I think it was in the first couple seasons of The Apprentice that they always played the, “Money, money, money” song that played at the beginning. In looking at the lectionary texts this week, I actually liked them all. But I’ve mostly been in Hebrews lately and I have never really preached it very much so I decided to stick with there.
The text is Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 and it’s a lot of instruction and wise counsel. Mike and I have been watching The Tudors recently. We’ve finished season 1 and have begun season 2. Wow. In so many ways times have changed! It is amazing to me how far the rights of women have come from those days. Mike spends much of the shows saying, “They were really like that?” Sadly, yes. There’s a ton of lies, betrayal, power hungry insanity, and since it’s on Showtime – sex. Wow is it crazy. We’ve been watching an episode a night and I think that’s the main reason I was drawn to this tet.
This passage is the absolute opposite of this royal debauchery. It talks about showing hospitality to strangers, remembering those in prison, marriage being held in honor and then closing out with “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” These are very different instructions than how the Tudors acted even though they loved to throw the name of God and what “God’s will” is around all over the place.
It speaks a great deal to us all. In reading this earlier in the week and in thinking on it the past couple days, the part about money wasn’t something that leaped out to me anymore than the rest of it. Then this morning I go to our biannual Conference Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry meeting and I find out that not only will we at Winthrop Wesley Foundation not receive any program money for 2011 as we were told a week and a half ago, but now we are no longer going to receive any other program funds for the rest of 2010. So no check coming in September in the thankful income column, but plenty of expenses still going out. Eek! is about the most nice, censored thing I can say…
But then tonight I read this text again abd I see verse 5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.'” I don’t know if I would say I loved the program money we received from the conference. In actuality it only made up 15% of our program money receipts. But I would definitely say that I depended on it. In the lean months when nothing from churches or sweet giving folks is coming in, I knew that we would receive that money from the Annual Conference and we could pay the light bill. And that is a very good thing. So although I don’t know if I “loved” the money we got, I was incredibly thankful we received it.
But you know times they are a changing, and we live in a different world and economic time. So it is what it is and it’s now time to move forward and trust that God is with us and will provide for us. We step out in faith and trust that God will provide. The semester is planned and commitments made and we’ll see how it all works out in the midst. I trust that it will. No amount of stressing is going to help, but boy it’s time to shake the bushes and get some money raised!
Again, God amazes me in giving us the Word we need when we need it. Even in the midst of the unknown and the uncertainty and the obvious fear, there are tremendous opportunities and new and bold paths to explore and step out in. I am weary thinking about the work ahead, but I’m excited to see new partners in ministry and the chance to vision anew as we as always try to do more, with less.
Money. Power. Intrigue. Definitely more the world of the Tudors than campus ministry. But hey – we all need a little instruction and reminders about where our hearts need to be and who are faith is in. Still not sure what I’m preaching about tomorrow exactly, but often this sound instruction speaks for itself.
This Sunday’s Gospel lectionary text is Luke 11:1-13. It begins with the disciples asking Jesus to teach them how to pray and Jesus teaching them Lord’s prayer followed by him talking about seeking and finding and words that I say in just about every other sermon or talk with students at one time or another. Very familiar words… “Ask, and it will be given you; search and you fill find; knock, and hte door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Then it goes on talking about eggs and scorpions. It’s a rich text. And when I picked it at the beginning of the week when I working on the bulletin, I really wanted to work on it and see where the Spirit led because while saying the Lord’s prayer in the midst of The Journey service last week, I actually stumbled over some of the words – can’t even remember which ones now – because I was thinking about what they actually meant and what we’re actually saying when we say that familiar and yet powerful prayer.
I admit that as often is the case when I pick a text as time gets closer to Sunday I start to second guess and think that I might should have gone with one of the others. It is always awe-inspiring for me to think about all of the little and amazing things that God brings to us when we’re wrestling with something. This week it has been prayer for me. Part of me does regret picking that text because there’s a part of me that’s not ready to think seriously and openly about this text after the events of the past couple months. It’s still a little too personal to put into a sermon or to reflect on.
Mike brought in the poster board card that the folks at SC’s Annual Conference made me while I was having surgery. Who knows how it ended up in my trunk and I have no clue who brought it from Florence but it ended up in Wesley on Thursday morning as Mike was cleaning out my trunk. I can’t say how much those prayers meant to me and continue to mean to me. I can’t begin to express how much I want to keep asking and knocking on that door in prayer in hope.
I’ve been reading various women’s books over all this time out of sheer boredom from doctor’s office visits and when the kids are watching that episode of Caillou or Dora or Phinneas and Ferb for the millionth time. (Sidenote: most women’s books are so depressing and sad – does no one believe in happy endings anymore besides the Christian fiction authors???) One of my dear students here let me borrow The Time Traveler’s Wife before she left for the summer. Beautiful story. Deep love. I will never watch the movie because it’s more sad than I want, but beautiful. Yet again I do think God brings random things into our lives that wake us up to a truth we need to see or things we need to realize or just that guidance that we can’t always even understand. In reading the ending of that book – I found myself realizing that even though I have prayed and felt uplifted throughout this journey and I have appreciated the prayers of so many, I’ve never actually cried out specifically for God to heal me.
It kind of freaks me out even to type it. I know that’s weird. Especially for a pastor that does believe that prayer can do miraculous things. And someone that does believe in the “Heal me and I will be healed. Save me and I will be saved. For you alone are God.” So in thinking about the sermon that I have no idea what I’m going to really say tomorrow – what makes us afraid to ask or knock or seek? What holds us back? What stands in our way?
Crying out to God that night, trying to figure it out – I don’t know. It’s a lot of things. Fear that it won’t happen. Fear of what healing really means and for how long. Fear that even if everything is healed, I won’t know how to go back to life as usual. Is it pride? Do I pray for others but not want to pray for myself? Why is that? I’m no more resilient or together and certainly not any more godly. Is it that I see people all around every day and I hear stories of people that need healing so much more and I wonder and rail that I’m sure some of them ask, seek, and knock and where are their good gifts and not scorpions? I just saw a blip of Ann Curry’s special on the Today Show with the family of 10 living on $500 a month and I’m like why am I even taking the time to write a blog or eating lifesaver gummies when there are people out there that are struggling and hurting needing “good gifts” as much as the rest of us.
Do we think we’re not good enough to ask? Or not deserving enough? Or needy enough? Or nice enough? What is it that holds us back from prayer? What makes it hard to ask and give these things over? Control? Pride? Fear? Anger at what we’ve seen as unanswered prayer?
In watching Anne of Green Gables on PBS for a couple weekends I noticed how Marilla first taught Anne how to pray and she explained to her in a very simple manner – that she should thank God for God’s blessings and then ask God if there’s something she’d like. Hilarious scene. Sadly youtube does not have it. I think about the whole ACTS – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. I think of all the prayer circles and prayer ministries and prayer shawls (and Windsor UMC I love the one y’all made me! it is in my office and i’ve already had a couple students wrap in it and i hope feel your prayers!). I read this passage and think very layered/complicated back and forth theology blah, blah, blah statements but you know it’s really pretty simple. Ask – it will be given, search – find, knock – door open. It’s not complicated. And yet somehow we make it so in our minds. Or maybe that’s just mine.
I don’t have all the answers and I feel sure that I won’t have come up with them by tomorrow morning at 11 am, but I do know that God is a God of love and that God does love us as God’s very own. So those scorpions or the AIDS or the heart attacks or the car accidents or the cancers or the abuse or the hurricanes are not from God. They can be used by God for our good but our God knows us, loves us and seeks the best for us.
Maybe that’s what it boils down to…the trust and the faith to believe not only that God answers prayer and that God hears us, but that God is love and is good and is not going to bait and switch us and give us a mouse trap to stick our fingers in instead of an awesome gigantic lollipop. It is with confidence and boldness that we pray knowing that we are heard and held by the great God of the universe. We can cry out when we’re starting a new job, or a new school, or a new adventure and we will be answered. We can continue to ask the hard questions and wrestle and just not understand and as we seek, surely we will find…Can’t wait for each of us to knock on that door and to see the warm light and smile when the door is opened.
Found this from Celine Dion and Josh Groban on youtube. I know a little cheesey but I do think there’s a love and emotion in there that is present in these passages about prayer…that love of parent and child – that guidance and leading.
I pray you’ll be our eyes, and watch us where we go.
And help us to be wise in times when we don’t know
Let this be our prayer, when we lose our way
Lead us to the place, guide us with your grace
To a place where we’ll be safe
The light you have
I pray we’ll find your light
will be in the heart
and hold it in our hearts.
to remember us that
When stars go out each night,
you are eternal star
Nella mia preghiera
Let this be our prayer
quanta fede c’è
when shadows fill our day
How much faith there’s
Let this be our prayer
in my prayer
when shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we’ll be safe
We dream a world without violence
a world of justice and faith.
Everyone gives the hand to his neighbours
Symbol of peace, of fraternity
We ask that life be kind
and watch us from above
We hope each soul will find
another soul to love
The force his gives us
We ask that life be kind
is wish that
and watch us from above
everyone finds love
We hope each soul will find
around and inside
another soul to love
Let this be our prayer
Let this be our prayer, just like every child
Need to find a place, guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we’ll be safe
Need to find a place, guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we’ll be safe
It’s the faith
you light in us
I feel it will save us
Yesterday’s Upper Room devotional lifted up these verses from the Psalms and the passage really struck me in this time and place in my life. What particularly stood out was the beginning, “O sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised.” Each of us has times when we’re searching for a new song – whether that be around New Year’s, Lent, the beginning of a school year, or facing something just a little life-changing.
People have talked to me about a “new” normal and I think those words fit just as good as any of the other surreal things I’ve heard, but I think I’d like to claim these verses as my new theme song. Primarily because there’s a continuity and an unchanging sense in this passage that God has not and will not leave or forsake us no matter what. There’s something unshakable about God’s faithfulness to us in the midst of all of life’s storms and that unfailing love that keeps shining through.
There’s a song that we sing in The Journey at St. John’s UMC called “A Thousand Amens” by Tim Timmons. The verses are the standard doxology and the chorus is “Unfailing love comes with the morning/It’s Your faithfulness we sing at night/It’s Your kindness Lord that leads to our healing/All glory to our Maker and a thousand amens.” I love this song. Whether in good times or tough times, all glory is to the One who created us. Here’s a link if you want to hear it: http://www.ourstage.com/tracks/AMCYESKVIIVO-a-thousand-amens
A HUGE thanks to y’all for being a resounding chorus in singing this song with me. I’ve appreciated all of your thoughts and prayers and well wishes during this still surreal crazy change in my life.
Love and Grace to each of you!
Can’t get Leeland’s “New Creation” out of my head today.
That and the old hymn “I Love to Tell the Story”…
1. I love to tell the story
of unseen things above,
of Jesus and his glory,
of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story,
because I know 'tis true;
it satisfies my longings
as nothing else can do.
Refrain:
I love to tell the story,
'twill be my theme in glory,
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
2. I love to tell the story;
more wonderful it seems
than all the golden fancies
of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story,
it did so much for me;
and that is just the reason
I tell it now to thee.
(Refrain)
3. I love to tell the story;
'tis pleasant to repeat
what seems, each time I tell it,
more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story,
for some have never heard
the message of salvation
from God's own holy Word.
(Refrain)
4. I love to tell the story,
for those who know it best
seem hungering and thirsting
to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory,
I sing the new, new song,
'twill be the old, old story
that I have loved so long.
(Refrain)
The kids were watching Mary Poppins the other day and I was struck by the story of the lady feeding the birds. Mary Poppins is talking the kids into being excited about going with their father to work the next day and she starts telling them about the lady as she holds a beautiful snow globe of it.
In talking about the father in the story and of course of you know the movie he’s kind of a tough rules and order-oriented dad, the kids ask why people don’t stop and give lady money or why they don’t see her altogether. Mary Poppins answers, “Some people don’t see past the end of their nose.”
Some of us don’t see past the end of our noses. If we’re too busy in the goings on of life it’s easy not to see the world around us or the needs around us. I read an article (http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/please_dont_feed_our_homeless_many_cities_say)You give and last night about some cities outlawing or making it really difficult for people to feed the homeless in their cities. Wow. I’m not even going to get into the statistics of how many of our homeless are veterans or are mentally ill or the many, many folks who have found themselves homeless for the first time in the past couple years in our economy.
But a challenge to each of us is to see past the end of our noses and our own little worlds and to see what we can do. It’s easy to see issues like hunger or homelessness or human trafficking or immigration or education reform as these big, huge things that we can’t make a difference in. But all those commercials that say that all of us together, all of our little drops in the bucket CAN make a difference – that’s not just Hollywood or a pipe dream. That’s real. What can we do today? What are you passionate about? What has God given you a vision for?
Trying to see past the end of my nose…
“Feed the Birds” Lyrics
Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul’s
The little old bird woman comes
In her own special way to the people she call,
“Come, buy my bags full of crumbs;
Come feed the little birds,
Show them you care
And you’ll be glad if you do
Their young ones are hungry
Their nests are so bare
All it takes is tuppence from you
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag
Feed the birds,” that’s what she cries
While overhead, her birds fill the skies
All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares
Although you can’t see it,
You know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares
Though her words are simple and few
Listen, listen, she’s calling to you
“Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag”
Blessings on the Journey 