More Blessed to Give

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Malachi 3:6-10

Common English Bible (CEB)

6 I am the Lord, and I do not change;
        and you, children of Jacob, have not perished.

7 Ever since the time of your ancestors,
        you have deviated from my laws
            and have not kept them.
Return to me and I will return to you,
says the Lord of heavenly forces.
But you say,
    “How should we return?”
8 Should a person deceive God?
        Yet you deceive me.
But you say,
    “How have we deceived you?”
With your tenth-part gifts and offerings.
9 You are being cursed with a curse,
        and you, the entire nation, are robbing me.
10 Bring the whole tenth-part to the storage house so there might be food in my house.
        Please test me in this,
says the Lord of heavenly forces.
See whether I do not open all the windows of the heavens for you
        and empty out a blessing until there is enough.[a]

Some of you know that while we lived in Chicago I worked for the Archdiocese there, which is the Catholic church, and I had a co-worker there whose job included calling a lot of different churches to set up appointments and check on different things. And she told me one day that she had called this particular church, said the standard, “hi, this is Regina, how are you?” And to her surprise the woman on the phone without missing a beat said, “I’m blessed and highly favored how are you?”  She really wasn’t sure what the right response to that was so she just said, “ummm good, I guess.” She was really taken aback by this woman’s response and had no idea how to respond, we usually don’t think much about it and just “I’m good, how are you?” So this kind of became a little bit of a joke, I’d ask Regina how she was doing and she shoot back “blessed and highly favored.” I told my husband about it and whenever something good happened to us he’d say  “We are blessed and highly favored!” And although most of the time we were joking, there was at times this sense of surprise at the blessing or gift God was giving to us.

          I thought a lot this week about what it means to be blessed and what it meant when Jesus talked about being blessed. I think we use the term blessed a lot, maybe without thinking deeply about what it means. I feel like being blessed is the new way that people say “lucky.” I don’t think it’s a bad thing because it recognizes that whatever the blessing is, wasn’t pure luck, but somehow connected to God. It acknowledges God’s work in our everyday lives and conveys a deeper sense of gratitude for whatever it is. I see on Facebook daily people saying things like “I’m so blessed to have such a wonderful spouse, he or she did XYZ for me.” Or “We’re so blessed to live in a country where we are free.” Or “The barista at Starbucks accidently gave me a venti when I ordered a tall, I’m feeling blessed!” We feel blessed, we say we’re blessed when good things happen to us, when we’re thankful for things or people or circumstances in our lives. When Josh and I moved back here from Chicago, we really believed we were blessed to both have jobs, and even more that those jobs were close to the house that we already owned, and even more that our house was close to our families. All of those circumstances made us realize that it wasn’t our good fortune or hard work that made those things all happen, but that God was orchestrating all of those things together, to bless us. When we say that we’re blessed, I think most of the time we’re giving credit to and responding to God’s unmerited love and care for us. We see the blessing, not as something we’ve earned or deserved but a gift from God. I think this is a good understanding of being blessed and I want you to keep that understanding in your mind as we talk about how Jesus talked about blessings or being blessed.

          The title of today’s sermon comes from the book of Acts where the disciples quote Jesus as saying “It’s better to give than to receive.” For me this is one of those sayings that I would gladly tell you that I wholeheartedly agree with, I can even give you examples of when this has been true in my life. But if I asked you if you would rather have me give you this $100 bill or pull out your wallet and give me $100, I’m guessing you’d probably rather be on the receiving end, right? You’d at least think pretty hard about it. And if not I’ll be standing at that back of the sanctuary after church collecting your $100 that you really, really want to give to me. It’s not that we don’t agree with Jesus, but we don’t always fully live it out. We might apply it to certain aspects of our lives, but maybe not so much in others. At our church in Chicago, when they would have their new member meetings they would talk about tithing, giving 1/10^th of our income to the church and why we as members of the church are expected to do that. And I remember the pastors talking about how they would so often get questions afterwards like “So about that tithe thing, could I just give 10% of my time instead? Does that count?” The truth is that yes 10% of your time should be given to the church, but that’s in addition to your money, in addition to your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your witness. That’s not a very popular answer, but our commitment to God doesn’t just apply to one area of our lives. When we talk about stewardship we are talking about money, don’t get me wrong, but we’re really talking about all of the resources that God has entrusted you with.

          There’s another place in the Bible where Jesus talks about being blessed. He says “blessed” so many times in this sermon that we call it the Beatitudes. Beatitudes just means “happy” “fortunate” or “blissful” in Latin; so there’s your Latin lesson for the day. And truly I tell you it is better to give a Latin lesson than to receive one. Amen. (just one example!) So anyway in the Beatitudes Jesus outlines who is blessed, and he starts each statement with “Blessed are…” and the gospels each put this a little differently but here’s a summary: Blessed are the poor, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who weep, the meek, those who are hungry, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted, when others hate you and he says in Matthew: “Blessed are you when people revile and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you.” I’m not seeing people on Facebook or in their Christmas cards talking about how blessed they were this year because they mourned, or because they were persecuted or because they were hungry. Most of these things do not give us that sense of being blessed we talked about in the beginning. These things don’t illicit in me that sense of God’s unmerited love and care for us. It would make me feel tired, beaten down, sad and discouraged, maybe even abandoned, but not really blessed. But Jesus says over and over again, “Blessed are… blessed are..”

What Jesus does is he takes what our idea of being blessed looks like and turns it upside down. He was saying "Look, I know that you think that being blessed looks like living a comfortable life, not having problems or heartache or enemies, but that's not really being blessed, that's not what I'm talking about, that's not the real deep, life-giving, faith-strengthening blessing that I have in store for you. The way the world understands being blessed is not how I understand being blessed. It's too shallow, too easily disrupted, too dependent on things outside of you. Being blessed in the kingdom of God is different." 

Thankfully Jesus doesn’t just say all these people are blessed and leave us guessing why. He says things like, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are the peacemakers because they will be called children of God.” The blessing isn’t in the circumstance, being poor or grieving or keeping the peace, but in how it helps us to connect to God, to experience God’s love and care for us, to be in a more perfect relationship with God.

This is the same principle when we talk about it being more blessed to give than to receive. It's not the way that the world understands being blessed. Most people equate blessings with receiving, with accumulating, with increasing your wealth, your resources; but I’m not convinced that’s the only type of blessings that God offers to us. This is not how the world experiences or understands being blessed, but it is how Jesus talks about it. And because this is the way that Jesus talks about it, and because we’re followers of Jesus, I believe this is how God wants us to understand being blessed too. There’s a deeper wisdom here. It’s not something that I can logically explain to you, I can’t prove it to you, but I can challenge you to experience it, to live it out and prove it to yourself.

The scripture reading today from Malachi is maybe one you're heard before, maybe not. Malachi was a prophet and prophets tell people what God has to say to them. And in this reading Malachi was telling this community that they've gotten off track, that they're cheating God and one of the main ways that they were cheating God was by not tithing. They had started to withhold a little bit, keep a little more for themselves and God takes note. God sends Malachi to get them back on track because God wants them back, God wants to bless them. So God says to them: Bring the FULL tithe to the storehouse. The FULL tithe. Please test me in this, see if I don't throw open the windows of heaven and empty out blessings until there is enough. Test me, see if I don't make good on my promises. Do you know that this is the only time in the Bible that God tells us to test God? How many times do we hear, “do not test the Lord your God”? Jesus even refuses to test God when being tempted by Satan. But here, here when God is talking about our tithe, not just our money, but our time, our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, our witness: the FULL tithe, God says, "test me, put me to the test, please, I dare you. See if I don't rain down blessings, see if I don't do what I say I'll do." 

I do believe that God blesses us in the ways we understand blessings; by providing us more than what we need, by surprising us with miracles, and even by giving us tangible things that we want or need, but I also believe that God calls us to understand being blessed as more than just those things. God wants us to understand that even when we don’t feel blessed, when we’re poor or mourning or being persecuted, that God is working to bless us in deeper ways those tangible, circumstantial things. Those blessings, the blessings that Jesus calls blessings are the ones that will grow our faith, increase our trust in God and lead us to a better relationship with God.

So I know that I may have scared you off from wanting to be blessed in the way that Jesus talks about it, I know that you probably just want the kind of blessings that the world considers blessings. That’s ok, me too. But when it comes down to it, we, as followers of Jesus need to take it a little further; because God says we’re supposed to; because there’s a very good chance that what God has for us is better than what we have planned for ourselves. So I’m going to challenge us all today, to take God’s words from Malachi very seriously and to test God. To offer our FULL tithe to God, to dare God to prove Godself to us and see if we aren’t more blessed by the giving of our tithe. I want you to seriously consider tithing, even if it’s only for 3 months, just to test God. I want you to take this risk, to go on this adventure of trusting God more and expecting, expecting that God will bless us more than we can imagine.

There are countless stories of people who have begun to tithe, to give to the church, maybe against their better judgment, and have found that God has truly blessed them. I wish I knew all of you better so that I could share your stories today. They might be like the family who was on a tight budget, but took this tithing challenge at their church, and then suddenly their computer crashed. They didn’t have any extra money to fix it or get a new one. And randomly, for no apparent reason, their neighbor came over with an extra computer that he had and just gave it to him. Or the family whose check engine light came on, they figured that it would probably cost $200-300 to fix, just about the tithe for that month. They decided to tithe it and when they took the car into the mechanic he couldn’t find anything wrong with the car. We had a pastor who would tell the story about how his uncle who owned a used car lot was a faith tither, most people wouldn’t expect it of him, but he was. And when he retired and his son took over the business, his son didn't tithe and all sorts of things started to go wrong, so he went to his dad and told him what was going on. His dad asked if he had been tithing, and the son said no, so he told him to find the nearest church and go tithe immediately, he didn’t care which church. Miraculously, he did and things turned around for the business. All of these stories, all of your stories of giving to the church are testaments to God’s love and care for us. And while we wouldn’t hesitate to say that they were blessed by the tangible resources that God provided, I’d argue today that the true blessing was their increased faith, their renewed trust in God and their ability to more fully participate in the ways that God is working in the world. So I invite you, I encourage you today to seriously consider your giving for the next year, I encourage you to put God to the test. I don’t make many guarantees, but I do guarantee if you test God in this, that we’ll be telling your stories next year about how much more blessed you were to give than to receive. Amen.

Jen Hibben, Associate Pastor

The Gift of the Church

Sermon at West Des Moines United Methodist Church on October 6, 2013 by Pastor Jen Hibben

​So today we’re finishing up our series based on our church-wide study I Am a Church Member by talking about the Church and church membership as a gift. Our church-wide study groups just got started this last week, so you can still join a group this week and not miss much. You’ll find a list of our groups and meeting times in the catalog in your pews and also information about signing up.

​I distinctly remember that I had to learn the word utopia. No doubt at some point in high school it was one of those vocabulary words that we had to learn to make it through English class. Utopia is a fancy word for a perfect world. As I was trying to think of what utopia might look like to me I was reminded of the movie, The Truman Show, did you see it? This movie director has essentially created a utopia for this guy named Truman Burbank, and everyone knows it but him.Everything is clean, the neighbors are friendly and well dressed, everyone’s polite and the sun always seems to be shining. Now that might not be what utopia might look like to you, but you get the point right? For some people that might look like a perfect world. So think for a second with me what a perfect world would look like for you, use your imagination. No war, no disease, no conflict, no calories. Lots of love and cooperation, lots of joy and peace. Well I bet we were all imagining things a little differently, that’s how utopias go, they’re usually only utopias for one person. In The Truman Show the whole utopia was based around him, what would keep him content and oblivious.

​Did you realize that Jesus talked a lot about utopia? Except we don’t call it utopia because utopias are made up, we call it the kingdom of God. And the great thing about the kingdom of God is that it is utopia for all of us. When we imagine utopia we all have bits and pieces of what the kingdom of God would look like. No war? Yeah, I’ll be that’s part of the kingdom of God. No calories? Well, that’s probably more in my utopia. Jesus used all kinds of metaphors and parables to try to show us what the kingdom of God might be like. A mustard seed, a pearl, a farm field, yeast, a gracious king. All pretty cryptic and most of them need a lot of explanation and study to make sense, but one thing Jesus said about the kingdom of God that isn’t quite as hard to understand is that the kingdom of God is already here. It’s already here, but it’s not fully here yet. He says in Luke chapter 17:

“God’s kingdom isn’t coming with signs that are easily noticed. 21 Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ Don’t you see? God’s kingdom is already among you.”

​I know that I used to make the mistake of thinking that we needed to wait for God to come back in some fiery chariot and destroy a bunch of stuff before things would be the way God wants them. But that’s not what Jesus said. Jesus said the kingdom is already among us. One of the biggest problems with waiting for God in a fiery chariot to bring the kingdom of God is that it lets us off the hook. If we can say nothing’s really going to get that much better until God intervenes, so whybother? then maybe what we do doesn’t matter so much, maybe we just have to ride it out and be on our best behavior so we’re on God’s good side. That’s too small of an idea of God for me. Because God did already intervene in this world, we call him Jesus. And Jesus doesn’t tell us to just hang on and be good people,Jesus insists that we participate in changing the world.

​And that brings us to the scripture for today. In this story Jesus knows that he’s going to be killed and he’s trying to prep them a bit. And one of the things that he does is sets the stage for the church. Jesus doesn’t put it this way, but I would say that Jesus gives to us, his disciples, the gift of the church and he gives the gift of the church to the world. An organization, a place, a group of people that among other things work together to bring more and more of the kingdom of God to this world. The church is the primary and the best way to bring more of the kingdom of God to the here and now.

​I think we forget this all too often when we think about church, but the church is one place where we can actively practice living like we’re living in the kingdom of God. The church is a place where we can actually create a utopia, God’s utopia, the kingdom of God. The church, this church can be place where everyone can be loved and cared for, where people don’t go hungry, where people are safe, where people can experience God, where people feel whole. The church is a gift to us, followers of Jesus, because it’s a chance to participate in andexperience the kingdom of God, a perfect world, the best place we can imagine. The church is a gift to us because it is a place where we learn what it’s like to live like God wants us to live, it’s a place to practice living like God has already come back, fiery chariot or not.

A lot of times churchy people talk about the inbreaking of the kingdom, those places where the kingdom of God breaks in. And I imagine it kind of like an egg, where there’s this pecking and finally it cracks and the crack starts to spread and the kingdom just oooozes out and covers more and more of the things around it. And I imagine this kingdom ooze gets all over us while we’re here and we take it out into the world with us and we leave it new places and then we come back and get more ooze all over ourselves and then we go back out into the world to leave it some other places and eventually the world around us starts to look different and eventually other cracks break through and the kingdom oozes out there too. I honestly get pumped up thinking about being a part of that.

And that’s the other way that the church is a gift, the church is absolutely NOT about creating a utopia within its walls for its members. It is a gift for its members if it can do that, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s not a country club or a secret society. The church is a gift to the world because the church when it operates as the body of Christ is the main agent for change in this world. We are God’s main agents for change in this world. The church is the body that takes its understanding of the kingdom of God and works to make the world around it look more and more like that. What we do matters. It’s each one of us taking that kingdom ooze to our work places, our schools, our friends, our neighbors and making those places look more like the kingdom too. It’s us coming together and intentionally finding ways to make the world look more like the kingdom of God. The church is a gift to the world, it’s a gift that Jesus gave to a messed up world and said, “Here, take this, this should make things better.” If we’re not making things better we are doing church wrong. If we’re not loving and caring for each and every person who walks through our doors we are doing church wrong. If they way that we treat people in here is no better than the way the world treats them then we are doing church wrong. If it doesn’t feel different in here then we are doing church wrong. If we’re not making the world around us look more like God’s kingdom then we are doing church wrong.

But sometimes we get it right. I think that the kingdom broke through lastyear during our first Fall Festival. I think that’s why we all loved it so much; it wasn’t actually because it was fun or “successful”. It’s because there was this big crack in our parking lot that oozed out the kingdom all over this neighborhood and for that night our parking lot looked a little more like the kingdom of God. And kids who might have had a bad day at school got to jump their hearts out in a bounce house. And people who were hungry ate hot dogs and candy. And kids whodidn’t have costumes were transformed by the facepainter. And for two hours that night we came together and we participated in the inbreaking of the kingdom. And our kids and our neighbors felted loved and cared for. And it felt magical didn’t it?  But we know that it wasn’t magic, it was the Holy Spirit working in and through and among us, empowering us to bring a little more of the kingdom here. And it was a gift to us, and it was a gift to the world. And that’s what the kingdom is like. The kingdom is God is like a Fall Festival at West Des Moines United Methodist Church. Amen.

Pastor Jen Hibben

The Serving Church

Sermon at West Des Moines United Methodist Church on September 15, 2013 by Pastor Jennifer Hibben

Killing Me Softly

Tom Shadyac

Listen here: 

Colossians 3:1-11

"So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). ⁶On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.⁷These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.

⁸But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. ⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices¹⁰and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!"     

     Some of you may have heard of a man named Tom Shadyac. He’s a movie director in LA, he’s directed movies like Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Liar Liar, Patch Adams and Bruce Almighty, he was the subject of one of our LifeTree Café sessions. He’s a pretty good example of Hollywood success and he lived his life that way too. Plenty of things, plenty of money, plenty of focus on himself. But Tom Shadyac might be more famous now for his dramatic lifestyle change than for the movies he made. You see after a bike accident that left him with what’s called a post-concussion syndrome where he continued to have headaches and other health problems after the accident, he started to think more deeply about his life, what he was doing with it and what needed to change. And because of that, he walked away from a lot of his former life. Tom now lives in a mobile home, he doesn’t have a lot of material possessions, he doesn’t focus so much on money, himself or the earthly idea of success, and he says he’s happier. He said to Oprah, "[We have] a very extrinsic model of success. You have to have a certain job status, a certain amount of wealth. ... I think true success is intrinsic. ... It's love. It's kindness. It's community." He gave up his former lifestyle, one that a lot of us would probably love to have and set his mind on different things, on love, kindness and community.

          The scripture reading for today is part of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and we have to imagine that their hearts and minds weren’t set on the right things, probably somewhat like Tom. Otherwise Paul wouldn’t have to tell them to, right? We can read between the lines and assume that this church was having some problems with some specific things: fornication, passion, impurity, evil, greed, anger, malice, wrath, slander, abusive language and lying, but also that their minds, and I’d say their hearts, just weren’t focused on the right things. He tells them to set their minds on things above and not things on earth, he tells them to put to death the earthly things. He tells them that they need to complete change their behavior, their perspective; they need to change their hearts and minds.

Honestly I have a hard time with the way that the Bible talks about change sometimes. It seems like here, Paul is giving the Colossians a list of things not to do and telling them to look a different direction as if that’s all there is to it. It’s so much harder for me. Maybe we’ve really complicated things, maybe for Paul and the Colossians all they really needed was self control and knowing what they should and shouldn’t do. But man, it’s not that easy for me. I remember so often Paul’s words in Romans 7 when he says “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.” We usually have an idea of what’s right and wrong, we usually know when we’re doing something that God wouldn’t be happy about, but it is so easy to keep on doing it. Especially with those sins that others might not see anything wrong with, those sins that we can easily hide or rationalize: judging people, gossip, not helping others, lying. So Paul is really calling the Colossians out, and I guess as we read this we probably feel like he’s calling us out a bit too. But what Paul is really calling the Colossians and us to do is to change. To make a fundamental change in the way we behave, the way we think, the way we operate, the way we look at the world. And I really wish he would have given us a little more instructions, a little more information, a little more to work with here. Paul, can you please tell us how to change?

There’s actually a lot out there about how to change, how to make changes in our lives. Just think about the numerous self-help books and website and personalities that are completely focused on helping us change those parts of ourselves that we don’t like. Whether it’s a physical characteristic, a destructive behavior or a relationship, there are plenty of people ready to help us change, ready to help us fix this problem. Some of you know that I studied social work before starting here and a lot of social work has to do with helping clients change. There are all types of therapeutic interventions to try to help the client change his or herself, his or her thoughts and behaviors or his or her environment. It’s a major part of the profession, so I think I’m supposed to know more about it than I do. But anyway there are a lot of theories on how we can help people change, how do people actually make healthy changes in their lives. I promise not to bore you with a bunch of theories, so I’ll just bore you with one. No, actually I found this really interesting in connection with our scripture today.

Gestalt is a German word for “essence or shape of an entity's complete form” and Gestalt psychology comes out of Berlin. So Gestalt psychology would say that whether we like it or not we’re going to change, so it’s the job of the therapist to help facilitate positive change and growth. And a big part of doing that is being aware of your whole self, the positive and the negative. We have to be aware of who we are in our environment, so we can make decisions and changes that get us where we want to go. He might say that if we work so hard to suppress the parts of ourselves that we don’t like, that we want to hide, then we can’t grow. The more we try to be who we are not, the more we stay the same. Now I don’t take that to mean that if we’re trying to be better people, better followers of Christ we won’t get anywhere; I take it to mean that if we try to deny and suppress the ugly parts of ourselves, if we try to hide our sin and pretend like we’re a new creation anyway, we’re still just the same, the sin isn’t gone.

This is a real important piece for me because I know how easy it is to just do the superficial work. To just stop doing XYZ, especially in front of others. To look like I’ve got my mind set on things above, by trying to suppress and ignore my sinful tendencies. But do you know what that does to me? It actually takes my eyes and my mind and my heart off of God. I start to be far more concerned about what I do, or don’t do, or say or don’t say than where the focus of all of my life, all of my being is. I actually become really focused on me. Do you ever feel that way? Like you’re kind of split, you’re doing what you should, but it still doesn’t feel right?

I think what Paul’s on to here is that all of our whole selves have to make this change, this shift to looking at things above. But that means we have to look at our whole selves, all of the sin, all of the junk, we can’t ignore it or suppress it. And while I really love social work and I think that it has great potential to help us change and grow, I’ve always believed that it falls short, that it inherently leaves out one really important thing, and that’s God. This passage really begs the question, how do we change? How do we set our minds on God? And there might be a lot of answers to that, but I think that the key is in the last verse, it says “but Christ is all and in all.” Christ is all and IN all. How do we change? How do we put to death the evil that lives in us, how do we set our minds on what’s above? Christ. Christ working in and through us through the Holy Spirit. Christ is all and he is in all, he is in every one of us. It is us being open to and working with the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds that not only helps us to focus on the right things, but that slowly puts to death, that softly kills the evil and sin in our lives.

So how do we really do this, how do be put to death those parts of us that are “earthly”? How do we set our minds on what’s above, on God, on God’s priorities? Well clearly it’s not simple, but I want to suggest a few things, a few tools that might help us as individuals and as a church. The first one I don’t like so much, but I’m pretty convicted that it’s a part of living this new life in Christ. And that’s Self-control, we have to be willing to consciously change our behavior. To do loving things when we don’t feel loving. To tell the truth when it’s going to get us in trouble. To keep our mouths shut when we have some really juicy gossip. We have to actively struggle against our tendencies to sin, we have to put that stuff to death, we have to work on killing it. It’s overwhelming at times because we’re so prone to sin, but like Gestalt’s theory of change would say we have to become more aware of it, we have to begin to recognize the sin within ourselves so we can kill it.

I’m going to being leading a group this fall about different ways to pray and one prayer created by Ignatius Loyola is the prayer of examen. Every day you sit with God and review your day, you thank God and ask God to show you those places where you fell short. It sounds painful, until you realize that it’s usually more painful to go on sinning. I invite you to come learn more about it in that prayer group, but this isn’t just a plug for the group, it’s to recognize that examining ourselves and becoming aware of our sin is an ongoing process and a important part of Christian life. If you want more info about the prayer of examen, I’ll put a link on the blog, or you can just come talk to me any time, but I encourage you to think about it as a tool we have as Christians to help us consciously change.  

So once we become aware of our sins, once we can point out when and where they’re happening, we can begin the work of putting them to death, of killing them through self control, through consciously trying to not do that which we hate.

Part of the reason I’m not a big fan of pushing self control as the solution to our problem is because we know that our sins run deeper than that. I know that we can force ourselves to do loving things to someone we don’t like, but we still don’t love them. The truth is that if we really love those people, we’ll do loving things anyway, right. And isn’t that the point? So how do we get there? How do we go past just doing the loving thing or just not doing the bad thing, but to a changed heart where the right and loving thing comes most naturally? I’d argue that self control can’t do that. This is where that key comes in, it’s not just us working on ourselves, Christ is in us and through the work of the Holy Spirit our hearts are being changed. The Holy Spirit is the one that teaches us how to really love our enemy, who guides when we don’t know what to do and who slowly works in our hearts to change them. If we ask and if we’re open to it, the Holy Spirit will work in us, putting to death, killing softly those parts of us that are what Paul calls earthly. We have to ask the Holy Spirit to work in us and we have to give the Holy Spirit permission to basically kill a part of us. The sin part, the hate part, the earthly parts. The writer of John says in chapter 3, ^“He must increase and I must decrease.” Christ is all and in all of us, Christ must increase and we must decrease. This is the work of being a Christian, we have to work together with the Holy Spirit so that we might be changed. We do the best we can from our end, but in the end we have to turn to the Holy Spirit for the deep down life-giving change. My prayer this week is the Holy Spirit does that, that we let Holy Spirit change us and that God will continue to work with us to give us new life. Praise God, Amen.

Pastor Jen Hibben

That Good Samaritan Story

Luke 10:25-37 as told by Lego people

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3GJCK4Wy-0)

Listen here:

         So, the Good Samaritan story. This is kind of a tough one to preach because I bet all of you could preach a sermon on it. Sermons about loving your enemy, about caring for those who are hurting, about doing the right thing even when it’s hard or inconvenient. And you’d all be right; the story of the Good Samaritan points us to all those things. They would all be really good sermons, but all sermons you've heard before. So what am I supposed to preach about?

Truthfully we live in a world where this story has lost its impact, where we can hear this story and not be uncomfortable or moved to change. You know when I lived in Chicago I took the train to work every day. And my route to work hit at least 4 beggar hot spots. My train station, the train itself, the stop I got off on and Michigan Ave. where I worked. I probably passed at least 4 or 5 people asking for money every day. And I helped 3 of them. 3 out of probably 300. I had easily rationalized to myself that I couldn't help everyone, so it was better not to really help anyone, I knew that there were organizations designed specifically to help people in their situation and reasoned that they should really just go to those places. And I got jaded, I once bought a man a pair of shoes. He had made flip flops out of cardboard in the winter and his feet were a mess. I saw him a lot because he would sit right outside of WaterTower place, this huge mall and when I took the bus, the stop was right in front. So I bought him a pair of shoes, and socks, don’t forget the socks! I gave them to him and he seemed so pleased and I felt so good. Until the next day I saw him with his cardboard flip flops asking for money again. It’s really easy to walk on by after that, it’s really easy tunnel our vision and just not see it any more. We just don’t see it anymore.

          Although we’re all pretty familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan, it’s not the only story going on in today’s scripture and I think, I pray that this other story will give us new insights into the Good Samaritan.

          The story starts with a lawyer, an expert in the law, asking Jesus a question. One of the main jobs of a lawyer is to ask questions. I know this because  I loved Mock Trial when I was in middle school and high school and one of my favorite parts was cross examination when I got to ask the witness for the other side questions. The great part about it was that I never asked a question I didn't know the answer to. Not once. My main goal was to get the witness to say what I already knew. And God forbid they said something that I didn't expect, because I was ready to prove them wrong. I only asked questions that I knew the answers to, so that I could get the answers that I wanted. And scholars would say that is what this lawyer is doing too based on Jesus’ response. The lawyer asks: “what do I have to do to inherit eternal life” and Jesus turns it around and asks him “what’s written in the law?” I mean, you’re the lawyer, the legal expert, what does it say? And the lawyer does know the answer, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he’s right, he knows it, Jesus knows it, but the lawyer doesn't stop there. He knows who God is, but he doesn't have a definition of neighbor. So he asks, “and who is my neighbor?” The lawyer is looking for the legal definition, something he can use as justification at the pearly gates if he has missed helping one of his neighbors now and then. I think ideally he’d like Jesus to really spell it out, Fredrick Buechner suggests something like this:

"A neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three statute miles from one's own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred to as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part than one is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be construed as neighbor to the party of the first part and one is oneself relieved of all responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever."1

          That would be really helpful, not just for the lawyer, but for us as well. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, God does not always give us a list of do’s and don’ts, what’s right and what’s wrong. Sure there are lists and there is right and wrong, but over and over again, Jesus challenges what was believed to be absolutely right or wrong in favor of doing what’s right or wrong in God’s eyes. And that very often causes us a lot of discomfort. We’d much rather have a firm definition, just like this lawyer, so that we too could be sure we toe the line and stay on God’s good side. But that’s not what Jesus offers, Jesus offers a story instead. Jesus is inviting the lawyer, inviting us to experience what it’s like to be a neighbor. Jesus refuses to give us a black and white definition of neighbor, but instead calls us to experience it, to feel what it’s like to be a neighbor. And guess what? It doesn’t seem to be all rainbows and unicorns.

          Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, someone who this lawyer probably despised, someone considered to be completely beyond his social, cultural, ethnic group. I would imagine it would be like the Taliban for some, or maybe Anti-Christian groups in Africa. We are not just talking about the guy at work that we don’t get along with, Jesus is picking out someone way more disliked than that. Now if Jesus could have easily made the Samaritan the one who was attacked and showed the lawyer that the Samaritan was his neighbor, that if he were to come across a beaten up Samaritan you should help him out. While that’s true, Jesus doesn’t do that. Jesus doesn’t make the Samaritan the victim, he makes him the hero. He makes puts the person or group of people that you despise the most into an example. Not just an example of a good and righteous thing to do, but somehow as the key to eternal life.

          I’m not sure how to convey to you the radicalness of this story. We’ve heard it so many times that I know it’s hard for me to imagine what story Jesus would tell us today in its place. We can imagine the Taliban or any other terrorist organization, we can think of that person at work that we don’t get along with, but somehow for me it still doesn’t quite come across as radical as what Jesus is really saying. I know we were all shocked, scared, confused and angry after the Boston Marathon bombing. We knew people that live there, people who were running the race, we heard the stories of the victims on the news. There was a real righteous anger flowing through our country. And then I started to see on Facebook a call to pray for one of the bombers, the one that was still alive, the one that was in the hospital. And all of a sudden I was pulled so strongly in two directions. I searched my mind for an argument that would allow me to continue to be angry, to comfort myself with the knowledge that one day he too would face God. I reasoned that God would want us to be angry, to speak out against violence against his children, to stand up to those trying to make us live in fear. God does not want us to live in fear! I thought that sounded pretty good, and you know, I still believe it, but God is not a God of one emotion, of one way, of one response. God is a God of possibilities, of black and white and shades of gray; our God is a God of justice, but our God is also a God of mercy and love. And I can’t deny God’s call for us to love and pray for our enemies and I couldn’t deny the fact I believe that that person who had committed such a horrible, horrible act, is a child of God. And it almost makes me sick, I have a physical reaction to that reality and what that means to a follower of Jesus.

And I wonder if it was like that for the lawyer. I wonder if he walked away with a lump in his throat or a sinking feeling in his stomach. Because it was that radical.

          Now I can pray for the Boston Bomber, the Taliban, people I don’t get along with, I can include them as my neighbors if they’re ever dying of the side of the road. I will call 911. But I have a sneaky suspicion that while we should absolutely include these persons in our definition of neighbor and treat them as such, that’s not all of what Jesus was really trying to show the lawyer and it’s not really what he’s trying to show us. What Jesus did by telling this story, what Jesus did by making the hated the hero, is not an attempt to help us define neighbor, but to help us to see our neighbor. It’s about seeing. The priest and the Levite saw the man as a burden, an inconvenience, a hassle, a waste of time. The Samaritan saw him as a neighbor. When we look at people, how do we see them? You can call everyone and their mom your neighbor, but when you look at them, do you SEE them as your neighbor?  Can you think of the person, the type of person that you would pass by? Someone who is a burden, an inconvenience, a waste of time? Someone that you believe deserves to be where they are. Whether that’s in a homeless shelter or in rehab or on the street or in prison. How can we begin to see those people as our neighbor? How can we possibly change the way we see the world?

          Some of you may be familiar with a man named Shane Claiborne. Shane lives in Philadelphia and at one point there was a lot of anti-homeless legislation and he reportedly prayed about what he should do about it. What is a follower of Jesus to do in this situation? I want to share with you a little bit of his story today as told to Fredo Villasenor.2

Shane and his friends prayed for inspiration on how to deal with the problem of the anti-homelessness legislation. They were inspired by Luke 14, where Jesus teaches how to throw a party: by inviting those that are not invited to anyone else’s party.

They invited their homeless friends to Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, one of the places where there was a no-feeding and no-sleeping ordinance in place. They held a worship service, complete with the serving of communion bread. They ended by sleeping in the park together, about 100 people total.

Shane said, “We did that night after night for lots of weeks and then, one night at about midnight when all of us were falling asleep, the police were ordered to come in and to arrest us.They swarmed in from all sides and they handcuffed us and took us to jail and we were charged for disorderly conduct. For sleeping.”

The group of activists fought the charges in court. Believing that the Holy Spirit would give them the words to defend themselves, they chose a homeless man with no background in law to represent them. And although his defense was as simple as standing up and saying to the judge, “Your honor, on behalf of the group,  I’d like to say we believe these laws are evil and wrong,” they won.

“The judge ended up saying, ‘You know, what’s in question is not whether or not these folks broke the law; what’s in question is the constitutionality and the rightness of the laws that we are passing in this city,’ And he said, ‘If it weren’t for people who broke the unjust laws, we wouldn’t have the freedom that we have.’ ”

The judge said that they were freedom fighters, not criminals; and he found them all not guilty on all charges.

Just this past year, Philadelphia again passed an anti-feeding ordinance. Claiborne and his co-activists challenged it by hosting public picnics. They brought a Catholic theologian to court to argue that feeding the poor is a sacrament.

He said, “We believe that we are feeding Jesus, and it is a violation of religious freedom to say, ‘You cannot do one of the most fundamental acts of human compassion, to feed someone who’s hungry,’ ”

In one instance, their lawyer said, “We are not willing to come before God, and when God says, ‘Did you feed me?’ we’re not going to say, ‘Sorry, our mayor wouldn’t let us.’ ”

The no-feeding ordinance has since been declared a violation of religious freedom by a federal judge.

He saw these people as his neighbor, really saw them as his neighbor and treated them as such. I think more than the rules about who is and isn’t our neighbor and how far we ought to go in serving them, what the scripture for today shows us, is how to look for, how to truly see everyone as our neighbors. Admittedly, it’s not easy, but God never promised us that. Friends God does promise to be with us through it, to work in our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit to help us to see, help us to love and help us to serve. We have to open ourselves up to the ways God wants to change our hearts and minds. It might not be changes that you want to make, it might involve some pretty radical stuff, but we can trust that it’s for our good and it’s for the good of God’s creation and God’s kingdodm. I pray that you think about how you see others this week, who you consider your neighbor. I pray that God will open your eyes and help you to see better. And I know that God will continue to empower you not just to love your neighbor as yourself, but to really see them. Amen.

1.http://frederickbuechner.com/content/weekly-sermon-illustration-neighbor

2.http://chqdaily.com/2013/07/07/claiborne-calls-for-christianity-to-be-loving-again/

Stubborness and Healing

2 Kings 5:1-14 NRSV

The Healing of Naaman
5 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.[a] 2 Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”[b] 4 So Naaman[c] went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”[d] 7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?[e] Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”
8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy![f] 12 Are not Abana[g] and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. 13 But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Listen here:

I want to share a picture with you this morning. Take a good look. I realize that the black eye might be the first thing you notice, but do not miss the creative hair cutting on the bangs. Believe it or not, this is me a few years ago and I was known to be a bit of a stubborn child. Actually a lot stubborn and I think my family tried to put it in a positive light by calling it “strong-willed.” And it often landed me in situations like this one. I’m sure none of you can imagine that and I’m even more sure none of you have had experiences with people like that. When I think about it now I bet there were hundreds of times that my parents, or relatives, or teachers or bosses or husband said to themselves, “Why is she making this so difficult?” “Why won’t she just listen and do what I tell her?” “Why is she being so stubborn?”

Well in the scripture for today we encounter a guy that I would consider pretty stubborn, Naaman. We learn early on that Naaman is a military leader of sorts; he’s a mighty warrior, he’s well respected not only by those he commands, but by the king as well. He has physical strength, political favor and military success, he is in a great position. Except for one thing. He has leprosy. He is a leper. The original language this was written in, the Hebrew, puts it this way “And the man was a great man – leprosy” And leprosy wasn’t just a physical problem at this time, it creates a social problem for him as well. He is unclean, potentially shunned from his community, he wears this defect on his skin wherever he goes. This is a big problem than can affect all of the other things he has going for him. He’s in a tough position.

This situation isn’t all that uncommon today. You’ve heard the saying that cancer or any other illness doesn’t discriminate. I bet we can all think of examples of powerful people, privileged people, people who have resources and clout but become the victim of a terrible illness, or a terrible accident or an unexpected life change. And they’re powerless, all of the things they’ve done to maintain a certain life none of it can’t save them, none of those things can’t fix it. Like Naaman no matter how much power, wealth, prestige they seem to have, they become powerless.

So in Naaman’s story all of a sudden we have this servant girl, who’s not just any servant, she is actually an enslaved captive of a military raid done by Naaman’s army. So he and his army had essentially kidnapped this little girl and brought her back to be a slave, to serve his wife. But this girl, this slave potentially has the answer, she knows how to get him out of this bind. She tells her mistress, Naaman’s wife that if he just goes to Samaria, there’s a prophet there that will heal him. And the tables are really turned here, Naaman who is powerful in almost all aspects of his life is powerless to heal himself from this illness. And this little slave girl who is essentially powerless is all aspects of her life, holds the key to his healing. I doubt that Naaman would have ever looked to that little girl or asked for her opinion about how he might be healed; I imagine he was actually pretty desperate to be taking her advice in the first place. I think about how often we only look to certain sources for information or guidance; we always want the expert opinion, the best in the field. But here we see that God chose this little, seemingly powerless girl to bring hope and healing.

So to Naaman’s credit, he listens. Maybe he’s desperate to try anything, maybe he had heard of a prophet in Samaria too, but either way he listens, he jumps at a chance for healing. Now the king also has an interest in getting one of his greatest military leaders healed as well so he sends Naaman off with gifts and letter to the king of Israel. Hopefully a nice letter and some bribes will help the king of Israel forget that this king and this warrior had ransacked their country not too long ago. So Naaman sets off in royal style to Israel.

So he gets there, gives the letter to the king, he reads the letter, rips his clothes and says “Am I God? to give death or life?” Now the king’s reaction seems a little odd to me. I mean it’s a little melodramatic doesn’t it. No need to tear your clothes buddy, just a little friendly request. But this letter potentially sets the king up for failure, the king thinks that Naaman’s king is try to give him an impossible task so he can fail at it and beat him up again. It seems like another dead end to Naaman, he traveled all the way to Israel desperate for some help and the king does not seem to be in a position to help him. But that’s not what happens.

What happens is Elisha enters the picture. Elisha is an important prophet in the Old Testament, he is a connection between the people of Israel and their God. Now I imagine that during this next part of the story Elisha is just working away on prophet stuff in his house, barely looks up and says dryly, “Tell the king this: ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn there is a prophet in Israel’” and then goes right back to his work. So somehow this gets back to Naaman and he heads over to Elisha’s place, finally about to get his healing, finally done with this nightmare. He arrives with his chariots and horse all the pomp and circumstance. And do you remember what Elisha does? He sends his servant out to talk to him. He doesn’t come out himself, I imagine he’s busy with prophet stuff, he doesn’t even send out a prophet in training, he sends out a servant to talk to the great and mighty Naaman. And he tells him that it’s real simple, just head on down to the Jordan River, wash yourself seven times and you’ll be healed. Have a nice day.

Sounds great, super easy, he’ll even get to go home with a bath, right? Wrong. Naaman is mad, really mad, the Bible says he went away in a rage, a rage. But why? He had the chance for healing, the chance to get what he came for. Elisha didn’t ask for something unreasonable, for money, or power or a diplomatic truce. Why won’t he do what Elisha tells him? Why won’t he make this easy on himself? Why is Naaman being so stubborn? Healing is right in front of him, it’s so close. It reminds me of horror movies which I generally don’t watch, but there always seems to be a scene where you want to scream “don’t go into the basement! Don’t open that door! Turn around and run!”  But they never do. And it makes me frustrated with Naaman, I would just tell him that if he can’t follow directions then he doesn’t deserve healing, he doesn’t deserve to get better, serves him right to wallow in his leprosy.

Now you see the Bible tells us that Naaman was mad because Elisha didn’t do what he expected. He didn’t conform to his expectations for healing. Naaman thought that he deserved a big ceremony, some laying on of hands, some holy words, maybe a big flash of lightening to cure him of this disease. But that’s not what he gets, he gets a servant telling him to take a bath, no 7 baths. How dare he! Who does he think he is sending that servant out here? Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn’t God know who God’s about to heal! Forget this, I’m going to go back to my country, wash myself in our rivers, I don’t need this.

Does that sound familiar or am I the only one that is that stubborn? It’s kind of painful right. It might even sound a little childish. Luckily Naaman is not hopeless because once again the powerless come to bring the powerful to healing. Naaman’s servants level with him: “Look if he had told you to do some elaborate thing, you would have done. So why is it so hard for you to do this easy thing and be healed? What’s the hold up? Why are you being so stubborn?”

I think we know what the holdup is, don’t we? It’s us. It’s our expectations, it’s our preconceived ideas about how and when God should do God’s job. If it doesn’t fit into our ideas, our limited possibilities for healing and wholeness then we’re not taking it. Get back to us God when you’re ready to do things our way, we’ll just sit her a little longer in our own filth. Jesus asks a man in John 5, “do you want to be healed?” Do we want to be healed? Of course! Do we want to be healed however God will heal us? Ummmm maybe not. Naaman experienced healing from unexpected sources, through the slave girl, through his servants, through the river in a land that he terrorized and ultimately through a God who called him to let go. A God that calls us to let go, to be open to wisdom and healing from unexpected place, from the powerless, but a God that always makes a way.

So do you want to know how I got that black eye? I will admit first that I had a self-hair-cutting problem as a child, but I am allowed to have scissors again. But really, my stubbornness got me that black eye. We were pretty much forbidden from going into my grandma’s attic, it was just a storage space with just beams on the floor. Which made it all the more awesome in my tiny mind, so one day my cousin and I decided we were going to explore the attic. I was determined, stubbornly clinging to the idea that there was something magical that I was missing up there and no one could tell me different. So we got up there, it was dark and hot, but there was a light coming from a little window with the exhaust fan in it. And this is where the horror movie reaction should kick it. No, don’t do it, stay away from the fan, turn around and run! And of course I did nothing of the sort. Instead I stuck my face in that fan and got quite the black eye.

We do this you realize? We stick our faces in the fan when we know it’s going to hurt. We deny ourselves the possibility of healing because we’re concerned about how it’ll look to other people, or what it’ll do to our social standing or who we’ll have to apologize to or how we’ll have to change the cozy little life we’ve built for ourselves. Do you want to be healed? Do you really want to be healed? The good news is that God is prepared to heal us, heal us from physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, environmental illness in our lives. And the even better news is that most of the time, most of the time, it doesn’t take the shape or form of what our little minds can imagine. So what healing are you looking for? What have you been asking God to change in your life? Today I want to challenge you to listen to the story of Naaman, and listen to what we would say to him: Why are you making this so hard on yourself? Why are you being so stubborn? Healing is right around corner, it’s so close. God is ready willing and able to heal you, you just have to do it God’s way. It may not look like you expected, and it may not be what you would have planned, but you can be healed, you can. You just have to let go, be open to the possibilities and let God do God’s thing. These are not just words for Naaman, these are words for us today. Thanks be to God, Amen.

Pastor Jen Hibben