Sharing the Mundane (Acts 2:42-47)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 22, 2017, Proper 24)

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A Meal—And So Much More

Some of you may have already heard or read this story.  Over a month ago, Jeff and Rebecca helped Lu move a few things from her house to the church for the yard sale.  Then, just a couple Sundays ago, Lu found herself in the position to return the help.  After we had broken bread and shared a meal at Deep Run Park, Jeff needed a ride home.  He and Rebecca had come together, but she had to leave the park early to go to work, leaving Jeff without a car.

Lu offered to give Jeff a ride.  The way she tells it, this was just to return the favor.  But I know better.  I know that the ride that Lu offered was not part of some exchange.  It was a gift.  Just as Jeff and Rebecca had done a month before, Lu was simply sharing what she could share in a moment of need.  She would have done what she did whether or not there was a favor to return.

In any case, Jeff got in Lu’s Prius and they turned onto Ridgefield, headed home.  Almost immediately, though, the car had what Lu called “a bout of hiccups”: “the right rear tire was bouncing and veering off.”  Now, if you know Lu, you know she’s a fighter and not to be deterred by a little bump here or there.  It’s my understanding that she had planned to keep driving.  Lucky for her that Jeff was in the car, because his mechanical sixth-sense told him that the tire was about to blow.  I don’t know how Jeff convinced Lu of this, but somehow he did, and just after they crossed Pump Road, they turned into a parking lot.

Jeff immediately got to work.  He found the little temporary tire and began to install it.  Just then, a truck pulled into the parking lot.  Lu was fearing the worst—that it would be someone telling them they could not park here—but in fact it was a stranger who had worked for AAA for years and wanted to offer his help.  He could tell that the temporary tire was low on air, so he ran it down to the nearest station to refill it.  Some time later the faulty tire was replaced, and Lu and Jeff completed their journey down Ridgefield to Jeff’s home. 

What a Sunday for Jeff and Lu!  Little did they know what they were getting into when they came to church.  A meal, yes—but so much more.

Pentecost: The Modern Church Poster Child?

In the verses that precede today’s scripture, we have the roar and the rumble of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God rushes upon the crowd of Christ-followers and they make quite a scene, speaking in all sorts of languages and declaring the glory of God.  Peter then raises his voice and gives a rousing, revival-worthy sermon, and three thousand people are baptized, committing their lives to the way of Christ.

I’ll be honest.  Hearing about Pentecost Sunday when the church was born, reminds me a little bit of the glitz and glam of the contemporary religious scene, of mega-churches and feel-good conferences, where the volume is turned up and everyone leaves on a high.  In our modern world, where many churches promise spectacle and self-gain, Pentecost can be distorted into the perfect piece of propaganda.  Here’s what church is.  Here’s what Sunday is: a great, spirited performance and everyone leaves happy.

The Commonness of Church

But in scripture, the story does not end with Pentecost.  After the spectacle, the real life of the church begins.  That’s what we see in today’s passage.  Church is more than a single event.  Sunday is more than a show.  It’s no coincidence that the first followers of Christ were often called members of “the Way.”  They were identified not by a single event of salvation, but rather by their commitment to a way of life. 

What did that way look like?  Today’s scripture says that the early Christ-followers were committed to koinonia, a Greek work that our Bible translates as “fellowship.”  But koinonia is a much richer word than “fellowship” would suggest.  Some people propose the alternative translation “community” or “communion,” but I believe a better translation would be “commonness.”  The word koinonia comes from the Greek word, koinos, which means something like “common.”  It contains both senses of that word: “common” as something that is shared in common, and “common” as something that is mundane, or commonplace. 

So when the early Christ-followers committed themselves to koinonia, or commonness, they were committing themselves to sharing the mundane.  And that’s exactly what we see in today’s scripture.  We see them daily breaking bread together, gathering in their homes together, praying together, joining their resources together.  Come to think of it, this is the same stuff Jesus did.

Everyday, the early Christ-followers shared the mundane parts of their lives together: food, words, things, homes.  Church wasn’t a one-time event in the week.  It was a way of life.  Scholars speculate that at this stage in church history, Christ-followers would not have distinguished between the Lord’s Supper and “just a meal”: every meal together was eaten in remembrance and anticipation of the Lord.[1]  Likewise giving was not an offering enclosed in an envelope; it was what they did whenever someone was in need.

All this to say: long before the long robes arrived on the scene, installing their pulpits and ordaining their ministers and prescribing the elements of worship, the church was already alive and well.  Not in a spectacular way, but rather in a very common, everyday way—in the way of Jesus.  The church committed itself to koinonia, “commonness.”  The church shared the mundane.

When Does Church End?  Begin?

I think back to two weeks ago.  Like the early church, we broke bread together at Deep Run.  And a little bit later, we left.  Was that the end of church?  Was that the conclusion to Sunday?

It wasn’t for Lu and Jeff.  For Lu and Jeff, I’d dare say, church was just getting started.  They were about to share a rather mundane, headache-inducing experience together.  Lu would share her car.  Jeff would share his mechanical know-how.  A stranger would share his truck. 

Koinonia.  Commonness.  The church shares the mundane.  After the sound system is unplugged and the spectators leave satisfied, that’s when church really begins. 

Common and Sacred

A little bit later today, we will enter into this koinonia, this commonness, as we break bread together.  Traditionally we take communion all together.  This is a good and meaningful practice.  It represents our oneness as a church, our integrity with the body of Christ.  In my experience, though, there are occasionally side effects.  At some larger churches, communion has felt to me like a spectator sport, where I watch from my seat in the audience as the clergy perform.  Or sometimes it has felt like simply another shopping transaction in my week, a private little pick-me-up not unlike a Starbucks coffee.  Or sometimes it has felt like nothing at all.

As our Visioning Team learned this last year, Gayton Road feels called to share the life of faith in small groups, where two or three are gathered—and with good reason.  The blessing of small groups is that they encourage koinonia, commonness, sharing the mundane.

I remember the first time I took communion with only a handful of Christ-followers.  We sat in a small circle.  We read, prayed, and blessed the bread and cup together.  Our hands touched as we broke the bread for each other.  We looked into each other’s eyes as we served each other the cup.  These were the most common of elements and most common of human interactions.  And yet here, bread and cup and touch and gaze were more than throwaway gestures.  Here they became the body of Christ.  I trembled.  In that circle, I felt a holiness that I had not often felt in a sanctuary, as I received and shared the love of Christ in a very bodily, tangible, matter-of-fact way.  How common that experience was—and yet how sacred!

Today we sit in small groups of six or seven.  At communion, each small group will be invited to share the bread and the cup and the prayers together.  Like the early followers of Christ, we will share the mundane: bread, words, hands.  It may feel unremarkable.  I don’t know, it might even feel tedious—not unlike changing a tire!  That’s okay.  In fact, that may be a good thing.  The church is not a spectacle or a gathering for self-gain.  If today’s scripture is any indication, the church is much more profound than that—so profound, in fact, that it shares and sanctifies even the most mundane.

Prayer

Common God,

Shared among all

In the mundane parts of life:

Bread, prayers, tires, trucks—

Draw us out of our self-seeking

Into the sacred commonness

Of life together,

Where we are embraced

By your love.  Amen.

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[1] William H. Willimon, Acts (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 41.

In Heaven as It Is on Earth (Matthew 18:18-20)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 15, 2017, Proper 23)

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Whatever You Do on Earth Will Be Done in Heaven

Every week we pray with Jesus: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are praying, effectively, for heaven on earth.

In today’s short passage, there’s a curious reversal in Jesus’ words.  Rather than talking about the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, Jesus talks about life in heaven as it is on earth.  “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Basically, whatever you do on earth will be done in heaven.  In other words, Jesus isn’t talking about heaven coming to earth.  He’s suggesting the opposite here: that life on earth will somehow become life in heaven. 

This is a striking counterpoint, then, to the Lord’s prayer.  If the Lord’s prayer had misled us into thinking that God would be heaven’s chauffeur and drive heaven down to our doorstep, Jesus’ words here remind us that we have a radical responsibility.  Heaven can come to earth, but not without our willing hearts.  Not without us binding or holding onto what is good, and not without us loosing or letting go of what is hurtful.

The Little Things Live On

Jesus’ words in today’s passage emerge from a conversation about personal relationships.  So when he says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and likewise whatever you loose,” I think what he’s really saying is that heaven, if it is ever to happen, will begin in our personal relationships.  The kingdom of God will not come as a great spectacle.  It will come in the little things.  For the little things live on—in heaven as they were on earth.

If you’ve read or seen A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, perhaps you remember the ghost of Jacob Marley, who bears a heavy chain and warns Scrooge: “I wear the chain I forged in life.  I made it link by link…and of my own free will I wore it.”  Marley is bound beyond as he was bound on earth.

But we can bind and be bound by other things too.  My memories of living in Sheffield visit me most frequently at breakfast time.  In the little terraced house where I lived, our home full of graduate students was always abuzz in the morning.  There would be a common pot of coffee brewing, started by whoever got up the earliest.  If I’d made biscuits, they’d be in the oven, filling the kitchen with the smell of warm butter.  My housemate Adriana often began her day with a smoke; sometimes I’d take a cup of coffee out on the back steps and accompany her, and we’d share our hopes for the day or our speculations on life…or simply our silence.

This is all to say, those mornings in Sheffield have an afterlife.  The little deeds we’ve done are gone, but they also live on.  Our terraced house was not always the scene of peace and harmony; there were differences and arguments from time to time.  But for the most part, we let those go.  Our forgiveness “loosed” those things on earth, and now, I trust, they have no hold on us in heaven.  But the love that bound and held us together here on earth—still binds and holds us together now, as we move toward heaven.

An Infinitely Charged and Sacred Space

In telling that story, I’ve played it safe.  You and I both have histories that are not so peaceful and easy.  We have histories that still hurt, in which we are still “bound,” which we still hold onto.

Those hurtful histories prove Jesus’ point as much as the harmonious ones do.  Namely, that our relationships are an infinitely charged and sacred space.  They have the capacity to bless us with heaven, but also to harm us indefinitely.  What we hold onto and let go of now, is what will hold onto us or not for longer than we can know.

As our Visioning Team met this last year, we shared stories of our most meaningful experiences at Gayton Road.  We’ve already heard about how significant the table has been—as the place where we encounter our Lord in feasting and friendship, in sharing and self-giving, as the place where we receive and participate in God’s love, which is stronger even than death.  Another story shared frequently in the Visioning Team’s meetings, was the memory of small group gatherings.  These memories were good ones.  Having heard Jesus’ words today, I would even go so far as to say that these small groups are where the kingdom happened, where life on earth became in fact life in heaven.  As we hear some of these stories now, I would invite us all to reflect on our own experience of small gatherings, both here at church and elsewhere.  Where have we experienced small groups as sacred, as charged with holy possibility? 

In the Face of Another

As we’ve just heard from Amanda and John, in the small gatherings here at Gayton Road, there is a sacred potential and holy responsibility.  It goes far beyond the content of these groups—whether that’s songs or Bible study.  It has to do, rather, with a way of life, a way of relating to each other, a way of forgiving bad notes and being bound in love and care.  When at these gatherings we hold onto what is good and let go of what is hurtful, we welcome the kingdom.  Or as Jesus puts it, where two or three gather in his name—which is to say, in the spirit of his binding love and his loosing forgiveness—Jesus himself is there. 

Our small groups are saturated with holy possibility.  In the face of another, we receive an invitation to love and forgive, a call to bind our hearts together and to let go of hurt.  So that one day it will be in heaven as it is on earth. 

Prayer

Living Christ,

Who entrusts us

With the kingdom responsibility

Of love and forgiveness,

Binding and loosing:

Gather with us

In our small groups,

And inspire us

To the little deeds

That live on

In heaven.  Amen.

He Came Eating and Drinking (Luke 7:34)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on October 1, 2017, Proper 21)

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More Than a Man Eating and Drinking,

More Than a Table

If you were playing hide-and-seek with Jesus, and you were it, where would begin looking?  We might be tempted to begin by looking for Jesus in the Temple, as his parents did when he was a child.  Or perhaps we might look for him in the workshop, for it’s said that his family were carpenters.  But if the gospels are any indication, we would have better luck searching somewhere else.  We would do better to begin with the local diner. 

It’s a striking fact: in the gospels, we find Jesus at the table much more often than at the Temple.

So often is he found at the table, in fact, that he becomes known as “a drunkard and a glutton” (Luke 7:34).  It’s understandable, perhaps, how Jesus receives this reputation, but it’s rather unfortunate too.  Jesus is always at the table, yes—but he’s doing much more than eating and drinking.  If all that we see is a drunkard and a glutton, then we’ve really missed out.

Perhaps Jesus explains it best himself.  In the gospels, there are two ways that Jesus describes his own life.  On one occasion, he owns up to the obvious: “The Son of Man,” he says, “came eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34).  I imagine Jesus saying this in the same way that we might confess to an undeniable charge.  “Alright, you’ve got me.  I’m always at the table, eating and drinking.  There, I’ve said it!”

But on another occasion, Jesus gives us a glimpse into what’s really going on in all the eating and drinking.  There is more at the table than meets the eye.  At the spiritual heart of all that Jesus does is this: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God,” he says.  “For this purpose I was sent” (Luke 4:43).

In other words, the Jesus who comes “eating and drinking” is the same Jesus who is always “proclaim[ing] the good news of the kingdom of God.”  The table is not just a mess of food and drink.  The table is how Jesus shows us the kingdom of God.  For Jesus, the table becomes a picture of the kingdom.  A doorway into the kingdom.  A celebration consummating the kingdom.

What the Kingdom Looks Like

What does the kingdom of God look like?  While the world dreams of pearly gates and streets of gold, power and prestige beyond measure, Jesus simply sets a table.  “Here,” he seems to say, “Let me show you what the kingdom really looks like.”

At the table, Jesus brings down the powerful and lifts up the lowly, giving pride of place to the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame (Luke 14:12-14).  At the table, Jesus welcomes the unwelcome: he eats with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34).  At the table, Jesus makes friends (Luke 7:34).  At the table, Jesus makes life more abundant, turning water into wine (John 2:1-10).  At the table, Jesus tells stories, stories that shatter our assumptions and presumption and open up new life (cf. Luke 7:36-50, 14:15-24).  At the table, Jesus meets needs, giving bread to the hungry (Luke 9:10-17).  At the table, Jesus heals the sick  (Luke 14:1-6).  At the table, Jesus sees ours tears and shows us forgiveness (Luke 7:36-50).  At the table, Jesus serves us and cares for us—even washes our feet (John 13:1-17).  At the table, Jesus shares bread and cup as reminders of his undying love, as a promise that he will always be with us (Luke 22:14-20). 

The table is so much a part of who Jesus is, that even when he’s not there, he cannot help talking about it.  It spills into his thoughts and his dreams, his parables and his conversations.  When he speaks, it’s about weddings and feasts (Luke 5:34-35; 14:7-11), banquets and celebrations (Luke 15:11-32), wineskins and vineyards (Luke 5:36-38; 13:6-8; 20:9-19; Matt 20:1-16; 21:28-32, 33-45), seeds and gardens (Matt 13:24-30; Luke 8:4-8; 13:6-9, 18-19), yeast and bread and water and fruit (Luke 13:20-21; John 4:7-15; 6:22-59; 7:37-39). 

Jesus is never far from the table.  And the table, I must believe, is never far from the kingdom of God.

Stories of the Table,

Stories of the Kingdom

Over the last year, as our Visioning Team met together and shared stories and experiences, the table came up again and again.  In retrospect, that’s no surprise.  I have a hunch, a suspicion, that the tables here at Gayton Road are much more than simply tables, just as Jesus was much more than a man eating and drinking.  I have an inkling that the table is, in fact, where we have caught a glimpse of the kingdom of God, perhaps even stepped foot inside the kingdom of God.

As we hear some of these stories now, I invite you to reflect on your own experience of the table.  Not just the communion table here in the sanctuary, but the tables in the fellowship hall, and the tables at your home, and the tables across the world at which you have sat with friends and strangers.  Have these tables ever been more than just tables, more than just a mess of food and drink?  Have you ever caught a glimpse of the kingdom at one of them?  When?  Where?  How? 

What did it look like?

Prayer

Christ who came eating and drinking,

Whose kingdom draws wondrously near

In tables

Where gifts of food and drink are prepared and shared,

Where we are filled with gratitude,

Where strangers are welcomed,

Where nobodies become somebody,

Where friendships are made,

Where healing and forgiveness and care give us new life,

Where your love is blessed, broken, and shared:

Be our holy guest today, at this table,

And in the days to come, at tables near and far.

Your kingdom come, your will be done.  Amen.

Grumbling at God's Gift (Exodus 16:2-15)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 24, 2017, Proper 20)

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Grumbling at Seafood

The year was 2004.  My family and I were in the Swiss Alps.  For Christmas.  We lodged for several nights in a quaint little chalet, surrounded by mountains and snow.  We were quite literally living a dream. 

Our first night at the chalet, we entered the dining room with anticipation.  We had heard that there would be no menu.  We would be eating whatever the chef prepared.  It was almost like a culinary Christmas gift.  We had no idea what we would be eating, but we could hardly wait to find out.

We found out soon enough.  Fish.  When the waiter set it ceremoniously on the table, we all smiled nervously.  No one wanted to say anything.  Not right away.  But as soon as the waiter left, we gave a collective grumble. 

Growing up, the closest I had ever gotten to seafood was popcorn shrimp.  Anything else was avoided, mainly because my mom is severely allergic to most finfish.  Better safe than sorry was my family’s seafood policy.

The truth is, except for my mom, we could have eaten that fish in the Swiss chalet.  But we didn’t like fish.  We never ate it.  So when the waiter returned, our collective grumble became a collective half-lie.  We sadly informed him that we were allergic to seafood.  Perhaps they had something else on the menu?

I imagine that the cooks were the next to grumble as their gourmet fish was returned to the kitchen and they heated up its bland replacement: chicken tenders and fries. 

Grumbling as a Faith Disorder

Our two scriptures today are full of grumbling (Ex 16:2-15; Matt 20:1-16).  Just as my family grumbled at the fish, so the Israelites “grumble” at the uncertainty of their next meal (16:2, 7-8, 12), and so the early workers “grumble” at their wages (20:11), which are no better than the wages of the late workers.  The irony in each story, is that no one is grumbling at a hardship.

My family grumbled at the prospect of an unfavorable dish, but that fish would have nourished us and given us life.  The Israelites grumbled at the uncertainty of wandering through the wilderness, but for the first time in their existence they were free to live their own lives.  The early workers grumbled about their paycheck, but the truth is that they were paid a day’s wage, enough to put food on the table, a shirt on their back, and hope in their hearts—enough for a good life.

In each story, the disgruntled grumble not at hardship but at the gift of life: daily bread, freedom, a livelihood.

According to these three stories, then, grumbling is more than a rumble at the back of our throats, more than a momentary expression of frustration.  Grumbling is a faith disorder.  It is a spiritual blindness to the gift of life.  A grumbling spirit could not see a gift if it were right in front of its eyes.  Why?  Because a grumbling spirit reduces life to a market of exchange.  It only understands this-for-that, payment and purchase.

When my family sat down in the chalet dining room, we grumbled because fish—something we did not like—was not a fair exchange for our night’s expense.  When the Israelites wandered into freedom, they grumbled and became nostalgic for their slavery.  Why?  Because in Egypt, they did not have to live in day-to-day uncertainty.  In Egypt, they had been guaranteed an exchange: meat and bread for their labor.  When the workers clocked out with the manager of the vineyard, they grumbled because they expected an exchange proportionate to their labor.  If those who had only worked one hour received one silver coin, then how many more should they receive who worked nine hours?

The Gift of Seafood

After that night in Switzerland, my palate took a curious journey.  Seven years later, I went to study in England.  My first year there, I lived in a flat with 7 other international students.  One of my flat-mates, Fran, was from Barcelona, and he loved seafood.  It was only a matter of time before he had cooked a dish to share.  Paella—with mussels and clams and prawns and tuna. 

How proud he was to share this hometown favorite with me!  It was a gift.  How could I say no?

So I ate it.  At first, every bite was a hard swallow.  But gradually I came to appreciate some of the flavors.  I won’t say I loved the dish.  What I remember most is not how it tasted.  What I remember most is how happy Fran was.  Paella will forever remind me of his excited eyes as I took my first bite, his laughter as I gave it my cautious approval.

It wasn’t long before my palate set sail again for another seafood adventure.  In the culinary world, England is practically synonymous with fish and chips.  For many Brits, a life without fish and chips would be no life at all.  It would have been inexcusable for me to live there and not eat fish and chips.  So I did.  Over my next four years, I ended up visiting more chippies than I can count.  And now I can honestly say that, sometimes, I enjoy fish.  It will never be a favorite for taste.  But it will always remind me of my life there—the friends with whom I ate and the places we went—all of which were, I think, a gift.

In the grand scheme of things, the journey of my palate is pretty trivial.  I understand that.  But I cannot help feeling a certain truth in this experience.  First, seafood was the object of my grumbling.  Years later, it was a gift.  Life was all the more abundant when I received it as a gift.  I hardly remember the chicken tenders and fries of Switzerland.  But Fran’s paella and all the chippies I visited, I will never forget.  They filled me with new life.

Life Is a Gift—Every Day

In both of today’s scriptures, God responds to the grumbling of the people.  And in each response, there is a common theme.  In the wilderness, God promises Moses that the people will have their daily bread: “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day” (Ex 16:4).  In the kingdom parable that Jesus tells, the landowner reminds the workers that, whatever their complaints, they have received their “usual daily wage” (Matt 20:13). 

This, then, is how God responds to grumbling: “Look at me,” God says.  “Don’t look at the past.  Don’t look at others.  Look at me.  I am giving you life today.”

In other words, life is a gift.  Every day.  There is a revolutionary seed in the parable that Jesus tells.  On the surface, this is a story about workers and wages.  It is a story of this for that.  Labor for money.  And yet at the end of the story, the landowner explodes the idea that he was ever giving wages: “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you” (Matt 20:14).   The landowner’s money is not a fair wage.  Contrary to all appearances, this is not a story of workers and wages.  This is a story about a gift.

In the kingdom of God, life is not earned or bartered.  Life is a gift.  Every day. 

A Remedy to Grumbling: Gratitude

Both of today’s stories showcase the faith disorder of grumbling.  Both stories diagnose the people’s blindness to God’s gift of life.  But neither story offers a remedy.

There is, however, a hint in today’s psalm, which begins: “O give thanks to the Lord.” 

Gratitude.  Paul takes this one to the extreme when he says, “Give thanks at all times” (cf. 1 Thes 5:18; Eph 5:20).

Whereas grumbling is blind to life, and does nothing to encourage it, gratitude is daily on the quest for life, whatever tender stem or tiny root of life it can find.  Gratitude is the fertilizer of life.  It looks upon life as the gift of God, and welcomes it with open hands, rather than turning it away with a grumbling heart.

“It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote those words in a Nazi prison.  He would die within two years.  That is not fair.  But it did not stop Bonhoeffer from giving thanks anyway—celebrating the life that he had found anyway.  And today Bonhoeffer’s words continue to nourish many readers, myself included, encouraging us to seek out and celebrate life.  Because of his gratitude, there is more life on this earth. 

Perhaps one day, the same might be said of us.

Prayer

God who gives life

In the wilderness,

In our work,

In what does not always fit

Our idea of a fair exchange—

Heal us of our grumbling,

And draw us into a gratitude

That fertilizes your gift of life.

In the name of him

Who saw your gift in all creation, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Where He Said He'd Be (Psalm 114:1-8)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 17, 2017, Proper 19)

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The Story of a People:

Who Are Israel?

The last few weeks, we’ve been in Egypt.  We began with the Hebrew midwives and Pharaoh’s daughter and the mother and sister of Moses, all of whom conspired in their own way to serve life instead of death.  We followed Moses out into the wilderness, where he had run away from death and suffering.  There he encountered God in the burning bush, and there he heard the call to return to his fellow Israelites, to share their suffering and their struggle for life.  We followed the Israelites last week as God passed over Egypt and delivered them from slavery, giving them life.  This week, we hear in our Psalm a song celebrating God’s liberating power, a power so great that the earth trembles with life before it. 

Together these stories tell the story of life.  How life triumphed over suffering and death.  But these stories are not a universal story (however universal their themes may be).  They’re a particular story about a particular people.    

Who are the people of Israel?  They are the people who were slaves in Egypt.  They are the people whom God liberated and gave new life.

Who Is Gayton Road?

Over the last year, our Visioning Team—Mark, Grace and Carol, John, Judy, Virginia, and myself, all of whom volunteered to explore our church’s sense of call—met together to ask a similar question: Who is Gayton Road Christian Church?  What is our story of life?  How is God calling us today?

After months of sharing stories and exploring experiences, we began to notice a pattern, a trajectory.  There was no burning bush or desert wilderness like in the Israelites’ story, but there were tales of difficulty and brokenness and liberation and new life.  And these tales again and again tread the same three trails, three trails of liberation where God has met us in our need, and where we believe the church is called to meet others in their need.  From these three trails emerged a sense of who we are and how we are called.  This finds expression at the bottom of the front of your bulletin:

  

“Gayton Road feels called to share the life of faith around tables, in small groups, and with the needful.”

Where Jesus Is:

Around Tables, In Small Groups, With the Needful

Around tables.  In small groups.  With the needful.

Is it any wonder that these three places are where we have found new life amid loss, liberation from the chains of the past?  Is it any coincidence that these three places are where the world trembles with life?  These three places—the table, small groups, and the needful—are precisely where Jesus promised we would always find him.  “Do this in remembrance of me,” he said at the table, promising that his memory would always be with us there (cf. Luke 22:19).  “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them,” he said, promising that he would always be with us even in the smallest of groups (cf. Matt 18:20).  “What you have done for the least of these, you have done to me,” he said, promising that he would always be with us in the needful (cf. Matt 25:40).

Where Gayton Road has found life, is precisely where Jesus said he would be. 

All It Needs Is Christ

A couple months ago, I shared this sense of call with our high school youth and asked them if they had any ideas about an image to illustrate our calling.  Within two crazy hours, we ended up with an image very similar to the one that’s on your bulletin.  

I cannot express how proud I am of our youth and their design.  As you can see, the image is the Disciples chalice, supplemented by three simple figures: the table, two people gathered on the right, and a needful person on the left.  You’ll notice, too, that the table in the middle is also the cross, reminding us that the cross and its story of love and self-giving sits at the heart of our every gathering.

Over the next couple months, you’ll be seeing this image a lot more.  I invite you to chew on it.  Ruminate over it.  Let it steep in your heart and in your prayers.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, “icons” are an important practice of faith: they are pictures that serve as windows through which we might catch a glimpse of God.  We are not Eastern Orthodox, but perhaps we might take a page from their book and look upon this image as an icon.  An image cannot capture God, but a good one can invite us into the mystery of God.  Perhaps this is such an image.  Because this tells not only the story of who we are and where we have found life.  It also tells the story of who Christ is and where he finds us.

In today’s world, it’s easy for the church to get lost in a sea of programming and entertainment and advertisement.  It’s easy for the church to confuse life with bodies in the pew and programs in the bulletin and bucks in the budget.  But as our Visioning Team discovered, and as our youth so creatively illustrated, the life of the church is not about power or prestige.  The life of the church is about where we meet Christ and find new life.  It’s about where we share that love and new life with others.  The life of the church doesn’t need any dressing up.  All it needs is a table.  Or a group of two or three people.  Or a person in need.  All it needs is Christ.

Remembering Why We Are Here and Where We Are Called

For six weeks, from October 1 to November 5, we will explore in worship our sense of call as a church.   We will hear stories from church members and friends.  Some Sundays we’ll do things a bit differently, devoting our time especially to these three simple practices: gathering at the table, meeting in small groups, and caring for the needful.  For example, on October 8, we will not have worship in this sanctuary.  Instead, we will gather at the back picnic shelters in the park, where we will simply eat with one another and with any friends who join us.  On the one hand, you might ask if this even qualifies as worship.  But on the other hand, when you consider that the table is precisely where Jesus promises he would be, that this is how he repeatedly describes the kingdom—as a feast!—that this is where we ourselves have encountered Christ again and again, then you might wonder why we don’t do this more often!

Similarly, as we gather in small groups and care for the needful, we will consider how this is the heart of who we are, this is where we encounter Christ and find new life, this is where we share that new life.  We need not look around and wonder: “Do we need better programs?  Are there enough people here?  How can we become more attractive?”  “Bigger and better” are not the reasons that we have been drawn to Gayton Road, and they’re not the reasons that we stay.  We are here because around tables, in little gatherings, and with the needful, we encounter Christ and we share Christ with others.

Is It Any Surprise?

Who were the people of Israel?  They were the people who were slaves in Egypt.  They were the people whom God liberated and gave new life.

Who is Gayton Road Christian Church?  We are the people who have found new life amid loss, liberation from the chains of our past.  We are the people who have encountered Christ and shared his life around tables, in small gatherings, and with the needful.  And is it any surprise?  This is just where Jesus promised he would be.

Prayer

Dear Jesus,

We have found you

Right where you said you’d be.

While the world looks for bigger and better,

Help us to feel the kingdom tectonics

Trembling and transforming the earth

Not through might and muscle

But through your love shared

At tables, in little gatherings, and with the needful.

In your name: Amen.

What We Remember (Exodus 12:1-14)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 10, 2017, Proper 18)

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A Living Memory:

God the Liberator, the Life-Giver

“Remember this day,” God says to Moses on the eve of his people’s liberation (cf. 12:14).  “Mark it on your calendar.  In fact, make it the beginning of your calendar, the first month of the year.  Make it the most important memory, the center of your world” (cf. 12:2).  “Celebrate it every year, til the end of time” (cf. 12:14).

Why is this memory so important?  Why make it the first month of the year and celebrate it again and again?  Because it is a timeless memory, a memory that lives, a memory that comes true again and again.  God was, is, and will be the liberator, the life-giver.

Fast-forward over a thousand years from Moses to Jesus, and the Israelites were still remembering that Passover day.  Jesus and his disciples go to Jerusalem to remember it.  For them, Passover is not an idle memory, a pleasant recollection.  It is a living memory, a memory that comes alive again.  As the Israelites suffered in Egypt, so Jesus will suffer on the cross.  As the Israelites were delivered, so Jesus will be resurrected.  Over a thousand years later, it is still true.  God is the liberator, the life-giver.

Today, three thousand years after Moses, the Jewish faith still celebrates the Passover.  For them too, it is a living memory, a memory that they have lived over and over again.  As their ancestors suffered in Egypt, they too have suffered: persecution in ancient Rome, organized massacres in Russia and Eastern Europe, the Holocaust.  And as their ancestors found freedom from Egypt, they continue to find life too.  It is still true for them: God is the liberator, the life-giver.

Insofar as the Lord’s Supper is a Passover meal, we also celebrate the memory.  In fact, we celebrate it every week—or even more often: “Whenever [we] eat this bread or drink this cup,” Paul says (1 Cor 11:26).  Just as the Passover was originally ordained as the beginning of the calendar, the memory that would define time and life itself, so the Lord’s Supper begins our every week, reminding us that though the times may change, this memory will be true again and again: God is the liberator, the life-giver.

The Lord Still Dies

Every week, at the very end of the Lord’s Supper, we quote scripture: “For as often as [we] eat this bread and drink the cup, [we] proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).  Up until this week, that conclusion has always puzzled me and left me feeling a bit empty.  Why do we only remember the Lord’s death?  Why not his resurrection?  Why not new life?

But now I have a theory.  It’s because the Lord still dies.  It’s because there is still suffering in this world.  There are still many Egypts, many Pharaohs, many chains in this world.  We proclaim the Lord’s death not because we’re pessimists or doomsayers, but because we believe there is more liberating that needs to be done, more resurrection that needs to happen.  This memory is not an idle recollection, a pleasant reminiscence.  This memory is a defiant act of faith, a commitment to a different future.

If God had solved the problems of the world once and for all with the Passover event, then there would be no need to remember.  God invites the Israelites to remember that day forever, year after year, because there will still be suffering left in their world.  And God wants them to remember that suffering does not have the last word, that liberation and life are always at hand, that God is the liberator, the life-giver.

That is why we remember the Lord’s death every week.  Because every week we see his death in our world and yet we defiantly proclaim that liberation and life are at hand.

When we hear about the thousands who face a departure from their home and all they have known, we remember the Lord’s death.  When we hear about the LGBTQ community rejected by the church, we remember the Lord’s death.  When we hear about the poor Salvadorans caught in the crossfire between the gangs and the government, we remember the Lord’s death.

Johann Baptist Metz, a German theologian who has spent his life wrestling with the memory of the Holocaust, calls the memory of Christ “the dangerous memory of suffering.”  It is dangerous because it sees in the face of every suffering person the face of Christ, because it will not rest until they do, because it defies the injustice of the world and proclaims with love that liberation and life are at hand.

Not Just Back Then, But Now

For the rest of the sermon, I would like to share with you some personal reflections.  Here I am going to take a page from Paul’s book, and preface what follows with a reminder: “This is me speaking, not the Lord” (cf. 1 Cor 7:12; 2 Cor 11:17).  As if you needed to be reminded of that….

When the Israelites celebrate the Passover or when we celebrate the Last Supper, what we’re really celebrating is not an event shrouded in the mists of history.  What we’re really celebrating is a God who liberates, who gives life.  Not just back then but now.  What we’re proclaiming is that as sure as the week has seven days, or the year 365, suffering and oppression do not have the last word.

If that’s true, then where are the liberation stories of recent generations?  There’s one in particular that I think we need to remember, and I would like to share it with you today.

April 3, 1865, is often cited as the day that Richmond fell, and with it the Confederate States of America.  That is certainly how I have been taught to remember the day.  As I read recently through the story of that day, however, I cannot help but hear echoes of another story.  Listen with me.

One woman living in Richmond at the time remembers that day as a day of darkness: “We covered our faces and cried aloud,” she writes.  “All through the house was the sound of sobbing.  It was the house of mourning, the house of death.”[1]  Such words could easily have been written of the Egyptian houses on that dark night of the Passover (cf. Ex 12:30). 

Reverend Garland H. White, a former slave who was serving as a chaplain in the Union Army, describes the scene from the other side: “A vast multitude assembled on Broad Street, and I…proclaimed for the first time in that city freedom to all mankind. After which the doors of all the slave pens were thrown open, and thousands came out shouting and praising God.”[2]  Another chaplain writes also of divine deliverance, “We brought…heaven-born liberty.  The slaves seemed to think that the day of jubilee had fully come.  How they danced, shouted…shook our hands…laughed all over, and thanked God…!”[3]  And then in a passage that recalls the divine command to remember the Passover forever (12:14), he writes, “It is a day never to be forgotten by us till days shall be no more.”[4]

Indeed, forty years later, on April 3, 1905, Richmond hosted the Emancipation Day Parade, commemorating the day that many slaves in Richmond and across the south were actually liberated.  Thousands gathered for the festivities and celebrated with a procession through the city streets that ended up at the Broad Street Baseball Park.  (If there are any history buffs among you, I’d be curious to learn exactly where that was.)

Emancipation Day Parade, Richmond, Virginia, April 3, 1905[5]

Passover in Richmond—and What It Might Mean

As a native of Richmond, I have been taught to remember April 3, 1865, as the fall of this city and the fall of the Confederacy.  But as a follower of Christ, I am invited to remember the God who liberates, who gives life.  Which means I am invited to remember April 3, 1865, as a day of divine deliverance, a holy Passover.  A heavy day and a day of great cost, yes, as it was thousands of years ago in Egypt, but a day when the God the liberator, God the life-giver, passed over the city—this city!—bringing freedom to thousands.

I am honored to call Richmond home, if for no other than that here happened a Passover.  And this memory, which is but one of many in the long line of memories going all the way back to Egypt, a host of memories which ring most loud and most true in the Last Supper of Christ—this memory is for me a defiant act of faith, a commitment to a different future.  It means remembering the Lord’s death in the subjugation and suffering of those today who still share the struggles that those slaves did: educational barriers, labor inequalities, presumptions of guilt and dangerousness.  This memory means believing that God the liberator and life-giver is against that suffering still, that Jesus Christ is in that suffering still, and that his love will somehow bring new life out of that suffering.  It means that while many dismiss or minimalize the suffering of others, we remember the death of our Lord, who must still be dying in these places, and we love in the middle of this suffering, because we believe that love is even stronger than death.  We believe that liberation and life are at hand.

The Future in the Past

In today’s charged atmosphere of partisan politics, it is difficult to talk about people’s lives without being implicated in a party or its policies.  But heaven forbid that keep us from talking.  As a follower of Christ, I am not partisan to one party or another.  I am partisan to the people who are suffering, in whom our Lord is still dying, whose lives cry out for liberation.  I am very interested in politics, yes—the politics of the kingdom of God, a kingdom for which I pray, a kingdom which I believe is coming.  And its coming, I believe, is somehow tied up with this beautiful past of Passovers that we remember.

Prayer

Lord Christ,

Whose death we still remember

When we see the suffering of our world:

May the memories

Of Passover and the Table and April 3

Inspire us to celebrate

The God who liberates and gives life,

And to share in God’s liberation

By living in your love,

Which is stronger than death.

Amen.

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[1] A Virginia Girl in the Civil War (ed. Myrta Lockett Avery; New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903), 362.

[2] A Grand Army of Black Men: Letters from African-American Soldiers in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (ed. Edwin S. Redkey; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 175-176.

[3] The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861-65 (eds. W. A. Croffut and John M. Morris; New York: Ledyard Bill, 1868), 791.  These are the words of Henry Swift DeForest.

[4] The Military and Civil History of Connecticut, 792.

[5] James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives.