WSSO: Broadcasting from Downtown Reno!
May God add a blessing, to reading the word, to preaching the word,
to hearing the word, most of all to living the word, in our lives and
life of all of creation - Amen!
Best preaching advice I ever got: There's always next Sunday! Doug
told me he preaches 12 minutes. When I preach they call me John Auer and
a Half! I don't break a sweat in 12 minutes. But I will try. Like Bishop
Kelly: I never finish a sermon, but I do stop preaching once in a while!
Julie and I are in Reno this morning, Martha and Doug, are in Palo
Alto, because we are itinerant preachers. Like the 12 in this gospel
story, we are more or less organized, --ordained and ordered,
commissioned and sent, -- ready, willing, and by God's grace even able
to witness and serve as itinerant preachers wherever our bishop appoints
us to be.
We are all part of one church, with so many stations to preach. Doug
and Martha bear your greetings to the people of Palo Alto this morning.
Julie and I bear to you greetings from the people of San Rafael. We are
here because we love congregations. We are here because we love cities.
We are here because we love congregations loving cities.
A word about my robe, if I may. Julie's mother made it with old denim
and embroidery. On the back the skyline of Chicago, where we began
preaching under appointment in 1972. On the front the flame of the Holy
Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit! What does Buzz Lightyear say all
the time? "To infinity, and beyond!" I believe in the Trinity,
and beyond! I have been a unitarian, a binitarian, a trinitarian, now I
am a quadritarian, and still counting! I'll say more about that as we
get to know one another.
I believe in the Spirit of Jubilee! The Spirit of fresh starts and
fair chances for all, spiritually and materially. Richard Farina says of
his song, "Reno, Nevada," our "Words for Meditation"
this morning, "Call it a song about chance." The Spirit of
Jubilee's song is all about chances as well. It is the Spirit Jesus says
in his first sermon he comes to fulfill for all time! From the way he
signed all his communications, I always thought of Doug as "Shalom
Doug." I have been "Jubilee Johnny" for years. Not a bad
combination: peace with justice!
I made up these call letters for our preaching station, "WSSO,"
and the rest of this sermon title, "Broadcasting from Downtown
Reno," before I even knew how many of this congregation are
connected to broadcast journalism! What could be more important on this
Independence weekend? Only the truth can make us free! We have got to
keep independent media, unbought, unbossed, and telling the truth, the
"real deal," not the "fake take," spreading the news
as it is, unembedded and unfettered, without manufacture or
manipulation. We have got to "speak truth to power," to
"powers that be," whoever they are.
Please come out for the 9 am study beginning next Sunday: "The
System Belongs to God!" How do we "broadcast," how do we
speak to, how do we pray for, how do we act on; in short, how do we LOVE
the powers, the principalities, the systems and structures, ideologies
and institutions that make up our everyday lives and our life together?
I mean, it's one thing to love a person. Even that may seem all we can
handle sometimes! Can I get a witness?
But what about loving a school? A neighborhood? A corporation? A
government? Even a nation? Or a United Nations? Wow! No wonder Jesus is
"organizer!" What is it we say about how to respond to a
hungry person? Give them a fish? What else? Teach them to fish for
themselves? But what if they know how to fish and cannot find room at
the pond? What if they get to the pond and all of the fish are gone? As
a much beloved and much beloving congregation, how do we love this city?
For that is our calling, our challenge, our reason to be. How do we
broadcast "good news" from downtown Reno?
What I am trying to do with these call letters is to combine loves of
congregations and of cities. How do we see in all cities the "city
of our God," as the psalmist exults this morning? Itinerant
preachers get to our congregations by way of "commissioning and
ordination" at annual conference. When couples come to me to be
married, or joined in holy union, and I take it that happens a lot
around here, I always say of what they are proposing to do, "This
is much too important to leave just to two people!" In the same
way, "commissioning and ordination" are much too important,
much too biblical, as per today's gospel, to leave just to the clergy!
Commissioning and ordination flow from the baptism of every believer!
The ministry of every member of the full body of Christ! And I believe
anyone who is baptizable also becomes commissionable and ordainable!
So I made up "WSSO" to stand for the ways in which all of
us are called by Christ and the church to "take authority," as
the disciples do here, for the ministries and the mission of our
everyday lives and our life together! "W" stands for, what?
"Word!" We take authority for the "word" of God. We
speak the truth of God for every season. For us the word is symbolized
primarily by, what? The Hebrew-Christian Bible. But we acknowledge other
"words" to other traditions, as well as the living word of a
living God, who is not done with any tradition yet, very much including
our own.
The first "S" stands for, what? "Sacraments!" The
word made flesh, embodied, for us, in Jesus, who gives us elements as
living parts of our everyday lives. In what symbols? Water and bowl for
baptism! Bread and cup for communion! Water and bowl also serve as
symbols for the second "S" in commissioning and ordaining.
What is it? "Service!" As in the way Jesus does, what? Washes
the feet of his friends! And, lastly, the "O" stands for?
"Order!" As in, "under orders," subject to being
itinerant! Commissioned and sent to the ministries and the mission of
our everyday lives. Often symbolized in our church by, what? The Book
of Discipline!
Frankly, given the state of our general church today, I believe
"order" has become too static, too fixed, too narrow a concept
and practice. "Order," as in making sure our theological
trains all run on one time and one track, is being used by some as a
weapon to keep and to force others out. But given this gospel story of
Jesus as "organizer," and the fact that Julie and I are so
formed in ministry and mission by Chicago, with its manifold
organizations, of religious tradition, of political party, of workplace,
and of community, -- I would change my "O" in this station
from "order" to "organizing!" For that is not a
weapon to keep or force anyone out. Rather, that is a tool to bring
everyone in!
Wherever we go, cries the psalmist, our God is already there! God is
our guide, our leader, our light, forever. The city of God, "new
Jerusalem" in particular, and every city of God, bears the promise
of God to live among ALL of God's children, among all of the peoples of
all of the faiths! There is a song from "The Music Man" about
how you "gotta know the territory," -- remember? Anyone able
to say it? A great song, like early "hip-hop." The psalmist
invites us to "know the territory" of God's city, its towers,
its ramparts, its citadels of all sorts. Will you please do that for
Julie and me? Help us learn the territory of Reno? All of Reno? Its
holiness, beauty, and joy of all kinds? All colors and classes,
communities and conditions? Loved by God in all kinds of ways?
We want to join you in loving this city, broadcasting good news from
downtown. Paul promises God will take our weakness and make it God's
strength. "Thorns in the flesh," in the spirit, are not an
option for us. Three times Paul asks God to take his away. Everyone has
a thorn, a weakness, one at least. Our only option is, will we be
conscious of it? Will we work with it? Will we offer it up for the glory
of God? Some of our thorns are a lot more apparent than others. Our kids
say I do not "walk" so much as I "tilt" my way
along, with my rheumatoid arthritis and with more replacements, I think,
than original parts. I am not a disabled person. There is nothing wrong
with my person, nor with anyone else's I know. I am a person with
disabilities. I cannot promise not to fall down on the job. All I can
promise, with God's help and yours, is to get up at least one more time
than I fall.
Just imagine, when God in the flesh of Jesus shows up to preach in
his home synagogue, preceded by such reputation for words and for works
of wisdom and power! The people he grew up among are so sure they know
just who he is! That carpenter! We know his mom! His brothers and
sisters! Who does he think he's fooling? Showing off God like that? He's
just one of us! Remember Joan Osborn's song? "What if God were one
of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus? Trying to
find a way home?"
Why does it scare us that God might come so near to us? Even to us?
That God might make God's own home in us? With us, among us, and through
us? For if we find God in Jesus, and if Jesus is just like us, just the
kid who grew up next door, then what does that say about us? Might God
be found in us, too? What wisdom, what power, might be available even to
us? Expected even of us? If God were one of us? Just asking. No wonder
prophets go without honor in their hometowns. It is so scary for us to
be loved and honored just as we are.
Yet Jesus commissions us, sends us out, with nothing to show for
ourselves but ourselves. No food, no money, no extra clothes, no place
to stay. Jesus sends us into the city with nothing to offer but just who
we are, and the love of the one in whose name we come. It is as if Jesus
is saying, I find myself a stranger at home. I send you out to find
yourselves at home with strangers. Whoever they are. Wherever you go. As
God's whole life is entrusted to Jesus, so Jesus' whole life is
entrusted to us. So we are commissioned and sent to entrust our whole
lives to others. Let us itinerate gladly. And let us say, Amen.
We come to Eucharist, act of Thanksgiving, for all of the gifts God
provides in all parts of our lives, and in the lives of all persons, all
peoples, all sisters and brothers in Christ. The problem is never with
God's creation of gifts but only with our distribution of them among
all. This communion is our rehearsal of the just distribution of gifts
for all persons. It is our rehearsal of the irreplaceable and
irresistible gift of Jesus for us, our memory and our hope. Let us give
thanks for all we are about to share in the name of the God who gives
mercy and grace, life and love, justice and joy, power and peace,
jubilee and shalom to us all. Julie and I give thanks for all who have
made us so welcome already, -- by your visits, your calls, your flowers,
your food, your preparations of the parsonage and of this worship, your
invitations, and your prayers.
As we welcome all visitors here, we acknowledge that we ALL are as
guests in this place we call "House of the Lord!" Jesus alone,
the crucified and the risen one, is our host at this meal! Jesus,
surrounded by all the saints, eats and drinks with us each and all. Let
us give our thanks together for all who have gone before us in this
place. Who have left us this space and this base for broadcasting good
news from downtown Reno! Let us give thanks for that unwavering line of
faithful preachers who have been appointed to us. Lord, make me, make
all of us, worthy. And let us give thanks for all who are yet to come to
this place, for all of the children of all generations of God. And,
Amen.
