Nothing for the Journey

We are consumed by conversation about resources.  Do we have enough?  Will there be enough?  Do we know enough?  Resources come in lots of different forms.  The money one occupies our thinking an awful lot.  But there are other questions facing us.  Do we have the smarts?  Do we have the courage, the brains, the heart?  “We’re off to see the wizard.” ...  Ahem.  Excuse me.

We’re lost in the wilderness and the trees are throwing fruit at us.  The yellow brick road is too hard to discern through the weeds of our doubts and hesitations.  The companions on the journey don’t seem up to the task, or they’ve let us down, or they’ve hurt us and we just can’t forgive them.  Or maybe we’ve lost sight of the destination, the purpose of the journey.  Maybe we aren’t sure we believe in the Emerald City any more.  Maybe it is more about surviving day to day than it is arriving somewhere.  Maybe it is more about being safe and warm and cared for than it is about accomplishing something.  After all we’ve got our own issues to worry about.  We’ve got wounds that need healing, we’ve got stuff we’ve got to learn, we’ve got families to tend to.  We are way too busy to be taking on more stuff.  Maybe later, maybe when we get the time, when we have the inclination, maybe when ... maybe.

Week two of our discipleship series is titled “Disciples are people who have a mission.”  Our guiding text is the Great Commission from Matthew’s Gospel, 28:16-20 – Go into all the world...  We’ll come back to that in a bit.  But I chose another passage for us to look at this week.  Similar, but different.  Take a look:

Luke 9:1-6  Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,  2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.  3 He said to them, "Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money-- not even an extra tunic.  4 Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there.  5 Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them."  6 They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere. 

The first thing to note is that it wasn’t just at the end where Jesus launched the followers out into mission and ministry.  This is chapter nine of Luke’s Gospel.  He just called them in chapter five.  There’s a lot they don’t know yet, a lot they haven’t experienced.  They hadn’t heard the Good Samaritan story yet, they hadn’t been taught how to pray, for heaven’s sake!  Yet, he sends them out.  

And get this, take nothing for your journey.  What?  Take nothing.  You know Peter grumbled about that one.  We would too, I suspect.  We aren’t prepared, we don’t have the resources, we don’t know enough.  You can’t be serious about sending us out there.  Are you?

Seemed to be.  He gave them power and authority.  Ah, well, that’s a different kettle of fish then isn’t it.  If only he would give us power and authority.  Then we just might take him up on his offer to go.  Cast out a few demons before lunch, heal some diseases in the afternoon, then call it a day.  

Take nothing for your journey.  Nothing.  Nothing to rely on but the power and authority that we just barely comprehend.  Nothing to fall back on but the name of the One who sends us.  Nothing to hide behind but the image of the one we are trying to bring to life in our lives.  Take nothing for your journey, because the journey is everything.  It is not a mission that we take up and do for a period of time and then set down again.  This is not a mission trip, a mission emphasis.  This is life as mission.  Mission as a way of living.  Take nothing for the journey because you are the journey.  You are the presence of the Christ who sends you.  Take nothing external, nothing to prove your knowledge or experience.  Take nothing in your hands so that your hands are free to hold and to welcome, to love and to soothe, to heal what has been broken with nothing but the witness of your life.

Brian McLaren says that we slightly mistranslate the instruction in the Great Commission.  That “Go” thing.  “Go into all the world!”  It sounds like marching orders.  It sounds like a crusade mentality.  Go!  Get on out there!  Ten hut!!   Get on out there.  Like we are crusaders, like we’ve got a fire on our tails, like we are going to make those disciples if it kills us or them, usually them.

McLaren says the tense is actually a little bit different.  He says a better translation would be “as you go” or “as you are going” instead of the hardline “Go!”  As if Jesus is saying “while you’re up,” “as you are going out and about in the world.  As you are living your life, as you are making your way in this world make disciples.  No, I don’t he means be casual about it.  Don’t take it seriously, or do it as an afterthought.  No, in fact it might just be the opposite.  Let it be the reason for being.  Let this making disciples thing be what drives you, what motivates you.

Maybe the question is more about the influence we leave, the ripples that our lives make.  Are we conscious of how our presence makes others around us different?  Are we building up lives or tearing them down?  Are we encouraging others or pushing them out of the way?  Are we sincere about what it is that motivates us, what drives us to go and do and be, or do we keep it hidden, ashamed or embarrassed to admit that we are guided not by our own inner power but a power that comes from above?  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, that’s what Paul wrote.  Would we do the same?

In the send here in Luke there is a very specific mission.  Jesus gives power to do two specific things.  He sent then out, Luke writes, to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.  Hmm, not sure about that, are we?  Proclaim the kingdom of God.  We’re supposed to talk about heaven all the time.  About what happens after we die, about the condition of our eternal souls.  Oh, great, we’re supposed to be that guy.  That goofy not really dealing with the real world guy.  “So heavenly minded as to be no earthly good.”  Jesus sends us out to be that guy.  Great.  Just great.

Or does he?  When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God is didn’t sound like a place for dead people.  It didn’t sound like sitting on clouds strumming harps and polishing halos.  It sounded like relationships.  It sounded like people living together in community.  It sounded like caring and helping and supporting and loving.  It sounded like something that I’ve been looking for all my life, to be honest.  All my life.  Not my afterlife.  Oh, sure it is exciting that this kingdom thing, this way of living and being thing just goes on and on, beyond the physical limitations of this bodily existence.  That is a part of the appeal, I admit.  But the real excitement is that it isn’t just a someday kind of thing.  It is a this day, or the next day, or why not now kind of thing.  

As you go about in the world, are you living and inviting others to live differently than many do in this world?  As you are going about your living, your being made into a disciple, are you including as many others in the process as you possibly can?  Are you proclaiming the Kingdom, with words, but not just words, with hope and confidence, with joy and laughter?  Are you a bright spot in a dark time?

And healing.  Uh oh.  Be healed!!  We are to wield magic like powers, right?  Faith-healing.  Well, maybe there are some who can do that, miracles do happen from time to time.  But what is more likely is that we are to be a healing presence in the lives of others. We are to put back together what has fallen apart.  Maybe we heal hearts and souls by loving and accepting as Christ did.  Maybe we heal relationships by reconciling instead of holding grudges, by forgiving instead wanted to get even.  And we keep trying.  Again and again and again.  

Take nothing for the journey.  Nothing but Christ.  Nothing but faith and hope in the One who loves us and works in us to love others.  As you go, feeling underequipped and underresourced, trust in that presence.  Don’t make me get the flying monkeys!  We’re off ... to make disciples.

Shalom,

Derek

You Have the Words

My day started with words.  Lots of words, wonderful words, special words, words of concern and hope, support and love.  I had an early meeting this morning.  A premarital counseling session.  A young couple who are each living and working in Indianapolis but have their roots here in Fort Wayne asked me to perform the wedding ceremony this spring at a church I used to serve here in town.  He was a young kid when I was there, he had wonderful parents and a younger brother who wanted to make his own path in the world.  They both did.  Good boys, good family. I was a little shocked then he showed up with his fiancé here at Aldersgate some months ago and asked if I would consider doing the wedding.  He said he left for college a couple of years after I left and so didn’t know the pastors since, and really wanted me to come back and do that wedding.  And his bride to be agreed.  She and her family joined the church shortly before I left.  They came because they liked me she told me this morning and were disappointed when I left.  So, I agreed if they cleared it with the current pastor.

So today we met to talk about the ceremony and about marriage and all that it means.  We used a lot of words.  The old words used for many years to bind two people together to make them one, and the newer words that talk about hopes and dreams and plans and issues.  Lots of words.  Some we needed to explain or analyze, others we knew or thought we did anyway.  Words.  That’s what brought them to me.  We would like you to say the words, they asked.  Say the words and help us say the words.  The words that would make us one.  The words that might help us survive in an uncertain world.  Say the words that bind us, we even debated the old symbol of tying hands together while we say the words.  But also the newer symbol of lighting a candle that says we are one, feeding and being fed, united.

Say the words.  The good words that we long to hear and the hard words we need to hear.  The words of binding and of sharing, the words of committing and of sacrificing, Say the words.  That’s what we talked about this morning as we watched the snow falling outside my office window.  Refreshing the blanket of white that covers over everything, making it clean and new and bright.  We used words about words, accompanied by laughter and even a few tears.  Say the words.

We start a new series this week.  It is Lent for many Christians, a season of reflection and repentance, of renewal and recommitment.  And our series is about words.  Some words we will like: Disciple, empowered and confident, vision and hope, for example.  And some we won’t like as much: Mission and evangelism, for example.  Scary words for some, fighting words.  But words woven into the conversation called faith from the very beginning.

We have two texts this week, two sets of words from the bible to get us started.  The first is our governing text for the whole series.  A familiar one.  Even has a name, words about the words.  The Great Commission.  You know it.

Matthew 28:16-20  Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." 

Words of sending, words of blessing and promise to be sure, but the sending is clear.  “Go” he says.  This faith thing isn’t a stay, but a go.  It isn’t a dwell on this, think on this, consider this, but a go and do this.  Well, yeah, but to go and do you need to dwell and think and consider, don’t you?  Of course you do.  But sometimes we get caught up in the thinking we forget about the doing.  At least when it comes to our faith.  We are great doers with it comes to everything else.  Making a home, growing a family, shaping a career, working in a community - we are doers from way back.  And good at it.  Driven by it.  Sometimes overwhelmed by it but we keep going.  One foot in front of another on the long road to who knows where.  We are doers of our lives.  But are we doers of our faith?  

Well, yes, of course.  Our faith is such that as we live our life we declare our faith.  The values we espouse reflect the vows we made to follow our Savior, the commitments we keep let the words of our beliefs become actions, the generosity of our hands reveals our contemplations of the words of Christ, our lives put the words of our faith to work.  Who said “Preach always, use words when necessary”?  We like that.  Let our lives be our proclamation.

Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Except sometimes words are necessary.  Say the words, they asked me.  Say the words of binding, the words of love and marriage.  Say the words that challenge and invite.  Say the words that bring folks a little closer, the words of welcome and acceptance.  Say the words of hope, or promise.  Say the words of a tomorrow that is brighter than the today we sometimes face.  Say the words that just might begin to heal the brokenness that was caused by other words.

Go into all the world, he says, make disciples, baptize, teach, remember.  Go with these words.  Challenging words, that’s for sure.  Words we would just as soon keep under wraps, as a hidden agenda rather than an up-front reason for being.  The words aren’t easy to follow.  Even those who first heard them struggled.  Our second passage is one of the saddest sections of all the Gospels.  Jesus had been teaching, teaching hard stuff, challenging stuff, confusing stuff. And he ends by saying God’s in charge, not you.  God brings you to me, you didn’t decide to follow Jesus, forgive me Sadhu Sundar Singh who tradition says first wrote that hymn.  He was one of the first native Indian missionaries on that complex and confusing sub-continent.  And he heard a story of a man who believed even though no one else in his family or village or region did.  Though none go with me, I have decided to follow Jesus.  A powerful message, a powerful truth.  Except that Jesus says no one can come to me except by the Father.  God chose, you chose, God invited, you decided.  Which is it?  Both?  Neither?  Some odd combination?  It is confusing.  Some of the first disciples heard this and said this is too hard.  These words confuse us.  And they wandered off.

Jesus stood watching them go, with sadness, I believe, in his heart.  Then in that sadness he turns to the twelve, the ones he chose by name to follow closest.  Because they were special?  Or because they needed remedial work?  Maybe both.  But he turns to them.

John 6:67-69  So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"  68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.  69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." 

What about you?  Are you leaving too?  Your heart breaks just reading those words.  But Peter responds.  With a shrug.  Nowhere else to go.  You have the words.  The words we need to live and breathe.  The words that make our lives into something with meaning and purpose.  The words that lift our hearts when our heads have fallen in shame and embarrassment.  The words that pick us up and dust us off and get us back on track when we stumble and fall.  The words that pull us out of ourselves into a wider, more wonderful world; a God-breathed world, vibrating with the presence of the Spirit, alight with possibility and hope.  You have the words that give us life.  Where else would we go?

He has the words and he has given them to us.  And there is a world hungry to hear them.  Say the words.  Not just be a good person, but say the words.  Invite and encourage.  Heal and love.  Love, that greatest commandment, love.  The theologian Paul Tillich said the first duty of love is to listen.  You have the words, but first you have to listen so you know which words are needed, which words will connect, which words will feel like a balm and invite someone into a deeper relationship with the One who gave you the words.  That’s what we’re about this Lent.  Helping us all know that we have the words.  And then finding the courage to speak them.  Say the words.

Shalom,

Derek

I Got a Stick

Another slow start this week.  Some days these bible studies just flow from my fingers.  It is like they write themselves, I’m only along for the ride.  Like the message comes from somewhere else.  Someone else.  I just try to keep up and pay attention to spelling.  OK, well, pay a little bit attention to spelling and grammar and the like.  

Then there are weeks like this one where I can sit for hours and stare at the stark white screen with the little flashing cursor and wonder if it is sighing deeply.  Like there is nothing there, nobody home and I’m stuck with a job to do and no resources to do it.  With a message to declare and a roaring silence filling the empty space between my ears instead of the words that normally rattle around in there.  In short, I got nothing.  Sorry.

Though the words seem to echo a similar complaint.  Maybe it was the way I just said it in my head.  You remember everyone’s second favorite Charlie Brown TV special, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”?  What sticks in my head is the trick or treat scene, where Charlie Brown, after having trouble with his ghost costume, tags along with the gang as they from house to house.  Then they inspect their haul and everyone described what delights they received, except Charlie Brown who intones, with liturgical rhythm, “I got a rock.”  

What can you do with a rock?  As a Halloween treat a rock leaves much to be desired.  Even if his mother was resourceful and clever and tried to put a positive spin on it, (“Look, Charlie, the start of a career in geology!”)  I’m sure Charlie Brown felt lousy getting rock after rock all Halloween.  A bag of rocks was not adequate for the task of celebrating the excesses of Halloween, that’s for sure.

Just like a stick isn’t up to the task of setting God’s people free.  At least I’m sure that was Moses’ opinion in the middle of this conversation with God.  

Exodus 4:2-5  The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" He said, "A staff."  3 And he said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses drew back from it.  4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Reach out your hand, and seize it by the tail"-- so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand--  5 "so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you." 

“What is that in your hand?”  We are in the midst of Moses and his five buts, you remember.  Right in the middle of them, as a matter of fact.  This is but number three.  Which in the DCWV (Derek C Weber Version) is “what if it doesn’t work?”  What if they won’t listen?  What if it blows up in my face?  What I end up looking stupid or worse?  These are real fears, you know.  This doing God’s work thing is risky business.  It could all go wrong so very easily.  This was, I believe, the most reasonable but of them all.  But what if it doesn’t work?

God’s response?  “What’s that in your hand?”  What?  You can see Moses looking around for something significant.  Something that might help in this fool’s errand, this knight’s quest.  I’m sure he almost said “nothing!  I got nothing.  Nothing that will take down a Pharaoh.  Nothing that will accomplish this task you’ve given me.  I got nothing!”  But then he realized that he did have something in his hand, something that was always in his hand.  It was like a part of him, that’s why he almost overlooked it.  It was an extension of his body.  It was a badge of office, or the most important tool in the box, the sonic screwdriver of the Time Lords of Dr. Who.  He almost forgot it was there.  “I got a stick,” he said to the voice in the burning bush, or inside his head, he really wasn’t sure any more.  “I got a stick.”

Expecting, no doubt for a divine snort of derision.  A stick?  You got a stick?  We can do better than that, he was thinking, he was hoping.  A tank perhaps, a stealth bomber, the Starship Enterprise - beam us up Scotty, this ain't working here.  I got a stick.

We’re pretty sure that whatever it is that we got, whatever resources we've managed to scrape together aren't going to be adequate to the task.  Whatever is in our hand isn't going to see us through into the uncertain tomorrow.  We are sure of that.  Because we have failed before.  We have lost our way, we have let opportunities run through our fingers, we have lost friends and partners on this journey.  We've seen it happen before and we know it will happen again, that is the way of things.  This stick we've got in our hand isn't going to amount to a hill of beans in the crazy world.  

Oh, it’s a nice stick.  Quite useful for the task.  It can help one keep one’s balance in a rocky wilderness.  A third foot on uncertain ground.  It can fend off wild animals when necessary.  A good whack upside the head and wolves and lions will go running. A good shepherd knows how to knock one out of the park when necessary.  But it isn’t just blunt force justice either, no that curve on the end, that hook can prod a recalcitrant sheep back on the right path (“he leads me in right paths”) You just reach out and gently slip that crook around the neck of a sheep about to bolt in the wrong direction, and the smooth curve of the wood doesn’t hurt but can restrain and redirect, get those feet going in the direction they need to go, for safety sake.  

Useful, yes, but not for freeing a nation.  Not for ending four hundred years of slavery.  You need something more than a stick.  A bit of wood smoothed by sweaty palms and oil from a sheep’s coat, bloodied by the noggin of a hungry wolf isn’t going to be enough to realize a dream of freedom.  

I got a stick.  “Throw it down.”  What?  “Throw it down.”  What?  The stick?  It’s all I’ve got.  I know it isn’t much.  I know it isn’t up to the task, but it’s all I’ve got.  “Throw it down.”  My stick?  “Throw it down.”  This stick?  “Throw it down.”  But ...  “Throw it down.”

I got an email from a frustrated bishop this week, or maybe last week.  OK, I didn’t get it, everyone got it.  Everyone who signed up for the Bishop’s “e-pistle” (get it?).  It’s usually a word of encouragement, sometimes a word of explanation or a cheerleading of the latest Conference or Denominational doings, good stuff, usually.  But this one was a word of frustration.  We’re not measuring up.  We’re not keeping all the balls in the air, not providing the support, not carrying our share of the load, not just us, everyone.  “Are you all-in?” the Bishop opined from his digital pulpit.  “All-in”?  Throw it down.

God asked Moses for a total commitment, symbolized by the stick.  What’s that in your hand?  Throw it down.  It wasn’t much but it was all he had and he had to throw it down.  Not knowing what was going to happen to it, not knowing if he was going to get to pick it up again.  Throw it down.  Moses threw it down.  It turned into a snake.  We need more snakes.  Right?  Well, Moses wasn’t sure, Exodus says he drew back. It could be translated stepped back, or jumped back or ran away.  Screaming.  In terror.  OK, I added that bit.  But he didn’t want anything to do with the snake.  The snake that was his stick.  God says, pick it up.  What?  Pick it up, by the tail.  Everyone knows you pick up snaked by the head, just behind the head.  My dad taught me that.  Not that it was knowledge I wanted, mind you.  But everyone knows that. Pick it up, by the tail.  So, it could twist around and bite you.  Moses picked it up.  It was a stick.  A trick of the light?  Eyes already swimming from staring at a burning bush might have been fooled, it was a stick that he thought was a snake.  Until he did it again on the steps into Pharaoh’s palace.  Throw it down.  Pick it up.  Get to work, Moses.  Are you all-in?

That stick, it wasn’t much, but it was all he had.  Good for balance, good for predators, good for getting sheep reoriented.  In Moses’ hand.  In God’s hand?  Well, it could humble a king, it could part a sea, it could lead a grumpy nation through a wilderness, and bring water from a rock.  In God’s hand what is in our hand is not just something more, it is enough.  Enough to do what God would have us do.

What’s in your hand?  What have you got that when thrown down, when all-in can realize a dream?  What gift, what knowledge, what passion is in you?  I don’t know about you.  But I got a stick.  It’s not much, but in God’s hands...

Shalom,

Derek

Hiding from Shadows

We’re on the threshold of Groundhog’s Day, aren't we?  That great feast day in the lives of the early church.  Groundhog’s Day.  Isn't it?  You've heard the story of the Sunday School teacher who was testing her charges on the events of Jesus life.  And not having great success.  She would ask about his teachings, she would ask about the miracles he performed, about the events of his life.  And nothing.  They sat and stared at her.  Like they had never heard of such a person.  Like she was speaking in a foreign tongue.  She began to panic and head to the easy stuff.  Christmas, what happened at Christmas?  They didn't know or wouldn't tell.  Tears were building in her eyes.  She asked about Easter.  Surely someone knew something about Easter, what happened on that great and glorious day.  Silence.  Until finally, one little girl raised her timid hand.  

The teacher almost leapt at her in hope, “yes, Mandy, you know about Easter, don’t you?”  Mandy nodded.  “That was the day,” she whispered, “the morning when after the terrible day of the cross, when Jesus hung there and died, for us he died, they say.”  “Yes,” teacher smiled a bright and beaming smile, “yes, that’s right.  But what happened that Easter morning, Mandy.”  Mandy’s brow furrowed, “The sun rose that day, after a dark night, and the stone in front of the tomb rolled away as though pushed by angels.”  Tears were forming in the teachers eyes and she encouraged Mandy to finish her story.  “And then,” she said, in awe and wonder, “Jesus stepped out of the tomb.”  “Yes, Mandy, yes!”  “And he saw his shadow and ran back inside and we had six more weeks of winter!”

Scared of a shadow.  And our own shadow at that.  The shadow of our inadequacies, the shadow of our failures, the shadow of our doubts and our fears.  Shadows doesn't seem adequate to describe them.  They are more substantial than that.  More like a burden that we bear.  More like a wound we carry.  They are there to weigh us down, to call us up short, to remind us that those dreams we dream are way out of our reach after all.  Six more weeks of winter are the least of our problems.

Exodus 3:11-12   But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"  12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." 

  

Just a taste of the whole story.  Actually Moses’ shadow is much more extensive than this one verse complaint.  But we would have had to read the rest of the chapter and part of the next one to get the whole sad story.  Pastor Mike Slaughter in “Dare to Dream” calls them Moses’ big buts.  We’ve got a dream, a God-sized dream, but our big buts get in the way.  

“But Moses said to God.”  In the next chapter and a bit Moses has five buts that get in the way.  This is just the first.  But in some ways it is the most all encompassing.  “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”  Who am I?  Who do I think I am?  I’m nothing, I’m nobody.  The biggest but of all.  Who am I?  Many of us are stricken with this sense of self doubt, that no matter what we have accomplished in our lives, we just don’t have what it takes to do the task that is before us.  Who am I?

Truth is sometimes this but comes from within, from our own doubts and fears.  But it also often from outside, from folks around us.  From enemies and friends alike.  The who do you think you are crowd, the ones who have us pegged, who pigeon-hole us, who tell us that we ought not have ideas above our station, who ... Well, you get the idea.  Sometimes our doubt are self-generated, other times they are planted there like bad seeds that grow into choking weeds until they become our identity.  Who am I?  Who did this, an enemy masquerading as a friend or a family member perhaps.  An enemy who stole our sense of self, our ability to hope.  Who am I?

Moses’ first but was a doozy, that’s for sure, but it wasn't his last one.  The next one is in the very next verse.  But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?"  (3:13) Moses felt like he needed an identity to bring to the people.  Maybe to pass a test, maybe to be a reminder.  It had been so long, four hundred years of slavery, they probably forgot.  Moses needed to establish credentials, he needed his secret decoder ring, his shiny gold badge to flip out and prove he was who he said he was.  “Who’s am I?”  That was the question he was asking, that was the but that held him back.

Well, that one doesn't really fit us, does it?  We don’t worry about names and credentials.  Do we?  No, we don’t.  Except when we say, but I don’t know enough.  I’m not spiritual enough.  I am not familiar enough with God to tell anyone about a life of faith.  When I know more, when I’m more familiar, then maybe, but not now.  Who am I?

God deals with that in a surprising way, but that’s a story for another time.  Here we are looking at Moses and his buts.  But number three is found in chapter four: “Then Moses answered, "But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, 'The LORD did not appear to you.'" (4:1) Ah, my favorite but of all.  “What if it doesn't work?”  A worst case scenario-ists dream.   What if it all falls apart?  What if nothing we try makes any difference?  What if the problem is too big or the inertia too great, what if the change is too threatening?  What if no one cares, if no one sees the advantage to freedom and prefers their slavery or their ignorance?  What if it doesn't work?

God’s answer to that but is next weeks lesson, so lets move on to but number four.  This one is the most reasonable but of all.  “But Moses said to the LORD, "O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."  (4:10) But, Lord, I don’t have what it takes.  We all know that it takes special gifts to do big important jobs.  If just anyone could do them, then anyone would do them.  I’m just ... me.  I’m not good enough, not smart enough, and doggone it, people don’t like me!  By the way, there is nothing in here about a stutter, no speech impediment.  Just isn't given to flowery speech, just doesn't think fast on his feet, just thinks of the witty reply an hour later after everyone has left.  But not glib enough to do this job, to convince the ruler of a nation to release those who have been captive for four hundred years.  I just don’t have it.

God says, who’s in charge of giving it?  Who’s in charge of making sure you have what you need?  Huh, me that’s who!  Now get out there and do the job!  Moses has one more but.  It’s the whiny one.  But he said, "O my Lord, please send someone else."  (4:13) No more excuses, no more reasons why he can’t do it.  Just a plain old “I don’t wanna!”  Send somebody else.  It’s too much, too scary, too painful, too lonely.

I could win all those hide and seek games if I wanted to, tucked away under the bush on the church lawn at twilight.  The problem is I didn't want to.  Once I got under there, I couldn't stand or sit or lie down.  You had to squat and clutch the trunk of the bush to keep from toppling over and landing in the prickly branches and worse, being found.  So, I held on, confident in my hiding place, watching them pass by all night long without finding me.  Until I heard the cry to come in free.  I had won.  So, I went to move out from under the bush, but I couldn't.  I had lost all the feeling in my legs, worse, it felt like my hip had popped out of joint and was now throbbing like I had been hit by a truck.  After a panicked few moments where I didn't know what to do, I managed to pry my fingers off the sticky bark and fall through the prickly branches and drag my unresponsive legs out from under the bush.  I lay on the cool wet grass crying in the dark, sure I was lost and alone and broken forever.  I’d never walk again, spend the rest of my days in a wheelchair, or worse simply expire there on the lawn in front of the church. Send somebody else.  Let me hide here in the dark, scared of my shadow, of my failure, of my pain.  I don’t want to play any more.  

I thought I would die there that night.  Until my brother came and told me I wasn't going to die, but that I’d better get home before mom gets mad.  God got mad at Moses and all his whining, but he still let his brother come and rescue him.  And in the end, that’s the best way to face the shadows, holding on to a brother or a sister in the faith, and dreaming God’s dream together.

Shalom,

Derek 

Stumbling Across God in the Back of Beyond

Where do you go to hide?  What an odd question with which to begin this week’s bible study.  Hide?  Who’s hiding?  I mean maybe as a kid we would hide, hide and seek.  It was a fun game.  When I was a kid I was really good at hide and seek.  We used to play in the yard of the church that my dad served.  It was a neighborhood church, which I now know was a small church, but at the time it seemed big enough for me.  There wasn't much yard, but there was enough to play and real good game of hide and seek.  

We would start in the twilight, just as the street lights were turning on and you were beginning to have to strain to see clearly.  Whoever was “it” would sit on the church steps and cover their face and we would scatter around the building and alleyway behind and our house across the street.  I loved to hide, and was pretty good at it.  Because I lived at the church I knew all the hiding places, inside and outside.  My favorite was in the bushes near the front door of the church.  They were low, landscape bushes that looked like they brushed the ground, leaving no room for hiders.  But I knew that if you got down on your belly and scooted under the low and prickly branches, you could find a little chamber inside next to the thin trunk of the bush.  It wasn't very big, not big enough to stand, or sit, or even kneel.  You kinda had to squat, bent over and clutching the trunk, trying to slow your breathing enough so that when the searchers walked past, they didn't hear your panting breath from underneath the impenetrable bush.  I was never found when I hid in that bush.  Could stay there for hours, it seemed like secure that no matter what no one would find me.  And I would win!

There aren't many games you can win by hiding, And yet it seems a common survival trait for many of us.  “What are you talking about?” you might be saying.  “I don’t have to hide from anyone!”  And you’re probably right.  You don’t hide, in a hide and seek kind of way.  But when was the last time you were really yourself with someone?  When the secret thoughts of your heart were shared in a public gathering?  When you told stories of who you used to be and who you wanted to be and who you had become?  When was the time you felt known?  And loved even though?

Being known isn't all that it’s cracked up to be.  Sometimes it is better to just keep your head down and keep moving forward.  Away.  Out of the picture.  Away from where you are known, where you can start over without carrying all the past that only gets in the way.  You want to go where nobody knows you name.  Right Moses?

Ah, Moses, our hero who hasn't been very heroic.  Our savior who had to run for his life.  You know his story, right?  Baby in a basket, survives his own birth by the skin of his teeth and the disobedience of some righteous women.  Rescued by a princess, raise in a palace, afforded all the advantages of the privileged class, except for a way to deal with the pesky sense of justice that inhabits his DNA and the growing realization that his status is built on the backs of those who suffer to serve him. And one day all these forces at war within him rise up and he strikes out in anger, killing a wielder of violence and oppressor of the weak.  But rather than hailed as a rescuer, he is feared as a perpetrator of an unjust system, and he realizes he only dealt with a symptom and hasn't eradicated a disease, he only damaged a cog in a vast machine that spins on laying waste to any in the way.  And worst of all he now realizes that he doesn't belong anywhere, among the ruling class whose clothes adorn his back he is a renegade, an outsider who no longer is fit to walk the gilded hallways; and among the slave class whose blood pumps through his veins he is the worst kind of oppressor, one who kills in anger.  So he does the only thing he can do, he runs.  And runs and runs and runs.  For forty years he runs and hides.  He makes some kind of life, hidden away from himself, from his past, from his heritage.  And he is content, out there in the back of beyond.  Until one day.

Exodus 3:1-6  Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.  3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up."  4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."  5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."  6 He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.  

Did you catch that?  He led his flock beyond the wilderness.  Beyond.  Actually the Hebrew says behind.  He went out behind the wilderness.  The wilderness is the “there be dragons” kind of place.  The edge, the outer limits, the danger zone.  And Moses, still trying to hide led his flock behind the wilderness.  Pay no attention to that man behind the wilderness.  That was the message he was sending.  Leave me alone.  I mean how far does a guy have to go before everyone leaves him the heck alone?  Behind the wilderness.  The back of beyond.  Far enough?

God shows up.  In the back of your beyond, God shows up.  In the place you went to hide from the world or just yourself, your history and your vulnerabilities, your blind spots and your habits that you swear you could stop at any time.  But hiding is safer, hiding means you don’t have to change anything.  Hiding means you don’t have to put with people who claim to love you but always telling you lighten up or calm down or get help or get out.  You’re happy with yourself out there in the back of beyond.  Who’s going to find you behind the wilderness?

God shows up.  So, what exactly did the bush look like?  A flame of fire, it says, but it wasn't burning.  A trick of the light, a sunset glowing through the branches of that bush in the back of beyond?  Who knows?  It caught his attention, Moses turned aside.  That means he set aside that which he thought was most important and went to see what God had in store.  He put his own plans and his own dreams aside long enough to see what his life might be like if he dreamed God’s dream.  Moses turned aside and found himself on holy ground.

Wait a minute, you’re thinking, he didn't know it was God.  He didn't know he was about to be called the deliverer.  He just saw something shiny, a trick of the light, an unexplained phenomenon.  That’s all.  Good job, grasshopper, you took the pebble from my hand.  He didn't know.  But knowing doesn't matter.  Openness does.  Certainty isn't a requirement for participating in God’s dream.  Willingness is.  

The ground wasn't holy because there was bush burning in it.  It wasn't even holy because there was an angel there.  Angels show up in all kinds of places, can’t get too excited about that.  No, it is holy because God shows up in the back of beyond.  God shows up behind the wilderness, just where you thought God would never go.  Truth is we should always walk around barefoot because any ground is holy ground because God is with us always, even to the end of the age.   

And God hands out a dream to Moses.  It was a dream that was woven into his bones.  It was a dream that he was made to dream.  It was a dream that drove him to act in such a way that got him exiled from home for forty years.  But that was when he was trying to work the dream on his own.  The dream of freedom, the dream of an end to slavery and oppression.  Now, he was partnered with God.  

“We've got some difficult days ahead.  But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.  And I don’t mind.  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life– longevity has its place.  But I’m not concerned about that now.  I just want to do God’s will.  And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.  And I’m so happy, tonight; I’m not worried about anything.  I’m not fearing any man.  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”  

The last speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ever gave.  “I just want to do God’s will.”  I just want to dream God’s dream, because I've been to the mountaintop, the back of beyond, behind the wilderness and God was there.

Shalom,

Derek 

Born to Fly

Never been a big fan of country music.  Sorry to those who love all things Country.  Yet, despite all her upbringing and indoctrination, my daughter has chosen to go her own way and become a bona fide country music fan.  When we drive back and forth to college she will often find a country station and because I indulge her way too much - just ask her mom who still hasn’t forgiven me for the New Year’s Eve New York City trip - I let her listen.  But she doesn’t just listen, she sings along, knowing most of the words to most of the songs.  All of which troubles me to no end.

What troubles me the most is that sometimes I find myself enjoying it.  Man, I hate it when that happens.  I am quite content in my prejudice most of the time, frankly.  Happy with the choices I’ve made, the preferences I hold.  But darn it, some of “that kind of thing” is good, catchy, singable, memorable, even, dare I say it, moving.

My daddy, he is grounded like the oak tree / My momma, she is as steady as the sun / Oh you know I love my folks, but I keep starin' down the road / Just lookin' for my one chance to run //  Hey 'cause I will soar away like the blackbird / I will blow in the wind like a seed / I will plant my heart in the garden of my dreams / And I will grow up where I want, wild and free

That’s Sara Evans’ “Born to Fly.”  And its about dreams.  Following dreams.  About the itch to stretch one’s wings and just go, where the wind blows, where the Spirit wills.  OK, maybe I’m reading into it.  But we are dreaming here at Aldersgate this Epiphany season.  Dreaming of what might be.  Dreaming of what God would have us do and be.  Trying to wrap our arms around our Big Hairy Audacious God-purpose (BHAG). 

Some wonder if we even need such a thing.  Maybe it was good for Jacob and his stairway dream, or Moses and his burning bush (a preview of coming attractions - stay tuned to this channel for more!), but for most of us it sounds a bit presumptuous to assume that we can even participate in changing the world.  And maybe it is presumptuous, maybe we ought to reign it in a little bit.  After all, Paul tells us in Romans 12:3 that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but to think with sober judgement.  And who among us would think we could eradicate poverty in Africa, or wipe out prejudice, or end bullying or whatever other BHAG might come into our minds when we aren’t thinking soberly.  

Maybe it is the scale that is daunting us.  Maybe we’ve been taught not to think so highly, as Paul says.  Lower our expectations.  Slow down there sparky.  Do get any ideas, ideas above your station.  Just stay close to your roots, where you began.  My daddy, he is grounded like the oak tree / My momma, she is as steady as the sun / Oh you know I love my folks, but I keep starin' down the road / Just lookin' for my one chance to run // Oh how do you wait for Heaven? / And who has that much time? / And how do you keep your feet on the ground? / When you know that you were born, you were born, yeah / You were born to fly

Maybe we were born to fly.  Not to think small thoughts, not to do just enough to keep our heads above water, but to actually fly.  The second chapter of Pastor Mike Slaughter’s book Dare to Dream is titled “Discovering your birthright.”  What were we made for?  

Ephesians 4:11-13  The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,  12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,  13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 

Who are you?  That’s one of the questions this process is designed to answer.  Who are you really?  What is within you, what gifts do you have?  And even more importantly what are you leaning toward?  I know, that’s an odd way of saying it.  But I don’t know how to describe it any better.  What are you leaning toward?  What draws you?  In what gravitational pull are you caught?  

Paul likes to talk about lists.  He’s got them all over the place.  Good stuff and bad stuff, helpful stuff and stuff to avoid, traits and aspects, fruit and body parts.  You want a list, go see Paul, he’ll fix you up with one.  But this one here in Ephesians is a little different.  Paul talks about gifts elsewhere (See Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 - Hmm 12?!?)  But this list is all about leadership.  It is all about community, about binding together, about growing and maturing so that we can all be one.  A couple of verses earlier in the chapter we have a sevenfold “one” passage.  We’re all about unity in this chapter.  All about sharing together.  All about living for and through one another.  Not in a sense of dependency, but in a mutual love and respect, challenging one another to live up to our full potential, acknowledging that we are better together than we are separately.  

Now, some argue that Paul didn’t write this list, or this letter.  In fact the argument goes the purpose of this letter, or at least this part of this letter was to institutionalize the church.  What we have here, some argue, is nothing less than an administrative flow chart for the early church.  Apostles above prophets who supervised evangelists who oversaw pastors and teachers.  Pastors and teachers, goes the argument, is not two roles but two dimensions of one role.  Which makes sense really.  In any administrative flow chart the lower you get on the hierarchy the more responsibilities each position is responsible for.  Pastors-slash-teachers did the nitty gritty day to day stuff, while the apostles got all the glory.  

Of course, some of us think this is - how shall we say it - hooey.  To assume such a level of organization to the fledgling church seems a bit of a reach, and to claim a hierarchical structure to an egalitarian movement also seems to miss the deeper point.  Don’t misunderstand, there were leaders and followers, there were authority figures even in the early church.  But the authority was an authority of the Spirit not of the office.  Leaders were those who evidenced the life of Christ at work within them.  They were the ones who glowed with the Presence of the Spirit.  They were the ones who listened to the call of the Spirit and dreamed the dreams.  They were the ones who we born to fly.

But what about us?  What if we were born to fly?  We don’t have the genetic prerequisite, we don’t have the heritage or the upbringing?  We aren’t of the right tribe?  What of us?  God can make children of Abraham out of the stones.  I heard that somewhere.  In this context that means we were all born to fly.  We were all born to fly.  To be all that God intended.  That we all have what it takes to be a leader, an apostle who embodies the presence of Christ in their whole lives, a prophet who has learned to see better than anyone else, to see God at work, to see the consequences of living without God, an evangelist who is so in love with the story that they can’t help but tell it in compelling ways every chance they get and tell it with wonder and hope and with joy, a pastor who’s whole heart is given over to caring for those who are struggling to find their feet on the path to God and who stoop to give a hand up to any and all who have fallen no matter how many times they stumble, or a teacher who wants to help anyone and everyone come to understanding of the workings of the Spirit in the world.  These aren’t offices of the institutional church no matter what we have done with them.  They are aspects of the body of Christ, they are manifestations of all of us, each of us, as we seek to be the community that we are called to be.  We don’t run for these offices, we let them be born in us by the Spirit.  These are acts of passion, not jobs to be done.  

Did you notice that word until in verse 13?  Until.  That means that what matters is not the office, not the job, not the role, but the body.  Until all of us - not some of us, a few of us - until all of us take wing and fly.  We are born to fly.  Why wait until Heaven?  Sara Evans is right, why wait?  Why stay on the ground, limited vision, limited hope, when we are born to fly?  Heaven is here, right here.  Let’s fly.

Shalom,

Derek 

Have a Dream

I know I’m early with the title reference.  I know that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is still a week away.  However, Selma was released this weekend and I heard an interview with lead actor David Oyelowo where he said that God told him he would play MLK in a major movie.  But he said to God, I’m British and it won’t happen and God said, just wait.

I know we are early with a reference to what was one of the greatest speeches/sermons in Civil Rights History.  But we are talking about dreams this week.  And there isn’t a bigger dream still hanging out there in front of all of us than the one the Dr. King shared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  A dream of equality, of an end to racism and prejudice.  A dream of a country that lives more by kingdom values than by the fears of an unsettled society.  An unrealized dream for many.  Well for all, to be honest, though it feels like many of us are living a realized dream.  But this kind of dream isn’t fulfilled for any until it is fulfilled for all.  

That’s why I messed with the title for this piece.  I know that if I started with “I Have a Dream” then everyone would have known what I meant.  But I didn’t want this to be about me and my dream.  I wanted it to be about my dream and your dream and all the dreams that surround us.  So, I went with “Have a Dream” instead.  Which I liked because while it had the reference that I wanted, it also sounded like I was dream peddler.  Standing on the street corner with my booth and my patter, asking folks if they wanted to have a dream.  I would be handing them out.  One to a customer.  But enough for all.  Have a dream.

I have just closed my eyes again / Climbed aboard the dream weaver train / Driver take away my worries of today / And leave tomorrow behind // Ooh dream weaver / I believe you can get me through the night / Ooh dream weaver / I believe we can reach the morning light

Ahem.  Excuse my channeling Gary Wright there for a moment.  Dream Weaver was popular the year I graduated from high school.  Since we’re all about dreams.  Dream peddler, dream weaver.  But not the same.  Sorry, Gary.  But Dream Weaver is about escape.  Fly me high and through the starry skies / Or maybe to an astral plane / Cross the highways of fantasy / Help me to forget today's pain.  

The dream peddler’s dreams aren’t about escape.  They are the opposite of escape.  They are about something more real than reality!  Realer reality?  Hmm.  While I sort out this linguistic conundrum, let me reveal the dream peddler’s secret identity.

Genesis 28:10-22  Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.  11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.  12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring;  14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.  15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."  16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place-- and I did not know it!"  17 And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."  18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.  19 He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.  20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear,  21 so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God,  22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you." 

But you knew that didn’t you?  You knew that what dreams may come don’t come from us, but from beyond us.  Above us.  Jacob didn’t go looking for a dream.  He was running for his life.  You knew that.  He had stolen his brother’s birthright and hightailed it out of town at his mother’s suggestion.  So, now exhausted and frightened he lay down to sleep on a stone for a pillow and got a dream.  

Now stop and think about that one for a minute.  Jacob.  Who’s name means trickster.  Who cheated his brother, tricked his father, and even in our story for today ends up trying to strike a deal with God (read the last few verses with your church voice turned off - what a piece of work!).  Yeah, Jacob, gets a dream.  And what a dream.  A dream with God at the top.  A dream of Presence and blessing.  A dream of the future and of today.  A dream that cleans up the mess of his yesterday.  And you thought you were too much of a mess for God to bother with?  You thought you were too broken, too empty, too ... bad for God’s purposes?  If there is any reason why Jacob is so prominent in the bible, it has to be that he’s there to show us that no one - and by no one we mean abso-freaking-lutely no one - is outside the redemptive grace of God.  God’s got a dream for the likes of Jacob.  God’s got a dream for the likes of you.

Have a Dream.  But be warned.  Even though there is a first person singular pronoun in the original phrase - I have a dream - this is not a personal dream.  Or rather this is not a dream that is kept to the person.  This is a dream about changing the world.  The world.  Not a little corner of it.  The world.

Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. had no intention of sharing that dream that day?  He had another presentation prepared.  Another, some historians say, scholarly - almost pedantic - message to deliver to lay down the argument as to why racism is not healthy for us as a nation.  But when he stood to speak, Mahalia Jackson was sharing the steps there with him and said to him as he passed, “tell us your dream, Martin.”  So, he set aside the speech and gave the sermon.  He set aside the essay and shared the poem.  “I have a dream,” he declared, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

The dream wasn’t just his, it was, it is ours.  Dreams like these aren’t meant to be kept secret.  Aren’t meant to be locked away in our hearts and pondered.  They are to be shared.  They are to drive us to get up and do, to go out and change the world.

We start a new series this weekend at Aldersgate.  Jumping on the January resolutions and self-help bandwagon, it is title “Getting Control of Your Life.”  Based on the book, Dare to Dream by Pastor Mike Slaughter from Ginghamsburg UMC in Ohio, it is about grabbing hold of God-sized dream that will reshape us as individuals and as the community of faith that we are called to be.  

The hook in the title is that the only way for us to get control of our lives is by surrendering control.  The only way for us to wake up to the reality God has in store for us is to dream of worlds that aren’t yet and then live as though they were the most real thing we know.  Really real reality.

OK, I never fixed my linguistic problem.  But that’s ok.  I have a dream.  A dream with God at the top.  And now I’m a dream peddler.  Have a dream.

Surely the Lord is in this place.

Shalom,

Derek