Last Sunday was my last sermon to the churches of Ainsworth, Johnstown, and Long Pine as their pastor. Today in the midst of the organized chaos that often surrounds those who are moving, I have had time to reflect on what I preached on that Sunday. To put it in context, the churches had planned to have a family picnic and only one service in the city park. It had rained that early morning of Sunday and the parking lot was muddy and the grass was slick. I decided that we would instead meet in the church.
We had a large number of people from all three churches who attended this special service and to celebrate with a meal Father’s Day. I was going to preach on the father found in Luke 15 regarding his two sons. The focus early in the week was that despite circumstances the father never abandons his children just as in this transition God has not abandon us. Then Wednesday happened in Charleston South Carolina. I struggled with what I should do as I didn’t want my last sermon to be challenging but to leave on a higher note. Then I realized that the higher note was to address what happened and what it means for our churches.
Just a note, I am not a manuscript preacher. During my preparation with prayer, scripture, and commentaries, I write out almost journal wise my thoughts. I arrange them in sequence that I would like to see and when I preach I rarely have notes at all. This Sunday was different and even though I wrote out a manuscript (or at least an outline) I did not read it. For those who were not present or those who are interested I am copying the manuscript to this blog entry.
Reflection on this Sunday
This Sunday I have such a mixture of feelings. The past three weeks have felt like a tornado has blown me around. From the time of the Bishop’s call to take on new responsibilities that for me was unexpected, flying to Pittsburgh to see my oldest granddaughter graduate from high school, to annual conference and seeing that through a different lens of a pastor and as a member of the cabinet, to trying to figure out moving and packing, to knowing this Sunday is my last preaching day. I had talked about how when we do things for God, Anne Dillard says we should be wearing our crash helmets and buckle ourselves in for we are in the ride of our lives.
So I thought I would talk about Father’s on this father’s day. About how we can know that despite changes and choices that we make our Father is steadfast in His love for us. Despite the rhetoric and disagreements we might have, how much we want to have things our way, ultimately we can come back home where our father will run out to great us. This is what fathering should look like. When we read in 1 John 4:7-16. That we can live in love because God loved us first. He is the ultimate example we have through his son Jesus. Jesus taught and lived love. He used parables and teachings about love that was inclusive of all people. He reached out to those who were different and seen as less than in our society. As he challenged the expectations of what the majority saw, he experienced anger for his concern about the marginalized, about women, about those seen as racially unacceptable such as the Samaritans and ultimately was put to death.
As we debate about who is to be included or who is excluded, who is acceptable and who is not, I am reminded of what Jesus had to say as the Pharisees brought the adulteress woman to him and he said to them let the one without sin cast the first stone. As the youngest son returned home, it would have been so easy to judge his actions and to condemn him for his sin. How often we judge others without seeing ourselves and the choices that we make. How often we want to condemn people for who they are just because they are different than we are. It is so easy to take a morally superior road until we look in a mirror. I have often spoken about our tendency to not debate but to demonize those who disagree with us or are different than us. We worry more about foreign terrorists and not look at the terrorists that are among us.
Than Wednesday June 17th happened at a sister church that we have connections to in the Pan-Methodist connections. A group of parishioners gathered at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church one of the oldest African American churches in downtown Charleston South Carolina. This act of domestic terrorism took the lives of 9 congregational members of the church who had gathered to pray and to have a bible study. This was not an attack on Christianity it was a racially motivated mass murder, an act of domestic terrorism. It is easy to dismiss this as a person who was the shooter as mentally unstable but that is a way of sweeping under the rug the environment that seems to be occurring in parts of our nation. Already efforts are made to individualize this sin rather than look at the societal context and results of what we are doing to ourselves.
Habakkuk 1:2-4 cries out to God how long must we witness these horrendous acts before we rise up and to seek justice that will roll down like water from the mountains. How long we will continue to act towards one another without remembering what we hear in 1 John, what we read about the father in Luke. This is a day of lament. It is more than praying for those who no longer have fathers to go home to, mothers to care for them, whose future was taken away by this terrorist. Emmanuel was often a place to speak to the civil rights movement in the 60’s. What was accomplished sometimes with the blood of martyrs seems to again cry out for justice. Lament is not just saying we are sorry but is a call to action. To discuss and not demonize either the young man or blame the victims. It is a time to say enough is enough.
I believe it will not be foreign terrorists that will destroy our nation, but will happen domestically through the injustice and hatred that we perpetuate on ourselves. As a follower of our Savior Jesus, I am greatly concerned about our world and our nation. I pray that God can use me and those I know to be messengers of the love God has for all of us. Let our lament be a call to action to end the violence that we do to ourselves not through war but through our own hatred, to see all people as our brothers and sisters in God’s family whether or not they look like us, whether their skin color is different than us, regardless of gender or even sexual orientation.
So you may ask what can we do here in Ainsworth, Johnstown, Long Pine? This seems to be something that has happened far away from us. What can we do except to pray for those who have been involved? There are things we can do. We can teach each other and especially our children that hatred of those who are different is not God’s way. If we want to abide in the love of God, we need to love one another. We need to resist making or putting up with racial comments or statements. We need to no longer post on social media inflammatory statements that only lead to further divide our nation. I believe we need to take seriously what Jesus taught us and to live that out. If we want to be called that people of the book than let us put our words into action. To be instruments of peace of reconciliation. To hear once again the prayer that is attributed to Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
Let us walk in the light of our Lord and Master Jesus.
Amen.
As I continue to prepare for my transition into new call, I pray that we never cease to remember all of God’s creation. That we not only hear God’s call to us for justice but not to be so distracted by what John Wesley would call non-essentials that we miss the heart of Scripture which is Love of God and Love of neighbor. We are the church the body of Christ with Jesus the Head. As we debate the issues of today, my prayer is that we never lose sight of our relationship with the Triune God as seen in the life of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection.
Eldon
