Germantown Mennonite Church - Sermon Library

Linscheid 05/02/10

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 18 May 2010 03:23:25 GMT

Sermon by John Linscheid
Germantown Mennonite Church
5th Sunday of Easter, May 2, 2010

Scripture lessons: John 13:31-35; Revelation 21: 1-6
Today, we will break bread together. Bread is born in destruction—crushing wheat into flour. It is whole briefly. Then instantly broken, devoured, digested.
Bread lives between moments of destruction.
Today’s lesson from John’s Gospel, also lies between devastating realities. Jesus has just shared bread with Judas, who has run off to betray him. Shortly, Jesus will predict Peter’s denial.
Here, between betrayal and denial, Jesus declares the Son of Man’s glorification. Here, between a friend who goes out to destroy him and one whose loyalty soon will falter, Jesus gives a new commandment to love.
Mary Hunt, author of Fierce Tenderness, describes the church as “an unlikely coalition of justice-seeking friends.” But, I would add, we are not simply justice-seeking friends or salvation-seeking friends. We do not

just share noble goals. We are a fragile coalition of unreliable friends. Judas and Peter live among us and within us.
Anyone in a long-term friendship or partnership or marriage—or congregation—has wounded friends and been wounded by them. Sometimes the damage is permanent. Judas and Jesus were not reconciled—in this

life at least. Resurrection did not erase Jesus’ wounds.
At times we do damage that cannot be undone. In other cases—as with Peter—there may be a road back.
Yet in this darkness, Jesus sees glory. In this night, he commands love. To love one another as he has loved. For indeed, he has knowingly just washed the feet of both Judas and Peter. He has removed his robe to

stoop down—in vulnerable intimacy—before friends who will leave him scarred for eternity.
Earlier John tells us this: “Jesus, knowing that Abba God had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table.” Knowing his source was God and his end was

God, Jesus loved his own to the end. And he told them to act with similar love toward each other.
Early in our relationship, Ken proposed a little ritual—that every night before going to sleep we tell each other, “I love you.” We have had to say it not only in infatuation but when one of us has hurt the other or still

bore the pain of conflict. Hearing the words and saying them back constantly reminds us that the source and the goal of our relationship transcends human fallibility.
Jesus modeled love by washing feet of unreliable disciples and commanded such loving acts even in the midst of betrayal and denial. He asks those who follow him to live in ways that will constantly remind ourselves

and each other that God is our source and our goal.
This reminder, on a larger scale, is also the message of the Revelation of John.
Since John had his vision, every generation has seen its own time in Revelation. In a sense, all times are apocalyptic times. Evil and empire violently assail God and God's people. Empires rise. Plagues and miseries

test faith. The “mark of the beast” become manifest anew. I am struck by one immediate parallel. In Revelation the beast’s mark restricts buying and selling—in other words the ability to live and prosper. In Arizona

today, Hispanic people now must be “marked” by a birth certificate or papers, to live and prosper.
We easily focus on the wars and rumors of war. Empire’s rise seems inevitable and unassailable. We miss the strain that soars over the entire book of One “who was and is and is to come.” We miss the cry that

Babylon has already fallen. All things march inevitably toward today’s Scripture passage: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth …” By this vision, John calls seven churches and their offspring through history to

remain faithful. “See, the home of God is among mortals.. . . . I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”
We order our lives not against the chaos we see too easily. Rather we order our lives by the knowledge of Alpha and Omega. God is our source and our ending.
Today we will break bread together. An unreliable coalition of friends of Jesus, we will strive to feed and be friends with each other—to love one another as Christ has loved. And by sharing this meal, we remind

ourselves and each other that the body remembered in this loaf and this people, loving God incarnate is our source and our goal—our beginning and our end.

Linscheid 01/11/09

Lois Ann Handrich — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:47:15 GMT

Related, Valued, Encouraged
A Sermon on Genesis 1:1-5 and Mark 1:4-11
preached by John Linscheid at Germantown Mennonite Church
Sunday, January 11, 2009

“In the beginning of God’s creating heaven and earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness shrouded the deep. And a ruach wind/breath/spirit from God brooded over the face of the waters.”

Rabbi Arthur Waskow depicts the creation of light as the moment God opened God’s eyes. The poet, James Weldon Johnson makes light break out when God smiled.

Why did God open God’s eyes? What made God smile? Genesis doesn’t tell us.

Our Gospel lesson also begins a story—of Jesus’ life mission. What motivated Jesus, from an obscure village in a marginal place, to go to John the Baptist to initiate his spiritual journey and public ministry?

John’s was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Traditional doctrine provides no reason for Jesus to “repent” or to seek “forgiveness of sins.” The Gospel of Matthew later provides a rationale. But just as Genesis does not say what prompted God to start creating, Mark does not tell us what brought Jesus to the river.

The root meaning of repentance in Greek has to do with changing one’s mind or coming to a new understanding. Perhaps this was a moment of insight when Jesus turned his life to God’s calling. If forgiveness of sins entails removing life’s social and spiritual encumbrances, perhaps this was his moment to discard any baggage that might impede his purpose.

Jesus taught and ministered in hard times. Rome’s taxation and exploitation meant that devastation lay one crop failure or one tax assessment away. Jerusalem’s Temple system combined all that we separate into the political and religious into one means of social control. What fears must he have faced, questioning such structures?

As we face difficult times today, what fears hold us back from challenging the life-denying systems of our age? Very real political, economic, and religious consequences can punish those who do not play by “the rules.”

So what made it possible for Jesus to wash such constraints away? What empowered him to take on the powers and principalities and start a community with a new spiritual, social, and economic framework?

Perhaps that voice at his baptism tore the heavens open because it provided the encouragement to move forward: “You are my son, my beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

In that brief statement contained three powerful messages:

1.   “You are my son.” We are related. You are not alone.
2.   “my son, my beloved.” Our bond is heart, soul, and mind—a relationship that will endure.
3.   “With you I am well pleased.” You are all that I need you to be. Embark on your journey with my full confidence.

Having God’s full confidence, Jesus can set out on his way.

Today, we live in daunting economic times. Our culture tells us we can depend on no one. Job loss, pension devaluation, healthcare costs are all on our back. We stand alone.

But in just as frightening times, when Roman and Jerusalem structures created even worse challenges, God did not permit Jesus the delusion that he stood alone. “You are my son.” We are related—parent and child. I stand with you.

The same is true for us. We are related to God. We are God’s children, which makes us related to each other. As the body of Christ we must stand with each other. We must bear each other’s burdens, make visible the relationship that God has with us. We must manifest the truth that no one stands alone.

These are also times of political and social anxiety. Our culture claims that force alone can protect us. Political, military, and social threats can only be subdued through violence or by social and psychological domination.

Jesus faced a similar mythology of redemptive violence. But God did not say, “You are my warrior.” God told Jesus, “You are my beloved.” Love will bear you through everything, even a cross.

And that cross, which tore the heavens open a second time at the end of Mark’s story, exposed violence’s impotence. It confirmed love’s power to change the course of history. “You are my beloved—so beloved I will face death with you.”

As followers of Jesus, we must remind ourselves again how much we are loved—and continually tell each other. When economic and social forces tempt us toward ruthless selfishness, when we want to cling to assets and power to “save ourselves,” then we are called to spend lavishly and share power for the welfare of all. God values us and we will value each other. We will love one another as God in Christ Jesus has truly loved us.

We further live in spiritually abusive times. Cultural warriors and moral prophets divide and conquer. They threaten people who fail their expectations with social ostracism, cultural exclusion, even legal inequality—and eternal damnation. They cry out, “With you I am deeply displeased.”

The political and religious authorities of Jesus’ day similarly judged him unworthy. They mocked him. They dehumanized him with torture. At this crucifixion, they derided him as a failure.

But God had the opposite message for Jesus, “With you I am well pleased.” Jesus was sufficient just as he was.

It is hard to leave spiritual devaluation behind. Even after we reject religious scolding, we still fight internalized messages that we are inadequate and unworthy. But God values us as God made us.

So keep listening to the One who says, “With you I am well pleased.” In whatever condition you find yourself, whoever you are, you are good enough. God has created you sufficient to meet the life God gave you. You are all God needs you to be.

Repeat God’s words again, “You are my Child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased.

God is our parent: we do not stand alone. God loves us: our relationship will endure. We live in God’s favor: we embark on our journey with God’s full confidence.

I began by pondering the question, “What made God start creation?” Both Arthur Waskow and James Weldon Johnson came to the same conclusion: God was lonely.

What made God open God’s eyes? God wanted to see another and to be in relationship.

What made God smile? God smiled at the thought of being in love with creation and its creatures.

Relationship and love lie at creation’s heart and at the heart of our creation. Though we face difficult times, we are able to meet the challenges before us because God stands in solidarity with us and we with each other. God is love and God made us sufficient for the task of manifesting God’s love in our world.

So now we must leave behind any brooding over the darkness. We must open our eyes. It is our time to smile.

Now we continue God’s creative work of love.

Linscheid 03/20/1994

Lois Ann Handrich — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:37:58 GMT

Sermon by John Linscheid
Germantown Mennonite Church
March 20, 1994
At the dedication of the new building
at 21 West Washington Lane

Scripture passages
Jeremiah 31:31-34
John 12:20-33

Sermon

"The days are surely coming--God is saying this--
when I shall make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant . . . ."

When he received these words from God, the prophet Jeremiah was standing in the ashes of Jerusalem. Babylon had just conquered Judah, leaving the social, political, religious structures smoldering. The temple of God was destroyed. Priests, kings, administrators, artisans--nearly all religious, political, and economic functionaries were dead or marching captive into exile.

As his world turned to chaos, Jeremiah heard these words, "The days are surely coming, . . . when I shall make . . . a new covenant . . ."

Up until that time, the ancient Israelite economy had been organized around family-owned plots of land. Theoretically these pieces of ground could be sold only to carefully prescribed relatives. If someone had to sell the land, these relatives had to buy--or "redeem"--the field to keep the property in the family. It was their religious and social duty.
This rather anti-capitalist structure, tended to keep the economic base more justly distributed among the people.

Babylon, by laying siege to Jerusalem, threatened this economic order. Throughout the ancient world, the more typical structure had the king owning all the land and granting peasants the right to work it at his whim. So the very notion of family farm and property seemed about to be obliterated, Yet, just before Jerusalem fell, Jeremiah exercised his duty as a relative to redeem his family property. He bought a field.

Jeremiah bought a farm. Germantown Mennonite Church bought a building.

Late 20th century North American social and economic structures have laid siege to the traditional Mennonite world. The family farm has become suburbia. Mass media makes separation from the world impossible. Individual consumer values demolish communitarian values. Large-scale violence and economic oppression nearly overwhelm the relevance of Christian faith, Mennonite style.

Yet we, like Jeremiah, have purchased a piece of property, perhaps with as little knowledge of the future as Jeremiah had. Like Jeremiah, we proclaim God's provision of hope in a chaotic world.

"The days are surely coming, God is saying this,
when I shall make a new covenant . . ."

Jeremiah does not proclaim the death of the old covenant. Throughout biblical history, God had made new covenants, with Noah, with Abraham, with Israel at Sinai, with David in Jerusalem. That Jeremiah would buy a field--according to pattern of the old covenant--makes clear his conviction that the old covenant still speaks powerfully. But the old covenant is written in stone. Stone is too brittle to bear the force of God's ever-changing history. Stone tablets are too heavy to carry into exile.

Nor do we, by purchasing a new building, declare our heritage dead. We still hold dear the Mennonite tradition represented by our historic meetinghouse two blocks away. The new covenant does not replace the old. It does change our ways of living it.

Covenant-making in our Western Christian minds, has gotten wrapped up in the terms of law and commandment. So that we even tend to see the Bible as law and verses as facts. We see a covenant as a legal document with rules that must be followed and statements of fact that must be assented to. But Jewish scholar Art Waskow has noted that the Hebrew word mitzvot, often translated "commandments" has more a sense of connecting. And torah—which we translate "law"—refers more to the process of aiming toward truth. Thus covenant-making is a process of making relationships between God and us and each other that enable us to aim ever closer to the truth. Jeremiah is simply recalling the essence of covenant making when he says,

"then I shall put my law within them,
and on their heart shall write it,
and I shall be to them God,
and they shall be to me a people;
and no longer shall they teach one another,
or each other, saying,
      "Know Yahweh!"
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest , oracle of Yahweh,

The new covenant remakes connections. So by working to reconnect with our local neighborhood, by working with Mennonites from our conferences, by proclaiming reconciliation in the church among people who have judged and excluded one another, we experience God writing on our hearts, healing the divisions.

"I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin remember no more." God does not lay down the law. God throws down the tablets of stone and resurrects the covenant in human flesh.

For us, who are Christians, Christ becomes the incarnation of God's heart writing upon our own. The cost of commitment will be great. Jeremiah proclaims a new covenant and goes into exile. Jesus proclaims the hour of his glory, then turns to face the cross:

"The hour has come for the Human One to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone"

Alone, unconnected, outside of relationship.

"but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

The old order crumbles. The connections remain. In testimony of which Jeremiah buys a farm. And we buy a building.

It is the deep mystery of the cross—as we march through Lent toward Golgotha—that God goes into exile with humanity. God takes on our sin—our unconnectedness—and writes a new covenant on our heart. The moment of Christ's crucifixion is the moment of judgment and victory in the Gospel of John.

Jesus says, "Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out."

The author of chaos strikes God's chosen, intending to throw the world back into chaos, to disconnect all things.

"And I," Jesus says, "when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people/all things to myself."

In death, Christ re-establishes the connections.

We proclaim the ministry of Christ, the torah and mitzvot which make up the new covenant, by remaking the connections which the powers of this world seek to destroy. Remaking justice, reconciling the world.

Jeremiah bought a farm. Germantown Mennonite Church has purchased a building.    Evidence of our conviction that God is writing a new covenant on our hearts.

What shape is that new covenant taking? How is God speaking to your heart? How do you see God using this space? How will it testify to Christ's presence? How will we enflesh this building; so that it embodies the new covenant—a place for making connections, with God, with each other, with our world?

Jeremiah bought a farm. Germantown Mennonite Church purchased a building.   God is writing a new covenant.

Linscheid 09/14 Food Fight

Lois Ann Handrich — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:46:53 GMT

John Linscheid
“Food Fight”
Sunday, September 14, 2008

Genesis 50:15-21
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Romans 14:1-12

I’m not sure the sermon title really fits. Sometimes the Spirit takes you in directions you never expected to go. But I will refer to food and to fights; so maybe it’s not all off base.

If I drove through Frisco, Colorado, and encountered the A&W sign pictured on this morning’s bulletin, I’m not sure I would stop. I love the Gospel of John. My taste runs more in the direction of chili dogs and ice cream than haute cuisine. So what would dissuade me?

Where I grew up, folks who wielded John’s sin-and-forgiveness language divided the world between sheep and goats. Guess which category they put me in? Perhaps my reluctance to stop would not be entirely unreasonable.

But I must admit there is also something in me that notices the danger of difference before it sees the opportunity. I remember those who hurled John’s Gospel at me more quickly than I remember those who helped me love it. I sense the wedge issues before I feel the ties that bind. I suspect there may be others like me.

Throwing God into the mix of human difference is as old as the Bible. But both of this morning’s scripture passages offer a twist toward reconciliation.

Take Joseph and his brothers. They had a rocky history. We might fairly say that both sides sinned, but the brothers more, selling Joseph into slavery. When Jacob their father died, Joseph could have been expected to retaliate. The brothers, desperate for survival, even offered to be Joseph’s slaves, expecting the worst from a brother who now had all of Egypt’s governing power to call upon.

Such forgiveness would have preserved the power imbalance. Joseph, the righteous victim, now possessing authority, would have condescended to withhold vengeance. And his brothers would have groveled in guilty gratitude before him for the rest of their lives.

But Joseph, having finally grown up, chose to restore the power balance. He changed the narrative to cast himself equally with his brothers under a higher power.

“Don’t be afraid: is it for me to put myself in God’s place? You planned evil for me, but God planned it for the good as it has come to pass this day—to bring about the survival of many people.”

I don’t read this as some sort of argument that those who are abused should “quit complaining because God has a special plan that we don’t understand and ‘farther along we’ll know more about it.’” Rather I see it as Joseph’s way to reconstruct the social balance between himself and his brothers. He makes them equal participants in God’s greater purpose—even though their original purpose was far from God’s.

Joseph chose not to be bound by the past. Rather, he set the stage for a new relationship that could move toward wholeness.

We hold ourselves to high standards of forgiveness. Forgive and forget. Love your enemies. Sometimes we forget that God does not just desire forgiveness. God desires wholeness in relationship—for us, for those with whom we have been in conflict, and for our communities. To misquote—but I don’t think misuse—scripture, “God desires mercy, not self-sacrifice.”

God does not ask for noble condescension toward those who have wronged us, self-sacrificially giving up our “right” to an apology or restitution. God desires mercy—deeply rooted in justice and righteousness. God desires restored relationships. True, a relationship cannot be restored while we hold out for an apology or restitution. But surrendering the demand for them will not alone guarantee healing. To restore relationships, we must see them in a new context that places us mutually as participants in the plan of God.

Paul took this approach in his letter to the Romans. Fighting over food, seeing each other as immoral or weak, feeling defensive in faith, the Roman Christians needed a new perspective. So Paul did not mediate their dispute. He did not request compromise. Nor did he suggest a dialogue on meat and vegetables or any other process of discernment.

Instead he changed the narrative from one of dispute to one of common purpose. He placed both sides squarely in the same social location—as brothers and sisters in the family of God, together living and dying to the Lord.

5Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.
7We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Perhaps Paul wanted to remind them that it was God who first chose not to live to self. For God chose, on the cross, to place reconciliation with humanity and fullness of life for all even above God’s own sovereignty.

We can focus on our differences. Or we can live each day ready to be surprised by the opportunity to live together “to the Lord.”

Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, I served as Germantown’s delegate to Eastern District Conference. I found myself at a meeting attended also by a denominational representative—who happened to have been the chair of the committee that had revoked my pastoral license. He had considered me entirely unfair in my challenges to his committee’s actions. Likewise I had seen him as hypocritically unfaithful. At least five years had passed and we had not seen each other since. But here at this conference, contentious issues had prompted harsh comments among delegates. Observing the conflict, both of us began to see our old differences in a new context. As we talked following the sessions, we chose not to revisit historic wounds, but rather to reflect on the shared struggle for church unity.

Neither of us sought forgiveness from the other. Indeed, neither of us had started the day looking for any sort of reconciliation. I don’t know what he left with, but I felt our relationship had been restored. It was not the relationship we’d had previously—even in good times. Our difficult history was not erased. But God had given me the gift to see it in a new perspective. To understand that both of us, different though we were, in our living and our dying, were each living “to the Lord.”

God graciously offers the opportunity for reconciliation. Sometimes we help make the opportunities out of our own choices. Then again, the opportunities may come unbidden in the course of ordinary life—like a side order of forgiveness with a chili dog.

As we read from the Psalmist this morning, truly “God is merciful and gracious” and “does not deal with us according to our sins.”

So let me echo the verses from that same Psalm that we did not read. “Bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me, bless God’s holy name.”

Linscheid 08/10 Creating Sacred Spaces and Places

Lois Ann Handrich — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:43:34 GMT

Creating Sacred Spaces and Places
Ken M. White and John Linscheid
Sunday, August 10, 2008

[John]

[note about dragging Ken into preaching]

Genesis speaks of God creating and shaping us from the dust of the earth and inspiriting us with God’s breath. Just as they breathe with celestial desire, our spirits remember their terrestrial origin. To reach for God, our souls need physical grounding—a place to exist that is both of the world and touching heaven.

Some places naturally recall our created connectedness to God.
Some places become sacred to us because of the divine encounters we associate with a place.
Some places we make sacred, simply because we need to enter God’s presence.

Some places naturally recall our connection to God. By no accident the Psalmist cries, “I lift up my eyes unto the hills.” We bury our dead in gardens for a reason. Green pastures and still waters restore our souls. Our Gospel lesson tells us that Jesus sought God in quiet places.

Some places, like the place where Jacob had his dream, become sacred by the nature of what happened there. They are places where we—or someone—met God.

This morning’s story tells us of Jacob, fleeing for his life. He had defrauded his brother. He possessed the birthright but was running full tilt from its blessings for fear Esau would kill him. Deceitful, selfish, he was an exile by his own doing.

Nevertheless, he could not flee God and his destiny. He came to “a place”, lay down against a stone, and dreamed of angels and God. Then he stood the stone to mark the place that had become for him Bethel—the “House of God.”

Meeting God was not enough. Jacob marked where it happened. He anointed the stone and renewed his covenant with God there. He made it a sacred place for generations to follow.

Still other places we make sacred, because we need to enter God’s presence. We have shaped a simple sanctuary here at 21 West Washington Lane. It was not awe inspiring when we first entered it, with its rotting floors and multicolored patchwork of rooms. We shaped the space to make it a place where we might enter the presence of God.

[Ken]

When I think about the sacred places in our lives, three sets of places come to mind.
Germantown Mennonite Church (both the Historic Meetinghouse and 21 W. Washington Lane), Columcille and Kirkridge, and a little river and our cottage in Vermont.

Each is sacred to me for a different reason, but all are sacred to me because I have experienced and been touched by God in a life altering way in each place, and in all three places stones are a constant reminder of my journey and dance with God and Christ. Like Jacob stones are a strong reminder and testiment to encounters with the divine.
Stones remind me and ground me in the timeless reality of God’s presence in the world and my life. For thousands of years, like God and with God they silently observe our human endeavors & folly.

In the early years of John and my relationship and our time in Philly, we discovered Kirkridge retreat and Conference Center and it’s neighbor Columcille, a Celtic Christianity Center inspired by Iona. It was at numerous retreats lead by John McNeil and Virginia Mollencott where we learned to embrace our faith tradition and our Queer spirit at the same time. John and I were welcomed with open arms, which was very healing because of our recent experience with John being asked to leave the Mennonite pastorate in Lawrence Kansas.    The primary message in both word and deed of these retreats was that we were God’s beloved. I have had multiple and deep encounters with God and Christ on this mountain top. God continually surrounded me and saturated me with God’s presence and love expressed in the eyes, the arms and the words of my fellow retreatants.

John and I attended these retreats religiously for well over a decade. We were then approached by Kirkridge’s director to lead a retreat for Gay men, which we did. We lead three annual retreats, each subtitled Rites of the gay male spirit. During our first retreat we built the men’s sacred site at Columcille. A group of 12 men hauled a huge stone and stood it in the center of the circle. While others built seating and stone stairsteps to the site and still others developed the memorial garden, so that our entire community living and dead could be present on the mountain together. And whenever we gathered as community we would throw small sticks (faggots) on the fire and call out the names of those who had gone before or fallen to illness so that the energy and the spirit of the entire community might be gathered. These deep and heart felt expressions and a history of shared pain bound this group to each other and the mountain.   It was not long before these events and the mountain became sacred and holy to the community of exiles who gathered there. I have the head stones from the fire ring we built at Kirkridge for an event we lead to honor John McNeil as a Sage among us. He opened many of the spiritual and church doors that John and I have walked through. Just as I hope we are opening doors for those who will follow us, here at Germantown and in the wider Church and in Vermont.

I pilgrimage to Columcille several times a year to tend the memorial garden and remember the men I have known who have died, I also go to pray in the chapel, and to talk with the founder about how he started Columcille. The founder of Columcille was another one of the men we acknowledged and honored as an elder in our mountaintop community. The picture on the alter is taken at Columcille.

A place where one authentically encountered oneself and God is truly sacred. The feeling of sacredness develops over time as people in the community realize that the place is a vessel that holds the deep emotions of lifes passages, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, were we can be vulnerable and trust that God will be present with us holding both pain and joy, and forgiving us our shortcoming.

Germantown Mennonite Church is also a sacred place to me. The place where I renewed my covenant with God and the church. This was not an easy decision for me. Ask Maryann Melinger she had me as a student in three membership classes before I joined.

Knowing that Mennonites have been worshipping together here as a community for over three hundred years helps me to realize how faithful God has been and continues to be to us. Remembering this sometimes help me get through the crisis of the moment.

I became a part of the historic meeting house when John and I celebrated our rite of spiritual friendship with this congregation on the occasion of our tenth anniversary. Some of you may remember, we celebrated our friendships and relationships, sang “Here in this Place” and “Will you let me be your Servant” and shared that the next chapter of our journey was going to be developing retreat space.

I strengthened my connection with the old meeting house when I was escorted out of it, the night Franconia delivered the news of our expulsion. I can still remember sitting outside on William Rittenhouse’s marker, a gentle breeze was blowing and I could hear the congregation singing “my life flows on”. It wasn’t until the recent meetings about Mark that I went back inside the old meetinghouse. I wouldn’t have thought about it, but Galen met me at the door that night and said, welcome back.

GMC has been a reminder of God’s presence in Germantown and Philadelphia for a long time. We have been a vessel for many life passages and sacred stories over our three hundred year history. Our Church and the historic meeting house and graveyard again remind me that our community includes many members who have since moved on or passed on. But we are part of them and they are part of us, becoming our great cloud of witnesses. I cannot work in our garden outside here at the church without thinking about Fern Derstein. And I’m sure when William Rittenhouse started making paper here in Germantown, he had no idea how some Mennonites would use it hundreds of years later. No paper ballot can separate us from God, from the people we love, from the people who came before us or from our faith tradition, or from our history.

Words can not even begin to capture the depth of emotion I have for this community, this place and the safe and sacred space that we have created and remodeled together here. Another thing that helps create a sense of sacredness is preparation and clear intention. The congregation has done significant work on this building to enhance the groups ability to utilize our building for worship, service to others and community building.

History also contributes to a place feeling sacred. If you know other people have gone before you and experienced God in a place, it confirms what you are feeling. We have claimed our place in the long history of this church.   We have opened doors that were closed. Truly here in this place new light is shining. You have helped heal my soul and for that I am thankful to God and this church community. (Stand the Stone on the Alter)

As John and I have continued on our spiritual journey we have learned a lot about each other, God, community, Church. livers and the spiritual life. We have learned from many people and have gratitude for the gift of their life stories, we have been awed by the beauty of God’s environment, learned silence can be as important as words, and that darkness holds as much power and beauty as light, we have seen new aspects of the Divine through art and dance and silent movies,   we have prayed and been prayed for, and we have sung and made music and community with those we love and those we don’t yet know well.

The third of our scared places is Vermont, as many of you know John and I (and Randy Newswanger) purchased a summer cottage in Vermont in 2002. We see it as a playground for the spirit. A place where spirit, art and playfulness matter. It is a place I go to commune with God, John, friends, and nature. I love getting my hands in the dirt. I intentionally set aside time to talk to God when I’m gardening. And I love the sense of Divine presence I feel at the cottage through the flowers, stones and sculptures. As I get older I realize my relationship with God is becoming more like a lover or good friend. It is continually deepening but also requires more time, occasional arguments, and frequent breaking and sharing of bread.

We have been developing the cottage and grounds as a place for people to go on private retreat. Remember that was our next life and spiritual goal fifteen years ago.   We have taken the many spiritual lessons, wounds and insight of our first 25 years together and are trying to create a space that will be nurturing and healing to those on the spiritual journey both inside and outside the church. There has also been discussion about buying some adjacent property in order to expand our ability to do small retreats and maybe even live in a small community in our retirement. John printed some pictures of our property and put them on the back table, if you’d like to look at them. David Weaver, Greg Kinnison and Amy and Charlie McGloughlin have all visited the cottage over the years and helped shape the space. And we are currently talking with our recent presenter, Eileen, from Face to Face to schedule a weekend retreat for her in Sept.

We have planted border gardens around almost the entire half acre, fabricated a number of outdoor sculptures, built a labyrinth and played with Rock and Stone, hanging them, standing them and stacking them. I think my favorite part of our property is the labyrinth which John and I built together and which he will talk about in a minute.

The picture on the cover of the bulletin is of the two ton stone we stood two weekends ago when we were in Vermont.   A couple of you have wondered how John and I are going to mark our 25th anniversary and John and I have discussed how to mark Germantown Mennonite Churches 300th Anniversary. I see the setting of this stone as a testament to our continued steadfast love of God, our Church and each other. Like Jacob I have wrestled with the angel of the Lord until I was exhausted. And I have been wounded and blessed. And like Jacob I too have used stones to build the house of God.
Both the ones that were thrown at me and the ones I have collected.

[John]

Our cottage sits between the road and a swamp. Between carefully tended gardens of flowers on one hand and gardens of stone on the other.

Sometime life feels well ordered and neatly directed like the road. Other times, it sucks me toward the swamp. At one moment my spirit is growing, blooming, and reshaping itself, dying and being reborn like the flowers. Then another hour comes when life resists me like stones that stand silent as God’s breath, strong as God’s will. I am forced to stand still like a megalith or to enter the contemplative, emptying pilgrimage represented by our labyrinth.

Our labyrinth combines both place and journey. On this path of meditation, one takes no wrong turns, meets no dead ends. When I first designed our labyrinth, I thought traditionally, of a journey to the center. Sometimes one is closer; sometimes farther away. Always, one is on the way to the center.

But God dwells by the edges as well as at the center. At times God meets us in stable and balanced places. Other times, the encounter is sharp and raw. Some moments beckon us forward onto a path. At times, holy space invites us to stand still. So, we’ve added structures to the four directions on the labyrinth’s perimeter, to evoke the Spirit that blows where it will, redefining and always changing our travels with God.

[reference to the handout]

What makes a place sacred?

Where are your sacred places? How did you find them? Did you create them?

Jesus sought places to pray. Jacob set a stone to mark his dreams of God.

Where do you pray? How do you mark your sacred places?

Linsheid 05/18 Running in Church

Lois Ann Handrich — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:41:25 GMT

“Running in Church”
John Linscheid
Germantown Mennonite Church
May 18, 2008

Texts: 2 Samuel 6:3-9; Psalm 2:1-6, 10-12; 1 John 4:16b-19

This is the first in a series on “answering fear.” Today’s topic: “Answering the fear of God.”

I honestly cannot remember ever being afraid of God.

Yes, I grew up in the milieu Charlie mentioned a couple of weeks ago—that warped amalgam of Second Coming and nuclear holocaust. So I feared the Second Coming, but weirdly never connected it personally to Jesus. Even as a child, I found the attempt to scare people with Jesus unconvincing. It hardly seemed likely Jesus would care if I was in a movie theater or smoking a cigarette when the task at hand was ending the world.

The chaos and turmoil of apocalypse scared me, just like tornadoes, or the car spinning out on a slick road. Jesus never scared me.

And today? Losing my job scares me. Losing my eyesight scares me. God doesn’t scare me.

I fear what throws life out of control. So I have a hard time with the idea of an out of control God.

I think that’s what troubles me about this morning’s story about Uzzah and the Ark of God. You would think reaching out to steady the ark and keep God’s throne from falling to the ground would be a good thing. You would think God would be grateful for the gesture. But “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there.”

But maybe that seems out of control because I live in a world where nothing is sacred in that way. We don’t conceive of something being so utterly holy that mortal life cannot withstand it. In this story, the sacred is so “other” that honorable motives are irrelevant. Flesh and God cannot mix. To touch the sacred is to die.

In my rational, scientific and natural world, I don’t experience anything as entirely set apart. It’s not even easy to experience space as holy. As children, we were severely scolded by some grown-ups for running in the church basement. Today, I would consider it not only unreasonable but nearly impossible to demand that preschoolers sit still throughout worship—even though I know from painful experience that it can be done.

Perhaps this world has lost that sense of the sacred because so much of the idea of holiness was connected to fear of being scolded for violating rules about the space. Those who scolded us for running in the church basement may have feared that God might strike us dead for disrespecting God’s house. But even back then, the rules seemed more about certain adult’s need for control than a sense that God cared. God was used as a threat to inspire control rather than a presence who inspires worship. Our Psalm text threatens vassals into submission with the wrath of God.

“Why do the nations conspire and take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed?” Plotting against the king is equated with rebelling against God.

4The One who sits in the heavens laughs;
   Holy God has them in derision.
5Then God will speak to them in wrath,
   and terrify them furiously, saying,
6‘I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.’

Again, the king’s place is God’s holy hill, which rationalizes obedience. It becomes harder and harder, as we read, to determine where fear of God ends and fear of the king begins.

But kings and all institutions (including churches) that claim the divine mandate lose authority over time. To much identification with each other and God’s authority diminishes along with the institutions that use God.

But Jewish and Christian scriptures carry alongside that authoritarian idea of God, a countervailing vision. Consider Isaiah’s suffering servant, the exilic visions of Ezekiel—Jesus lives their truth to fullness. Already in his life and ministry and finally in the cross, Jesus’ power is made perfect in weakness. Jesus transforms the relationship from fear of God based on holy danger to holy unity rooted in overwhelming, unfathomable love.

To understand this, we must get beyond our introspective psychological world and recapture some of the biblical context. Biblically, love and fear are not essentially feelings. They are ways of living. Love is not fuzzy warmth but life lived in loyal commitment to another. Fear is most importantly a life of subjugation, lived in response to possible punishment. Being afraid and fear differ. To be afraid is a natural and instinctive reaction to a threat. To fear is to organize one’s life around potential threats.   By contrast, to love, is to walk into that fear, despite any threat, with commitment to God and others.

Was Jesus afraid when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane? I assume he was. But he walked into that fear, straight to the cross for the sake of all humanity.

One may walk into fear at many levels. Love may simply mean walking into fear for the sake of one’s own need to live fully. It may also mean walking into fear so that others may live more fully. First John 4:17 reads, “ “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.”

As Christ is; so we are. As Christ walks into his destiny—so must we. Even should it mean a cross, we walk forward, committed to God and God’s ways in the world. Love—not as a feeling but as an intentional act of committed living drives out the subjugation and surrender that control us when we focus on fear. Oddly, it is in embracing that lack of control, allowing ourselves to let go, that we are freed to come into fullness of life.

I frighten easily. Economic uncertainty. Health matters. It doesn’t take much to make things feel out of control. But someone, I’m not sure who, suggested a little exercise. If I catch myself becoming afraid, I try to step back mentally and visualize handing my anxiety into the hands of Jesus. Which is sometimes enough to reorient me so I can walk into my fear, knowing that I am held in the arms of Love.

“O power of love all else transcending,” Gerhard Tersteegen’s hymn proclaims. “Yea, let my soul, in deep devotion, bathe in love’s mighty, boundless ocean.”

That brings me back to the sense of the sacred. I’m not sure it is much of a loss to let go the idea that God might strike you for running in church. I’m not sure I want to go back holiness based on fear. In Christ we find holiness that we want to run to, that draws us into itself to be embraced in the arms of Love. Jesus, by walking with us into and through our fears, gives a new sense of the sacred—a sense of living into the overwhelming, all-consuming, passionate being of God. Instead of the fear of a God out of control, Jesus gives us the promise of Love out of control—divine Love, Christ with us. Amen.

Linsheid 02/24 Lent 3

Lois Ann Handrich — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:39:28 GMT

John Linscheid
Lent 3

“Springs of Living Water”

I nearly preached from Paul today. Romans 5 is so packed with grace: “While we still were sinners, Christ died for us.” And that provocative little tag line that says in addition to Christ’s death we are also “saved by his life.”

But after a rather dismissive comment about the Gospel of John from a certain seminarian, I had to go with the Woman at the Well.

I have tended to consider the spiritual journey a human effort seeking the divine. Constant prayer, self-denial, seeking union with God. But in today’s story, Jesus reaches out to a Samaritan woman in the course of her ordinary life. A Jew asks a Samaritan. A man asks a woman. God unexpectedly crosses boundaries. The journey begins.

What barriers are being breeched in our lives? Is God reaching out?

This does not need to be a moment of epiphany. The Samaritan woman sees no “light bulb” transcendent reality. These first steps confuse her. “You ask me?” And a little farther on, “What water? You have no bucket!”

I was raised with relatively little confusion. Grace. Discipleship. And the Anabaptist way! Religion put things in neat categories and tied up loose ends. Until the ends got untied. Crohn’s disease and an associated depression sidetracked a college semester, and learned I had limits. Around 1981, I joined an anti abortion group. I was preparing to join picket lines, when a friend wrote of her abortion—and the “issue” lost its simplicity. And I have probably been changed more than anything—and am here today—because a non-Mennonite man—who smoked at the time—once asked me to dance. Boundaries get crossed in our daily lives. God’s little interventions confuse us, leading into unsettling spiritual territory.

In Exodus 17, the Israelites find themselves thirsting in the desert and uncertain about their journey.

‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’

They forget how Egypt broke them. They imagine bondage by the Nile to be better than thirsty liberation. Only dry rock lies ahead. To move forward and strike the rock as Moses does requires faith. Faith may mean moving forward before things get clear.

Do unsettling and confusing times pull us back to an Egypt? Can we move forward without full clarity?

The Woman at the Well forges ahead. Uncertainty does not stop her. She looks into her experience. Then she asks for what she needs.

“Sir, Give me this water.”

She knows her thirst—even before she knows what the living water is. She knows her thirst and she asks, “Sir, Give me this water.”

At first, her request seems unanswered. “Go call your husband.”

I have no husband. You’ve had five husbands—and a lover to boot.

Commentators get stuck here. They look for evidence that she is socially ostracized and a sinner or the victim of a patriarchal society. They speculate at length about those five husbands plus a lover.

The Gospel doesn’t care. In John she doesn’t apologize or explain. Jesus doesn’t judge or exonerate. Her life is what it is. She is known in all her complexity. This is a spiritual opportunity.

“Sir, I see you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus responds, “The hour is coming when you will worship God neither [place]. . . . The hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth.”

This moment—of knowing her thirst and being fully known—is the hour of spirit and truth. Former warring doctrines and competing rituals become irrelevant. Jew/Samaritan, Lutheran/Baptist/Presbyterian/Mennonite find ourselves on one level field, all fully known by our Savior in all our life’s complexities.

The moment of truth is the time of the spirit is the gift of living water. In this moment we know our thirst. Are we ready to ask?

What do our souls thirst for?

The Samaritan woman leaves her water jar to bring living water to her neighbors. She does not testify to doctrine or theology. No four spiritual laws or walk humbly love justice. Just, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did!” And by sharing her encounter with Jesus—her authentic spiritual experience—she creates a new community of disciples (one that scholars believe was integral to the formation of the community that produced the Gospel of John).

Living out God’s kingdom requires us, like her, to live our daily lives honestly, open to God’s unexpected disruptions. Living out God’s kingdom means persevering in spite of confusion and uncertainty. It means paying attention to our authentic thirst—even when we don’t quite know what the living water to quench it might be.

At the heart of this passage Jesus promises, “Those who drink of the water that I give them will never be thirsty. The water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Jesus offers living water in the language of becoming: “will become in them a spring gushing up”—ongoing—“to eternal life.” In John, eternal life does not mean life after death. It means life lived from here on and forever within God’s reality.

Knowing us completely, God offers us Springs of Living Water.

Embrace what is in your spirit. Tell yourself and God the truth. Say who you are. Say what you need.

Then be like Moses and strike the rock.
Be like the Woman at the Well and ask:

Jesus Christ, give me this water.
Abba God, give me this water.
Spirit of God, slake my thirst.

Linscheid 02/10 Lent 1

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:12:09 GMT

John Linscheid
Lent 1, Year A
Germantown Mennonite Church
February 10, 2008
“Naked Faith”

After a week of watching so many good people live out God’s kingdom in the most difficult and complex situations, I am not certain what I can add this morning.

“Living out God’s kingdom.” A lofty Lenten theme indeed. Living more like Jesus would. Learning to be more like God. That’s what got the man and woman in trouble in the first place, you know—wanting to be like God.

“Eat this fruit and your eyes will be opened and you “will be like God.”

Woman and man, but a few days old. Living in paradise. Offered the chance to be like God. Could we have resisted fruit that is “a delight to the eyes” and is “desired to make one wise” like God?

But eating spiritual fruit has a shadow side. It does open one’s eyes—to the good: creation’s splendor and God’s glory. But also to evil: all that corrupts and threatens life. To know as God knows is to know vulnerability, nakedness. So instead of finding perfect union with God, humanity hides behind fig leaves.

Temptation feeds on our insecurity: economic, spiritual, and political.

It feeds on the vulnerability of human need. And we are particularly susceptible to the fear that we must do it all ourselves. Turn the stones to bread. Not only to feed ourselves and our families but—as Mennonites—to feed the whole world. Give us stones. We make bread. It’s what Mennonites do.

But Jesus reminds us that even if we manage to turn those stones into bread (and put the recipes in the More With Really, Really Less Cookbook), bread alone will not suffice.    “Humanity does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth.”

But temptation also feeds on spiritual insecurity.

We laugh at the bumper sticker, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” But when things go wrong, don’t we wonder, “what if I’d just had more faith?” Although at Germantown we embrace the agnostic and honor honest doubt, we are often less generous with ourselves. We judge ourselves for failing to take that leap of faith.

Jesus reminds us that it is a fine line between confidence in God and manipulation. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

And temptation feeds on social and political insecurity. How often are my politics shaped by the fears of what the other guy will do? What power will I exercise to feel safe? Jesus reminds us that the empire that rules the world has the devil to thank for it.

It is not that economic, spiritual, and political quests are bad. But they become problematic when they become ways to avoid facing our own vulnerability. Living out the kingdom requires coming to know and to face our own nakedness.

The Psalmist speaks of acknowledging sin.:

Somewhere the church made sin a label to use to condemn others. Sin got loaded with all sorts of moral authoritarianism and really bad theology. Whatever you think of the terminology, we all have parts of our lives and places in our experience that are broken or painful and that must be faced to be lived through. That is a major purpose of spiritual discipline.

Note in today’s Gospel, Jesus has been engaged in spiritual discipline—fasting—for forty days and nights. So when the tempter comes, the hunger that the devil perceives as weakness, Jesus wears as the clothing of God’s strength.

Spiritual discipline can be very private and can be corporate. Prayer, meditation, common worship. Spiritual discipline can be practicing the presence of God (making ourselves conscious of God’s presence) in daily work: at the office, parenting, working with clients, teaching. Whatever the format, a major purpose of spiritual discipline is to learn to open ourselves—to ourselves and to God.

“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
      whose sin is covered.”

A second purpose of spiritual discipline is to allow God to clothe our nakedness with God’s care. In our naked vulnerability with God we find the security we long for.

Armed by his forty-day preparation, Jesus answers the devil—all with passages from a section of Deuteronomy that begins:

Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Living out the kingdom in the face of all our vulnerability and nakedness, in the face of all our brokenness, begins with loving God. And allowing God to love us.

Am I straying into heresy to suggest that in the Genesis story, both humanity and God learn to be vulnerable? Humanity must leave the security of the garden behind. But God, the loving parent, must also release the rebellious children to sweat and toil in the face of harsh reality.

Yet God, ever the doting parent, cannot quite bear to leave the children completely naked. Several paragraphs beyond today’s Old Testament lesson, the Bible tells us that God makes clothing for the exiled pair. And at the end of Jesus’ temptation, God sends angels to minister to him. God knows our weakness and will answer if we simply offer it up to God. As the Psalmist says:

Therefore let all who are faithful
   offer prayer to you;
at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters
   shall not reach them.
You are a hiding place for me;
   you preserve me from trouble;
   you surround me with glad cries of deliverance

Like Eve and Adam, the devil assumes that faith, that seeking God, or being like God is all about power. But Jesus knows it is about love.

Through everything streams the power of God’s love and grace. Whether we succeed or fail in the particularities, we find ourselves strengthened.

So leave whatever stones are before you. Step back from whatever precipice you face. Tell the devil to leave your mountain. And follow Jesus into Lent, to live out the Kingdom with naked faith.

Naked faith embraces its vulnerability and finds itself clothed with the love of God. Naked faith walks into the desert with our Savior and finds the wilderness transformed. Desires are satisfied without one stone becoming bread. Angels bear us up, though we never jump. And—without worshiping the devil—we find we have been given the whole world as the free gift of God.

McGloughlin, A 11/16/08 Stages - Parenthood

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:52:08 GMT

Friesen, C 11/09/08 Stages-Young Mennonite Male

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:49:54 GMT

Christopher Friesen
November 9, 2008

    So, what is the spiritual life of a young single male Mennonite like? Or what could it tell us about an aspect of myself we may all see in our lives? What might my spiritual experiences teach us about the possible spiritual experiences we might encounter in the life of the church?

      Characteristically, I believe youth symbolizes hope, the ability to look toward the future in our spiritual development, to be pulled forward in a newness, to expect ahead that which just might be different or better than what has come. And this is true for me. Maybe it’s my age, or maybe just my general disposition, but something within me yearns toward the future, something does seek to find what is coming, and to hope that it is something more whole than now.

      But what is this spiritual hope? Last Tuesday, we as Americans elected a new leader, a man who told us to dare to hope, a person who offered a glimpse of what that hope could be. He challenged us to hope…, to a certain hope. But is this the hope of my soul? Within my gut, I say no…that there’s a much deeper hope. Yet, it seems to me that I can easily feel the hope of Barack Obama much more than the hope of Christ, for is that not what’s tangible?

    At the outset, any alternative seems daunting. For I feel that my spiritual hope should spring from experience of the presence of God. My past and present experiences of God’s presence should ground my hope for my connection with God in the future. Yet, the reality is that in this world I have not experienced much of the presence of God. In fact, around me I see glaring images of the opposite. My life has been more characterized by the absence of God than by God’s presence. At times in the past, especially when I was more insular, I would have simply shut the book, closed the deal and thrown my hat in with the new guy in Washington. But not now. As I’ve gotten a bit older and matured a bit, I feel a little more aware of the experience of others. For Isaiah chapter 45:15 states “you are a hidden God” and I Kings 8:12 recounts “The Lord said that he would dwell in thick darkness”. There appears to be a more universal experience of God’s absence.

    So what is this absence, this darkness that makes God seem so distant, so uninvolved? I’ve had to change my thinking a bit, and re-imagine just what emptiness is. Maybe God is the listening God. If I imagine my life as a conversation with God (not just my words, but my whole life), then maybe what I experience as absence is the mystery of God’s listening. God does respond, God will respond, maybe just not now. Yet, I must remember that silence is also an element, in fact the foundation, of any conversation or dialogue. My words don’t make sense to you unless they’re separated by silence. Maybe I can seek God as the listening God who is eternally present in the silence.

    Likewise, there is always a space between persons. Even when I encounter you here, I may take this space between us as a vast gulf, or a form of presence. And does not God experience the same juxtapositon with Godself? Within the Trinity, there is a space between the persons of God. Within this space is pure divine love…it may be dark, and appear as absence, but is the purest place for the presence of love. Remember the crucifixion? So I now tend to think of this divine darkness as an apophatic presence – the absence of God, but with full relationality and eternally existing love. God’s presence is seen in God’s apparent absence.

      So where do I see the greatest absence of God? In people who are poor, homeless, marginalized, dirty, scared, lost, abandoned, disabled and mentally ill. For these are people who suffer…sometimes completely needlessly. There are people that the world has foresaken, who have been sucked of all vitality, and encountering them is to seemingly encounter the truest void of God’s presence. Yet here is God’s most enduring presence, for it is here that I have been able to most foundationally experience the truest sign of God’s presence…acts of love. For among my friends and aquaintences who have no pretense to power, no disposible wealth, no socially conditioned ‘norms’ of interaction, I have found a much freer ability to love and be loved.

      So within the eternal divine darkness of God, there is not a complete darkness. There are sparks that drift through the darkness, like the stars through the heavens. And the sparks catch upon me and enflame me at times. And when I catch aflame from witnessing or experiencing an act of love then I am reminded that spirituality is a daily embodied experience. It is not just some esoteric thing, some development of the right kind of meditation. It is prayer, to be sure. Practiced, daily prayer. Intimate connecting prayer. But it is also prayerful living, the acts of love which bring forth praise. I find these sparks are really the events/experience of God.

    These sparks, these acts of love, these events of God, are truly liberative experiences. Let me share with you a brief poem by Meister Eckhart, a Medieval mystic and Catholic priest.

“All day long a little burro labors, sometimes with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries about things that bother only burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes to her stable and brings a pear,
But more than that,
He looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears
And for a few seconds the burro is free and even seems to laugh,
Because love does that,
Love frees.”

      Each time I experience these sparks, each time I witness an act of love, I begin to find myself on the way, drawn forward toward something. Drawn, and yet I don’t passively wait, but I yearn forward, drawn on the path. I begin to seek new ways in which I can help bring about and experience acts of love. And when I prayerfully engage in these acts of love, I begin to see the future is coming toward me.

    That where I am heading is coming at me; my end (telos) is on the way (hodos). And I see the reign of God approaching, if ever so silently, ever so slowly, and I experience true relationality in the darkness of God, I am drawn into the future on a trajectory, journeying the stars, wading through the sparks.

      And this experience brings forth the development of a spiritual imagination, and it is here that I find hope…and what does hope truly inspire? To do the senseless. Let me end with a poem by Wendell Berry, to me, the clearest form of the embodied prayerful sprituality that I hope for:

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Lynch, G 11/09/08 Stages - Relinquishment

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:47:14 GMT

Grace Lynch
November 9, 2008

RELINQUISHMENT

In life we definitely go through life passages that mark time with signposts along the way. Each passage or transition causes some anxiety or disquiet as we experience the new tasks of development that we move into. The baby noisily begins the transition from trust into autonomy with both confidence and fear. As she moves away from mother she may find herself too far away and begins to cry with fear or scurries back to touch base with her object of security. Moving further and further away she is confident that mother will be there because she has learned to trust. It isn’t hard to figure out what happens if that trust isn’t there. We repeat these step throughout life-in later life finding our trust in God the parents, both mother and father. And like the toddler we may find ourselves too far removed from that trust, and experience fear and anxiety.

The stages of development have been named and renamed as theorists try to capture meaning and process of maturation. I haven’t kept up with the modern theories and am still using Eric Ericksen’s stages. Just a brief review. Infant learns to trust, 2-3 or 4 learn autonomy or self direction, 4 to 6, learns iniative, grade school learns industry and mastery, high school and part of the college age learn identity, the young adult learns intimacy, and the long period of generativity from 25/30 to 60 or 65 spent in launching the next generation and a period of creativity, the last stage being integrity.

My stage is the last stage. That passage of time when you go from denial that you’ll ever get old and die, to the reality of the aging body that still holds a youthful image is indeed, short. What does the transition from the youth of old age, the 60’s, to the mid years of old age, the 70’s, to the senior years of old age, the 80’s and beyond cost us?

If you are wise, you learn that giving up something to be happy and healthy, gives you more of that important detail called independence. In the 60’s there is still energy to keep up with your goals and want to’s, but you realize something is changing. In the 70’s you really experience the body saying slow down. But you reason, I have so many things left to do. I’m not old yet. I’ll just continue to do all I want to do and take the consequences. Not wise.

Lesson #1. Listen to your body. The consequences can be harmful. This is where psychology and spirituality interact. The big question is: Does my life in review give me satisfaction as a life well lived? Do I feel good about my life in terms of meeting at least some of my goals? Have I made a difference in the world? When the answer is yes, and I feel my life has given me satisfaction and has meaning both to me and others, there is a strong sense of integrity. I can let go of activities that have given me joy and satisfaction and in the interest of self development find other significant ways to spend time, and pass on the torch to a younger generation. My mother-in-law spent the last 10 yrs developing into a first rate artist. If I have regrets, but have moved forward, forgiving self, that too is integration and wholeness. If I feel that I have never lived my life and missed out on being true to self, the feeling is more of despair. I have seen older folks as they approach their final years from some false sense of their life, they feel God will judge them and they “won’t be good enough.” It’s so important to rely on the trust we have and assurance that God is a loving God and not given to judgment for being human.

Personally, I have gone screaming into the 70’s on some level- that I am afraid to let go of the things which I enjoy. One of the themes of my life has been being invisible. That theme does not disappear because I’m older and wiser. If I give into letting go, will I become invisible, or lose myself? I have to go back to Mother God with trust and take a few steps at a time to accomplish this, going from I should or I could, to I want to or I will or I did.

Lesson #2. Achieve balance between accepting your body’s message and being very alive and involved as you prefer to be. It’s easy to think in terms of either/or instead of reduction in order to do what you want to do. We miss some wonderful opportunities to broaden our life experiences to add to the beauty of living. We have good role models in this community. I think of George and Sarah who gave up their home to travel and invest in another adventure of service. Of Elmer and Lois who enjoy their old neighborhood and friends and family leaving for a few months of sun and a different neighborhood and friends. Or of Steve Gerber who has led a life of adventure and teaching to now broaden his interests and involvements. Of Patricia Beynen who retired and is very busy attending college in Life Long Learning and meeting with the elderly at a senior center for the purpose of helping the senior elderly appreciate their lives and present situation. And Bert Beynen who still goes to work doing that which he loves. Good health is so important in these ages. But even with chronic illness there are outlets for involvements.

Dependency on God becomes more important as we lose our physical energy. I live much closer to the next life than I did 10 years ago. Losing my parents and being present at their passing brings heaven much closer. I feel like I’m looking on the other side. Death seems less scary as I age. I live in the present, not thinking about the future as much, content to be in the present and draw out everything from everyday. But I fight with all my might to live fully each day and as long as I can. Going with the flow is healthy and wise. Go with God and lean not entirely to your own understanding.

Miller, E 11/23/08 Some Reflections on a Journey of Faith

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:44:47 GMT

Elmer Miller
November 23 2008

1. Tent Meeting Conversion

        When I was seven and on-half years old I walked down a saw dust aisle at an evangelistic tent campaign on the farm where my mother was raised. Both my parents and the evangelist responded positively to my confession of faith, but our ministers and bishop expressed some concern as to whether I had sufficient knowledge at that early age to fully comprehend the implications of the stand I had taken. After some deliberation, they agreed to allow me to participate in the class of instruction for church membership. If I demonstrated comprehension of the church doctrine imparted there, they would baptize me into full membership.

        I completed the instruction class with no apparent difficulty and was recommended for baptism. The ceremony took place in the stream below my Grandpa Miller’s Feed Mill. We entered the stream up to my waist where Bishop Noah Risser, with the assistance of our church pastor Martin Kraybill, poured water over my head and shoulders in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Water from the stream that rushed over the wheel to grind feed symbolically washed away my sins to remake me into a new person in Christ Jesus. According to congregational records, the date was Nov. 5, 1938, confirming my memory of having shivered and being been rubbed down with the largest towels I had ever seen.

        That baptism experience marked a genuine distinction between my old vs. “new life.” My prayers became less prosaic and more personally meaningful. The ambivalence of church leaders concerning the quality of my decision, however, raised some question in my mind regarding complete confidence in pastoral authority. A further complication was the fact that my parents sometimes used my conversion experience as a form of social control when I misbehaved. Confession of faith required full obedience to the standards of life laid down by my parents and church leaders.

        Nevertheless, I was fully conscious of my new persona and the obligation to follow through on my commitment. I took greater interest in Sunday School Class and made a genuine attempt at reading the Bible. During my early teens I was named song leader of our congregation and at one point led music at our regional congregational meetings. Singing was the highlight of every worship service for me. Sermons tended to be about non-resistance and non-conformity in dress and life style. In music I experienced most directly God’s presence and challenge to be a faithful follower.

2. Rededication at age 19

        After freshman year at Lancaster Mennonite High School, my parents decided to hire me out to a potato farmer, who attended our congregation. I wanted very badly to continue High School and would gladly have taken a bus to Hershey High, but my parents were in serious need of the money they would receive from my employer. The agreement they worked out sent two-thirds of my monthly salary home to my parents; the remaining $20.00 was to be deposited in my bank account to save for a car. [A new one cost about $1600.00 in those days! In case you are feeling sorry for me, don’t, because I received pay raises and bonuses that made it possible to acquire a slightly used car before I was eighteen – which could not be done today!] Needless to say, it was a visceral disappointment in Sept. 1946 at fifteen years of age to be assigned farm work rather than schoolwork.

        During the fourth summer of farm work, my boss and I attended a Sunday afternoon service at Elizabethtown Mennonite Church, where the traveling evangelist, Kenneth Good, called for a rededication of our lives to Christian faith and service. The message confirmed the growing conviction for service which I had been hearing at Youth for Christ meetings in Lancaster and at the Schofield Bible Classes I was attending.

        When the evangelist asked those who wished to make a renewed commitment to serve Christ, “wherever it may lead,” to stand up, I did. The stand unleashed a powerful emotional encounter that radically changed my life forever. Throughout the ride home, the evening chores, dinner and evening I uttered not a word – surely the longest period of silence in my lifetime! Later in the evening I walked out the lane and up a small grade to a cluster of trees where I wrestled with my Creator until well past midnight.

On the walk back to my room in moonlight, one thought remained imprinted in mind – the need to acquire further schooling. With the assistance of my dad’s cousin Ira Miller, Dean of Eastern Mennonite College at the time, I took the GED exam and entered college there with the idea of training for Christian service. GED was the exam designed to allow qualified soldiers returning from WWII to enter college without acquiring a high school diploma. Ironically, it served this young pacifist also! The move to Harrisonburg sadly required the sale of my prized jet-black, Aero-sedan Chevy.

3. College and Seminary

    During college and seminary years there were many opportunities for spiritual renewal. Singing in the Mennonite Hour Male Quartet took us to all branches of Mennonite Churches in the U.S. and Canada. Observing the effect the preaching and music had on the people who attended the services also served to revitalize my own commitment to a life of Christian service.

In our sophomore year of college my roommate Eugene Herr and I visited Bob Jones University to determine whether we wished to transfer there. Gene was to become Billy Graham and I, Beverly Shea! During the return trip we discovered that each of us had decided independently to remain at EMC. On street corners in New Market and Mt. Jackson we practiced our parts on numerous occasions. At the time, I held firmly to my fundamentalist theology and was determined to convert the famous amillennialist C.K. Lehman to premillennialism once I had the opportunity to take a class with him!

When the occasion finally arrived during my junior year, it was he who converted me. Each time I cited a Bible verse to challenge an affirmation he had made, he would ask the class to examine the context and its relation to the entire text written by the writer. In the remaining four years of college and seminary I took every course he offered and learned something fresh in each one. He was also an inspiring song leader, who called attention to the text and elicited spirited music. One particular exchange with him left a deep impression that has served me well to this day. Upon being named President of the Young People’s Christian Association, I conveyed to him that God had told me to open up street meetings in Mt. Jackson. His response was, “Elmer, you must always say I interpret this to be God’s will for my life.” The idea of interpretation vs. revealed knowledge marked a definite shift over time in my understanding of Christian faith and living.

4. Missionary Identity

    Training for the mission field in Hartford, Conn., at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Oklahoma, and at the Spanish language school in Costa Rica, was an eye opener. At Hartford, I encountered professors and colleagues who had a far more secular approach to missions than I would have imagined possible. Yet many of them demonstrated a respect for, and knowledge about, the people they were about to serve that impressed me well. Later at Oklahoma and Costa Rica, our more theologically conservative missionary colleagues tended to demonstrate little interest in, or respect, for the cultures they planned to serve. I made a commitment NOT to be that kind of missionary.
Living among the Toba Indians of northern Argentina for five years, I came to understand why Pentecostalism was the form of Christian faith they found most appealing. It allowed them to communicate directly with the spirit world conceptualized by people who look to nature as providing. Faith healing was the most powerful expression of the Christian message they could imagine, and they practiced it in every worship service.

Despite initial doubts, I came to accept and respect the working of God in their lives in ways I did not fully comprehend, nor entirely experience myself. Despite this significant theological difference, we were able to establish strong personal faith relationships with indigenous Toba individuals and families that were mutually supportive and challenging. In the Chaco I came to conceptualize God more in terms of Spirit than as Person.

5. University Years

        During graduate study in anthropology in the early 1960s I wrestled with the notion of the social construction of knowledge, particularly as it related to the patriarchal God images projected in my home community. At our family gatherings, dad always called on me to pray before the meal, since I am the elder son and the only ordained person present. When we met together on Labor Day in 1963, I asked him not to call on me, but he did so anyway. I gave thanks to God for food, health, family, and the good life, but proceeded to say, “While we thank you for these blessings, we must also fault you for failing to provide this good life for so many people throughout the world who suffer from hunger, sickness, alienation, and loneliness.” “Amen” was barely out of my mouth, when I began to feel remorse for my insensitive act.

        To escape confrontation, I followed Mamma into the kitchen, where she put her arms around me lovingly and said, “Elmer, when you went to Argentina among those Indians, didn’t you say you tried to fit in with the way they thought and lived? Why can’t you do the same when you return home?” I returned her embrace, and with tearful eyes simply responded, “Mamma, bingo.”

During my teaching career at Temple University from ‘66-96 we tried to connect with a number of congregations, including GMC, without making a serious commitment. Eventually we gave up and attended nowhere on a regular basis. Late in this career an undergraduate student once asked if I had ever considered that God might have me exactly where he wanted! The comment touched an emotional chord that would not stop vibrating. When least expected it nagged at me in ways I suspect eventually contributed to my decision to return, and eventual join, Germantown Mennonite Church.

Many of you are aware of health issues that have plagued my life, beginning in 1975 with thyroid cancer. In ‘92 it was a gangrenous gall bladder; in 2000 the discovery of coronary artery disease and my first stent; in ‘01 prostate cancer; in ‘03 another stent, and in ‘04 a double bypass.

While I am highly appreciative of good doctors and Temple’s healthcare package, even more importantly, I have been made increasingly conscious throughout these experiences of my dependence upon the Spirit of Life for survival on a daily basis, for which I remain deeply grateful. The prayers of God’s people, especially you here at Germantown, have played a key role in seeing me through these operations, and for this I remain eternally grateful to you. In so many ways I think of each new day as a gift not to be taken for granted. Yet, in all honesty, the awareness tends to be most readily aroused in moments of vulnerability.

What I find most meaningful here at Germantown is the impression that each one of us is attempting to expand our spiritual awareness and understanding of God’s work among us in ways that benefit not only ourselves, but also one another. Our creedal understandings and commitments may not be consistently identical; nevertheless, each member’s presence and testimony offers support in ways I find valuable to my own spiritual quest. I truly miss you when we are in Florida, yet we are pleased to have found a congregation of kindred spirit in Covenant Mennonite Fellowship. I am deeply grateful to each one of you for your good will and encouragement in my personal faith journey, which continues to be a work in progress.

Y-McGloughlin 12/7/08 Something Worth Waiting For

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:32:38 GMT

Amy Yoder-McGloughlin

Something Worth Waiting For

Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1: 1-8

Listen for just a minute—do you hear it? Do you hear Handel’s Messiah echoing in your ears? After reading and listening to Isaiah and Mark, I have the urge to break out into song. I’ll spare you any of my attempts to sing Handel’s beautiful tenor solo. The classic work begins with a three and a half minute symphony, then begins a quiet string section and when they are nearly silent and the booming male voice calls out—Comfort ye my people. I get tingles and goosebumps every time I hear it.

Out of the silence comes a voice of hope. Be comforted, people of God. Take heart, people of God. From the desert this voice of hope sounds. From the desert—a place where life does not exist with ease, a place of dryness, and historically, a place of great danger. The desert—a place where people were robbed, beaten, and left to die. Out of this place a voice of hope arises. Be comforted people of God.

When the prophet Isaiah says these words, the Babylonian empire that is enslaving the people of Israel is already beginning to shake. The wars and fighting were taking their toll on the empire that destroyed the nation of Israel, and enslaved their people. Those that had destroyed the temple were themselves beginning to be destroyed. Out of the desert we hear a voice calling—Be comforted people of God.

These words of hope and comfort are offered to the people who have been through more than their fair share of drama. In fact, the Isaiah text says that Israel has more than paid for their sins. They and their ancestors have paid with their bodies and their spirits, the desecration of their land, their property, their pride, their hope. They are being told by the prophet Isaiah—be comforted people of God.

This is good news, right? Help is on the way! God is going to save you, O people of Israel! Hold on for just a little while longer—you will soon be comforted.

The problem is—we hear John the Baptist say it again. To the people of Israel. A new generation of Israel, who are once again under the rule of a foreign government—this time the Romans instead of the Babylonians—and while they are not enslaved by the Romans, they are still feeling and acting as a people in exile. They still have to follow some Roman rules so that they can live their Jewish faith and tradition. They are still spread out, and suffering from the results of being in Diaspora, and not in control of their own political destinies. John the Baptist says the same words to the people of Israel that Isaiah said to the people several hundred years earlier—Be comforted people…of…God.

Suddenly this doesn’t sound so comforting. In fact it’s downright disturbing. These Israelites have been holding onto this idea of comfort, this promise of hope for a long, long, unbelievably long time. Yet John the Baptist says it once again—be comforted people of God! Woo. We haven’t heard that before. Thanks John the Baptist. Real helpful.

Or maybe this is me reading my own disgust about the waiting onto the text. I’ll admit it—I have a history of being a pretty impatient person. If something is coming I want to know what it is. As a child, I used to sneak into my parent’s bedroom and find my Christmas presents. Then, I’d spend the rest of the holiday practicing in front of the mirror how I would react when I opened the gift for which I was not surprised.

Later, when my parents figured out my evil tactics, they solved this problem by wrapping presents immediately. But I figured out how to open presents, and re-wrap them so my parents could not tell I had opened them.

When Charlie and I were first married, Charlie used to have to hide my presents in his parent’s house so I wouldn’t find them. And then, I turned to new, more sinister tactics—to mentally exhaust the giver of the gift until they gave me enough clues that I figured out what the gift was. And I won’t even get into the tactics I used to find out about a recent surprise party.

Clearly, I don’t like surprises. I don’t like to wait. I want to know—right now—what will happen. I want to know how it will happen, when it will happen—I want all the details.

In the words of Tom Petty—“the waiting is the hardest part.” And my experience with waiting is a testimony to that. Watching children wait for Christmas is a testimony to that. Our impatience for what we want and what we expect testifies to the difficulty in the waiting.

The word esperanza comes to mind. It’s that beautiful and familiar Spanish word means in noun form “hope” and in verbal imperitive form“wait”. That’s not some sort of accidental linguistic occurrence—it is intentional. To hope for something is to wait for it. To hope for something is not to protest that it is taking too long, or beg for clues as to what specifically you are waiting for, what it might look, sound or feel like. That’s not hope. Hope is patiently, prayerfully, and earnestly waiting for the arrival of God’s gift.

Hope is waiting, but it’s more than just sitting around, waiting for something to happen. The act of waiting (if done in a spiritual sense) is a kind of preparation. When we wait, we listen, we clear our heads, we meditate, we clear out the cobwebs and distractions in our minds. We prepare our heads and hearts. We hope.

In Africa, the Christmas tradition is markedly different from ours here. There’s no Santa Claus, and no focus on gift giving. In fact Christians in Africa do not understand this tradition we American Christians have—what does Santa and Christmas Trees and all this shopping have to do with welcoming the Messiah?

The focus for Christians in Africa is to prepare for Christ to be born in the hearts of the people. They prepare spiritually. They sing, they march, they dance in the streets.

The prophet Isaiah tell us, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The comfort is coming people, but you have to prepare for it! The prophet Isaiah wants us to know that we need to lay the tracks for the hope that comes. God’s promise is coming, but we have work to do—get your house in order, get ready, prepare the way!

Hmmm. This sounds a lot like Lent, doesn’t it? Prepare your hearts. Prepare the way of the lord. I think back to passion Sunday, where this congregation, with the leadership of the children, sang Halle, Halle Halle while they laid palm branches down for Christ to walk on. Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!

The early church employed similar practices for Lent and Advent—fasting and prayer—this as a way to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of Christ, and then for the death and resurrection of Christ.

The church parents saw both Lent and Advent as times of reflection and contemplation.

So much of Advent has become about preparation for giving stuff and doing stuff. We’ve gotten sucked into the sales, the deals, we have a list of things to buy and things to do. We make lists. We check them twice. Even those of us who proudly proclaim that we’ve bought nothing on buy nothing day—we get sucked into the frenzy of the season.

But where is the time for contemplation? The time to listen, the time for waiting for Christ, for hoping for comfort? What has happened to it? Did it get lost in the rush, the incessant Christmas hymns (that begin way too early!), the unending commercials?

While our culture is calling us to shop, we are being called by God to wait. While Christmas songs are proclaiming the coming of Santa and his reindeer, a voice is calling from the wilderness—Prepare the way of the lord! While commercials entice us with promises of comfort in consumerism, God promises us that comfort—spiritual comfort—is coming—soon.

During this Advent season, our preparation involves learning to enjoy the anticipation of Christ’s arrival, taking the time to rest in the goosebumps of advent, the tingles of excitement about something wonderful that is coming. The real letdown of Christmas is rushing through Advent, only to discover that Jesus is just a baby. Taking our time through Advent, resting in the waiting and anticipation of advent brings us with joy to the infant—the savior of the world, vulnerably born in a barn, amongst common farm animals, in a smelly stall. Christ, the child conceived outside the bonds of marriage. Christ, the child born into questionable heritage. This infant is the savior of the world.

That is tingles and goosebumps. That is exciting. But we don’t get the irony, the joke, the tremendous miracle unless we slow down, meditate, hope and wait.

Comfort, o comfort people of God! Esperanza! Hope is coming. The promise of Christ’s arrival is just around the corner! Listen! Do you hear the song?

McGloughlin 12/14/08 Now, Ain't That Good News

Lois Ann Handrich — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:25:21 GMT

Charlie McGloughlin

One of my favorite Christmas stories of recent times involves a house near my old home which had lights…it was festooned with lights, thousands of them, all connected to a Mac, such that the lights were all synchronized. The circuits were wired such that the bushes, the porch lights, and these wooden Christmas trees in the front… and the house lights were on different cicuits, so that they could be commandeered by the computer independently of each other. The effect was that the lights were synchronized – perhaps you have seen online videos that show a similar effect – lights on the house, lights on the bush, lights on the porch….

Bill Reaume watched this whole display and turned to me and said, irony dripping from his lips and a deadpan look in his eyes… “This reminds me of Baby Jesus in the manger.”

It made us think. Why did he do that? Just weird.

Like many of you this year, this holiday season found me going downstairs to the basement and locating the two boxes marked “Christmas” and bringing them upstairs to be opened and lights, tree balls, and tinsel to be taken out. And this year, again, as I have in recent years, I say to my self, with palpable exasperation…didn’t I just do this? Didn’t I just carry this up? It seems like just last week I was taking this thing down. Why am I doing this? Is this supposed to remind me of Baby Jesus in the manger?

I don’t know about you but I think Christmas trees, somewhere along the way, lost their smell. I have had big, small, Balsam, Fraser, and all sorts of other trees in my house over the years, and I jus cannot get my house to smelll like the way my families old house used to smell – that sweet, slightly electric pine and light scent that heralded a McGloughln Christmas – just a touch of ozone too – you know, NJ. The other night I was arriving from work last week in the bitter cold, and I get to my door, and there is the wreath hanging on the door. And I get a strong whiff of balsam fir, and my mind is propelled back to the trees in my old house back when I was a kid. And – almost in a trance – I take hold of the wreath and I bring it inside, hoping that the smell will eventually permeate the house. Thinking I could somehow disguise it, I place it on the dining room table and put a few candles and bows in the center, and hope that it will pass as a lovely table center piece. Of course when Amy got home, this found her looking blankly at the table saying … why is the wreath on the table, pine needles all over now…admittedly, in this second view, I only then noticed that there was no room for plates…Why did I do that? I sheepishly took it off the table and placed it, grudgingly outside in the cold, scentless air. I look at it a little forlornly and say to myself … this reminds me me of baby jesus in the manger? ?

Because of course for many years, these rituals worked. They made the season magical, they brought the deep mystery that was born in that stable 2000 years ago to the tips of my fingers, the sight of my eyes, the smell of my nose.

But looking back at Christmas’ past glories to try to recapture the magic only goes so far. Even this year, when I spoke in hushed tones in front of our cresh scene with the kids, and spoke about how God sent his only son into the world to save us on the first Christmas, my kids looked at the scene and then at me, politely nodded, as if to say, we don’t really understand what you are talking about dad, but if its important to you, we should listen. Now can we go play in the other room. As they finish, and their laughter squeaks from the other room, I look at the little figurines made of clay sitting solemnly in a wood manger, a crack in josephs head, and I look quizzically at it, as if a favorite meal has been placed infront of me, and I have no appitite … does this cresh scene even remind me of baby jesus in the manger?

I ask myself. There used to be good news, glad tidings. Angels in the sky, multitudes. Where is it now?

That’s the problem with looking back… sooner or later you lose sight of the old days… and it gets hard, really hard, to recapture the magic. For me the magic was lost round about the time when the switch was made from being the receiver of presents to merely the purchase agent of the Saint Nick organization, I think.

I seem to recall that the Jews, leading up to the time of Jesus, had their own case of looking back. These majestic, portentious texts, that heralded the future coming of a great Savior, a Messiah, set their imaginations astir, carrying their hope through persecution, wars, down and up times, times in the wilderness and times of good fortune. Waiting. Waiting for the moment when the new hope would come, when the leader who would carry them from the dark times of ignorance and oppression into the light, into victory. One cannot help but think … as the years grew into generations upon generations, at a certain point their looking to these texts were a kind of looking back. And yet it also was a anticipation of the future. A future glory, a future leader. It never occurred to them to think about… now. This very second. The manner of Jesus’ arrival was not as they expected. They expected regal and heavenly trappings…the sublime simplicy of a star in the night, and the humble beginnings A baby born in a stall for animals, in a feeding trough where hay is bedding, not food --- all these kinda allowed the birth of jesus to come in under the radar a bit… But I understand their confusion… look at me, with my misadventures of trying to recapture the Christmas spirit… – the Jews experience here is a lesson to each of us. So too – this Christmas, the manner of Christmas’s arrival every year, and for every person, is a different from what is the common expectation.

The texts we have show witnesses to the coming of jesus as ones who have stopped thinking about the old, dry, and over interpreted texts – and have had a revelation of the messiah in the moment – the nativity of right now. Texts this week .. from Paul, to the story of Elizabeth, to the story of John .. all point to people who are recognizing the spirit of God in the present moment, as yet unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Listen to Paul as he exhorts the Thessolonians…. This is a man who is exhorting as if he has little time left …. Short sentances, the urgency of the moment.

Or look at elzabeth, already far along in her own pregnancy, who experienced her own son leaping in the womb when mary and her child were near. The baby isn’t waiting for Christmas to rejoice – this fetus, oblivious to the cares of this world, rejoices because even he recognizes the light, the savior – he doesn’t need to know the texts, the ancient foretellings. The mother does – but its her kid who can see. It’s a pure experience of the moment, the now, the nativity discovered before the earthly birth even happens.

No body expected the Messiah to come like this. No power and glory, no regal fanfare. no silver spoon… that’s why people were a little incredulous when they john prophesying and baptizing … who does this misfit think he is. And he does not lie. He is the proclaimer of the one who is to come. But notice how he refers to the Messiah: There is one among you you do not yet know. I tell you, he is speaking to you now, not just to these teachers of the law. There is a person, there is a thing, there is a situation – there is a nativity, in your life, right now. But you don’t see it yet. I don’t know – I cant tell you where to look. I can tell you that you wont find it by looking back to Christmas’s past. You wont find it by looking into the dark maw of Christmases yet to come. All I know is – it is happening now. Christ is born right now… do you see him?

Christmas is not a point in space, nor time. It is a revelation, constantly happening. It is happening right now. The question is are you going to allow the spirit to be born within you. I say to you that, in a turn of a phrase on “you must be born again”, the spirit of Christmas must be reborn in you…you must find the nativity that is there for you…

There is the story of the Rabbi who is approached by his pupil ….he says Rabbi, how much long do you think we are going to have to wait for the messiah? Why must we wait so long? Don’t you think after wars, the holocaust, and all of the trials we experied as a people?

The rabbi pauses, as if weighing what to say….then lowering his voice and eyes. “I have a secret for you. The messiah has already come… in your heart. You just haven’t recocnized it yet.”

Im about to tell you the history of a little song I sing here from time to time. I wont ask you to sing it now. But bear with me as a dust off this chestnut a bit and present it to you in this context. I understand I may use this song a lot, but there is a reason. This story explains it.

In the summer of 1192 I was the director of camp hope, a day camp for inner city camnden kids, a part of the wider EAPE initiative in that area … camp hope peace, love, etc…it had been a tough week. It seemed like all the work we were doing met with some seemingly insurmountable resistance. It was as bad as I think it could get. All the acmps had had, that week, tried to organize a get togther between philly and Camden kids in a EAPE Christian rally, thoroughly underestimating the effect that philly/Camden gang rivalry would play in the dynamic. A riot ensued at the host church, involving police cars, angry neighbors hurling racial epithets at these kids, some 11 and 12. one counselor had to go to the hospital. I still carry a scar from holding one burly kid to the floor while trying to wrestle a broken bottle out of his hands. Ans further – even before this incident, the host church didn’t want the kids. It was inexplicable. The elders of the church just saw kids as troublemakers, not children of god. I remember vividly the darkness of thistime. And the same question. Why are we doing this?

The staff meeting that week was one for the ages. Dejected eyes, dried tears, crumpled plans for the next week’s follow up from the rally.

The great man of God Bruce Main came into the room alittle late as usual. But the spring in his step was gone. He slumped into a chair and just rubbed his eyes. He was there for the opening devotion and it was obvious he had no devotion prepared. And in that moment, we just sat in silence. Like now. If you have loss in this holday season, if you find yourself trying to recapture “why am I doing this”…come with me not to the stable in Bethlehem, but to this side office room in Kramer Hill, Camden, NJ, and in your minds eye sit in the circle with us. Just a moment. be in that moment. focus on now.

And now Bruce looked up. He had read Isaiah that morning and he said to us, as I say to you now. “I want you to repeat after me.”

The spirit of YHWH

I would love to tell you that the weeks that followed brought a change of fortune for Camden, that the hopes and fears of all the years of that broken city were changed starting that very day. But that didn’t happen. But we, Gods workers, left that meeting with a renewed sense of purpose, and a song to repeat when desolate times come.

It was so important that Bruce made us focus on the NOW. Not last week, not the coming week, but now.

Look at Elizabeth .. the John in the womb doesn’t need to wait for Jesus to be born to leap for Joy – he knows that very day that the Messiah is now. But perhaps it takes the mind of a child – or sooner –perhaps an unborn mind – to recognize the messiah, in that moment.

Listen to the urgency of Paul –

See John the Baptist… there is one among you whom you do not yet know. He wasn’t simply speaking to the people in front of him, but to all of us. Jesus is out there, now. He must be reborn, in your own life. Now. You do not yet know. Allow him to find you. In the deep winter of our lives, the Nativity lays ahead. The spirit of YHWH is upon you to find it and proclaim it. Aint that good news?

Jesus must be born again into your life, this Christmas. You must allow the spirit of Yhwh to come upon you. And perhaps then, and only then, when you find that thing waiting to be transformed into the glad tidings, when you find that nativity in your heart you have not recognized, when you see the light of the star, not of Bethlehem, but the star named after your hometown…and maybe then you will be able to say, with no irony, “this…. This reminds me of baby jesus in the manger”.

And then, perhaps, you might know the true immediacy of the words. Magnificat.

Christ is born, this season, yes, but also…this very day. Seek him. You shall find him.