Give to Idlewild Through United Way/CFC
August 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Many of us are STRONGLY urged by our employers to participate in United Way and Combined Federal Campaigns. The time of year when those requests are made is fast approaching. As you may know, you have the power to designate a particular charity to receive the contribution you make through United Way or the CFC if that charity has properly demonstrated its qualifications (tax-exempt status and proximity to the area). Idlewild Christian Endeavors, Inc. (the non-profit corporation that owns the camp) meets those requirements and has registered so that it can receive contributions earmarked by those participating in the United Way of South Hampton Roads and in the South Hampton Roads CFC.
If you give through the United Way, just write in the name “Idlewild Christian Endeavors, Inc.” on your pledge card.
If you give through the CFC, there is a number you should write in, which is “33487“.
Of course you may make contributions directly to Idlewild at any time, but some of you may want to kill two birds with one stone by helping Idlewild when you comply with requests from your employers to participate in United Way/CFC.
Everything We Need
August 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A few years ago, when I had my appendix removed, it was nice to receive such wonderful treatment from all of the healthcare providers. I think they would have been wonderful anyway, but it didn’t hurt that it was the hospital where Rachel was doing her residency.
After all the tests came back and it was determined that I would, in fact, need an appendectomy, one of the nurses warned me about the surgeon who would be operating on me. She cautioned that he wasn’t the friendliest of people. To which I said, “That’s okay. I’m not looking for a buddy, I’m looking for a surgeon.”
I was reminded of that when I ran across Pastor Bruce McIver’s account of undergoing open heart surgery. He talks about his interaction with the surgeon before and after the operation. He got one word out of him in pre-operative consultation. McIver anxiously asked if the Dr. would be able to fix his heart. His surgeon said, “Sure,” and walked away.
After the 12-hour procedure, McIver was concerned that his clogged arteries had effected his blood supply, so he asked his surgeon, “How much blood supply do I have now?” The doctor simply replied before leaving, “All you’ll ever need.”
Finally, before he was discharged, McIver’s wife asked him, “What about my husband’s future quality of life?” At that, the surgeon paused and said, “I fixed his heart; the quality of his life is up to him.” What he was saying is, I’ve given him everything he needs to continue having a life, now he must decide whether he wants to have one.
This morning we’re going to hearing a story where Jesus provides his followers with everything they need, and then some. He gives it to his followers and, in turn, expects them to give to others. Lots of others. He keeps giving, and his disciples keep giving, and in the end there is more than anyone could possibly hope for.
What Jesus is giving is food. But I think the food in the story represents all the good things that come from God—all the blessings that he pours out on us his children. But just like the surgeon did for McIver. And just Jesus does for his disciples. God gives us a lot. What we decide to do with it is up to us.
I hope that you’re ready for a reminder of how much God has blessed us this morning. I hope you’ll see it, rejoice, and then leave ready to spread the wealth.
A Survey and a Warning
August 28, 2009 | 2 Comments
Informal Survey: I grew up hearing the aphorism, “You can’t get blood from a turnip.” Anyone else familiar with this? I did a Google search on it and was reminded that it can also be said, “You can’t get blood from a stone.” I couldn’t find much on the origins of this strange (and somewhat morbid) turn of phrase. I mean, I should certainly hope you can’t get blood from a turnip. Though it would make for an adventurous salad.
Anyhow, sometimes the act of writing a sermon is like trying to get blood from a turnip. It’s arduous and anxiety inducing. These are the times where the words of scripture just lie there, comatose—times when, even if I have some idea of what I want to say, I have no earthly idea how I’m going to get there. These are the times when Sunday morning looms menacingly on the horizon, like a tidal wave.
Then there are the weeks where the turnip does bleed. The weeks where I’m the George Peppard of preaching. I sit back and think to myself, “I love it when a sermon comes together.” On those weeks the sermons just write themselves.
For the record, the vast majority are somewhere in the middle—equal parts grace and exertion. Also for the record, I’m learning not to get too excited either way. The euphoria and the despair are both pretty good indicators that my ego is behind the wheel again.
All this to say that this Sunday’s sermon on Mark 6:30-44 has been coming along pretty effortlessly, and I’m looking forward to sharing what I’m learning with you. I hope you’ll take a moment and dwell on the passage on your own between now and then.
Also, I wanted to give a warning. I’m always getting in trouble with certain people in our church (who shall go unnamed) for showing tear-jerker videos without any advanced notice. Consider yourself warned. Actually, the one I’ve got for Sunday isn’t the worst I’ve shown. It’s probably a 6 or 7 on the “Steel Magnolias” scale. But it might have some of you reaching for the tissues.
So now you know. But if I find out that any of you are ducking my sermons for this reason, I’ll go back to ambushing you all ninja style with the weepy videos.
Welcoming Committee
August 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment
For today’s message I was searching for stories of hospitality that people have experienced. I ran across a number of stories from Christians who had to travel for one reason or another.
I read one man’s account of travel to another church as a guest preacher. A potluck dinner was held following church and a ten year old boy was designated to be his host for the day. The man goes on to tell how the youngster took his task seriously and how he dutifully introduced him to everyone. After that, he took him to the dinner table. There the boy commented on each casserole. “You’ll want some of that and that,” he said, pointing. Then looking at another dish, he warned, “Trust me. Skip that one.” We got near the end of the table when he said, “My mom brought that.” When the guest asked him if it was good, he said, “The recipe has been in the family for years. Passed down from one bad cook to another.”
Another woman recalled how she and her husband travelled as guest speakers to another church and were the guests of a single woman who lived in a mobile home. Before retiring for the evening, her husband asked their host if there would be enough hot water for all three of them in the morning. The woman replied, “I really don’t know. I’ve never taken two in a row!”
Not every story I read reflected well on church folk. I found the story of a man who, some time ago, traveled to a number of churches. He then wrote this about his experience: “I am presently completing the second year of a three-year survey on the hospitality or lack of it in churches. To date, of the 195 churches I have visited, I was spoken to in only one by someone other than an official greeter and that was to ask me to move my feet.”
This morning, as we continue in the book of Mark, you’ll see that when Jesus travels, he is given a similarly inhospitable reception. In fact, he’s asked to leave the country. The locals don’t take too kindly to Jesus, because he disrupts their income in the name of helping a man in need.
I hope that you’ll receive a kind welcome at this church. I think that, while we can always do better and we occasionally fail to live up to our high expectations, this church does a good job of welcoming the guests among us. It helps to be reminded that Jesus believed in showing hospitality, even if it comes at a cost. You’ll hear about that this morning.
Welcome to our worship service.
Storytime
August 18, 2009 | 1 Comment
[Ed. note] Someone suggested that I put the narrative part of Sunday’s message on the blog, so here it is. Most of you know that I occasionally like to take a story from scripture and fill in the gaps. It helps me slow down and pay attention. It forces me to be aware of what’s happening. Plus it allows me to see it from the point of view of one of the people within the story.
Whenever I read these on Sunday mornings, I give a disclaimer: I am aware that this is not the Gospel Truth. If there’s something about the story that rings false, it may very well be false. The only parts I know to be true are the quotes from scripture themselves. All the rest is fair game.
If you want to read the biblical account of this story, it’s in Mark 4:35-41. Here’s my version. I’d love some feedback on it…
Questions
I’ve been told that you people go to the sea for your own pleasure. That you take your leisure at the water’s edge. That you peel the clothes off your children and coat them in oil and send them running into the waves. I hear that you purchase boats for no other reason than to ride to and fro on the water. You do not fish with them. (And if you do, you throw the fish back?!) You do not carry goods to foreign lands. You simply spend a day riding about on the waves. And I hear that you sometimes tether people to your boats using a long rope and drag them along behind you on smaller boats?
My friends and I did not see it this way. The Sea of Galilee was our livelihood. It literally put food on our table, it was the life we lived before we met Jesus. It was the life we left in order to follow him. It was the life to which we returned when we thought that we had lost him. But the only pleasure we ever received from the waters was a full net. And we were just as likely to receive something else altogether for our troubles. If a day of hard labor pulling in fish was our reward, there were days when the sea gave us nothing but the sun. Sun that punished us from above and glared at us from below as it reflected back from the glassy water. But everyone knew that this was not the worst that the sea could give.
As children we were taught that the sea opposed the Lord. We were taught that, at the creation of the world, he had to beat it back in order to give his children a firm place to stand. We were menacingly reminded that in Noah’s day, he used the sea to punish our wickedness. And every time we heard the story of our escape from Egypt we experienced the terrifying prospect of being caught between the sea and the armies of Pharaoh. Both opposed us. We escaped them both only with God’s help.
We were taught that the sea is the home of the monster that swallowed Jonah. It is a place of death and of evil. Demons reside there, too. A man is pulled down into the depths never to return. Only the Almighty has power over the sea. The rest of us are at its mercy, able only to take whatever it gives whether good or evil.
So at the end of that long day, when Jesus announced that we were to make for the other side of the Sea of Galilee, I couldn’t help but exchange nervous glances with James and John. We had thought that the boat was merely a device to keep the crowds at bay so Jesus could teach. We had no idea that travel was on his mind. And travel to Gentile lands at that. Lands on the “other side” of the lake, full of unclean people and unclean animals. I had noticed how, at different times during the day, the sons of Zebedee had pulled their attention away from the work in order to scan the horizon. I know they saw the line of clouds in the distance. I know they heard thunder on the other side of the mountains that overlooked the Galilee.
But our impromptu trip was clearly not up for debate, because, as soon as Jesus announced our destination he grabbed a cushion from the nearest rower’s seat, stumbled to the rear of the boat, and collapsed in an exhausted heap. He would not stir until hours later when Peter finally decided to take matters into his own hands.
Our progress at first was so good that we began to think we might have been unduly alarmed. Even James and John began to relax as we rowed our way through the warm, still night. But even people like us, who have spent their lives on the sea, can forget how quickly the storms come rolling over the mountains. And in moments the reflection of the stars disappeared from the water, chopped to bits by the waves and obscured by the sudden arrival of the storm clouds. The rain did not present itself with care. It rushed upon us suddenly. Our only warning was a wave that sent the boat listing dangerously to one side, and then the downpour was upon us.
We pulled in the sail to keep it from being shredded and to keep the mast from being splintered and, taking to the oars, we began to fight against the water. I was at the stern of the boat, just in front of Jesus, an unmoving, soaked pile of clothes and skin and bones. We turned her around to face into the oncoming waves, but that gave little comfort. Between the wind and the rain I could only see the front of the boat when lightning struck. The men at the bow would rise precipitously until they were directly above me, and then they would come crashing down below as the boat crested each wave. Every time the front of the boat was catapulted upwards I thought to myself, this will be the time that it doesn’t stop. It will continue to go up and up pass the point of no return and we will be tossed into the sea. I wondered if Jesus would wake up even then, or would the last sight I ever saw be of him, curled into a ball and sinking into the blackness.
I’ve noticed that, in everyone’s stories about Jesus and us, his disciples, Peter doesn’t always come out looking so good. It’s not his fault really. He’s usually just the one who says what we’re all thinking. The decisiveness that will someday make him a leader also makes him look occasionally foolish. But in this case, when he finally got up and lurched his way past me and stood over Jesus, he was only doing what we all lacked the courage to do.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that Matthew and Luke try to clean it up a little bit when they tell this story. The way they tell it, you would think that Peter knelt piously before Jesus with his head down and his hands in the air and said, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” But Mark is closer to the truth when he tells the story. Peter didn’t kneel submissively. He began to shake Jesus, as violently as he could. And I could hear him roaring above the sound of the waves, “Teacher, what is wrong with you! Don’t you care if we drown?”
Even in this dire situation, Peter realized he had gone too far. He pulled his hands off of Jesus and dropped onto the seat beside me. Nobody was rowing anymore. Every eye was on Jesus. We waited to see what he would do. I don’t know what anybody expected him to do about it, but I can say that no one ever dreamed that he would do what he did. He swung his legs down, rubbed his eyes, stood up and yelled above the tumult, “Quiet! Be still!” Jesus rebuked the wind like he rebuked a demon. He issued orders to the sea. “Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.”
As quickly as it had come, the storm disappeared. In the moonlight reflected off of the smooth surface of the water, I could see my utter amazement staring back at me on the faces of the others. And then we were aware of Jesus’ eyes on us. No one knew what he would do now, but everyone waited. I will never forget it. After a long silence, Jesus shook his head, smiled a weary smile, and said “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” And with that, he reached down for his lost cushion, stepped back to the stern of the boat, where he collapsed. Pulling his cloak over his shoulder, he turned away from us and fell asleep in seconds, leaving us there gazing on in amazement.
For a while no one spoke. There was only the sound of our ragged breathing, the dripping of our clothes and the gentle creak of the boat as it lilted about on the sea. And once again, we were all afraid. Not because of the waves, but because of what we had just seen. And suddenly, I was a boy again sitting in the synagogue, watching one of the elders rise from his seat and pull the scroll from its place. Watching him stand before the congregation, watching him unroll it and begin to read:
1 Praise the LORD, O my soul.
O LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
4 He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants.
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight…
Once again it was Peter who broke the silence. Once again, it was Peter who said what we were all thinking. Nudging past me and walking back to his place on the boat he sat down, looked at us all and said, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” And with that, he set about rowing us to the other side, just like Jesus had said.
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