Writings

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Psalm 119:1-8

Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart,

who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways.

You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently.

O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes!

Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances.

I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.

Sermon-

On All Saints’ Sunday, we usually spend our time thinking about faithful people who have died. We read out loud the names of all our church members who have died this year. We remember the gifts they have shared with our church. We remember famous Christians who have died and are thankful for all they did for the church. We remember people from around the world who died in the last 12 months-ordinary people like us whose names we will never know. We remember our ancestors in the faith who boldly proclaimed the good news. All of these things are important and good to do. We should remember all of these people. Absolutely. Yet, this is only ⅓ of what we need to do today.

We need to remember the saints of the past.  This is part one. Part 2 of our task for today is looking around and seeing the saints with us today…ourselves, our church family, and the faithful around the world. Too often, we think the saints are the perfect people and we would never put ourselves in that category. The saints of God are everyone who tries to follow God. So, look around at all the saints here this morning.

And, we need to hope and pray for the saints who are not here yet-those faithful people who will keep the good news alive and strong long after we are all gone. We are charged to plant seeds-to pave the way for the future and prepare for the future saints even knowing we may never meet them. This is part three. When we focus on the past, present, and future saints, our vision is expanded and is closer to how God sees. Unfortunately, we struggle to look to the past, present, and future. More often, we get stuck in one or maybe two of these places and fail to see the rest.

For some of us, we fondly remember the good old days when… In the article, Developing a Missional Mindset by Don Detrick, he said this about churches. “When our memories of the past are more exciting than our vision for the future, we have begun to die.” This article was not telling us to abandon our past and look only to the future. It was urging us not to live in the past. When we spend all our time reminiscing, there is little time left to enjoy today or plan for the future.

For others of us, we look too much to the future-worried or wondering what will happen in 5, 10, 20 years. What is our 5 year plan? Where will we be in 10 years? These are important questions and need to be asked. When we get so excited or terrified about what is coming, we can neglect to see what is happening now or where we have been.

And others of us live only in the now. The present is all that matters because it is happening now. It is exciting, challenging, and always changing. We have no use for the past because it is over and no need for the future because it hasn’t happened yet!

Story is one way to help us to keep this three-fold focus. What is your story? From whom and where did you come? When did your ancestors first settle in this land? How did your parents meet? When and where were you baptized? This is part of your story. From your past and the past of your ancestors, you have become the you of today.

Speaking of the you of today-your story now includes-What do you enjoy doing today? Who are your friends and relatives who make life sweeter for you? How would you describe yourself-electrician, grandparent, student, cat lover, comedian, friend, disciple of Jesus? What do you do with your free time? How do you spend your money? What makes you laugh? These are the now parts of your story.

The future part of your story is still unfolding. What will you do in the coming days and years? What are you doing or have you done that will live on after you are gone? Some answers to this might be easy like children you’ve raised or books you’ve written. We do not know all the times and ways we have left impressions on people. Our future is part of our story. Our past, our present, and our future combine to become our story.

What about God’s story? This is the story our ancestors were commanded to pass on in our reading from Deuteronomy. They were commanded to observe the commandments and keep God’s story alive. The 10 Best Ways to Live are not something we memorize and then forget. They are how we live. We live them by loving God all the days of our lives. By writing God’s story on our hearts, so it is with us always. Tell them to the next generation-those who will follows us in the faith. We tell the stories of God when we are here at church and when we are not here (which is the majority of the time!)

God invites the Israelites to a new way a living, so “It may go well with them and their days may be long.” God doesn’t say life will be easy or exciting-instead God offers community and relationship. All Saints’ Sunday reminds us we do not journey alone. God is with us. Also, we are not the first saints on this journey. We are surrounded by such a great multitude of faithful people who have journeyed before us.

We need these saints of the past to remind us that while much of our life feels ordinary, God is still with us. It is in the dish washing and lawn mowing times of life that we can share and remember these stories of God. In the carpool lanes and grocery store aisles, we can pray for those around us that they may know the grace of God. God’s presence in the regular lives of faithful is summed up in the great All Saints’ Day hymn-I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.

I sing a song of the saints of God,

Patient and brave and true

Who toiled and fought and lived and died

for the Lord they loved and knew.

And one was a doctor and one was a queen

and one was a shepherdess on the green

They were all of them saints of God

and I mean, God help me to be one too.

They lived not only in ages past

There are hundreds of thousands still

They world is bright with the joyous saints

Who love to do Jesus’ will

You can meet them in school or in lanes or at seas

In church or in trains or in shops or at tea

For the saints of God are just folk like me

And I mean to be one too.

I remember singing this song with a great group of women-all of them old enough to be my grandmother at the women’s fellowship meetings when I was a child. We sang together-many songs including this one and when our worship and program time was over, we ate delicious desserts together. Each of these women knew my name and my story. They were interested in me and in telling me the faith stories that meant so much to them. When I sing this song, I remember those women and am grateful for their faith that they passed along to me.

If your story and God’s story seem separate or far apart, today is a great day to begin to weave them together. As you focus on your past, present, and future, God longs to be a part of it. And the saints gathered here want to know you better and join their stories with yours. When we link our stories together as Christians, we add in not only our stories, but the stories with all who have faithfully gone before us and those who will follow after us. Where else do you have the opportunity to form relationships with so many different and interesting people?
So, please tell the stories of our faith, and live our faith as we continue in the amazing tradition started by God, followed by our ancestors in the faith that will be carried on by generations of faithful in the future.Thanks be to God for all the saints. Amen.

A version of this sermon was originally preached at St. Giles Presbyterian Church on November 4, 2012.

Two saints in Edinburgh, Scotland in October, 2005.

To celebrate All Saints’ Day 2012, my congregation created memory pages. Each page had space for a picture, the name of the saint, one’s relationship to the saint, and a special memory. We hung purple ribbon on the walls of the sanctuary and affixed the memory pages to the ribbon. For a month, we were surrounded by pictures and memories of saints we had known and loved.

Here is the introduction to the hanging of the memory pages and the prayer we prayed together.

All Saints’ Day has always been one of my favorite church holidays. In recent years, it has become especially more important to me as more and more people I love have moved from saints on earth to saints triumphant. It is no longer an abstract holiday celebrating my ancestors in the faith. It is a day when I remember those who walked with me on my faith journey who are no longer walking with me on earth. Today is a day we remember those we love. Now, you are invited to go to one of the ribbons and hang up your memory page. When you are done, please return to your seat and we’ll pray together.
God of the ages, You know each of us and you know all who have ever lived and you love us all. Today, we give you thanks for those we love. For our family and friends still with us and the ones with You. For all your children remembered on the walls of our sanctuary, we say thank you. Thank you, God, for bringing them into our lives and us into their lives. Thank you for the laughter and good memories. Thank you for the friendship and love. Thank you for the time we shared together. Thank you, Gracious God, for giving us so many people who taught us about you, who loved us, who fed us your Word and delicious foods too. You know we love them and miss them. We remember and we say thank you, God. Amen.

One year ago, I was saying good-bye to the people with whom I had prayed, laughed, cried, grieved, grown, learned, eaten, worshiped, meetinged, retreated, camped, sang, holidayed, and worked for seven years. Seven years is a long time in ministry. New babies were born who were in elementary school by the time I left. Young children had entered the youth program. Those who started the youth program with me had moved onto college. Relationships changed as some people met and fell in love. Some people married and some people divorced. Some people who loved the church died and we grieved together and we remember them. Wonderful new people joined the church in those seven years. And some people left too. So much happened in those seven years.

Today, I’m preparing for a beginning. Starting on October 1, I will be the Director of Cooperative Youth Ministry at Christ Congregational Church (UCC) and Takoma Park Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). I’m looking forward to this new opportunity and the many possibilities ahead. I’m excited to focus my energy on youth! I’m ready to plan mission trips, Sunday night gatherings, retreats, and so much more.

Whenever I think of endings and beginning this quote from Hope Floats also comes to mind. “Beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will, too…”

I know that most of life is the ordinary or in between time, and yet today I’m thinking about how both endings and beginnings are an important part of our journey too.

Let us pray-

God of beginnings, endings, and all the times in between, I wonder what you were thinking as you created all that we know. Beginning are scary and exciting because a big blank space of possibility is before us. In moments of beginning, remind us we are your beloved and even if we fail you love us still.

Faithful God, Endings are hard. It hurts to say good-bye to those we love. We grieve endings. Let us grieve, Loving God, for some endings are forever and others were necessary. In moments of ending, remind us we are your beloved and even as our hearts break you love us still.

Eternal God, Much of our lives are the times in between-going to school or work or having nowhere to go, wondering what to eat for our next meal, paying bills, doing homework…In the midst of the ordinary, open our eyes to the extraordinary gift of life. Let us hear laughter and stories. Let us see smiles and tears. Let us smell bread breaking and flowers blooming. Let us taste foods that delight us. Let us feel love from you and all those we love. In the times between, remind us we are your beloved and everyday has the possibility of beginnings, endings, and ordinary times. Amen.

In 2006, I traveled with clergy from the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ to San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico for an education mission trip. For ten days, we learned from people and organizations working and living in this part of the world. While tidying my house as part of the KonMari method, I found notes I took on this trip.

Thursday 25 July 2006 Bible Study with Doris

Jeremiah 2: 14-19 and Isaiah 65: 20-25

How can one find balance? Balance doesn’t have to be a daily thing. You can’t have balance everyday. The goal is to have balance in God’s time. At time you need to be prophetic (like Jeremiah) and at other times you need to comfort (like Isaiah). What is God telling you to do now? The balance comes overall not daily.

These words from 9 years ago were new to me when I read them recently. I found affirmation and inspiration in the idea that to achieve balance does not mean we need to be all things in every moment. In God’s time and overall in our lives, we can strive for balance. At times, we will need to comfort those in need. At times, we will need to stand up and speak out for each other. At times, we will need to rest and renew ourselves. What a welcome message for our over-scheduled culture. God is not calling you to do everything now. God is calling you seek a balance overall about how you are living in the world.

Creating God, You didn’t create the whole world in one day. Why do we think we need to do everything in one day? Be with us as we seek to find balance in the way we live as your disciples. Give us a spirit of justice and compassion. Challenge us and soothe our hurts. Open our eyes to the beauty of your creation and the ways we are ruining it. Balance us, O God, for this journey is long. Amen.

Scriptures-Exodus 20:1-17 and Mark 10:17-27

As we ponder the ten commandments today, what do you think about them? What do they mean for you as a person of faith? Are they one more list of things to add to your already full to do list or are they life giving models for how God dreams we can live? Possibly they fall somewhere in between for you or maybe you rarely think about the 10 commandments.

Thomas Long said this in an article on the commandments, “In popular religious consciousness, the 10 commandments have somehow become burdens, weights, and heavy obligations. For many the commandments are encumbrances placed on personal behavior. Most people cannot name all ten, but they are persuaded that at the center of each one is a finger-wagging “thou shalt not.”¹ For others, the commandments are heavy yokes to be publically placed on the necks of rebellious society.”

Viewing the 10 commandments in this way as a burden or restraints around our necks, rules that must be followed or else, holds us back from living our lives in the way God intended. God gave us the gift of life, so not living our lives the best way possible is in fact, a sin. We sin when we live in fear of failure because we are not using the gifts God has graciously given us. If we spend all our time thinking about what we aren’t supposed to do, there is no time left to do anything. God wants us to live our lives, to see the beauty in creation, to build strong relationships, to help others live. We were created to do good and that is what the 10 commandments help us to do.

Let me briefly sketch the story that surrounds the commandments. As the book of Exodus begins, there arises in Egypt a king who didn’t know Joseph. Remember, Joseph had found favor with the Pharaoh when through Joseph God interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams. The Egyptians were saved from starving in years of drought and for this Joseph became the Pharaoh’s right hand man. When the book of Exodus starts, Joseph has been dead long enough that those in power no longer remember him or his technocolor dreamcoat. This leaves the Hebrew people vulnerable.

This new king noticed that the Israelite people outnumbered the Egyptians. With their great numbers will they soon become more  powerful than the King and his people? He decides to exercise his power in a decisive way. And so the Hebrew people were forced to work for the Egyptians. The work became more and more difficult until the Hebrew people were slaves in the land of Egypt.

God calls Moses to lead the people to freedom. God says to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

And God does just that. This is why today’s scripture began with these words, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” God begins this life-affirming set of instructions with a reminder to the people of where they have been, where they are now and how they got here. Even though they haven’t yet arrived in the Promised Land, they are no longer slaves and their new land, the land God promised, is coming soon.

The story is as simple as this. God sees our suffering. First, God frees us to new life and then God offers a new way to live. A life rooted in freedom with ways to live that will allow us to stay free. God gave us these commandments as a way to live in God’s promise of life for everyone. In my previous church, the chidren learned our faith stories by using Young Children in Worship by Sonja Stewart and Jerome Berryman.  This book calls the 10 commandments, The Ten Best Ways to Live. What if we stopped calling them the 10 commandments? Instead, we could call these life-giving, relationship-strengthening, community-building verses The Ten Best Ways to Live.

Would they sound easier, if they were worded in this way, “Because the Lord is your God, you are free not to need any other gods. You are free to rest on the seventh day; free to love your elders and keep them safe now as they protected you when you were young; free from the tyranny of lifeless idols and empty words; free from murder, stealing and covetousness as ways to establish yourself in the land.”¹

By the time God gives the 10 Best Ways to Live to Moses, God has been in relationship with humans long enough to know a lot about the way we operate. That is why these guidelines, instructions, commandments were not handed to the people as soon as they left Egypt. God knew the people had been forced to do things, told what to do for so long that they might just rebel if they were told what to do again even if God was offering something better. So after the people escaped there was a time of celebration – dancing and singing. As the people began their journey, God provides water and manna from heaven.

God was with them as they met up with people who lived in the land they were traveling through and as people had disputes with each other that Moses mediated. And finally, God knows the people are ready for some instructions, some guidance for their lives. And so God give them a better way to live, freedom. Not a to-do list or a list of laws or requirements to be a good person. God gives these best ways to live to those God loves, the people with whom God is in a relationship.

And our gospel reaffirms that these are the 10 Best Ways to Live. Jesus encourages a man who questions him to live the commandments. I’ve always struggled a bit with this man’s response, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Wow. We know the 10 Best Ways to Live are life enriching and we know they aren’t easy. I’m not sure anyone here today would say sure I’ve been faithfully following all 10 for years. And yet, even with this man’s faithfulness, Jesus says there is more to do and the man is unable to do that one last thing. Do not be discouraged when we cannot do one more thing for God or for each other because this week’s gospel passage ends with these words of hope “for God all things are possible.”

The 10 Best Ways to Live and Jesus’ call to follow him are offers of relationship. We are those with whom God wishes to be in relationship. How is your relationship with God? What, if anything, is holding us back from strengthening this relationship? It could be any number of things in these days of busyness and hurrying. So many things filled our lives that God gets pushed to the side. And sometimes the relationship is strained because of events in our lives-we wonder why this happened and where is God? Or your relationship with God may be great right now which still doesn’t mean you can stop thinking about it. Are you neglecting your relationship with God? If so, what can you do about it?

Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, An Altar in the World is filled with ordinary practices you can do with thoughtfulness while looking for God in our midst. In the introduction she says, “If you are tired of arguing about religion, tired of reading about spirituality, tired of talk-talk-talking about things that matter without doing a single thing that matters yourself, then the pages that follow are dedicated to you…My hope is that reading will help you recognize some altars in this world—ordinary-looking places where humans being have met and continue to meet up with….God.” (xvii)

Her fifth chapter or practice is about getting lost. She talks about how we get into routines and fail to pay attention. We drive to work and can’t remember the route we took or anything we saw along the way. We go about our daily lives without ever paying any attention. We get from point A to point B as fast as possible because we have much to do. In the midst of this chapter she talks about all the people who got lost in the Bible and how while they were lost they found God. Our ancestors in the faith who received the 10 Best Ways to Live, “needed forty years in the wilderness to learn the holy art of being lost…(because) by the time they arrived in the land of milk and honey, they knew how to say thank you and mean it” (74-75).

I hope you have a great getting lost story…where your best laid plans flew out the window as the route you planned to take was no longer available or the place you planned to stop was not open. When we have to move from our carefully constructed plans to plan b, c, or d, we are changed…hopefully for the better.

Where do we need to get lost to be more attentive to our relationship with God? Toward the end of the chapter, Barbara says, “If you are not able to set priorities any other way, then getting lost may be the kick in the pants you have been waiting for” (85). I hope today you feel the Holy Spirit moving in your life inviting you into a stronger relationship with our God.

Are these commandments rules from long ago that should be etched in stone, in our courthouses, for symbolic reasons perhaps more than practical ones, or are they etched deeply into our hearts, where we long for the wholeness and newness that God offers us? Are they holding you back or giving you new life in God? If they are holding you back, may you find some time today or this week to get lost and see God in your ordinary, everyday life. Amen.

This sermon was originally preached on October 14, 2012 at St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. It has been edited for this blog post.

¹Thomas G. Long, “Dancing the Decalogue.” Christian Century 123, no. 5 (March 7, 2006), 17.