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June 25, 2006
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:32, 38-49, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13,
Mark 4:35-41
“Hard Passage: Choosing Our Own Ways and Means of
Struggle”
In appreciation of what we just heard from Richard as he joined the
congregation, we are reminded that the Judicial Council (like the Supreme Court)
of our United Methodist Church recently refused to review a decision that
permits local church pastors to deny membership to persons otherwise qualified
on the basis of sexual preference or practice. Our Annual Conference now
has voted “no confidence” in the Judicial Council. I hope you join me in
the affirmation that we will not deny pastoral response or service to anyone
based on any one part of their identity as the full and good human beings God
created them to be.
Pastoral work may lead us onto all kinds of
battlefields (here with David and Goliath and the oppressors of Israel), and
into all kinds of storms (here the disciples of Jesus losing their faith to
their fear of wind and waves), through all kinds of everyday struggles – just
carrying out the “lay ministry” of the earliest church. We are paying special
tribute to lay ministries of pastoral visitation and care this summer. Just
listen to what Paul and his colleagues – all lay ministers! – go through – “in
hard times, tough times, bad times; when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed;
working hard,. working late, working without eating; . . . when we’re praised
and when we’re blamed; slandered and honored; true to our word though
distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive,
though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to
die. . .” Wow! And they don’t quit their day jobs! This is all extra, all
voluntary!!
We also just observed a moment of silence (8 AM)
or rang the church bell (10 AM) for the first 2500 American military personnel
who have died in Iraq. This, too, is first a pastoral act. All battlefields
are scenes of pastoral action. Reese and the children just superbly acted out
David and Goliath. But we know battlefields are no joke. Battlefields are no
mere images of the war. In today’s wars, battlefields are not even battlefields
– the battlefield can be anywhere and everywhere! Imagine what living with that
does to the psyches of all involved. We are privileged to be of the
congregation of Art Griffen, who spent years in ministry as a military
chaplain. We are glad for pastors like Art in such places.
We know the deep human loss, pain, anger and
grief he has dealt with. We know the issues of life and death – for all the
persons now dead (military and civilian, combatant and non-combatant), for all
the persons now wounded (living longer with more serious wounds than ever
before) – for their families, their friends, their colleagues – even for their
enemies and their killers and wounders in this war. For if we are truly
pastoral in our care, and see that “enemies” are no less essentially “human”
than anyone else, we know that anyone killing another does deep and enduring
damage to themselves. War itself, all violence and all devastation of
human and related life, raise pastoral questions and issues. These
biblical stories connect with our stories – with our battlefields and our storms
as we struggle faithfully for ways and means of our lay ministries.
Last week in worship we heard and saw the
“Juneteenth” witness in part to the “hard passage” of people made slaves from
Africa to the Americas. “Hard passage” may become a fact of each one of our
lives – as we move across tempestuous seas from whatever our forms of serenity
and security, comfort and complacency – to face the awesome challenges and
choices to live faithfully as lay ministers of Jesus Christ in our time.
Yesterday our grandson turned eight years old. Today, were my father still
living, my mother and he would be married 68 years. My father never met our
grandson. But my father had a strong sense of responsibility to “the seventh
generation,” as we say – a sense of obligation to account for the quality of the
life of the planet we pass on to all the grandchildren. When we speak of
challenges and choices of ministry and mission today, that’s how I get my heart
into it -- as well as my mind around it: I think about Aden and my dad. I am,
we are, the “hard passage” lying between their generations.
Jesus here is “passing over” from a strict
identification with the people of Israel, as he was and never stopped being a
Jew! – to an open embrace of the Gentiles on the other side, and through them,
of all peoples of all faiths everywhere. Talk about “hard passage.” How do we
give up our lives as purely private selves, and risk being joined with the
corporate self of peoples throughout the world? How do we pick and choose our
“weapons of faith,” so to speak, as David does facing Goliath – our own ways and
means of struggle to demonstrate this “common life of gratitude and devotion,
witness and service, celebration and discipleship” -- as our United Methodist
Discipline under “Ministry of All Christians” says is essential to who we
say we are? “All Christians are called through baptism to this ministry of
servanthood in the world to the glory of God and for human fulfillment.”
We all need discernment – help in knowing just how Christ by the Holy
Spirit is calling each one to this glory of God and to human fulfillment, and
support in knowing how we may respond. Discernment itself is a gift of the
Spirit – to see that each one of us, as well as groups and congregations of us
together, are given our own gifts and graces to be in ministry and in mission
for ourselves – no matter what our age, or stage, or condition in life may be!
Each one of us is somewhere, by grace, on the journey of life into faith!
Discernment in various settings and ways makes up the most vital life and basic
work of the church!
Churches as faith communities exist to help us
hear and respond to the calls and the claims, the challenges and the choices of
the Spirit of Christ -- alive and well and at work in our lives and our life as
Christ’s body! Every week in worship is another offering of our
whole lives in response to God’s gifts of life for us! When we place our
offerings in the plate each week, how might we imagine the placing of our whole
lives? Of all that we hope to be, and to do, to think and to feel, to see
and to speak, this week? Notice we will be singing a jazzier “Doxology”
this summer to wake and shake us up a little! Whether we are a part of this
congregation -- or part of another congregation -- or both! Or whether we are
not yet part of any congregation – please, may we always feel free to bring all
the questions and quests of our lives and our works to all times and spaces of
the church -- worship and fellowship, study and prayer – That’s what we’re here
for!
Please make suggestions for more ways of our
being intentional and accountable for working out the “hard passages” and
choosing the ways and means of our varying struggles to be faithful disciples of
Christ. We are learning from the great experience our confirmands had with
their mentors, and such long-term and careful membership preparation as Richard
has done with his sponsors Dennis and Susan. Hooking us up to walk with each
other in whatever ways we are ready and ask for is the way to start lasting
relationships and eventual memberships. So if you are of a mind and a heart to
ask for a sponsor, a special friend in faith journey, this morning – and if you
are a mind and a heart to be such a sponsor and friend to another -- please let
us know!
Notice how old Saul here tries to clothe young
David with Saul’s own huge, heavy, and kingly armor. We tend to take on so many
qualities of the “enemy.” Of course, even as David moved from Saul’s weapons to
his own, so in Jesus and the early church, we move even from David’s weapons to
none! When we think of a world (and a culture!) awash and at war with weapons
of every last kind today, how can we afford to despair of our all-too-prophetic
witness and action against all-too-profitable odds and oppositions? We are a
people of “Davids!” Of “Moseses!” Of “Esthers!” Of “Isaiahs!” Each standing
and acting as the one God had to have standing and acting at any particular time
and place. Sisters and brothers, we are the “ones!” We are the one-by-ones
making the whole!
No sooner does David strap Saul’s sword on over
the armor, then he cannot even take a step -- for all of the weight and the
awkwardness of trying to fill someone else’s expectations! “I cannot walk with
these,” exclaims David, “for I am not used to them!” These are not the
weapons, the tools, the ways and the means of my own experience, David is
saying. These weapons will not permit me to be who I know I am! Or to do what
I know I do best! Have I ever told you my story of how we are the experts on
our own experiences? The authorities on our own identities? Remember the woman
going to pay her bill with a check? And the clerk asking her for some ID? She
thinks a moment, reaches into her purse, pulls out a mirror, looks into it, and
affirms – “Yep! That’s me all right!” Or the state trooper who stops the
speeder in Arkansas and asks, “You got any ID?” Driver answers, “’Bout what?”
Do not let anyone else tell us, now, who we are, how we identify ourselves, what
is best for us – especially about the calling of the Spirit in our own lives --
our own spiritual process, our journey of life into faith!
Do not sell ourselves short of faith in the full promise of God – for our own
lives and for the lives of the church and the world! Do not settle for
anything other, anything less! Do not make our God too small -- in our
lives, in our hopes, in our dreams. Rather, grow into the full measure of
all who we are -- and are becoming! -- in Christ Jesus our Lord. The
smallness we feel, counsels Paul, comes from within us! Our lives are not
small – even though we may be living them in small ways. Let us open our
lives! “Live openly and expansively!”
I remember the words of Marianne Williamson
chosen by Nelson Mandela – speaking of Davids against the Goliaths of our time!
– for his first Inaugural Address –
Our deepest fear is not that we are
inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagination. It is
our light more than our darkness which scares us. We ask ourselves – who are we
to be brilliant, beautiful, talented, and fabulous. But honestly, who are you
not to be so?
You are a child of God, small games do not
work in this world. For those around us to feel peace, it is not example to
make ourselves small. We were born to express the glory of God that lives in
us. It is not in some of us, it is in all of us. While we allow our light to
shine, we unconsciously give to others permission to do the same. When we
liberate ourselves from our own fears, simply our presence may liberate others.
Let those who are growing – just growing! – even
a little!! -- in gifts and in grace -- in ministry and in mission -- in faith,
in hope, and in love – say Amen!
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