Mark15:22-38 and Luke17:33 "Bathtub Games"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         In your mind’s eye, put on your red and green plaid wooly bathrobe and your comfy fuzzy slippers.  Now - turn the clocks back a couple of months – to December – and, finally, wipe the sleep from your eyes.  Take a deep breath:  It is Christmas morning. 

You are nestled in an overstuffed living room chair, and your hands are wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee – or tea – or maybe cocoa.  It is snowing outside.  The flurries began yesterday after the late Christmas Eve service and continue today with tiny dry flakes – a small detail, but one that makes this the perfect Christmas morning scene.

         Underneath the balsam fir tree that smells so wonderful and is all tinseled and decorated with ornaments that hold a host of precious memories – lying about beneath the branches are the gifts – the gifts for you.  Which one to open first? 

         The big one with gold foil wrapping paper and a huge store bought bow?  Oh, you hope that inside is that state-of-the-art crockpot that you have wanted so badly for so long – the one that would make your life so much easier.  Or maybe you ought to open the tiny present in the distinctive sky blue Tiffany box? It could only be jewelry:  Earrings?  Bracelet?  And what about the flat shirt box?  Could it contain that sweater you circled a few times in bright orange marker in the LL Bean catalog last fall?

         You reach for one gift, then another, and another.  You open each one carefully, and you cannot conceal your surprise.  They are all empty!  Nothing!  All those boxes:  Empty!

         Think about that for a moment, will you?  And be honest now, too!  How disappointing would such an experience be?  No crockpot.  No jewelry.  No sweater.  Every package with your name on it:  Empty!

         I mean, seriously, finding only empty boxes under the tree on Christmas morning would be a jarring departure from all of the words we use to describe that well-loved holiday – words like rich, overflowing, full.  Empty boxes: and the Christmas vocabulary is shot!

         We do not often think that a holiday or a season would have its unique vocabulary, but they all do.  I mean, what words come to mind when you want to describe the season of Lent, for instance?  Not rich, but plain.  Not overflowing outward, but regrouping inward.  Not full, but empty.  Come to think of it:  How dull!

         No wonder we shy away from Lent.  No wonder that for us Protestants in particular, Lent has traditionally been an almost forgotten season in the church.  No wonder we would prefer to just bounce from Christmas directly to Easter – with maybe a stopover for Mardi Gras - from one time of light to another time of light – and never have to venture into the darkness, especially when in that darkness we will, at some point, confront that Christmas morning would be downer: emptiness – our own personal emptiness, the emptiness of our hearts, the voids and black holes in our souls.

         Face it:  Lent does not make a good first impression.  After all, are we not taught that being full is good - and overflowing is even better? Like Christmas, for example?

         And are we not also taught that being empty is like being parched, sucked dry in the desert, having nothing – particularly nothing of value – left inside? 

         One definition of emptiness I found in my reading this week was this: Emptiness is “an unfilled space; a total lack of ideas, meaning, or substance; a desolate sense of loss.” Are we not taught then that being empty is tantamount to a character flaw?  That being empty may also be like being cheated out of something?

         That being said, is it any wonder that most of us fight emptiness when we feel it coming on.  When we know that dreaded abyss is forming inside of us, when we sense that void, we try desperately to fill ourselves up – with food, alcohol, work, work, work.  Or we clutter our lives with so much stuff to fill the emptiness that the storage business has become one of the fast growing businesses in the world. 

         However, emptiness is part of being human, and so none of us escape that deep primal sense of nothingness – no matter how hard we may try.  As Baptist pastor Robert Dyson noted, “I submit to you that life has its empty spots, in spite of all the glitter and glamour; deep beneath the surface lays an empty reservoir of lost dreams and hopes. Void and lack, plague our lives and prohibit our pursuits of fulfillment and satisfaction. All of us, in spite of our ages, wages, races and ethic identities, have to wrestle with the issue of emptiness. Empty marriages, ministries and even empty careers sadly are the norms of our times. Life with all of its commotions and promotions still leave us empty. Nike says “Just Do It” yet we are empty. Burger King says “Have It Your Way” yet we are empty. We pep and step, bling and ching, style and profile yet we are empty. The butler, the baker, and even the candlestick maker, lottie and Dottie and everybody are wrestling with this thing call emptiness! All the subjects, servants and those whom are served can’t escape the cold harsh winter winds of emptiness.”

         And yet, here on our Lenten journey this year as we learn together to walk in the dark and collect the unusual gifts we find along the way, we include emptiness as one of those precious presents.  How can it be so?

         I remember the Christmas that our older son, Padraic, had just turned three.  Oh, he had more Christmas presents to open that you could shake a stick at: big ones, small ones, and every size in between.  So much to delight a young boy!

         And yet, when all the gifts were opened, and we had come to that down time when, as a parent, you hope your kids are happily playing with all their new Christmas toys, Paddy was not.  The trucks and games and books were lying untouched in a pile.

         You see, he and Joe had brought up from the basement all of the empty delivery boxes those gifts had come in.  They also had scissors, a knife for cutting, and loads of duct tape. Out of the empty boxes, they were busy creating what Paddy had wanted most for Christmas – a lobster boat, which, when finished, he sat in, hauling in his imaginary traps, until dinnertime.  Out of the emptiness had come something of great value. 

         Perhaps emptiness then need not be a gaping hole or a cold absence tied to a bitter disappointment in oneself or in others.  Perhaps emptiness need not leave one feeling like a rung out dishrag, twisted and squeezed until there is nothing left.  Perhaps emptiness need not be the daunting conclusion that we have nothing left to give.  Perhaps emptiness need not be the dark night of the soul, sorrowful and sad, leaving us desolate and terribly, terribly lonely.  Perhaps emptiness can be something different, something positive - something that has the potential to buoy us up rather than pull us down.

         Author Margaret Silf writes in her book, Inner Compass:  “I watched idly as the bottle bobbed up and down on the water. Then I held it down and filled it up. I let it go and watched it sink slowly down and settle on the bottom. I fetched it up again, emptied it, and let it float. My childish pastime (in the bath tub) made me realize that God sometimes does the same with me.

I fill up, gradually, with all the things I desire and want to hold on to. The more I fill up, the deeper I sink, until eventually I lie like a lead balloon at the bottom of the bath, quite incapable of movement. Then something happens to “tip me up and pour me out.” 

The little bottle bobs up again, freed of its cargo of bathwater, light, floating, and responding to every wave. This is the gift of emptiness; only in my emptiness can I be sustained by the buoyancy of God’s unfailing love and move on as (God) created me to in order to grow.”

         Perhaps emptiness can be a place – a precious and secret part of our resilient souls, a place waiting to be filled with something we cannot put our finger on, so we can rise up like that bottle in the bathtub and be more of what God wants us to be.  Emptiness can be a gift. 

         Out of emptiness can come something of great value.  Emptiness can be where we can re-boot, become refreshed, become filled with what it is that we really need.  Emptiness can be a gift as we learn to see “the good in what is left when everything you have has been taken away”, as one blogger I read this week wrote. 

         Out of emptiness can emerge the very promises of God.  That, I believe, is true, and that is why I chose as our Scripture reading this morning the story of Jesus’ death.  I chose it because it reminds us so graphically that Jesus emptied himself of everything – even his own life. 

He cried out to God from the very depth of his emptiness –“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  He had nothing left.  He had lost everything.  It was all stripped away from him as he slowly and painfully died – his clothes, his dignity, even his friends and his God. 

However, born out of the emptiness of that terrible day when the curtain of the temple was torn in two, born out of that emptiness was Easter with all its light-filled promises. Out of emptiness came a fullness, a richness, life overflowing.  When the world only seemed to offer promises full of emptiness, Easter came around and offered emptiness full of promise.

         In Gretchen Rubin’s book, The Happiness Project, the author goes on a yearlong journey to discover ways to be happier.  She begins her search by spending the month of January de-cluttering her home. You see, she had a friend who told her how she always keeps one shelf empty. Rubin writes “an empty shelf meant possibility; space to expand; a luxurious waste of something useful for the sheer elegance of it.”  In a way, then, as she emptied her closets, she also emptied herself. 

         Maybe we need to keep a part of ourselves empty as well because emptiness, as Rubin discovered, is a gift, a way through the darkness to what she called happiness, to what we as Christians call God.  Maybe that is what we can learn as we walk in the dark together this Lent – that only in emptying ourselves of the stuff that drags us down, only by losing ourselves, our lives, can we find real life as God intended it.  After all, God cannot fill what has not first been emptied. 

         I do not know what you need to empty from your life in order to make room for God.  Maybe there is someone who needs your forgiveness.  Maybe there is something for which you need to be forgiven.  What about a relationship with someone that you need to let go of?  Or a relationship with a job that needs to be let go?  Something that just drags you down?

         Whatever you need to empty yourself of, I invite you to write it down on that little piece of paper attached to your bulletin. Then you will have an opportunity to bring it forward, drop it in the water, and watch it disappear before your very eyes in this ritual action of embracing the gift of emptiness.

by Rev. Nancy A. Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine

1 Corinthians 13:11-12 "When You are Standing on the Edge"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         The local sheriff was looking for a deputy, and so he called one of the applicants in for an interview.  Now, as I tell you about that interview, understand that our job seeker was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so to speak.

         "Okay," began the sheriff, "What is 1 and 1?"

         "Eleven," came the reply. The sheriff thought to himself, "This guy is an idiot."

         Then the sheriff asked, "What two days of the week start with the letter 'T'?"

         The applicant thought for a moment and then replied, "Today and tomorrow.”  The sheriff took a deep breath and rolled his eyes.

         "Now, listen carefully, young man, who killed Abraham Lincoln?" he asked.

         The applicant crinkled up his brow and thought really hard for a minute.  Then he shook his head and finally admitted, “Sir, I don't know."

        The sheriff replied, "Well, why don't you go home and work on that one for a while?"

         The applicant left and wandered over to his buddies who were waiting to hear how the interview had gone. He greeted them with a “two thumbs up” and a cheery smile.

         “So, how did it go?” his friends asked.

         " Terrific! The job is mine,” he replied.  “First day - and I'm already working on a murder case!"  

         You don’t know what you don’t know.  But isn’t that part of what Lent is about anyway? Are not these next six weeks until we gather on Easter morning a time to look at what we don’t know – about ourselves, about our world, about our God? Isn’t Lent, if it is lived to the fullest, a time of inner exploration?

         I think it is, and so I propose that we approach Lent – and this Lent in particular - as a journey, a journey into the dark woods of our soul.  Light and shadows will play, one against the other, as we explore parts of ourselves we may seldom take a look at. 

        Put simply, we will be learning to walk in the dark, to use the title of our Lenten book study.  We will be learning that we need not fear the dark recesses we will come across along the way. 

         We will be learning that at least some of those things we relegate to the dark corners of our hearts because we think they are signs of weakness, indicators of evil lurking a bit too close, some of those things are far from being barometers of how faithless and undeserving we are.  Rather, they are gifts, precious gifts of the darkness, gifts to be acknowledged and explored and maybe even embraced.  Each week of our Lenten journey here in church we will be reflecting on a different gift.  Today we are going to look at the gift of uncertainty.

         “Uncertainty?  Yikes!  How can uncertainty be any sort of gift?” you might ask.  That, at least, is my initial personal response to such a suggestion.  Uncertainty?  A gift? 

         I, for one, like to know what is happening.  I pack my suitcase the night before a trip – and make lists of what to take and where to go ahead of time.  I read all I can about my destination - particularly about the best way to get from one place to another.  Cab?  Bus?  Train?  Uber?

         When I cook, I use a recipe and actually follow it. I do not throw in miscellaneous herbs and spices the way my cooking partner does. If something needs to be assembled, I read the directions and try not to take any shortcuts.  In most ways, for me, a proven path – some might call it a rut – is often a good place to be.  That being the case, then, this sermon is as much for me as it may be for you. 

         Because face it:  whether we like it or not, life is filled with uncertainty – and, at some point, that uncertainty becomes overwhelming for every last one of us - even those who never pack the night before and buy their ticket at the airport.  Uncertainty seems to be the lot for us ordinary people who, when you really think about it, live most of our lives in gray areas. 

         Numerous surveys and polls have indicated that, as Huffington Post contributor Tom Morris wrote, “the most unsettling thing about the world right now is the amount and degree of uncertainty we all face in so many ways. A thick fog surrounds us and keeps us from having any clear view of what's next.”

         He goes on to say:  “Politics has become its own reality TV show, with unanticipated plot turns whose implications (six months ago, no one would have guessed.  I mean, look at the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary). The economy is a wild roller coaster of unpredictable volatility. Unforeseen international problems seem to crop up now at an alarming rate, and with challenging consequences that catch us unprepared.”  No matter how much we want to know where things stand and who or what we are up against, it just does not work that way.

         There was another man looking for a job and saw that the local zoo had an opening for an unusual position.  It seems their gorilla had died, and, until they could get a new one, they needed someone to dress up in a gorilla suit and act like a gorilla for a few days.  All one had to do was sit, eat, and sleep.  Thanks to a very fine gorilla suit, no one would be the wiser.

         The zoo offered good pay, so the man took the job. He tried on the suit and, sure enough, he looked just like a gorilla. They led him to the cage where he took a position at the back of it and pretended to sleep. But after a while, he got tired of sitting, so he walked around a little bit, jumped up and down, and tried a few gorilla noises.

         The people who were watching him seemed to really like his antics. They clapped and cheered and threw him peanuts. Now - the man loved peanuts, so he jumped around some more and even tried climbing a tree. That seemed to really get the crowd excited, so they threw more peanuts.

         Playing now his audience and to his appetite for nuts, he grabbed a vine and swung from one side of the cage to the other. The people loved it and threw even more peanuts.

         Wow, this is great, he thought. So he swung higher, and the crowd grew bigger and more excited.  He continued to swing on the vine, going higher and higher until, all of a sudden, the vine broke! The man in the gorilla suit swung up and out of the cage, landing in the lion’s cage next door.

         He immediately panicked because there was a huge lion not twenty feet away, and it looked very hungry.  The man in the gorilla suit started jumping up and down, screaming and yelling, “Help, help! Get me out of here! I’m not really a gorilla! I’m a man in a gorilla suit! Heeelllp!”

         The lion quickly pounced on the man, held him down, and said, “Will you keep quiet! You’re going to get both of us fired!”

         You don’t know what you don’t know.  Life is uncertain – and it always has been.  Uncertainty will forever be a constant companion.  However, instead of uncertainty leading us only to think ill of ourselves or bring us to the point of ongoing fearfulness, I believe that uncertainty can be a gift.

         The Apostle Paul talked about such uncertainty in his first letter to the church people in Corinth.  He used the image of a mirror.  “Now we see in a mirror dimly.”  And that, by the way, was the only way you could see in an ancient mirror – just the outlines, hardly the details.  The more contemporary Bible translation, “The Message,” puts it this way: "We do not yet see things clearly. We are squinting in a fog, peering through the mist.” 

         And in the mist, I would suggest, lies a deep and profound mystery – a mystery that cannot help but sharpen our senses.  We don’t know what we don’t know, and we can’t see what we can’t see, but if we look deeply into the mirror, into the fog, perhaps we notice something as if for the very first time, something we have long taken for granted – a person, a relationship, or even the subtle rhythm of changing seasons – and, in the presence of the mirror, the fog, the mystery, something shifts in us.  We recognize that nothing in this life stays the same forever, and that newfound knowledge leads us to see our world and all who inhabit it a bit more clearly as blessings.  Could those sharpened senses springing from the mystery of just not knowing everything perhaps be a gift?

         And what about our relationship to this pervasive uncertainty that seems only to darken the world?  As Tom Morris speculates:  Maybe it is meant to remind us that: “You and I are here to shine our light into that darkness and help others to see the path forward a little better. Maybe we're here to encourage others to let the uncertainties around them spur them on to new, inventive forms of success, attained with the courage and persistence and faith that have always led the best people to their best results, throughout the entirety of the human journey…This condition that we tend to dislike, regret, bemoan, and even fear may ironically be the thing that allows us to do and become all that we most admire (and, I would add, all that God meant for us to be). And of that (Morris writes), I'm pretty certain.” Could these opportunities to shine our light into the uncertain dark, to be light-bearers for those more fearful than we perhaps be a gift?

         And if uncertainty is indeed a gift and not a curse, could it be that, in the end, we really do not want to be told all the answers? Could it be that maybe we need the mystery to envelope us?  Could it be that the very best kind of faith is the sort that embraces uncertainty?

         As Christian author, Cindy Brandt laments, “We sing about a Blessed Assurance and hold intensive meetings to discuss the essentials of faith. We share testimonies of God stories to shelve any doubts of God's existence. We preach the same sermons, pray the same prayers, tell the same stories, week after week to convince ourselves it all is still true.

         I (she continues) am longing for the gift of uncertainty, a type of profound mystery that welcomes questions, a faith that requires a leap of faith to sustain. I don't want to be told the answers to life's pain, I want to live through the darkness and grope for God's Holy Hand.” 

         Maybe, during this season of Lent, then, it is for us to embrace rather than fear all the uncertainty we know in our lives – all the questions about who we are and where we are going and whom we will meet along the way.  Maybe, during this season of Lent, it is for us to uncover the faith that requires a leap of faith that lies somewhere deep in our souls, uncover it and nurture it.  Maybe, during this season of Lent it is for us to say: “I have no idea where this is going. The end is completely uncertain. It is like standing on the edge of a cliff and peering over into a vast, thick, foggy soup of nothingness. Do I dare leap?

         And maybe during this season of Lent it is for us to say:  “Yes!  Leap!  Always!” Why?  Because, as we heard when our very first light and dark quote was read last June, “When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen:  There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught how to fly.” 

        And if it is too scary there on the edge, if the darkness looks too dark, and the light seems non-existent, if the uncertainty is too much to contemplate alone, then maybe during this season of Lent, it is for us to reach out into the dark, grope around until we grasp God’s hand (and we will find that hand to grasp) because, well because, as the ancient Psalmist declared:
For God says: “Because you trusted me,


I will give you more cause to trust;


Because you knew me enough to ask for help,


I will help you.


When you call, I will answer you.


When you fall down, I will pick you up.


I will accompany you through a long life;


I will never leave you lonely and afraid.”

         It is like the final verse in today’s Bible passage, once again, in “The Message” translation:
“It will not be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright. We will see it all then, see as clearly as God sees us, knowing God as directly as God knows us. But for right now, until that completeness comes, we have three things to do. Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly."

         It is the gift of uncertainty, a gift from the dark, a gift for Lent.

   by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine      

        

        

        

        

Mark 6:1-13 "Ouch! Rejected"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         Christian evangelist and author Josh McDowell once wrote: ““People refuse to believe that which they don't want to believe, in spite of evidence.”  He goes on to describe a startling discovery made by English scientists in 1797. 

         “When explorers first went to Australia (he writes) they found a mammal which laid eggs; spent some time in water, some on land; had a broad, flat tail, webbed feet, and a bill similar to a duck. Upon their return to England, they told the populace of this, and (the entire scientific community) felt it was (an elaborate) hoax. They returned to Australia and found a pelt from this animal and took it back to England, but the people still felt it was a hoax. In spite of the evidence, they disbelieved because they didn't want to believe.”

         The animal, of course, was the duck-billed platypus, which is, as one blogger declared, “God’s ultimate practical joke.”  People refuse to believe that which they do not want to believe, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. 

        It is kind of like the time that I preached my first sermon in my home church in Montclair, NJ, shortly after I was ordained.  Some of you may know this story, especially if you have seen the needlepoint slogan commemorating it hanging over the door inside my office. 

         I stood up in the pulpit that morning.  It was one of those large and ornately carved ones that was situated somewhat above the congregation.  I am sure I was nervous, but I knew that I was supported by three years worth of prestigious Yale Divinity School professors as well as my peers assuring me that being a woman preacher was the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

         Little did I know that at least some folks in the congregation were more likely to be thinking, if not whispering to their neighbor:  “Isn’t that Nancy Allen who grew up in this church?  Isn’t that Barbara and Rich’s daughter, the skinny one who had those less-than-stylish, sharply cut bangs and big brown eyes?  How did she get so wise?  I mean, isn’t she the quiet little introverted thing who never liked to speak in front of anyone?  What is she doing up in that pulpit? 

        All this doubting and lack of trust in who I had become became clear to me, however, as the congregation filed out at the conclusion of the service, all of them dutifully shaking my hand and intoning the usual Sunday morning post-worship mantra:  “Nice sermon, Reverend.”  All, that is, except for one of the last people to file out.

         She was an elderly woman in a navy blue dress with large white polka dots.  She carried a shiny patent leather handbag over her arm.  She shook my hand and loudly proclaimed, “You know, dear, with girls like you up there, we don’t need ministers.” 

         Ouch!  Thumbs down in my own hometown!  At least no one tried to throw me off a cliff as they did Jesus in the Gospel writer Luke’s version of this story of rejection that we read this morning.

         Just like me, Jesus was under the impression that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  A real man about town!  After all, in the past two days, he had performed not one, not two, but three miracles.  He had calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee with a shout and a wave of his hand.  He had healed a nameless woman from a chronic bleeding disorder (and he did not even know that he was healing her), and he had raised a little girl from the dead.  Not bad!  Jesus was a heralded healer, a rabbi on a roll! 

         And now he walked confidently into his hometown synagogue on Friday evening, most likely believing that the congregation would hang on his every word.  He could say anything! 

         I suspect that the synagogue was packed because Jesus’ reputation preceded him.  As preaching professor Alyce McKenzie comments, “I picture Jesus' hometown family and friends squirming in their synagogue seats and craning their necks to see if he's coming up the center aisle as they wait for his arrival that day. The hometown boy is coming to bring the (weekly) message….As his family and former neighbors sit waiting, I bet they were preparing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

         Perhaps they were saying to each other, ‘Even if he's not that good a speaker, we need to encourage him, because he's just getting started.’ His home townies don't know who they're waiting for. They think they're waiting for the boy who knows how to make the best shelves in town. They think they're waiting for the familiar sibling of James, Joseph, Judas, Simon, and his sisters (unnamed!). They think they're waiting for the obedient son of Mary.”

         But it was not Mary’s kid up walking up the aisle.  It was not the Jesus who repaired a leaky roof and built some good sturdy furniture who was teaching them.  It was not the Jesus they had always known standing in front of them that evening as he elaborated on a passage from the prophet Isaiah (again, that is according to the Gospel writer Luke, who goes into way more detail than his counterpart, Mark, would ever think of doing), making a declaration about himself that could not possibly be true: “The Lord God has appointed me to preach good news to poor people, to heal the blind and sick, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

         What?  The effrontery!  Who did he think he was trying to be so high and mighty, fancying himself as a rabbi? “The Lord God appointed me…” 

         Hogwash!  After all, this was Jesus, Joe’s boy, who had been preparing to take over his father’s business (until he left so suddenly recently, left his family hook, line, and sinker. Can you believe it?).  He went off on his own just like those religious crazies you hear about. 

         Ouch!  Thumbs down in his own hometown!   However, Jesus seemed to take it all in stride.  As he and his followers continued their journey, he merely shrugged his shoulders and commented: “A prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets he played in as a child….A prophet is respected everywhere except where he grew up.”

         You know, when you think about it, this whole preaching business and the hometown crowd getting so upset with him might have come down differently if Jesus had given a bit more thought to what he was going to say.  Methodist bishop William Willimon speculates this way:

         “A friend of mine returned from an audience with His Holiness the Dali Lama. ‘When His Holiness speaks,’ my friend said, ‘everyone in the room becomes quiet, serene and peaceful.’ Not so with Jesus. Things were fine in Nazareth until Jesus opened his mouth and all hell broke loose.

        And this was only his first sermon! One might have thought that Jesus would have used a more effective rhetorical strategy, would have saved inflammatory speech until he had taken the time to build trust, to win people's affection, to contextualize his message -- as we are urged to do in (preaching) classes.

         No, instead he threw the book at them, hit them right between the eyes with Isaiah.”  Why, I wonder, did he have to sound so threatening?  No wonder he turned off the congregation!

         No wonder he left town, no doubt realizing that his words had threatened those folks he had grown up with, no doubt accompanied by his own feelings of rejection, perhaps even hurt by the lack of trust shown to him by those who knew him best.  It was at that point, however, that he did an interesting thing. 

         He gathered his twelve disciples about him, gave them some brief instructions, and sent them out to be like him, to be his hands and feet in the wider world.  He sent them out to preach and heal, to transform lives, to be boldly loved by some and rejected outright by others. 

        “’Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.  And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.’’

         Say what you need to say.  Do not pull any punches.  Know that you words and actions will threaten some folks.  You will be rejected outright by others – sometimes by the people you thought were your most ardent supporters, who had your back, sometimes even by your family.  But if you are speaking and living my message (Jesus said), and you are doing it in love, then there is nothing more you can do. 

         He might have continued:  “You can lead a horse (or a camel) to water, but you can not make it drink – which does not mean you should not make the attempt.  Just shake it off and keep trying.  Keep preaching, keep healing, keep forgiving, keep being a peacemaker and justice-seeker.  Keep being compassionate.  Nobody said that discipleship would be a Sunday School picnic.  Being one of my followers is risky business, risky business indeed.

         “Then they were on the road (the Scriptures continue). (The twelve) preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.”

         Being a follower of Jesus is risky business.  It is risky business indeed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that sometimes people disappoint us when we wish they had our back.  Sometimes the people we would expect to support us are just not engaged – or just not willing to go out on a limb with us.

         And when that happens, we have a choice.  We can figure it is just too hard and throw in the sponge, or we can stick to our principles, stick with the gospel message.   

         This story illustrates for us that, each day, we take a risk if we choose to live as the woman or man God calls us to be. After all, we may make others – even those close to us - feel threatened in their easy, cozy worlds.  We may face rejection. 

         Discipleship is not easy.  We take a risk when we choose to live as a follower of Jesus.  We take a risk when we choose to live as God wants us to live.  Each day we choose whether the return we get from living that way is worth the risk.

         We face that choice as individuals, but we also make that choice as a church – and what better day to talk a bit about that choice than on the day of our Annual Meeting when we look at who we are and who God has called us to be in the year to come.

         I read this quote somewhere this past week:  “We are at a grace-filled moment when we are able to choose our own future.”  And so it is for this church family.  We are indeed at a grace-filled moment, but it is a moment that is also incredibly risky.  The moderate church – and that would include us – is at a crossroads – and we must choose a direction.  Who are we?  What is our purpose?  What is our future here in Raymond?  Those are risky questions to ask – and even riskier questions to answer.  How are we – as a church – when it comes to taking risks?

         Let me end by reading you part of a blog post by Methodist pastor Ken Corder.  He writes:

         “Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God as a place where radical love, surprising grace, and over-the-top compassion spontaneously emerged in unexpected places.  It was a place of change, transformation, growth, pushing the envelope in order to see God’s kingdom unleashed in the world. He challenged social, cultural, economic and religious norms and traditions of his day with beautiful alternatives of grace, freedom and moving well-established fences to expand the breadth and reach of the kingdom of God.

         What too many churches have done in response to the great problems of the world today, and they are many, is to hunker down with a bunker mentality.  It is a weak position of insularity.  And after decades of insularity and hunkering down, if we are brave enough for a moment to look up and see what the world is up to, we find that in our insularity, we have become dangerously close to being irrelevant to a secular, unbelieving world.

         So what do we do?  Say it was a good ride while it lasted?  Say, well, let’s hang on as long as we can doing it the same old way, at least we’ll have our church until we’re gone?

         Jesus was not willing to let his beautiful, transformative message of the kingdom of God wither and die on the unfertile ground of people whose hearts were too hard or too disinterested in hearing the Gospel, so he took it to the streets, the hedge rows, the villages, the other side.  When the conservative, stagnant synagogues told him they had no use for his upsetting message he took it outside the establishment and formed a radical group of outcasts who took the message of the Good News to the people.  Oftentimes they found unfertile soil there as well – doubters, naysayers, people afraid of how Jesus’ message would effect their business, their pocketbook, their marriage, their way of life – so they told him and his ragtag disciples to move on down the road.  They did not want to hear it.

         But sometimes, every so often, one or two people, a small group – maybe one of ten healed lepers, maybe one tax collector, maybe one centurion or one dejected woman would hear Jesus’ message and be transformed, changed forever and would join the slowing growing band of disciplined followers – disciples of Jesus Christ.

        We must decide as a church (Corder blogs) if we are going to be with the stagnant naysayers, the staunchly comfortable, cautious traditionalists who look up one day and see they have become irrelevant to a world so in need of Jesus’ message of radical love, compassion, forgiveness, nonviolence and hospitality.  Or - if we are going get things done in the kingdom of God, if we are going to open our hearts, our minds and our doors to the Jesus who longs to transform this world.” Whew!  Talk about risky business, risky business indeed!  How are we as a church when it comes to taking risks?

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine