Some years ago, I was talking to a boy of about six years old. It was around this time of year and we were discussing the Christmas story -- the Magi to be specific. He was telling me about the three Wise guys who came out of the East to visit Jesus in Bethlehem and give him gifts. "And do you know what gifts they brought to Jesus?" I asked. "I do," said the boy with great determination. "Can you tell me what they were?" "I can," he said. "They brought gold, frankincense and mirth!"
He didn't get the answer quite right. But two out of three isn’t bad. But his answer, perhaps, was not that far off. I think that along with all of the other gifts, the Magi most certainly would have brought along a measure of mirth. Listen to Matthew’s description of the story: “they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy!” Yes, they brought mirth!
2001 was a tough year, wasn’t it? Not much mirth, there – but a lot of tears and grief. I am really glad its over, aren’t you? I mean, with September 11, and the war that followed, people losing lives, people having anxiety attacks, the slumping economy and our friends losing jobs – I could go on and on. I am hoping that 2002 will bring an abundance of mirth -- joy for all of us
But despite the struggles, it was a good year for our church, I thought. It was the previous fall quarter that we ran into shock and grief when several of our families left us. It took us almost all of the rest of that year to get hold of ourselves and in some ways we are still dealing with that grief. But through all of that, I am grateful that we did not forget who we are or whose we are. We knew all along that God was not done with us, yet, and indeed, that God is going to do new things with us. Isaiah 43:19, “Look I am doing a New Thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” became our watchword at that time. So we did some really important things this past year. We came together early in January last year and took stock of ourselves. We called ourselves the Co-creator Team, because, we said, we are co-creating a new reality with God. One of the first things we did was to work on our identity. We affirmed that we had moved away from the Southern Baptist Convention many years ago, or rather, the Southern Baptist Convention had gone in a direction that we could not go in, and formalized that change. And then we got ourselves a new name, Ellis Avenue Church, which roots us more thoroughly in our immediate community and got ourselves a tag-line “Celebrating Diversity, Building Community in Christ,” that’s both descriptive of who we are and announces the hope of what we want to become. In June, we formalized the name change. That same month, I came across a story, which is like a parable for us. Let me tell it again, so we will remember.
There was a farmer who owned an old mule. One day, the mule fell into an old well in the farm. Badly bruised and banged up, and terribly shaken, it began braying as loudly as it could. The farmer came running out, saw what happened and quickly called his neighbors together. He felt sorry for the mule, but after carefully assessing the situation with the neighbors, he decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. So, the farmer and the neighbors got a truckload of dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery. They started shoveling the dirt into the well. Initially, the old mule was hysterical. But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, it realized that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back he could shake it off and step up! This he did, blow after blow. "Shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up!" he repeated to encourage himself. It only sounded like hysterical braying to the casual listener, but that’s what the old mule was saying! No matter how painful the blows or distressing the situation seemed, the old mule fought panic and just kept shaking it off and stepping up. It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the well! What seemed like it would bury him actually blessed him.
What we did this year was to shake it off and step up. And we got bold and we invited Amy to come on staff – and we got fortunate and Sarah became a Pastoral Intern with us. We started a Family Forum, a New Christians Class and the Children’s Sunday School Class at 9:30 on Sundays. Then we did a fall Family Festival, a Women’s Retreat and a Children’s Musical. It was an exciting fall quarter. It was a lot of work, sometimes we had to struggle through them, but I noticed, we are beginning to have some fun – we are beginning to get some mirth! There’s still a lot more co-creating to do – God’s not done with us yet! Now, its onward and upward to great new things God is calling us to do and be.
These are some of the things I reflected on when our family took a week off. We went to Branson, Missouri, the country music capital of the Midwest – something our kids didn’t particularly appreciate, but you know, even though Dhilanthi and I grew up half a world away, we grew up on that music. We didn’t know this but most of the shows were closed during the Christmas week. We got to see a couple, though, but mostly had a restful time. Then on Christmas Eve, we went to the local Methodist Church for worship. It has been long time, since I’ve been to such a stuffy and boring service. It was led entirely, I mean entirely, by the pastor. There was not one time apart from singing the hymns and putting in the offering that the congregation could participate. Every member of our family, including my wife with Methodist blood in her veins, had the same reaction as we stepped out of that church. We figured only tourists like us would go there – there was no mirth, no joy, no spirit of love or community. People may have come there with gold and frankincense, but there was not mirth! We agreed that Christmas Eve worship at Ellis Avenue, even if we had 15 people would be incredibly more rewarding.
Perhaps there was a message for me there. Clearly it was a lesson in how not to lead worship. It was clear to me that our worship participatory as it is, needs to be even more so; that our worship celebratory as it is, needs to be even more so; that community building, which we are good at doing needs to be done even more; that our joy must overflow into our community our neighbors and colleagues in outreach. The rest of the week as I reflected on my ministry and the ministry of this church, it became very clear to me that we need to have joy in our lives. We have shaken off and stepped up. Now, we have to live it up!
No, I don’t mean a lot of whooping and hollering, plastic smiles and pretend joy that’s empty of meaning. That, in many ways, is worse. I’ve been to enough of those, and I know you have, where the only way to be authentic is to have your head bowed and be quiet. No, I am talking about finding a real joy in being community and coming together in worship.
Here again is something I said to you last June. This was my reflection on how things might change in our church life as we approached the new academic year. And you know the top item that came to mind -- that we need to laugh and play more. I ran this by my colleague, I said to you at that time, Rev. Bonnie Perry, who is pastor of All Saints Episcopal Church in the North side. It seemed to me that they know how to laugh and play a lot. And she said, its not about laughing and playing, its about being real with each other. Its about being able to express our feelings to each other and not being afraid. It is about loving each other enough to be able to agitate each other to be the best that God has called us to be. I think that’s right on. Joy will come if we can learn to be real with each other – when we begin to recognize God’s presence in each of us.
So, how do we do this? Our Covenant Renewal emphasis today, is a very important first step. It is a gift I received from going to worship with Dhilanthi's family. This is the tradition in Methodist churches, a tradition going back to John Wesley himself. At Wesley’s services, people came to understand that they are worshipping a covenant making, liberating and covenant keeping God -- that the breach of covenant happens when we go away from being true to all that what God calls us to be, when we refuse to give God the first priority in our lives. So, people came to confront their sin of not keeping the covenant and asked for God's forgiveness; understood anew what covenant keeping meant for their lives and times and renewed their covenant with God. Living in covenant with a God who is so faithful and trustworthy, even through times of political instability and economic hardship, allowed them to live lives of confidence -- and yes, even joy.
The scripture Wesley used for the Covenant Service was from the gospel of Mark. A teacher of the law once came to Jesus and asked, "Which commandment is the most important of all." And of course there are hundreds of commandments in the Bible to choose from. But Jesus pulls something that has been used over and again in Jewish faith and practice from the book of Deuteronomy – the Shema Yisrael, which our Jewish friends recite every time they gather for worship. He says "The most important one is this: "Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second most important commandment is this: love your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no other commandment more important than these two."
Let
me remind you where these words come from. Deuteronomy is actually a sermon
given by Moses when the escaping slaves from Egypt had now come to the edge of
the Jordan and are about to enter the promised land. Moses had survived the 40
year journey, although he won’t live to see the promised land. Many of the people
who started the journey or were there at sacred mountain, where they covenanted
with God, and received the Ten Commandments are not living any more. But these
are their children and grand children. They don’t know the hardships of Egypt,
the sting when the taskmaster’s whip cracked on your back. The frustration of
having to make a double quota of bricks when they would give you only half the
straw required to make them and the utter weariness of it all. They don’t know
about the plagues, about how God moved against the slave owners with a mighty
hand and an outstretched arm, they said, with wonders and miracles, to bring
them out of slavery to this land that is before them, a land flowing with milk
and honey. Moses is trying to make this these people re-live that experience.
He is preaching this sermon as if these people were there in Egypt, as if, they
were there when God make the covenant at Mount Sinai.
Deuteronomy is a
message that is being proclaimed with a great sense of urgency. "Hear O
Israel" resounds like a trumpet call throughout the sermon. At many places
there are calls to commitment: one such is the passage we read at our call to
worship. "And now Israel, what does the Lord require of you, but to fear
the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul." And then, the Shema:
"Hear O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."
Years after the covenant was first made, before they entered the new land with
its new challenges, Moses has them renew their covenant with God.
And then through out the history of the ancient Jews,
from time to time when national calamities arose, or when they were reaching
for a fresh commitment to God they had Covenant Renewal Ceremonies – and often
they were the same as New Year ceremonies. And what did they use --
Deuteronomy, which really means the second reading of the law, but more specifically
the Shema. Not only that Jesus uses it, and throughout the Christian tradition,
we’ve used it to call people to covenant renewal. Recalling and articulating
God's faithfulness in covenant keeping which we did a little while ago, was an
important part of that process. In doing so we affirmed that although we may
fail, and follow our own understanding of what is important, and thereby,
worship idols, God is faithful to the covenant.
So, let me take you back to your own covenant
establishing experience. Do you remember the day of your covenant making, the
day of your Mount Sinai or the day you were at the foot of the cross? Do you
remember the day you were convicted of your sin and sought God's forgiveness
and received the salvation that Jesus provides? Do you remember a faithful
promise that you made to follow Jesus all your life, to deny yourself, take up
your cross daily and follow him? Now, God knows we’ve tried to be as faithfully
as we possibly can be to that covenant. But surely, none of us were so attuned
to God that we followed God's leading every step of the way; God knows I
didn't!
George Gallup has said that most Christians find that
their spirituality is on the decline from the day that they made their
commitment. The joy we experienced at the moment when we were most authentic,
opening our hearts before God, confessing our sin, offering ourselves to God,
is gone, isn’t it? For many of us, our Christian life, even our worship at
church becomes another chore. That really does not have to be the case. I mean,
look these wise men who came seeking Jesus. They were overwhelmed with joy.
This is the testimony of the people in the Bible, and the testimony of God’s
people through the ages.
This year, I hope, our life together can be characterized
as joyful – that we can again begin to laugh and play, but not the put on,
plastic smile variety, but joy that comes from being real. We can do that only
if we begin by renewing our covenant with our covenant keeping God. So, this is
a call to recall our first covenant making experience. The day when we met God
at the sacred mountain, the day we stood at the brink of crossing the Jordan,
the day we drew near to the cross. It is a call to recall the experience of
confessing our sin, seeking God’s forgiveness and the Holy Spirit’s new life.
This is call to acknowledge that we have not been faithful to that covenant,
that we have fallen away from the covenant, but our God is covenant keeping
God. This is a call to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds
and strength in every facet of our lives; in everything that we do and in
everything we are, in our decisions and our relationships, in our families and
in our work places. This is a call to reclaim a life of joyful discipleship.