This lyric comes from a song I've been digging the last couple of weeks by a guy I don't think I've ever heard of named Guy Forsyth. Don't click on this title to see him, rather go to www.guyforsyth.com and go to Listen on his website and the first track you can hear is Long, Long Time-all the lyrics are pretty good/socially biting and definitely written by someone in my age range.
I see it in the kids I work with. I see it in my own defeated sense of which path to take sometimes. Life is hard work and heroes are hard to come by. I've been trying to find poems/quotes that lifted me up and inspired me. In looking I found and remembered this one from my childhood.
Casey At The Bat
by Ernest L. Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.
The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that.
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake;
and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake.
So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat;
for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball.
And when the dust had lifted,
and men saw what had occurred,
there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat;
for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
and Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Casey.
"Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand,
and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone,
he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on.
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew,
but Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
and they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate.
He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
but there is no joy in Mudville --
mighty Casey has struck out.
For years I've known this poem and for years I've thought it was pretty depressing once I read it, on my best days just as a story without a happy ending and on my worst as a commentary for all of us, that more often than not we strike out-even when we seemed destined for greatness. And so it is that I came to find true solace in the following piece today as a companion to this one, as a telling of how true heroes get off the mat once they've fallen, and as a final peaceful ending-with redemptive teaching-to go along with the above classic. Check the beautiful video version out by clicking on the title of this blog or read the version at the link. That's right, from the minds at Johnnie Walker comes this uplifting sequel.
Once you've been there, lift your head up, and keep walking!
Nov 15, 2005
If I hide myself wherever I go am I ever really there?
Well, I've been away awhile, contemplating life and work and purpose and delivering a sermon that I expected to rattle the cages people were sleeping in. And it did. I didn't say many of the things they think I did, and I did say some things they didn't hear. This title is a line from a Barenaked Ladies Song. Check them out. And if you have time and energy and an open mind, read my sermon posted below. Some of it you've heard or read before. I was fully prepared to resign after they grabbed their pitch-forks and torches and ran at me. But God reminded me I don't have him figured out and I heard almost nothing but praise and honest reflection following. Hmm, hard to know anything isn't it? Special thanks to Chase for a Henri Nouwen quote that has been inspiring me about true saints, Laura for taking my call, Sean for his wise counsel, and you all for your prayers.
You know many of you get tired of the word change coming from me. I think it’s because you misunderstand me. You see when I speak of change I speak of changing this church, all churches, mankind even for the better. I see what could be and you see what could be lost. When I see your reaction to the word change I’m often left wondering if the river frozen over in winter still remembers it was once a raging current. I’m not trying to make you something you are not. I am merely trying to remind you of all that you could be. A few things happened this week that led me to the sermon I am about to deliver. I attended consistory Monday and left feeling discouraged and alone amidst a family torn apart. I had four conversations this week that made me feel like the wound inflicted here in this church was deeper than we had all even begun to realize. And I read this quote in a magazine, citing Dr. King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.I have always told you that I would use my time here in this pulpit to tell you what I had learned and share with you my perspective on events unfolding. I have prayed more this week than any week I can recall and slept as little as I have in many months. I stand before you one struggling to speak words of truth in a loving way. If you will allow me the next 15 to 20 minutes and really listen to the words God has laid on my heart, I offer up these thoughts with deepest humility to this family I have spent the last four years a part of.
Messengers of Hope
Written/Delivered by J.D. Rose
Delivered November 13, 2005
First United Church of Christ-Bluffton
2TI 4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
I give you this charge: Preach the Word. Today I am offering my version of what Paul writes to Timothy here in the fourth chapter of his second letter to his young friend and protégé. The passage that follows this is Paul’s goodbye to Timothy, the oft-quoted passage about fighting the good fight and finishing the race. I know only a little about fighting the good fight. I know nothing of finishing the race. I’ve been in the first few laps of mine for many years. What I do know is a great bit about being called. Today I have come to call you. Specifically, balcony and assorted Youth below, I am here to call you. I am here to give you this charge: Preach the Word!
We live in a world we’ve made out to be the enemy. What awaits us beyond the walls of our homes and our churches is too often villainous and evil, too often narrowed to regions of safety and peril, and too often relegated to a status where it is no longer connected to the lives we are living and where we are living them. Indeed we make much of life an either/or question, often choosing extremes as the only two possible conclusions. Things quickly become either right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, progressive or traditional, conservative or liberal-winners or losers.It makes life easier to separate the world in this way. When we can see the good and the bad around us we can more easily steer clear of sin and temptation. When we can identify those who are wrong we can remain apart from them in our rightness or at least in our less wrongness. But I’ve sat and listened to us speak in recent days and I’ve heard many of you ask the question What Would Jesus Do? And a few weeks ago a different version, What Will You Do With Jesus? But these questions too seem to separate us into categories of those who know the answer or those who do anything with Jesus at all. And while I would not suggest that evil doesn’t exist, or say to anyone of you not to use your head when heading into darker places that do exist in this world, I can also no longer allow this room of saints and sinners, each one of you each, to act like we’re not part of the problem. We’ve been running around here saying who is right and wrong, who belongs and does not, and missing the point I am afraid. The passage from the second letter to Timothy begins as a call to ministry and then becomes a reminder of how to minister: be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. Have we been correcting one another with patience? Have we been rebuking each other with careful instruction? Have we been encouraging each other? In the kingdom of God there are no winners and losers that aren’t also those who believe and those who do not.
Churches today wage war against one another while the imaginary world they’ve created grows blacker and whiter and the real world they aren’t ministering to grows only darker. First Thessalonians says we are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. Why aren’t we winning over this world of darkness for God? Because we’re having too much fun fighting over the spoils of a war that Jesus would have nothing to do with. Let me say this. Jesus liked division when it mattered, but not in the way we’ve been celebrating it. Jesus looked at a man as one of faith or of none. Jesus saw one as faithful or unfaithful, as a believer or a doubter, as a follower or one still lost, as one blessed or in need, as one to minister alongside of or one to minister to. Did he say there were consequences to being on the wrong side of him? Absolutely, but he never passed by one he could minister to because he thought they were unsavable. And he didn’t put you or me or any church in charge of deciding who was and was not saved.
I believe for all of our best intentions we have become a church that wants to have all of Jesus’ authority, but none of his accountability.
Paul says to Timothy that the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
When I first read this passage I imagined the comfort some of you would find in hearing this. I imagined that many of you would draw a line in your head from the words of the accusations in this passage to the United Church of Christ. I am no UCC apologist, defender, or ambassador here. While it is not my place to decide, nor my preference to advise you, it is clear this church and the UCC are headed in different directions that are not compatible. And we can debate whether or not the United Church of Christ has sound doctrine and it would accomplish about as much as it has already. But Paul is telling Timothy, his friend and student, to beware of something far closer to home than what some outside entity believes or professes. He is warning Timothy, he is warning us, about the tendency in man to surround himself with people he agrees with. What challenge is there in never engaging one another in dialogue, never debating as brother and sisters do? And what form of Christianity is it when at the end of our debates we tout the score and name the losers? For too long the young men and women of this church, all men and women of this church, have been waiting for the moment when we could let go and get back to a life more normal, without division and without circumstances thrust upon us. For it is impossible to live through what we’ve been living through and not feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy and dismay. And there are missing brothers and sisters that I don’t believe are coming back, and we are responsible for that regardless of our best intentions not anybody else. But for whatever reason we are here, we came today. To find God? To feel love? To be there for one another?
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place.
We are not inadequate and we are not helpless. If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith. You explain that Jesus would never turn someone away. You lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. The clouds have descended but they are leaving soon.
For those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
When I was 19, a college sophomore, a binge drinker, a high school football player turned party animal I came home for a weekend and found myself sitting in Sunday morning worship. That day a Professor from Eden Theological Seminary spoke at church, all about ministry as a vocation and what a seminary experience was like, and to be honest I tuned out most of it. But at the end he quoted Luke 17: 6 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it will obey you.” Then the Professor looked around the room and said that there were already those among us God was calling to the ministry, that the whole church knew who these young people were. He said that the church had given them a seed of faith and that a seminary would cultivate it and nurture it. And as soon the benediction was spoken I was barraged with numerous remarks that I was such a person. What a moment of awe and humility. My church family knew what I was, but they also knew what I could be. They encouraged me to become that.
To the young people in our midst who have known me I can only say that I could have never imagined you. I have still, but a mustard seed of faith and much of my faith is in you. I know very little about good fights, nothing about finishing the race, but I know what the Bible means when it says You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. That is the feeling one gets when he is fulfilling his call to serve God’s children. It is a poetic telling of the places God takes you to where you find strength from those unexpected things that surround you, like mountains and trees, and young people.
Paul says to Timothy and I say to you young people and all people here in this church, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Your ministry, what will it be? What gifts has God given you? Science? There is no better place for Christians to be than deconstructing the universe and finding God within it. Music? There is no better expression of the emotional depth of Man and his connection to God. Law? God gave us our law and His Truth remains the highest form of it. Will you write or paint or play your faith to life? Will you teach? Will you create something with your hands that can be put to use by mankind? Will you make something with your hands that inspires or challenges mankind? Will you be the one at the dying man’s bedside who displays faith in the last moments of a life spent in doubt? Will you serve mankind by doing his taxes, filling his prescriptions, delivering his mail, delivering his children, building his houses? Will you find a way to be a man or woman of faith in a world craving for good examples of them? And are any of you brave enough to stand here?
Are any of you brave enough to preach the Word?
I searched for the Filmore Theatre for 3 and a half hours. I walked over 6 miles in the wrong direction. When I finally found a little shop still open to ask for directions the reply to my question 'How can I get to the Filmore?' was the wide opening of eyes and the words 'You can't walk there. You need to call a cab.'
I did walk there, after walking another 5 miles in 90 minutes up and down massive hils. When I arrived I found each visitor to the Filmore is asked to take an apple from a large basket that sits in its opening hallway. This tradition stretches back to the Theatre's opening. I took an apple without hesitation and entered the theatre to see a large open room with a red curtained backdrop to a simple stage. Six large chandeliers hung above, lit purple. I looked around and people watched as I waited for the concert to begin.
This was San Francisco on a Saturday night. The concert I was about to see was Gillian Welch, a contemporary folk/bluegrass singer/songwriter best known for singing with Emmylou Harris and Allison Krauss on the 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?' soundtrack.
As I gazed across the room I made two snap judgments. One-people in San Francisco are hip and fashionable. Two-I am neither hip nor fashionable. They wore clothes that pushed the edges, they had perfect hair, they had the coolest glasses. There were women in boots and skirts with little stylish glasses and cherry lips. There were men with leather shoes and perfectly cuffed pants and tight fitting black shirts and highlights. I looked like I'd ben beaten on the way in.
Being from the Mid-West the stereotype is that San Francisco is full of gay people. A claim which I found to be mostly true. It is also full of black people and Asian people, Hispanics and Middle-Eastern people. There is just more of everybody in a city and more of the marginal in San Fancisco. At this concert I would say about half the room was gay or lesbian at first glance. I knew this because of obvious signs like kisses and handholding and informing symbols like rainbows on t-shirts. And for the other thirty-eight percent I just assumed. I also assumed that this was a largely liberal room.
I stood there proud of myself for being there. I wear my open-mindedness like a badge of courage, however naïve I really am. I wondered what the folks here at church would think of the sight of this room. I bet the sight of apples being eaten en masse by gay urban liberals would've gotten the smoke rising in some of you, at least symbolically. The crowd near the stage started clapping, the lights dimmed, Gillian Welch and an accompaniest came out on stage. I was impressed by Gillian's voice and his guitar. These were great musicians. I stood there in the midst of these San Francicans and wondered if they got the same message I did from the songs I was hearing. One song in particular struck me as the lyrics were something like 'We've got to find a spiritual way to make it through these days..."
I stood guessing how many believers there were in the room and trying to discern if this was why I had found my way to The Filmore-to see how many people in the world needed God. Then Gillian announced this was the last song of the set and began to play "I'll Fly Away". I almost chuckled at the thought of a room full of gay urban liberals standing and cheering to a Gospel song. But then I heard the singing...
Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away.
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away.
It wasn't just a few, it wasn't the half I'd assumed was straight, or the slight majority I'd have guessed were believers...
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
It was the whole room. Standing there together singing...
When the shadows of this life have flown,
I'll fly away.
Like a bird thrown, driven by the storm,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
Louder than our Sunday worship service. This was the middle of the most liberal city in America and a group of the most liberal people in it were singing a closing hymn. And I got it. I was being shown something that I've always known is true. God belongs to everyone. And everyone belongs to God.
Just a few more weary days and then,
I'll fly away.
To a land where joy shall never end,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory,
I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
So I give you a new question, Where Would Jesus Go?If he walked the earth today where would he go, what places would he seek out, and who would he spend time talking to? If you think it’s this room you have not read your Bible well. If you think it’s any church of any name you are sadly mistaken. Those dark places that we don’t go, those neighbors homes that we are leery of, those regions of peril, and places of danger and wrongness, that’s where he’d be. He’d walk squarely into The Filmore and explain how it is one fly’s away. He’d seek out those that we have pushed out of our churches and our society and he would hold their hands and they would know a love we failed to show them.
This is why the church needs you young people, because we are failing too often. We need creative capable intelligent inspired committed called men and women to show up to our seminaries and we need them today. We need you because Jesus is not here to go into the dark places and share the light. We need you because we have been called to do so. We need you because the clouds have descended, but they are not staying. We need you to remind us how to live, with patience and careful instruction. We need you to encourage us. We need you to inspire us.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day. But what have we been speaking of? How did we get here with such good intentions?
Let us no longer hold ourselves inside, nor the world at bay. Let us go where Jesus would go and be who Jesus would have us be. Let the divisions end now. The one between winners and losers. The one between the world and the church: between us and them, between you and me. The one between the places we would go and the places God would have us go.
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place. I’m afraid not for all of us. My time is running short and I am not alone. I love the kids in this church, and if you doubt that, you don’t know me. And I cling to this small seed of faith within me, and I put most of that faith in them. I listen for God’s calling and I try to be who it is that I truly am as he made me-as he is making me still. So I stand in front of you, below a cloudy sky, and assert that God does not belong to any of us unless he belongs to all of us. I stand here with one hope left in saving this church-all churches-all of mankind.
Youth look at me. Church family hear me.
If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You’ve already begun I can proudly tell you. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith and you lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. Pity on you who have only heard me say change, and not heard me call this church to be better. I leave it to you now to make this place a rushing river again. Yes. The clouds have descended but they are not staying.
We need messengers of hope.
You know many of you get tired of the word change coming from me. I think it’s because you misunderstand me. You see when I speak of change I speak of changing this church, all churches, mankind even for the better. I see what could be and you see what could be lost. When I see your reaction to the word change I’m often left wondering if the river frozen over in winter still remembers it was once a raging current. I’m not trying to make you something you are not. I am merely trying to remind you of all that you could be. A few things happened this week that led me to the sermon I am about to deliver. I attended consistory Monday and left feeling discouraged and alone amidst a family torn apart. I had four conversations this week that made me feel like the wound inflicted here in this church was deeper than we had all even begun to realize. And I read this quote in a magazine, citing Dr. King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.I have always told you that I would use my time here in this pulpit to tell you what I had learned and share with you my perspective on events unfolding. I have prayed more this week than any week I can recall and slept as little as I have in many months. I stand before you one struggling to speak words of truth in a loving way. If you will allow me the next 15 to 20 minutes and really listen to the words God has laid on my heart, I offer up these thoughts with deepest humility to this family I have spent the last four years a part of.
Messengers of Hope
Written/Delivered by J.D. Rose
Delivered November 13, 2005
First United Church of Christ-Bluffton
2TI 4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
I give you this charge: Preach the Word. Today I am offering my version of what Paul writes to Timothy here in the fourth chapter of his second letter to his young friend and protégé. The passage that follows this is Paul’s goodbye to Timothy, the oft-quoted passage about fighting the good fight and finishing the race. I know only a little about fighting the good fight. I know nothing of finishing the race. I’ve been in the first few laps of mine for many years. What I do know is a great bit about being called. Today I have come to call you. Specifically, balcony and assorted Youth below, I am here to call you. I am here to give you this charge: Preach the Word!
We live in a world we’ve made out to be the enemy. What awaits us beyond the walls of our homes and our churches is too often villainous and evil, too often narrowed to regions of safety and peril, and too often relegated to a status where it is no longer connected to the lives we are living and where we are living them. Indeed we make much of life an either/or question, often choosing extremes as the only two possible conclusions. Things quickly become either right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, progressive or traditional, conservative or liberal-winners or losers.It makes life easier to separate the world in this way. When we can see the good and the bad around us we can more easily steer clear of sin and temptation. When we can identify those who are wrong we can remain apart from them in our rightness or at least in our less wrongness. But I’ve sat and listened to us speak in recent days and I’ve heard many of you ask the question What Would Jesus Do? And a few weeks ago a different version, What Will You Do With Jesus? But these questions too seem to separate us into categories of those who know the answer or those who do anything with Jesus at all. And while I would not suggest that evil doesn’t exist, or say to anyone of you not to use your head when heading into darker places that do exist in this world, I can also no longer allow this room of saints and sinners, each one of you each, to act like we’re not part of the problem. We’ve been running around here saying who is right and wrong, who belongs and does not, and missing the point I am afraid. The passage from the second letter to Timothy begins as a call to ministry and then becomes a reminder of how to minister: be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. Have we been correcting one another with patience? Have we been rebuking each other with careful instruction? Have we been encouraging each other? In the kingdom of God there are no winners and losers that aren’t also those who believe and those who do not.
Churches today wage war against one another while the imaginary world they’ve created grows blacker and whiter and the real world they aren’t ministering to grows only darker. First Thessalonians says we are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. Why aren’t we winning over this world of darkness for God? Because we’re having too much fun fighting over the spoils of a war that Jesus would have nothing to do with. Let me say this. Jesus liked division when it mattered, but not in the way we’ve been celebrating it. Jesus looked at a man as one of faith or of none. Jesus saw one as faithful or unfaithful, as a believer or a doubter, as a follower or one still lost, as one blessed or in need, as one to minister alongside of or one to minister to. Did he say there were consequences to being on the wrong side of him? Absolutely, but he never passed by one he could minister to because he thought they were unsavable. And he didn’t put you or me or any church in charge of deciding who was and was not saved.
I believe for all of our best intentions we have become a church that wants to have all of Jesus’ authority, but none of his accountability.
Paul says to Timothy that the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
When I first read this passage I imagined the comfort some of you would find in hearing this. I imagined that many of you would draw a line in your head from the words of the accusations in this passage to the United Church of Christ. I am no UCC apologist, defender, or ambassador here. While it is not my place to decide, nor my preference to advise you, it is clear this church and the UCC are headed in different directions that are not compatible. And we can debate whether or not the United Church of Christ has sound doctrine and it would accomplish about as much as it has already. But Paul is telling Timothy, his friend and student, to beware of something far closer to home than what some outside entity believes or professes. He is warning Timothy, he is warning us, about the tendency in man to surround himself with people he agrees with. What challenge is there in never engaging one another in dialogue, never debating as brother and sisters do? And what form of Christianity is it when at the end of our debates we tout the score and name the losers? For too long the young men and women of this church, all men and women of this church, have been waiting for the moment when we could let go and get back to a life more normal, without division and without circumstances thrust upon us. For it is impossible to live through what we’ve been living through and not feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy and dismay. And there are missing brothers and sisters that I don’t believe are coming back, and we are responsible for that regardless of our best intentions not anybody else. But for whatever reason we are here, we came today. To find God? To feel love? To be there for one another?
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place.
We are not inadequate and we are not helpless. If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith. You explain that Jesus would never turn someone away. You lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. The clouds have descended but they are leaving soon.
For those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
When I was 19, a college sophomore, a binge drinker, a high school football player turned party animal I came home for a weekend and found myself sitting in Sunday morning worship. That day a Professor from Eden Theological Seminary spoke at church, all about ministry as a vocation and what a seminary experience was like, and to be honest I tuned out most of it. But at the end he quoted Luke 17: 6 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it will obey you.” Then the Professor looked around the room and said that there were already those among us God was calling to the ministry, that the whole church knew who these young people were. He said that the church had given them a seed of faith and that a seminary would cultivate it and nurture it. And as soon the benediction was spoken I was barraged with numerous remarks that I was such a person. What a moment of awe and humility. My church family knew what I was, but they also knew what I could be. They encouraged me to become that.
To the young people in our midst who have known me I can only say that I could have never imagined you. I have still, but a mustard seed of faith and much of my faith is in you. I know very little about good fights, nothing about finishing the race, but I know what the Bible means when it says You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. That is the feeling one gets when he is fulfilling his call to serve God’s children. It is a poetic telling of the places God takes you to where you find strength from those unexpected things that surround you, like mountains and trees, and young people.
Paul says to Timothy and I say to you young people and all people here in this church, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Your ministry, what will it be? What gifts has God given you? Science? There is no better place for Christians to be than deconstructing the universe and finding God within it. Music? There is no better expression of the emotional depth of Man and his connection to God. Law? God gave us our law and His Truth remains the highest form of it. Will you write or paint or play your faith to life? Will you teach? Will you create something with your hands that can be put to use by mankind? Will you make something with your hands that inspires or challenges mankind? Will you be the one at the dying man’s bedside who displays faith in the last moments of a life spent in doubt? Will you serve mankind by doing his taxes, filling his prescriptions, delivering his mail, delivering his children, building his houses? Will you find a way to be a man or woman of faith in a world craving for good examples of them? And are any of you brave enough to stand here?
Are any of you brave enough to preach the Word?
I searched for the Filmore Theatre for 3 and a half hours. I walked over 6 miles in the wrong direction. When I finally found a little shop still open to ask for directions the reply to my question 'How can I get to the Filmore?' was the wide opening of eyes and the words 'You can't walk there. You need to call a cab.'
I did walk there, after walking another 5 miles in 90 minutes up and down massive hils. When I arrived I found each visitor to the Filmore is asked to take an apple from a large basket that sits in its opening hallway. This tradition stretches back to the Theatre's opening. I took an apple without hesitation and entered the theatre to see a large open room with a red curtained backdrop to a simple stage. Six large chandeliers hung above, lit purple. I looked around and people watched as I waited for the concert to begin.
This was San Francisco on a Saturday night. The concert I was about to see was Gillian Welch, a contemporary folk/bluegrass singer/songwriter best known for singing with Emmylou Harris and Allison Krauss on the 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou?' soundtrack.
As I gazed across the room I made two snap judgments. One-people in San Francisco are hip and fashionable. Two-I am neither hip nor fashionable. They wore clothes that pushed the edges, they had perfect hair, they had the coolest glasses. There were women in boots and skirts with little stylish glasses and cherry lips. There were men with leather shoes and perfectly cuffed pants and tight fitting black shirts and highlights. I looked like I'd ben beaten on the way in.
Being from the Mid-West the stereotype is that San Francisco is full of gay people. A claim which I found to be mostly true. It is also full of black people and Asian people, Hispanics and Middle-Eastern people. There is just more of everybody in a city and more of the marginal in San Fancisco. At this concert I would say about half the room was gay or lesbian at first glance. I knew this because of obvious signs like kisses and handholding and informing symbols like rainbows on t-shirts. And for the other thirty-eight percent I just assumed. I also assumed that this was a largely liberal room.
I stood there proud of myself for being there. I wear my open-mindedness like a badge of courage, however naïve I really am. I wondered what the folks here at church would think of the sight of this room. I bet the sight of apples being eaten en masse by gay urban liberals would've gotten the smoke rising in some of you, at least symbolically. The crowd near the stage started clapping, the lights dimmed, Gillian Welch and an accompaniest came out on stage. I was impressed by Gillian's voice and his guitar. These were great musicians. I stood there in the midst of these San Francicans and wondered if they got the same message I did from the songs I was hearing. One song in particular struck me as the lyrics were something like 'We've got to find a spiritual way to make it through these days..."
I stood guessing how many believers there were in the room and trying to discern if this was why I had found my way to The Filmore-to see how many people in the world needed God. Then Gillian announced this was the last song of the set and began to play "I'll Fly Away". I almost chuckled at the thought of a room full of gay urban liberals standing and cheering to a Gospel song. But then I heard the singing...
Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away.
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away.
It wasn't just a few, it wasn't the half I'd assumed was straight, or the slight majority I'd have guessed were believers...
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
It was the whole room. Standing there together singing...
When the shadows of this life have flown,
I'll fly away.
Like a bird thrown, driven by the storm,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
Louder than our Sunday worship service. This was the middle of the most liberal city in America and a group of the most liberal people in it were singing a closing hymn. And I got it. I was being shown something that I've always known is true. God belongs to everyone. And everyone belongs to God.
Just a few more weary days and then,
I'll fly away.
To a land where joy shall never end,
I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, O Glory,
I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.
So I give you a new question, Where Would Jesus Go?If he walked the earth today where would he go, what places would he seek out, and who would he spend time talking to? If you think it’s this room you have not read your Bible well. If you think it’s any church of any name you are sadly mistaken. Those dark places that we don’t go, those neighbors homes that we are leery of, those regions of peril, and places of danger and wrongness, that’s where he’d be. He’d walk squarely into The Filmore and explain how it is one fly’s away. He’d seek out those that we have pushed out of our churches and our society and he would hold their hands and they would know a love we failed to show them.
This is why the church needs you young people, because we are failing too often. We need creative capable intelligent inspired committed called men and women to show up to our seminaries and we need them today. We need you because Jesus is not here to go into the dark places and share the light. We need you because we have been called to do so. We need you because the clouds have descended, but they are not staying. We need you to remind us how to live, with patience and careful instruction. We need you to encourage us. We need you to inspire us.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while waking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day. But what have we been speaking of? How did we get here with such good intentions?
Let us no longer hold ourselves inside, nor the world at bay. Let us go where Jesus would go and be who Jesus would have us be. Let the divisions end now. The one between winners and losers. The one between the world and the church: between us and them, between you and me. The one between the places we would go and the places God would have us go.
The chapter that follows this dismay, the one where faithfulness is rewarded and love becomes the rally cry, begins now in this place. I’m afraid not for all of us. My time is running short and I am not alone. I love the kids in this church, and if you doubt that, you don’t know me. And I cling to this small seed of faith within me, and I put most of that faith in them. I listen for God’s calling and I try to be who it is that I truly am as he made me-as he is making me still. So I stand in front of you, below a cloudy sky, and assert that God does not belong to any of us unless he belongs to all of us. I stand here with one hope left in saving this church-all churches-all of mankind.
Youth look at me. Church family hear me.
If you want to change this church, this community, denominations astray, this country, this world-you begin by raising up young people capable of changing it. You’ve already begun I can proudly tell you. You want to be the kind of Christian Paul taught Timothy to be then you raise up young men and women who can use what gifts God has given them to preach the Word, who can use their resources both mental and spiritual to read this Word and find the Truth in the midst of unsound doctrine. You want to turn this thing around right now, today? Then you start encouraging one other and you create an atmosphere of infectious joy that people will want to spend their lives recreating. You talk about love and hope and grace and faith and you lift up the least among us. You embrace the minority beliefs as valid, because they are equally when a brother or a sister holds them, and you give up on winning and you recommit yourself to serving Jesus Christ. Pity on you who have only heard me say change, and not heard me call this church to be better. I leave it to you now to make this place a rushing river again. Yes. The clouds have descended but they are not staying.
We need messengers of hope.
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