Burning Bush Holiness

               This weekend, we are going to be continuing our “Fire” series, and will be speaking to the story of Moses and the burning bush.  Though we get caught up around many different things within the story, one of the main elements is simply a picture of God’s holiness.  The bush burns with that mysterious holiness of God which at the same time draws us in and makes us fall back in fear.

          We are going to unpack that story in worship with some detail, but this morning, a friend sent me an amazing email which offers an inspiring example of what it means to live a “holy life”.  On Thursday, President Obama posthumously presented the Congressional Medal of Honor to Chaplain Emil J. Kapaun. 

 

          President Obama’s remarks indicated that Chaplain Kapaun served during the Korean War and was among the first American troops that hit the beaches. During a surprise attack by 20,000 Chinese soldiers, he dragged the wounded to safety.  He stayed during an ordered evacuation, tending to the wounded and dying.  When over a dozen wounded Americans were about to be gunned down, Father Kapaun pleaded with a Chinese officer and convinced him to call out to his fellow Chinese.  The shooting stopped and they negotiated a safe surrender, saving those American lives.   Then, as Father Kapaun was being led away, he saw another American -- wounded, unable to walk, laying in a ditch, defenseless.  An enemy soldier was standing over him, rifle aimed at his head, ready to shoot.  Father Kapaun marched over and pushed the enemy soldier aside.  And then as the soldier watched, stunned, Father Kapaun carried that wounded American away.  He carried that injured American, for miles. When other prisoners stumbled, he picked them up.  When they wanted to quit -- knowing that stragglers would be shot -- he begged them to keep walking.  In the camps that winter, deep in a valley, men could freeze to death in their sleep.  Father Kapaun offered them his own clothes.  They starved on tiny rations of millet and corn and birdseed.  He somehow snuck past the guards, foraged in nearby fields, and returned with rice and potatoes.  In desperation, some men hoarded food.  He convinced them to share.  Their bodies were ravaged by dysentery.  He grabbed some rocks, pounded metal into pots and boiled clean water.  They lived in filth.  He washed their clothes and he cleansed their wounds. The guards ridiculed his devotion to his Savior and the Almighty.  They took his clothes and made him stand in the freezing cold for hours.  Yet, he never lost his faith.  If anything, it only grew stronger.  At night, he slipped into huts to lead prisoners in prayer, saying the Rosary, administering the sacraments, offering three simple words:  “God bless you.”  One of them later said that with his very presence he could just for a moment turn a mud hut into a cathedral. That spring, he went further -- he held an Easter service and used the stole shown here in the picture as he celebrated Mass inside that prison camp. 

          It is interesting, one of the men in the audience at the ceremony Thursday was Herb Miller, the soldier that Father Kapaun saved in that ditch and then carried all those miles.

          For the church throughout the centuries, the stole represents holiness.  It reminds us as pastors and clergy that we are “set apart”, we are supposed to be different and testify to a holy God who desires a holy creation.  And yet, it was used so powerfully in the midst of so much pain and mess.  That is a powerful picture of what we will call Sunday, “burning bush holiness…”  Come join us as we talk more about it!   See you there

Emptiness Full of Promise

          This week, I saw a great article by recording artist Carolyn Arends.  She shared a unique quote she heard from her pastor who said in a sermon:

“The world offers promises full of emptiness.  But Easter offers emptiness full of promise.”

          All of us have experienced those empty promises.  We have lived with good intentions that didn’t deliver.  We have lived in a world of smoke and mirrors and things that talk big but just don’t have what it takes to bring it upon the reality of the challenges we face every day.

          But ironically, Easter offers emptiness that is full of promise.  There is an empty cross, an empty tomb, empty grave clothes. 

          There is hope there, because all too often, our lives are simply empty.  Oh sure, we are busy, probably too busy.  Our lives seem very full in many ways, but at the end of the day, when we put our heads to the pillow, all that fullness proves not filling but exhausting and dare we say, empty.

          But Easter offers emptiness full of promise.  Jesus can redeem emptiness.  Like God, he can create something out of nothing.  He can create light out of darkness, and hope out of hopelessness. 

          This Easter weekend, I hope you will join us at one of our Easter services.  The tomb is empty, but our prayer is that our church will be full of those seeking hope, and more importantly the presence of a very real and living Jesus who can still redeem those empty spaces in our lives and world.  See you there, 

Pastor Pete 

How Not to Follow the Crowd

How Not to Follow the Crowd

            Most of us are accustomed to the typical characters in the story of Jesus’ last week.  We see the donkey bringing in Jesus, the disciples at the last supper.  There is Judas betraying him with a kiss in the garden.  We remember Pilate and the religious leaders at the trial of Jesus. 

            But Matthew brings in an additional character to the story.  In fact, this character has been a part of his whole Gospel.  The character was there when he taught the Sermon on the Mount, there when he fed the five thousand, and there in a multitude of other places. 

            Matthew simply calls this character “the crowd” and it takes on a personality all its own.  Jesus never trusted this character.  Though he served them he never gave himself fully to them.  This weekend, “the crowd” shows up again.  They are there, welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem.  They are appropriately shouting words of praise and thanksgiving, cutting branches and putting cloaks in the road to welcome the king.  It is a scene of joy and praise.

            And yet in a foreboding way, for the rest of the week the crowd is silent, that is until Jesus is on trial.  Then, manipulated by the powers that be, they are yelling “Crucify him!” 

            How can this be?  How can a crowd be so excited about Jesus and his coming and then something like seven days later, yell “crucify”?  What is even more disconcerting is the recognition, that this could easily be us.  Every one of us has at one point or another felt that powerful force of the crowd pressing in on us.  The pressure so often turns into a stampede and it feels safer to run with the crowd than to try to step out, stop it, or slow it down.

            But this weekend, we will be reminded that it doesn’t have to be that way.  There are things we can do to avoid this predictable pattern.  Come join us in worship and we will talk more about it.  See you there!

In Christ,

Pastor Pete 

     I remember a time, many years ago when several of my friends and I were frustrated.  We all flew for the Navy, and had just returned home from a very long and hard cruise.  During those days, we did many challenging things; things that were new and hard and had never been done before.  We had all become accustomed to flying on and off aircraft carriers.  The challenging became the norm.  To top it all off, we did it well.  We had a perfect saftey record.  No one had been hurt in those months at sea.

     Our Commanding Officer was very proud of that record, and he was being replaced in two months.  As a result, he was determined to maintain that record.  So, we just didn't fly.  The airplanes which we had flown so intensely for seven months, now just sat in the hangar, and so did we.  Morale sank.  We were miserable, the men working on the planes were miserable, and we just ended up fussing about it all, enduring the days until we had a new Commanding Officer, who would get those planes out of the hangar and into the air where they and we were designed to be.

     This weekend in worshp, we are going to be reminded how this is a fitting illustration of our lives as disciples of Jesus.  We are simply not designed to live life in the hangar.  God has designed us, saved us, and sent us to fly.  When we don't stay active in our primary task, when we become safely moderate instead of boldy serving, we find ourselves frustrated and fussing at one another.  We were never meant to be safe in the spiritual hangar.  Our faith is designed to give us wings.

     I would like to invite all of you to join us in worship this weekend as we listen to the story of Esther.  She did what so many of us yearn to do.  She started as a nominal person of faith, in fact, hiding her faith from all those around her.  But then, something happened that changed her into a woman that not only saved her people but also changed the world.  In this day and age, where we tend to so naturally put a bushel over our lights, we need to hear her story and once again find our faith wings.  Come join us as we talk about this some more!

See you there,
Pastor Pete

Do We Have “B.F.F.s” or “K.O.F’s”?

Do We Have “B.F.F.s” or “K.O.F’s”?

This weekend, we are going to be continuing our “One Month to Live” sermon series and will be speaking to our relationships.  Most of us, if we really had 30 days to live, would want to spend more time with family and close friends.  When push comes to shove, people are what really matter.

            But in our time, this is also a challenge.  According to a recent article in the New York Times, our circle of close friends is getting smaller. Over the past twenty years, the number of people we can discuss "matters important to us" dropped nearly a third. The number of people who said they had no one to talk to about important matters more than doubled, to nearly 25 percent.

The Times article added that this scarcity of close friends has especially impacted mid-lifers:

 “In your 30s and 40s, plenty of new people enter your life, through work, children's play dates and, of course, Facebook. But actual close friends—the kind you make in college, the kind you call in a crisis—those are in shorter supply. As people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading. Schedules compress, priorities change and people often become pickier in what they want in their friends. No matter how many friends you make, a sense of fatalism can creep in: the period for making B.F.F.'s [best friends forever], the way you did in your teens or early 20s, is pretty much over. It's time to resign yourself to situational friends: K.O.F.'s (kind of friends)—for now.” (Alex Williams, "Friends of a Certain Age," The New York Times, 7-13-12)

            The article says this is just the way it is.  As we get older, we simply are going to have fewer close friends and relationships.  But in contrast, this weekend, we are going to look at the beautiful story of Ruth.  She tells us that it doesn’t have to be this way.  She found strength, hope and power in God and in the people around her.  As all of us strive to “love completely” Ruth can show all of us, including mid-lifers the way.  Come and join us.  You can even bring your “K.O.F”!

See you in worship,

Pastor Pete

One Month to Live

Part II:  Live Passionately!



               Years ago, I served as a chaplain intern at VCU hospital.  Every day, I saw something new.  One of the premier things that I have never forgotten was a conversation with a Catholic priest I met while I was there.  He worked specifically with all the HIV/AIDS patients.  This was 1989, and the world of AIDS was different.  In those days, a diagnosis was a death sentence.  This particular priest worked with all those troubled, typically young males, who were facing their impending death.

               One day he told me about one of his patients.  In a surprising way, this particular man spoke of the blessing of his disease.  The priest asked him more about this, what he meant, and this man said this: “Everyone in the world has a bullet headed straight for their forehead.  I am blessed because I can see it coming, and I can get ready for it.”

               That dying man’s perspective speaks to our current Lenten sermon series. Hopefully by now, you know about our theme for these forty days.  Basically, we are asking ourselves the question, “If I had one month to live, what would I change about my life?”

               It is an appropriate question for Lent.  The ashes of Ash Wednesday are there to remind us that we are mortal.  All of us will go the way of the earth one day.  But the purpose of these forty days of self-examination is not solely upon the dark and gloomy.  They are here to point us to Jesus, and his journey to the cross.  In his death, he found and offered new life.  Death to self became a vehicle for life for us. 

               And so we follow him with the same perspective.  By facing our mortality, we actually find new life for us individually and even for the people around us.  Each week, we are looking at different ways that we might face our limits, and live differently right now.

               This weekend, we are recognizing that many of us would like to live more passionately.  All too often, especially as we grow older, we drift to the safe and moderate middle.  That may be a good thing in some places, like politics and other categories, but it is a dangerous place spiritually.  Spiritual passion may scare us, and to be sure, that have been places where it has gone astray.  But this weekend, we are going to take a look at Peter, the man who was moved by the appearance of Jesus on those waves, and found his passion carrying him out of the boat and on to the water.  Could we find this same Jesus and those same sure steps today?

               Come to worship on Saturday and Sunday, and we will speak of this some more.  See you there!!

Pastor Pete

The Church is Beautiful

The Church is Beautiful



This weekend, we will be concluding our five week "Lessons From the Road" sermon series around the country.  This has been a great series and I have really enjoyed your comments and feedback.  Thanks so much!  We will finish up  with two stops in Detroit and New York City. 

I was struck with my time in these two cities, but especially during my few days in Detroit.  As most are aware, the city of Detroit has not fared well during these last years.  The region has suffered dramatically from our recent recession.  It is one thing to read about it in the headlines, but it is another entirely to spend a few days there.  While there are still remnants of the glory days of old, for the most part, driving the streets of Detroit and its suburbs is stark.  Businesses are closed or closing, signs are falling down, streets are in disrepair, and there exists a general sense that this community is on the downhill side of the graph.

In contrast, I had the privilege of meeting an incredible church just outside of the city limits: Redford Aldersgate United Methodist.  They invited me to their Wednesday night dinner and Bible study, and I had the opportunity to meet their pastor, Jeff Nelson.  The contrast of the church and the surroundings was simply phenomenal.  There was life everywhere.  The night was filled with laughter, stories, and radical hospitality and generosity with me as a visitor.  More importantly, while the majority of the city is moving out of downtown, this church is moving in, with new ministries and even planting a new church in ground zero of the urban evacuation.

All of this offers a reminder of which we will speak this week.  In the midst of the world’s problems and struggles, the church is beautiful.  Certainly, the church has its scars and sins, but it doesn’t change the fact that when you read the Bible, our risen Lord looks at us and our future, and sees the church with eyes of beauty. 

When we, like that little church in Detroit, live up to that beauty, we shine in the midst of all that human pain and suffering.  I invite you to come and join us in worship on Sunday.  We will speak more of this beauty with this story and another like it in New York City.  In all the ugliness that we see in this world each day, we can all use a reminder that despite us, the church is still beautiful.   See you in worship,

Pastor Pete