Called and Equipped Jeremiah 1:4-10

Called and EquippedJeremiah 1:4-10 Imagine for just one minute that you wanted to start a restaurant.  You could start a fine dining restaurant with fantastic food, an elaborate menu, and beautiful space.  Or you could start a fast food restaurant with speedy service, simple but consistent food and low maintenance/highly efficient space. These are really your two main options. Say you want to start a fine dining restaurant.  Who is the first person you hire?  The chef.   And if you want to start a fast food restaurant?  You hire the manager. Before you make any decisions or take any actions regarding how to get your restaurant started, you must know what your desired outcome is.  You must have a vision. I had a vision.  I was working for the General Church in our national offices in Indianapolis.  I was helping start new churches all over the country.  But I had a niggling sensation that kept nudging me toward starting a new church.  But that is as vague as starting a restaurant.  I give thanks that God has so many ways to reach God’s people – but what was my way?  I felt called to start a new church – but I didn’t have the vision yet.  I didn’t know the hoped for outcome.   But when the time was right, it came.  I was at a new church event here on the west coast and I ended up talking with an old friend of mine, Ben Bohren.  Now, Ben had just been called as transitional Regional Minister to this Region.  So, not only did I have family out here.  Not only did I love living here while I was in seminary.  Not only did I like this Region already – but I knew the Regional Minister.  So I asked him.  I said “Ben, do you need to start any new churches in Northern California?”  He responded “Uh – YES!  Do you know anyone who wants to plant one?” So I said, “well – maybe.  I’ve been thinking about it myself.”  And those of you who know Ben can imagine how animated he got when he started to tell me about this really fast growing suburb of Sacramento and how Disciples had never had a church in this town and how he thought there was this piece that might work out and this other piece that might come together and maybe some money would be available from over here. Anyhow… I went to sleep that night kind or excited about the possibilities.  Thinking about my conversation with Ben. Thinking about the book I had been reading on new styles of worship.  Thinking about the new church event I was attending. I woke up at 3am thinking:The growing suburbs of Sacramento are deeply affected by a very secular, over-programmed, “busy” life where family time is consumed by commutes, postmodern worldview is the norm and true community is hard to find.  Table of Grace Christian Church seeks to be a haven from the chaos of the world where all sorts of families can explore their Christian spirituality and grow in their faith in a way that is in harmony with their postmodern and intellectually engaged worldview. OK. Maybe I wasn’t thinking exactly that – but pretty much!  I had my VISION. Everything I have done – from moving across the country, to which house we live in, to how I get involved in the community, to what I include in my printed materials, to how I communicate with people, to the programs we offer, to the time we have worship, to the space we use for worship, to the things we do in worship, to who gets paid first (childcare!!!), to… well, EVERYTHING… is done to support this vision. We know who God is calling us to be and that carries us through the ups and the downs.  The disappointments.  The unexpected surprises.  The decision making process.  We know the outcome we are working toward. We are working to create something.  To live into the unique witness that God has for us to share with our unique context.  This is not to say that the work is in any way easy – but there is a purpose, a destination, a Vision shaping our decisions and leading us on our way. It is a little different in an existing church.  I’ve read that an existing church needs to reevaluate their Vision every seven years or so.  The way I look at it is that God’s vision is like a circle that God can see all the way around.  But we are like a tangent – a straight line that intersects the circle in one point.  We can see a little ways – we can see the horizon, but there is all this other stuff that we cannot see yet!  As we move through time, we need to look and see what God’s next plans are for us so we can be working toward those! So the question is – what is God’s vision for ministry through First Christian Church in Modesto, CA in the next few years – or even the next decade. Before we get too scared by that question, let’s look at this scripture again.  This is a scripture where Jeremiah is first told by God that God has work for him to do.   This is what God said:  5“Before I shaped you in the womb,
   I knew all about you.
Before you saw the light of day,
   I had holy plans for you:
A prophet to the nations—
   that’s what I had in mind for you.”  6But I said, “Hold it, Master God! Look at me.
   I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!”  7-8God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’
   I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there.
I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it.
   Don’t be afraid of a soul.
I’ll be right there, looking after you.”
   God’s Decree.  9-10God reached out, touched my mouth, and said,
   ”Look! I’ve just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered!
See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do
   among nations and governments—a red-letter day!
Your job is to pull up and tear down,
   take apart and demolish,
And then start over,
   building and planting.” Sometimes we can begin to imagine that we have to do all the figuring out – that we have to somehow create this Vision from the ground up.  But God says that we are known from before we are born.  We often interpret this to mean that God knows us as individuals – but isn’t the church the “body of Christ” and isn’t the “body of Christ” God’s incarnation or human representation on earth?  If that is so – this promise of being known relates even more to the church.  Of course, God has known the church – even this congregation – from before we were started in 1866.  God knows what could come from this ministry.  God knows the Vision. Do you notice Jeremiah’s reaction when God says that there is a purpose for Jeremiah’s life?  He says – but I can’t do that!  I’m not old enough.  I don’t have the skills for that.  I don’t know how! How sure we so often are that we cannot do it.  You know the story of the Little Engine that Could?  All these fancy engines come by and tell the toys they can’t help out.  But this little blue engine that has never even tried to climb the mountain sees the need and is willing to try.  I think I can I think I can.  She chants.  Higher and higher and faster and faster.  I think I can.  I think I can.  She makes it to the top of the mountain and as she makes her descent into the valley she says, almost in disbelief, I thought I could.  I thought I could. We really have to participate.  God doesn’t just say ‘here you go!  Now you’re there”.  God says – here is the mountain and I believe you can climb it.  You may not think that you have the time or courage or persistence or grace or energy or whatever to do it – but I’m telling you – you can do it.  Now do it.” We are listening for God’s call to us.  We are praying.  And talking with each other.  And studying scripture.  And looking at ourselves and at our community.  We are beginning to have some ideas and insights into who we are and who we’d like to become.  We are watching and listening for God’s call.  Knowing that we will also be equipped to see it through.  If only we are willing to step beyond our own self-doubt and criticism and work hard to climb the mountain – we will be blessed when we reach the other side.

One in Ten Luke 17:11-19

One in TenLuke 17:11-19 This is such an interesting little story.  There are so many things at work here, it is kinda hard to decide where to go with this sermon. See – first we have Jesus walking along, minding his own business and he “happens” to cross across the border of Samaria and Galilee. That might seem like no big deal.  Maybe like crossing from Modesto to Salida.  Or from California to Nevada.  But really – it was more like crossing the US/Mexico border.   I have a good friend and colleague – Pastor Pedro Goycolea – that serves a small congregation in Sauhrita, AZ but he lives in Nogales, Mexico – right across the border.  He crosses the border, back and forth, every day.  He has full and proper documentation which makes that easier, but Pedro has learned the right things to say to avoid being detained.  Even with official “permission” to cross the border, it is not always a safe endeavor. Jesus probably didn’t have a religious worker’s visa.  But he happened across the border.  And he didn’t cross the border to go shopping either!  He happened into a local village.  Who does that?  Who wanders into a country that is fairly hostile to your own and then saunters into a local village to have a look around? And he doesn’t talk to the shop-keepers or the town leaders.  He doesn’t even talk to the tax collectors and prostitutes like he has been known to do.  No – this time he talks to those who are completely shunned and turned away by society.  He talks with the lepers. People at that time were so fearful of contagious skin conditions that anyone with a rash was sent outside of society.  Even now – the one thing that will get your kid sent home from daycare in an instant is a rash.  And they cannot go back without a Doctor’s note giving them permission.  And when you go to the doctor, you cannot even sit in the waiting room.  There is a special room – the “Kid’s With Rashes” room.  At our pediatrician there is a chart with picture of kids with all sorts of rashes and information about the disease that causes it – we’ve been in there enough times, Simon has read and memorized nearly the whole thing! Anyhow – these lepers are cast out of society.  And ten of them – which seems a pretty big crowd for something called a “village”- are the welcoming party.  As Jesus comes into town, in a foreign and generally hostile land, he is greeted – by name – by a pretty big group of social outcasts!  They called him by name!  And because they knew their condition – they didn’t come close and greet him with a big hug – they shouted to him from a distance.  Hey!  Come here!  We hear you can heal people!  Have mercy on us! So Jesus took a look at these people – homeless, dirty, sick, with little to eat or to wear, not looking so good at all probably – and said… Go, show yourselves to the priests. Well, that is kinda like telling a group of homeless folks downtown to go walk into the Mayor’s office – or to show up at the grand opening of the Gallo Center.  You didn’t just go and see the priests!  It’s not like here where you can come and see me any time.  In that setting, the priests were understood to be closer to God – more holy than other people.  You couldn’t go see the priest unless you were “clean” as understood by Jewish law.  And certainly these lepers were not clean! But then – this was Jesus. So the ten guys took off down the road toward the temple and on the way they became clean.  So – they are walking along and were clean? This doesn’t mean they took a shower – usually being made clean included burnt offerings and stuff.  To be clean you had to keep kosher.  To be clean you had to be healthy.  To be clean you had to have no contact with someone who was un-clean.  But these men became clean as they walked away from Jesus and toward the priests. Now, this story sounds amazing enough to me.  But it is just getting started.  One guy – one of these ten former-lepers and newly “clean” guys – realizes his healing and returns to Jesus.  So – imagine walking along the road, doing something you know society says that you should definitely not be doing, and suddenly you look down and the psoriasis that covered your left arm is gone.  Suddenly gone.  The AIDS that has wracked your body is gone.  The cancer that filled your lungs and kept you coughing and gasping for breath is gone.  This happened for all ten men – and probably some women and children that got left out of the story…   But only one of them, when he realized he was healed turned back around and ran toward Jesus shouting his thanks and appreciation.  Now remember, when he first met Jesus, he kept his distance and just shouted at Jesus.  This time, he runs right up and falls to the ground at Jesus’ feet.  I can just picture him, crying and laughing and hugging Jesus.  Saying Thank You over and over.  In my mind, it plays like a film with dramatic music in the background. Two really interesting things in this part of the story though.  One – it says, of course, that this guy was thanking Jesus.  But it also says that he was glorifying God.  There is some disagreement as to whether this means that the former-leper understood that Jesus was God and was really glorifying Jesus.  Or if it means that the leper understood that Jesus was somehow the vehicle that relayed God’s healing.  The leper’s gratitude is to Jesus but his first thought upon being made clean is to give glory to God. The second thing that stands out is the last line – he couldn’t thank Jesus enough – and he was a Samaritan!  Yikes!  Have you ever heard someone describe something that someone had done and responded – but she is a minister. Or – but he is black.  Or – but he is so young. Or – but she is Hispanic.  Why do we do that?  We assign stereotypes to everyone.  A Samaritan can not be grateful?  A Samaritan wouldn’t glorify God?  A Samaritan would not thank Jesus?  Well, the stereotype of the Samaritan at that time was not very good, I guess! The point is, this guy was an outsider, someone they didn’t expect to be so exuberant. So, this guy is at his feet.  Carrying on with thanksgiving.  And Jesus says “weren’t all ten of you healed?  Where are the others?  Why aren’t they glorifying God?  Only this outsider is bothering to do that!”  The other guys are on their way to see the priest.  Isn’t that the same as going straight to God?  After all, they are doing what Jesus told them to do!  They are following directions of the guy that healed them.  And they are going to the most holy guy around.  They’re probably looking at their crazy friend running off down the road, not doing what Jesus told them to do, not what any good-newly-cleaned-God-fearing man would do and shaking their head at his insanity.   But to the on guy that came back, Jesus says – Get up and go on your way.  Your faith has healed and saved you.  So the other nine guys are still on their way to the priest.  But this guy can go on with his life.  And he is more than cleaned – he is whole.  He is healed and saved.  He’s got just a little more than the other guys.  All because he first gave glory to God. So you see why it is hard to decide where to go with this sermon. J We could talk about immigration issues.  Or race issues.  Or how our people are divided over any number of issues.  We could talk about who is ostracized in our culture and what healing would look like for them and for us.  We could look at the stories of the various miracles Jesus did and compare the various healings that are retold in the gospels.  We could talk about why the one guy came back and what it means that he seemed to get “something more”. All those would be good sermons.  But when I first read this scripture with you in mind – when I held this congregation in my heart as I read this story – as your history, present and dreams for the future provided the lens through which I read this – I read a story of hope. You see the literature about congregational transformation says that only one in ten congregations that undertake an effort to radically change and embrace new life will be able to do that.  Those statistics are kinda depressing!  90% fail!?!?!?  That doesn’t sound so good.  But when I read this story I read it how Luke wrote it but I also read it like this: It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Mexico and California.  As he entered this Region, ten churches, all struggling, called out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Taking a good look at them, he said, “Go and show the world what you’ve got.” They went and while still on their way, began to receive new members, got a great new pastor, spruced up their building, received a huge financial gift and started a praise service.  Only one of them, truly saw what these gifts could do and instead of fitting these new gifts into the way they’ve always done things – they changed inside and rushed to give thanks to God, to use these gifts to glorify God, to create ministries that serve their community.  This congregation could not thank Jesus enough – and they were from Modesto! Jesus said, “were not all ten congregations healed?  Where are the other nine?  Can none be found that will make the real changes needed for transformation?  Will none use these gifts to glorify God except you?  Are you the one in ten?”  Then he said to them, “Get up.  Go on your way.  Your faith has healed and saved you.” I hope that all of the churches that accept the path of transformation are able to beat the odds and thrive.  And I am sure that we are one of them. If Jesus is willing to take risks and offer healing to those who everyone thinks are no longer worth caring about not to speak of saving we need to be willing to take our own risks and maybe break a few rules to notice and be ready for the healing when it comes.  If God has work for us to do here in Modesto – God will equip us with what we need to do that work.  We need to reach for it, to make the changes in how we live as a community of faith, and to remember to shout our gratitude, glorifying God.

                                       

Wisdom and Maturity 1 Cor 2:1-9

Wisdom and Maturity1 Cor 2:1-9 FCC, Modesto – 10/28/07 We’ve begun talking about where the “young people” are and how to get “them” involved with church.  Many of you have shared with me how influential this church was for you during your teenage and young adult lives.  And I see the wheels begin to move in your heads as you start to imagine how to pass that sort of experience on to another generation. I want to share with you today a short article or devotion written by esteemed theologian and writer, Martin Marty that talks to this. Marty: “Demographers, statisticians, sociologists, and some theologians serve the culture and the religious institutions within it by measuring the stated beliefs and observable religious behavior of citizens. Church attendance is one of the most conspicuous and measurable of these behaviors.  Yes, we know that counting church members and attendees only measures church membership and attendance.  We know, and the social scientists know, that in a time when individualized “spirituality” has its vogue, we are to remember that there are all kinds of ways to be in touch with the transcendent, to be in tune with the infinite, and to reach for the moral life.             “We know that, but by observing other cultures, especially those of Western Europe, we also know that the desertion of the Catholic church in former strongholds such as Ireland and Spain, the emptying of Lutheran churches in historic bastions like Scandinavia and eastern Germany, or the bleak attendance at Anglican or almost all other churches in England, even on Easter morning, changes more than church statistics.  Such cultures can “coast,” for a while, with the memory of a faith that did shape society and culture, for better and for worse.  But as generations pass and distance grows, so do the values which issued from the body of believers gathered in communities called, for example, “the church.”             “”As generations pass.”  A review in the October 16th Christian Century by Brian D. McLaren, a leader in “the emerging church,” of Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow’s important new book After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Sometings are Shaping the Future of American Religion is a potential wake-up signal, an alarm blast.  Those who think that Sightings does not frequently enough isolate and treat that generation might conclude after reading McClaren and Wuthnow that one reason we do not treat the topic often enough is because people aged twenty-one to forty-five are hard to find among church members and regular attendees.             “Wuthnow writes, “If I were a religious leader, I would be troubled by the facts and figures currently describing the lives of young Americans, their involvement in congregations, and their spiritual practice.”  He advises:  Don’t draw conclusions “from where the action is,” but on the basis of “a full consideration of where the action is not.”  He wants religious leaders to do more than strategize how to help congregations survive, but instead to work for their vitality.    “Wuthnow’s main conclusion is that “young adults are marrying later, having fewer children and having them later, moving more often, going to college in higher numbers, living with more immigrant neighbors and therefore more ethnic and religious diversity, and living in the suburbs even more than their baby boomer parents.”   Changes like these (more than TV, the Internet, “secular humanism,” or “relativism”) give rise to the startling trends and statistics that Wuthnow uncovers in interviews.   He finds find that this generation talks about religion more than any other, and that their core beliefs remain stable—except beliefs about how the spiritual life and God-talk are to be related to communal life, worship, and common action.  Wuthnow’s advice?  Have babies, and much more.  McLaren’s advice: “Listen to young adults,” and then reform and act.” And I think today’s scripture gives us some scriptural advice as well. Paul wrote two letters to the church in Corinth.  The first letter is pretty condemning.  It indicates that after Paul had gotten things started and put leaders in place to continue the church, things got pretty rocky.  This is a great story of church dysfunction!  Paul is trying to give some advice and direction to help this new church find its strong footing in order to move ahead.  The second letter praises the accomplishments and is almost a cheerleading letter to tell them how great they are doing. But today’s passage comes from the beginning of that first letter.   Paul writes: “When I came to you, brothers [and sisters], I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom [or women’s!], but on God’s power.” Paul has this way of saying – remember, this is what I  did… and implying that the community is not doing likewise. So, what he is saying to them is – “hey!  It is more effective to communicate with humility than to come like a stampeding herd.  It is better to just tell your own story than to talk down to people.  The point is not to persuade people with fancy talk but to let the Holy Spirit have a chance to work. So stop trying to push your take on things down people’s throats!  The Good News is enough by itself.  You just have to be willing to meet people where they are and speak the truth of God as you know it.” I had to chuckle at the next part of this passage… it says: “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature.”… knowing that I was talking about “young people” to a group of folks that might think of themselves as “mature adults”… but, of course, they aren’t talking about age.  After all, Jesus was only 33 when he died and that is only in the middle of the age range that Marty was talking about. No, Paul is talking about people that are mature in their faith. In today’s language that would be the “churched” instead of the “unchurched” or the “de-churched”.  The “Christians” instead of the “spiritual but not religious.”  The people that take discipleship seriously and commit their lives to following Christ.  These are the “mature.” And that “wisdom” Paul is talking about… “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but NOT the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.  No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.  None of the rulers of this age understood it, for it they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” I think this “wisdom” is simply the “good news” that we know of the love of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Spirit.   As Paul says, this is not something that our cultural leaders are able to share.  This is what the CHURCH needs to share.   The Young Adults in our community are not in church.  We might see some mega church up the road with young families streaming in and out – but they are actually a very small percentage of the 21-45 year olds in Modesto.  We don’t know these people – we know they are not in our churches, but Marty shared Wuthnow’s conclusions that “young adults are marrying later, having fewer children and having them later, moving more often, going to college in higher numbers, living with more immigrant neighbors and therefore more ethnic and religious diversity, and living in the suburbs even more than their baby boomer parents”.   This generation that I am smack in the middle of – is distrustful of institutional church.  We see the church as a contradiction to the best things we see in the world.  We see televangelists that have extramarital affairs and embezzlement scandals.  We see the clergy sexual misconduct of the Catholic church.  We live on streets with many different ethnicities present but think that the most segregated hour of the week is 11am on Sunday morning.  We see non-profit agencies responding to the social needs in our communties and not the churches.  We all know people who have died of AIDS and cancer or are victims of violence or drugs.  We see the church take a stand on “moral issues” while “Christians” demonstrate hypocrisy in their personal lives.   It is only in the last few years that I began to actually have any true understanding of why Christianity is a communal religion.  I was ordained and serving in ministry before I could accept for myself that being part of a faith community is any better than a personal spirituality.  And unlike many of my contemporaries, I grew up in the church, I knew the best parts of church and was familiar and aware of churches other than the very conservative and fundamentalist variety.  And yet, it still took a long time to accept the community of “church” as an integral part of my personal faith. Wuthnow makes a good point when he says we need to look at where the action is not.  There are generations of people that are not accepting the institutional church – the church as you have always known it – as having value for their lives.  We have some important changing to do because as Paul quotes Isaiah as saying “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”  Even those in our neighborhoods who are not now part of “church”. 

So as we enter this season of discernment  - of listening for God to reveal God’s purpose for this congregation – let us proceed with humility and openness to receive God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom for all ages so that we might be vehicles of this good news for generations to come.

Gather Us In Ps 107:1-9

Gather Us InPsalm 107:1-9 This last week or so I have been truly blessed to hear so many of your stories.  I have heard about fishing trips and mountains.  About urban violence and rural farming.  I have heard of the unexpected twists and turns of life and of the times when the path has been straight.  I have heard about traveling and staying home.  Of grief and loss and love and hope. I have heard stories about this church.  Lots of them from the “old building” – the one that burned – the one on G street.  A bunch about the “old building” the one on 14^th Street and the stained glass there.  About the ministers you’ve had – the great preaching of some, the ministry with children and young families of others, the failures and foibles of yet others.  I’ve heard about the relationship this church has had with Maze Blvd Christian Church.  And the life-long relationships many of you have with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). There is a rich history here.  God has led you a long way to arrive at just this moment.  O, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.  For God’s steadfast love endures forever. You really are a remarkable church – remembering, of course, what Frank says – that the church is the PEOPLE!  … and the building is nice too – in Elk Grove, I am really happy to have a closet to store stuff!… Many of you have been friends for 50, 60, 70 years!  Your lives have connected.  Your faith has held you together.  You have journeyed together through births and deaths and cancer and aneurisms and fires and tragedy and laughter and weddings and grandchildren and all sorts of life events that have knit you together as a true community.  God has brought you to this place where you know you are loved and part of a family One person told me the other day that some preacher had suggested that the way to grow this church was to invite your friends – but that all, or nearly all, of your friends were already here!  This is a special place, with special people and deep relationships that have held you together for a very long time. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble ad gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south. Now this community, this church, is at a crossroads – wondering what lies ahead.  Hoping that something good can come out of this long history.  Wondering if you have the energy to see it happen.  Anticipating that God is still at work and has something for us to do.   I hear the grief over the families that left – realizing that that was nearly twenty years ago.  I hear the sadness over leaving the old building behind – as well as all that it represented.  Both buildings, even. I see the frustration of the decline in numbers, energy, passion for outreach, and all that.  I see hints of despair that this might be the end.  Yet I see glimmers of hope for a future and an abiding desire to see this ministry blossom and become something new and vibrant – a legacy for the future. The Psalm says…Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. This is your dessert time. Michael’s favorite place in the world is the desert.  I haven’t been so sure about that.  I love the ocean with the steady, living, beating of the surf and the sense of the vastness of creation when the sky and sea blend together at the horizon.  I even like the mountains with their majestic beauty and scent of pine – of the contrast of dark trees, grey stone and blue sky.  I love the city, too – with the constant motion and hum of humanity.  But the desert? I have learned to find the beauty in the dessert too.  The vastness makes me tired – but looking closely to see life and beauty in the up-close view.  The moments that are breathtaking.  The scents that surprise.  The extremes of hot and cold.  The unexpected rain and the flowers that pop out over night with just the whisper of moisture. This is how things are.  There are desert times in all of our lives where we have to look for the beauty and hope – when it is not the first thing we see or feel, but requires a careful uncovering.   But did you notice the next bit of the Psalm – Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; he led them by a straight way, till they reached a city to dwell in.  Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to all people! This is what we will be doing.  We will be “crying to the LORD in our trouble” and will expect to be delivered.  We will be praying and asking God to make the way clear.  We will be studying and reading scripture together to figure out what God has for us to do.  We will be asking God every day to lead us from this desert and into the new and unique witness that God has for the people of Modesto, California through the ministries of First Christian Church. I asked most everyone that met with me over the last week and a half to begin praying every day for this church.  And I will ask you all here today – to begin to pray every day for this church.  Pray that God will reveal to us the vision God has for us.  Pray for the people here that God’s love will be made manifest through their lives.  Pray for me as I try, with God’s help, to provide leadership to this interim time.  Pray for the people of Modesto that God will be moving in their hearts so that when we are ready to move into the promised land – they will be ready to meet us.  Begin today and keep it up.  Prayer is the foundation we will build on. The other thing we will be doing is talking with each other.  How can we know what God is saying unless we talk to each other?  I’m not sure about you – but I’ve only heard one or two mystical words directly from God… and even those I needed to have affirmed by people close to me.  Usually I experience God in relationships.  I see Christ in you.  I hear God’s call and direction as we interact together.  So we need to be talking. Starting a week from Wednesday, we are going to start meeting every Wednesday morning at 11 o’clock – here at the church.  We will begin by using this book “Temporary Shepherds: a Congregational Handbook for Interim Ministry” as our guide for the first twelve weeks – which will take us about until Christmas time.  The books should be here next Sunday and I hope that all – or at least most – of you will take one and participate in the conversation. Now, I realize that life happens.  Some of you are working and not available on Wednesday mornings.  Others of you have a variety of other commitments that make it hard to commit to coming every week.  But I want you to come as often as you can.  If God gives you the one insight that the rest of us need to hear and you aren’t participating in the conversation, we all miss out.  And even if you can’t come at all – by reading the book and sharing your thoughts with me or each other when you see each other through the week or on Sunday – you will be part of the conversation. And because we need to nurture our community here – we will also have a sack-lunch fellowship time each Wednesday at noon for all who can stay.   The elders and I are excited about this and hopeful that God will reveal a vision for our future through our work together. The Psalm ends this way: For God satisfies those who are thirsty, and the hungry he fills with Good things. And it began this way: O, Give thanks to the LORD for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!  Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, who he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. May this be the song of the next generations of ministry that might spring forth from this faithful community that God has brought together.  Amen.

The Long Way Around Ex 13:17-22

Exodus 13: 17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. ^[a] The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle.  19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.” ^[b]  20 After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. When I was a little girl, I lived in Northern Indiana.  In many ways, it was like the central valley of California as it was a rich agricultural area.  The big difference was in what we grew.  In Indiana, I can look at a field and know exactly what is growing.  It is either corn, soybeans, wheat or hay.  I can smell the difference between the diary farms and the hog farms.  Occasionally there is a turkey farm which is quite a bit smellier!  But it’s nothing like the variety of orchards, fruits, vegetables and nuts grown out here. One of the jobs nearly all of my friends did during their early to mid teenage years was to detassle corn.  They’d be brought to a field of corn when the “tassle” or the part that has the pollen has just come out, and they took that off so the corn would not be fertilized.  Because I was pretty allergic to pollen, I got out of this particular job – but it permeated the culture of the place enough for me to know quite a bit about it. There were a few important rules to follow.  Use sunscreen.  Drink plenty of water.  Always work where you can see at least one other person.  Never take a short cut through the corn. It is very easy to get lost in a corn field. Corn grows about 8 feet high.  It grows pretty close together.  There is foliage all the way to the ground.  It all looks exactly the same.  It is really, really easy to get lost in there.  Sound and light have a tendency to bend in such a way that is very disorienting.  If you can see another person, you can keep your orientation and have some sense of direction. This time of year, many farmers plow corn mazes.  Along with the pumpkin patch and the harvest festivals, the corn maze is a lot of fun.  They literally cut down the corn in a pattern to create a maze – a path to get lost and found in.  A corn field is perfect for a maze because it all looks exactly the same.  All you can see is a little bit of sky, dirt and lots of green leaves. It is important to never take a shortcut through a field of corn.  The fields are huge – a single field can cover dozens of acres.  A farm out there can be 10,000 acres.  Out here, my brother-in-law’s 75-or-so acres of peaches seems tiny in comparison.  But back east where the farms are so big, it seems like it would be much quicker to walk through the field to get to the other side.  It looks like a good plan to just cut through the middle of the field.  It looks like you could see over the corn and that someone outside the field could see you if you were in it.  But none of this is true.  It could take quite a bit longer than just walking along the paths around the outside of the field – at least that way you won’t be walking in circles as you get disoriented.  When Pharoah let the Hebrew people leave Egypt, God did not lead them on the shortest path.  God led them toward the red sea through the dessert.  And you might remember from the story of the Exodus that it took them forty years to make it through the dessert.  This was certainly not the most direct path. God knew that people would want to take the shortcuts, but God knew the consequences of that too.  The long, tiring road was not the way that the Hebrew people thought they should go.  It looked like a better deal to go straight through the Philistine country – but God knew they’d get lost – distracted by war and ending up back in the oppressive context they had just been freed from. The good news is that God led the way – along this round about way that was counter-intuitive.  God was there in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to lead the way.  Not only did this allow them to travel by day or by night as the scripture points out – but they were led in the direction God had for them. So all of this gets me to wondering.  Where might God be leading us?  What are our pillars of cloud and fire?  What short-cuts are we tempted by that will distract us and keep us from the path that God wants us to take? Some things I am hearing from you is a desire to grow, to own your own building, to attract and provide services for families and children, to welcome visitors, to let the world know we are here, to invite our neighbors, to be a vibrant witness to this community. Maybe this is where God is leading us.  It will probably look different than you or I can imagine it right now.  God probably has a surprise or two for us.  Because the world continues to change, it will probably not look like the church that many of you remember when Mr. Baird was pastor here.  Mr. Baird retired over fifty years ago.  The world has changed and God has new plans for First Christian Church. The challenge is how to resist the temptation of the shortcuts and wait for the path that God has for us to be revealed. We could start right now to implement all sorts of changes that individually sound like great things to do to work toward this goal that we think we want to reach.  At the Elder’s meeting this week we came up with five of six really great ideas for changes we could make.  The challenge is, some of these ideas conflict with each other.  Some require us to make other changes to accommodate the new ideas.  It feels like we might be tempted to walk right into the middle of a corn field, getting lost in the implementation of changes and losing track of our goal of a final destination on the other side. If God is truly calling us toward a promised land of vitality, mission and witness to this community – the path will be illuminated. Of course, we need to work to discover that God has for us.  This is why we are meeting every Wednesday at 11am for our Wednesday conversations.  Lots of great ideas come out of these conversations – just talk to the 8 folks that come this first week!  The creativity that is emerging suggests to me that God is active and at work with us right now.  So come!  And if you can’t come, still read the book with us and share your ideas with me or really anyone in the congregation.  God may be revealing something to you that we all need to hear. I think it is also time to begin a list of all the creative and amazing ideas that are emerging.  I am surprised and pleased with the ideas that you are coming up with for making changes that could make a big difference to our future.   This may sound funny coming from someone known to be inclined toward action – but we need to wait.  We need to hear lots of ideas and continue to listen and watch for God’s leading.  We need to make sure we don’t stumble into the cornfield only to get lost.  Or, to use the imagery from our scripture today – to make sure we do not take the Philistine road, even if that is shorter.  For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”  This church cannot afford to try something, give up hope and return to this place. There will be lots of surface and procedural changes that we can make.  But if we make them without making the underlying changes to how we interact, how we understand church, how we integrate new people into ministry, how we do ministry in the twenty-first century — we will get lost in the corn. We need to wait for the path to become clear.  We need to be looking for the path – to watch for our very own pillar of cloud and pillar of fire.  For God will be with us.  God will lead us.  God will guide our way to the promised land if only we are faithful, willing to work toward God’s goals, committed to making the journey and careful not to get lost. We are on a journey together.  It is a hopeful journey.  A little bit scary journey.  A journey where we don’t know the outcome.  A journey that requires faith.  A journey that avoids shortcuts but takes the long way around in order that we do not get lost, we are not tempted to turn back, and we are on the clear and uncluttered path toward the promised land.