Filed under: Uncategorized
For those of you interested in more details about the Session re-organization, here ’tis.
Session also approved a structural re-organization of our ministries. The adaptation should help us to be better stewards of time as well as generating energy (never in short supply at OPC!) for our ministries. Some of the re-organization we have already acted on: increasing our care ministry to include six deacons in active service, altering the size of Session to nine elders to streamline our decision-making processes and to allow our elders to spend more time together as spiritual leaders of the congregation.
Session will now be organized into three Ministry Groups: Discipleship, Outreach, and Resources. Each of these Ministry Groups is then organized into Ministry Committees. The Discipleship Ministry Group consists of Christian Education and Worship Ministry Committees, and will also serve as the link between Session and our Preschool Board. The Outreach Ministry Group consists of Communications and Mission Ministry Committees, and will also serve as the link between Session and our Deacons. The Resources Ministry Group consists of Administration, Buildings and Grounds, and Finance Ministry Committees.
(Ah, labels. Is there anything you can’t make more exciting?)
The nomenclature isn’t as important, obviously, as the streamlined decision-making process which gives more responsibility to these Committees and Groups on behalf of the Session. At the same time, all Committees and Groups will begin meeting at the same time, the first Thursday of every month. We will begin this on Thursday, August 6.
The combined meeting times allows for more intercommunication between Committees and Groups about items of shared interest as well as making it very difficult for folks to be spread too thin by participating in a multitude of committees (which we think is a good thing!).
Driving this is our Vision and Mission Statement. And if you’re interested in getting involved personally, you can read more here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
We’ve been working hard as a Session here at OPC over the past few months (well, OK, over the past 60 years). We’ve been looking at deficit budgets, budget cuts (without affecting staff or mission), designated v. general giving, drafting a new vision and mission statement, planning a downsize of Session and an upsize of Deacons.
Now, with the re-organization of Session, I’m particularly excited about how this means we can give our members bite-sized chunks of ministry for their participation. Now some details:
Beginning Thursday, August 6, Session Ministry Groups and Ministry Committees will begin meeting together on the same night, the first Thursday of the month. This is part of our overall restructuring of Session’s ministries as we streamline our work and focus on God’s vision for OPC.
At 7 pm, all will gather in the Sanctuary for a time of reflection and prayer prior to our meetings. Ministry Committees (Administration, Buildings and Grounds, Christian Education, Communications, Finance, Mission, and Worship) will then meet for an hour, followed by meetings of the Ministry Groups (Discipleship, Outreach, and Resources).
Now here’s the really good news: you can make a big difference in the ongoing flourishing of our ministries. For those of you already involved who wish to continue that involvement, we are sure to find a place for you. For those of you who have wondered how you might be involved but have been unsure how, we can find a place for you as well! If you want to participate but driving at night makes that difficult, we will be arranging rides as well.
We will be asking for your input as we make this transition over the summer months. Stay tuned for more information. If you can’t wait, send us an email at involved@opcbrokhaven.org, call the church office (404.233.5469), or speak with any of our elders or staff and let us know how you’d like to take part.
If you’re interested in learning more about the details of the restructuring, check out my other post.
I’ve been taking a break from blogging my sermon drafts this summer (that’s what they are – I’ve shifted to outline preaching, which means the “final” draft is what comes out of my mouth. We post those on the church website and have been podcasting for a couple of months now). My preaching this summer is focusing more on Bible Study and less on exposition. We’ve having less lecture and more conversation as a result.
Anyway, our Session was very busy on Sunday, beginning to implement a number of things that have been in the work for some time. I’ll be posting some of them here in the coming days.
First is a revamped Vision and Mission Statement. Enjoy!
Vision
Oglethorpe Presbyterian Church is an inclusive community of faith that uses our gifts and resources to continue the earthly ministry of Jesus. We exist as a church not merely for ourselves – the broader community is our congregation.
Mission
We engage all the faithful in the ministry of the Church. Our witness is intergenerational. We value theological and political diversity and are building a congregation where all can find their voice and know their purpose in God’s ministry. We root ourselves in Presbyterian traditions while remaining open to the work of the Spirit as it re-creates us for today’s ministries. As a community that puts faith in motion, we value creativity and innovation as hallmarks of the Spirit at work in the world.
Our ministries are a response to God’s grace already at work in our lives. And so we exist for the community around us, which includes our members. Our building is at the center of our ministry, not the extent of it. Our property exists to house our worship, to facilitate our ministries, and to equip the larger community’s engagement in God’s mission. As a people of faith in motion, we gather together so that the Spirit might shape and move us so that our lives are empowered to serve God by serving others.
Ours is a story that belongs to God. As we celebrate our sixtieth anniversary, we look forward in hope to the unfolding of that story and the growth it will bring in the years to come.
Filed under: sermons
Over the past few years, one of the first things to greet you arriving at Oglethorpe on a Sunday morning would have been the warm welcome of Boyd Leyburn. He was, among many other things, one of our regular greeters. When we decided to add some photos to our stairwell that illustrated life at OPC, it was only fitting that we give a prominent spot to Boyd’s smiling face. In a sense, that photo says something about what we do here today. It is only an image; and it is not Boyd himself. But it does remind us of him in a very powerful way. Boyd may not be with us in body. But he is with us in memory and in spirit.
That photo to me says so much about Boyd and his personality, especially as I got to know him over the past few years. If I had to some it up, I would call it a character of gracious, generous welcome. The first time I met Boyd was when he and about twenty other members of the church met the U-Haul when we moved back to Atlanta to help us unload. What a welcome to this community. And one of my earliest memories of Boyd is of the two of us introducing ourselves to a visitor in his twenties after worship. Boyd shook the young man’s hand and then said, “Now I’m a relatively new member, so are you visiting with us, or are you a charter member?” I remember thinking to myself, “Now that’s how you welcome someone!”
When Boyd ended his term of Treasurer of OPC, a role that meant he spent at least two mornings a week here, I wrote him a letter of thanks on behalf of the Session. In response I received a hand-written note thanking me for my thank you note in a way that was more gracious than anything I ever could have written!
But what I will remember about Boyd the most is his deliberate presence in so many meetings and education classes. And the more I got to know him, the more I was sure that he knew more than I did about the subject at hand; and I also suspected that he knew more about the subject than anyone else in the room. And yet, he always waited to speak up; he gave everyone else the benefit of the doubt before he chimed in. And when he did, he had this gentle way of sharing his thoughts that managed to affirm you even if it was questioning your opinion. Those moments were, for me, glimpses of that same character of gracious, generous welcome.
Today, I join with all of you in grieving Boyd’s death. It came too soon. I ached to see his weakness over the past few months. I hated to have to visit him in the ICU at St. Joseph’s. And yet, it meant so much to me to have those moments with him and his family, even after he was unable to speak. It was, in a sense, the least I could do to return that favor to him of welcoming me.
But here’s where the comfort is for me today. I am grateful for having known Boyd; and in knowing him as I did, and as many of you did here today, I am sure that this character of gracious, generous welcome was not only something that shed light on Boyd, but also gives us a glimpse of the God whom Boyd so loved and served. We read in our texts this afternoon of a God, known to us most powerfully in Jesus Christ, who welcomes us with arms wide open. Rooms are prepared; comfort is offered. No barrier is too great, no chasm is too wide to separate us from God’s overarching mercy and love.
There is no doubt in my mind that God knows far better than we do; and yet, in God’s wisdom, like a loving parent, there is this unseen wisdom of holding back just enough to let us do as we see fit. We may never get it perfectly right; but that’s the central meaning of why we gather today. We give witness to the cross, of God’s promise of resurrection. Hope has the final say. Death, however it might grip us in the here and now, never has the last word. That hope may sit patiently, gently, but it is always there.
The last time Boyd and I spoke, it was in prayer a couple of weeks ago. We gathered around him, all of us desiring that he recover from these physical frustrations. But we all knew that this might not happen. And I am convinced, that Boyd, more than any of us, knew that as disappointing and as sad as a day like today might be, that ultimately things would be OK in the end. I am sure that, even in his final days, he trusted himself to the gracious, generous, welcoming arms of God; that same God whom Boyd worshiped and served, and in whose image he was created. He will be missed as he was loved.
Filed under: sermons, worship | Tags: anne ouisley, anniversary, fitzhugh legerton, hard labor creek, pentecost, richard floyd, rod stone, rutledge
Psalm 104:24-35
Acts 2:1-21
Today is a special day in the life of OPC, as we get the chance to honor and celebrate the sixty years of work and witness that have brought us from 1949 until now. And it is fitting that we do so on this Day of Pentecost, when we remember the birth of the Church in ancient Jerusalem so long ago. I am particularly pleased to welcome my predecessors here in ministry, whom I am grateful to call my colleagues and honored to call my friends: Fitz, Rod, and Richard.
There are so many, in fact, too many, stories to share from the past sixty years. So each of us has one story from our time with you that, to us, says something in particular about this church; not only about who we are, but also about the God to whom our story ultimately belongs.
Of all the stories I could share, the one that says the most to me has to do with someone who was never even a member of OPC. I first met Anne Ouisley not long after I arrived here in 2005. She was a regular volunteer in our Food Pantry and Bargain Shop, and the more I got to know her, the more amazing her story became.
Anne was born in 1916 in the Dickensian-named Hard Labor Creek just outside of Rutledge, Georgia. An African-American woman, I learned that when she was a little girl growing up in Atlanta in the ear of segregation, she would sneak up to the front of the trolley car. Her light complexion and her ability to read at a time when literacy tended to fall along color lines meant that she could get away with it.
It became part of her DNA to break down barriers throughout the rest of her life. She was a long-time resident of Lynwood Park, and ended up being a member of two different churches there. And even though she never joined OPC, her involvement was such that she was honored as Presbyterian Woman of the Year. When she died last year, she was very clear that she wanted her service held here in our Sanctuary. I ended up sharing the Chancel, much like today, with a half dozen clergy representing at least as many churches. The gathered congregation was a powerful witness that, even in her death, Anne was still finding a way to break down barriers.
I tell this story because Anne’s life and witness say something to me about OPC. Not only did this congregation welcome Anne at a time when most white congregations would have closed their door to her, but it seems to me that this never struck this congregation as an unusual thing to do. It’s one thing to say “we” do ministry to “them” in a paternalistic sense, however “we” might define “them.” It’s another thing altogether to say that “we,” all of us, are in this ministry together. Honoring Anne as Presbyterian Woman of the Year was, to me, a sign of the unity that God ultimately desires for us all.
There is something about that ancient Pentecost Day that still echoes out into the ministry of OPC through the past sixty years and even until today. As the disciples gathered in that Upper Room, it wasn’t enough for them to stay put. The Spirit nudged them out the doors and onto the street. And once there, that same Spirit engaged in the most fantastic barrier-breaking episode of all times: there, on the streets of Jerusalem, folks from every corner of the known world were gathered, all able to understand one another. And it was from there that the gospel spread, a gift of grace to which we are recipients today. We don’t stay in this sanctuary forever; nor do we claim that this place is the extent of ministry or holiness in our lives. We, too, are nudged out into the world in response to the Spirit we have received. We encounter a world that is very much in need of the good news of God’s reconciling love in Christ. And we hold this gift lightly, recognizing that all of us are equal in God’s eyes.
Friends, all these stories are just a glimpse of the shared life and witness of OPC through the years. It is my hope that, knit together, they can continue to give us a sense of both who we are and whose we are. And doing that, we might just live into this paradox of becoming more fully what it is that we already are.
Acts 8:26-40
As we move closer to our 60th Anniversary celebration, we are remembering stories and events from years past. In a few weeks, we are going to post some of those on the church website, kind of an OPC Story Corps.
But why is it that we remember? We honor those who have come before; we re-tell stories that are precious or meaningful to us so as not to forget them and to hold onto them as firmly as possible. I think we largely remember so as to preserve the past and not lose it.
When Dad died last year, our family found grief an occasion for remembering. Some of that, no doubt, comes from realizing that there is one person now missing who used to be the link to all of these stories. And so we told them in our own effort not to forget, to preserve Dad’s memories as though they were our own. And Dad was a fantastic story teller. He loved to talk about his grandmother Wilkes, who was so left-handed, she would drink your water. Or his stories of college hijinks and pranks. I remember him talking about discovering the thermostat for the entire dorm was in his room, and how he manipulated that in order to make the whole building heat up one night and freeze another.
But there was one story that Dad was famous for. It was the candle story. It doesn’t present well in written form because of the physicality of it, so I may try and post a video of it here in a few days. I don’t know that any videos of Dad telling it exist, but that’s somehow fitting, because it wasn’t really his story. It was a story that Uncle Henry used to tell, and before that Uncle Brock. And who knows who told it before them.
But we tell these stories, and re-tell these stories because we so desperately want to remember. And that remembering says something about who we are and to whom we belong.
One of my favorite podcasts is Radiolab, a show that describes itself as being “about curiosity.” It often focuses on science as part of understanding the curious. Their show about memory looked at the latest discoveries of neuroscience and the mechanics of remembering. I think for most of us, the assumption is that memory is like a file cabinet or a hard drive. They’re all in there somewhere; it’s just a matter of accessing it somehow.
The truth about memory, however, is surprising. Through what neuroscience has learned within the last few years, it seems that memory is not like this at all. Instead, when we remember, we re-create or re-experience the memory. When those memories are not so wonderful, like abuse or trauma, this is why there is a need to find ways to heal the memory; each remembrance is as though we are living it again. When those memories are things we do want to remember, this is why so often it seems that memories change.
Have you ever had the experience of retelling an old story with an old friend or sibling who has a very different memory of the event? How can it be that two people are remembering the same event so differently? In essence, we are re-living the experience imperfectly, because we are not the same person; we are not in the same situation; we are not in that place. Jonah Lehrer, a science writer speaking on that Radiolab program, says it best: “What you are remembering is that memory interpreted in the light of today, in the light of now.”
I don’t know of a better description of how the church employs memory. Our primary purpose in telling these stories from Scripture, or from our memories of this congregation, is not necessarily to preserve them; instead, it ought to be for the sake of remembering what it is that God has done in the past for us, seen in the light of what is doing in our lives now, and understanding that God will be at work in the years to come.
The lesson from Acts about Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch is an excellent example of this. Here is this high court official from Ethiopia (who may or may not actually be a eunuch – the evidence is unclear based on Greek usage of the term) who is leaving Jerusalem where he has been worshiping. He is either a Jewish proselyte/convert or is getting close to that. And so, as he reads the scroll of Isaiah, he gets caught up on the passages we know as the “Suffering Servant” passages. Outside of the Christian context, this wasn’t understood so much in a Messianich framework; instead, it was a general way of understanding suffering and its role in God’s work and mercy in the world.
So as Philip approaches this chariot, the Ethiopian invites him in; and Philip remembers this story to him in light of the gospel. Or as the lesson says, “the good news about Jesus.” It is then that he notices that there is water along the road; the stop, and Philip baptizes him.
Next week we are going to be celebrating the Sacrament of Baptism here in our worship service. And the moments when we do are a chance for us to remember our story in light of what God has done and continues to do. Both of our sacraments, both communion and baptism, are moments when we re-tell the salvation history, the work of what God has done as we know from the Scriptures. We begin with creation, the calling out of a nation, the sending of prophets, the coming of Christ, and the meaning of his crucifixion and resurrection. We re-tell and remember each time we celebrate the Sacrament, because they serve as reminders of what the Holy Spirit has already done and continues to do in our lives.
I have posted the French Reformed Church’s baptismal liturgy, where the pastor speaks directly to the child:
For you, little one, the Spirit of God moved over the waters at creation, and the Lord God made covenants with his people. It was for you that the Word of God became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth. For you, Jesus Christ suffered death crying out at the end, “It is finished!” For you Christ triumphed over death, rose in newness of life, and ascended to rule over all. All of this was done for you, little one, though you do not know any of this yet. But we will continue to tell you this good news until it becomes your own. And so the promise of the gospel is fulfilled: “We love because God first loved us.”
We tell this story again and again, if science is right, not because we want to preserve it as it was. Instead, we re-tell it and remember it so that it becomes real and it becomes ours. When we baptize, or when we simply see the font in front of us, we remember the whole story of salvation. And whether we have already been baptized, or hope to be baptized, or don’t know what all the fuss is about, there is still this amazing thing that happens whereby we ourselves are brought into this story.
Religion, re-ligion, is at its heart a word about reconnecting. As is re-membering: taking these members and bringing them together again. All of this leads us to a simple truth: God is at work in our lives before we even know it; this is why we baptize infants. God has been at work at OPC and in our lives. But let us remember this: God is at work now at OPC and in our lives. And God will be at work at OPC and in our lives in the years to come.
May we never forget.
Filed under: marty
Today was the Spring Presbytery meeting. In the opening worship service, after Larry Owens preached a tear ‘em up sermon, we had the annual necrology – the reading of elders and ministers who had died within the past year. I was caught off guard to see the name Marthame Elliott Sanders, Jr., listed under elder at First Pres. My first reaction was surprise – he was an ordained deacon, not an elder; then discomfort – grief catchs me at the oddest moments; and finally amusement – as though Dad’s still got surprises for me to stumble upon.
All this was swirling when Larry got up to pronounce the benediction:
May the God who mothers and fathers you in all good things open your eyes to the children heaven has placed in your way to take you by the hand and lead you home.
It was one of those moments, as though he had written it just for me. There in this service, where we moved from a crisp, prophetic sermon on “let the little children come to me” to a personally jolting necrology, the benediction pulled it all together with one of those deep down gut-created epiphanal smiles. My earthly father was still playing away with that child-like irreverence that both drove me and made me crazy.
I miss you, Dad.
Filed under: worship
Acts 4:1-12
We are celebrating OPC’s Sixtieth Anniversary at the end of May. And in anticipation of that, we’re spending the next few weeks talking about Who We Are and Whose We Are – not only about our own character as a congregation or as individuals, but about the one who creates, redeems, and sustains us. Last week we talked about celebrating those moments of transformation we have experienced or hope to experience, and how that tends to be what draws us closer to God.
This week, we’re talking about imagination; getting a sense of what that transformation might look like. In the Presbyterian Church, all who are ordained, whether that be as a minister or as an elder or as a deacon, make promises as part of that ordination process. And one of those is that we promise to serve the church with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love. There is that commitment that congregational leaders make, that among everything else, we will be open to God’s imagination and hope for this community. And when we claim these lessons of Scripture as our own, when we take them seriously, we know that we are created in the image of God.
Whenever I think of imagination, I always turn to dreams. There are the dreams of Scripture, whereby God speaks to God’s people in ways that they would not otherwise hear. And I think dreams can be a key for us, as people of faith, to begin to see ourselves the way God sees us.
I don’t know how many of you remember your dreams; from time to time, I do, and they always seem to be the recurring ones. There’s the one where I show up to take a final for a class I haven’t attended all semester; that one still haunts me! And since going into ministry, I also have these stress dreams about church. The other night, in fact, I had a dream that I was sitting on the third row of the church, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and a baseball hat. Worship was proceeding just fine; and then the next hymn was announced, number 526, called “Alabama Pilaster.” And as the congregation stood to sing, I remember wondering if I would have enough time to go out and put on my robe during the singing of the hymn; and the thing that really distressed me in the dream was whether or not I would have time to make my hair look right, once I took off the baseball hat.
A few months ago, I heard a hilarious story about dreams and sleepwalking by comedian Mike Birbiglia on the show This American Life (if you click here and fastforward to about nine minutes into the show, you’ll catch Birbiglia’s story), which I won’t share here, but encourage you to listen to.
I’ve always been fascinated by dreams and their meaning and purpose in our lives. And I was reading an article the other day about daydreaming, and how it serves a crucial creative purpose. Daydreaming begins to happen in our lives when we are fairly young, when we move from externally verbalizing every single thought to beginning to have some of those thoughts internally. And studies have been done to demonstrate how helpful and healthy daydreaming can be to our creative process and to our problem-solving process.
Now I know that there’s no reference to dreams or daydreams in our lessons today; the title, therefore, may be a bit of a stretch. But I do think that what our story represents is nothing less of a total transformation in Peter’s life, and that, knowing the way Peter acted just a few months prior to this lesson, it would take incredible imagination to see him in this situation.
Peter and John have, as we read last week, healed a man who has been crippled from birth. The man immediately begins rejoicing and praising God and this gives Peter an opportunity to tell everyone about Jesus, the one in whose name this healing was done. In the lesson today, Peter and John are arrested, and end up appearing before Annas and Caiaphas (he’s the one with the killer baritone in Jesus Christ Superstar). It was not that long ago that Peter would deny ever knowing Jesus, fearing he might be arrested just like him. Now here he is, a completely transformed individual, changed by the impossible knowledge that this Jesus was raised from the dead, standing before these same imposing figures who cowed him into silence not long ago, and he is telling them boldly about that same Jesus.
There is one detail to this story that may be crucial: Peter is “filled with the Holy Spirit.” That same creating breath that blew across the waters of creation; that same Spirit that descended in a dove to rest on the baptized Jesus, the same Spirit that Jesus promised to send to be with his disciples, it is that Spirit, I am sure, which is the channel of Peter’s transformation into a newly bold preacher of the gospel.
It is the Spirit which instills us with the creativity and imagination we need to see what God sees. For some of us, we may need to be asleep so that we can get out of the way and let God work within us. For others of us, it might simply mean sitting still long enough to daydream, to meditate, to give room for the Holy Spirit to move within us, giving nudge to that imagination that says something about who we are, maybe if we’re not quite yet.
What do you imagine? What is it in your own life that might be in need of transformation? Is there something that a still small voice is saying to you? Are you distressed about something that you can drown out in the daytime, but haunts you at night? Can you sit still long enough to invite God’s Spirit in to stir up the waters and restore your soul?
And what about for OPC as a community? I’d welcome any thoughts in the comments below.
For a couple of years now I have been listening to your hopes and dreams for this church, for your imagination writ large. And there is a tension in what I hear. On the one hand, I hear a deep desire to move beyond the status quo. And on the other hand, there is a fear that a larger community would mean losing what makes this community special. Or to put it another way, “We want a church membership that’s about twice the size it is now where we are a close-knit family and all know each other.” It’s a tension that can’t be resolved, perhaps.
For those of you who have been involved here for a long time, you have let me know how often the subject of “church growth” has been brought up, so often, in fact, that you begin to doubt the reality of it as a possibility. And even as we see signs of growth, you wonder if it’s “for real” this time.
I think the economic crisis has impacted the church in a way that has brought us to an important moment. And I will put it pretty starkly: can we afford a building as large as this for a congregation our size? Are we living in a house that we can’t afford? Do we need to downsize?
Friends, I’m only one person, but I think the answer is a steady no. I really do believe that this community of faith is unique. And the longer I’m here and the more conversations I’m involved in, the more that character comes more and more into focus. It boils down to two nodes, in my mind:
First, we are a community of inclusion. We are a community of this community. We are not a church of a particular political or theological stripe. There is a diversity of views here that I treasure, and it is a diversity that I think we are learning to live into more fully, loving one another even when we might disagree about the issues of the day. We are an intergenerational community. Our Handbell Choir is a perfect example of that; our programs do not segregate based on age, as much of the world does. And we are Presbyterian, and yet so much more. I cherish my own Presbyterian roots; and yet, I have been shaped and moved by the beauty of Orthodox and Episcopal liturgy; I have been convicted and challenged by the conviction of evangelical witness; and I see that in our congregation.
The second node is that we see this community of Brookhaven, and perhaps even the world, as our congregation. We are not simply a congregation of and for our members to the exclusion of everyone else. We see the ministries of this church – whether it is the Preschool or the Food Pantry or Thornwell Children’s Home or Mar Elias College in Israel – not as things “we” do for “them,” but rather as a natural extension of our response to God’s grace and those moments of transformation in our own lives.
To link it all back to the lesson in Acts, this is a broken world, crippled for many years past; ours is not to give it silver or gold; ours is to offer the healing hand of Jesus Christ so that the world might know that he is the firm cornerstone on which we stand. Can you imagine?
John 20:1-20
The summer between my junior and senior years of college, I bought a van. It was a 1984 Dodge Ram cargo van. It had two seats up front – the rest of it was bare. I bought it for two reasons: one, I wanted to have some transportation while on campus my senior year; and two, my band needed the vehicle to get to gigs. I loved that van when I first got it. It was a powerful machine. I sat way high up from the road. I think it got six gallons to the mile. I carpeted the back of it myself and added a couple of chairs from Goodwill. I once fit 26 people in it.
And then, the trouble started. I’ve never been much of a gearhead, but this thing completely baffled me. I had to drive it with two feet, because every stop at a red light meant it was likely to stall out, so I had to drop the thing in neutral and give it a little bit of gas while keeping my left foot on the brake. And the thing was in collusion with every garage I took it to, because it refused to replicate any of these symptoms in the shop. I would always get that “ran fine to me” shrug from the mechanic.
I had a band in Atlanta, though, and so we could lug our gear around in the van. That is, in theory, if we had ever had a gig. But finally, the stress of having a thoroughly unreliable vehicle got too much. I found a used car dealer that was willing to take it and give me cash. On the way there, the thing died again. I rolled into another dealer’s lot, took whatever it was they offered me, and said, “Good riddance.”
There are times in our life when it is time to move on. As much as I loved the van and the thought of it as a functioning way to get around, it could not have been clearer that it was time to get rid of it. I’d rather walk than have to change one more flat tire or block traffic while the engine wheezed and stalled. Did I mention I didn’t even pass the emissions inspection a few weeks prior to dumping it?
I’ve been writing about times of transition for a couple of weeks now. First, we looked at letting go: how it is that we let some things hold us back; and how sometimes, we’re the ones that won’t let go and let ourselves be held back. Second, we talked about getting up – not so much the “dust yourself off” kind of getting up, but perspective: how it is that we can sometimes rise above our situation and see the path before us more clearly then. Last week (the blog didn’t get posted) we looked at going in. Just as Jesus went into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday knowing what faced him, we, too, may need to face those things we are leaving behind in order to do what we can to continue with the next stage.
And now, we come to this scene at the Garden Tomb. Mary Magdalene has gone to tend to Jesus’ body, assuming that she would find him still dead. But instead, the tomb is empty. The linens are there, but Jesus is gone. In a panic, she runs to find John and Peter. The come to the tomb and find the same thing; but even though the lesson says that “John believed,” it leaves us with the impression that they simply didn’t get it. They didn’t understand, and so they went back home.
Mary hangs around for a while, speaking with the angels who appear. And when Jesus, the risen Christ comes, she doesn’t recognize him at first, mistaking him for the gardener. It isn’t until he calls her by name, “Mary,” that she understands who it is that stands before her. And Jesus tells her to go and tell the disciples that he has risen, which she does. We’re not sure how they received it, but it’s clear that they’re still gripped by fear when they have locked themselves into the upper room, when Jesus appears to them so that they can believe what Mary told them.
It strikes me that Mary had a choice. The text doesn’t say so, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to put ourselves in her place and imagine what it must have been like. She, as the other disciples, has ben shaken by the events of the days before. She has seen Jesus, her teacher, her Messiah, arrested, tried, tortured, killed, and buried. She has probably fled in fear, as the rest of the disciples did. She has come to pay her final respects, and found the tomb raided. And now Jesus appears before her? I am guessing that the urge to stay there with Jesus must have been strong; to go back and tell the disciples what she has seen, without any kind of reassurance from Jesus that he will appear again, must have been hard. Here he was, her rabbi, asking her to do something; she would want to follow his lead. But to do that would risk never seeing him again! But she moves on, finds the disciples, and tells them all that she has seen, perhaps out of panic, but also perhaps out of trust that Jesus would be as trustworthy now as he had been before.
When we our faced with a time of transition in our own lives, there is likely something that holds us back. Whether that’s wanting to stay with Jesus a little bit longer or those fading dreams of rock stardom and memories of a super cool van that you’ve worked so hard to decorate just right, we may not want to let go. But there does come a time when we need to move on.
But that doesn’t mean that what we leave behind is gone forever. Whatever it is we’ve come from can stay with us. It could be something as bittersweet as precious memories of something we’ve lost; or it could be a good thing to move on, a scar or wound in our past that needs to heal, but is not a good place for us to stay. But even so, lessons we’ve learned in the trying times can guide and shape us for the path ahead. For all the frustration we may have faced, we can still be grateful that we know how to change a flat tire.
For Mary and the disciples, they had three full years with Jesus at the peak of his ministry. From his baptism in the Jordan to his crucifixion in Jerusalem, Jesus taught them and shaped in ways that they would never, ever be the same.
And finally, when we are ready to move on, or even if we’re not ready but sense that it’s time, we can trust: trust that there is more ahead. We can trust that God goes before us into this unknown, uncharted territory that stretches on to the horizon. We can trust that there is grace, even if we are so afraid that we lock ourselves off from the world. The promise of resurrection, the gift of the risen Lord, will appear to us.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
Filed under: sermons, travel | Tags: grief, japan, mount of olives, palm sunday, seaweed candy
We had a friend who had been a career missionary in Japan. One day my parents announced that she was coming over to our house for a visit, and that she was bringing two Japanese with her. I was probably about four, and I had never heard of a “Japanese” before. My young mind must have raced with all kinds of ideas; eventually, I settled on the fact that they must be some kind of monster. Don’t ask me why I would think that my parents would allow monsters to come into the house, but that’s where it lodged. As soon as the doorbell rang, I sprinted upstairs, ran into my parents’ bathroom, and locked the door.
I have no idea how long I was up there, but I knew I didn’t want to come out. My parents knocked and beckoned; eventually, they convinced me I would be in no harm. I entered the room where they were and, what do you know? There were these two ladies sitting on our couch! These were Japanese? Well, why didn’t you say so? We took some pictures together, and they gave me and my sister some little toys and some candy.
A few days later, the same missionary came to my school to speak to my class about Japan. After she finished, she handed out that same candy to us. However, this time she announced, “it’s seaweed candy.” Well, I was now this worldly, cosmopolitan young man, having eating this candy and having seen some of these Japanese face to face. I was horrified by the immaturity of my classmates who made faces, or even pretended to taste the candy before sprinting off to the water fountain making a gagging noise. How juvenile!
For four weeks, we’ve been walking down a path of conversation about times of transition. Two weeks ago, it was “Letting Go”; how, sometimes, there is something in our past which grabs hold of us, or more likely, something that we refuse to turn loose of, holding us back. Last week it was “Getting Up”; not so much that kind of American cultural identity of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, but how valuable those moments are when we get a touch of perspective in our lives, rising above the situation before us to see the bigger picture.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll look at “Going In” and “Moving On,” two more motions in this sweep of transitions that we often face in our lives. There is something about going in – going into the living room where the Japanese await us, going in to face what it is that holds us tight – that can ultimately be the very thing that helps free us.
Today’s lesson (Mark 11:1-11) is a familiar one for Palm Sunday. Jesus and the disciples have approached Jerusalem, the holy city, the center of Jewish life, and are preparing to enter. They secure a donkey; they head down the Mount of Olives and in through the ancient walled gate; the crowds shout their Hosannas, put their cloaks before him, and wave palm branches. All of it, the whole scene, echoes off those ancient stone walls with Messianic promise, the full weight of their shared history bearing down on this bizarre processional. For those at the time, there would have been no mistaking: Jesus was there to announce his arrival as Messiah, the Christ.
Jesus had plenty of other options, many of which would have been easier for him. But knowing what awaited him, the continued challenges with the Pharisees, the betrayal, arrest, torture, and crucifixion, he went in any way. He knew what lay ahead, and he decided that going in to Jerusalem was the right option.
Going in can be painful. It might be easier to pretend and forget, to stay locked in the bathroom. Think of the physical pain of a scrape on the knee. We know the right thing to do is to pour hydrogen peroxide on it; and we also know it’s gonna sting and that we’re gonna hop around the room for a while uttering things that we’d rather not say. But we do it. Or think of a splinter. It’s in there. If we leave it alone, it might get infected and get worse. So we dig out the needle, the tweezers, and we go in. We know it’ll hurt, but we know that ignoring it in the long run will bring more pain.
It’s one thing to deal with physical pain; it’s quite another to be confronted with emotional or spiritual agony, those hidden scars that the world doesn’t see. What do we do with that severed or strained relationship? How do we cope when we know that we’ve been wronged, betrayed by someone we’ve trusted? The phrase we throw around often is “forgive and forget.” But if we forget, can we really forgive? Is can be more painful to forgive as we remember, but at least we are honest about what that forgiveness means.
Our conversation the last few weeks has centered on grief in some ways – and each of us faces grief at some point in our lives: the grief of a lost loved one, a job, an ability, wellness…Maybe your pain is a spiritual one, an ache, a sense that God has abandoned you, that your faith has betrayed you?
There can be much that is difficult about going into those pains. Some times we need professional assistance to walk with us into our own places of discomfort. But there is something we can learn from our lesson today. Jesus did go in to Jerusalem. He faced what awaited him, knowing at least partially, if not fully, the pain and agony it would bring. But the story of this next week doesn’t end with a murdered Messiah and a sealed tomb. Our story really begins with the paradox of next Sunday’s feast, that resurrection is our promise, that the cross is empty and the tomb is bare.
Whatever it is that you might be holding onto, whatever it is that has a hold of you, whatever it is that you have thought it best to ignore or pretend it wasn’t there, especially if you think that it is God who has turned God’s back to you, this week may be the moment to go right in there, to enter into where the walls are the highest and most foreboding. It may be painful; and it may be excruciatingly so. But the end of our story isn’t death; it’s life. The end of our story isn’t defeat; it’s victory. The end of our story isn’t despair; it’s hope.
