, we ate great heaps of delicious homemade food, including Swedish meatballs and the lefse (with butter spread by traditional wooden knives), on special holiday china that Grandma Aileen has had for many years. To show that I too could get into the Swedish holiday spirit, I even had me a little piece of lutefisk. The only thing we were missing in this postcard-ready Swedish Christmas were those iconic Scandinavian sweaters, but I assure you that one has been ordered for next year.

Continue reading “Home Again” →

Community United Church of Christ (St. Paul Park, Minnesota)

Isaiah 40:1-11

All this year, driving along Snelling Avenue where we live has been absolutely miserable. This is a major arterial route in Saint Paul, on which thousands of cars, buses and bicycles travel every day. Yet it’s been torn up for what seems like forever. It started this spring, when the Snelling Avenue bridge over Interstate 94 was closed and then removed entirely. That bridge wasn’t replaced and reopened until the State Fair at the end of August. No cars, buses, bikes or people could get over the highway at Snelling for four whole months. At the same time in our immediate neighborhood just north of the bridge, every inch of Snelling got a total makeover, which jackhammered sidewalks, churned up the pavement and choked traffic to a single, crawling, dusty lane. As if this weren’t enough, all the rest of Snelling Avenue for miles north and south of us has been torn up at half-mile increments on both sides of the road, to put in stations for a Bus Rapid Transit line. So all year long, travel on Snelling Avenue has been nearly impossible. City buses were rerouted and delayed, cars were detoured a half-dozen different ways, and people decided to avoid Snelling Avenue like it was the bubonic plague. So when I hear Isaiah the prophet proclaim a highway prepared, with the uneven ground becoming level and the rough places a plain, all I can think of is road construction.

Continue reading “Road Construction” →

Location: Community United Church of Christ (St. Paul Park, MN)

Scripture: Isaiah 5:1-7; 11:1-5

I’m on the email list for one of the local breweries in my neighborhood, so I get regular updates on their activities. This week Burning Brothers described the near-infinite number of variables that combine to make each batch of beer unique. Temperature, style and quantity of hops, other additions, and the timing of each step all play a role in how each batch of beer turns out. As they say, “With all of these different factors, you can end up with something very different from what you were trying to create, yet still delicious, something that is right on the mark, or something that is completely undrinkable…. In those instances, the brewers grit their teeth, and send barrels of beer down the drain.” This description was all by way of explaining that their latest batch of IPA did not turn out. Instead, they said, the foul-smelling brew “has gone to the beer trolls that live in the trench drains. While they were very happy about it, the rest of us wept a little.”^[1] Having seen firsthand the weeks-long care and prayer that goes into a single pail of home-brewed beer, I have to believe that “wept a little” only scratches the surface of their deep disappointment.

Continue reading “God’s Faithfulness, Our Gratitude” →

Location: Community United Church of Christ (St. Paul Park, MN)

Scripture: 1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29

Last Thursday, one of the new generation of conservative leaders—the so-called “Young Guns”—was elected to a place of near ultimate political power. Over the last few weeks the man with two first names, Paul Ryan, became the consensus candidate to replace outgoing Speaker John Boehner. Ironically, he didn’t even want the position. It was pressed upon him after there were no other viable candidates who could lead the splintered Republican side of the House of Representatives. On Thursday—at only 45 years old—he became one of the youngest Speakers of the House ever.

Continue reading “Ask the Audience” →