Friday Five: What's in the closet?

Sally gave us this Friday Five at the RevGals.
In readiness for my move in 6 weeks time I spent almost all of yesterday morning sorting through my wardrobe ( closet, I am so British :-) marvelling at how I had accumulated so much stuff! The result is three large sacks full of clothes to be given away. Some came into the category of " what was I thinking", some too big now ( at last), and others I will never shrink into again. Some are going simply because I want to streamline my wardrobe.

So how about you:

1. Are you a hoarder, or are you good at sorting and clearing? HORRIBLE hoarder

2. What is the oddest garment you possess and why? Thought this said "oldest" when I first read it. That would be a sweatshirt I got back when American Eagle Outfitters was still an outfitter. A gift from my dad when I was in the 8th grade - 20 years ago. It's age and the fact that I still wear it (although not in public) probably makes it the oddest thing, too. I also have this fleece sleep sack thing. WAY better than those trendy blankets with arm holes. This is not me and it's not my Land's End version, but it's the same idea:

3. Do you have a favourite look/ colour? Don't know about a favorite look, but I will buy just about anything red that comes close to fitting. The old ladies at the church I belonged to in college ALWAYS complimented me when I wore red and that has stuck with me.

4. Thrift/ Charity shops, love them or hate them? I would love to love them, but I am just too lazy of a shopper. I love shopping, but I have no patience for sifting through things, and there's the part of me that just can't get past the part of not knowing if the clothes are REALLY clean. I know it's irrational.

5. Money is no object, what one item would you buy? A beautiful cashmere sweater. Love it, but I just can't bring myself to spend the money on it - - especially since I'm still in the "kids spilling junk on me" portion of life.

Friday Five: Moving

Moving is on the mind over at the RevGals. Here's my play:

1. A big move is looming, name one thing that you could not possibly part with, it must be packed?
My collection of journals that I have kept just shy of DAILY since 1985.

2. Name one thing that you would gladly leave behind...
The crickets that have infested our basement this spring. My bedroom is in the basement.

3. How do you prepare for a move

a. practically?
Poorly. Very poorly.

b. spiritually/emotionally?
Spending a lot of time with people to be sure I make the most of my time. This is part of my problem with part A of this question. Also, I think moving is INCREDIBLY exciting, so I spend a lot of time thinking, planning, imagining what life will be like in a new way and find things I want to get involved in when I get there. Whether I do or not later on doesn't matter too much. It's finding the new things I MIGHT do that's exciting.

4. What is the first thing you look for in a new place?
Fastest routes to the grocery store/wine store (if it's a state that separates those things out).

5. Do you settle in easily, or does it take time for you to find your feet in a new location?
I settle in very easily. Granted I haven't lived anywhere for more than 5 years since I left home after high school. I wonder what will happen when I hit that point in this new place. We've been here a year and plan to stay for an indefinite while. I wonder if I'll get the moving itch, and how, if I do, I'll overcome it.

The bonus for today; a new opportunity has come up for you to spend 5 years in a new area, where would you go and why?
Africa, without thinking twice, and with no regrets. I have lived for 3 months each in Ghana and Kenya. I'd go back there or just about anywhere else at the drop of a hat. I think I could even convince my husband if it were for a definite period of time.

I hate Trinity Sunday.

I don't like Trinity Sunday. Oh, I like the Trinity alright, but I don't like it's own Sunday. I hope I'm not bursting too many bubbles when I say that the Trinity as a doctrine or organized thought about God is not spelled out in Scripture really. There are trinitarian formulae in a few New Testament spots. The persons of the Trinity show up throughout Scripture, but it's not like a book is spent talking about God's revelation of the Trinity on stone tablets or anything. That makes it real hard for me to do a Trinity Sunday sermon since I tend to be a pretty biblically based preacher, really digging into the text and the plot and the characters. Preaching a doctrine that has limited direct biblical support from ONE text is sort of hard for me to get behind. It's hard for me to do and feel like I'm doing well. Not saying it's impossible. Just saying I might not be the woman for that job!

Anyway, I hope I can honor the Trinity in all of our worship all of our Sundays. I'll try to find a way to do it with integrity this week, too, but I don't think we'll hear a Trinity Sunday sermon. I did one last year, and I think that was enough for a three year cycle. Maybe I'll pull it out again in a few years if we need to go down that road again. For now, though, I'll play with Nicodemus and rebirth. That passage has enough baggage to unpack on it's own.

Maybe the Spirit will surprise me, though, and wiggle the Trinity into it anyway!

What's gotten into you?

Acts 2:1-21

“What’s gotten into you?” Have you ever been on either end of THAT question? It’s one of those questions that can mean SOOO many different things. There’s the frustrated “WHAT’S gotten into you?” Or the confused, “What’s GOTTEN into you?” Maybe the annoyed, “What’s gotten into YOU?” Even the compassionate, “What’s gotten INTO you?”

However it is asked or intended, it’s a question we ask when we see something we don’t expect – the sudden misbehavior of a usually quiet child, or maybe the creeping wave of depression that shadows over a close friend. It’s a question we ask when something seems to come completely out of the blue, when there’s been a sudden and alarming change, and we don’t know what to do or how to react. What has gotten into you?

I’m sure it wasn’t a new question for Jesus’ apostles who found themselves in Jerusalem. These are men and women who had given up more than a little to follow Jesus. Some had thrown down nets. Some had walked away from family and livelihoods. Some had given up cushy jobs and regular paychecks. Some had risked being ostracized, being refused religious privileges, being shunned from everyone and everything they knew and trusted, being stoned just to follow this itinerant preacher who claimed to be the Son of God. I can just hear their families. Can’t you? What in the world has gotten into you?

No, that question wasn’t a new one to Jesus’ first followers and apostles even when they heard it together on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ earthly life had ended. This time they really earned it, didn’t they? Their day started out pretty normal. They were gathered together in a house, maybe the house of a friend or family member of one of them. Having come to Jerusalem to witness to Jesus and celebrate the holy day, they had joined together in the morning to worship and give thanks to God for the gift of the Law at Mt. Sinai in the desert wilderness. Gathered in this house in the morning with the joy of the celebration and the anticipation of what they were called to do, they began their day together, likely in prayer.

Faithful pilgrims and residents all over the cosmopolitan city were doing the same thing. Friends and relatives were packed into each other’s homes or in inns around Jerusalem for the holy day observance. Waking up and getting ready for the festival celebration they probably bumped into one another in the way we do when a home is stretched beyond its usual capacity. The volume was probably excitedly a little louder and a little more celebratory as conversations and morning greetings spilled through open windows into the streets that were busier than usual with the faithful who had come to town to worship in the Temple.

The apostles, there both to worship and to wait, likely gathered to pray together first thing in the morning, to hear how they might spend the day waiting and preparing for their new gift from God that might be coming any day now! But when they gathered something happened. Suddenly from out of NOWHERE there came a sound of a violently rushing wind. No cloud outside to explain it, no storm brewing on the horizon. Just inside and just this one house, the screaming noise of wind tearing through the home, tearing through the apostles as they sat in anticipation of what was to come.
With the wind came the unbelievable vision of tongues of fire, of light and heat, divided and resting over their head upon each of them, and the bewildering gift of tongues being spoken from their mouths. As the wind blew and the flames danced over them, the apostles found themselves suddenly, inexplicably, able to speak in languages they had only heard in confusion before. The noisy sounds reverberating throughout the house poured into the streets, improbable in occurrence and impossible to contain.

What has gotten into them? That’s almost what the crowds were saying. I’m sure they stopped to overhear what they couldn’t ignore. Walking by on their way somewhere, devout Jews from every possible background who lived in the important city of Jerusalem or who had gathered for the holy day were drawn toward this house as they heard words and phrases, accents and dialects, they hadn’t heard in ages. The way a newborn baby perks up at her parents’ voices even within just minutes of being born, recognizing something she has known more than any other sound, the men and women were drawn to the sound of their native tongues tumbling out of the house full of Galilean guests. It just didn’t make sense.

What has gotten into them? Or as they said in the Scripture, are they DRUNK?

Many call Pentecost the birthday of the church. Actually, I know a lot of churches celebrate it that way, singing “Happy Birthday” in their worship, blowing out candles and cutting a cake in fellowship. The apostles first Pentecost, more than any other of the defining moments of the early church, is lifted up as the day the church came into being. You might say that the resurrection made us Christians, but it’s Pentecost that made us the church. It’s Pentecost that equipped the apostles for their mission and ministry on earth. It’s Pentecost that let this group of men and women limited by their common language speak the message of God’s love in Jesus to the world. It’s Pentecost that united the believers not only around the person of Jesus and belief in his grace, but it’s Pentecost that united them and us around our mission as the Body of Christ, the church. And it’s Pentecost that shocked everyone who witnessed it.

That’s an important piece of the story, I think, the shock of the crowds who saw what the spirit was doing. It was nine in the morning and they thought the apostles were drunk. They could come up with no other explanation for what they saw or heard coming from the house where the apostles were gathered. They thought they were under the influence of mind and behavior altering wine – and too much of it.

I know this could be a risky question to ask in a congregation that just hosted a wine tasting event, but I’ll try it anyway - - when was the last time the crowds asked that of us? I don’t mean to glorify alcohol and I certainly am not advocating for drunkenness, but when was the last time THAT was the only excuse the world could come up with for our Spirit-filled actions? When was the last time someone asked excitedly and hopefully of First Presbyterian Church, “What has gotten into you?”

A couple of months ago a church member gave me an article copied from the Pioneer Press. It was an editorial written by a columnist for the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts, Jr. Pitts was commenting on a recent study of 54,000 Americans on the topic of religious identification. In a nutshell, the study found a sharp erosion in the number of people claiming any religious affiliation. In talking about this change over the years, Pitts speculated on the cause of this flight from organized religious traditions. Ultimately, he thinks, religion is undermining religion. Drawing on the sins of a multitude of faiths, denominations, movements, individuals, and traditions he points to those who loudly claim religious backing as they cause pain through abuse, discrimination, violence, and intolerance and name’s the world’s disgust and frustration at these witness to any faith.

I think Pitts is on to something. The expectations the world has of religious bodies, of churches, seems to have declined in recent years. Those on the fringes or on the outside, those passing by in the streets who overhear the voices, prayers, and shouts of denominational bickering, those who hear reports of clergy abusing parishioners, even children, those who see buildings toppled or wars waged invoking the name of ANY God, don’t have a whole lot of high hopes for the churches or other religious bodies of the world. They certainly don’t seem to be hearing their own language, their concerns being spoken about, spilling out of our windows into the streets of our shared communities, cities, and countries.

No one walking along the diverse and crowded streets of Jerusalem expected to hear their own language that morning. No one from Parthia or Egypt or Libya or even s far away as Mesopotamia expected to hear and understand the good news of the gospel, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, they did.

The Spirit of Pentecost calls us to defy the expectations of the world. The Spirit of Pentecost calls us to defy the expectations of the crowds walking by our community of faith with words and actions that shatter the perceptions. The Spirit of Pentecost empowers us to show generosity where there is greed, shelter where there is abuse, pace where there is violence, justice where there is vengeance, welcome where there is discrimination.

The world around us certainly doesn’t seem to expect a whole lot of good out of the church. What would it take for us to be so filled with the Holy Spirit of God that people would ask, “What has gotten into them?”

In a couple of weeks my family is going on vacation back to Nebraska. You could say it’s birthday season in our family. K turned 4 a couple of weeks ago, a birthday she shares with her 84 year old great-grandmother. W turns 2 in the middle of June a couple of days after his great-great aunt turns 90. A whole slew of birthdays in P’s family come up in July. I’m noticing something about birthdays as we have moved forward this year. Those early birthdays are celebrated with endless energy and spirit! The later birthdays are done up right, too. But the rest of them, the ones in the middle somewhere between 4 and 90, they don’t get quite as much attention. For some of those middle years, we even try to forget they are happening.

We can’t afford to do that with the church’s birthday. We can’t afford to forget the day of our birth, its circumstances, its events, its meaning. The church was born in the rush of the Spirit of God. The church was born reaching out to the world. The church was born shocking and bewildering the world with its unbelievable message of God’s renewing and saving love. The church was born with the Spirit of God dancing and entering God’s people, men and women, young and old, so that the young could see visions and the old could dream dreams; the rich and the slaves alike received the Spirit of God.

We can’t afford to push that memory away and live as if its truth is not in us. We can’t afford to let the world’s expectations reign and our message and ministry to be lost. The disciples who learned became apostles who are sent. We are now apostles, those sent into the world filled with the Spirit of God to carry on Christ’s ministry and witness to his grace– feeding the hungry out of our abundance; providing physical and spiritual shelter to those with no place to call home; freeing those held captive in slavery, unemployment and addiction – wherever we go. We can’t let our actions confirm the suspicions of the world. No, we’ve got to leave them wondering, “What has gotten into them?” And then we’ll all get to tell them the answer, “The Spirit of the Living God!”

Friday Five: The Big To-Do

Kathrynzj at RevGals gave us this Friday Five:
Here is your chance to get it out into the open and OWN your Big To-Do! Who knows? Maybe making the list will help you move the Big To-Do to the Big Ta-Da!

1) What home fix-it project is on your Big To-Do?
2) What event (fun or work) is on your Big To-Do?
3) What trip is on your Big To-Do?
4) What do you wish was on someone ELSE's (partner, family member, celebrity, etc...) Big To-Do?
5) Getting inspired? What may end this summer having moved from the Big To-Do to the Big Ta-da?

1. Home fix-it - - Hmmmm...we're sort of working this out among the family. I would love to work on inside decorating stuff - replacing the nasty carpet left by the previous owner when we moved in 18 months ago with wood of some sort, painting the 1972 wood paneling in the living room, maybe starting to move the two kids into a shared bedroom (not sure about that one, though). My husband wants to begin working on the outside landscaping of our property. That's a MUCH BIGGER ticket item, though, that will certainly involve borrowing money and messing with our mortgage. That part sounds daunting to me.

2. Event - - Synod School. I'm a Presby-geek and looking forward to a week family camp/conference at the end of July. I think this is the last year I feel like I can go without doing some "giving back." I'll volunteer to lead or teach something next time, but this year I still just want to pay to go and have no responsibilities!!! The kids and I are going and my mom is flying up from Florida to come, too. My husband doesn't get enough time off of work to come with us.

3. Trip - - We've got a couple planned. A trip back to the in-law's farm for a family birthday will be a good one, but the week after that I head to the Washington Island forum with a best friend. A week in a gorgeous B&B, music by John Bell, a good friend, beautiful surroundings. Should be awesome.

4. Someone else's list - - I SO don't want to be wrapped up in this, and I hate that I'm even commenting on it, but I can't help it. I sure hope Jon & Kate find a good marriage and family therapist this summer. Maybe they're already trying it and that just doesn't make the news (I pray there is SOMETHING not making the news), but I just think they could benefit from some good outside help. I also hope TLC gets at least HALF a heart and someone let's contracts be damned and the show is cancelled so they can work their stuff out without stupid cameras watching them.

5. Get it done - - I think I will actually do some cleaning and sorting this summer. My clothes can use a serious weeding, so that kind of organizational stuff could really happen this time throughout the house. I'd be happy if it's just my own stuff, though.

What're you smoking?

What're you smoking?

I jokingly asked this of my secretary this morning because she's in a goofy mood. It's what the "sneerers" asked the disciples on Pentecost, too, "Are you DRUNK?" They couldn't come up with a better excuse for these people to be speaking the way they were - - in languages they couldn't understand, with a message so wide it couldn't be comprehended.

When was the last time someone asked us, THE CHURCH, or us, First Presbyterian Church that kind of question? When was the last time we were doing something so outrageous it could only be started by the Spirit?

Pentecost was the birth of the church, and the church started with a bang. The church started with tongues of fire and tongues of many languages. The church started by being DIFFERENT from everything else out there. If we aren't raising eyebrows by what we're doing different are we being the church the Spirit bore into the world?

Dangerous Love

John 17:6-19
Be careful what you wish for. I wonder if anyone ever shared THAT little pearl of wisdom with the disciples. Someone probably should have, right? Be careful what you wish for, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Jesus.

I imagine the prayer we heard today was an answer to their wishes. All throughout his ministry among them the disciples try to stay close to him while Jesus seems to try awfully hard to get off by himself once in a while, go to a quiet place, at night, up a hill, in boat, on another shore, just to be away from everyone and pray. He tries awful hard, but he is rarely successful.

Like the paparazzi in pursuit of the perfect picture, the coveted interview or overheard sound byte, every time Jesus tries to sneak away under the cover of darkness when he thinks they are all asleep or relaxing, bellies full from another meal of abundance, the crowds and the disciples still get up and follow him. But, finally, here in the gospel according to John, the disciples get the money shot. They record the most anticipated conversation ever. Be careful what you wish for, right?

It seems to start out alright. The opening lines, which we did not hear this morning, speak of eternal life, the gift of Jesus to give to those whom the Father gives to him. There is talk of glory and the presence of God. Then comes the assurance that the people who have been with Jesus are God’s people. In a way, Jesus vouches for them. He lets God know that the disciples whom he has been keeping have heard what he has had to say. They know the truth; they believe Jesus is who he says he is. What a WONDERFUL prayer to overhear!

But, there’s always that saying - - be careful what you wish for.

I can see the disciples shooting each other nervous glances as Jesus continues. Questioning, worrying, maybe even indignant stares as his prayer makes a change in tone. After all this talk about what the disciples have done right, after all this talk about their knowledge and their belief and their place in the presence of God, now all of a sudden, Jesus starts praying for their protection.

The disciples aren’t stupid. Well, they aren’t always painted in the best light in the gospels, but they aren’t clueless about where they are and what is going on around them. This is the Thursday before Jesus’ death. Even if they can’t see the immediate future, they KNOW they are not sitting in the safest place in the world. Jesus is a wanted man. He has disturbed the peace one too many times in the eyes of the local leaders, and they are threatening to do just about ANYTHING to stop him.
But on the other hand, if Jesus really is going and going soon, what’s the big need for protection? Once he’s gone won’t the danger be gone? What’s the big threat?

His farewell message, recorded in the previous few chapters, has been intense, but it certainly doesn’t sound life-threatening. “Abide in me and I abide in you.” “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” “I have called you friends.” “I chose you.” With these words and others Jesus finishes his final lessons with his disciples before they are sent out to ministry in his name. More than anything Jesus has been talking about love, and what’s so dangerous about love?

In the last two weeks we have talked about two kinds of love that come up quite a bit in this farewell speech in John’s gospel – abiding love and active love. Abiding love, we determined, is love that is available. Love that is open and ready to give and receive whatever and whenever the object of our love needs. Abiding love is equated to hospitality in the most spiritual sense of the world. Not the hospitality of hotels and Martha Stewart, but the hospitality of welcoming monks who receive the stranger in their midst, no questions asked.

The hospitality of the disciple who is ready to answer questions of faith, ready to share what she has experienced, ready to join another on his journey, wherever that journey may take them both. The hospitality of intimacy that comes when schedules are disrupted, faults and failures are exposed, short-comings are made obvious. The hospitality of welcoming others into our midst when we don’t know how they may change the way things have always been, when we don’t know if they will love us back as much as we will love them, when we don’t know how long they will stay.

Hm! Put that way, abiding love doesn’t sound so safe after all. It threatens our comfort. It threatens the expectations we have built around ourselves and our lives. It threatens our sense of security, our sense of control, our sense of independence. Abiding love can be unsettling. It throws us off our game. It challenges our faith because it challenges our ideas of what we thought we got into this for. It means risking our hearts when we choose to follow the command that bares them to the world. It means risking our lives even if we are open to others with the unconditional love of God.

The ministry of abiding love forces us to look outside of ourselves or our community of comfort. It forces us to be open and welcoming to those who aren’t already included, to those who no one else wants to include. It forces us to look beyond our own bellybuttons to see who God has put us next to, who Jesus has brought near us to love in his name.

Protect them, O God, Jesus prays. Protect them as I have protected them, so that they do not fall away in the face of this challenge. Protect them and guard their faith so that they can love as I have loved, so they can welcome as I have welcomed, so they can abide in you and abide with others I have, with my ministry of love and welcome.

And then there is love that is more than a feeling, love that is action, what we do. We talked about this last week when Jesus gave the command to love. Feelings can’t be commanded, but actions sure can. Love is more than a feeling because it is what we do because of who we are. Love is more than a feeling because we are called to lay down our lives, we are called to carry the lives of our friends, our neighbors, our companions and co-creations on this earth.

Love is an action because it was an action for Jesus – it was feeding the hungry who had gathered. It was healing the sick who crowded around him. It was serving the tired, dirty, worried, and grieving who flocked to get close to him.. Love is an action because the forces of evil in this world cry out and demand that we confront them with our touch, our faith, our words and our actions on behalf of others.

So if we’re still questioning why Jesus’ followers needed this prayer of protection, this intercession for God’s blessing and sanctification, there are plenty of followers of Christ who can tell us. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his partners in the Civil Rights Movement can tell us why Jesus prays for his disciples’ protection. Whatever each of us thinks or believes about the lifestyle, those who fight to protect gays and lesbians from the horror of hate crimes can tell why Jesus prays for his disciples’ protection. The brave faithful who gave food, shelter, and refuge to their Jewish brothers and sisters who faced the horror of the Holocaust can tell us why Jesus prays for his disciples’ protection. Men and women who give voice to the voiceless, who advocate for children, for the homeless, for undocumented workers, for forgotten prisoners of this and every war, can tell us why Jesus prays for his disciples’ protection. Churches with the courage to pray for their enemies as often as they pray for themselves can tell us why Jesus prays for his disciples’ strength in the face of the hatred of the world.

Loving others when no one else will love them, loving others by reaching out to the poor, the outcast, the shunned, and the purposely ignored is not popular and not safe. It puts Jesus’ disciples on the side of the minority. It puts us at odds with the establishment. It throws us in the middle of battles that are raging in our culture and our society and asks us to love with all that we have and all that we are where others are only hating. And doing that puts Jesus’ disciples, puts us, right in the line of fire of that hatred. Right where we belong.

There are branches on our Christian family tree that take a look at this struggling and sinning and hurting and hurtful world around us and see only a reason to get out of it. They separate themselves physically or spiritually by refusing to be with people who are at all different in practice or belief. They try to remove themselves from the present world to look ahead only to the world that is to come.

I’d argue that Jesus’ prayer doesn’t anticipate this mentality. Jesus’ prayer doesn’t ask that his followers be removed from the world because of the hatred they will face. Jesus’ prayer asks that his followers, that we, will know and believe we are here for a higher purpose. We aren’t here to be a part of the hatred; it isn’t even enough to just run away from the hatred. We are here to combat the hatred with the love of God that is abiding and active. The love of God that is cleansing and refreshing. The love of God that drenches us, washes over us, and claims us as God’s own.

In her baptism this morning, V was prepared, as most, if not all of us, have been prepared, for living and loving in the world. We haven’t been taken out of the world; we haven’t been spared the hatred of the world that we will see and feel when follow Jesus’ command to love. Instead we are wrapped in the prayers of the Son of God. We are wrapped in the prayers of the people of God. By water and the Spirit we have been named and claimed as children of the God of love. We have been given the grace we could never earn so that we will know the feeling of unconditional love, so that we will have grace to share with the world.

In V’s baptism, in our baptisms, we have been set apart for service in the name of the God of love. We haven’t been given a free ticket out of this world, but we have been given the covenant and the promise of God’s presence with us in this world. Our call is to trust in that promise, trust in it enough to love as we have been loved – unconditionally, hospitably, without regard for whether or not we will return it, with the sacrifice of the Son of God, with his life-giving resurrection and eternal life. Trust in the promise and presence of God, that we might know and share his love with the world.