L: When Moses saw the burning bush,
P: He turned aside to see what God was doing.
L: In our day to day lives,
P: May we pay attention.
L: In our bustling world,
P: May we look up.
L: When God is trying to get our attention,
P: May we be like Moses and turn aside.
L: Worshiping is an act of turning aside - of paying attention to God and listening for what God has to say to us. With that attitude, let us now worship our Lord!
All: Let us worship, Amen!
Monday, July 31, 2023
"The Inseperable Love of God" a sermon on Romans 8:26-39
Romans 8:26-39
“The Inseparable Love of God”
Preached Sunday, July 30, 2023
Today’s Scripture passage is my favorite Scripture ever - it’s hard to narrow it down, asking a pastor their favorite Scripture passage is like asking a librarian what their favorite book is or a musician what their favorite song is…but, this passage from Romans 8 is my favorite. AND, believe it or not, I have never preached on it outside of a funeral. I estimate that I have preached somewhere between 300 and 350 sermons on Sunday mornings - and I have never preached on my favorite passage of Scripture on a Sunday morning. So am I going to give it justice this morning? Probably not! And that’s not a deficit of my preaching but because ALL language fails at capturing the fullness of God’s love - and we are going to try anyway.
So specifically my favorite Bible verses from the passage that we’re going to focus on today are verses 38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Now, a couple weeks ago we talked about prevenient grace. A reminder for those who heard that sermon and a brief summary for those who didn’t: Prevenient grace is the grace that comes before we know there is grace to be had. It is the Holy Spirit who is constantly whispering in your ear and the ear of everyone ever born: “I love you.” Even if we don’t hear it, even if we don’t pay that voice any heed - God is ALWAYS saying to us, “I love you.” That voice is always there. Cause God is always offering us grace, extending a hand, telling us that we are loved by the God who is Love.
And then, I very briefly talked about these other kinds of grace - justifying and sanctifying. And we’re gonna delve deeper into justifying grace today. And if prevenient grace is the Holy Spirit constantly whispering in your ear, “I love you.” Then justifying grace is when you hear that voice of Love whispering to you and you know in your heart and mind that you know that you know that you know that God loves you - yes even you!
Our call to worship this morning had repeat-after-me affirmations so let’s continue that, repeat this after me: “God loves me!” (“God loves me!”) Repeat again: “Yes, even me!” (“Yes, even me!”)
Okay, don’t repeat this next part.
This justifying grace, this realization that you know that you know that you know that God loves you, yes, even you! This justifying grace can happen in a singular moment - and many do point to this moment of justifying grace as a moment of conversion, where the love of God hit them over the head like a bag of bricks, or like an arrow straight through the heart, where in a moment, the shock of the realization of God’s love changed them. So some point to a moment of conversion. And still, for many, justifying grace, can come over many moments of time, where the knowledge of the love of God takes time to seep into our bones and into our souls - less like a moment where we are hit with a sack of bricks and more like your body absorbing the nutrients in vitamins, a medicine slowly working, or a good cup of tea steeping - it takes times but it is justifying grace and realizing God’s love for us nonetheless.
And so now, I want to tell you a story about a man named John Wesley. If you are a regular here or were ever a regular at a United Methodist Church, you’ve probably heard about him before. He is attributed to be the founder of the Methodist movement through which we derive. So John Wesley was born in 1701 and his dad was an Anglican minister and his mom was a strong woman of faith who taught and preached out of her own home. And in 1728, at 27 years old - how old I was when I was commissioned as a United Methodist minister - John Wesley was ordained a priest. He was a student and then taught at Oxford and he started a group called the Holy Club which was made up of individuals who wanted to become better Christians. They prayed multiple times a day, they read Scripture together, they visited orphans and those in prison, they took Communion whenever they could, they kept detailed journals to document their spiritual progress, they held each other accountable and talked about their faith….and still, John had the head knowledge of Christ’s love for him…and he often struggled with the heart knowledge of that love. He was so rigorous in his living out his Christian life cause he just wanted to KNOW that he was doing all he could, that he was doing enough, that he was enough… He struggled with what he called the assurance of his salvation. How could he really know that he was saved? That he was right by God? And so John really wanted to become a missionary to America and so in 1735, he sailed to the colony of Georgia to be a pastor at Christ Church in Savannah. And it is not a stretch to say that he failed as a missionary and a pastor - he was there 3 years - the first short term Methodist appointment - and he actually left undercover of night, escaping a court date and a warrant for his arrest for a sticky situation he got himself into with a spurned lover, refusing communion, and a judge who was on the take by his basically ex-girlfriend’s family. The whole thing was a mess! And when John returned to England, basically in shame and shambles in 1738, he was at a low point, mentally and spiritually. And it was then, on May 24, 1738 that he said he went unwillingly to a Bible study on Aldersgate Street. He wasn’t feeling it but he dragged himself there. And then, while listening to Luther’s Preface to the Book of Romans, he heard that voice of the Holy Spirit whispering in his ear, “I love you” and he knew that he knew that he knew that God loved him. The knowledge that he had known in his head, made his way to his heart. That night he wrote in his journal: "while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." He then, in his journals, attributed that moment to the knowledge of the love of God strangely warming his heart. Although later in his life he would realize that his justifying experience was more than just that moment on what has been come to be known as Aldersgate Day - it was his whole life up to that point, the love of God, working on him, shaping him, until that moment when he realized that it had made its way from his head to his heart.
I love what Wesley says, “He had taken away my sins…even mine!!!” That’s like “God loves me…yes, even me!” Can you believe it? For John Wesley had been preaching the love of God all his life up to that point and he had been doing all he could to prove to HIMSELF that he was worthy of God’s love and when his heart was strangely warmed he realized that he didn’t have to do anything to prove himself - that God forgave him, yes, even him! And that God loved him, yes, even him!
John knew in his heart and mind, he knew that he knew that he knew that God loved him…and he was forever changed, strengthened, and emboldened for how he would go on and continue to serve God with his life.
So now let’s bring this back to my favorite verse in Scripture: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Do you know that you know that you know that you are loved by God?
Do you know in your mind and heart that you are loved by God?
Do you KNOW that God loves you, yes, even YOU! AND, do you know that NOTHING can separate you from that Love?
Nothing can separate you, nothing can separate me, nothing can separate any of us from the Love of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Nothing! …Now, when I say, do you know this? I mean, do we really live with this knowledge? Do we really live into this knowledge? Do we let this knowledge change everything? That NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.
Or…are you living in fear of hell-fire?
Are you walking on eggshells with God?
Are you trying to force yourself into a box to be someone other than who God created you to be?
Are you trying to prove to yourself, to others, to God, that you are good enough, worthy-enough, deserving of love?
Are you living with this sense that you are not enough and will never be enough?
“The Inseparable Love of God”
Preached Sunday, July 30, 2023
Today’s Scripture passage is my favorite Scripture ever - it’s hard to narrow it down, asking a pastor their favorite Scripture passage is like asking a librarian what their favorite book is or a musician what their favorite song is…but, this passage from Romans 8 is my favorite. AND, believe it or not, I have never preached on it outside of a funeral. I estimate that I have preached somewhere between 300 and 350 sermons on Sunday mornings - and I have never preached on my favorite passage of Scripture on a Sunday morning. So am I going to give it justice this morning? Probably not! And that’s not a deficit of my preaching but because ALL language fails at capturing the fullness of God’s love - and we are going to try anyway.
So specifically my favorite Bible verses from the passage that we’re going to focus on today are verses 38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Now, a couple weeks ago we talked about prevenient grace. A reminder for those who heard that sermon and a brief summary for those who didn’t: Prevenient grace is the grace that comes before we know there is grace to be had. It is the Holy Spirit who is constantly whispering in your ear and the ear of everyone ever born: “I love you.” Even if we don’t hear it, even if we don’t pay that voice any heed - God is ALWAYS saying to us, “I love you.” That voice is always there. Cause God is always offering us grace, extending a hand, telling us that we are loved by the God who is Love.
And then, I very briefly talked about these other kinds of grace - justifying and sanctifying. And we’re gonna delve deeper into justifying grace today. And if prevenient grace is the Holy Spirit constantly whispering in your ear, “I love you.” Then justifying grace is when you hear that voice of Love whispering to you and you know in your heart and mind that you know that you know that you know that God loves you - yes even you!
Our call to worship this morning had repeat-after-me affirmations so let’s continue that, repeat this after me: “God loves me!” (“God loves me!”) Repeat again: “Yes, even me!” (“Yes, even me!”)
Okay, don’t repeat this next part.
This justifying grace, this realization that you know that you know that you know that God loves you, yes, even you! This justifying grace can happen in a singular moment - and many do point to this moment of justifying grace as a moment of conversion, where the love of God hit them over the head like a bag of bricks, or like an arrow straight through the heart, where in a moment, the shock of the realization of God’s love changed them. So some point to a moment of conversion. And still, for many, justifying grace, can come over many moments of time, where the knowledge of the love of God takes time to seep into our bones and into our souls - less like a moment where we are hit with a sack of bricks and more like your body absorbing the nutrients in vitamins, a medicine slowly working, or a good cup of tea steeping - it takes times but it is justifying grace and realizing God’s love for us nonetheless.
And so now, I want to tell you a story about a man named John Wesley. If you are a regular here or were ever a regular at a United Methodist Church, you’ve probably heard about him before. He is attributed to be the founder of the Methodist movement through which we derive. So John Wesley was born in 1701 and his dad was an Anglican minister and his mom was a strong woman of faith who taught and preached out of her own home. And in 1728, at 27 years old - how old I was when I was commissioned as a United Methodist minister - John Wesley was ordained a priest. He was a student and then taught at Oxford and he started a group called the Holy Club which was made up of individuals who wanted to become better Christians. They prayed multiple times a day, they read Scripture together, they visited orphans and those in prison, they took Communion whenever they could, they kept detailed journals to document their spiritual progress, they held each other accountable and talked about their faith….and still, John had the head knowledge of Christ’s love for him…and he often struggled with the heart knowledge of that love. He was so rigorous in his living out his Christian life cause he just wanted to KNOW that he was doing all he could, that he was doing enough, that he was enough… He struggled with what he called the assurance of his salvation. How could he really know that he was saved? That he was right by God? And so John really wanted to become a missionary to America and so in 1735, he sailed to the colony of Georgia to be a pastor at Christ Church in Savannah. And it is not a stretch to say that he failed as a missionary and a pastor - he was there 3 years - the first short term Methodist appointment - and he actually left undercover of night, escaping a court date and a warrant for his arrest for a sticky situation he got himself into with a spurned lover, refusing communion, and a judge who was on the take by his basically ex-girlfriend’s family. The whole thing was a mess! And when John returned to England, basically in shame and shambles in 1738, he was at a low point, mentally and spiritually. And it was then, on May 24, 1738 that he said he went unwillingly to a Bible study on Aldersgate Street. He wasn’t feeling it but he dragged himself there. And then, while listening to Luther’s Preface to the Book of Romans, he heard that voice of the Holy Spirit whispering in his ear, “I love you” and he knew that he knew that he knew that God loved him. The knowledge that he had known in his head, made his way to his heart. That night he wrote in his journal: "while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." He then, in his journals, attributed that moment to the knowledge of the love of God strangely warming his heart. Although later in his life he would realize that his justifying experience was more than just that moment on what has been come to be known as Aldersgate Day - it was his whole life up to that point, the love of God, working on him, shaping him, until that moment when he realized that it had made its way from his head to his heart.
I love what Wesley says, “He had taken away my sins…even mine!!!” That’s like “God loves me…yes, even me!” Can you believe it? For John Wesley had been preaching the love of God all his life up to that point and he had been doing all he could to prove to HIMSELF that he was worthy of God’s love and when his heart was strangely warmed he realized that he didn’t have to do anything to prove himself - that God forgave him, yes, even him! And that God loved him, yes, even him!
John knew in his heart and mind, he knew that he knew that he knew that God loved him…and he was forever changed, strengthened, and emboldened for how he would go on and continue to serve God with his life.
So now let’s bring this back to my favorite verse in Scripture: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Do you know that you know that you know that you are loved by God?
Do you know in your mind and heart that you are loved by God?
Do you KNOW that God loves you, yes, even YOU! AND, do you know that NOTHING can separate you from that Love?
Nothing can separate you, nothing can separate me, nothing can separate any of us from the Love of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Nothing! …Now, when I say, do you know this? I mean, do we really live with this knowledge? Do we really live into this knowledge? Do we let this knowledge change everything? That NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.
Or…are you living in fear of hell-fire?
Are you walking on eggshells with God?
Are you trying to force yourself into a box to be someone other than who God created you to be?
Are you trying to prove to yourself, to others, to God, that you are good enough, worthy-enough, deserving of love?
Are you living with this sense that you are not enough and will never be enough?
And…even if you are - none of that will separate you - or anyone - from God! And, it’s not the full-life that God wants for us.
Because God LOVES you and NOTHING, absolutely nothing's gonna change that.
As our Scripture says: not hardship, not distress, not persecution, not famine, not nakedness, not peril, not sword, not death, not life, not angels, not rulers, not things present, not things to come, not powers, not height, not depth, not anything else in all creation - NOTHING can or will separate us from the love of Christ.
Not mental illness, not physical illness, not pain, not grief, not addiction, not exhaustion, not what we do or what we don’t do, not economic hardship, not strained or broken relationships, not self-doubt, not low self-esteem, not your failures, not your short-comings, not, not, not, not… I could exhaust my voice before I exhausted the list of what WILL NOT separate us from the Love of God, cause there is nothing in all of creation - NOTHING, can separate us from the love of God. Not even sin! In Luther’s preface to the letter of Romans, what John Wesley heard that night his heart was strangely warmed, Luther writes: “The Holy Spirit assures us that we are God's children no matter how furiously sin may rage within us…” Again, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Now, some have interpreted this as a free-pass, if God loves me no matter what, if God is going to forgive me for anything as long as I ask for forgiveness, then I can do whatever the heck I want…and, that’s not it, fam. My response to that is: If you know that you know that you know that God loves you. If you know this love in your heart and your mind. If your heart has been strangely warmed…then that Love changes you. That Love shapes you. That Love transforms you - heart and mind, when you KNOW that you are loved by God and there is nothing you can do about it - you then start to act out of that love. You might mess up and at times you may even forget that bone-deep, soul-deep knowledge that God loves you - and so, in those slip-ups, in those forgetful moments, we sin, we fall short, we mess-up…and, even that, doesn't separate us from the Love of God - cause nothing can.
Let’s do that repeat after me affirmation one more time. Repeat after me: “God loves me!” (“God loves me!”) “Yes, even me!” (“Yes, even me!”) “And there is nothing gonna change that!” (“And there is nothing gonna change that!”)
If I hounded on this point of God’s love today, it’s because this cannot be overstated. It is one of the most powerful passages of Scripture, because when we really know this in our hearts and mind, when we *know* that God loves us, no matter what, it changes everything.
So know that you are loved by God and go and live a life that reflects that Love.
Amen.
Because God LOVES you and NOTHING, absolutely nothing's gonna change that.
As our Scripture says: not hardship, not distress, not persecution, not famine, not nakedness, not peril, not sword, not death, not life, not angels, not rulers, not things present, not things to come, not powers, not height, not depth, not anything else in all creation - NOTHING can or will separate us from the love of Christ.
Not mental illness, not physical illness, not pain, not grief, not addiction, not exhaustion, not what we do or what we don’t do, not economic hardship, not strained or broken relationships, not self-doubt, not low self-esteem, not your failures, not your short-comings, not, not, not, not… I could exhaust my voice before I exhausted the list of what WILL NOT separate us from the Love of God, cause there is nothing in all of creation - NOTHING, can separate us from the love of God. Not even sin! In Luther’s preface to the letter of Romans, what John Wesley heard that night his heart was strangely warmed, Luther writes: “The Holy Spirit assures us that we are God's children no matter how furiously sin may rage within us…” Again, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Now, some have interpreted this as a free-pass, if God loves me no matter what, if God is going to forgive me for anything as long as I ask for forgiveness, then I can do whatever the heck I want…and, that’s not it, fam. My response to that is: If you know that you know that you know that God loves you. If you know this love in your heart and your mind. If your heart has been strangely warmed…then that Love changes you. That Love shapes you. That Love transforms you - heart and mind, when you KNOW that you are loved by God and there is nothing you can do about it - you then start to act out of that love. You might mess up and at times you may even forget that bone-deep, soul-deep knowledge that God loves you - and so, in those slip-ups, in those forgetful moments, we sin, we fall short, we mess-up…and, even that, doesn't separate us from the Love of God - cause nothing can.
Let’s do that repeat after me affirmation one more time. Repeat after me: “God loves me!” (“God loves me!”) “Yes, even me!” (“Yes, even me!”) “And there is nothing gonna change that!” (“And there is nothing gonna change that!”)
If I hounded on this point of God’s love today, it’s because this cannot be overstated. It is one of the most powerful passages of Scripture, because when we really know this in our hearts and mind, when we *know* that God loves us, no matter what, it changes everything.
So know that you are loved by God and go and live a life that reflects that Love.
Amen.
Friday, July 28, 2023
Call to Worship, inspired by Exodus 1:8-2:10
Call to Worship, inspired by Exodus 1:8-2:10
L: In the midst great darkness:
P: God calls us to be light in the darkness.
L: In times of turmoil:
P: God calls us to be peace-makers.
L: In the face of evil:
P: God calls us to reject and resist it in all forms.
L: This may seem like a daunting task but God gives us all we need.
P: Give us courage. Give us compassion. Give us Jesus.
L: Let us worship our God, empowered and emboldened by being in this holy space.
P: Let us worship! Amen!
L: In the midst great darkness:
P: God calls us to be light in the darkness.
L: In times of turmoil:
P: God calls us to be peace-makers.
L: In the face of evil:
P: God calls us to reject and resist it in all forms.
L: This may seem like a daunting task but God gives us all we need.
P: Give us courage. Give us compassion. Give us Jesus.
L: Let us worship our God, empowered and emboldened by being in this holy space.
P: Let us worship! Amen!
"Express Yourself" a camp sermon on Matthew 5:14-16
"Express Yourself”
Preached Thursday, July 7, 2023 at Camp Asbury, Communion Service
This week’s theme was “Express Yourself.” How have you expressed yourself this week? (*Answers*)
Right - there are lots of ways we can express ourselves and share who we feel we are, at our core, with others. We can paint and sing and dance and write. We can also use our words: telling people about who you are, what you like, what you think is important, what you care about, how you want to be treated. We can also express who we are through our actions: the activities we are involved in, how we help other people, how we treat them.
Sometimes, when we are young, it can be hard to express ourselves…or we can only express ourselves through art or the music we listen to or the books we like to read…because we are still figuring out WHO we are. And that’s OKAY. Finding out who you are, at your core, who God made you to be, can be a life-long journey.
Now, I’m going to share a quote with you that was from Henri Nouwen - Henri Nouwen was a college professor, very esteemed, very respected - and he actually gave that all up to go and live and work in a community for people with profound mental and physical disabilities. And in doing that, he found out more about who he was and who God created him to be.
So, I am going to read this quote to you and for many of you, it’s going to be big words and go over your heads - but I’ll read it for the counselors and older youth among you and then I’ll say it again, but change the words so we can all understand what he’s trying to say.
So he said: “For me to be a saint means to be myself…Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and discovering my true self.”
Okay, so what he’s saying is this: For me to be the best person that I could possibly be…I just have to be myself - who God created me to be. That’s all that God wants for me - to discover my true self and to be the me that God created for me to be.
And the me that God created me to be - and the you that God created you to be - that’s nothing less than a beloved child of God. YOU are loved by God. And because God created you, you are capable of great love. You can love God with all that you are. And you can love other people with all that you are. You might show and express that love differently. Right? Because each of us is unique, and, it doesn’t change that, at your core, each of you was created to be who you are and to love others - and you are Loved by God for exactly WHO you are.
Our Bible passage I read tonight says it like this: You are light! And you are meant to shine! No one would light a candle and then put a basket over it so you couldn’t see it! But sometimes, we hide who we are. We can think of it like a mummy, wrapped in clothes - or maybe like a mummy Halloween costume, a kid with toilet paper wrapped around them - we call these layers that hide who we are, that hide our light like a candle under a basket, we call them false selves.
Because sometimes, we hide who we are. Because sometimes, the world tells us we should be something or someone else: cooler, prettier, more athletic, less weird…and so we try to hide who we really are and act in ways that don’t ring true to us. Or when we are mean to others, or don’t treat people with love…or sometimes mean to ourselves and don’t treat ourselves with love…that’s not who God created us to be. Or maybe at times, when you’re growing up, you try on different selves like trying on a new coat. Cause you’re trying to find out what feels right to you - and that’s an important part of growing up. But those versions of ourselves that don’t feel right to us, and cause us to not treat ourselves and others with love - those are false selves, the basket hiding our light, the layers wrapped around a mummy, hiding who we really are.
And so, each of us is called to live a life that is true to who God created us to be. And I can say with 1000 percent confidence that God created each of you to be a wonderful, amazing, and loving person. Each of you is unique. Each of you is one of a kind. AND, God created each of you because God loves you. And God created each of you to love other people. How you express yourself and how you express that love, that will change, but at your core, God just wants you to be who God created you to be.
And when you come to this table tonight, I will read the story of Jesus and what he did for us, and we will eat bread dipped in juice…and at the center of this meal is that message: You are Loved by God. And you, ALL OF YOU, who you are at the core, who God created you to be, your true self, who you really are…God loves and accepts you and you are welcomed here at this table and welcomed into the family of God. And even when we hide who we are, even when we d you were created by the God who is Love, for Love. And God loves you.
And this table, this table is a sign of God's Love. In the United Methodist Church - and Camp Asbury is a United Methodist summer camp - we say we have an OPEN table because ALL are invited to the table. We welcome anyone to it. We tell the story of Jesus and we share bread and juice together to remember all that Jesus did for us. And we welcome all, because God welcomes all. Because God loves all. All of everyone - and all for you, all of who you are, even all of who you aren't but sometimes try to be - God knows it all. God sees you all. AND, God still loves you. And will always love you.
So as you find out who you are in life. And as you work to express yourself, remember that you are called to be your truest self, who God created you to be, and you are free to express yourself and your love for God and other people - just as God created you to be.
Amen.
So he said: “For me to be a saint means to be myself…Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and discovering my true self.”
Okay, so what he’s saying is this: For me to be the best person that I could possibly be…I just have to be myself - who God created me to be. That’s all that God wants for me - to discover my true self and to be the me that God created for me to be.
And the me that God created me to be - and the you that God created you to be - that’s nothing less than a beloved child of God. YOU are loved by God. And because God created you, you are capable of great love. You can love God with all that you are. And you can love other people with all that you are. You might show and express that love differently. Right? Because each of us is unique, and, it doesn’t change that, at your core, each of you was created to be who you are and to love others - and you are Loved by God for exactly WHO you are.
Our Bible passage I read tonight says it like this: You are light! And you are meant to shine! No one would light a candle and then put a basket over it so you couldn’t see it! But sometimes, we hide who we are. We can think of it like a mummy, wrapped in clothes - or maybe like a mummy Halloween costume, a kid with toilet paper wrapped around them - we call these layers that hide who we are, that hide our light like a candle under a basket, we call them false selves.
Because sometimes, we hide who we are. Because sometimes, the world tells us we should be something or someone else: cooler, prettier, more athletic, less weird…and so we try to hide who we really are and act in ways that don’t ring true to us. Or when we are mean to others, or don’t treat people with love…or sometimes mean to ourselves and don’t treat ourselves with love…that’s not who God created us to be. Or maybe at times, when you’re growing up, you try on different selves like trying on a new coat. Cause you’re trying to find out what feels right to you - and that’s an important part of growing up. But those versions of ourselves that don’t feel right to us, and cause us to not treat ourselves and others with love - those are false selves, the basket hiding our light, the layers wrapped around a mummy, hiding who we really are.
And so, each of us is called to live a life that is true to who God created us to be. And I can say with 1000 percent confidence that God created each of you to be a wonderful, amazing, and loving person. Each of you is unique. Each of you is one of a kind. AND, God created each of you because God loves you. And God created each of you to love other people. How you express yourself and how you express that love, that will change, but at your core, God just wants you to be who God created you to be.
And when you come to this table tonight, I will read the story of Jesus and what he did for us, and we will eat bread dipped in juice…and at the center of this meal is that message: You are Loved by God. And you, ALL OF YOU, who you are at the core, who God created you to be, your true self, who you really are…God loves and accepts you and you are welcomed here at this table and welcomed into the family of God. And even when we hide who we are, even when we d you were created by the God who is Love, for Love. And God loves you.
And this table, this table is a sign of God's Love. In the United Methodist Church - and Camp Asbury is a United Methodist summer camp - we say we have an OPEN table because ALL are invited to the table. We welcome anyone to it. We tell the story of Jesus and we share bread and juice together to remember all that Jesus did for us. And we welcome all, because God welcomes all. Because God loves all. All of everyone - and all for you, all of who you are, even all of who you aren't but sometimes try to be - God knows it all. God sees you all. AND, God still loves you. And will always love you.
So as you find out who you are in life. And as you work to express yourself, remember that you are called to be your truest self, who God created you to be, and you are free to express yourself and your love for God and other people - just as God created you to be.
Amen.
Monday, July 24, 2023
Call to Worship (Based on hymn “Christ Has Broken Down the Wall” by Mark Miller)
Call to Worship (Based on hymn “Christ Has Broken Down the Wall” by Mark Miller)
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: We can be united as One.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: We are accepted as we are.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: All are reconciled by God’s love.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: Peace and love are freely offered here.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: We will tear down every wall!
All: Let us worship our God who knows no divisions!
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: We can be united as One.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: We are accepted as we are.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: All are reconciled by God’s love.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: Peace and love are freely offered here.
L: Because Christ has broken down the wall:
P: We will tear down every wall!
All: Let us worship our God who knows no divisions!
Call to Worship - Inspired by Matthew 14:22-33 or for General Use
Call to Worship - Inspired by Matthew 14:22-33 or for General Use
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: O Lord, still our hearts and minds.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: Make us aware of Your presence with us.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: Holy One, meet us where we are.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: Jesus, give us courage to go where You call us.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: God is with us. Today and always.
All: Let us worship the One who is as close to us as our next breath. Amen.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: O Lord, still our hearts and minds.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: Make us aware of Your presence with us.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: Holy One, meet us where we are.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: Jesus, give us courage to go where You call us.
L: Take a deep breath. In…and Out…In…and Out…
P: God is with us. Today and always.
All: Let us worship the One who is as close to us as our next breath. Amen.
Sunday, July 23, 2023
"A Weedy World" a sermon on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
“A Weedy World” (In bulletin as “Grow Where You’re Planted)
Preached Sunday, July 23, 2023
Preached Sunday, July 23, 2023
In case you didn’t realize it yet, you have a millennial pastor. Millennials are loosely defined as the generation born between 1981 and 1996. So we’re between 27 and 42 years old - not teenagers, that’s Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012 - so people between the ages of 11 and 26. I share this because millennials and Gen Z (and the generation before millennials - Gen X) are largely missing from our churches - especially mainline denominations. In February of 2023, Relevant Magazine reported a study on Gen Z trends that said that only 10% of Gen Z attend church at least once a month and only 39% say that religion is important to them. For comparison, 29% of millennials attend church at least once a month. And across studies, the trend is clear - from the Silent Generation, to Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z…involvement in church and even religion as a whole, is on a downward trend with each new generation.
I share this because I want to help you understand what it means to be a multi-generational church and what it means to have a pastor who is in a different generation than most of those in the pews. I have actually found the latter to be such a reciprocally rewarding relationship. As members of different generations, pastor and congregants, we have so much to teach each other - to equally listen and learn. In his book, “On The Brink of Everything”, American writer, teacher, and activist Parker Palmer talks about the wonder and benefit of being in relationship with those of different generations than you. In part he says, “It is the dance of the spiraling generations, in which the old empower the young with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweaving the fabric of the human community as they touch and turn.”
Okay, I need to reel this back in because what I actually want to talk to you about today is sin. But it’s all related. See, as I said, part of my job is to help you understand what it means to be a multi-generational church and a large part of that is outreach to Millennials and Gen Z, younger generations that are largely missing from our faith communities. And so a common misconception about outreach to these younger generations is to not talk about sin. I have seen this shared on listicles and online articles about being in ministry to, for, and with younger generations. And I am going to say the opposite to you, younger generations are actually desperate to hear about sin - but to hear about it in a way that is different from the traditional sense in which they have normally heard it talked about.
The ways in which the Church normally talks about sin involves finger pointing, blaming and shaming. A personal list of wrongdoings that are thrown at people with the intent of injecting a good dose of guilt and fear of hellfire. That understanding and approach to sin is counterproductive and actually downright harmful to the cause of the Gospel regardless of what generation people are in.
So when I say that younger generations are desperate to talk about sin, I am saying that we are desperate to hear the Church talk with relevance about the world we live in and the realities of evil all around us. Because we are all too aware of the evil around us that is the manifestation of sin - both individual sin and systemic, corporate sin.
Our dying planet.
Our dying children, in the halls of their schools.
The injustices that marginalized and oppressed groups experience on account of their race, gender, ethnicity, or other identifying marker.
The growing chasm between the rich and the poor as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The atrocities of war and violence on all scales.
And the list could go on.
These things are sin at work in our world. And we are all too aware of how they are at work in our lives and the lives of all those around us.
And in the midst of all this sin and evil in our world, younger generations have not turned to the Church for answers because the answers the Church has been traditionally giving people don’t ring true for them or don’t actually answer the questions they are asking. Answers have traditionally been about personal salvation, individualistic repentance, and a reward beyond this life. But what I believe that younger generations are craving is hope. Not hope in some distant future or heaven that seems lightyears away but hope for the here and now. We want solutions and a better life for now. We want social justice, equality, and equity. We have grown up in a world where the doomsday clock is dangerously close to midnight - right now 90 seconds from midnight, aka, the end of the world. And we, younger generations, and actually all generations, need real, visceral, embodied salvation - here and now. A reason to hope that we will not only be able to survive but to thrive - and that our children and our children’s children will have a world to call home and where, if they even have a planet to live on, where they don’t have to struggle every day to survive
…But those are not the answers or the hope that the Church, or really, anyone, has supplied them with. And so instead, younger generations, especially Gen Z have turned away from the Church, away from religion in general, and turned toward cynicism. Marketing firms have defined cynicism as one of the top four defining traits of Gen Z and it’s easy to see why - in a world where mass shootings are the number one cause of death in children, in a world where our ecosystems are becoming more and more inhospitable and extreme weather events more common, in a world of war, and a world where the future has never been promised to them… and then they are seeing very little to no efforts to make this world a better place…cynicism is a really easy place to land. Cynicism, and even nihilism, can also protect against the pain of this world and the uncertainty of the future. Protect like a shield around our hearts, but one that also walls off our hearts from the world in both directions.
This cynicism and nihilism are not the abundant life that God wishes for any of us. God wants us to have hope. To work towards making our world more like the Kingdom of God, more loving and more just. And to care deeply about ALL of God’s creation: our planet and each other.
And so, this is where we as a church need to rethink our approach to understanding and talking about sin for the benefit of all of God’s children and today’s Gospel reading is a good place to start.
Often when we talk about sin it is prescriptive, telling us what we should and should not do. But a helpful way to understand the sin-sick world we live in is not prescriptive but descriptive - to simply call it what it is: a world filled with sin. A world filled with weeds. In today’s parable, seeds have been planted in fertile soil. Seeds of Love. Seeds of Hope. Seeds of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But then, seeds for weeds are scattered in the same field. Seed of dissonance. Seeds of hate. Seeds of cynicism. And these seeds make it impossibly hard for the seeds of Love to grow.
And today, here and now, we live in a weedy world, a world where evil and the causes of evil are all around us. We live in a weedy world - a world where good and evil grow up alongside each other. We, I am sure, are all too familiar with this weedy paradox. We have already listed the reasons, the weeds, the sin, that choke out hope for an abundant life and future for younger generations.
Ever since Augustine, the concept of Original Sin has been ingrained in Christian theology and world worldview. This idea that sin is passed on genetically from Adam and Eve down to us today, so that every human born is inherently sinful. This understanding of sin leads us to that individualistic understanding of sin as a list of dos and don’ts that fails to resonate with the answers that our younger generations are seeking as they struggle to understand this weedy world they live in. Quick disclaimer: I am not saying that sin isn’t personal. We DO sin through individual actions. And, what I am saying is, we need to widen our understanding and ways we talk about sin. So John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, actually wrote about something called “Inbeing Sin.” While original sin is based on sin being passed on through parents and that first act of disobedience, “inbeing sin” is this idea that the world we live in is so filled with sin, so filled with weeds, that it is impossible for every person born into this world to not be affected - and infected - by it.
This is the world we live in, with the weeds and the wheat. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a field with both grain and weeds. NOT that the Kingdom of Heaven will come when all the weeds are gone. But that the Kingdom of Heaven can be present, even amongst the weeds. That there can be Love and Hope, even in our weedy, sin-filled world. A theological term we have to describe this current state of our world: With the seeds of God’s Kingdom bearing fruit of love and hope and the seeds of evil filling our world with weeds, with sin sickness…with both these things existing at the same time, theologically we call this “the-already-but-not-yet.” That is, Jesus has ALREADY come to Earth and began to establish his Kingdom here and now…but he has NOT YET come again in final victory, not yet completed his salvific work, not yet redeemed all creation.
For Jesus WILL redeem all of creation. There is a wealth of Scriptures that talk about how God plans to redeem all of creation, create a new heaven and a new earth - and establish God’s Kingdom here on that new earth. Our passage from Romans this morning talks about this as well:
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved.”
ALL of creation has been subject to sin, to weeds, bonded to the pain and decay of this world. We are ALL waiting for the redemption of our bodies, again, not just in a heaven after this life, but a redemption of our whole world, all of creation, new heaven and a new earth. God will recreate, save, redeem - everything. And THAT is our hope. It is as St. Teresa of Avila says, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
And that is what the church needs to preach on sin and share with younger generations. That yes, we live in a weedy world. We live in a world where we deal with evil every day. We live in a world where it is easy for us to not see the harvest of love and hope growing because the weeds threaten to choke it out. And instead of giving into those weeds, instead of turning to cynicism, and instead of a shame and blame approach to understanding sin… let us offer ourselves, each other, younger generations, the whole world proof that those seeds of Love are still growing. And because those seeds of Love are still growing, there is HOPE for all of us, hope for the whole world, that all shall be well - that Christ will redeem ALL. That sin and evil and weeds will not win.
For today’s Scripture does not end with God being passive about the evil in this world. In fact, the last part of this passage can be downright jarring. When the harvest time comes...God will root out the evil from the good wheat. While the language of weeping and gnashing of teeth can be quite frightening, stop and think of what your reaction might be to having parts of your life that are not fruit-bearing being trimmed away by God. Or being trimmed away from those who are deadset on holding on to those weeds - because those weeds do benefit some. This weeding, it’s not an easy process. St. Teresa of Avila, the same one who I quoted “all shall be well” - she once complained to God that her life was too hard, that she faced trial and tribulation all the time. She writes that God replied, “Teresa, you are my friend.” She said, “If that’s how you treat your friends - no wonder you don’t have many!” The process of rooting out the weeds in our lives and in the world will be painful - but God can do it.
The end of this passage points toward a time when the Kingdom of God will be fully realized and the evil and causes of evil in this world will be no more… This is a message of hope for our weedy world, one all generations need to hear because it speaks directly to our reality of being overrun by weeds in our world. We see all the evil in this world. Violence and hate and oppression...we know it all too well… And we can know that God KNOWS and sees it and will defeat it, pulling out all the weeds.
In the meantime, let us trust in God, grow seeds of love and hope where we are planted - in a weedy world. And share those seeds of love and hope with ALL, because they are so desperately needed.
May it be so. Amen.
Okay, I need to reel this back in because what I actually want to talk to you about today is sin. But it’s all related. See, as I said, part of my job is to help you understand what it means to be a multi-generational church and a large part of that is outreach to Millennials and Gen Z, younger generations that are largely missing from our faith communities. And so a common misconception about outreach to these younger generations is to not talk about sin. I have seen this shared on listicles and online articles about being in ministry to, for, and with younger generations. And I am going to say the opposite to you, younger generations are actually desperate to hear about sin - but to hear about it in a way that is different from the traditional sense in which they have normally heard it talked about.
The ways in which the Church normally talks about sin involves finger pointing, blaming and shaming. A personal list of wrongdoings that are thrown at people with the intent of injecting a good dose of guilt and fear of hellfire. That understanding and approach to sin is counterproductive and actually downright harmful to the cause of the Gospel regardless of what generation people are in.
So when I say that younger generations are desperate to talk about sin, I am saying that we are desperate to hear the Church talk with relevance about the world we live in and the realities of evil all around us. Because we are all too aware of the evil around us that is the manifestation of sin - both individual sin and systemic, corporate sin.
Our dying planet.
Our dying children, in the halls of their schools.
The injustices that marginalized and oppressed groups experience on account of their race, gender, ethnicity, or other identifying marker.
The growing chasm between the rich and the poor as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The atrocities of war and violence on all scales.
And the list could go on.
These things are sin at work in our world. And we are all too aware of how they are at work in our lives and the lives of all those around us.
And in the midst of all this sin and evil in our world, younger generations have not turned to the Church for answers because the answers the Church has been traditionally giving people don’t ring true for them or don’t actually answer the questions they are asking. Answers have traditionally been about personal salvation, individualistic repentance, and a reward beyond this life. But what I believe that younger generations are craving is hope. Not hope in some distant future or heaven that seems lightyears away but hope for the here and now. We want solutions and a better life for now. We want social justice, equality, and equity. We have grown up in a world where the doomsday clock is dangerously close to midnight - right now 90 seconds from midnight, aka, the end of the world. And we, younger generations, and actually all generations, need real, visceral, embodied salvation - here and now. A reason to hope that we will not only be able to survive but to thrive - and that our children and our children’s children will have a world to call home and where, if they even have a planet to live on, where they don’t have to struggle every day to survive
…But those are not the answers or the hope that the Church, or really, anyone, has supplied them with. And so instead, younger generations, especially Gen Z have turned away from the Church, away from religion in general, and turned toward cynicism. Marketing firms have defined cynicism as one of the top four defining traits of Gen Z and it’s easy to see why - in a world where mass shootings are the number one cause of death in children, in a world where our ecosystems are becoming more and more inhospitable and extreme weather events more common, in a world of war, and a world where the future has never been promised to them… and then they are seeing very little to no efforts to make this world a better place…cynicism is a really easy place to land. Cynicism, and even nihilism, can also protect against the pain of this world and the uncertainty of the future. Protect like a shield around our hearts, but one that also walls off our hearts from the world in both directions.
This cynicism and nihilism are not the abundant life that God wishes for any of us. God wants us to have hope. To work towards making our world more like the Kingdom of God, more loving and more just. And to care deeply about ALL of God’s creation: our planet and each other.
And so, this is where we as a church need to rethink our approach to understanding and talking about sin for the benefit of all of God’s children and today’s Gospel reading is a good place to start.
Often when we talk about sin it is prescriptive, telling us what we should and should not do. But a helpful way to understand the sin-sick world we live in is not prescriptive but descriptive - to simply call it what it is: a world filled with sin. A world filled with weeds. In today’s parable, seeds have been planted in fertile soil. Seeds of Love. Seeds of Hope. Seeds of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But then, seeds for weeds are scattered in the same field. Seed of dissonance. Seeds of hate. Seeds of cynicism. And these seeds make it impossibly hard for the seeds of Love to grow.
And today, here and now, we live in a weedy world, a world where evil and the causes of evil are all around us. We live in a weedy world - a world where good and evil grow up alongside each other. We, I am sure, are all too familiar with this weedy paradox. We have already listed the reasons, the weeds, the sin, that choke out hope for an abundant life and future for younger generations.
Ever since Augustine, the concept of Original Sin has been ingrained in Christian theology and world worldview. This idea that sin is passed on genetically from Adam and Eve down to us today, so that every human born is inherently sinful. This understanding of sin leads us to that individualistic understanding of sin as a list of dos and don’ts that fails to resonate with the answers that our younger generations are seeking as they struggle to understand this weedy world they live in. Quick disclaimer: I am not saying that sin isn’t personal. We DO sin through individual actions. And, what I am saying is, we need to widen our understanding and ways we talk about sin. So John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, actually wrote about something called “Inbeing Sin.” While original sin is based on sin being passed on through parents and that first act of disobedience, “inbeing sin” is this idea that the world we live in is so filled with sin, so filled with weeds, that it is impossible for every person born into this world to not be affected - and infected - by it.
This is the world we live in, with the weeds and the wheat. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a field with both grain and weeds. NOT that the Kingdom of Heaven will come when all the weeds are gone. But that the Kingdom of Heaven can be present, even amongst the weeds. That there can be Love and Hope, even in our weedy, sin-filled world. A theological term we have to describe this current state of our world: With the seeds of God’s Kingdom bearing fruit of love and hope and the seeds of evil filling our world with weeds, with sin sickness…with both these things existing at the same time, theologically we call this “the-already-but-not-yet.” That is, Jesus has ALREADY come to Earth and began to establish his Kingdom here and now…but he has NOT YET come again in final victory, not yet completed his salvific work, not yet redeemed all creation.
For Jesus WILL redeem all of creation. There is a wealth of Scriptures that talk about how God plans to redeem all of creation, create a new heaven and a new earth - and establish God’s Kingdom here on that new earth. Our passage from Romans this morning talks about this as well:
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved.”
ALL of creation has been subject to sin, to weeds, bonded to the pain and decay of this world. We are ALL waiting for the redemption of our bodies, again, not just in a heaven after this life, but a redemption of our whole world, all of creation, new heaven and a new earth. God will recreate, save, redeem - everything. And THAT is our hope. It is as St. Teresa of Avila says, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
And that is what the church needs to preach on sin and share with younger generations. That yes, we live in a weedy world. We live in a world where we deal with evil every day. We live in a world where it is easy for us to not see the harvest of love and hope growing because the weeds threaten to choke it out. And instead of giving into those weeds, instead of turning to cynicism, and instead of a shame and blame approach to understanding sin… let us offer ourselves, each other, younger generations, the whole world proof that those seeds of Love are still growing. And because those seeds of Love are still growing, there is HOPE for all of us, hope for the whole world, that all shall be well - that Christ will redeem ALL. That sin and evil and weeds will not win.
For today’s Scripture does not end with God being passive about the evil in this world. In fact, the last part of this passage can be downright jarring. When the harvest time comes...God will root out the evil from the good wheat. While the language of weeping and gnashing of teeth can be quite frightening, stop and think of what your reaction might be to having parts of your life that are not fruit-bearing being trimmed away by God. Or being trimmed away from those who are deadset on holding on to those weeds - because those weeds do benefit some. This weeding, it’s not an easy process. St. Teresa of Avila, the same one who I quoted “all shall be well” - she once complained to God that her life was too hard, that she faced trial and tribulation all the time. She writes that God replied, “Teresa, you are my friend.” She said, “If that’s how you treat your friends - no wonder you don’t have many!” The process of rooting out the weeds in our lives and in the world will be painful - but God can do it.
The end of this passage points toward a time when the Kingdom of God will be fully realized and the evil and causes of evil in this world will be no more… This is a message of hope for our weedy world, one all generations need to hear because it speaks directly to our reality of being overrun by weeds in our world. We see all the evil in this world. Violence and hate and oppression...we know it all too well… And we can know that God KNOWS and sees it and will defeat it, pulling out all the weeds.
In the meantime, let us trust in God, grow seeds of love and hope where we are planted - in a weedy world. And share those seeds of love and hope with ALL, because they are so desperately needed.
May it be so. Amen.
Monday, July 17, 2023
"Extravagantly Wasteful" a sermon on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
“Extravagantly Wasteful”
Preached July 16, 2023
My preaching professor at Divinity School always told us that most preachers really only have one to two sermons in them and every time they preach, it’s really just a variation of that same sermon theme. That’s not saying that it can’t be reiterated in a hundred different ways, that a pastor can’t branch out and preach on a new topic or idea every now and then. AND, deep down, at our core, preachers pull from the same source material. Because preachers are called to preach and proclaim the Good News. And however that preacher defines the Good News - that is going to influence every sermon they ever preach. And so how I define the Good News is simply this: You are a beloved child of God and God loves you so incredibly much, that we can’t even fathom how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for us. And when I say you and I say us - I mean every person who was ever created and ever born. God loves ALL more than we could ever imagine. THIS is the Good News, the Gospel, through which all my sermons find their source.
So - if you ever doze off during one of my sermons - hopefully not because they were boring but because you were really really tired and God knew you needed the rest more than you needed a sermon - and someone asks you what the pastor preached about, here’s a get-out-of-jail-free card: you can just say “God’s Love” and you will most likely be right.
And so today, we are going to look at the parable of the sower through the lens of marveling at how much God loves us - all of us, all of everyone ever created. So often when we look at today’s Scripture we get stuck in the different types of ground - the path where the birds ate up the seeds, the soil with no depth, the thorny ground, and then the good, fertile soil. We get caught up in classifying our actions and mindsets as different types of soil - or even typing other people as certain types of soil - the desire being to transform our hearts and the hearts of others to be more fertile, to be more open to the seeds that God plants. And that’s important, to work on ourselves and open our hearts - and…I think it also misses a huge point of this parable and that is found in the sower’s actions.
In order to understand the sower’s actions and their meanings - we must first look at the seeds. And here’s my disclaimer: I am not a farmer. I am an amateur vegetable gardener. But I am by no means a professional farmer so everything I am about to share with you I learned courtesy of google. So - we know today that many farmers buy their seeds from certified seed sellers. One of the reasons for this is to produce uniform crops for our grocery stores and consumption. Studies have proven that perfectly shaped potatoes and carrots sell better in the store. And for the backyard gardener also, seeds are fairly readily available. Not just Home and Garden stores but in the bargain section at Target, the checkout at the Dollar Store, local library seed banks - seeds for planting are readily available to whoever wants them.
Now I know even less about farmers in Biblical times than modern times, but from what I gather, farmers did not have big government agencies or research labs to buy seeds from. Every year they had to save seed from their crops. These crops would have been carefully selected - the very best fruit yielding crops. And then, those seeds would have been diligently harvested and stored with great care - after all, those seeds had to wait through the winter, safe from mice and other creatures and insects that could eat or ruin them. And then when it came time to plow and prepare the fields, time to plant, the farmer whose livelihood and the survival of him and his family and maybe even the survival of the whole community - all depended upon a fruitful harvest… that farmer would just take those painstakingly picked and preserved seeds and just… toss some seeds here, toss some seeds there, maybe over here….The farmer would haphazardly throw the seeds around - some would land on shallow soil, some on the path, some on thorns...and some, LUCKILY, would fall on good fertile soil. Phew! Their family could eat this year…
Wait...no! That doesn’t sound right! That’s not what the farmers would do at all. A farmer would carefully plant the seed in the prepared and fertile ground to produce the best harvest and provide and care for himself, his family, and his community. That’s what a responsible and good farmer would do… And that’s not what the Sower in the parable did.
I tried to come up with a modern day parable that might relate to us better to get to the same concept.
Listen! A Church Mission Committee went out and carefully raised funds to do some good in their community! There were a lot of meetings, careful planning and recruiting of volunteers. Everything was organized and there was a successful fundraiser where people were generous with their time and wallets! All the hard work had paid off. When it came time to disperse that money to local missions and charities, the Mission Committee members just walked along 224 and Market Street and threw some into every shop! Some money fell on the sidewalk and commuters and people experiencing homelessness picked it up! Some money fell on the street and got washed down sewer drains. Some fell into big box stores and workers pocketed it to compensate for their poor pay. Some fell into local shops and it boosted the local business for a while but was quickly forgotten. Some money got tossed into bars and businesses of ill repute! And some money got put into the hands of good people, and good organizations, and went on to help so many people struggling, that money boosted the church’s mission field thirty, sixty...maybe even 100 percent!! Let anyone with ears listen!
And you’re all probably going...wait, what? That’s crazy! That’s not how things work! It’s ridiculous! It’s downright wasteful! ...but that’s the point of the parable. Jesus’s listeners would have been shocked at the downright wastefulness of the sower in the parable. Many of us, so removed from their understanding of farming and seeds, miss the shock effect of Jesus’s teachings. But when we start to talk about throwing mission money into the street…we get closer to what Jesus was trying to provoke in his listeners. Through a story that surprises or shocks us - it teaches us something about the Divine.
Because, as Jesus reveals, the Sower is God! But haphazard? Wasteful? These are not terms that we are used to thinking about in connection with God! Could you imagine if I started our morning prayer saying, “Haphazard and Wasteful God, we lift our hearts before you…” You could tell who was really paying attention and listening closely by how many heads would whip up in surprise. What did she just say about God?? Haphazard and wasteful…no…we tend to think just the opposite of God! God plans. God is a good master who calls us to be good and wise stewards. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if I prayed to “God, the Divine Planner of Our Lives.” And God wants us to use our resources wisely...and yes, this is all true… God is a Good Planner, Master, Ruler…
But when it comes to God’s grace, when it comes to God’s love… God is extravagantly wasteful! I wouldn’t say haphazard because God’s extravagant wastefulness is planned and intentional. The Divine Sower is throwing some seed here and there and everywhere - spreading the seed all around - because the seed that God throws is God’s Love. The seed that God throws is God’s Grace. When Jesus explains the parable to his disciples he says the seed is “the word of the Kingdom of God.” And what is the word of the Kingdom of God? This goes back to what I said when I started today’s sermon that every preacher is called to preach the Gospel, is called to preach the Good News - and how the preacher understands the Good News of the Gospel, that is the foundation of every sermon they will preach. The well they draw from. And so, the word of the Kingdom of God is this: You are a beloved child of God and God loves you so incredibly much, that we can’t even fathom how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for us. And when I say you and I say us - I mean every person who was ever created and ever born. God loves ALL more than we could ever imagine. THIS is the Good News, the Gospel, the Word of God that the Sower so lavishly and extravagantly throws everywhere.
And I use the word wasteful but there is no waste when it comes to God’s love because there is no scarcity of Grace! There is always more than enough to go around! There is no bottom. There is no set limit or finite amount. God’s Grace and Love are limitless and never run dry. And God wants to give Grace to everyone - to give everyone a chance.
In the Methodist tradition, we have a term for this extravagance of God’s grace - it’s called prevenient grace - or quite literally, the grace that precedes, the grace that comes before.
But the grace that comes before what? Before we even knew that we needed grace. Before we even knew that there was grace to be had. It’s the grace that comes before we’re fertile soil. The grace that continuously comes to us whether we are ready to receive it or not. It’s the grace that comes when we don’t want to hear the Word of God or where God is trying to lead us to. It’s the Grace that comes when our hearts and minds are more like a path, a thorny patch, or shallow ground - where the seeds cannot find roots and get eaten by birds. AND the point is even THEN - God still wants to reach us, still wants to offer us grace, whether we are ready or not - God’s grace is there for us. God’s grace and love is there for everyone, regardless of where they are in their lives or if they are ready to receive it. And so the Divine Sower throws his seed - to the birds, to the thorns, and to us - to each and every person ever created, each one deemed worthy by God to be a recipient of God’s Love and Grace.
One of my favorite ways to think about God’s prevenient grace is like the Holy Spirit is continuously tapping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears: psst! Hey, I’m right here! Pssst, hey! I love you! Hey! Hey! I love you! Do you hear me? And yet we don’t feel that tapping on our shoulders, those whisperings of love in our ears. I once had a parishioner tell me it was sometimes less of a whispering in their ear than the Holy Spirit taking a bull horn, putting it right in front of the ear and yelling: HEY! I’M RIGHT HERE! HEY! I LOVE YOU! And they still chose not to hear. But guess what? Our response or our lack of response never deters God. If it was us, we would grow weary of not being heard, grow weary of continuously trying to reach out to someone and getting nothing in return… God never grows weary. God always, always, always, offers us love, whispers in our ears, yells in our ears, throws us seeds of love and Grace.
It is comforting and reassuring to know that God will keep throwing us seeds, keep offering us grace - even if at first we don’t respond. And now, when we do respond, Methodists call that Justifying Grace and then there is Sanctifying Grace…and getting into each of those things would be a whole other sermon but I promise you, we will do it at some point - and probably multiple points. And sometimes we think of God’s grace as this ladder to climb - there is this prevenient grace which is God offering us love and grace before we know there is love and grace to be had. And then when realize it, it’s justifying grace where we consciously choose a relationship with God, and then there is sanctifying grace where God works on us and with us to make us more like Christ. But it’s not a ladder where we move from one stage to the next - no matter where we are in our journey with God, prevenient Grace is still constantly being offered to us. Because there is not a single moment of time, not a single second in our lives, where the Holy Spirit is not whispering - or shouting with bullhorn - in your ear: I love you.
I want to say that last bit again to let it sync in: There is not a single moment of time, not a single second in our lives, where the Holy Spirit is not whispering in your ear: I love you.
That is God’s extravagantly generous, prevenient grace. Always offered to us.
That doesn’t mean that we should sit back and just wait to suddenly become fertile soil, it doesn’t work like that. We can work on our hearts and on our lives to open ourselves up to receiving the Grace of God. We can do the things that open our hearts to God - reading, meditating and studying the scriptures; prayer; fasting; regularly attending worship; sharing our faith with others; and sharing in the sacraments. We also can find that doing good works is a way that we prepare our hearts to accept God’s word. Good works such as visiting the sick; visiting those in prison; feeding the hungry; giving generously to the needs of others; seeking justice; ending oppression and discrimination; and addressing the needs of the poor.
It’s this heart of piety and devotion and these works of charity and justice - these are the bounty that God is calling us to produce. That simultaneously is the harvest of the seeds of love that God plants AND can help us be like fertile soil to accept the seeds of love that God shares with us.
Because when we hear the voice of God in our ears saying, “Psst! Hey! I love you!” We are then compelled to go and be that voice of God to others, sharing with them the Good News - sowing seeds of God’s love for them - and we too should sow the seeds of love in our lives and to all around us like God, the Good Sower, does. With extravagant generosity, sharing love with all we meet.
Because - what I really want to drive home today - the Good News that I want to preach from this pulpit is this: No matter the states of hearts and no matter what our deeds are - God is constantly offering us love. And that, no matter the states of the hearts of our neighbors and no matter what their deeds are - God is constantly offering them love. And calls us to offer love to each other too.
And so, my prayer is that our eyes would be opened to the Grace that is all around us - to the grace that is thrown our way even when we’re not ready to receive it. The Grace that is sowed and given to every single person on this earth. Because God is extravagantly wasteful, extravagantly generous in God’s love and grace - because there is no shortage - and there is more than enough to go around. May we respond in kind, with our hearts and actions - so that God’s seeds of grace may be planted in us and bear thirty, sixty or even one hundred times over the bounty of love.
Amen.
“Extravagantly Wasteful”
Preached July 16, 2023
My preaching professor at Divinity School always told us that most preachers really only have one to two sermons in them and every time they preach, it’s really just a variation of that same sermon theme. That’s not saying that it can’t be reiterated in a hundred different ways, that a pastor can’t branch out and preach on a new topic or idea every now and then. AND, deep down, at our core, preachers pull from the same source material. Because preachers are called to preach and proclaim the Good News. And however that preacher defines the Good News - that is going to influence every sermon they ever preach. And so how I define the Good News is simply this: You are a beloved child of God and God loves you so incredibly much, that we can’t even fathom how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for us. And when I say you and I say us - I mean every person who was ever created and ever born. God loves ALL more than we could ever imagine. THIS is the Good News, the Gospel, through which all my sermons find their source.
So - if you ever doze off during one of my sermons - hopefully not because they were boring but because you were really really tired and God knew you needed the rest more than you needed a sermon - and someone asks you what the pastor preached about, here’s a get-out-of-jail-free card: you can just say “God’s Love” and you will most likely be right.
And so today, we are going to look at the parable of the sower through the lens of marveling at how much God loves us - all of us, all of everyone ever created. So often when we look at today’s Scripture we get stuck in the different types of ground - the path where the birds ate up the seeds, the soil with no depth, the thorny ground, and then the good, fertile soil. We get caught up in classifying our actions and mindsets as different types of soil - or even typing other people as certain types of soil - the desire being to transform our hearts and the hearts of others to be more fertile, to be more open to the seeds that God plants. And that’s important, to work on ourselves and open our hearts - and…I think it also misses a huge point of this parable and that is found in the sower’s actions.
In order to understand the sower’s actions and their meanings - we must first look at the seeds. And here’s my disclaimer: I am not a farmer. I am an amateur vegetable gardener. But I am by no means a professional farmer so everything I am about to share with you I learned courtesy of google. So - we know today that many farmers buy their seeds from certified seed sellers. One of the reasons for this is to produce uniform crops for our grocery stores and consumption. Studies have proven that perfectly shaped potatoes and carrots sell better in the store. And for the backyard gardener also, seeds are fairly readily available. Not just Home and Garden stores but in the bargain section at Target, the checkout at the Dollar Store, local library seed banks - seeds for planting are readily available to whoever wants them.
Now I know even less about farmers in Biblical times than modern times, but from what I gather, farmers did not have big government agencies or research labs to buy seeds from. Every year they had to save seed from their crops. These crops would have been carefully selected - the very best fruit yielding crops. And then, those seeds would have been diligently harvested and stored with great care - after all, those seeds had to wait through the winter, safe from mice and other creatures and insects that could eat or ruin them. And then when it came time to plow and prepare the fields, time to plant, the farmer whose livelihood and the survival of him and his family and maybe even the survival of the whole community - all depended upon a fruitful harvest… that farmer would just take those painstakingly picked and preserved seeds and just… toss some seeds here, toss some seeds there, maybe over here….The farmer would haphazardly throw the seeds around - some would land on shallow soil, some on the path, some on thorns...and some, LUCKILY, would fall on good fertile soil. Phew! Their family could eat this year…
Wait...no! That doesn’t sound right! That’s not what the farmers would do at all. A farmer would carefully plant the seed in the prepared and fertile ground to produce the best harvest and provide and care for himself, his family, and his community. That’s what a responsible and good farmer would do… And that’s not what the Sower in the parable did.
I tried to come up with a modern day parable that might relate to us better to get to the same concept.
Listen! A Church Mission Committee went out and carefully raised funds to do some good in their community! There were a lot of meetings, careful planning and recruiting of volunteers. Everything was organized and there was a successful fundraiser where people were generous with their time and wallets! All the hard work had paid off. When it came time to disperse that money to local missions and charities, the Mission Committee members just walked along 224 and Market Street and threw some into every shop! Some money fell on the sidewalk and commuters and people experiencing homelessness picked it up! Some money fell on the street and got washed down sewer drains. Some fell into big box stores and workers pocketed it to compensate for their poor pay. Some fell into local shops and it boosted the local business for a while but was quickly forgotten. Some money got tossed into bars and businesses of ill repute! And some money got put into the hands of good people, and good organizations, and went on to help so many people struggling, that money boosted the church’s mission field thirty, sixty...maybe even 100 percent!! Let anyone with ears listen!
And you’re all probably going...wait, what? That’s crazy! That’s not how things work! It’s ridiculous! It’s downright wasteful! ...but that’s the point of the parable. Jesus’s listeners would have been shocked at the downright wastefulness of the sower in the parable. Many of us, so removed from their understanding of farming and seeds, miss the shock effect of Jesus’s teachings. But when we start to talk about throwing mission money into the street…we get closer to what Jesus was trying to provoke in his listeners. Through a story that surprises or shocks us - it teaches us something about the Divine.
Because, as Jesus reveals, the Sower is God! But haphazard? Wasteful? These are not terms that we are used to thinking about in connection with God! Could you imagine if I started our morning prayer saying, “Haphazard and Wasteful God, we lift our hearts before you…” You could tell who was really paying attention and listening closely by how many heads would whip up in surprise. What did she just say about God?? Haphazard and wasteful…no…we tend to think just the opposite of God! God plans. God is a good master who calls us to be good and wise stewards. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if I prayed to “God, the Divine Planner of Our Lives.” And God wants us to use our resources wisely...and yes, this is all true… God is a Good Planner, Master, Ruler…
But when it comes to God’s grace, when it comes to God’s love… God is extravagantly wasteful! I wouldn’t say haphazard because God’s extravagant wastefulness is planned and intentional. The Divine Sower is throwing some seed here and there and everywhere - spreading the seed all around - because the seed that God throws is God’s Love. The seed that God throws is God’s Grace. When Jesus explains the parable to his disciples he says the seed is “the word of the Kingdom of God.” And what is the word of the Kingdom of God? This goes back to what I said when I started today’s sermon that every preacher is called to preach the Gospel, is called to preach the Good News - and how the preacher understands the Good News of the Gospel, that is the foundation of every sermon they will preach. The well they draw from. And so, the word of the Kingdom of God is this: You are a beloved child of God and God loves you so incredibly much, that we can’t even fathom how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for us. And when I say you and I say us - I mean every person who was ever created and ever born. God loves ALL more than we could ever imagine. THIS is the Good News, the Gospel, the Word of God that the Sower so lavishly and extravagantly throws everywhere.
And I use the word wasteful but there is no waste when it comes to God’s love because there is no scarcity of Grace! There is always more than enough to go around! There is no bottom. There is no set limit or finite amount. God’s Grace and Love are limitless and never run dry. And God wants to give Grace to everyone - to give everyone a chance.
In the Methodist tradition, we have a term for this extravagance of God’s grace - it’s called prevenient grace - or quite literally, the grace that precedes, the grace that comes before.
But the grace that comes before what? Before we even knew that we needed grace. Before we even knew that there was grace to be had. It’s the grace that comes before we’re fertile soil. The grace that continuously comes to us whether we are ready to receive it or not. It’s the grace that comes when we don’t want to hear the Word of God or where God is trying to lead us to. It’s the Grace that comes when our hearts and minds are more like a path, a thorny patch, or shallow ground - where the seeds cannot find roots and get eaten by birds. AND the point is even THEN - God still wants to reach us, still wants to offer us grace, whether we are ready or not - God’s grace is there for us. God’s grace and love is there for everyone, regardless of where they are in their lives or if they are ready to receive it. And so the Divine Sower throws his seed - to the birds, to the thorns, and to us - to each and every person ever created, each one deemed worthy by God to be a recipient of God’s Love and Grace.
One of my favorite ways to think about God’s prevenient grace is like the Holy Spirit is continuously tapping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears: psst! Hey, I’m right here! Pssst, hey! I love you! Hey! Hey! I love you! Do you hear me? And yet we don’t feel that tapping on our shoulders, those whisperings of love in our ears. I once had a parishioner tell me it was sometimes less of a whispering in their ear than the Holy Spirit taking a bull horn, putting it right in front of the ear and yelling: HEY! I’M RIGHT HERE! HEY! I LOVE YOU! And they still chose not to hear. But guess what? Our response or our lack of response never deters God. If it was us, we would grow weary of not being heard, grow weary of continuously trying to reach out to someone and getting nothing in return… God never grows weary. God always, always, always, offers us love, whispers in our ears, yells in our ears, throws us seeds of love and Grace.
It is comforting and reassuring to know that God will keep throwing us seeds, keep offering us grace - even if at first we don’t respond. And now, when we do respond, Methodists call that Justifying Grace and then there is Sanctifying Grace…and getting into each of those things would be a whole other sermon but I promise you, we will do it at some point - and probably multiple points. And sometimes we think of God’s grace as this ladder to climb - there is this prevenient grace which is God offering us love and grace before we know there is love and grace to be had. And then when realize it, it’s justifying grace where we consciously choose a relationship with God, and then there is sanctifying grace where God works on us and with us to make us more like Christ. But it’s not a ladder where we move from one stage to the next - no matter where we are in our journey with God, prevenient Grace is still constantly being offered to us. Because there is not a single moment of time, not a single second in our lives, where the Holy Spirit is not whispering - or shouting with bullhorn - in your ear: I love you.
I want to say that last bit again to let it sync in: There is not a single moment of time, not a single second in our lives, where the Holy Spirit is not whispering in your ear: I love you.
That is God’s extravagantly generous, prevenient grace. Always offered to us.
That doesn’t mean that we should sit back and just wait to suddenly become fertile soil, it doesn’t work like that. We can work on our hearts and on our lives to open ourselves up to receiving the Grace of God. We can do the things that open our hearts to God - reading, meditating and studying the scriptures; prayer; fasting; regularly attending worship; sharing our faith with others; and sharing in the sacraments. We also can find that doing good works is a way that we prepare our hearts to accept God’s word. Good works such as visiting the sick; visiting those in prison; feeding the hungry; giving generously to the needs of others; seeking justice; ending oppression and discrimination; and addressing the needs of the poor.
It’s this heart of piety and devotion and these works of charity and justice - these are the bounty that God is calling us to produce. That simultaneously is the harvest of the seeds of love that God plants AND can help us be like fertile soil to accept the seeds of love that God shares with us.
Because when we hear the voice of God in our ears saying, “Psst! Hey! I love you!” We are then compelled to go and be that voice of God to others, sharing with them the Good News - sowing seeds of God’s love for them - and we too should sow the seeds of love in our lives and to all around us like God, the Good Sower, does. With extravagant generosity, sharing love with all we meet.
Because - what I really want to drive home today - the Good News that I want to preach from this pulpit is this: No matter the states of hearts and no matter what our deeds are - God is constantly offering us love. And that, no matter the states of the hearts of our neighbors and no matter what their deeds are - God is constantly offering them love. And calls us to offer love to each other too.
And so, my prayer is that our eyes would be opened to the Grace that is all around us - to the grace that is thrown our way even when we’re not ready to receive it. The Grace that is sowed and given to every single person on this earth. Because God is extravagantly wasteful, extravagantly generous in God’s love and grace - because there is no shortage - and there is more than enough to go around. May we respond in kind, with our hearts and actions - so that God’s seeds of grace may be planted in us and bear thirty, sixty or even one hundred times over the bounty of love.
Amen.
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
"What's Your Story?" a first-Sunday sermon on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
“What’s Your Story?”
Preached Sunday, July 9, 2023
Good morning! At this point, I would think that you all know who I am - my name at the very least. And still, allow me to introduce myself again. I am the Rev. Allison LeBrun, I like to be called Pastor Allison by those in my congregation. And this morning, this first Sunday that I have the awesome and humble privilege to be your pastor and to lead you in worship, I’d like to tell you part of my story. I hope by the end of this sermon, you will have a better idea of who I am, as a person, as a preacher, as a minister of God. And, before I tell you my story, I’d like to begin with a question for you. I’d like you to leave today and consider this question, let it be a guiding point for you as we embark on this new season of life together as a congregation. And the question is:
What is your story?
And I don’t necessarily mean, what are the facts of your life, where you were born, where you grew up and went to school and such - although those can factor into your story and over the next couple weeks and months I hope to learn those types of facts about each and every one of you.
My facts are something like this:
My name is Allison **** LeBrun. I was born in **** Ohio to Judy and Frank. I am the youngest of three siblings and grew up in Canfield, was baptized and confirmed at Canfield United Methodist Church, and graduated from Canfield High School. I went to The University of Mount Union where I majored in Religious Studies and minored in Japanese. I met my now-husband, Zach, while working as camp counselors at Camp Asbury. We got married 5 months after I graduated college and 3 months before we moved to Nashville, Tennessee for me to get my Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. I was commissioned as a United Methodist Pastor in 2017, ordained in 2019, had my daughter **** in 2020, and have served the last 6 years in Vermilion, Ohio. And now I have the great privilege and opportunity to move back to what feels like home, Boardman, and to be your pastor.
And as important as the facts of our stories are - your facts and my facts, they are just the foundation of our stories. When I say I want you to consider the question, “What is your story?” I am talking about your story that is more than just a compilation of dates, locations, and facts about your life. This story, your story, is more than that, it is your operating story for who you are, it is the meaning making story that you tell yourself to make sense of the person you are. It motivates and justifies your actions. It gets to the core of who you are, what you value, and how you relate to others.
As ministers, we are required to think a lot about our stories. When I went up before the Board of Ordained Ministry - that’s our conference-level licensing body as United Methodists - every minister who wants to be ordained in our conference has to come before them. At least two times. Once to be commissioned and once to be ordained. So when I came before the Board, I had seven minutes, and no more, it was timed, to share my story as it relates to my call to ministry. Of course, we all know that our stories, our full stories, take a lot longer than 7 minutes. My full story includes dreams I had as a child, nights under the stars at summer camp, studying abroad and being a stranger in a strange land, falling in love with the sacrament of Holy Communion, becoming a mom…and so much more...but whenever I tell my story, short or long version of it, I always include three women:
My great-grandmother, Marjorie ****. My grandmother, Alice Ann ****. And my mother, Judy ****.
My story often starts here. Allow me to share some of it with you. When I think of my story, my faith, my calling to ministry in the United Methodist Church, I trace my spiritual heritage through the strong women of faith in my family. Each of them Methodists. Each with their own commitment to justice and God. They taught each other and they taught me. They taught me love of God and love of neighbor. They are strong women who raised strong women, to love fiercely, to be compassionate and generous, to be committed members of a faith community. My faith and my belonging to The United Methodist Church is a part of me, it is a core of who I am, it is in my very bones, passed on to me through the genetics and love of these women. This church, the United Methodist Church, is my home, where I belong. It is my history, my present, and my future. I love it and it, through the people of God, has loved me.
This is only a small part of my story, but I think you can see how this story shapes me. Now, my sister has the same mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother that I have - but her story is not the same as my story. The facts may be the same but how we make them our story, how they operate in our lives is different. And I hope you can see, through even a small section of my story, how my story shapes what I value: family, strong leadership, female empowerment, church community. These values, which become evident through how I shape and tell my story, will then shape how I speak and how I act.
In essence, our stories are vital to know who we are, what we value, and what our role is to play in this world.
But so often, we forget our stories. Or we never take the time to reflect, cultivate, and work on our stories. We can live our lives, our day to day, our week to week, our month to month, year to year…without ever doing the inner work of cultivating our stories. And I believe that is a dangerous thing. When we don’t know who we are, why we are who we are, and what our purpose is, we diminish ourselves. We shrink to something that is less than what God intends for us - which is nothing less than being beloved children of God who have life and have it abundantly. And when we diminish ourselves, we can so easily let someone or something else write our narrative for us - for make no mistake, there are plenty of other agencies, new sources, clubs, groups out there ready to supply a narrative for us that will control who we are and what we value so that we think, vote, and act like them.
I believe that the Disney movie Moana talks to the theme of the importance of story and knowing who you are. How many here have seen the movie Moana? Show of hands? Parents or grandparents who have seen it? In the weeks leading up to my ordination interview, and this was before I had a Disney-obsessed toddler, I could not get enough of the soundtrack to Moana. One day I told Zach that I had a problem, I was listening to Moana nonstop. He told me my problem wasn’t hurting anyone, so it was okay. Well, several days and I’m sure what seemed like several hundred plays through the soundtrack later, Zach had to say, “You know that Moana thing? Yeah, now, it’s a problem and ya gotta stop.”
I think I’m drawn to this movie and music because it is a story of a young woman discovering her own story, a story that will shape her as an individual and her whole community - for we have communal narratives as well. For those who don’t know the basic plot of Moana: Moana is the daughter of the village chief who has always dreamed of leaving her island - something they don’t do. But the Ocean chooses her to take a journey that will restore harmony to the land and health to her island…a journey that not only saves her community but one that is a journey of self discovery too. And there comes a scene in the movie where she is defeated, she has lost her purpose, and she doesn’t know who she is anymore, what to do, where to go...and it is in this scene that she is reminded of who she is.
The ghost of her grandmother appears to her and starts to remind her who she is:
“I know a girl from an island
She stands apart from the crowd
She loves the sea and her people
She makes her whole family proud.”
She sings, “Moana, listen, do you know who you are?”
And then Moana begins to sing her own story:
“Who am I?
I am the girl who loves my island
I'm the girl who loves the sea
It calls me…”
“What’s Your Story?”
Preached Sunday, July 9, 2023
Good morning! At this point, I would think that you all know who I am - my name at the very least. And still, allow me to introduce myself again. I am the Rev. Allison LeBrun, I like to be called Pastor Allison by those in my congregation. And this morning, this first Sunday that I have the awesome and humble privilege to be your pastor and to lead you in worship, I’d like to tell you part of my story. I hope by the end of this sermon, you will have a better idea of who I am, as a person, as a preacher, as a minister of God. And, before I tell you my story, I’d like to begin with a question for you. I’d like you to leave today and consider this question, let it be a guiding point for you as we embark on this new season of life together as a congregation. And the question is:
What is your story?
And I don’t necessarily mean, what are the facts of your life, where you were born, where you grew up and went to school and such - although those can factor into your story and over the next couple weeks and months I hope to learn those types of facts about each and every one of you.
My facts are something like this:
My name is Allison **** LeBrun. I was born in **** Ohio to Judy and Frank. I am the youngest of three siblings and grew up in Canfield, was baptized and confirmed at Canfield United Methodist Church, and graduated from Canfield High School. I went to The University of Mount Union where I majored in Religious Studies and minored in Japanese. I met my now-husband, Zach, while working as camp counselors at Camp Asbury. We got married 5 months after I graduated college and 3 months before we moved to Nashville, Tennessee for me to get my Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. I was commissioned as a United Methodist Pastor in 2017, ordained in 2019, had my daughter **** in 2020, and have served the last 6 years in Vermilion, Ohio. And now I have the great privilege and opportunity to move back to what feels like home, Boardman, and to be your pastor.
And as important as the facts of our stories are - your facts and my facts, they are just the foundation of our stories. When I say I want you to consider the question, “What is your story?” I am talking about your story that is more than just a compilation of dates, locations, and facts about your life. This story, your story, is more than that, it is your operating story for who you are, it is the meaning making story that you tell yourself to make sense of the person you are. It motivates and justifies your actions. It gets to the core of who you are, what you value, and how you relate to others.
As ministers, we are required to think a lot about our stories. When I went up before the Board of Ordained Ministry - that’s our conference-level licensing body as United Methodists - every minister who wants to be ordained in our conference has to come before them. At least two times. Once to be commissioned and once to be ordained. So when I came before the Board, I had seven minutes, and no more, it was timed, to share my story as it relates to my call to ministry. Of course, we all know that our stories, our full stories, take a lot longer than 7 minutes. My full story includes dreams I had as a child, nights under the stars at summer camp, studying abroad and being a stranger in a strange land, falling in love with the sacrament of Holy Communion, becoming a mom…and so much more...but whenever I tell my story, short or long version of it, I always include three women:
My great-grandmother, Marjorie ****. My grandmother, Alice Ann ****. And my mother, Judy ****.
My story often starts here. Allow me to share some of it with you. When I think of my story, my faith, my calling to ministry in the United Methodist Church, I trace my spiritual heritage through the strong women of faith in my family. Each of them Methodists. Each with their own commitment to justice and God. They taught each other and they taught me. They taught me love of God and love of neighbor. They are strong women who raised strong women, to love fiercely, to be compassionate and generous, to be committed members of a faith community. My faith and my belonging to The United Methodist Church is a part of me, it is a core of who I am, it is in my very bones, passed on to me through the genetics and love of these women. This church, the United Methodist Church, is my home, where I belong. It is my history, my present, and my future. I love it and it, through the people of God, has loved me.
This is only a small part of my story, but I think you can see how this story shapes me. Now, my sister has the same mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother that I have - but her story is not the same as my story. The facts may be the same but how we make them our story, how they operate in our lives is different. And I hope you can see, through even a small section of my story, how my story shapes what I value: family, strong leadership, female empowerment, church community. These values, which become evident through how I shape and tell my story, will then shape how I speak and how I act.
In essence, our stories are vital to know who we are, what we value, and what our role is to play in this world.
But so often, we forget our stories. Or we never take the time to reflect, cultivate, and work on our stories. We can live our lives, our day to day, our week to week, our month to month, year to year…without ever doing the inner work of cultivating our stories. And I believe that is a dangerous thing. When we don’t know who we are, why we are who we are, and what our purpose is, we diminish ourselves. We shrink to something that is less than what God intends for us - which is nothing less than being beloved children of God who have life and have it abundantly. And when we diminish ourselves, we can so easily let someone or something else write our narrative for us - for make no mistake, there are plenty of other agencies, new sources, clubs, groups out there ready to supply a narrative for us that will control who we are and what we value so that we think, vote, and act like them.
I believe that the Disney movie Moana talks to the theme of the importance of story and knowing who you are. How many here have seen the movie Moana? Show of hands? Parents or grandparents who have seen it? In the weeks leading up to my ordination interview, and this was before I had a Disney-obsessed toddler, I could not get enough of the soundtrack to Moana. One day I told Zach that I had a problem, I was listening to Moana nonstop. He told me my problem wasn’t hurting anyone, so it was okay. Well, several days and I’m sure what seemed like several hundred plays through the soundtrack later, Zach had to say, “You know that Moana thing? Yeah, now, it’s a problem and ya gotta stop.”
I think I’m drawn to this movie and music because it is a story of a young woman discovering her own story, a story that will shape her as an individual and her whole community - for we have communal narratives as well. For those who don’t know the basic plot of Moana: Moana is the daughter of the village chief who has always dreamed of leaving her island - something they don’t do. But the Ocean chooses her to take a journey that will restore harmony to the land and health to her island…a journey that not only saves her community but one that is a journey of self discovery too. And there comes a scene in the movie where she is defeated, she has lost her purpose, and she doesn’t know who she is anymore, what to do, where to go...and it is in this scene that she is reminded of who she is.
The ghost of her grandmother appears to her and starts to remind her who she is:
“I know a girl from an island
She stands apart from the crowd
She loves the sea and her people
She makes her whole family proud.”
She sings, “Moana, listen, do you know who you are?”
And then Moana begins to sing her own story:
“Who am I?
I am the girl who loves my island
I'm the girl who loves the sea
It calls me…”
She sings - cause it’s Disney - but she is really telling herself her story, her meaning-making story, and through remembering her story, she is reminded not only of the facts but who she is in her core - the type of person she is, what she is capable of, what her purpose is. She is re-centered, re-invigorated, and re-empowered to be the person she was called to be.
This is why it’s so important to know our story! In the words of Moana, “so come what may, I know the way!” Amidst the competing narratives trying to tell us who we are, amidst the turmoil and strife of this world, the grief and pain - if we know who we are, if we know our story, we know who we are, we know whose we are, and we know the way.
And this was a vitally important message, not just in the movie Moana but in the book of Deuteronomy. Now, the book of Deuteronomy is presented as if it was one long sermon given by Moses but actually it is a collection of writings written and gathered over a 150 year period. And in this book, it was highly important to the writers, to Moses, to the Israelites that they remember their story. The commandment to remember their story is given over 30 times in this book. One commentator calls it the drum beat, keeping the rhythm throughout the book. I would also like to think of it as a heartbeat - in that our story is that which pushes life into and through our system and keeps us alive to who God calls us to be. Over and over again Moses says don’t forget your story! Don’t forget where you came from! Don’t forget what God has done for us.
So, what is the story of the Israelites, the story they can’t forget as presented in Deuteronomy?
That story begins: my ancestor was a wandering Aramean - this could translate better today to, “my ancestor was a destitute vagrant.” This refers to Jacob - you know Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, brother of Esau, Jacob who stole his brother’s birthright, who married Leah and Rachel, who wrestled with God, that Jacob. And it refers to him as a destitute vagrant, a wandering Aramean, because it was him and his family that took refuge in Egypt, and then as a people in Egypt, being afflicted in to slavery, and then being led out of slavery, to wander in the desert, and finally come to the promised land. The story they are commanded to remember and to retell over 30 times in the book of Deuteronomy, it is the story of who their ancestors are. It is a story of hardship, trial, and tribulation. And it is also a story of the goodness and greatness of God and the fulfillment of God’s promises. This is the story they were commanded not to forget. And not only were they commanded not to forget it, but they were to recite it yearly in the temple, giving an offering, a tithe to the Lord - and then, this tithe wasn’t kept by the temple, no, it was used to throw a great feast for all, for those who brought the offerings and those who didn’t have anything to bring: the destitute, the widow, the orphan - all feasting together at the table. When they remembered their story, it connected them to the generous heart of God. Their story reminded them that they belonged to God and God was good to them. Their story reminded them that it was only by the grace of God that they had been saved. And so, from knowing their story, through letting it be the drumbeat, the heartbeat that led them through their lives, their story overflowed in their actions of generosity as they gave their first fruits to a joyous feast.
So, as we near the end of this sermon, I’d like to ask you again: What is your story?
And, does that story include Jesus? Is your story shaped by the generous heart of God? Is your faith, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is living in a faith community - are these things central to your story? Is it, as Paul says in Romans “on your lips and in your heart - that is, the word of faith that we proclaim.” Does your story include the story we proclaim every time we gather at the altar table? There is a reason we recite the story of Jesus every time we take Communion. Because, we need to remember. The story of the Gospel, of Christ, needs to be a drumbeat, a heartbeat in our lives. It is a story that reminds us of God’s greatness and goodness. And it is a story that reminds us that we are beloved children who are called to make room for all at the table.
So - what is your story? And does your story lead you to the heart of God? Does it lead you to value what God values? Does your story lead you to love God and love neighbor as self? Does it lead you to this table? Does your story lead you to the generous heart of God?
Because not all stories we tell ourselves do. Not all stories others try to tell us about ourselves do. There are stories that tell us lies. There are stories that tell us that we are better than other people. Or that we are less than what God has called us to be, beloved children. There are stories that lead us not to places of generosity and love but to scarcity, fear, and hate. There are stories that lead us to war and violence, poverty of soul and spirit, that lead us to closed doors and exclusion - these stories are not the stories God would have us tell ourselves or tell each other. Our stories should include the stories of Jesus and those stories will always lead us to love, hope, peace, and joy.
And so, as we start a new chapter in our stories together as Boardman United Methodist Church, I’d like you to carefully consider your story - write it down even. You don’t need to share what you write down - do it just for you. And if there are parts of your story that you realize are rooted in fear rather than love and parts of your story that lead you to places of scarcity rather than generosity, exclusivity rather than God’s radical inclusivity, use this season of new beginnings to start anew. Edit those parts out of your story. This is a painful process and it is a necessary one - it is nothing less than living the Christian life that we are called to live.
So today, I have shared some of my story with you - the facts and also some of the deeper story that shapes who I am. And together, we have heard some of the stories of our faith that shape us: Wandering Arameans and Jesus… and when we leave from this place today, may we remember those stories, may we cultivate our stories, tell them to ourselves and to each other, and see how the story of Jesus is woven throughout our stories…that collectively, knowing our stories, and knowing the stories of our Faith, we may remember who we are, whose we are, where we have come from, and what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Remember your story.
Amen.
This is why it’s so important to know our story! In the words of Moana, “so come what may, I know the way!” Amidst the competing narratives trying to tell us who we are, amidst the turmoil and strife of this world, the grief and pain - if we know who we are, if we know our story, we know who we are, we know whose we are, and we know the way.
And this was a vitally important message, not just in the movie Moana but in the book of Deuteronomy. Now, the book of Deuteronomy is presented as if it was one long sermon given by Moses but actually it is a collection of writings written and gathered over a 150 year period. And in this book, it was highly important to the writers, to Moses, to the Israelites that they remember their story. The commandment to remember their story is given over 30 times in this book. One commentator calls it the drum beat, keeping the rhythm throughout the book. I would also like to think of it as a heartbeat - in that our story is that which pushes life into and through our system and keeps us alive to who God calls us to be. Over and over again Moses says don’t forget your story! Don’t forget where you came from! Don’t forget what God has done for us.
So, what is the story of the Israelites, the story they can’t forget as presented in Deuteronomy?
That story begins: my ancestor was a wandering Aramean - this could translate better today to, “my ancestor was a destitute vagrant.” This refers to Jacob - you know Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, brother of Esau, Jacob who stole his brother’s birthright, who married Leah and Rachel, who wrestled with God, that Jacob. And it refers to him as a destitute vagrant, a wandering Aramean, because it was him and his family that took refuge in Egypt, and then as a people in Egypt, being afflicted in to slavery, and then being led out of slavery, to wander in the desert, and finally come to the promised land. The story they are commanded to remember and to retell over 30 times in the book of Deuteronomy, it is the story of who their ancestors are. It is a story of hardship, trial, and tribulation. And it is also a story of the goodness and greatness of God and the fulfillment of God’s promises. This is the story they were commanded not to forget. And not only were they commanded not to forget it, but they were to recite it yearly in the temple, giving an offering, a tithe to the Lord - and then, this tithe wasn’t kept by the temple, no, it was used to throw a great feast for all, for those who brought the offerings and those who didn’t have anything to bring: the destitute, the widow, the orphan - all feasting together at the table. When they remembered their story, it connected them to the generous heart of God. Their story reminded them that they belonged to God and God was good to them. Their story reminded them that it was only by the grace of God that they had been saved. And so, from knowing their story, through letting it be the drumbeat, the heartbeat that led them through their lives, their story overflowed in their actions of generosity as they gave their first fruits to a joyous feast.
So, as we near the end of this sermon, I’d like to ask you again: What is your story?
And, does that story include Jesus? Is your story shaped by the generous heart of God? Is your faith, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is living in a faith community - are these things central to your story? Is it, as Paul says in Romans “on your lips and in your heart - that is, the word of faith that we proclaim.” Does your story include the story we proclaim every time we gather at the altar table? There is a reason we recite the story of Jesus every time we take Communion. Because, we need to remember. The story of the Gospel, of Christ, needs to be a drumbeat, a heartbeat in our lives. It is a story that reminds us of God’s greatness and goodness. And it is a story that reminds us that we are beloved children who are called to make room for all at the table.
So - what is your story? And does your story lead you to the heart of God? Does it lead you to value what God values? Does your story lead you to love God and love neighbor as self? Does it lead you to this table? Does your story lead you to the generous heart of God?
Because not all stories we tell ourselves do. Not all stories others try to tell us about ourselves do. There are stories that tell us lies. There are stories that tell us that we are better than other people. Or that we are less than what God has called us to be, beloved children. There are stories that lead us not to places of generosity and love but to scarcity, fear, and hate. There are stories that lead us to war and violence, poverty of soul and spirit, that lead us to closed doors and exclusion - these stories are not the stories God would have us tell ourselves or tell each other. Our stories should include the stories of Jesus and those stories will always lead us to love, hope, peace, and joy.
And so, as we start a new chapter in our stories together as Boardman United Methodist Church, I’d like you to carefully consider your story - write it down even. You don’t need to share what you write down - do it just for you. And if there are parts of your story that you realize are rooted in fear rather than love and parts of your story that lead you to places of scarcity rather than generosity, exclusivity rather than God’s radical inclusivity, use this season of new beginnings to start anew. Edit those parts out of your story. This is a painful process and it is a necessary one - it is nothing less than living the Christian life that we are called to live.
So today, I have shared some of my story with you - the facts and also some of the deeper story that shapes who I am. And together, we have heard some of the stories of our faith that shape us: Wandering Arameans and Jesus… and when we leave from this place today, may we remember those stories, may we cultivate our stories, tell them to ourselves and to each other, and see how the story of Jesus is woven throughout our stories…that collectively, knowing our stories, and knowing the stories of our Faith, we may remember who we are, whose we are, where we have come from, and what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Remember your story.
Amen.
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