Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year C, "True Love," 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

 Sermon 1/25/22

1 Corinthians 13

True Love

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Even people who aren’t very familiar with the Bible often know this passage of scripture – 1 Corinthians 13 – the “love” chapter – even if they can’t identify exactly where in the Bible it’s from. You’ve probably heard this passage of scripture read at many, many weddings. I would guess, that out of all of the weddings I’ve officiated in my years of pastoral ministry, probably close to fifty percent of the ceremonies included this passage as the couples’ scripture of choice, and I will admit, sometimes, on realizing I would have to give another reflection on 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding, I felt a little less than 100% enthusiastic. Still, I would always take the opportunity to tell the couple - and the wedding guests - that 1 Corinthians 13 isn’t about romantic love, although the words can certainly apply. Rather, Paul is writing to a community, and his focus is on helping the community learn to build one another up in the body of Christ. Love builds up, and when we love one another well, we build good community together. 1 Corinthians 13 is really just a meditation on what Jesus says are the greatest commandments: first, to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and second, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Paul is just giving us some details. 

And yet, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves is kind of complicated. And I think it is so complicated not because it is so difficult to do, but because we take it to heart in some unintended ways! When I was a first year college student, taking my first religion class, my professor said something that shocked me. He said, “What Jesus got wrong with “Love your neighbor as yourself” is that most of us don’t actually love ourselves very much.” I was shocked on the one hand because I’d never heard someone suggest Jesus might have said something wrong before. But once I got beyond that, I was shocked because my professor’s critique seemed so apt. Often, we are loving others as we love ourselves - poorly, incompletely, inconsistently. What good is it to seek to love others as ourselves if we don’t love ourselves?

That’s why I actually love 1 Corinthians 13 - just not the part that usually gets read at weddings. I love the last part of the chapter. Paul writes in verse 12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Mirrors in Paul’s day weren’t like they are today. They were often made out of polished metals or other materials that would at best offer blurry, muddled reflections to the viewer, not crisp images like we are used to. People couldn’t often see their physical selves clearly like we can today. But Paul’s writing suggests that it’s more than our physical bodies that we don’t perceive clearly, although we can include our faulty impressions of our physical selves still. 

When you take stock of yourself, your life, how do you perceive yourself? Do you think you have a clear picture of who you are? And do you find that person to be worthy of love? Part of the reason I’m here at Drew Theological School for a second time, working on another degree, is because I treasure the community here. I feel valued. I feel connected to my peers. I feel nurtured by faculty and staff. I feel a sense of shared ethical commitments that are important to me. But being in an academic community again these last couple of years has also heightened my sense of imposter syndrome. That’s when we feel like we’re frauds, not really measuring up to the impressions people have of us, waiting to be outed as not really smart enough to do the work we’re being asked to do. I especially struggle with those feelings at the beginning of each semester when I get my syllabi and feel temporarily overwhelmed by all that professors are expecting for the semester. Maybe you feel that too: the vulnerability of being assessed, your thoughts evaluated, translated into grades. Maybe it feels like you are being evaluated, and you aren’t measuring up. Maybe you feel the vulnerability that comes with being in a season of discernment, the hard process of answering God’s call and finding a path that you might wrestle with during seminary. Or maybe you’re pretty confident in your academic life, but you’re struggling with what you find in the rest of your life, in your relationships, in your work. Are you succeeding with the goals you’re setting? Are you well-liked? Does your life have meaning and purpose? How do you perceive yourself? 

Like my professor once suggested, I suspect that our self-reflections will reveal that we don’t, in fact, always love ourselves well. I think Paul knew this too - but he believed something else was possible. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Oh, how I long for that, even as it sounds terrifying - to be fully known, and, we can conclude from Paul’s theme, loved. Fully known, fully loved. Paul anticipates that we’ll be able to know love fully in an eschatological telos that is “by and by” - a future event, when we are united with God. But - but being fully known and loved? Paul speaks of that as our already-present reality. We are already fully known by God, in whose image we have been created, by God, who knows, perceives, and loves us entirely. Is there a way, though, for us to have a better mirror now? To know more fully who we are now? Can we learn to love ourselves more fully now? 

Paul  obviously believed that striving for the more excellent way of love was a worthy endeavor - a necessary endeavor for the communities of faith in the here and now. And Jesus, certainly, preaches a message of God’s very-present reign here and now. However it works, whatever the order of loving is, Jesus tells us that our love for ourselves and love for one another are bound up in each other. We need both, we need to do both. I think Paul gives us practices that cultivate love. They often get translated passively, but the words of verses 4-7 are action words. We might read it as “Love waits patiently; love acts kindly” and so forth. (1) And we might try applying Paul’s love verbs not only to one another, but also to ourselves. What might it mean, for example, to rejoice in the truth of who you are? And how might that rejoicing fill you up to love others well? How can waiting patiently on someone with love remind you to be patient with yourself, too? 

As we practice love - and oh, it takes practice! - for ourselves and for each other, we’re polishing each other’s imperfect mirrors. Maybe we can’t yet fully know, as God fully knows. But in community, in love, we can begin to perceive more clearly. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” May our striving for love shape the “then” of Paul’s promise into our “now.” Amen. 

1. Melanie A. Howard, The Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-1-corinthians-131-13-7

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Measuring God's Love," Ephesians 3:14-21

 Sermon 7/25/21

Ephesians 3:14-21

Measuring God’s Love

Our scripture lesson for today is from the letter to the church at Ephesus. Some scholars think Paul wrote this letter, and others think it was written latter by a follower of Paul’s in Paul’s name. Who is right on that doesn’t really matter for us today though. What matters is the content of this letter, and what it means for us as disciples today. The author is writing to Christians at Ephesus. The Ephesians are one of a number of new faith communities planted by the apostle Paul and other apostles of Jesus, and many of the communities Paul was connected with were unique because they were made up primarily of Gentiles - that is, folks who weren’t Jewish, and didn’t convert to Judaism upon becoming followers of Jesus. That second part - not converting - was a matter of debate among Paul, Peter, James, and the other early leaders of the church, with Peter and James first believing that following Jesus required being part of the Jewish faith - like Jesus was - and Paul believing that Jesus-followers had freedom from the law in Christ, and therefore didn’t need to be converted - they just needed to be made new in Christ. Eventually Paul and the other leaders sort of agree to disagree and be about ministry in their own ways in their own places. But tensions remain, and there’s a strain for a long time as the early church figures out who it is, how it will be structured, what the rules will be. In the leadup to our text for today, the author is arguing that the Gentiles have become “fellow-heirs” alongside the Jewish community to all of God’s promises. Frequently throughout the epistles, the imagery used is that of adoption - if Israelites are God’s children, then Gentiles are like God’s adopted children. 

Hopefully, you can understand that the image of adoption is meant to convey not some sort of second-class status for Gentile Christians - rather, it is meant to convey the very purposeful extension of the covenant and promises of God to Gentiles because of God’s incredible love and God’s desire to always draw more and more into God’s heart. I’ve been blessed to know several families who have gone through the process of adoption. A pastor friend of mine today is celebrating the baptism of her son, a toddler, who has been with her since infancy, after just finally being able to officially adopt him about a month ago. Every part of the long adoption process has been a labor of love and devotion. And that’s what the author wants the Ephesians to understand - they’re “in,” they’re family, they’re part of the church, they are included in the “boundless riches of Christ,” it’s been God’s plan and hope and passion to have them be part of the body of Christ alongside the Israelites, and they are just as much heirs to God’s promises as anyone else. 

Our author, in fact, gets so worked up about wanting to communicate this all clearly to the Ephesians that by the time we get to our text today, the author is actually kind of interrupting himself with this prayer that focuses on two things: How much God loves them, and how much love they are capable of in return when they are rooted and grounded in Christ. The author prays that readers of this letter would be “strengthened in their inner being” by the Holy Spirit, that Christ may dwell in them, that they would be “rooted and grounded in love.” He prays that the Ephesians might come to understand “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” And he concludes with a benediction, calling God one who can “accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” After that, the text moves on to chapter 4, and the author returns to a more teaching-style letter. 

So, do we understand how much God loves us? Are we rooted and grounded in Christ, strengthened in our inner beings so that we can live as followers of Jesus? And do we understand that God keeps on adopting and adopting, loving extravagantly and drawing more people into God’s family? One of my favorite decorations in my room at school is from my 6 year old niece Siggy. It’s a long strip of construction paper, measured to the length of Siggy’s outstretched arms, with construction paper cutouts traced from her hands for hands on each end, that is meant to represent a hug from Siggy. And it says, “I love you “this much.”” The point, of course, is that her love for me is as far as she can reach. Big love. I wonder if we get how much God loves us? The author prays that we might get a glimpse of understanding. Sometimes when we talk about the love of God, it becomes kind of trite - we say “God loves you,” but we miss the power behind it, the strength of it, the potentially-life-changing impact of it. 

When have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you are loved? I’ve been thinking a lot this summer about how much my mom demonstrates love for me and others. There are the big things, of course - my mom’s consistent presence in my life, her affirmations, her support of my goals in life. But what I’ve been noticing lately are so many of the little things. For example, she has two kinds of silverware. She loves her silverware with big chunky colorful handles. I once remarked that I preferred the feel of the thinner, plain silver handles. And now, whenever I’m coming home, she’ll get out a couple of sets of the kind I like, just for me, and if she sets the table for me, she uses the silverware I like. I decided to try my vegan cookie stand at the farmer’s market this summer - and every single week, she’s baked cookies with me and been at the stand with me, and rearranged her entire freezer so that I can store things, and bought a special shelf for the guest bedroom for all my ingredients. She does things like this all the time. But - and here’s the astonishing thing - it isn’t just for me, or for her children and grandchildren even that she does these things. She bakes meals for her neighbors and stops by with them. She sends boxes of fall leaves to my great aunt who lives in Arizona and misses the foliage. She takes treats to the office manager at her apartment complex. She brought gifts for the children of the owners of the Chinese restaurant she frequents. I teased her that I think she spends most of her time just sitting around thinking about things she can do to make other people happy. But it’s not really a joke - I think that’s what she does, for real. Because I think what brings her the most joy in life is showering others with love. And when I reflect on her loving nature, I’m overwhelmed. When have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you are loved? 

As loved as I feel by my mother, I imagine that God, who created me and everything I know, God, in whose image I’ve been created, God, who has formed me and knows me - how much must God love me? Not because I’m so wonderful - but because God is “so love”! That’s not trite - it’s overwhelming, to be loved so completely. And it calls for a response. It calls for us to be strengthened, rooted and grounded in this love, so that what God can accomplish in us is more than we can ask and imagine. 

So, when have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you love someone? God wants us to be grounded in Christ, so that we can love like Christ loves. We draw our strength from Christ, so that when it seems like we can’t love the way Jesus loves on our own, we realize we can because of what Christ gives to us. God wants us to love one another like God loves us. God wants us to be like my mother, imagining all the ways we can shower others with love - not just our favorite others - but all of God’s children. And as we’ve discussed, God has a really big family for us to love with lots and lots of siblings for us. That glimpse of God’s love that I get from my mom? God not only loves me that way, but God loves the people of whom I’m not so fond that way too. God loves the folks who drive us crazy, who’ve caused us pain, with the same extravagant love we can barely comprehend, and asks us to do likewise. Sometimes, it seems impossible. But, as the prayer we heard in this letter reminds us, God can do in us what is abundantly far more than we can imagine. 

Friends, I pray just what our author has prayed - that you might start to understand truly, deeply, in your core, how much God loves you, how much God claims you as part of the family, without which the family just wouldn’t be whole. I want you to understand at least a glimpse of how much God hopes and dreams goodness and joy for your life. And then, rooted and grounded in that love, I want you to make it a life priority to make sure others - all the others - understand this too. Because if we can really start to understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ for us, of God’s love for us? Confident in that kind of love, what else could we need to change the world? Amen.  

Sermon for Third Sunday of Advent, "Love: Every Heart Prepare Him Room," Luke 1;26-38

Sermon 12/10/17

Luke 1:26-38

Love: Every Heart Prepare Him Room

            I think I’ve told some of you that my Greek professor in college had a stamper that he’d use when marking our papers. The stamper said “Be Specific!” in big, red letters. It was his huge pet peeve when students would write papers and not give clear examples to support the claims they were making. I’m afraid I saw that stamper on my papers more than once. Be specific, be specific, be specific! I hope I learned my lesson. Dr. Lateiner wanted to see supporting evidence for our claims in our work. You couldn’t just make a claim in a research paper unless you could show that you had good reason for your position. You needed to demonstrate that your claims could be supported. Be specific!  

            I was thinking about Dr. Lateiner this week when I posted some questions to ponder on facebook. For the past few weeks, I’ve been asking questions online about our weekly Advent theme. Last week, I got to share with you a lot of the great responses about peace that really shaped my thinking for my sermon. This week, I posted that today we would be focusing on Love, and “thinking about how we prepare room in our hearts, our lives, our world for Love Incarnate.” I asked, “What about you? Being as specific as possible, how are you preparing room in your life this Advent for Christ to dwell in your heart?”[1]

            I had a few responses. One friend talked about her upcoming journey to the Holy Land, anticipating the impact it would have on her faith, and she talked about the joy she has in knowing Christ’s love. Connie Waltz wrote about loving more, helping when someone needs help, and being confident that Christ is already and always dwelling in her heart. Nicole Fullerton, who is the youth leader at Richville United Church, wrote: “I think when I started leading the youth group at my church it opened my heart up more. Although I always believed and loved the Lord, his lessons have more meaning now. When preparing my lessons I think about how my lessons relate to my life and how it could relate to the youth.” And then Donna Peck commented, “[This topic] is more difficult than the other two topics.” I agree with Donna! It is difficult when we start trying to get specific. We like to talk about love all year round, not just on this Sunday, the Sunday we light our “love” candle, and it is easy to use the language of “preparing” during Advent. But what are we actually doing about preparing for Advent? Yes, we’re here together in worship, so that’s a good start. But how else are we preparing for Christ? And what about this “love” thing? We talk a lot about loving God and loving neighbor. But what specific examples can we point to that demonstrate we’re disciples of this one who is Love Incarnate in our midst? I worry, sometimes, that we are really good at theoretical when it comes to practicing our faith, and not so good at the actual practicing.

            I’ve been reading a book called The Art of Neighboring by Dave Runyon and Jay Pathak. I’m only a couple chapters in, but I’m already feeling convicted. The authors start by talking about Jesus’ call to love our neighbors. Runyon and Pathak say that we gospel readers immediately turn the specific commandment into a metaphor. Jesus just doesn’t mean our literal neighbors, he means for us to love everyone. And while this might be true, they argue, the result is that as we embrace this metaphor of “general” love for others, we are actually pretty bad at the specifics. They lay down a challenge: think of the 8 neighbors closest to you. Your literal neighbors, the people who live closest to you. And then write down everything you know about them. Not things you can observe from your window, like what kind of car they drive, but things that come from relationships you have with them. I know that I’ve only lived in Gouverneur for a year and half, but my personal results from this self-reflection were pretty depressing. I know the names of several of a few of my neighbors, but I can’t tell you much else about most of them, and with some of them I’m kind of cheating since I really know them from church, not from being neighbors. My mom, on the other hand, is such a great example of truly loving her neighbor. My mom lives in an apartment complex, and she knows the name of everyone in her building, and probably the next couple of buildings near hers, and has probably given a ride to, or made food for, or made a visit to most of them. Mom and I might both talk about loving our neighbors – but which of us has the evidence to support the claim?

             Today, on this third Sunday of Advent, our theme calls us to two tasks: Let every heart prepare room for Christ, and let us prepare through showing love for God and neighbor. That’s what I’m asking us to think about this week, this season. We know we’re supposed to prepare room in our hearts for the Christ Child. And it is easy to assent with our lips: “Yes, I’ll do that, I’ll prepare room in my heart for Jesus this Advent.” But imagine that my Greek professor is standing by you – by me too – with that stamper, saying, “Be specific!” What are you actually doing or actually going to do to prepare your life for Jesus to take up space, or to take up more space in your heart and life? When you commit to a life of loving God and neighbor, what do you mean by that? Specifically?

            Our song focus today is Joy to the World. You might think the song makes more sense for next week, when our focus is Joy, and truly, I got myself quite mixed up this week on which song and theme were when. But there are two phrases in Joy to the World that point to our themes for the day. Joy to the World was written by English hymnist Isaac Watts and first published in 1719.[2] The very first verse of the hymn brings us our theme for the day: “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.” Watts draws on Psalm 98 for his inspiration, but this language of preparing our hearts comes from him, not directly the text, and is perfect for Advent and the themes we heard echoed in John the Baptist preparing a way for the ministry of Jesus that we talked about two weeks ago. How are we preparing for Jesus – Jesus the Christ Child, Jesus the Savior who we follow as disciples, Jesus who promises to come to us again, and again. How are we preparing?

And there’s another phrase that goes with our theme of love, from verse four of Joy to the World. We sing: “He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.” Sometimes when we’re singing, the way that the phrases of hymns get broken up means that we miss the meaning because we’re taking a big breath right in the middle of a sentence. I’m not sure how often I’ve thought about this whole sentence of a verse and what it means. Jesus rules the world with truth and grace, and Jesus makes the nations – that is all people, - Jesus makes all people prove his righteousness – that is, his just and right relationships with us – and the wonders of his love. In other words we are the proof of Jesus’s righteousness, the proof of the wonderfulness of his love in the world. Wow! That just struck me. We are a demonstration, a proof of the love of Christ in the world. If my Greek professor was saying to Jesus: Be specific! How are you showing your truth and grace in the world? How are you righteous? How are you love incarnate? Then Jesus would respond by pointing to us; we’re the proof, the specifics, the supporting evidence of the love of Christ in the world.

Today, we heard in Luke’s gospel a young woman named Mary finding out from God’s messenger, Gabriel, that she would give birth to Jesus, God’s child. Mary quite literally prepares room in her own body for Jesus to enter the world. Gabriel tells Mary that nothing is impossible with God, and Mary believes it, and acts accordingly. Mary will head from here to spend time with her cousin Elizabeth, preparing by turning to a friend, a mentor, a family member who can help her in her pregnancy, as Elizabeth, too, is pregnant. And Mary prepares her heart, pondering and reflecting, and embracing God’s plan to come to earth and turn the world upside down. Everything an expectant mother does has the potential to influence the unborn child she carries. The way a mother prepares for a child’s birth can have a big influence on the health and well-being of the child at birth and beyond. The preparing makes a difference. We see its impact, with often tangible results.

We’re preparing too, hurriedly or calmly, thoroughly or half-heartedly, grudgingly or joyfully, earnestly, or reluctantly. Jesus is coming. We say we are preparing our hearts, and I challenge us, I’m asking us to give an honest answer: How are we preparing our hearts for Jesus? Be specific! We say that we love all people, that yes, the greatest commandment is loving one another, and I challenge us, again, I’m asking us to give an honest assessment: How are we loving one another? Be specific!

Here’s a hint: we can do work on the one by making progress on the other. The more we actively practice loving God and loving one another in tangible ways, ways that can be felt, ways that bear fruit, ways that can leave the other feeling loved, the more we will find that our hearts and lives have more and more room for Jesus to dwell there. And the more we actively make room for Jesus in our hearts, the more we truly make growing in faith a priority that we pursue with at least as much planning and intentionality as we put into other meaningful things in our lives, the more we will find our capacity to love increasing. 

            So, again: specifically, what will you do this season to prepare room for Christ? It is already the Third Sunday of Advent, and in two short weeks, we will celebrate Christ’s birth, but it isn’t too late. What will you do? What will I do? Here’s my start. This Advent, I’ve been being faithful and diligent in my devotional life. Just because I’m a pastor doesn’t mean I don’t sometime neglect nurturing my spiritual life, but I’ve committed, this Advent, to daily spiritual reflection and study of the scripture. This Advent, I’m committing to knocking on the doors of my literal neighbors, introducing myself where needed, and bringing them some Christmas cookies. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Ask me, over the next couple of weeks if I’ve done it! For the past couple of months, I’ve been giving myself weekly reminders about contacting my representatives in Congress. I see this as an act of love, because I’m calling to speak up for people who seem to get shoved to the sidelines. This Advent, I’m being mindful of my schedule, and trying to make room for God instead of cramming my schedule full of things that don’t really need to be a priority. This season, I’ve been working on plans to start having some of my office hours in the community instead of in the church building, so that I can be more intentional about meeting people. This Advent, I’m trying to prepare for Christmas Day and beyond for how I might spend more of my time on those days doing something for others, and less time thinking about myself, so that I might more meaningfully celebrate God-with-us in the world. I’m trying, friends, to be specific. I’m preparing room for Christ, and I’m preparing to love God and love neighbor more fully, and I plan to have some evidence, some specifics, to show for it. Because as wild as it seems, we – you and me – we are the proof, the wonder of God’s love in the world! Let’s go out there and show it. Amen.   

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[1] Post and comments can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/eaquick/posts/10100257847199182 or here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1169331553192674/permalink/1452561731536320/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World

Sermon, "How Will You Measure Your Life? By How and What You Give," Luke 6:27-38

Sermon 1/29/17

Luke 6:27-38

How Will You Measure Your Life? By How and What You Give

            When I was little, probably between 3^rd grade and 6^th grade, I was a part of 4H. You can focus on a lot of different skills in 4H clubs, but mine was focused on cooking and sewing in particular. I remember gathering around the kitchen counter of my leader’s home, learning how to cook and bake. Only, there were a lot more rules involved in the cooking and baking than when I learned at home. In 4H, you learn how to do things the 4H Way. Seriously, that’s what we learned to call it. The 4H way of cooking in baking involved a lot of precision, and very careful measuring, and mixing things in separate bowls, and combining them carefully, and washing hands between every step, and making sure to use your level whenever you measured flour. And there definitely was no licking batter off the beaters at 4H. Every year, I would take part in a cooking demonstration at the Westernville Town Hall. I’d prepare a poster board with the recipe I was going to make, and then have to tell a roomful of people how to put together the recipe, making sure, of course, to do everything the 4H Way. Believe it or not, I used to be petrified of public speaking, and these demonstrations were among some of the most terrifying times in my young life!

I loved being a part of 4H – don’t get me wrong. 4H was a centerpiece of my social life! But cooking and baking at home with my mother and grandmother was a lot different. I can’t remember, to be honest, ever using a level to precisely measure something. There were a lot of recipes in our family that included helpful instructions like “until it looks right,” if it was even written down at all. Tasting the batter was a right of the baker. My grandmother was always making a little extra dough so that if she was baking bread, for example, there was always enough to make us kids our own little mini-loaves to have. Everything was made with a generous hand.

I think about going out to eat with friends. I have a couple of friends, friends I love dearly, but they drive me a little crazy when it comes times to dividing up the bill and calculating a tip. I try to be a generous tipper. Not excessive – I couldn’t afford some of the extravagant gestures I read about sometimes in the news. But generous. However, I have a few friends who, though sufficiently well-to-do, seem to use the $5 or $6 that might be a reasonable tip as the place to start pinching pennies, shortchanging the server by a $1 or $2 – something that would really add up for the server but not make much of a dent to my friend. I believe in being frugal, thoughtful with how I spend my money – but if I’ve already decided to go out for a meal, I don’t want my savings to come at the expense of my server.

Today we’re continuing to think about how we will measure our lives. We talked two weeks ago about who and how we love – and I asked you to be intentional about your loving actions. You even got an extra week to work on it! Today, we’re thinking about measuring our lives by how and what we give. What do we give? How do we give it? Our gospel reading today is from Luke’s gospel. It’s part of what’s called The Sermon on the Plain, a big chunk of teaching from Jesus that takes place while the disciples and crowds are gathered together to hear him. He touches on many topics, some in depth, some with short sayings. Our passage for today is a kind of medley of teachings, but Jesus’ words coalesce around some common themes. He teaches that crowds to love their enemies and do good to those who hate them. Perhaps we are enough used to or familiar with Jesus’ teachings that those words no longer stop us in our tracks, but they’re pretty extreme. Love your enemies. He calls us to give to anyone who asks from us, to give even to those who don’t bother with the asking! “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” After all, he says, if we only love those who love us, and do good to those who do good to us, what does that say about our character? Everyone can do that! Jesus expects more of us than being nice to people who are nice to us. “Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” When we do this, we’re modeling behavior after God’s, because God is kind and merciful, even to those who are ungrateful and evil. Don’t judge, don’t condemn. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Finally, Jesus concludes: “The measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

            When we measure our lives, friends, what kind of measure are we using when we give? Are we measuring the 4H Way, making sure to be exact, not a pinch too little or too much? Are we like a stingy tipper, cutting corners in what we give to others to make sure we have as much for ourselves as we want? Or do we look to how God gives, how God measures? Jesus says the measure put into our lap is one that is running over. And indeed, throughout the scriptures, we find images of God’s abundance, God’s extravagance in giving. Just yesterday at Katie Moore’s funeral, we shared together in the 23^rd Psalm, saying, “My cup runneth over.” How does God give to us? God gives like one who knows there is no end to the supply of what is available. God gives like it is God’s greatest joy to give to us. God gives to the kind and loving, and to the ungrateful and hard-hearted. God gives to us like we’re God’s favorite things in the world! God gives with a generous measure, always putting in extra for us.

How do we give? There are many places in the Bible where we get to listen in when someone asks Jesus a question. I read that there are about 65 questions that Jesus gets asked across the gospel accounts. There are a variety of questions, but I notice that several of them that lead to some major teaching from Jesus in response share a theme. Here are a few of those questions: Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath? Do I have to pay taxes? How many times must I forgive someone? Is seven times enough? Who is my neighbor? What do I have to do to get eternal life? Do you sense the theme? As I hear them, in all of these questions, if we strip away to the core of it, the person is asking: What is the very minimum I can do and still be ok? What’s the least I have to forgive? Who is not my neighbor? How little can I give? How little can I do and still “get into heaven?” It seems like a lot of times we want to know: What’s the least I can give and still be ok? I’m not just talking here about how we give financially – although that’s something to consider. I think sometimes we act like we want to know the least we can give of our time, our energy, our lives, our hearts, our control, our plans, ourselves, and still be ok with God.

God wants so much more from us and for us! God want us to do unto others as we’d love for them to do to us, to measure for others like we’d like them to measure for us. Our best bet, as always, is to follow God’s example. How does God measure with us? I don’t want God to be using a level, making precisely sure not to give me too much, making sure not to leave too big a tip, trying to save few pennies when it comes to blessing me or my loved ones, frankly. I’m so thankful that God is so generous, so extravagant, so ready to fill our lives to overflowing! I want to learn to measure with the same measure God uses on us.

Pastor Adam Hamilton shares about a conversation he had with a man who runs auctions, especially estate auctions, where a persons’ possessions – often a whole household of trinkets and furniture and treasures and collectibles – will be auctioned off at a special event. The auctioneer says he often talks to families before the auction to give them a few words of warning about how this will feel. He tells them, “We’re going to take your life’s work and dispose of it in 4 hours.” But Hamilton reflects that the auctioneer’s words are only true if we see our life’s work as the stuff we’ve accumulated. What if, Hamilton asks, your life’s work is to pour yourself out into other people? “We can only take with us what we give away,” he says. (1) How are we giving? We are called to pour ourselves out in generous measure, overflowing the lives of those we meet with love and compassion, just as God does for us.

What’s left is simply to discover what it is that we’re called to give. Here’s what’s on my list: Love, of course. Mercy. Forgiveness. Compassion. Our time, which we treasure perhaps even more than our money. Our hearts. Our selves. All of us have these gifts to give. And all of us live in a world that is aching with need for the very things that we can pour out with a generous measure, and still find ourselves with yet more to give. This week, I want you to pay special attention to what you give and receive. Who will offer you forgiveness, and who will you forgive this week? Who will show you compassion? Where will you offer mercy instead of condemnation in a world that thrives on instant judgment? How will you spend this gift of your time this week? Who can you make time for? How will you give your heart to God this week? What will we make our life’s work? How generous is the measure you use?

“A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” Amen.

             

Sermon, "How Will You Measure Your Life? By Who and How You Love," John 13:1-17, 34-35

Sermon 1/15/17

John 13:1-17, 34-35

How Do You Measure Your Life?

            Some of you may have heard of this little thing happening in our church right now. The RipIt Ministry, which just continues to blossom in new ways, has just kicked off its annual challenge. This year, seasoned mentors are pairing up with folks who are trying to reach some fitness goals to help guide and support them in their journey. I decided, with a little convincing from Amber Ormasen – have you ever tried to refuse a request from her? – to take part. One of the first things we had to do was get weighed and measured. It’s not my favorite experience, for sure. But it’s hard to measure your progress if you aren’t really sure where you started. I’ll be able to measure my progress in pounds lost, but also in changes in inches. Of course, those measures aren’t the only measures that are valuable. Folks might measure how many seconds they can hold a plank position before and after the challenge, or whether their cholesterol has improved after eating healthy for a few months, or whether they just feel better. But whatever way we do it, I know folks talking part in the challenge will be looking for ways to measure the impact of what we’ve been working on.

            We’ll be thinking a lot about how we measure things as our worship focus for the next few weeks. I think we’re busy measuring most areas of our lives. We want to know – how do we measure up? How do we compare? How are we doing in life? How do we stack up? Our question for the next three weeks is this: How will we measure our life? The question isn’t whether we will measure our lives or not. We’re all measuring – whether we’re aware of it or not, whether we know how we’re measuring our lives or not, whether we’re happy with our measurements, or not. We do measure our lives. So for the next few weeks, we’ll ask ourselves: How do we measure our lives? We’ll ask how we do it now. How do you measure your life right now? What measure are you using? What results are you looking for that tell you you are “on track” or not? And we’ll ask how we should be measuring our lives. How does God measure us? How does God ask us to measure our lives?

            So how do we typically measure our lives today? We might measure our lives by what salary we earn and how successful we are at work. That’s where we spend the bulk of our time, most of us, and a lot of our sense of self-worth can come from being measured at work. We might get bonuses or raises or a good review or be rewarded for being employee of the month. We might be in positions of power that give us status. We might get a new, prestigious title, or measure our worth by the size of our office. In sports, we keep track of how many points were scored, or how many yards someone went, or how many homeruns someone accumulates, or how fast or how high or how far someone could go. We give awards for best acting and best directing and best writing and if you don’t qualify for any of those, you might win best dressed, at least. We’re measured in school by our grades and our scores on standardized tests, by our attendance records. We’re measured by our appearance – how much we weigh, how tall we are, what brand of clothing we’re wearing. I think more and more we’re measured by how happy we can make ourselves look in facebook photos and Instagram pictures. So many ways that we add up and measure the value of our lives. How do you measure your life?

            It’s not just out in the secular world that people try to measure success like this. I have to tell you: when pastors meet, typical questions are: How big is your church? How many people are in worship? What’s your budget? How many people are on staff? There’s a tendency to think that bigger is always better, and that success in ministry means getting appointed to larger and larger churches. It can be pretty toxic, pretty stressful, this culture of measuring each other’s worth in this way. I wrestle with the allure of wanting to measure up. I would argue that meaningful ministry is about so much more than numbers, but I also get excited when we have more, and I also feel acutely aware of how much we have, or don’t have, of everything. When we measure, I feel like we set ourselves up to be disappointed with our results.

            How will we measure our lives? Rev. Adam Hamilton shared that when he meets with families to plan a funeral for a loved one, most people don’t talk about the achievements their loved ones racked up at work. Few people pull out the plaques or trophies or awards that their beloved had accumulated. What they talk about is how loved they felt. They talk about the time they got to spend together. They talk about the times they laughed together or cried together as a family. They talk about the quality of their loved one’s character – how kind or brave or caring or compassionate they were. (1)

            How will we measure our lives? No matter how much time we spend pursuing other aims, it seems that what really matters is who and how we love one another. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are that we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. But how on earth do we measure love? In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, the writings speak of loving-kindness, of steadfast love. In the New Testament, the gospels and letters use the word agape for love, a word that has the connotation of a selfless, self-sacrificing love. In other words, just claiming that we love someone – that we love God, or that we love one another – isn’t enough. Our love has to be demonstrated in real action. Our love has to show in what we do and how we live. Jesus talked about this as bearing good fruit. We heard John the Baptist mention in the text we read just last week – we’re called to bear fruit – the fruit – what we have to show for our lives – is how we’re measured. Again and again Jesus shares parables suggesting that God looks to make sure we’re growing good fruit in our lives. So how do we love in a way that gives us something to show? How do we measure our lives by who and how we love?

            Our gospel text today shares a scene that we typically hear on Maundy Thursday, the night that Jesus celebrated what we call “The Last Supper” with his disciples, the night that he was betrayed and arrested. The word “Maundy” is from a Latin word that means commandment. Jesus gives us in this passage what he calls a “new commandment.” But of course, the new commandment Jesus gives is one that is actually not new at all: He commands us to love one another as he has loved us. So that leads us to the question: How has Jesus loved us?

Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke all write about Jesus sharing a final meal with his disciples during Passover, John focuses on something entirely different: a foot-washing. During supper, Jesus gets up, prepares, and sets about washing the feet of his disciples. Some of you may have participated in a ceremonial foot-washing as part of a Holy Week service before, or in some other setting. When I was about to be ordained, our bishop at the time Bishop Violet Fisher washed the feet of all of us who were in my ordination class. It can be a deeply moving experience. But I also think it is one that’s a bit hard for us to translate into contemporary culture. In Jesus’ day, foot-washing was a common practice. People walked in sandals on dusty roads, and whenever you entered a home, it would be common to wash your feet. But you would wash your own feet or it would be the task of a slave to wash your feet. If you weren’t a slave, you would never wash someone else’s feet. And if you were the higher ranking person, if you were the teacher for example, you certainly wouldn’t be washing the feet of your disciples. Jesus was taking on the task of a slave. When he washed their feet, it was an act of humility, service, devotion, love, an act of love he offers on the night before he will even give his own life as a demonstration of his love. I have a hard time even finding an act we could offer someone today that would compare to what Jesus offers the disciples.

            No wonder, then, that Peter reacts how he does. Disbelieving what is clearly happening, he asks Jesus, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” He insists that Jesus will never do such a menial, humbled act for him. But Jesus tells Peter that if Peter wants to have a share in Jesus, he needs to receive what Jesus is offering. And then Peter is in, whole-heartedly! Once Jesus has finished washing the disciples’ feet, he says to them: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord … So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” And it is then, in this context, that Jesus says “I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

            Jesus has demonstrated what he means by loving one another. When Jesus shows love, it means that he’ll trade in his status as teacher for that of a slave instead. When Jesus shows love, it means he will serve others in ways that most people would consider beneath them. When Jesus shows love, he humbles himself, that the other person might be lifted up. He offers his very life as an act of love. This is what I mean by loving as I have loved, Jesus says.

How will we measure our lives? By who we love and how we love. We are God’s strategy for loving the world. We are God’s plan for redeeming the world with love in action! (1) That’s an amazing responsibility, an amazing gift that God entrusts to us. We can measure our lives by the fruit that our love-in-action grows. And we love-in-action by loving like Jesus – by forgetting about our status and instead thinking of how we can serve others, by humbling ourselves so that others can be lifted up, by putting others first, by sharing with them the valuable gifts of our time, our attention, our heart.

I challenged the children to think about how they would put their love into action this week, and I want to challenge you to do the same thing. Love might seem like a hard thing to measure, but Jesus says we can see good fruit, a sign of love’s presence. I want you to pay attention, to keep track this week, and challenge yourself. When can you demonstrate love for someone? When you are at school, at work, at the store, at a meeting, out for a walk – how can you – how will you – practice lovingkindness this week? And be on the lookout for ways that others are demonstrating their love for you! When you see good fruit in someone else, when you notice their loving actions – take note! Next week we’ll talk about what kind of fruit we saw this week.

How will we measure our lives? By who and how we love. Jesus shows us the way, as he washes our feet. How will we love? Like Jesus does. Amen.

(1) Hamilton, Adam. Sermon,

http://cor.org/leawood/sermons?q=&year=2014#d/sermon/1542/cor_l

Sermon, "Church Can Happen Anywhere: Church Happens...When Love Is a Verb," 1 Corinthians 13

Sermon 9/25/16

1 Corinthians 13

Church Happens … When Love Is a Verb

           

            “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

            Even if you don’t think you know your Bible very well, chances are, you know this passage of scripture – 1 Corinthians13 – the love chapter – even if you couldn’t have told me exactly where in the Bible it was from. You’ve probably heard this passage of scripture read at many, many weddings. I would guess, that out of all of the weddings I’ve officiated in my years of ministry, probably close to fifty percent of them include this passage as their scripture of choice. It’s hardly surprising. Although the scriptures teach us that the greatest commandments are grounded in love – love of God and love of one another – rarely does a biblical author spend any time talking about what love is, how we go about fulfilling these greatest commandments. Paul’s words about love, then, are some of if not the most direct and prolonged writings about love in all of the Bible. Of course it is popular for weddings!

            The downside of this, other than for the pastor, who has more fun putting together a wedding message if you choose some obscure text that no one else ever uses, is first: Sometimes when we know a passage too well, we stop listening to it, and second: If you only ever hear anyone talk about this passage while at a wedding, you’re probably not going to get the same in depth look at the text as you would during a regular sermon or Bible Study. So we miss out on some of the context that helps us really dig into what Paul is saying. Lucky for you though – we’re going to try to change that today!

            Remember, Paul is writing this letter not to two people, not to a couple preparing to start a life together. Paul is writing to a whole group of people – a new congregation – a new church trying to figure out how to exist together, function together, grow together, serve together. So when Paul is talking about love here, he’s not talking about romantic love, although what he says certainly applies. He’s talking about something both broader and deeper. It’s the deep love God has for us. The love of a parent for a child. And the love we’re called to have for one another.

            This passage comes just after the passage we looked at a couple weeks ago, where Paul was talking about how we’re all parts of the body of Christ, and yet one as Christ’s body. Paul had been talking about this because the Corinthians had been arguing over who had the better gifts – that is, who had the talents and skills that were more useful in the congregation. Paul puts a stop to that line of thinking, reminding the Corinthians that all of the gifts God gives are necessary in the body – they’re just different parts of the one body of Christ. But Paul concludes by saying, “I will show you a still more excellent way.” The more excellent way, then, is love. Paul has already talked about spiritual gifts. And now, here, he speaks of another gift: love, which is doubly awesome because 1) Everyone has the gift of love. Everyone. And 2) It’s the best one. Paul says love is the a more excellent gift than all the others he’s mentioned. It is the gift that comes with power and responsibility to use it, and we all have it.  

            Paul’s mini-essay has three sections. In the first, Paul says that you might have great spiritual gifts – but if you don’t have the gift of love, you are just noise. He says you might be a great prophet, wise and knowing. You might have the deepest faith. But if you don’t have love – you’re nothing. He says that you might even be so devoted and committed that you give up your possessions, even give up your life in good works. And still, without love, all that you do counts for nothing. In other words, our skills, our talents, our actions, even our faithful and righteous behavior – none of it matters without love.

            And then Paul goes into this list of all these things that love is, or isn’t: Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious, and so on. In our English translation, this list sounds like a bunch of adjectives – words that describe a noun, words that describe what something is like. But in the Greek, every one of these words about love is a verb. They’re all action words, doing words. Love suffers patiently, love hopes, love acts with kindness and mercy, love doesn’t boast, love endures. Paul describes love as a living thing that exists by doing. Just as none of our actions have meaning without love, the reverse is also true. We can’t truly love without action that gives love purpose and meaning. Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s not an emotion. It is a way we interact with God and others. Love must do.

            Finally, Paul says that everything else, all we know, eventually comes to an end – everything except love. In fact, we experience love perfected. Paul says that even the deep love we experience now is like “looking in a mirror, dimly.” Mirrors in Paul’s time weren’t like they are today. The best mirrors offered somewhat blurry, somewhat muddled reflections. Not crisp images. So Paul says that when we are perfected in God’s love, in God’s eternity, it will be like actually seeing ourselves clearly for the first time ever, the way God always sees us, the way only God knows us. Perfect love is when we know fully, and are fully known. The greatest gift of all, Paul concludes, is love.

            So, we seek to love God, and love one another, and we make sure that our actions are full of love, and our love is full of action. Easy, right? Well, there are some people that are just so easy to love, aren’t there? I spent the day with my niece and nephew yesterday. Loving them is so easy! It’s easy to love them, to actively love them, to tell them I love them and show them I love them and help them learn to be loving people. I’m sure you can quickly think of people who are easy to love, easy to love in active, meaningful ways.

But I also suspect that you can quickly come up with a list of people who it is challenging to love. When Jesus commands us to love one another, when Paul writes about how without love we’re nothing, I think we sometimes start to play this mental game with ourselves, hoping God will play along. Well, I love everybody, but I don’t like everybody. “I love you, I just don’t like you very much.” Have you ever heard someone say that? Have you ever said it? I’m sure that I have! But that doesn’t sound like very powerful, deep love, does it? Jesus says that great love is love where a friend will give up life for a friend. Would you give up your life for someone you didn’t like? Someone about whom you would say, “Well, I love you, but I don’t like you?” The love Paul writes about to the Corinthians is something deep, and we tend to want to make his words shallow, stripping them of all their power. Can you imagine Jesus saying, “I love you, but I don’t like you very much?” What if God loved us like that? Loving because we’re obligated to love isn’t actually love at all.

Still, how do we love one another? Because even if “I love you, I just don’t like you” isn’t a very deep love, sometimes, it is just exactly how we feel, isn’t it? What pops into my head is that great “unrequited love” balled, Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” She sings, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t. You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t.” I thought the words were very profound when I was lamenting over a boy in junior high who didn’t return my feelings. It’s true, isn’t it? You can’t make someone love someone. Love with obligation isn’t love. So what can we do?

            I think, in fact, we can learn to love. We can cultivate love. We can seek to love someone. We can practice it, and get better at it. Last year, a news article from the New York Times was circulating quite a bit, showing results from a scientific study suggesting that – in completely non-scientific terms – two strangers might fall in love with each other by following a certain set of instructions: the pair answers 36 questions in a conversation with each other. The questions are increasingly more personal, beginning with “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” and ending with things like “If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?” After that, you and your conversation partner are supposed to stare into each other’s eyes – sustained eye-contact, no talking, for four minutes. The author of the article – she fell in love with the person with whom she tried this exercise. The whole experiment even became the subject of an episode of Big Bang Theory.

            So, do we need to have these sit down, deep conversations with every person we find difficult to love? Maybe! The point is – love like Paul describes is intentional, not accidental. We have to mean to love people to love like Jesus loves. Jesus loved by spending time with people, by listening deeply to people, by hearing their stories and hopes and dreams. He loved by looking with compassion and forgiveness and mercy. He loved by giving himself for others. He loved with purpose.

            I’ve sometimes heard folks recommend to young people in love that they should replace their significant other’s name for the word “love” in 1 Corinthians 13, to see if they are a worthy candidate for dating. I wonder what would happen if instead, we put our own names in the place of the word love. Make them “I” statements, and see if they ring true. “I am patient. I am kind.” And in fact, if you can pull up in your mind that list of people that you have a hard time loving – you can add them right in, and see if it works: I am patient with Fred. I am kind to Cindy. In some cases, maybe it is a whole group of people we need to think about: I am never rude to people who are voting for the wrong candidate this November.

            To cultivate love, to stretch our hearts to become more loving, to include more people on the list of those we truly love, I think we start by practicing some of those action words that Paul lists. That’s my challenge for you this week: Read through 1 Corinthians 13, and ask yourself: Am I patient? How can I be more patient? Have I been kind? Have been envying anyone? Have I been boasting? Arrogant? Rude? When did I insist on my own way? When was I irritable? How full of hope am I? If we do this, if we are disciplined in practicing these actions, I think we will learn that love only happens accidentally once in a while – but we can cultivate it on purpose whenever we’re ready to commit to this intentional way of building each other up, and building up the gift of love that God gives to each of us.    

            Church can happen anywhere – anywhere that is enveloped in love, anywhere that is reaching out in love, anywhere that is growing in love. “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Amen.

(1)   http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html?_r=0

Jesus Christ Superstar: From the Other Side

        This year, after twenty-one years of seeing Jesus Christ Superstar performed by Salt City Center for the Performing Arts, Ted Neeley’s various touring incarnations, my alma mater, and the Stratford Festival, and after harassing various church musicians into incorporating Superstar into worship so I could get a small taste of participating in the production, Saturday night I finally got to take the stage as a bona fide member of the cast, in all my miscellaneous-villager glory, instead of singing along quietly(ish) from my seat.

            I’ve spent a lot of time writing about the production over the years, reviewing the show, offering my peanut-gallery comments. Now, as a cast member, I can’t exactly give an unbiased review, so instead, I offer some reflections.

            First, I had so much fun being in the show. I was a theatre minor in college, and even though theatre was my minor and pre-theology was my major, my life in college revolved around theatre. That’s what took up my time. I worked on just about every regular season show during my three years at Ohio Wesleyan in some capacity or another. I loved it. I’ve missed it. Since becoming a pastor, I hadn’t yet been able to figure out how to incorporate theatre into my life. During my first year of ministry, I did makeup design for a community theatre production. (I cannot even recall the title of the show I worked on – how sad is that?) I ended up missing several shows due to deaths in my congregation, and I never really tried to get involved again. Recently, I noticed that one of my colleagues (thank you, Michael Terrell) was doing some theatre in his community, and I began for the first time in a long time to consider whether or not I could get involved in something again.

            But this wasn’t just any show. This was Jesus Christ Superstar. As I was waiting in the wings right before my first entrance – “What’s the Buzz?” – I realized I had a huge grin on my face, and I was having a little trouble wiping it off to replace with “perplexed townsperson.” I’ve imagined being in the show for so long. It might not seem like a big deal to you, but I really didn’t see how I would be able to be in the show that went up during Holy Week while I was serving a church. I am so thankful for this experience.

            In fact, as I think about my experience, a lot of “thank yous” come to mind. I want to thank my co-pastor, Aaron Bouwens, for not minding, for being supportive, when I told him I had committed to a project that would mess up our carefully worked out schedules, make me unavailable for some meetings, leave him on his own at Good Friday worship, and render me exhausted on Easter morning. I have to thank my congregation at Liverpool First UMC. It would be easy, especially when we are still in our first year together, for folks to have balked at my spending so much time away during Lent, rushing out at the ends of meetings to catch second halves of rehearsal, rescheduling programs to accommodate my schedule, etc. Instead, they were totally excited for me, and got together a huge group to come and cheer me on Saturday night (and then they still showed up on Sunday morning for worship!) I feel very blessed to be their pastor. I’m thankful to Bob Brown and Cathleen O'Brien Brown for being so flexible when I filled up my audition form with a huge list of rehearsal conflicts, and for Bob, as a director, going out of his way to make sure that the other pastor and I who were in the show could choose to portray our villager-characters in a way that wouldn't be harmful to our spirits – so thoughtful. I’m thankful to my family, and my dear friend Heather, for celebrating me on Saturday! There were flowers, “Beth Quick, Superstar” t-shirts, and Heather, also a pastor, might have had other things on her mind Saturday night, but she was still there, cheering me on! And of course, I have to thank Henry Wilson, who was playing Judas the first time I ever saw the show, who I had a huge crush on, which in turn fueled my love of the show, my questions about Judas, my theological searchings, and really, impacted my path into ministry in some important ways. I’ve been very upfront in writing about this influence on my blog and in my sermons over the years, and to be the focus of that commentary – well, there are many different ways a person might react to that! Henry, who I finally met after all these years, was entirely kind and gracious, and I enjoyed getting to watch him, now playing Jesus, bring the same depth and quality to this role that he always has, always taking rehearsals seriously, culminating in a truly moving performance.

            I know the folks involved in Superstar bring a variety of faiths and believes and experiences to the show. For me, though, it is always a spiritual experience. What would you have done, if you’d been there? Where would you be in the crowd? As a teenager, watching Superstar awakened in me the lifelong quest to answer those questions. It is so easy to believe that we would be supporters of Jesus, defenders, pleading for his freedom, pleading for his innocence. The thing is, I’ve never been much of a risk-taker. Heck, I even sat in my car for a good while on the night of Superstar auditions, talking myself out of auditioning several times before I finally went in and took the plunge, and that was for an experience that was all for my benefit, that I knew I would love. Would I risk raising my voice in an angry mob, shouting for crucifixion? I wonder how many of us would even be in that crowd, and how many of us would avoid the scene altogether, just trying to stay out of it. Where would be in that crowd? Where I am in this crowd? I claim to be a disciple of Jesus – what risks am I taking today to stand up against injustice? To speak for the marginalized? To love in the radical, sacrificial way of Jesus? What cost am I willing to incur? What truths must I speak and live? On this Easter Sunday, I feel particularly blessed to have had such an awesome vehicle for exploring these questions in Superstar, as I continue seeking new life.