Living Love--Heart, Soul and Strength

                                                       Sermon preached at Joy MCC—November 1, 09

            We begin in prayer:  Creator, on this day when we remember all the “saints” in our lives, we remember, most of all, the sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus.  Quiet our hearts and our minds.  I pray that you will speak through me and infuse our thoughts with Your grace.  Amen!

            This is All Saints’ Day—a day to remember those no longer with us.  And we all do that in different ways.  In whatever way you choose to remember those significant people in your lives, may you be blessed because those whom we remember already are.  Because it is both All Saints’ Day and another regular Sunday in that long stretch between Pentecost and Advent, there are some interesting choices for texts today.  It’s a strange time in my life to be preaching on this Sunday…What an amazing God we have who always knows how to use our openness to push us along in whatever process we are currently engaged in.  When one experiences the passing of one close to you as I just have, you have at least two options—one is to focus on death, on mortality, on some “cosmic” meaning of it all.  Wonderfully, and I have shared this with some of you, God’s Holy Spirit has led me instead,  into a gloriously intense exploration of the fullness of life.   And so, I chose the texts for today that require us to look at those things deemed most important by Yahweh and then by Jesus, in the living of our lives as Children of God. 

            “Shema Israel!”  This is the beginning of the most important Jewish proclamation in scripture.  Our devout Jewish friends remind themselves many times each day—every time they pass a Mezuzah (that small holder of these words and the Torah attached to the doors of their houses).  At one point in my upstate New York journey, I lived right smack in the middle of the Borscht Belt—an area marked with a conglomeration of resorts, camps, and little villages populated every summer by the Jewish families who fled New York City for the peacefulness of the foothills of the NY mountains.  By the time I lived there, many of these resorts had fallen on bad times.  Mostly they were used for training events and conferences.  I remember attending one of these events and walking up and down the halls amazed at the wonderful variety and beauty of these mezuzahs on each door.  It was impossible to go in the door to your room without noticing…what a beautiful reminder of our never-changing need to declare who our God is.   “ Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.”   Jesus knew this commandment well—he was one of the Jewish children who had learned it over time, in the temple, in His home, in the very streets and roads of the lands that he walked as He grew up.  And so, when He is asked which commandment is the greatest,  Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel”.  Jesus doesn’t stop there, however, He continues:  “The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 

            It is profoundly important to look at both of these scriptures:  In the first instance, that is, in the Old Testament text, the command to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength was accompanied by a promise—the promise of long and good lives in the promised land.  In the second instance, there is no such promise attached because Jesus IS the promise—these words are spoken directly to us, the direct heirs of the Old Testament promise made manifest in Jesus Himself.  No more need for promises, the promise has arrived.

            We intuit that Jesus added this second commandment because of His understanding of the central role of love and inclusivity in His ministry.  There is, in current church talk, right now, a lot of space given to “radical hospitality”, a concept which surfaced as well-meaning churches and theologians began to discover that most traditional outreach seemed to bring in more folks that looked “just like us” and failed to reach those persons outside the circle of average notice.  Rev. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook,  an Episcopal Priest and teacher in Massachusetts, describes churches committed to “radical hospitality”.  “Congregations committed to breaking from the status quo are called to develop a sense of “radical hospitality”.  Rather than seeking out like members for mutual support, they seek people who consider themselves beyond the reach of organized religion.  [This] has not only social, but political and economic implications; it is the act of extending community beyond the margins to those unserved by church, synagogue, or mosque.  …  This model seeks to transform both the believer and society as a whole. “  We know that Jesus modeled this for us in His own ministry—a ministry to the most outcast of the earth.

            We are, historically and ethically, a church called to engage in the practice of “radical hospitality”; nevertheless, today, I want to explore a practice which I believe is a theologically based pre-requisite to “radical hospitality”.  Based on both our scripture passages, I would describe this practice as  “uncommon  compassion”—compassion that exceeds the common—a compassion that grows from the unmistakable knowledge of  God’s place as primary in our lives and the love extended to us, our love for ourselves, and our love for neighbor.  Only then are we able to understand the radicality of a hospitality that includes those most marginalized, shunned, and ignored.

            Jesus had a way of putting things in context.  The first commandment serves as the backdrop to the second.   Even though the questioner did not ask Jesus if there was another commandment, Jesus made it clear that the two were connected.   The second commandment which, according to Jesus, is “like the first” is to “love your neighbor as yourself”.    Jesus knows that we find it difficult to understand how to love God and gives us the answer before we even formulate the question.  We love God by loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Not so fast…do we even begin to know what that means?

            There is an interesting poem entitled “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham  written in the early 20^th Century.   I believe that a few lines may speak to our dilemma here.

            He drew a circle that shut me out—…

            But Love and I had the wit to win:

            We drew a circle that took him in!

What would it look like if every time someone drew a circle that shut us out of their lives, we lovingly drew a circle that enlarged our view and priorities and re-included the very ones who shut us out?  I believe that this is where “uncommon compassion” comes to bear.  It is my belief that most of the time when people draw us as individuals or community out of their circles, it is because we have missed what is most important to them to have IN their circles.  When we fail to love others or express our love in ways that they cannot hear, we must acknowledge our need to learn to love anew.  Mahatma Gandhi challenged us as we think about living the love of God in the world when he said:  “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”  Am I able to accept that for those fundamentally hungry people, that nothing I have to offer them EXCEPT BREAD will do?  This is uncommon compassion—granting the priority to the other’s need and setting out to enlarge the circle of what I have to offer to ensure that I can meet the other’s need.  This is the love of God, lived in the world—allowing the other to tell me what my ministry and lifework needs to be.

As we enlarge this circle, as we learn to love differently, placing the neighbor’s need as crucial to who we are.  And this is, of course, hard—Hear Marge Piercy’s words:

Learning to love differently is hard,

Love with the hands wide open,

Love with the doors banging on their hinges,

The cupboard unlocked…

How do we unlock the cupboards of our hearts and, more importantly, our priorities when it comes to loving our neighbors as ourselves.  Uncommon compassion challenges us to redefine who are neighbors are.  Can we bring ourselves to accept every living being and the earth itself as our neighbor?  This is not simply a question in a sermon, it is essential to our understanding how we are to love God. 

Uncommon compassion leads us to question how it is that we love?  How do we include others in our circle?  When my partner and I first started living together (my apologies up front to Terri for telling this story), I set out to learn those things about her that I would need to know in order to live together well.  First of all, I discovered that she is very easy to live with and almost nothing bothers her.  However, I also learned that she is, what I thought to be, unusually invested in the state and status of the toothpaste tube; that is, one must always flatten out the tube so that it is ready for the next use.  Now I will admit that I was just a teeny bit less committed to that practice than she was.  One day, while she was lovingly and quite humorously, I thought, talking to me about the toothpaste, just to mess with her, I inquired, “Why is it that we can’t compromise on this?”  She replied, “We can compromise, you can have your own tube!”  It has, of course, become one of “the stories” that we laugh about as it defines who we are in our relationship.

However, while a story about toothpaste tubes can be funny, the principle of compromise by “each person doing their own thing” is not quite so humorous when applied to the really important things in life and, more importantly, in church.  But we do it all the time!  Entire denominations and movements were founded on that very principle!  I know that I engage in this kind of “get your own toothpaste” thinking when I resist change, when I resist losing those things about our services and ministries that are comfortable for me.  I know that I run into others’ “get your own toothpaste” thinking when I suggest change or look for ways to make some of what we do more inviting to those who do not currently feel welcome. 

Jesus, on the other hand, would agree with Ghandi, who I quoted a few moments ago.  Can we as individuals and as a church, discover what each person is hungry for and appear to them as God?  If it is bread, we become filling bread.  If it is acceptance, we become unconditional acceptance.  If it is belonging, we become a welcoming belonging.  We have spent the last month or so talking about gratitude for what we have and using those talents, abilities, abundance and time to the glory of God.  This uncommon compassion is the natural and even logical outcome of that gratitude.  Uncommon compassion defined as love and concern that generates acts of welcome and invitation that exceeds what we commonly hold as acceptable will push us as individuals and as a church to experience the radical hospitality that God extends to us and will enable us to open wide the doors of our hearts, souls, and sanctuary to draw a circle around the very persons who shut us out. 

The Venerable John Henry Newman prayed this prayer concerning loving one’s neighbor in the 19^th Century.  On this All Saints’ Day, 2009, we have much to learn.  Will you pray with me in his words:  “Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.  Flood my soul with your spirit and life.  Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that my life may be only a radiance of yours.  Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul.  Let them look up, and see no longer me, but only Jesus!  Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.  The light, O Jesus, will be all from you, shining on others through me.  Let me thus praise you in the way which you love best, by shining on those around me.  Let me preach you without preaching, not by my words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.  Amen and Amen.

'Tis the Gift to be simple"--Sermon preached at Joy MCC on August 2, 2009

“Tis the Gift to Be Simple” Sermon preached by Rev. Carol Rawlings-Chambers, Joy Metropolitan Community Church, August 2, 2009

Good morning! Let us pray together for the anointing of the Holy Spirit on my words and our hearts.

God, creator of the world and all that is in it, fill us with a sense of wonder at your love and care for us, Your children. Grant that we may be open to Your Spirit; fill us with a passion for truth and justice. We ask and claim it in Your many names and in the name of Jesus. Amen

In 1848, in the Shaker community of Alfred, Maine, Elder Joseph Brackett penned the following words to "Simple Gifts".

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

Along with our gospel lesson today, the message is short and simple. In the Gospel, one of the most unadorned, yet most promise-full teachings is given: Jesus explained to them and to us: “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry; no one who believes in me will be thirsty.” It doesn’t get any more unpretentious than that. Jesus, in His direct, way “cuts to the chase” for us, helps us set our priorities for our lives and the life of His church, including this church. That’s it, my friends—that’s all there is to it and hundreds of years later, we’re still looking for more, still trying to make the simplest teaching ever taught, theologically paradoxical, organizationally complex, and institutionally confounding. It reminds me of the very old story, you may have heard it, when the father and son are riding along in a car. The 5-Year-old child says, “Daddy, I get the part about our new baby being in mommy’s tummy, but I don’t understand how it got there.” Dad hmm’s and haws, tries various nonsensical explanations, until finally the boy says, “It’s ok, Daddy, you don’t have to make it up if you don’t know!” And it would sometimes seem that we are so uncomfortable with sharing the simple truth of it all, that we appear to be “making it up”.

The Shaker hymn links simplicity and freedom as special and unique gifts. This stripping away all the unnecessary trappings, both physical and spiritual, allows us to bask in the joy of what really matters. Our understanding of the true gift of simplicity and freedom leads us to the place where we ought to be…”the valley of love and delight”. I find myself wandering into the valley of love and delight and looking to see if “church” is found there--Church large or church small, and more importantly, this church? For many of us and for many good reasons, “church” carries a very complex negativity in our scarred emotional psyches. From those institutions of shaming and rejection, we turned away. But because of this church or some other welcoming community, we, nevertheless found this “valley of love and delight” when our focus stays on the simple, blessed message of Jesus. However, if we fail to grasp the simplicity of the message, we not only fail to carry the message beyond these walls, we lose sight of it ourselves. This makes for a very ineffective community of faith.

My friends, this is such a time as requires simplicity—the truth found in this simple and clear statement of Jesus needs no doctrinal development, no theological extrapolation—it just is. And my dear friends, we are failing in many ways to take this simple truth to our community and to our world. How do I know this? It’s not hard , really, if we take a good, clear look at where we are—when we acknowledge that we continue to experience the status quo and decline in terms of attendance, membership, and giving in spite of our best efforts at new ministries, programs, and attempts at outreach. It is time for us to ask ourselves, in the light of God’s Word, “what are we missing?” I believe that what we are missing is two-fold: we are missing the radical simplicity of the message, and we are missing the urgency of the message.

In a world where hatred and discrimination against us and other disenfranchised people runs rampant, we miss what Jesus is saying to us—that He is the source and power of everything that we need to stand in the face of injustice—to create a sanctuary for all the hated, the “less than”, the different. He is the “bread of life”—all our hunger and thirst for self-acceptance and love by others is satisfied in Him. There are many of us, here in this room, who know the blessed truth of all that Jesus has to offer. If you came here today, looking for peace, for comfort, for energy, for joy, for all the things we hunger and thirst for, you have come to right place. I encourage you to open your heart, stay awhile, speak with one of us after the service. Listen to the words of Jesus.

Those of us who are blessed by having our hunger and thirst satisfied by Jesus have work to do. And that takes us squarely back to our passage in Ephesians—to leading a life “worthy of [our] calling”. “There is one hope, one faith, one baptism—one call—and that call is to participate in the body of Christ Jesus. Through Christ, the “whole body grows”—To glimpse what that would that look like at Joy, listen to what many of you created when you participated in the development of the vision statement of this congregation. It read,

“The vision of Joy MCC is to share and embody the love of Jesus Christ, without barriers, as we journey together with God.” What then, do we need to do? First, to share and embody the love of Jesus Christ, we must allow ourselves to experience it for ourselves. Are you among those still hungering and thirsting for more even after you have come to Jesus? Many of us are. I invite you to make the journey again, look for the places in your heart that you have closed off, that you keep private—somehow believing that those parts are immune to the movement of the Holy Spirit in every nook and cranny of your soul. And in this journey, I invite you to be simple—to seek simple truths-- in the teachings of Jesus. A foundational process is this and probably not, as some faith traditions would insist, a one-time event. I know for myself, that there is a constant seeking for more truth, but that subsequent seeking takes place in the midst of an essential ‘fullness’—a primitive, if you will, knowledge that everything that I need is satisfied by Him who is the Bread of Life. Secondly, when I speak of the urgency of the message, I am not speaking of the same urgency of the early church or even of contemporary preachers who preach that Jesus is coming back soon. We know that Paul and many early followers of Jesus believed that He was returning to the earth momentarily. I believe that it is not for me to know or to predict when, or even if, Jesus is physically coming back to this earth. This has absolutely no effect on the urgency of the message. What matters most is this: few of us came to this place without experiencing the doubt, fear, and shame that the rest of the world bequeathed to us. But we know the truth—Jesus said, I am the bread of life—the fullness of life-- I will feed you and my people will feed you, you will not hunger or thirst again—not for acceptance, or love, or belonging. The amazing thing to me (and I place myself squarely in the same place as all of us) is that we can know this fullness and peace and keep it to ourselves. The actions of Jesus’ early followers clearly demonstrate that His message was not meant for us to keep to ourselves. And yet we do. One conservative estimate is that there are over 175,000 LGBT persons living in the Orlando Metropolitan area. Yet, if this Sunday is like the last several, there will be fewer than 225 people worshipping with us. If we are to be true to our vision statement and true to the call of God, we must ask ourselves what else we must do and become. I do not come here today professing to know many of the answers—I come here today to challenge us to re-engage honestly and fervently in conversations regarding the essence of Jesus’ message and Joy’s vision—both simple and profound beyond measure. We must, if we are to grow as the body of Christ, sincerely look at the full message of what we are called to do. All of the various gifts—given by God’s grace—are for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. Integral and unmistakable, is this call to “build” the body of Christ. The gifts given at the same time to the early church and to this church--apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers—push us, as church, within and without at the same time. This very church is gifted beyond measure—should we not also be accountable to the larger church and larger community for what we do with those gifts? Much energy goes into conversations about church growth. And almost everyone has a different answer. Kinda reminds me of old minister story—Seems a traveling evangelist came into town. The preacher, upon arriving in a small town to be guest speaker at a local church, wanted to mail a letter to his family back home. He stopped a young boy on a bike and asked him where the post office was. The boy gave him directions, and the preacher thanked him. "If you come to church this evening," the preacher said, "I'll tell you how to get to heaven." "I don't think I'll be there," the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office." Sometimes it seems like we Christians “don’t even know our way to the post office” when it comes to building up the body of Christ. And we certainly don’t often agree. In spite of all the differences, most all church consultants agree that we must have a way for every person—oldtimer or newcomer—who walks through this door to become involved—a special place of belonging to increase opportunities for significant engagement in our mission. Whether those opportunities are ministry teams, Bible study and prayer groups or develop from a new incarnation of an old idea, we must explore ways to increase those opportunities for people to become meaningfully involved. This will mean that we will need to re-enter into multiple conversations around what that might look like at Joy today. We may borrow from the past as well as make bold strides into the future. What avenues, as yet unexplored, exist to bring this “body of Christ”—from trusting member or wary newcomer—to inclusive and embracing circles of welcome. Dave Browning, in Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less, talks about his own church and states: “Worship is the way we stay centered; small groups is the way we stay connected and outreach is the way we stay concerned.” And what of the role of outreach, locally and globally? Some consultants suggest that, for some, denominational affiliation is not as important as it once was. That may be true for mainline, basically conservative, congregations. Let me tell you why I do not believe that it is true for us. As for traditional denominations, many of us have “been there and done that”. But, then the Metropolitan Community Church opened the door for every one of us, whether that door opened 40 years ago or just this morning, MCC opened the way to the opportunity to gather, serve, fellowship and worship as we truly are, in the fullness of who we are as sexual beings, as disenfranchised people, as hurting, seeking people. If we lessen our celebration of and support for the work of MCC in our lives and around the globe, we limit our ability to grow the Body of Christ. The Metropolitan Community Church is our hands and feet to spread the gospel of acceptance and salvation into the larger world. And by our activities in the larger world, we gain credibility to move into our somewhat smaller world right outside these doors. If you have not visited the MCC webpage in a while, I encourage you to go there. Listen to Rev. Candy Holmes, MCC clergywoman, testify on Capitol Hill regarding Same Gender Domestic Partner Benefits for Government Employees. Let yourselves experience the welling up of emotions and pride, and let it remind you of why we are MCC. Those of us who work in paid or volunteer positions with the larger denomination and in this MCC church seek ways to get the word out about what you are doing through MCC. One of the greatest teachers of simplicity in our own time, Mother Teresa, gave us this brief lesson on working together. She said, “You can do what I cannot do, I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things.” The message is simple, the call is loud, and the need is great. And, “together we can do great things!” We live in a time of turmoil, adversity, and challenge—it is time! Church developer, Dave Browning, whom I quoted earlier, challenges the church to engage in what he calls “what if” thinking. And, I want to challenge us to do these great things together, to move beyond “if only” thinking to “what if” celebrations of what God is willing to do in our midst. If only we had more people, more space, more money, more leaders turns into what if we allowed God to work all the miracles that are waiting for Joy MCC, here and now? What if we open ourselves to new ideas, or old ideas whose time has come again? What if we unleash the creativity of a new generation of GLBT people in our midst and see what they have to teach us? What if we invite the stranger into our midst and ask them to speak to us of God? What if we re-embrace the mission work of the Metropolitan Community Church worldwide and enter into partnership with GLBT folks all over the world trying to make a difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters? What if we all become a part of those great things we can do together here at Joy and beyond. I want you to know I am prepared to do the work, lay the foundation, and share the news. I hope you are, too. Let us move boldly and proudly into the light of mission and welcome. Jesus is pointing the way, and He waits for us to follow. Amen and Amen!