Sermon presented to COHOKC on Sept 19, 2010
By David Disbrow
Scripture: Galatians 5:2-15 and Ps 139:13-18 (attached)

In a moment I’m going to ask you to complete a phrase for me. Don’t be shy. I want you to yell it out with all you got. Ready? If it ain’t broke (response – “don’t fix it”).

That’s right you’ve got it. It’s a piece of wisdom that will save one a great deal of time and grief. In fact it can be used to sum up the message in the passage you heard read from Galatians. This section is part of a letter Paul has written to a people he had once visited and ministered to. It’s clear that Paul is upset with what can be described as “false teachers” who are confusing the Galatians. You don’t have to be a Bible Scholar or even have read the Bible much to deduce Paul is extremely angry. Unless, you somehow missed the part where Paul says, “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!”

There are indeed many false teachers in the world. Teachers that would have us believe that we who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and those who are allies need to be fixed. Last time I checked I wasn’t broke because of who I love. How about you? Well, if it ain’t broke … (response).
Still because of various questionable agendas and perhaps some good intentions this aberration known as ex-gay or reparative therapy exists and is promoted. I believe that if Paul were alive today he would be angry that anyone would make this a requirement for receiving God’s grace.
Let’s look more at what Paul is angry about. These false teachers are promoting the idea that one must follow Jewish law in order to be Christian. Paul who himself was a Jew and an expert in Jewish law understood it was necessary to follow every single tenant of the law and he knew first hand how incredibly hard that was. He also knew that the law was misused to say who was in and who was out. I think that is why he says at the end of this passage, “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” He is warning that it is easy to become consumed by legalism and moralism and in the end destroy each other and the community.
The law was a unique covenant between God and the Jewish people. To put it very simply, it was a covenant where God promised to be their God if they promised to follow God’s law. Paul saw in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that a new covenant had been created. It was now God’s grace, not the law that maintained this new covenant. Furthermore it was a covenant that was available to everyone who had faith in God’s grace regardless of whether they were Jewish or not.

As Paul says in his letter, once a person subscribes to any part of the law then, “he is obliged to obey the entire law” and this is a road doomed to failure. I think we can relate. Adherence to the law is a very tall order for there are over 613 statutes to this law. Most of us are familiar with the first ten:

“I am the Lord your God you shall have no other God’s before me”
“You shall not make for yourself an idol”
“You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God”
“Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy”
“Honor your father and mother”
“Do not murder”
“Do not commit adultery”
“Do not steal”
“Do not bear false witness against your neighbor”
“Do not covet your neighbor’s wife”

I’m very happy to say I have no problem with that last one. “Thank you God for making that one easy for me.”

But there are other interesting statues that prohibit: cross-breeding livestock, shaving or getting a hair cut, tattoos, eating fish without scales like shrimp, crap, or lobster, and get this one – charging interest on a loan. Again Paul points out in Galatians, once a person subscribes to any part of the law then, “he is obliged to obey the entire law” Paul is not trying to say that Judaism is wrong but that God has extended grace to everyone through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile, Roman or Greek, man or woman – there is no requirement of any kind – especially circumcision and adopting Jewish law.? Then there is this law used to clobber the gay community? “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is abomination.” Bottom line, this is a part of Jewish law which Paul clearly says is not a requirement to be loved by God and receive God’s grace. In fact Paul plainly says if you are determined to use any part of the law as a requirement you are literally rejecting God’s grace and that can’t be a good thing at all. Put simply, Paul is telling the Galatians that their salvation is not broke and if it ain’t broke (response).

—-

John Evans and his partner Ron Morano were not broke. There were a happy committed couple living together in the early 1970’s. They had celebrated 10 years together. They even attended church together and operated a successful art gallery in the beautiful city of Sausalito California. Then John met Rev. Kent Philpott, the owner of a nearby bookstore and pastor of, “Church of the Open Door.” They became friends and shared a conviction that the church should not drive homosexuals away. John envisioned a ministry that accepted gay men and nurtured their spirituality. But that was not the vision of Kent who was the much stronger and charismatic persona. He envisioned a ministry to convert and save gay persons from hell. In 1973, the first ex-gay ministry, “Love in Action.” was born.

Kent was even successful in convincing John to separate from his loving partner Ron. That separation would lead Ron to despair, drug addiction and eventually he would die a hopeless and broken man. He would become the first on a long list of casualties resulting from the ex-gay movement.

—

Paul says that if one adopts the law they are doomed to failure and furthermore it is a rejection of the Christ. The word Christ is not the name of a person it is a title like president. It comes from Greek and means “savior” So rejecting Christ is really rejecting salvation.

So why would the Galatians reject Paul’s teaching. Apparently, after Paul left the Galatians it was not long before they faced “moral dilemmas” and it appears this principle Paul taught them of loving your neighbor as yourself was not sufficiently clear or more probably it was inconvenient because it also meant you would have to sometime forgive your neighbor or worse yet sometimes ask your neighbor for forgiveness. The false teachers arrive with the perfect solution – Jewish law. A law whose first step is circumcision.

Paul compares the Galatians to a runner who is running a true course but somehow has veered of course because someone has tripped them up. He is referring to these false teachers. He also compares the teachers to a bit of yeast that infects a batch of bread quickly and totally. Paul is afraid for the Galatians.

We too must fear for our gay sisters and brothers who are being tripped up. Who are being told they can’t be loved by God unless they change who they are. They are literally being told they must be circumcised of who they are.

The irony of conservative Christian movements like the ex-gay movement is, as Paul puts it, it is a rejection of Christ. You know, that all important first part of the word “Christianity.” Now that’s irony for sure.

The other irony is the ex-gay movement doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it is trying to fix something that isn’t broke and as we all know, if it ain’t broke, (response).

—

I read about one ex-gay program for men that took place in a camp setting. The “cure” involved praying for change with a prayer partner. However, there was a slight hitch since not many straight men wanted to be part of this program. According to one participant the program went like this, “The first night you chose a prayer partner. The next night you and your prayer partner prayed fervently. Sure enough by the third night your prayers where answered”

—

Even leaders of the ex-gay ministry find over time it does more harm than good. Perhaps one of the more dramatic examples is the story of Gary Cooper and Michael Bussee both who were ex-gays and worked as ex-gay counselors. They were also the founders of Exodus International, an umbrella organization for ex-gay groups worldwide. Both men traveled individually and spoke at ex-gay conferences proclaiming the good news that homosexuality could be cured or at least divorced from one’s behavior.

It was not long before they began traveling and talking at events together and in the course of their travels they became very close. No real surprise there. Each man secretly was becoming more and more distraught over the harm they saw resulting from the ex-gay ministries, but they did not talk about it until their discomfort became unbearable. It was on a plane trip to Indianapolis to speak at the General Senate of the United Church of Christ, that they finally admitted their concern to each other and acknowledged their love for each other.

I believe God gives us signals when we are on the right path. Discerning these signals can sometimes be tricky. However, the signals were pretty obvious for Gary and Michael, for when they arrived at the hotel there had been a mistake and they had been booked into the same room and if that wasn’t a clear enough signal, then perhaps the fact the room had a king sized bed convinced them they were on the right path.

They didn’t get much sleep that night. (pause) That’s because they scrapped their prepared speeches and rewrote them to be consistent with their new view of reality. The next morning they appeared before an auditorium packed with conference attendees waiting anxiously to hear about stories of change and indeed that is what they heard. However, it wasn’t the kind of change the had expected.

—

Let me finish up with the Psalm your heard earlier. I think this Psalm clearly supports that we are created by God to be who we are and we aren’t broke. The Psalmist writes:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

This psalm may date back some twenty five hundred years, but doesn’t it still ring true today? That is the beauty of the Bible. Not that it is authoritative but that it is reflective of a journey of faith and experience and that while culture may change over time, the Bible gives us a glimpse at truths that stand the test of time. This psalm echoes something we know in our hearts to be true. It is God who makes us and God is a marvel and so are we.

God is and will always be a great mystery. However, the way God made me is no mystery. The way I was intricately woven is very clear to me especially after spending a good portion of my life trying to fix what wasn’t broke. Furthermore, God’s grace is clear to me. Paul’s message that it is grace, not the law which saves me is clear to me. The aim to love my neighbor as myself is clear to me.

It is also clear to me that we are not broke because of who we love. What saddens me is when I hear someone say, “I don’t understand how you can be gay.” It saddens me for their sake not my own. I want to say to them, “Then you don’t understand yourself. You discovered you were attracted to the opposite sex. At least it could have been a gift of discovery but you were denied that discovery because it was expected of you to be like everyone else. The blessing of being gay is we did experience a wonderful discovery and it was a clear signal from God.

—

Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. 4 You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working?k? through love. 7 You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? 8 Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. 10 I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise. But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty. 11 But my friends,?l? why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves! 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;?m? only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,?n? but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ga 5:2-15.

—

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end?a?—I am still with you.
The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ps 139:13-18.

John 14:8-17, 25-27; Acts 2:1-21
by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones
Cathedral of Hope — Oklahoma City
23 May 2010

This morning as I drove to my nephew Connor’s baptism, I was listening to NPR and they were discussing tonight’s final episode of Lost, which I suppose that many of us will miss and have to watch later. In their discussion of the show, they pointed out that it was coming to an end on the Christian day of Pentecost and wondered what meaning Pentecost might associate with the show. Not knowing what happens during the episode, I wonder if we will see tongues of fire or mighty winds or something to suggest that the Spirit of God is poured out upon the creation. Maybe its cast, which is filled with great racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, is a symbol of the reign of God and the diverse crowd in Jerusalem that day at Pentecost?

The show itself has had deep spiritual resonances. Its most abiding theme is faith versus doubt. In an important second season episode Jack the Doctor and Locke the believer are arguing over pushing the button in the hatch. Locke believes that it is his purpose to push the button every 108 seconds and that doing so will keep the world from being destroyed. Jack thinks that there is no reason for anyone to submit their self to the regimen of the button. Locke asks Jack why he finds it so easy to disbelieve. And Jack asks Locke why he finds it so easy to believe. Locke answers that it has never been easy.

If you are a loyal fan, then you know that by this final season, Jack is now a believer, and he and Locke have a very different contest of good versus evil that will likely conclude this evening. So, one of the main trajectories of this show has been a character moving from skepticism to taking the leap of faith.

Here is the most popular show on television inviting us to respond on what Pentecost might mean. How wonderful!

This Easter season, every week we turned our attention to a different characteristic of God. This being Pentecost, we encounter the Spirit. In the wind, in the fire, in the miraculous speech of the disciples.

Despite being the third person of the Trinity, the church hasn’t said as much about the Holy Spirit as it has about the Creator and the Redeemer. In fact, there has been some distrust of the Spirit by the institutional church. Fringe and radical movements have often claimed the inspiration of the Spirit. The Spirit, by its very nature, blows where it will and cannot be controlled by the normal rules and policies and structures of institutions. It is a radically democratic force, which often subverts those who would exert power and control.

In the twelfth century, one of those radical movements was inaugurated by Joachim of Fiore. As a young man Joachim rose quickly in court positions in the Kingdom of Sicily, but on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land underwent a powerful spiritual experience which converted him to a life of poverty, devotion, and the study of scripture. He was an influential monk, mystic, and biblical scholar during his life.

Joachim said that humanity was about to enter into an “Age of the Spirit.” In this age, “people would live in direct contact with God, so there would be little need for religious hierarchies. Universal love would reign, and infidels would unite with Christians.”

These ideas of a new age in which the institution of the church would be unnecessary were at first not condemned by the church. But after a group of Joachimists formed to follow Joachim’s ideas and implement them, sixty years after he died, Joachim’s ideas were declared a heresy by the church.

Harvey Cox, the legendary theology professor from Harvard, has revived Joachim’s idea of an “Age of the Spirit,” in his most recent book The Future of Faith. When I bought this book at last year’s K-O Annual Meeting, Peter Keltch borrowed it, began browsing through it, and almost wouldn’t give it back! So I encourage you to read this engaging book from one of the leading religious scholars of our time.

Cox contends that we are currently entering into an “Age of the Spirit,” as the old ways of the Christian faith are changing. Dogma is giving way to mystery. Hierarchies are giving way to greater equality. The barriers between peoples, cultures, even other faiths, are giving way to greater dialogue and engagement and mutual practice.
Reading Cox’s description of this new Christian age, I couldn’t help but think of a church like ours, which tries to reclaim Christianity by standing for the welcome, inclusion, and grace that got lost over the centuries. We proclaim that the Spirit is not and cannot be bound by our expectations – that everyone and anyone can become God’s instrument because we all are God’s children.

One thing that Harvey Cox points out is that spirituality has been en vogue the last couple of decades. You often hear people say that they are “spiritual” and not “religious.” I’m never sure if I can trust that, though, because it seems to me that the person who makes this claim is too often rather self-involved, maybe even selfish. They seem more interested in their private navel-gazing than the difficult work of building an alternative community of justice and peace, which is the core impulse of the Christian faith.

The spirituality that Harvey Cox is promoting is more of this latter kind and not the subjective, selfish navel-gazing of much popular writing. Faith is resurging, in myriad forms, some new, some ancient and reclaimed. People are seeking rich spiritual experiences of awe, mystery, and beauty. Even in popular television shows!

Accompanying this spirituality movement in popular culture has been a surprising movement in the Christian church. The Holy Spirit has been hard at work, and Christianity is in one of its greatest periods of growth. This growth is led primarily by denominations which emphasize the role of the Spirit. Pentecostalism and similar streams of Christianity have swept across the globe, converting millions. Now the vibrant centers of world Christianity are places like Brazil, Nigeria, and South Korea.

And in the old European and North American churches, we have witnessed increased egalitarianism, with the ordination of women and the inclusion of gays and lesbians. Ecumenism and interfaith dialogue have broken down some of the old barriers of culture, race, and language. Ancient forms of art, liturgy, and practice have been reclaimed by many Christians.

Cox seems accurate in recovering Joachim’s term. Indeed, we are entering into an “Age of the Spirit.”

So, we might want to learn a little about this third person of the Trinity. What sort of age are we entering into? What does it really mean for us as Christians to be “spiritual”?

In the Gospel of John chapters 13-17, Jesus gives an extensive address commonly called his “farewell discourse.” The Gospel readings this month have mostly come from this discourse, which has been an irony not lost on those of us planning worship every week.

Of course, Jesus himself did not preach this long sermon; it was written many decades later by the author of the Gospel of John in order to instruct the churches on how to live in the mean time between Jesus’ ascension and the culmination of time. These are instructions on how to live as an alternative community through prayer, mutual love, trusting God, and discerning the Spirit. As such, it is full of powerful wisdom for all of us as we continue to live in the “in between time.”

At the core of Jesus’ sermon is the message of love. Love one another, we are told. We are told to abide in love; that when we do, God will abide in us.

In this farewell discourse, Jesus tells us that we are all intimately interconnected with one another because we are deeply rooted in God. More than just blessed assurance for life once Jesus has ascended, this is a radically inclusive message, that we are all intimately interconnected because of our deep rooting in God.

Jesus’ radically inclusive message is paralleled in today’s story from the Book of Acts, wherein a diverse group of people, representing different races, cultures, and languages are drawn together in unity when the Holy Spirit is poured forth at Pentecost. More than any other day in the Christian year, Pentecost is a celebration of radical diversity finding common cause in the movement of the Spirit, which cannot be contained by the normal boundaries we would draw. Pentecost compels us into community with those who are different from us.

Jesus’ farewell sermon also contains the prayer, “That they may all be one,” though it is not in our reading for tonight. This prayer, “That they may all be one,” is the motto of the United Church of Christ. Our mutual love, abiding in God, unites the diversity of the human race. That is what the church is!

We make ourselves vulnerable in this intimately interconnected community. We risk being hurt or taken advantage of. That’s one reason that the church is so difficult. People all the time have the mistaken notion that being church ought to be easy because we are all Christians. But we are also all humans, who will sin against one another. That is why cultivating habits of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation are essential to the church. These are its core spiritual practices and among our primary duties to one another.

Because community-building is such hard work, it is tempting to exclude the marginalized because they are more difficult to live with and require more difficult work on our part. But if we exclude anyone, then, to put it quite simply, we are not being the church of Jesus Christ. We are not fulfilling God’s eschatological vision as revealed to us through the prophets, in Jesus, at Pentecost, and through the on-going work of the Spirit. Remember, “that they may ALL be one.”

In his farewell discourse, Jesus informs us that it is the Spirit which makes the church possible, the Spirit which serves as our Advocate, Counselor, and Comforter. Jesus’ discussion of the church is couched in terms of the on-going relationship of God with God’s people. This relationship has always been understood in the Judaeo-Christian tradition through the lens of “covenant.” Put simply, in the Age of the Spirit, the church will live not by hierarchies or relationships of control and exclusion, but by covenant.

Robin Meyers, in his book Saving Jesus from the Church, which I finally read two weeks ago, discusses this theme of covenant as opposed to traditional notions of control. Covenant, he describes, as “a collective expression of gratitude and mutuality.” Covenants “function as residuals of trust, not as instruments of fear,” as “society itself is made possible by voluntary compliance with the unenforceable.”

Covenants are not contracts. Robin describes the difference:

A religious covenant is not a contract, which we enter into and follow mostly for self-protection or to force compliance. In contracts, if one party fails to live up to the agreement, the agreement is voided. Not so with religious covenants. They are bound by the parameters of forgiveness and patience and characterized by a kind of transrational tenacity. . . . The covenant itself and what it makes possible are considered larger and more important than the benefit to either party.

This kind of faith makes life more difficult, Robin says, because we have to bear one another’s burdens and make sacrifices both for our individual growth in wisdom and the “collective transformation.”

Robin diagnoses that America today and most churches avoid covenants because they are so difficult. Rather they want “instruments of control” which are a sign of compulsive behaviour. “This social dis-ease is a basic lack of trust,” he writes. “We don’t trust others; we don’t trust God; we don’t even trust ourselves. . . . We set out to become masters of the universe and to hold chaos at bay for one more day.”

When we try to control our environment and those around us, it betrays a fundamental lack of trust in God. This was one of the issues with the character of Jack on Lost all these years. He was always trying to maintain control, and almost every time he brought on a worse disaster. Only in this season, when he has fully surrendered to faith, has the light begun to dawn on his purpose and mission.

For the last five years as we have worked on setting up the structures of this church, I have always tried to communicate that a sense of joyful adventure must be at the root of everything we do. During your interim time, I hope you will live large, keeping your sight focused on your radically powerful vision from God. Resist the temptation of getting caught up in the now, in the temporary, in the petty. Trust and follow the trailblazing, home-making, still speaking One who makes all things new.

When we trust God, then we can let go of the future and the present; we can escape our fears and anxieties, and join in the glorious, joyful adventure of the Christian life.

The current, American popular focus on personal spirituality may only further this social disease of the lack of trust. For all its emphasis on silence, meditation, and centering, when “spirituality” focuses too much on the self, it avoids the core element of Christian Spirituality, which is the formation of a covenant community rooted in our experience of God.

The antidote to this disease, then, is, to put it quite simply, . . . God. And so, we read in today’s Epistle lesson from St. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Or this from Jesus’ farewell discourse:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Or as the old hymn says,

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way

May the trailblazing, home-making, still speaking One, the Holy Spirit who makes all things new, work the good work in you.

Revelation 1:4-8; Acts 5:27-32
By Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones
11 April 2010, Easter Sunday

Last summer Michael Jarrett was getting married, and my Michael and I were invited to the wedding. Michael Jarrett was one of the active, faithful youth at Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas when I was there. Looking over the gift registry, I knew immediately what we had to get him – the ice bucket.

Maybe the strangest pastoral call I have ever received was from Michael when he was sixteen and had just started driving. I was at the church office, and when I picked up the phone, after the standard greetings, he simply said, “Do you have a bucket?”

Curious, I first wanted to figure out what the bucket was for. He answered, “To bail out some water.”

“Why do you need to bail water?”

After much obfuscation, I finally got him to the point:

“My truck is stuck in a mudhole.”

Now I had to restrain my laughing as I said, “Michael, you aren’t stuck in the water, you are stuck in the mud, so a bucket won’t help you. Have you been off-roading?” He denied it.

I told him he’d probably need to be towed. When he finally realized this was the case, I asked, “Do you have any money, because this is going to be expensive.” He said, “Yeah, I’ve got money.” “Michael, it will be expensive.” “I’ve got it.” So, looking in the yellow pages I gave him the numbers to some tow truck companies and hung up.

He called back five minutes later, “I don’t have that much money.” So, I went and got him and his friend and laughed when I saw the truck, stuck in a forested, creekside where people did go off-roading in Fayetteville. Michael was embarrassed to get the ride home and seek help from his parents. At sixteen, he thought he could take care of himself.

It may have taken me seven years, but I did finally bring Michael Jarrett a bucket.

The story came to mind this week as I sat down to write this sermon. It was provoked by a statement on the UCC website describing the church as one which “sees and hears God at work in diverse, out-of-the-ordinary and whimsical ways.”

The occasion for this description was the new UCC evangelistic campaign around the video advertisement “The Language of God” which will be released this coming Friday. There is information about this campaign inserted in your order of worship. The card there enthusiastically details how you can help this campaign and use it as a moment of personal witness and sharing your faith in an inclusive, stillspeaking God.

The national church tells us that the “ad encourages us to broaden our concept of when, where and how God is speaking in the world.” This ad will focus its attention on God and how we hear and see God in the world. This is:

a pastoral message that invites exploration of the prophetic and sacramental sightings of God’s handiwork. It celebrates the outward and visible signs of God’s grace that may too often go unnamed and unclaimed by religious people. . . . The prominent theme in “The Language of God” focuses on reintroducing people to a God that can be found and celebrated in all of life. . . . the hope is that it will ignite joy and wonder. The overall goal is to pique curiosity in a church that sees and hears God at work in diverse, out-of-the-ordinary and whimsical ways.

As you can see, this is a great opportunity for you to help spread the inclusive message of Jesus Christ through e-mail, blogging, and social networking. One of the other goals of this campaign is to demonstrate our denomination’s use of cutting-edge technologies, that we also recognize God is still speaking in the relationships and communities that are formed through these new media.

Last fall I was in Dallas at the Cathedral of Hope for one of my routine meetings with Jo Hudson, and I attended the staff snack break time. While chatting with people, Dan Peeler, the children’s minister, came up to me, laid his hand on my arm, and said, “How is your nephew?” I was confused for a moment, until I realized that the week before when Jacob had been sick, I had posted it on my Facebook. These new media allow fascinating opportunities for relationship and community.

For this week’s launch, the UCC invites us to consider the math:

The UCC has 25,386 fans on Facebook. If each posts “The Language of God” for their Facebook friends to see, it will reach 3,554,040 viewers in minutes. And if just a fraction of these re-post it, even millions more will learn of the UCC.

Our Communications Team, the new name of our E-Team, has been for some time promoting the free forms of our evangelism afforded to our church with its on-line presence. Because we do not have other methods of getting our message out easily or a physical presence, we have been very intentional and aggressive in our development of and use of on-line technologies as an evangelism tool.

So, doing similar math as the UCC, I figured the following for our Cathedral of Hope Facebook page. When I wrote this on Thursday afternoon we had 241 Facebook fans (this isn’t counting those who subscribe to our MySpace?, Twitter, RSS, or YouTube? feeds or the subscribers to our weekly e-mails). I started out counting the friends of each of those fans, eliminating the friends they had in common with me personally, in hopes of cutting down on duplicates. After going to 25 of the 241 pages, I realized that this was too time consuming, so I decided to use the number I had collected from those 25 to estimate the real number. Just those 25 Cathedral of Hope fans had 10,274 friends. Assuming that that ten percent of our fans is reflective of the other 90%, then I estimate that our 241 Cathedral of Hope Facebook fans have a total of 99,074 friends.

What does that mean? That when we post something on our Facebook site, if all our fans re-posted it on their site, then we could reach close to 100,000 people with a message about the welcome and inclusion the Stillspeaking God offers in this place.

When we were part of the Dallas Cathedral of Hope, we often trumpeted the fact that 30,000 people ewere reached every week by the various ministries of the church – in person, via television, and through the internet. Yet, in 2010, our congregation here has the potential to reach close to 100,000 without spending any money and with very little effort. God is still speaking, for sure.

Now, if you haven’t grasped it before, do you grasp why we have been so aggressive with our on-line presence and have tried to recruit those of you who are avid internet users and social networkers to participate with us? Simply sharing with your friends the information that the church sends out, we have the ability to impact the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Now, lest you think that I’m only talking to those of you how are actively on-line, I’m not. Currently the two primary modes of evangelism which I see being effective is the new-fashioned use of the internet and the old-fashioned method of simply one-on-one inviting people you know. In fact, that is ultimately still the best method.

If anything, this coming week’s exercise in using our on-line relationships to spread a message about the Stillspeaking God serves as a reminder for all of us that we are called to do the same thing with our real world relationships. That is also one of the themes of this week’s reading from Acts.

During the season of Easter, the weekly First Testament readings are replaced by readings from the Book of Acts, readings which focus on the faithful witness of the disciples and how the Holy Spirit used that witness to grow the church. It is the exact same method which the Holy Spirit has always used. When disciples are faithful, bold witnesses, then the Spirit is able to use that to touch even more people with God’s inclusive love. No method or strategy will replace the faithful witness of Christians sharing the passion and joy of their faith and inviting others to share in that passion and joy.

The message we as the United Church of Christ will share with the world this week is a message about God. That excites me. We will be telling a world which needs to hear it that God is still speaking to them. That God can be found in “diverse, out-of-the-ordinary and whimsical ways.”

Our reading from Revelation invites us into the wonder and mystery of the worship of this Stillspeaking God – the one who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, who is and was and is to come, the Almighty, the Pantocrator, the ruler of heaven and earth.

The God we worship transcends our human understanding, transcends the limitations of our conceptions of space and time, yet “can be found and celebrated in all of life.”

Yes, this is a God who ignites our joy and wonder and piques our curiosity. A God who excites our passion and inspires our devotion. A God who empowers our faithful action and enlivens our witness. Once we have encountered such glory, we can never be the same, but live with the joy and the wonder, “What is God going to say next?”

II Corinthians 5:16-21
by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones
Cathedral of Hope — Oklahoma City
14 March 2010

At the conclusion of The Last Battle, the seventh and final of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, the Pevensie children and the heroes of Narnia have escaped through a door into a new land and have watched the destruction of the Narnia they loved through the open door. Then, as they journey through this new land, they realize that it is like Narnia, but bigger and better, and this fills them with ecstatic joy.

They eventually make their way to a garden where they encounter friends and family long deceased and their receive a vision of how the many worlds are connected. Aslan the great lion is talking to them and explaining things, and the book, and The Chronicles, concludes with this paragraph:

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them down. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

If you’ve listened to my preaching for any length of time, then you probably know that one of my favourite phrases is “Christians are the eternal beginners.” It was originally said by Franz Rosenzweig.

And this passage in II Corinthians expresses that truth. Everything old has passed away; everything has become new; and we are the ambassadors of that new creation bringing reconciliation to a world in need.

The novelty of adventure is central to our Christian spirituality. Like C. S. Lewis expressed, every chapter of our story is better than the one before.

And, so, today we, the Cathedral of Hope, live into our Christian identity and spirituality by embarking on a new adventure, writing a new chapter, living as ambassadors of change and new beginnings.

With great meaning and emotion last week we took leave of the building of the First Unitarian Church which we had called “home” for almost ten years. And today we begin life together in a new home with new hosts. We will develop new relationships and friendships and ministries together with the Mayflower Congregational Church as a result of their hospitality and overwhelming generosity. With enthusiasm and joy we look forward to what God will have us do in and from this place.

But this change of location is not the conclusion of our adventure. It is only a new beginning in a series of new beginnings and fresh starts.

For the last five months our congregation has been in a process of congregational renewal, exploring what needed to change about our church. We began asking “What new things is God calling us to?” It has been an exciting process. As old friends have returned and new people have joined in, becoming more active in service to the church. New leadership has risen to the occasion and great study and reflection has been done.
But, I think we have begun to experience a little fatigue. Old anxieties are creeping back in. We are learning that building an alternative community is a difficult task, as individual members have greatly differing visions of what the church should do.

But this is all healthy process, as we are dying to the old, so that God might give birth to something new.

Yet, I even hear that some are saying that we have experienced enough change. To those I would say that it is God who declares to us, “Everything has become new!”

As I said last week, only we can exclude ourselves from the promises and the blessings of God. Only we can get in the way of God’s vision for the future being fulfilled.

So, I call for your continued courage, the virtue most required for success in an adventure. From where will we get the courage required of us?

Commenting on this passage in II Corinthians, Casey Thompson a Presbyterian pastor from Memphis, wrote,

New creation is conceived in imagination – and imagination begins in prayer, in the images that God plants within us. Prayer, of course, begins in holy silence.

We know that God wants to use us to bring reconciliation to this world. That is central to our vision as a church of progressive Christians who witness to liberation and hope. Our journey to that future begins in prayer.

In order to pray in silence we must give up our ego and our own notions of what we expect. Silent prayer trains us in humility and patience, those difficult virtues. As God fills the silence, we begin to see ourselves, each other, and the future in a new and different light. From this divine source arises our hope for what is possible. Our faith that we will achieve it. Our compassion toward one another on the journey. And our courage to take the risks, to be the ambassadors of change and the new.

Do not stop now. Do not exclude yourself from God’s promise and blessing. Instead, set aside the ego. Develop generosity of spirit and courage of will. Embrace your role as God’s ambassadors.

Let us be open to what more and what new God has in store for us. Let our story be that each chapter was better than the one before. Let it be true of us that we are “eternal beginners.” This we pray. May it be so.

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones
Cathedral of Hope — Oklahoma City
7 February 2010

“Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” is one of the oldest hymns we sing. It dates from the fourth century when it was composed as part of the Divine Liturgy of Saint James which is used primarily by the Syriac and Indian Orthodox Churches. That knowledge always excites me a little. To know that Christians have been singing this hymn for seventeen centuries, and mostly Asian Christians.

The hymn was likely composed in Greek in the city of Jerusalem. Tradition held that it was written by James, the brother of Jesus, but scholars think it more likely comes from four centuries later. In the Divine Liturgy it is known as “The Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn.”

In the 19th century there was a movement in England to return the church and its worship to some of the ancient sources. In 1864 the Anglican priest Gerard Moultrie translated this hymn from Greek into the English text we are familiar with. In 1906 the composer Ralph Vaughn Williams paired the words with this tune Picarday, which is a French folk song. That too I find interesting. A fourth century Greek hymn, sung historically by Syrians and Indians, becomes an Episcopal hymn set to a French folk song.

In the Divine Liturgy the hymn is sung as the Eucharistic elements are brought forward for the time of communion. The hymn conveys a sense of majesty, awe, and wonder. Maybe even the sublime. Yet it moves from the heavenly throne room into ordinary earthly things – a teenage girl’s womb, the body of an infant, blood, the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

The hymn invites us into divine power and glory, by reminding us of the incarnation. That God became one of us. That God can appear in ordinary things like the food we eat. That we too are the presence of God.

Right now America is delighting in wonder. The film Avatar is breaking records and continuing after many weeks to be the most watched film in America as people return to see it again and again. I really do hope you have seen it. Even those of you who aren’t science fiction fans – you know who I’m talking to. But if you do see it, it must be in 3-D and I really recommend paying the extra money to see it at the IMAX theatre up at Quail Springs.

It’s not that the plot, writing, or acting are any great breakthrough. In fact, I’ve read some really funny critical reviews that have torn the story to shreds while still admiring the film itself. What is captivating people is the actual experience of seeing the film.

One has to assume that in the early days of film, just going to see a motion picture was itself an overwhelming experience. Then think about those breakthrough sorts of moments – when Al Jolson starts singing in The Jazz Singer, when Dorothy steps through the door into the glorious Technicolor of Oz, when that first computer-generated-image of the water tentacle wove its way through the underwater station in The Abyss. Avatar is one of those cultural and artistic milestones where we are invited to see and to experience in a wholly new and transformed way. I didn’t feel like I’d gone to see a movie; it felt likely something completely different to me.

Director James Cameron invites you into a fully-imagined world of great splendor and beauty. And through the 3-dimensional film-making, he brings a depth, nuance, and texture to what we have always experienced as flat and “out there.” Much has been written about how this is not the usual 3-D kitsch with objects and creatures flying at you. Rather, he uses 3-D to bring depth, which draws you into the world he has created. One of the moments that delighted me the most was when I almost swatted at the fly that I thought was buzzing around me, only to realize that it part of the scene as the characters, and it seemed even we the audience, walked through the forest.

Avatar is such a success, I believe, because it does invite us to see and experience in a new way and that experience is itself one of sublime beauty.

In both our scripture readings tonight surprising things happen, as Isaiah and Peter see first hand the power and the glory of God. In that experience they are changed. God calls them to follow and commissions them with a ministry.

Isaiah seems to have been attending a worship service in the temple. Some have speculated it might have been the coronation of the new king. Whatever it was, he is suddenly seeing beyond the activity physically in front of him to the mystical, divine images that transcend the physical. Annie Dillard warns that “when we go to church we should wear crash helmets, receive life preservers, and be lashed to the pews in case God shows up.”

Peter’s experience is different. He’s out fishing. That is his occupation, and it is difficult work. Necessary work if he is to survive and provide for his family. And it had not been a good day at work; he had caught nothing. Yet, in the midst of his work, he is suddenly overwhelmed by the abundance of God.

It reminds me of Brother Lawrence. Of all the great spiritual teachers in the history of the Church, he is one of my favourites. Brother Lawrence was not a teacher or theologian. He was not a great preacher or composer. He was not a leader or administrator. Brother Lawrence was the cook. He worked every day in his garden and in his kitchen to prepare meals for the monks of monastery to which he belonged. Sometime he did find time to write some letters and in those he wrote about practicing the presence of God. That one didn’t need a worship service or a quiet prayer time, even though those are important, one could develop the habit of experiencing God’s presence even in the mundane activities of one’s job.

And it is part of what communion is supposed to remind us of each week. The power and glory of God can inhabit bread and grape juice. It can also inhabit each of us. Like Isaiah and Peter we might protest that we are too weak, too imperfect. But God knows better. The divine Spirit can fill us, and we are capable of great and mighty things.

We are the presence of God. We are ordinary things, filled with the majesty, the power, the glory of the divine. This worship. The communion we are about to celebrate. Our daily spiritual practices. The things of beauty that surround us. They remind us to see this way.

Once having seen, we are invited, now, to do great things. That’s the real point of these stories. The point of Isaiah’s vision is not the sublime image of God’s throne room, but Isaiah’s commission to be a prophet to the people during a time of trouble. The point of Luke’s story is not the great haul of fish, but that these followers of Jesus are given a task to tell other people the good news and, thereby, to transform their lives as well.

It is not enough that we have had a new experience that has transformed us, we must now share that with others so that they too might be transformed.

The story in Luke is quite poignant and fitting for our corporate life right now. The fishermen have been casting out their nets hoping for a catch and nothing. They are tired and worn out and ready to call it a day. Go out to the deeper water, Jesus says. Go someplace you haven’t gone. Try something new. Take a risk. Be different. Try again.

Do you need to trust God and take a risk you haven’t taken? Step out in faith in your work, in your church, in your relationship? Luke is saying, “trust God and go out into the deeper water.”

I am excited this week. We are taking a risk. It is never an easy thing for a church to move. We are comfortable here. We know where the spatulas are, how to turn on the microphones, the quirks of the heat and air system. We have had powerful and emotional moments here. For some of us our spiritual journey is deeply rooted in this place that we have felt it is our place.

And we have decided to risk all that and try something new. We have good reasons for making the move. And we are aware that there will be some initial discomfort. We have to figure out a lot of things over the next couple of months. Tweak some aspects of our worship. Learn our way around a new kitchen. Figure out how the doors will be locked and unlocked. Some day we’ll have to bring some trucks and cars and load up all our stuff here and carry it over to our new storage closet at Mayflower. There will be a service to celebrate our time and relationships here. And to celebrate our beginning something new.

The main reason for the decision is that we believe we will be able to more faithfully fulfill our calling in that place. It will afford us some new opportunities. And will free up some funds that we can use in other ways.

But we also understand that this decision, as exciting and filled with faith as it is, is not the only one. We are investing in a future even beyond Mayflower. Dreaming of what will happen next. We are exploring our vision and mission, restructuring our ministries, thinking of how to reinvigorate some things we’ve been doing, and coming up with new ideas.

No matter what decisions we make through the council and officers and task forces of this church, our life as a congregation rests on what each and every one of us as members is willing to do. Are we going out into the deeper water, throwing our nets wide, taking the risks?
• In our daily spiritual practices – our prayer, meditation, bible study, hospitality, care, and service to others?
• With our personal finances, learning to live more simply and justly, in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, giving generously and at times sacrificially to others, and, if this church is something we are passionate about, giving our tithe and beyond?
• Are we sharing about our faith and spirituality with others and inviting them to journey along with us? Do they sense the power and the glory and the joy of God in us such that some deep desire in them wants to have the same experiences we are?
• Are we working for a more just and peaceful world? Not just being charitable, but living transformative lives bringing change to those around us?

It is not enough that we have ourselves had the experience of God. Not enough that we’ve seen the King, the Lord of hosts. That we have had our nets filled with abundance. That we have encountered God in the bread and wine. That we have seen something, experienced something which has transformed us.

We are only faithful to that experience when we become a prophet to the people, become fishers of others. When we do the things that will transform other peoples lives.

We can do all those things, because God commissions and empowers us to do them.

God is calling, let us respond, “Here am I, send me.”