Preaching!

A sermon I gave this morning on 1 Peter 3:18-22.

Blessed are the Peacemakers (Part 3)

So what does this have to do with peacemaking?

You may have noticed our denomination is in a bit of a civil war. I hate to militarize our faith but it is the best way I can describe it. each side has their bridges drawn and the archers on their walls. One side calls the other bigots for not embracing homosexuals in the church. The other side questions the liberals commitment to Jesus and scripture. It is an ugly time.

"The difficulty with making peace is that we have to do it with people we do not like."

We are in a church where one side does not like the other. But what better place to practice peacemaking?!

I believe we all love being surrounded by like minded individuals. That can often be the hallmark of a good friendship. However, in my ministry God has consistently placed my in ministry settings in which my political and spiritual opinions are not in the majority. I have learned something lessons because of this. I have learned that we have more in common with people in the church that are on the "other side" than we hold in difference. We all want our kids to grow up loving God. We all want our churches to be growing vibrant places of worship. We all want to serve God joyfully in all areas of life, although we might disagree what that may look like. I also learned that as we practice peacemaking, the people we once counted as enemies become friends. It is this impossible thing where through reconciliation God actually does foster love between peoples of dissimilar backgrounds. Now some of the closest spiritual friends I have are people I only think are right about 60% of the time. However we can not help but love each other and listen to each other.

So go out and be peacemakers. Ask yourself, who are the people I may not particularly like but have earned the right to speak truth into my life? Amen.

Candidate

Tonight I went to c church meeting. they asked me a bunch of questions and now I am a Candidate for ministry. This is impressive to me but means so very little to everyone else. Even my own mother has trouble tracking the on goings of my church. I decided to give a little recap for everyone about the process.

Step 1: Inquirer= "Hey, I think I might want to be a pastor, let's check this out together."

Step 2: (12 months later) Candidate="I am sure I want to be a pastor let's take some tests and classes and get me smart enough to be one."

Step 3: (Another 12 months later) Ready To Receive a Call="I have jumped through all the hoops, filled out all the forms, taken all the tests, everyone has done their best to convince me to not be a pastor but yet I persist. Now I am just waiting for someone to hire me."

There that was not so complicated was it? It just takes a long time and if the hoops are not jumped through they might keep you in a step longer than you might like.

Speaking in Tongues

When I was young my father was what I have come to call a "Storm Chaser." He did not hunt down tornadoes like Bill Paxton in Twister. The storms he was looking for where charismatic expressions of the holy spirit. We would drive hours or sometimes days to get to some rumored 12 pew church when people were laughing or roaring or speaking in tongues. It was a unique way to be introduced into Christianity. By the time I officially became a christian I had seen exoticism and others speaking in unknown languages. I then went to a Presbyterian church and they "straightened me out." In the end I believed that some of the charismatic manifestation, most of them, were a mixture of hysteria and mental illness. 

It has been 15 years since I had much to do with Pentecostalism. It doesn't suit me but I am not writing to argue that it is evil or sad. I do not want to judge it. I mention it because last week in my Field Education group the question of speaking in tongues. This is one of those things that I used to do but have long since given up. But as our discussion continued I thought that maybe I should be so bold as to try and pick it up again. I will tell you why but first, for those of you unfamiliar with the process here is a brief introduction. 

In the book of Acts shortly after Easter the people of the early church are waiting in Jerusalem. Jesus had promised them that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell with them. When it did come the people of God started to preach in different languages. They were speaking in languages that were previously unknown by the speaker. It could also have been that the words were in their language but the ones listening heard it in their native tongue. This day the church grew significantly in membership and the people who were gathered there spread their faith through out the world. They were the church's first missionaries. This happened on the day that is called Pentecost and therefore people who express such overt manifestations of the spirit are sometimes called Pentecostals. However, this is not the only expression of divinely inspired language alteration. The Apostle Paul had some charismatic in him. IN 1 Cor 14:18-19 he says that he speaks in tongues more than anyone at that church and that this speaking is unintelligible. So there is a shift from Pentecost to Paul. Now the languages are intentionally not discernible to the average ear. A second spiritual gift is mentioned, the gift of interpretation. So tongues becomes a two part manifestation of God, speaking into the mysterious and manifesting God's word moving the mysterious to the comprehensible. Thanks to the magic of the internet here is a modern example of the practice. 

(Side note: Usually interpretation and the word come from separate people.) 

So here is why I am thinking about trying to pick it back up again.

1. Tongues allows God to remain mysterious.

I am in seminary. So much of my life is spent trying to understand God. However, the more I learn the more I realize there are parts of God I can never comprehend. Furthermore, there are parts of me that I do not understand. Tongues is a nebulous manifestation of God where the parts of me I do not understand can reach out to the parts of God I can not comprehend. There are few practices in life that allow for such a mysterious interaction.

2. It provides a space for communication with God that is based on celebration and not need. 

For me tongues is something you might never see me actually doing. It is a private prayer life kind of activity. I find that so much of my prayer life is focused around utility. I ask God for things. I pray for forgiveness. I focus on somehow changing my life, this world, or my relationship with God through prayer. Tongues forces me to simply be with God. It is often celebratory. It is true meditation of quiet reflection might accomplish the same thing but tongues is proactive. That active interaction is something that I enjoy. it also helps me focus for longer periods of time.

3. It makes me uncomfortable. There are some real freaks out there that speaking tongues.

I worry about simply babbling and looking like a fool before God. I worry about being swept away in a system of spiritual immaturity and abuse that I saw in the charismatic movement many years ago. I worry about claiming that God is speaking through me when it might simply be me speaking. If it is making me so uncomfortable then the truth might simply be that I am afraid. I am afraid that Christians and non-christians a like will think less of me. That I would end up looking like the woman above. I do not want to be held captive to fear. As for the worries, I am rather spiritually mature. I think I can navigate my way through those issues in a good manner. 

4. It is Bibilical. The bible calls tongues a gift of the spirit. I used to think that it is something someone receives from on high, like they did in Pentecost. But looking at the other gifts (teaching, preaching, faith, and administration to name a few) I see that every Christian uses these gifts to some extent. Some are better at one than the other but if one sticks around long enough they will live to manifest all of them. So why not give it a try? I may not be the best at it but the gift is not reserved for some class of spiritual elite.

Blessed are the Peacemakers (Part 2)

At this point, I have a confession to make. Growing up there was a group of people I did not necessarily like. It is fascinating that the people closest to us can hurt us the most.  This was true of my enemies They were liberal Christians. To me at that point in life there was one true expression of Christianity and I was following it as best I knew how. I did not like liberal Christians because I felt they were misrepresenting me to the world. I thought that they had abandoned the bible in order to promote their own social causes. (As a side note, these days I think all forms of Christianity run this risk.) To me there was one way of faith and all other expressions were at best misguided and at worst a slipper slop to apostasy.

Enter a girl. She and I were cut from the same spiritual cloth. Freshman year of high school she would have been right there with me in the park preaching. But five years later we were both in college and she had changed. She was no longer quoting the conservative talking points. Instead, she was protesting the war in Iraq and talking about enforcing child labor laws. She had "gone liberal" and I was concerned. However, there is another part of this story. She was my high school sweetheart. We had been through a lot together and she had earned a right in my life to be heard. I could not discredit her out of hand. There was a moment as we were driving to church one day when she turned to me and said, "I just don't see why we care so much about who is having sex with whom when there are people literally dying in our streets of hunger."

She got me.This is not to say I do not believe personal holiness and sexual purity are important. But the truth given to me that moment focused on the second half of that statement.  At that moment I had the mirror held up to my face and I noticed two things. First, I had been ignoring large portions of the bible to prop up my own understanding of faith. Second, this liberal person helped me see the truth that I had made myself blind.

So what does this story have to do with peacemaking?

Blessed are the Peacemeakers (Part 1)

The following is a sermon I gave last Monday at Fuller Presbyterian Chapel.


Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God

This is the verse that I would like to reflect on for our series entitled "Real Spirituality."  Particularly on the word "Peacemakers." This word comes with preconceived notions. Often around here at Fuller our minds drift to social justice issues. While it is true that feeding the poor and protecting the weak usher in God's peace on earth, I am also reminded of a phrase by fantasy novelist George R.R. Martin. He says, and I quote this loosely, "the difficulty with making peace is that you have to do it with people you do not necessarily like." Too often we confine peacemaking into areas where there is no other person. There is only a systematic evil. But today I want to talk about how making peace with people I do not like has shaped my spirituality.

Before I get there, let me take you into the "Way Back Machine." The year is 1996 and I am a freshman in high school. I had not eaten that day, not because I could not afford it but because I was fasting. I had heard a sermon a few weeks earlier about sharing my faith and so I decided to go out to my local park and bother some people, I mean preach the word. Scoping out the park there were some kids on the swings. i chose not to go to them in fear of coming off too creepy. To my left was a Latin American family grilling Carne Asada. I thought I might be in over my head with the cross cultural issues. Then I saw her. She was a 20something lady on he lunch break eating her egg salad sandwich alone. "Perfect!" I thought. As I approached her what I thought I said was something along the lines of "Can I share something with you?" What she must have heard was, "I just slapped your baby and taken your puppy!" Because right after I had finished my pitch she looked and me and yelled at the top of her lungs "GO AWAY!" Needless to say, that was the last time I tried street evangelism.

I mention this story because I think that it is a great representation of when I came from. My parents are socially, politically, and spiritually conservative. As a teenager my dad would hand me books by David Wilkerson and Chuck Colson. I even wanted to be "Left Behind" Just so I could be a part of the Tribulation Force. I roll my eyes now but I am not ashamed of this background. This was the way in which God chose to bring me to the cross. If it wasn't for this back ground I would never have learned about Jesus. However, my faith was incomplete.

A Lent of Blogging!

That time a year where for forty days we are supposed to give up some vice or pleasure in order to prepare for Jesus' death and resurrection. This is a ritual with deep catholic roots yet for some reason protestants have flocked to it. Some people like to re-imagine the period of lent and instead of giving up something they take up something that will be beneficial.

I have a confession to make. I am terrible at Lent. I always try to give up too much or end up having a serious lapse of judgement which leads to a breaking of the fast. I remember one year in college I gave up dairy, red meat and chocolate. Three days in I went on a bender and polished off a half gallon of chocolate milk and three cheese burgers. That is when I knew; Lent is hard for me. At the same time I love lent. I feel like Lent is a season where everyone is focused together on a spiritual time of renewal. I love being a part of it.

So this year I am going to participate in Lent. But instead of some spiritual discipline I am going to engage in a mental discipline. My goal is to blog 6 times a week. (Little known fact, Sundays in lent officially do not count to the fast. Nor do feast days such as St. Patrick's day. Which means between today, Ash Wednesday, and Easter there are actually somewhere around 45 days.)