Grace Comes First

Formed Into One Through Creation’s Power (Audio right-click to download – Approximately 10 MB)

Dear Friends,

There are times in the relationship between a preacher and his congregation, when he needs to speak frankly about something that is going on in the life of the congregation. My sermon this past Sunday, April 29, 2012, was such a sermon. The difficulty addressed is tension that has developed between some in our Chancel Choir and our Chancel Choir Director. What I say is intentionally constructive. Preaching, as I’ve said many times, is a conversation. If you are part of the congregation at First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael and you were not in worship on Sunday, it would be good for you to hear what I said so that you can feel included in this part of our conversation.

Grace and peace,

Sam

A Sermon to My Congregation at a Difficult Time (Audio Right-Click to Download approximately 16 MB)

Luke 8:40-9:2 (Though 9:1-2 were a surprise in the sermon.)

Text of script this morning comes from the gospel according to St. Luke from the 8th chapter beginning in the fortieth verse.It’s a fairly familiar story.You remember it because there are kind of two stories in one.Jesus is asked to come and heal a little girl who is twelve years old.On his way to healing the girl a woman touches his cloak and she has been hemorrhaging for twelve years.And that twelve is not accidental.Let’s listen to the word of God as the spirit brings it to you.

Now when Jesus returned, that is from the other side of the lake, the crowd welcomed him for they were all waiting for him.Just then there came a man named Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, and he fell at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his house for he had an only daughter about twelve years old and she was dying.As he went, the crowds pressed in on him.Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.Though she’d spent all she had on physicians, no one had a cure.She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his clothes and immediately her hemorrhage stopped.And Jesus asked, who touched me.When all denied it, Peter said, “Master the crowds surround you and press in on you.”But Jesus said, “someone touched me, for I noticed that power has gone out of me.”When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling and falling down before Jesus, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.He said to her, “Daughter, your trust has made you well.Go in peace.”While he was still speaking, someone came from the leader’s house to say, “your daughter is dead.Do not trouble the teacher any longer.”When Jesus heard this, he replied, “do not fear.Only trust.She will be saved.”When he came to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John and James and the child’s father and mother.They were all weeping and wailing for her.but he said, “don’t weep for she’s not dead.She’s sleeping.”And they laughed at him knowing that she was dead.But he took her by the hand and called out, “Child, get up.”Her spirit returned to her.She got up at once.Then he directed them to give her something to eat.Her parents were astounded, but he ordered them to tell no one about what had happened.The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

When you have as many friends as I have right now who are, as the Hindus say, dancing with Yama, the God of death, you focus on the cycles of life and death, the ups and downs, the passings, and all the fears that come with them.I have one friend who has been dealing with cancer for a long time and is entering into the phase where pain has become a part of daily life.There are friends that I have who are dealing with parents that are nearing the end of life; the cycles of life are playing.

That’s what our text today is talking about, right?The cycles of life and death.And it’s true that it’s talking about them in terms of our own health and well being, but this is a multi-layered text in Luke, so it is not just about health and well being because it’s not an accident that the woman had been bleeding for twelve years, that the life had been draining out of her for twelve years.It’s not an accident that the girl who hadn’t had a chance to live yet was twelve years old, because always in the scriptures the number twelve tells us that it’s the community of faith that we’re talking about.

The Gospel according to St. Luke is pointing to the community of faith when it tells this story.At the time Luke’s gospel concerned itself with the Judaism of his day that had become hardened and drained of life as it lived under the thumb of the Roman empire. He spoke of Jesus coming to heal Judaism and yet at this same time these Lucan scriptures recognizing that there is some new life that needs to emerge as well – something beyond Judaism.

These are the cycles of life and death and it’s not an accident you understand that these texts talk about women because it’s the heart and soul, the generative part of the church, the communities of faith that Jesus is talking about here.The part that welcomes people in, allows people to feel nurtured. gives them strength and creative power so that they can move out into the world ready to bless the world with God’s creative power.Not an accident twelve and women.

Now in our church, in our community of faith, we have been hemorrhaging for quite awhile.I said last week that our attendance is 19% below what we were last year.19%.It’s like a free fall.Now there are lots of reasons for it.We’ve had some deaths, we’ve had some people move away.That’s always sad.Those are some reasons why this has happened.

But there’s been conflict in the church, too.Conflict about the style of music we’re going to sing, conflict about the order of service that we’re going to use, conflict about what words we will use in the Lord’s prayer.I know it’s hard to changeI really do.I know that in a world where everything is falling apart around us, that change is a difficult thing.But you know we have to, right?If this congregation is going to move into the future and serve a future, we’re going to have to.

But what I’ve seen as I look over the last few months, as we try and grow this new life in the church, a new ministry that can expand from this place like the life potential of that little girl who’s twelve years old, what I see is a response of fear.

Now I’m not immune to that.Not even close.I have lived in fear for the last few months.Fear of people criticizing me, of telling stories about me.Fear that we won’t be able to move things in the direction that I believe so fervently we need to go.I’ve lived a response of fear, but I’ve seen others living out a response of fear as well, and this week it finally came to a head.A longstanding thing going on with our choir and our choir director.

Now I would grant that William might not be perfect, though after that song, maybe. (William sang an anthem this day that stopped our hearts.) But he’s done a fabulous job, a gorgeous job.You’ve been in services where everybody who walks out that door tells me, wow, it was amazing.But I think because of fear for one reason or another there are some folks in the choir who have been upset about the changes and the draining away of resources and the voices that decided to leave and there’s been complaints and blame and eyes rolled, snide remarks, a barrage, a constant barrage of suggestions, the meta message of which is, “You don’t know what you’re doing William.”

It finally came to a head this week and Dan Crawford who’s our Personnel Chair and Sandra Fisk and Mike Stone who are our Co-Chairs of Worship decided that they needed to call a Special Session meeting for this coming Wednesday evening and ask our Session to put the chancel choir program on hiatus, probably until mid-June, something like that.

That’s not intended to be a destructive thing, it’s intended to be constructive.What we hope to do during that period of time is to work on the relationships and try to build some form of trust, but the fear has got hold of us and it’s like the life of the new growth that happens here is threatened.So how do we rebuild?What is it that we need to do to recapture that sense of energy and growth that we had really not too many months ago?

The texts speaks directly to it.Jesus says to the father and the mother and mourners around the little girl, “do not be afraid!Only trust and she will be saved.Only trust.”Now what is that?When I was a kid that meant intellectual ascent to a set of theological propositions stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith.That’s not what this text of scripture is about.No, this text of scripture is about the trust that brings you to that centered place, the place where anxiety falls away, the place where your hope is based in the knowledge that the spirit of God can only carry us into something more beautiful, not less.A kind of peace that surrounds you when you get to that centered place and you don’t react in anger of frustration, but instead listen to one another, understand what we need because we know that when we’re with each other, the Spirit speaks.

The woman had faith, too.When people dance the dance of Yama, they become centered in a quiet and lovely loving place when they are able to trust the one who breathes life into them and will carry them into the great beyond.Trust.

Now I would like you to know that I am recommitting myself to this ministry.I will not lead from fear anymore and I need partners in that endeavor, too.I expect partners in that endeavor.No reason to think that I should not receive that.So no complaints or blame or snide remarks, those things that tear a community apart.No.We can speak our minds, speak our desires, always recognizing that others around us have different minds and different desires, as we seek the way forward.

When I say I won’t lead from a place of fear, I do not mean that I will lead the charge and we’re going to do things Sam’s way.But I do mean that I will speak my mind, that I will challenge the leadership of this church to deal with the reality around us and I will trust in the spirit of God to let the future bubble up within the leadership and the congregation of this church.Now we’ve been planning actually for some time to do an evaluation of our music program.And so the three elders that I mentioned are going to ask the Session on Wednesday evening to put together a work group to figure out what we want to do about the future of our music program as the voices from our choir have moved away.What is the role of the choir?What other kinds of music might we have in here?They will do that work and they will listen to anybody who wants to talk to them about it.They will listen and they will care.As will I.And then our Session is going to need to make some decisions to staunch the flow of blood, the draining of our life as attendance just slides away.

No fear.And from the bottom of my heart I am absolutely sure that we will succeed because the power of Spirit is with us.The power of God that drives creation forward stands by us.Now maybe you think when I looked at this text and saw in the little girl and somewhat older woman an allegory for the church, kind of imposed that on them.I was actually wondering that as I was preparing the sermon.And then I turned the page and the very next story in scripture is Jesus in one of the most powerful moments in the Gospel of Luke sending the twelve out into the world empowered to heal and bring the voice of God to them.As that generative part of our community is healed and begins to develop and grow, we will find the strength and the power to move from this place with Gospel.We will find that the Spirit is with us. As you face the cycles of life and death, of disappointment and sorrow, hope and future.God will stand with you, centered, trusting, a beautiful future will in fact come.We will find in that quiet, sure center of faith that Spirit will carry us, you and I, will carry us into a beautiful new future.Amen.

No Sermon this Week – Had the week off, (thanks Bob Hirni!)

I’ll be back in the pulpit next week, April 29.

Where is Your Faith? Really, He’d Like to Know (Audio – right click to download, approximately 10 MB)

It’s Your Name in the Story (Audio Right Click to Download)

No Sermon This Week – our Associate Pastor preached so I would have two weeks to work on my Easter Sermon

"In my experience people seem to worry an awful lot about whether Baalam’s donkey talked,” said Old Testament professor Bob Coote at San Francisco Theological Seminary. “ He was speaking of an old story about a stubborn donkey that saw an angel and wouldn’t move forward no matter how angry his master was. The donkey talked; the donkey didn’t talk. I don’t care; I want to know what the donkey said." I’m a little like that with the resurrection this year. Other years I’ve spent time worrying over what happened on Easter morning, but not this year. This year I want to know what it means, particularly through the eyes of Mary Magdalene in the 20th chapter of John. The story says she saw, (in Greek, theorein), Jesus and the Angels – but that verb isn’t about ordinary seeing. No, it is the kind of seeing that dawns on you, a seeing that leads you to grasp hold of something and let it move you to action. That’s action in a world where we expect so little from each other – so little action, so little character, and virtually no unique contribution to the greater good – except of course from our public figures. Should they fall short of some puritanical expectation, they are crucified, (fortunately not literally any more), as though such a sacrifice might make things right with the world. That’s instead of living out the Divine expectation for our lives.

My Lent preaching has focused on the Tabernacle – the tent in the wilderness where the Israelites came to see, (theorein I would imagine), God. We saw, (theorein), offerings that provided the food for celebrations which drew the people into a coherent whole, saw new life drawn out of the waters of the basin, the lampstand that sheds light on something beyond ourselves, and in the midst of it all, we saw, (theorein), the image of God as though the boundary between sacred and created order was ephemeral, fluid, inviting us into life in the presence of God. “And the logos became flesh and tabernacled among us,” the Gospel of John says, so that boundary is forever obscured for all to see, (theorein), . . . and we sacrificed him as though such a sacrifice might make things right with the world.

Well God rejected our sacrifice on Easter morning. God raised Jesus from the dead and this new vision of humanity, called Mary’s name, inviting her to live her life, her unique life oriented toward the God of all creation. We expect so little from each other, so much more is possible. The boundary between sacred and created order is fluid; the Word of God is alive within and around us. Happened, didn’t happen; that’s what it means. Can you see, (theorein), it?

Tabernacle – The Basin (Audio Right-click to download)

Tabernacle – The Altar (Audio – of questionable quality, but you can hear it – right click to download.)

I’ve had enough of substitutionary atonement; enough with appeasing an angry God. There’s no magic blood, and worse the model perpetuates the cycle of what Rene Girard calls "mimetic violence," or at least justifies it. Enough. But is there another way to look at this idea of sacrifice?

Tabernacle – The Lampstand (Audio – of questionable quality, but you can hear it. – Right click to download)