“The Good News According to the Chameleon” (I Corinthians 9:16-23)

The “church” has its own share of four-lettered words besides “hell”.  “Stewardship” is one of those four-letter words that make the faithful cringe whenever it is mentioned . . . no one wants to hear about money or things financial in the “church”.  Another four-letter word that the faithful of the “church” cringe at is “evangelism”.  Evangelism has long held a position of disdain within the “church” thanks to nightmarish images of people going door-to-door with Bible tracts sharing the so-called “good news” . . . or people on street corners waving Bible tracts as they spout out the “good news” to all those who pass by.  With this image burned into the mind as the act of evangelism, it has become a four-letter word avoided at all costs by the faithful. 

And, that is a shame.  That is a shame because really neither of those words are burdens placed upon the faithful . . . they are “gifts” . . . “blessings” . . . when they are embraced for what they are.  “Stewardship” in its simplest form is the act of caring for that which we have been given in life . . . how are you taking care of your “gifts” and “blessings”?  “Evangelism” is the sharing of the “good news” . . . the “gospel” . . . with others.  It is the sharing of the faith journey . . . it is telling your story of faith.  That is it.  In these forms neither of these words are that difficult to live up to in their expectations.

And, this is good!

This is good because our reading this morning has to do with that four-letter word that begins with an “e”—“evangelism”.  The Apostle Paul is sharing with the congregation of faithful in Corinth the expectations placed upon him as an apostle of Christ.  Central to that expectation as an apostle is the duty to go forth and share the “gospel”.  “Gospel” simply means “the good news”.  That is the charge placed upon the apostle . . . and, surprisingly, placed upon all the faithful.  All the faithful are called upon to be evangelists who share the “gospel” or “good news”.

Yuck, you say.  Especially if you are using that version of the four-letter word that involves going door-to-door with Bible tracts . . . been there, done that, and promised yourselves you would never do it again.  And, I can’t blame you because that is not evangelism . . . that is an assault.  Even the Apostle Paul understood this.

Early in his ministry the apostle went out to share the “good news” with those he was familiar with . . . people just like him.  He began his ministry by going to the synagogues in the communities he was visiting.  The result?  He was thrown out.  He was beaten.  He was threatened with death.  This “evangelism” thing was pretty rough . . . it was going to get the apostle killed.  Yet, we hold the Apostle Paul up as one of the great evangelists of the “church”.  How could this be?

Well, Paul changed his style of evangelism . . . changed the way that he shared the “good news” . . . he became what I would call a “chameleon”.  A chameleon is a lizard-like creature that has the ability to change colors to blend into the environment it happens to be in.  For the chameleon this a natural defense that keeps it alive.  Paul developed the ability to “fit in” the lives of those he was sharing the “good news” with . . . he was able to blend into the environment of those he was evangelizing. 

Paul states: “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.  To those under the law I became like those under the law, so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law, so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.  I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

“I have become all things to all . . .”

The truth is that Paul did not “become all things to all.”  No, that is impossible.  What he did was to become more open and accepting of others for who they were and where they were at.  This was a tough lesson for the early church to learn.  It was a lesson that took generations of evangelists in the “church” to learn . . . late into the 19^th and early 20^th century.  Evangelism, as Paul learned and later the “church”, is not converting people into a particular culture or lifestyle.

For example, when evangelists were sent to another country or culture the first thing that they did was to build a school . . . dress everyone up in clothes from their culture . . . and, teach them a new language.  American evangelism created schools, dressed everyone up in “American” clothes, and taught them to speak our language.  It was difficult to determine whether the goal was to convert them to the faith or to being Americans.  Evangelism in this style was a failure . . . it didn’t work.  The Apostle Paul learned this the hard way.  This method of “evangelism” did more harm than good as it attempted to wipe out whole cultures and ways of life.  It is no wonder that these evangelists were greeted with hostility . . . the Apostle Paul could have told them that. 

Somewhere a switched must have been flipped . . .somehow someone must of realized that this was the wrong way to go about sharing the “good news” . . . the wrong way to evangelize.  Instead it was decided to meet the people where they are.  Evangelists were then taught to speak the language of the people they were sharing the “good news” with . . . to acclimate themselves to the culture of the people . . . to live among them as one of them . . . to become a chameleon.  It was to accept the people for who they were created to be.  Amazingly, the “good news” spread like fire when it was shared in this way.  Just look at the results Paul had once he figured it out.

In listening to Paul’s words this morning it almost sounds deceptive . . . sneaky . . . and, dishonest.  Like the apostle is attempting to trick the people into believing.  Yet, that was not Paul’s intention.  His intention was to accept the people for who they were . . . to accept their culture for what it was . . . and, to meet them where they were.  Paul wanted to get to know the people for who God created them to be because it was there that the “good news” would be sown.  Paul listened.  In listening . . . really listening . . . he became one of them as he strived to live among them as one of them.

Though the words of Paul were powerful in telling his story, the more powerful story was the one he told through his “actions” . . . through his willingness to live among the people . . . to accept their culture . . . to accept them.  To accept them just as they were, just as God accepted them.  His goal was not to change the people or their culture, but to change their hearts into a relationship with God.

So it is for us . . . we are called to this simple form of “evangelism” . . . an “evangelism” of the chameleon.  We are not to assault others with the “good news” of Jesus Christ . . . not to beat people with the Bible and tracts.  No, we are to enter into their lives in such a way that we accept them for who they are, understand their way of living . . . their culture, and to live among them.  We are not to convert them into our way of living, but to assist them into their own way of living in relationship with God.  That is what God did for us and that is what we should do for others.

As a “church” when we use the phrase that “all are welcome”, we have to use it in such a way that it conveys that they are “welcome” just the way that they are.  We do not want them to get the idea that they are only “welcome” when they change themselves to look just like us . . . no, that is not welcoming . . . that is blackmail.  As a “church” we are to be like chameleons when it comes to the faith . . . we are to be adaptable to the environment and the people who grace this space we call “church” . . . we are to accept them as God accepts us . . . they are one of us as we are one of them . . . we are all the children of God.  Amen.

“A Yearning for Loving Community”

“Creating Community Is an Important Part of the Support We All Need to Navigate through Life”

Every congregation experiences the coming and going of persons.  Some people are transferred OUT of the community by their work.  It’s called relocation.  Some people are transferred OUT of the community by their behavior.  It’s called boundaries.

Some people are transferred OUT of the community by their health and their age.  It’s called “senior living.”

Some people are transferred OUT of the community by their status as a 

student.  It’s called “high school graduation.”

Some people are transferred OUT of the community by their experiences IN the community—someone inflicted their will upon them.  It’s called HURT by church.

I’d like to reflect on the last one for a minute; hurt by church.  As the pastor, I am not a stranger to the invitation of the congregation to “seek out the lost” and “restore them to community.”  In fact it used to be common place for churches to hand a new pastor a list of persons whom they haven’t seen for awhile, expecting the pastor to call on those persons and invite them back to the community.

I honestly don’t open myself  to this invitation as much as I used to because what I’ve discovered is that if someone is hurt by church they aren’t at peace until the person or persons whom they are in conflict with make the move to reconcile.

However, there is one phenomenon I have observed over time is that many persons who have been hurt by church often don’t give another congregation a try.  It’s that “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch” sort of thinking.  Trust has been lost.  Can it be recovered?  After all, at one point the individual entered the church community with a lot of hope—after all the church is Jesus’ body in the world—if there’s one place where a person should experience love and support it’s the church!  How did we hear it expressed in Galatians?  “(We) love one another.”  How did we hear it in Genesis?   

“It’s not good for people to be alone.”

And yet I know many, many persons who have been HURT by church; they’ve been judged instead of welcomed.  They’ve experienced the church as a “museum for saints instead of a hospital for sinners.”  When I introduced the phrase “hurt by church” a few minutes ago, I talked about the “infliction of the will.”  In his book Will and Spirit, author Gerald May defines willfulness as “setting oneself APART from the fundamental essence of life in an attempt to master, direct, control, or otherwise manipulate.  Willingness, on the other hand, is “surrendering one’s self-separateness, an entering-into, an immersion in the deepest processes of life itself.”  In other words, willingness partners with God and neighbor; willfulness dominates God and neighbor.

In the church, what we hopefully understand is that we are on a journey to spiritual maturity.  John the Baptist called this journey repentance, which means (Thomas Keating) “change the way we are looking for happiness.”  The Apostle Paul refers to this journey as transformation, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”  All of us; not simply some of us…we’re all invited to the feast called spiritual maturity, life in the kingdom!   

Keep in mind, however, that we cannot control spiritual maturity, that’s God’s realm.  All we can do is show up and listen to the spirit and encourage other people to show up and listen, too. I’ve often thought that the two hottest topics in a church should be “How are you and God getting along?” and “What are you hearing?” What I’m talking about is awareness; waking up to the conversation God is having with us.  

But there’s more! We can be aware that every person is at some stage of the transformation process—that the process is painful—and that we get by with a lot of encouragement from our friends..  It’s here in the church that we stretch together to forgive, to listen to God, to find the courage to do what God asks us to do!    God speaks both independently OF, and THROUGH, the community.  And we never know where in the community the wisdom is going to come from –sometimes the elders, sometimes the children.

Now, how you and I might understand this is to think of ourselves as a Lego block.  Do you know what a Lego set is?  It’s a pile of brightly colored plastic building blocks that snap together so the builder can form all kinds of wonderful things:  boats, bridges, roads, homes, even the “Bat” mobile.  We’re unique in some ways but we all snap together for the greater good.  Christ, after all, didn’t come to simply save people—God sent Jesus into the world to save the world! Only the world cannot be saved with just one block.  We move closer to the goal when there are many, many blocks cooperating with the builder.

Ah ha! God has something wonderful in mind for the world and each one of us takes our place in the design.  Like a good Lego, we take our place among the other Lego blocks; not OVER the LEGO blocks, not under the Lego blocks, but WITH the Lego blocks…straining to listen to the builder and follow so that goal is reached.  In the church, we take our place among the other participants; not OVER each other, not UNDER watch other, but With each other…straining to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow so that the goal is reached.   The Christian community exists to help all of the members listen to the Holy Spirit; to God.

But sometimes we get WILLFUL, and we begin to think that we are the builder and not the LEGO…and we begin to think that our friends in the faith exist to listen to US.  And that’s when people get hurt; we take our gaze off the Spirit and demand that all eyes rest on individuals In the church; we chose power OVER instead of power WITH.

So how do we avoid this trap?  We create boundaries; we name loving behavior and we read it and work it and read it and work it until loving behavior becomes the norm. 

Today I’m going to take us through a set of boundaries, of loving behavior that I’d like our church to learn and apply.  I want you to read through them at home and in small groups.  They’re on the screen and in your bulletin.  They’re called TOUCHSTONES, and they were written by a lovely Quaker man named Parker Palmer:

·    Be present as fully as possible. Be here with your doubts, fears and failings as well as your convictions, joys and successes, your listening as well as your speaking.

·    What is offered in the circle is by invitation, not demand. This is not a “share or die” event! During this retreat, do whatever your soul calls for, and know that you do it with our support. Your soul knows your needs better than we do.

·    Speak your truth in ways that respect other people’s truth. Our views of reality may differ, but speaking one’s truth in a circle of trust does not mean interpreting, correcting or debating what others say. Speak from your center to the center of the circle, using “I” statements, trusting people to do their own sifting and winnowing.

·    No fixing, saving, advising or correcting each other. This is one of the hardest guidelines for those of us in the “helping professions.” But it is vital to welcoming the soul, to making space for the inner teacher.

·    Learn to respond to others with honest, open questions instead of counsel, corrections, etc. With such questions, we help “hear each other into deeper speech.”

·    When the going gets rough, turn to wonder. If you feel judgmental, or defensive, ask yourself, “I wonder what brought her to this belief?” “I wonder what he’s feeling right now?” “I wonder what my reaction teaches me about myself?” Set aside judgment to listen to others—and to yourself—more deeply.

·    Attend to your own inner teacher. We learn from others, of course. But as we explore poems, stories, questions and silence in a circle of trust, we have a special opportunity to learn from within. So pay close attention to your own reactions and responses, to your most important teacher.

·    Trust and learn from the silence. Silence is a gift in our noisy world, and a way of knowing in itself. Treat silence as a member of the group. After someone has spoken, take time to reflect without immediately filling the space with words.

·    Observe deep confidentiality. Nothing said in a circle of trust will ever be repeated to other people.

·    Know that it’s possible to leave the circle with whatever it was that you needed when you arrived, and that the seeds planted here can keep growing in the days ahead

Which one of these touch stones did you immediately hear and think, “That’s so true…and so beautiful”?

Which one of these touch stones did you hear and think, “Wow, that’s really difficult to do; necessary, but difficult?”

Is there one that you don’t understand?

I believe that people of faith everywhere are hungry for loving community that listens to the holy spirit of God together—a place where they can belong and be their true selves and not some make-believe person; some place where they can grow into Christ and join hands with others and help build God’s better world in their small part of the world; a place where they experience willingness, power with, and not willfulness, power over.  I also believe that you and I together can create such a community; a loving community—with prayer and self-discipline.  Parker Palmer’s Touchstones are all about self-discipline.

Loving community takes work.  “My way is difficult at first, “says Jesus about love, “But in the end it’s the easiest.”

Can we give it a try?

 

Prayer:  Amazing God, gift our church with a willing spirit that thrives on your leadership and exists to build each other up in love.  Amen.

(This sermon was preached by Reverend Dana Keener, Billings Central Christian Church, on Sunday, January 25, 2015.) 

“Speaking from Experience” (Mark 1:21-28)

In seminary I didn’t agree with one of my professors who taught a class

Christian Education.  She was one of the leading experts in the field at the time and had written tons of books on the topic.  People bowed down in her presence as one of the renowned specialist on the topic of educating Christians.  In the particular class I was involved in, I could not bring myself to cow-tow to her and what she was attempting to teach us lowly seminarians. 

The topic?  The topic was teaching children’s Sunday school.  The problem?  Well, according to her she had never taught children’s Sunday school . . . oh, she was great with adults, but she had never spent any time teaching children . . . no experience whatsoever.  Despite the fact that she had no experience teaching children she had no problem sharing the theories and practices that were the most popular and supposedly relevant for that time . . . after all, she had the “Doctor” title in front of her name, had written numerous books, and was zipping all over the country making presentations.  She was the expert, I was the lowly grad student.

Now, I must admit, it might have been a case of sour grapes on my part.  She gave me a “C” on a presentation that I had spent way too much time on, and one that I thought was relevant, useable, and funny.  It was something I had had success with in the Sunday school classroom with actual and real children.  She didn’t care for it . . . plopped a great big red “C” right on the front of the presentation.  Told me it would never work according to the theories. 

Of course, being the lowly and ignorant seminarian that I was with no common sense, I challenged her.  I asked her if she had ever taught in a children’s Sunday school class, to which she confessed that she had never taught in a children’s Sunday school class.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to drive my point home, I asked, “So, how do you know that this would not work if you have never actually taught a child in a Sunday school class?”

Needless to say, lowly seminarians should never challenge well-respected “experts” in the field in which they make their living.  All I can say is that from that point on I was not one of her favorite students . . . it was a long semester.  But, the point is, it is one thing to spout off the leading theories and practices that come from the head, and it is another to speak from actual experience.  I would take the word of one who speaks from experience over one who only had book knowledge of a topic.

In the Gospel of Mark the first act of ministry that Jesus performs is to teach in a synagogue in Capernaum.  Apparently he does an impressive job as the writer of the gospel tells us that “the people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.”  In fact, the writer uses the word “authority” twice to describe Jesus and his method of teaching.  There is something different about Jesus and the other teachers . . . the other rabbis . . . and, the people sense and recognize this.

What was this difference?

Remember that seminary professor that I was talking about earlier?  She was well-versed in the book knowledge of the topic of Christian Education . . . she knew her theories left and right . . . she was an “expert”.  It was all in her head.  What she was lacking was the experience . . . she hadn’t lived or practiced it.  This is the camp in which the “teachers of the law” fell . . . they were “experts” in their heads, but they had very little—if any—experience in what they were teaching.

Jesus did.  After all, he was the son of God.  He was the “Holy One of God”.  He had the intimate relationship with God.  And, most importantly, he practiced what he preached . . . he was not one of those “do as I say, not as I do” sorts of teachers.  He got down in the mud with everyone else.  He was one of us and he experienced what we experience . . . his words were based on experience and not some book.

Think about it.

If you were planting a garden this coming summer for the first time, would go and read a book about how to do it, or would you go to the person down the street who has been gardening for years and years to get help?  You’d go ask the person who had been doing it for years!  Why?  Because they have experience.

Experience makes a difference.  Experience is what makes a person a “real” expert . . . someone to really listen to.  They have been there and done that . . . which makes a real big difference if one wants to be successful or not.  Experience is what makes one an “authority”.   When Jesus is teaching the people he is not teaching them anything different than the teachers of the law are teaching, he is only teaching it from experience . . . from the heart and not a book.  Experience denotes a relationship . . . it means that the person can relate to what is being taught because he or she has actually lived through it . . . done it . . . experienced it.

We have all heard the story about the time that some community had held a big celebration and invited some big-time actor to come and speak.  The actor got up in front of the audience and recited the 23^rd Psalm . . . did a wonderful and professional job . . . it was beautiful and the audience was appreciative of the mastery of the actor.  Then an old retired pastor was given the opportunity to also share the 23^rd Psalm.  With a soft spoken yet resolved voice the pastor shared the familiar and beloved passage.  There was a hush in the audience as the pastor finished . . . the audience stood and clapped as they wiped tears from their eyes.  One spoke from the head, the other from the heart.  Experience makes a difference.

This passage is not meant to focus on Jesus exorcising evil spirits, though that is pretty impressive.  No, this passage is meant to speak to the “authority” of Jesus . . . to what makes him the “expert” . . . to what makes him different from all the leading teachers and experts of his time.  It is the fact that Jesus speaks from experience . . . speaks from that which he knows and has lived . . . speaks from personal knowledge . . . speaks from the heart.  He knows what he is speaking about because he has lived it.  This is what gives him authority . . . he speaks from experience.

And, so should we.

When it comes to faith . . . faith with God . . . we should all be authorities because we all have experience with the Holy . . . we all have a relationship with God.  We have walked with Jesus in our lives . . . we have gone through thick and thin with the Savior . . . and, we have been intimate in our dealings with Jesus and God.  Our faith is strong because it is based on our experience with the Holy . . . and, it is strongest when it is grounded on the heart and not the head.

The most effective tool in evangelism is not how much one knows of the Bible or theology or theories or books, but how well one knows his or her own personal journey with the Holy . . . how well one knows his or her own experience of faith.  That is what moves people . . . not how many experts one can quote.  People are moved by the stories of faith of those who have experienced it first-hand.  That is what people want to hear.  They want people to speak from experience because that experience makes that individual an “authority”.

As a people of faith we are “authorities” when it comes to our experience of the Holy.  No one knows our story of faith better than we do.  As a people of faith we are called to go out and share the “Good News” with others . . . and the “Good News” that we are to share is that which we have experienced in our own lives.  This makes us experts . . . authorities . . . no one knows it better than we do.  If we speak from experience . . . speak from the heart . . . about our faith others will hear and desire this gift for themselves.  May God bless us all with opportunities in the days to come to speak from experience this great love and grace from God.  Go forth, and with “authority”, tell your story.  Amen.