when love comes to town

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, February 12, 2012 - part two of a three part reflection on our Mission Statement at First Church.

The mystical poet of Islam, Rumi, put it like this:

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right. It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others and fall in.
I should be suspicious
of what I want.

The equally mystical poet, Rilke, shared essentially the same truth in Germany 700 years later when he wrote:

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

And walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

Because of a church that stands in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,

Dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,

So that his children have to go far out into the world

Toward that same church, which he forgot.

Both poets know, like the Apostle Paul that left to ourselves most of us will rarely go deep enough into God’s grace and truth to be transformed into our best selves.  That is the human condition – we know what we could and even should do – but we cannot do it consistently, yes?  And we will almost never do it if left to our own devices.

And guess what?  WE are the evidence of this  truth – we ourselves – 
not my brother, not my sister but its ME,  O Lord, that’s standin’ in 
the need of prayer! So today I want to share with you some
thoughts about spiritual discipline.

You can call it moral or ethical training, the care and cultivation of the soul, authentic Christian formation or just good old sanctification, the point is the same:  we do not nourish our faith simply by doing whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it.  That is a stone-cold recipe for spiritual immaturity. Rather, we have been invited and encouraged to know what every athlete, artist or teacher will tell you:  the spiritual life takes practice. St. Paul gets it right here:

You've all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You're after one that's gold eternally. I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me! I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

And in our tradition, we have a very clear program for practicing the care and feeding of the soul:  worship.  How do we put it in our mission statement?  Look at the bottom of your bulletin and read it out loud with me if you will?

In community with God and each other we gather to worship, to reflect on our Christian faith, to do justice and to share compassion.

We gather to worship – not to gossip, not to complain, not to criticize or kvetch, not build up our businesses, not to tear down our enemies – we gather together with God and each other be a community of worship. Don’t get me wrong, like the Scriptures tell us, there IS a time for war and a time for peace, a time for dancing and a time for mourning – dare I go so far as to say a time for carping and kvetching, too?

·         In the Reformed tradition they call that… coffee hour.

·         But our mission statement doesn’t say we’ve been called into community together for coffee hour, it states we’ve been gathered together for worship.

Because, you see, there are 10 distinct practices or spiritual disciplines that we nourish within and among us in worship.  And each one helps us become more consistent in living like Christ – becoming our best and most true self – living into the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of self.

And here’s the thing: unless we come together regularly in worship, not only will we NOT practice these commitments in a consistent way, but we will grow to resemble the sloppy agape selfishness that passes for spirituality in the culture that surrounds us.

Here’s what I mean: back in Arizona some of the retired men used to tell me, “Pastor, you know I just feel more spiritual and at peace out on the golf course on Sunday mornings than I do at church.”  I know what they mean – and I’ve heard a hundred variations on it, too:  I feel more spiritual when I’m out running – or walking in the woods – or sitting alone in the quiet of my room meditating – or playing music – or baking bread – or reading poetry – or visiting with my family.

·         Now look, all of those things have their place, and I suspect the Lord’s name is used more out on the golf course than I could ever imagine.

·         But all of those activities are essentially selfish – the focus is upon self – and the hard truth about the human condition is that if we always do what we’ve always done, then we’ll always get what we’ve always got.

And what is the theological word that best describes what selfish human beings have always gotten when our hearts and souls are focused primarily upon the self?  Sin – alienation – separation from God’s grace in ways that diminish us individually and as a community:  we call that sin.  That’s why from the very beginning, our spiritual ancestors have encouraged us to practice a unique set of skills and disciplines that help us move beyond the limits of the kingdom of self.

The Shema – the essence of Judaism – puts it like this in Deuteronomy 6:

Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you're told so that you'll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.  Attention, Israel! God, our God, is the one and only!  So love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got!  Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

In our tradition, the Reformed Protestant way of being faithful, we, too have a clear set of practices and disciplines that we have come to see as essential for nourishing and healing the broken and even sinful soul. And all of them – all 10 of them - are practiced each time we gather for public worship.  “Worship,” writes Stanley Hauerwas, “is the activity to which all our skills and practices are ordered.” It is where we come to see and practice what it means to live a God-centered life. Anthony Robinson puts it like this:

The structured worship of the church is a rehearsal… a place where we take our parts as sons and daughters of God and act as if we are the holy church, a light unto the nations, the salt of the earth… In worship we practice the patterns of life together before God, rehearsing them over and over again until they become second nature to us.

So let me outline for you the 10 Key Practices of Worship that point us in the direction of living as sons and daughters of the Lord.  And you can take notes – or pick up a copy of this list on your way out of worship – or go to my blog but let me be clear:  we need to know this stuff, beloved.  This is life or death truth-telling – and not just for this congregation – but for our families, our community and our generation.

·    You know, all too often we treat worship and growing into the love of Christ as cheap grace:  God accepts us whoever we are and whatever we do.

·     And this is true – very, very true – but remember:  it is only a starting point for the Lord our God does not want us to remain in bondage to selfishness and living in the much of our sins.

What did Jesus do in this morning’s reading from St. Mark when the leper called out to him:  If you want to you can cleanse me?  He cast out the demon – he set the wounded soul free – so that he could be restored to community to share his gifts fully.  Like we said last week, he was raised up so that he might do what…?  Serve.

Now it is fascinating to me that in this story Mark tells us a few important truths that we might not appreciate if we read it quickly.  First, he tells us that the healed man thought he was being faithful but he did not do as Jesus asked him, right?

·         Jesus told him to keep the healing quiet, to go back and be restored to the synagogue community as was the custom of Moses and to get on with his life.

·         But what did the restored leper actually do?

He told everybody he met – and while this may have made him feel great and it probably did – it created a ton of problems for Jesus.  That’s what the closing verse in Mark is telling us:  Jesus now had to keep to the out-of-the-way places, no longer able to move freely in and out of the city because wherever he went, people found him and came from all over.

·        Did you get that?  By acting in a selfish and self-centered way this healed leper created countless problems for Jesus:  crowds that called attention to his ministry when he needed to keep things quiet, attention from the religious and political authorities of the day who were out to get him to say nothing of the sensationalism involved in this healing ministry.

·         I guess we can be grateful to God that we didn’t have the 24/7 news cable networks back in first century Palestine:  Christ’s ministry may never have gotten off the ground.

That’s one insight from the story that speaks to the importance of learning and practicing spiritual disciplines.  But there is another, too:  scholars tell us that there is some disagreement in the ancient manuscripts of Mark’s gospel.  Some say that Jesus was moved with great compassion for this broken soul, but others tell us that Jesus was moved by a great anger about the leper’s condition.

In fact, after the healing takes place the text says that Jesus snorted his instruction to the leper NOT to speak of this to anyone.  So what is going on here?  Why would the Lord be so angry about healing a leper?

·         What do you think?

·         Could it be – and I don’t think this is too much of a leap of faith – but could it be that Jesus was infuriated and heart-broken over the way evil and sin brings such suffering to real, live, living and breathing men, women and children?

That’s my hunch:  Jesus is heart-sick and furious about the fact that we have enough wealth to feed everyone, but not enough compassion.  That we have enough medical resources to reduce HIV/AIDS suffering throughout all of Africa but not enough soul to give up the profits – that we have been so addicted to the bottom-line ideology of the marketplace that any discussion of sharing gets polluted by words like socialism, welfare queens and worse – so that all we can do is celebrate the kingdom of self rather than the kingdom of God.  That’s my hunch:  then and now.

After all it is infuriating to be trapped on the treadmill of sin like a lab rat always doing what we’ve always done so that… we always get what we’ve always got. That’s one of the reasons I have to bite my tongue when some well-intentioned knucklehead tells me, “You know I feel more spiritual playing golf than I do going to church.” Ok… take a deep breath, James: the rant is over.  Let’s quickly review the 10 Practices That Worship Teaches Us that lead us closer to a God centered life.

First the discipline of keeping Sabbath:  many of us doing do this well, but Sabbath keeping is a way of living that teaches us that God can do without our effort for 24 hours. We are not the center of the universe – and if we can give up being in control for 24 hours – maybe we can learn to live like God is really God and we are not.  It is a discipline of rest and trust and refreshment.  “To keep Sabbath involves participation in a logic different from the logic of control, manipulation and activism… in favor of reflection, rest and receptivity.”

Second the discipline of praise:  We begin worship with praise – the praise of the Lord – so that we take a break from our “preoccupation with our own needs and concerns and to attend to what makes life good and healthy.”  By praising God we listen to a story and love that is bigger than ourselves so that we might be open to grace and gratitude.

Third is the discipline of confession of sin:  Anthony Robinson writes that “at its heart, sin seems to be centering life around oneself, acting and thinking like I am the center of the universe and taking myself far too seriously.”  Reinhold Niebuhr notes that sin is a fact of life because while we know the good we should do, we can’t and won’t do it consistently.  So confessing this truth in our lives and our world helps us own our part in the mess.  Most of us can easily name the sins of others, but confession brings it all back home so that we see the part we play in the evil of the world.

Fourth is the discipline of forgiveness:  if confession is about us, forgiveness sets us free from our guilt and failure. In fact, this practice helps us know that there is new life possible so that we don’t have to fake it.  We have been forgiven and raised up so that we might serve.

Fifth is the discipline of reconciliation:  that’s what the peace of Christ is all about.  It really isn’t a time to say hi to those you have missed.  Rather, the peace is all about extending to others the forgiveness you have experienced in Christ.  It is, as we say in the Lord’s Prayer, forgiving the debts of others as we have been forgiven.

Sixth is the discipline of listening for the Word of God:  not a passive act but one where we search both the scripture and the sermon for a word we need to hear and explore.  Listening for the word of God helps us hear the Lord on the radio – or in the movies – or on our computer or at work.  It is practice in opening our heart, ears, mind and soul to discovering the presence of God in the most unlikely places.

Seventh is the discipline of prayer:  and there are lots of different types of prayer.  Can you name some of the ways we pray during worship?

·         There is quiet or silent prayer – listening – and there are prayers we sing, too.

·         There are liturgical – or printed prayers – and free prayers that come from our joys and concerns.

·         There are prayers for us privately and for us as a community – there are prayers for the world – prayers that ask for God’s presence – prayers for insight and healing.

The eighth discipline we learn in worship is that of offering or sharing: we bring gifts to return to the Lord out of gratitude. Once people brought grain and fruit and animals, later this became financial gifts. And as one worship leader put it, “This is one of the most countercultural practice the church offers… because without the encouragement of the community, I doubt that I would have formed a pattern of giving away a significant percentage of my income.” We’re asked to hoard, to practice looking out for number one – the kingdom of self against the kingdom of God – and so we are asked to go beyond what comes naturally and learn to share.

Ninth is the discipline of sacrament:  We are invited to come to the table of God’s grace in Holy Communion, we are asked to surrender our control to God’s grace in baptism.  In both we are trained “to look for the holy that is hidden in ordinary places and everyday things.” If we can come to see and know God in bread and wine and water, then maybe we can come to experience God in the rest of our ordinary lives, too.  In the sacraments we learn to receive – to open our hands in humility – and recognize that God comes to us.

And tenth is the discipline of bearing witness:  we end worship with a benediction – literally a good word – to go out into the world to serve filled with God’s peace and grace.  That is, keep on doing in your ordinary and everyday lives what you have started to practice here.  We are to be witnesses to the world of God’s love.

Now here’s the down and dirty truth:  we won’t and can’t learn these commitments to being God-centered people all by ourselves. Left to ourselves we will often act like the leper in today’s story, running around like our experience is the center of the universe and mucking everything up for Jesus.  There are skills we need to practice.  There are commitments we must rehearse.

·         And they won’t happen at the gym – or the track – or the golf course – or at work – or sitting by yourself in the woods or at home.

·         They only happen when you gather together in community for worship.  This is where we learn how to claim a God-centered life.

So here’s an assignment – your homework for this week – bring someone else you love to worship.  Don’t pester them – don’t hassle them – no guilt tripping allowed, ok? Just know in your heart that you can help them become their best self by being a part of God’s people together in worship.  Don’t waste your time with those who have a ton of excuses – I used to but don’t any more – how did Jesus put it to his disciples:  sometimes you have to just shake the dust off your sandals and keep moving, yes?

·         Just invite gently someone you love or care about to worship – and keep inviting them tenderly from time to time – because this is where we learn how to get over ourselves and turn our hearts to the Lord.

·         And that is the good news for today for those who have ears to hear.

(NOTE:  I have used Anthony Robinson’s wonderful booklet, The Art of Faith: A Worship Centered Approach to the Disciplines of Faith, to guide my writing and these top ten are taken directly from this pamphlet with gratitude and respect.)