Bold, Courageous Risk-taking - a sermon for 28 October 2012

A Sermon for October 28, 2012 (RCL B Proper 25)

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:             Hebrews 7:23-28; Psalm 34:1-8,19-22; Mark 10:46-52

Themes:        goodbye
Title:               But He Cried Out

My dear friends: for the last four (or three) years, God has given me the privilege of speaking with you from this pulpit as I have attempted to make sense of Holy Scripture within the context in which we are living in our society today.

As I reflect upon what God has laid upon my hearts over the years, there is a wonderful serendipity with the Gospel reading appointed for this morning.

Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd are passing Jericho on their inexorable march toward the conflict in Jerusalem. Along the way, a blind beggar cries out for help.

And the Lord Jesus turns to this man and asks him an amazing question:

“What do you want me to do for you?”

Bartimaeus makes his request for the restoration of his eyesight, and Jesus replies with a line that is quite typical for him to say: “Go; your faith has made you well.”

My friends: I invite you right now to think with me for a few minutes about the fact that true faith in God is bold, courageous risk-taking.

Think about it for a minute, my friends: the Messiah, the Son of God, this very popular Rabbi surrounded by eager crowds, on his way toward the end of his life in the showdown in Jerusalem – this one stops in the road in order to offer his services to a poor, blind beggar.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

Why? Why does he act in this way toward Bartimaeus? What about the other blind beggars whom the Lord surely passed by on the road without even a notice? Why is Bartimaeus healed?

The crowd ordered the poor blind man to be quiet, but he would not. Instead he shouted out all the more.

You see, Bartimaeus took a risk. He was incredibly vulnerable. Poor, blind, sitting down in the midst of a large boisterous crowd. People were yelling at him; they could have struck him, kicked him, hurt him.     

But Bartimaeus would not be silenced. He took the risk; he called out for help.

The Lord heard and replied. “Your faith has made you well.”

It is always this way with Jesus.

He calls out the twelve. They risk everything to go and follow him.
Four friends risk much to bring their sick brother to Jesus for healing.
The syro-phonecian woman risks scorn and ridicule – and worse – by debating with Jesus for the healing of her daughter.
Here, Bartimaeus risks his personal safety in order to ask for healing.

Over and over again, those who connect with Jesus are the ones who take risks in order to be near him, who take risks for the sake of love.

Do you see it, my friends?

Everything in the life of faith depends upon taking risks.  In fact, that is the very essence of faith: bold, courageous action, the ability to take risks.

And this is seen so clearly not only here in the Gospels.

Look at all of the saints who are honored and celebrated in the church: Paul of Tarsus, Patrick, Benedict, Francis of Assisi and Clare his dear friend, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, even Mother Teresa of Calcutta of our times. On and on and on we could name them.

All of these are honored and remembered and celebrated today. WHY?

Because they took risks for the sake of God! They were bold in risking much for the sake of the Gospel.

Some of these risked physical harm, like St. Patrick when he returned to Ireland and faced those who had attacked his village and had kidnapped him.

Francis and Clare took the risk of living life entirely by faith, with no material possessions at all and no money, no possessions at all. And guess what? They lived lives filled with incredible joy and peace! Because, by the way, you do not need money to have joy and peace in your life!

Other risked social embarrassment and exclusion, like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, as they labored to reform the church in their day and restore it to its spiritual foundations.

Countless others risked their time by devoting hours on end to prayer and meditation.

This kind of devotion offers no promise of immediate reward. It is something people do because they fall in love! They fall in love with Christ and they want to spend time in his presence. For all they know, this will be wasted time which they can never recover, with nothing to show for it. But saints have done it – over and over again, simply out of love.

And what have they gained? They have gained intimacy with God, closeness to Christ.

Amazing insight, vision, a sense of peace and trust in God which does not change even when the circumstances of life.

A number of different times, I have shared with you this quote, which is one of my favorites:

“Grace will not baptize us while we sit at home, slighting the means which God has appointed.” These were words preached by John Henry Newman more than 160 years ago, but their truth applies in all ages.

The grace of God is available today. This is transforming powerful grace. It is dynamic energy and power.

BUT – it is available to those who take risks, who step out in faith into the unknown with boldness and courage and confidence.

Now, to be clear, not all risk-taking is good. One of the primary reasons that our society finds itself in such an economic downturn is due to reckless, irresponsible risk-taking by those in the financial sector.

It is not risk-taking by itself which is inherently good, but risk-taking for the sake of love, for the sake of God. It is the willingness to lay yourself – your wants and needs, your money, your resources, your time – to lay these down in order to serve others, to serve God.

THAT is faith in action.

This past week I became acquainted with the story of Katie Davis.

As an 18 year old from Tennessee, Katie traveled to Uganda during Christmas break with her church youth group. She was immediately captivated by the people and the culture of Uganda. Her heart was touched by the graciousness of the Ugandan people, but also by their immensity of their needs.

13 months later, in January of 2008, Katie had graduated from high school and had returned to Uganda to launch a new effort at helping impoverished children here to receive a basic elementary school education and the basic food staples needed to live, and to be nurtures by a caring, Christian community. Today, Katie is a 23 year old young woman living in Uganda, and she is in fact now a mother – at 23 years old! – who has officially adopted 13 orphaned Ugandan girls. (See her story here: http://www.amazima.org/katiesstory.html).

What causes an intelligent, athletic, attractive high school graduate – the senior class president, no less! – to leave behind her home and her friends and her future career potential in order to care for poor children in Uganda?

Faith in Jesus, because true faith is bold, courageous risk-taking.

Those who step out for the sake of God are the ones who go out and change the world!

When God gives the call to you, my dear friends, how will you respond?

Remember: “Grace will not baptize us while we sit at home, slighting the means which God has appointed.”

Oh, you can sit at home and watch TV and complain about how messed-up the world is and then wonder why it’s not getting any better! Sure, you can do that.

But that is not faith! That is not active participation in God’s mission in the world!

That is not the way to experience grace in your life.

Think it through for a moment right now. Think through your life. What have you risked for the sake of love, for the sake of God?

What is true of our individual lives is true of our churches as well. What has your church risked for the sake of love, for the sake of God?

 

True faith in Jesus Christ is bold, courageous risk-taking.

 Not because we hope to gain anything from it! We have already gained everything!

Baptized into Christ, we have been forgiven and redeemed in him.

And now, because of that, we have the chance to step out in faith, to risk ourselves for the sake of him who died for us.

Christ offered himself for us, so that we might offer ourselves for him.

That, my dear sisters and brothers, is what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ.

May you never forget this, never shrink back from God’s call out of fear, never seek to protect yourselves from the pain of sacrifice. But may you always reach out in love for the sake of the Gospel, and offer yourselves so that others may live in the grace of Christ. Amen.  

 

God is an Amateur - a sermon for Oct. 7, 2012

A Youth Message for the 10-7-2012 (RCL Proper 22 B)

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:           Hebrews 1:1-4,2:5-12; Psalm 26; Mark 10:2-16

Themes:        reflection, imprint, the imago dei, the amateur, like a child

Title:             God is an Amateur

My dear friends: how many of you like to play? Play games? Play dolls? Play sports?

That is excellent! Playing is something that God wants you to do! Let’s come back to that in a minute.

First, did any of you hear our first Bible reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews? In that reading, we heard this:

“Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Hebrews 1:2).

Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory. What is a reflection? It’s an image that we see in a mirror.

When we look at Jesus – how he lived his life, what he taught and what he did, we see God exactly! Just like looking in a mirror. Or like walking out of a dark room onto a sunny beach in the middle of the day in the summer! Do you remember how bright it can be? The sun reflecting off of all that sand and the water!

When we look at Jesus, we see the brilliance of God shining back at us just like walking out of a dark room and into the full light of the summer sun.

Now did you hear what Jesus taught us this morning? About the little children?

He said, “Let the little children come to me…Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  

Now, I brought a small mirror. Look at yourself. What do you see?

Listen: one day you will grow up to be big like me, to be an adult.

Do you know what most of us adults see when we look in the mirror?

We see problems. We see trouble. We see failure.

Do you know why? Because we don’t look like the stars on TV or in the movies.

Because our faces have changed, or we’ve lost our hair, and we wish we were as good looking or as beautiful as the superstars. But we don’t see that, and that makes us sad.

But what does God see when God looks at us?

Jesus is the reflection of God, and we are the reflection of God! You and I are made in the image of God!

St. Irenaeus said that the glory of God is a human being when fully alive!

In our faces shines the glory of God, when we do not see problems and failures.

What is it that makes us feel fully alive?

The other day before dinner I took our puppy Clare out to a local nature park to play.

Have any of you seen Clare? Here is a picture. She’s a beautiful, well-behaved puppy.

But she loves to play, all of the time.

So I took Clare out to this park where there is a creek and the path crosses over the creek on a bridge.

I sat and watched Clare play in the water. She loves the water! She jumped in and splashed around in the sunshine, and I chased her for a while, and she chased after me. And then she tried to catch grasshoppers in her mouth. And do you know what? I felt completely and fully alive!

Do you know what I think? I think that we are fully alive when we play!

Jesus said “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

Children love to play! Puppies and kittens love to play! Is that by accident? I don’t think so.

God intends for us to play, to be fully alive, to celebrate the gift of being alive, to look at ourselves and see the glory of God because we are wonderfully made and put together!

Have you ever heard adults tell you to stop playing around and to be serious?

Sometimes, unfortunately, we have to do that. Sometimes we have to get stuff done.

But don’t ever think that playing is less important than working. That is not true!

You and I – all of us, young and old – we all have to play in order to be fully alive!

When I play with my family or my friends or my puppy, then I feel fully alive!

We adults get all mixed up, because we think that we need to stop playing in order to focus on “important adult matters.”

But I don’t know of any adult who feels fully alive when in a committee meeting!

We have to do those things, of course.

But if we ONLY do those things, if we forget to play, then we are not listening to what Jesus taught us! Then we are not reflecting the glory of God!

This morning we are getting ready to baptize little Lillie Ann Gilbrook.

Babies love to play, don’t they? Just like puppies, actually. Because this is the way that God made them to be! It is perfectly natural and godly for children to play.

This is one of the joys of baptizing little babies. When we bring them into our community through baptism, it's like we are saying, "We need your playfulness among us. We get too serious and we forget about the importance of play."  

Speaking of play, and especially playing sports, do you know what it means to be an amateur? Today, it usually means someone who does something as a hobby, someone who dabbles in an activity – usually someone who is not good enough to be a professional, right?

But I want to tell you straight up that God is an amateur! That word comes from Latin roots which mean to love something. An amateur is someone who does something, not for what they will get paid by others, but simply because they love doing it!

God is an amateur. God made you, God breathed life into all of us, simply because God loves to do it! I don’t know why, but the Bible tells us that God loves to create, and especially God loves to create human beings.

There is a kind of playful joy in what God does, and I think that this perhaps is why Jesus said that we must be like little children to enter God’s kingdom.

Because when we play like a child, then we are most fully alive and most faithfully reflecting God’s glory!

Now, I have something here for you to remember our talk this morning.

We can’t play all the time. A lot of life is work – getting things done.

But whenever you do play – and I hope that it a lot - I want you to remember that you are doing what God wants you to do, and you are reflecting God’s glory, just like in the mirror.

Can you remember that?

And you adults out there, please listen and understand: if you do not make regular time in your daily life to play, then you are not being faithful to God’s calling.

I mean it: God made us for play! Not all of the time, of course, but we must do it to restore our souls by being fully alive. It is then that we are more like Jesus; it is then that we more reflect the glory of God.  

The Value of Fear and Love - A Sermon for 8/19/12

A Sermon for the Sunday after Pentecost (RCL B) 8-19-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:            1 Kings 2:10-12,3:3-14; Psalm 111; John 6:51-58

Themes:        wisdom, fear of the Lord, discernment

Title:              The Value of Fear and Love

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10).

My dear friends: What does it mean to be wise?

Think of someone you know whom you consider to be a wise person. Then consider what exactly it is about that person which earns them that title in your mind.

What does it mean to be wise? For most people in today’s world, I’ll bet that a wise person is someone with good common sense, maybe even someone who is street wise. Someone who knows how to survive, how to get by and maybe how to work a deal. Perhaps a wise person today is someone who understands money and how to maneuver it, how to manipulate it, how to multiply it.

But what does it mean to be wise in a biblical sense?

You know that Solomon is famously described in the Bible as being the wisest man who ever lived.

To be honest, that’s mostly royal propaganda! Yes, when he was young, Solomon was known to be wise. Here in this famous story, Solomon asks not for wealth nor long life nor for the demise of his enemies. Instead, Solomon asks for wisdom and discernment.

This is a nice tale, and it may have reflected some truth about Solomon when he was young.

But as a grown man, fully in touch with his royal power, he was known to all the Israelites as a tyrant, a ruthless ruler who taxed them without mercy and subjected the people to forced labor for grandiose building projects. In addition, the Bible clearly states that he paid homage to foreign gods and that he most certainly did NOT walk in the ways of his father’s God!

In fact, as soon as Solomon died, there was a revolt and the northern tribes declared their independence from the corrupt royal government based in Jerusalem.

Whatever wisdom Solomon did possess in his early years rapidly turned into narcissism – into an over-inflated sense of his own importance.

But the essence of what it means to be wise in the biblical sense is found in our Psalm appointed for today: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10).

Now I ask you: how do we square this up with the clear calling that we receive in the New Testament to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength? (cf. Matthew 22:37)

How can you simultaneously fear the Lord and love the Lord at the same time?

Is that even possible?

Yes, I say! In fact, let me suggest to you that it is not only possible to fear and love God at the same time, but that in the Bible’s vision of a full and healthy life – these two are in fact the very same thing.

We fear God and we love God when we make God the highest value in our life.

It is all about values and priorities and focus.

Some of you know that my family was blessed this summer with a new puppy. We found this puppy during our summer vacation up north.

Her name is Clare and she is a mutt – a mixed breed dog, with her mother being a pure Saint Bernard. So we can figure out pretty clearly that she is destined to be BIG!

Now, having a big puppy requires a lot of work!

You may then forgive me if my thoughts have invariably been taken up lately by thoughts of puppy training. And if any of you have ever trained a new puppy – especially a large dog, then you know the amount of work and vigilance that is required – that is, if, in fact, you intend to end up with a well-behaved and disciplined dog!

It is especially a challenge right now to walk this big puppy. She is so easily distracted!

Clare is not a good walker. Not yet! But we are taking her to puppy training classes

One of the things that we are learning about is to teach the puppy to watch us – to look at us, to pay attention to us as her owners.

Right now, she is so distracted that walking her is a major challenge!

Yesterday on a walk, she even started to chase after a few leaves that were blowing in the wind! Every car that goes by. Every dog or cat or squirrel close by. Every person. Everything distracts her and then she pulls, because she wants to check it out!

And all the while, she is not even looking at me! Not paying attention at all to what I am doing, where I am going, what my plans might be! This is a real challenge.

The goal in this training is that I will no longer have to hold her so tightly on the leash, and no longer fight with her to go for a walk.

More than that: the goal is that eventually I may even be able to walk her without any leash at all! You see, the goal is that Clare will be so attuned to me, be so in touch with me, so conscious of me as her owner and as the most important thing in her life, that a leash will no longer even be necessary!

I am sure that any serious theologian would be utterly disgusted by my attempt to draw an analogy between puppy training and our relationship with God, but it makes sense to me!

Remember: we fear God and we love God when we make God the highest value in our life.

The analogy with puppy training breaks down at some point, of course, but consider that the goal of our training in Christ – our apprenticeship, our internship with the Master – is that we can learn to be so attuned to God, so in touch with God, so conscious of God as our leader and as the most important relationship in our life, that we can move with God in a synergy of motion, as a conjoined flow of energy working – and walking! – toward a common goal!

To understand how fear and love relate to value, consider this example. I love my wife, Erin. And because I love her, I also fear her. (But no, not the way that you are thinking! Ha!)

What I mean is that if I truly love her, then I treasure her. In fact, my love for her means that I place immense value upon our relationship.

Outside of my relationship with God, my relationship with Erin is the most important of my life! And that means that she has tremendous value to me.

And how do we treat those things in our lives that have the highest value?

We are afraid to lose them, aren’t we! We humans create all kinds of security systems to protect those things which we value the most, because we are determined not to lose them!

We love those things, and so we fear what might happen if they are damaged or lost.

I love my wife Erin, and so I fear what might happen if I damage her through my words or actions, or if I lose her because of my own stupidity.

Remember what Jesus taught us: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 

Because we become personally invested in our treasure.

We love it; we value it; we fear the loss of it.

This is how it goes with us: we fear God and we love God when we make God the highest value in our life.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, because we allow God to become the center of our lives, the center of our hearts, the conscious focus of our energy.

We do this because we love God, and we know that there is nothing more precious and valuable than this connection with the living God, the Creator of all!

And we are afraid to do anything that might damage this relationship, severe this connection. We are afraid to do anything that might cut us off from God!

We fear the loss of God’s presence, because we know the power of God’s love.

Make sure that you do this, my friends, because there is nothing more valuable than this! Make sure that you place the highest possible value in your heart upon your relationship – your connection -  with God.

This is the beginning of wisdom, because this is the beginning of living fully into our new life in Christ. Amen.