Chris Yaw

God is absolutely obsessed with us. God spends all day and all night thinking about us. There is not one moment in God’s day in which God is not 100% focused on us. God spends every waking moment contemplating what we’re doing and where we’re going.

And God’s awareness of our ups and downs has given us some of the most profound stories about how God, and the world, works. We call them parables.

This Sunday we’ll hear 5 of them. They’re anecdotes taken from everyday life that tell us how God’s deepest desire - to walk and talk with us – actually fulfills our deepest desires. Jesus’ story – about His desperate love for the world – is a story He longs to tell and re-tell through the average, the everyday, and the mundane.

What would our lives be like if we thought about God as much as God thinks about us? Or what would they be like if we looked at the everyday things all around us and let God talk to us through them? What would it be like if we understood that every arrival, departure, conversation, and interaction had a message?

Jesus found deep insight into God simply by looking around Him and letting God talk. I bet we can too.

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Reading

Radical – David Platt

God is Back – Micklethwaite and Wooldridge

A Place Called Freedom – Ken Follett

Why doesn’t God do something?

Whether it’s about dictators who slaughter innocents, politicians who can’t find budget compromises, or media folk who condone dishonest newsgathering to pad the bottom line. Is the Almighty paying any attention? What is God waiting for?

We get some insight this Sunday when we hear Jesus tell a parable. It’s about God planting seeds during the day, then an enemy sneaking around at night and planting weeds on top of them. When the sabotage is discovered, we hear that the Lord doesn’t pull up all the plants, but allows the good plants and the weeds to grow side by side until the harvest. Judgment is not immediate. Harsh transgression is not met with instant chastisement. And that can really bother us.

How many of us yearn to see the backstabber at the office found out - and that sleazy acquaintance who’s sleeping around, finally discovered? And when it doesn’t happen we get angry, discouraged, and frustrated. But while Jesus may not offer a detailed explanation, He makes it clear that this won’t go on forever. There will be an end, a judgment, a reward for those who live for God.

To live for God, then, is to understand that God’s time is not our time. It is to be patient, faithful, and ever-mindful of the reality of God right beside us, right now. God is doing something. God is not absent. God is not missing. God waits. Can we?

Reading

Climb Higher – Kristine Miller

Beginner’s Grace – Kate Braestrup

A Place Called Freedom – Ken Follett

Acre after acre of knee-high cornstalks, line up in attention like white crosses at Arlington, reaching for nutrients they know they will get. Both above and beneath, the soil-water-sunshine combo will nurture the genetically modified seed whose corporate inventor still reaps the royalties, at least that’s what that Monsanto sign up front probably means.

Massive wheeled watering systems will tentacle out over the plains to sprinkle just the right amount of water at just the right time, all according to the bioengineering department’s calculations. Meanwhile the multi-million dollar fleet of combines perches like lions behind coliseum gates, ready to pounce with precision on a fairly predictable abundance.

Modern agriculture has every reason to scoff at a biblical image of a Sower whose farming techniques lack such precision - a fist-full of precious seeds on the rocks, another on the hard path, how about some in the thorn patch? But the Sower cares not about the sowing, all that matters is the reaping! ‘Be good soil!’ goes the message, ‘Be one who hears, understands, and yields 30, 60, even 100 fold, for the fickle, worldly-minded, and easily distracted yield nothing.’

Cultivate the ‘good soil’ in ourselves is the message. But how do we do that? We suspect that raking out the hard path, clearing the rocks and removing thorns are what’s needed. It may mean dealing with the bitterness, laziness, and restlessness and lifting up a mindfulness, prayerfulness, and farmer’s work ethic that enrich and revitalize.

So in these quieter summer months, how might we cultivate good soil? What does good soil look like? What needs to be cleared away, what needs to be added? What do we need to hear and understand to yield 30, 60, even 100 fold?

Reading

God is Back – Micklethwait and Wooldridge

The Third Twin – Ken Follett

How to Build an Engaged Congregation - Winesman

Is there a God? What is God like? What are God’s plans?

Questions like this have been keeping people like us searching and probing since humanity was first given consciousness. For some of us, these eternal questions carry great weight. Some psychologists describe a ‘God shaped hole’ inside humans that yearns for spiritual fulfillment. Throughout history we have found a myriad of ways of filling this void. The most popular has been Christianity, which, like many world religions, continues to grow because it provides satisfactory answers to these profound questions.

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, the only Christian feast that is not centered on an event or person – rather a theological doctrine – a description, if you will, of who this God is that lies at the heart of Christianity. This is the Sunday many Christians ponder elemental questions of who God is and what God is like.

First, we will hear a reading from Genesis in which God’s litany to the breadth of Creation is that, ‘It is good.’ Then we hear a reading from Matthew in which Jesus promises never to leave us, but to be with us, ‘to the end of the age.’ We rightly conclude, then, that God is fundamentally pleased with Creation – with you and with me. And God is desirous of our company, never wanting to leave our sides. Though the changes and chances of life often leave us suspect of these conclusions, Trinity Sunday serves to remind us of God’s high regard for our lives – and deep desire to accompany us through whatever comes our way.

We are emboldened for our task by the witness of God’s approval of our humanity – and the Lord’s abiding friendship in our every endeavor. What task are we facing that is calling forth courage? What challenge are we contemplating that we simply cannot face alone? The nature of Our God is one that encourages us for the task ahead and promises we will not face it by ourselves. Be of good God courage then, for the One who loves us is always with us.

Reading

Faith, Reason, and Justice – Paul Tillich

Thieves in the Market – G. Jeffrey MacDonald

A Ray of Darkness – Rowan Williams

Pentecost, the birthday of the church, when everyone wears red, and where all reds are welcome! Oh, and also yellows, blacks and whites! Or to use Bible language, Elamites, Pamphylilans, Cretans, even Ohioans! It’s Christianity’s Oscars and Emmys – a chance for us to celebrate our profession, our calling, our great institution! The Church! So we call upon our Trinity Trio to languish and luxuriate in the perfection they hath wrought!

But this can only last so long before someone figures out not everything smells so sweet in Farmville. Red is also the color of stop signs! Along with our celebration comes evaluation, even investigation – as we consider that Jesus just may be telling us what he told those first Pentecostals, “Hey, I see what you’re doing, yep it’s broken, but I’m going to fix it!”

The Church is broken? A Problem on Pentecost? Say it ain’t so!

We more than suspect that North American Christianity has become a consumer commodity. We notice that people shop for faith communities that make them feel comfortable instead of spiritually challenged. We consider that in 1955 only 4% of Americans switched religious affiliations in their lifetimes, today it’s 44%. When asked why, people say it’s because they found something they liked better. This is not to say switching is always bad, but it is to say it always has consequences.

This Pentecost we consider that the Church’s biggest temptation may be for us to become a business. While the government calls us one (501c3!), God doesn’t. We know that we are not here to satisfy wants, but to transform them. We are not here to cultivate desires, but to make them holier. We are here to help people rise above our lower natures and care deeply about higher things – like the needs of the less fortunate, and the rights of the marginalized. These are tough sells. We see why Jesus got so mad in the marketplace.

So while this Sunday is foremost a celebration it does not come without our serious consideration that we’ve become more self-indulgent than self-sacrificing - complacent and immune to the call to leave behind everything for the cause of Christ. So let us pray for a mighty rushing wind and tongue-talkers to shake us up! Let us pray for a return to our distinct calling! Let us root ourselves even more deeply in our call to be a particular people in a particular place, cultivating our own culture, living lives of sacrifice, holiness, and genuine concern for the world.

Reading

Thieves in the Temple – G. Jeffrey MacDonald

The Gospel of Inclusion – Carlton Pearson

Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths – Karen Armstrong

Ever wonder what’s on God’s To-Do List?
We can imagine a big part of it is devoted to processing the millions of petitions the Almighty receives each day – from the sick in Senegal, the hungry in Hoboken, the desperate in Darfur – ethical queries from pregnant teens, detailed explanations from accident victims, and requests for winning lottery numbers from yours truly.

But not infrequently we also imagine a fair share of requests from Jesus. Yes, the Bible suggests Jesus is asking God to do things for us. And we wonder what Jesus is asking God to do for you and me? What are His priorities for us?

In the 17th Chapter of John’s Gospel, which we’ll hear this Sunday, we hear how Jesus prays for those who follow Him. And we notice He doesn't pray for healing, or Cadillacs, or even a smooth ride on life's roller coaster.

Jesus prays that we would be one with Him. His priority is that our wills would be the same as His will. He prays that our goals and aspirations and life focus would be on knowing God – and, thus, working for the reconciliation of the world. Many of us wonder why our prayers for that bad ankle, that new job, or more civilized children, never seem to get answered. Maybe it's because that’s not the priority – rather, prayers that move circumstances that better shape us into the kinds of people we, deep down, truly desire to be, may be carrying the day.

Jesus is listening to our prayers – He is closer than a brother – when our desires aren’t met – when our prayers aren’t being heard – we may want to ponder God’s priorities and our priorities, where they meet, and how we might work to bring them together.

Reading
Love, Power and Justice – Paul Tillich
Tattoos on the Heart – Greg Boyle
Radical – David Pratt

One day, during our courtship, my wife and I were walking along the shores of Lake Michigan – headed back from a weekend in Chicago. It was a gorgeous fall day – empty beach, but still sunny and warm. And as we walked hand in hand, the lapping waves at our feet, we turned to each other and I said to her for the first, but not the last time, “Honey, you’re my soul mate.”

This is often considered a more powerful comment than simply ‘I love you’ because it implies is a depth of oneness that could only have been achieved after a monumental separation. It is a way of expressing a depth of love based on a reunion, of sorts, in which souls knitted together at one point, separated, but then found one another once again. Paul Tillich famously said that love is the drive toward the unity of the separated – or as the country singer riffs, ‘how can I miss you if you never go away?’

And this aspect of love is an operating theme in this Sunday’s Bible passage from John’s Gospel. In it, Jesus is trying to reassure a skittish and anxious band of followers – that He is leaving, but has gone ahead of them to prepare a place, to send His Spirit, and that their forthcoming separation bodes well for them – as love manifests its greatest power by overcoming its greatest separation.

In other words, when you and I walk in the commandments of God, in word and deed, continuing in our faith that love is at the core of the universe, we stay faithful to this separation knowing that, the estranged strive for reunion, that one day that day will come, our eternal oneness will be fulfilled, and everything we do in love, in the meantime, will only make that blessed reunion sweeter.

Reading
Love, Power and Justice – Paul Tillich
Tattoos on the Heart – Gregory Boyle
How They Did It – Robert Jordan

Not long ago researchers claimed that the most frequently used word non-Christians use to describe Christians is judgmental. And a Bible verse we’ll hear on Sunday doesn’t help matters.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – says Jesus - and in our increasingly secular society it sounds downright judgmental for us to claim these familiar words. How do contemporary, conscientious believers, who value acceptance, tolerance, and openness deal with an exclusivistic verse like this? Is Jesus really saying that the billions and billions of people who have not known or followed Jesus have no access to God – or the afterlife? Is God’s first nature really as a judge? Then doesn’t it make sense for ours to be as well?

1 John 4:8 has another take, the writer simply says, “God is love.” If God is love and Jesus is God then here’s another way to make sense of this verse:
“Love is the way, love is the truth, Love is the life. No one comes to the Father except through Love.” The implications are worth pondering.

And so is humanity’s primeval attraction to exclusivism as no more than a by-product of our own latent fears and insecurities – rather than a reflection of the central message of the Bible. Let’s leave the judging to God and get on with the more difficult work of the Gospel, loving God, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Reading:
How to Deal with Difficult Behavior – Cindy Hampel
Branded Nation – James Twitchell
How They Did It – Robert Jordan

The notion that Christianity is all about a soft-focus Jesus who
protects, feeds and shelters the fragile is one of the predominate
images we find every spring when Good Shepherd Sunday comes around –
just Google it and see. It’s become an attractive picture for us to
see Jesus’ work in the world as nothing more than footprints in the
sand as He carries us when we cannot carry ourselves. But we suspect
that any notion of a comfy, cushy Jesus without a cross to carry or a
burden to take means there’s something missing – something essential
missing.

After all, shepherds don’t raise sheep for fun - they raise sheep for
wool. They lead them, feed them, and protect them because they expect
something from them. When the sheep pass through the sheep gate it’s
not always to get a good night’s sleep. Once a year, it’s about
getting sheared. It’s about getting pinned down, shocked, scared, and
forced to give up their most valuable possession. Then being
released, dazed and confused, to try to put their lives back together
again. Sure the Shepherd knows every sheep by name and obsesses over
the humane treatment of His little ones, but the Shepherd’s love is
equally given to those who are not in His flock - those shivering in
the cold, quivering on the margins, in desperate need of the gifts his
flock might give.

Following the Shepherd, then, isn’t mainly about personal fulfillment;
its about universal sacrifice. We are called to play a laboriously
vital role in God’s redemption, reconciliation, and provision for the
world. How are we getting sheared today? Can we see that it’s part
of following the Shepherd? How are we being called to move beyond
Christianity as therapy – and into the depths of self-sacrifice that’s
essential for being counted as one of the sheep?

Reading
Branded Nation – James Twitchell
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
The Gospel of John – NT Wright

The death of international terrorist Osama bin Laden has evoked a breadth of emotions among Americans. The architect of the 9/11 tragedy inspired a legacy of fear that continues to affect every one of our lives. Friends or friends of friends died in the Twin Towers, countless soldiers and innocents have been killed in his pursuit these last ten years, and I can't go through airport security without blaming him for the hassle. We have all been affected by him - his twisted theology and the ruthless violence he has committed or inspired.

Today we find ourselves at a unique time in history where our brothers and sisters in many Arab countries are seeing the deep hunger for freedom, and the rejection of those who would take advantage of others, fuel a renewed vision for the triumph of good over evil. We are realizing anew our mutual convictions. We are rediscovering that our shared preference for liberty, peace, and progress are not necessarily mediated by those whose means include terror and hatred. We also share grief over the death of any human being - that there is no rejoicing in heaven over bin Laden's death, where all life is precious. We are awakening anew to the universality of humanity.

It is amidst the flag waving and cheering of the 'ding dong the wicked witch is dead!' variety (see photo) that we must then take pause and realize that this 'victory' is a shallow one. A terrorist has died, but terrorism and evil continue.

So maybe this event can remind us that one of the most productive ways we can honor the dead is to continue our labor for peaceful resolutions to conflict. As we sort through the array of emotions we're feeling may Christians and all persons of good will commit to working anew for an end to terrorism and the furtherance of peace, justice, and charity among all people.

Comprehending a resurrected Jesus who walks around with open wounds and has ready access to a Star Trek ‘Transporter’ is certainly one of the biggest challenges we face as we unpack this Sunday’s Gospel.

But the bigger challenge goes much deeper. As we know, Christianity is not about believing 6 impossible things before breakfast, rather it’s about a living, breathing, relationship with Jesus – something that the story of Doubting Thomas tells us all about.

After the resurrection, Jesus’ disciples were scared – locked up – fearful about what their allegiance to Christ might mean. Would they lose their families, their jobs, their lives? All because of Jesus? They feared the answer was ‘yes’ – as they sat, cooped up in some safe house, tired, hungry, and desperate - trying to figure it all out.

We all know that place. We’ve all lived in that place.

We modern day disciples also face the fear of going deeper with Christ. It’s not arrest and torture that scares us, it’s the loss of those things that brings us security, comfort, and peace. If we devote more of who we are to Jesus, will we too have to give up everything?

Maybe the question scares us because we don’t consider the whole answer. Christ appeared to Doubting Thomas to assure him that everything he’d heard about Jesus was true - that the powers of fear, worry, trepidation, death, and every evil force you and I can imagine, will lose. And that hope, mercy, compassion, love, and every good and perfect word and deed that we will ever witness, wins. The locked doors and safe houses of our minds are what Christ breaks into today to tell us that following Him may be scary, but that everything is going to me OK – that the Jesus way means that when it’s all over we will not discover that we lived our lives in vain, but that every sacrifice we’ve ever made for the sake of the cross, has been worth it

What’s keeping us from believing today?

What worries do we need to surrender?

In what ways might we move past doubt and go deeper with Christ?

The Misunderstood Jew – Amy-Jill Levine

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

How They Did It – Robert Jordan

The Feast of Catherine's Nativity began with the not so subtle corporeal alarms that routinely awaken expectant mothers who are past their due date. Mother was happy to have time to shower. Father was disappointed that the early morning race to the hospital prevented a more blatant (and widely witnessed) disregard for traffic laws.

Once at the hospital it was clear dear Catherine wanted out but a suitable exit route had not yet been established. A walk around the premises, an infusion of medication, and the sterling perseverance of her landlord would all play important roles. But first there was the matter of getting her untangled. In one of Mother Nature's macabre ironies, the very cord that gives life can also threaten to take it.

A rush of doctors, who had been remotely monitoring things, unexpectedly burst into the room. They began manipulating the dear girl in discomfiting ways, reporting on an alarming drop in heart rate, explaining emergency surgical options, and reminding us all of the fragility of bringing a child into the world, an exercise that, in too many countries, continues to kill more women than anything else.

Endlessly thankful for our place in the world, surrounded by the best in technology and medical training, the professionals got to work unbinding Catherine. Even more startling than the array of dreadful outcomes that pop into one's mind at times like this is the paucity of time needed to dream them up. Dear Catherine, however, soon decided to turn our urgent worry into needless concern when she graciously heeded the prompts, rolled over on her own, and freed things up to renew her life and ours.

On Holy Tuesday clergy traditionally take time to be with their bishops and colleagues in an annual renewal of their ordination vows. In preparation for the grandest feast in the Christian calendar is the idea that one's vocational identity be affirmed and renewed. We must regularly remind ourselves of who we are called to be and what we are called to do. What is good for priests is not a bad idea for everyone else, especially dads.

So as Catherine squirmed and squirreled her way into the new world, and seasoned priests processed down a cathedral nave, a mom and dad were given an unforgettable reminder of their call and responsibility - to nurture, cherish, safeguard, and love the gift of a precious little girl whose bright eyes, curious hands, and delicate smile just made this the best job in the entire world.

Chris Yaw

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