I haven't posted sermons in a while, but Mr. Deadlier asked, so here it is.

PS. I got away from my notes, so this is just an approximation of what I wanted to say. You gotta show up for the real deal!

Ooh, that reminds me: Two people visited us last Sunday. (Maybe a gay couple, but I'll feel bad if I assumed that and was wrong). Estrippers, by chance? If so, speak up, so I can justify posting from the office!



Luke 9:51-62

51When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 55But he turned and rebuked them. 56Then they went on to another village.

57As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." 59To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."



Can you imagine a business person with a great idea, that they are sure will make money, who has no collateral except for her house? Every business venture has risk, and she knows she could lose her house. But she believes in her idea, so she quits her current job and mortgages her house, putting all she has into her new product. If she succeeds, she will be wealthy. If she fails, she will not only be broke, she may have no place to live.

Can you imagine somebody loving an idea enough to risk their house?

How about this. A fire fighter gets a call to burning building. It's bad, which means two things.

1. Time is of the essence--every second he delays, the more likely it is that people will die.

2. There is a very good chance that he could lose his life in this fire.

He knows that he might die, but because time means everything in this moment, he cannot pause--he rushes out to fight the fire, not even taking time to say good-bye to his family.

Can you imagine somebody acting with such urgency that he cannot stop for his family?

What about Martin Luther King, Jr. Here's a Christian man, that knew that he was putting his own life at risk. But did you know that his house, where his wife and daughters were, had been bombed? His activities led to THEIR lives being threatened.

Martin Luther King had to not only consider risking his own life for his mission, but he also had to be honest about the possibility of losing his family.

Can you imagine somebody doing something so important that it risks the lives of the people they love the most?

So maybe we do understand this shocking gospel reading a little bit more.

In this reading, Jesus tells us that following him might lead to homelessness. Following Jesus might lead to cut ties with your family. Following Jesus might even mean no chance to say goodbye.

This is a high price.

However, as we've discovered, somethings are worth a high price.

Friends, the call to follow Christ is not any less than the call to invest in a great idea. Nor is it any less that the call to save lives, or to fight for justice.

In fact, the call to follow Christ IS a great idea. It saves lives, and it brings justice.

And so it requires radical commitment.

This is different than the standard message that churches usually give. What we usually here is something like this.

God wants you in church on Sunday morning for an hour, maybe two. And then he would like it if you did one more thing with the church, during the week. If you don't lie, cheat or steal and you give us four hours, and ten percent of your income, then you are a good person.

There's a value to that message. If each of us gave 10%, and spent four hours here, we would get a lot more done, and have plenty of money for God's mission. We would be an amazing church, at least by most standards.

But does Jesus say "Give me four hours and 10%?"

No.

He asks for you lives. 24/7. 100%.

Which means that we don't give ourselves to our homes. Or our families. Every ounce of our energy is lived toward God. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 100% of our income. 100% of our time. 100% of our energy. 100% of our thoughts.

I've spend a lot of time in youth ministry. Talk to youth ministers and do you know what they will tell you is the number one enemy of the church in the USA?

Soccer practice. Soccer practice, and band practice, and homework, and all of those other things that kids say when you ask them if they can go to church.

Can you imagine the soccer practice kid in this story of Jesus. Jesus says, "Come follow me." And the kid says, "I'll be right there, after soccer practice."

"Ok--I'll hold the reconciliation of humankind with the divine until after you are done with your practice."

Doesn't sound very likely, does it.

But soccer is good, right? School is good, right? family is good, right?

yes. at least most of the time. and being in church is good almost all of the time (although there's more to following God than showing up here, this is a good place to start!)

But none of those things are the best thing.

Following Jesus is the best thing.

And how do we follow Jesus?

We trust his Spirit, which is in us and among us.

So we can be loyal to Jesus over soccer, but guess what, Jesus might lead us to soccer, because soccer players need Jesus. Jesus most likely will lead us to care for our families, and to care for our homes. But Jesus comes first.

Which sounds harsh, putting Jesus absolutely first, but it really is freeing, because when we follow Jesus, the Spirit guides us.

And the Spirit guides us through the hard questions that we face.

Our radical loyalty to Christ is incredibly freeing, because it becomes a guide for all that we do. When we exercise, sleep, or eat, that is part of our mission, building up our bodies to follow Christ.

When we read, listen to music, or take in the sights and smells of the natural world, we are refreshing our spirits, so that we may follow Christ in this world.

When we make beautiful music, or paint paintings, or write stories, we are illustrating the way the world is, and how God is working in it, and thus following Christ in bringing others into God's mission in this world.

When you are guided by the spirit, School becomes the place where you live your mission. So does soccer practice, so does work. so does home, even vacation is your chance to become refreshed for God's mission!

We don't follow Jesus with the time we have left over. We follow Jesus all the time: to soccer practice, to work, to school, to our families.

And we do this because of the wonderful gift of Holy Spirit takes us there.

It's all consuming. Listen to these last words from Paul, using Eugene Peterson's translation:

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.

Which is why we are going to practice the spiritual discipline of eating today. Eating isn't just something we do. It defines who we are. If I eat nothing but donuts, I will look one way, if I eat fruit and vegetables, I will look another way.

When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we welcome Jesus to be a part of us. All of us. Just as this bread and juice travels into every last cell of our body, so do we, invite Christ to permeate our entire being. You know what we'd look like if we ate donuts. you know what we'd look like if we ate vegetables. Today, I invite you to imagine what we look like when we are nourished by Jesus Christ himself.

Some pics:
Mom and Dad at the falls:



Brother in gift shop with moose:


Doesn't this house look nice? We just had it painted.



More falls:

Pretty wife at the falls:


Pretty Lights at Night


Rain gear is because we did "journey behind the falls." Not worth the money, but Dad was buying. Shoulda done "Cave of the Winds," in USA which is what I remembered. "Journey" was a bad choice ("Anyway you like it . . .")

Pics were taken with camera phone. If anybody wants to buy me a real camera, feel free.

I played ultimate today. I am too old and too out of shape to play ultimate, but hopefully I won't be as out of shape soon. Right now, however, everything hurts.

So, I don't really feel like posting, but I will anyway, because its been a while.

In other news, the painters started on our house. It's becoming yellow (and blue and brown). Our neighbors seem to appreciate it--it was pretty crappy looking before. Funny side note: our neighbor (well, the guy that spends way too much time in our neighbors yard) asked the painters for money. I think I know why we got our house for such a good price. I suppose I should thank the guy, but I don't think I will.

Free tickets to the Bisons game this Saturday. No strings. We have enough to give away many. Let me know and I will hook you up.

Some people liked the sermon from the week before. Here's last Sundays. In the future, I may try to post ahead of time, so that it can be a collaborative effort. We'll see.

Oh shoot. I just remembered I promised pics of the falls. That will come later when I have my phone set up. I promise. Really.


The sermon comes from these texts:

1 Kings 21

and Luke 7:36-8:3


"The Gospel According to Spiderman."


Sometimes, a question is more than a question.

For example:

"Don't you think you've had enough potato chips?"

"How fast are you going?"

"What's THAT going to cost?"

"Are you going to leave the house wearing that?"

Here's a question that we guys are especially sensitive to comes from people that are selling something:

"Why would you have to check with your wife?"

Now, what the salesman is really saying is, "you need to make this decision before your wife helps you realize how stupid it is and ruins my commission."

But what we hear is,"Aren't you a man? I thought you were a man! I guess I was wrong. I guess somebody else is the decision maker in your house, and you are a helpless little kid who has to ask for his allowance from Mommy."

We don't like hearing that. So we normally buy the item in question.

In todays texts, we hear to similar questions.

The first one is to a king, and the question is from the King's wife. She asks:

"Aren't you the king of Israel?"

She knew he was the king, of course. She wanted to get him to act the way she thought a king should. She thought he owned the whole country.

However, the king of Israel was called to maintain justice on behalf of God himself. His job was to uphold God's law, and he KNEW that the land in Israel was to stay forever in the families to whom God had given it. That was the law of Israel.

(This by the way, sounds harsh, but what it did was make sure that everyone always had access to a way to make money. The Old Testament can be harsh in some ways, but it is really socially progressive in others!)

Anyway, the King was thwarted in his attempt to buy the land, and became frustrated. His wife, however, appealed to his power, and to his pride.

Aren't you the King of Israel?

Aren't you the man of the house?

Don't you deserve to get what you want?

You deserve a raise

You deserve a vacation

you deserve better car

You deserve a break today

Doesn't your dog deserve Alpo?

Maybe I don't deserve a break today! Maybe my Dog doesn't deserve Alpo! Maybe I've been taking a break all day, and my dog made a mess on the rug!

But we don't like to think that way. We always believe a person when they tell us we deserve something.

And all of the sudden, Ahab, the king, because he had power, thought he deserved land.

Aren't you the King? Jezebel asked Ahab.

"Yes I am," Ahab should have said, "and so my job is to protect Naboth's land. I can't believe I even tried to buy it."

This story teaches us the principle that Spiderman lives by, "With great _______(power), comes great __________(responsibility)"

And it also comes with temptation. Ahab didn't handle that temptation responsibly, and it was his downfall.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus faced the same kind of dilemma, and the same kind of question. The Pharisee asked, "Aren't you a prophet?" --Aren't you supposed to have a special kind of connection with God? Shouldn't you KNOW what kind of woman this is TOUCHING YOUR FEET?"

"If you ARE a prophet, than you will use that power you have to get rid of this bad person in your midst.

Wow. talk about a temptation. Wouldn't it be good to get a KNOWN sinner, not just out of a neighborhood, but out of this man's home? Think about the good that it would do for everybody.

Most of us know better than to be tempted by bad things. We get tempted by things that seem good.

One temptation that we all face is the temptation to place the blame on somebody. Republicans blame democrats, democrats blame republicans, fundamentalists blame liberals, liberals blame fundamentalists, white people blame black people, black people blame white people. Younger people blame older people, older people blame younger people.

Pharisees blame sinners.

Sinners seem like as good as any group to blame, right?

But this quote from the Bible just sticks in the back of my head.

"Jesus didn't come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it"

So Jesus chose NOT to blame this woman.

He had the power.

He had the temptation.

But his job was NOT to condemn, but to save.

So Jesus exercised his power in line with his responsibility. The temptation was to humiliate. The responsibility was to celebrate.

That's what he did. He celebrated the good gift that this woman gave. This woman practiced the most basic and most important of all spirituals disciplines: She practiced hospitality. welcome.

The Pharisee, on the other hand, had forgotten welcome because he was focused on who's in and who's out.

Does that ever happen in churches? (PAUSE)

Holiness is important. But its not more important than welcome. And its never gained by humiliation. We find holiness through forgiveness.

Do we have the big point of the story? Good. Let's make it real. We've got three things at work in these stories, and we can break them down according to the Gospel of Spiderman.

Power Responsibility

What goes in the middle? Temptation!

So here's our task. What's our power? What's our temptation? What's our responsibility?

We're going to start by reviewing the Biblical stories, and then we'll sit where it hits our own story.

With Christ, in this last story. Power came from holiness. The temptation was to humiliate. The responsibility was to celebrate.

What about the King?

Power: office Temptation: wealth Responsibility: Justice

(I wrote all of this stuff on a whiteboard, by the way, and solicited answers from the congregation. So it came out a little bit different, but these are my notes)

How about that woman? Power: jar. Emotions. Passion. Faith.
Temptation: Greed. Sinful living. Passion for self.
Responsibility: Worship. Humility. Self Giving.

Ok, now what about our church?

power.temptation.responsibility =

money. greed. generosity.
self-preservation, selflessness.
location. destination. depot.
people. country club. welcome wagon.
loaves and fishes. charity. change.



There's on last thing I want to do with this chart. Let's lose this word. Because we don't really like responsibility. I mean responsibility to me sounds like changing sheets and cleaning the bathroom and picking up dog poop. I think we DO like all of these things (the things in the responsibility column). These are things that shape us. So responsibility works for the Spiderman quote, but lets make these things our identity. When we live in Christ, we practice these ways, and they become who we are.

Friends, that's our good news for today. God has given us the power in Jesus Christ to be free from THIS (temptation) and BECOME this (identity).


ps. IF you like this stuff, please consider linking to elmwoodjesus.org (my previous post) Right now we are WAY low in Google's index.

I'm going to have a real post soon. (I took pics at the falls last weekend), but until then, look at my church's website (I made it using wordpress, despite not knowing too much about computers.

elmwoodjesus.org


Thanks to Mr. Deadlier for the link help

An article on clergy housing.
For the record, my wife and I love our house. It is more than we need, yes, but we made that concession because we wanted to live around Elmwood, and you just can't by something small here.

Or maybe I'm rationalizing. But we did think about this when we bought our place.

Tonight was my first Thursday on the square.

We didn't remember that it was happening until around 8, so things were well underway when we got there.

I didn't check to see what band was playing, but I quickly learned that they got their break on a WB show, and are very big with the 14 year old girl set.

Nonetheless, there was still quite a line to purchase beer.

We had to push through a lot of people to see the band. The band sounded like they REALLY liked Counting Crows, but I like Counting Crows, so while I would not particularly recommend this band, I still had enough fun.

I really like big outdoor shows. Even when I miss 30 Rock. I will watch it online later.

Mom and Dad and two brothers visit this weekend, so I get to look at the falls again.

So I don't feel like writing new thoughts down today because I've been working all day. Instead, I'll share the sermon I wrote last week.

It comes from

1 Kings 17:8-24
Galatians 1:11-24
and Luke 7:11-17

I don't feel like copying those texts in, or making links, but the sermon really does make more sense if you read them first. So, if you put the texts in Google, then you will find links to the text. Forgive my lazyness.

Here it is:

What does hopeless look like?

What does hopeless look like?

Hopeless looks like a widow, saying, "I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." (from the Kings story)

Hopeless looks like a preacher so sure of himself that he goes as far as to kill anyone who disagrees with him. (Paul, the author of Galatians)

Hopeless looks like a widow's only son, being carried out of the city, dead. (Luke story)

Hopeless looks like an abused kid, who never learns how to love.

Hopeless looks like a mental hospital closed, with all its patients left on their own.

Hopeless looks like a chronic illness, and a lifetime of being cared for.

Hopeless looks like Christians shouting at the people they are supposed to love.

Hopeless looks like a world where over half of the people live on less than $2 a day.

Hopeless looks like an entire generation of Africans lost to AIDS.

Hopeless looks like environmental devastation, spiraling out of control.

Hopeless looks like war.

What does hopeless look like to you?

Write it down. Just for yourself. Name it.

Where have people given up?

Do you see hopelessness on a global scale? Where?

What about in our city?

What about in your family?

What about you?

Is there an addiction that you cannot break?

A fear you cannot defeat?

A sadness that will not pass?



Don't you wish there was a formula to make it all better?

Wouldn't it be nice if there were three simple steps?

We know that often our efforts aren't enough.

But even when we have given up hope, God is not done.

God changes murderous people.

God changes selfish people.

God feeds widows and prophets both.

God heals sick people.

God comforts lonely people.

God raises dead people.

God is redeeming the whole world.

And God sends healed people back into the world.

So that no widow goes hungry.

So that God might be revealed.

Even among those for whom we had given up hope.

Especially among those for whom we had given up hope.

And then people see how good God is.

And someday,

there will be no more wars

or poverty

or illness

or hunger.

Someday, there won't even be any more death.

The whole world will be made right.

and we won't even know what hopeless means,

because our being will be taken up in the love of God.


Until then, we pray, and wait, and work, and hope--even in the situations where there seems to be no hope.



Then we prayed for those situations.

Not my normal style--I normally joke more and have more interaction, but it seemed to come out ok, doing something a bit more meditative.

I'll get back to writing more normal posts later.

Ft. Niagara: It was a fort in a strategic location that nobody could ever hold. Maybe it wasn't so strategic, eh?

Visit this place if you like forts. Go somewhere else if you don't.

As for the falls, I didn't even get out of the car. I circled while my wife and her parents looked. I'm cheap, and that kept me from paying for parking. I'll probably park next weekend when I take my parents.

My brain is kind of scattered right now, so here are some unconnected (or barely connected) thoughts:

-Idiocracy is a good movie. Rent it and laugh/cry hard.

-The art festival was great, but it would have been better with music. And yes, it is a lousy place to take a dog.

-While I love my church, I hate meetings. Tonight is a meeting night.

-I like the General Store on Lexington. Cheap ice cream cannot be beat.

-Wife and I played Othello today. The man tried to keep me down, but black came out ahead this time!

-Seared fish tastes good. That's what I had for dinner when father-in law was buying.

-I play ultimate tomorrow. That's good. Any other players on Estrip?