Sermon Podcast: "Good News" (Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11)

My favorite moment of this sermon?

This God of justice is no dreamy idealist, but a God with dirty hands and a broken heart.

And we who claim to love and serve this God had better be too.

Click the link at the bottom of the post for the sermon audio or just subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and you won't miss a single sermon…

Good News (Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11) 

You might not have noticed.  Christmas is coming.  Two weeks from today.  It's a quaint little celebration we have every year.  It's pretty subdued.  We don't make too much out of it in our culture.  If you weren't paying attention, you'd hardly even notice it.  A little tinsel here, a bow, there.  An occasional cup of eggnog.  Nothing fancy.  Not that big a deal, right?

Yeah, right.

You know as well as I do that frantic parents are going to be camped out on E-bay, hoping to spend hundreds of dollars to buy the hottest toy on the market–the one Wal-Mart sold out of by early October.  Guilty spouses will be haunting the crowded malls, longing to find that special something that says, “I’m sorry ignored you all year.  I really feel terribly about it (Not terrible enough to change, of course).  But, well, I hope this will make up for it.”

“Surely,” some folks think, “if only I could give this or receive that, things would be different.”  Not you or I, of course.  We’re far too sophisticated to be sucked in by all that commercial hype.  Right?  We never spend more than we have to give our children the kind of Christmas that will absolve our bruised consciences. 

We’re not the ones walking up and down the aisles at the last minute trying to figure out whether an electric dog-polisher is something grandma can use, or if slipper socks send the wrong message to the crazy sister-in-law with the big hair. 

You and I wouldn’t spend each night leading up to Christmas running from one activity to another, trying to please everyone else, while at the same time trying to capture that evasive “Christmas spirit.” 

It’s the unwashed masses who dread that day in January when the mail carrier lumbers up the sidewalk carrying the Visa bill, the reminder of all those broken promises to ourselves about how this Christmas was going to be different. 

That’s not us.  We’re much more on top of things than to be seduced by the false promises of a purchasable “peace on earth,” a consumable “good will toward humanity.” 

Yeah, sure.

Then, one day we wake up after our endless striving to reproduce the perfect Christmas we saw on television, only to find that the presents lay in the closet collecting dust, and all the turkey and pumpkin pie have turned to ashes in our mouth.  Christmas, as it is popularly observed in our culture can be very oppressive, indeed.

But, come on.  There's real oppression out there, right?  It'd be nice to think that there's nothing more pressing in our world than whether or not we're going to finally get that iPad, but our world is much more complicated than that, isn't it?

We live in a world where tension over immigration and race continue to exist, in a world where adults abuse little children, in a world where people are trying to figure out if the retirement funds will be there when they need them, if the job, the health insurance, the house will still be there for them come this time next year. 

And if there are jobs to be had, will they demand soul-killing labor that asks of us to surrender whatever dignity we've been able to hang onto . . . in exchange for a paycheck?

We live in a world where young people watch for the bus in dread of another day of being subjected to the torments and depredations of bullies because of their sexual orientation, in world where the the poor, the homeless, the jobless are told that they ought to blame themselves if they're not rich, that their children ought to be made to clean toilets--presumably as training for the jobs to which they might one day aspire, in a world in which young people are under intense pressure to take on a mountain of debt to educate themselves for careers they may never find.

It's tough out there. 

We live in a world where nations sit tensely, waiting for another drone to drop something deadly from the sky, waiting for another ordinary looking Datsun to explode in a crowded market, waiting for news about whether other nations will be kind enough to save the ruins of your economy from sinking all the way into the toilet, waiting to learn whether the country next door truly is building nuclear weapons, waiting to see if your government really can put a stop to the killings.

In a broken world, sometimes we act as though our biggest fears are about whether we’ll have enough money to buy one more bottle of Hai Karate or one more pair of Isotoners—when, in reality, we (all of us) have bigger fish to fry.  There really is oppression and brokenness and dread and anxiety in our world that extends beyond whether two-day shipping really means two days, or whether we'll get the guest bedroom cleaned in time for Aunt Gladys.

The people to whom Isaiah speaks understand oppression.  They’ve spent a fair amount of time in exile in Babylon.  In our text for today, they’ve recently returned home to find that home is just a big pile of rocks.  Jerusalem lies in ruins.  Their fields and orchards, untended for all these years are overgrown with brambles.

While they were in Babylon, all they could think of was getting home.  They saw in their minds the homes about which their parents and grandparents used to reminisce.  Over in Babylon they sat around telling stories about the good old days back in Judah.  They painted lovely pictures about the old home place.  And the kids sat around their Babylonian digs, dreaming about that day when they might finally get to go back and reclaim their heritage.  They had such big plans about what they’d finally do once they made it home. 

But now they’re home, standing knee-deep in the rubble.  They’ve finally gotten to the place they’ve dreamed of for so long, and they can’t get the taste of ashes out of their mouths.  It’s possible, you know, to be oppressed by your desires, a prisoner of your own expectations.

Conditions are less than optimal.  People are hungry.  They've returned to find the homes that had kept their hopes alive over in Babylon are in ruins.  People died along the way.  They've been oppressed, exiled, imprisoned, beat down.  Now this?

You can hear, if you stop for a moment, the sounds of people choking back tears, covering their faces, shaking their heads.  Dejected.

But Isaiah comes to them in the midst of their despair with a word from the Lord: “He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion–to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.  They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”

Good stuff.  Lot of great infinitives in there--to bring good news, to bind up, to release, to proclaim, to comfort, to provide for, to give. 

That's good news, isn't it?  How do you argue with those kinds of verbs?

The problem is not the verbs, though; it's the objects of the verbs that go down so hard.  We live in a modern sophisticated society.  So, we're all about those kinds of verbs--bind up, release, comfort, provide for.  The problem that confronts our society, however, is that we want the objects of those verbs to be deserving.  Helping people is fine . . . as long as their the right people.

And if Isaiah had just left it at rhetorically satisfying verb phrases, just left it abstract, it wouldn't be hard to get everybody on board.

But Isaiah's not content to let things stay on a conceptual level, not satisfied to speak theoretically.  No, he throws in objects--gets all practical, puts a face on these lofty sounding verbs--bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, to comfort and provide for all those who mourn, to give this whole sorry lot a garland instead of ashes.

This good news comes, in other words, not to those who've just had temporary setbacks, to those inconvenienced by ripples in the stock market.  This good news is announced to those who've been on the bottom so long, it's hard for them to remember there's a top.  This good news is delivered to those folks on the edge of despair, just short of giving up.

Fine.  But why . . . you know . . . those people? 

Because, God says, "I love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing."  Those who've been at the mercy of the tyrants of this world, sorely used and oppressed, now find themselves under the protection of a ruler who loves justice, who hates the abuse heaped on the poor and the powerless.

And how do we know this good news isn't just more high-flown grandiloquence? 

You'd be forgiven for not catching it right off; it's tucked away in verse 2: "The LORD has anointed me . . . to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor."

What does that mean?  Why is that such a big deal? 

The year of the LORD's favor is a reference to the Year of Jubilee described in Leviticus.  Every fifty years, according to Jewish law, all debts were to be canceled, all prisoners and slaves set free.  Everyone was to return to their home place.  It was the ultimate in wealth redistribution. 

The Year of Jubilee, the year of the LORD's favor was a reminder to everyone in Israel that they all had been held in bondage in Egypt until God delivered them--which is to say, everyone is equal in God's sight.  Consequently, the poor could never get so low that they wouldn't have hope, and rich could never get so rich that they weren't accountable to the whole community.

Concrete.  Real life. Practical.  This God of justice is no dreamy idealist, but a God with dirty hands and a broken heart.

And we who claim to love and serve this God had better be too.

Because, guess what?  The good news of Advent isn't just something we sit around waiting for, twiddling our thumbs with stars in our eyes.  The good news of Advent . . . at least in part, is supposed to be us.

Disappointment.  Devastation.  Ruin.  Enslavement.  Oppression.  It’s still out there.

And in the middle of it all, you have a chance to be the good news somebody's waiting to hear.

It's better than slipper socks any day.

-Amen.

Sermon Podcast: Good News

Breakfast with Santa

Santa Claus is coming to town! The date is approaching for our first ever Breakfast with Santa! Be sure and stop by the DBCC table at the Farmers Market to pick up a reservation form, or sign up on our online registration form.  Don't forget, revenue for this event is going to support our trip to Casa Hogar de San Juan Children's Home in July. We can't wait to see you there! 

Sermon Podcast: "In Days to Come" (Isaiah 2:1-5)

Sometimes, good news depends on who's hearing it...

Click the link at the bottom of the post for the sermon audio or just subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and you won't miss a single sermon…

In Days to Come

(Isaiah 2:1-5) 

A social worker just told me a story a couple of weeks ago about an internship where she worked as a night manager at a homeless shelter.  “Part of my role,” she said, “was to round up the women and children and make sure lights were out by 10:00 pm.  One night a boy was abandoned by his mother.  I sat with that little 4 year-old boy until finally CPS showed up and took him to the Home of the Innocents.  As he cried in my arms that he wanted his mother, I’m not sure that I’d ever seen such pain, felt such helplessness before.  That night I decided I wanted to be a social worker…I wanted to combat the social evils of the world.”

And there are plenty of social evils in the world, aren’t there?  We see them all around us.  It doesn’t take a trained eye to see the pain and despair.  Walk out those doors, take a right, and have a seat at that bus stop right out there.  You’ll see a whole new world of social evils 150 yards from where you’re sitting right now. 

It’s a tough world we live in.  The poor, the homeless, the addicted, the unwelcome, the widow, the orphan—all the social evils of the world—it’s difficult to ignore.

Isaiah knows that.  Isaiah understands.  God, if you’ve read chapter one, isn’t pleased with Judah.  Things haven’t been going well with the children of God.  They’ve acted faithlessly, and God’s fixin’ to throw down: “When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood” (Is. 1:15).  Not good.  Not good at all.

Jerusalem, God’s city, the city of peace—once faithful, God says, has become a “woman of questionable virtue,” a city full of murderers.  “Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.  Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves.  Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts.  They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them” (1:22-23).

God, as you might have been able to tell, is ticked: “Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies, and avenge myself on my foes!”  (1:24b).  Things can’t keep going like they’ve been going.  God’s angry; but God’s anger is redemptive: “I will turn my hand against you: I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.  And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning.  Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city” (1:25-26).

Things are going to get dark.  You can count on that, God says.  You’re not going to be able to see around the corner, but I’ve got other things in store for you.

Have you noticed here that, according to the tellers of the story, God’s judgment moves in a particular direction?  God will not abandon Judah, but Judah will have to get to the end of her rope before understanding God’s great mercy.

Wait a minute.  You’re not going to talk about judgment, are you?  I mean, it’s one thing to talk about judgment if you’re a pre-modern yokel from the Palestinian sticks, but it’s another thing to start talking about judgment among sophisticated modern smart-phone users like us. 

And that’s the way most of us think, isn’t it?  Judgment went the way of witch-burnings and the Inquisition.  In fact, calling someone judgmental is among the most potent of epithets in our culture.  “You can’t tell me how to live.  I’ll live the way I want to live.  Who are you to judge me?”  Next to being a child-molester, you can’t get much lower in the food chain than being judgmental.  Pharisees.  Bottom-feeders. 

But here’s God saying, “I will pour out my wrath on my foes.”  Sounds like judgment to me.  “Well preacher, that’s all well and good, but we serve a God of love.”

To which I reply, “So did the children of Judah.”  We modern folks, however, have a rather idiosyncratic notion of love.  Whereas love has traditionally meant concern for the other, nowadays love is often used as a way of avoiding having to be concerned for the other. 

What?  What does that mean?

Well, typically, people talk about love in ways that indicate that what’s meant is not love, but rather not wanting to get involved.  Sometimes the truest form of love is saying no.  The easiest thing to do, and sometimes the least loving thing to do, is not to confront, but to let it ride in the name of “keeping the peace.” 

But that’s not peace, is it?  That’s just a cease-fire, without resolving the underlying issues.  And in that sense, what’s communicated is, “I’m more concerned about myself and about avoiding the stickiness of true love than in your long-term good.”  True love is impossible where people refuse to confront one another.  Deep down we know it’s true.

We need a God who refuses to give us what we want, but who holds out, determined to give us what we need.  Perhaps the truest love, the truest grace is a God who’s willing to stand over against us, willing to hold us accountable for our boneheadedness—unwilling simply to let it ride in the name of “keeping the peace.”  Because what God wants isn’t a cease-fire, but a people committed to God’s vision of life in the reign of God.  And if we’re truly to be the children of God, principally concerned with equipping disciples for God’s new reign, sometimes that will entail the painful but necessary process of speaking the truth to one another in love. 

Sometimes the most loving thing the church can do is speak the uncomfortable truth, rather than letting things ride in the name of “keeping the peace.”

Perhaps, it isn’t until God refuses to bend to our will, and holds us accountable to a standard of behavior that we didn’t devise for ourselves, that we can begin to understand the vision that Isaiah, son of Amoz, saw. 

Perhaps it isn’t until God, through the face of someone who truly loves us, says that our lives—the way we’ve constructed them—aren’t working, that we can finally begin to submit ourselves to the true mercy of being transformed into the people God wants for us to be. 

Perhaps it isn’t until we’ve lived through the darkness of the former days, when we search for God and can never quite find where God had gone, that we can be open to the alternative reality of God’s peaceable kingdom in days to come.

It’s a hard word, isn’t it?  You’ve got to walk through the darkness to get to the light.  You’ve got to live with the uncertainty before you get to the serenity of peace.  That, of course, is the hard part about Advent.  Advent isn’t just an excuse to stretch out the Christmas festivities for a month, like some sort of ecclesiastical Wal-Mart.  Advent is a time of preparation, of taking stock, of waiting.  And if you’ve ever been on the other end of a telephone line expecting a call that will not come, you know that waiting is just about the hardest thing in the world to do.  You get tired of standing on your tip-toes after awhile, peering out into the darkness, looking for familiar headlights to crest the driveway.

No.  Advent is the season when we recognize that the world—as it’s presently situated—holds great danger for us, forcing us to turn our “eyes toward the hills from whence cometh our help.”  Advent is a scary time of waiting to see how it’s all going to shake out. 

We’re hopeful, but it’s not with us now.  You only have to read the front page of the Courier-Journal to know that.  We can’t see what it’s going to look like in all of its glory; the mist blocks our vision.  But we get glimpses, tiny snatches of light.  We stand waiting for Christ to be revealed, but the darkness appears to rule.  Bullets fly.  Children die in the dry night.  Governments hire people to invent ever more ingenious ways to damage one another.  God is not satisfied with the world as it is presently arranged.  And we hear Isaiah say, “In days to come . . .”

In former days, we lived in the flat land, hemmed in by fear and terror on every side, but “in days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.”

In former days, God’s displeasure with the way the world was ordered blackened the sky, but in days to come a star shall shine in Bethlehem and the horizon shall be lit by the faces of ten thousand angels announcing God’s desire for a world in which the poor are not trampled, and the orphan is defended, and the cause of the widow is heard in the land. 

In former days, your silver turned to refuse, your wine turned to water, and your princes turned into rebels and companions of thieves, but in days to come, your swords shall be turned into plowshares, and your spears shall be turned into pruning hooks, and your enemy shall be turned into your friend. 

In former days, your hands were full of blood and you housed murderers in your city, but in days to come, says the LORD, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall you learn war anymore.

We who live in the aftermath of September 11^th and the wars that still wage a half a world away, we who live in a world where 13.3 million people are officially unemployed and 45 million people live without the benefit of healthcare, where the poor and the widowed and the orphaned continue among us, we find it difficult to see for all the smoke and dust in the air.  But Advent is here, and it’s hard to avoid the darkness around us. 

Judgment is tough for us to hear.  We who have much ought to take care that we’re part of the solution and not part of the problem.  We who are well situated might find the refining of Advent much less inviting than the popular picture of old-fashioned Christmases that get pitched to us between episodes of  “The Walking Dead.” 

But if you’re an abandoned 4 year-old, maybe this kind of judgment is just what you need to hear.  Maybe to hear that God cares enough about you to get angry about the way you’ve been treated, the way you’ve been forgotten and left behind, is exactly the kind of Good News the gospel of Advent announces.

Isaiah spins for us a vision of God’s new kingdom, and we get a glimpse, just a peek at what God has in store for those who endure.  Just a glimpse in the night of the kind of world where the abandoned are reclaimed, where the forgotten are remembered, where the lost are finally found. 

Just a hint.  Not much.  But the message of Advent is that God doesn’t forsake the poor, the widow, the 4 year-old—expecting the same commitment to justice from those who claim to follow Jesus. 

The message of Advent is that God can make a king out of a baby, which means that God can make a kingdom out of the likes of you and me. 

And the uncomfortable truth of that, my brothers and sisters, is more good news than you ought to be exposed to in one sitting.

-Amen.

Sermon Podcast: "In Days to Come"

Water Under Snow Is Weary

Susan and I went Christmas shopping one time at a mall in Knoxville.  Everyone with a pulse was out doing last minute Christmas shopping.  We fought and clawed our way through the mall like good little consumers, keeping our eyes always open for the perfect Christmas gift (read “sale item”).

At any rate, it only takes me about a total of four minutes of Christmas shopping to get tired of Christmas, to get tired of the tension of the holidays, to get tired of life—to get tired.  As we were standing around, devising our next strategic move, we saw some children all dressed up in front of the Proffitts department store.  The young boys were wearing black suits with red bow ties, and the girls were wearing light gray dresses that made them all look like young Dutch maidens.  Obviously, we figured, they were a part of some group brought to the mall to entertain the hordes of admiring adults (perhaps with the underlying genius being that the cuter the children were, the more the dumbfounded adults would be inclined to buy).  We soon found out that they were the boys and girls choir from a conservatory.

Susan and I, wanting an excuse to step out of the rat-race for a moment, and intrigued by this young group of vocalists, decided to stick around to hear their program.  They began with a sort of classical version of the Proffitts’ theme song, “For the style of your life . . .”—which occurred to me at the time as a sort of unashamed commercialization of young talent, but what do I know?  My favorite Christmas character is the Grinch.  Their next song was, however, Vivaldi’s Gloria, which was beautifully performed.  Susan and I looked at one another and mouthed, “Can you believe this?”  Needless to say, we were thoroughly impressed.

But it was the third song that struck me, whether as incongruous, or as ironic, or simply as a commentary on our increasingly cynical society.  The title indicates the melancholy nature of the song: Water under Snow Is Weary.  The song was complex and haunting, but lovely nonetheless.  And yet to hear a six year-old sing about how the exigencies of life can wear one down seemed to me infinitely depressing.  Apparently, the song had some sort of meaning for the children because three of them yawned wearily throughout its performance. 

The truth of the song rang through, however, because water under snow is weary; which is to say that for all the decorations we put up during the holidays, for all the pronouncements about peace on earth at this time of the year, for all the flash and dazzle of our Christmas celebration, the reality of pain, loneliness, and bone weariness lies beneath the surface of our lives like bows and tinsel on dead trees.  Life is often maddening and always tiring—even six year-olds know that truth.  And yet, it is at this time of the year (perhaps like no other) that the church has an opportunity to speak a word of hope to people who have put wrapping paper and garland over their fears and frailties.  Indeed, we also have been given a message through a small child about the exigencies of life.  The difference being that the message we bear to the world doesn’t have cynicism and weariness as its last word.  Rather, the last word of the message we bear to the world is hope.  Water under snow may be weary, but the hope we bear to the world is that what lies beneath the heart of the Christ child is grace and peace.

Upcoming Events with Our Friends at Grace and Freedom Houses

It is always a good thing when one good effort leads to another.  One of the outcomes of our Shalom Suppers over the summer here at DBCC is a project which will benefit the residential treatment centers of the VOA.  We will benefit as well, to be sure.  

• The Grace House and Freedom House are residences for women and children who are in treatment for addiction.  The services and homes are services of the Volunteers of America where the rare opportunity is available to both the addicted and the children who are implicated by the addiction.  Such treatment is usually available to parents without provision for the inclusion of the children.  The mission of this program is compatible to the mission of DBCC and there are many ways in which we can enter.

• On November 20, the day of our Thanksgiving Dinner at the church we to share our feast with the women and children of Grace House, who were our guests. An Angel Tree has been established at the church for the benefit of Freedom and Grace houses.  You can pick one off the tree in the Gathering Area.  

• Additionally, an open house is being planned at Grace House for November 30, from 5:00-7:00, in which some people from DBCC will be assisting.  We will take the church van for those who wish to ride.  We'll plan to leave the church at 4:30.

• A clothes closet has been established at DBCC where residents may select clothing they need for themselves and their children.  Karen O'Hara is coordinating this project and is receiving clothing for women and children, primarily warm clothing right now.  Towels and washcloths are needed for residents at both houses. 

• Eventually there may be opportunities for meal preparation and dining at one or both residences.

 

There are some protocols that are necessary for us to observe and the cadre of people from DBCC is learning about how we can best serve these families.  If you are curious or want to become more involved, please ask about these opportunities by calling or emailing the church office.  More information will be forthcoming.

- Submitted by Mary Ann Lewis

Travis Myles' Thoughts on DBCC

As part of our month of stewardship, we ask members--new and old--to talk about what Douglass means to them. Here's what Travis Myles had to say:

What does Douglass mean to me?  Wow!  The thing is that my standing up here and sharing this is nothing short of a miracle for someone who had come to believe that miracles stopped happening. Where I’ve come from, I’ve been told that I couldn’t do this.  That I couldn’t worship.  That I couldn’t be involved in church.  That I wasn’t wanted by God.  And that God forbid, pun intended, that I want to share this experience with someone that I love.  So, I had decided about five years ago that if God didn’t want me, there was no real reason for me to want Him.  And  I was pretty vocal about it, much to the dismay of my partner.

When I first stepped into Douglass, and the first time was in the gym and not in a service, it was a little like walking into the Twilight Zone.  You…We…were showing Fish Out of Water.  I watched the film and looked around at people from the back of the room.  The film talked about how the Bible has been wrongly used to cut off the LGBT community from the church for years.  No one in the crowd walked out.  No one took exception with the film’s viewpoint.  Many were in tears, including me.  I thought, if this goes on in the gym, I have to wonder what happens during church.  Now you can imagine the look on Scott’s face when I came home and announced that I’d like to go to church.

Getting ready for church that morning took me back to a place where I heard only bad things about myself.  I thought that maybe I had made a mistake.  But then we got here, and all of you came up to us and introduced yourselves, passed the peace, and became our friends.  You treated us, well, just like any other couple.  And you haven’t stopped yet.  And that would have been plenty.  But then I found out so much more about this church.  You joined fairness boards; you went to fairness lobby days.  And then you made a unanimous decision to put those convictions into action by changing the way you perform marriage ceremonies, all to stand with the LGBT community.  I’ve cried fairly often in these pews over the year or so that we’ve been coming here, but the tears are polar opposites of the ones I’ve cried before when thinking about church.

Douglass has for the first time helped me see the true Christ.  But more than that, you are living the true Christ with your actions.  I had never become a member of a church before I became a member here.  And I’d be hard pressed to find a different church that I would ever want to join instead.  That’s what Douglass means to me.

Grace & Freedom House Angel Tree

 

This Holiday Season we are sponsoring an Angel Tree for our friends at the Grace House and Freedom House of Volunteers of America.  On each Angel Ornament on the Christmas Tree in the Gathering area is a Christmas gift wish along with the name of a mother or child at either Grace or Freedom House.  If you would like to buy a gift for one of these, please pick an angel from the tree.  Take as many as you like!  Wrap your gifts with the angel ornament attached and return to the church no later than December 21.  Join us in sharing the Christmas Spirit with all of God's children this season!

DBCC/DLFM Holiday Bazaar

Douglass Boulevard Christian Church and the Douglass Loop Farmers Market will be hosting a Holiday Bazaar on December 3rd from 10am-4pm. For sale will be all locally handmade items from some of Kentucky's finest handcraft artists. Come do some Christmas shopping, admire the craftsmanship, and enjoy a bowl of chili from members of the DBCC family.* All of this will be located in the Robsion Family Life Center of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church. Bring your empty stomachs, Christmas wish list, and holiday spirits!

*Chili proceeds will go toward the mission trip fund for Casa Hogar de San Juan Children’s Home in San Luis Potosi, Mexico

A Moment for Stewardship

Dick Burks reflects on stewardship and growing up in the church of his parents and grandparents. 

Dick's Thoughts (Audio)

Unselfconscious Recklessness

Rev. Penwell reminds us today that it's not just individuals who have talents, but congregations, communities. 

Click the link at the bottom of the post for the sermon audio or just subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and you won't miss a single sermon… 

Unselfconscious Recklessness

(Matthew 25:14-30)

Something about me tends to surprise people when they find out about it.

They say, "Yeah, sure."

And I say, "But it's true."

"But you're a minister."

"Lots of ministers are," I say.

"How can you do your job?"

"It's a struggle sometimes.  But after a while, you adjust."

"Do people know?"

"Some people."

"Who?"

"Oh, people I'm close to know, obviously.  And other people sometimes figure it out."

"How do you cope?"

"I've got a job to do, so I do it.  Most ministers like me, though, take some time to learn how to live with it; but in the end, you've got to.  You don't really have a choice."

"Does your wife know?"

"She's my wife.  She's known I had problems for a long time."

"And you're telling the truth?  You're shy, really?"

"I'm shy . . . really."

As a minister, I've learned how to cope with it more or less.  Meeting new people, walking into strange situations, confronting my fears.  It's part of the job.  But it takes work.

As a normal human being, though, I generally keep to myself when I'm out of my element.

My wife, she's always striking up conversations with the cashiers at Kroger.  I'm a I'm-well-thank-you-and-you?" kind of guy.  I'm not good at chit-chat.

At the Farmers Market yesterday, a kid—8 or 9 years-old—came up to the table where 4 of us were sitting, said hi, and told us he was going to play on the playground.  None of us knew the kid.  I remarked a the time, "That is one thing you could bank on that wouldn't happen if I were that kid—going up to a table of grown-ups and just start talking.  I would *never* have done that."  I just didn't have it in me.

I think shyness is only symptomatic of a larger issue, though.  At the bottom of it, I suspect, is an overall fear of failure.  I write a lot about failure and our need to make peace with it—not because I'm good at it, but because I need to hear myself say it over and over again if I'm ever going to be able to believe it.  Going forward, knowing that mistakes will inevitably be made, is a tough one for me to wrap my  heart around.  I know the principle, but living unselfconsciously, knowing that failure's just a part of the gig, strikes me in my very deepest places as reckless.

Jesus, of course, is all too familiar with unselfconscious recklessness.  He's the guy who's always walking into the middle of a potentially hostile crowd with what appears to be, perfect equanimity. 

We've just been through an extended episode in which Jesus, after going into the temple and kicking over all the lemonade stands and then taking off for the night, comes back the next morning to the scene of the crime, and is accosted by the people at the top of the lemonade industry flowchart.  For two chapters, Jesus stands there taking their best shot. 

They want to know just who he thinks he is, coming in here like he owns the place.  Then, they make various plans to trap him, to embarrass him, to unmask him as a fraud before the people.  Two whole chapters get devoted to Jesus and his unselfconscious recklessness.

And it's probably important to stop and point out that this bull-in-the-china-shop thing is what's going to get him killed in a couple of days.  Because remember, we're in the final week of his life, when all the bad stuff happens.  And, I think, it's no mere coincidence that Jesus' grisly death at the hands of the politicians is preceded by perfect examples of his not being able to keep his mouth shut.

"That's right, pal.  Just keep talking."

But right before Jesus is taken into custody, and immediately after his drawn out debate in the temple, is this section on the end times.  Jesus tells the disciples, first what kinds of things will happen in the final days(signs-of-the-times kinds of things); and then he tells them the expectations of how Jesus' followers should act in anticipation of those times.  We're in the second part this morning—which is to say, the part where Jesus fills the disciples in on what's expected of them in view of Jesus' revelations about what the last days will look like.

This is a pretty familiar parable—one that seems to find its way into the lectionary right at stewardship time.  You know . . . the parable of the talents.

A man prepares to go on a journey by gathering his slaves together.  To one slave he gives five talents.  To another he gives two talents.  Finally, to the last, he gives one talent.  The footnote at the bottom of the page in your bible indicates that a talent was worth about 15 years labor—which is to say, a fairly sizable sum . . . no matter how you slice it.  In fact, a talent was the largest unit of currency, figuratively and literally—it weighed something like 60 pounds.

The first two slaves call their brokers, invest the money, and turn a handsome profit.  The third, however, digs a hole in the ground and buries it.

The man returns from his journey and asks for his money back.  The first two slaves proudly haul out their earnings reports, and receive the master's praise.  The third, brushes the dirt off the Hefty bag he's put the money in, and gives his master back the initial sum—one talent.  The master's not pleased, calls the slave wicked and lazy and throws him out.

Now, as far as I can tell, the master's come home to a pretty good haul.  By my account, he's just about doubled his money across the board.  But he seems awfully cranky for a guy who's gotten a 93.3% return on his investment.

It's hard not to be sympathetic to the one talent slave, isn't it?  We live in an economy in which wild speculation has brought whole countries to their knees—including ours.  Somebody just trying to hang onto what they have seems, if not particularly bold, then at least prudent.  How many people do you know personally who've been mercilessly thrashed by this economy—who, if they had it to do all over again, would've much rather stuck their money in the ground than in sub-prime mortgages or in credit default swaps or in risky financial instruments that ultimately tanked—and left everybody holding the bag.

And just so we're clear, burying  one's money in the ancient Near East was a perfectly acceptable (and in many cases, preferable) alternative to the kind of banking options available at the time—which were profoundly risky.  The people who originally read this parable would have been much more generous in their evaluation of the final slave's faithfulness.  By burying the talent, the slave did a perfectly defensible thing.  He played it safe, when most other options would have cost him.

What's the master so upset about? 

I think it has to do without the fact that the slave has forgotten he's been given a gift.

Now, traditionally this parable has been interpreted as a call to individual resource assessment.  In other words, the way this parable is usually handled, everyone is asked to do a self-inventory of resources—time, talent, treasure—and then figure out how best to put them to some kind of Christian use.

I want to suggest, however, that the bible is first of all a communal text.  That is to say, notwithstanding the modern penchant for reading the bible as primarily directed at "me," the books of scripture were originally written to communities.  We misread them when we understand them as concerned principally with individuals.  That's not to say that the bible isn't *concerned* with individuals; it is, but it's always a concern about the ways individuals are connected to community—not individuals on deserted islands of self-concern.

So, if we're going to use this text to talk about stewardship, we need to think first about *communal* stewardship.  Put more simply, this parable asks us as a congregation to think about our gifts—both the ones we receive and the ones we give.

Congregations have gifts, right?  Look around at the people who are here, for instance.  Think about the people who've come to us over the past year, who've decided to throw in with Douglass Boulevard Christian Church.  Pretty amazing the gifts of people God's given us, don't you think?

Or think about the great ministries we've been able to participate in over the past year—the Farmers Market, the work with Fairness Campaign and the LGBTQ community, our unfolding relationship with Grace House and Freedom House and the Volunteers of America.  In the past year, we've taken two trips to Mexico, bringing over 25 different people to work at the children's home.  We've started a visitation program to the shut-ins.  We've hired a youth minister, and started two different Sunday School classes for children.  God's been pretty gracious to us when it comes to giving us meaningful challenges.

Financially, during one of the toughest economic periods this country has seen in over seventy years, we've continued to grow, year after year.  People continue to give, and we continue to grow.

Oh, congregations have gifts!  Douglass Boulevard Christian Church has been blessed in dramatic ways.

The question we have to ask ourselves is the same question posed to the slaves: How are you going to respond to the gifts you've been given?

I want to suggest that Jesus' understanding of what gifts are for, as illustrated in this parable, is radical.  We could take the bestowal God has granted us and bury it in the ground.  Christian congregations have a long history of doing just that—live in fear; act like this is all there is, and when this is gone (the general budget, the endowment fund, the children's program), that's all there is; cling to what you have, afraid that if you do anything other than just sit on it, the whole game will be up.

But the master in this parable says, "Do something with it.  Spend it.  Invest it. Put it on the number 9 horse in the 6th race.  Lose it.  I don't care—there's more where *that* came from.  Just don't bury it.  Burying a gift from God for fear that it'll be lost is tantamount to saying, "We're petrified.  We don't trust you to be faithful, or ourselves to do anything other than wrap your gift in mothballs."

Jesus says, "Do something with it."

"Yeah, but what if we lose it?"

And what does Jesus say, "Look, in case you haven't noticed, I'm what's known in prison parlance as a 'dead man walking.'  Losing, failure, dying I know.  It's always standing pat when you're playing with house money that I can't tolerate.  It's a gift, for God's sake!  Give it away!"

It’s a gift.  For God's sake, for humanity's sake, for the sake of the hungry, the poor, they imperiled, the dying, the frightened . . . give it away.

Give it away without expecting anything in return.  Exercise the muscle that controls your generosity.

And it's not that churches aren't necessarily good at giving.  Most are pretty good at it.

Unfortunately, churches often give for the purpose of getting something in return.

"Sure, we could do this great thing.  We could start a daycare, or have a festival and give back packs and school supplies to poor kids, or start another service that would appeal to people who have a lot of pierced body parts and tattoos.  And if we do, maybe we'll get more people to come to church."

Why not be unselfconsciously reckless with the gifts we've been given, and just give them away—without the expectation that in so doing we will increase the membership rolls or the budget?  Why not just do what we do because we've been blessed with so much, and because it's the right thing to do?

During stewardship emphasis month, all over the world congregations are telling individuals to do just that.  Why don't we ask congregations to do the same kind of radical thing . . . and let God worry about how much is left over?

For people who claim to follow Jesus, the one who gave everything away, unselfconscious recklessness ought to be like second nature to us.

It's a gift.  Do something with it. 

Thank God, for our sake, Jesus did.

-Amen.

Unselfconscious Recklessness (Sermon Audio)

Breakfast with Santa

Join us at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church on Saturday, December 17, as we celebrate Breakfast with Santa. Bring your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and friends for a fun-filled morning of breakfast, ornament making, sing-a-long, and a photo with St. Nick. Each child will also receive a special present from Santa. Don't have any kids? No problem. Santa loves taking pictures with adults too! Share all of this fun with your family and friends for only $5 per person (children two and under are free). You will receive a digital photo via email, or we can print one and put it in a frame for an additional $1. Reservations can be made for 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, or noon. 

Where: Douglass Boulevard Christian Church Family Life Center

When: December 17--9:00, 10:00, 11:00, or 12:00

Who: Everybody who loves Christmas and Santa

How Much: $5/person (Children under 2 are free.)

Fill out my form!

Giving It Back

I've been thinking about giving lately--not just because it's November, which in church-speak means "Stewardship month." Stewardship, boiled down to its essence as a theological principle, is merely taking care of the gifts God has given to us, so that they may be used in ways pleasing to God. Those gifts include, but aren't limited to, our money.

God gives us time, for instance. How do we use that gift? Where do we spend most of our time? The answer to the latter question is both scary and illuminating. Stewardship asks us, first to be mindful of how we spend our time, but then to begin to make adjustments that align our actions with our words about loving God.

God also gives us this spectacular gift called creation. Christians, as Stanley Hauerwas reminds us, use the designation "creation" rather than "nature," because we believe that the universe has a purpose. Stewardship asks the question about how we honor that bequest. How do we lovingly take up the task of tending to it?

Moreover, God also gives us talents. How do we employ those gifts in ways that honor the trust placed in us, trust that God demonstrated by presenting us with them? In addition to our corporate need to gather for worship and to have opportunity to be together in community, are there ways for us to put to use the gifts God gives us to feed the poor, encourage the downhearted, support the addicted, embrace the marginalized? In other words, can we use our smarts, our organizational skills, our cooking abilities, our caring natures, etc. to ministry to others? That's stewardship.

This year we tried something radical at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church. Yes, we started the Douglass Loop Farmers Market, which was a big enough leap on its own. But beyond that, we tried to do something that churches are often guilty of not doing; we decided to give the market to the neighborhood without expecting anything in return. Now, I don't mean that we did it not expecting to make a profit (profit wasn't our motivation). Nor do I mean that we did it not expecting to get publicity (we figured there'd probably be some of that). Instead, we started the market without the expectation that it would be anything more than something we could give to the people in the Douglass Loop neighborhood and to the vendors who sell their wares. Through the friends we've made, however, we've discovered to our surprise that we received a much bigger gift in return. Stewardship is like that.

Stewardship, I want to suggest, is taking stock of how much we've been given, and then making informed decisions about how to give it back--not so much with a view to getting something out of it, but simply because we're thankful God cares enough about us to give to us in the first place.

Pausing for Stewardship

Douglass Boulevard is entering into its annual stewardship campaign. Today, Matt Springer talked about what DBCC means for him. I messed up the audio (of course) and cut out about 7-8 seconds of his talk. Here it is: 

Springer's Great Talk

Humility the Hard Way (Matthew 23:1–12)

Click the link at the bottom of the post for the sermon audio or just subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and you won't miss a single sermon…

Humility the Hard Way

(Matthew 23:1-12) 

I remember one time I got told. My brother, Daren, who’s two years younger than I am, took me aside when I was 17 and laid it out for me.

I don’t recall why I was feeling especially put-upon, but I was going through our room declaiming about the injustice of some social slight or some bit of insensitivity I’d endured at the hands of somebody or other.

A little too full of myself, I wondered, “How could they do this to me? How could they say this about me? About me? I mean look at me. I’m one of the good guys., right? I do all this good stuff. I treat people fairly. Blah, blah, blah.”

Very difficult to be a martyr at 17, but I was giving it my best shot.

Like I say, I don’t really remember what prompted the conversation, but I do remember the part where my brother told me something I didn’t want to hear.

He’d been doing his homework on the bed, when he looked up and said, “You don’t suppose you’re a little too worked up about this, do you? It doesn’t sound to me like anybody was trying to offend you.”

“What’re you crazy? This is me we’re talking about here. I can’t believe someone would treat me that way.” Self-righteousness is never a virtue–especially in a seventeen year-old.

With a sort of calm, pastoral voice–he had this pastor-thing going on at 15 (I’m not kidding)–he shook his head and said, “You realize, don’t you, that at the heart of it, you’re a pretty selfish person? You tend to think of yourself first, and a bit too highly at that.”

Thunderstruck. Unbelievably, irremediably, jaw-droppingly … thunderstruck.

He was right, though. I was, and still am to this day, a selfish person.

I still think about my brother having the audacity to say that to me. It was one of the kindest, most loving things anybody’s ever said to me.

Surgery isn’t designed to feel good; it’s designed to heal you.

My brother told me the truth with surgical precision, blessed me with humility the hard way.

When I was a pastor down in Middlesboro, I went down to the west-end elementary school every Monday for a couple of years to read to second-graders. I was a part of a pilot literacy program called, “Real Men Read.”

The premise of the program rested on the sad fact that in Appalachia, a large percentage of the children grew up in homes where either there were no men, or no men who could read. That is to say, many of the kids in this second grade class had never heard a story read in a male voice.

We lived in the congressional district with the highest illiteracy rate in the country, so somebody thought it would be a good idea to teach kids who were learning to read that men–even though these children didn’t know many–could read.

Anyway, the first time I went, I was told to introduce myself–tell the kids a little something about what I did. Many of them didn’t go to church–had never gone to church. I was faced with a dilemma: How do I tell kids who don’t know what a minister is, what a minister does?

I did all kinds of stuff. I buried people, married their kids, taught, wrote, prayed, held hands with people who were dying, planned programs, talked to people who were mad or sad or afraid. You can see the problem, right? How do you boil all that down into a job?

At thirty years-old, I didn’t know how to adequately explain what I did to myself, much less to group of seven year-olds, who had no idea what the inside of a church even looked like.

Anxious about what I was going to say, something struck me on the way over to the school that first Monday.

It was simple (not easy, but simple). I still use it when I talk about what I do.

I said, “Hi. My name is Derek. I’m a minister. What does that mean? That means I get paid to tell the truth.”

I’m still convinced that that’s what ministers do. We tell the truth about where we come from and where we’re headed, about the world in which we live and how God relates to us, about what justice and mercy mean and what God expects from us.

We tell the truth … and not just with our words–with our lives.

Telling the truth is hard work, isn’t it? Especially in our culture, where we seem more comfortable with the casual lies we tell ourselves. People often don’t want to hear the truth.

And the truth is hard to tell, because we want people to think we’re nice. We want people to like us.

Jesus, it would appear from our Gospel this morning, doesn’t care nearly as much as most moderns do about whether or not people think he’s nice, or whether people like him. In fact, in today’s Gospel Jesus is only days away from being nailed to a tree because he’s gotten cross-ways with all the wrong people because he can’t keep the truth to himself. So on the “nice,” on the I-hope-people-will-like-me front … epic fail.

If you remember, Jesus has spent the last two chapters of the book of Matthew arguing with the religious authorities. Pretty much everybody’s been out to trip him up, try to make him look foolish. And he’s taken on all comers.

Finally, in today’s text Jesus has had enough. He turns away from the hoards of religious big shots who’ve been hounding him, and toward the crowds, and lets loose.

Oh, he begins innocently enough: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach, and follow it.”

But then he starts warming to the subject. “Do what they say … for sure. They know the stuff backwards and forwards–just don’t do what they do, for they don’t practice what they teach.”

Ouch! Oh, he’s just getting started: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”

Know anybody like that? Religious leaders and politicians are famous for this one. Do as I say … not as I do (or fail to do).

Then Jesus gets downright personal: “They do all their deeds to be seen by others”–after which he lists a few of their shortcomings in this regard–showy religious finery, sitting at the places of honor at banquets and synagogues, seeking to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, wanting to be referred to with honorifics–rabbi, father, instructor.

Finally, Jesus caps the whole thing off with this bell-ringer: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” In other words, humility’s coming … in a few short days, even for him.

Let me be quick to recognize that this passage (and what follows) has been used by Christians over the years to indulge a penchant for anti-semitism. Christians have mistakenly attributed the acts of the Pharisees to all Jews.

We should be clear, though. Jesus is a Jew, speaking to Jews. That he’s speaking about a particular group of Jewish leaders and not all Jews is something we need to keep very much in mind. The law, as delivered on Mt. Sinai, was never intended to be a heavy burden, but a source of moral identity. Jesus, in this passage, isn’t taking off on the law, but on a particular kind of misuse of the law by those who get caught up in the finer points of its demands, instead of in the beauty of being set apart as God’s people.

Even so, this is difficult to listen to if what you think Jesus came to do was to inflict niceness on an otherwise testy Near East. Jesus sounds so irascible, so cranky.

Couldn’t we get the nice Jesus–the one who loves children and little old ladies? This whole fire-breathing itinerant prophet thing is tough to witness.

But why?

I think it’s because that kind of honesty makes people uncomfortable, and our culture tells us that our responsibilities lie in lubricating the social gears rather than throwing sand in them. But sand is sometimes exactly what’s needed.

Remember why it is that Jesus has been in this marathon cat-and-mouse game with the religious leaders? We’ve talked about this a lot recently, working our way through these past few chapters of Matthew. The reason Jesus has been so severely set upon by those in power goes all the way back to his clearing of the temple at the beginning of chapter 21. Remember?

Jesus, after calling out the caretakers of God’s house for making it into a den of robbers, presses home the point by immediately receiving into that house the blind and the lame–those who’ve been denied access by those in power–the religious leaders who’ve mistakenly thought their job was gatekeeper instead of welcoming committee. Jesus welcomes the unwanted into God’s freshly cleaned house, and heals them.

For the rest of chapters 21 and 22, Jesus has had to take on the religious establishment, who feel threatened by his condemnation of their failure to keep in mind that the law is there not to preserve personal privilege, but to extend the bounty of God’s grace to those who’ve been systematically put out, shoved aside, made to sit in the back of the bus.

Sometimes justice has been forgotten, or misplaced, or ignored. If we claim to follow Jesus, we have a responsibility in those cases to speak the uncomfortable truth that God desires a world in which the lame and the blind get to sit at the front of the bus.

A world in which the forgotten and cast aside are remembered and brought back into the fold.

A world in which those who’ve been downsized, those without healthcare, those who’ve graduated from college but have a difficult time seeing a future that holds a place for them … are no longer afterthoughts in our political life, but children of God on whose behalf we need to find our voices.

A world in which the color of one’s skin or the country of one’s birth or the gender of one’s love interests aren’t the characteristics by which people are excluded, but are the very things we lift up and celebrate as God’s gifts to us.

This isn’t optional behavior to get sorted out after we get the right bumper-stickers; it’s the very purpose of the life to which Jesus calls us.

Jesus speaks the truth to those in power, not because he’s mean or disagreeable or because he temperamentally disposed to raining on other people’s parades … but because he loves us so much he can’t bear for us not to know the truth about the way things are ordered in the reign of God.

It’s a hard word Jesus delivers. Honesty can be difficut to hear. But telling the truth about God’s vision of the way things ought to be is the kindest most loving thing we have to say.

We who follow the one executed as a criminal are under no illusions about what telling the truth can cost.

On the other hand, we also know that finding humility the hard way can be the best gift we ever receive.

-Amen.

Sermon Audio: Humility the Hard Way

A Lousy Idea

If I had unlimited resources, I would, by definition, be God--which is a uniformly lousy idea. This, I fear, would not be a desirable state of affairs, inasmuch as I'm much choosier about my associations than God. God has repeatedly demonstrated a deplorable lack of discretion, an unfortunate leniency forsworn by the more sophisticated among us.

Were I God, karma would operate with greater precision, for instance. People who dumped 140 million barrels of bleak darkness into the Gulf of Mexico would wake up to find that certain organs had fallen off in the bleak darkness of the night. God is much too lax in the retributive justice department for my tastes.

If had a hammer . . . health industry executives who get fat on the forage of the sick and the poor would find their pastures re-zoned somewhere in the Gobi. And the politicians who've had their own fields watered by these bloated and self-interested bureaucrats would be re-purposed, put in charge of the management and quality control of natural fertilizer.

Put me in charge and the folks at the top would find themselves uncomfortably transitioned to new positions of vassalage. No more bonuses, no more corporate jets, no more toothsome morsels served on bone china while folks outside the walls root through the teeth and bones to find leftover cartons of Chinese.

If I had unlimited resources, I would create a world more to my liking. Unfortunately, I suppose, since by most accounts I'm at the top of the heap, I'd be banished too.

Like I said, making me God would be bad for everybody--perhaps, most of all me.

That May Be Enough (Deut. 34:1–12)

I messed up the recording this week, so it will be a few days before you can click the link at the bottom of the post for the sermon audio or just subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and you won't miss a single sermon…

Until then, here's the full text:

That May Be Enough

 (Deut. 34:1-12)

I remember it very clearly, my first brush with failure.  Not that I hadn’t failed before, but always before I could think of some reason, some excuse unrelated to my abilities: They didn’t understand what I was trying to get at.  I had a bad day.  They didn’t want me to succeed. 

But this time, I was left to take responsibility for my inadequacies. 

I was in seventh grade, and I wanted to play for the basketball team.  There were three hundred students in my class, and most of the male ones came out for the seventh grade team.  I got cut.  I wasn’t good enough; and I could see it plain as day.  There were twelve boys better than me.  I was confused.

I had such huge expectations of myself as a child, as in many ways I still do.  As a child, I was certain I would grow up to experience unparalleled heights of fame and expertise.  I was convinced that I could play professional sports; it was only a matter of picking which one I preferred to play.  Baseball.  Basketball.  Football. 

As a child I thought I might make my living some day singing in a Rock band.  Perhaps, it occurred to me, I could be a famous scientist, or a high-powere attorney.  Naïvely, arrogantly, I was convinced that I was special in ways that other people were not. 

And at 12 years-old, some man whose name, I cannot even remember, told me that I was not, nor would I probably be, everything that I thought I was, or hoped one day to become.

I was devastated for a week or so.  But with the resilience of pre-pubescence, I went and tried out for the wrestling team—which I made, and at which I excelled (inasmuch as a twelve year-old 100 pounder can excel at throwing around other hundred pound twelve year-olds).  But something profound had taken place.  Someone had placed limits on what had been, to that time, a limitless horizon.

We have such amazing dreams, you and I, expectations that we’ll somehow achieve, win, be something special.  We see clearly the vistas before us.  They’re so wide, boundless, and they’re ours for the taking.  We’re certain that if we work hard enough, want it bad enough, we’ll find the promised land that we envisioned so clearly. 

It’s right before our eyes . . .

I find the picture of Moses in our text today oddly fascinating, strikingly poignant.  He’s an old man now.  And whether it’s because God called him, or because he just wanted to shake the dust from his creaking bones, he climbs to the top of the mountain.  You can hear him wheezing, as he sits down below a scrap of shade growing out of an outcropping, all the years making his way through the desert finally catching up with him.  All the responsibility has bowed his once strong back, as if carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders has finally left him so stooped, he can no longer turn his eyes to the heavens, but only be satisfied peering down into the valley.  He leans back against a rock, pulls his shoes off, and shakes out the sand.  He sighs, half-snickering at the thought that he could drag his old body up the mountain one last time, half crying at the pain.

As he takes out an old handkerchief to blow his leathered beak, he hears God approaching, his old friend and sometime adversary.  God comes and sits down by Moses.  They exchange pleasantries.  Finally, God calls Moses’ attention to the land below the mountain—as far as his eyes could see.  God says, “This is it.  Remember from the time you were a little boy in Pharaoh’s house, how your sister would sing to you about the land I’d promised Abraham and Isaac and Jacob?  Remember all the stories?  Well, this is it.  This is what I was talking about all along.”

Can you imagine?  Moses’ eyes crinkled up, knowing that this is what he’s been waiting his whole life to see.  The hopes and dreams that had kept him awake, kept him alive through 40 years of wandering in the desert lie before him now.  Right below his mountain perch, he can see for the first time the very thing that God had called the Israelites out of the land of Egypt for—all those years ago now. 

Four hundred years, his people have been looking forward to this moment.  The very point to which his whole life has been leading, can be seen by the old man as he looks down the end of his nose.  No words, I’m sure, could describe how Moses must feel.  This is the finish line toward which he’s been striving for all these years.  And down in the valley is his gold medal, his Nobel prize, his “man of the year honors” all rolled into one big, green valley called, “The Promised Land.”

But just as Moses is about to descend to the winner’s circle to collect his prize, God says, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you.  I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” 

Do you see?  You work your whole life to get to the promised land, and just as you’re about to walk across the finish line, you see that you’re not going to make it after all.  Martin Luther King saw that.  He preached a sermon on this passage the night before he was assassinated.  You remember it.  “I’ve been to the mountaintop.  I’ve seen the promised land.  And I might not get there with you . . .”

Can you understand the pain of holding your life up by a dream, only to see that the dream is just too far out in front of you—that whoever walks across the finish line—you know it won’t be you? 

Devastating. Moses prepares to die with his storybook ending just out of his reach. 

But—and here’s the crucial thing—as he prepares to die, with chips still on the table, he realizes that he does so with God at his side.  A different ending than we had expected, but not an entirely bad one.  Kind of uneven, quite a few loose ends. 

We much prefer things to have some closure, don’t leave us hanging there with all this unfinished business.  But that’s how life is, isn’t it?  Kind of messy.  A few unmade beds.  A few hairs out of place.  None of it ever quite the way we planned it.

After I turned 29, I became profoundly depressed.  Susan didn’t know what to do, coming home every night to a self-pitying twit.  My mood cast a black pall over the house.  I convinced myself that I should have achieved much more in my life than I had.  I’m embarrassed to say now, given the self-preoccupation it demonstrates, but I felt like a failure. 

I looked back over the dreams I’d held so dear, the thoughts that I ought to accomplish something by the time I was 30.  I hadn’t gotten my Ph.D.  I hadn’t written my first novel.  I didn’t even play softball anymore.  I felt like I’d let my life slip through my hands. 

I embarrassed for my 29 year-old self even saying this out loud, in front of people who’ve lived so much longer, and had justifiable reason to be aggrieved.  But to me, at the time, my complaints were real—if only to me.

Then one day, for whatever reason, I woke up and I thought, “You know, whatever else might be said about me, I’ve been pretty lucky.  I’m married to a woman who loves me—often in spite of myself.  I work in a great job, with people who seem to appreciate what I do.  I have friends and family who care about me.  And every once in awhile, I think God even uses me to some good.  I haven’t done all that I dreamed, but God has blessed me in ways that I could never have dreamed on my own.  And if I died this afternoon, I think that might just be enough.”

And now, almost twenty years later, I’ve still got all of that—plus kids.

So, here’s the thing: Life is so rarely like the movies—with happy endings, neatly tied up.  Our lives have gaps and unanswered questions, false starts and unfinished business, dead-ends and unrealized dreams.  I’d love to be able to stand here and tell you otherwise, but I can’t—I get paid to tell the truth.

On the other hand, there may be a whole lot of grace wrapped up in such a realization.

“Why is that?”

Well, if somebody as important as Moses couldn’t get it all wrapped up in a storybook ending, why do we think we’ll be any different?  That is to say, God’s working out God’s purposes in ways that don’t necessarily lead to satisfying personal memoirs—Oh, they might; you could wind up dying having accomplished everything on your bucket list.  But if you do, you’ll be in some pretty rarified company. 

To put a finer point on it, God’s working out God’s purposes in ways that may include you, but aren’t about you.  Do you hear the difference?  God’s got work to accomplish—important work—and you . . . you’re a part of that work.  You aren’t, nor am I (nor anyone else, for that matter) the point of that work.

Listen to what gets said of Moses: “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.  He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire lan, and for all the mighty deeds that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel” (Deut. 34:10-12).

Pretty prime stuff that.  And still Moses doesn’t get the story book ending.  Oh, well.

I was listening to Storycorps on NPR Friday morning, after dropping the kids off for school.  Being interviewed was the first African-American, A.P. Tureaud, to integrate LSU in 1953.  He recalled the difficult times he encountered being the only black man on a southern campus in the 1950s.

He said, “The students wouldn’t speak to me.  I think someone had decided that if they totally isolated me, I would leave.”

He didn’t have a roomate, but the guys in the rooms on either side of him would take turns trying to keep him up with radios and banging on the walls.  If he walked into the showers, everyone would leave.  The professors wouldn’t touch his papers.

Understandably, he felt like he was all alone in the world.  Except for the mascot, a bengal tiger named, Mike, who lived in a cage across from Tureaud’s dorm room.  So, he used to spend time talking to Mike the tiger, figuring that they both lived in jails.

One day, while he was talking to Mike, a pick-up truck pulled up.  Tureaud said, as he saw it approaching that he hoped that it didn’t have a rifle rack hanging on the back.

But a black man in worker’s overalls got out.  He said, “Are you A.P. Tureaud?”

“Yes.”

So, he got into the truck and came back out with his seven year-old son.  And the man said, “I want him to meet you, because I want him to know this is possible for him to come to this school—thanks to you.”

Tureaud said, “After I composed myself, I said, ‘You just ruined my day.  I want to get out.  I want to get out, but now I can’t.’”        

Moses could tell us, only God knows where it all leads, what it finally means.  We are the story God writes.  God only knows.  Whatever we or our lives as preachers, homemakers, executives, second sopranos means is ultimately up to God.  We live therefore with the conviction that God really does put us to good purposes, even though we may not see clearly, even though we may not enter the promised land of concrete results and visible fulfillment in our exodus from here to there. 

This is God’s rodeo, after all, not yours or mine.

But whether you achieve all your goals, make progress, arrive at your planned destination, travel with the right people or not, here’s the promise: As with Moses, God goes with you... and that is always enough.

         -Amen.

Nobody Puts Philosophy in a Corner

More details here. 

Trunk r' Treat!

The Youth are planning to help sponsor a Trunk r’ Treat here at the church on this coming Halloween Weekend, the 29^th of October.  Our hope is to create yet another chance for outreach in our Highlands Community.  There will be lots of candy to be had, as well as chili and some interesting costumes to behold. However, we CANNOT do this on our own!  Being that none of our students actually have their own trunk, we’ll need some of you to lend yours.  If you know any children who would like to make a stop on the Trick r’ Treat trail on Saturday night, send them over!  If you know any youth who would like to participate in this event, direct them to us and we will certainly appreciate the helping hand.  

If you would prefer not to decorate your own trunk, the students have said they would be happy to help decorate your trunk on the day of (or the day before) the Trunk r’ Treat.  To make sure we have a student decorator available, please contact Jennifer or myself.

With so many wonderful bakers in our congregation, the students have decided that this year’s Trunk r’ Treat should include a cakewalk.  We have already been rallying for pledges of cakes and deserts.  If you would like to pledge a cake for the cakewalk, we’d be more than happy to accept.  There is no such thing as too many cakes, after all.  We are also still taking pledges for chili.  We’ll accept all kinds! 

If anyone would like to sign-up for a trunk, or pledge cake, chili, or candy, contact our Secretary, Jennifer Vandiver, or our Youth Minister, Geoff Wallace to set you up! 

Ryan Kemp-Pappan and Chris Hartman Talk Fairness at DBCC

 

One of the best parts, in my opinion, of the service today was Rev. Ryan Kemp-Pappan's and Chris Hartman's comments about the collaboration between DBCC and Fairness. We are going to miss Ryan so, so much when he leaves us next week for Oklahoma City. 

Thank you, Ryan.  

Here are Ryan's comments followed by Chris's appreciative and articulate praise for Rev. Kemp-Pappan as an advocate and ally of the Fairness Campaign:

RKP and Chris Hartman Talk Fairness

"The Claims of Loyalty" (Matthew 22:15–22)

What a great service today! We are so thrilled to work alongside the Fairness Campaign and to have had the opporunity to worship with them. I have posted the full service along with the normal sermon podcast for those of you who want to share the entire experience with friends. 

Sometimes I try to summarize Rev. Penwell's sermon. Sometimes he does it for me in the sermon text itself: 

Caesar’s always going to want what Caesar wants. Wall Street. Madison Avenue. They vye for our attention. There are so many claims placed upon our loyalties… from every direction.

And, sometimes that which pursues us most relentlessly is our own desire to be in control, to be--ourselves--gatekeepers of God’s mercy. We in the church have been guilty of spurning the gifts people bring to God. But Jesus isn’t having it. Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give to God what belongs to God. And here’s the thing: It all belongs to God.”

Click the links below for the audio from the full service or from only the sermon or just subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and you won't miss a single sermon…

 Full Service with Fairness Campaign

"The Claims of Loyalty" by Rev. Derek Penwell