Holy Listening

130 million dollars planned
60 million dollars already raised
For a tribute to the god of themselves
3.1 million homeless; 16000 children go without food.
Shouts of get a job are heard.
As if it were so easy

Screams of anger and fear fear fill the airwaves
Racism, fascism, corruption of the faith
Sermons, articles, statuses condone the ignorance
While the cries of the hurting and the oppressed go unheard
Build it and it is bastardized

Teenager fears he caused his grandfather's illness
Somone told him it's because he sinned
Create a Hell House to intimidate
Lies debase the Gospel message
The ego delights

It is lost. It is all lost.
Tired. Tired of it all.
You tell us to listen
They cannot be ignored,
But they are far from being heard

This is Christianity in America
This wrong, this is polluted
Diluted by greed and fame coveted
All in the name of their god
This is our society

This is what society whimpers
As I attend to holy listening

Aspiring Knights

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=188756589

St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary.” For those not familiar with Francis, he was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man. While going off to war in 1204, he had a vision that directed him back to Assisi where he began to lose his taste for his worldly life. On a pilgrimage to Rome, Francis begged with the beggars at St. Peter's. The experience moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home and began preaching on the streets.

Francis has served as an inspiration for all who serve in ministry and has been a faithful example of what carrying the work of Christ in Christ's own way means. Every minister/missionary who works with the poor has had some influence by St. Francis of Assisi. Francis called all creatures his brothers and sisters, and even preached to the birds and supposedly persuaded a wolf to stop attacking some locals if they agreed to feed the wolf. Everything and everyone was his brother, his sister. He truly believed that this life and all in it were the mirror of God. He once said, “I have done terrible things. If God can use me, God can use anyone.”

Today's scripture is about what St. Francis was about: caring for God's children. Jesus parable of the sheep and goats is probably one of his best parables. Like the Ten Bridesmaids, Jesus is able to put in a story what the kingdom of heaven truly looks like. He tells us that when the Son of Man comes, he will gather all the nations and divide the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the the sheep on his right and the goats to his left. He will say to those on his right, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison, and you visited me.” Those on his right will ask, “When did we ever do this for you?” and he will say, “Just as you did for one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

In the world I live in, there are people who exemplify this way of life. Both in the real world and the fictional world, I sometimes visit. We call them knights of faith. A knight of faith is someone who lives faithfully in community with those around them. A knight of faith, like the knights of our history and our stories, are people who duty-bound to those around them. They care for all in their midst and in their rule. But it is hard to see a knight of faith. They do not stand out like the heroes of my fictional world. Those heroes wear capes and masks, and use all sorts of wonderful gadgets and power rings. They do not wear suits of armor, in fact, some hardly wear suits of any kind. They abide in the love of Christ through their service to others.

These knights of faith are ordinary people with ordinary jobs who live ordinary lives. You may run into one, clasp your hands and say half aloud, “Good lord, is this the knight? Is it really he? Why he looks like a farmer!” You will examine his figure from head to toe to see if there might be some cape or costume or armor exposed through his overalls. No! He is solid through and through. His stride? It is vigorous, belonging entirely to the land; no smartly dressed country-girl who walks but to Walkerton on a Sunday afternoon treads the ground more firmly, she belongs entirely to the world, no Richmonder more so. She takes delight in everything, and whenever ones sees her taking part in a particular pleasure, she does it with the persistence which is the mark of the earthly human whose soul is adsorbed in such things. She tends to her work. So when one looks at her one might suppose that she was a county clerk who lost her soul in an intricate system of book-keeping, precise is she. She takes a holiday on Sunday. She goes to church.

The Reverend Paul Tillich tells a story about woman who died a few years ago and whose life was spent abiding in love, although she rarely, if ever, used the name of God, and though she would have been surprised had someone told her that she belonged to the One who judges all humankind.

Her name was Elsa Brandström, the daughter of a former Swedish ambassador to Russia. But her name in the mouths and hearts of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war during the First World War was the Angel of Siberia. She was an irrefutable living witness to the truth that love is the ultimate power of Being, even in a century which belongs to the darkest, most destructive and cruel of all centuries since the dawn of mankind.

At the beginning of the First World War, when Elsa was twenty-four years old, she looked out of the window of the Swedish Embassy in what was then St. Petersburg and saw the German prisoners of war being driven through the streets on their way to Siberia. From that moment on she could no longer endure the splendor of the diplomatic life of which, up to then, she had been a beautiful and vigorous center. She became a nurse and began visiting the prison camps. There she saw unspeakable horrors and she, a girl of twenty-four, began, almost alone, the fight of love against cruelty, and she prevailed. She had to fight against the resistance and suspicion of the authorities and she prevailed. She had to fight against the brutality and lawlessness of the prison guards and she prevailed. She had to fight against cold, hunger, dirt and illness, against the conditions of an undeveloped country and a destructive war, and she prevailed. Love gave her wisdom with innocence, and daring with foresight. And whenever she appeared despair was conquered and sorrow healed. She visited the hungry and gave them food. She saw the thirsty and gave them to drink. She welcomed the strangers, clothed the naked and strengthened the sick. She, herself, fell ill and was imprisoned, but God was abiding in her. The irresistible power of love was with her.

And she never ceased to be driven by this power. After the war she initiated a great work for the orphans of German and Russian prisoners of war. The sight of her among these children whose sole ever-shining sun she was, must have been a decisive religious impression for many people. With the coming of the Nazis, she and her husband were forced to leave Germany and come to this country. Here she became the helper of innumerable European refugees, and for ten years, Tillich writes, I was able personally to observe the creative genius of her love. We never had a theological conversation. It was unnecessary. She made God transparent in every moment. For God, who is love, was abiding in her and she in Him. She aroused the love of millions towards her self and towards that for which she was transparent— the God who is love. On her deathbed she received a delegate from the king and people of Sweden, representing innumerable people all over Europe, assuring her that she would never be forgotten by those to whom she had given back the meaning of their lives.

The knights of faith look like a farmer, a county clerk, or in this case, a young nurse, dressing as plain as any, and carrying on with the daily grind. In my life, I have been influenced by costumed heroes. Heroes whose powers come from either a mutant gene or from the yellow sun of Earth. These heroes are heroes because they serve humanity for the greater good. Elsa Brandström was no superhero. She didn't inherit a billion dollar fortune, build a base in a cave, or have a really cool car. She wasn't sent to earth as her home planet was being destroyed. She isn't a Viking god sent to earth to learn humility. Elsa Brandström is a knight of faith because what she did, what she is remembered for, her actions that affected the here and now. Her life was about loving those in her midst and loving them completely and faithfully. A knight of faith doesn't wear a cape or a cowl. Their dress is nothing special; their deeds are routine. A knight of faith is someone who lives in the here and now, and what they do affect the here and now.

You see, superheroes are regulated to the fact that they will never ability to solve the world's problems and bring about world peace. Sure, there might be peace on earth for awhile but you can always guarantee that peace will not last long, after all, there's sequels to make and comics to sell. The justice they seek, the world they seek will never come to fruition. For the knight of faith, their peace is a present thing. Their ideal state is found in the moment because they realize that in loving and serving others they exercise the kind of fellowship that infinitely sustain humanity. For a knight of faith, peace on earth must be made with every gesture and every action. And it starts by committing ourselves to another person and by helping that person in every way that we can.

Our gospel story this morning frustrates a lot of my friends. They think it's impossible to care for everyone, to clothe everyone, to feed everyone, to visit everyone, to give everyone a drink, or welcome everyone. They're right. It is impossible. A knight of faith knows that spiritually everything is possible but in this world of ours there is much that is not possible. This impossible, however, the knight makes possible by expressing it spiritually, but he expresses it spiritually by forfeiting his claim to it. In other words, the knight of faith gives up the belief that he can be everything to everyone. I believe our passage this morning invites us to give up that belief.

I believe the parable of the sheep and goats is an impossible parable to comprehend if we continue to read it on a global scale. When we look at the passage, when we read the passage, when we hear the passage, we are not being asked to hear on a world wide scale. The task to go all over the world and feed every single soul is impossible. There are those who try, we call them missionaries. But for those of us who are not missionaries, we have the opportunity to take the impossible and make it possible by loving one another as we love ourselves. I stated last week that I believed the gospel could be summed up in three commandments: 1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. 2)Love your neighbor as yourself. 3) Go and make disciples of every nation. I believe those three commandments make it possible for us to be sheep instead of goats.

It is because of our love for Christ, for God, with every once of our being that we love one another as we love ourselves. Grounded in that love, we begin to reach out and care for those right next to us, those in our immediate presence. If loved one another, if we cared for another, it begins to show in the way we treat one another. It is in the treating of one another, the caring of one another, that others begin to join. It is out the love of Christ abiding in us that we begin to make disciples of every nation. It is possible for us to change this world for the better, here and now, if become like knights of faith and care for one another in ways that become routine.

Our passage this morning calls for us to be knights of faith. We should aspire to become knights of faith. For it is in that aspiration, we begin to live our lives in the abiding power of love of Christ.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

The Trouble With Talents

Monday night I attended a pastor's conference called Fresh Expressions. The idea was a missional focus on doing church in a new way. Missional is a focus in which the church moves from it's setting, out into a new and different setting. In short, missional is church on mission for the kingdom. The issue with missional is that it comes in different shapes, sizes, and denominations. It manifests itself in both conservative, moderate, and progressive churches alike. (And yes, that book you're reading that tells you how to do church says the same thing that the book you dislike says. It just says it differently and in your polity).

The concept of missional church is not a new concept. Churches have been missional since their beginnings. Every generation has their version, their understanding of what missional means. If a church is doing a creative ministry that is reaching out or going into places they would not normally go and ministering, then they are, by definition, a missional church.

The issue I struggled with Monday night was not the issue of a missional church but was with the concept of fresh expressions of the church. These fresh expressions were not anything new: creating alternative worship services, house churches, cafe churches, ministerial expressions of church in a creative way. At one time something like Backyard Bible Clubs and Vacation Bible Schools were considered a fresh expression of church. Motorcycle ministries are a fresh expression of church. I think you understand the concept.

2 years ago this March, I participated in something called Pursuing Missional Faithfulness. It was born out of a “program” called Pursuing Ministerial Vitalness. The idea behind the concept is that a church begins a journey with God into discovering their story and their mission in their context for their church. Every church involved in the process spends 18 months meeting in prayer triplets, cottage clusters, and participating in cluster retreats with 3-4 other churches experiencing the same thing. During these 18 months, we were to spend time praying and listening to what was God was saying and showing to them. The idea being, that at the end of the 18 months, the church would have a clearer picture of their 10 year story, their 10 year vision of what God was asking them to do.

As I sat in the sanctuary with other pastors and ministers, listening to this presentation on how the church can reach others. I began to think about the parable of the talents. I'm sure you are familiar with the parable, but if not let me tell you a story:

A man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed;so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

Matthew's intent with the parable of the talents is clear. He understood the parable as an exhortation for followers of Jesus to be faithful in their obedience until his return. If we were to look at Matthew's intent, the message of Jesus, and the church today, we might get a story like this:

One day, a wealthy retiring pastor took his three associates and divided among them his congregation, each to their tenure. To the first he gave 500 members of the 1000 member congregation. To the second he gave 450 members. To the third he gave the remaining 50. The first minister took his new congregation and built a church in a wealthy subdivision outside of town. He began his ministry by organizing a building fund and implementing a new program that worked for a church in California. The second took his new congregation and moved it into the heart of the city, right next to the businesses and political offices and the homeless. The second pastor began his ministry by instituting a pledge campaign and focused solely on maintaining his church's budget. The third moved her congregation out to the country and moved into an old church. She began her ministry by spending every morning in prayer with her congregation. After some time, they began to create ministries based on the needs of their community.

A few years later while at a pastors' conference, the three ministers sat down to have lunch with their old retired pastor. The retired pastor inquired about his old church, now divided into threes. The first began, “We moved outside of the city and now house the biggest church in the area. We have a $64 million main campus. We also have three campuses around the city and host a church via the internet. You can sign in and worship online. We literally have a church that spans the nation and the world. We also have gone from 500 to 100,000 on our main campus and we average about 1,000+ at our other campuses. We implemented a program that allows us to feed my picture and a hologram version of myself to the other campuses. I am able to preach at 4 different sites all at the same time.”

The retired pastor remained silent.

The second began likewise, “We moved further into the city, right next to all the downtown businesses and government buildings. Over the past three years, we have grown our budget and now have an operating budget of $10 million. We have grown in number from 450 to 1500. Of those 1500, several are prominent businessmen and prominent politicians, including the Governor and on the occasion, the President (when he's in town). Also, every one of our church members are debt free.”

Likewise the retired pastor remained silent.

The third began humbly, “We left the city and moved into the country. We have taken residence in a old church surrounded by a community in need. We spent the first year or so praying what God would have us do. During that time we learned that several in the community were in need of food, so we began to grow a garden behind the church. Every Saturday we host a free farmer's market in which those in need might have fresh veggies and fruits for their family, along with a community food pantry. We also learned that many struggled with different addictions so we began a Narcotics and Alcoholic Anonymous programs to help them. We also learned that several of the children had no place to go, so we began opening up our church for them to come in and have a safe space to play, do homework, and spend time with a lot of retired members. We have also several who cannot afford health insurance, so we host a free health clinic once a month; while several members help cover the medical costs of those in need. We average 75 in attendance on Sunday and we struggle to make our budget. However we are growing in our faith and continuing to learn to place our complete faith in God's steadfast love.” She said as tears began to fill her eyes.

The retired pastor looked at her and with a kind smile said, “Job well done my good and faithful servant. You and your community will inherit all that I have, for you have taken what I gave you and grew it a hundredfold. You have made an old pastor proud.”

As I think back to Monday night, I finally understand the purpose of the parable. Many churches and pastors try to be like the first two churches in the story. We want to go to church, we want to be a part of the Christian faith as long as it benefits us instead of changing us. If we were completely honest, we would admit that the Christian faith does not benefit us. Sure, we can focus on the salvation piece of the faith and the benefits of eternal life; but doing so would only focus on the benefits and not the point of the faith. The Christian faith asks a lot more than it gives. We are asked to live obediently and faithfully. We are asked to be self sacrificial and humble. We are asked to turn the other cheek and sell everything. The Christian faith requires us to become a part of something that is supposed to change us.

The parable of the talents is about more than being good stewards and giving to a church budget. It is a reminder for churches to live faithfully into the story God is writing. The failure of the third servant is not that he disobeyed his master. He wasn't commanded to go and double the talent he was given. He was simply entrusted with the a share of the master's property. He was expected to care for that property and watch over it. His failure is that he did not care for what was entrusted to him. The servant allowed his fear of the master to rule his life. He sought to protect what he had and not risk for fear of retribution. However, as we know, his failure is what brought on his removal from the master's sight. He did not allow himself to be changed.

I believe God expects churches to change. I do not think he expects them to change in the way we are accustomed to change. I do not think God cares about churches changing services or what type of music they worship too. I do not think God cares if budgets are met or that every church member is debt free. I do not think God cares too much about $64 million church buildings. I know God doesn't care about pastors preaching at six locations at once. I believe the change God desires for us is the type of change that completely transforms us. I believe the change God looks for, what the parable is speaking to, is a church that lives out the Gospel message.

If Jesus is our model of perfection and model of who we are supposed to be like as Hebrews indicates, then the change I believe God is looking for can be found in three simple commandments, “Love your Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Go and make disciples of every nation.” I believe when Jesus tells us the parable of the talents, he is asking us if we are going to be faithful and obedient with what he has entrusted us with. And Christ has entrusted us with all that God has given us. I believe if we begin to focus on those around us and care for those in our presence; we will see a change in our church. The worse thing a church can do is strive to be like another church. We do not need purpose driven churches or fresh expression churches that all look alike. We need churches to live faithfully with one another, care for one another, and love one another. I truly believe that if we were to live in such a way, we would begin to see a change in the community around us, and then surrounding communities, and then the world.

We have all been given a talent. What we do with that talent is up to us. We can either bury it or risk it. The parable teaches us that risking it is better than burying it. Let us be a risky church. Let us be a missional church that goes, not the extra mile, but the third mile, the fourth mile, the fifth mile, the green mile. Let us be a church that unapologetically changes its community. Let us begin our journey with God. Let us trust that God has a plan for the church. Let us be who God is creating us to be. Amen.