THE PAIN PASSES BUT THE BEAUTY REMAINS

A Pastoral Message for the Celebration of Life of Scott Dixon

Commonweal Theatre, December 8, 2018

by Pastor Laura E. Gentry

Scott Dixon, actor/writer

Read Post-Bulletin article here.

Dearly beloved we have gathered together today to get through this thing called Life…okay, that’s Prince’s line but I don’t think Scott would mind me quoting 80s music.

Still…the question remains: How do we get through this thing called Life?

Today, as we pay tribute to Scott’s life, we marvel. His life was immensely full, as we’ve heard from everyone who’s spoken today. He was zealously committed to his passion for telling stories before an audience. He believed what Charlie Chaplin said: “Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.” And here on this very stage, Scott brought people his very best.

But even though we’ve worked really hard to create this celebration of his life, it cannot possibly express all of who Scott was and how is art touched people’s lives. 

Who was Scott? What was most important to him? How did he get through this thing called Life? In “Let’s Go Crazy” Prince sings: “If you don’t like the world you’re living in take a look around you at least you got friends.” And, of course, Kermit the Frog always says: “With good friends you can’t lose.” Even with all his artistic accomplishments, Scott realized that there’s something more crucial than that and it is love. That’s the art he excelled at the most: love. Scott loved his family and his friends. He loved you. 

That’s why it’s so painful now as the truth sinks in: Scott’s life here with us on earth is through. Our lives will never be the same. What are we to do? 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote:

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,

The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”

They say that funerals are for the living. Scott is God’s beloved and he is now with God. He has shifted to the light. That’s why he didn’t even consider his death to be a defeat. He came to the spiritually profound place of free fall, allowing himself to float into his Creator’s embrace, as we heard in the song at the beginning of this service: “knowing no effort earns that all-sustaining grace.”

And I want to remind you that there is grace for you, too. As you mourn the loss of Scott, you are not alone. The deeper your grief, the closer is God. 

In the biblical book of 2 Corinthians, God promises: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” It is a paradox that our weakness actually makes us strong. But it does. It is in these broken moments that we finally realize we’re not in control of our lives. We need help. We become desperate enough to allow God to come to us and begin to heal us. It is my prayer that you will find such healing—however you name it—because there is abundant grace for you.

The great rocker Patti Smith says:  “Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.” In a world without Scott, you will suffer. I’m sure he wishes it were not so and but grief is the price we pay for love. The road ahead won’t be easy. You will bust into tears at inconvenient times. Little things will trigger you. You will grieve and you will each grieve differently. It may cause you to hurt one another’s feelings even though you don’t mean to. So let me remind you to be particularly gentle and patient to one another. 

And yet, as you heal, you can extend your hand and help others who are also suffering loss.  You can weep with those who weep. You can be a source of comfort. You can shine light into the dark places. And in this way, Scott’s legacy will continue to broaden and be a positive one.

Ultimately, with God’s help and the compassion of your fellow humans, the vision is for you to come to a place of peace. 

The painter Renior so eloquently stated: 

“The pain passes but the beauty remains.” 

You know that the beauty of Scott’s life and his impact upon yours was beyond description. 

Right now, you feel the sting of loss but at length, the pain will subside and what remains is the beauty. Hold on to that beauty, my friends. What Scott has given each of you is yours forever. Death ends a life but not a relationship. 

The famous philosopher Winnie the Pooh said: “If there ever comes a day where we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”

Yes, Scott will be in your heart forever. But I think he would also want me to point out that “You gotta fight for your right to party!” Tears are necessary but don’t forget that this day is a day of celebration for the amazing life Scott lived. 

HOW'S YOUR CONVERSION GOING?

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year C

Acts 9:1-20

He had a bright sparkle in his eyes, rugged skin and impressively long, dishwater blond hair that he always held in place with a bandana tied across his forehead. Scott was the proverbial hippy guy, which I thought was really, really cool given that it was the 1980s when I met him. 

I had only read about the hippies in history class and seen one once. Just once. On a ten-speed bicycle whizzing through my neighborhood, his long hair in two thin pigtails. The neighbor boy yelled: “Look! It’s a hippy!” But by the time we all ran out into the road to get a closer look, all we could see were his pigtails flying out behind him. An elusive, mythic creature.

Scott, therefore, afforded my very first opportunity to talk with an actual hippy. I was stoked. 

My best friend, Martha, had driven me in her oversized chavelle to a little, fundamentalist, store-front Christian fellowship called The Narrow Gate. While our peers were presumably out getting drunk, Martha and I spent our high school days hanging out with the hippies and assorted weirdos of The Narrow Gate. It was awesome.

I remember the first conversation I had with Scott. He’d been a major drug addict and then had gotten himself clean because of Jesus. Scott didn’t hold back any of the lurid details of what it was like to be a junkie. My innocent eyes were opened.

But then he talked about how God saved him. Literally. Saved his life. And his sparkly eyes practically popped out of his head. 

I had never heard anyone speak with such a first-hand knowledge of God. He talked like he knew God. Really knew God. The way you know your best friend. Or your mom. And he was just so happy. It seemed like he glowed. Yes, yes, I could perceive the forcefield around him. Scott was a radiantly glowing happy hippy. I didn’t know what to make of him.

Later I said to Martha: “Can we ever have that kind of faith—like Scott has? I mean, do you have to be bad to be that good?”

And Scott’s wasn’t the only conversion story. I heard lots of them down at the Narrow Gate. They always had stories.

“I was lost but now I’m found. I was blind but now I see.” I grew up singing those lines in Amazing Grace but I had never met a Lutheran who talked like that for real. It was more like: “I was Lutheran and then I was Lutheran.” What did we know about conversion? 

And, frankly, I was a bit jealous of those bad-gone-good people who seemed to get grace a whole lot more because they used to be so far away from God.

In today’s passage from Acts, we hear the conversion story of Paul. He, who had been a zealous persecutor of Christians, is dramatically struck down in a lightning storm on his way to Damascus, spoken to by the voice of Christ and blinded by the light. 

I love the painting of this story by the artist Caravaggio (pictured above). Paul is depicted—in Caravaggio’s signature theatrical lighting style—lying flat on the ground, hands in surrender to the overwhelmingly bright presence of Jesus. He’s low down on the picture plane, implying he’s fallen clear off his tall horse. And it seems like the most prevalent thing in the painting is the rear end of the horse as it stands there in the light. Maybe I’m reading into it but I get the sense that Caravaggio was giggling to himself as he painted this indicating that backside of the horse—that’s what Paul was until Jesus struck him down. 

But this incredible moment changed him. Even his name changed from Saul to Paul. He stopped killing Christians. Quit cold turkey. And became the writer of about half the New Testament, the major shaper of Christian thought, and the world’s most famous missionary.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I was a little bit jealous of Paul, too. What a conversion experience! Come on, I was a drama geek. Now that’s a conversion.  No wonder Paul was hair-on-fire-crazy to share the news of Jesus’ resurrection with the whole of the ancient world. I mean, who wouldn’t be?

But poor little me. Poor me. I never got to be bad like Persecutor Saul or like Hippy Scott in his drug days. 

My problem, I decided, was that I’d always been Lutheran. How in the world was I going to have a conversion of my own?

Paul later wrote to the Christians in Corinth: “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation and the former things have passed away. Behold all things have become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

According to Paul himself, you don’t have to have a fall-off-your-horse, hear-the-voice-of-Jesus, blinded-by-the-light encounter like he did to become new. You just have to be in Christ. That’s it. That makes you a new creation whether you were ever a hippy or not. That makes you risen with Christ. That converts you.

Do you ever reflect upon your conversion? How were you converted? 

Do you even consider yourself converted, particularly if you were raised in the faith—baptized as an infant like Jazlee-Jo and her toddler brother, Carszn will be today? How can we be converted if we have always been in Christ, even before we were aware of it?

But here’s the thing: The Holy Spirit is never done with us. There is never a moment when the Spirit looks at us and says: “Yep! Got that one finished.” and moves on. No, the Spirit doesn’t knock off at five o’clock. The Spirit never tires of the work-in-progress projects called you and me.  Always. Always. We are being reshaped into the likeness of Christ. 

Paul needed ongoing work after his big conversion. He struggled immensely, whining in his letters with things like: “I do the thing that I do not want to do but the thing I do want to do, I do not do. Horrible guy am I!” (from Romans 7:15-20) I think Paul understood that conversion is a life-long process not just one memorable moment. Even for him.

So if someone asks me about my conversion, I ask: “which one?” Now I realize that I have been being converted all along. I don’t need to be jealous of anyone else’s conversion. Martin Luther explains in the meaning of the Apostles Creed that day after day a new self should arise to live with God. I’ve had lots of conversions because every day is a new one. Every day God draws me away from my selfish ambitions, knocks me off my high horse and sets me on a different course—a course of Love. Beyond my wildest imagination. That’s what God opens my eyes to. That’s life in the risen Christ.

Paul didn’t choose his conversion. He didn’t set out to do some kind of self-help 21-day faith challenge he could post about on Twitter. He was going his own, angry way when he was struck down, blinded, and sent into Damascus like a helpless little child instead of the avenging warrior he had intended.

Christ said to him: “Go into the city, and you will be told what to do.”  That must have been terrifying for Paul because it seems he had never been told what to do—he was the one telling you what to do. Now he would be taking the marching orders. Not giving them. And from then on he did march in a new direction.

Still. Paul’s not extraordinary as he was quick to admit.  Yes, he was God’s vessel but more like a cracked pot. Throughout scripture, we see God’s many weird choices for servants. The fact is: God can use anybody. Even you. Even me. 

My friends, this isn’t about us. It is about the call to be converted to the extraordinary and altogether different way of God. It’s the call to listen and obey when God tells us what to do. And it comes to us because we are God’s children, claimed in the waters of baptism. It comes to us day after day, regardless of our worthiness—whether or not we’ve been a horse’s behind.

Even though you don’t often get this question in a Lutheran church, it is a valid one that deserves asking: How's your conversion going? How is God transforming you? How are you becoming a new creation as you are risen with Christ? 

You might want to be on the lookout for this divine action in your life. Just sayin'. Because it often happens when you least expect it. As God’s child you can be certain that the Spirit is busy each day converting you because there’s a lot of work out there to be done. And Christ is counting on you.

May you say YES to this ongoing conversion and may you sally forth into the future to do this work with courage, a joyful twinkle in your eye and perhaps even with your pigtails flying out behind you. Amen.

@2016 Laura Gentry

UNCHAIN MY SOUL

A Sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

Rev. Laura Gentry

Preached at Our Savior's Lutheran Church

Lansing, Iowa

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Picture this: you are sitting alone in a prison cell. You are shackled, hungry and miserable. You are aware that you are awaiting your death sentence. Worst of all, you didn’t commit any crime. You are here in this awful place because you did the right thing and you boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ.

What’s your response? Do you live in denial and try to pretend this is not happening to you? Do you shake your fists at God and ask why you’ve had to suffer so? Do you give in to depression and lose hope?

You don’t do any of those things. Not, at least, if you are Saint Paul. Instead of despairing—which is obviously his natural reaction (he is human, after all), he holds firm to his faith, resolute to endure everything. And then gets busy with his letter writing.

In our first lesson, we are privy to one such letter. This one was written to Timothy, a young church leader who has worked with Paul. In Ephesus, Timothy is facing false teachings that are threatening to destroy his ministry. Scholars today find it unlikely that Paul himself wrote this letter to Timothy. It was probably a minister who was inspired by Paul and who was writing in his style. In ancient times this was a common practice and was a way of showing respect for the person in whose name it was written. In any case, the timeless truth of God’s power shines out in these words.

This is a letter of encouragement. Even today, so many years after this piece was written, we Christians still need encouragement. Perhaps, we need it more than ever before. It is so easy to feel sorry for ourselves and think that God ought to be doing more for us. But this letter reminds Timothy and it reminds us that we must focus on the gospel if we are to endure our presence circumstances.

This amazing passage declares the central message of our faith: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. He has broken the bonds of death and is alive, and because he lives we may live also. This truth should always be in the forefront of our minds. We must hold firm to this. We live because Christ gave us life and not just life for this world, but life beyond the grave.

Paul knows this. Here he is, languishing in prison while nearly all of his friends have abandoned him. His ministry has led him to suffering. But he knows that his Lord Jesus Christ also suffered and so this suffering can draw him closer to God, not further away. He is aware of the truth that though his body is chained, God’s word is not. God’s word is not chained. What a powerful message!

And because God’s word is not chained, Paul is not chained. Yes, he may be in prison, but his soul is unchained. All things are still possible because he walks in faith. Now, he can endure this suffering and he reminds us that God gives us the power to do the same. We an live as resurrected people. Every morning is Easter morning because we are risen with Christ and that means we are risen above any of the circumstances of our lives that chain us. In Christ, our souls are unchained.

The other scripture readings for today bear witness to this reality. In both the Hebrew Scripture reading about Naaman and the Gospel reading about the 10 lepers, we see God’s word being unchained. In both stories, there are men who are stricken with leprosy. Talk about chains. These people were afflicted both physically and socially because their disease caused them to be ostracized. They were truly men without hope.

And then God’s power comes into the picture and heals them. They are given their lives back—resurrection is truly what happens to them. And not only that, some of those healed are outsiders. Naaman is the commander of the enemy army and one of the ten lepers Jesus heals is a Samaritan. It would have been unthinkable to the ancient audiences of these scriptures that God would heal such unworthy candidates. Yet that’s precisely what God does. Unchained? Yes! God’s word is unchained and God’s embrace is so much wider than we could ever fathom. And now, those who have been healed and unchained as well. Their lives are resurrected and will never be the same again.

So what does this all mean for us? We who live with the many chains of our modern world, we who suffer untold pain, we who fear about the future—what can this brief letter, which wasn’t even necessarily written by Paul, do for us?

Well, if we listen closely with the ears of faith, we know that these words were written just for you and me. "If we have died with him, we will also live with him." There is nothing surer. Though life may be full of suffering, we follow a living Lord. Paul says it all in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4 verse 17, "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

God's Word is not chained, my friends. Do you believe that? Can you embrace that truth even when things look really dismal? Can you allow God to unchain your soul so that you may truly live today?

The wonderful thing is that God offers to free us even without our own doing. We don’t have to earn God’s love. It is a gift. Martin Luther once said that "the only thing we bring to our salvation is sin and resistance!" How powerful to know that all is God’s gift, all is grace even though we are so imperfect and so frequently faithless.

And now that we have this gift of resurrected life, we have the gleaming opportunity to live it. We have the amazing chance to be truly unchained. God wants to heal us and lift us up so that we can walk in newness of live today and on into eternity. Let us be unchained. Let us live. Amen.

Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura Gentry 2010 (painting and sermon)

COMING HOME

A Sermon the 2nd Sunday after Christmas

Pastor Laura Gentry

Jeremiah 37: 7-14

I’ll be home for Christmas!” so crooned Bing Crosby and so well did he croon it, that he made the song one of American’s best loved Christmas songs.

The idea of going home from Christmas is as popular as the song. Did you go home for Christmas? This season always evokes thoughts of family and close friends—of home. Many people have a deep yearning in their heart to go home for the holidays. And those who can’t be with loved ones on Christmas can become depressed and lonely. The longing for “home” is ingrained in us—whatever and wherever that beloved place of comfort and rest is.

And yet for some, home is a place to which we cannot return because it no longer exists. Perhaps our families have moved away from that special childhood home town, or split up, or aged considerably or passed on, and so going home doesn’t have the power that it used to. Perhaps our sense of home is that we long for a time gone by, you know, the “good old days” when life seemed safer, simpler and changes happened slowly enough that we could keep up. Going “home” in 2010 is a complex issue—it entails more than just taking a road trip to where our family members live. Perhaps it is that truly peaceful state of mind we grasp for, we yearn for, that somehow seems perpetually just out of reach.

In our Old Testament lesson for today, the prophet Jeremiah speaks to those who will soon be returning from exile—longing, as we do, for home. These people had originally been dwelling in Judah, the promised land. The Lord their God had made a covenant with their ancestors. God had delivered them out of Egypt, led them through the desert and brought them to this land. This was the land where they believed God himself lived. Their homes were there, their jobs were there, and most importantly: the temple was there on Mount Zion in Jerusalem—the only proper place, they believed, where they could worship God in peace and joy.

But eventually, their sin brought destruction upon this land. Judah had become a nation of people that no longer loved God with all their heart and soul and might. They became self-centered and heartless. They followed after other gods and this caused them to lose their passion for justice. No one cared about their neighbors anymore—they wouldn’t listen to God. And so God allowed the Babylonians to come and conquered them. Thousands and thousands of Judah’s most prominent inhabitants were taken away to Babylonia to live in exile. Scattered, weary, restless and vulnerable, they longed for home. And now 49 years later, the prophet promises them something astonishing.

Jeremiah’s prophesy for them is very powerful—especially as we consider the context of their sorrow at being so broken and so far from home. And what does God say to these weary people? What message does Jeremiah deliver? “For thus says the Lord,” our first reading says, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob and raise shouts for the chief of nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.’” (31:1)

What? How in the world would these depressed exiles go about singing aloud, with gladness no less? It seems impossible that God could turn them around so dramatically. They were probably quite upset with God for letting this happen to them, now they are supposed to sing praises? But remember it was their sin that has brought them this ruin, not God’s vengeance. And what does God do for these sinful people in the darkness of their exile? God says, “with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble...for the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.” (31:9, 11) God’s response to their sin is grace. God comes to them in their darkness with forgiveness! That’s the kind of God God is.

And not only does God restore them to their homeland as Jeremiah’s prophesy foretold, but they are blessed with great abundance. Their lives “become like a watered garden.” (31:12) What a wonderful image of new life: “a watered garden.” This time of year, gardening seems like a distant memory but think of it for a moment—the beautiful sights and smells of a freshly watered garden. You can almost hear the plants growing. IThe rich new life of a watered garden is a wonder to behold. And so is the life of the Judeans. In due time, they are allowed to return home and their mourning is turned into joyful dancing—their sorrow into gladness. And they are satisfied with the bounty of their forgiving Lord.

But you see, my fear is that we will sit here this morning and not realize that Jeremiah’s prophesy also applies to us. The loneliness of exile did not end forever when the Judeans were returned to their home in 538 BC. The darkness of this world continues to pull God’s people away from the light. We know what it is to live in a changing, violent, unbelieving world with the good old days irretrievably lost—to feel alone and misunderstood and far away from home.

God’s restorative actions didn’t end with the return of the Judeans from Babylonia either. God reached out to us with forgiveness and restoration in the most ultimate way with the birth of that little child, who’s birth we have just celebrated. What came into being in the Christ child was life and that life was the light of all people—the light that came to destroy the veil of darkness that keeps us lonely and separate from God. John’s gospel reminds us that Christ’s light that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. And what do all these fancy phrases from the gospel really mean? They mean that Jesus has come to lead us home—and I am not talking about the kind of home where relatives argue and Christmas presents don’t fit and the turkey gets burned. I am talking about that deep sense of peace we yearn for in our heart of hearts. I am talking about our lives being a watered garden of new life and growth. Christ has come into the world to make that image a reality.

Out of God’s fullness, we are given grace upon grace, and so we must believe it. It is really easy to look around at all the problems of our modern culture and feel hopeless. Even Christians can lose their idealism when we are confronted with the heartaches and injustices of our world. In our own way, we know what it is to feel like exiles! How can we find our way home amidst all this? We must step out in faith. We must take the risk to believe that God’s Word is true. We must follow the prophet’s instructions to: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob and raise shouts for the chief of nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people.’” For God can deliver us from hands too strong for us.

All throughout history, God was faithful to the covenant of love God made with Moses and the Israelites. And Jeremiah tells us how God made that same covenant even more intimate by writing it upon the people’s hearts so that they would all know God deep within their hearts and they would be able to love the Lord their God with all their heart and all their soul and all their might—no matter how far away they had strayed. And in Christ, God’s covenant of love came to blossom as God personally became human to bear our sins for us.

That grace-filled act still calls out to us today as we celebrate the Christmas season. God’s love reaches out to us in our modern context and it calls us out of the distraction and despair. It calls us to believe in a better world—a world of peace and justice where people show their love for God by caring for one another. That kind of world is the home we long for. And that kind of home is not in the past, but in the future. We must believe it it so firmly that we act as if it is already true. This is what’s known as believing the future into being. This is the season of light. The light is shining in the darkness. God’s light has dawned upon our exiled world. Let us dare to believe it and embrace the peace that will lead us home.

© 2009 Laura Gentry

IT'S ALL "US"

A Sermon for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Laura Gentry

Ephesians 2:11-22

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

There was a young man who was an All-American football player in college and then went on to play professional football for a few years. After a brief career, he came back to his alma mater as an assistant coach. One of his main responsibilities was to go and recruit players the team. Before he made his first recruiting trip, he went in to visit with the head coach—the same coach for whom he had played when he was in college.

The head coach was a serious old guy with a raspy voice from all the years he’d yelled at players. He had held that position as head coach for many years, was widely known and highly respected all across the country. The new young coach said to him, “Coach, I’m about to head out on my first recruiting trip, but before I go I want to be sure that you and I on the same page. Tell me, Coach, what kind of player do you want me to recruit?”

The old coach leaned back in his chair. He looked the young coach straight in the eyes and said: “Son, I’ve been at this job a long time and over the years I have noticed that there are several different kinds of players. For example, there are some players who get knocked down and they stay down. That’s not the kind we want!” He said, “And then there are find some players who get knocked down and they get right back up only to get knocked down again and then they stay down. That’s not the kind we want!”

And then the old coach went on: “And then there are some players who get knocked down and they get knocked down and they get knocked down, and every time they get knocked down, they get right back up!”

At this point, the young coach got excited and he said, “Now, that’s the kind of player we want, isn’t it, Coach?”

“No!” said the old head coach. “We want the one doing all that knocking down!!”

Now in today’s epistle lesson, the Apostle Paul is talking about this kind of incessant knocking down, but he’s not talking about knocking down people—like in football—he’s talking about knocking down the walls that divide people from one another.

Paul, you see, was born into an “us” and “them” world. There were two, very distinct camps: the Jews—that is, the chosen people of God, to whom God had been revealed and had given all the promises of Hebrew Scriptures—and the Gentiles—that is, everybody else. In his worldview, the Jews were “us,” and the Gentiles, clearly, were “them.” Until Paul’s conversion to Christianity, he was so set on the wall between them that he persecuted everyone who wasn’t a Jew and even killed them. So the writer of today’s scripture understands how walls work.

Some things never change. Nineteen hundred years later, the English writer Rudyard Kipling said, “East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” He wasn't just saying that to sound poetic, even though it does (especially the twain part). Kipling was reflecting the reality of the world in which he lived. He fully understood that there is something deep in human nature that makes us want to divide the world into us and them—that causes us to choose sides, to draw dividing lines, and to build up walls, walls we will defend with our very lives.
There are so many ways in which we do this! Our society has endless barriers and walls that divide us such as cultural background, nationality, race, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, political party, favorite sports team and so forth. We even divide ourselves up based on the kind of car we drive. We have barriers between Christians—perhaps the most of all. I can’t tell you how many people refer to different Christian denominations as different “religions.” We aren’t of different religions! We are all of the Christian religion—we share the same Lord, Jesus Christ. Even within the ELCA, we build walls that divide us as we struggle to find God’s truth on various theological and social issues that confront our church. In fact, the churchwide assembly is going to be next month: August Aug. 17-23. Because there are so many controversial issues on the table, the Bishop has invited the whole church into 50 days of prayer for wisdom, discernment and unity. Obviously, unity is a big challenge for our church. It's still a world of us versus them.

As humans, we are really good at building walls—both physical and philosophical ones. Some of them have names: the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall. We all remember the historical speech of President Reagan's when he challenged the Russian leader about the Berlin Wall. He emphatically said: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” I remember visiting that wall when I was a little girl and seeing the fences within fences surrounding the walls with gunmen sitting on towers. I remember hearing my relative recount—with tears streaming down his face—how he had escaped East Germany with bullets whizzing past him as he swam to safety but how he was, then, separated from his friends and family. I never thought that wall would come down in my lifetime. And yet it did! Shortly after I’d graduated from high school, it was dismantled and people all over the world grabbed pieces of it as souvenirs to take home—each stone a powerful symbol that walls CAN be torn down.

This is good news because walls are not God’s intention. Christ came to build bridges, not walls. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we read, “He has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,” wrote the great American poet Robert Frost. We could add to that statement: someone there is who doesn't love a wall. That someone is Jesus Christ—the one who came to knock down the dividing walls of our world.

As Christians, then, it is our job to continue that work; to be like that football player who is doing all that knocking down. We are to knock down walls wherever we see them and to be very careful that we don’t contribute to building and maintaining them—which is all to easy to do. We need to examine our lives and our hearts to find those invisible but very real barriers that we place between ourselves and our fellow human beings—setting up the old us and them scenario again. Our fearful, sinful self is all too eager to do this.

“East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,” just isn't okay. Paul explains that in Christ, we have been saved by grace and therefore, we have all been given peace that makes us one. He writes it this way: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (3:28) In a world that constantly encourages the us and them mentality, the Christian message is radical—it declares that there is no them. Them is a myth. There is only us—we are all in the same boat, all members of the same body with Christ as the head. It reminds me of a bumper sticker I have. It says: “God bless everybody. No exceptions.”

Paul goes on to say that we are to be “one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace,” For Christ himself is our peace and it is he who makes us one. There is NO us and them. There is only us and Christ is Lord of us all.

But do we live like this is a reality? Think about times when you’ve seen others knocking down dividing walls. What a miraculous thing it is. How can you do this too? How can you build bridges instead of walls? How can you connect with people that you consider them instead of excluding these children of God? What can you personally do to promote Christian unity and peace in our world? These are questions which Paul urges us to ask of ourselves day after day, that we may be moved by the Spirit to positive action for the sake of the kingdom.

Let us pray: O God you have made all your people one and sent your Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you. Pour out your Spirit upon ALL your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

WHEN BEING RIGHT IS WRONG

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
February 1, 2009
Pastor Laura Gentry

1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him. Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "no idol in the world really exists," and that "there is no God but one." Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as in fact there are many gods and many lords-- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. "Food will not bring us close to God." We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall. (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

There’s an old story about a man who was put on a very strict diet—he was to have no sweets and very little fat. And everything went well for him for the first week. Then one morning, he showed up at work with a large, decadent, half-eaten coffee cake. One of his co-workers questioned him, “I thought you were on a diet?”

“Oh, I am,” he replied, “but this is a very special coffee cake because God wanted me to have it.”

“God wanted you to have it?” the coworker asked skeptically.

“Well yes, I was driving down the street minding my own business this morning, when I heard this coffee cake calling out to me from the window of the bakery I was passing. It called and called, ‘buy me, buy me.’ So I prayed to God and said, ‘God, if you really want me to have that coffee cake who is calling out to me, let there be an open parking spot right in front of the bakery.’ And you know, sure enough, on the fifth time around the block, there was an empty parking spot right there in front of the bakery!”

Many of us have been on diets and have struggled to avoid those tempting treats that seem to call out to us. Yet, we would rarely consider our diet a religious issue as the man in the story with the coffee cake did.

But that’s exactly what is going on in our second lesson for today from First Corinthians. The issue was not about losing weight, however, it was about losing faith. You see, most of the meat available at the local butcher shops was leftover from sacrificial ceremonies in pagan temples. What do you do with all those sacrificed animals? You sell it for meat. Therefore, trying to find non-pagan meat was difficult. It’s not like your waitress would say to you, “Hamburger, and a large Coke, okay...oh, did you want that burger pagan or non-pagan?” It would be kind of like trying to find a meatless steak at Sizzler—believe me, I know how difficult that can be. Non-pagan meat was simply hard to come by. But according to the Jerusalem agreement (Acts 15:29) Gentile Christians were supposed to abstain from meat sacrificed to these gods because it was considered idolatry.

Now this may sound like a little technicality, a silly issue to you and me. But to the Christians in Corinth, it was a huge matter. Corinth, you must understand, was a dominantly pagan city. The Christians were the minority in this culture. It was a large metropolitan area in the center Greece that was known for its wealth and its impropriety. On a hill overlooking the city, there was a temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. It is said that there were about a thousand prostitutes who worked out of the temple. And in addition to the prostitution, there was an abundance of alcohol abuse. Indeed, Corinth was “Sin City” in those days.

Many Christians in Corinth were converts from paganism. And for them, to eat meat which had been sacrificed to the pagan idols was a big struggle. It made them feel like they were slipping back into their old religion—that they were moving away from the God of Israel and back into their pagan ways. And of course, being a Christian requires that you give all your allegiance to God, not to any “false gods” and certainly not to any idols of the pagan religions. To do this, the Christian converts simply had to stay away from all thing pagan, including the bargains at the pagan meat counter.

Meanwhile, however, there was another group of Christians in Corinth. They believed they had every right to eat this meat. Why? Because, they claimed, these idols do not really exist, only God does. So, therefore, food sacrificed to them has not meaning. There is only one God, so what’s the problem? “We can eat it and it doesn’t compromise our faith one bit!” they argued. Since they were so strong in their faith, they didn’t have the issues with pagan meat that the new Christians did.

So all of this led to a division in the Christian church. Can you imagine that— Christians having differing opinion about matters of faith? Indeed, Christians have always had trouble navigating the do-s and don’t-s of the faith. So the Apostle Paul is called upon to help them figure out how to solve this disagreement. That’s what today’s scripture is: a letter Paul wrote to these Christians of Corinth. He explains that yes, the strong Christians are right: the idols don’t exist and since there is only one God, there is no real harm in eating this food. But he goes on to explain that they are also wrong. Because they are eating meat sacrificed to idols, and oftentimes they are eating it right in the pagan temples, they are leading others astray. These new Christians see them doing so and feel that perhaps it is okay to stray from the Christian faith and return to pagan worship. So, Paul plainly states: by having such great knowledge, by being right, you are wrong because you are leading people astray. Thus—and I love this part—he arrives at a vegetarian conclusion to the problem. He writes: “If food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” Isn’t that great?

But actually, I must admit, the modern application of this teaching has nothing to do with meat. We no longer have the issue of meat sacrificed to idols. But we do still face the issue of the secular world being pressing in on our Christian faith, just as the Corinthians did. What worldly activities can we safely participate in without compromising our faith?

What we must remember is that what’s okay for you might not be okay for someone else. So Paul urges us to really examine what we do. “Are my behaviors becoming of a Christian?” We must ask ourselves. “How does it look to others? Might it lead them to stray from their faith?”

But then you may say that if we refrain from every activity that might lead someone into sin, we’d end up locked away doing nothing and then we’d have no ability to witness to the Gospel! And Paul would have agreed with that. We are bound to offend someone at some point, even if we are trying not to. So are there some hard and fast rules about what we can and cannot do as Christians so that if we just stick to them we’ll be okay? If only it were that easy! Paul believed that each Christian should use his or her own judgment on these matters. “Let everyone be convinced in their own mind.” He writes in Romans 14:5. In each circumstance of life, we are to be sensitive to the needs of others around us and make a judgment call about what behaviors would be appropriate to engage in and what would not be.

Really, what this all boils down to is love. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” If we go around smugly doing what we believe is theologically and morally permissible based upon our great wealth of knowledge, we could be hurting others in the process. Exercising our rights as a Christian could well wrong another. It is not being right that counts—for there are times when being right is wrong. What is important is our love and concern for others, especially others who do not share our values and perspectives. God deals so graciously with us; and so in turn, we are to be gracious toward others.

The only problem with this is that love is difficult. There is a Buddhist saying that goes: “He who loves 50 people has 50 woes. He who loves no one has no woes.” So love is woe? I’m afraid so.

We have trouble loving. It’s hard to love others and it’s hard to love ourselves. The spiritual teacher Pema Chodron wrote: “The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.” His point is that to be open and loving with others requires being open and loving with ourselves—looking upon ourselves as God looks upon us.

When we can do this, we find that love is joy. It is the whole thing. When we come to die and we look back at our lives, what we’ll be able to hold onto is the love we have given and received. Everything else pales in comparison. That’s why Jesus came to show us how to love. And that’s why Paul urges us to use our Christian freedom in a way that is loving. Even though we have to curb our behavior, it is worth it. What matters is not how much we know, but how much we love.


Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

© 2009 Laura E. Gentry

YOU CALLED ME

A Sermon for the second Sunday after Epiphany

by Pastor Laura Gentry 

1 Samuel 3:1-10 • Psalm 139 • John 1:43-51

It was back in 1973 that Motorola unveiled the prototype of the world's first portable cellular telephone. Portable, of course, is a debatable claim as the phone weighed almost two pounds and spanned a foot in length. Oh, and did I mention that it cost $3,995?

It wasn’t until 1983 that cell phones became commercially available. At first, they were just for wealthy dignitaries and drug dealers. No one ever thought they’d catch on with the rest of the population. Why would normal people want to be accessible at all times? That sounded absurd.

But today, over 260 million Americans have cell phone service—that’s more people than have land lines—and they spend, on average, seven hours a month talking on them. These wireless devices keep changing to keep up with the demand. Nowadays, you are considered prehistoric if your phone doesn’t include a video camera and allow you to surf the web.

We are more “connected” than ever before. Our friends and family members can reach us just about any time any where. We have the technology that makes communication more convenient than we could have imagined 35 years ago when the first cell phone debuted. But are we really more connected? Are we really listening to each other? Are we really listening to God?

Today’s scripture lessons contain stories of call. No, not cell phone calls, but divine calls. God reaches out and calls people to action.

From the Old Testament lesson, comes the call story of little Samuel. This boy is a miracle baby. His parents waited so long for him, wondering if he’d ever show up. When he does, they are so pleased with God’s gift that they dedicate him to service in the Temple. It is here, in the Temple, that Samuel hears God’s voice.

God calls him by name: “Samuel, Samuel!”

The boy replies, “Here I am. You called me.” But what the child does not realize, at first, is that the voice is God’s. He thinks it is the voice of his sleeping mentor, Eli. I’m sure it would take you by surprise, too, if you heard God calling your name in the night. It is not always easy to discern the voice of God.

Eli helps Samuel to understand that this quiet, persistent call is coming from God. Here in this dark place, God has chosen to show up and to stir Samuel to action—action that will renew the whole nation.

Then in the Gospel lesson, we hear the call of Nathaniel. Philip invites him to follow the one from Nazareth.

“Nazareth?” Nathaniel protests, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Again, the divine call does not meet with people’s expectations. Nathaniel has all kinds of prejudices against Nazareth and is unable to believe that the Savior could be hiding out in such a loathsome town. Fortunately, Philip presses him to check it out anyway.

“Come and see!” he urges.

And sure enough, Nathaniel comes and sees and is transformed by the call of Jesus.

So the question for us to look at upon hearing these stories, is how might God be calling you and me? This call is not ordinarily as obvious as a cell phone call or the callings Samuel and Nathaniel experienced. But as baptized children of God, we can be sure the call is being issued nevertheless. In a still, small voice, God is calling us to an important mission.

The Psalmist understands this intimately. In today’s reading, we heard these amazing words:

“O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me…. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.” (Psalm 139:1-5, 13-14, NRSV)

During my sister’s first pregnancy, I read that the ancients used to acknowledge the sacred state of maternity by giving pregnant women amulets to wear—little pendants with important verses of scripture. They believed in the importance of keeping scripture ever a part of their lives by having it physically manifest on their person, especially when the miracle of new life was happening within. So I went to the mall and picked out a silver pendant for my sister, upon which I had them engrave part of verse 14: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Kathy wore it throughout both of her pregnancies as a constant reminder of the incredible work that God was doing to create her children.

Do we recognize just how fearfully and wonderfully each one of us was made? Do we perceive the ever present hand of God in our lives—who was with us from the time before we were born? No matter what we are going through, we can be assured of the powerful presence of the Lord. We can hold fast to the knowledge that we are a wonderful work of God who is loved more than we could ever fathom.

And this God calls to us. When we sit down and when we rise up, when we go to the grocery store and when we shovel the walk, when we watch tv and even when we do a crossword puzzle. Wherever we go, whatever we do, regardless of how mundane it may seem, God is with us and every moment is sacred.

Yet we toss this sacredness aside when we fail to listen to God’s call. We cannot afford to do this because God has plans for our lives—exciting plans to give our lives meaning and purpose. At the end of Jesus’ conversation with Nathaniel, he says “you will see heaven open and God’s angels ascending and descending.”

This truth is artistically depicted on the front of the cathedral of Bath, England. I was so impressed by it when I saw it my junior year of college. There are stone carvings of two giant ladders that stretch from the top of the front doors to the roof. There are angels all over the ladder. At first glance they look very heavenly and serious, but upon closer inspection you can see some humorous variations. Some are contentiously climbing upward, while others are tenuously looking over their shoulder as if looking for reassurance that they’re doing it right. And there are some who look downright lost, discombobulated, upside down and barely hanging on to the ladder by their toes.

You see, those angels ascending and descending that Jesus talks about are you and me. We are the ones called to be the bridge—to bring the joys of heaven to earth by our Spirit-filled living. That’s our calling. God wants us to be like Philip and bring others to Christ. We are expected to say “come and see,” not just with our words but with all of our lives.

But like the angels on the Bath cathedral, we don’t always get it right. Some days we don’t feel like we’re good mentor for others—we feel like we’re just hanging on to the Christian life by our toes. Still, God continues to call us to this mission. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and not only that, we are assisted by the Holy Spirit. We CAN do it! We ARE connected. God calls us day and night—and this is a call we don’t even need battery power to receive.

And so as we hear God's call today, may we answer enthusiastically answer with Samuel, “Here I am. You called me.”

© 2009 Rev. Laura E. Gentry