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Your Wedding At The United Church of Christ (Congregational)
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Minister's Moment
Rev. Curt Miner |
Sermon from June 29, 2008
LIVING LITERALLY
Here’s a question for you – when was the last time you heard a sermon preached on Leviticus? Not recently … maybe never? After all, the lectionary only uses one passage from it in the three-year cycle – so I guess I’m actually doing pretty good having preached using a text from Leviticus, according to my records, 9 times in my 900+ some odd sermons over the past 23 years.
And perhaps the main reason we don’t delve into that part of the Torah, or into many of the other long legalistic passages of Scripture for that matter, is that reading all those laws, rules and regulations can become a real snooze-fest for a congregation (not to mention a preacher).
But what if we took all those biblical rules seriously? Even better, what if we took them literally? Some folks claim to follow the Bible in a literal sense, but is that even possible?
A.J. Jacobs, a writer who has become known for chronicling year-long experiments, like reading through the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, decided to give it a try. Jacobs committed himself and, by extension, his family and friends, to a year-long experiment in living the Bible literally. The result is a humble and humorous book on his experiences titled The Year of Living Biblically.
Jacobs read through the Bible for four straight weeks, five hours a day, and compiled a list of “every rule, every guideline, every suggestion, every nugget of advice” he found in both the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. When he finished, he had a list that ran 72 pages with more than 700 rules. Jacobs saw that some of the rules would be good for him — things like telling the truth, not coveting, not stealing, and loving neighbors, for example. But, like those of us who have waded through Leviticus and the other “rules-rich” biblical texts, he saw plenty of rules that didn’t seem to have much to do with living a better or more Godly life at all; stuff like not eating fruit from a tree planted less than five years ago. Then there are those biblical rules that are just plain illegal today, like killing magicians and sacrificing oxen. Well, maybe the last one is okay if you call it “BBQing.”
Given the wide range of rules, Jacobs had to establish some criteria for which ones he could actually follow. He figured that there were certain rules that were unquestionably figurative or symbolic, like Matthew 19:12, which is all about eunuchs, especially those who “have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Jacobs decided that anything that involved voluntary donation of body parts should probably not be part of his quest.
Armed with a revised list, Jacobs adopted a new persona for the year named “Jacob” and began following the Bible as literally as possible. He grew out his beard and hair to the point that he looked like Moses, Abraham or the Unabomber, depending on your point of view. He dressed all in white (Ecclesiastes 9:8), making sure not to wear any clothing of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19). He even “stoned” an adulterer in the park - but since the Bible doesn’t specify how big the stones are supposed to be he just tossed pebbles at an admitted (and annoyed) adulterer on a park bench. The rules that Jacobs followed, and the reactions that he and those around him had, make for a fascinating and often very funny read.
One of the more interesting observations that Jacobs makes in the book is that while many religious literalists scoff at the idea of a “cafeteria” style of religion - picking and choosing what rules to follow and what to leave out, the truth of the matter is that there’s really no such thing as a true biblical literalist. Even fundamentalists have to browse the scriptural salad bar and can’t heap every biblical rule onto their plate. “Otherwise,” says Jacobs, “they’d … boot out men for talking about the Tennessee Titans (‘make no mention of the names of other gods…’ ‘do not invoke the names of other gods…’ — Exodus 23:13).” Jacobs, a self-proclaimed agnostic, went about as far as anyone can in adopting a literal biblical lifestyle, but even then he couldn’t literally or legally follow all the rules. Even the Amish, whom Jacobs visited as part of his project, have evolved with the times, if to a very small degree. He was shocked to find, for example, an Amish woman using a gas-powered leaf blower and an Amish teen rollerblading down a country road.
For Jacobs, the most important lesson was this: “There’s nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren’t bad per se. I’ve had some great meals at cafeterias. I’ve also had some turkey tetrazzini that gave me the dry heaves for 16 hours. The key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones. Religious leaders don’t know everything about every food, but maybe the good ones can guide you to what is fresh. They can be like a helpful lunch lady who … okay, I’ve taken the metaphor too far.”
That kind of thinking, of course, does bring up the issue of biblical authority. The bottom line is that no matter what your theological bent, it’s indeed possible to commit idolatry of the Bible itself, worshiping the words instead of understanding the times and embracing the spirit in which it was written. More importantly, as Christians, we’ve been given a model of thought and behavior that transcends written rules. We have been given Jesus. If we’re looking to be literal at anything, we should be most literal in modeling our lives after his.
Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in Matthew 10 were designed to prepare them for the missionary journeys they would undertake both during their time with Jesus and afterwards. They were not to be people merely bound by rules and simply dressing the part of the righteous – which was Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees, after all. Instead, they were to act as Jesus’ own representatives by reflecting his character, mission and message to the world.
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” said Jesus (Matthew 10:40). Like ambassadors in a foreign country, the disciples were to be the embodiment of Jesus and, by association, of God, to those they would meet and live among. That association would cause the disciples a lot of grief in the form of persecution (Matthew 10:16-20), alienation from family (Matthew 10:21, 35-37), and even martyrdom (Matthew 10:28). People steeped in their own rules, regulations and worldviews have a hard time seeing an alternative, which was precisely what Jesus was offering - a view of God’s kingdom that would upset the status quo, overturning human power structures, and ushering in God’s rule of justice, love and peace. Taken literally, the disciples’ mission would be dangerous, but the results would be world-changing.
In the midst of their mission of representing Christ, the disciples were to concentrate their best and most literal efforts on modeling him in their relationships, starting with each other.
Jesus said that showing hospitality would result in “rewards” for those who modeled him. What’s that look like? When we do good deeds, follow the rules, we often expect to get something in return. Some might look at this passage and decide that being nice to others earns you a heavenly “reward” to be cashed in when one dies and goes to heaven. But perhaps there’s a more immediate context here. The word for “reward” in Greek can also be translated as “wages due.” Being a “prophet,” for example, was no easy task. In fact, Matthew sees the prophetic ministry as being somewhat problematic, with prophets experiencing persecution (Matthew 5:12), being unwelcome (Matthew 13:57), and facing death at the hand of those who don’t want to hear the message they bring (Matthew 23:30-37).
In that context, a “prophet’s reward” may be a kind of backhanded compliment. If the prophet, representing Jesus, gets maligned by others, it’s a sign that he (or she) is probably doing it right and earning the proper wage! By contrast, the wages of a righteous person in Matthew’s gospel are paid in receiving the kingdom (Matthew 13:43, 49; 25:34-40) and in “eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). If you’re really modeling Jesus and taking him literally at his word, you’re going to receive “rewards” that reflect the very same things he experienced. We can’t truly represent Jesus without experiencing both persecution and suffering on the one hand and the power of resurrection on the other.
Of all the items on the biblical smorgasbord we can grab and be nourished by, however, perhaps the most important one is compassion. Giving a “cup of cold water” is a simple act, but it’s those simple acts of kindness, compassion and obedience that best represent Jesus in our everyday lives (Matthew 10:42). In our quest to be “people of the Book,” we have to realize that we can never be outside the rules when we lead with love.
So what do we learn from Jesus - and Jacobs?
- At its core, our faith is not about how well we follow a code of rules (Jesus himself reduced the law to two rules);
- Doing the right thing might not always be so easy. AND
- A little compassion and kindness go a long way. …..
A.J. Jacobs learned from his year-long experiment that even as an agnostic there was a lot he could learn from taking on the character and lifestyle of a biblically based person. Says Jacobs, “The experience changed me in big ways and small ways. There’s a lot about gratefulness in the Bible, and I would say I’m more thankful. I focus on the hundred little things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four things that go wrong. And I love the Sabbath. There’s something I really like about a forced day of rest ... I also really liked what one of my spiritual advisers said, which was that you can view life as a series of rights and entitlements, or a series of responsibilities. I like seeing my life as a series of responsibilities. It’s sort of, ‘Ask not what God can do for you, ask what you can do for God.’”
Imagine living like that not for just a year, but for the rest of your life … or even for just one night in July!
….. And let us pray …..
June 26, 2008
Evaluating Media
Fresh Mind
There is a lot of information available to us at this time in history, more than ever before, and it travels fast. We are able to learn in the blink of an eye about something that happened halfway around the world, and it’s natural for us to want to know what’s going on. However, it’s also fair to say that we don’t want to become so caught up in one way of looking at events that we lose perspective. Often, the news comes to us in a very fear-oriented format, and when too many of us get caught up in fear, the balance of the whole is disrupted. It helps to remember that we have a much greater and more positive impact on the world when we maintain our inner sense of peace and joy.
We are aware enough to know when we are eating something that is not good for us, because we don’t feel well after we’ve eaten it. In the same way, we can determine for ourselves whether the sources in which our information comes are ultimately healthful. News can be presented in a way that inspires us to take positive action to help the world, or it can be presented in a way that leaves us feeling powerless and sad. It is up to us to seek out and support media that empowers and informs us, and to say no to media that drains our energy and our hope.
For a time, it may even be of benefit to commit to a media fast, in which we stop taking information in for a time to give ourselves a rest. When we return to the task of taking in and processing the information all around us, we will come to it with a fresh mind. This will enable us to really notice how we are affected by what we hear and see, and to make conscious choices about the sources of information that we allow into our lives.
Sermon from June 22, 2008
ENTOURAGE ENERGY
The word “entourage” has been around for a long time, having its roots in old French – but you may be more familiar with it as the name of a comedy series on HBO. That show is about the day-to-day life of a rising young actor in Hollywood and the group of friends he brought with him from their hometown in Queens, New York. Those friends, along with the actor’s agent, are his entourage, the flock who surround him and find in his stardom their reason for existence as a group.
MAC users might recognize “entourage” as the name of a Microsoft program that helps to manage and sort e-mail, something like Outlook or Outlook Express. It offers calendar features, task lists and an expanded address book - all features that, one might suppose, you’d ordinarily need an entourage of support and staff people to help you do. This little program is your own personal “entourage.” It gives you life-support - and you don’t need a bunch of people with clipboards, Bluetooth hand-free phones in their ears, or BlackBerrys following you around everywhere.
Still, entourages of this type, or similar, do exist and have existed throughout history. But the best known entourages have been more than information managers - they’ve been a critical component of successful careers or movements. I’m talking about real entourages - groups with an acknowledged leader who have wielded influence beyond what we would expect from a handful of people. Some have, in fact, changed the world.
Consider the entourage once known as the Junto Society. In 1727, Benjamin Franklin invited 12 of his friends to form a club in Philadelphia dedicated to mutual improvement. They met one evening a week to discuss topics of the day. The members recommended books, friends and shopkeepers to each other and fostered self-improvement through discussions in the fields of philosophy, morals, economics and politics. But the results were not limited to the participants, because those men went out and influenced public opinion. What’s more, on a very practical level, the Junto Society gave rise to America’s first library, first public hospital, volunteer fire departments, police departments, paved streets, and the University of Pennsylvania. The society lasted in its original form for 40 years and eventually became the nucleus of the American Philosophical Society, which is still in existence today.
Or consider the entourage of people who, in the last century, aligned themselves with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Working in several locations, they became a major force in the drive to achieve equal rights for all people of this nation, and they inspired many more to become politically active and examine their own racism. King, as you know, was assassinated in 1968, but his associates carried on the work. There’s no question but that the civil rights movement led by King and continued by others changed the world in a positive way.
There are other examples. A recent article in Mental Floss – a magazine dedicated to trivia and interesting facts, suggested seven entourages that changed the world - though not necessarily all for the better. The article included the Junto Society and Dr. King’s cohorts, as well as the Algonquin Round Table (the literary group formed around author Dorothy Parker in the 1920s), the Merry Pranksters (the group that traveled in the 1960s with author Ken Kesey and brought the counterculture movement into the foreground), the Chicago Seven (Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and their cronies who demonstrated against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention long before they joined the Yuppie Revolution in the 80s), and Project Mayhem (a fictional club in the novel and movie Fight Club, dedicated to bombing buildings as a way for the participants to find new ways of connecting and supposedly reminding themselves that they were alive). Like I said – not all these groups necessarily changed the world for the better.
Now, if you’ve been counting, you may have noticed that the list totals only six. The seventh entourage the Mental Floss article says changed the world is the one it dubs Jesus & Co. It refers, of course, to the entourage we know as “the Twelve,” “the disciples” or “the apostles.” The article points out that with the exception of Judas, the Twelve were incredibly loyal to Jesus, walking an estimated 3,125 miles with him over the course of his ministry (that’s equivalent to walking across America - coast to coast). And for sure - they changed the world.
The gospel reading for today includes Jesus’ calling of the Twelve to be apostles, and it gives their names. But the verses that precede that provide important context. They tell us that Jesus was traveling through the villages and cities of Palestine, teaching, preaching and healing the sick. In doing so, Jesus saw great need - so great and so lasting that he recognized the need for helpers. Jesus described it this way: “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” And in the next verse, Jesus calls the Twelve to be among those laborers for the spiritual harvest.
In this passage, Matthew describes the Twelve as both disciples and apostles, but it is only here in the entire gospel of Matthew that he identifies the Twelve as “apostles.” We often use the terms disciples and apostles interchangeably, but there’s a difference.
One way to see the difference is to think about our own commitment to follow Jesus. Probably we would not resist being called a disciple of Jesus Christ. That term simply means “somebody who believes in and follows the teachings of a leader,” and when we identify that leader as Jesus, that definition is one description of what it means to be a Christian. The Greek word Matthew uses for “disciple” in this passage means “learner” or “pupil,” and to the extent that we remain open to learning from the life and teachings of Jesus, “discipleship” can be another term for the Christian life.
But I suspect not many of us would call ourselves apostles. Whether or not we know the definition of that word, we’ve seldom heard it used as a synonym for the everyday Christian. Somehow, we attach a sense of special-ness to the term, so that we might say that all Christians are disciples of Jesus, but not all disciples are apostles. And that’s essentially correct, for Matthew uses an entirely different Greek word when he speaks of apostles. That word means a “delegate,” “ambassador” or “messenger” - one sent out on a specific mission on behalf of another.
When we know that, it begins to make sense why Matthew used “apostle” only in this passage in his gospel. In other places in Matthew’s book, the Twelve are in the supporting cast, men walking with Jesus and learning from him. But in this account, immediately after Matthew identifies the Twelve by name, he tells us that Jesus sent them out with specific instructions to “proclaim the good news ... cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” They were given apostle-work, something that went well beyond disciple-ness.
The distinction between the two terms is seen in one other place in this passage as well. Although Matthew here tells us who the Twelve are by name, this isn’t the point at which these men were called to follow Jesus. That had happened some time previously. In fact, back in chapter 4, Matthew reported the calling of Peter, Andrew, James and John to “fish for people.” And a few verses before today’s passage, Matthew tells of his own summons to follow Jesus. Presumably the other seven had also joined the entourage previously as well, for when Jesus decides in today’s reading that he needs apostles, the first thing he does is summon “his [existing] twelve disciples” (10:1) and gives them authority to accomplish deeds like his own while on a special mission to the towns and villages. In other words, he turns these men who are already his disciples into apostles.
After this mission on which the Twelve are sent, Matthew reverts to calling the band disciples, and perhaps he’s telling us that their first experience with apostle-work was a short-term assignment, or perhaps they’d botched the whole thing.
There’s no question that later, after the ascension of Jesus when he was no longer physically present to carry on his work, the remaining Eleven became permanent apostles. The book of Acts, which opens with the ascension, calls the Eleven (plus the replacement they appointed to fill Judas’ slot) apostles right from the get-go. Acts uses disciples as a term for Christian believers in general.
Now, all of that is well and good as a lesson in New Testament terminology, but what’s the point for us?
First - we shouldn’t confuse an entourage with groupies. Rock stars have groupies, and perhaps Martin Luther King Jr. had groupies, too. These are people who are attracted to the glitz, the notoriety, but want no part of the hard work of creating lasting change. Even Jesus had his groupies. Many came and went over the three-year period of his public ministry. And at the cross, even those who we call his disciples, even they left. Jesus didn’t say, “If you want to be my groupies, come, pick up your gift bag and follow me.”
Second - all of us who follow Jesus should do so in an entourage - a congregation, a small group, a faith fellowship. Christianity was never intended as a solitary faith, and those who say they can be just as good a Christian without involvement in a faith community of some sort are simply wrong. There is an energy and power in the entourage that is not present in any individual Christian.
Third - all of us who are in Jesus’ entourage today need to always think of ourselves as disciples, pupils of Jesus, learners in the faith. Even those of us who may be in full-time ministry, and thus on occasion are sent out on apostle duty, need to remain, humbly, disciples, for there is ever more to learn and fresh understandings to gain. When we stop being disciples and think that we have nothing more to learn, we become a drag on the entourage around Jesus.
Fourth - we should recognize that apostleship is not something reserved for special Christians in ordinary times - but for ordinary Christians in special times. Our scripture passage for today, and the accounts leading up to it, tell us that as Jesus made his preaching tour through the communities of Galilee, he saw needs that told him it was a special time. Thus he called twelve of his disciples to temporary duty as apostles to meet that special need – perhaps the first example of appointing an ad hoc committee. …..
There come special moments when the opportunity occurs to help some oppressed person receive justice, to give some despairing person our testimony of faith, to guide some wounded person toward sources of healing. And when such times come, we who are always disciples can hear in those moments Christ’s call to become, at least for a short time, an apostle, sent out to do his work.
And finally - the success of God’s mission in the world depends on those to whom it has been entrusted. According to the first chapter of Acts, at the time of Jesus’ ascension, the entire band of disciples - that is, all of the active followers of Jesus, numbered about 120 (Acts 1:15). That included the Eleven who remained after Judas’ death, the women who joined the entourage during his ministry, and other men and women who had been persuaded by his words or moved by his actions to believe. ….. About 120 people. …..
There is an old story that when Jesus arrived in heaven, a member of the heavenly host asked him who he had left in charge, and what mechanisms and institutions he had put in place to carry on his work now that he was no longer walking the earth himself. Jesus replied, “Well, I have left about 120 followers.”
The heavenly host member looked at who those 120 were and said, “That’s it? They aren’t a very impressive band. Their leaders are just fishermen, tax collectors and the like. What if they fail? What’s your Plan B?” And Jesus responded, “If they fail, there is no Plan B. I have no other plan.”
About 120 people … barely the size of an average mainline protestant congregation today … about the size of the active membership in our congregation. Yet look what that little entourage, empowered by the Holy Spirit, accomplished. Look how they spread the Word. Look how they took what they had learned and blessed the world with it.
It’s true that Acts largely tells the story of the growing church in terms of individuals - Peter, Stephen, Philip, Paul, Barnabas and a few others, but every time it returns to the larger narrative, we find that the church has grown in ways that are not explained by the actions of those individuals alone.
Case in point: On the day of Pentecost, Peter and others of that 120 rushed out to testify in the streets and some 3,000 people were converted on the spot. But in the next paragraph we find this: “All who believed were together ... Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number …” (Acts 2:44, 46-47).
That’s the entourage. And it was their energy as a band of believers, their praise of God, their glad and generous hearts, that drew additional people to consider the God’s call to become disciples.
About 120 people … and they changed the world.
….. And let us pray …..
Sermon from June 15, 2008
YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?! – II
Some of you may recall that I preached a sermon with a similar title to this one last summer when the film “Evan Almighty” came out – a movie that examined the life of a modern day Noah who is told to build an ark in preparation for impending floodwaters. And, just as the Noah of old encountered some skepticism, questions, and challenges along the way – the film’s 21 st century Noah experiences much of the same … with the added wrinkles of a media circus, zoning regulations, and politicians driven by special interests and ulterior motives.
Just imagine your Father, heavenly or earthly, coming to you and saying, “You know how you’ve been saying you wish we’d spend more time together? Well … I’ve got a little project for us!” ….. As we celebrate Father’s Day today, this is a great day for dads to take a break - do nothing, take a nap, get some gifts, have a nice meal made for them. But some fathers are a bit overbearing with their kids - they need to learn that “taking a break” isn’t just a Father’s Day thing, it is a fathering thing. On the other hand, some fathers are overly passive toward their parenting responsibilities - they need to be reminded that doing nothing might work on this day, but it’s no way to be a dad the rest of the year. The fathers, however, that I suspect most of us have had - or the fathers that we are, fortunately were not and are not overly passive, or over-bearing.
Stephan B. Poulter is a psychologist and expert on parenting. He notes, “We live in a society where fathers are often emotionally absent at home; they cede much of the parenting responsibility to moms. Children possess a natural psychological and emotional need for both parents to be present, and, when one isn’t, a negative effect can result.”
I’m generalizing here, but men tend to be more task-oriented, and women more relationship-oriented. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can present some problems. Too many fathers pour their blood, sweat, and tears into work, ambition, and career – which can leavelittle time for family.
Emotional absence and passivity in the home have their consequences. People tend to become emotionally attached with and influenced by those with whom they spend the most time. If dads aren’t a part of that mix, you can begin to imagine the forces that compete for their children’s need for attention, acceptance, and guidance. …..
Now … at the other end of the spectrum - remember the name Thomas Junta? No? What about the “Hockey Dad”? Court TV made him one of the most infamous sports dads ever.
Junta was watching Michael Costin run their sons’ youth hockey practice, which was supposed to be non-contact drill work. When the drills got a bit physical at the expense of Junta’s boy, he voiced his disapproval to Costin. Costin replied, “That’s hockey.”
Words across the ice became aggressive words in the hallway that became the most infamous hockey brawl ever. Junta pinned the 100-pound lighter Costin to the ground and pummeled him in front of the watching kids. Costin died two days later of brain damage, and Junta is still incarcerated for this overbearing paternal crime today.
Thomas Junta may be the most infamous and violent example of the father who’s too concerned about his child’s sports performance. But from the accounts of youth sports officials from around the country, this kind of obsessive parenting is on the rise.
Psychologists cite several reasons for the overbearing dad trend. One is personal ego: Daddy’s daughter isn’t up to bat, his self-esteem is. Another reason is fiscal. There’s tremendous performance pressure upon kids to counter massive college costs through athletic scholarships. It’s not just a high-school football game; it’s a college savings account.
And sadly, we can find stories of overbearing parents in all kinds of other arenas as well: academics, extra curricular activities, friendships, dating – even when it comes to church involvement.
Alvin Rosenfeld, Ph.D. and author of The Over-Scheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap, claims that pushing our kids into too much used to be an exception, but now it is becoming the rule. “Over-scheduling our children is not only a widespread phenomenon, it’s how we parent today.” He points to research findings that say what children need most from their parents are relationships, not activities.
Do American parents push their kids too hard for achievement? A rash of books and articles demonstrate that experts think so. But surprisingly, dads disagree. Recent opinion poll research shows that 62 percent of men think that most Americans aren’t pushing their kids hard enough.
Consider this account of an overbearing father. A deeply religious man takes his son to go and worship God with him in the mountains. He hikes to the top of a hill to build a fire, strapping the pile of firewood to his son’s back. Then when they arrive, he binds his boy to the campfire altar and raises a stone knife overhead to kill him. “God said to,” he says in his defense.
Now let’s be honest. The story of Abraham and Isaac is more like the headlines we read of raging hockey dads than a picture of faithfulness to God. This kind of parental abuse is unacceptable to our modern sensibilities. But it’s in the Bible … and, as the story goes – God did tell Abraham to do what he was about to do. So what do we do with it? …..
Even before the Ten Commandments were codified, good Hebrews knew through oral tradition not to take life. God had cursed Cain for the murder of Abel. Generations later, the Hebrew midwives revered God by disobeying Pharaoh’s command to murder newborn Hebrew babies.
What we have in this son-on-the-altar story is what we might call an anti-metaphor – very possibly speaking out against those religious cults of the day that still practiced human sacrifice. God intervenes and stops Abraham from sacrificing his boy, yet many fathers today are, in their own way, doing the same thing.
Kids don’t need overly passive fathers - emotionally absent dads creating voids of love for other people and pleasures to fill. That’s a great way to sacrifice a child to their culture.
And they don’t need overbearing fathers - pushing them too much and putting requirements over relationship. That may mean you are putting your child on the altar of your own needs and ego.
What kids need is what we might call under-bearing fathers - fathers that are behind them, beside them, beneath them and go before them; fathers that bear up the child, who support and encourage and lead by example. These are fathers who parent by who they are and by how they relate to their kids. An under-bearing father is one who is present. Fatherhood can’t be phoned in; it requires regular, quality relational time.
Whether dads, moms, or just people trying to do life, we all feel the pressures of so many things asking for our precious time. If we aren’t careful, we’ll sacrifice people and priorities on an altar of our own making, and we’ll make the family carry the firewood in the process. As parents, we may reach the point where the dagger is in the hand, as it were - where the pressure becomes too much.
But if we’re going to kill anything in our life, what would God want it to be? Too much is too much, but let’s let God shape our priorities, even if that requires from us a faith that seems to fly in the face of everything we think we should do to handle our pressures.
Today is an opportunity for soul-searching, whether we’re dads, or moms, or singles without children, or parents with grown children. What has been needlessly sacrificed? What needs to be saved? Let’s reflect on God as the ultimate parenting and relational model – with a balance of grace and truth; not one over the other; never overbearing, but patient in love, wanting all to come to the ways of God; not absent and passive, but Emmanuel … God with us.
Rather than being overly passive or over- bearing, we can be under-bearing of our families and children, and indeed the larger community around us. Bearing, lifting up, carrying, and supporting.
And no matter who we are, or where we find ourselves on life’s journey – isn’t that what we are called to do as followers of Christ?
And – in a moment of personal privilege, seeing as MY Dad is here today, I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU for all the love and support you have given me down through the years. Love ya’ Dad.
….. And let us pray …..
Sermon from June 8, 2008
OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
When it comes to how we approach the Scriptures here in our beloved United Church of Christ, my stock response is “We don’t necessarily take the Bible literally, but we always take it very seriously.” I’ve also been known to use other writings as the basis for sermons – ranging from Shakespeare, to Shel Silverstein, to comic strips (especially Charlie Brown and Calvin & Hobbes), to the children’s classic “The Little Engine That Could” – among others.
Today, I would like to take a look at some of the writings of one Theodor Seuss Geisel – more commonly known and adored simply as: Dr Seuss. There’s a book out entitled “The Parables of Dr Seuss” that specifically raises some questions about the religious messages some people find in the various writings of Dr Seuss. When “Horton Hears a Who,” is there a sermon to be heard? What about “The Cat in the Hat” and “The Lorax”? Are those characters metaphors for Christ? And in “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” – are we being asked to have faith and follow God’s calling? As far as I know, nobody from Dr Seuss’ family or publisher has ever admitted to overt, let alone covert, intentions behind Seuss’ writings and characters. But here I am reminded of the story of a painter who was attending the opening of some of his work at an art gallery. A young art student approached a painting, and the artist asked him what he saw. The student waxed on for a good 10 minutes about the work – covering everything from color and technique, to theme and mood. When he was done, the artist looked at him, wide eyed, and said, “Really? Well … that’s not what I intended to do at all!”
So … are the writings of Dr Seuss thinly veiled religious treatises, or are they simply children’s stories, that can be appreciated on many different levels by a variety of audiences? Listen to the story of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” with your heart, your soul, and your mind … and you decide.
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the [person] who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right …
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for … mind-maker-upper[s] to make up [their] mind.
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place …
… for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
Once more you’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because … [well, you’re YOU – and that’s why]!
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winnengest winner of all.
Fame ! You’ll be famous as famous can be,
With the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t.
Because, sometimes they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
‘cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.
And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike.
And I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
Whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dextrous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So …
Be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
Or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So … get on your way!
June 5, 2008
Aligning Actions And Words
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Words carry a lot of weight in this world, from how we say them to what we say with them, but it is through our actions that we bring things into being. This is what we mean when we say to one another that actions speak louder than words. In many cases, what we say doesn’t necessarily line up with what we are doing, and it is here that it becomes clear that it’s easier to talk about doing something than it is to actually do something. At the same time, it’s easy to keep doing something that we don’t necessarily acknowledge ourselves doing verbally. It’s good for all of us to take a look every once and a while to make sure there is alignment between what we say and what we do.
For example, it’s easy to talk about our dreams, but it takes a lot more energy to take the many small steps that lead to bringing our dreams into reality. If all we ever do is talk about it, we begin to lose faith in ourselves because nothing changes on the external level. In this way, being all talk and no action is actually a form of self-sabotage. It’s also useful to examine our actions to see if, through them, we are following through on our words. For example, in expressing concern about the environment, we can look to make sure that we are taking the simple steps we can take to put that concern into action.
It’s always helpful to observe what we talk about and who we say we are, and then to observe what we actually do in the world. Sometimes we realize our actions haven’t caught up with what we are saying, and at other times we see that we might change our words in a way that it will more adequately reflect what we do in the world. Either way, the more we align our words and our deeds, the clearer we are in expressing our truth in the world, and the more powerful we are in bringing it into reality.
June 2, 2008
Untended Pain
Pushing Buttons
We’ve all had our buttons pushed to the point where we feel we can’t take it any more, and chances are, we’ve all pushed somebody else’s buttons, with or without knowing it. The button pusher may not be conscious of what they’re doing, but in the end the buttons belong to us, and we are the ones who must deal with what comes up. The more we take responsibility for our own feelings and reactions, the less tender these buttons will be.
We’ve all had the experience of having someone snap at us, seemingly out of nowhere. This happens when we unconsciously push a button in someone else we didn’t even know was there. This can happen with a complete stranger and sometimes with a person we’ve known and been close to for years. We ourselves may have a relationship with someone whose buttons we secretly like to push. Buttons are just soft spots that have been touched one too many times, and they symbolize some pain that needs to be acknowledged and healed. This may be a wound from childhood, or some recent trauma, that we haven’t adequately tended. Whatever the case, when our buttons get pushed, the person who most needs our attention and caring is us, and blaming the button pusher only distracts us from finding a true resolution to our suffering.
At the same time, if someone continually opens our wounds so that they never have time to heal, we are well within our rights to set a boundary with that person. Compulsive button pushers, who seem to find pleasure or satisfaction in hurting us, are not welcome in our personal space. In the end, knowing where our buttons are enables us to do the work necessary to heal. Freedom comes when we deal with the pain behind the button, thus disconnecting our automatic reaction to being pushed.
Sermon from May 25, 2008
HEALTHY OPTIMISM
“Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”
That question is as timely today as when Jesus posed it 2,000 years ago. Does worrying do us any good?
It would be good to know that, because, Lord knows, we put huge amounts of time and energy into worrying about all sorts of things that might happen, most of which never actually occur. And what’s more, life can be more than generous in providing us with a veritable cornucopia of possible problems that we can worry about.
But having lived through all that anxiety, what do we have to show for it? Have we, as Jesus asked, added even a single hour to our lives? Certainly, since Jesus asked that question rhetorically, he intended for his audience to answer it in their minds with a resounding “No.” But if you’re at all analytical, another possible answer may occur to you, and that is “Who knows?”
What I mean is - if somebody is a worrier, and dies at the age of 78 years, 114 days and 17 hours, who’s to say that without all that fretting, they might’ve lived to be 78 years, 114 days and 18 hours? How can we possibly know? ….. By setting up a study using the scientific method, that’s how.
And it happens that that has been done, with the results published in the December 2006 issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings medical journal.
As far as I know, the researchers didn’t have Jesus’ point in mind — that worry cannot add even a single hour to one’s life — yet the study’s conclusion suggests that Jesus was right. But even more, it reveals a positive flip side to that argument, suggesting that not being a chronic worrier can add not only an hour, but perhaps even years to your lifespan.
It all began back in the mid-60s when some 7,000 students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a test that, among other things, measured the participants’ tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic. Of that group, 1,630 were found by the test to be clearly pessimists and 923 to be clearly optimists. The rest fell somewhere in the middle of a continuum between the clear extremes. Over the next four decades, 476 of those who had taken the test died, from causes ranging from accident to illness to suicide to homicide.
By tracking and collating all this information, researchers determined that the pessimists had a significantly greater likelihood of dying sooner from any cause than did the optimists. As the dry language of the findings report puts it, “... those who scored as pessimistic had decreased rates of longevity compared with optimistic individuals.” It also said, “The current results replicate, in a non-medical sample, those of [earlier studies] that suggest that optimism is associated with increased survival.”
So, to bring this back to where we started, worrying isn’t likely to add even an hour to your life - get rid of the worry, and you’ll live longer!
Of course, pessimism and worry are not entirely identical. Pessimism is the tendency to take a gloomy view of life and to assume that most things ultimately drift or march toward negative outcomes. Worry is a mental and emotional response of concern or even fear to vague or unspecified threats. To describe the difference another way, we could say that pessimism is an outlook about things in general, and worry is a response to possibilities in particular. And I suppose it’s possible to be a pessimist without being a worrier. Yet, both pessimism and worry are related to a shortage of hope and trust. Pessimism, which has no confidence that things will work out, can breed despair, and that word literally means “un-hope.” …..
In the New Testament reading where Jesus posed this question about adding to our span through worry, he went on to make clear that what he was calling for instead was for us to trust God. He pointed to the birds that do not sow or reap the fields but are fed by God nonetheless. He pointed to the flowers that do not toil or spin but are clothed in beauty by God anyway.
It’s critical to understand, however, that his words were directed to people who did have to sow, to reap, to toil and to spin, and he wasn’t telling them to stop doing those tasks; he simply wanted them to understand that their lives were a lot more than the sum of their sowing, reaping, toiling, and spinning.
Further, Jesus tied the call to not worry to the kingdom of God: “But strive first for God’s kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” That’s a significant connection because God’s kingdom is the ultimate reason for optimism and hope. The very meaning of the kingdom is that God and those who stand with God win. In the end, good triumphs over evil. If you’re a citizen of God’s kingdom, it’s still possible that you might be pessimistic about human activity in the short term, but you’ve got every reason to be optimistic about God’s activity in the long term.
So by bringing the kingdom of God into the discussion, Jesus reminds us that in the longest haul, we who follow him have nothing to worry about. …..
We don’t? ….. Now let’s just back this train up a bit and look at a couple of objections we might have that could make it hard for us to go along with Jesus on this.
1st Objection: The things most of us worry about are not long-term issues anyway. Most of us don’t, for example, live our days in anxiety over how global issues will affect us. We seldom even fret about how or when the world as we know it might end.
No, most of our concerns are over shorter-term issues like “Will I get a good report from the doctor?” or “Will my kids stay out of trouble?” or “Am I being a good parent?” or “Will I be able to pay my bills if my job is outsourced overseas?” And while many of us are not pessimists by inclination, we can be pessimistic in the dire possibilities our worries may cause us to brood about.
2nd Objection: Normal anxiety, unavoidable worry that comes to almost everybody, is a good thing. If everyone feels “normal anxiety” from time to time, then surely we should not feel guilty about it. Plus, normal worry causes us to take preventative measures against potential problems, and even energizes us to make some significant and constructive changes in the way we live. It’s also natural to feel our vulnerability to the forces of nature, to sickness and to death, and we ought not to feel guilty about that either.
3rd Objection: Jesus is SO logical in this passage … maybe TOO logical. It’s the very height of reasonableness for him to say, in effect, “Since you trust God that all things will ultimately work out for the good, and since you trust that God cares for you even more than the birds and flowers, you therefore should not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will wear.” ….. Yeah, right.
Unfortunately, logic doesn’t always rule. We aren’t wired that way. We cannot neatly compartmentalize anxiety and then talk ourselves out of it. Some worry tends to occur despite logical reasoning, for it’s based more in our emotions than in our thinking. And so it chatters at us, saying, “ This may not work out, that could fall short, so and so may slip up, I may have not anticipated every contingency, whatever can go wrong probably will.” Our minds keep processing those thoughts over and over, building up dread and leaving us uneasy. ….. So, we may feel we have some legitimate objections to being told not to worry.
But then there’s this: What all of these objections really tell us is that we have missed the heart of what Jesus is talking about in this passage. This was not his dissertation on worry. He’s not Dr. Phil giving us a prescription for how to avoid anxiety. His main point is this: “Strive first for God’s kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” ….. Strive for it.
“Strive” means to exert a lot of energy and effort toward a goal. So, far from simply saying we should rely on the eventual coming of God’s kingdom as an antidote to daily worry, Jesus is saying we should actively work for the spreading of the kingdom. And as we do, some of the things we fret about are going to become non-issues because we’ve got more important things to be busy with.
None of this is to say that we won’t therefore have some normal worries. We can’t love someone without worrying about threats to his or her well-being. We cannot be sensitive persons without occasional concern that we haven’t done all we should. We cannot listen to the news without some uneasiness about the direction many things in the world appear to be going. But we can be focused enough on the things of God that we’re able to relax about our priorities and have confidence in God’s providential care. And that’s a definition of “hope.”
You see, hope actually assumes that the pessimists are sometimes right in the short run, but it ultimately trusts the long-run view, and that confidence has a way of working its way into our present circumstances. That’s why, instead of wringing our hands in despair, we might do better to clasp our hands in prayer. …..
Dr. Edward Hallowell is a child and adult psychologist who taught at Harvard for more than 20 years, and has now left academia to devote his full professional attention to his clinical practice, lectures and the writing of books. Back in the 1990s, he was the one who brought Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to the public’s awareness, but he’s also made a study of worry, which is the subject of one of his books.
Writing about worry a few years ago for Psychology Today magazine, he offered several suggestions for dealing with excessive worry, but finally he said this: “Talk to God when you feel worried.... Brain scans and EEG monitors show beneficial changes in the brain during meditation and prayer. The changes correlate with most of our measures of improved health, including longevity and reduced incidence of illness.”
We cannot add to our lifespan by worrying, but we likely will when we are open to the divine optimism that is rooted in God’s kingdom. It’s connected to the long term, to be sure, but its power flows back to us in the present in the form of great confidence in God, and energy to work for God’s kingdom. And as followers of Christ … isn’t that what we’re called to do?
….. And let us pray …..
Sermon from May 18, 2008
TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
Transformation – the act of changing the form, appearance, or condition of something or someone, has long held a fascination for our human species.
In the early scientific community, Alchemy was probably best known for its attempts at transforming common metals into gold … although Alchemy was, in truth, an early form of the investigation of nature, as well as being a philosophical and spiritual discipline, combining elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, mysticism, spiritualism, and art - ALL as parts of one greater force.
Throughout history, there have been those who have advocated for social transformation – the abolition of slavery, equal rights for women, the protection of workers in the workplace, the provision of a social safety net for those who are unable to help themselves, the rights of those with disabilities, the call for affordable housing, accessible health care, and a living wage, and probably the “hot button” topic of our day and time – the right for same-sex couples to have all the rights and privileges that any heterosexual couple receive by going down to the County Recorder's Office, taking out a Marriage License, and collecting a couple of signatures. In case you haven't heard – the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday, deeming it to be unconstitutional, and Gov Schwarzenegger, who has twice vetoed legislation that would have granted marriage rights to same-sex couples, has said that he “will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court Ruling.” Interestingly enough, on the same day as this landmark decision here in California, the US House of Representatives voted to cut off funding for the war in Iraq, which was followed by votes to put significant restrictions on the current US war policy in the Middle East - including a timeline for withdrawal, and creating a new GI Bill to help returning veterans. Ya' know, another word for transformation is CHANGE … and my friends – it seems to me that change is in the air! …..
In the tradition of the ancient Hebrews, it was the Prophets who were the champions of social conscience and sensibility – calling upon the people to conform to God's desired standards as initially specified in the Torah. We might even say that the 10 Commandments was one of the earliest recorded social activist documents – calling the people to specific ways of relating to God, to one another, and to the world around them.
And then in our Christian tradition, it's believed that the Prophets weren't getting the message across – with no particular blame being assigned to the Prophets or the people they were speaking to … it just wasn't getting done. So God sent Jesus into the world, who came with a radical message of transformation. We've all heard the words more times than we can count: pray for your enemies, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, if asked for your coat, give them your cloak as well, love your neighbor as yourself. …..
So … 2000 years later – where is this transformation happening today? Who are the transformers, and where are our centers of transformation?
Well, interestingly enough, one of the places this subject of transformation is being explored here in San Luis Obispo right now is at the Little Theatre downtown on the corner of Palm and Morro St. “What” you may ask, “is there a church or other group using their space to meet?” Actually, what's happening is a production of “My Fair Lady,” and as Linda and I have rehearsed and lived with this show over the last couple of months, I've come to understand it as a show about transformation. From an actor's point of view, it requires one to step back nearly a century to 1912, to traverse the Atlantic Ocean to early 20 th century England, and in my case as a member of the ensemble – learn a new way of speaking … as in both Proper British when I am a servant, attending the horse races at Ascot, or going to the Embassy Ball, and Cockney when I'm one of the common folk at Covent Garden in downtown London, trying to eak out a living.
And then there is the central story of Professor Henry Higgins – dialectician par excellente, and the lowly flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who sees Higgins' expertise in the ways of language as a means to better herself in the broader sociological scheme of things – rising from flower girl to possibly the owner of a flower or dress shop. However, as Higgins successfully transforms Eliza's speech patterns and exterior appearance to that of a lady, somewhere along the way, she unwittingly transforms the heart of this confirmed bachelor to one who appreciates Eliza for what and who she is, more so than what she has become. There's even a little side story transformation that goes on when Eliza's ne'er-do-well father, Alfred P. Doolittle, a common dustman, has respectability foisted upon him through a set of circumstances that … well, if you don't know the story, you'll just have to come see the show to see how that all comes about.
(We open on Friday and run for 20 performances through June 22)
Another place where transformation regularly occurs is in our educational institutions. Whether it be in the earliest pre-school class, to graduate school, it seems to be a common understanding and purpose of our schools to help educate, mold, and transform people into competent and active members of our society. It also seems a given that we understand that there are different developmental levels of learning that come into play at each stage of life along the way. In other words, we don't attempt to teach pre-schoolers algebra or calculus … that would be silly! At that level, they are taught basic counting. In early elementary school they are taught how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. By late elementary school or Jr High they may begin to be introduced to some basic algebraic concepts. And then in high school, they are asked to grapple with algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry – all kinds of fun stuff! And, of course, if the formal educational journey continues beyond high school, the level of exploration and difficulty continues to rise – depending on the chosen field. And in truth - the learning endeavor never ends … the transformation process is never complete.
Now here's what I find really interesting – even though we seem to readily know and accept these facts about education in the secular sense, many people don't seem to understand that the same can be said about educating ourselves in the ways of faith. As youngsters, we are given the basics of the faith – usually in the form of simple stories. As we grow older, we begin to explore those stories and ask questions about their origins and meaning … or at least we should in my opinion. But unfortunately, somewhere along the faith exploration continuum, some of us stop and proceed no further. The answers we have found or been given to that point in time seem sufficient, so we say, “That's enough – thank you very much!” And so we continue in life with what amounts to a 6 th or 8 th grade faith education … what's wrong with this picture? ….. How do we navigate in a world that now requires a minimum of a 2 or 4 year college degree for even the most basic of entry level positions – with many requiring graduate level study, with a faith foundation that never made it out of Jr High? I have to admit that when I went off to seminary at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley , having grown up in Phoenix AZ in the 60s and 70s, I faced a pretty steep learning curve – both culturally and theologically! But I gotta' tell ya' … PSR does an amazing job of doing the impossible – preparing an individual for ministry over the span of just 3 short years. And, with this being PSR Sunday, and with your last 2 fully called pastors, Ken Lockwood and myself, being products of that wonderful institution, I felt it was only appropriate to toot their horn a bit this morning, acknowledging them as one of the finest centers of theological education (think transformation) in the country. There are informational brochures about PSR for you to look over if you'd like over in Fellowship Hall following worship.
But ya' know what … all of us are not going to run off to seminary – so where is the place that ongoing theological exploration and faith transformation needs to take place for the vast majority of people? Say it with me, will you? THE CHURCH! Sometimes we do a better job of it than others, sometimes we just kinda' let things go along without much notice or reflection, sometimes we may get on the band wagon or our high horse about a particular issue or concern – much to the consternation of those who would prefer to just come to church on Sundays and be assured that Jesus loves them and everything is gonna' be all right … and the fact of the matter, especially within our diverse UCC tradition, is that all of these and more are probably all going on simultaneously at any given time on any given subject.
Well, the fact is that more and more gay and lesbian people are feeling more comfortable about living out who and what they are as people of God. The fact is that current psychological and medical research is telling us that for that percentage of the population who are same sex oriented, this is both normal and natural – not a choice or an aberration. And, as I've heard it said – the defining moment for the Church in the 21 st century, with all the other issues that are out there, will be how it elects to embrace, tolerate, hold at arm's length, ignore, shun, or condemn the gay and lesbian community … and I believe hat assessment is absolutely true.
Having voted to become an Open & Affirming congregation in January, we now must figure out how we can best live out that decision in our ministry – to and with one another, and as we reach out to the community beyond our walls. Today, we all have an opportunity to view an important film, after we feed you of course, that explores this very issue. I hope and pray that we will all avail ourselves of this opportunity, be transformed and strengthened for the journey in faith that stretches out before us, remembering those words of Jesus – his final words as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew that we heard read earlier, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
….. And let us pray …..
From May 11,2008:
Litany on "Camp Sunday"
I am Pilgrim Pines.
I am years upon years of history and tradition and learning and love.
I am the sad loneliness of the dove’s call.
I am the joyful ringing of voices at noontime singing.
I am the magic of giving someone a hug or a smile and seeing you’ve made their day.
I am the companionship of friends as they sit together before the glowing campfire and hear the forgotten voices of children at campfires past and the yet-to-come voices at campfire’s future.
I am the serious talk about growing up in this world that happens late at night when the day is gone.
I am the joy of discovering you can start a fire or make people laugh.
I am the moans and groans of climbing step after step from Junior Lodge to the swimming pool.
I am the quiet serenity of an evening service at Vesper Point.
I am the wonder of seeing a falling star for the very first time.
I am a fire moon rising bright red over the tree tops.
I am the awe and majesty of the stars shimmering in the sky.
I am the long faces and empty stomachs of the Johnny’s Tree Farm campers seeing their breakfast strewn across the meadow by raccoons in the night.
I am the tears that are shed as the last night’s songs are sung and you stand in the darkness close to your friends and close to the hundreds of young people who have stood there before.
I am years upon years of history and tradition and learning and love.
I am camp. I am Pilgrim Pines.
I am always and forever in the hearts of those who have spent time in my sacred space.
Sermon from May 4, 2008
THE ART OF WOOING
Rock star Paul Hewson – known better as Bono from the Irish rock band U2, knows how to woo. Back in 2000, he paid a visit to archconservative Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Bono was lobbying for debt relief for Africa, and he entered the meeting prepared to throw a lot of facts and figures at the senator. But on the spot, he switched to a completely different language, and began to talk religion with Jesse Helms. He focused on Christ’s deep concern for the sick and the poor. The conversation was incredibly fruitful, leading to an appropriation of $435 million for debt relief. It’s all about the woo.
G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa (MOOS-ah), who both teach at the Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, have written a book called The Art of Woo … but what is woo? Woo is what might be called relationship art - the ability to win people over without coercion, using emotionally intelligent persuasion - think courtship, invitation, solicitation. Charles Lindbergh needed woo in order to attract backers for his trans-Atlantic flight. Nelson Mandela used it to lead a peaceful revolution in South Africa. Business leaders practice woo every day. Motivational books urge you to “sell yourself” to your bosses and colleagues. But this book advises you to do so with self-awareness, matching a personal style to your own particular strengths and weaknesses. It is important to woo with integrity.
Within the Church, we don’t use the word “woo” – rather, we use the word “evangelism.” But, let’s face it, evangelism involves the art of woo. Jesus urges his apostles to woo when he says (paraphrasing the writer of Acts), “you will [woo] in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). As the story goes, Jesus is about to be lifted out of their sight, raised up into the heavens, and he tells them that they have a job to do. “You will be my witnesses,” he says - you will tell others what you have heard me say, and what you have seen me do. You will woo. In other words, the risen Christ wants his followers to evangelize and win people, without coercion, through the use of emotionally intelligent persuasion.
This is a huge challenge, but fortunately, we’re told - there’s help! “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” promises Jesus. The word “power” here is the Greek word dynamis, the root of the English word “dynamite.” This is a powerful and earth-shaking force, one that can topple earthly kingdoms and clear a path for God’s kingdom. This power is to be exercised in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. Filled with this Holy-Spirit-energy, the apostles are to evangelize, take the good news - the evangelion - of Jesus Christ to every corner of the world.
The thing is - dynamis is dangerous. Like dynamite, it’s a force that can be used for destruction as well as for construction. The apostles know they are going to have to handle this material carefully.
So … how do we best go about this task of wooing others with respect.
First and foremost – we need to use our wooing power wisely. We all know evangelists who come on too strong, hitting people hard with the promises of the gospel. “If you die tonight,” they ask, “do you know where you will be spending eternity?”
Now, there’s a certain logic to this approach, and it may work with some people, but it relies heavily on what Richard Shell and Mario Moussa call “the rationality channel.” In other words, it appeals to the logical thought process that goes something like this: If I die tonight, I don’t want to go to hell. The way to avoid hell is to put my faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, I will trust Jesus and go to heaven.
The rationality channel is a power play, and it sometimes works - but not always. When Bono was talking with Jesse Helms, he had the good sense to turn off public policy talk about debt relief, which was grounded in logical thought processes. Instead, Bono switched from the rationality channel to the vision channel, and he began to use religious talk about poverty and disease. This is what touched the heart of Jesse Helms, and ended up persuading him to support debt relief. Bono sold his idea, and in the process he created trust.
This should be the goal of all good evangelism - to sell an idea, and create trust. If we come on too strong, we may sell our idea, but we are not going to build trust. Both are necessary if we are going to be successful in inviting others to join us in our collective faith journey.
Which brings us to another “selling point,” if you will – when speaking toothers about issues of faith, we should speak from experience. Bono had traveled to Africa, and had seen firsthand the suffering of infants, children and families. Bono had studied the New Testament, and knew Christ’s concern for the sick and poor. In his meeting with Jesse Helms, he spoke of how AIDS should be considered the 21st-century equivalent of leprosy - an affliction that Jesus had seen and cured many times. Helms sensed that Bono was being honest and genuine in this sharing of personal experience, and before the meeting was over, he promised to champion Bono’s cause.
Another reality that lends itself to effective wooing is to f ocus on relationships. When Nelson Mandela was incarcerated in South Africa, he found a way to obtain blankets and other necessities for his fellow prisoners. He did this not by crying out for human rights - he did it through developing relationships. Mandela learned the language of the guards and began to read their literature, and by doing this he earned their respect and sold them on his idea of fair treatment. Mandela was still hated by the high-ranking officials who ran the prison, but he won the hearts of the guards.
Something similar happens in the book of Acts, when the apostles gather as a group in Jerusalem and devote themselves to prayer, together with a number of women and the brothers of Jesus (v. 14). They don’t practice their faith in isolation, but in a network of relationships. Then, after the day of Pentecost, the members of the community share their possessions with one another, worship in the temple, and earn the good will of all the people. Acts tells us that “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” ( 2:43-47). ….. GOOD evangelism is all about making connections.
And lastly, once we’ve shared of our faith journey and established a relationship, we need to take the final step - secure a commitment. Or, as the saying goes in the sales world – don’t forget to ask for the order. “One of the most common mistakes people make in selling ideas,” says Richard Shell, “is to think that their job is finished once they succeed in getting someone to say ‘yes’ to their proposal.”
The final stage of evangelism has to be the securing of commitments. The apostle Peter knows this, which is why he concludes his preaching to the people of Jerusalem with the instructions, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven” ( 2:38). He gives very clear steps for the people to follow, and the result is that those who welcome his message are baptized, and then they devote themselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42).
We cannot simply preach the gospel and walk away. If we are going to invite people to devote themselves to teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the saying of prayers, then we are going to have to show them the way.
The mission of the Church is to share the good news that Jesus is alive and well and active in human life. The sharing of this news requires some emotionally intelligent persuasion, and it is so critically important that we should learn to woo well.
Use power wisely. Speak from experience. Focus on relationships. Secure commitments. That’s the art of wooing. And that’s what we are called to do.
….. And let us pray …..
Sermon from April 27, 2008
A SOURCE OF HOPE
Want to know how to cut an onion without crying? Wondering how to arrange marching band music, audition for Survivor, bathe a guinea pig, or cook couscous? Pondering how you might get a clue, be happy, be successful at home and work, or be a better partner?
Used to be that you’d have to do some serious asking around or head to the library to gather up all that info. Then, of course, came Internet browsers and search engines, and with them the ability to Web-surf until your eyes go on screensaver. Seems, though, that the ’net has gotten even more sophisticated in recent years with sites now dedicated to organizing all that info and locating it in one place in cyberspace.
One such site that’s breaking new ground in this area is eHow.com. It’s what the name implies — a site where you can learn, “How to do just about anything.” It’s a one-stop shop for all do-it-yourselfers.
Punch in your how-to question in eHow’s search engine and you’ll come up with step-by-step articles written by readers and self-proclaimed experts on topics from relationships to business and everything in between. The eHow database has more than 70,000 articles and is visited by more than eight million people every month. When inquiring minds want to know, eHow delivers.
Look through eHow closely, however, and you’ll see that there are some holes. Type in “How to have hope,” for example, and you get some ideas on how to have inner peace or how to carry on when a loved one dies. Those are important, of course, but the advice tends to be pretty individualized. Type in a tougher question, like “How to suffer faithfully” and the only thing that pops up is an article about how to treat a pinched nerve.
For some questions you just have to skip the digital database and go straight back to the original. Staying faithful and maintaining hope in the midst of persecution are the kinds of “how-tos” that you can find only in the pages of Scripture … a Scripture database, if you will..
First Peter was written as a how-to letter of encouragement to the churches “scattered” throughout Asia Minor — churches that had become alienated from the prevailing Roman culture and who were increasingly being slandered and persecuted because of their faith. The evidence from the letter itself seems to indicate that the persecution was more localized at this point than the later empire-wide campaigns against Christianity that form the basis of other New Testament books like Revelation.
Still, the writer saw the Christians in these communities as “exiles” who had left behind the beliefs and practices of their neighbors and families and who now were strangers and “aliens” in their own hometowns (1 Peter 1:1-2; 2:11). Refusing to buy into what some would call the pagan practices and worldview of their social networks, the members of the Christian community soon became targets for insults, discrimination, and even violence.
The writer of 1 Peter, however, didn’t see their situation as necessarily a bad thing. The struggling of these fledgling Christians would offer a unique opportunity to share the “hope” that was within them.
It may not be as dangerous to live the Christian life in 21st-century America as it was in first-century Asia Minor, but the truth is that the Christian faith is still under attack. A number of best selling books in the last year blame the violence in the world on religious people and tout the virtues of pure reason over and against faith. Celebrities sometimes even elect to use award shows as opportunities to insult and demean those who believe. Granted, it’s not exactly the same as being tossed to the lions in a Roman coliseum, but the subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at Christianity – in addition to other faith traditions, can leave believers reluctant to live and share their faith.
Read the Christian response to these kinds of attacks, however, and you see that it’s not always very “Christian.” TV pundits and preachers rail against the secular media, nasty letters get sent to newspaper editors, tempers and nostrils flare when political issues get discussed in church. It seems that everyone wants to defend their version of Christian faith and the rules that come with it.
Notice, however, that the writer of 1 Peter called people to be ready to defend the “hope that is in you” ( 3:15). In other words - it isn’t about being right and winning the cultural argument … it’s about being faithful in the midst of a secular, and at times even a hostile culture. Think of today’s passage in that context and it reads kind of like an eHow list — “How to Have Hope in the Midst of Hostility.” Borrowing the eHow approach, this scriptural do-it-yourself project could be seen to break down something like this:
Step One: Begin with an attitude of love. The writer begins in verse 8 by reminding the churches that they must reflect a “unity of spirit” by focusing on the primary virtues of the Christian life: “sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” The sense here is that they were to practice these virtues within their own communities of faith until they became habits.
Perhaps one of the reasons that much of the world views Christians as surly, angry, judgmental people is because we more than occasionally act this way – even in our own churches. It’s especially hard to love your enemies if you can’t even learn to love your friends! Christians spend a lot of time taking stands on issues and arguing with each other, when perhaps we should be spending more time together in prayer and conversation. It’s not that we shouldn’t be vocal, just that our words need to always be filtered through the screen of God’s unconditional love. Develop the habits of love and grace and we begin to see others, including those with whom we disagree or even persecute us, as people who were created and loved by God, too.
Step Two: Repay evil with blessing. We can’t control the attitudes and actions of others toward us, but we can control how we respond. A violent world expects revenge — that satisfaction can only be achieved when you’ve managed to get even with someone who has wronged you. The writer of 1 Peter echoes Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:10-12) here in verses 9-14 by flipping that assumption on its ear. If you want to experience true happiness or blessedness, you need to be willing to repay evil with blessing. That’s what the people of God, the followers of Christ are “called” to do.
Repaying evil with good, turning the other cheek so to speak, isn’t a popular notion even among many Christians who struggle with the possibility of becoming a doormat for those who would take advantage of their nonviolent and nonaggressive response and oppress them even more. We’re called to bless those who persecute us, to endure unjust suffering if need be, but we’re not called to be silent about it. We’re to use those times of injustice to “make [our] defense” by speaking powerfully and passionately for God’s justice and truth. Jesus, of course, is our prime example. His words from the cross, and even his silence in the face of his accusers, were not passive, but revealed a deep strength that was apparent even to his enemies. Our words of love and our attitude of peace in the midst of slander and persecution can speak volumes. When we choose to speak the truth in “gentleness and reverence” we reveal the “hope” that is within us to those who “abuse [us] for [our] good conduct in Christ” (v. 16).
Step Three: Face your fears. “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?” asks the writer. In a perfect world that would make sense. We’d like to believe that things are fair, and that people get rewarded for doing good and punished for doing evil. Reality, however, is a different animal. People doing good are often the most tantalizing targets in a world where systemic evil works hard to keep the status quo of injustice intact.
The truth is that we do often “suffer for doing what is right” - but even then, says the writer, we are “blessed” (v. 14). “Do not fear what they fear” is a quote from Isaiah 8:12 (NIV), where the prophet was told to hold fast to his faith and not be swayed by public opinion. People often fear change, fear a loss of power, and fear that which they do not understand. Rather than address those fears, they lash out at those whom they believe are a threat. Despite the thought of having to endure unjust suffering at the hands of others, as Christians, we are not to act out of fear. Rather, we’re to have faith in a God who ultimately holds everyone in hands of love and grace. Suffering may come, but “it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil” (v. 17).
Step Four: Follow the example of Jesus. If we want to understand the proper way to live out hope in the midst of our struggles, says the writer of 1 Peter, the best example is Jesus. Jesus was crucified unjustly, suffering under the worst human violence and insult one could imagine, yet his death and resurrection were the ultimate triumph of hope over injustice and death.
Jesus continues to proclaim that message of grace and liberation to us today. In Christ, God took on the worst the world could dish out and came out the other side victorious. As Jesus’ people, we are called to respond to the lingering evil of the world not by retaliating, complaining, or retreating, but by proclaiming the hope that is within us. ….. And in sharing that message of hope, both we and those with whom we share it, are truly blessed.
….. And let us pray …..
Sermon from April 20, 2008
A FAITH THAT IS COOL
Consider the case of a father of four and senator from Louisiana who gets himself involved with a sleazy escort service.
Or a star NFL quarterback, arrested for running a dog-fighting operation in rural Virginia.
Or a married NASA astronaut who makes a marathon drive from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival.
Or a Rhodes Scholar, six-time Governor of Arkansas, and President of the United States — who has an affair with an intern in the Oval Office.
What were they thinking? Were they out of their minds? Taking crazy pills? Well, yes — in fact, they probably were temporarily insane. They went nuts because they were “hot.”
According to The Washington Post ( August 6, 2007), an enormous mental gulf separates “cold” emotional states from “hot” emotional states. When we’re in cold emotional states — cool, calm and collected — we find it difficult to empathize with people who are taking actions based on hot emotional states.
If we’re not hungry or thirsty or jealous or sexually tempted, we find it very hard to understand the power of these feelings. “Those people are nuts,” we say to ourselves. “I’d never go crazy like that.” But watch out — when our emotions get hot, any one of us can go a little loco.
“We tend to exaggerate the importance of willpower,” says George Loewenstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who has studied the power of cold and hot emotional states. For example: Most health resolutions are made when people are in a cold emotional state. Avoiding junk food and shedding a few pounds seem like reasonable and responsible things to do. But then, you know what happens — you get stressed or hungry, and suddenly a bag of potato chips becomes completely irresistible. You go temporarily insane and eat the whole thing. Many diets have been blown by people in a hot emotional state. …..
The Jewish leaders on the council in Jerusalem are burning hot in today’s Scripture lesson from Acts. A Christian named Stephen has been brought before them on a charge of blasphemy, and he proceeds to lay out for them the history of God and God’s chosen people — emphasizing, in particular, the sad and sordid story of human disobedience. Stephen concludes by accusing the council of being “stiff-necked people” who are “forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do” (Acts 7:51).
Through it all, Stephen’s cool, he’s calm and he’s coherent. He’s like an attorney with an airtight case; no need to go ballistic.
The council has been getting hotter and hotter throughout his speech, but now they reach the boiling point. Acts tells us that, “When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen” (v. 54).
Then Stephen gazes into heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he says, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (vv. 55-56).
Suddenly the pot boils over — the members of the council cover their ears and with a loud shout all rush together against him. They drag him out of the city and begin to stone him (vv. 57-58). Stephen prays, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and kneeling down he cries out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (vv. 59-60). He shows the cool faith of someone who can see God face to face, and then he prays that the Lord will show mercy toward the people who are killing him.
The members of the council are hot. The witnesses are hot. Even a young man named Saul, who will eventually convert to Christianity and become a champion of the church, is hot. And the result is the brutal murder of a cool Christian named Stephen, “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (6:5). …..
Hot faith. You often hear people praising it, saying that it is good to be passionate about what you believe in. No one respects a person who is simply lukewarm about their faith. And it wouldn’t be a compliment to say, “That guy is ice-cold for Jesus!” ….. But watch out: Hot faith can be a violent and deadly force in the world.
Look around: Sunnis are fighting with Shiites in Iraq. Hindus are battling Muslims in India. And here in the United States, pastor Fred Phelps and his followers picket high-profile political events with signs condemning the “sins of humanity” – with one even saying “Thank God for 9/11.” Call them extremists, or call them crazy, but one thing is certain — their faith is hot.
A number of outspoken atheists have gone so far as to say that religion is the cause of most of the world’s troubles. Christopher Hitchens, author of the book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, blames faith for genocide, sexism, suicide bombings, totalitarianism and every other problem in the history of the world.
And he makes a couple of good points — no one would argue that a great deal of evil has been done in the name of God. It’s hard to defend the hot faith of the members of the council in Jerusalem, who let their emotions take control of them as they stone Stephen to death. It’s difficult to make a case for suicide bombings and unacceptable treatment of women based solely on their gender.
But the alternative to hot faith is not no faith. It’s cool faith. ….. Yes, faith that is way cool. So what does this kind of faith feel like?
Cool faith means trust in God. It’s trust in a God who “does not dwell in houses made with human hands” (v. 48). So often we worship a god of our own making, instead of the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. If we’re Sunnis in Iraq, we assume that God despises the Shiites. If we’re Hindus in India, we believe that God opposes the Muslims. If we’re Fred Phelps, we are convinced that God hates anybody who doesn’t believe and act exactly the same as we do.
But God is above all and in all, working through all that God has made.
Stephen is right to say that “the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands.” God does not live in the moral-theological-social houses that we’ve built for ourselves.
Instead, God’s throne is God’s, not ours. It’s heaven, and God’s footstool is the earth (v. 49). A cool faith realizes that nothing in our finite world can contain an infinite Lord — not our nations, not our political parties, not our religions, not our churches, not our personal agendas. God’s a perfect God, and we’ll always be flawed and imperfect compared to God’s flawlessness and perfection. It’s a really cool vision when Stephen gazes into heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (v. 56). This vision tells us that God and Jesus are in the coolness of heaven — not in the wrath of the hot Jerusalem crowd.
Cool faith is also a sacrificial faith. Stephen’s determined to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, so he doesn’t fight back when the crowd attacks him. As the rocks begin to fly, Stephen simply prays, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (v. 59) — he wants to be in complete and eternal relationship with the One who is his Savior. …..
Sacrifice is a tough one for us, because we’re taught to fight for what we want. But:
• to be a good parent, you have to sacrifice time at work to be with your children;
• to be a good spouse, you have to give up some of your own desires to satisfy the needs of your partner;
• to be a Christian at school or work, you may have to sacrifice some of your popularity to live the life that God desires for you;
• to be a good church member, you have to offer time and talent and money to advance the mission of the congregation.
None of this is easy, and some of it can be painful, but the benefit of sacrifice is that it can lead to significant and surprising outcomes. Acts tells us that the witnesses to Stephen’s trial and stoning “laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul … And Saul approved of their killing him” (7:58; 8:1). This is the very same Saul who would convert, become a follower of Christ, and eventually spread the gospel as an apostle named Paul. The sacrifice of Stephen made a powerful impression on him, one that stayed with him throughout his ministry (Acts 22:20).
Finally, cool faith is a forgiving faith. Stephen’s very last words are, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (v. 60). Like Jesus himself, Stephen forgives his killers, knowing that they’re acting out of hot faith — overcome by rage and passion. His final words echo the prayer Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
This may be the biggest challenge of cool faith, but it’s at the heart of being a follower of Christ. As Christians, we’re forgiven people, so our job is to forgive — forgive our friends, our family members, our boyfriends and girlfriends, our brothers and sisters. Our job is to forgive our bosses, our coworkers, our opponents, our enemies … even ourselves. When we offer true forgiveness, we let go of the anger that we feel toward those who have hurt us so badly. We also ask for God to show them mercy, for in so many cases they did not know what they were doing.
In a world being ripped apart by anger and violence, it’s hard to believe that a hotter faith is going to bring us all closer together. A call for more passion is not going to lead to peace.
Instead, let’s be cool.
….. And let us pray …..
Sermon from April 13, 2008
THREE SIGNS OF AN ABUNDANT LIFE
Ever had a miserable job … you know – one of those soul-sucking employment situations that makes you feel like a nameless drone in a corporate warehouse somewhere? If so, you’re not alone. A recent Gallup poll revealed that 77 percent of American employees hate their jobs. Gallup also contends that this ailing workforce is costing employers more than $350 billion dollars in lost productivity. Americans are increasingly unhappy with their jobs.
These figures intrigued author Patrick Lencioni because they reminded him of his own experience. Says Lencioni, “I became interested in this topic because, as a kid, I watched my dad trudge off to work each day and became somewhat obsessed with the notion of job misery. Somewhere along the line, I came to the frightening realization that people spend so much time at work, yet so many of them were unfulfilled and frustrated in their jobs. As I got older, I came to another realization — that job misery was having a devastating impact on individuals, and on society at large. It seemed to me that understanding the cause of the problem, and finding a solution for it, was a worthy focus for my career.” His latest book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, is his attempt to meet the problem head-on.
And let’s face it – is there any worse time to be unhappy with your job than two days before the taxes on the income earned on that job are due to the IRS? Chances are, there are members of our own church family who don’t really like their job, and are unhappy about their tax bill. And working or retired – there may well be those among us who aren’t particularly happy with their lives in general – and certainly wouldn’t call it an “abundant life,” an expression that we find in our Gospel reading for today.
Now, we might think that the barometers of job satisfaction would depend on things like salary, job responsibilities, and the possibility for advancement, right? Well, although those aren’t insignificant factors, says Lencioni, they aren’t the key values that determine whether or not you have a miserable job. “It’s important to understand that being miserable has nothing to do with the actual work a job involves,” says Lencioni. “A professional basketball player can be miserable in his job while the janitor cleaning the locker room behind him finds fulfillment in his work. A marketing executive can be miserable making a quarter of a million dollars a year while the waitress who serves her lunch derives meaning and satisfaction from her job.”
So … what makes the difference between a miserable job and a satisfying one? According to Lencioni, it’s the relationships formed on the job, particularly the relationship between manager and employees, that determine whether your job is a dream or a nightmare.
Lencioni points to three critical signs that, when put together, form the perfect storm of vocational hell.
The most telling indicator of job misery is anonymity. “People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known,” says Lencioni. People need to have a sense of being understood and appreciated for their unique personality and gifts, and that feedback needs to come from someone in a position of authority. If people feel invisible or anonymous in the workplace, particularly to their supervisor, they can’t love their job no matter what it is or what it pays. I’m not talking about the need for constant praise here, just a sense that someone in authority cares about the people in their charge.
The second sign is irrelevance — not knowing that your job matters to someone, to anyone. “Without seeing a connection between the work and the satisfaction of another person or group of people, an employee simply will not find lasting improvement,” remarks Lencioni. A job must have some kind of purpose and impact on others, even if it’s just flipping hamburgers. We all want to feel that what we do matters, and that someone will miss us if we’re gone.
And then Lencioni invented the word “immeasurement” to describe the third sign. Immeasurement suggests that employees “need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves.” People don’t want their jobs to just be judged by the opinions of others, which can lead to politics and posturing in the workplace. They want to know how they measure up based on a set of agreed-upon criteria. Measurements don’t necessarily have to be numerical, but they do have to be tangible.
Now, let’s see how Lencioni’s observations might help us to explore and better understand our biblical text in the gospel of John for today.
These signs that Lencioni talks about all seem like pretty elementary stuff that anybody who works with people should understand. It should be a given that leaders know their people well and care about them, help them see how their place on the team matters, and give them markers to assess their progress. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always seem to work that way. It’s little wonder, then, that job misery more often than not spills over into other aspects of a person’s life: health problems, addictions, broken relationships at home — these are just some of the byproducts of a miserable job. We weren’t created to work this way - or live this way, for that matter. We were made to enjoy a fulfilling and life-giving relationship with God and with others. We were created to live with purpose and to measure our lives not in terms of the dollars we earn or the amount of stuff we own or produce, but by the amount of love we give and receive.
Jesus came that we might have “life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). If there’re markers for a miserable job, which can lead to a miserable life, Jesus offers a completely different set of signs to mark a life that is ultimately fulfilled and fulfilling.
It would’ve been hard to imagine a more miserable first-century job than shepherding sheep. Besides the grinding boredom of moving sheep back and forth from water to pasture to sheepfold, shepherds faced long periods of time away from home and family. Living most of the time in the open, they were often pounded by harsh weather. Their nomadic life meant that they could dine on only the most basic foods. Besides that, they and their flocks were in constant danger from animal predators like lions, bears and wolves - and human predators like sheep-stealing thieves. Shepherds were among the poorest of the poor.
It’s interesting, then, that in John 10 Jesus chooses to put himself in the shepherding role to describe his relationship to his followers. In doing so, he placed himself firmly in the prophetic tradition of Ezekiel 34:11-16, which describes God as the good shepherd who cares for the sheep. By calling himself the “good shepherd” in John 10:11, Jesus identifies himself as fulfilling the role and promises of God.
Back up a bit to verses 1-10, though, and you see that Jesus is setting up a contrast between the shepherd who cares for the flock and the “thieves and bandits” who come only to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:8, 10). The Pharisees may have seen themselves as the benevolent bosses of the people, but Jesus makes it clear that their oppressive religious posturing is bringing the people nothing but misery. They’re clueless managers who just don’t get it (v. 6). Jesus, on the other hand, understands the needs of his flock and