Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sermon: Awe
AWE
Psalm 111
Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Psalm 111 Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. 2Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. 3Full of honor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. 4He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds; the Lord is gracious and merciful. 5He provides food for those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant. 6He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the heritage of the nations. 7The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. 8They are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. 9He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. 10The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.
God of the Sparrow, the hymn we sing following the sermon, asks this evocative question: “God of the sparrow, God of the whale, God of the swirling stars, how does the creature say awe, how does the creature say praise?”
How do we say awe? Awe is at the heart of the Hebraic and Christian faith traditions. It is essential to the Islamic faith tradition as well. Awe is the human response of reverence in holy encounter with the Divine. The God who is beyond all, above all, beneath all; the God who, in the words of Karl Barth, is “wholly other,” evokes in the creature a sense of wonder and reverence, a sense of awe. Before the God who is not created but is Creator, we the created ones, respond with awe. Our foundational narrative in the beginning stories of the Bible tell us that God is not created but is Creator. We are the created ones. We in holy encounter with the Creator respond with awe.
Essential to each of three great religious traditions that found their origin in the ancient near East, we as the created ones are to respond with awe but not only awe but also with holy humility, fundamentally we respond with an ethical response. Our worship is to have an ethical dimension. Our worship is to lead to right conduct. As the psalmist says, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” By fear he does not mean terror as much as he means reverence. The beginning of wisdom is reverence toward God. Reverence is how we become wise people. We behave ethically. We behave morally because we know our place as humble, created people. We are not God and therefore our fundamental approach toward creation, toward one another, toward other creatures is to be humble. We are not to play God for we are merely created. We are merely human.
How does the creature say awe? How does the creature say praise? We say praise by being ethical and not arrogant, by not being full of ourselves. When we are in awe of God we do not lord it over others. We do not play God as though we know everything—as though we were God himself, God herself. This is the beginning of wisdom: fear of the Lord—reverence and awe toward God and knowing we are merely creatures, knowing we are simply human and not God.
This wisdom is fundamental to Biblical faith. It is the foundation upon which our faith is built. As people of the Word, people of the Book, as people who trace their heritage from Abraham and Sarah, through Moses and the prophets, and then as Christians through Jesus, our wisdom begins with reverence and awe before the Holy One, before God who is our Creator.
Of course, the human condition is far, far away from understanding ourselves as anything close to creatures that fear God, as creatures who do not lord it over others, who are humble before God, who are humble before each other, who are humble before creation. The Bible has a special word for those who elevate themselves to the level of gods. It calls it the sin of idolatry when we believe we are like gods, when we behave like we are God himself, God herself. The Bible tells us we are idolaters when we lord it over others, when we dominate others and dominate the earth as though we are God, as though we are the Lord. We are idolaters.
In the first creation story in Genesis when it says we human beings are to have dominion over the earth and its creatures and we take it to mean that we have a license to do anything we want. When we take it to mean we are given carte blanche, the freedom to do anything we want to pillage the earth, to desecrate our planet without restraint in the name of a particular economic theory no matter what, we distort what dominion means. Dominion means we are to be stewards. The biblical word means to be servants or slaves to the master. We are to be servants to God, caretakers of God’s creation.
Remember that we are to respond with awe before God? So, too, we are to respond with awe at God’s handiwork, to respond with awe at God’s marvelous creation. We are to respond with ethical, humble awe. Instead we kill each other. We kill the earth. We exterminate its creatures.
We are not to play God as if we are God. Can you not hear Mother Earth groaning? The stain of her blood is upon us. We must not be idolaters. We must not lord it over her. We must treat her with awe.
We need to return to a sense of awe: to ethical, humble awe, to remember that we who we are. We are God’s creatures. We need to remember that we are not God; that we are not the Creator, that we are not the Lord. We cannot return to awe unless we make space for God. When we make space for God, we allow awe to return. We allow for reverence. We allow for respect. We become stewards of one another and of creation.
We can make space for God in so many ways: in nature’s delight. For me I find awe in the mountains. Whenever I lift my eyes to the hills, I find my help. I seek those magical thin places where the human and the divine meet. I love their majesty. I always have. I’m a mountain person. My wife loves the beach. Maybe for you, you have a special place in nature where you stand on holy ground. Maybe you find awe in nature’s delight in the exquisite design of a flower’s petals or a gazelle’s leaping run.
Maybe you are scientist or an engineer and the steady, unfolding precision of the scientific method, the facts and theories of empiricism, the exactitude of mathematics gives you an unemotional steadiness to your days. Then you look at the expanse of the heavens on a starlit night or you grasp a tiny baby’s hand and she coos specifically at you. Then despite your rationality, a sense of wonder presses in on you and your electro-chemical, hormonal impulses overwhelm even you and you admit it must be awe. Yes. Its awe and reverence and you believe.
Maybe awe comes upon you when you have been in the belly of a fish, the belly of a conversion experience. Awe comes upon you when you encountered God and God through a voice, through Holy Encounter said to you, “Go a new direction. Pick up a new cause. Love in a new way.” And you were humbled. You were filled with awe that God would pick you to do a new work. You were called to do a new thing. You were in awe.
Maybe awe came upon you when you really messed up and instead of being judged you were loved into a new way of life. You were overwhelmed by people who came to you and forgave you. You came to know that God had forgiven you as well and you were in awe that people loved you and forgave you. You felt awe at God’s overwhelming acceptance.
Or maybe you were in desperate straits because you were losing a loved one, a dear one, a husband or wife, a life-long partner. The ache of losing that person, that love of your life was more than you could bear. Then the people of the church came to you. They came to you in your hour of need. They came to you and they hugged you. They listened. They sat with you. They wept with you. They carried you on their shoulders when you could not walk by yourself. They carried you until you could walk again. They became love to you. They became God’s love to you. When you came up for air you were in awe of how present God was in all of it: in the dying, in the loving, in all of it. You felt gratitude and reverence. You felt awe.
The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. Not fear in the way abusive religion teaches. Fear in the sense of reverence, awe, of knowing that we are in the Holy Presence of God.
It’s like when love is so present between a couple, it’s holy.
It’s like when a baby utters her first cry.
It’s like when you’re on a mountaintop and everything is so quiet and serene.
It’s like when a person dies and you know she or he has merged into eternity and all will be well.
Wisdom is when out of our reverence for the Creator we the created respond with ethical humility toward creation. Wisdom is when we love one another as Jesus loved us. Wisdom is when we ache for one another when one of us is aching. Wisdom is when one of us has joy and we all rejoice. Wisdom is when we marvel at the miracle of Christian community. When you and I in the providence of God are brought together to love one another and it is beautiful. We marvel at our good fortune and are filled with awe and gratitude.
“How does the creature say awe? How does the creature say praise?” asks the hymn. We, as God’s creatures, say awe by recognizing that we are creatures. We are not the Creator. In this recognition we do not lord it over others or over creation. We’re humble. We’re ethically humble. We refuse to be idolaters. We do not dominate. We make space for God. We create space for awe and reverence: in nature’s beauty, in all things bright and beautiful, in all things great and small. We make space for God by looking at ourselves and our cosmos differently, reverently, respectfully. Then as God’s humbled creatures we live ethically by co-creating with God a more just, more loving, more beautiful world. With God’s help, as God’s creatures let us respond to God’s awesome presence in our lives and our cosmos with our praise, with our awe, with our humility and with our right and compassionate living. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Multicultural Ministry: A Journey
A Message from Dr. Mark Smutny:Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sermon: Conversion Big Time!
Jonah 3:1-5 Mark 1:14-20
Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Jonah 3:1-5 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
Mark 1:14-20 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
The jury is out. Its deliberating on the future of our species. Its deciding whether or not we will undergo a conversion, a conversion in sufficient numbers and within the right time frame to save our species and, not only our species, but all other creatures great and small, bright and beautiful who depend on us for their well being, indeed, for their survival. The jury is out deliberating. The jury is comprised of God and future generations, our children and their children and their children’s children. They wait upon us too see what we will do. They weigh our actions. They weigh our decisions. Will they issue an unfavorable verdict, a verdict of guilt, a verdict leading to death because we have exploited neighbor and nature threatening death to the planet entrusted to our care? Or will they issue a verdict in our favor, a verdict leading to life because we have risen to the occasion, because we have repented, because we have come to our senses, because we have undergone a change of heart, a conversion, a conversion massive in scale, a big time conversion? The jury is out deliberating. It is watching what we will do. It is deliberating on the future of our species and those who depend on us for their very survival. The judge of the universe is deliberating, waiting to issue a verdict on our future.
The focus of this great trial is human generated climate change. While the body of evidence piles higher and higher that global warming is caused, in part, by humans, I acknowledge my expertise is not climatology. My expertise is in bible, theology and preaching, maybe politics. But this I do know. I know that each of us here is a given a mind to think. Combined with our faith, we are to use our minds to think and to use our minds and our collective action to be good stewards of this earth, the only earth we have. This green and blue globe is all we have. As care-takers of this globe, as care-takers of the blessings of God’s creation, we are to act and care for its bounty not only for ourselves, not only for our generation, but for generations to come.
That is why in the coming weeks you are invited, as Andrew Gutierrez has announced, to attend the adult education series on climate change that begins next Sunday. You are encouraged to participate in the upcoming Lenten small groups. Through the lens of a thinking and engaged Christian faith, you are invited to listen and to learn, to grow, debate and question, a word to be a Presbyterian, which means fundamentally to take your faith, your deepest values and equipped with the tools of modern science, historical analysis, economics, your curiosity and your conscience and in community with others explore one of the most important issues of our day: global climate change. Together we will think about, wrestle and act upon what it means to be a faithful Christian, not only for ourselves, not only for one generation, but for generations to come as we are called to be stewards of God’s earth.
Now as I said, my training is in theology and biblical studies. Therefore, let us return to the scriptural text from Jonah. Jonah is a delightful, imaginative story from the Hebrew Scriptures filled with God’s insight for us today.
The passage read from Jonah tells of the word of the Lord coming to Jonah for a second time. Prior to this reading, earlier in the text, God speaks to Jonah for the first time, telling him to go to Nineveh and convert the great city to God’s ways.
However, during Jonah’s first chat with God, things had not gone well. Indeed, we wonder why God had chosen Jonah in the first place. Jonah was no Braveheart; no Joan of Arc. He was more like Don Knotts. Jonah responded to God the way many of us would if we heard God’s voice calling us from the clouds, he ran the other direction. He boarded a ship, sailed for foreign seas, and hoped to die that God would never find him again.
Have you ever tried to hide from God? Have you ever tried to flee from God’s presence, from God’s call, saying to God, “Stay away from me!” Saying, “No. Not now. I’m too young. Too old. Too inarticulate. Too scared.” Saying, “I’m not qualified.” Maybe you thought, “We’re too few in number.” Maybe you thought, “We’re too weak before powerful, entrenched interests.” Maybe you’ve worried the issue to which you have been called to work on was too complex. Maybe you thought, “Who am I to put a stop to that?” Maybe the people you work with were so frustrating that all your efforts seemed like blowing in the wind. Maybe you thought, “God, surely you don’t mean me? Who am I?” Maybe you thought some other Jonah-like excuse.
It’s comforting to have company running away from God. Running away from God, hiding from God, fleeing from God to avoid God’s claim on you is quintessentially biblical. You have great company throughout the Bible and throughout human history.
While Jonah was running away from God, God was laughing at Jonah. God was laughing at the ludicrous idea that we humans can hide from God. While God was laughing and Jonah was trying to sail away to foreign lands in that ship, God came up with the idea of a storm. God sent a great storm, a tempest, like a Shakespearean tempest to capsize that fleeing ship. So a terrible tempest arose, a terrible churning tempest arose. Don’t you love these biblical stories? They externalize in nature what we internalize inside in our inner being. A terrible storm arose and the ship was destroyed and Jonah was plunged into the depths of the waters. Jonah went down into the deep. Down he went into the deep and a giant fish, a Leviathan, like a whale swallowed Jonah. Inside the great beast, Jonah stewed in whale juices with nothing to do but think and stew, stew and think.
There’s not a lot to do when you’re stuck inside of a whale for three days and three nights. You can count whale ribs. You can go bat crazy at the sound of a whale heart thumping, thumping, thumping. Or you can think. You can think.
I know from experience as a theologian but mostly as a disciple of our Lord that three days and three nights is a good time to think theologically about how hard it is to run away from God and God’s call to you and me. It’s a good time to think about how futile it is to run how God doesn’t let you get away with running away for more than a little while. Stewing inside our storms, churning inside our deep is good for us. It is where calls take shape. In the storm is where you wrestle with God; where you discover who you are and whose you are. In the guts of the great fish, in the guts of our very being, you come to realize that God has a hold on you and will never let you go. It’s like Jacob limping toward Jerusalem after having wrestled with the angel. It’s like Mary having been visited by an angel bearing the Messiah in her own body and her belly after his birth bears the stretch marks and she can’t forget. She’ll never forget her calling. It’s like Dr. King knowing he had to go to Memphis no matter the danger to fight for the sanitation workers. It’s like the disciples being called by Jesus to follow him no matter what was ahead. It’s like you and me hearing God’s call and going, just going, when we hear the call to be his disciples; to go, to go feed the poor, feed the hungry, to preach good news, to love our neighbors and yes, to save the earth, to save the earth, to care for this beautiful, yet fragile blue and green globe on which we have been placed by a loving creator because that’s what we are called to do.
When God’s hand pushes you, when you hear God’s voice urging you to make a difference in this world, when you see a vision, you may try to run the other way, but ultimately you can’t hide from God. God will seek you out and find you. God will swallow you up and spin you around and spit you out and send you where God needs you to go.
In Jonah’s case after three days, the great fish regurgitates Jonah back onto land, back toward Nineveh, back to his calling. Jonah dripping whale vomit is hurled toward Nineveh with explosive God-driven force. Jonah finds himself standing before the gates of a great city, his mission in front of him. Nineveh was no country villa, no seedy, backwater town. It was an immense city. It took a man three days to cross it by foot. Three entire days! That meant it was sixty miles wide and sixty miles long—bigger than any modern city we have today. Imagine Jonah’s task ahead of him. Bigger than New York! Bigger than Tokyo! Bigger than Mexico City! Bigger than Emerald City, itself! And standing before the gates was a poor Jewish boy from Jerusalem, whose ancient population never topped more than 10,000, reeking of fish guts, without a change of clothes, the lone prophet Jonah, commissioned by God to effect a conversion on the biggest city the world has ever seen. A big time conversion!
Now we can assume his ambivalence about preaching the Word of God had abated, having spent all that time inside the whale. Nevertheless, Jonah had his work cut out for him. Nineveh was a monster city. It would take a Billy Graham times ten, times a hundred. To the Hebrew listeners of this grand tale, they knew it was an impossible task. To add to the burden on Jonah’s shoulders, he had only forty days to accomplish his mission. Not only was the city too large, the time frame was too short time! And Jonah was only one insignificant man!
What do we do when a task before us seems impossible to accomplish? What do we do when that task is urgent and time is short? What do we do when the forces allied against our cause seem determined to oppose us at every turn with every tool, weapon and resource they have at their disposal?
Those of you alive long enough remember the beginning of the public health war against the use of tobacco that started in the early 1960s. In what many believe is the most successful public health campaign ever undertaken in this country, it is good to recall the time when smoking was seen as a public virtue. Look how far our nation has come! Yet fifty years ago, it seemed we would never get to the place where we are now with the dramatic decline in the use of tobacco.
When the United States Surgeon General first released his study in the early 1960s that tobacco smoke destroys lives, the majority of Americans smoked and many, if not most people believed that smoking was good for you. Through saturation advertising by tobacco companies, smoking was equated with health and good living. Even medical doctors promoted the health benefits of smoking.
As the anti-smoking campaign was launched, the counter-attack by tobacco interests from the smallest farmer to the largest corporation was systemic and calculated. The effort to attack the progressive movement toward lives free of smoking was fought tooth and nail. The pro-smoking effort was vicious. The opposition forces were in it for the long haul for people’s livelihoods were at stake. Sin is corporate as well as individual. The forces that sought health and wholeness had to persist in the face of withering criticism, systemic evil, billions of dollars of resources and a long parade of chained politicians. If the campaign toward a tobacco-free America was simple, it would have been fixed over night. But it wasn’t simple. It involved the complex transformation over a long period of time of a significant part of our economy both south and north based in tobacco and its distribution. It involved real people with real lives, real jobs, real mothers and fathers, real children and grandchildren. Only as they found alternatives for their livelihoods could real change occur.
The lesson of the anti-smoking campaign is relevant to the movement to reverse human generated global climate change. Persistence, dogged persistence and sustained education in schools, in churches, synagogues, temples and through every available public media is only a beginning. Now we have the benefit of the Internet to extend the reach of education and advocacy.
We need to recognize that the powerful forces and complex economics that contribute to human-caused climate change are entangled in nearly everything we do, nearly everything we enjoy, nearly everything we are that makes us tick in our modern economy. This should not erase our dogged commitment to care for the earth as stewards of God’s creation, but it should temper our arrogance. Our commitment to environmental justice should be unequivocal as an article of Christian discipleship. But we need not be card-carrying members the Pharisee party.
It’s easy to glibly condemn the science deniers and those who claim that human caused climate change is a hoax. We can laugh at the people who are on the right flank of the Republican Party, those Yahoo fundamentalists who don’t know any better and who we know are manipulated by oil and gas interests. We can call them idiots under our breath. We can say we are the enlightened ones but if we do so we are arrogant and of no help.
I know I am a part of the very same system contributing to climate change, myself. I drove a car to get church this morning from Northwest Altadena to Pasadena Presbyterian Church, burning fossil fuels all the way.
And all of you sitting here: you’re burning an excessive amount of fossil fuels just by attending this church. The heating and air conditioning in this church, that you own together, is a carbon emitting embarrassment. We only need $1.2 million more dollars to replace it with a state of-the-art, environmentally efficient system. Anybody want to write a check for the full amount and make our needed capital campaign a short-term, painless proposition? Write the check now.
I’m not here to throw cold water on the cause. I’m here to say that we all have a calling as stewards of God’s creation to answer God’s call, much as Jonah wanted to flee, much as we want to flee from the stark reality of global warming, we need to face the reality that our earth, this fragile blue and green globe of such exquisite beauty is crying for us. Maybe God is calling us to go to our Nineveh, only our Nineveh is even vaster than Jonah’s Nineveh and the timeframe is equally short. Maybe God has swallowed us up and we’re churching in the storm. Maybe God is spitting us out. Maybe we are being sent to our own world calling not the Ninevites to repent but all of us to turn around, to convert. Maybe God is asking us for a big time conversion to the ways of God where we care for our Mother Earth or else she will be weeping, groaning in agony for the way she has been defiled by our actions.
Maybe God is calling us from the deep to do our part. First we are called to be educated by understanding the fundamental science of climate change. Then we are to examine fearlessly the implications for our own lives, both personally and politically. I believe it is a matter of call, of wrestling with God, of knowing we are placed on this earth as God’s own stewards to honor, to protect and cherish the earth: for God’s sake, for our children, for our children’s children.
The jury is out on our species and all the species that depend on us for our survival. May you hear God’s call and not flee. May you respond to God’s call and act. May enough of us on this planet hear God’s call and respond that God and future generations will return a verdict for life. With God’s help let us act. Amen.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Young Adults in the News!
Numbers with Mental Illness Slightly Increased: Young Adults and Women Hit Hardest
Pew: Young Adults Especially Interested in Web Blackout News
Young Adults Fight to End Abortion
How Young Americans Think About Innovation: 3 Takeaways
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Prayers of the People
Loving God,We offer ourselves to You in prayer on this day, knowing that so often we are unaware of what is happening within us and around us in the present moment. God, so often we are entrapped by the past – ashamed of things we have said and done, fearful of realities we experienced, angry about injustices, worried that our past will haunt us. So often live in the future – again, afraid of what might happen or perhaps driven through compulsion to make things happen. Sometimes we forget to live in the present moment and to recognize what an absolute gift it is.
Help us to notice colors, beautiful plants, clear skies, the animals that give us pleasure, and the sunshine that warms our city and our planet. Help us to notice smiles in others and allow us to be affected by the energy of that kind of peace. Help us to notice when people may be suffering – perhaps hiding behind walls of anxiety that communicate they can’t be open about what is so painful. Help us to be present to ourselves. Help us to be present to them.
We pray for those who are experiencing deep joys and deep sadness in this present moment:
We pray for families who are expecting new life and families who are nurturing young lives in their midst. . .
We pray for people who are struggling with sickness in its many forms and for those who have anxieties about their health. . .
We pray for those who rejoice over new jobs. . .
We pray for those who are longing to find a job. . .
We pray for those who find themselves grateful for secure places – homes, peaceful emotions, and good, healthy relationships. . .
We pray for those who are homeless, those overwhelmed with difficult emotions, those who are longing for friendship in this world. . .
We pray for the dying, that all people might have the dignity they deserve and that friends and families may be comforted. . .
We pray for the grieving, those who have lost loved ones recently or for those who continue to feel the absence of a loved one who died many years ago. . .
We pray for the new energy in our church, that it would lead us to wholeness and vitality. . .
We pray for those who are experiencing injustice – for those who know the hot, angry tears of discrimination or unequal access to needed resources in our world. . .
We pray that You, O God, would be with all of these people. And we pray that in the present moment, we would be gifted to be with all of these people too. Keeping our holy calling in mind, we pray the prayer you have taught us, saying. . .
Our Father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name,
Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever.
Amen.
-A Prayer of Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Reflection: Ripples
Romans 12:1-8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be confomred to this world , but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
I'm intrigued by the show Joan of Arcadia.
It was on about seven years ago, and it got canceled after its second season. I never watched it when it was actually running, but I remember it being on. It's about a high school teenager named Joan who has moved to a new town called Arcadia with her family. As soon as she starts school there, life gets turned upside down in a host of ways. God begins to appear regularly to her. Not an everyday occurrence, of course. But this doesn't happen in grand visions or swooping miracles. God simply appears to Joan in a variety of human forms: God is a high school boy, a little girl on a playground, or a lunch lady scooping mashed potatoes. God isn't only cosmic and distant. God is very near -- deliberately appearing in the forms that Joan will understand. God speaks Joan's language on purpose.
And in many episodes, God gives Joan assignments. "Talk to this person." "Join the chess club." "Get a job at this bookstore." Usually Joan protests. These tasks are inconvenient. They aren't always what she wants to do. And in some ways, this is one of the best things about the show. Joan has a choice. God isn't booming thunderous commands from the sky. God is somehow nudging and calling. God is envisioning and dreaming. And God welcomes Joan into those dreams. Joan has the opportunity to exercise her choice -- her free will -- in ways that affect things.
So Joan acts on these assignments. And soon, they begin to have a ripple effect. They create important relationships, teach people to believe in their abilities, and give voice to deep human questions. And it doesn't happen in simple, easy, wrap-it-all-up kinds of ways. You know, "Joan does her assignment. The obvious change occurs, and poof! World peace ensues." Not quite. The show is a bit more complex than that. It deals with death, disability, sickness, and violence. It deals with a lot of complex subjects. But in the midst of all those things, Joan ultimately finds herself doing more than tasks. She ultimately finds herself investing her life into the life of others, and as she does this intentionally, she is changed and those around her are changed. Such a small nudge -- "Join the chess club" -- can affect a lot of things.
And I wonder if that has been true for us too. Clearly, our actions and our relationships ripple into a series of effects, creating more actions and more relationships. There is something completely connected about it all. And the text above seems to indicate something like that too.
It uses a lot of body language: "For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually, we are members of one another.
"Well, that's churchy language. I think many of us have probably grown up hearing a lot of "Body of Christ" language like that. But what happens when it isn't just a series of words or theological ideas? What happens when it takes on flesh? What happens with the Body of Christ becomes specific -- when it isn't general, or cosmic, or distant? What happens when an interconnected community is near -- so near that it appears in forms that we can understand? So near that it's right in front of us? What happens when our sense of being connected speaks a language to us? What happens when it speaks to others and creates a ripple effect?
Well, those are important questions, and as we start a new year, they are the type of questions that we could spend all of 2012 exploring. And speaking of ripples, what brought us here? What nudged us or called us? What was set in motion by others to bring us to this place? Who will we be, and how will we be, now that we have interacted together?
Some of us are new to Pasadena and Pasadena Presbyterian Church. If you fall into that category, you might be wondering, "Who are these strange people? What will I learn here? Who can I be here?" Some of us have been here for many years - even decades. And we might be asking, "Who have we been? What can we envision now? What will we learn? What will we teach? How are we connected for the long haul?"
Those are good questions too. But really, what brought us here -- not just the general Sunday School answers that we feel we're supposed to give -- but the real, specific ways we found ourselves in this community? Maybe it was attending a Friends of Music Concert. Maybe someone invited you. Maybe someone spoke a kind word. Maybe you just saw the church building and wondered what goes on in here on a Sunday morning or during the week.
It's interesting to think that such small actions of welcome can form an entire community. But it's certainly true. That has happened here. We are a community because we have received the ripple effects of love and welcome from other people. And we are called to dedicate ourselves -- to present our body, our community -- as a living sacrifice. We are called to be an ongoing ministry of welcome.
As 2012 begins, we may be wondering where to find God. We may be looking for cosmic displays and grandiose visions. But what if God can be found as we live in relationship with the lives around us? What if God can be found right here at Pasadena Presbyterian Church? What would happen if we noticed?
It might just be that God is at work in our community right here. And it might be that God will speak to us this year in and through the lives of the people we see every day. It might be that God will speak to us through each other.
So, a few more questions: What would happen if we brought our truest selves here? Who are we? Are we prophets, ministers, teachers, exhorters, givers, leaders, and people who show compassion? What do we love? What are we good at? Where are we called? How can we bring our truest selves to worship, to Bible Study, to Music at Noon Lunches, to multicultural gatherings, to the God Loves You Food Ministry?
How can we bring our truest selves to conversation, fellowship, and shared meals? How can we bring our truest selves by welcoming the stranger, by discerning direction, or by entering into prayer on behalf of others? And what would happen if we were formed together to do all of these things?
What are those little things nudging us these days? What if we brought them here and set them in motion together? We might make ripples that would have lasting effects. It might even ripple to folks who will join this church twenty years later!
If you are new here, we need you. Your truest self -- we need you. You are a gift to us. We need you to bring all the places you've been and all the dreams you have. We will bring ours to you. It's like setting a table in some ways. And we will welcome others to that table. And perhaps God will meet us right there, right in the midst of community. "The Bread of Life" and "The Cup of Salvation." Right here. May that be true this year. Amen.
- Renée Roederer, Director of Evangelism and Young Adult Ministries
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Frances Nobert 75th Birthday Celebration!
Friends of Music at Pasadena Presbyterian Church invites the community to a very special concert that will happen in the sanctuary on Saturday, January 21st at 3:00pm!Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Young Adults in the News!
Monday, January 16, 2012
MLK: Celebrations and Work Ahead
Today we give thanks for the life, ministry, and public witness of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. We hope to learn from his example, celebrate his life and actions, and be challenged by the continued work that needs our attention.Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sermon: An Invitation
John 1:43-51
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." When Jesus saw Nathaneal coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
"Good Morning, Saints!"
Yep, Good Morning.
Are you a bit unsure of how to react to such a greeting? Saints? Are you a little or even more than a little uncomfortable with it?
If so, that's okay. I'm a bit uncomfortable too. When we're uncomfortable, there's often something for us to explore within ourselves, or perhaps, there's something to explore within our community.
"Good Morning, Saints!" This is how my seminary colleagues and I were greeted every day at the beginning of each class that Dr. Andy Dearman taught.1 In seminary, I took his class on the Intro to the Old Testament, and I had him for Hebrew as well - a language which was quite a gift to us, but which also felt a bit like seminary hazing at the time!
"Good Morning, Saints!" This is how he greeted us every day.
Saints. . . Well, what sort of images come to mind? I suppose we could think about a professional football team, but more much likely, we find ourselves thinking of people who are really, really holy. We might think of particular people who have been canonized as saints in the Roman Catholic Tradition: Saint Paul, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Augustine. . . Or maybe we have a strong reaction within ourselves to any sort of greeting that would call us saints because we associate the ethos of such a phrase with people who think they're really quite incredible, people who seem to exude a "holier-than-thou" attitude in just about everything they do. And that's not who we want to be.
So why voice such a greeting at all?
Well, whether you like the word 'saint' or not, a greeting like that one tells us something true about ourselves - that even in our confusion, or need, or imperfection, we are truly named and claimed by God as human beings who are called together to be the people of God - people who have worth and value and a high calling.
So "Good Morning, Saints!" Or "Holy Community of God!" or "Ministers Gifted By God!" Good Morning, "Beloved People Who Are Called to Serve!" or "Priesthood of All Believers!" or "Ministers of Reconciliation!" Good Morning, "Disciples and Friends and Partners of God!"
Good Morning. You are collectively a holy and beloved people, called into the gifts of God and into the purposes of God. Good Morning to you.
Who knows what Philip was thinking about himself or about the world around him on the day he heard some holy words from Jesus. "Follow me," Jesus said to him. Whatever Philip was thinking, feeling, or perceiving, those words turned his world upside down. In that call, Philip was more valuable than he he probably knew he was, and he was being called into a community that was more valuable than he could have imagined at the time.
I like a quote that is attributed to D. T. Niles: "Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread."2 There's something so true about that. We are simple people - sometimes, spiritually impoverished people - and we're looking to God for sustenance. When we receive it, we can tell others where to find some bread.
But we're not just impoverished. We've been fed here. We've been given a feast in the love of God and in the service of God. So many of us have experienced that feast in a particular way around the table of this church. I'm grateful for the ways that God has been present here among us over a long stretch of history in this city.
Like us, Philip was spiritually impoverished and valuable beyond his comprehension.
Even after hearing the call from Jesus, Philip couldn't fully understand what was ahead of him. But he had met and experienced Jesus. And that was enough of an experience to make a shift already. When he found Nathanael, he shared where to find bread: "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Well, Nathanael - like us sometimes - was suspicious: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" he asks.
I find it interesting that Philip didn't start theologizing. "Why, yes, Nathaniel, something good can come out of Nazareth! God is great and holy, after all, but as I've learned through my Liberation Theology textbooks, God has a preferential option for the poor. And by the way, through the Incarnation, God - who is Totally Other - seeks to be one of us in humanity, even perhaps as humanity is found in Nazareth."
Philip didn't do that.
He also didn't pull out his Bible and start flipping to and fro between passages to prove his point. Now clearly, Philip valued the scriptures: "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote," he said. In his day, Philip wouldn't have had the scriptures in his back pocket. But Philip seemed to recognize that the scriptures are a holy witness to Christ rather than a proof-texting tool. These scriptures point to the Christ. Let's go experience the Christ!
"Come and see." That's what Philip says to skeptical Nathanael. "Come and see," for yourself. Philip issues a simple but life-changing invitation. He invites Nathanael to Jesus, and that changes everything.
And so here we are. It's another typical Sunday, and so many of us are doing what we typically do on Sundays. But maybe we need our routine shaken up just a little because we have the opportunity to remember again that Jesus is among us when we are gathered together. "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them," Jesus said.
We're spiritually impoverished in so many ways, but we're also saints - not because we're holy somehow on our own, but because we've been sanctified in ways we can't even understand. And so today, on a routine Sunday, we have the opportunity to be reminded of who we are and Whose we are.
So from this place - from this routine Sunday, I voice the the opportunity for us to be invited and for us to have the opportunity to do some inviting-ing. "Come and see." It's a simple invitation that keeps our words few and yet points to the One who is beyond words. It's an invitation that points to the the One who is called the Word - Jesus, the Word made human who changes our lives, the Word who is somehow gathered here when we are together.
We can experience him. We can "come and see." We can have our lives changed.
We can also invite others to join us. We can voice "Come and see," in a myriad of ways. We can invite others to find some bread here. We can invite others into life-change.
We can practice evangelism. Oh. . . the E word. . . . Now nothing kills a sermon like mentioning the E word! Evangelism - now that's a scary word for us if there ever was one! And that's understandable. . . There are messages of evangelism floating around out there that do make us really uncomfortable. Many for good reason.
Here's one message of evangelism that gets under our skin. Now, of course, no one says it exactly like this, but this is the feel of it: "We have it all together, and we have all the answers. You need us. Come join us!"
Oh brother. . . In that kind of invitation, we're really pointing to ourselves. I heard a sermon once in which a pastor mentioned that she had heard the message of evangelism so differently at a conference. 3 What if we reversed the typical invitation? "We don't have it all together, and we don't have all the answers. Yet we believe God is present here. And we believe God is present in you. We need you. We invite you to bring all that you are to this place. Come and see. And we invite you to be gathered with us in such a way that Christ is somehow miraculously present among us - yes, in a different way, now that you're here. We need you. Come and see."
Doesn't that change things?
It's 2012. And these days, as I walk through the hallways of this church or have conversations with you, I get the sense that we feel called to a new sense of energy and purpose. We don't have it all figured out, and we don't have all the answers. But we sense that God is moving among us and calling us to dream in new ways.
Sometimes when a new year rolls around, I find myself thinking, "How long can we stretch this sense of newness?" In other words, "How long can we be aware and cognizant of the fact that we're in a given year - that it's 2012 - and that the year has particular gifts and challenges for us?" I don't have the answer to that, but I invite us to receive this year as a gift - in all its opportunities, energy, moments for dreaming, and in all its challenges.
It's 2012. Let's find bread together this year. Let's be ourselves and invite others to join us in discovering what 2012 could mean for us.
Let's "Come and See." Amen.
-Renee Roederer, Director of Evangelism and Young Adult Ministries, and the Community at Pasadena Presbyterian Church
1 Dr. Andy Dearman taught for many years at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He is now the Academic Dean at the Houston Campus of Fuller Theological Seminary.
2 This quote is found in many places on the internet, but I cannot find its original source.
3 Pastor Judy Skaggs told this story in a sermon at University Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas after attending a conference on evangelism.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Being an Innovative Church!
We believe that Pasadena Presbyterian Church is in a season of dreaming. Who are we? Where have we been together, and how are we called to move forward now? How is God stirring our hearts and minds?Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Supporting Fair Trade: Thank You, Pasadena Presbyterian Church!
In December, Pasadena Presbyterian Church partnered with Ten Thousand Villages to do a fundraiser through benefit shopping. Ten Thousand Villages is a Fair Trade store located at 567 S. Lake Avenue in Pasadena, offering a selection of beautiful and creative hand-crafted items made my artisans around the world. Ten Thousand Villages is a non-profit store which has been working for sixty years to provide fair, sustainable income to artisans for their hand-crafted work of home decor, personal accessories, and gifts.Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Young Adults in the News!
