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Week 5: “God’s Appeal”
We are not our own people anymore: made a new creation in Christ, reconciled to God, we are now entrusted by God to bear this reconciling treasure that makes us into a new creation, bear it into the world as ambassadors for Christ.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Wednesday, 25 March 2015; text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
It’s hard to speak for another person.
When someone criticizes our loved one, or has an issue with a friend we know well, we want to defend them. We want to speak for them, act on their behalf. Sometimes our friend is the one having difficulty with another, and out of love, we want to help. We’ll talk to another person on their behalf, smooth the way.
It’s just not the easiest thing to do. Often it’s the difficult situation that we’re not sure what our loved one would want us to say or do. Or, we can’t always explain another’s motives. Especially when others criticize someone we love, and the criticism seems valid. When our heart feels there must be a good reason for the problem, but our head isn’t sure what that is.
So what should we feel about Paul’s words today, that God is entrusting us with the job of “Ambassador for Christ”? If it’s hard to speak for a loved one, how much harder to speak for God?
The way some other Christians are living into this role of ambassador doesn’t help. They speak of a God whom we don’t recognize in the Scriptures, who doesn’t seem to be the Triune God whose love faced death for us and the world. When we’re offended or angered by how others represent Christ, we sometimes fear to be ambassadors ourselves.
There’s no need to fear. God’s taken care of both the job description and our ability to do it.
Paul reveals a joyful mystery of the treasure of God we bear within us.
Paul’s said we carry this treasure, God’s grace and love and forgiveness for us and the world, in clay jars, in our fragile, broken selves. Paul’s also said our bodies are a temporary tent compared to the house prepared for us in the coming world. This is only part of the grace.
Because even now, Paul says, this treasure of God’s reconciling with us and all humanity in Christ’s death and resurrection, is re-making us to be unrecognizable from what we were. Paul declares we are already transformed into this new creation, now, even with our fragile, clay lives. Even if we only see our failings, our weakness, in fact the forgiveness and life we already know has changed us.
We may need perspective to see this, a look back at the arc of our lives. Close up, we see how flawed we are. But if we climb to a better vantage point, turn around, and look back over the past five years, ten years, twenty years, we could see how the Spirit has transformed each of us into a new person. With this perspective, we realize Paul’s right: we aren’t looking at each other from a human point of view anymore. We see Christ in each other; others see Christ in us.
God makes us new so we can carry in our bodies God’s appeal to the world.
The Gospel truth is God needs us. God’s plan to restore all things in Christ will not happen without humanity being transformed from within. As people who are being transformed, God needs us to live this reconciliation into the world.
God has entrusted this message to us, Paul says. The treasure we carry in our hearts and lives is not given to us to keep. It changes us into new people, people who give the treasure away by our very lives in the world, so it reaches everyone. Only by sharing it can it change the world.
This transforms evangelism for us.
We are made new creations so we can be ambassadors for Christ, not sales people. An ambassador speaks for the one who sent her, carries messages on behalf of the one in whose name he comes. Ambassadors stand for their senders. We represent Christ in the world in our being, in our doing.
So we’re not selling “church” to anyone, or selling God. Evangelism – “Good Newsing” – isn’t about trying to attract people or increase numbers or convince others only we’re right.
Evangelism is bearing the Good News of God in Christ in our very bodies. So when people meet us they meet Christ. We bear forgiving grace so people actually experience it through us. We bear transforming love so people actually are touched by it when they are with us. We bear God’s relentless desire for all people to know God and know they are loved, so that people can’t miss it when we are with them.
Really, we’re like Mary.
Today is the feast of the Annunciation, which wasn’t on my mind two months ago when choosing this part of 2 Corinthians for today. But how wonderful to remember with this word from Paul that today Gabriel came to Mary and invited her to bear God’s Christ into the world.
That is precisely what God is doing to us through Paul. Except instead of giving birth to a child, we are made into God’s Christ ourselves, so that our lives, our words, our love, our hands, our voices, everything about us bears God’s grace in Christ.
We can do this, be this, because God is making us new so we can.
So we go, filled with joy in our calling.
And all our incentive is with Paul’s words: “the love of Christ urges us on.” This love we have come to know in Christ not only changes us. It gets us up in the morning eager to be Christ, motivates us to seek to grow and deepen as disciples, gives us the little bump we need to reach out to another in grace and love rather than hold back.
The love of Christ urges us on. And gives us all we need for this job.
What a joy and purpose for our lives. What a delight that God reaches people through us so they, too, know the hope and love and grace we so deeply drink in from God every day.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Week 4: "Hope for New Life"
Our time on earth, in these bodies, is short. Today, we are here together to experience the love and grace of God that abounds in this world. And when our time here is finished, we’re going home.
Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
Wednesday, 18 March 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:7, John 14:1-7, 25-29
My fellow sojourners in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Life is short! How many times have we heard it said, in different ways? Just before he is killed, William Shakespeare’s tragic hero Macbeth cries, “Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Some days, it feels like Shakespeare’s Macbeth has a point. The older we get, the faster life seems to go, and the harder it feels to keep up, until our candle will ultimately go out, our hour here expired. And some days, it does feel like we are walking shadows, doing a whole lot of strutting and fretting and not making much of a difference in this world.
In the Bible, The Book of Ecclesiastes begins its reflection on our lives with a similar feeling: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.”
I could easily use an hour, if we had one, just sharing quotes from authors and poets across the ages, but I will stop there!
Macbeth and Ecclesiastes are right about one thing. We are just here for a short time, in the scheme of things. In God’s time, it must seem like the blink of an eye. Because, as Paul reminds us today, this world is not our home. Not really. Our true home is in God’s house, the great beyond, heaven. We are more like tourists here, come to explore and experience a land that is not our own.
Our time on earth was never meant to be a long-term, permanent arrangement for us, but that does not mean, as Macbeth suggests, that our lives signify nothing. Because this where Macbeth got it wrong. Our lives on this earth, brief as they are, do have purpose and meaning, and we mean far more to God than mere shadow.
So, why are we here? How are we called to live, in the brief time we are given on this planet? This life is not simply a test that must be passed or a hoop to be jumped through in order for us to get to heaven when we die. There is already a place prepared for us there. It is our home. Jesus promised that there are many rooms in God’s house, and we don’t have to earn or prove our way in.
Our time on this earth is not a punishment or a penance, although there is suffering here. God created this world, and everything in it, and called it good. And there is good and abundance and beauty on this earth, along with the pain and brokenness that is also a part of our human experience.
If we are to know how to live, what to do with our short time on earth, we must first remember where we came from, whose we are. The story of our coming to this place, the story of our creation in the Book of Genesis, reveals God’s purpose, and our role here. Genesis tells us that God provided this world for us as a place of abundance, and beauty. God created us to be in relationship with the rest of God’s creation, while we are here.
We are in this life here on earth to do the work God has for us to do, and to enjoy the fruits of this world. We are to remember that creation was given to all of us as a gift, and we are called during our short time here to care for it and share its abundance with everyone. And God, knowing it would not be good for us to be here alone, created us to be in relationship with each other, to share the love of God with those around us. In short, we are here to live!
And God has not left us here to fend for ourselves. God is with us, loving us and guiding us. Paul writes that we are being inwardly renewed, even as our physical bodies age and we grow closer to death and the end of our time here. The world may see growing older as a sign that we are outliving our usefulness, but we walk by faith and not by sight. Aging, facing illness, even nearing death, does not lessen our worth as children of God. It just brings us closer to home.
We don’t need to be anxious or afraid about what will happen when we die. In a world that offers hundreds of ways to slow the aging process, look younger, and extend your life, this is not a message we hear often. Death is the end of our life here, but more significantly, it is our return home to the one who created us, the one who loves us without condition. We have nothing to fear in dying. Jesus promises us peace, not based in security in this world, but a peace that comes from knowing that God has a place for us when our life here is over.
Our time on earth, in these bodies, is short. Today, we are here together to experience the love and grace of God that abounds in this world. And when our time here is finished, we’re going home. You’re going home. Home to the place God has created, with a new body that will never fail. A home where separations and barriers between us and God and between us and others are swept away. A home that is without the suffering and brokenness of this world. So don’t let your hearts be troubled. There are many rooms in God’s house, and God has a place waiting just for you.
Thanks be to God!
Week 3: “So We Do Not Lose Heart”
The Triune God opens our hearts to care about our own sin and the world’s pain, fills our hearts with grace and mercy that cannot be killed, and so makes our hearts God’s heart for the world that will change everything.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Wednesday, 11 March 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 4:1-16a
Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
You have to have a heart to be concerned about losing it.
Paul’s beautiful encouragement today in 2 Corinthians only matters if we are so engaged in our lives and in the world that our hearts are committed and open.
There is much about our lives that is not what we are created to be. We are not always the loving person toward God and toward our neighbor Christ Jesus calls us to be. If we care about that, our hearts are at risk.
There is much about the world that is not what it was created to be. The suffering, pain, and evil we see in our city, nation, and world has damaged the good creation the Triune God made. If we care about that, our hearts are at risk.
There is much we fear about what we can’t control, including death. If we care about that, our hearts are at risk.
When our hearts engage with our own lives, with this world and its problems, with our fears, we risk losing them, having our courage fail us, falling into despair. But if we don’t engage our hearts, we lose everything of value to life in this world.
There’s a tremendous grace that helps us here, received when we gather together as Christ’s community: we find our hearts in the heart of God.
Here our hearts are opened and aligned with God’s.
Unlike most of the rest of our lives, we are called outside ourselves when we come here. We hear a Word from the God who made us, an external voice that calls to us to open our hearts to the truth so that we care.
Here we are reminded of our sinfulness, our flaws, our brokenness. That we keep coming back, knowing we’re going to hear more of that, means our hearts are being engaged. We are learning to care that we aren’t what God would have us be. Instead of ignoring that pain and pretending we’re just fine, as much of the world would, we come here for the truth, and it opens our hearts.
Here we are reminded of the good of God’s creation and the broken mess we have made. That we keep coming back, knowing we’re going to hear more of that, means our hearts are being engaged. We are learning to care about how God would have the world be. Instead of looking only to ourselves and ignoring the rest of the world, as much of our culture would, we come here for the truth, and it opens our hearts.
Most importantly, here we find the truth answering those deepest fears about what can harm us, what we can’t control. For here, in Word and Meal and community we receive the heart of the Triune God. We receive the love of God for us and for the world that led God to take on our existence and even suffer death on our behalf. Here we learn that God brings life to the world in Jesus’ resurrection, and we are loved fully, in spite of our flaws, our death, and the world is loved fully, in spite of its flaws, its death. We learn God’s heart is even more engaged with bringing life to death and brokenness and sin than ours ever can be.
We come here and are changed by this. Our hearts are shaped to be like God’s, to care as God cares.
That’s when the pain starts. The only way to avoid pain is to stop feeling. We can’t do that, now we care about our own brokenness and the world’s. So now we’re ready to hear Paul’s good news.
It sounds like Paul starts with the opposite. He says we’re fragile.
We’re like clay jars, easily broken. We face affliction, perplexion, persecution, even death, he says, because our hearts are engaged in the ministry God calls us to do, in ourselves and in the world. Fragile sounds like a bad thing.
It’s not. Paul’s helping us let go of that last protection we want. He’s saying if our hearts are engaged as Christ invites, expect it’s going to hurt. In other parts of the world Christians know this, as some are persecuted in horrible ways for living their heart-led, Christ-shaped ministry. In our safe country we’ve taught ourselves to expect no negative impact from committing our hearts and lives to serve Christ in the world. Paul says that’s foolish.
We’re fragile, breakable, clay jars. We’ve got no power or strength on our own. Which of course we already knew. The reason we shut off our hearts toward growing deeper as disciples or shut off our hearts toward the pain of the world, is that deep inside we realize we aren’t very strong. Imagining how we could become more Christlike in our loving in our personal lives, how much work that would take, how many things we’d have to change, is daunting because we know we aren’t strong enough. Imagining how we might make a difference in a world of evil and pain, how much work that would take, how many things would have to change, is daunting because we know we aren’t strong enough.
Paul says, Good. Now you’re starting to get it. You don’t have the power to do this. Now you’re ready to hear what’s really good about this news.
Here it is: we don’t need to have the strength because we are filled with the treasure of God’s grace and mercy.
This isn’t about us. It’s about God’s hope and dream. When we consider our own brokenness and sin or the pain of the world, no matter how huge a task of healing it seems, it doesn’t matter. We, fragile, clay, jars, carry in our hearts the death-destroying, eternally forgiving, unstoppably loving heart of the Triune God. We can risk our hearts engaging ourselves and the world because even if we are wounded, even if it costs a lot, even if we break to the point of death, we have God’s heart inside us giving us life.
We do not proclaim ourselves, Paul says. It’s not about us. We are vessels of the grace and mercy of God we have come to know in Christ Jesus, and that is all we need.
This treasure transforms us into completely different people.
We see everything now through the lens of God’s grace and mercy that is poured in us.
So we never look at our own problems the same again. So many, even in the church today, see their own issues and sin and difficulties and rarely ask, “What is God going to do about this in me?” There is nothing wrong with us and our lives that God cannot heal and transform. This is God’s truth that changes us.
We never look at the world’s problems the same again, either. How often, even in the church today, do people discuss what needs to be done, what problems ail society and the world, and rarely ask, “What is God going to do about this through us?” There is nothing wrong in this world that God cannot heal and transform. This is God’s truth that changes us.
So we do not lose heart.
We do not lose heart, even when we consider the work we each need to do to be people who love God and love neighbor with our every breath. God will make this happen in us. We do not lose heart, even when we consider the depth of work that needs to be done in this world to make it whole and at peace. God will make this happen through us. We do not lose heart, even when we see all the fearful things we can’t control, even death. God will bring life to us and the world in Christ Jesus; God will make this happen.
It is by God’s mercy we are engaged in this ministry, and we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear – to us and to the world – that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. It’s in God’s hands, always has been. We’re just blessed to be the vessels, fragile as we are, carrying God’s healing of the world and of our lives.
Now we get to see that grace extend to the whole world.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Week 2: "Gifted to Serve"
When we live in God’s love, we bear the fruit of sharing our gifts with the world. We don’t need to depend on our own competence or abilities, but trust in God working through us. Open yourself to the work of God through you in the world.
Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
Wednesday, 4 March 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 3:4-18, John 15:1-11
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
What are your greatest strengths? If it’s been a while since your last job interview, you may not have thought about that question lately. And if you are job seeking, just hearing me say that may give you sweaty palms! Usually, when someone asks this, we know they are looking for a reason to offer us a job—or not.
Especially in today’s competitive world, this question is an invitation to prove to a potential employer—and perhaps to ourselves—that we are the best candidate, that our gifts and talents outweigh those of all the other candidates hoping to come out on the top of the resume pile. Do we have enough years of experience? Good enough skills? The right degree?
Whether we are currently working for pay or not, the world judges us by the same standards. Either we are good enough, or we are not. And those of us who are not chosen, those not able to work because of illness or disability, those who have retired, even those choosing to be a full-time care-giver for our children or loved ones, can often be left feeling as if we don’t have anything valuable to give, and if we do, those around us aren’t seeing it.
There is a lot of competition out there—limited jobs, first place trophies, awards, and a lot of people scrambling for success. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and we are all aware that only so many dogs can win.
Paul points out to us today that God sees things differently. We tend to think of our strengths as skills we acquire through our own efforts, and how competent we are—how valuable we are in this world—is judged by how we measure up against those around us. But from God’s perspective, it’s not that. Or at least, it’s not only that.
In God’s view, the greatest strength we have is the ability to be “ministers of the new covenant of the Spirit,” the ability to serve God and others. And that is a gift that comes to each one of us from God, not from our own efforts. Each of us has a particular part to play, and God has given us everything we need to play it well. There are not a limited number of open positions on God’s team, and we don’t have to apply or compete to be included.
On God’s team, the abilities God has given us are not revealed through competition or display of our own effort and strength. We have gifts and value to offer the world simply because we are created and gifted by God. Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John that he is the vine, and we as branches are all tapped into the source of love and grace. Our gifts come directly from our connection to God, and because God works through us, we all bear fruit that reveals God’s glory.
This is really good news! We don’t have to prove ourselves to anyone, even God. We don’t ever need to be afraid that we have nothing to offer to the world. It is not about us being perfect, and therefore useful to God. In fact, it is just the opposite. In our uniqueness, even our imperfections, we are vessels of God just as we are.
We are most useful to God when we make ourselves vulnerable to God and others, and allow God to work in and through us. This is a really radical idea for us when we are surrounded by a culture that prizes individual achievement and self-sufficiency. How can our imperfection, our vulnerability, serve God and our community?
To be completely honest, there are moments when this scares me, because there is a part of me that feels like I am not capable of this. That no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to be that vulnerable. And then I realize that I have turned even surrender into a task to be judged, a competition that I can win or lose.
The truth is, on our own, we can’t do it, but we can have confidence in God’s presence with us. As Paul writes, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.” Our competence comes from God, and when we are open to the work of God in us, we are made more and more like Christ. Because we are connected to God, the love of God can reveal itself in everything we do.
Lest we be left thinking that we can sit back and rest and let God do all the work, Paul goes on to call us to be bold in the hope we have in Jesus. God gives us gifts not for ourselves, but for the good of the world, and we are called to use them, without fear.
Each of us is unique, and no one of us can replace another. God has work for each of us to do here, and God has equipped us to do the work. This means we are called to grow in our awareness of the gifts God has given us. We are called to ask God for guidance in where and how to use these gifts. And most importantly, we are called to remember that God is the source of all good things, and that we cannot claim anything as coming from ourselves. We are called to be stewards of gifts that do not belong to us.
Today’s scriptures are a celebration of God’s abundance that calls us to care for the gifts we have been given, and share them freely with the world. So, set aside for the moment any fear or doubt you may have. Know that God has entrusted you with work to do, and listen with new ears to this question: “What are your greatest strengths?”
Amen.
Week 1: “Consolation”
Pastor Joseph Crippen
Wednesday, 25 February 2015; texts: 2 Corinthians 1:3-7; Matthew 11:25-30
Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Life is hard for many.
We know this every time we hear of someone’s diagnosis, death of a loved one, problems with family; every time we hear of a catastrophic natural event, or violent attack. Much about life is good and blessed, but for many, even ourselves, life can be very difficult.
Paul begins this beautiful second letter to the Corinthian Christians immediately addressing this. In his first letter he wrote to a divided community, struggling to be the body of Christ with each other. His tone in this later letter is different. Paul speaks of the community’s struggles with the pain of this world, not each other. In the first half of this letter, our midweek focus this Lent, Paul proclaims God’s grace enters the world’s pain and suffering, transforming believers.
Paul envisions a community’s heart filled to the depths with Christ’s resurrection life, a life and truth that transforms. It gives us competence to be faithful disciples. It’s a treasure for the world contained in our fragile disciple bodies. It’s a hope in a future with God that infuses our present with joy. It’s reconciliation with God that through us is extended to the world.
Today we begin where Paul begins, with the abundant consolation we have from God in Christ Jesus.
It’s striking that while Paul begins this letter with suffering and affliction, his answer is not to dwell on it.
We might expect that if the pain of the community of faith were Paul’s initial point, this letter could focus only on those difficulties. But Paul uses this opening to introduce his theme for these people: we belong to God in Christ Jesus and that changes everything.
The word he uses here, translated “consolation,” or “console” primarily meant “encouragement,” “exhortation.” This is not consolation saying, “poor you, you’ve got it tough.” This is consolation that walks alongside someone in pain and gives support and encouragement, helps bear the burden. The Greek word literally means “called alongside.”
Paul declares that in Christ Jesus God has moved alongside us in our life, and shares all the suffering we and the world endure.
Jesus promises this in the Gospel, too, to walk alongside us and help us bear our burdens.
Jesus uses the brilliant image of yoked oxen. The yoke enables two oxen to share the load, pull together. Jesus invites us to be yoked to him, so he can pull for us, help us in whatever we struggle with. In dying on the cross and rising from the dead, Jesus showed he can bear the greatest burden we all face, our own deaths. Christ has carried that weight, so even when we face that reality for us and our loved ones, we are yoked into the strength and grace of the risen Lord and will be able to bear it.
This is Paul’s first word to his friends, to us: you belong to the Triune God in Christ Jesus, and so God is “called alongside” you, to encourage you, to bear your burdens with you. This is what Paul means by “consolation”: companionship with the Triune God, strength for our journey of life, grace to deal with whatever comes, even death.
But Paul’s got a deeper point about what this means for our lives.
This gift of being called alongside is now the community’s to offer to each other and the world.
We, belonging to Christ, who have the companionship, the “alongside-ness” of the Triune God, now are that same encouragement to others. We are “called alongside” each other. This is how God will truly be with people in all difficulty.
This letter proclaims the presence of God in the midst of the community, in the heart of the believers individually and collectively. From the start, this presence of God in our midst changes us to be the presence of God to others.
The community of faith serves each other as Christ visibly – able to be seen, tangibly – able to be touched. We are the real way God continues to walk alongside the people of this world.
The wonder is that by turning to the other we lose our own anxiety.
It’s easy to focus on our own pain, our own worries, as if we’re worse off than others. As Christ’s community, Paul says, we don’t have that option. We are made a community for each other and the world. By giving us the gift of knowing we are God’s presence to others, Paul turns us away from our focus on ourselves.
So St. Francis prayed that God would help him console others rather than seek to be consoled. Understand others more than worrying about whether others understood him. When we recognize our place as God’s healing grace walking alongside others – in our community, in the world – we quit feeling sorry for ourselves and find joy and grace in being God’s encouragement and accompanying presence to others.
Best of all, we actually make a difference in their lives walking alongside them, yoking to them, helping bear their burdens.
This is the great gift you, my sisters and brothers, are for me.
On several recent vacation Sundays I’ve realized I’m split in my appreciation for them. It’s good to have a Sunday off from work, a day of rest from my call. But the last thing I want to do on Sunday is find a place to worship, a community of faith. Here is where I want to be, even if I’m not supposed to be working. You are the presence of God in my life. You are the people “called alongside” me by God, who, yoked with me, help me bear my burdens.
Living in the presence of God, we are the presence of God, that’s Christ’s gift. Each of us sees God’s face of love and grace in the other, and is that same face to others.
That makes life far easier, no matter the circumstances. As we bear one another’s burdens, even as ours are borne by others, the encouragement and grace of God fills our hearts and lives and becomes a gift in the world.
Just as Christ planned.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
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