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News & Happenings2012 CALENDAR OF EVENTS
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Pastor Eric Fjeldal's November 2010 Sunday Sermons
Pastor Eric's sermons are presented here in reverse chronological order...in other words, the most recent sermons are at the top of the list, working backwards through time.
Nov. 28. "Watching Today."
Matthew 24:36-44
“But about that day and hour no one knows.” Some associate these words with the end times, the second coming. Most associate these words with their death, the notion that they do not know when they will breathe their last breath. Suppose we associated these words with life, with now, this moment? What would change? What would you do differently?
I ask because while the theme of today’s scripture is waiting and watching, we are also reminded that it is not about some day, but today; not about some time, but this time. It is about the approach we take; how we go about doing what we do, what we see, what we expect. It is about learning how to recognize God in the midst of our lives. John Shea calls it “staying attentive to the spiritual dimension of life”. (pg. 28, On Earth As It Is In Heaven, Liturgical Press)
Staying attentive to the spiritual dimension of life is not something most of us are accustomed to doing; not because we don’t want to. I think it is more we forget. We are so busy doing the everyday, “the eating and drinking, marrying and being give in marriage” that we don’t set aside time. There is nothing wrong with these activities except that they (can be) all consuming. They (can) keep (us) from knowing something deeper, something of vital importance for (our) well-being. (John Shea, pg. 25) For this reason we need to head the call to “keep awake; stay alert, be watchful”; especially since, with having just experienced “Black Friday” and “Small Business Saturday”, with “Cyber Monday” looming tomorrow, we have just entered the season of insanity, also known as the “Christmas Rush.” As John Shear states;
This dominance of everyday activity is particularly true in the Christmas season.
Already busy people become busier. They have to prepare for the season, which
often means more shopping and more work. Unfortunately, this frantic preparation
often puts people to sleep spiritually. People begin to long not for the birth of the
Christmas Christ, but for the lazy, doldrums days of January. The rush of the season
works against the message of the season. (Shea, pg.28)
While this description is nothing new, it is still accurate. Despite our knowing better, year after year we fall prey to the rush. Because we do, it begs the question, “why?” “Why do we continually fall prey?”
I think in part the answer is because we really don’t honor our souls. We have lost sight of the importance of feeding and caring for them.
We tolerate what T.S. Eliot called ‘living and partly living.’ We wrongly treat spirit
as a luxury. If our bodies are hurting, we will pay attention to them and work hard
to recover our physical health. If our financial security or social status is under attack,
we will struggle and fight ceaselessly for our money and position. But we will allow
our spirit to languish and even atrophy. (Shea, pg. 29)
This is why today’s call to “watchful living”, (William R. Herzog II, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, pg. 25) is a call we need to hear; for in hearing it, we are reminded that God is truly active in our lives and world all the time. This means that opportunities to glimpse the kingdom are always before us; not because of what we do, but because of what God is doing. By remaining watchful in these unexpected moments, our spirits can be uplifted, as we encounter the wonder that is God and wakened to the truth that (t)he awareness of Spirit brings (a) pleasure, passion and purpose. (Shea pg. 29) One that moves us acts of gratitude, humility and faithfulness as we are moved to offer to others what God has offered to us.
Such awareness can lead to our wondering and lamenting over how many other moments we have missed. I don’t believe this is helpful. It is better to ask, “How do we stay spiritual aware amid our everyday activities? Being told to stay alert is not really helpful. As John Shea said; “We need to complement desire with strategies. (Shea, pg. 28) We need to do certain things, model certain behaviors. Here are some suggestions. Everyday set aside time to: be still; “count the ways you are blessed; be thankful.”
As you go about your day, strive to:
Be slow to quarrel. Look for the good. Suspend suspicion, be trusting.
Share a treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth.
Show your loyalty in word and deed.
Nourish a grateful attitude. Keep a promise. Find the time. Write a letter.
Don’t harbor a grudge. Listen. Apologize if you are wrong. Forgive.
Be understanding. Be slow to envy. Think first of someone else.
Show appreciation. Be kind. Laugh more. Deserve confidence. Be gentle.
Wage war against prejudice, sexism and every other kind of “ism’ that threatens another.
Worship God. Gladden the heart of a child. Decry complacency.
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
Make everyday a thanksgiving. Speak your gratitude. Speak it again.
Speak it still again. Speak it still once more.
(Source unknown, taken from a Christmas Greeting)
As we do these things let us do them remembering we do not through the work we do bring about God’s reign. God does that. Our role is to open ourselves to God’s reign as it is constantly being revealed, by “doing what we can in a spirit of hope and trust.” The message is clear; (in doing that we) will be doing enough. (Mark E. Yurs, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, pg.25) For while what we will be doing may still involve the everyday, the way we do them will be different. We will do them watching today.”
Nov. 21, "Recognize and Give Thanks."
Psalm 100
You can tell a great deal about a person’s agenda by the questions he or she asks; for as we all know:
Questions have many functions in conversations. Questions are posed to gain
knowledge and comprehension, analyze and access a situation, challenge authority,
shame an opponent, or win an argument or debate. Questions often give an opponent
the advantage, as the questions sets or reframes the conversation. The one who asks
the questions has the power.
(Nancy Lynne Westfield, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4 pg.284)
This is why accessing the situation means listening to what lies beneath. To do this, we have to set aside our agendas and be a non-anxious presence. This can be a real challenge, one that Jesus faced in this morning’s passage.
The Sadducees are questioning Jesus about a mystery that they have already considered
and rejected. Their questions are not for the purpose of genuine dialogue, but for the
purpose of prompting debate, with the hopes of showing up Jesus and showing onlookers
that Jesus is not trustworthy or knowledgeable.
Jesus doesn’t take the bait. Instead,
(he)Jesus seizes this moment of questioning as a teachable moment about the nature
of heaven. Rather than taking the questioning as a personal attack, Jesus uses this
moment as a time to teach about the love and mercy of God.
(Nancy Lynne Westfield, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4 pg. 284)
What helped Jesus was his knowing and understanding the Sadducees and their agenda. In addition to rejecting any notions of an afterlife; they were wealthy and believed in making life as comfortable for themselves as possible. They were pretty happy with the status quo and banked on the conviction that Jesus was wrong when he said things like “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” They enjoyed being first and weren’t likely to give credence to any thoughts of some great reversal. They had no use for a God who longed to lift up the lowly; a God who in fact was not blessing them with good fortune because they somehow were not better than others. They truly believed they were better. To sum it up, in modern bumper sticker language, the Sadducees believed “whoever dies with the most toys, wins.” We know folks just like them, don’t we? There is a part of us who is just like them.
Jesus’ answer had the potential to transform the Sadducees’ worldview. For this to happen, they had to be willing to set aside their agenda that they might discover some new and deeper understandings; even if on the surface, these understandings appeared to rock their world by forcing them to rethink in whom you placed their trust and hope.
As much as we may try to fight it or deny it, deep down we know: The ways of God are not the ways of humanity. God’s judgments are not our judgments. Things do not work in heaven the way they work on earth. (Westfield, pg. 284) This is so, not just when it comes to heaven. It is also true as we discover glimpses of God’s reign on earth.
Jesus’ message to the Sadducees and us is, that in heaven the lowliest of the society would be considered “like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection (v.36). This radical statement of the gospel that in heaven there is no sociopolitical strata is good news even today. (Westfield, pg. 286)
Implied in this, is the mandate that understanding the message means working to help bring about the reign of God in the here and now, even if it means setting aside an agenda we embrace.
Fredrick Buechner writes:
We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal
today but will be forgotten this time tomorrow – the immediate wheres and whens and
hows that face us daily at home and work – but at the same time we tend to lose track
of the questions about things that matter always, life and death questions about meaning, purpose and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to lose track of who
we really are in our depths and where we are really going.
(Listening To Your Life, pg. 124)
Questions can prevent us from catching a glimpse of God’s reign. In their own way they can prevent us from being alive to God, not in the afterlife, but now. Now is and can be a wonderful place to be, as we seek to discover God’s presence as it is revealed amid the everyday events of our lives. To seek God’s presence we need to be open to the reveal God desires; a reversal that empowers us to “love them anyway” simple because God loves us anyway.
Make no mistake God expresses love not by giving us the things we have. God expresses love by seeking to show us every day that God is not a God the dead, but of the living. While God offers this to all people, those who choose to follow God, are called to develop a different way of seeing life. One that despite the inevitable highs and lows of life allows them and us to discover that as we learn to trust in God more fully we will be better able to set aside our agendas. Once we do that, we will begin to ask and answer those questions that truly matter. Amen.
“Love Them Anyway”
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Try to be successful anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do it anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be frank and honest anyway.
People favor underdogs, but I notice they follow the top dogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.
What you spend building may be destroyed overnight.
Build it anyway.
People really need help, but they may attack you if you help them.
Try to help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
And when we do these things, let us do them in God’s name. Amen.
Nov. 14, "Questions Asked and Answered."
Luke 20:27-38
You can tell a great deal about a person’s agenda by the questions he or she asks; for as we all know:
Questions have many functions in conversations. Questions are posed to gain
knowledge and comprehension, analyze and access a situation, challenge authority,
shame an opponent, or win an argument or debate. Questions often give an opponent
the advantage, as the questions sets or reframes the conversation. The one who asks
the questions has the power.
(Nancy Lynne Westfield, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4 pg.284)
This is why accessing the situation means listening to what lies beneath. To do this, we have to set aside our agendas and be a non-anxious presence. This can be a real challenge, one that Jesus faced in this morning’s passage.
The Sadducees are questioning Jesus about a mystery that they have already considered
and rejected. Their questions are not for the purpose of genuine dialogue, but for the
purpose of prompting debate, with the hopes of showing up Jesus and showing onlookers
that Jesus is not trustworthy or knowledgeable.
Jesus doesn’t take the bait. Instead,
(he)Jesus seizes this moment of questioning as a teachable moment about the nature
of heaven. Rather than taking the questioning as a personal attack, Jesus uses this
moment as a time to teach about the love and mercy of God.
(Nancy Lynne Westfield, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4 pg. 284)
What helped Jesus was his knowing and understanding the Sadducees and their agenda. In addition to rejecting any notions of an afterlife; they were wealthy and believed in making life as comfortable for themselves as possible. They were pretty happy with the status quo and banked on the conviction that Jesus was wrong when he said things like “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” They enjoyed being first and weren’t likely to give credence to any thoughts of some great reversal. They had no use for a God who longed to lift up the lowly; a God who in fact was not blessing them with good fortune because they somehow were not better than others. They truly believed they were better. To sum it up, in modern bumper sticker language, the Sadducees believed “whoever dies with the most toys, wins.” We know folks just like them, don’t we? There is a part of us who is just like them.
Jesus’ answer had the potential to transform the Sadducees’ worldview. For this to happen, they had to be willing to set aside their agenda that they might discover some new and deeper understandings; even if on the surface, these understandings appeared to rock their world by forcing them to rethink in whom you placed their trust and hope.
As much as we may try to fight it or deny it, deep down we know: The ways of God are not the ways of humanity. God’s judgments are not our judgments. Things do not work in heaven the way they work on earth. (Westfield, pg. 284) This is so, not just when it comes to heaven. It is also true as we discover glimpses of God’s reign on earth.
Jesus’ message to the Sadducees and us is, that in heaven the lowliest of the society would be considered “like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection (v.36). This radical statement of the gospel that in heaven there is no sociopolitical strata is good news even today. (Westfield, pg. 286)
Implied in this, is the mandate that understanding the message means working to help bring about the reign of God in the here and now, even if it means setting aside an agenda we embrace.
Fredrick Buechner writes:
We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal
today but will be forgotten this time tomorrow – the immediate wheres and whens and
hows that face us daily at home and work – but at the same time we tend to lose track
of the questions about things that matter always, life and death questions about meaning, purpose and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to lose track of who
we really are in our depths and where we are really going.
(Listening To Your Life, pg. 124)
Questions can prevent us from catching a glimpse of God’s reign. In their own way they can prevent us from being alive to God, not in the afterlife, but now. Now is and can be a wonderful place to be, as we seek to discover God’s presence as it is revealed amid the everyday events of our lives. To seek God’s presence we need to be open to the reveal God desires; a reversal that empowers us to “love them anyway” simple because God loves us anyway.
Make no mistake God expresses love not by giving us the things we have. God expresses love by seeking to show us every day that God is not a God the dead, but of the living. While God offers this to all people, those who choose to follow God, are called to develop a different way of seeing life. One that despite the inevitable highs and lows of life allows them and us to discover that as we learn to trust in God more fully we will be better able to set aside our agendas. Once we do that, we will begin to ask and answer those questions that truly matter. Amen.
“Love Them Anyway”
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Try to be successful anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do it anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be frank and honest anyway.
People favor underdogs, but I notice they follow the top dogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.
What you spend building may be destroyed overnight.
Build it anyway.
People really need help, but they may attack you if you help them.
Try to help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
And when we do these things, let us do them in God’s name. Amen.
Nov. 7 "Standing in this, our Time."
Luke 6:20-31
I am part of a United Methodist Lectionary study group that meets every Tuesday morning. We look at and discuss the scriptures for the following Sunday. This past Tuesday we were discussing today’s scriptures and one of the group members turned to a more senior member of our group and said, “You bridge the generations for many of us so, who are your saints? He and then each of us shared about the people who helped mold us and shape our faith; those who through the grace of God saw and nurtured our potential. Later that day I was walking with Renee and I told her I was thinking of inviting you to answer among yourselves the same question. She told me, “You can’t do that! You would be putting them on the spot.” Of course she was right. I still think it would be fascinating and very informative for us to gather into small groups and talk about our saints. We would learn so much about each other. Don’t worry I am not going to ask you to do that this morning.
When I speak of saints, I am not talking about role models. Role models and saints are not the same. While every saint is a role model, every role model is not a saint. A role model is a good person and the world needs good people. A saint is someone who strives to be faithful to and seeks to serve God; not some of the time, all the time. A role model does know the importance of being good or nice, so he or she will try to ‘do to others as you would have them do to you”, because a role model understands:
Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren’t we
should behave as though we are –cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can
be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes. (Maya Angelou)
A saint has the good sense to know that without first calling on and putting our trust in God, we have no hope of “doing unto others…” because as today’s scripture reminds us, “doing unto others”, is about a whole lot more than just being good or nice. It is about sacrifice and sometimes suffering as we strive to be “loving as God is loving and compassionate as God is compassionate.” It is about being grounded in God in such a way as to know that life is not about what we acquire but what we sacrificially give back to God. It is also about seeking to join with God in revealing glimpses of God’s reign by striving to love and pray for those who persecute and curse us. It is about loving and praying for our enemies.
Saints also have the good sense to know that none of us does this all the time, which means saints know that they and we are saved by grace. A saint understands that it is not about what he or she does. It is about what God has done and continues to do; namely save and redeem, sustain and encourage, heal and renew. Saints seek to work lovingly remembering that:
“To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for,
rather than reacting to what we are against.” Christina Baldwin
This is why saints are ordinary people who allow the extraordinary nature of God to flow in and through them; seeking no claims of glory and instead offering to God the glory.
Saints are people who wrestle with today’s scripture passage. They embrace the inevitable tension born of passages like today’s. As Linda S. Sugg has written:
The four blessings of verses 20-23 are matched point by point with “woe to you” statements.
The rich, the full, the laughing and the well regarded: all of your fortunes will be reversed,
he says. If people in the pews (or at least the pews in many of America’s congregations)
are not squirming a bit when they hear these words, then they are not listening.
(Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4 pg. 236)
This tension can be a gift, a blessing, a chance to reconnect with God and also an opportunity to look at what we truly value. Paula Ripple in her book Growing Strong at Broken Places writes:
Tension is God’s gift to us, a gift that sometimes will not permit us to escape its presence.
I believe that our creative energies are activated by just that kind of upsetting tension.
It is in responding to the gnawing discomfort that we have the possibility of giving shape
to dreams that are at once faithful to who we are and who we can become.
This struggle and tension also exists because despite what the world may say, saints know:
“A secure financial future, a full stomach, a light heart, and a good reputation are mixed blessings at best, because they are temporary. Not only are they unreliable marks of a good life; they are also deceptive. They can actually endanger our relationship with God as we can begin to foolishly believe we are perfectly able to take care of ourselves and do not need to trust in God.
Saints also know, (t)o be blessed is to have a relationship with God that is not in jeopardy; and also that
(i)t is their (and our) very self-sufficiency that traps and separates them (us) from God. It is not only greed that jeopardizes the wealthy Christian’s relationship with God, but the simple – and subtle - temptations to think that we can take care of ourselves.
(E. Elizabeth Johnson, Feasting on the Word, Year C. Vol. 3 pg. 239, 241)
Reflecting on all of this, I ask, “Who are your saints? Can you name them?” Perhaps the more important question is, “For whom are you a saint?”
I have a friend who says that as a person of faith he is standing on the shoulders of those who have come before him. I like to phrase it this way. We are standing in this our time because of the great cloud of witnesses who have come before us aware of those who will come after us. Either way we are saying the same thing. We are here because of those who have come before us and we have a responsibility for those who will come after us.
We have a choice; we can be role models or saints. Which do you want to be? As people of faith, we know what the answer needs to be. Amen.
