Every End... Matthew 28

Dear Family,

There is a scene in "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," when Gandalf, the grey wizard, falls into the deep and disappears.  The gathering had lost their leader.  They felt abandoned.  Alone.  Confused.  And i think it is safe to say that they also felt scared and anxious about what the future held, without their leader.  But before he fell into the darkness, he shouted to the gathering, "Go, you fools.  Go..."  And then he was gone.

If they had stayed around, even to mourn their fallen leader, the fate of the world would have been lost.  They, the "Fellowship of the Ring," weren't just a group of rag tag people out on a road trip.  They had a purpose.  They had a reason.  They had a goal.  And just because one of their own, one that had led them through some trying seasons, just because he would no longer join them, walk with them, lead them, didn't mean the 'fellowship,' could turn around and quit, because all seemed lost.

The world needed them to get back up, dust themselves off, and finish the task that brought them together, and the fellowship did just that.  And they completed their journey and saved the world.  Sure Gandalf came back, but even if he hadn't, this group would have pushed through, to the end, finishing their task. 

Jesus faced the same reality as he met with his disciples, in Galilee, before he ascended into heaven.  He knew he had to leave them, and Jesus knew he had to prepare them for his departure.  Jesus was leaving, but as he promised, he would never leave them alone.  He would always send them someone, the Holy Spirit, an advocate, to guide and direct the steps of those left behind, and because they chose to respond and go into the world, baptizing the world, in the Trinity, the world felt the power of Jesus' love and salvation, and if the new 12 simply went away and hid, who knows what the world would have experienced.

This is now the challenge you face, at the West Milton Church of the Brethren.  I am not Gandalf or anything close, but i do love you all and have cherished this journey, over the last nine plus years.  But the God of Creation has called us to go, and we must go.  However, we must not be the only ones who go, all of you who have already entered the waters of baptism, must also go.  Go out and seek the lost.  Go out and make waves of peace.  Go out and open doors for people to experience the amazing love and healing power of Jesus.  We go back to McPherson, to answer God's call, but God calls each of us, even if the trip is to the Brickhouse, God calls each of us to go. 

And now, more than ever, the burden remains yours to take up.  It is time for you all to go and seek the lost, forsaken, and forgotten.  Go find the broken and sick.  Go find the divorced and hurting.  Go find the son or daughter suffering from AIDS.  I dont know who God will bring along your path if you all go, but i do know God will saturate your journey with the broken, if you all, from the board chair to the gardener to the deacon to the licensed minister to the pew warmer to the shut-in, if you go, God will overwhelm you with people who need Jesus.

But you must go.  And as we leave to begin our new narrative in McPherson, a wonderful opportunity sits on your doorstep. You no longer are bound to the 'old ways' of doing/being church.  You can and must blaze new trails and set new trends as a community of faith.  You, all of you, must own the ministry and mission, and when you do, watch out, because the doors will be flung open, and the people will come running.   There is simply too much pain in the world, and too much need for Jesus in the world, so when you go and welcome all back, watch what God will do.

And it all begins with a simple two letter word: GO!

Two letters, and yet they carry so much weight.  Go and love your neighbor.  Go and bring healing to the sick.  Go and restore relationships with people.  Go and make peace with your enemies.  Go and touch the 'least of these...' And when all this happens, when you claim the ministry as your own and you answer God's call to go, you will also realize this truth: Go and find God and abundant life.  Go and surely Jesus is with you all the rest of your days.  GO.  Amen.

Thank you for nine plus years of abundant love, mercy, grace, and acceptance.  You all have enriched our lives to a degree that thank you simply cannot express the fullness of our gratitude.  Thank you, and we love you all.  NOW GO! 

Shalom,
jerry

The Danger of Knowing: Matthew 27: 11-

Dear Family,

As many of you know, i enjoy, no i love, the theater.  I love the process of reading for a part with all the anxiety that comes with not knowing if i will or will not get the part that i desire.  Most of the time i did not get the choice role, but i cherished the journey, regardless.  In the rare times that i earned the role i sought, then the real work began.  From reading on that stressful day to the scheduling of rehearsals, learning lines, to the dress rehearsal, i loved the entire journey from the beginning to opening night and the amazing feeling i got when lights came up, the curtains opened, and the story began.

I loved the entire ride.  If only i acted better.

When i began my ascent into acting, i thought, for all the years i was in school, that developing the character was as simple as memorizing lines and doing the blocking that the director told us to.  I would, with a great memory, memorize my lines quickly, and then really spend a lot of time trying to master the blocking, but the art of delving into the character himself?  Well i just didn't feel the need.

I was a terrible actor, and i robbed the audience of the full experience because i simply learned the lines and retold the story, without any real work.  And when i, or any other actors for that matter, refuse to do the incredibly hard and stressful and emotional work of becoming the character, ensuring the drama unfolds to the glory of the author/writer/creator, we not only dishonor the storyteller but we handicap the full experience of the audience, simply by going through the motions.

Its easy to do, by the way.  Just read/rehearse the lines without really studying the character and how to become the person we play on stage.  Its really easy, and if the writing is really good and the directing is really good, then the audience can even miss the failures of some of the actors.  Even if the audience is oblivious to the failures of the actors, and even if the audience claims to have had a marvelous experience, if the actors failed to do all they should to give the greatest experience ever, the actors failed and robbed the audience of all that the story intended to say.

We see this all the time in acting, but what happens when the drama unfolding is the story of God and the audience is God Himself, and we are the actors?  What does that say about us if we can rehearse all the lines of the story, but in reality we have yet to dive, headfirst, into the powerful narrative of God?  Aren't we robbing God, dishonoring God, but also aren't we injuring the world because we have not immersed ourselves, our whole selves, into the master narrative, which is God saving the world.

We know all the lines.  We recite all the powerful moments in Scripture.  And we even praise Easter with sounds of "He is Risen!"  But just as i could recite the lines, while on stage, so too, many of us recite the lines to being a Christian, but we rarely become all that we are supposed to be when we profess to follow Jesus, and this failure is to the detriment of God and our neighbor.  But if we can learn to respect and revere the great narrative that is God redeeming the world, well then we can give the world what it needs so badly: A great story that brings the worlds to its knees in the greatest kneeling praise ovation possible.

And any church that is able to lead this powerful praise experience will experience something greater than full pews on Sunday, they will be showered with God's presence, living in the Shalom of God to the honor of God and our neighbors good.  Amen.

Shalom,

jerry

Power of Shame: Matthew 27: 1-10



Dear Family,

Shame cripples good people.  Guilt handicaps amazing brothers and sisters.  And feelings of not being good enough or not having any value destroys folks that who knows what they could have become had someone, anyone, possibly someone from church, would have helped free these people from darkness and bring them into light.

I am thinking a lot about shame, guilt, and darkness right now.  Not because i feel that way, but because one of my favorite all time football players, Junior Seau, killed himself.  We might not ever know all the reasons why Seau felt no hope, no light, no possibility for things to change, but we do know that those closest to him will spend the rest of their lives wondering what they could have done differently.  It is tragic to lose any loved one, but when that loved one takes his or her own life, well that adds layers and difficulties to the healing process.  In order for healing to come, we have to, eventually, learn to accept the tragedy.  How do we do that when suicide steals our loved one?

In light of Seau's suicide, it brings back memories of other folks, that i know personally, who have claimed their own life, and i spend a good deal of time reflecting, asking seeking answers to why they felt so lost, so hopeless that the only alternative was robbing themselves of life, but also hurting their loved ones so deeply.  And i do not have an answer.  I do not know how, why, or what to say or do when someone takes his or her own life.  Seminary and ministerial training simply cannot prepare us for everything we might encounter.  Some thing have to be left up to God, believing in the desperate pleas for answers, God will give us something greater: peace.

I know this is an odd approach to Judas's own suicide attempt.  I mean we often glaze over Judas taking his own life as retribution for his betrayal of Jesus, but as i read and reread this tragic turn of events, i have to wonder if Jesus really agrees that suicide is an acceptable end to Judas's misery and guilt?  If Jesus loved Judas, and i know He did, wouldn't Jesus want something greater even for Judas, who betrayed Him?  Wouldn't the Author of our faith, the Alpha and the Omega, the Prince of Peace, wouldn't He want more for Judas?

I think so.

Jesus didn't love superficially.  He loved perfectly.  Holistically.  And Jesus' love stretched beyond betrayers and enemies to create something greater: God's Perfect Kingdom.  This Kingdom came to bring light to those persons, which in reality could be all of us, who know only darkness, shame, ostracism, and pain.  Jesus brings hope.  A future.  A new day.  A new beginning.  Forgiveness.  Mercy.  Rebirth.  And not even Judas lives beyond Jesus' powerful, healing, salvific love.  But we will never know, because Judas didn't let Jesus heal his guilt and shame.  Judas gave up before Jesus could give Judas something miraculous: a new life, rebirth.

When we talk about Judas' suicide this Sunday, i want to invite us all to remember that Judas' death should never be celebrated, but mourned.  He lost all hope and took the only road he felt worthy to inhabit: suicide.  We must mourn his darkness and remember those persons, in our lives, in our communities, and in our world whose lives mirror Judas's, and they, like Judas, know only the long, dark road of despair.  May we bring light to their darkness so that fewer people are left wondering, like those who love Junior Seau, why... Amen.

Shalom,
jerry

We Would Have Fled-- Matthew 26: 31-55

Dear Family,

While i sat in Nicarry Chapel, on the campus of Bethany Theological Seminary, worshipping with my fellow graduates, thinking about living out the call to be border crossers, i thought about all the changes that are coming to the West Milton Church of the Brethren, to the McPherson Church of the Brethren, to my family, but the most significant changes will come to me.  I am about to find out how much i truly embrace and accept change.  Because to be a border crosser, as we learned this morning, means we sit between the tension of knowing/walking with Jesus during his three year ministry and the resurrection.  We stand between the known Jesus and the unknown stranger that meets us on our journey to Emmaus.  And we live in that space where we 'know' Jesus and His ghostly appearance, which creates more fear in us than peace, until Jesus breaks bread and reveals Himself once again.

This is the world we inhabit: what is realized and what is yet to come.  And to be border crossers means we do not, as we learned this morning, we do not rest in the known but we embrace the unknown with dignity, grace, and above all--Faith. 

I dont know if this has anything to do with the text for this Sunday, but as i reflect on today's graduation ceremony, i find my heart and my soul challenging me to be a better border crosser.  What is a border crosser?  Besides what i have alluded to in the previous paragraph, i think a border crosser is someone, of faith, who names what they truly are.  For us, that means we must accept the reality that, just like all the others, when and if we were in the garden, with Jesus, we would have run away faster than i do when i see a spider. 

We would have abandoned Jesus, and as a border crosser, as a people who long to love and honor Jesus, holistically, we must acknowledge that we would have run for the hills too.  To deny our denials is disingenious and dangerous.  Crossing borders and tearing down walls begins by naming our failures.  Why?

Because it reminds us to embrace the brokenness of the 'other' in our midst.  It helps us see that for the grace of God, we too would find ourselves in the gutter struggling to eat, drink, and know any sense of peace.  And because it refocuses our eyes on the being of our obsession: Jesus the Christ.  When we come to embrace Jesus, with all that we are, we do more than become the great border crossers that help lead a world from darkness into light, but we erase years of failures and open doors to possibilities.

Border crossers, as all disciples of Jesus should be, see and live in what is possible.  Period.

We would have denied Jesus, no doubt, but as a people of faith looking to emerge and exist apart from our past mistakes, as border crossers, we take every opportunity to rewrite our narratives in a way that brings all glory and honor to Jesus.  And what greater reason could there be to exist than to live in a manner that showers Jesus with love, honor, reverence, and obedience?  Amen.

Shalom,

jerry