Back in the Pulpit Again

I don't preach much anymore but today I filled the pulpit for a friend of mind in a couple of churches. Some of you have heard me say over the years that the most comfortable I feel in my own skin is when I am leading worship. The reason for the being is that it doesn't have much to do with me, it has to do with God and I just try to stay out of the way as much as possible. I also love doing the research for the sermons and developing my notorious stories. At anyrate, it felt good and I enjoyed it. A good way to spend Father's day.

With some reticence, but with Doreen's urging I'll add the sermon here. One caveat, sermons are a verbal things and just reading them doesn't really work very well. They are meant to be delivered to a particular audience and just reading them looses a lot. With that caution here it is. I have also another sermon rule, if it won't fit on one sheet of paper both sides) I shorten it until it does. What I preached is not necessarily what you are going to read but it's close.

Ephesians 4

To Be Mature

¹In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. ²And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, ³alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

⁴You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. ⁵You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

⁷But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. ⁸The text for this is,

He climbed the high mountain,

He captured the enemy and seized the booty,

He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

⁹It’s true, is it not, that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? ¹⁰And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, ¹¹filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher ¹²to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, ¹³until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

¹⁴No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. ¹⁵God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. ¹⁶He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

In my home town at the corner of Politics St. and Religion Avenue there were houses on each corner and in each house the parents had a single child. On the northwest corner house living Connie Servative; on the Southeast corner was Ernest Liberal; on the southwest corner was Rad Left and on the northeast corner lived Tina Party.

Each child reflected the politics of their parents, Connie Conservative was a Eisenhower type of Republican with strong values of family and conservative fiscal outlooks. They read time magazine.

Tina Party’s family didn’t have many magazines but were big fans of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, Glen Beck, Pat Buchanan and Sarah Palin and Fox news. They didn’t want gov’ment messing with their business and hated paying taxes.

Ernest Liberal’s family had voted for and supported President Obama, and felt he had been dealt an unfair hand in trying to straighten out the country. They read the Huffington Post, US News and World Report and had read Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope. And they watched Oprah.

Rad Left’s family still dressing in 60’s hippy garb listened to Woody Gutherie and other folk singers, listened to MSNBC, liked Chris Matthews, Daniel Berrigan and stood with the support of Angela Davis when that issue was hot in the Presbyerian Church.

For that matter they were all Presbyterians and took the church seriously, even if they fought about things.

Tina Party and Rad Left were the noisiest kids on the block and you could hear them yelling and screaming at each other over their differing views of politics and religion. Each thought the other was a total blockhead and told each other so in no uncertain terms. In school they were both sent to the principal’s office regularly and their parent’s were often called in concerning the children’s disruptive behavior. They parents always sided with the children and thought the school was just reflective of an oppressive society. When the graduated from high school they sought out like minded folk and never spoke or saw each other again.

Ernest Liberal and Connie Servative were best friends. Oh they also talked about politics and religion, but the listened to each other and tried to understand each other position while strongly explaining their own positions. They were both good students and active in school activities and were known for trying to help people work together. Despite their differences. They both went to the same college and in their senior year they got married to the delight of both of their families.

And that’s the way it is in my home town where folks are pretty much like folk everywhere else.

Over the last few months I have been writing on a blog site I created. It’s called Drennans-et-al.blogspot.com. Part of the reason I created it was so that members of my side of the family could get to better know Doreen’s side of the family and we could share family stories and ideas. That hasn’t happened so much and since then I’ve expanded the writership to a more extended family concept. The other reason I write it is that I believe we need talk about religion and politics in contrast to the folk wisdom “you can talk about anything except those two things.” But we need to learn how to talk about them civilly. And, since we seem to be constantly bombarded by political campaigns with hardly a breath between them, and those campaigns have become so vitriolic and polarizing; we need those types of conversations. Discussion where the point of debate is to find a common truth that we can accept and work together with.

I’m not sure anymore whether than is possible without and radical change in campaign laws and a better educated populace. And by better educated I mean education that is wider scope than just learning a job for which you get paid.

Paul, in his letter to his friends in the town of Ephesus tells us of how such a life could and should be. It is one of the great N.T. passages on unity of purpose among people though it does not mean we all have to believe exactly the same things.

But Paul tells us how we ought to act with each other: with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace.

Paul sets this unity in the context of what we are called to be as Christians and to live lives that are worthy and reflect that highest calling to serve Christ and to be servants to each other. You surely don’t hear that type of language in today’s political much in the religious arena.

Paul further tells us that we have all been given wonderful gifts by God and are to do different things in our lives. But all of it is to work to a common good, and to build up unity of spirit among all people.

Sadly, as a nation I think we have pretty much lost that vision as reflected in our political campaign and the divisive fights between the so-called liberal and conservative elements of the church.

But we, the members of the church, the body of Christ, are still called to be those people who are to be gentle, kind, patient and bearing with each other, when we disagree to that together, sharing our gifts, we may find the common path God wishes us to follow.

I imagine that most of you hear are as fed up as I am with what is going on in politics and within our churches. But we are not helpless to do anything about it. We can live up to our callings as the disciples of Christ, to be true peace makers in this world.

We can be those folk who work to solve problems rather than just be a part of them. That is just as simple as being nice and truly listening to our neighbors, or writing a blog site as I do. It means expressing our religious beliefs about the world God is calling us to create.

Currently, I fear for the American experiment of democracy. I doubt that it will continue unless people of faith, such as ourselves do all we can to inform ourselves about issues and debate them without malice but in faithfulness to our called discipleship to Christ. We need to mix religion and politics. May it be so! Amen.