Our Children’s Children

All Saints Day sermon Isaiah 25:6-9

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As many of you now know, my father’s wife Sue passed away last week at the age of 58. She had battled bile duct cancer for over five years. Through many surgeries and chemo treatments, she maintained high spirits and a positive attitude despite the shroud of darkness that cancer casts as its shadow.

My guess is there is not a one of us gathered here today who has not been affected by the evil that is cancer, there is likely not a person here who has not been under that shroud of darkness. That’s the image that keeps coming back to me, that keeps haunting me, the shroud of darkness. And despite the despair and fear that image brings, our Old Testament lesson today offers us a word of hope in the shadows:

“And God will destroy, on this mountain, the shroud of darkness that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; God will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people God will take away from the earth.” And this promise that death is not the end is echoed in our New Testament reading as well: “See the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell WITH them, as their God; they will be God’s peoples, and The Lord, God’s self, will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

Today is All Saints Day. The day that we remember those who have gone before us, and have entered the blessed rest of glory. We remember those who gave their lives to and for the church, the canonized saints, just as we remember our loved ones; family members who have led us in the way that leads to life. Today is the day we remember and celebrate the promise of new life in Christ. Today is the day we remember, in the words of Bob Dylan: “Death is not the end.”

And as we remember, we recount the blessings that these saints have handed down to us. That is what TRADITION is. From the Latin word traditio which literally means to “hand over.” Those who have gone before us have handed over blessings immeasurable to us. The forms of our worship have been handed over to us from generations before. Our hymns, our liturgy, all a gift from those saints in days gone by.

Let us pause for one moment and look around this beautiful sanctuary. Look at the stained glass. The beautiful wood grain of the pews. Look at the ceiling décor, and the organ pipes, and the brass rail, and musical instruments. Pause for just a moment and absorb how much has been handed over to us from faithful members of this church, faithful saints, who have already gone on to glory. (pause)

When we stop and think about how richly we have been blessed by those who have gone before us, we recognize that such gifts can only come by sacrifice, by extravagant generosity with which they have blessed us. Past members of this church who postponed vacations, who bought smaller houses, who mended and repaired, rather than discarding and buying new, who spent less so they could give more, who put us first, people they didn’t even know, before their own wants and desires. These past members have given us all of this and SO much more out of love and self-sacrifice.

What are we doing to ensure that we too can give these kinds of extravagant gifts to future generations? What are we doing to make sure that our children’s children are as richly blessed as we have been? What are we doing to ensure that this body of Christ will be able to reach out in love and mission to all corners of the world, giving them a sense of Kingdom-abundance rather than the fear of worldly-scarcity?

Friends, we have been richly blessed. On this All Saints Day we are reminded as we come forward to receive Holy Communion, a foretaste of the Glory Divine, that we too will one day join the saints at the heavenly feast: Isaiah declares, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” Friends, we too will leave this mortal coil behind, and with it, all the houses, and cars, and flat screen tvs, and X-boxes, and vacation homes, and boats, and campers… We can’t take it with us.

Jesus told Peter in no uncertain terms, “To those whom much has been given, much will be required.” My sisters and my brothers, let us, on this day of All Saints, consider our giving. As we prayerfully prepare to fill out our pledge cards for the coming year, let us remember those who have gone before us, and how richly they have blessed us with their giving. Let us ensure that we are doing the same, for the sake of our children’s children. Amen and Amen.

The only problem I have with these mysteries is they’re so mysterious…

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint.” ~Psalm 61:1-2, NRSV.

These words have been the very thoughts of my mind, the very emotions of my heart, the very fear of my guts. The past few months have not gone as I had planned. I entered this new phase of ministry in Mitchell, SD with grandiose plans of what I had hoped to do. I had visions of my family settling in to a bigger community, of our shared ministry exploding from the starting blocks when the gunshot of July 1, the new appointment date, rang forth.

The past few months have not gone as I had planned.

We’ve had some bumps and jostles together along the way as we get used to one another (to be expected with any new relationship for sure!) But then my wife became terribly ill, and I missed a week of work to try and take care of her and our boys, but despite my best efforts over the course of that week, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fulfill my obligations at work. I couldn’t fulfill my obligations at school, and I barely fulfilled all the needs at home, and yet, it wasn’t enough. Kate still got sicker, and had to go to the hospital.

Grace poured forth from this community of faith. Love and forgiveness and FOOD were lavished upon us. The seminary community of which I am a part bathed us with prayer, and good will, and (thank goodness) deadline extensions for my homework.

Thanks be to God and the wonderful folks at Avera Queen of Peace for Kate’s recovery. Her strength slowly returned, and she was able to resume her normal schedule and rigorous tasks (have you ever tried keeping up with a two and four-year-old!?)

God had answered prayer, and abundantly! I was exhausted, but determined. I had two weeks of school to catch up on. I had receipts from the In-gathering I still needed to tabulate. I was determined. I told Short I would have those receipts done. I told my professors I would catch up over the reading week (a reprieve of classes that allow for such catching up, a brilliant idea in curriculum scheduling if ever there were one!) Despite my tiredness, despite my weariness, I was determined to press hard, working to catch up.

Then a funeral for a beloved parishioner arose, and the phone call from home that my dad’s wife, my step-mother, had finally succumbed to her battle with bile duct cancer. Once again, things were not going as I planned. Plans were scrapped in order to attend to more urgent things: celebrating the life and memory of Garvin Bertsch, and traveling to New Hampshire to console my father in the passing of his wife.

So here I sit, on a Sunday evening, in a hotel room somewhere in Illinois, writing this wondering how I will ever catch up. How will I make up for lost time at work? How will I make up four weeks of overdue assignments in my LAST semester of seminary!?!? It’s close to impossible to keep up week to week, but buried in four weeks of homework on top of church and family commitments?

Then it came. A beloved song from my past finally came up on my iPod playlist as we barreled along I80/I90 this afternoon: Shifting Sand by Caedmon’s Call. “I hear it all depends on my faith, so I’m feeling precarious. The only problem I have with these mysteries, is they’re SO mysterious!”

Afterall, doesn’t Jesus promise the disciples that all things would be possible, even moving mountains if they could just have faith the size of the mustard seed? Doesn’t Paul admonish the Church at Phillipi that all things are possible through Christ who strengthens us? Doesn’t the American work ethic teach us that if we just pull up our own boot-straps, we can accomplish anything?

Trouble is, this kind of thinking only leads us down the path of no return. When we believe we can do it all by ourselves, manage our family, and our work, and our school – it is then that we fall victim to the ways of the world. We’ve been so programmed by our consumerist culture that we think if we can just acquire a bit more faith, we’ll have it made, we can conquer the world! This misses the mark of the Kingdom of God completely.

The bridge and final chorus of the song captures the sentiment of my life these past few months: “Waters rose as my doubts reigned. Sand castle faith, it slipped away. I found myself standing on Your Grace. It had been there all the time. My faith is like shifting sand, changed by every wave. My faith is like shifting sand so I stand on Grace.”

My friends, we cannot make it in this life on our own, by our own efforts. We live by grace. Grace poured out in 9×13 inch casserole dishes. Grace poured out in senior pastors picking up the slack. Grace poured out in professors extending deadlines. Grace poured out by family members subjecting themselves to 3500 miles of driving in 9 days time. Grace poured out by God Almighty, lowering himself to become one of us, to go willingly, and self-lessly to the cross on our behalf.

Sisters and brothers, if we stand on our own efforts, the crashing waves of life’s storms will disintegrate our footing. If we stand upon God’s Grace, we may be storm-tossed and battered, but we will always be upon solid ground, even “when our hearts are faint.”

Thanks be to God for Grace. Amen, and Amen.

Connexional

Associate Minster’s Musings:

The United Methodist Church is different from most other protestant denominations in that we are a connectional church, that is, we see ourselves as a part of something much larger than just our own local congregation. We see this in our itinerant appointment system, where our bishop makes sure that every church has a pastor, and that every pastor has an appointment. We also see our connectional nature in the work of UMCOR, the U.nited M.ethodist C.ommittee O.n R.elief, the mission arm of our church. Quite often, UMCOR is one of the very first relief organizations to respond to crises and natural disasters. As the saying goes, “When the earth rocks, UMCOR rolls…”

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of our connectional system is our apportionment system. Apportionments are the share each annual conference or local church pays to support international, national, and regional mission work. Apportionments are not a “franchise fee,” but rather a means of partnering with thousands of other congregations to perform mission work that none of us could do alone. In the Dakotas, we often say, “we do ministry better when we do it together.”

The cost of our Christ-centered global ministry is significant, but it is only a tiny portion of our local church budget. Of every $1,000 given in offering:

• $845 stays in the local church;

• $124 goes to jurisdictions, annual conferences, and districts;

• $22 goes to general apportionments;

• $9 goes to other general funds, including United Methodist Women.

To help us more fully understand what this means in terms of real numbers, let us consider our spending as denomination in the United States in 2007:

• we gave $5.1 billion for local church expenditures

• we gave $758 million for jurisdictional, area, annual conference and district clergy support, administration and benevolences

• we gave $137 million for general apportioned benevolences, clergy support and administration, including $69 million for World Service, the basic program and benevolence fund

• we donated an additional $46 million to other general benevolences including the Advance, World Service Specials and United Methodist Women

To see what this looks like graphically, the lion’s share of our Sunday offering stays right here in our own church, while a tiny sliver of our offerings are used for mission beyond our local church.

Apportionments, while not a large part of our budget, make a tremendous difference when added to the apportionments of other congregations as we seek to embrace “all the world as our parish” as John Wesley has taught us.

We, as United Methodists, are connectional. We know that when we each give our tithe, 10% of our increase, we can count on our apportionment dollars being combined with the offerings of millions of United Methodists to bring ministry, peace, justice, and the love of Christ to corners of the world we could not reach by ourselves.

Together, United Methodists and the Church Universal, we are the body of Christ, working together, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Indeed, we do ministry better, when we do it together.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Andy

*figures and content adapted from The United Methodist Handbook, 2009-2012 published by United Methodist Communications. For more information about connectional giving visit: www.umcgiving.org

Health Care

Please forgive me if this article is not as cohesive as it might be. I’ve had a few other things on my mind lately. It’s not often my own sermons stick with me for much longer than a week or two, but one I preached a couple months ago hasn’t left my head. Perhaps you might remember it too, the one about our responsibility to take care of others, but especially those who need it most – the alien, the orphan, and the widow.

This past week I have been painfully reminded of just how dependent we are on one another. As Kate has spent a week enduring serious illness, and as I write this, is still in the hospital, our family has become dependent upon the kindnesses of others. Extended family members willing to rearrange their lives to come and stay with us. Church members who call and offer a word of encouragement, or drop off a meal. For all of these I am eternally grateful.

But what I am most grateful for is the health insurance coverage my family has through the church. Kate is an incredibly healthy young woman (for a few more days anyway, happy 30^th birthday honey). This young, healthy woman, who takes care of herself and her family had the bad misfortune of picking up some virus that, had it not been for her hospitalization, might have killed her.

If we didn’t have good health insurance, would she have gone to the hospital? If she knew we couldn’t pay the tens (or maybe hundreds?) of thousands of dollars it would cost, would she have chosen to stay home, getting sicker and sicker, until this particular bug took her life?

As it is, we’ll have a few thousand dollars to pay as part of our 80/20 share, but a few thousand is manageable. The whole bill has the potential to bankrupt us for the rest of our lives.

Friends, affordable health care should not be just for those of us who “have.” Scripture is clear that we as Christians are to be working to be sure others who “have not” are cared for as well. Health care reform is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is a Christian issue, and we are all responsible. I encourage you, re-read Matthew 25:31-46. In the parable of the last judgment, Jesus doesn’t ask us if we simply believed the right things. He asks if we did something about it.

What have you done to help reform health care? What have you done to answer the call to provide for those most vulnerable in our society? What more can you do?

This is beauty of the Christian journey. There is always room to grow. This is what we call “sanctification.” It’s a large Christian-ese word that simply describes our growth in love. As we grow to love God and neighbor more, we grow in our likeness of Christ.  “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is Christ’s command.  If we think we deserve access to affordable health care, then aren’t we called to extend that grace to our neighbors as well?

I give thanks for our health care coverage, and I pray that God might use each of us to help others be able to afford adequate health care coverage as well.

Grace and Peace,

ajb

What do I make?

Taylor Mali, beat poet, shares his thoughts on what teachers make.  As an associate pastor with an emphasis on teaching and discipleship, I couldn’t agree more. Thanks to Andy Bryan (the OTHER Andy B.) for posting this on his blog.

September Associate Minister’s Musings

Associate Minister’s Musings

I’ve had a number of recurring questions come up over the past two months, some are comical, and some are more serious, but I thought I would try to answer them all in one short (or not so short) newsletter article. Here goes:

How old ARE you?

35, for a few more weeks anyway.

Did you really graduate with two college degrees?

No. I graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. This is not an accredited academic institution, but rather a conservatory. I studied Musical Theatre Performance, but was not awarded a college degree, just a certificate of completion. I did, however, earn a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Alaska Anchorage. If all goes as planned, I will complete all the requirements for my Master of Divinity graduate degree from Sioux Falls Seminary this December.

Are you ordained, since you haven’t finished seminary?

No. I am commissioned, which is almost the same thing. Almost. Unlike other protestant denominations, United Methodists cannot be ordained until they have served two full years AFTER graduating seminary (the Dakotas are more stringent, and one must serve for THREE years after graduation). Being commissioned allows me to administer baptism, serve communion, preside at weddings and funerals, all the same things I could do as a licensed pastor when I served Wakonda, Irene, and Viborg UMCs for the past three years. For all ecclesial purposes, I can do the same things as an ordained clergy person in our congregation.

Why do you wear that white collar around your neck? Is it because you were raised Catholic?

*this one makes me laugh every time* No. I was baptized Roman Catholic, but was not raised in the church at all. I did not come to faith until I was in my twenties, and that was at a United Methodist Church. It is rare for United Methodist clergy to wear a collar in this part of the country, but that’s not the case everywhere. A clerical collar is a reminder to myself that I am a servant, under the leadership and direction of Jesus Christ. It is also an identifying mark for anyone unfamiliar with our church, that I am a pastor. I will often joke, “Businessmen wear neckties. I’m not a businessman.” But if you want to know the REAL truth (ssh, don’t tell anyone), I wear a clerical collar because I really dislike wearing neckties.

Allegiance

Thoughts for the young (and not so young…)

al•le•giance ^\ə-ˈlē-jən(t)s – devotion or loyalty to a person, group, or cause syn see fidelity

Last month I wrote about priorities, but where does our allegiance lie? Have you ever asked yourself this question? We have many, MANY priorities, things that are important to us, but what is it that is MOST important to us? To what or whom do we give our ultimate devotion or loyalty, our utmost faithfulness or fidelity? Where does our allegiance lie?

One of the most poignant indicators we have of our allegiance is contained in two books, and neither of them is the Bible. The two books which reveal our allegiance is our checkbook, and our calendar book. Where we spend our money, and how we spend our time betrays anything we might SAY about our allegiance.

So I invite you this month to take a close look at your budget and your calendar. Do your spending and scheduling habits line up with what you claim to be allegiant to? Do you give of your time and talents to what you profess is the object of your devotion and loyalty? Do your beliefs and actions align in discipleship?

The Bible is clear, that our ultimate allegiance must be to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 remind us in no uncertain terms that we are to have no other gods nor idols. As you ponder the way you spend your time and money, I encourage you to study these passages and to be in prayer, asking God for the gift of life-transforming grace and direction as you seek your true allegiance.

Grace & Peace,

Pastor Andy

Shaking Mad!

Psalm 4:4-5

When you are disturbed,​​ do not sin;
ponder it on your beds, and be silent.  Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the Lord.

I am taking a class in my final semester of seminary, Praying the Psalms: A Shared Journey, and these verses have haunted me all week.  The New Revised Standard reads: “When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent.”  The English Standard Version is slightly different: “Be angry, and do not sin.  Ponder in your own hearts, on your own beds, and be silent.”

The first word is

רִגְזוּ

וּוּ

It is an imperative verb, commanding, as indicated by the ESV interpretation, but both the NRSV and ESV tone it down.  Ra-gaz in Hebrew has the connotation of not just being disturbed, not just being angry, but physically trembling, being so infuriated that the body literally shakes.  With this in mind, I can hear the psalmist saying:

“Go ahead.  Be pissed off.  I don’t care if you are going to explode from your anger.  It’s still not an excuse to sin.  Go to a quiet place, away from others, removing yourself from the temptation to lash out in your anger, removing yourself from the temptation of sin, and speak your mind, but IN SILENCE.”

The Hebrew literally says “speak in your heart.”  The ancient Hebrews did not have our modern understanding of anatomy and physiology, and so the heart was not associated with emotion, as it is for us, but rather memories, and logic, or thoughts, what we think of as our minds. 

Speak your heart, on your bed, in silence.

Ponder is not such a bad translation…

These words kept ringing in my ears all week.  I’m an east coast boy.  Born and raised in Massachusetts, transplanted to New York City, transplanted again to the west coast, and then the midwest.  It has become strikingly clear to me, that I’m not a midwesterner.  I’m direct.  I’m blunt.  Some might even say rude and arrogant.  When I see or hear or read something I disagree with, I speak up.  When the topic is something I’m passionate about, and I disagree, I can get a bit angry.

That’s how it was a couple months ago.

I was assigned a text in a seminary class, John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad. In this particular book, the author stated many theological ideas that I was opposed to.  Not just opposed to, but VEHEMENTLY opposed to.  I found myself having to put the book down because the author’s statements made me so angry my hands were shaking and I couldn’t read the print on the page!  In order to vent my frustrations, I wrote a blog post countering some of John’s claims. In fact John Piper has written many things I don’t agree with, including attributing God’s direction to natural disasters aimed at the ELCA, but I digress…

Perhaps Psalm 4 grabbed me because of that notion of Ra-gaz – literally shaking with anger.  John’s writing does that to me.  So how did I do with discipleship in my response?  To use the popular vernacular – FAIL!

This became particularly clear to me just this morning as I was reading another text, for another class (interestingly taught by the same prof who assigned the Piper text) Anthropology for Christian Witness by Charles H. Kraft.  In the opening lines of his second chapter he writes:

“Whatever the area, and no matter how impressive our knowledge, we never approach either total clarity or total completeness.  Indeed, the more expert we get in any area, the more obvious it becomes that we see dimly and know only partially… for knowledge and understanding are to be held in humility and love… We cannot know as God knows.  Therefore, love.  Accept those with differing opinions and practices as likely to be at least partly right.  Be humble about one’s own opinions and practices, since they are at least partly wrong.  Love each other, whether or not we agree, for “to love is to obey the whole Law” (Rom 13:10).”

In my anger, in my quest to be right, I failed in Christian Discipleship to love, or as the psalmist might say, “to offer right sacrifices to God,” sacrificing my own selfish desires to be right.

The kicker came just after reading the passage from Kraft.  I took a study break and I was skimming through my RSS feeds in my aggregator, when a title caught my attention, I Hope My Daughter Hears the President’s Speech.

John Piper wrote a blog post about how he agrees with the president speaking to our children about staying in school.  Something he and I agree on.  Maybe John isn’t wrong about everything afterall…

Through failure in discipleship, it appears that I have yet again learned the lesson attributed to John Wesley: “Though we may not think alike, may we not love alike?”

My apologies to Rev. Piper, and my apologies to God Almighty.

(as I now head to my bed to ponder in silence)

Stay in Love with God: Confusing the Means & the Ends

A Sermon on Malachi 3:1-6

Do you ever complain? I’m serious. Do you ever find yourself griping that there’s not enough money, or kids today aren’t as well behaved, or the economy is the toilet? Do you ever discover yourself bemoaning the fact that there aren’t enough hours in the day, or there’s not enough people pulling their weight, or even that God seems to be far removed from the atrocities of the world? Seriously, I want you to raise your hand if you ever complain.

My friends, we are not alone. In today’s Old Testament reading, the prophet is addressing the people who have been complaining against God. Apparently there were all kinds of bad things happening, and God seemed ambivalent, uninterested, absent. Malachi’s answer to the people is this: it’s not God who is ambivalent, it’s not God who is uninterested, it in not God who is absent, but YOU, the people, God’s chosen, Israel. “For I the Lord do not change,” Malachi declares in verse 6.

God has not strayed from the people, but rather the people have strayed from God. “For God is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.” NERD ALERT: I love this passage because of the scientific detail in the metaphor. Check this out: A fuller is a cloth maker who works with wool. Now, in order to treat the wool so that it wouldn’t be so itchy, a special lye-based soap, also known as sodium hydroxide, was used to treat the wool, to thicken and shrink it and to remove the lanolin, making the wool soft and comfortable to the skin. Notice the intricacy of the metaphor here. Before the wool is itchy & scratchy, not of use; after, it is soft, thick, plush, entirely usable. The means of that transformation, lye, which is a nasty alkaline substance that has the power to gnaw flesh off of bone when used in a strong enough concentration, but also, if used properly, has the power to transform the material, not destroy it.

We are the wool, and God is the fuller. Before God is able to use us for anything, the itchy scratchy, useless beings that we are, God must first transform us. Grace has the potential to soften us, to thicken us, to make us usable. Grace is like that. Sometimes it can feel excruciatingly painful, and sometimes, if we truly open our eyes, we can see the transformative power as we are reshaped into the image of God.

Likewise, God is like a refiner and purifier of silver. The process of refining silver 2500 years ago was more difficult that it is today. To refine both gold or silver, one had to heat the metal until it became molten. In the case of silver, that would be 1,764 degrees Fahrenheit. Now Gold has a higher melting point almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit but was easier to refine. When one melts silver it gives off lots of oxygen, and it sounds like burning pine or spruce wood, with lots of hissing and spitting, or complaining… When the impurities are separated off, the silver will reabsorb the oxygen when it is cooled unless it is carefully treated with carbon. In biblical times, this would have been done with charcoal.

The process for refining silver is more difficult, and time consuming than gold, and the process is pain-staking. Again notice the means for the transformation, the fire if used differently could be destructive, burn it all up, but instead, it is transformative. Perhaps it is for this reason that the author chooses this metaphor. Perhaps it is because a refiner knew that the silver was finally pure when he could see his own reflection in it. Would God see any reflection if you or I were looked upon? Would God see in us the Imago Dei – the image of God?

Malachi is calling the people toward repentance, to turn from their self-centered ways and to re-engage God. Remember, it was the people who walked away from God. God never changes.

So how were these ancient Jewish people to stay engaged with God? How were they to remain connected and in relationship? How were they to stay in love with God? By attending upon all the ordinances of God. John Wesley’s list of ordinances that we are to follow are : 1) The public worship of God, 2) the Word, read and preached, 3) Communion, 4) Family & Private Prayer, 5) Searching the Scriptures, 6) Fasting or Abstinence. These six ordinances shape us and mold us in such a way that we Stay in Love with God.

So I ask you, tick them off silently on your fingers, how many of these do you do every day or even week? 1) Worship God, 2) engage in the Bible – read aloud and proclaimed, 3) receive Holy Communion, 4) Have an intentional time of prayer with your family, and by yourself, 5) Make time to search through the Scriptures, 6) Give up food or other stuff for a period of time to remind yourself of our dependence upon the mercies of God?

Many of us might have one or two fingers raised, but I wonder how many of us actually had to start counting on our second hand.

You see, John Wesley knew that when we engage in ALL of these practices, as often as possible, then they transform us, they refine us, like wool or silver. They cleanse and purify us. They help to shape us and mold us back into that Image of God that was distorted at the fall. These ordinances, these mandates, are the way that God bestows grace upon us. They are the Means of Grace. As United Methodists, we believe that in some mysterious way, when we engage in these practices, these ordinances, God bestows grace upon us through these channels.

When we receive the bread, and drink from the cup as Christ proclaimed, then we receive grace upon grace. We have strayed a long way from our roots as United Methodists. We tend to take little tiny bits of bread, and a thimble full of juice once a month and call it good. If God is truly bestowing grace upon us when we receive the elements, then shouldn’t we be asking for a hunk of bread big enough to choke on? Shouldn’t we be seeking to have such a portion of juice that it dribbles down the corners of our mouths?

I’ve heard people say we shouldn’t take communion any more than once a month, because then it would no longer be “special.” My sisters and brothers, the power of communion isn’t about whether or not we feel like it’s special, the power of communion is what GOD chooses to do through this very special practice of faith. God gives us grace everytime we break the bread and share the cup. God draws us closer in love everytime we do this. Perhaps that’s why Wesley himself took communion over 300 times each year. And we’re lucky if we do it twelve?

Too often we confuse the means of grace with the end, that is the end purpose of humanity. What does God want from us? What is our purpose? The chief end of humanity, according to the Westminster shorter catechism, is “to glorify God and enjoy God forever.” To glorify God and enjoy God forever. How do we glorify God? By loving the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves. And how do we as sinful, broken, selfish beings love God and neighbor? By the power of grace.

It is God’s grace that gives us the strength to go into the world to feed the hungry. It is God’s grace that gives us the strength to go into the world to heal the sick. It is God’s grace that gives us the strength to go into the world and comfort the lonely. It is God’s grace that enables us to go into the world and proclaim the name of Jesus Christ in all that we say and all that we do.

We can’t do it by ourselves. We forget that coming to church is not the goal of the Christian walk. We forget that worship, and Scripture and communion are not the end goals, but only the means to so that we might receive God’s grace, so that we might fall in love with God, and consequently love our neighbors as ourselves.

Worship, Scripture, Communion, Prayer, Fasting – these are not the end goals of the Christian walk. These are the means of grace which enable us to glorify God and enjoy God forever. As you come to the table today, I invite you to receive with open hearts, the grace divine, and ask God to use this bread and this cup to give you the strength to go forth from this place as Christ’s hands and feet in this broken and hurting world. Receive this grace so that you might be a conduit of God’s grace to others.

Health Care Reform

So I’m putting my money where my big fat mouth is…

This Sunday I preached that my congregation should do more to further the efforts at health care reform in our country.  As such, tomorrow (my day off) Kate and I will be personally delivering the following letter to our senators and representative:

Dear Senators Thune, Johnson, and Representative Herseth-Sandlin,

We are writing to request your full support in the effort to reform our national health care system. We met you in the Sioux Falls airport in June of 2007. We told you that we currently did not have health insurance. Andy was working on a masters degree and Kate was a stay at home mom. Andy had experienced a back injury, and Kate was pregnant with our second son, and there was no forseeable way to pay for either. Your compassion and sympathy was palpable, and your promise to work on a sustainable solution for the health care crisis in our nation was comforting.

By the grace of God, we have made it through that difficult time, and once again we have health insurance. Our prayers and our hearts are with the 47 million Americans who are not as fortunate as we are, and still are without coverage.

We are not asking for your support in a government “bail-out,” but rather in working towards a sustainable, comprehensive health package so that no-one who resides on American soil will go without the care or medication they need.

Even during this economic downturn, it is clear that we are blessed to live in a nation of such abundance. We implore you to do all within your power to see to it that the words that greeted so many as they entered this country at Ellis Island, do not ring hollow and untrue.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

May we all work diligently to ensure that as the most powerful nation on earth, we seek to minister to and care for the least of all. Thank you for working towards comprehensive health care reform and your service as a public servant in Washington D.C.

In the service of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Rev. Andrew J. Bartel & Kate A. Bartel