Sunday, November 28, 2010

Wait-ing for God-with-us

sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 2:1-4 Matthew 24:36-44

I want to introduce you to a quirky little group of people I first met back in the last 90s. The five of them: a dentist, two travel agents, a Dairy Queen employee, and a small time theater producer live in a small Missouri town called Blaine that claims the first alien visitation and was once famous for the stools produced there. By the time I met them, the town they lived in had become a small, depressed community clinging to its heritage just like so many communities in the Midwest, but they had a dream of putting it back on the national stage by putting on a Tony-award-worthy musical celebrating the town’s history

Over the course of several weeks, they overcome a lack of funding as well as several other obstacles (including their own lack of any real talent) and put the show together for the sesquicentennial celebrations. The real coup, though, is that using his New York connections, Corky arranged for a representative of the prestigious Oppenheimer Organization named Mort Guffman to come and watch the production. If Mr. Guffman liked the show, Corky said, they would have a good chance of taking it to Broadway.


You should know (if you haven’t figured it out yet) that this is not the real world … not exactly. This is the world of a satirical movie called “Waiting for Guffman” that has become something of a cult classic on a small scale. As the title suggests, the climax of the movie comes on opening night when the cast and crew are waiting anxiously for Mr. Guffman to show up so that they can start the show, having pinned all their hopes for a golden future on what is sure to be his good review. But Guffman is late, and so they wait and wait … and wait. And the audience waits and waits … and waits.

(pause)

That’s one kind of waiting – nervous waiting, waiting with anticipation, waiting for something that will change your life … maybe save it? Or, if you’re in the audience, it’s waiting with frustration for a distraction that you’ve been looking forward to.

(pause)

Let me tell you how the story ends. I’d hate to keep you waiting, after all.

Of course, the show has to start eventually. So, they begin, all the time keeping an eye out to see if the empty chair in the front row has been filled. Finally, just before the intermission an elderly gentleman is directed to the chair, and the cast throws everything they have into the second act. When it’s all over and they have taken their final bows, they wait eagerly in the dressing room only to discover that the man in question is not the right guy. Mr. Guffman, as it turns out, was not able to attend the show. And life goes on in Blaine – plain ordinary life, life with a little less luster for the hope unfulfilled.


Now let me introduce you to another group of wait-ers. This one is much, much bigger, and it has been growing for a long, long time. In the beginning, it was a movement of just a few thousand people spread across a lot of space, and they were waiting for a prophecy to be fulfilled. That prophesy said that Christ would return before the first generation of his followers passed away, and they interpreted it literally. So, they, too, were waiting and waiting … and waiting. Waiting together. Waiting through suffering and persecution. Waiting in poverty. Waiting with anticipation. Waiting with hope. Waiting for the promised Kingdom of peace and love foretold by the prophets and by Christ himself.

(pause)

Well, it didn’t happen. The first generation came and went, and no parousia – no second coming. And life went on in the Roman Empire, BUT … But the hope and the promise did not die. It was passed on from generation to generation, and down through the ages, believers have been waiting. At times, when prophetic reminders swayed them enough, people have sold all they own in preparation or gathered on hill tops to await the coming of the Lamb. Once, they even overthrew the government of Muster, Germany, convinced that it would become the New Jerusalem – the capital of the Kingdom that was coming.

Most of the time that hasn’t happened. Most of the time Christians have lived “normal” lives. Most of the time they have lived, in large part, like we do. They … and we find a way to muddle through: marrying and having families (if that comes our way), earning money to make ends meet, eating, drinking, sleeping, etc., etc., etc.

Each year at the beginning of Advent, we hear the story of Jesus’ birth again. Each year, we are reminded of the way God broke into the world at an unexpected time in and unexpected way. Each year we hear the promise echoing down the centuries, and we pick up the anticipation that we have left behind as the months wore on. And we get excited. And we sing hosannas. And we wonder at the strange compassion of a God who would become human and dwell with us.

And then life goes on. The trappings of Christmas are put away along with the Holiday spirit of warm generosity, and we take up the task of making it through another year – paying bills (sometimes too big), losing the weight we may have gained, shoveling the snow, and all the rest. And, the anticipation wanes. The hope stays with us, but the sense of expectation fades away.

(pause)

It’s hard to hold onto a sense of expectation. As days and weeks pass we get a sort of “anticipation fatigue.” Our emotional, spiritual, and physical selves get tired of being held at the ready. We come to expect that nothing will change, and we fall back into old patterns - senses dulled, sense of wonder submerged, both overwhelmed by our sense that God’s timing is inexplicable. It is hard to stay alert, especially when you don’t know what is coming or when it will arrive.

That makes it particularly hard to follow the implied command that Jesus gives to his disciples in the guise of a metaphor. “If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

How does one do that? How do you prepare for an unknown thief who will come at an unknown time? Do you put in an alarm system, giving it your confidence and giving the thief time to figure out how to circumvent it? Do you hire security guards to watch around the clock, knowing that they will eventually succumb to the same fatigue I mentioned earlier? Would any of that really work against someone determined to get in?


When I was in elementary school, I participated in the Olympics of the Mind (it’s Odyssey of the Mind now … the International Olympic Committee objected to the name). It’s a program that challenges students to solve problems in creative ways, and one of the things they focus on is teaching you to think outside the box. It’s a useful skill, and it’s kind of fun. For example, one task we were given was to name as many keys as we could. The straightforward answers, of course, are things like car keys and house keys, but there are also monkeys and the Florida Keys. I think you can see how kids might enjoy this kind of challenge.

Apply this way of thinking to the question of being ready for a thief. What do you come up with?

(pause)

(I’ll give you a break. You haven’t had much time to think after all.) Here are a couple of ideas that I came up with.

You could leave your home completely unlocked and keep nothing there that someone would want to take. Or you could put up a sign inviting everyone who comes to your home to come in and join you for tea (I’m so sure that one would always work). Or you could work at changing the world around you so that nobody would need to take things from other people.

All three of those ideas require us to think and live in a different way, but isn’t that really what Jesus was challenging us with in his teaching and his living? Remember all those “you have heard it said …, but I say to you …” statements in the Sermon on the Mount. Loving enemies, turning the other cheek, and welcoming the stranger are all still huge reversals in our thinking today. The idea that in the Kingdom of Heaven the poorest, most despised members of society might have the highest status, if you really think about it, still defies our expectations – at least if the way we live is any indication. Yet these things define how we understand our dreams of the ultimate future and our lives as disciples in the present. These are the visions that we get so excited about when Advent comes along. They are the reality at the heart of the promise we hope for and wait for with or without an urgent sense of anticipation.


Often when modern pastors or theologians talk about Christian living we try to verb nouns. We characterize faith as not just a thing we have but a way that we live. We disciple people on their faith journeys. We belong people into the congregation even before they share our beliefs. But in this case, we might do well to noun a verb. Let us take the verb “wait” out of our everyday lives where it becomes a placid, tedious pause empty of action and make it something more exciting. We won’t even have to make up a new meaning. We just need to return to an old one.

“Wait,” as a noun, once meant a night watchman and developed over time into a name for a band of musicians who go around the streets during the Christmas season playing carols. What if we became a wait of sorts, wandering the streets around us while singing out the good news that God came to live with us and will come to be with us once more?

What if we went a bit farther … made our wait a little more hands on? We could share our wealth with those in need. We could care for those who are sick and alone. We could reach out with compassion to those that society despises. We could shine the light of hope and promise into the darkness of despair that sometimes seems to be overwhelming the world.

In that way, we would be living into being in a small way the promise of what is to come. We would be anticipating the Kingdom of God by living as if it were already here – as if peace, love, justice and mercy already ruled the world. And when God’s time is fulfilled, we will be ready and wait-ing to welcome the Son of Man among us.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Willing and Stirred. Building and Becoming.

Celebration Sunday sermon
by Carrie Eikler
Exodus 35:20-29

Who here likes to sing?

Who loves to sing?

I like to sing, there's no doubt about it.

But if you had the choice between hearing me belt out a solo, or say, Marge or Cindy, or Jacob Lewellen sing a solo, you wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you choice one of the Lewellen’s.

And I'm not saying I'm a bad singer, I'm not. I have a decent, steady alto voice (emphasis on decent).

But I was humbled, as I stood next to Elesha Coffman last Sunday at choir practice.whoa. I mean, I can sing…but she can sing.

It was enough to make me want to lower my enthusiastic warbling and let her be the entire alto section

Singing is not my gift. It's more like a stocking stuffer--a nice bonus, but not what gets kids out of bed at 5 oclock on Christmas morning.

I sing because I like to. I'm in the choir because I'm willing. It's not my most favorite thing to do.

If you gave me the choice between choir practice and having the same people around a dinner table for a meal I cooked, I'd probably choose the meal. Sorry, Cindy, but there you have it.

I'm willing to sing in choir. I’m happy to do it.

Bring people around the table? That’s my passion. That’s what stirs my soul.

Willing and stirred.

Before the temple was built in Jerusalem, we have the wandering Hebrews, following Moses, taking their place of worship with them. The tabernacle…a mobile synagogue of sorts.

And the people are bringing their very best offerings…what their hearts were willing to give, but also, what their spirits were stirred to give.

Out of all the scriptural allusions about individuals bringing their gifts to the building up of the reign of God, this is my favorite. Because in a way, it’s not just about building, it’s about becoming the people of God.

It’s about making it beautiful, …a celebration…a stirring of souls
In your hands, you have chosen a beautiful object. For some reason you were drawn to it. Think of this as your gift, a symbol of what stirs you, what it is in this world makes your spirit find its home as you wander and navigate through life. Take a moment, and feel this gift that God has given you.
What stirs you?

[pause]
Call me a cynic, but I believe much of what is done in our congregation, and in many congregations, are done with willing hearts.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have willing workers, or nothing would get done. But done with a spirit that is stirred?…I have a feeling that is done elsewhere.

I’d venture to guess that for many of you, your stirring is seen most clearly and passionately…somewhere else.

Not in the confines of this church building, or on leadership teams, or in meetings.

Maybe it is, but I would guess that if you looked at where you lived most passionately, excitedly…where you were stirred by God’s gifts, it is probably out in your everyday life, where you spend your free time (free time?), your hobbies, your activities…

Your spirits are probably stirred elsewhere

[pause]
And AMEN FOR THAT! Thank you, for offering your gifts to God in the world.
THANK YOU for stirring the spirit among your neighbors, or co-workers, or children, or friends.

THANK YOU for uncovering God out there where God has always been and meeting Christ in the messy and marvelous world, in the broken and blessed world. THANK YOU!
And we as a congregation, made up of diverse people have them as well. It can be a joy and a challenge to see what beautiful addition we might bring as an offering. And while we know we have gifts, it’s all too easy to measure our gift against the gift of other congregations, isn’t it. In the same way compare our individual gifts to others.

We’re not the biggest.

But we welcome the stranger.

You don’t see our church name on hip coffeeshops or billboards or leaflets handed out at parades.

But you do see our members involved in their communities doing the work of justice and peace and beauty.

We shy away from the word evangelism,

but we relish in the word outreach.

We get nervous about the word conversion,

but ponder the significance of transformation.

I don’t hear many of you talk about “personal relationship with Jesus ”
but I’ve seen you sit with each other in love while you struggle to understand how to be a disciple of Christ .

But above all, even if you are simply a willing participant in this church, I believe that this congregation feeds and encourages the stirrings of each of your souls, so you can be the church in the world. We give you strength for the journey.

And I hope that is why you give yourself to this congregation. Not because you are simply willing, but because you are reminded to attend to Christ in the world…in your own soul…to remind you that you are blessed.

Would you agree?

These are our gifts. This is what we bring to the building up of God’s kingdom, this is us becoming the people of God.

In his book, A Hidden Wholeness Parker Palmer speaks about farmers on the Great Plains who would tie a rope from their house to their barn at the first sight of a blizzard.

Occasionally people would freeze to death by simply going to their barns in the middle of a blizzard.

Believing they could find their way back to their homes in the whiteout of snow they would become stranded in their own backyards.

But if they had a rope, it would guide them safely in the midst of the swirling storm.

When I try to flesh out our gifts, have a visual of what we are becoming, it is this image that comes to me, most clearly.

God has made us, as a congregation, into a very good rope.

This rope which leads its members out into the storm and guides them back to the heart of God. That is the offering we bring.

All of us, with our different stirrings, and willing hearts, travel this rope to show God’s peace, love, and grace to a world a wash in a blizzard.

arker Palmer reflects on the importance of such a rope. It helps us catch sight of the soul, the heart of God.

He says, “When we catch sight of the soul, we can survive the blizzard without losing our hope or our way. When we catch sight of the soul, we can become healers in a wounded world—in the family, in the neighborhood, in the workplace—as we are called back to our “hidden wholeness” amid the storms.

As you offer your gifts to the world, we are the rope that helps you catch sight of your soul.

During our time of communion later in the service, you’ll have a chance to attach your gift to an actual rope: Making it beautiful, giving it color and texture, weaving it with your gifts.

Until that time, hold your gift throughout the service and pour into it your prayers, and your hope for our congregation as we hear stories and sing songs celebrating who we are as a congregation.

May God continue to bless us…and celebrate us…in the journey.

As we give thanks to the one who created us and blessed us. Alleluia and Amen.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

It Takes All Sorts

sermon by Torin Eikler
I Corinthians 3:5-11 John 21:4-17

Do you love me? … Feed my lambs.

I don’t know how many of you are very familiar with sheep. I am not … though I have petted the odd ewe here and there, and I have the same “aaww” reaction as most people when I see young lambs stumbling around trying to find their land legs. Usually, I think of them (when I think of them) as pretty dumb animals that just follow the herd from food to water to shelter and back again on their way to becoming sweaters for our backs and chops for our tables. But a few years ago, I heard a sermon all about sheep at one of the Laurelville gatherings we attended, and I learned more about sheep in those 30 minutes than I ever really wanted to know.

As it turns out, sheep are actually quite intelligent. They can be trained almost as well as dogs if one has a mind to do it, and they will recognize their names and come when called (quite valuable, I’m sure, though I don’t really see the advantage to having a 300 pound, hoofed animal in your house). They have excellent memories and can return to pastures or water sources on their own even years after they were there before. They know how to stay safe, for the most part, and shelter themselves from the cold or wind by standing in a crowd and taking turns on the inside where it’s warm and dry. They also recognize faces and have been known to reject a shepherd if that person was unwise enough to shave his beard or dramatically change her hair style.

I also learned a lot about shepherds that day. They may be rough around the edges, but they have always been some of the most skilled and trusted artisans in the world of husbandry. The idyllic image of the shepherd boy sleeping away the day under a tree is not at all related to reality. Shepherding is more than just guiding a flock from pasture to pasture. It also meant living of the land as often as not – finding food, water, and clothing in the wilderness areas where the sheep grazed. And then there were the other things that go into taking care of sheep: helping ewes lamb, stitching wounds and treating disease, carrying sheep that went lame, collecting the wool, and helping animals beyond help ease into death. On top of all that, shepherds are often required to put themselves in harm’s way in order to rescue strays or protect the herd from predators or poachers. The job of a shepherd requires a huge range of skills and a lot of love and dedication.

There was a lot more that I don’t remember, but even this much is enough to make me much happier with Jesus’ tendency to call all of us sheep and himself the shepherd. It is nice to know that he doesn’t mean for us to be mindless, placid beasts herded around until it’s time for us to go to the butcher. He loves us and he wants much more than that for and from us, and it’s comforting to realize that the last thing he expressed to his disciples – and Peter in particular – was his desire to have someone take his place, feeding and caring for us in his place.


Do you love me? …. Tend my sheep.

The thing is ... tending the sheep of Christ is a lot bigger job than feeding lambs. It may have started off okay, but as the followers of the way grew in number and began to spread out from Jerusalem, it became harder and harder for Peter to care for them, even with the help of the other eleven disciples (Matthias having replaced Judas to make up the number). It quickly became clear that more people were needed.

It started with the appointment of seven people called to serve the needs of the poor and the widows in the community. Then there were apostles sent out to proclaim the gospel among those who had not yet heard it. Paul came along and was eventually given authority to work with the gentile believers. And as the numbers of the faithful increased, the central council in Jerusalem grew to more than fifty members in order to keep up. Eventually leaders were named in local communities and others were given the task of traveling around various regions, providing oversight, inspiration, and further teaching to the churches under their care.

Seeing to all the various needs of a spread out group made up of people from all classes and all walks of life is more than just a few people who were more suited to lives devoted to prayer and preaching the word of God. Tending an ever increasing flock takes a whole community of people with different gifts and talents spread out among the sheep. Faithfully building up the church on the foundation laid by Christ takes many hands and hearts and voices.

This is nothing new to us. Many of you have heard the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child,” and similarly, it takes a community to build a church – and by that I don’t mean a building. Anabaptists have always been particularly attentive to this truth, but Christians the world over have understood the reality that William T. Ham expressed when he said, “there are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them.”

Consider this fable brought back by Mennonite mission workers in Mongolia….
Batzorig lived with his mother and four brothers in a tent on the steppes of Mongolia. They were together all the time, and even more so in the winter when the frosty weather kept them inside most of the day. Batzorig was the youngest of the brothers and the others teased him all of the time. One day it was too much for him, and he stomped out of the tent where he lived in embarrassment and anger.
Outside the protection of the hide walls, the wind was fierce, and in no time at all, Batzorig was shivering, his nose made red from its icy touch whipping past him. Then he heard his mother’s voice calling from behind him, “Batzorig! Come inside; it’s too cold out there! Batzorig!”
Even though he didn’t want to, Batzorig turned slowly and walked toward his mother. She gathered him in through the door flap, and they went inside the warm tent together. Batzorig immediately began to glare at his brothers as they sat around the warm fireplace talking and laughing happily, but before he could say anything, his mother handed him an arrow, which he took respectfully with both hands. Each of his brothers did the same when she came around to them.
“I want you to break this arrow,” the mother told her sons. The crisp sound of arrows breaking filled the tent … snap … snap … snap … snap … snap … as each of the brothers broke his arrow in turn. Then she gathered up the broken arrows. She handed the whole bunch to one of her sons and told him to break the cluster of arrows. Try as he might he could not, and when he gave up, she handed the bundle to the next son, asking the same thing of him. Each of the brothers tried in turn, and none of them could break the arrows.
At this, the mother said, “You all have the same mother. Listen to me. Just as you were able to easily break the one arrow, if you go ahead divided and separate, you, too, will find your strength fails you. But, like the cluster of arrows, if you are together, you will not easily be broken.”

If we are to be the church, the body of Christ, then we must walk together in community, supporting each other, leaning on the arms of brothers and sisters in our times of struggle and offering our own arms to meet another’s need when her path leads down a dark and difficult road. No one of us can make our spiritual journey alone. We need each other. If we are to be faithful to the Christ we follow, the Christ who has loved us and loves us still, the Christ we love, then we must build each other up, tending to one another in love so that, together, we can serve each other and the world as Christ has taught us. It’s not just some Peter’s job. It belongs to all of us.


Do you love me? … Feed my sheep.

Now here’s a question … just who are the sheep? Are they you and me? Are they all of us Anabaptists? All of us Christians? Is it what one believes or how one lives that makes that person a sheep? Who do you think the Christ who lived and died for the sake of all humanity – even all creation – would see as part of his flock?


I think you know the answer. The shepherd spends time and energy, sometimes risking everything to restore even one weak, suffering sheep or to reach the member of the flock that has wondered off into danger and bring it back home. If the people Jesus spent his time and energy … his very life to restore – prostitutes, tax collectors, blind, lame, dirty, possessed, leprous outcasts – are any indication, I think it’s safe to say that everyone is a sheep. And if the task of tending the sheep belongs to all of us – to the gathered body of Christ, then we are called to be caring for all of God’s children.


So what does that mean? It could mean that we are to tend the spiritual needs of those around us. I haven’t spoken much about that this morning, but it’s the traditional interpretation of Jesus’ commission to Peter. We are to bind up the wounds of those who have suffered spiritual injuries. We are to ease the pain and distress of those in despair. We are to comfort and support the weak and the lost, shepherding them – sometimes carrying them - on to those green pastures beside still water. And, we are to help bring forth new life: welcoming brothers and sisters new to the body of Christ, searching out and naming gifts and talents, and encouraging … calling … sometimes even pulling one another forward along new paths in our spiritual journeys.

That’s part of it – a big part, I think … but Jesus used such down to earth imagery and spent so much of his time caring for people’s bodies that I don’t think we can completely spiritualize this tending/feeding/shepherding thing. When people don’t get basic needs like food or love or protection met, they tend to focus their energy on those needs. Sometimes, that includes turning more and more toward God. More often it doesn’t, and if we aspire to tend people’s spiritual needs, we need to meet their physical and emotional needs first … or at least at the same time.

We need to feed people when they are hungry. We need to care for people who are sick or injured or lonely or depressed. We need to help people find safety and security (physical and emotional). That’s the other part of our task – the other part of our calling as followers of the Christ we love.

That’s big – that task of feeding the lambs. This calling to tend Christ’s sheep, when we look at the whole of it, it’s really big and really overwhelming … for any one or two or three of us. But just as there were others to help do the work in Peter’s time, there are more than just a few of us. There is more than just this congregation. The body of Christ spans the globe and reaches out to our communities with myriad hands, and we are all fellow workers in God’s field. We are all fellow workers building up the Realm of God one stone – one person at a time.

The true gift, the grace of God for our mission is that we don’t have to take it all on. We don’t have to start at the beginning. The foundation has already been laid … and by a builder far more skilled than any of us. We don’t have to work alone, for we are many and the Spirit moves and breathes into the work and the workers alike inspiring, refreshing, and steadying all of it and all of us along the way.

Each one of us builds in a different way. Each of us has our own sense of God’s work in this world and our own way to lend it a hand. And we work together as we build; doing what is ours to do as others do what is theirs to do. And we tend the sheep together, offering our own strength and compassion to meet the needs of the Children of God in our midst.

And in the end, whenever our struggles and frustrations threaten discouragement or our successes and accomplishments bring complacency, Christ appears on our shoreline, tends our needs, and asks … do you love me?