Thought From Broad Street (My 'last' Sunday)

The Chapel Window, Broad Street United Methodist Church

Today is my last Sunday leading worship at Broad Street Church before I leave for Appalachian. Our organist played a beautiful hymn for the Offertory that hit home,

                        “Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow, give us peace beyond our fear, and hope beyond our sorrow”

           

        Poignant words as I stood there with tears. For all I knew this was church, this was Broad Street. From the pulpit in the magnificent Akron-style sanctuary I felt my calling to ministry, a vocational calling that has shaped the very core of my being. I wondered to a friend today if it would ever be the same? Would church take on new meaning?

            As I journey through life I will never forget the home and calling this magnificent church has offered me. It is a place of hope beyond all sorrow, even when the going is bleak. The beauty of our faith is that we are called to be a people of transition. It is our hope that God would offer us healing, grace, and peace amidst the transition.

            Church may not always be grand; it will certainly not be easy or 24/7 fun. The Gospel makes it clear we each have a cross to bear. We as Stanley Hauerwas mused are a “Cross-Shattered Church” It is my belief that in worship we all bring our crosses, but Christ brings the flame. Maybe that’s partly why I’m Methodist. Church is a covered dish of crosses, and Jesus brings the flame, the Spirit, the comforter and the healer.

            Our recessional hymn rang true today, “Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, for I am thy God and will STILL give thee aid; I’ll strengthen and help thee and cause thee to stand, upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.”

            May God truly bless Broad Street Church in the years to come, may God strengthen college students as they transition. Give us peace beyond our fear, and hope for beyond our sorrow!

I want to be a Saint!

        One Sunday, I heard a wonderful duet of “Shall We Gather at the River?” I don’t know about you but when I think of that song, I yearn for newness, to be one of those saints, “Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river; gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God.” Have you ever yearned for resurrection? Have you ever yearned to be a saint?

            I know I have. I have yearned to feel that saintly resurrection. To be a part of that great cast of people long gone or still here, to be a part of those people who push for justice, peace, and love in our community, that is something I could get used to. I know where we can start our journey to sainthood… I believe it sainthood has its roots where it once did, in the church.

Dr. James Howell, pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church, an amazing pastor, colleague and theologian once wrote, “A Church family can be – or is! – Just as dysfunctional, loony, and codependent as any other family. And yet, a family loves, a family sticks with you; you’re stuck with each other, and the friction polishes us so we can more brilliantly reflect the love of Christ to the world. A Church family knows how to deliver a casserole, join a prayer chain, or to show up when needed; a family is exhilarated over the arrival of a new family member, and we are unusually attentive to the elderly, or anybody who is sick.”

            I often cringe when people talk about the institution of the church being for a bygone generation bent on the old way. The liveliness of faith is in the institution formed by the people. Christianity, contrary to popular belief is not a solitary religion. As one artist put it, “we live in the vast canopy woven by the ages.” We live in the great chain of faith, connecting one generation of faith to another.

            In the hymn, For All the Saints” we lustily sing, “O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; for all are one in Thee, for all are Thine. Alleluia!” Something about feeble struggle excites me. I may be a church nerd, but that is something we can all get in to. What if, for instance we were more a part of the institution society has grown distaste for? What if, instead of complaining about the church, we feebly struggle for the saints of God, for the church we used to love? That is faith that recharges the heart and regenerates the soul.

            I have a newsflash. Yes, life-changing news. You don’t have to be dead to be a saint! There are people, here in Statesville, who are the mighty fortresses of God. Who have fought for the sake of faith and are moving onto perfection. It is the hope of many within the institutionalized resurrection community of the church that we will one day join them. But for now we struggle. We sing of the saints, we talk of the saints. But take heart, as the hymn says, “I sing a song of the saints of God… And I plan to be one too!”

We Are Not Alone

        There was a 1994 film that was filmed in Wilmington North Carolina that is remembered more for the accidental death of Brandon Lee, Jet Lee’s son, than anything else. During the movie, The Crow, one of the characters makes a remark, “If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.”

            I went to a funeral this past week of a man by the name of Jack Sherrill. Jack was an active member of my church and he was influential in my faith. His passing struck me as I was pondering this road of life. I am of the mindset that there is no greater honor than to be with someone in their final moments, or to remember them after they are gone. Frederick Buechner, the Presbyterian minister once preached in a sermon, “Christ came to us in the countless disguises through people who one way or another strengthened us, judged us, comforted us, healed us, by the power of Christ alive within them.” I often look back on my years and see the impact people had that now are a part of the Kingdom of God fully and completely.

            Death is scary. It is the reality we must face because it is a reality that comes to all of us. But there is a wonderful creed that says, “In life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone. God is with us.” In that reality we see on the horizon, we must live life with real love, love that is beyond measure. Maybe that love is for the partner we have in life, the church we call home, or the simple things that make us happy. I once was able to ask my favorite theologian some questions. One of my questions was about death. Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, professor of ethics at Duke Divinity School has studied dying, and I asked him how can we live prepared to die, he replied, “I’m not sure if Christians today can live lives such that they are ready to die. We simply no longer know how to do that. We can, however, keep before us people that are long gone. That can never be forgotten. Just to the extent that we remember this, we continue to have hope that we too will be faithful as we face death.”

            I can remember when I was little, my former pastor would notify us of a death in our congregation by saying the person transferred their membership from our church to the church triumphant. We too will transfer our membership, but that is something we shouldn’t fear, but embrace. Live life like we’re ready to die. Live because we are full of love.

            I would be remiss in my duties as a columnist not to mention the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, a movie series that helped define a generation ended this past week with the release of the final movie. There is this great scene in which Professor Dumbledore tells Harry Potter, “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love." Dumbledore said it best… Love until you can’t love anymore, then your life will be worth living, and remember as Shakespeare once penned long ago, "Seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”

Sermon July 10, 2011

Go with me if you would, to the late 1800's in North Carolina shortly after the Civil War. A small town businessman from a remote community in the mountains of North Carolina went to one of the larger cities Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston Salem, and there for the first time in his life, he saw an ice-making machine. Now, machines that could make artificial ice were a recent invention; he thought this was wonderful because it meant you could have ice all summer long. So he returned to his small community in the mountains of North Carolina, yes that sounds like where I am attending school in the fal -and told his Baptist church about this great new invention. Within a month the church had split into ice and no-ice Baptists. The theological issue in this case being is it a violation of the natural order established by God to make ice out of season. If God had wanted us to have ice in the summertime, God would have raised the freezing temperature of water seems to have been the argument. I know we’ve heard that type of story before. We yearn for more, we thirst for more, that is who we are, but sometimes in that false hope we become the bad seed… Hopelessly pathetic in the face of the Gospel.

            Hopelessly pathetic you say, I know what you’re thinking. It would be much easier for AJ to be here today preaching from his pulpit, but he is not. The Gospel lesson today begs us to take a look at what is going on in the world around us. It seems like it’s almost an isolation text, stay away from the world, or else you will risk temptation or destruction. But I think that in one large swoop, Jesus is announcing the kingdom of God, incarnate among us.

Well I know the question that will most certainly come up in your minds, what must I do to be the good seed? What must I do to not end up as idle Sunday school conversation or the next great schism over ice. How do I become the seed that brought forth harvest? There’s this 200 year old story of the Rabbi from Krakow, he falls asleep one night and has this very vivid dream and he sees a bridge that is in a city very far away and under the bridge is treasure. The second he wakes up he packs and travels many miles and days to the city. He gets to the bridge and he hides in the bushes to look for the treasure. A police officer notices him and asks him what he is doing. The rabbi doesn’t want to tell the police officer why, but eventually he admits that there is treasure under the bridge, at that moment the police officer laughs at him and says you believe dreams like that? If I believed that I would think that there is some treasure buried under the bed of a rabbi from Krakow. We search don’t we for that answer? We spend our whole lives to see that what we yearned for, we had all along.

That item, that trait, that reality that we search for in an effort to be the good seed is love. Love that wakes us up in the morning or puts us to bed at night, Love that makes us and takes us to the very hope of God’s grace, that is what we are searching for. God’s love abounds when we take time to smell the roses in life. Sure we can search the entirety of our lives and beings to find that, but I’m helping you out here and now, by telling you to quit searching and begin exploring that love! Or as Emerson put it, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

More deeply this parable relates to us something profound. God is in the very harvest that we yearn for. God is at work sowing the love brought about by Jesus of Nazareth.  A biographer of the Duke of Windsor, Alistair Cooke, remarks, "The Duke was at his best when the going was good." I think that is true of all of us, not just the Duke of Windsor.  But the parable is saying to us: God is in charge of the harvest, because God is a God of the love we feel surrounding us.

I know that sometimes it’s easier to be the not so good seed. It just may be that our theology is like that of Woody Allen, who accuses God of being an underachiever. He writes, "I would believe, if only God would give me a clear sign -- like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank." God is not a God of clarity. But God is in fact a God of certainty. Certainty in love, not in signs, I love the old poem that goes a little like this: “And sitting down they watched him there, the soldiers did; There, while they played with dice, He made his sacrifice, And died upon the cross to rid God's world of sin. He was a gambler, too, my Christ, He took his life and threw It for a world redeemed. And ere his agony was done,
Before the westering sun went down, crowning that day with crimson crown, He knew that he had won.” Jesus gambled, and won for the sake of love. There is certainty in our uncertainty because of the cross of Christ.

If Charlotte is anything like Statesville you all have most certainly been fascinated and captivated by the story of Casey Anthony and the death of her daughter. People have been living affixed in front of their televisions hoping for a guilty verdict. Well you’d have to live under a rock to know that Casey was found not guilty in the face of a heinous crime. There has been a public outcry for her head on a platter. There has been many a people willing to make that happen. And I as I was watching the coverage of this trial, as I think back on all that has happened in my life, I realized something. It is our job as the good seed with great harvest to share it with the birds, and with the people of little faith. That is the love incarnate in us.

Do I think that justice has been served, I’m not sure. But what I do know is a man long ago hung out with a woman like Casey Anthony, she was supposed to be penalized for her crimes, her charge was death. But this man ministered to the bad seed, and in turn changed her life. Jesus the Christ, ministered to this woman who probably deserved what was coming her way. I tell you this, St. Paul United Methodist Church, because you are commissioned by our God to minister to the people who need it most. The people who need good seed in their life, the people who need God.

            So my challenge to you this day is to fight the urge to convict the bad seed of being bad, fight the urge to become people who argue over ice and instead yearn for more, yearn for love! Be a love revolution, be a revolution that seeks to show grace to the bad seed, including Casey Anthony. There is a man who tells a story like this:

My mother had only one eye. I hated her so much because she was such an embarrassment. She worked as a cook in the same school I was learning in so as to support our family. One day, when I was in school , she came by to make sure that I was fine. I felt so embarrassed. "How could she do this to me?" I though. I ignored her. I gave her an angry hateful glimpse then ran away. In the next day, one of the students came to me and said, "Oh! Your mom has only one eye!". At this moment, I wished if I could bury myself. I wished if my mother would disappear from my life forever. The day after that, I went to her feeling very furious at her. I said to her, "You made me look like a joke! Why don't you die?!". She didn't respond. I never thought twice about what I said and I never hesitated to say it because I was very mad at her. I didn't really care about her feelings. I just wanted to leave the house. I studied really hard so I received a scholarship to study in Singapore. Then I went there, studied, got married, bought a house, had kids on my own and I was very satisfied and happy with my life.

One day, my mom came to visit me, she hadn't seen me for years. She hadn't even met her grandchildren yet. She stood by the door, my children were laughing at her. "How dare you come to my house and scare my children?!" I screamed at her, "Get out of here right now!". "I'm sorry, I must have got the wrong address." She quietly answered. The she disappeared and I never heard of her again.

One day, I received a letter from my school inviting me to attend the school reunion. So I lied to my wife and told her that I was going on a business trip. After the meeting, I went to my old house --the house which I was raised in-- just out of curiosity. The neighbors told me that my mom had died. I didn't really care, I didn't even shed a single tear. Then they gave me a letter from my mom.

My dear son,
I think about you all the time. I'm so sorry that I came to Singapore and scared your children. I was very happy when I heard that you were coming to the school reunion. I'm afraid I won't be able come and see you because I can't even get out of the bed. I'm sorry that I caused you embarrassment through your whole life.  Do you know when you were a child you had an accident and lost one of your eyes. And as a mother, I couldn't bare to let you grow up with only one eye. So I gave you mine. I was very happy and proud that my son could see the world with my own eyes.  Love, Your mother.

            People of faith, fall in love with God, there’s no other feeling like it. He gave his life, like that mother, for you! Grace and Peace to you all in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

The New Statesville

          I was at Habitat for Humanity the other day visiting the ReStore as I often like to do, I went in to the offices to visit a close friend and I got to thinking, what wonderful ministries we have here in Statesville. Archbishop Tutu says the following about Habitat, “Habitat for Humanity believes in putting faith into action. As walls go up, so many invisible walls come down and a new hope is built in the heart of the community.” New hope, we as a community could get used to that!

            You don’t have to look far to see despair in the town we call home. You don’t have to look far to see that organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Iredell Christian Ministries, and Fifth Street Ministries are an integral part of this community. The challenges we face when we look at them through the lens of faith make it seem possible for us to end the despair, but only with God’s help, and the help of these fine ministries.

            I often encourage people to make use of ministries within our community, it is important for us to support these vibrant organizations in the hopes that they can in turn support others. Whether that is donating to Habitat’s “Kiss the Cow” competition, or if you want to bring food to Iredell Christians Ministries’ wonderful food bank, even still there is always a need for volunteers at Fifth Street Ministries. I name these, because I have taken an active role in these ministries, but I am quite aware that there are many more within our great town ready to serve.

            There is an amazing hymn that was written in 1954 by Georgia Harkness for a time such as now. “Hope of the world, afoot on dusty highways, bringing to hungry souls the bread of life, still let thy Spirit unto us be given, to heal earth’s wounds and end all bitter strife” I often wonder what hope is among us, in this place. Statesville is a great community full of hope. I was greatly aware of this during the All America City competition a few years back, when we testified to the beauty of our town and the hope contained within its people. We have the potential to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and minister to the downtrodden.

            Martin Luther King Jr. put our message into action and proclaimed it like this:  It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preachers must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.” Why not we look for the new Statesville?

Record and Landmark Article June 24th 2011

                Church attendance is on the decline, church membership is on a downward slope to nowhere. Where are we headed as a church? Many have said that we are headed to the dark abyss of history, that one day our children and grandchildren will reminisce about the days that their parents went to church. They, in turn will be spending their Sunday mornings not in church and doing something else. 

                Church is no longer what it once was. We took advantage of the fact that we were like food and water, or even the very air we breathe. We examined church as a necessity within society. The implications of such are grim. We now have a problem, it’s like the church is running out of air. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase; “dying breed” well we are exactly that, on our way out.

                I’m sure you didn’t start reading this for the grim reality that is the church’s future. Well, I didn’t start writing this for that grim reality. We all must come to the table together, and work towards the solution. It doesn’t help any of us to talk about the death of the church, because it hasn’t happened yet. We are still fighting the disease of apathy within the church. We are still alive!

                I have a minister friend in Charlotte by the name of Jim Trollinger. He is currently in a battle of his own. He is fighting stage 4 brain cancer. He keeps telling people that he is not a statistic or a textbook example of what happens when someone gets cancer, he is in fact, very alive.

                I don’t know about you, but as a part of the church community, I am very much alive! I fight every day for justice, peace, and reconciliation within the community of faith and beyond. That is our mission, not to sit and whine about our eventual downfall but to make the years we have count. I went to see the movie Super 8 not too long ago and at one of the pivotal moments in that movie the protagonist declares in the midst of doom, “bad things happen, but you can still live!” Church you can have bad things happen to you, but you are still very much alive!

                It is my challenge to you to take the future of our church into your own hands, be like my friend Jim and fight the very fight of life! That is what we must do, that is what we are called to do. God is present in the midst of our struggle.