Toward Sunday

We continue our three-week worship series, Olympic Faith, this Sunday as we focus on Olympic Medals and John 6.24-35.

John’s Gospel invites us to wonder about “the work of God” and about belief in Jesus as the bread of life.  Jesus says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one God has sent” (6.29).  David Lose writes, “this scene provides something of a halting but progressive disclosure that in Jesus God is revealing God’s own self most clearly and fully so that all people will have access to God or, to hearken back to John 1, so that all people can become ‘children of God’ (1:12).”

Take some time to hold this text in relationship to olympic medals.

Consider for a moment how work and belief relate to the quest for olympic gold.  It has been reported that Michael Phelps worked every single day for six years in a row as he trained for the 2008 Olympics.  The athletes competing in London work tirelessly in preparation.  Along with their hard work, athletes must believe.  They must believe in their preparation, their physical capabilities, their coaching, their strategy, their teammates, and more.

In John’s Gospel we read: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one God has sent” (6.29). What does it mean for you to “believe in the one God has sent”?  What does it look like to believe in Jesus?  How does it feel?  What questions arise for you in relationship to believing?  What fears?  What hopes?  

Fragments

He told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over,
so that nothing may be lost.”
―John 6.12

Jan Richardson writes:  “It is part of the miracle: how Jesus, with such intention, cares for the fragments following the feast. He sees the abundance that persists, the feast that remains within the fragments. We might think the marvel of the story is that there is enough for everyone. And yet for Jesus, enough does not seem to be enough. There is more: a meal that depends on paying attention to what has been left behind, on turning toward what has been tossed aside.”

How much is enough for you?

How might you pay attention to what has been “left behind and tossed aside” today?

 

Gripping spectacles.

U.S. Men’s Olympic Track Team 1910

“There are enough irksome and troublesome things in life; aren’t things just as bad at the Olympic festival?  Aren’t you scorched there by the fierce heat?  Aren’t you crushed in the crowd? Isn’t it difficult to freshen yourself up?  Doesn’t the rain soak you to the skin?  Aren’t you bothered by the noise, the din and other nuisances?  But it seems to me that you are well able to bear and indeed gladly endure all this, when you think of the gripping spectacles that you will see.”   

(from Epictetus, Dissertations, 1^st-2^nd century A.C.E.)

What gripping spectacles have you seen

or been part of as you have practiced your faith?

Toward Sunday.

We begin our 3 week series called Olympic Faith this Sunday.  We will reflect on Olympic Messes, Olympic Medals and Olympic Memories.

Two billion of us worldwide will experience this collective show of greatness as a salve to our minds and spirits, like when a few billion of us get to watch a solar eclipse together.  It is as though a hush falls over the whole world, like a mantilla, and then gasps of amazement, and gratitude to be out of the prison of our thinking and self-absorption and anxiety and greed.  Over the coming weeks we will watch these Olympics together, holding our one great human breath, cheering others on. (from a FB status update by Anne Lammott 7.19.12)

When you think of Olympic messes  what comes to mind?  

Barbara Brown Taylor said in a lecture (Festival of Homiletics 2011) that “the scriptures we turn to most often are those verses that describe for us our own situations the best.  Situations we find ourselves in as individuals and as groups.”   Our passage for this week is John’s version of the Feeding of the 5,000. How might this familiar story hold new meaning for us today? Read John 6:1-15.

In this passage Phillip and Andrew have a dialogue with Jesus regarding the crowd that has gathered. They realize that Jesus expects the crowd to be fed in spite of their perceived limited resources.

What realizations have you had as a result of following Jesus in which you too have felt limited in your capacities.  What did you do and what was the result?  How might this experience inform your desire to follow Jesus this week?

 

Community

We began our Evolution of Church series with the experience of Pentecost.  We were reminded of the story of God’s people as recorded in Acts 2:44-45:  “Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.” (from The Message)  When we respond to this call from God, we can make a much needed witness to the community.

In his book “The Promise of Paradox” Parker Palmer reminds us that “We need to find the courage to assert and act on the hope that community remains a human possibility, because only by acting ‘as if’ can we create a future fit for human habitation.” (p 72)

How might your longing for community be met by God at The Table?  How might your participation in your Kitchen Table take you closer and deeper to the heart of God?

What time is it?

In my beginning is my end.  In succession

Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended

Are removed, destroyed,restored, or in their place

Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.

Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,

Old fires to sakes, and ashes to the earth

Which is already flesh, fur, and feces,

Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.

Houses live and die:  there is a time for building

And a time for living and for generation…

    from East Coker from The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

What time is it for God’s church?

Next steps.

What is your next step towards God?

Understanding that worship in the church has evolved over many generations is one key to living in the freedom God offers each of us.  Knowing that the order in which we worship has been passed down and has changed over time gives us freedom to do the same.  Knowing that some parts of the order never change connects us all the way back to the earliest of God’s people.  When we dance and sing for joy in worship we know that Miriam did the same.  When we pray we know that the desert mothers and fathers prayed throughout the day.  Richard Rohr (a monk in the Franciscan tradition) writes that “A good journey begins with knowing where we are and being willing to go somewhere else.”   How might that be true for you this week as you consider taking your next step toward God?

Toward Sunday

 

Take time to reflect this summer. Walk, listen, pray.

Our worship series, The Evolution of Church, draws to a close this Sunday.  Throughout these eight weeks we have reflected on significant shifts in the ways God’s people have gathered together to root their lives in Grace, grow in faith, and reach in love.  If you would like to catch any of the messages you missed you may listen to them here:

This week we invite you to read Mark 6.30-34 & 53-56.  In these two selections, Jesus invites his followers to go away and to rest (to root their lives in Grace) and Jesus heals those who are hurting as they touch the fringe of his garment (he reaches in love and they grow in faith).  Summer often affords time for reflection and rest and we hope you have had some space of your own.  As you move through these summer days what are your hopes for our community of faith’s next steps in the evolution of church? 

Liberal Protestant Theology

Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian who brought us into the 20th century.  He was one who significantly shaped Liberal Protestant Theology especially during the 1940’s and 1950’s.  There is a resurgence of interest in his writings and you can listen to a recent podcast about him here:

“On Being” Podcast by Krista Tippett

Order in the church.

“A new Methodist hymnal, joint produced in 1935 by the Methodists, North and South, and the Methodist Protestants, contained 4 orders of Sunday worship…The trend was heavily in the direction of dignified order, in both liturgy and music.  Church architecture and worship habits reflected the times.  The trend everywhere was toward more formal structures….The Christian year was rediscovered, along with liturgical colors; candles joined the cross on countless communion tables….preaching also changed.  Sermons were better structured and full of literary allusions, testimony to the “higher standards” set by seminary preaching classes.  And these changes in worship reflected changes in the worshipers.”  (from Untied Methodism in America by John G. McEllhenney p 113.)

When you attend worship how do you experience the “order” or “flow”?  How is it for you to move from song to prayer to scripture and preaching?  What, if anything,  do you appreciate about knowing that there is an order to Sunday worship?