"Love & Water" a sermon on Acts 8:26-40 & 1 John 4:7-21

Acts 8:26-40
1 John 4:7-21
“Love & Water”
Preached Sunday, April 25, 2024

I want to take a moment and tell you how absolutely excited I was for the opportunity to baptize a beloved child of God this morning AND for that baptism to happen with these assigned texts this morning. Our readings came from the assigned Revised Common Lectionary texts for this Sunday morning - part of the love passage from 1 John and the story of the Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch. These texts alongside participating in the sacrament of Holy Baptism is just - chef’s kiss - perfection.

This match-up combines 2 of my 3 greatest joys as a minister:

1. Telling everyone that they are a beloved child of the God who is Love - and I mean EVERYONE - we’ll dig into that a little more with the Acts texts. And -
2. Baptizing children of God - claiming them by and for Love as God’s beloved child, and welcoming them into the community of faith

I hope, by the end of this sermon, you are just as hyped as I am for the loving and inclusive Kingdom of God that God paints for us in the Scriptures today and that we got to glimpse in the act of Baptism today.

So let’s start by going back to the basics of some of what happens in Baptism. For some this may be a refresher and still for others, you may hear it for the first time or with new ears.

In baptism, we are adopted into God’s family. Every child, every person, on this earth, is already a child of God and already loved by God. In Baptism, we formalize that adoption and celebrate that love. As an adult, that person makes a public statement of their faith, accepting that they are loved by God and promising to serve God. When we baptize children, parents make promises on behalf of their child - that one day, if they so choose, they can accept for themselves. And the parents promise, to the best of their ability, to raise their child to know the God who is Love. So we have God making a promise in Baptism: You are my child and I love you. We have the baptized or parents of the baptized making a promise: I will follow God and/or I will raise this child to know God. And then the congregation also makes a promise on behalf of all Christian communities: We will love this person, we will show them Jesus through our love, and we will accept them into the family of God, the Church.

For as we are all children of God, the Church as a whole is a reflection of God’s family. And this congregation, we are a microcosm of God’s greater worldwide and universal family. One of the vows we make in our baptism is this: that we “confess Jesus Christ as our Savior, put our whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as our Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.”

And so, phrased another way, we recognize that the family of God, the Kingdom or Kin-dom of God, has people in it of all ages, nations, and races in it. When we baptize a child of God, we are saying, welcome to a beautifully diverse and inclusive family. You, no matter who you are, you belong here.

And it’s even more beautiful, diverse, and inclusive than our baptismal liturgy lets on. While our liturgy specifically states all ages, nations, and races being included in the Church, in the family of God, our list is much shorter than the Holy Spirit’s work, because the work of the Holy Spirit is always reaching out to all and widening the circle of God’s love. So Christ has opened the Church to people of all ages, nations, and races...and genders (in Christ there is no male or female), classes, sexualities, abilities, etc., etc - there is no marker, no one group or person that Christ would exclude from His Church if that person wanted to belong to it. Christ has already decided on ALL. Sometimes we just have to catch up with the Spirit. When I went to seminary in the South a common bumper sticker on the cars of my classmates was “Y’all means all.” And when it comes to who the Holy Spirit offers the love and grace of God to - y’all truly means all.

As God has opened the Church, the Family of God, up to all who wish to know the love of God - to love God and love neighbor as ourselves. So are we called, through our Baptisms, to extend that love to ALL too. Our Scripture from 1 John today starts, “Beloved, let us love one another.” And it goes on eloquently, speaking of love as a Christian - the love God has for us and the love we are to have for one another. Let me lift up a few lines to you:

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

It is easy to accept the little children we baptize as beloved children of God. Innocent and sweet and so very cute. Children in which we can see our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. It is easy to love the infants we baptize, to welcome them into our family, into God’s family.

And here is the challenge, friends, fellow Children of God, siblings in Christ - it is harder to imagine those we fear in the place of these children, being baptized, shown God’s unconditional all-inclusive love, and welcomed into our family, the family of God. Because if we’re being honest - there are always those we may fear. Our political climate thrives off of us fearing one another. We may fear those who have a different race or ethnicity than us. A different citizenship status. A different sexual or gender identity. A different social class. Or belonging to a different political ideology. We may fear whoever the new bogeyman of the week is according to the news channel we watch. Whoever is deemed “the other.”

But if we fear another person - we do not love them, for perfect love casts out fear. Fear keeps us from love - love of our fellow siblings in Christ, our fellow beloved children of God - and fear of “the other” also keeps us from love of God. In a line that always challenges and convicts me, Christian-Catholic activist Dorothy Day put it like this, “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least…it’s basically a paraphrase of our passage from 1 John today and it should challenge and convict us.

With this in mind, let us now turn to our reading from Acts. We have today the story of the Baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch.

The Ethiopian eunuch is traveling home from Jerusalem while reading a scroll from the book of Isaiah. Phillip feels a nudge from the Spirit to go talk to them. So Phillip runs alongside the chariot and gets invited in, and as they pour over the scroll together, Phillip tells this person, tells the Ethiopian Eunuch about Jesus, about all that has transpired, about his death and resurrection.

I’m going to use “they” as the singular pronoun for the Ethiopian eunuch because eunuchs, as one commentator put it: “Eunuchs did not fit conventional notions of gender in the Roman world. They were simultaneously men and nonmen, neither male nor female. Sexually impotent, they were powerless and thus often scorned according to Roman constructions of masculinity and virility.” In other words, eunuchs did not fit the binary of man or woman. In today’s world, people who do not fit the binary often use the pronouns they/them/their to describe themselves. As a woman I use the pronouns she/her/hers. A man would use he/him/his. The most common pronouns for an individual who says they do not fit into either of those camps is they/them/theirs - singular. I am going on this tangent about pronouns, not just to explain why I am using they to refer to the person in today’s Bible story, but because I think a lot of people have some fear around the concept of sharing pronouns or those people who are trans- or non-binary and use different pronouns than would have been assigned to them based on sex at birth. But if this is something you struggle to understand or causes fear in you - the answer is simple, as told to us from 1 John: Love. Love drives out fear and fear keeps us from loving God. If there is fear due to not understanding or even misinformation given to us from popular news sources, we have to interrogate that fear and meet it instead with Love - the Love that comes from God.

One way we can show that love is if someone you know asks to go by they or asks you to use different pronouns than you used to use or expected them to use - it’s really really important to use the pronouns they ask you to. A recent study shows that 1 in 6 Gen Z adults are LGBTQ. On top of that 25% of today’s LGBTQ youth use non-binary pronouns. Research shows that the suicide risk decreases by 50% for youth when those close to them use their correct and preferred pronouns. That’s right - you can reduce the risk of suicide by HALF for a youth, just by calling them by what they have asked to be called. And if you ignore their request, it actually increases their risk for an attempted suicide. Moreover, when we respect someone by referring to them how they want to be referred to and by calling them by the name they want to go by, we are showing them Christ’s love through our words and actions.

The Ethiopian Eunuch would have been considered an outsider, or someone that might be feared, for other reasons too. As an Ethiopian, literally meaning “burnt face” in Greek, they would have been viewed as an outsider to the Greco-Roman world. The text said they went to Jerusalem to worship but there is a question as to whether they would have been considered as a Jew or Gentile, or a “god-fearer” - those who admired the Jewish God but were not converts for a variety of reasons.

In general, they had ambiguity of character. Everything from their gender to their ethnicity to their religion is liminal. In essence they represent, as one commentator put it, “surprise, subversion, and expanse.” They are not who the early church disciples would have pictured as being welcomed into the family of God.

And nonetheless, thanks to the Spirit’s leading, Philip is sharing the story of Jesus with the Ethiopian eunuch, and their response to Phillip is this: "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?"

Phillip could have come up with a lot of reasons: your gender, your status as a Eunuch, you being Ethiopian - a different race and ethnicity. You being a Gentile. Phillip could have said, “this is not for you.” or “You wouldn’t quite fit in with us.” But instead, Phillip and the Eunuch go down into the water, and Phillip, led by the ever inclusive Spirit, baptizes them into the family of God. In essence saying, “God loves you. I love you. You are a child of God. You are my sibling in Christ. Welcome to the Church.”

Now...the goal today is not to exoticize the Ethiopian eunuch or “other” those today who would be of a different gender, race, or status than we’d expect to be Christians...the goal today is to hear the Ethiopian eunuch shown the love of God, be baptized, be welcomed into the family of God - and then to hold up a mirror to us:

Are we still allowing the story of Jesus to reach those who, to many in the church, would represent surprise, subversion, and expanse? Are we allowing the story of Jesus to break down our walls of division, our prejudices, our stigmas, or preconceived notions? Are we allowing the love of God to drive out any and all fear we have of our fellow siblings in Christ? Are we joining the Holy Spirit in building a church that is beautifully inclusive, diverse, and loving? Are we loving all as we love the infant we baptized today?

Friends, at the start of this sermon I told you that I hoped at the end of this sermon you’d be as excited as me to share the Good News of God’s love for all God’s children. To be hyped about the image of God’s Kingdom, God’s Kin-dom, that is painted for us in our Scriptures today and that we get to catch a glimpse of everytime we baptize a child… Like me, you may also be challenged and convicted, to confront our fears with love, to stretch ourselves to better love each other, to let God’s perfect love drive out fear…

But may that also excite you. May it excite us all. Cause there is nothing better in this world than getting to share God’s love with all God’s children and claiming each and every beloved child of God through the waters of Baptism.

May it be so. Amen.

Call to Worship based on 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Leader: May we believe.
People: In Jesus who was raised from the dead.
L: May we speak.
P: Sharing the Good News of the God who is Love.
L: May we extend Grace.
P: So that more and more people may come to know Love.
L: May we worship today, not losing heart, and holding on to hope.
All: To God be the Glory! Amen.

Call to Worship for Pentecost based on Acts 2:1-21 & Romans 8:22-27

Leader: Holy God, on the day of Pentecost, you poured out your Spirit on your disciples:
People: So that they could share your Good News, so that divisions would cease, so that the young would prophesy and the old would dream dreams.
L: You poured out your Spirit on the disciples:
P: So that all of creation would be redeemed.
L: Holy God, pour out your Spirit on US.
P: So that we would share your Good News, so that our divisions would cease, so that we would prophesy and dream.
L: Holy God, pour out your Spirit on US.
P: So that all of creation would be redeemed.
All: Pour out your Spirit! Amen.

Call to Worship for the Ascension based on Luke 24:44-53

Leader: We gather together today to worship God!
People: With great joy!
L: We will open our minds to the Scriptures.
P: With great joy!
L: We will sing hymns and praises.
P: With great joy!
L: We will pray and wait for the Holy Spirit.
P: With great joy!
L: We will leave, ready to bless God and neighbor.
P: With great joy!
All: Let us worship our Ascended Lord with great joy! Amen.

Call to Worship based on John 15:9-17 & "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"

L: Jesus says to us “Abide in my Love.”
P: What a friend we have in Jesus!
L: Jesus says to us, “Keep my commandments.”
P: What a friend we have in Jesus!
L: Jesus says to us, “the greatest commandment is this: Love the Lord your God.”
P: What a friend we have in Jesus!
L: Jesus says to us, “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
P: What a friend we have in Jesus!
L: Jesus says to us, “You are my friends.”
P: What a friend we have in Jesus!
L: Let us worship our friend Jesus.
All: Amen.

Call to Worship Inspired by 1 John 4:7-21 & Acts 8:26-40

L: Beloved, let us love one another.
P: Let us love the children we baptize, our fellow worshippers in the pews.
L: Because love is from God
P: Let us love those outside our social circles, the marginalized, and outcasts.
L: Everyone who loves is born of God.
P: Let us love our neighbors, our enemies, everyone and everybody.
L: Everyone who loves knows God.
P: Let us love the God of Love.
All: May our worship this morning reflect our Love. Amen.

"Normalizing Doubt" a sermon on John 20:19-31

John 20:19-31
“Normalizing Doubt”
Last preached Sunday, April 14, 2024

Here we are, two weeks after Easter and doubt is setting in - in our Scripture this morning and maybe in our lives. After the celebrations, ham dinners, and “alleluias,” might come doubts. Is the resurrection real? Did it historically happen? Even if it did, did it happen the way the Gospels said it did? Which Gospel? And besides that, what does it mean for me, here in 2024? If God is all loving and all powerful then why is the world filled with hate, evil, and death? If Christ conquered death then why is this world so sinful? Why do we still die? And these questions can compound on top of more questions we already have and sometimes each question leads to more questions rather than answers. So here we are, two weeks after Easter with all our doubts...but, if we’re honest, really honest, we would recognize that doubt is with us almost every Sunday morning - well, maybe not always at 10:00am in the brightly lit and beautiful sanctuary. But what about at 3am when you’re awoken in the middle of the night? Or after a terrible tragedy? Yes, if we are honest, we all doubt more than we perhaps let on. But most of the time our doubts and questions stay inside of us, unshared and unanswered.

We keep our doubts hidden because doubt in the church gets a bad wrap. Because after all, as we heard in today’s reading: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And somehow, over the years since the Gospel of John was written, this text has been used to shame those who have doubts. After all, if we who have not seen doubt then we are not blessed and to not be blessed is to be cursed.

But friends, that is simply not true. Our doubts are not a curse. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. I am going to say that again cause I really want you to hear it: Doubt is not the opposite of faith. In fact, I might argue that doubt and faith go hand in hand, at least in our human nature. And doubt is a long withstanding Christian tradition. Take Holy Week. From Maundy Thursday when the disciples doubt Jesus’ intentions by washing their feet. And Peter, doubting everything and denying Jesus three times. To Good Friday when all the disciples, those who supposedly believed in Jesus more than anyone, fled and left him deserted. And all the way to Easter morning with Mary, weeping at the empty tomb, doubting that her savior was risen from the dead and instead his body was stolen. And then to a locked house with the disciples, afraid and fearful, despite the news of Jesus’ resurrection. And beyond Holy Week, doubt is a long-standing Christian tradition. Jacob wrestled with God. Abraham argued with God. Sarah laughed at God. Doubt is written throughout the Bible.

And yet doubt has not been necessarily welcome in the Church. Doubt has been seen as a sign of weakness. Perhaps it is partly due to our political and worldly climate of right and wrong, black and white, alternative facts and fake news. We feel like we have to dig our heels in just to defend ourselves from the onslaught of secularism and those that would claim that we are a lie and a scam and bad for society. For fear of showing any weakness we shut our mouths, dig in our feet, and keep out doubts to ourselves. Or, we shame others for their doubts - “just believe,” “have faith,” “don’t question.” Historically the Church has silenced and shamed questions instead of holding them together.

But when we keep our doubts inside, instead of protecting the Church and our faith, we actually do it harm. I believe it is one of the reasons many young people have either left the Church or are leaving. By digging in our heels we shut out the voices and concerns of a bright generation full of critical minds that could be and should be and are the future of the Church! We are shutting out a generation of people who want to talk about faith and science and their reconciliation. About heaven and hell and salvation in a pluralistic society. About the tension of the Church’s mission to do good in this world and yet our complicity in racism and violence. We want to talk about the chasm between Jesus’s call to love all and how Christians act in this world. By not creating room for these doubts to be voiced and for these conversations to be had, we cut these young people - or any age people - out and many leave the Church.

We -need- to remove ourselves from the mud in which we have dug our heels in and make room for the gray, for the unknown, for the doubter and for God’s grace. What I find remarkable in the Gospel reading is that Thomas announced his doubt to all the disciples who had experienced Jesus and who had felt his breath upon them. Thomas says to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." Basically he’s saying “Malarky! I’m calling your bluff - fake news!” Now I do not know how the other disciples reacted to this - shaken, angry, sympathetic? The text does not say...but they did not shun Thomas. After all, a week later, Thomas was still with them. He did not believe, maybe he thought the others were crazy or the news was just too good to be true. And maybe the others were annoyed or frustrated with his doubts…or maybe they thought it was reasonable. After all - many of them did not believe in the Resurrection when they were told by the women. They too doubted until they saw the evidence themselves. Unfortunately for Thomas none of them were given the nickname “Doubting” to follow them through the centuries…but, nevertheless, despite Thomas being completely open about his doubts, the community stuck it out - Thomas and all his doubts were included.

We too are called to welcome the doubters and their doubts into our community here at Boardman United Methodist Church. This morning following the sermon we will accept new members and as part of that liturgy we will do a profession of faith together, the Apostle’s Creed. Like most creeds, this creed was formulated by a counsel to come up with a list of things Christians are supposed to believe - but I’ll admit, at times, I have struggled with one part or another of the creed or of other tenants of the faith...but the beauty of saying those creeds, those statements of faith in community, is that we may not fully believe every line as individuals, but as a community we do. When we welcome the doubt in our midst, we can enter into dialogue on what we believe and why - not as a litmus test for who is in and who is out, but to understand ourselves, each other, and God more fully. When we engage in this dialogue around doubts and differences, we grow closer to God and are a witness of community to this world.

One way to be a witness in this world as a church that embraces doubt is to model conversation around hard questions and to hold different sides in tension and unity with each other.

Our world does not do this well. We live our lives in echo chambers based on how we vote, what news stations we watch, how we were raised, and many other socio-demographic markers. But I think…if the rest of the world can’t have hard conversations with each other, shouldn’t at least we be able to as a church? Here we are as a congregation, and as a denomination, with people on different sides of many issues - and yet we are still worshiping together and holding each other in community. We love each other and because there is love - there is also room for disagreements and conversations around those disagreements. Often we shy away from the “touchy” subjects but perhaps it would be a better witness to the world if we didn’t. We could be a powerful witness of what it means to be community to the world.

But perhaps even more powerful than being a witness to the world, by creating room in the Church for our doubts, we have the opportunity to come to know God more fully. After all, Thomas expressed his doubts and stayed in his community and he - above all the other disciples - was invited by Jesus to touch him. Jesus said, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put in my side.” Thomas, through sharing and sitting through his doubt, by not backing out but staying part of the community, he grew closer to God. He was given the chance to experience the power and love of the resurrected Jesus.

So part of the message to us today is that doubt can be a good thing. Rachel Held Evans is the author of the book “Searching for Sunday” subtitled “loving, leaving, and finding the church.” Evans writes about growing up in a very conservative evangelical church where her doubts were not welcome. She was shunned for asking questions and for disagreeing. Ultimately she left the church and went through a period where she didn’t know if she could ever come back to it. But she still loved Jesus and still felt the call to community so she searched for a community where she could be who God called her to be, doubts and all. In a blog post. Evans talks about the difference between Good doubt and Bad doubt.

Bad doubt causes you to be disobedient to God. She says, “For example, it is not a sin to have questions about my interpretation of Genesis in light of the science that supports evolution. It is a sin to allow these questions to kill my prayer life or keep me from reading the Bible altogether.” Bad doubt causes a sense of entitlement - we demand to know all the answers and reject God for not telling them to us. And bad doubt causes in us a sense of cynicism. And when we are cynical, we are no use in God’s creation of a Kingdom of Love.

Good doubt on the other hand, allows us to be obedient to God. When we have doubts and yet we still follow God, it is a testament to just how strong our faith actually is. Good doubt is accompanied with a sense of humility - when faced with the vastness of God, we must realize that we can never grasp all the questions, let alone all the answers. And good doubt leaves room for love. Evans says, “Love should be our motivation behind everything, particularly doubt. The person who loves God will often choose to struggle through intellectual objections rather than ignore them or succumb to them. The person who loves his neighbors and his enemies will often ask serious questions of himself, of the Church, and of God about how to truly care for them.”

So today I invite you to embrace your doubts, embrace the doubt that is good for you, for your faith, and for the Church. And embrace those who share doubts and the questions they bring. I invite each of you to seriously consider a doubt or question you have surrounding your faith and I invite you to share it with someone this week. And if someone shares their doubt with you, do not be shaken or try to shove doctrine down their throats or automatically make it “right” or “correct” them - but meet them with love and conversation and time - see how you both could come closer to God together - through exploring and sitting in your doubt. May it be so.

Amen.

"Again & Again: The Sun Rises" - An Easter sermon based on Mark 16:1-8

Mark 16:1-8
“Again & Again: The Sun Rises”
Preached Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024

Ready-or-Not, here I come!

Have you ever played hide and seek with a toddler? It’s a favorite game in our house and we will often take turns - who hides and who seeks. And especially when it’s the three year old’s time to count…well, the ready-or-not gets taken seriously. Instead of slowly counting to ten we might get, “One, Two, Three, Six, Eight, Ten! Ready-or-not, here I come!” And that all actually takes just three seconds to hide - so you better book it into that closet.

And ready-or-not, Easter is here. Church-wise? I am ready! At home? Well, let’s just say that Easter eggs won’t be hidden until after worship this morning.

To be honest, I often feel unprepared in life. At least for the big things. How can you ever really be prepared to fall in love? How can you ever really be prepared to become a parent? Whether it’s for the first or more time? How can you ever really be prepared for a diagnosis? How can you ever really be prepared for a loved one to die? How can you ever really be prepared for the breaking news headline? For a time of war? For life as we know it to change - for better or worse?

The women at that tomb that first Easter were not ready. How could they have been? Sure, Jesus had said that he would die…and that he would rise again. But his words hadn't been inputted. And even if they had, how can you prepare for that kind of loss? For witnessing the horror and violence of crucifixion, of the scattering and betrayal of friends, of this deep sense of loss and grief and it makes it all too easy for doubt and fear to creep in. How can you ever really prepare for a loss so profound? You can’t.

The Gospel of Mark says they went when the sun had risen, to the tomb. A new day had dawned on their grief. It hadn’t even been 48 hours since Jesus died on the cross. To those who have lost a loved one...those first 48 hours are...well...hard. As an understatement. But planning the funeral normally gives one direction, decisions to make, things to do - so the women went to the tomb to do the next thing on their to-do list: Prepare the body for burial. ...and Jesus was not there. Instead a man, or an angel, all in white told them that Jesus was not there. He was risen.

And what did the women do? The text says, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” And actually, this is where the Gospel of Mark ends. There are alternative endings that aren’t in the earliest manuscripts. Mark ends his Gospel on a cliff-hanger.

How could the women have prepared for the shock of that first Easter? How could they have prepared for the news that Jesus rose from the dead? How could they have prepared for the total upheaval of the world as they knew it? How could they have prepared for the complete change of the patterns of life and death as they knew it? How could they have been prepared for a sudden shock of joy when they were in deep grief? How could they have been prepared to process, to make sense, to explain this news and share it with others? How? They couldn’t have prepared. They couldn’t have been ready.

And that’s the thing...Easter comes every year - whether we are ready for it or not...Easter comes. Every year - Easter happens.

Easter happens in the midst of war.
Easter happens in the middle of turmoil.
Easter happens in times of depression.
Easter happens - good or bad times - Easter happens.

And that’s kind of the whole point of Easter - Easter isn’t this happy day of celebration that stands apart on its own. There would be no Easter if there was not first Good Friday.

Easter is a day of joy and a day of celebration that comes out of a day of death, a day of grief, loss, and pain.

Easter is powerful BECAUSE we have experienced Good Friday. The Resurrection is powerful because there was first, Death. In his death and resurrection, the God who is Love looks at all the terror and grief and fear and violence and despair and sin of this world - the God who is Love looks at them straight on and says, nothing, not even all the combined powers of Darkness are greater than I, are greater than Life. Are greater than Love.

Easter happens whether we are ready for it or not. Easter happens whether we are prepared for it or not. And that’s the beautiful thing about it - Easter does not depend on us. It is something God does entirely for us. It is God who defeats death. It is God who brings joy to grief. It is God who makes the sun rise again after the dark night.

The sun of that first Easter dawned on a morning of grief, a morning of loss.
The sun of that first Easter dawned on a day of confusion, or terror, and amazement.
The sun of that first Easter dawned...because that’s what the sun does.

Again and again, no matter what the day brings, no matter what the world is doing, no matter if we’re prepared or not - the sun rises. A new day comes. The sunrise brings with it day after night, light after dark.

And if the sun rises, and you are still in a dark place, if you’re not prepared for the sun, that’s okay. The sun will rise anyway, and hopefully offer you warmth, comfort, and hope for a new day.

That’s the power of both the sunrise and of Easter - they come - they come into a world of grief. They come after the long night. They come and say that the darkness does not last forever. Grief does not last forever. Not even death is forever. In this world there is nothing, no sadness, no despair, no night that is more powerful than Jesus. There is light. There is hope. There is Resurrection. The sun dawns, Easter comes, death’s chains have been defeated, Jesus is alive.

The sun has risen. Jesus is alive.

And so today, Easter has come - ready or not.

And so let us, in the morning light proclaim: He is risen - He is risen Indeed!

Amen.

"Come to the Table of Love" - A Maundy Thursday sermon on John 13:1-17, 31b-35 & 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
“Come to the Table of Love”
Preached Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024

While I was in college, I studied abroad for a semester at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Kyoto, Japan. My first week there was Holy Week. I was lonely, homesick, and jet-lagged. I felt like I was missing out on the Holy Week services that were and are so integral to my faith and life as a Christian. And so, on Good Friday, I approached a Buddhist classmate who was much more fluent in Japanese than I was and asked him to help me find a local church with an English speaking congregation. And that’s how, on Easter morning, I found myself at St. Agnes Anglican Church in Kyoto, Japan. The small English speaking community there became a lifeline. Every Sunday brought me life, hope, and belonging. Every Sunday, I broke bread and participated in communion. It was through participating in the Eucharist with that congregation that I found strength I did not know I had. It was there that I discovered my complete and total dependence on God and it was through God’s holy sacrament that God nourished and sustained me. When I took the bread and the cup, I knew that I could face whatever that next week held, until I could gather once more into a community of believers and receive communion again.

There have been other times in my life where I’ve come to appreciate more deeply the regularity of coming to this table.

When I worked at Camp Asbury, we would share in Communion every week on Thursday evenings. We’d gather on Communion Hill, all the campers and staff - feeling the summer breeze on our face - or some weeks, wishing there was a breeze as the sun beat down on us. And we’d share Communion in a place where I felt deeply connected with and to God. And to the community who shared in this meal together.

It was on that same hill that I married Zach. And on our wedding day we chose to share Communion with our families. In retrospect, this experience was more than just my wedding to me, as I gave Communion to my grandmothers - now both deceased - and it was the only time in my life I got to extend the bread and the cup to them. It is a beautiful reminder that one day, beyond this life, I will feast with them at the Lord’s Table again.

And my absolute favorite thing about being an ordained minister is the privilege of presiding over this table. But more than that, it’s giving Communion to young kids. There is nothing I love more than getting down on their level, ripping off a big chunk of bread - and I give them BIG chunks of bread because God is not stingy with God’s self, especially with children. Holy Communion should feel like a FEAST and if I can bring children (and sometimes adults) the amazement of thinking “Wow! That’s a lot!” That's how it is with God giving God’s self to us. So I take a big chunk of bread and I tell them “God loves you very much.”

There are some traditions that have limitations on children taking Communion. Many may have to reach a certain age, be baptized, and/or complete some formal education before taking their First Communion. And many do find this meaningful so this isn’t meant as a put down to those traditions - and, at the same time, I love that I have no memory of the first time I took Communion. Because we as United Methodists have an Open Table - and that means anyone, absolutely anyone, is invited to come to this Table. This is not our table as the people of Boardman UMC, this is not our table as United Methodists, this is not our table even as Christians - it’s the Lord’s table. And so we are not in charge of the guest list - thank God for that! And that means that anyone, anyone, who feels called to come forward and experience God’s love through Jesus, anyone who has that desire - 9 months or 99 years old, is invited to come and receive.

And so because I grew up in this tradition of the Open Table, as long back as I can remember, this meal has been there in my life. As far as I know, God’s love was always being extended to me, an open invitation to run down the aisle, get a piece of bread and juice and hear “God loves you very much.”

Now I’ve talked a lot about some of my experiences of Communion - I hope that as I shared some of the meaningful experiences of this meal in my life, that you were reminded of the times you have come to this table. Of the times in your life when you have shared in this meal - there may be specific instances that come to your mind. And it may also just be the many, many times that you have shared in this meal. And if they blend and blur together - that’s beautiful too.

Because the very act of participating in this meal, time and time again, shapes us by and for Love. Now, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, in his sermon, “The Duty of Constant Communion” says this about the benefits of this meal: “whatever God commands us to do, we are to do because he commands, whether we feel any benefit thereby or no. Now, God commands, ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ This, therefore, we are to do because he commands, whether we find present benefit thereby or not. But undoubtedly we shall find benefit sooner or later, though perhaps insensibly. We shall be insensibly strengthened, made more fit for the service of God, and more constant in it. ...though we do not presently feel the happy effects of it, as some have done, and we ourselves may when God sees best.”

In that sermon he says we may not feel “the happy effects” of this meal every single time we come to the table - and yet the very act of coming to the table changes us, whether we realize it in that singular moment or not. We call this ritual or embodied theology. Let me explain.

The basic idea is that we carry our theology, that is, what we believe to be true about God, not just in our minds and our hearts, what we think and feel, the ways we primarily think about it, but we carry our theology in our bodies too. For example, I can read a great book or article on how time spent daily with God in meditation is important. And I can believe this. But if I don’t actually PRACTICE this, if I don’t spend time in prayer and meditation with God every day, then it is not my lived or embodied theology. We can think that Holy Communion is the most important ritual that we do as a worshiping body, but if we don’t actually participate in it every chance we get, if we don’t long for it every week, then my body doesn’t believe that it’s important.

On the flip side of this, I may not believe in my mind or heart that participating in Holy Communion is very important to my faith. But if I regularly participate in the ritual, my heart may change. As my body learns the importance of this ritual, my heart will follow. As I come to the Table, time and time again, with outstretched hands to receive a gift of God’s self for myself, when I hear the words “the body of Christ FOR YOU,” when I hear the meaning underneath “God loves you very much.” When I am told over and over again - this invitation is for you. This love is for you. You are welcome here. You are accepted here. You are loved here. When I go through the motions again and again and again…I may just come to believe it. In my mind, in my heart, in my body.

When I think of embodied theology, I always think of the beauty of this one particular story. There was a man in a nursing home who could not tell you his name. He couldn’t recognize his wife or his children. But every week a priest would come to the nursing home and do the Mass. The man, a long practicing Catholic, would light up and you could see it in his face that he was a different man. He knelt at all the right places, said all the right words, and could remember exactly when to cross himself. This ritual was so important to this man, he remembered it in his body. Even when his mind had let go of almost everything else - his body knew his theology, his body knew he was loved by God.

…I feel like so far this sermon has been my love letter to Holy Communion. And there is so much that happens in this meal. There is so much to love about it. The deep beauty and love ingrained in the very essence and core of what this meal is… And yet I am going to leave it at this to come back to the day, to the reason we are gathered together on a Thursday evening for worship.

Today is what we Christians call Maundy Thursday - some have taken to calling it Holy Thursday because what the what does “Maundy” even mean. But Maundy comes from the Latin word for “commandment.” Now, in the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we get Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, on this night. Breaking bread with his disciples and sharing the cup. It’s referenced elsewhere in Scripture as well - such as our reading from 1 Corinthians this evening. The Gospel of John, however, is different. John glosses over what happens during Supper and goes to Jesus washing his disciple’s feet - an act of service and an act of Love. In the final verses of this evening’s Scripture we hear Jesus say this: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Maundy or the commandment of Maundy Thursday is this: Love one another as I have loved you.

I also believe we can think of Jesus’s other commandment to us, the meal that was instituted on this day: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

For this Holy meal and the command to love are inextricably tied up together. At its very essence, everything that happens in this meal, is about Love:

The Love that God has for each of us.
The Love that is available to any and all of us.
The Love that is an open invitation.
The Love that shapes us in our hearts, minds, and bodies.
The Love that draws us into God’s self, the God of Love.
The Love that binds us not only to God in this meal but to each other, as the worshiping community that shares in this meal together.
The Love that then pushes us out toward the world, to be the Body of Christ to all we meet, redeemed and reconciling and full of Love…
To be Love to one another - for we have encountered Love here at this table.

As we come and experience this deep, open, and transformative Love together - tonight at this table and time and time again - we are claimed and shaped by Love - so just as God loves us, we may love one another.

An open, generous, embodied love.

So tonight hear God’s command to us - come, come to the table of Love.

Amen.