Grace upon grace - reflections on community
Lamentations 3: 19 - 26
2 Timothy 1: 1 – 14
I don’t know about you, but some weeks, I am exhausted by the news cycle. And when I am exhausted by the news cycle – you know - the he said, she said, they said, red said, blue said, house said, senate said, executive branch said, press said, congress said news cycle – I find it mighty hard NOT to be exhausted by a lot of other things. My world view gets cloudy and it seems like everything is tinted by polarization and argument.
And the ordinary things of life get harder when I am under that cloud of “the world out there.” Meetings seem harder. Relationships seem harder. Budgets and sermons seem harder. Hard conversations about important things like what it means to live as one as the body of Christ seem harder.
The world around me weighs me down like a big wet wool blanket (yuck) and I forget what matters most. I forget that God created me in God’s own image. I forget that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son. I forget that Jesus sat and wrote in the dust while the Pharisees clamored to stone an adulterer…he sat and wrote and wrote and wrote…until they all left. I forget that Jesus ate with sinners rather than with saints. I forget that even when Peter asked stupid questions and clamored to be at Jesus’ right hand, he never got turned out of the tribe.
I lose track of all of this in the moment all because of the dull roar of the he said, she said, they said, red said, blue said, house said, senate said, executive branch said, press said, congress said world in which we live.
I forget that it is a gift to sit with any one of you, let alone 25 or more throughout any given week, and listen to your laughter and your memories and your hopes and dreams. I forget that each child who enters this place hears a word about how they are beloved of God no matter what…that they shuffle off to class and hear the stories of Jesus from loving adults whose faith is palpable. I forget that our youth, in spite of busy schedules, want to gather and know one another – want to know what it means to seek a community that is seeking to follow Christ. I forget the families that were here for backpacks and the amazing group of faithful Kaiser Permanente employees who gather here on Wednesdays for lunch and prayer and study.
I forget that God has gifted this family of Faith time and time again.
When I forget all of this goodness, and dwell in the he said, she said, they said, red said, blue said, house said, senate said, executive branch said, press said, congress said world in which we live, I find myself crying out…
As the psalmist writes… My soul continually thinks of how hard it is and then my soul is bowed down within me…
Our scriptures today – both the Psalm and the Epistle - allude to the hardships of a season or a place or a circumstance. They allude to the struggle it is to choose to be part of something that not everyone around us understands. They allude to how hard it is to keep GOD first in the midst of all the other things of life…especially the hard things.
And both scriptures remind us that in the midst of everything the world might rain down on us, God is here. Just as promised. Again and again.
And that is not just true for us. It is true for the generations that have come before us. And it is true for our neighbors down the street. And it is true for those gathered today around a table in Russia, gathered secretly in a basement church in China, gathered under booming loudspeakers in Guyana.
Today’s reading from 2 Timothy is a reminder and encouragement to a leader in an early Christian community in a specific place and time. The author, writing in the voice of Paul, reminds Timothy of the faithful line of family from which he’s come. His grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice have been examples of sincere and well-lived faith. Timothy is encouraged to remember that in spite of hard things, God loves this community so much that God sent Jesus. Timothy is encouraged NOT to be ashamed of his experience and the message he has been given to share. All of this reminding comes from a writer who sits in a prison cell likely awaiting execution…someone who probably deserves to be overwhelmed by how hard life can be.
When we are weary and worn, when we are unattached from God’s assurance that we are loved, I think it becomes easy to think of this community – this Faith church - as an option in our lives – kind of like a club. Something from which we might walk away, take a break, replace with something else.
It sounds a bit like the writer is reminding Timothy that he matters, that his work matters, that his commitment matters.
I think when we are weary and worn down, we forget that in our baptism we received a new identity in Christ. We forget that each time we gather before this table, we are met here and nourished, fed in ways we cannot fully understand.
We are changed.
We are called.
And then we are called out into the world.
I saw a meme this week that landed in the middle of this – being a Christian doesn’t change what you deal with. It changes how you deal with it.
As followers of Christ, we are invited to live differently, first in community with one another and then out in the fullness of the world. We are called to look one another in the eye KNOWING that we are glimpsing a spark of God’s creation. We are called to be for one another iron that sharpens iron. We’re called to address our disagreements Face to face and we’re called to give sacrificially of ourselves acknowledging that we understand that God is bigger than all the worldly stuff around us.
When we do that together we are changed…and we change one another…and we change the world.
For a while when my kids were pre-teens and teenagers, we were attending a small denominational church …and oftentimes the pastor’s sermons focused on the latest TV show she’d watched or the latest movie she’d seen…and her running joke was that ultimately, every movie/book/tv show/song was about Jesus.
And at first pass, that seems funny and laughable. And it made my kids roll their eyes every time she launched into that.
But really, if our relationship with Christ is the lens through which we see the world, it might be true – that we can see Jesus in just about everything we encounter. We can see the way it is or the way it might be.
This week, while writing, the Holy Spirit dropped an earworm on me – a surprising one….and so maybe this is my earworm gift to you. It was the song For Good from the Broadway musical Wicked. If you’re not familiar, here’s a brief synopsis of the plot from our friends at Wikipedia:
Wicked tells the story of two unlikely friends, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (whose name later changes to Glinda the Good Witch), who struggle through opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's public fall from grace.
(I would add that as Elphaba falls from grace, Glinda rises, but perhaps not as her best self…)
As I thought about the words of the song…with no small laughter about what my kids would say when I explained that Wicked had something to do with being the church… it made sense to me.
We are, for better and for worse, or as the song posits for better or for good, changed by people we share life with. Your presence in this community changes things. Your presence in one another’s life shapes us – individually and collectively.
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
We who know Christ, are being changed. And we have the ability to change those around us by being Christlike to them. But we have to stay at the work, we have to remember that we have been given a spirit of power and love and self-discipline. We have to not be ashamed of our testimony and the power it bears. We have to remember that ours is a holy calling. To love God and to love one another. We have to guard the good treasure entrusted to us in one another.
May it be so.
Amen.
2 Timothy 1: 1 – 14
I don’t know about you, but some weeks, I am exhausted by the news cycle. And when I am exhausted by the news cycle – you know - the he said, she said, they said, red said, blue said, house said, senate said, executive branch said, press said, congress said news cycle – I find it mighty hard NOT to be exhausted by a lot of other things. My world view gets cloudy and it seems like everything is tinted by polarization and argument.
And the ordinary things of life get harder when I am under that cloud of “the world out there.” Meetings seem harder. Relationships seem harder. Budgets and sermons seem harder. Hard conversations about important things like what it means to live as one as the body of Christ seem harder.
The world around me weighs me down like a big wet wool blanket (yuck) and I forget what matters most. I forget that God created me in God’s own image. I forget that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son. I forget that Jesus sat and wrote in the dust while the Pharisees clamored to stone an adulterer…he sat and wrote and wrote and wrote…until they all left. I forget that Jesus ate with sinners rather than with saints. I forget that even when Peter asked stupid questions and clamored to be at Jesus’ right hand, he never got turned out of the tribe.
I lose track of all of this in the moment all because of the dull roar of the he said, she said, they said, red said, blue said, house said, senate said, executive branch said, press said, congress said world in which we live.
I forget that it is a gift to sit with any one of you, let alone 25 or more throughout any given week, and listen to your laughter and your memories and your hopes and dreams. I forget that each child who enters this place hears a word about how they are beloved of God no matter what…that they shuffle off to class and hear the stories of Jesus from loving adults whose faith is palpable. I forget that our youth, in spite of busy schedules, want to gather and know one another – want to know what it means to seek a community that is seeking to follow Christ. I forget the families that were here for backpacks and the amazing group of faithful Kaiser Permanente employees who gather here on Wednesdays for lunch and prayer and study.
I forget that God has gifted this family of Faith time and time again.
When I forget all of this goodness, and dwell in the he said, she said, they said, red said, blue said, house said, senate said, executive branch said, press said, congress said world in which we live, I find myself crying out…
As the psalmist writes… My soul continually thinks of how hard it is and then my soul is bowed down within me…
Our scriptures today – both the Psalm and the Epistle - allude to the hardships of a season or a place or a circumstance. They allude to the struggle it is to choose to be part of something that not everyone around us understands. They allude to how hard it is to keep GOD first in the midst of all the other things of life…especially the hard things.
And both scriptures remind us that in the midst of everything the world might rain down on us, God is here. Just as promised. Again and again.
And that is not just true for us. It is true for the generations that have come before us. And it is true for our neighbors down the street. And it is true for those gathered today around a table in Russia, gathered secretly in a basement church in China, gathered under booming loudspeakers in Guyana.
Today’s reading from 2 Timothy is a reminder and encouragement to a leader in an early Christian community in a specific place and time. The author, writing in the voice of Paul, reminds Timothy of the faithful line of family from which he’s come. His grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice have been examples of sincere and well-lived faith. Timothy is encouraged to remember that in spite of hard things, God loves this community so much that God sent Jesus. Timothy is encouraged NOT to be ashamed of his experience and the message he has been given to share. All of this reminding comes from a writer who sits in a prison cell likely awaiting execution…someone who probably deserves to be overwhelmed by how hard life can be.
When we are weary and worn, when we are unattached from God’s assurance that we are loved, I think it becomes easy to think of this community – this Faith church - as an option in our lives – kind of like a club. Something from which we might walk away, take a break, replace with something else.
It sounds a bit like the writer is reminding Timothy that he matters, that his work matters, that his commitment matters.
I think when we are weary and worn down, we forget that in our baptism we received a new identity in Christ. We forget that each time we gather before this table, we are met here and nourished, fed in ways we cannot fully understand.
We are changed.
We are called.
And then we are called out into the world.
I saw a meme this week that landed in the middle of this – being a Christian doesn’t change what you deal with. It changes how you deal with it.
As followers of Christ, we are invited to live differently, first in community with one another and then out in the fullness of the world. We are called to look one another in the eye KNOWING that we are glimpsing a spark of God’s creation. We are called to be for one another iron that sharpens iron. We’re called to address our disagreements Face to face and we’re called to give sacrificially of ourselves acknowledging that we understand that God is bigger than all the worldly stuff around us.
When we do that together we are changed…and we change one another…and we change the world.
For a while when my kids were pre-teens and teenagers, we were attending a small denominational church …and oftentimes the pastor’s sermons focused on the latest TV show she’d watched or the latest movie she’d seen…and her running joke was that ultimately, every movie/book/tv show/song was about Jesus.
And at first pass, that seems funny and laughable. And it made my kids roll their eyes every time she launched into that.
But really, if our relationship with Christ is the lens through which we see the world, it might be true – that we can see Jesus in just about everything we encounter. We can see the way it is or the way it might be.
This week, while writing, the Holy Spirit dropped an earworm on me – a surprising one….and so maybe this is my earworm gift to you. It was the song For Good from the Broadway musical Wicked. If you’re not familiar, here’s a brief synopsis of the plot from our friends at Wikipedia:
Wicked tells the story of two unlikely friends, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (whose name later changes to Glinda the Good Witch), who struggle through opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's public fall from grace.
(I would add that as Elphaba falls from grace, Glinda rises, but perhaps not as her best self…)
As I thought about the words of the song…with no small laughter about what my kids would say when I explained that Wicked had something to do with being the church… it made sense to me.
We are, for better and for worse, or as the song posits for better or for good, changed by people we share life with. Your presence in this community changes things. Your presence in one another’s life shapes us – individually and collectively.
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
We who know Christ, are being changed. And we have the ability to change those around us by being Christlike to them. But we have to stay at the work, we have to remember that we have been given a spirit of power and love and self-discipline. We have to not be ashamed of our testimony and the power it bears. We have to remember that ours is a holy calling. To love God and to love one another. We have to guard the good treasure entrusted to us in one another.
May it be so.
Amen.
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