Tuesday, August 27, 2013

A Prayer to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington




Oh God our help in ages past,

            You have knit together such a great cloud of witnesses in this space. People who have dreamed for decades, and those who are just learning what it means to hope in your grace. Give us the eyes to see the dreams of others, and enable them to live out the calling on each of our lives. For prophets of the modern age, For people like sister Rosa who had the courage to say enough is enough. For brother Martin who caught the attention of his time by marching to the sound of equality, and the countless other people sung and unsung of the Civil Rights movement:

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

            For people today who still languish under the weight of oppression and prejudice even here in our county and beyond, for children who have never felt the warm embrace of a loving parent. For those who struggle with addiction, for those whose jail cells are their minds, and for those whose jail cells are because of a court system. For the people who walk our streets that are homeless, for the people who turn their heads so they don’t have to notice:

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

            We are especially mindful of the needs of this community of faith, the realities that we all are facing. For those who know death’s dark greeting all too well, for those who are bringing life into this world. For those who have begun school, and for those who go about their daily lives, today we name:

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God we have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For this is our hope. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation [and world] into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day1:

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God for your revelation of yourself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, for the hope he gave us as he taught us that freedom is coming and is an important part of the dichotomy of the Kingdom of God. The Jesus who gave inspiration to the spirituals and hymns we still sing today, who taught us to pray with our hearts, and minds, and feet and hands, we still pray the prayer he taught his disciples when said pray this way,
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 trespasses, as we forgive
Those who trespassed against us, and lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,
And the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.




1 I am forever indebted to the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. His words (slightly edited to be a prayer )from his ‘I have a Dream’ Speech are included here.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Being at Home is a Mindset of Faith


Recently, I was in a situation where I visited someone who kept saying she wanted to go home. This lady, who was obviously very ill, yearned for the home she had known for so long. This home for her was a place where children were raised, a marriage cultivated to fruition, and a harbor of hope, joy and love. She yearned to be home. I knew in those moments that while she wanted to be in a place with a physical address and tangible elements, what she needed were the implications of being in that place.
We all deal with those emotions don’t we? This is a season of endings and beginnings for many. Students are heading back to schools in Iredell County, while other students are beginning their tenure at universities across the state and country. People are entering our community because of jobs, opportunities, or retirement, and the landscape of our time and place can change drastically from day-to-day. I often wonder if that’s a symptom of a deeper problem. Many people opine that these days, people don’t have the roots that generation of yesteryear had. I would argue that while people don’t stay where they were planted the roots matter more than ever.
We are a people built by our homes and the God who reigns over our homes. We are loved beyond measure by the people who represent the Divine to us, that is why deep down all college students wish they could come home, why all parents strive to make life better for their children than what they had, and why those in their golden years hope for the simplicity they once knew in the homes of their youth. But in all those situations we forget one important element. Home never left us. God has inspired a life in all of us that allows us to journey to the far reaches of the earth not only with the presence of our Creator but with the hopes, dreams, joys and frustrations of that which we know as home. The reason all of us work for a home is that in those moments when we are home, wherever that is, are moments in which God intricately weaves moments of holiness there.
This week, be thankful for your homes. If your homes are changing for whatever reason, know that home is more than a building, home is a mindset. It is a mindset of grace that leads us to a deeper understanding of our faith in the midst of this transient life. Never be afraid to dream and wish for home, but be forever reminded that home is never too far from that dream or wish, for God is our home. God is the surrounding presence that inspired those first feelings of belonging so long ago. Let us give thanks that no matter our reality, God is there, love is incarnate, and home is the mindset we can all work toward.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

When Grace Gets Messy


August 4th, 2013 The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
First Baptist Church, West Jefferson
Matthew 22:1-10

Before we pray I would like to comment that this sermon is not about our own Grace Miller playing in the compost pile in DC.  The youth would like me to clarify she may have been messy then but that's not exactly the grace we are talking about. Will you pray with me?

Will you pray with me?
            God who enlivens and sustains us,
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh God our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

            Think back to your oldest memory. That memory that you can’t think of anything before that and beyond that you have to rely on the stories you’ve heard about your growing up. For me, my oldest memory is one that I cherish because I think it sums up a lot of things, my relationship to the person this memory involves, it sums up what I enjoy most in life, and most importantly it points to the reality that one overarching quality has encompassed my life, I am a nerd.
            My oldest and most vivid memory of my childhood is of me, sitting on my Dad’s lap and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I remember as we sat there he shared just a little bit of his Bunny Sliced Bread, I couldn’t have been old at the time but I remember the thrill of watching Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew race across space to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. To this day I still can tell you what the warp theory is that enabled them to do that, I can tell you that first contact with an alien species happened on April 5th, 2063 and that when people were beamed aboard the starship Enterprise it was a combination of glitter, water and special effects that made that happen. To be a nerd might be an understatement.
            Something happened this week that I saw that might have changed my outlook on being a nerd. It wasn’t the best idea to want to be Spock for Halloween growing up, it wasn’t always popular to play with a model starship instead of a football, but this week a fan was at a Star Trek convention (yes they have those) and asked one of the stars of the Star Trek: The Next Generation stars to impart some wisdom to her newborn baby. In a world of social media she recorded it and now we see the wisdom in being a nerd.
            Wil Wheatonwho played young Wesley Crusher in the 1980’s and 90’s said this: “Hi Violet, my name is Wil Wheaton and it’s 2013 and you’ve just joined us on earth, so welcome. I’m an actor, a writer and a dad… I don’t know what the world is going to be like by the time you understand this, and I don’t know what it will be like to be a nerd when you’re a young woman. For me when I was growing up, being a nerd meant liking things that were weird and took a lot of effort to understand… I really wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on instead of riding this planet through space. When I was a little boy, people teased me and made me feel like there was something wrong with being a nerd. The world has changed a lot, because being a nerd or geek is not about what you love, it’s about how you love. There will be something in your life that you love, it might be sports or science, or building things, it doesn’t matter what it is, the way you love it and surround yourself with other people who love it is what matters and what defines you. The defining characteristic of being a nerd is that we love things, whatever that is. Some of us love completely different things but we all love… We come from all around the world and love with other people. That’s what being a nerd is.”
            I feel like Jesus could have imparted those words to us a night long ago. I wonder if he lovingly looked at his friends, and he probably said something along the lines of ‘I don’t know what the world will be like when you finally understand what is about to happen.’ That voice has echoed throughout time as we come to a table and feast on the Blessed Sacrament.
            Our youth had experiences with communion a few weeks back in the very heart of our nation. In a place often characterized as godless and soulless the youth of First Baptist Church were in mystic sweet communion with the people on the streets of Washington at a park not too far from the center of power in our world. They sat together and in some holy humor they took sliced bread and Dixie cups and celebrated a faith older than all of us combined. It was messy, grape juice would sometimes splatter and the people we shared in communion with weren’t the epitome of cleanliness but it didn’t matter because love was involved. We were nerds for communion. It didn’t matter that we were out in a park in 87-degree weather, it didn’t matter that they had spent their day making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it didn’t matter that they had to walk back on feet that were sore because in those moments they were experiencing the very kingdom of God.
            My great-grandmother Lee was a bulwark of what some would consider the old guard of southern aristocracy. She was quick to tell people when they would first walk into Broad Street United Methodist Church if they were sitting in someone’s usual seat, much less her own. About 10 years after her death I was talking with her pastor from the 1970’s who I still maintain a friendship with. This particular pastor led the congregation as they began the “new” way of celebrating the Lord’s Supper through intinction. He said the first time Broad Street celebrated communion that way my great grandmother came down the aisle to the front of the church with a napkin ready to be tucked in her collar to make sure she had a clean break with this communion. The worst reality for her was the possibility that grace might be messy. Her pastor told me that ever since then he wondered if she ever ‘got it.’
            My prayer is that she did. My prayer is that one day she realized that grace is messy and if the worst thing that happened to her that day was some grape juice splattered on her hands then she was doing pretty well. You see when we were out there on the streets with the homeless of DC this Eucharistic action was more than a moment to walk down the aisle and look around nodding to the congregation who watches us take communion. It was not an act of public faith it was an act of survival. They took the bread and ate it as if it was their last meal they might have for a while. They feasted because they had been invited to the feast.
            There weren’t any stipulations placed on who was welcome. There were people there in that park that had 401k packages with more money than your entire staff makes in a year. There were people who had been in and out of jail, people who knew what hell was like because they were living it. But in a holy way they came together and hoped for a brighter tomorrow. Their feast was what mattered to them and they joined with us in a magnificent moment of messy grace.
            You know this past week I had another moment of messy grace. Michael and I went to Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem to visit Terry, Carl and Mary Simmons. These members of our church are grappling with the realities of making moments count, of facing the thoughts of death and endings, and sleepless nights in a hospital room. As Michael and I visited we both got the sense that this was no ordinary hospital visit. I feel as if we were both extended a grace that was messy but nonetheless beautiful. You see Carl, Mary, and Terry didn’t act like people who faced such realities. They talked as if a victory had already occurred, because ultimately it has. The beauty in the life of this church is we have countless church members from the youngest children to people like Carl and Mary who have been married 59 years experiencing this messy grace in a way unique to them. Messy grace can be painful, tiresome and depressing, but it reminds us that the life of faith is full of God’s incarnate love.
            You see we’re all broken and in need of redemptive, messy grace. If you’ve ever broken a plate you know that the pieces don’t always go back the way they used to. When you are broken you don’t go back the way you used to be, and in an act of love, messy grace comes in and fills the brokenness with new life and redemption. When we share in an act of worship like communion we stare everything that has ever broken us in the face and in an act of defiance we share together in proclaiming victory.
            The hope of communion, the hope of our faith is that we love. They will know we are Christians by our love. They won’t know we are Christians based on our favorite form of the Lord’s Supper, they won’t know you are Christians by your political party or particular opinion of a hot button issue such as sexual orientation, the nation’s budget, the war, or teacher pay. They will know you are Christian by the fact that you respond to all those issues informed by the love that makes you whole.
             And in the end those things don’t matter as much as they used to when we are informed by love. It almost seems rather petty when you think about our disagreements in the light of God’s glory and grace. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if people shared in communion at all the disagreements in the institutional church. What if the Crusaders decided to eat with their enemies? What if Luther would have been willing to share a meal with the Catholic Church for whom he ardently disagreed with? What if the Moral Majority would have broken bread with the Progressive Mainliners? What if the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship were willing to share a meal in the midst of all the pain they’ve both encountered?
            You see what’s scary about all that is when you share a meal with someone; you have to get to know them. That’s what Jesus wanted, and we experienced that in the park that hot summer day in Washington DC. We were forced to abandon our safe harbor and find the grace of talking to someone. We were as much recipients of Christ’s grace as we were people sharing that gift. We encountered people there like Matthew who taught us what it meant to be a follower of Jesus, of John Spencer a kid from another church who embodied servant-hood even though it looked a little funny, we found out about friendship from David a kid from Texas, and if you’re brave enough, ask our youth about what they experienced when they met a kid named Henry.      
            But it didn’t stop there. Our own youth became for so many the incarnate presence of a living and life-changing God. Church family if you want to see what it’s like to experience communion you need only look as far as a conversation with Evan, Parker, Adrian, Ethan, Caroline, Amanda or Grace. If you want to share in a feast ask Ava Rector, Chelsie Bobbitt and Kennedy Reeves about the important task of inviting Justin Bieber to church. When I went on these trips I went as a cautious observer at first, I think most people think that because you are young you are automatically qualified to do youth ministry, let’s be real with one another I was terrified. But each of these youth and children in their own unique way invited the chaperones, the homeless of Washington, and other churches into a feast of fellowship, of messy grace, and of love that is bigger than I could have possibly imagined.  
             Back to the story I first told you about my Dad and that night years ago watching Star Trek. I’ve experienced a lot of church services in my life, I’ve been to a bunch of communion services some which I felt so close to God it was overpowering and some where I felt so far away I couldn’t imagine sharing in the feast. But one thing I’m thankful for is that my first memory with my dad watching Star Trek was one of profoundly Eucharistic implications. Honestly we could have been watching anything at the time, it didn’t matter. What matters for both of us that I had the opportunity to have some bread and coke with my dad, the dad who knew me before I knew what it was like to be known. The dad who taught me to drive and live and love through his example, and he got to share that with me. We too are invited today, not because we do anything particularly special or because we all agree on everything, but because we love, we love a God who loved us before we knew how to even acknowledge that love. God like my dad back years ago takes these elements well-off people like us take for granted and makes them tools necessary for our spiritual survival. Yes you might get messy, but you know that old saying you are what you eat? What if you eat this bread and take this cup and become what we hope to experience through it? You never know, you might end up in a park in DC, or watching Star Trek with your son, either way you’ll never be the same again. Thanks be to God.