First of all, thank you to those who responded last week to my contemplation about continuing this particular vehicle week by week. What I especially appreciated were the many comments - on and offline - from those saying that I need to do what is best for me. That kind of care and support is rare, even in the church where often it is more about making sure I get what I need than what might be best for the community or for others even when it conflicts with what I would prefer.
This week is an off week for me anyway. My associate, Chris is preaching this World Communion Sunday, so my inclination is to not be too wordy so as to have time to do other things this lovely, but chilly and quite windy, weekend. But thought a few words of reflection might be useful here.
First of all, this is a new day. We are launching a new path and pattern for worship at Aldersgate, reaching back for ancient tradition even while forging new experiences in our Heartbeat service at nine am. If you are a part of the Aldersgate community and wanting to worship at nine, you are in for a treat. Trust me on this. Chris is designing a subtly different experience that you will enjoy.
Secondly, there are still questions about modes of communication that we are trying to address. What will have the most impact, what will be the most helpful, what will touch the most people? All these considerations and many others are being examined. So, I ask for both your input and your patience as we seek to be the community we are longing to be. I’m hoping very soon to have a means by which you can help shape the future of the Aldersgate Community. October is long range planning month for us here. The staff will be on retreat at Epworth Forest on October 20 and 21, then I’m hoping to meet with some interested parties in the remainder of that week to ask some pointed questions and hear some hopes and concerns. And then from October 26 through the 31st, I will be on my annual planning retreat. I hope to come back with an outline for 2015.
But why, some might wonder? Why all the planning, all the questions? Can’t we just take it as it goes? Just go with the flow? Week by week figure it out along the way? Well, we could, and in some ways, we have, the church has for many years. And it isn’t working any more. Plus, it seems to me something more is needed for in the very nature of who we are, or who we are called to be.
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ... You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ... Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13 You shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery. 15 You shall not steal. 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. 18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." 20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin."
That’s the text for this World Communion Sunday. I can’t wait to hear what Chris will do with it. But I can’t read these verses without hearing my Hebrew professor from seminary tell us that we have mistranslated this text all along the way. OK, she admitted, the words work, but it doesn’t really fit the flow. It doesn’t really fit the spirit of the Exodus event, she argued.
Looking at our confused faces, she sighed in a bit of exasperation. Look at the first verses she told us. We looked at the scratchings that the Hebrew language made on our page and puzzled out the words. God spoke these words, it said, I’m the one who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery. The “commandments” begin with an act of redemption. The law begins with grace. So why, she asked us, would we assume these are heavy burdens laid on us with wagging fingers and furrowed brows? God isn’t commanding obedience, God is inviting us into a new way of being with these verses. We shouldn’t read them as commandments as much as descriptions.
God says I brought you out of slavery, out of bondage so that you can be the people with no other God. Not the gods of the people around you, not the gods of your own making. The one who rescued you is the one you can worship. The one who loved you into freedom is the one you can love.
So that you can be the people who celebrate that name, who know that name won’t ever let them down. Because the name is the Presence and the Presence will never leave you. And because I know that you will need help with these concepts, you can have a rhythm, you can have a pattern and worship and rest will be woven into that pattern. The pattern will be there to help you be who you were created to be. The pattern will keep you close to the Presence who is with you always.
And because you live in this Presence and follow this pattern, you honor those who give you life and who lead you. And you treasure all of life, knowing that it isn’t to be thrown away for any reason. You honor the covenants that you make between you, covenants of love, covenants of property, covenants of honesty, covenants of communion and community. Because of the Presence and the pattern you live in peace with your neighbor, you give respect and honor. That is just who you are. That is who you were created to be.
This isn’t a law handed down to be slavishly obeyed under threat of punishment or exile. This is a description of how to fulfill the longings of our hearts. This is the freedom to be what is within us to be. This is a gift given to us by the one who loves us more than we can even imagine. This is us, these ten words. This defines us, this shapes us, this claims us, this Presence and this pattern.
This is who we are always becoming. That’s they reason for the vision, the reason for the planning. How can we better grow to fit the picture that God draws for us here in the book of Exodus? That’s why we continually ask, how are we doing embracing the Presence and living into the pattern? And because we struggled and we struggle with both, God send the Son, God put on flesh and dwelt among us, the be the Presence in our midst and the pattern of living.
How can we embrace the Presence and follow the pattern for our own lives and in our own community. But also, how can we be the Presence for those who don’t know whose they are yet? How can we live outwardly the pattern so that others are caught up in the hope of being made new? Those are the questions we ask on this World Communion Sunday. There is a world out there, and world that God so loved that he sent ... us. We need the trumpets and the smoke. Or do we? Maybe we just need the Presence and the pattern. Maybe we just need to live into the picture God draws in Exodus chapter twenty. Maybe we need to be more like Jesus. Maybe.
Too wordy? Yeah, that happens to me all the time. Sorry. Trumpets and smoke. But behind it is a sincere desire to be the church of the Presence in a lonely world, to live the pattern in a lost world. God spoke all these words. Let’s live them.
Shalom,
Derek
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