Love

Baptism, Body of Christ, Bonheoffer, Book of Worship, God's love, Harry Potter, Jesus, Love, Peter Rollins, real love, Sanctifying Grace, Sermon, Uncategorized, Wesley

Together

Posted on January 13, 2017 by narciejeter

Matthew 3:13-17

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ ¹⁵But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he consented. ¹⁶And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

I often hear James Earl Jones booming voice or Morgan Freeman’s distinctive voice when I read that part. Jesus’ baptism ushers in a new baptism. Not just with voice and the dove. Christian baptism is not just a washing away of sin as John’s baptism was; but it is the baptism that brings the power of the Holy Spirit and a special relationship with God. The Gospel writers all 4 tell the story of Jesus’ baptism. As usual John has his own way of saying things, Matthew adds the part about John the Baptist preventing him and then questioning his validity to baptize Jesus, Luke cuts to the chase and has the shortest account, but Mark’s Gospel is different. Unlike Matthew and Luke, where it says the heavens are opened, Mark writes that as Jesus “was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and a dove descending.” His word for ‘torn apart’ is schizo, and it means “to cleave, to cleave asunder, to rend.” It’s a strangely violent word to describe such a happy occasion. The way we tend to talk about baptism, it would have made more sense if Mark had talked about the dove, gently cooing, or perhaps fluttering over the surface of the water. But that is not how he talks about it.

Instead, Mark talks about the heavens, schizo, torn apart. It’s the word Matthew, Mark and Luke all use to describe that moment on Good Friday when the curtain of the temple is torn in two. It’s the word John uses when the Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross determine not to tear Jesus’ garment and divide it between them, but to cast lots for it, instead. It’s a word with resonances in the prophecies of Isaiah, also, particularly when Isaiah says to God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” (Isaiah 63:19).

Mark understands very clearly that in Jesus, this is exactly what has happened. God has torn open the heavens and come down. It is in the waters of baptism that the heavens are torn apart and a voice from heaven claims Jesus as God’s son. Although we rarely think of it as having such a dramatic flourish, baptism today still serves as a time when we recognize our being claimed as children of God. And this is why, in the Gospel writers’ judgment, the baptism of Jesus is a radical act. In Jesus, God has committed the act of breaking and entering the world, and they want the world to know.

Sometimes, I wish it were harder to join the church, to come to communion, to be baptized. I mean, honestly, sometimes I think it’s harder to get a membership to Sam’s Club than it is to become a Christian.

Sometimes we cheapen grace. It’s like the membership vows of the church are in the fine print or it feels like a medical commercial saying, you’ll feel better if you do this whole Jesus thing, you’ll be happier, while the people on the screen are running through a field of flowers or jumping on a trampoline or flying a kite with what seems to be a bright, smiling, happy family. They’re still showing the pictures of all the smiling people and let’s throw in a pet for good measure, as they read quick like the micro machine man the hazards. Baptism is terrific but please plan on attending worship, Bible studies, service projects, fellowship events, and don’t forget covenant discipleship groups. Christmas and Easter only come once a year, but Narcie throws in enough grace to last all year round. She may make you experience some discomfort and conviction, but that’s at minimum only once or twice a sermon. Following Jesus may cost you. Putting his teachings into practice may turn your life upside down……

Who can blame people for just tuning that part out? And not understanding what following Jesus means? What a big, awesome commitment that is?

We’re involved in a bait and switch. You may, say hold on a second, I do no such thing. I would challenge that back to you. Can those around you, tell you are a Christian? What makes you different from all of the other do gooders? What makes this different than any other civic organization?

Peter Rollins, Northern Ireland writer, speaker, philosopher, and theologian writes, “Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However, there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.”

If you want to actively follow Christ. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be the greatest joy and sacrifice of your life. Don’t merely get baptized for fire insurance, because you want to flee the wrath of hell, but because you want your life transformed, you want to do more than honor Jesus’ sacrifice. You seek to live as a changed person walking the way of life, trying to grow more like Jesus every day, and when you mess up, as you inevitably will, God gives you God’s abundant grace, God’s sanctifying grace. God doesn’t leave us on our own in the mire and the muck. God begins the mighty work of transforming us.

We’re not going to change overnight into the perfect Christian. We need to hone our spiritual disciplines: prayer, scripture reading, daily times alone with God, discerning God’s will for our lives, and not just things we do alone. Tenth Avenue North sings in the song No Man is Island,“We’re not meant to live this life alone.” We are stronger together. Iron sharpens iron after all. The kids asked to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Friday’s Family Movie Night. Mike says I should use “spoiler alert” even the book came out more than 5 years ago. At the end of the movie, Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, dies and it looks like darkness has won. He was Harry’s protector and the only one Voldemort was afraid of. When he dies, the students and staff are mourning him and it seems like all hope is lost, Madame Pomfrey holds her wand in the air, Professor McGonagall joins her, and the students and faculty do the same. When they do that together, it lights up the night sky. Together in their sorrow. Together in their hope that the light will pierce the darkness. Mike told Enoch and Evy, the darkness doesn’t win and I joined him in saying, when all hope seems lost, even if it looks like the darkness has won, the light will always, always, always eventually conquer the dark. I want them to be prepared to fight for the light in their choices and to continue fighting even when it feels like it’s not making a difference, even when it seems they are fighting an uphill battle, even in the darkest night of their souls. Good will triumph. Spoiler Alert. The grave didn’t hold him down.

See baptism is an individual sacrament, but it’s also a communal one also. Whole families were baptized in the New Testament. The church agrees to love, support, grow and strengthen those baptized persons. Dietrich Bonheoffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, believed that a community of love is one which focuses its attention on Jesus and then expects everything else to fall into place. When the people of God come together to share their lives openly and freely, accepting each other with a kind of unconditional positive regard, there is a sort of social-spiritual “chemistry” that emerges, and those who come together experience a delightful cohesion and sense of belonging. Bonhoeffer’s central idea is that the Church as the fellowship of Christ centers on Christ rather than being a mere association of people with a common purpose. Human love and actions are related to a desire for human community. Christian love, spiritual love, comes from Christ and goes out to the other person, not directly, but through Christ. Christ “stands between me and others”. The most direct way to another is found in prayer to Christ whose influence is greater. The unity of the community is in Christ, “Through him alone do we have access to one another, joy in one another, and fellowship with one another.”

The Book of Mormon Broadway Musical has a song called Mostly Me. In it the missionary says he’s doing all of this “good” stuff altruistically, but he’s actually doing it for himself. This is not just a “but mostly me” but something that if we are to survive, if we are to be a stronger, healthier, more grounded body – we’ve got to be supporters, advocates, confidants, friends to each other. Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship writes, “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” We have to trust each other enough to share our lives together, with no fear of judgment, that’s the only way we get to the Light of Christ.

How do we push through the fear, the doubt, the awkwardness, the ego, and move towards real community? We have to really love each other, pray for each other, root for one another, weep one another, encourage one another, be CHURCH with each other. As Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” I want us to be a deep, Christ-centered community whether it be as Friday morning Men’s Group, an adult Sunday School Class, the Choir, the Thursday morning Women’s Bible Study, the Somerby Bible Study or one of the other communities we will create this year. I want us to make as our theme this year to Love God and Love Neighbor. I want us to make the main thing, the main thing. Our focus shall be to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world in Park West, in North Mount Pleasant and across the Earth. We can only legitimately do that if we abide in Christ and seek his leading for our lives, for the call he has put on our lives, for the call he has put on this church to be the hands and feet of Christ at this time and in this place and if we look to Christ – boy, what could happen? Could you imagine?

People should be able to see Christ in us, just as the song says, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Wesley’s General Rules provide an extensive list of the marks of the Christian life that could be summarized by do no harm, do good, and attend upon all the ordinances of God or as Wesley said,

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

These rules take into account and respond to the great command to love God and neighbor. In our baptism, similar things happen to us as happened to Jesus when he was baptized: 1) The Spirit of God comes into us and remains in us. 2) We are declared to be a child of God. 3) We hear that God is well pleased with us. God’s grace washes away our sin and angst and doubt and we are made clean in the waters of baptism. We’ve been washed by the water and are set free to live an abundant, thriving life. Jesus doesn’t say it will be easy, but as Paul writes in Philippians 4, “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.” The Spirit of God opens up the Heavens to give us a taste of the Living God, Emmanuel, one with us, Jesus who was, is, and is to come. As we journey with our stars and seek God’s personal will for our lives and as we journey as a church to know God’s communal will for this body of Christ and the part God wants each of us to play in that, God’s wonders and mercies are new every day and at every step of the Christian journey, God will be faithful.

I’ll ask you to come to the baptismal waters as you reaffirm your baptism, as you reaffirm that you are a new creation, as you reaffirm your commitment to this body of Christ, to walk with each other in love and grace, spurring each other on to right action and to seek the will of God.

“We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
And together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love.”

REAFFIRMATION OF BAPTISM

The Lord be with you.

and also with you.

Let us pray.

Eternal God: When nothing existed but chaos, you swept across the dark waters and brought forth light. In the days of Noah you saved those on the ark through water. After the flood you set in the clouds a rainbow. When you saw your people as slaves in Egypt, you led them to freedom through the sea. Their children you brought through the Jordan to the land which you promised.

Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Tell of God’s mercy each day.

In the fullness of time you sent Jesus, nurtured in the water of a womb. He was baptized by John and anointed by your Spirit. He called his disciples to share in the baptism of his death and resurrection and to make disciples of all nations.

Declare Christ’s works to the nations, his glory among all the people.

Pour out your Holy Spirit, and by this gift of water call to our remembrance the grace declared to us in our baptism. For you have washed away our sins, and you clothe us with righteousness throughout our lives, that dying and rising with Christ we may share in his final victory.

All praise to you, Eternal God, through your Son Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever. Amen.

Come as you feel led to the baptismal waters as we reaffirm our baptisms. As you come forward and touch the water, I will say, “Remember your baptism and be thankful” and you respond “Amen.” You can touch the water and make a sign of the cross on your forehead or you can scoop the water and let fall back into the bowl.

Remember your baptism and be thankful. Amen.

Prayer reaffirming the Baptismal Covenant:

The Holy Spirit work within you, that having been born through water and the Spirit, you may live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Abide, Busy-ness, Community, Devotional Life, Emmanuel, Faith, God's love, Love, Prayers, Presence, sin, Uncategorized

Abide With Me

Posted on October 19, 2016 by narciejeter

I heard the song “Abide With Me” by Matt Maher on my iTunes yesterday afternoon while I was trying to complete charge conference forms. It came at just the right time and it reminded me that all ever have to do is be faithful. Faithful to be abide in the true vine as it says in John 15 and faithful and obedient to God’s will for my life. Even if I’m connected to the vine, even when I’m doing all the seemingly “right” things, junk still happens. The messiness of life still happens. Sin still happens. The Enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy and he sows discord, drama, misunderstanding, hurt, and confusion. As Romans 8 explains nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are more than conquerors through Jesus who loved us. In the song it uses the word “with” not “in.” Abide with us. We have that hope and expectation with our God, the one, true God. Emmanuel, God with us, came down to be with us. The Triune God is present with us in our joys, like Melia ringing the bell that signified her radiation treatments were over, our hopes, as sweet Lillian’s prayer said, even when we’re tired and frustrated in this political season or in general. It’s easy to get so busy, we’re just checking off the boxes off a “to do” list and going through the motions. Or maybe you’re feeling like you’re far from God and God’s being silent right now. No matter where you are on your faith journey, I pray that God gives you the encouragement you need to keep stepping out in faith. Some of us may be running. Some of us may be barely putting one foot in front of the other. Wherever you are, know and trust in God’s abundant love for you and that Point Hope will welcome you with open arms as you are, a child of God.

“Abide With Me”

I have a home, eternal home
But for now I walk this broken world
You walked it first, You know our pain
But You show hope can rise again up from the grave

Abide with me, abide with me
Don’t let me fall, and don’t let go
Walk with me and never leave
Ever close, God abide with me

There in the night, Gethsemane
Before the cross, before the nails
Overwhelmed, alone You prayed
You met us in our suffering and bore our shame

Abide with me, abide with me
Don’t let me fall, and don’t let go
Walk with me and never leave
Ever close, God abide with me

Oh love that will not ever let me go
Love that will not ever let me go
You never let me go
Love that will not ever let me go
Oh You never let us go

And up ahead, eternity
We’ll weep no more, we’ll sing for joy, abide with me

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John 15

15‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become^* my disciples. ⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

18 ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.¹⁹If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. ²⁰Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. ²¹But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³Whoever hates me hates my Father also. ²⁴If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵It was to fulfil the word that is written in their law, “They hated me without a cause.”

26 ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. ²⁷You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

Romans 8:35-39

³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Abide, God's love, Life, Love, new, real love, Uncategorized

Chosen to love the world.

Posted on September 4, 2016September 4, 2016 by narciejeter

1 John 3:16-24

¹⁶We know love by this that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? ¹⁸Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him ²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; ²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. ²³And this is his commandment that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. ²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

We are Chosen to love the world.

Leviticus 19:18 says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s what God said to Moses and the people of Israel.

As far as formulas go, it’s great. The golden rule. I was telling Enoch yesterday, treat people like you like to be treated.

There’s nothing secret about this formula. Even Jesus endorsed it when in Matthew 22 he made it a part of his great commandment. “Love the Lord your God,” said Jesus, and “love your neighbor as yourself.”

But surprisingly, in the first of his New Testament letters, the apostle John offers a new recipe: “this is [God’s] commandment that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another” (v. 23).

Believe in Jesus. Love one another.

Not the same old formula.

In recent years, companies have learned how dangerous it is to change the ingredients of a successful brand. A little over 30 years ago, in April, 1985, Coca-Cola changed its formula and introduced a product called “New Coke.” The response was overwhelmingly negative, and within three months the original formula was back on the market.

Just how bad was it? The company hotline received 1,500 calls a day, almost four times what they usually logged. Psychiatrists listened in on calls and heard people talking as though they were grieving the death of a family member.

Southerners saw the change through the lens of the Civil War, describing it as yet another surrender to the Yankees. Even Fidel Castro despised New Coke, reportedly calling it “a sign of American capitalist decadence.”

Bottom line: Be careful when you change a successful formula.

So what is the apostle John up to? For starters, he wants to put a human face on the commandment to love one another — the face of Jesus Christ. Verse 16 says, “We know love by this,” he says to his brothers and sisters in Christ, “that he laid down his life for us.” John knows that the problem with the love commandment is that it can easily become sacrinny sweet like sweet and low, with people enjoying the pleasant taste of warm, fuzzy emotions and charitable thoughts. So he changes the formula to include the bitter sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

• Most of us find it easier to formulate our arguments in our head without real dialogue, real conversation, so much so that we demonize the other “side” than to love them. 1 John 4:7-10 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Mother Teresa who becomes a Saint today says much about love. “When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.” “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

• Most of us find it so much simpler to define our Christianity in terms of attending church, rather than doing the complicated and challenging work of feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. As Billy Sunday said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”

Most of us find it easier to point out the splinter in another’s eye, while we live with the plank in our own. For example, if you don’t want to gossip or cut down or talk trash or judge harshly or go on a road that’s a dark and twisty path to the dark side, BE THE CHANGE. Be the change, not just wish for it, BE the change – even the slightest movement, if you are resting in God’s love, puts more love in the universe.
Such a change of ingredients can actually change our behavior. “We ought to lay down our lives for one another,” insists John, following the example of Jesus (v. 16). Under this new formula, sacrificial living becomes a central part of the Christian life, one that simply cannot be denied. John asks his followers, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?” (v. 17).

Love is seen in action, not in words. The greatest poet ever known can wax eloquent about love, but it is all flowery speech and frills, if it is not backed up.

John summarizes his new formula with the words “Believe in the name of [God’s] Son Jesus Christ and love one another” (v. 23). He links belief in Jesus with love for one another, knowing that the clearest example of love is the sacrificial life and death of Christ. The result of this new formula is a close connection to God, one in which “all who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them” (v. 24). John says that we’ll know that God lives in us “by the Spirit that he has given us” (v. 24).

The new link between belief and love can and will create a new kind of life for us.

Throughout the gospel of John, we hear the promise of life. In fact, the gospel was written “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life” (John 20:31). The gospel begins with the Word of God taking the human form of Jesus, and we’re promised that “what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:3-4).

Belief. Life. Light. Put these ingredients together, and you can see that a new formula is beginning to emerge. John goes on to tell us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

So now love is in the mix. As well a kind of life that extends beyond the grave — eternal life.

Describing himself, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

– Life in Jesus.

– Eternal life.

– The light of life.

– Abundant life.

– The way, the truth and the life.

– Life, life, life.

Christ Life — not the same old formula. It’s a new one based on believing in Jesus and loving one another.

Clarence Jordan captured the concreteness of this everyday love and compassionate assistance when he translated in his Cotton Patch Version of 1 John 3:18 back in 1973: “My little ones, let’s not talk about love. Let’s not sing about love. Let’s put love into action and make it real.”

Our world is in desperate need of a church that puts love into action and makes it real. Like customers looking for a good, cheap haircut or a calculator for their big test, there are people all around us who are searching desperately for a community that actually practices what it preaches. Over 100 years ago, the Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard made the point that Jesus was looking for followers, not admirers — he wanted people who would walk with him, do his work, and serve in his name.

One of Kierkegaard’s own parables told of a man who was walking down a city street when he saw a big sign in a window that said, “Pants pressed here.” Delighted to see the sign, he went home and gathered up all of his wrinkled laundry. He carried it into the shop and put it on the counter.

“What are you doing?” the shopkeeper demanded.

“I brought my clothes here to be pressed,” said the man, “just like your sign said.”

“Oh, you’ve got it all wrong,” the owner said. “We don’t actually do that here. We’re in the business of making signs.” We don’t do these things, he was saying. We’re in the business of talking about them.

And that, said Søren Kierkegaard, is often the problem in the church. We advertise ourselves as a place that is showing Christ’s love and doing Christ’s work. But when people show up looking for real love and real Christian action, they don’t see it. “Oh, no, we don’t love people here. We just talk about loving people here.”

When Christ is our life, we live and move and breathe in the Spirit and we do what Jesus wants us to do. This means helping a brother or sister in need, and loving one another in truth and in action. It means focusing on activities that really show the love of God to people who might be feeling quite unloved and unlovable. That also means BOLDNESS. We boldly approach the throne of grace with confidence. Not just giving people fake, plastered on smiles, but telling them about Christ. Showing with our lives the greatest show and tell in the world. We need signs that God is LIVING in us! I love the tv show Friday Night Lights, maybe because I went to High School in two big football towns – Cheraw and Rock Hill. The team’s motto, “Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t Lose.” Clear Eyes on the cross, focused on Jesus’ sacrifice for each of us. Full hearts of the love of God for the world. The unconditional, agape love of God in ACTION in and through us. Can’t lose. We are more than conquerors through him who first loved us and nothing in all of creation will make us lose that, not even the monster in the Upside Down, nothing.

For those who dare to sip this new flavor, abundant life awaits. Believing in Jesus and loving one another draws us closer to God and one another, and allows us actually to abide in God. To abide is to live or to dwell in something — to accept, observe and follow a particular path. So when we believe in Jesus and love one another, we abide in God and God abides in us. “And by this we know that he abides in us,” says John, “by the Spirit that he has given us” (v. 24).

So give it a try. As missionary, Jim Elliot says, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” You have nothing to lose, but a new life – transformed – to gain.

Community, Friends, Holy Friendships, Love, perseverance, Uncategorized

Helping Each Other Finish the Race

Posted on August 17, 2016 by narciejeter

I don’t know if you’ve seen this story or not, but it’s a beautiful reminder of the Olympic spirit. That though these athletes are from other countries, they’ve trained for this, they’ve endured various challenges for this moment, and they persevered over injuries, early morning wake ups, weather, and apathy to routine. Sometimes we need a little bit of help to finish the race.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/sports/olympics/nikki-hamblin-abbey-dagostino-womens-5000.html?_r=0

“Get up. We have to finish this.”

Sometimes we need a little help and encouragement to finish the race.

It reminds me of the Mark 2 passage. The one where a paralytic man’s friends help him by lowering him from the roof to be healed by Jesus. This passage has always been a favorite of mine because they go the extra mile for their friend which illustrates perfectly Christian community – not just talking the talk but walking the walk. Action, not merely words. You see Jesus had already started healing people and when he came to Capernaum there was standing room only inside the house. There were four friends and a man on a stretcher that were trying to get in to see Jesus because they had faith that if Jesus saw their friend, he could be made well.

It was so crowded,that they literally had to tear up the roof to lower him down. To me, there’s something really powerful about them having to actually dig through and get dirty to help make this miracle happen. According to some scholars, the roof was usually made of beams about 3 feet apart. These beams would be filled with twigs, then packed with clay and covered with dirt.

If you have ever worked with drywall or insulation, particularly taking it down, you know that there’s small particles and dust everywhere. A big mess. So as you can probably imagine, as these four are pulling away chunks of clay, bits of dirt, and dried leaves are falling all over those below.

And the people who stood in the room, who most likely had some small rubble or debris dropped on their heads were doubtfully very thrilled and the men had to know this when they concocted their plan. They risked a lot because they had faith in who Jesus is and what a tremendous impact he could have on the life of their friend.

Sometimes we need people to come alongside us to bring about God’s healing. Sometimes we need conversation partners as God speaks through another, sometimes we need others to recognize the God spark in us, when we can’t imagine it’s anything but extinguished, sometimes we need a push or someone to reach down and help us up. And that’s okay. We’re supposed to be community to and with one another. We’re here to support and be the hands and feet of Christ as the Holy Spirit leads us in the words to speak that all people are created in the image of God and God has called us all GOOD.

We need to be the ones that receive the help and then give the help. Everyone is on a journey, with twists and turns, highs and lows. We are not any of us invincible. We all need help sometimes. But we also need to give that same help to others. I think that God allows some things to happen, hard roads to walk, to give us empathy with one another. God works all things for good, after all. I’ll invite you to insert your name for love as I write the Message version of 1 Corinthians 13.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

So when you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you see someone down and out, don’t be afraid to step out in faith and let the miracle happen. We are all on this blessed journey together. Every one of us. We can’t do this life alone. We all need to lean on each other.

C.S. Lewis, Love, Scriptures, Sermons

The Four Loves

Posted on February 20, 2014 by narciejeter

Romans 5:6-8
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Mark 12:30-31
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

I love the smell of a new car. It’s beyond clean. Uncontaminated by food smells. Uncontaminated by dirt and grime. Uncontaminated by children’s sticky fingers on the windows. I have been driving around with the smell of broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower for months because some vegetable medley got sloshed in my car on the way to fall festival. I ask people when they enter my car for the first time if they smell it and they politely say no, but I smell it every time I get into the car. And it smells quite lovely!

I love my husband Mike, who I’ve been married to for almost 12 years. He’s my best friend. He’s my companion for life. He’s the one that I can be my truest, authentic self. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I choose to love him every single day. He’s my partner in crime, but more than that, he knows me, and chooses to love me anyway.

I love my kids, Enoch and Evy. I never “not” love them. It’s innate like breathing. I love them and there’s literally nothing they can do about it. Even when Enoch’s running around Wesley hyped up on sugar from my candy bowl or Evy is “tricking” my mom into blow drying her hair last night, which she never has blow dried, though she told Mom that Mike blow dries her hair every night.

I love my job. But I like to think of it as a vocation or calling. Everyone has one; that which you were uniquely made to do. That which blends together the gifts, skills, and abilities God has given you. I love being a campus minister. I love this age group. I love providing a variety of ways that your faith can come alive: worship, discipleship, service, advocacy, prayer, leadership development, and communicating the love and grace of God.

The English word love conveys such a wide variety of things and most people are wise enough to deduce from certain context clues the real meaning of the word. I LOVE this song is much different than I LOVE my brothers. I LOVE Leonardo’s pizza is much different than I LOVE Enoch or Evy.
There are many words in Greek that are translated into love, but I’ll talk about 4. The four loves that C.S. Lewis wrote about in his work appropriately titled, The Four Loves. They are storge, philia, eros, and agape.

Storge means “affection” in ancient and modern Greek. It is natural affection, like that felt by parents and their children. It’s rarely used in ancient works, and then almost exclusively as a descriptor of relationships within the family. So I have storge for Enoch and Evy, for Josh and Caleb, my brothers, and for my mom and dad.

Philia is the love between friends. It means affectionate regard or friendship in both ancient and modern Greek. This type of love has give and take, an equal sharing. One person is not putting in everything to sustain the friendship, but both are. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity. I think of this love, as a group of college friends watching Scandal, The Bachelor, Downton Abbey, Reign or Once Upon A Time together. Or the show we were obsessed with in college, it gives y’all extra fodder to make fun of me – Dawson’s Creek. I can say much about friendship that’s in essence written on the Love Campaign banners. Several people wrote about friendship when answering the “What is Love?” question. C. S. Lewis immediately differentiates Friendship Love from the other Loves. He describes friendship as, “the least biological, organic, instinctive, gregarious and necessary…the least natural of loves” – our species does not need friendship in order to reproduce – but to the classical and medieval worlds the more profound precisely because it is freely chosen. A couple of verses that accentuate this are,

Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

John 15:13
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Eros is a “physical” passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. I would say this is not always a rational love. Pure emotion and romance and “love at first sight” classify this kind of love. Romantic, pure emotion without the balance of logic could be said of this kind of love. “Love at first sight.” The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love;” however, eros does not have to be sexual in nature. Eros can be interpreted as a love for someone whom you love more than the philia, love of friendship. It can also apply to dating relationships as well as marriage. Two verses that accentuate this idea.

Ephesians 5:25-28
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Genesis 29:20
So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

Agape love is the love we’ve been talking about all week in the Love Campaign. We’ll see the Love Campaign video next Sunday. That’s what the Romans 5 and Mark 12 texts are all about. The heart of the Romas passage is verse 8, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Agape means love in a spiritual, true unconditional love kind of way. It’s a sacrificial spiritual love, accentuated by Christ’s giving his life up for us. We’re also called to love the world with agape love. As it is written in Mark 12:30-31, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” We’re called first to love God and to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. Sharing that agape love with all the world. This type of love is embodied in the 1 Corinthians 13 passage.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

We’re going to watch different clips from Rob Bell’s Nooma video “Flame” about the Hebrew words for love. The Hebrew in the Old Testament has at least 3 different words for love.

(Flame – 2:11-2:48, 3:02-4:06, 4:30-10:10)

So what do we do with all of those different types of love? What do all these Greek or Hebrew words matter to our lives now? Know which flame you’re fanning. If it’s the flame of friendship, by all means keep fanning. If it’s the flame of storge or affection between you and your family members, by all means keep fanning. If it’s the flame of agape, fan ALL the time!! If it’s the flame of eros, by all means keep fanning – if it is a healthy, balanced relationship, and there’s give and take, and healthy communication and we will delve into healthy relationships next week. We will talk about protecting our hearts, we will talk about what I mean by the words “healthy” and “balanced,” we will talk about communication and we will talk about dating, marriage, singleness. I’m not sure I can fit all that I want to say into one sermon, but I’ll make a valiant attempt. May you become aware of the flames your fanning in your own lives and may God reveal to you in God’s discernment what flames you should keep fanning and what flames you should pour water on.

Agape, Campus Ministry, Love, Love Campaign, Neighbor

Posted on February 9, 2014 by narciejeter

Our epistle readings for today are, Galatians 5:22-24 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

Galatians 5:22-24

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

Today starts the Love Campaign where we seek to show the campuses of the University of Florida and Santa Fe College God’s love for them. The point of it is to show God’s unconditional love and point students and the entire Gainesville community to God’s grace. God draws you and I to God’s self even before we realize it. God longs to be gracious to us and to give us new and abundant life. God longs to be in relationship with each person and continues to search for the lost because God WANTS you and all of the world to believe in the words of Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us. No sin is too big or too yuck or too devastating to lay at the foot of the cross and Jesus is faithful and true in his love and grace for us scattering our sins as far as the east to the west.

Aberjhani, in the work, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry says, “Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. had some things to say about agape love.

Start at 1:22 and End at 2:02.

I like his definition of agape. “It is understanding creative, redemptive goodwill for all [people]. It is an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. And when one rises to love on this level, he loves [people] not because he likes them, but he loves every [person] because God loves them.”
If you table this week at Santa Fe or the University of Florida you will be challenged in ways that we can’t prepare you. So is that a reason not to table (Evan and Amelia and the entire Love Campaign 2014 committee are holding their collective breaths.)? No. You’ll be challenged by questions, by misconceptions, by people that have “burned” by the church and some people will have very good reasons to keep their distance because not everything that is labeled “Christian” is about the love of God. Show them God’s love, respond in God’s love, and show them by your actions God’s love. You will be surprised how people answer the central question, “What is love?” Don’t be alarmed if several people throughout the week answer, “Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more.” I find myself humming along to that song repeatedly during Love Campaign week. But every answer, even the silly ones, are cutting to people’s core, because at the heart of each person THAT is one of the big questions. Am I loved? Am I heard? Am I seen as worthy? Do people want to hear about my day? Or care about me? Can I find a community that loves me for me? Where I can let them see me for my most true and authentic self? Does God love me? How could God love me and let these things happen? I may have messed up along the way, and I’m ashamed, and I retaliate in anger – at the world, at myself, at God. Because if you ask “What is Love?” it’s not easy to answer without calling all of YOU into question. You. Your core. Your deepest, most personal self.

We have to be ready and willing in arms wide open to receive people where they are. We have to walk the journey with them and come alongside them with the light and love and grace of Christ.

The scriptures say much about loving our neighbor.

1 John 3:11, 16-24
“For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.” Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

I’d like to tell you a story, “There was a young, intelligent university student named Bill. Bill was what some people call a “free spirit” or “hippie.” He had wild long hair, always wore the same old and torn T-shirt, jeans and no shoes. Across the street from the university campus was a church. The people there were rich, older and well-dressed. They wanted to help the university students nearby, but they did not know exactly how to do it.

Well, one day Bill decided to go visit this church by his university. As usual, he went wearing his only jeans, old, torn T-shirt and his dirty long hair. The church service had already started and was full, so Bill walked down the center aisle looking for a seat. People were getting more and more uncomfortable as they watched this unclean, wild-looking young man. Finally, Bill got to the front and saw there were no more empty seats, so he just sat down on the floor right in front of the preacher. No one had ever done that in this church before! By now, everyone was upset and distracted.

Then, a respected old church deacon got up and started toward the front. Everyone was thinking: “You can’t blame the deacon, he really should correct this disrespectful young man.” Everyone was watching. Even the preacher stopped his sermon when the old man finally got to the front. Then, they were all completely surprised to see the old deacon drop his walking stick and very slowly sit down on the floor next to this young hippie. He did not want this young man to sit alone and feel unaccepted. The people in the church were moved to tears. Finally, the preacher said: “What I am preaching about today you will probably never remember. But what you have just seen you will never forget!””

We have to as Christians and as followers of Christ get on the floor with people. Be willing to get dirty in other people’s lives. I don’t say the words during communion lightly when I pray that we may be the body and blood in the midst of the world, a light shining in the darkness. For some, you may be the only Jesus they ever see. Mother Teresa said a great deal about love in her lifetime and here’s two of my favorites. “I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.” I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world. Mother Teresa writes in A Simple Path these words, “When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.” From the back of the card where we give Gator Wesley’s answers to the question, “What is Love?” We believe that God’s greatest act of love was when God sent God’s son, Jesus, to walk among us, to teach us, and to show us by his life and example what love is truly about. That he laid down his life in sacrificial agape love. Before we can tell all the world about God’s redemptive, saving love, we have to claim God’s offer of free, life-giving grace for ourselves.

As Tivoli talked about the Chronicles of Narnia on Wednesday night in our Wednesday Evensong worship at 8:30, as what most shaped her and her calling towards film and her passion to let her light shine even in Hollywood, I began thinking of how that film shaped me. Aslan, the Christ figure, is seen right before this to be sacrificing himself for the traitorous Edmund, who got there by loving Turkish Delight too much and not understanding what was at stake. Edmund’s sisters, Lucy and Susan, are seen in this clip in the film, huddled in the bushes. Aslan’s sacrifice is an epic and gnarly example of Christ’s love for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcij7XOCyAc
Start at 1:03 – 4:22, 5:03 – 7:11.

So we know Christ’s love for each of us today. May we trust in the knowledge of God’s grace, not deserved or dependent on gold stars on a giant sticker chart in the sky, but offered freely and unconditionally. So may we show the campuses our LOVE this week and may we too be touched as the Spirit blows over the campuses of UF and Santa Fe igniting a movement of LOVE – for us, for our neighbors, and all the world. Amen.

And these are four of the songs we played at Gator Wesley in worship this morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcPMQnXzNU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAMbEPZfWCY

Love Song by Jason Morant

Community, Health, Love, Prayer, Providence, Tumor, Worship

LOVE – Songs of my Soul for Now

Posted on May 10, 2013June 19, 2013 by narciejeter

In an hour I go to the hospital for my second brain surgery and it feels super surreal to write that. I wanted to post a quick blog before I go to say thank you to everyone who is praying and who has been supporting us. We can feel your love and the community surrounding us!

I spent this past week with 30+ students from Gator Wesley touring around the state of Florida doing our Spring Tour – singing, dancing, rocking out, reading scripture and so much more. There’s a song that they sing in one of the sets (and I love the mash up that they do) called “Set a Fire” by United Pursuit Band and one of the lines says, “There’s no place I’d rather be…but here in Your love…” I’ve felt that from each of you.

Campus ministry is this crazy special place where things intersect – struggles, fears, hopes, dreams, silly Vine videos, lots of laughter, and experiences that both challenge and inspire. The students this week have inspired the heck out of me. I’ve been ministered to in their music and their passion and their faith, and even more than that in their zest for life! There weren’t many stops during this tour where I didn’t feel moved in some way and though I couldn’t figure out how to share that with them without becoming a blubbering hot mess, I want to let them know how special this week was for me. Even the trampolines. And the cold water of the spring when knocked off a raft.

Two of the songs that they’ve been singing are two favorites of mine that I’ve been holding dear over the past few weeks. They didn’t know that when they picked the songs how much they have been resonating with me and yet again, I know that God is weaving all of this together in mighty ways. The first is Meredith Andrews’ “Not for a Moment.”

And the second is by an amazing band that we hosted here at Gator Wesley called Bellarive. It’s their song, “Taste of Eternity.”

These have been the songs of my heart. Worship taps into a place that breaks down the barriers that we place. It digs in between the walls that we’ve built to protect ourselves and the layers of stress and muck that this world provides. May the scales on our hearts and our eyes be removed that we may see God more clearly and know God more fully, as God draws us to God’s self. I know that no matter what happens today, I know that I am God’s and God is ever in the midst working things together for good.

Y’all have humbled me speechless with all of your texts, facebook messages, tweets, and cards and I hope that each of you feels the love, hugs, fist pumps, and high fives that we have for you! Thanks for being on this journey with me.

Much love!

Cheers to a new haircut!

Grace and Peace,

Narcie

Christian, Community, Fear, home, Love

The C Word (and it’s not Cancer)

Posted on April 3, 2013April 3, 2013 by narciejeter

You know how in different seasons, there are specific words or lessons or visuals that seem to keep popping up in your life? Maybe that doesn’t occur for everyone but for at least for some of us stubborn folks, it’s like God has to drop clues all over the place for us to actually get the picture. The thing that keeps coming up to me right now is this idea and belief in community.

For those of you that read the blog (or at least when I used to write regularly) you know this is something I talk about A LOT. Probably annoyingly so at times. It’s the thing that I’m most passionate about. The thing that I believe is integral to the body of Christ and to any semblance or form of Christian life. You just can’t get around it. But for some reason, in this move and transition which was months ago at this point, I’ve pulled back a little from it. I don’t know if it’s new places, new people, new community building, or the grief and loss or change of old close community, but there’s something that is raw inside me around this concept.

I then start to think about student and campus ministry life and how hard it is to transition in from high school community to college community and then transition from college community to being out in the wide, wide world. I also think about how hard it is to transition from friend groups and single life to married life and professional life and all these in between times and the things that work out and don’t and how so many, random things affect how we view community, who we think are part of our “tribe,” and what we need from community. It’s not all about what we get out of it and it’s not all about what we put into it, but it seems to be this dance of times and places and seasons.

What are the things that hold us back from real community? Not pseudo surface-level stuff, but showing people the cracks and vulnerabilities. I think it’s scary. It’s unnerving. We want to be stronger and more patient and more perfect on the outside than the swirl of gunk on the inside. It gets messy. It takes a lot of time and real sharing. It sometimes makes us feel like we’re on display, left wide open or being dissected. But are these some of the same things that hold us back from fully sharing with God? Or fully sharing from the heart all aspects of our lives?

I know that not everyone is going to get along and gel 100% of the time. I’m not talking about being bff’s with everyone you meet. I’m not even talking about everyone “liking” each other even though I believe we’re all called to love each other and live in community together. I do challenge us to pause and think before we speak. I concede that sometimes our guard has to be let down to create those thin places where God can speak to us. I hope and pray that the world doesn’t see how we fight, bicker and belittle each other, but how we love, support, uphold, and care for one another.

For me, the song that’s been holding me through this season is Phillip Phillips’ “Home.” Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Advent, Emmanuel, God, Love, Music, Prevenient Grace

Make You Feel My Love

Posted on December 20, 2011December 20, 2011 by narciejeter

I was in college in the late 90’s so I’m very familiar with the “Jesus as your boyfriend” kind of praise music. I get the critiques and the easy jokes… But in listening to my Pandora a second ago, Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” came on and it just reminded me so much of this Advent/Christmas season. We don’t love a distant God with arms crossed, tapping foot, we love Emmanuel – God with us. The God who will walk across glass for us. The God who will draw us close even when we don’t realize it and who will continue to love us despite all things. That is beautiful.

As we draw towards this Holy time when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us may we be ever reminded of God’s passionate love for us and desire to be with us. With Christmas songs and tv specials and holiday cards swirling all around us, let us not lose sight of the Savior in the midst offering love and new life. I know that I needed to hear this today.

Advent, Argument, Family, Impossible, Love, Promise, Rivalry

The Last Word

Posted on December 12, 2011 by narciejeter

Winthrop Wesley celebrated Advent early this year fitting in with the college calendar and so my sense of which Sunday we’re on in Advent is all out of whack. I had never done this before but a campus ministry friend told me about it and I thought we could give it a shot. It amaze me how much it fit to talk about Peace, Hope, Joy, and Love around exam season with lots of papers, projects, and tests looming, some people ready to be home while others dread it, and all of the highs and lows of community – those ready to hurl their roommate and that want to squeeze out every drop of time with their friends before leaving for the break.

On our last night together, we looked at the candle of LOVE and talked about the last word. We may pile up all sorts of opinions and points in our argument or debate, but in the end, with Jesus, love is the last word of all – God’s love for us, for all the world, and all of creation. During this season talking about the last word has a lot of connotations for me. For some, we wonder if we’ll ever get the last word on anything. Things seem a bit out of control with questions about work or family or bills or the future or health. It often doesn’t feel like we get a say in anything and we’re merely reacting to what happens, instead of setting the course.

For others, we think of some of our friends or family or co-workers or maybe even ourselves as ones who thrive with having that last word and can’t imagine life without getting it. I think of the television show Modern Family and the hilarity that ensued during the holiday episode this year between the “Realists” and the “Dreamers.” But as the episode pointed out, you need a little bit of both. We need each other – both realists and dreamers. We have ones who are ready to concede the argument and ones that will fight to the bitter end trying to get the last word – but we all need to be somewhere in the middle. We shouldn’t bowl over just because we’re “Christians” and let people walk and talk all over us, but we also shouldn’t be the ones that are raising to the loudest voice so that our point can be heard over all the masses not caring about the casualties that may surround us.

As some of you know, my brother Josh, is the rebel in our family. I don’t think he has a corner deal on this and we’re all the rebel at times over such things, but in the delicious rivalry between South Carolina and Clemson, he’s the lone Clemson tiger. Y’all know things have gotten a little tricky these past weeks with that rivalry and I’m not going to even begin to talk about the game, the history, the record, who said what, or who’s got the better mascot, because it sure as heck is not worth all of the angst and passion and pride that we all put into it. Josh is not the most die-hard and orange Clemson fan and I’m not the most die-hard and garnet Gamecock fan, so we can probably have this conversation easier than some of the hot heads, but let’s just say there’s been some thought-provoking discussion over football and faith and where in the world pastors and people of faith should fall on these topics and how they should present themselves not just in “real life” but on facebook and twitter as well. You can go round and round and as people start trying to throw grenades at each other trying to get the last word, it feels like nobody wins. That’s what I like and am challenged by in debating with Josh. Neither one of us wants to give in and both of us have the natural tendency to want to get that last word in, but we also take our faith seriously and we don’t want to unduly hurt the other person or slam the other “side.” Does that mean that there’s no time that we don’t get angry or want to rail at the other person? No. But it does mean that we hold each other accountable not just to our conversation and “the facts” as we think we see them, but also to the core values that we share. It drives me crazy but it’s also something that I rely on and am challenged by as we can call each other out!

In this Advent season, it’s important to realize that the One who holds the real last word – not just to some football rivalry or presidential debate or late night talk show snaffoo, but to all things – is the One who’s coming that we celebrate and await for the second time during this Advent season. In the fourth Sunday of Advent I really love all the texts. I know I’m biased – I love Advent in general, but I really like that all the texts are talking about God being with us and the impossible happening and Holy mysteries and saying yes even when things look far-fetched and unlikely. Love it! (Oh I should probably tell you what they are – 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Luke 1:46b-55, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:26-38)

You may be wondering where in the heck did I get the last word from that? I didn’t mention any revelation passages. A couple of things. The first in verse 33 talking about Jesus, “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” The second in verse 37, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” There is no end to his kingdom. He will have the last word, not in a Jesus juke kind of way, but in a beautiful, Christ-like, kingdom of God, eternal life kind of way….it really does mean eternal after all. I love verse 37 too because it’s not saying nothing is impossible for God or in God even though those can be true as well, but nothing is impossible with God. If we go to God with these things that trouble us, these things that we wrestle with, these things that drive us crazy or make us beyond impassioned, than with God we can find a way to be those Christ-like people in the world. With God we can be the Jesus that the world sees and knows. With God we don’t have to worry about the last word or who holds the speaking stick, because it’s not us and it’s not them, it’s the one who created us and who is creating all things new.

I fight for the last word more often than you probably know and some of you know me well. It gets on my nerves when people talk down to people or about a book or a movie or a cause act like know it all’s. And there’s a part of me that than wants to say – well more figuratively – I want to blow them out of the water. Now again, I don’t believe that “Christians” just sit back on their hands and close their mouths and just let the world keep spinning, quite the contrary. However, I do know that often what I’m reacting to is my own pride or my own issues. Hello intramural basketball! That’s the other thing that’s critical in this with God idea. If we’re speaking with God, if we’re living our lives with God, if we’re juggling all of our demands with God, than for some reason I think that we’ll live our lives differently than if we just go it alone with our own sense of righteousness and justice. Because I don’t know about you, but for me, there are times I can look back in conversations or experiences and I know it wasn’t God – it was me, going it alone, and spinning out. But if we are with God, then nothing is impossible. Not worries about family or friends or work or what we’re going to do with our lives or how we should spend our money or who we need to seek forgiveness or how we’re going to let our lights shine.

So as I think about the holidays and all of the parties and the family and times of conversation and fun that are coming and I know, knowing our family and friends that things will be said with humor and love but always a little controversy and fun with so many folks and different ideas, may we realize and know that there are promises and mysteries during this Advent and that God’s kingdom will reign forever and we can be apart of that knowing that nothing is impossible with God and that we don’t have to carry all of the world’s burdens on our shoulders, but as we do the work of God, we can feel sure and certain that the last word comes from God – a God of grace and joy and hope and peace and great, great love!