The latest from the MethoBlogoSphere

Virtual Methodist posts in praise of the Lollipop Man. I’m sure Lollipop Ladies are included.

photo from this site
Since I decided to participate in NaBloPoMo as a category 4 hurricane looks like sideswiping my neighborhood, I'm setting up a couple of posts to post automatically, just in case we lose power for a day or two.
I've always been fascinated by storms. I grew up in Virginia Beach, VA, and so I saw plenty of storms there, from summer squalls and waves of thunderstorms to any number of hurricanes and nor'easters and even a waterspout or two when I was in high school (while I didn't witness these personally, I saw lots of footage of them, and they were very cool looking!). There's something about the interplay of color in a storm cloud and in the ravages of weather that just mesmerizes me.
I suspect part of that comes from the subtleties of layers of clouds and the differing textures rain creates on land and sea. Those who know me will agree whole-heartedly that I don't really have a subtle bone in my body. Understanding nuance is a challenge sometimes, which makes both the act of creating art that satisfies me (and I do feel driven to create on a regular basis) and my calling as a pastor occasionally difficult--so I warn my church members that I need them to be direct if they need something from me, and I live knowing that my skills run more to the crafty than the arty. I'll never manage to paint some of the images I treasure--so I take pictures. I can imagine better than I can produce, but I keep trying, and I have made some things I am pretty proud of, and a few more that I don't feel the need to repeat.
Creating something, whether it's a picture or a blog post or an attempt at a sewing project, somehow makes me more myself. I've been taking a pottery class for the last month, and I've learned two things: I can't throw a pot to save me, and it's really a bit of a surprise to see what what comes out of the kiln. The process of firing clay and the interactions of the chemicals and the heat in the glaze produces subtleties of color and design that I could not come up with otherwise. I do NOT need another hobby, but I'm enjoying the surprise of seeing that something I make can capture depth and character in a way I couldn't accomplish with a paintbrush, rubber stamp, or sewing machine.

from Focus on the Family Tagged: C.S. Lewis, Focus on the Family, Screwtape Letters

by William Law It was this general intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent examples of devotion, that made the goodly fellowship of the saints, and that made all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you … Continue reading →

My wife and I recently experienced what was likely the most heartbreaking moment of our lives so far. We have been fostering two very young children for about 8 months and a couple weeks ago we dropped them off with Child Protective Services to be cared for by a member of their family. While we pray that this setting will be good for them, there is still a giant hole in our home and family. Even in the midst of my own grief, I can’t help but look at things theologically and analytically. I have noticed three basic types of reactions from people when they hear about this.

One is to not see it as that big of a deal. After all, they weren’t really our kids and we knew that they might go home someday, right? And, perhaps, this is what is best for them, right? To that I respond, try pouring all our love and care into two human beings for eight months, changing their diapers, rocking them to sleep, convincing them they are loved, reading them bedtime stories, comforting them when they wake up screaming, living with them 24/7 as a part of our your family… and then say “it is not that big of a deal.” Truly it is heartbreaking. It is like losing a family member.

The second response comes from those who get that. Their response is somewhere along the line of “That is why I could never do that. I just couldn’t handle the heartbreak.” To these folks I am grateful that they understand. However, I also respond to “I just couldn’t handle the heartbreak” with “Either can we.” We are not wired in some way that enables us to process grief any faster or easier than anyone else. We are also not wired in a way to just “be okay” letting them go. But despite this, we entered into this life of possibly temporary parenthood fully aware of the possibility of heartbreak. Why?

I center my morning prayer around a little book called This Day, A Wesleyan Way of Prayer by Laurence Hull Stookey. Stookey writes on the first day of the month order:

Jesus told his followers to take up the cross daily. Contrary to common belief, the cross is not just some burden or challenge in life we cannot escape and simply must endure (such as chronic disease or being unable to find work.) Rather the cross is something we can evade, but nevertheless take it up willingly, even amid misgivings. In Gethsemane Jesus reluctantly yet willingly accepted the cross that was presented to him; thus he defined his own instructions and set the pattern for discipleship. (Stookey, This Day, Abingdon Press, p. 27)

Sometimes we decide to do something even if we can’t handle it, even if it will break our heart.

There is a third response. There are a number of people who sort of get it or realize that they don’t actually get it at all. They know it is a big deal for us but maybe they don’t understand the motivation or reasoning behind it. Those are the friends who look us in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry.”

I am getting close to the end of 39 years on the planet. I have spent only about 12 of those as a Christian. One of the most profound lessons I have learned as a follower of Jesus is that things that hurt are not necessarily bad. That is a really counterintuitive lesson. We are taught from birth to avoid pain. Pain is sometimes a signal that something is bad for us. But Jesus turned that around. He tells us in Luke Gospel (Chapter 9 vs. 23-25)

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”

A number of people have asked me already, “Would you do it again?” Of course we would. We need time to heal and assess but, in 2009 there were nearly 16,000 children in foster care in the state of Texas. Another 9,000 were placed outside their homes but with relatives. (http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/documents/about/Data_Books_and_Annual_Reports/2009/5CPS.pdf) These children cry out of a safe, stable, loving place. When children cry out, God hear them and so should we. Thousands of children in the state are awaiting adoption, waiting for a family to call their own, waiting for someone to convince them that they are worth loving. Their hurt is clearly more than mine.

In the midst of my own sense of loss, I ask you to consider, what is God calling you to do even if it might hurt, even if it might be frightening, even if you are not sure how you would handle it?

Much grace and peace,

will

The birds have been slipping away for some time now. I last saw the hummingbirds in the evening on the 31st so I guess they left that night, or early the next morning. They didn't say good-bye, even after we had such a good time together. The juncos and sparrows and mourning doves have left too, along with their babies. The warblers no longer flit among the bayberry down in the bog. The woods where the kinglets dwell is silent. And I haven't seen the robins for a while, though some of them winter over here, so maybe they are only taking a short vacation.
Yesterday I heard a white-throated sparrow's half-hearted song, and there's still one small sparrow of some sort who believes the vegetable garden is her personal kingdom. Other than those laggards, most of the beautiful singers -- the ones that make you stop whatever you're doing and listen -- have gone away and they didn't say where.
As sometimes happens, when the lead singers go off in search of greater glory or at least someplace warmer, you are not exactly bereft after all. It turns out that there were other musicians here all along, practicing quietly to themselves and waiting for their moment. Now their moment has come and they are ready. Bees and grasshoppers and dragonflies saw away on their tiny fiddles. Red squirrels add percussive texture. Lamb and ewe duets offer heart-felt recitative. The seal chorus really only knows its one song, but they love it dearly and never get tired of singing it over and over, their end-of-summer lament.
And there's the single loon who lives year-round in the cove. She's an aged alto, once famous but now retired to this obscure spot. She's still got her voice, and when she sings the island's enthusiastic amateurs fall silent, as anybody would in the presence of greatness.

From: kljames@umcsc.org, What I'm Pondering Today

Serving Others
Back in January, in a sermon, I referenced a story Mike Yaconelli told in his book Dangerous Wonder. In this book, he told this story.

Our town is small by California standards – one traffic light and six thousand residents.  One Sunday morning I was preaching about the unconditional love of God, a love that was outside the lines and resulted in the church loving outside the lines.  Our church is different from most; the congregation feels free to interrupt me during my sermons.  Just as I was finishing, a sixteen year old girl said, “This is a good sermon, Pastor, but I was thinking that if we are supposed to love outside the lines, then I know how we can do it.  In three weeks the Siskiyou County Fair is coming, and with the fair come the ‘carnies.’” (The “carnies are itinerant workers who operate the rides of the traveling carnival.  Every year the carnies are the talk of our rural town.  Most of them are tough-looking and scary with lots of tattoos, huge muscles, and hard-looking faces.  People always make derogatory comments about them.)

The high school girl continued, “I was thinking that instead of making fun of the carnies, maybe we should have a dinner and welcome them to town.”

The church agreed, and this young girl organized the entire event.  She called the manager of the fair for permission, called the owner of the carnival to see if they would want a dinner.  The carnival owner suggested a lunch just before the fair opened.  “Okay,” said the girl, “We will barbeque hamburgers and cheeseburgers and have salads, desserts, and soft drinks. All you can eat.  How many can we expect?” After some thought, the owner said to expect fifty. 

The day of the lunch about twenty people from the church showed up to help serve. There was enough food for seventy. At twelve-thirty when the lunch was to begin, only four carnies showed up. By one-thirty, however we hadn’t served 50 carnies, or 75 carnies, or even 150 carnies.  We had served 200 carnies. When it looked like we would run out of food, the young girl came running up to me, the pastor , and said, “We’re running out of food.  GET SOME!” We did.

When the lunch was over, numerous carnies came up to the young girl and thanked her.  One older lady who had been working carnivals for a long time said, “I have been doing carnivals for forty years, and this is the first time I’ve been welcomed to town.” The all-you-can-eat carnie lunch has been going for seven years now, all because a teenage girl was naïve enough to believe God loved a group of carnies as much as He loved her. (Mike Yaconelli: Dangerous Wonder, NavPress. 1998.)


Some members of the congregation heard this story and it stuck with them.  The gears began turning, and they decided, "Hey, we have a festival here in Millersport... and they employ people to work the concessions and rides... we could have a meal for them, too!"

So today was the day when we served them... and it was fantastic!  We served lasagna, bread, salad, cake, and ice cream, and it was great.  I got to greet them and say a blessing - we welcomed them to town and thanked them for serving us, because we love our Sweet Corn Festival, and without the rides and concessions it just wouldn't be the same. 

I found out a lot about the people who worked the rides.  Several of them were from Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia - they were university students who came here to work for the summer before going back to school.  The entire group wasn't your stereotypical "carnies" - they were clean, appreciative, and no more tattooed than the rest of society.  And they really appreciated the welcome they got to Millersport from the church.

Best yet: everyone who served was extremely excited to serve and wants to make it an annual event.

I one time heard a person say that trying to understand what United Methodists believe is like trying to nail Jello to a tree. It’s a common sentiment among those who are outside of the United Methodist Church (and even some on … Continue reading →

I don’t know how many United Methodists have favorite John Wesley sermons. I’ve read nearly all of his published sermons and a couple that were not published.

Here – in alphabetical order – are my top 5 favorites:

Catholic Spirit – For holding together zeal for our own expression of the faith with true love of those who worship, believe, and practice differently.

A Caution Against Bigotry – For the discussion of “casting out devils” and the call to support any and all who break the power of evil.

The More Excellent Way – For his call to the high road of discipleship over the low road of common Christianity.

The New Birth – For a full sketch of Wesley’s pattern of salvation and for the prayer in the last paragraph.

On Zeal – For the sketch of the concentric circles of Christian faith and the rejection of bloodshed under the guise of religious zeal.

What about you? What are your favorites?

Occasionally I come across well-known saying of John Wesley that Wesley most likely did not actually say. I came across one yesterday, and it made me think: I should start posting these.

So here is the first statement that John Wesley did not actually say:

In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and, in all things, charity.

I came across Richard P. Heitzenrater’s chapter, “‘Unity, Liberty, Charity’ in the Wesleyan Heritage.” while reading through Unity, Liberty, and Charity: Building Bridges under Icy Waters, edited by Donald E. Messer and William J. Abraham. [This book was written because the editors were concerned about the "growing polarization and politicalization within our beloved church." So, they "sought to encourage and participate in open theological conversations where persons of deep and diverse convictions could articulate their differences and explore possible convergences in thought and action" (5).]

In Heitzenrater’s chapter he found that a detailed search of Wesley’s word usage found that “the saying was not used by Wesley.” (29)

Wesley didn’t say that, we should stop saying that he did.

Tagged: John Wesley

Image via Wikipedia

I was inspired by Craig Groeschel‘s post, The Death of the Five-Year Plan.

“Instead of planning for specific buildings, campuses, staff roles, and outreach, I’m planning to be prepared for opportunities that I can’t name today. We are creating margin and planning to respond quickly to ideas that we don’t yet have.

Speed, agility, flexibility, and financial margin are far better than a detailed road map.”

This is a great articulation of what I believe will be most helpful both at Resurrection Online and at any of the churches that I will serve in the future. It is not helpful to become captive to a vision of the future that includes tangible specifics more than five away. So are you ready for it?

Here is Resurrection’s Online five year plan:

• Build a Christian community where non religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians.
• Share the gospel of Jesus Christ using the latest technology and tools that are effective in connecting people.

This was the message that I gave at Tompkins Corners UMC on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost, 12 September 2004.  The Scriptures for this Sunday were Jeremiah 4: 11 – 12, 22 – 28; 1 Timothy 1: 12 – 17; and Luke 15: 1 – 10.

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In Mel Gibson’s movie, "The Passion of Christ", he puts the devil on Jesus’ shoulder as He hangs on the cross. In this scene the devil reminds Jesus that He has the power to change the outcome of the crucifixion; He has the power to end His own suffering and death.

This, of course, is not the way any of the accepted Gospels tell the story of the temptation of Christ. The temptation of Christ, the dialogue between Jesus and the devil occurs during the forty days in the wilderness just before the start of Jesus’ ministry. But there are suggestions that Jesus still struggles with this temptation during those last hours before his trial and execution; remember his painful struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, so we know that the temptations of Christ were not just one brief moment in His ministry.

Now, I am not going to discuss whether or not this changing of the Gospel is appropriate or not. But we have to know that Jesus certainly knew that He could end His own pain. But, were He do to have done so, He would not be able to end our pain. To surrender to the devil, to surrender to temptation is to lose the entire meaning of the Gospel message. Jesus had to make a choice between doing what was right for Him and what was right for us and His ministry. He had to make a choice.

Throughout his entire ministry, Jesus spoke of the choices that we must make. If we are to follow Jesus, we must make choices that we may not necessarily like to make.

It will come as a surprise to some and as a disappointment to others but there is no stop on the road to Damascus in my life like there was for Paul. There is no time when my heart was strangely warmed like there was for John Wesley. I have no conscience memory of a time or a place when there was a life-changing event as either Paul or John Wesley described.

But there have been times when I suddenly realized that Jesus was my Savior and that he died for me. To some, this would mean that I have not been "born again" and, thus, my words contain no power. But that does not diminish in any shape or form the choice I made many years ago, unconscious as it may have been, to follow Christ on my life’s journey. On at least one occasion in my life, I know that I was struck by the singular notion that Christ’s death on the cross was for me, even though it occurred almost two thousand years before I was even a consideration in this world. And on at least one occasion I have been reminded that it was God’s grace that has as John Newton wrote, "brought me safe thus far". These events are singular and they are reminders that the ministry of Jesus in this world is a singular event, meant to be between Christ and each one of us. But they are also events that must be shared for the Gospel is nothing if it is not shared with others.

As United Methodists, we believe that our faith is both informed and experiences. Ours is a faith that is both intensely personal but one that must be shared. While I may not have had the life-change experiences others may have had, I do know that my awareness of Christ, not only as a figure in the history of this world, but as my Savior comes from my own experience and knowledge. I choose to follow Christ because of what I learned growing up. And, as United Methodists, we affirm our belief in one God as revealed through Jesus Christ but understand and appreciate that there a variety of ways in which that affirmation can be expressed. And to complete this point, as United Methodists, we hold a concern for the spiritual, physical, and social concerns for all persons, not just some or a few.

Now, I will admit that the anti-establishment side of me likes the fact that Jesus challenged the status quo, that He put aside societal conventions and reached out to all individuals, not just a select few or those deemed worthy of being in his presence. At a time when I was searching for the person that I am, it was important for me to know that Christ was looking for me and that I was as important as anyone else. I think this point is lost on a lot of people today, who while saying that they accept Christ as their personal Savior are not willing or able to let others do so as well. This was especially true in the Gospel time.

As noted in today’s Gospel reading, the Pharisees and scribes took offense that Jesus ate with sinners. They did not associate with sinners because to do so would make them unclean and unworthy to serve God. Jesus ate with sinners so that they, the sinners, would be made clean and worthy to serve God.

I once characterized Jesus as a radical and was strongly chastised by one of my Lutheran minister cousins. I said this because Jesus was offering a new and decidedly radical view of life. It was this approach that made the "powers that be" angry with Him. My cousin felt this was a bit too strong, but a year later, this minister of over fifty years, also characterized Jesus as a radical. And he acknowledged that his mind set about his Savior, long set was changed when he heard my views. As we learn about Jesus, as we learn about the Gospel, we grow in our understanding and amazement of the power of God. There are some that do not want us to learn about Jesus, preferring that we keep Him a mysterious figure whose access they control. But the more we individually learn, the more we find that we do not know and the great our amazement of the power of God through Christ.

When I started preaching, I had the luxury of knowing the specific dates and places where I would be preaching. Those dates were far apart, the places where I preached were of my choosing, and I picked the topics on which I preached. Now, of course, I preach according to a calendar that has a Sunday every week. I serve in churches at the direction and desire of the District Superintendent and Bishop.

And while what I write and preach is still my own, it is based on scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary. When I started, I picked the scriptures that I wanted to use. But when I began to supply the pulpit, as what I do is officially called, I found that my own knowledge was limited. So I began using the lectionary, that collection of Old and New Testament readings that takes the preacher through a three-year cycle of the Bible and life of the prophets, disciples, and Christ.

I was advised that it would be better to simply use one of the three readings for each Sunday and focus on that particular reading. But I always felt that, if three readings were given for each Sunday, there should be something connecting the three together and I should look for that connection. And each Sunday as I prepare and study for this moment in time, I become more and more aware of what Jesus means, to me individually and to this world.

And as I learned through my own reading and my own experience, I found that Jesus ministry was very much a singular event. No matter how large the crowd, he sought out the one individual. He truly cared for the one soul that was lost when others were concerned with the many that were not.

Paul also makes it clear that salvation is a singular event. As he writes, if there was ever someone in Christianity that should not be there, it was him. And he knew it. Yet, it was by God’s grace that Paul was given the ability and the power to proclaim the Gospel.

Yes, some of his writings and pronouncements trouble us today. There are times when what Paul wrote two thousand years ago seem out of place in our day and age. And many debates will take place as to how we are to use what he wrote. But Paul was writing to individuals and groups struggling to build their collective identity in Christ, fighting to keep the old ways of living from overtaking the new life they had found in Christ.

And I think that is why it is so important today that we read the message that the prophet Jeremiah passed from God to the people of Israel. Not simply because it is the Old Testament lesson for today, but rather because it part of the idea that there are choices in what we do each day of life.

We may not like what Jeremiah passed on to the people of Israel, for the past few weeks the words God commanded him to speak were not friendly words. They were not words of hope and promise but rather of death and destruction. But through the lens of history, we know that these are words of choices. The people of Israel had chosen not to follow God, choosing instead to follow the paths of least resistance with their neighbors and allies. God is basically telling them what the consequences of those actions will be. These prophetic words apply just as well today.

I see a world in which the various Christian denominations have changed to Gospel message; it is no longer what it was meant to be. It is a message in which the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is pushed aside, simply because it might scare away people. I am constantly reminded by print and visual media that what Christ asked of us is no longer seen as practical or appropriate. What was the major complaint about Mel Gibson’s movie, the "Passion of Christ"? The major complaint was that it was too bloody and the details of the crucifixion were too explicit. But should we not know that Christ died in the most inhumane way ever conceived by mankind? Should we not know the pain and agony inflicted on Christ, pain and agony that was meant for each one of us when we die in sin?

The problem is that when we take the cross out of the picture, when we try to soften the requirements of the Gospel, we make a choice that removes Christ from our lives. Churches today seem more concerned about who they let in rather than what the Gospel requires. Again, it is a choice that removes Christ from our lives.

And I fear that the words of the prophets of old are directed to the churches of today just as they were directed to the people of Israel some three thousand years ago. Churches today, as individual churches, as denominations, and as individual members, seem more hung up on the foibles of life that there are focused on the real problems of the world.

We have preachers even today crying out against the moral decay of the people of this earth, blaming every institution on earth except the church. This is not to say that we should try for a stronger moral character in our lives but we have to focus on what causes the decay. But we have to work for those things that are good, not work against those things that are evil. There were some preachers who claimed that the floods that ravaged the Midwest portion of this country back in the early 90′s were God’s sign that the end times were upon us. This hit close to home since I knew many of the people sandbagging the Mississippi River in the Hannibal, Missouri/Quincy, Illinois area. I didn’t think that their lives were all that bad. These were good, hard working people, people trying to earn a living from the soil and to be told that the floods covering their farms and homes was punishment for sins unseen and unsaid was a little too drastic. I did think that the practices of flood control, creatures of man’s thought, were more the reason for the devastation. I found it hard to believe that there would be individuals saying that the floods that ravaged the Midwest back then were God’s sign of the end of the world. After all, God himself told Noah that He never again destroy the world by flooding it.

I do not hold to the concept of the end time and destruction of the earth through God’s wrath. The unfortunate thing is that while God gave us great abilities to create, the same abilities can also be used to destroy. There is no reason for God to destroy the world when we are capable of doing so on our own and, are in fact, doing a wonderful job right now. The development of nuclear power not only gave us a wonderful source of energy but it also gave us the power to destroy just as easily. And though the threat of total nuclear destruction may have been eliminated from this planet, our own ability to destroy this planet countless time over is still present. We may have removed one way of destruction but we did not remove what leads to the destruction.

God gave us the ability to think and make choices. In the words that Jeremiah writes, we hear of the consequences when we make the wrong choices. But in what we do today, in the act of celebrating communion, we are reminded of the one choice God Himself made. He chose to send His Son to this world in a singular act of love so that we might live. His Son, our Lord and Savior, chose to come to this world and forsake all the power and glory that was His and become our servant so that we could better understand the love that God has for us.

Christ chose to die on the cross so that we could live, free from the slavery and death through sin. As we come to the table, we are reminded of these choices. The question thus is what choices do we make? Do we continue on the path that we have picked, ignoring others in our lives and hoping that our own abilities will provide the strength needed in times of stress and pain. Or do we chose to follow Christ, a hard one to follow I know, but one that gives us much that we do not have and a lot when it is needed the most. Clearly, the choice is ours.

As I began reading this letter from the emprisoned Paul to his friends and fellow Christians, I started to wonder who would write to me and to whom would I write. Well, of course now, I never write the paper kind of letters any more. But, I do e-mail some and I do send some direct messages by facebook.

What do I say? To whom do I write? Do I ever say anything about remembering someone in prayer? How often do I remember someone in prayer? How often do I tell someone how much joy and encouragement their friendship and support has given me? Well, how often do I even remind myself of this?

Exodus 3:1-14
There’s An App for That
Purpose
09-05-10

We all want some sort of purpose in life. We want our lives to count for something. This is something we all want in life. It is part of our DNA. At the basic level of who we are as individuals we desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. We long to have purpose in our lives because it gives us meaning, gives us passion, gives us a reason to do what we do. Purpose helps us define all of that but without purpose we are lost and sometimes we feel very alone.

A rich man was determined to give his mother a birthday present that would outshine all others. He read of a bird that had a vocabulary of 4000 words, could speak in numerous languages and sing 3 operas. He immediately bought the bird for $50,000 and had it delivered to his mother. The next day he phoned to see if she had received the bird. "What did you think of the bird?" he asked. She replied, "It was delicious." Without knowing what our purpose is we can waste all the talent we have.

That is what Billy Sunday said. He said, “More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.” Many of you here today, may feel that you lack purpose in your life. You want to have something that drives you to make a difference in this world and to give your life meaning. We all desire this but how do we find it? How do we understand what God has created us to do? How do we find our God given purpose in life?

The Bible is full of stories about this. A church word we use to describe this is “calling.” When people are coming through the ordination process in the United Methodist Church they are asked constantly about their calling story. “Why do you think God is calling you into ministry?” “Where have you seen God interact in your life?” “What passion is God laying on your heart?” These are all questions that are asked as a person goes through this process. But if you are not called into ordained ministry, you may never hear those questions, yet finding the answers to them will lead you to the purpose God has for your life.

I am not sure why we, as preachers, do not push you, as laity, to answer these questions more. I apologies I don’t do this more because we all have a calling for our lives. We all have a purpose. The hard part is finding it in the midst of everything else we have going on in our lives. The really hard part is knowing how to listen for it.

When looking at all the call stories in the Bible I tried to figure out which one to read from as the main piece of scripture. I could have gone with Abraham’s calling when God came to him and told him that at his age God would start to build his nation. I could have gone with Ruth and her calling to be loyal to her mother-in-law, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16) I could have gone with the calling of Samuel who heard God whisper three times and he thought it was the priest Eli. Or David, who was asked to come in from the fields where he was watching sheep and was anointed the next King of Israel. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart,” (Jeremiah 1:5) is part of Jeremiah’s call and can speak volumes about God’s purpose for our lives. Mary had a visit from an angel to calm her fears about her calling as the mother of the Messiah. Philip listened to God and witnessed to an Ethiopian Eunuch because God told him to. I could have gone with Lydia, who was minding her own business before the Lord spoke to her through the Apostle Paul and she had her whole family baptized and provided a ministry of hospitality afterwards.

The Bible is all about how God comes down into the daily life of ordinary people and gives them purpose and a calling in their lives. Now some of you might be thinking, well those people are special. I’m not special and God can’t really use me if God really knew who I was and what I have done. The truth is God knows exactly who you are and what you have done and is still calling you. Plus if you can find a perfect person that God calls, besides his own Son, to do ministry go ahead. God calls the hurt, the lame, the outcasts, the ugly, the ashamed, the sinner, and the broken to do his work. King David knocked up his mistress and ended up sending her husband to his death to try and cover it up. He also Noah was known as a drunk. Joshua had major doubt and fear issues. Abraham couldn’t wait on God and so he knocked up with maidservant. Peter denied Christ and Paul, when he was Saul, was a relentless persecutor of followers of Jesus. God can use anyone anytime to do his will. We only have to be open to it.

One day on a walk Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. The scriptures say, “Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” I think our law of the land would call the premeditated murder and back then, like now, it would carry the death penalty. People saw what Moses did and the Pharaoh tried to kill him but Moses made a run for it. He found shelter with a the priest of Midian after saving his daughters from a group of shepherds. There he married and took up watching sheep for a living. He had gone from living in Pharaoh’s palace and a place of honor to watching sheep. He was a murderer on the run from the law and when he realized how his people were being treated by the Egyptians he cried out to God.

What happens next in Moses life is a story that many of us have heard before but listen to it again with new ears as we hear the word of God today from the 3rd chapter of Exodus.

1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
5 "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 6 Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
7 The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
12 And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you [a] will worship God on this mountain."
13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I am who I am . [b] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "

In this calling story Moses learns of his purpose in life. He will be the one to set his people free. He will lead them to their own land. God is calling him to do the impossible. God is calling him, a murderer. God is calling him to speak to Pharaoh. God calls Moses the stutterer. Moses is scared and comes up with every excuse why God has chosen the wrong guy for the job but God doesn’t back down. God’s criteria is a lot different than ours.

When we, as humans look for people to do big things in life, we want big people, famous people, attractive people, extremely talented people. We want Angelina and Brad to save us. We want people we can look up to, be inspired by, who aren’t too harsh on the eyes, who have their lives together, and who we can look up to and desire to be like. God doesn’t look at all that stuff though. Instead God wants faithful people. God is looking for people who are willing to put themselves on the back burner and do what God is asking them to do.

Usually if you think your life is together and you can look at it and can say, “I have accomplished a lot in life through my hard work and determination,” God is going to have a hard time using you. That’s because you think you have done it all on your own and when you get your God given purpose, you will think you can do it on your own as well. But when you look at broken people, sinful people, those the world wants to throw away, they know they cannot do it on their own. Typically these people have a deeper faith and trust in God because their egos have been shot and nothing to stand on except faith. God looks at these people and says, “These are my people. I can use these people.” And so he calls working class guys as his disciples. He calls a prostitute name Rahab to enable his chosen people to move into the holy land. He calls broken, sinful, and most importantly faithful people to do his work.

What I love about this story of Moses is the promise God gives him when he is unsure about his new purpose in life. God tells him, “I will be with you.” Jesus, before his ascension into heaven, leaves the disciples with the Great Commission to go out and make disciples of all nations. Not all of the eleven believed when this was happening because it states that “But some doubted.” (Mt. 28:16) Yet Jesus gives them assurance by saying, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age." We are never alone in our purpose in life. We are never alone in our calling. God is with us. God is always with us. We find that in the meal we are about to partake in and we find it out when we live out our calling on earth.

You might be telling yourself “I’m not called. I don’t have a divine purpose in my life.” But have you asked God about it? Have you prayed a prayer that asks God to come into your life and to give you a purpose? Have you gotten down on your knees and said to God, “Lord, my life feels empty. I want to feel a passion for something. I want my life to mean something.” Once you ask those questions of God you need to be ready for the response. You need to take time to be on holy ground and listen to God’s answer.

In the movie Prince of Egypt, which was an animated movie of Moses’ story, the burning bush scene is wonderful. It’s not wonderful because of the color of the flames on the bush or how scared and curious Moses looks. It is beautiful because of the voice of God. Apparently as they were making this movie the sound design team was trying to figure out how to do the voice of God. They played with different sounds like morphing the voices of men, women and children in and out. They looked up how it was handled with other movies in the past and they tried to come up with something unique and revolutionary. But theologically it was all falling apart. The solution was to use the voice of Moses himself, in this movie it was the actor Val Kilmer. In this pivotal scene when Moses and God have a conversation, what it sounds like is Moses is having the conversation with himself. As the sound design team put it in an interview, this dialogue represented “the kind of voice we hear inside our own heads in our everyday lives.”

That is the way I believe God speaks to us. When I have heard the voice of God in my life, it is my voice. It is that small voice inside me that calls me to do something in the name of God. When you ask God to give you a purpose in life, listen to that small voice inside you. Be guided by that voice because that is God. If you are looking for a purpose in life, a calling, a way to make your life mean more, than come today and get on your knees before the Creator of the universe and listen to his voice inside of you. Listen to your own burning bush and know that the I Am, is always with you.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

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"Young lady," he said, and I knew immediately where this conversation was going to go. I have had this conversation before. I waited for the first in the series of veiled insults (in the form of questions and snide remarks), and I didn't have to wait long.
"I hear you're a woman . . . of the cloth (that last word he whispered as if ashamed to say it in the same sentence with "woman."
I thought about bolting at that moment, not wanting to have this predictable dialogue again, but instead, something like God whispered to me, "stay." "Yes, you could say that I am a woman of the cloth" I said.
"Well, I don't see how that's possible seeing as you're clearly only about 19. You must have just decided to take up preaching and made yourself a minister, because there's no way you've been to seminary....And who's your District Superintendent? Ah, that's a girl, too....You got a husband? Is he any good? The only good preacher is the one who has a pretty wife who blends in with the congregation, sings in the choir, plays the piano, you know, makes the preacher better....You're so young, you probably got about 50 more years before you retire, right?....Oh, you went to THAT seminary--ain't nothing but a bunch of liberals down there....stupid liberals who want us to help the poor, but the poor just want my money--they're deadbeats. You don't want any more cake? What's a matter--afraid of losing your figure? You the only preacher at that church? So, you preach every week? By yourself? You ever need a week off--call me and I'll come preach."
I've had this conversation before, but in the past, my responses would be tentative, brief, and above all--polite. I wouldn't make the other feel uncomfortable. Basically, I would take all the shots, and then say, "Nice talking to you."
But not this time. That voice inside me that whispered, "stay" powered my too often silenced self, and something different happened this time. I responded. As me. Without being defensive. Just calmly, and confidently, I let him know that I knew his game, and I wasn't going to sit quietly as little young lady. Dare I say it, I even (*gasp*) evangelized a little when he began taking pot shots at the poor and preaching his prosperity gospel.
I can't believe I am saying this, but I am glad for this conversation. Because the real me finally opened her mouth--the me that is called, affirmed, loved, and empowered to be who I am made to be--a pastor. An unapologetically young and female pastor.
"Let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be."--Paul, the former Christian-hating Jew who followed Jesus

The Lord takes Jeremiah to the potter's house where a potter working at his wheel crafting a vessel of clay. If that vessel doesn't turn out right, then the potter reworks the clay into another vessel.

The Lord says to Jeremiah, "Can't I do the same to you, O house of Israel?"

We can read this as history or prophecy. Sin has consequences.

And we can read this as a reminder that although God is our creator, we are judged on our response. And, we need to remember that we can rectify our wrong responses.

Even in our sinning, we can repent. We can change. And, also, the Lord can change. The Lord said to Jeremiah that day, "You've got some time. I can change my mind. Turn now from your evil ways. Start doing what you are supposed to be doing."

Jeremiah may have been remembering appeals that the people had made during times of oppression before. For example, at a time when the nation was being oppressed by the Ammonites, they asked God to save them. They asked this even though they had abandoned God and turned toward foreign gods. God did help them because, we are told, "he could no longer bear to see Israel suffer" (Judges 10:6-18). And not just Israel. God had coerced Noah into preaching to the sinful Nineveh, "Tell them I am going to destroy them unless they turn away from their violent acts." Then, when they did repent, "God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon the and he did not do it" (Jonah 3:1-10).

This work began as Nancy Eiesland's master's thesis, but eventually became a classic work in the area of theology and disability. At less than 120 pages of text, it functions essentially as a programmatic call to rethink assumptions, practices, and theological models that are harmful to persons with disabilities. The actual constructive theological proposal is very brief, but the issues that Eiesland raises continue to give rise to other important theological reflection and proposals.

Nancy Eiesland died at age 44 from cancer. One wonders how her work would have continued to evolve over another, say, thirty years of writing and reflection. Nevertheless, she has left us this very important work which has become essential reading for all who care about the relationship between people with disabilities, God, and the church.