Here’s a preview of what we’ll be talking about:

Click here to check out this morning’s sermon.

————————

Scripture Text: John 20:1-18

This past Friday, we left this place in darkness. Christ had died. We had nailed him to the cross. And so we exited in darkness, overwhelmed with a sense of loss at the death of the one who had been sent by God.

The Gospel of John also begins the Easter story in darkness. “Early in the morning, while it was still dark…” John says. While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to a tomb because earlier in the week Jesus had been executed. And in his death, her hope had died also.

Of course, this wasn’t the onlytime someone’s hopes have been dashed. Everyone of us knows those moments of utter darkness.

• Earlier this week a woman was called into her supervisor’s office to hear that times were hard for the company and they had to let her go. As she cleaned out her desk, she packed away her hopes for getting ahead, and wondered what she would tell her kids.
• Earlier this week, in a doctor’s office in this town, someone learned that they cancer had returned, that there was little chance for survival, and hope fluttered out the window.
• Earlier this week, a man heard the words “I don’t love you any more . . . I want a divorce,” and all his hopes of fatherhood and success seemed empty and hollow.
• Earlier this week, parents were disappointed by children. Earlier this week, someone else’s dreams were ripped away. Earlier this week, someone’s hope was crucified. And the resulting darkness is overwhelming.

As Craig Barnes, the pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington says, “No one is ever ready to encounter Easter until he or she has spent time in the dark place where hope cannot be seen. Easter is the last thing we are expecting. And that is why it terrifies us. This day is not about bunnies, springtime, and girls in cute new dresses. It’s about more hope than we can handle.”

More hope than we can handle. How do you get from no hope to more hope than you can handle? When hope is gone, why bother?

It’s hard to know what Mary was thinking when she headed down the road that day toward the tomb. Like many of us visiting the graves of those who have gone on before us, she probably needed to stand and look and listen as she tried to make sense of what had happened over the past few days. Surely, as she traveled that day, memories of better times in Galilee would have flooded her mind. How distant those memories must have seemed. Jesus was popular there, with crowds pushing around him on all sides. Everyone had great hope that he was the one, the Messiah, who would free them from their oppression. He was his own man, for sure, and no one ever quite knew what to expect from him, but nowhere in the hope he gave them would they have considered that he was destined for death on a cross as a rebel rouser and blasphemer. And now that hope was gone, pierced by three spikes though human flesh.

Remembering the shame of it all, Mary drew her cloak around herself for comfort. Numb. She was just numb

When she arrived at the tomb, things were not in order. She had expected the tomb to be closed as any proper tomb should be. Instead, it was open . . . wide open! The stone was rolled away and by all indications the tomb was empty.

“Grave robbers,” she thought. “Oh my God, can it get any worse?”

So Mary did what any of us would have done in the days before cell phones. She ran back to Peter and another unnamed disciple, and told them that something was wrong. “The master is gone,” she cried. “They have taken him out of the tomb and we don’t know where he’s been taken.”

Of course, the guys (as men are prone to do) had to run to the tomb to check things out. And as guys are prone to do, they turned a crisis into a competition, racing to see who could get there first, who would be the first to enter the tomb, yada, yada, yada. They wandered about a bit, looking in the tomb and scratching their heads. Then the nameless disciple said, “Yep the tomb is empty, he must be gone.” And then, having proved to themselves that the tomb was indeed empty, they headed home without so much as a word to Mary.

Of course, that wasn’t good enough for Mary. She had come expecting to find things in order — and they weren’t. She had come trying to make sense of the death of a loved one — but now she was confused. She had come thinking that Jesus’ body would be there when she arrived — but instead she found an empty tomb, and the thought of the possibilities drove her to tears.

It would have been easy for her to leave with the men. There was little that she, as a woman, could have done. But she couldn’t leave . . . she just couldn’t. This was all so awful – the Sabbath had gone from bad to worse. And so, in the midst of her weeping and her hopelessness she found herself bending down to see the black emptiness of the tomb again. Maybe the sad truth would sink in with just one more look.

Of course, as we heard earlier, she was in for a shock. The tomb wasn’t empty at all. She would have sworn earlier that there was nothing in the tomb but rags, but now, two angels in white were sitting where Jesus’ body should have been. They looked at her with compassion, and asked why she wept.

“Why am I weeping?”, she said incredulously. “They’ve taken my master from this grave and I don’t know where to find him!”

She turned away from these men in white only to find another standing before her. Unlike the angel, he was dressed in simple clothes. “A gardener,” she thought.

“Ma’am, why are you crying?”, the man asked. “Are you looking for someone?”

Mary was so tired of it all — all these men asking questions at every turn. “Look,” she said, “if you took him from here please tell me where. I just need to see him, to take care of him. Please tell me where he is.”

“Mary,” the man said.

It was Jesus . . . alive!

In that moment, Mary’s hope came back to life. Her expectations were rekindled. She was in the presence of the risen Christ.

And to think, if she had gone home (like the men), if she hadn’t hung around, if she hadn’t been willing to take another look and stare at that gaping hole of death in the face, she would have missed him. It took a second look, a second glance in the midst of her pain, to hear Jesus call out her name and to see his face come into view.

Why then do we bother when hope seems gone? We bother because we believe in a God of second looks, a God of second chances. We drift into a whirlpool of despair, a vortex of desolation, only to find that when we look despair in the face, love breaks through, because Christ has risen to call us by name. We bother because we know that there is so much more to the story that we can’t head home until we’ve seen Jesus face to face. And then, when we stand in his presence and hear him call our name, we (like Mary) discover a hope is that more than we can handle.

You see, it’s not enough to simply know that the tomb was empty. Peter and the other disciple knew that the tomb was empty — and then headed home for another glass of wine. They weren’t changed by knowing that Jesus was missing. It didn’t make much of a difference in their lives. It was just another mystery in a week of mysteries.

What is more important is that we encounter the risen Christ, that we stand in the garden and hear him say our name. For when we meet him, and hear him, see him, we find our tears turning to laughter, our sorrows turned to dancing, and our despair transformed into hope. As Mary discovered, standing in the presence of the risen Christ puts a whole new spin on the world. It provides an entirely new way of thinking.

Back in the late 1980′s, Ted Koppel asked Archbishop Desmond Tutu if the situation in South Africa, with its system of racial segregation called “apartheid,” was hopeless. “Of course it’s hopeless from a human point of view,” Tutu replied. “But we believe in the resurrection, and so we are prisoners of hope.”

We too are prisoners of hope, taken captive by the risen savior and filled with the knowledge that nothing is impossible with God. We have seen death transformed into life. We have seen the impossible made real. Christ stands before us, calling us to him, and then sends us into the world to proclaim that He has risen. He has risen indeed!

And we know this because folks like Mary . . . and Martin Luther . . . and John Wesley . . . and all sorts of other folks weren’t willing to stop with a single glance. No, they took a second look . . . and a third, and fourth, and fifth . . . however many looks it took until they encountered the risen and living Christ.

Friends, some of you today find yourselves in the pit of despair. You feel like your hope is gone. You’ve looked in the tomb, and it’s empty. You don’t know where Jesus is gone, and frankly you’re not really sure where to go to find him.

Take another look. Don’t settle for the easy answers, but look into your pain and despair and you will discover the risen Christ standing in your midst, offering love and comfort.

There are others of us for whom things are doing pretty well. You’ve taken a look at Jesus, maybe even looked in the tomb. But you didn’t find much there, and so you headed home without really understanding what was going on.

Take another look. For there’s more to the story than meets the eye. I challenge you to spend some extra time searching for Jesus. You see, he wants to meet you, to stand before you, and lead you to a whole new way of life. Take another look and experience the risen Christ.

Take another look. All of us . . . no matter where we sit or stand today. We need to cast aside our complacency, our fear, and most of all, our smug notions that we fully know everything we need to know about Jesus.

Take another look, and be prepared to discover more hope than we can handle.

Take another look and encounter anew the one who healed the sick, who fed the hungry, and the one that raises all of us to new life.

Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed!

Alleluia!

Amen.

Preacher’s Addendum: Kay reminded me that the concept of taking another second glance or another look first came to us through the witness of our friend and her mentor Sally Langford. Thanks Sally for stirring in us an insight into the passage that we had never noticed before. 

Three million, six hundred and eighty nine thousand, and two hundred and eighty minutes ago, I walked into this pulpit to share my understanding of God with you for the first time. I was following a beloved pastor (“Fluffy” to many of you) and had no clue what would be in store for me, so I thought it would be good to spend a few minutes reflecting on the nature of change. Little did I know that I would stand here seven years later still confounded by the nature of change, but also still convinced of God’s presence in the midst of it.

This move is a tough one for us, although in fact it’s really not that unusual for my life. Over the past almost 50 years I have lived in 25 different houses, apartments, or dorm rooms, including the one that’s been our home for the past seven. I suppose one could say that I have been in training for being a Methodist minister all my life. Yet, I confess, when I started realizing that house number 26 was in my future, my stomach began to churn and my blood pressure went up. Of course, I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it in the midst of our flood work, but when I would come home to the task of packing, I would find myself sluggish, not quite able to face the mad search for boxes, the hoarding of newspaper, and the thought of trying to discern what needs to be moved, and what must go to Goodwill.

My body was signaling to me that although I have often been on the move (and have taken vows saying that I will go where sent), I still long for stability, for security, to have my roots planted in a single place that is home. Change is uncomfortable. It brings anxiety and uncertainty.

Honestly, I like it where I am. I know the folks around me and have come to love them. I know all of the places to eat, the places to shop, and which garage to trust with my car. I have a place in this community . . . people know who I am. To stay where I am is to know my footing, to be grounded in a place, in a people, in a way of life.

To move on is to move boldly into the unknown, to face new frontiers and strange new worlds. But unlike Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard, I don’t have the resources of a starship to help predict what will happen. I wonder about what life will be like in the new place. How will life be different? Will my life continue on the same path, or will I be knocked off course like a sailboat encountering a fierce storm? And of course, I’m concerned about the most important issues facing a parent – how are the schools, and how far away is the closest Kroger and Walmart?

Most of all, I wonder about the new people I will encounter. Will they be like me? Will they talk funny? Will we have the same values? Do they like to go to lunch?

To use the words of a 1960′s era soul classic, I’m “standing on shaky ground.” Like a surfer trying to navigate a roaring wave, I’m holding on for dear life, hoping and praying that I won’t wipe out and drown in the undertow.

While we haven’t physically moved our church during the past seven years, we have experienced enough change and transition that we might as well have. We have moved from focused on life “on the hill” to become a people that recognizes our place in the community. We have seen our building change, with the addition of a new Welcome Center which keeps the task of hospitality ever before us.

Most of all we have seen folks come and go, both staff and lay persons. As I stand here this morning I see faces that I didn’t see on my first Sunday, and several faces that were so familiar are gone. We too find ourselves struggling for roots, for stability, and wanting to avoid change at all costs. After all, our world is changing, our families are changing, our community is changing. The last place we want to experience change is our church . . .right?

And now we are facing another round of changes. I will be moving on, and next week Charles will be coming to take my place. We have said see you later to a beloved office manager, and are embracing a new way of being with Teresa, our new office manager. Life is gonna be different around here – new faces, new ways of doing things, and maybe even folks who talk funny!

It’s in the light of all of this transition that we consider Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus today. Frankly, we don’t know much about the church at Ephesus, nor why this letter was written. What we can discern is that it was a community struggling with diversity and change. There were old faces and new faces. There were folks that worshiped God via the old time religion of Judaism, and others who had taken their Greek traditions and transformed them into acts of devotion (not unlike the arguments today between those who argue for traditional worship against those who would only offer contemporary worship). The times were a changing, and the people of Ephesus were trying to figure out how to hold it all together. So Paul, the missionary pastor to the Greek churches, wrote them a letter from a prison cell to help them think about what it means to be the community of God. And in a very real sense, Paul has written us this letter as well, to help us think about where we go from here in our life together.

“Okay,” Paul tells us in Chapter 4, “here’s what I want you to do. I want you to be the people God created you to be, to live the life that God created you to live, to walk the paths that God put you on. This life, this walk, isn’t a solo affair. No, this walk is done with everyone else in the church, so you need to love one another with all patience and humility and gentleness.”

Understand that Paul’s vision of unity was not simply about having folks gather in the same room and tolerate one another. The vision that Paul is painting is of a unified whole, not a union of two things joined together. There can, after all, be union without unity. Just tie a couple of cats together by the tail and you’ll quickly find out that even though they are joined, they aren’t necessarily unified. There has to be a larger purpose, a guiding vision, a force bigger than ourselves for us to truly be unified.

Paul shares that purpose in his next few sentences. “There is only one church,” Paul says, “one body, one spirit, one Lord Jesus, one faith, one baptism, one creator and parent to us all.” Paul goes on, “This is the center of everything we do. Yes, we may have differences. Yes, there may be change. But in the midst of all of this we have a constant – one God and father of all.

You may remember the study from Columbia University on how members of the different sections of 11 major symphony orchestras perceived each other. The percussionists were viewed as insensitive, unintelligent, and hard-of-hearing, yet fun loving. String players were seen as arrogant, and stuffy. Brass players were seen as “loud.” Woodwind players were held in the highest esteem among those surveyed, described as quiet and meticulous, though a bit egotistical. With all these different personalities and perceptions, how is it that an orchestra could ever come together to make such wonderful music. The answer is simple – no matter how these musicians view each other, they put those differences aside to follow the conductor. The conductor is the reference which allows different instruments, different persons, with different egos to become a single orchestra which moves our souls with beautiful music.

You see, Paul understands that we are not all cookie cutter Christians. “There are many gifts,” Paul says. God has put us on different paths, with different callings, and different duties. We won’t all look the same. We won’t have the same priorities. But we worship the same God! We have participated in the same Baptism! We are empowered by the same Spirit. We have one conductor which leads us, and when we keep our focus on that leader, then we too create beauty and reveal God’s wonderful love to the world.

We know this in our hearts, because we have experienced here at Antioch United Methodist Church again and again. We are a community of men and women, of adults and children, of persons of all ages and races and backgrounds. Some of us have been life-long Methodists. Others of us have been on a winding journey of faith that has taken us to many places. We are diverse in our dress and divergent in our theology, an eclectic assembly of persons with our individuals joys and our individual hurts. We are, in short, the body of Christ, with our own unique calling and purpose. But, for all of our diversity, for all of our difference, we gather for the same purpose – to worship the same God, to learn from the same Christ, to be filled with the same Spirit!

It is this reality that allows very different types of people with all sorts of beliefs to worship in the same building. It is our faith in the same God that moves busy men and women to give their time and energy hand out flood buckets to people who speak different languages from us. It is through our experience of one baptism that young couples and experienced elders become friends and get together for prayer and support. It is through keeping our eyes focused on one Christ that a group of persons shows up Community Care Fellowship to feed those who often go without. It is through our one faith that a bunch of youth will head over to one of our patriarch’s house to clean out the yard and make things blood again.

Yes we are a different people, with all our unique quirks and individual limitations. But we worship the same God, the same Lord, the same Christ who showed us what love is all about. Change is going to come, whether we like it or not. There will be new faces in our church. Things will be different. We will have new leaders . . . as we have regularly since this church was founded.

Likewise, there are a group of folks over in Old Hickory who are thinking the same things. They don’t want their old preacher to move on. Who is this new preacher we’re getting? Is he going to have new ideas?

Throughout the world, in churches all over the globe, similar questions are being asked. New people are being added. Old people are moving on. Uncertainty is certain.

The good news for us ALL, all the believers in Jesus Christ, is found in the words of the Apostle Paul, who reminds us that we are the unified body of Christ, one body, filled with the same spirit, worshiping one God.

Moving from this place is not an easy task. I love you all dearly. As I said the other night, you have welcomed me into your hearts and lives. You have helped me and Kay raise our children. You have put up with my failings and entrusted me with your needs. You are a part of my family, and I will miss you. At the same time, I am excited for your future, knowing that God has great things in store for you. Great days are ahead for this church, and I look forward to seeing how God is going to work among you.

So, as I leave this place today, as I move to a foreign land and become part of a new family, I think it’s appropriate to hear Paul’s word to us again. Hear now the Word of God from The Message translation:

In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is:

He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.
Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

This IS the Word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Three million, six hundred and eighty nine thousand, and two hundred and eighty minutes ago, I walked into this pulpit to share my understanding of God with you for the first time. I was following a beloved pastor (“Fluffy” to many of you) and had no clue what would be in store for me, so I thought it would be good to spend a few minutes reflecting on the nature of change. Little did I know that I would stand here seven years later still confounded by the nature of change, but also still convinced of God’s presence in the midst of it.

This move is a tough one for us, although in fact it’s really not that unusual for my life. Over the past almost 50 years I have lived in 25 different houses, apartments, or dorm rooms, including the one that’s been our home for the past seven. I suppose one could say that I have been in training for being a Methodist minister all my life. Yet, I confess, when I started realizing that house number 26 was in my future, my stomach began to churn and my blood pressure went up. Of course, I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it in the midst of our flood work, but when I would come home to the task of packing, I would find myself sluggish, not quite able to face the mad search for boxes, the hoarding of newspaper, and the thought of trying to discern what needs to be moved, and what must go to Goodwill.

My body signals to me that although I have often been on the move (and have taken vows saying that I will go where sent), I still long for stability, for security, to have my roots planted in a single place that is home. Change is uncomfortable. It brings anxiety and uncertainty.

Honestly, I like it where I am. I know the folks around me and have come to love them. I know all of the places to eat, the places to shop, and which garage to trust with my car. I have a place in this community . . . people know who I am. To stay where I am is to know my footing, to be grounded in a place, in a people, in a way of life.

To move on is to move boldly into the unknown, to face new frontiers and strange new worlds. But unlike Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard, I don’t have the resources of a starship to help predict what will happen. I wonder about what life will be like in the new place. How will life be different? Will my life continue on the same path, or will I be knocked off course like a sailboat encountering a fierce storm? And of course, I’m concerned about the most important issues facing a parent – how are the schools, and how far away is the closest Kroger and Walmart?

Most of all, I wonder about the new people I will encounter. Will they be like me? Will they talk funny? Will we have the same values? Do they like to go to lunch?

To use the words of a 1960′s era soul classic, I’m “standing on shaky ground.” Like a surfer trying to navigate a roaring wave, I’m holding on for dear life, hoping and praying that I won’t wipe out and drown in the undertow.

While we haven’t physically moved our church during the past seven years, we have experienced enough change and transition that we might as well have. We have moved from focused on life “on the hill” to become a people that recognizes our place in the community. We have seen our building change, with the addition of a new Welcome Center which keeps the task of hospitality ever before us. Most of all we have seen folks come and go, both staff and lay persons. As I stand here this morning I see faces that I didn’t see on my first Sunday, and several faces that were so familiar are gone. We too find ourselves struggling for roots, for stability, and wanting to avoid change at all costs. After all, our world is changing, our families are changing, our community is changing. The last place we want to experience change is our church . . .right?

And now we are facing another round of changes. I will be moving on, and next week Charles will be coming to take my place. We have said see you later to a beloved office manager, and are embracing a new way of being with Teresa, our new office manager. Life is gonna be different around here – new faces, new ways of doing things, and maybe even folks who talk funny!

It’s in the light of all of this transition that we consider Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus today. Frankly, we don’t know much about the church at Ephesus, nor why this letter was written. What we can discern is that it was a community struggling with diversity and change. There were old faces and new faces. There were folks that worshiped God via the old time religion of Judaism, and others who had taken their Greek traditions and transformed them into acts of devotion (not unlike the arguments today between those who argue for traditional worship against those who would only offer contemporary worship). The times were a changing, and the people of Ephesus were trying to figure out how to hold it all together. So Paul, the missionary pastor to the Greek churches, wrote them a letter from a prison cell to help them think about what it means to be the community of God. And in a very real sense, Paul has written us this letter as well, to help us think about where we go from here in our life together.

“Okay,” Paul tells us in Chapter 4, “here’s what I want you to do. I want you to be the people God created you to be, to live the life that God created you to live, to walk the paths that God put you on. This life, this walk, isn’t a solo affair. No, this walk is done with everyone else in the church, so you need to love one another with all patience and humility and gentleness.”

Understand that Paul’s vision of unity was not simply about having folks gather in the same room and tolerate one another. The vision that Paul is painting is of a unified whole, not a union of two things joined together. There can, after all, be union without unity. Just tie a couple of cats together by the tail and you’ll quickly find out that even though they are joined, they aren’t necessarily unified. There has to be a larger purpose, a guiding vision, a force bigger than ourselves for us to truly be unified.

Paul shares that purpose in his next few sentences. “There is only one church,” Paul says, “one body, one spirit, one Lord Jesus, one faith, one baptism, one creator and parent to us all.” Paul goes on, “This is the center of everything we do. Yes, we may have differences. Yes, there may be change. But in the midst of all of this we have a constant – one God and father of all.

You may remember the study from Columbia University on how members of the different sections of 11 major symphony orchestras perceived each other. The percussionists were viewed as insensitive, unintelligent, and hard-of-hearing, yet fun loving. String players were seen as arrogant, and stuffy. Brass players were seen as “loud.” Woodwind players were held in the highest esteem among those surveyed, described as quiet and meticulous, though a bit egotistical. With all these different personalities and perceptions, how is it that an orchestra could ever come together to make such wonderful music. The answer is simple – no matter how these musicians view each other, they put those differences aside to follow the conductor. The conductor is the reference which allows different instruments, different persons, with different egos to become a single orchestra which moves our souls with beautiful music.

You see, Paul understands that we are not all cookie cutter Christians. “There are many gifts,” Paul says. God has put us on different paths, with different callings, and different duties. We won’t all look the same. We won’t have the same priorities. But we worship the same God! We have participated in the same Baptism! We are empowered by the same Spirit. We have one conductor which leads us, and when we keep our focus on that leader, then we too create beauty and reveal God’s wonderful love to the world.

We know this in our hearts, because we have experienced here at Antioch United Methodist Church again and again. We are a community of men and women, of adults and children, of persons of all ages and races and backgrounds. Some of us have been life-long Methodists. Others of us have been on a winding journey of faith that has taken us to many places. We are diverse in our dress and divergent in our theology, an eclectic assembly of persons with our individuals joys and our individual hurts. We are, in short, the body of Christ, with our own unique calling and purpose. But, for all of our diversity, for all of our difference, we gather for the same purpose – to worship the same God, to learn from the same Christ, to be filled with the same Spirit!

It is this reality that allows very different types of people with all sorts of beliefs to worship in the same building. It is our faith in the same God that moves busy men and women to give their time and energy hand out flood buckets to people who speak different languages from us. It is through our experience of one baptism that young couples and experienced elders become friends and get together for prayer and support. It is through keeping our eyes focused on one Christ that a group of persons shows up Community Care Fellowship to feed those who often go without. It is through our one faith that a bunch of youth will head over to one of our patriarch’s house to clean out the yard and make things blood again.

Yes we are a different people, with all our unique quirks and individual limitations. But we worship the same God, the same Lord, the same Christ who showed us what love is all about.

Change is going to come, whether we like it or not. There will be new faces in our church. Things will be different. We will have new leaders . . . as we have regularly since this church was founded.

Likewise, there are a group of folks over in Old Hickory who are thinking the same things. They don’t want their old preacher to move on. Who is this new preacher we’re getting? Is he going to have new ideas?

Throughout the world, in churches all over the globe, similar questions are being asked. New people are being added. Old people are moving on. Uncertainty is certain.

The good news for us ALL, all the believers in Jesus Christ, is found in the words of the Apostle Paul, who reminds us that we are the unified body of Christ, one body, filled with the same spirit, worshiping one God.

Moving from this place is not an easy task. I love you all dearly. As I said the other night, you have welcomed me into your hearts and lives. You have helped me and Kay raise our children. You have put up with my failings and entrusted me with your needs. You are a part of my family, and I will miss you.

At the same time, I am excited for your future, knowing that God has great things in store for you. Great days are ahead for this church, and I look forward to seeing how God is going to work among you.

So, as I leave this place today, as I move to a foreign land and become part of a new family, I think it’s appropriate to hear Paul’s word to us again. Hear now the Word of God from The Message translation:

In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is:
He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

This IS the Word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Three million, six hundred and eighty nine thousand, and two hundred and eighty minutes ago, I walked into this pulpit to share my understanding of God with you for the first time. I was following a beloved pastor (“Fluffy” to many of you) and had no clue what would be in store for me, so I thought it would be good to spend a few minutes reflecting on the nature of change. Little did I know that I would stand here seven years later still confounded by the nature of change, but also still convinced of God’s presence in the midst of it.

This move is a tough one for us, although in fact it’s really not that unusual for my life. Over the past almost 50 years I have lived in 25 different houses, apartments, or dorm rooms, including the one that’s been our home for the past seven. I suppose one could say that I have been in training for being a Methodist minister all my life. Yet, I confess, when I started realizing that house number 26 was in my future, my stomach began to churn and my blood pressure went up. Of course, I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it in the midst of our flood work, but when I would come home to the task of packing, I would find myself sluggish, not quite able to face the mad search for boxes, the hoarding of newspaper, and the thought of trying to discern what needs to be moved, and what must go to Goodwill.

My body signals to me that although I have often been on the move (and have taken vows saying that I will go where sent), I still long for stability, for security, to have my roots planted in a single place that is home. Change is uncomfortable. It brings anxiety and uncertainty.

Honestly, I like it where I am. I know the folks around me and have come to love them. I know all of the places to eat, the places to shop, and which garage to trust with my car. I have a place in this community . . . people know who I am. To stay where I am is to know my footing, to be grounded in a place, in a people, in a way of life.

To move on is to move boldly into the unknown, to face new frontiers and strange new worlds. But unlike Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard, I don’t have the resources of a starship to help predict what will happen. I wonder about what life will be like in the new place. How will life be different? Will my life continue on the same path, or will I be knocked off course like a sailboat encountering a fierce storm? And of course, I’m concerned about the most important issues facing a parent – how are the schools, and how far away is the closest Kroger and Walmart?

Most of all, I wonder about the new people I will encounter. Will they be like me? Will they talk funny? Will we have the same values? Do they like to go to lunch?

To use the words of a 1960′s era soul classic, I’m “standing on shaky ground.” Like a surfer trying to navigate a roaring wave, I’m holding on for dear life, hoping and praying that I won’t wipe out and drown in the undertow.

While we haven’t physically moved our church during the past seven years, we have experienced enough change and transition that we might as well have. We have moved from focused on life “on the hill” to become a people that recognizes our place in the community. We have seen our building change, with the addition of a new Welcome Center which keeps the task of hospitality ever before us. Most of all we have seen folks come and go, both staff and lay persons. As I stand here this morning I see faces that I didn’t see on my first Sunday, and several faces that were so familiar are gone. We too find ourselves struggling for roots, for stability, and wanting to avoid change at all costs. After all, our world is changing, our families are changing, our community is changing. The last place we want to experience change is our church . . .right?

And now we are facing another round of changes. I will be moving on, and next week Charles will be coming to take my place. We have said see you later to a beloved office manager, and are embracing a new way of being with Teresa, our new office manager. Life is gonna be different around here – new faces, new ways of doing things, and maybe even folks who talk funny!

It’s in the light of all of this transition that we consider Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus today. Frankly, we don’t know much about the church at Ephesus, nor why this letter was written. What we can discern is that it was a community struggling with diversity and change. There were old faces and new faces. There were folks that worshiped God via the old time religion of Judaism, and others who had taken their Greek traditions and transformed them into acts of devotion (not unlike the arguments today between those who argue for traditional worship against those who would only offer contemporary worship). The times were a changing, and the people of Ephesus were trying to figure out how to hold it all together. So Paul, the missionary pastor to the Greek churches, wrote them a letter from a prison cell to help them think about what it means to be the community of God. And in a very real sense, Paul has written us this letter as well, to help us think about where we go from here in our life together.

“Okay,” Paul tells us in Chapter 4, “here’s what I want you to do. I want you to be the people God created you to be, to live the life that God created you to live, to walk the paths that God put you on. This life, this walk, isn’t a solo affair. No, this walk is done with everyone else in the church, so you need to love one another with all patience and humility and gentleness.”

Understand that Paul’s vision of unity was not simply about having folks gather in the same room and tolerate one another. The vision that Paul is painting is of a unified whole, not a union of two things joined together. There can, after all, be union without unity. Just tie a couple of cats together by the tail and you’ll quickly find out that even though they are joined, they aren’t necessarily unified. There has to be a larger purpose, a guiding vision, a force bigger than ourselves for us to truly be unified.

Paul shares that purpose in his next few sentences. “There is only one church,” Paul says, “one body, one spirit, one Lord Jesus, one faith, one baptism, one creator and parent to us all.” Paul goes on, “This is the center of everything we do. Yes, we may have differences. Yes, there may be change. But in the midst of all of this we have a constant – one God and father of all.

You may remember the study from Columbia University on how members of the different sections of 11 major symphony orchestras perceived each other. The percussionists were viewed as insensitive, unintelligent, and hard-of-hearing, yet fun loving. String players were seen as arrogant, and stuffy. Brass players were seen as “loud.” Woodwind players were held in the highest esteem among those surveyed, described as quiet and meticulous, though a bit egotistical. With all these different personalities and perceptions, how is it that an orchestra could ever come together to make such wonderful music. The answer is simple – no matter how these musicians view each other, they put those differences aside to follow the conductor. The conductor is the reference which allows different instruments, different persons, with different egos to become a single orchestra which moves our souls with beautiful music.

You see, Paul understands that we are not all cookie cutter Christians. “There are many gifts,” Paul says. God has put us on different paths, with different callings, and different duties. We won’t all look the same. We won’t have the same priorities. But we worship the same God! We have participated in the same Baptism! We are empowered by the same Spirit. We have one conductor which leads us, and when we keep our focus on that leader, then we too create beauty and reveal God’s wonderful love to the world.

We know this in our hearts, because we have experienced here at Antioch United Methodist Church again and again. We are a community of men and women, of adults and children, of persons of all ages and races and backgrounds. Some of us have been life-long Methodists. Others of us have been on a winding journey of faith that has taken us to many places. We are diverse in our dress and divergent in our theology, an eclectic assembly of persons with our individuals joys and our individual hurts. We are, in short, the body of Christ, with our own unique calling and purpose. But, for all of our diversity, for all of our difference, we gather for the same purpose – to worship the same God, to learn from the same Christ, to be filled with the same Spirit!

It is this reality that allows very different types of people with all sorts of beliefs to worship in the same building. It is our faith in the same God that moves busy men and women to give their time and energy hand out flood buckets to people who speak different languages from us. It is through our experience of one baptism that young couples and experienced elders become friends and get together for prayer and support. It is through keeping our eyes focused on one Christ that a group of persons shows up Community Care Fellowship to feed those who often go without. It is through our one faith that a bunch of youth will head over to one of our patriarch’s house to clean out the yard and make things blood again.

Yes we are a different people, with all our unique quirks and individual limitations. But we worship the same God, the same Lord, the same Christ who showed us what love is all about.

Change is going to come, whether we like it or not. There will be new faces in our church. Things will be different. We will have new leaders . . . as we have regularly since this church was founded.

Likewise, there are a group of folks over in Old Hickory who are thinking the same things. They don’t want their old preacher to move on. Who is this new preacher we’re getting? Is he going to have new ideas?

Throughout the world, in churches all over the globe, similar questions are being asked. New people are being added. Old people are moving on. Uncertainty is certain.

The good news for us ALL, all the believers in Jesus Christ, is found in the words of the Apostle Paul, who reminds us that we are the unified body of Christ, one body, filled with the same spirit, worshiping one God.

Moving from this place is not an easy task. I love you all dearly. As I said the other night, you have welcomed me into your hearts and lives. You have helped me and Kay raise our children. You have put up with my failings and entrusted me with your needs. You are a part of my family, and I will miss you.

At the same time, I am excited for your future, knowing that God has great things in store for you. Great days are ahead for this church, and I look forward to seeing how God is going to work among you.

So, as I leave this place today, as I move to a foreign land and become part of a new family, I think it’s appropriate to hear Paul’s word to us again. Hear now the Word of God from The Message translation:

In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is:
He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

This IS the Word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

For several years now I have heard friends throughout the states belittle the value of denominations in our country. “We are in a post-denominational world” they say. “Denominational structures get in the way of ministry. Why do you continue on a a dying system?”

There are many days when I agree with them, many days when I am convinced that the bureaucratic morass that we have created is worthless and needs to be cast aside. There are times when I fully agree that denominations are dinosaurs, the legacy of times past, which are unable to be quick and nimble in the face of need.

And then, just when I am ready to give up, some disaster happens in the world and UMCOR, the disaster relief organization of my denomination, springs into action and restores my faith in the power of denominationalism to bring about good.

UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, has been a point of pride for me and a shining example of what can be done when multiple congregations join forces in a systemic way to address world needs. It is through our connection that we can keep in place one of the leading NGO’s which is able to respond at a moment’s notice. This connection allows us to cover the administrative costs of having a relief agency, which then means that when emergencies come and appeals are made for assistance, 100% of the dollars given are available to address those emergencies.

This is a unique gift to the world, for most other NGO’s are forced to direct some of their donated dollars toward administrative expenses. Our ability to direct 100% of donations to those in need has led to our receiving high ratings from all the leading non-profit watch dog agencies who help us know what agencies are faithful to their mission. Other agencies aren’t as efficient, and often have high administrative expenses.

There are many things we do wrong as denominations, but sometimes we need to remember than which is done right, and UMCOR is the way that we put love into action and reach out with the love of God. It’s something we can be proud of, for it demonstrates in tangible ways our commitment to love and justice.

From the very beginning of the tragedy in Haiti, UMCOR has been on the ground, in fact, the organization’s leaders were in Haiti during the earthquake resulting in at least two deaths. It is an organization that I can proudly claim as my own, and I have no reticence in telling all who might read this that it is a good place to give your money if you are looking to help out.

Visit http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/emergencies/ongoing/haitiearthquake/ to learn more about this important source of hope.

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Dear Paul the Apostle,

Paul, Paul, Paul… What are we to do with you?

There you were, sitting in Corinth with your friends Priscilla and Aquilla knowing that they had been forced out of their home city Rome through the machinations of the Emperor Claudius. In between making tents, you taught the church there in Corinth that their citizenship was not of this world, but of a new kingdom, the Kingdom of God, so much so that the followers of Jesus would rather die than renounce their faith in favor of worshipping the emperor. You are a man who has experienced the wrath of Roman governmental power, and you will very likely be arrested and die at the hands of the current Emperor Nero. So, how can you of all people come out of nowhere and suggest that all should submit to governing authorities?

You see, we have a problem. All of this sounds good on the surface – this teaching that folks have used as a call to citizenship throughout the years. Yet, when we continue on in the story of scripture, we discover that Romans 13 is countered by John’s vision of governmental power in Revelation 13, a vision in which that power is portrayed as a beast, an evil power that is at odds with the will of God. So who is right, you Paul, or that prophet on Patmos who will come and scare our pants off later in the story?

We have another problem as well. You see sitting here, a couple of thousand years after you wrote your letter to the church at Rome, we find ourselves pretty cynical of our governing authorities. Oh, we love our country and believe that this is a pretty great place to be . . . it’s the leaders and the structures that test our faith and cause us to question your call to submission. We’ve seen too many charismatic leaders come and go, people who looked good on the surface but who were broken and weak on the inside. Some writer not long ago suggested that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we’ve found this to be absolutely true. The people behind the government aren’t bad . . . but they are human, and subject to all the effects of sin that we all deal with. Over time, as promises have been made and broken, again and again, we find ourselves pretty hopeless about the ability of government to accomplish anything.

So Paul, what are we to do with this teaching that tells us to submit to the governing authorities? What were you thinking when you wrote those words, and do they have any meaning for us today?

One of the problems we have in reading this teaching is that we fail to understand the situation you were addressing in Rome. You were, after all, trying to help a church rebuild after having been cast out of the city by Claudius because of riots in the streets between Jews and Christians. Even though Christianity had been a Jewish movement, in Rome Judaism was becoming more nationalistic and revolutionary, with Jewish zealots arguing for the overthrow of the government. These tensions were finding their way into the church as Gentiles and Jews argued over the proper way to think about the Roman Empire.

But as you said Paul in the previous chapter, Romans 12, the unity of the body of Christ was paramount, and love must be at the center of Christian life and practice. Yes the empire was oppressive and corrupt. But no matter how corrupt, your kingdom call to love and service reigns supreme. So you counseled the church at Rome to avoid these entanglements, choosing instead to submit to the authorities in the pursuit of love and unity.

Of course, as you always do, you offered a justification for this suggestion. As a good Jew and a man of your times, it was the appeal to order, recognizing that having NO authorities in society leads to anarchy. You were a man who believed in the proper order of things, and so it made sense that government as an institution had been ordained by God to provide order to our world. This ordering doesn’t speak to the justice or injustice of any governmental structure . . . for instance, you don’t talk about Nero’s policies or his corruption . . . rather it addresses a belief that all communities, be they the church or a city/state, require some sort of structure, some sort of governing authority, and that these authorities should be treated with respect as ordained by God.

Yet, even though authority must be respected and order maintained, it is clear from the rest of your letter that love is the guiding principle upon which our lives and relations must be built, and that organizations and authorities which harm and oppress others may be called to account. Your teaching presents an idealized view of authority and government, while we live in a world in which that ideal rarely reached due to the prevalence of sin and brokenness in the world. The fact is that governments are staffed by sinful people, in need of your grace, and that they often make bad judgments and faulty decisions through their weaknesses. We are a prideful people who often think that we know much better what to do than God does, so we strike off on our own, believing our own press clippings, and do things that harm others. And in some cases, governments are overwhelmed by persons who are oppressive and perpetuate evil in their sinful pursuit of control and cash. These situations are far removed from the ideal you describe.

This is the dilemma that the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced. Bonhoeffer was confronted with evil at its worst in the person of Adolf Hitler, and he struggled to make sense of the call to submit with the call to love, the call to humility with the confronting of evil. Eventually Bonhoeffer decided that the evil was too great and that Hitler must be killed, however he recognized that act as outside the ideal will of God and something that he would be responsible for throughout the rest of his life. Even in the face of evil, Bonhoeffer recognized that the ultimate goal of the follower of Jesus is the pursuit of love, justice, and righteousness.

Martin Luther King went through a similar dilemma in facing folks like Bull Conner in Memphis, but he chose another way. While he challenged the governmental structures, calling those in power to account for their injustice, he did so in a way that upheld the call to love, honor, and humility. His followers would stand up for their rights, experiencing the worst that hate would throw at them, and stand back up in love and dignity. In many ways, these saints took the path of Jesus himself, the one who never lashed out in the face of his impending death even as he was being led to the cross.

What we can’t forget is that love must be at the heart of everything we do. It was true in the time before Jesus, the time when the prophet Micah said that God requires us to seek justice, love mercy, and walk in humility with God. And it’s true today as we remember Jesus telling us that the center of the law, the core of our faith and practice is centered on loving God and loving our neighbor. To be a person of faith is to know that love is at the center of all, and our goal for life is the pursuit of loving deeply. We haven’t all gotten there yet, but to follow Jesus is to engage in a work of transformation which leads to love.

You didn’t mince words about this when (in the section just before the center of our conversation today) you called the Roman church to love:

“Love from the center of who you are;” you wrote, “don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

“Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

“Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

“Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. "I’ll do the judging," says God. "I’ll take care of it."

“Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.”

It’s that call to love that guides us in our political dealings. Yes, we are cynical today, not quite trusting our political authorities due to years of see power misused . . . but we still love them and wish the best for them. Yes, we worry that some may bring harm to our place, but we pray for them and ask God to guide them into doing the right thing. To be a follower of Jesus is to know that love is at the core of all we do, and that love guides every action and every decision, from how we live our lives to the issues we support to the selection of our leaders.

Dearest Paul, you are an example of that for us. You sit today in Corinth but in a few short months you will be in a Roman jail cell for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. You will be tortured and eventually taken to Rome where tradition tells us you were killed by Nero for your faith. And yet, even in jail, you experienced the joy of life in Christ and prayed for those who imprisoned you. Your life was filled with love for these authorities, even when they did bad things to you, and you provided a model for us to emulate.

So, we sit here today, thousands of years after you wrote your letter to the Romans, writing a letter back to you. If you are hanging around in the heavenly realm with Jesus, let him know that we need his help, for your teaching is sometimes hard. Let him know that we sometimes fail in our love and that we rebel at submitting ourselves to others. Let him know that we need to be so filled with love that all the world, secular and religious, will know of his amazing grace.

Thanks for your words. May we live them into being.

Sincerely,

Jay

Don’t you wish our world could be as simple as a children’s story? The people of Kazoo lived happily ever after when THEY heard from the teacher. But we seem much less willing to respond to Christ’s call to love. That seems especially true these days in our country, as “red people” and “blue people” take up swords of words against the other, slashing and cutting, trying to suggest that the others are bad people and that our country is doomed if those of us who are right can’t be in power. The rhetoric gets harsher and harsher and the crowds get more and more frenzied, with supporters of one or the other shouting “he’s evil,” or “he’s a terrorist,” or even “kill him.”

The scary part for us is that some of the most partisan, the most frenzied, those most worked up into a lather about the folks on the “other” side are people who claim faith in Jesus Christ. These persons, both on the left and on the right, believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has ordained a particular political philosophy which is unbending and nonnegotiable. In their desire to ensure that God’s desires are carried out in the world, these spiritual warriors throw themselves into a political agenda which is divisive, hateful, and demonizes anyone who doesn’t believe like they do. And before you know it, good Christian people find themselves saying all sorts of things that are far from the teachings of Jesus.

It is never part of God’s values to spew forth words of hate.

It is never okay to ever suggest that someone’s politics justifies their being put to death, no matter how serious or not.

Some days I wonder if we’ve ever really heard the teachings of Jesus at alll?

You see, Jesus was absolutely clear that the central value of the kingdom that he was bringing into being was what the Hebrews called “hesed,” the steadfast and unbending love that is given by God to us. As we’ve talked about before, the Greeks and Romans called this value agape, and the primary example of this sacrificial love for the other was demonstrated in Jesus Christ, the one who refused to get pulled into the political arguments of his day and who was ultimately crucified for advocating another way. To be a follower of Jesus from the earliest days was to understand that hesed is at the center of who we are, and when we are practicing hesed, we can never demonize another.

This was, I believe, connected to Jesus suggesting that the things of Caesars were Caesars, and the things of God were Gods. You see Jesus was being pulled and pushed from all sides to take a stance as a political leader. After all, most everyone believed that the Messiah would be a new king who would ride in on a white horse and throw the evil Romans out of the land, restoring Israel to greatness. All sorts of “messiahs” had come before Jesus, promising that they would triumph only to be defeated under the weight of Roman military might. So when a new possible messiah came on the scene, it was assumed that this person would thrust themselves into the political dealings of the day.

Yet, Jesus refused to do this. Instead of espousing a political philosophy he called on all to love one another. Instead of suggesting that the Romans were evil, he told the folks around him to pray for their enemies and to turn the other cheek. Jesus was bringing a new kingdom into being all right, but it was a kingdom unlike any that had every existed before, a kingdom of God in which love, justice, and righteousness rule.

This understanding of a new kingdom permeated the early church for hundreds of years. In the earliest days, Christians willingly marched to their deaths in their refusal to acknowledge the primacy of the Empire, believing instead that their citizenship was in another realm – the heavenly realm. They weren’t antagonistic to the politics of their day; they didn’t try to overthrow the sitting governments. But they refused to bow to the power of the emperor, reserving their loyalty and allegiance to their creator, redeemer, and sustainer. They lived in this world, but they were not of this world for their focus was directed on a new kingdom reality.

This “otherworldliness” of the early church has led some to suggest that Christians shouldn’t be involved whatsoever in politics for that very reason. “Why should we vote,” they ask, “when we don’t believe that any of this is part of our concern? Shouldn’t we separate ourselves out completely?”

The question has been asked for many years, and there have been many experiments in creating “utopian communities” which ignore the political realities around them and organize themselves instead around kingdom values. However almost all of these communities have, over time, found themselves engaging more and more with the secular political process as they recognized that living the life of hesed leads Christ’s followers to work for love, justice, and righteousness however we can, through both religious AND secular means. As the writings of the prophets remind us, those who follow in the way of Jesus are responsible for ensuring that our world is a just place in which all are treated fairly. We, the followers of Jesus have been called to be co-creators with God in bring forth God’s kingdom here on earth, just as it is in heaven. We, the body of Christ, are called to proclaim love however we can, be it handing out food on a street corner, or voting to help the needy at the ballot box.

We live in a time when the observers of our world, the commentators and pundits want to categorize us as being “red staters or blue staters,” “values voters or economic voters,” conservative or liberal. They seem to believe that Christians should fit in one box that is clearly defined and seldom changes.

But boxes are never able to hold God. Every time we think we have him boxed in, he breaks out and wild things begin to happen. And for those who follow Jesus, boxes are simply something to be crushed and thrown aside.

You see friends, followers of Jesus are neither red or blue.

Followers of Jesus are neither Republican or Democrat.

Followers of Jesus are hesed people.

And that color guides everything that we do.

For our creator, the one who made us from dust,
believes that all colors equally must
love one another, with all of our might,
for to love is the thing that is always quite right.
And when Hesed is the center of life,
then both red and blue can put down our knives.
For the creator of all, the night and the day,
created all to be perfect, in their own unique way.

Once upon a time, in the land of Kazoo,
lived two grizzled old men, one red and one blue.
Across the street from each other, in houses alike,
and out on the street they both road their bikes.
But though they were bikers, and lived very close,
they avoided each other, and thought the other quite gross.

.The red man had grown up as red as a beet,
with red from his hair right down to his feet.
And the red man had learned from his grizzled old father,
that the blue kind of people were frankly a bother.

“The red kind of people,” his father would say,
“are the smartest of all the folks living today.”
“Watch out for those blue ones, the liberal kind.
They are shifty, and worthless, and never quite mind.
Our way is better, you know that it’s true,
and we should be the rulers of dear old Kazoo.”

The blue man was blue way down to the core,
with a long blue beard that dragged on the floor.
And though he could see the red man who lived over there,
he remembered his mama saying that reds were all square.

“Those red kind of people,” his mama once said,
“have something that’s missing inside of their heads .”
“Those red ones, they always avoid any change,
they are rigid and angry; I think they have mange.
Our way is better, you know that it’s true,
and WE should be the rulers of dear old Kazoo.”

So the reds gathered, and formed them a state,
an army to protect them when they stayed up late.
And the blues likewise, grouped up together,
because they all knew that their way was better.|
And they argued and fumed, they fussed and they fought.
They ranted and ranted. They were all quite distraught.
Until one day, a new handsome teacher he came,
and said “You know this is the silliest game.”

“I wonder,” he said, “if there’s not something better,
a way of living that will bring us together.”
He looked at the people, the blues and the reds,
and he told them to listen with all of their heads.
“Red and blue is just fine,” he said with great might,
“but listen to me, neither one of you is right.”

“You reds think that only the red way is right.
You blues think the other’s heads are not screwed on quite tight.
But the one who made us, the creator of night,
the creator of morning, the creator of light,
the creator of all colors, both red and both blue,
the creator of all, every shape and every hue.”

This creator, the one who made us from dust,
believes that all colors equally must
love one another, with all of our might,
for to love is the thing that is always quite right.
You see in my kingdom, there isn’t one color,
they are all are mixed up one with another.
And this new color, not quite blue or quite red,
is a new way of being, let’s call it Hesed.
Hesed is quite lovely, Hesed is quite chic,
Hesed is a color that is very sleek.

And when Hesed is the center of of all of our lives,
then both red and blue can put down all your knives.
For the creator of all, the night and the day,
created all to be perfect, in their own unique way.

The red man and blue man, they put down their swords.
They hugged one another. They apologized for their words.
For they knew for the first time in all of their years,
they could throw in the garbage all of their fears.
And the people of Kazoo, both the red and the blue,
sleep soundly each evening, knowing now what was is true.
The red and the blue were neither the way,
but only the one who created the day.

I’ve been thinking seriously about doing part of the sermon as a Dr. Seuss rhyme, but it isn’t quite coming together, so I will enlist the help of the blogosphere. Why don’t you submit your suggestions for verses related to faith and Christianity, especially in light of Christ’s teaching to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and I promise that I will give you credit in the preached and written sermon.

Come on blogworld, help me out!

UPDATE:

Here is the bulletin cover: