Yokes and Burdens

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 9 – Year A

July 6, 2014

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

[Jesus said:] "But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
     'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
         we wailed, and you did not mourn.'
"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is indicated by her deeds."

At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Over the last few weeks I have been able, because of my knee still being in recovery mode, to indulge in one of my little joys and spend a fair amount of time watching the World Cup. I know that soccer is not the American past-time, and there are many people who just don't get it, but for me there are few sports that rival it for pure athleticism and drama. Both of the girls are getting to an age where they will sometimes sit still for a few minutes with me and watch a bit of a game. Inevitably, that brings about questions. Why this? Why that? What happens when...? Why did he just.....? It's been challenging at times for me to remember all the rules of soccer to explain the game play in way that a child's mind can understand.

You would think that soccer is a pretty simple game: unless you are the goalie, you can't touch the ball, you can't kick the other player before you kick the ball, and you score when the ball goes into the net. If only it were truly that simple. When I was in high school I helped out with our high school girls team, and let me tell you trying to remember all the rules when you are running up and down the field as a referee trying to blow the whistle at the right times, trying to figure out if that really was a foul when she went flying through the air, was that a handball? It was tough. I really wasn't a very good referee; I loved to play the game, but having to focus on all the rules just wasn't my cup of tea.

I love games. Whether it's a simple game of 'HORSE' with a basketball, a game of Monopoly, a card game, or even more complicated board games. I love games. I have a closet full of games. One thing I don't like though is when I have to spend hour upon hour learning all the rules of how to play a game. Give me a game with 3 or 4 pages of instructions, I'm okay. I once played a game whose instruction book was over 20 pages. We spent more time in the game referring to the instructions than playing the game. My friends and I played it a few times, but it wasn't long before we were so annoyed with how complicated it was that we moved on to more easily understood options.

Rules can be crazy sometimes. So often it seems as if people take something really simple, and through a bunch of rules they make it really, really complicated. Sometimes, you seriously have to wonder if all the rules and guidelines actually are counter-productive to the process. Now it seems as if everything in life has rules to it. In order to drive a car, you need to know all the rules of the road for the written and driving tests. Don't pass, and no license. But, how many of us would be able to pass it now, after we've been driving for years? Would you be willing to take a test on the spur of the moment with your license at stake?

And then there are all the different electronic devices and pieces of technology that surround us more and more every day. Thirty years ago the joke was if you wanted to set the time on your VCR, you asked your kids to do it. Nowadays, our kids grow up with cellphones and I-pads in their hands, the internet and computers are their natural playground. And the rest of us wonder how to just heat up our coffee in the microwave without blowing something up! I think it's safe to say that all the technology and electronics, all the rules about how to do things, rather than making life easier have ended up making it more difficult at times. It's become a burden to us.

This is the Fourth of July weekend it's natural for us to look back historically and see how the colonists rebelled against the British Empire because of the rules that were being enforced upon them. Now, to the British, I'm sure all those expectations and requirements made perfect sense. But, to the good people of Boston, it was enough to make them throw all their tea into the harbor; it was enough to prompt a fledgling nation to fight for freedom. Life here is, according to our founding documents, about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (And, the millions upon millions of pages of laws and legal interpretations do nothing to make things more complicated!)

In recent years there has been a growing cry within the United States to lesson the number of laws and regulations that govern our lives here. The laws that have given us our very freedom, have come to be seen by people as being burdensome and heavy-handed. Whether we feel that way or not, I think we can all agree that it would be nice to be able to fill out our tax forms without having to worry about being audited because we overlooked some obscure statute.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." I'm not sure, but how often do you think of your faith as being easy, the burden being light? Sure, without question there are times when it's easy. The whole: thou shalt not kill is pretty easy. But, umm, honoring your parents, not coveting the new lawnmower your neighbor just bought. Those are a little tougher. And then there are all the other things that our culture seems to have decided go along with our faith – but, not everyone agrees.

For some, drinking alcohol is a sin. For some, a tithe is required at church. For some, divorce isn't an issue. For some, contraception goes against their faith and morals. For some, the clothes you wear are determined by your church. I don't think we've moved very far beyond the many rules and expectations that fill Leviticus and Deuteronomy. All of us have created our own rules for our lives and our faith. And, then we often look around and see who is living up to our standards. We're like the children on the playground Jesus talks about who expect everyone to dance when they play happy music, and wail in grief when they played funeral music. If they don't dance when we want, or don't wail when we think is appropriate, we get mad and often judge them accordingly.

“On one side we see people who are more conservative than we are and we think that they are being too strict. And we may wonder whether they have some kind of mental illness. On the other side we see people who are more progressive and we think they are being too lax. And we may condemn them for having loose morals.” “On the surface of things, it can seem that we’re incredibly ambiguous about spiritual matters, first condemning those who are too conservative, then condemning those who are too liberal. But in reality, we’re like children who can’t make up their minds what they want, because what they really want is just to dictate your actions. When we make religion a matter of following rigid rules, we essentially make ourselves the measure of all things spiritual. That’s an incredible burden to bear. It’s bad enough when we define religion by rigid rules; but when we make ourselves the measure of godliness, that’s a heavy burden indeed.”¹

Jesus calls out to us, asks us, to take his yoke, and that the yoke is not a burden, that it is light. Now, a yoke is an instrument placed upon the neck and shoulders of an animal to allow the animal to be used and guided. It can't be too light, or the animal won't recognize it's there. It can't be too heavy either, or the animal will be burdened by the weight of the yoke and unable to work. A light yet strong yoke is desired. Now, a yoke isn't just used for guiding an animal, it also makes it possible for the animal to do its task. Without a proper yoke, the oxen could not pull the cart, could not plow the field. A yoke not only serves as a controlling guide, but it's also a tool to allow a task to be completed.

Jesus, in our text, points out that the very people he was talking to had created their own standards of what was right and wrong, John the Baptist didn't fit their image, and neither did Jesus. One was too rigid, one was too loose. The people were all about their own expectations, they had become ruled by the rules that guided their faith. Rather than faith being a source of life for them, life was being defined by the rules they followed.

Jesus, though, doesn't want this for his disciples. He doesn't want us to be obsessed and controlled with worrying about what is right or wrong, about deciphering laws and expectations regarding the way we live – what we can drink, whether we can smoke, how we understand the role of marriage and family. That would be a heavy burden to bare, constantly having to check with the latest interpretation of what is and what is not allowed. Jesus declares his burden is light, his yoke is light.

His yoke is love. Love is to be our guiding force, love is to be the thing that enables us to do what we are called to do. We are called to love others as we ourselves would like to be loved. We are called to serve others in their need, as we ourselves would desire to be served if we were in need. It's not a long list of rules. It's not about a liberal or a conservative understanding of the Bible or theology. It's about love. It's about allowing the one who took the weight of the cross upon his back in love to empower us to take love out into the world in his name. It's not about worrying whether we measure up to another person's standards, or if they measure up to ours. It's about letting go of that burden, and allowing the burden that Jesus carried to the cross free us to love. It's about worrying less about how we actually love, and allowing ourselves to just love. In that is freedom, in that is release, in that is life. Amen.

1http://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2011/07/lay-down-your-burden-mt.html

What are we afraid of?

Second Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 7 – Year A

June 22, 2014

Matthew 10:24-39
[Jesus said:]
"A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!
"So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
"For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

What are you afraid of? There are lots of things that people are afraid of. Some people are terrified of spiders or snakes. Some people are scared to death of heights. Some people are afraid of deep, open water. Others are afraid of being attacked by sharks (even in the Mississippi River). Some people are overly scared of being robbed in their homes. Some people are incapable of speaking in front of a crowd of people. All of us are afraid of different things; sometimes really afraid, and sometimes just a little bit uneasy. Now, don't tell my kids (who think I'm pretty brave), but there are things that make me really uncomfortable, there are things that freak me out more than a little bit, and there are things that I'm downright afraid of. Me, I'm afraid of heights. I really, really don't like roller coasters. One of my biggest fears is being paralyzed, the thought of not being able to use my arms or legs scares me to no end.

Those are the fears we are willing to share with others. Then there are the fears we keep to ourselves. The fear of people finding out our deepest secrets, the things we fight hardest to keep from being seen. We don't want people to see how uncomfortable we are in crowded rooms. We don't want people to know how depressed we are. We don't want people to know our confidence is actually a cover for our feelings of inadequacy. We don't want people to know about how our kids are doing in school. We don't want people to know the things we did when we were in college. We don't want people to know how rocky our marriage really is. We don't want people to know how unhappy we are. And, we are terrified of people knowing the truth.

Fear is a powerful and controlling emotion. All of us from birth on are essentially taught to fear. Worry about our survival, worry about how the actions of others will impact our ability to survive and live the way we want. Fear is used by politicians to manipulate us. Fear is often used by parents to control their children, and by children to control their parents.

Pretty much every fear we have is in some way related to dying. Often it has to do with truly dying; like being shot, or falling off a cliff, or drowning. But, often it has to do with somehow losing the life we are so attached to. Losing the friendships we have cultivated, the job we have had for years, the status in our community, the love and respect of our families. We're scared to death that if they were to find out what we have so carefully hidden away, our lives as we have come to know them would come to an end. Fear can be a powerful thing.

Our text from Matthew talks about fear. It talks about the fear that was being experienced in the early church by the first Christians. No one knows for sure if these words were truly spoken by Jesus, or if they were put in Jesus' mouth by Matthew so that the early church would hear a word of comfort in the midst of the persecution they were experiencing. Whether Jesus spoke the words or not, doesn't matter as much as the message that is delivered: why are you afraid of what others say, of even death itself, your lives have been bought and paid for, salvation is yours. As children of God heaven is your destiny, do not be afraid, stand strong and be of good faith.

How often are you in fear because of your faith? For us in this country, fear that comes from what you believe, from what church you go to isn't common. That is, unless you happen to be a member of a minority faith within a community that is far from welcoming. Think about the Islamic communities that have had their mosques burned down around this country. Think about the hate that was directed at churches in the south that opened their doors to non-whites only 50 years ago. Think about the messages of hate that were received by our own denomination because of our willingness to allow congregations to follow their conscience in matters of sexuality and gender.

Taking a stand for what you believe can indeed be scary. Are you fearful of because of your faith? How often when your asked about the weekend you had do you mention you were in church on Sunday? How often when you are out on Saturday night, do you excuse yourself early letting people know you have to be up for church in the morning? How often when you are asked do you proudly declare the church you attend? How often do you duck your head and try to hide when the conversation of religion comes up? I know I sometimes find myself trying to avoid having to say or admit that I go to church every Sunday, that I am a pastor. What am I afraid of? What are you afraid of?

I know that I'm afraid of being lumped into some generic category that the public has created for Christians and pastors. A category that declares that we all must believe the same things, act in the same way, think the same things about the Bible, about the church, about our sisters and brothers in faith and in other faiths; and if we don't hold to those same beliefs and standards we are not really pastors. I'm scared that if the truth were known I would have to stick my neck out and defend myself, defend my faith, get into a theological fight over doctrine or polity; maybe it's safer for people to simply assume I'm just some guy sitting in a coffee shop working on “The Great American Novel”.

It's not that I'm ashamed of my faith, or my church. To the contrary, I love the church I'm a member of, I appreciate the stances that have been taken by the United Church of Christ. I can easily defend why I hold the positions I do on divisive issues. What I'm afraid of is being judged, being excluded, losing a status (real or perceived) because I don't fit into someone else's nice little box they have created. I'm not afraid they will literally stone me, or drive me out of town; I'm in fear of what could happen to my position of importance in their mind. It's not something I'm proud of, and something I am working to change.

Jesus declares that he didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. That faith in him brings division. Is it division that must separate us though? Is it possible that when Jesus speaks of how he has come to set parents and children against one another, how families will be divided, that he does not want it to be understood as division meaning hate? There are lots of things that my wife and I are divided on: I like beer, she doesn't. She loves to go to concerts, I don't. I like to sleep with the ceiling fan off, she wants it on. We are divided, we both know the differences we have. We respect each other for those differences, and we would never say that either one of us was more right than the other.

Pretty much everyone in the world likes music. We like to hum along with songs, sing along with the radio, we all have our favorite hymns. We all like music, in that we are united. But, we all have our favorite types of music, our favorite groups, our favorite songs, our favorite radio stations. If there was only one station to listen to on the radio, there would be a lot of people who would be upset. Our faith is like music. Regardless of the specific shape it takes, our belief in God is common, just like our love of music. It's in the specifics that things begin to be different. It's in the rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies, the words, the instruments played that we are differentiated, we are divided. To not be true to our love of a specific type of music would likely make most of us more than a little depressed. God desires us to sing the song of faith that is deepest in our hearts.

Jesus wants us all to take a stand for what we believe, for the faith that we have. And in so doing we will be divided, we will declare our differences of opinion between ourselves and others. But, we will also be being true to ourselves and the personal revelation and understanding of God that we each have. Jesus desires that our faith be something that is an active, powerful, influencing part of our lives. Jesus wants us to declare our faith as the reason we do the the things we do, hold the positions we do. Not, so we can declare ourselves as different, or better than others. No, but that we may be more fully who we are, allow God to be more active in our lives. In that there will be division, but the divisions need not divide. As sisters and brothers in Christ, we are not all alike, but we are still united as family. We do not, and we need not all agree on everything, but we agree on what is most important: that in Jesus, God acted in a unique and powerful way that has transformed our lives both here in this world and in the world to come.

Jesus does not bring peace because he calls into question all the allegiances we have and are controlled by: the families we were raised in, the churches we came to faith in, the communities we have come to call home. Do we trust in those powers or in Jesus? Which controls us? Are we controlled by what others have told us is right or wrong? What others have told us a good Christian believes, how they act? Are we controlled by the interpretations of scripture by others (including the pastor), or do we trust in Jesus? Do we trust in the Bible, or do we trust in Jesus? Where is our trust? What are we so afraid of? What are you so afraid of? Listen for the song of faith God has placed in your heart, and sing it out. Amen.

Light in the Darkness

Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2014

Genesis 1:1-2: 4a (translation from The Tanakh)

When God began to create heaven and earth— the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water— God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. God called the expanse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good. And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that this was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night; they shall serve as signs for the set times—the days and the years; and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to dominate the night, and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that this was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” God created the great sea monsters, and all the living creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms, and all the winged birds of every kind. And God saw that this was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fertile and increase, fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so. God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good. And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was so. And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done. Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created.

Have you ever been in a room that was completely and totally dark? I’m not talking about a room where the lights are off, the shades drawn, the door closed. Not, I mean completely dark. I’m talking about being in a room where there isn’t even a sliver of light anywhere, where there isn’t that muted darkness that we most often speak about as dark. If you’ve ever been in a room that dark, in a place that dark, how did you feel? Did you feel safe, did you feel comfortable? For most people, complete and total darkness is not something that brings with it comfort. In fact, for most people, being in a place of complete and total darkness is terrifying. Darkness is cold, impersonal uncomfortable.

I would wager that most of us probably sleep with a little bit of light somewhere. Maybe it’s a night light – whether in our room or just outside in the hallway. Maybe it’s a sliver of light that peaks itself around the curtains from a light outside. Maybe it’s the glow of a clock. Maybe it’s the glow of a television that scatters the darkness. Both of our girls like to sleep with a light on. We tried early on having them sleep in darkness, but it didn’t work. In the beginning it mainly didn’t work for us. When they were much younger and cried at 2 o’clock in the morning and we tried to make our way to their side in darkness, we tended to bring our toes into contact with doors, or dressers, or the legs of beds; and that contact was not gentle. The darkness of the room sometimes caused us to use some rather dark language in response to our stubbed toes and banged knees. It was just easier (and far less painful for us) to have a light of some kind in the girls room. Now, they sleep with night lights on. If we forget to turn on the light, we are definitely reminded to do something about it. Light, the presence of light in a dark room is comforting, light is good.

That’s the way the beginning of the creation story ends, ‘God saw that the light was good.’ Light is good; and it makes sense then that the opposite would be true: darkness is bad. Light good, dark bad. It reminds me of the old western movies, of the Lone Ranger, or Roy Rogers; the good guys wore white hats, while the bad guys wore black ones. It was an easy way to see in a glance who was good, who was bad. That works great until a bad guy decides to put on a white hat, or Batman puts on an all-black costume, then our nice little order that we create dissolves into chaos.

Most theologians speak about the creation story as one of ordering chaos. Darkness and water were both seen by ancient people as being chaotic. In the first few verses of Genesis we find both water and darkness combined; an image more chaotic to an ancient person than darkness covering the face of the deep, darkness covering the immensity of waters, would be hard to come up with. God creates, breaks into the chaos, breaks into the darkness; light pierces the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it, a sense of order enters into the chaos.

I think it’s safe for me to say that most of us find order to be far more comfortable than chaos. That when we are surrounded by chaos, by things that just aren’t working right we are far from being at ease. However, when we are in a situation that seems ordered, where we know what is going to happen, or what should happen, suddenly we feel better, we feel much more at ease, comfortable, comforted by the relative lack of chaos.

According to Genesis, God came into a universe that was chaotic, without form and feature, and brought structure and reason. God came into the chaos that had been, and created an order that God himself declared ‘good.’ Life can often seem like whatever it was before God acted, a little chaotic, a little dark; it might be hard to see the order around us; and that’s when we look to the continuing breaking in of God into this universe, this world, our lives.

When we think about God, when we think about the ways that God breaks into our lives, that is one of the times when it’s easy to see God fully. Today is trinity Sunday. Last week we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, today we remind ourselves of the fullness of God: traditionally referred to as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God breaks into our lives in each person of the Godhead, and in each one we see more of who God is, and understand ourselves and our relationship to God just a little bit more.

Paul reminds us and the church in Corinth of this when he writes: “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” The grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Grace, that free gift of God that is given to us without us having first done anything to be deserving of it. Grace, the gift from God that keeps on giving. Jesus came to save us simply because we needed to be saved, not because we had done something right, not because we had prayed hard enough or followed the right commandments, or recognized him as Lord. No, he came and did all that he did for us before we had done anything, before we knew who he was, before we had come to love him. Grace, salvation, was opened up to us while we still didn’t have a clue we needed to be saved.

The grace of Jesus was offered to us through the incredible love of God. We all know what John 3 says,” For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (vs. 16,17). God’s love was so intense for us that it would not even allow him to keep his own beloved Son from suffering. God’s love reaches out and embraces us, brings us in from where we have been and claims us as his own. God’s love for his creation has never ceased or diminished since he named it good.

We have been claimed, and in our claiming we have been named God’s children, and have become sisters and brothers. Through the love of God we are claimed, and through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit we are united. That’s really what that word communion means that Paul uses: united. Through the Spirit we come together in communion, we come together in fellowship we come together with one another and with God. The Holy Spirit is that glue that connects us. It opens up our hearts, minds, and eyes to see God more fully, and to see those around us. The Holy Spirit helps us to break down the barriers that keep us apart, those walls and boundaries we are so fond of creating as humans; those things we like because we can then define who is on our side of the boundary and who isn’t. The Holy Spirit helps us to see beyond those walls, it helps us to see that the barriers are of our creating, and as such against God’s will. It helps us to reach out, when our human parts tell us to keep to ourselves, to worry about our own needs and not those nameless who we name ‘the least of these.’

The love of God, the Grace of Jesus and the communion of the Holy Spirit; the fullness of God expressed; to bring order to the chaos, light to the darkness, freedom to the captive, comfort to the distressed, forgiveness to the sinner. The idea of the trinity, the fact that we worship a God that is three-in-one, can be difficult to understand, in fact I know many good, believing, church-going people who have problems with it; but our understanding of the nature of God doesn’t change the way that God acts. It doesn’t change the way God loves us, it doesn’t change the incredible gift of grace that God gave us in Jesus, it doesn’t change the way that God unites and brings us together. It doesn’t change the comfort we receive from all that God has done, does, and will do for us. From time to time it may seems as if the darkness is closing in on us, we may feel alone, we may feel unloved; yet God is there, the love of God embraces us and we are reminded of our having been claimed by God as his own, as his own sons and daughters. And that truth can scatter and shatter any darkness. Amen.

Pentecost 2014

Pentecost Sunday – Year A

June 8, 2014

Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

'In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
   and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
   and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
   in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
     and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
   and signs on the earth below,
     blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
   and the moon to blood,
     before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

The summer months have finally arrived. I've been waiting for the last nine months for this time of year. As much as I can appreciate the colors of fall, the still beauty of winter and the burst of new life in spring, I really, really like summer. With the arrival of summer all sorts of other things have begun. We send the kids outside to play. We her their shouts and cries through our open windows. The sound of lawnmowers in the neighborhood has become an almost daily occurrence. We get to spend more time outside. All of our winter clothes have been packed away, or shoved to the back of the closet. Instead of having a hot meal all the time for lunch or dinner, we sometimes will have something cold. We see our vegetable gardens slowly growing, and look forward to fresh salads and meals prepared from our own produce. The kids go swimming. We all tend to get a little tanned. Summer is awesome.

Of course, not everything is always wonderful with summer. With the suntan can also come the discomfort of sunburn. The summer months can also be filled with the buzzing and biting of bugs and insects. As the really warm months come, most of us will close our windows to the fresh breezes and turn on our air conditioners. With the longer days and later sunsets, just try and get your kids to bed at a regular bedtime – every night turns into a battle, and every morning comes too soon. And of course, with the arrival of summer also comes the arrival of storm season.

Just this last week southwest of us storms came through with hail and tornadoes. The pictures of what baseball sized hail and 70 mile-per-hour winds can do to the siding of a house were amazing. Thankfully, we have been spared destructive storms for the last few years, but we too know the power and chaos that comes from summer storms. Our prayers go out to those whose lives have been affected and will continue to be affected in the coming months.

Here, in the Midwest we know a little bit about the power of wind, and it's not just tornadoes I am talking about. Driving on the highways and interstates can sometimes be an adventure as we are buffeted from one side to another. Driving on country roads we see the dust devils, those little spinning vortexes that can pop up, seemingly out of nowhere. I remember when I was much younger driving past farms with old battered windmills poking up above the house. Now, windmills are used for much more than pumping water out of the ground.

We have tons of wind, and thankfully in the last few years as a state we have begun to make us of this resource that we have been given. Iowa is rising quickly as a producer of wind energy. The latest figures say that almost 28% of the electric power in Iowa is being produced by our increasing number of wind farms. When you head just a little bit northwest of us toward Charles City, there are literally hundreds of wind turbines to be seen. There are plans to have even more added in the coming years.

Wind has likely always been seen as being something beyond our understanding. Our ancestors looked to the wind as a sign of the presence of the holy. The first few verses of the Bible declare how the Spirit as wind swept across the primordial waters of creation. When Moses stretched out his hand at the Red Sea, a wind came and held the waters back. We think about Elijah and the wind rushing by as he hid in the crack. We think about Jonah and the wind that forced his ship to turn, and the wind and sun that weakened him after his protective tree had withered. We remember a Spirit-filled King David dancing before God. We think about the wind-driven storm that battered the boat the disciples were in as Jesus slept. And of course, we think of the winds of Pentecost that heralded the arriving of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Most of the time in the church we think of the Spirit in welcoming terms. We pray for the Spirit to be present (like it ever isn't!). We pray for the Spirit to guide us. We declare the Spirit having strengthened us in times of weakness and need. We thanks and praise the Spirit for equipping us with the abilities and gifts we have. But do we always welcome it?

This past week, a study was released that revealed that the public responds differently to the powerful wind storms we call hurricanes depending on their name. Hurricanes with female names tend to cause a greater loss of life than those with male names. The study revealed that hurricanes with male names tend to be respected more so than those with female names. The public 'believes' that the male-named storms are more powerful and the warnings of their potential destruction should be heeded, thus there is less loss of life from those storms than from equally powerful and destructive storms that have female names. How often do we look at the Spirit in the same way, thinking that some forms are safer than others?

We pray for a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, but when someone tells us they can speak in tongues because of the gift of the Spirit we may roll our eyes. We thank the Spirit for strengthening us, yet we may wonder about the visions the Spirit allowed another person to see (especially if those visions challenge what we think or believe.) How often do we explain powerful, spiritual, unexplainable events in the lives of people (I've seen God) as moments of lunacy in the other? “They must be crazy, they must be seeing things!”

The Spirit can be frightening, Look at the early church, the initial freedom of form and function that was so Spirit led and Spirit driven gave way rather quickly to a hierarchical form where theology and forms of expression were either affirmed or condemned. “You can't let people just do whatever they want, can you? There has to be some order to this.” As that structure increased in size and power, the freedom of the Spirit lessened, and our questioning and distrust of the 'effects' of the Spirit became commonplace, even as we continued to pray for the presence of the Spirit.

The presence of the Spirit brings vitality and freedom, but it's not something we can control. Even in the early church the Spirit fostered differences of thought and theology among the believers; think about how strongly Peter and the church in Jerusalem disagreed with Paul about witnessing to non Jews.

So, if we can't control the gift of the Spirit, what can we do? The powerful winds of the Midwest are being used to create electricity. So, the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit must also be used. Our reading from 1 Corinthians today (1 Corinthians 12:3b-13), tells us that the gifts of the Spirit are many and diverse. Yet, they are all to be used for the same purpose. The many gifts we have are for the support and building up of the people of God, of the people that God has surrounded us with. The Spirit is given so that we might in our lives declare and witness to the glory of God, the Spirit is given that we might be free.

As frightening as wind can be, we have to remember there is a phrase about a 'breath of fresh air.' The Spirit is a breath of fresh air into this world, a world that is in need of breathing free. The breath of God, the fire of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is given that the love of God may be declared and in so doing people may be set free from the things that bind them, the things that keep them from breathing freely. It is through the church, whose very life is dependent on that breath of Christ, and whose very life is itself a gift, that God's breath of fresh air will stir and renew the world. So breathe deeply, that we might breathe more freely and then be used to breathe new life into the lives of those who yearn to breathe free. Amen.

Here and There a God

Sixth Sunday after Easter – Year A

May 25, 2014

Acts 17:22-31

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'

"Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

In just a few weeks the school year will be over, summer will have hopefully arrived, and many of us will be thinking about if, when, and where we may be going for a summer vacation. I think all of us like to get away, whether it's across the country, around the world, or just across town. There's something refreshing about just getting away from our daily everyday surroundings and stresses. Changing our location, our setting, frees us for at least a little bit from all the things that happen every day at home, at work, in our neighborhoods. It's nice to get away from home.

Being away from home, though, eventually makes us think about home. We get homesick. Maybe it's our friends and neighbors, maybe it's our bed. There are things about home that we find comfort in, even if there are other things that are sources of stress in our lives. One of the things I tend to miss when I am away from home is food.

Everywhere we come from, every house and family we call home, has it's own recipes and food practices. Now, for me one of the joys of traveling is that I get to taste some of the different types of food that are specialties of that particular region or country. There's nothing quite like the wild rice soup you get in northern Minnesota, the sauerkraut in Germany, and let's face it, no matter how hard other places may try, there is nothing quite like an Iowa Chop. Now, as much as I enjoy trying out new things, new foods, new flavors, there comes a day when I really want to taste something that is familiar, something that tastes like home.

The tough part is, that if I'm not at home, what I'm likely to find to fill that desire, that hunger, is not really going to measure up. It might get close, but it's still not there. You can live with it because it's close, but if you get the real thing that would be so much better. I think you know what I'm describing. There's nothing that quite measures up to the real deal, the real McCoy. You might be able to live with a substitute if you had to, but you would still be hungering and thirsting for the genuine article.

Augustine was one of the Bishops of the ancient church, and perhaps the thing he is remembered for most was his comment, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Within each of us there is a hunger, a thirst to be in contact, communion, relationship with God, and we will always be restless, always be searching, always be wondering if there is something more until we find our place in God.

The search for meaning in life, the search for an encounter with the holy can be expressed in so many different ways. Just look around. The number of different religions, and spiritual expressions and denominations we see on a regular basis is mind-numbing. If we think that the situation for Paul in Athens was different than for us, we haven't looked around well enough. Almost every where we look we can see signs of the search for meaning around us, people searching for a taste of God, seeking to fill the hunger and thirst that is within them.

Paul came into a community where the search for meaning and an understanding of god found itself expressed in the worship of multiple gods. In the Greek and Roman cultures that were prevalent at the time, there was quite literally a god for every need or purpose. Need a better crop, there's a god for that. Need to win a victory in war, there's a god for that. Want beautiful children, there's a god for that. Want to make sure the party you have planned for tomorrow goes well, there's a god for that, too. All you have to do is determine which god is the one who can deliver on what you are looking for, figure out what that god demands from you, do it, and your desires are fulfilled.

When Paul begins his speech, he doesn't tell the Athenians how wrong they are, he congratulates them for recognizing their hunger for the holy. If there is an altar to a different god on every corner, it's clear to see that people believed in something. That's true here in the United States as well, over the last fifty years the Gallup Poll has consistently reported that about 95 percent of Americans believe in God. The question is: which god? What is the image of God, the understanding of the holy that is carried around by people in their hearts. Who is this one in whom “we live, and move and have our being”?

When it comes to thinking about God, there are two basic ways in which we as Christians have envisioned the one in whom we live and move and have our being. What's fascinating is that both of these understandings of God have existed together with little conflict, and it's possible to trace both of these understandings back to the beginnings of monotheistic faith, faith that was based in the belief there was only one God.

One way of thinking about God envisions a God that is very person-like, but out there somewhere. This is the God that sits on a cloud in heaven and watches us. This is the God that created everything that is, and sits apart from that creation. God is somewhere up there, out there somewhere beyond the confines of the universe, while we are here. God doesn't always stay separate from us, from time to to time God comes and does stuff, intervenes in our lives; makes miracles to happen. In the Bible, we see this God in Jesus, we see this understanding of God in miracles and other spectacular events like the flood, the plagues, the falling of the walls of Jericho. This is the God we still pray will come and be present, will act powerfully in our midst, will listen and respond to our prayers and supplications.

The other way of thinking about God imagines things quite differently. In this understanding, God is not somewhere out there, God is right here. The universe is not something separate from God, but within God. Everything is in God. This is different from the understanding of pantheism, which says everything is God. No, this is pan-en-theism, every thing is in God. God is the power, the all encompassing force, the Spirit in whom everything that is, is. This is the vision that Paul paints when he describes God as the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being.

Theologians have used the fancy words of transcendence and immanence to describe these two ways of understanding God. Transcendent for the God out there; immanent for the God who is right here. As both of these understandings have coexisted for millenia, I don't believe it's possible to say one is right and one is wrong, or that one is more correct than the other. That said, I think there is something very attractive to everything being in God, and something potentially problematic in a God that is somewhere out there.

When God is out there, up there, somewhere that means that God must leave there to come here; that God's transcendence must become immanent, and it happens for a reason. God decides to change their home address. And when you choose to do something, you normally do it for a reason. So, when God becomes immanent, when God enters into our here and now, God does so for a reason. So, when God does the miraculous, when healing occurs, when prayers are answered, God chooses to do those things; because God chose to leave the transcendent and become immanent. If that is true, then the opposite is also true. When the miraculous does not happen, when prayers go unanswered, then God is choosing not to become imminent. And that raises all sorts of questions. Why does God choose to come to some people's aid and not others? Is there something about their prayers which is better? Does God love them more?

Of course not. When the miraculous happens, when prayers are seemingly answered, it's not about God moving from one place of existence to another, from there to here, it's about God becoming visible in our midst. Not having come from anywhere else, but felt here now. And we are content to not know the why's. And prayer, prayer is an expression of our belief that God is here and intimately with us. Prayer is conversation with our best friend who sits beside us, walks beside us, embraces us, comforts and celebrates with us. Prayers are whispered into the ear of the one who never leaves our side. Prayers aren't sent up into the heavens, with the hope to be heard; they are a declaration that we know God is here and active now.

Faith then, is not about finding God, but about finding our place in God. It's not about making space in our life, a place in our heart for God to dwell. It's about recognizing that our entire life is within God, that our heart dwells within God. We don't go to God; and God doesn't come to us because God is already here, we are already within the circle of all that God is.

Paul speaks to the people of Athens, he calls them out, he points out to them that all their idols, all their shrines, all their gods are expressions of seeking for that which is beyond them; a god that is somewhere out there, a god that must be cajoled, sacrificed to, worshiped and served in order to enter into our world. Paul declares that God is here, that everything found its beginning in God and continues to exist in God. It's not about trying to find something to fit into the God-shaped hole in our lives, it's about seeing our lives as part of the God-shaped whole. Amen.

Everybody must get stoned

Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year A

May 18, 2014

1 Peter 2:2-10

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation — if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
   "See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
      a cornerstone chosen and precious;
    and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
   "The stone that the builders rejected
      has become the very head of the corner,"

and

   "A stone that makes them stumble,
      and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God's people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy.

When I was younger, one of my favorite toys were my Lego's. I spent literally hours putting elaborate constructions together. I had the flat sheets that had painted roads on them, I had the large green sheets, I had small pieces, and larger pieces. I had long pieces, and shorter pieces. I had pieces in all the colors that Lego made. I had thousands of those little plastic building blocks. One of the things I will always remember about playing with Legos was sorting through the boxes looking for a specific block. Maybe it was the color, maybe it was the shape. Either way, I would sort, looking, finding, rejecting piece after piece. Eventually, I would find the piece I was looking for, and be able to complete my building project.

This last year, we finally introduced our girls to Lego building blocks. Wow, have things changed. It used to be that Lego's came in about 4 or 5 colors. Now, they come in every shade of the rainbow. Back when I was playing with them, the cars and trucks you built were basically little boxes with wheels. Now, they have curved edges. You can buy a kit to construct just about anything. I was curious and found a kit that you can use to build a 3 and a half foot tall model of the Eiffel Tower out of almost 3500 pieces. It sounds awesome, and awesome comes with a price: $2500! When I saw that, all I could think about was what would happen if you lost a crucial piece or two.

Legos have changed. It used to be that you could walk into the store and find a bucket with a few hundred bricks in it, and you could build whatever you imagined with those bricks. Now, try and find a bucket of bricks. It's almost impossible. Locate a kit to build the Batmobile, no problem. A kit that you use to construct Hogwarts, no problem. Even a kit that you can use to build a yacht. Where are the buckets of bricks with all sorts of 'generic' bricks? The kits are full of special blocks that you need in order to build that special finished project – and lose a brick, and the project can never be completed. The building becomes focused on the special bricks rather than the great majority of regular bricks that are used to build.

In our texts today, there is a theme that runs through several of our texts. In our text from Acts (Acts 7:55-60), we read of the stoning of Stephen, the first of the Christian martyrs. In our Psalm (Psalm 31), we read of God being our rock and refuge, our fortress. Then, in our text from 1 Peter, we discover that the young believers in the church are called stones. Stones, rocks, bricks.

Often when we think about rocks and stones in the church, we think about Jesus, the solid rock. The one who is described by Peter as the cornerstone upon which everything else depends. We think about the God who is described in our Psalm for today, a rock , a fortress, a refuge from the turmoil around us. We all can think of songs and hymns about Jesus or God as the rock – Jesus is the rock and he rolls my blues away, on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand, the Lord liveth, and blessed be the rock, A mighty fortress is our God. Without question God, Jesus, is the rock, the one who we look toward, the one upon who we can build our lives of faith. But, as Peter points out, if Jesus is the Rock, then we are the stones, the building blocks.

I've spent a lot of time talking about Lego's, but there were no Lego's around when Peter wrote his letter, no Lego's around when Jesus walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. No, there were only rocks, and stones, and bricks; and that's what we are. I almost hate to admit it, but one of the first things that came to my mind as I reflected on the texts this week was the Bob Dylan song, “Everybody must get stoned.” Laugh if you want, but a little bit of research and you can easily discover that Bob Dylan wrote the song, and chose those words not as some statement about getting high, but because of what happened to Stephen in today's text from Acts. In fact, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 2012, he said that people who think the song is about drugs, “aren't familiar with the Book of Acts.”¹

When you take a stand on something, when you declare a position, you place yourself at the mercy of those who stand against you. As people of faith, we all take stands about all sorts of issues. The church and individuals have staked out positions (sometimes on differing sides) on issues of racial equality, economic inequality, justice, war and peace, the environment, contraception, sexuality, poverty, just to name a few. And when we do, we open ourselves up to being figuratively 'stoned' by those who disagree with us; as we saw happen in the last week as the Pope himself came under criticism for his declaration that economic inequality was an issue of faith. And sometimes, as in the case of Stephen, people are going to throw their rocks and accusations against us, no matter who we are, and what we say in our defense. We must all be prepared to be 'stoned' for positions we take, for the causes we choose to support.

But there is more to 'being stoned' than being used as a punching bag. If we are the stones, the building blocks through which the church of God is constructed, then when we are 'stoned' we are living into our identity as children of God.

A few years ago, when I was in Germany, I had the opportunity to watch some skilled stone masons working on repairing a centuries old stone wall. As I sat in the cafe, I watched them with fascination. They spent a great deal of time searching out, looking for the right shaped stone, the right colored stone, to fit where it was needed. But, they rarely if ever just stuck it into place. They would shape it carefully. Knocking a corner off on this one, shaving an edge on this one, only when the stone was prepared, shaped, adjusted was it placed. The shaping of the stone allowed for it be a part of the wall, a part that fit and did it's part perfectly.

Just as the stones in that wall in Germany had to be shaped and formed, we too, as the stones that are the church must be formed and shaped. All of us have edges that need to be smoothed, hard corners that need to be knocked off. And we are shaped by God, not just for fun, not just to prove how much we all need to grow, how all of us need to be corrected, improved. No, but because God desires that we be a part of the realm that God has formed, the Kingdom that God is constructing here in this place. God desires each and every one of us to be a part of the proclamation of the God who has made and formed us, walking with us out of the darkness of what has been and into the light of what can be.

Chipping away at our rough edges, knocking off our sharp corners is not always a process that is comfortable; in fact, it is often a painful process. Yet, if we are to be used by God in the building of the Kingdom it's a process that we all must go through. All of us are in the process of being molded and shaped, broken and chipped, prepared for use in the Kingdom of God, prepared for use in the world that we live in, prepared to be distributors and sharers of God's grace and love. But as painful as it is for us to be remade and refashioned, we must not forget the price paid by the one who shapes us.

When I was in Germany, watching the masons laying stone, one of the things I noticed was the ways in which the bodies of the masons had been changed through a lifetime of working with rocks, bricks and stone. The signs of their work was evident in their body. Their hands and knees bore the marks of their years working with the stones. All of us know how the work we do leaves an impact on our bodies – our knees, our backs, our eyes, our hands. The master stone-shaper who shapes and reforms us also bears the marks on his body. His hands and side are marked with the love he holds for his work, with the price he willingly paid that we could know what it is like to have once been in the darkness, but now live in the light. The price he paid that we could be part of something, be shaped and built into something beautiful.

There are all sorts of things that you can build with bricks and stones. But, we are called and tasked to be the bricks and stones of the church of God. One of my favorite composers of modern church music is Marty Haugen. He was written a song that expresses the calling and tasking we have with better and more poetic words than I could ever write:

Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live,
a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace;
here the love of Christ shall end divisions:

All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

Let us build a house where prophets speak, and words are strong and true,
where all God’s children dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew.
Here the cross shall stand as witness and as symbol of God’s grace;
here as one we claim the faith of Jesus:

All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

Let us build a house where love is found in water, wine, and wheat:
a banquet hall on holy ground where peace and justice meet.
Here the love of God, through Jesus, is revealed in time and space;
as we share in Christ the feast that free us:

All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

Let us build a house where hands will reach beyond the wood and stone
to heal and strengthen, serve and teach, and live the Word they’ve known.
Here the outcast and the stranger bear the image of God’s face;
let us bring an end to fear and danger:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

Let us build a house where all are named, their songs and visions heard
and loved and treasured, taught and claimed as words within the Word.
Built of tears and cries and laughter, prayers of faith and songs of grace,
let this house proclaim from floor to rafter:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.²

Let us build, let us be built into this place. Amen.

1http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-unleashed-a-wild-ride-on-his-new-lp-and-striking-back-at-critics-20120927

2 All are Welcome, by Marty Haugen 1995, GIA Publications, Inc.