Rainbow Covenants

I wrote this sermon for Calvary UMC based on one I wrote back in 2014 for Presbury. It is a story that has captivated me and I've been trying to move out of the way enough for the Holy Spirit to share it.

Scripture:

Hebrew Bible: Genesis 9:8-17 (NRSV)

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Gospel: Mark 1:9-15 (NRSV)

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient Teacher,

we give you thanks for this scripture even when the stories within it are hard.

Open our minds today. Open our hearts.

Write your covenant within us, so that these stories we read become more than just children's bedtime stories. May they become our story. Amen.

How many of you have heard the story of Noah's Ark before? It is somewhat familiar, I know. Most of us if we have any religious background at all growing up hear about it as children. Look at the animals in the ark! we say, mimicking the lion's roar. When I was a kid, we used to read these silly stories written from the points of view of the animals on the ark. We used to laugh and laugh at Noah trying to keep the elephant away from the mice they were so terrified of. But when you take a moment to read the Genesis account, you realize that this is not a nice happy story. Lots of people die. Earlier in chapter six of Genesis, the scripture actually says that God was sorry God had made humankind. It is a heartbreaking, confusing, terrifying tale. But from the terror emerges this beautiful promise, a covenant, one of many that God makes with us throughout our history as people of faith.

You may have heard a tale of terror this week if you turned on the news. Or maybe you didn't. Can something really be a tale of terror if it replays over and over again to no effect? But surely what happened in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Wednesday was the kind of evil that would make God regret creating us.

When I think of the story of Noah and the ark now it is the idea of God who is angry and frustrated and done with the world that sticks with me. It sticks with me because it is an image that makes me uncomfortable. And because it is a feeling I understand. I scrolled through images of the victims, read stories about them, heard the nonsense from Washington about thoughts and prayers but no action. And I thought, you know what we need, God. Another flood. How can we possibly come back from this? How can we rebuild in a world where so much has gone so wrong?

But God does not work like we do, thank goodness. Well, in the story of Noah, God does take on some decidedly human tendencies, which makes me wonder that we decided the destructive flood came from God because humans have a capacity for violence we would like God to have as well. I'm not so sure God does share those qualities. But there is something in this story that God does share with us. And that is grace.

God is able to redeem even the worst of situations. A flood was coming, everyone would die, but maybe God could still save us. And God did. Noah built the ark. Teachers and coaches gave up their lives for their students. First responders saved who they could. And now survivors are claiming their voices and standing up to politicians who refuse to enact common sense gun laws to try and save more children from the horror they lived through.

We may think in these stories of terror that God should pack up shop and move on. But if God does that, then we don't have to change either. We get to wash our hands of the world, stop trying to figure out how God is calling us to change it. We don't have to sit there and be grieved over loss as we move toward new life anyway.

But God has made a covenant with us. Set a rainbow in the clouds to remind God’s self, supposedly, but also to remind us: new life is possible.

I see the story of Noah as a resurrection story. Sure, it is a much more depressing resurrection story than the one we will read in forty days, but it is about new life that comes out of the horror of death. Not because of the horror of death--- God doesn’t need destruction to bring about new life. But new life is always possible for humanity. The thing that makes Noah’s story a Lentan one is that it covenants with us, requiring us to rebuild. To try again. To take forty days to dig deeper into spiritual disciplines, to fast and pray, and turn our lives back to God.

So already I have suggested in this sermon that maybe it wasn't exactly God who caused the Flood like the text says. Now I am reading a responsibility for us into the covenant we read this morning. If you look carefully at the covenant we read, God covenants with us that humanity will never again be destroyed by a flood. There is no response for humans. It isn't a “if you do this, then I will do that” kind of covenant.

Maybe the Gospel story explains this part better. In the scripture we read from Mark, Jesus has been baptized. He emerges from the water, the heavens open, God names him beloved, and then he is immediately driven into the wilderness. We can presume he is still wet, that’s how quickly he moves. He doesn't have time to celebrate his belovedness; he gets right to work in the wilderness, relying totally on God in the midst of difficulty to discover what his identity as Beloved means for his work here on earth. God never says, “This is my Son, the Beloved if he does all the things I want him to do.” But Jesus knows that his identity as Beloved of God means that he has a responsibility to help live into the kindom of God.

And so do we. God's covenant with Noah says there is no such thing as too far gone. We might not believe God, but that is what the rainbow tells us anyway. There is no violence, no grief, nothing that is too far gone that God can't eke some good out of it. And we, as beloved children of God, baptized as Jesus was, also have a responsibility to work with God to eke out this good. We are agreeing to work with Jesus to renew the world from the inside out.

I was talking to Pastor Beth this week about this passage from Noah. When I read it now, I picture less the art we find in children's Sunday school rooms, and instead I picture an experience I had the last time I was in Bosnia.

Bosnia, to those of us who remember the news in the 1990s, is one of those places that seemed to once mirror the wickedness of the world that must have so disappointed God. During the war, neighbor killed neighbor, concentration camps were established, mass rape was used as a calculated tool of war. Today, the violence is not rampant though tensions still course along ethnic lines, but corruption still defines the country. There is apathy, disgust, hopelessness. A dark rain flooded the country with a hate so powerful that it is a wonder anything is left, but even today stagnant water left over from the war seems to cover so much. Bosnians know the wickedness of humankind. They have wondered if God can ever pull them out of the violence they have endured--- if they are too far gone. Bosnians know what Noah felt, looking over the wickedness of his fellow humans as those first fat drops of rain fell on his nose.

That wickedness is always very apparent in graveyards in Bosnia, especially if you can look across and see just how many graves are marked 1993 or 1994. And one day, I found myself in one of these graveyards. I had gone with my friend Đana to visit her family because it was Bajram (or Eid), a family, food, and faith-oriented holiday. First, though, we stopped at the community graveyard; during Bajram, one also says prayers for the dead. The cemetery sits almost precariously up on the mountain, rows of skinny white graves sticking out into the sky. We stopped the car and got out to see Đana's cousin Dijana and her family were already there. Dijana and Đana covered their heads with these huge scarves and went over to the graves. I stood around awkwardly trying to keep Dijana's three-year-old and Đana's two-year-old from falling down the mountain. But at one point I paused and looked up at the two cousins praying, their veils flapping in the mountain breeze, at this little line of graves all with the last name Domazet--- most of whom I knew. Đana's father was killed during the war in 1994, her mother from a heart attack when she was in her early forties, her grandmother from Alzheimer’s, and her aunt from cancer. Đana was crying, and reached over to touch her mother's grave. So much loss in such a young life. So much pain. The floodwaters in life had taken so much from her. And yet, yet here we were. The sun was shining, the grass was so green, and two toddlers were running around hand-in-hand laughing.

Đana rebuilt her life. She decided that the destruction of war, the pain of grief, the constant fear of loss would not keep her from living. Noah rebuilt his life, built a home and planted vineyards. And many in the community of Parkland, Florida, are rebuilding already as well, refusing to let violence have the last word in their community.

Perhaps there is a part of your life that needs rebuilding. Perhaps there is a part of you destroyed by fear or apathy, shriveled by bitterness and loss. Invite God into those places this Lent. Look for rainbows, seek goodness together. Perhaps that means taking up a practice like gratitude journaling--- forcing yourself to look for the good in your life and nurture it. Perhaps that means becoming an advocate as many students are, standing up to death-dealing things in our world and working to stop them. Perhaps that means spending time in service, helping someone else to rebuild.

The rainbow covenant reminds us that God will work beside us to bring life from dead situations anywhere and anytime. Won't we choose to work with God?

Pray for Us

Scripture:

Hebrews 10:24-25

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-28

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. Beloved, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all of them. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher we give you thanks a morning of welcoming new members. And we give you thanks for this time of worship. Guide us now, in the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, to follow the path you have laid before us. Amen.

Growing up, my mother led the church every Lent in taking up a practice. Originally it was to be a new spiritual practice every year, but the very first one they tried stuck and they continue to do it year after year. They call in “prayer partners.” When you walk into church during Lent, you get a slip of paper that you are to write your name on. Then the slips of paper are collected and at the end of the service, they are passed around in a basket for everyone to take a name. You have to make sure it’s not yours, but that week, you commit to praying for whoever you chose at some point every day. Growing up, our family put all our prayer partners together on the Lazy Susan on our kitchen table, and every day before dinner, we would light a candle and take turns for praying for all of them together.

I thought it was a nice tradition. So I stole it when I started serving a church as a pastor. I passed out slips of paper every week, encouraged people to pray, and got a lot of good feedback from folks. But I didn’t know the transformative power such prayer had until the first year I started this at Presbury.

One week, a parishioner who let’s call Maria, got another parishioner who we’ll call Tamara’s name. Maria was one of the matriarchs of the church at that time, a widow with more money than most in the congregation. She loved music and when her grandkids came to visit. She struggled with her health, but always spoke about blessings rather than her struggles. Tamara also did not talk much about her struggles, which were many. She was older and lonely. She wished her family would visit more, but she was also surrounded by affection and respect at the restaurant where she still worked. She was retirement age but she was unable to retire. She also never complained and lifted up blessings frequently, but she was generally quiet. Maria prayed for Tamara, not knowing quite what Tamara’s prayer concerns were since there was only room on the paper for a name, not an explanation, and then she came into church next week and reached into the basket for a new prayer partner. And she got Tamara. Again. Now, Presbury is not a large church. And both Maria and Tamara sat on the same side of the church and I usually tried to switch the baskets to mix up the possibilities of whose name people would get. But Maria had Tamara two weeks in a row.

And so this time, as Maria prayed, she also felt a deeper connection to Tamara. She began to wonder how she could reach out to her. So she decided to send her flowers to work, and signed that they were from her prayer partner. And by the end of the week, Maria gave me cash in an envelope to give to Tamara anonymously.

Tamara told me about the flowers and cried, and then cried again when she opened the envelope. She wanted me to tell her who her prayer partner was so she could thank her. I couldn't, but even if I could, I'm not sure I would have. Because I think that though what Maria did for Tamara was special, in some ways it is the normal next step on our discipleship journey when we are praying and worshiping together.

For the past few weeks, we have been talking about Discipleship Pathways, which are those ways that we can draw closer to God. A disciple, remember, is a follower, in this case a follower of Jesus. Disciples of Jesus set out on a path to become more and more like Jesus, especially when it comes to how we relate to God and one another. The past few weeks, we have talked about how serving God and others and how generosity and giving help us grow and mature in our spiritual lives, help us to become more like Jesus. Worship and prayer are another pathway to help us encounter the living God.

Prayer are worship are two of the ways we are most often drawn into life in the church. Worship attendance is often one of our basic litmus tests for Christians, right? Prayer is ubiquitous to the point that even people who don't know much about God or even go to church still admit to praying, especially in times of need. With this framing, they seem more like entry-level tasks of discipleship than life-transforming ways to deepen our discipleship. But worshiping together and praying together are not just for beginner Christians anymore than our Gospel lesson today about the greatest commandments to love God and neighbor are ones we check off our list of how to become a Christian when we get join the church.

Loving God and neighbor are easy to say, easy to understand, but hard to do. So it is with prayer and worship. We have scripture to tell us the words to say--- heck, my personal prayer life consists more of breathing than it does composing actual words in my head. We have alarm clocks to wake us up and cars to hop in and drive to get us to worship once a week. But to let prayer and worship change us? That is another story. But think about Maria and Tamara, how both of their lives were enriched through prayer and worship. They found a deeper connection to one another and to God.

This connection is something that we don't just need as Christians, but that we need as human beings. Aaron and I listened to a podcast about loneliness this week. Britain's prime minister Theresa May was quoted in the podcast as saying that in Britain, “Two hundred thousand older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.” Apparently Britain has appointed minister for loneliness because research suggests it is a growing health epidemic, as dangerous as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It is a risk factor for premature mortality. In fact, they called it a public health crisis.¹

While listening to this podcast, I kept thinking about this pathway to discipleship. I'm sure that like me, you have heard people say that they worship just as well at home in the quiet or in the woods alone as they do in church. They can read the Bible by themselves, and they don't need anyone to pray for them. And while sometimes being alone is important, research like this reminded me at least that we are not created to be alone. And it follows that loving God, worshiping God, even praying are not things we are supposed to do alone either.

Of course, when we pray and worship together, we take a risk. You have heard C.S. Lewis' assertion that “prayer doesn't change God--- it changes me”? But we don't like change. We don't want to change. We want to God to listen to us and do what we want. But prayer and worship in community? That's risky. Too many moving parts. When Maria prayed for Tamara, she felt compelled to do something. She couldn't just go about her daily routine like nothing had changed after praying for Maria. Both of them entered deeper into discipleship, both found a closer connection with God, and began to live with the hope and expectation that God was working in and through them. Prayer and worship are not solitary activities. They must be done in community, for community.

Connection is important, to our health apparently, but also to our faith. Our connection to others makes possible our connection to God. Many of you know that Rev. Beth Richards and I went to a conference to learn about Stephen Ministry, a one-to-one caring ministry designed to be led not by pastors but by people in the pews. Calvary is starting up Stephen Ministry again as a way to help foster those connections. People who are going through a hard time--- grief, illness, loneliness, for instance--- are paired with a Stephen Minister who will pray for them and meet with them weekly just to listen. One of the people at the conference who was a Stephen Minister herself but had had her own Stephen Minister in the wake of a diagnosis said, “I knew God was with me, but I needed someone with skin on.”

This is what the discipleship pathway of worship and prayer does: point us to the God who is ever-present with us by putting us alongside others with skin on who God is working through. Does that mean that your prayer will always be transformative if you start praying with a friend? Does it mean that everytime you join us for worship here at Calvary you will immediately feel closer to God? No, not always. But being here, praying for and with each other, and worshiping together clears a path to allow us to move ever closer to that ever-present God.

So after sharing about this pathway, I really think you needed me to give you some homework to help you work on it throughout the week. I didn't cut up pieces of paper to have all of you exchange prayer partners, but you aren't leaving empty handed today. Today, you have prayer partners right there in your bulletin. Our list of new members. Take that page out of your bulletin and put it in your wallet, in your car, on your bedside or kitchen table. Put it somewhere to remind you to pray for each of these folks every day. Shake their hands today and remember their faces to say hi next week. Go online or call the office and look up their address and send them a welcome card. Who knows? Maybe you will find yourself more connected to God by connecting to one another in prayer.

To echo the words from our 1 Thessalonians reading today: Beloved, pray for us. Me, yourselves, the person sitting next to you in the pew today, and our new members. Pray daily. And show up here next week to see where God is leading each of us, drawing us ever closer in love. 

 

1The Loneliness Epidemic, accessed 27 January 2018, http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/01/23/the-loneliness-epidemic

Love Never Ends

My last sermon for Presbury UMC.

Scripture:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3, 8-13 (NRSV)

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

...

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NRSV)

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks. We should always start with thanks because no matter how weak our faith or how slim our hope, we always have your love. So we thank you. And we ask through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts this morning that you may help us always to name that love and be part of that love ourselves this day and always. Amen.

How many of you like love stories? Me too! In the famous romance story Star Wars, the first time Han and Leia express their love for one another, it went a little something like this:

That is true love right there. What does it have to do with our scripture from 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians? Nothing, I just wanted to make a Star Wars reference in my goodbye sermon to all of you.

Anyway, love stories have been on my mind as I prepared to say goodbye to all of you. Not romantic ones, except for Star Wars of course. Even though this 1 Corinthians 13 passage is frequently used at weddings, the love it describes is not a romantic love in the least. The apostle Paul who wrote this letter to the early Corinthians church was not the most romantic guy. He wanted us to understand at least a little bit the kind of love that God has for us. You see, romantic love may inspire us, spark something within us, but it is not stable. It must be grounded in commitment if it is to endure any length of time, and even then it does not always last. But that doesn't mean love, the love that God has used as the foundation of our being, the love God has taught us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the love that God offers us each and every day through the movement of the Spirit, is not stable. In fact, the scripture verse that keeps coming to mind is the last from this chapter: And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I talked about faith not long ago. I said that it was more than just believing something to be true. Intellectually, we may know something to be true, but that doesn't always mean that we no longer have doubts in our hearts. Nor is faith the trust that the storms in life will pass or reveal a greater gift. Faith is about leaning into the presence of God even when we are afraid.

And yet, that is easier said than done.

I talked about hope just last week. About how hope can disappoint us, but when it does it is not the hope God is calling us to. God is not calling us to a specific outcome, to be postivie or optimistic. God is calling us to act into the possibilites for good that God is constantly creating.

And yet, still it is hard to hope.

But the greatest of these is love. That's what Paul tells us. In fact, he writes that is all you have is hope, that is not enough. He writes that if all you have is faith, you are nothing. He writes, If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. It almost sounds harsh. But my experience is that this love is what sustains us when our faith slips. Love is what holds onto hope when we no longer can. Love can transform us in the darkest hour of our lives because love never ends.

In the last four years I have been your pastor, I have seen the transformational power of love through this church. I have watched when I bring one of you with me to see someone in the hospital or at home, and I have seen their whole faces change. Sure it means a lot to have the pastor come visit, but to have a fellow church member come visit, someone you have known for years, that means something even more. I have watched as you have offered help to one another, whether it is a ride somewhere or letting someone stay with you. One person told me this week that even though she doesn't have biological family in Edgewood anymore, people in church have adopted her and become her family, taking her to doctor's appointments, bringing her meals, and helping her find someone to help around the house. Another told me he introduces members of the church as his siblings because that's how connected he feels. I have been witness to the transforming power of love as our youth have gone on mission trips and as our children have played with a Muslim youth group. I have watched people sit and listen with our guests experiencing homelessness at the shelter, offering them anointing for healing. I have watched you love one another as Jesus loved us, which was the commandment he gave to us before his death and resurrection in the Gospel of John.

I, too, have been on the receiving end of that love. When I came to Presbury, I'd like to think I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to work. Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor had taught me how to pastor, and helped me to fall in love with the church again, and I was ready to get to know you and jump right into ministry. You put up with my hare-brained ideas, indulged my geeky-ness, and cleaned up after me when I threw confetti around everywhere. You welcomed Aaron, and even though he still considers himself to be a Baptist, he knows you are his church home. He felt included and valued and discipled here. And when we had the worst year of our lives, you were there, laying hands on Aaron to ask for his healing, sending us cards and sharing your own stories of loss so we did not feel so alone, and continually telling me you were praying for me. You caravaned to Washington D.C. to celebrate my ordination. You hugged us, laughed more with us that at us, cried with us, and continue to cover us in prayer. That love has lifted us up, kept us floating above water when we have struggled with our grief and anxiety so much that our own faith and hope have waned. God poured love into you, and you poured it out onto us.

Maybe using the Star Wars clip about love was not so disjointed after all. Me telling you that I love you may make you want to say, duh, we know. But I don't think you do know how much your love has carried us through. You might say that it is your work as the church to love. And it is. But churches are not often described as loving places, but rather as places of judgment and hypocrisy. But even when we fall short here at Presbury, we are still a loving community, trying to learn to love better. So thank you--- which incidentally was my response to Aaron when he first told me he loved me. But that's another story.

Love doesn't always get the words right, the way that faith tries to. Love doesn't work toward vision of what the future will hold, the way faith does. Love is. We know only in part, as Paul reminds us. But love reminds us that we are fully known by God, in all our struggles, in our defeats, in our joys, and God loves us.

God expresses that love to others through us. Our world is in such need of the love that is crammed into the people in this building. After a week of news of mass shootings at even a congressional baseball game wondering when it will be difficult for people who should not have guns to get guns, of yet another trial in which a murder of a black man is seen as inconsequential when the officer who killed Philando Castile was acquitted, and yet another trial that reminds us why so few people report sexual abuse that ended with a deadlocked jury because can women be believed over a rich, powerful man? And that's just the news. What hurt is here in our church, here in our community? Such hurt cannot be healed except with love. You have shown it to me and to one another. You have shared it in service and in mission. And you need to keep on sharing it now, with your new pastor Tiffany, with your siblings in this new church partnership at Cranberry, and with all of Edgewood. Because you never know who is feeling drained of their faith and hope and in need of a little love to remind them why they are on this earth in the first place. You yourself may be in that position. Your faith may feel a little shaky, like mine has, especially since Aaron's mom died. Your hope may flicker like it is going out, like mine has through this whole journey of infertility and miscarriage. As you face this new transition with a new pastor and a new partner church, your faith and hope may be solid but you may still be nervous and anxious. But love never ends. You only have to turn to one another to find the love that God pours out through us.

Thank you for the ways you have been part of my love story with God. And for allowing me to be part of yours. I look forward to seeing how the story continues with Pastor Tiffany and continues as Aaron and I go to Calvary. When Paul wrote the second letter to the Corinthians, he gave them farewell advice. It's short advice, and good, but my advice for you is simply to love one another. For, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians and I am sure is true for you, the God of love and peace will be with you. Always. Amen.

Finished: A Good Friday Sermon

This year Presbury UMC worshiped with Lord of Life Church (ELCA) for Good Friday.


Scripture: John 19:25b-30 (NRSV)
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Sermon: Finished
Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we hear this story year after year. But even though it may be familiar to us, we ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts startle us into transformation and new life. Amen.

Jesus was dying. The women watched as he, already brutalized, was dragged through the city. They watched as the nails went into his hands, as the cross was lifted up. Their eyesight may have been blurred as they wept, their hearing may have been obscured by their own wailing, but they knew what was happening to their beloved teacher, healer, and savior. They knew his life was finished, and, with it, theirs as well.

We have not been to public executions. They are considered barbaric, though of course this week I learned that the state of Arkansas prepares to put seven people to death in ten days because the drugs they use in executions are set to expire. And of course, you can see plenty of footage on Youtube documenting police shootings in our own country. And of course, we hear almost daily it seems of bombs being dropped, on our behalf we are told, in other parts of the world. But while with these reminders we may catch a glimpse the shame of public executions, the senseless violence of it, most of us do not really understand it. But we do understand pain. And the women at the foot of the cross in the Gospel of John are like we have been at one point or another or maybe like we are now, consumed by our own pain. Wondering how our lives could go on.

 And while the women stood there, hearts breaking, helpless, angry even, Jesus said, “It is finished.” And then he died. So what is finished?¹ His life? We know that not to be the case. His work? Well, I don't know. Have you ever met someone needing healing, redemption, salvation? So then “it” couldn't refer to sin either, since we know there is still some sin left in the world, right? Maybe “it” meant pain, his and others? The women at the foot of the cross could tell you otherwise. We could tell you otherwise. 

Like so much of the Bible, the statement “It is finished” is open ended, resisting easy answers. So you may read it differently than I do. Tomorrow I may read it differently than I do today. But today, I think that Jesus didn't mean all pain was over when he declared, “It is finished.” He didn't mean sin was gone. We read this statement as an ending, but instead it is a beginning.²Even as he was dying, Jesus was promising us a new way to live.

You see, in the Gospel of John, “while the world hurls forth the worst it has to offer, Jesus remains unfazed and triumphant."³ Can you imagine what the women at the foot of the cross felt when they heard Jesus' words? They were despairing and fearful, but he was calm and confident. He wasn't belittling their pain, though; in fact, just a few verses earlier in our scripture, he encouraged them to continue to lean on one another when he told the beloved disciple and his mother that they were family now, saying, “Woman here is your son.” But death did not shake him the way it was shaking them. Because he trusted in God's transforming power. And he declared, even though no one could see it yet, that the old life was gone and new life was beginning already. It is finished.  

Frankly, I always preferred the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, who cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). I want a God who knows my pain. But in the Gospel of John, the women are the ones who know my pain. They are huddled together, broken. But Jesus reaches out to them, not allowing the ugliness of the world defeat him and inviting us not to let it defeat us either. He does not let sorrow have the last word, or pain. In the Gospel of John, new life does not begin in the empty tomb, but even before, even from the cross. Because Jesus shows us possibility where we might never see it. Before the resurrection, he shows us how to remain triumphant even in the midst of pain.

I don't know about you, but this is a lesson I need in my life. Presbury knows that my family and I have struggled a lot in the past year. This is not the first, but the second Easter in a row that I would have been pregnant if I had not miscarried. And I have still not yet experienced the promise of new life. I cannot see it. I don't have certainty that next year or the year after we will finally have a baby. The bitterness gets so overwhelming at times. But Jesus in the Gospel of John on Good Friday tells us we don't need certainty. And he tells us that we don't have to let pain overwhelm us. He tells us it is finished. He doesn't tell us how or when; when he says, “It is finished,” he invites us even in the midst of our pain now, today, to live differently.

So what has to be finished in your lives, and also in our world, for you to walk in this new beginning Jesus has made the way for? On a post-it note, I want you to name, on one side, what needs to be finished in your own life, and on the other side in the world, for us to walk in new beginnings. Maybe it is bitterness and jealousy, like I struggle with after miscarriage. It could be a sin that needs to stop controlling your life. It could be a toxic relationship or a job that keeps you from walking in new beginnings. And on the other side, what needs to be finished in our world? Let us trust Jesus' declaration that it is finished, even when we can't imagine otherwise. I want you to write it down and come forward and nail it or just post it to the cross. We will leave those things there, and prepare our hearts to follow Jesus into a new life trusting the old is finished and there will be--- that there is already--- a new beginning before us.

 1The idea that follows riffs on the commentary by Randall C. Bailey, “Good Friday,” Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year A, eds. Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, Ronald J. Allen, and Dale P. Andrews (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 192.

2Trygve David Johnson, “Homeletical Perspective on John 18:1-19:42,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Vol. 2, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 301 and 303.

 3Mary Louise Bringle, “Homeletical Perspective on John 18:1-19:42,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 309.

The people who walk in darkness

Upper Chesapeake Medical Center has restarted a perinatal bereavement support group. I was the first speaker, and the group ended up being relaxed and informal, but this is what I had prepared to say.

In the last year, I have had two miscarriages. The last one was only a few weeks ago. We have been trying to have children for over two years. And I should tell you I am a pastor, so this is a busy time of year for me. It is Advent, the season of preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ by remembering and even reenacting the birth of a baby. It's also a season of waiting.

Does this sound like a super fun time of year for a person dealing with the death of babies and wondering when, if ever, she will ever get pregnant again?

Hint: it's not.

One of the scriptures we read during Advent that I usually open Christmas Eve services with is from the prophet Isaiah. He writes, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2). He writes about the Israelites, desperately hoping for a new reign of peace and prosperity after life under the oppression of the Assyrian Empire. Christians read it as the anticipation of Jesus's birth. And it is a scripture that has been sticking with me in this season. Because I feel like those people who walked in darkness--- not (necessarily) because of politics, but because of grief.

I knew I was going to have a miscarriage my first pregnancy. We had conceived on Christmas day last year, which is probably more information than you need to know, but this was after over a year of trying and my desperation was so strong that I basically missed a day of work every month when I got my period because all I could do was sit around and cry. When we learned we were going to have a Christmas baby, it seemed too perfect. I didn't trust it. Perhaps that says something about my faith, you can analyze that later, but this moment should have felt like dawn after a long night. Instead it just felt like more darkness. That is until just before the eighth week, when I finally started picking out baby names and researching potential Halloween costumes. Finally, that light seemed to be shining! And then I had a miscarriage. I remember sitting in the car on the way to the emergency room on my husband's twenty-ninth birthday while he prayed for us and he was still praying that our baby would be okay. I had no such hope. I already knew our baby was gone.

Now the days after our miscarriage were not as dark as that day. I could feel hope again. After all, we hadn't been sure we could get pregnant naturally but we did. And when it started to get dark again, after not getting pregnant for seven months on our own and with some help, the day of the baby's due date ended up being another experience of renewal that let some light seep in. And then I got pregnant again, a week after my first due date, and, even though I was cautious, I allowed myself to hope this time. To hold my belly and talk to the baby. To again try and decide on a middle name for a boy. But I only allowed myself to hope a little bit. I had grown accustomed to the dark.

I miscarried again. And this time I saw no light. And when people reminded me that God was still with me, and that I have a wonderful supportive husband and church, and that I have so much to be thankful for, I just got more bitter. I wanted to be left alone in my grief. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and my heart adjusted to hopelessness.

But I don't think hopelessness is all the darkness of pregnancy and infant loss can teach me, and maybe teach us. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again...”¹
 
One of those things I have learned is the power of community. I have always believed that community is beautiful, but it was not until I was stumbling in this darkness myself that I actually experienced it saving me. Like just his past Tuesday, when I was exhausted and ran into a family acquaintance in a hospital waiting room while looking for one of my parishioners. She asked me which of my sisters had lost the baby. I burst into tears when I told her it was me, not one of my sisters, even though I thought I was doing so well with not crying in public. But while I tried to blink back tears, she took my hand and told me about how between her two children, she lost five pregnancies. She told me about how her son was a twin, but his twin died at seventeen weeks. She had to carry the dead baby within her as she carried the living one. And she told me this story not with triumph, not with the smile and “See, one day you will have a beautiful baby too just like I did,” end to the story. She told me her story just to let me know I was not alone, and she had cried too, so many times.

I want to run the show. I want to be able to plan my pregnancies the way my mother did, when she decided she never wanted to be pregnant in the summer again, so my sisters' birthdays are June 1 and June 3. I want my doctor to tell me the next IUI will work. I want to know when I get that positive on the pregnancy stick that I will be pregnant for forty weeks, not seven or eight. But we don't run the show. We don't have control over our ovulation or the quality of our eggs. We don't have control over crying in the middle of a hospital waiting room with an almost stranger. But when I stop trying to control the outcome, I might start to see beauty and goodness in the light there is, even if it isn't the kind of light I wanted or expected. Like the beauty and goodness there was in sitting with a woman, listening to her story and not feeling so alone anymore.

The darkness of pregnancy and infant loss is horrible. I would give up this journey in exchange for a baby in a heartbeat. But there is still goodness in the midst of the horribleness, still light in the darkness, even if it is a just faint glow. And I believe that is because the darkness is not dark to God, as Psalm 139 tells us. To God, the night is as bright as day. God can work the good from even terrible situations. God can help us see beauty by that faint starlight even when the sun isn't shining.

So though even today I do not expect to see a great light, to feel the warmth of a smile on my face when I get to hold my baby for the first time, I know that this darkness we walk in the meantime is not just a place of death and hopelessness. That we can learn to walk in the dark, and to reach out to our siblings in this journey and help them walk too. And maybe together we will find that even the night can be bright.

1Barabara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 5.

Joy Happens In Relationship

This is  a sermon from Presbury United Methodist Church's Mismatched Nativity series. 

Scripture: Luke 1:39-58 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. 

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 

Sermon: 
Let us pray:  

Patient teacher, we probably don't all feel very joyful this morning. Maybe we are worried about a loved one in the hospital. Maybe we saw our credit card bill and are trying to figure out how long it will take to pay it off. Maybe we just got a bad night's sleep. There are so many things that keep us from rejoicing in you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts show us how near you are today. For that is good news indeed. Amen.      

We are continuing our sermon series on a Mismatched Nativity. You can come up after worship, or just see from your seats that this Nativity is composed of many different sets, and many from places like Haiti and South Africa. Of course, there are also gnome and Snoopy nativities represented, so it is a bit of a strange concoction here. But it serves as a visual reminder for what we have been talking about--- these characters from the story of Jesus' birth were not so different from us. Their lives are not perfect. They had problems like we do. They messed up once or twice in their lives--- but, even if you aren't convinced they did mess up, everyone around them thought they did and judged them for it, made their lives harder for it. Zechariah prayed but really didn’t have hope. Mary was less pure and holy than spunky and courageous. Today, we are talking about Elizabeth, a person of faith who experienced joy but also still felt fear and anxiety, just like many of us do.    

Our scripture today is about joy pure and simple, from Mary to Elizabeth and back again. But remember that joy and happiness are not the same thing. We are not talking about a sense of contentment, like after a long day when you finally get to put your feet up and relax. We are not talking about the feeling of pleasure we experience when eating our favorite food. We are not talking about the warm fluttery feeling like the kind you get in your stomach when you realize the next Star Wars movie is out next week. Or maybe you don't get that feeling, but I do! Joy is a deeper feeling than those even though it is sometimes fleeting. Joy is a kind of resistance and resilience. Joy transforms us, and shows us possibilities we once thought impossible.     

Let's just look more carefully at Mary and Elizabeth's story. If we picture these women at all, which, let's face it, Elizabeth and Zechariah are left out of the Nativity so often we don't think of them as being a part of the story--- but if we picture these women, we picture halos and light, big smiles and big bellies. Scripture doesn't exactly tell us otherwise, though it does suggest that Mary probably did not have a big belly yet, but I wonder if the halos and smiles put us off from the part of the story we can best relate to--- that Mary and Elizabeth were afraid.     

We aren't really sure why Mary set out and went with haste to see Elizabeth. Yes, the angel had given her the good news, but it wasn't like she had a car and could just run over with cake and balloons. Rev. Adam Hamilton in his bible study about the geography of the story of Jesus' birth says that the journey by foot between Mary's and Elizabeth's homes could have taken nine days. He writes, “The fact that Mary was willing to travel nine days across three mountain ranges [hill country, the scripture tell us, remember] to see Elizabeth speaks volumes about how she was feeling. She longed for someone who might believe her and who could help her make sense of what was happening.”1     

Now in those days, women would often journey to family member's homes to help with pregnancy, delivery, and taking care of the newborn baby. It was probably not out of the ordinary for Mary to go on such a journey, or at least women Mary's age. But I have a friend who has another theory. She believes that Mary was kicked out by angry and frightened parents. We really have no idea, but think about it--- how many of you would believe a teenager, even the sweetest, most innocent teenager you know, if they told you that the Holy Spirit impregnated them with God? Maybe they got angry and sent Mary away, to wait until her delusion had passed or to negotiate with Joseph's family so no violence would befall Mary, since the law at that time, whether or not it was enforced, was to stone a woman who had committed adultery, even against her betrothed. Whatever you believe, I think these possibilities tell us that this journey to Elizabeth's house was not taken by Mary while she was skipping and singing to woodland animals like a Disney princess. She was afraid and uncertain. Her courage in agreeing to serve God was waning in the face of very real fears and anxieties.     

And Elizabeth, she was also full of fear and anxiety, despite the faith she exhibited when we read about Zechariah a few weeks ago. Of course, I could be projecting my own experiences onto Elizabeth, but two different people I talked to this week who had multiple losses and struggled with infertility agreed with me, so this is not isolated. As much as Elizabeth wanted to become pregnant, as much as she realized our God is a God of miracles, for those who experience pregnancy loss and infertility, pregnancy is scary. Every time I told someone I was pregnant this last time--- which was only a few people because I was so scared--- I burst into tears. And not happy tears. Every time someone responded with congratulations, I didn't feel like I could accept it yet. I felt like I was holding my breath--- and I could tell Aaron was too. I remembered seeing people post pictures not of 12 week sonograms but of the actual pregnancy test just weeks after conception and could not fathom how you could share something that was so uncertain.     

Elizabeth, you may remember from the beginning of chapter one of Luke's Gospel, went into seclusion for the five months after she conceived. Even though she was a woman of deep faith, a woman who proclaimed, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” Elizabeth felt like she was holding her breath. Did Zechariah really have a vision? Did God really mean this baby would be the one, or maybe she would miscarry and have another? God's time isn't our time after all. Even though she had faith, she was afraid. Rev. Hamilton points out that, “It seems to have been Mary's visit that drew Elizabeth out of her seclusion. Mary needed Elizabeth, but perhaps Elizabeth also needed Mary.”2     

Mary and Elizabeth were not these majestic superwomen who could do anything and everything easily and without any fear or worry just because God called them to do it. They were people full of faith, people seeking to love God more. And as people of faith, when their belief waned, when their fear reared it's head, they reached out to one another. And that reaching out made their faith even stronger. That reaching out gave them joy, true joy, based on the knowledge that they were not alone. That God was with them, helping them to see beauty and goodness even in the difficult things.3     

“Joy happens in relationship.”4 There isn't some magic formula for joy, some specific prayer or action that only haloed people with big smiles can experience. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child that would become John the Baptist leaped in her womb. But her heart leaped too. And she finally felt the presence of the Lord again stronger than her fear and anxiety over her pregnancy. She blessed Mary, crying out to her in joy, which then prompted the most joyful song in all of scripture, at least to me. The Magnificat. With Elizabeth's blessing, Mary was able to let joy fill her again after over a week of walking and worrying, seeking a friend. She knew God had remembered her because Elizabeth did--- not as a teenage mom, but as a person blessed by God.     

Do you have a person like Elizabeth and Mary had? A friend who is there to help you find God when it is hard, a friend who can help you hear God's voice when you can't? That is what this week was for me, from church people to life-long friends, to Muslim women, to a virtual stranger in a hospital waiting room, I encountered people like like Elizabeth, who emerged from their own pain to speak a word of blessing upon me.     

This is a congregation full of Elizabeths and Marys who need to take the journey to reach out to one another in love and let God transform them. So let us open our hearts to the joy God already has in store for us. In the spirit of reaching out, I invite you to turn to your neighbor and rejoice together, as Elizabeth and Mary did together. Offer one another signs of God's joy!    

1Adam Hamilton, The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2011), 63.     

2Ibid., 65.     

3I thought about this following a comment on The Young Clergy Women Project Facebook Group, posted 1 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.   

4Another comment this time on the YCWs Preach the Narrative Lectionary Facebook Group, posted 10 December 2016, accessed 10 December 2016.

Prejudiced Prophets and Grace for All

A sermon preached at Presbury United Methodist Church.
Scripture: Jonah 3:1-10; 4:1,5-11
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.

...Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

Sermon:
Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for your gentle lessons, and your willingness to work with us even when we try to run away, like Jonah did, and even when we get angry with your judgment, like Jonah did. Help us to hear your wisdom in this story of grace and repentance. And help us to respond as the Ninevites did, not as your prophet did, so that we may always celebrate your mercy and steadfast love. Amen.

We all know the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish or whale. But do we really realize why Jonah ran away? It was not because Jonah just didn't want to. It was because he was deeply prejudiced.

Nineveh is introduced to us in scripture as wicked. If we go back further in scripture, we find that Nineveh is Israel’s enemy as the capitol of Assyria. In the books of Isaiah and Nahum, Nineveh is continually denounced by the prophets due to its wickedness. That is the whole reason why God wants to send Jonah in the first place: to tell the Ninevites they needed to repent. So maybe it isn't prejudice at first glance, right? He just doesn't want to be around wickedness condemned by God, right?

But listen to verse three of chapter one: when Jonah went the opposite direction of Nineveh, he went away from the presence of the Lord. He wasn't going away from wickedness. He was going away from God by avoiding the people God called him to help. Do we ever do that? A colleague of mine here in Harford County just told me a story about how he went down to pray in Baltimore with other clergy after the uprising, and he shared the experience with his congregation, since he had seen so much of God there. They didn't hear him. Instead they argued with him, telling him it was too dangerous to go, and besides why should they help people who don't want to help themselves? His congregation had their minds made up about Baltimore, like Jonah had his made up about Nineveh. And so they set their faces away from the presence of the Lord, away from the very real possibility of reconciliation and justice.

That's what this story is about. It is not about getting stuck in the belly of a fish and being spat back out when we are ready to do what God has called us to do, though that part of the story makes for good songs and cool imagery. This story is about possibility, about how God can transform the wicked Ninevites--- but even more about how God can transform a prejudiced prophet.

Jonah was not just prejudiced because he ran away from Nineveh. Look to the end of the scripture, the part we don't pay much attention to usually because we always talk about the fish part. The Ninevites hear the pronouncement on their wickedness. They listen to Jonah! And they repent. The whole city, humans and animals, fast and cover themselves in sackcloth and cry out to God. God hears them and has mercy on them. And that mercy made Jonah angry.

“Oh Lord!” Jonah whines to try and cover up the cries of the Ninevites. “Is not this what I said when I was still in my own country. That is why I fled to Tarshish from the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (Jonah 4:2-3). Then Jonah asks for death because, according to him, it is better to die than witness God's steadfast love and mercy transform those he despises. This is how small prejudice makes us--- how sick and warped and twisted it makes us. Jonah did not just try to go as far away from the people he hated as possible; he got angry when he saw that God loved them too. Jonah got angry that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And God sighs. We read none of chapter two, but I encourage you to go home to read it. It is a poetic psalm of thanksgiving given by Jonah to God when Jonah was in the belly of the fish. Jonah laments, but he also names God as the one who brings us up from the Pit, who delivers us. Jonah has named God as deliverer, but yet he only wants God to deliver people like him. So God sighs when God listens to Jonah's whine. Rather than whacking Jonah upside the head, as I think Jonah needed, God made a bush. Jonah was out sulking outside the city, hoping God would change God’s mind and destroy the city anyway, and God created a big beautiful bush to shade Jonah while he sulked. But the next day God had the bush whither, leaving Jonah exposed to the heat. Which set Jonah off again. After listening to Jonah's rant, God pointed out Jonah's failing. Jonah had more love for a piece of shrubbery that he only knew for a day than he did for a city full of living creatures, living creatures created by God. We don't know what happened after God corrected Jonah. We do not know if Jonah repented, or if he went on sulking. But the story ends, leaving it open as a question: how would we respond? If God pointed out our prejudice and our failings to us, would we respond with repentance, or would we go on doing what we always have?

Either way, here's the thing: even filled with prejudice, God used Jonah to bring about grace and mercy. Even we, with all of our failings, can be used to bring about God's grace and mercy. If I were God, I would not want to work with a whiney guy like Jonah. But then again, Aaron could probably tell you that I can be a tad whiney myself sometimes. Guess what? God's grace extends even to whiners. The grace in this story is not just for the Ninevites, but also for Jonah. God did not give up on Jonah: insisting Jonah go where God called Jonah to go, and even coming up with a gentle lesson to help Jonah get why the Ninevites were so important. God does the same for us.

We can just make God's job a lot easier by opening our hearts in the first place.

I have been talking the last few weeks about church growth. I haven't really said the words “church growth” often, but that is what we have been talking about. I told you we would be completing a survey, trying to figure out what our next steps are as a congregation. You may be wondering what church growth has to do with Jonah. It is that openness, opening our hearts to everyone God loves, is necessary to growth.

Now, you may feel you are already a very open person. That you aren't prejudiced like Jonah, so crippled by cultural ideas of who is worthy of salvation and who is not that we would go in the opposite direction of where God is calling you. I know you all, and I know you have good hearts and mean well. I would hope you would say the same about me. But. Have you been on Facebook lately? And I know not all of you are on social media--- have you watched the news lately? You might not feel very prejudiced at the moment, but what if I showed you a bunch of pro-Trump memes and you are for Hillary? Or vice versa? How long does it take for you to talk to someone on the other end of the political spectrum from you before you write them off as stupid?

That's just one example. Even if we can escape overt sins of racism or sexism or classism, our culture seems to have lost the ability to have conversation and form relationships over partisan lines. If you are pro-police, you cannot listen to Black Lives Matter activist because they are wrong wrong wrong. If you are pro-choice, you cannot listen to someone who is pro-life because they are wrong wrong wrong. We do not believe that the group we are against can turn from their evil ways. If they actually do turn out to be nice people, this can be very displeasing to us, and we can become angry.

But remember what God tells us. Those people we disagree with are people God has created, just as God created the Ninevites, and God has offered them the gift of grace and redemption. Maybe, rather than getting all frustrated about what our brother-in-law or cousin or neighbor is posting on Facebook, we can talk to them about God's grace, which is something we need just as much as they do. That's how we can grow the church. By reaching out across our differences and sharing in God's grace.

So who do you need to share grace with? Who are your Ninevites? And when are you going to invite them to church?