by Walter Brueggemann

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
     halfway back to committees and memos,
     halfway back to calls and appointments,
     halfway on to next Sunday,
     halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
     half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
   but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
     we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
       of failed hope and broken promises,
       of forgotten children and frightened women,
     we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
     we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
   some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
   anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
   you Easter parade of newness.
   Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
     Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
     Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
   Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
     mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

It was wet and snowy this morning as a group of us pulled into the parking lot at The Temple on Brownsboro Road to attend the Interfaith Coffee. Held for its 60th consecutive year, it is a time that our brothers and sisters in the Jewish faith invite the Christian community to a morning of sharing. What I had not expected was that we would be invited to share a moving and powerful time of worship, as the rabbis and musicians led us through the sung prayers that are the heart of their worship.

As we heard the beautiful, lilting and sometimes haunting melodies, we were also hearing prayers that had been sung for over 2500 years. Prayers that declare the holiness of God, the beauty of creation, the gift of life in body and soul, the need for forgiveness and the power of peace. In worship, you need not always understand the words to understand the heart. As a Christian, I was moved by not only the beauty and faithfulness of the ancient words, but also by the sudden image of our Lord singing these same prayers, especially the Schema which is taken from Deut 4.

“Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One”

And so again, I want us to remember that worship has always been the heart of the faith of the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah. Worship called Jesus to synagogue. Worship called Paul to Philippi. Worship calls us to come together as a community that continues to be faithful. Our joy in gathering, even in the cold of February, has been evident these past Sundays as our congregation continues to grow not only in numbers, but most importantly, in our desire to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” It may be gray, wet, cold and dark, but the heart of God is warmed by the hearts lifted in praise as we worship together.

Pastor Susan

It’s not like we don’t know what we want. We want to keep that intimate sense of God’s presence and love that we share each Christmas Eve. We want to see each other in the forgiving light of candles, not the glare of Monday morning. We want to give easily, hold our gifts as treasures and not hostages. Yet again, as we welcome in 2011, we feel that slipping away as decorations are packed, presents returned and families return to their normal routines. And so I was struck by a book I received recently by Phillip Yancy called “What Good is God” in which Yancy visits places around the world where the human condition would appear to be beyond even God. From Mumbai after the slaughter of terrorists to a conference for those who minister to workers in the sex trade, Yancy heard their stories and looked for God. And he found God in these most extreme environments.

I have to say that I am, in some way, less surprised that God can be found in extreme human conditions, than I am when God can be found in our suburban conditions. I am surprised when we get out of the way of our own competence and instead let God lead the way. But that’s so easy to say and so hard to do. The ways of God are not the ways of UPS and email. Burning bushes are few and far between in our front lawns.

Or are they? This month, I’d like us to come together and seriously address the question that hides in all our hearts, even the most faithful. What good is God? Take a few minutes to ask yourself where in your private life or our public life as Americans you have acted as though God just wasn’t real active. It’s not something we say out loud, except when tragedies strike and the world demands of Christians an accounting for our God.

What good is God? In the asking we may be surprised at the ways God is moving around us every day, asking only to let Him move within us as well.

Pastor Susan

It’s been an odd few weeks from the perspective of my window. November was full of activity all the days leading up to some minor surgery (I’m fine, thank you), that has left me recouping indoors while the world apparently roars on. The thing I’ve most noticed is the tug of war between the part of me that cheerfully lolls on the sofa waiting to feel 100% and the part that has to be up and doing, driving, dining…you get the point. It feels like the tug of war between Advent and Christmas I have each year as well. Perhaps you feel that tug of war with waiting too?

There’s the rub of course: wait. We come into the world howling with impatience for food, for warmth, for love. And truth be told, we don’t get all that much better about waiting. We just keep quiet longer. Scriptures use the word ‘wait’ all the time: Noah and his family waited for the waters to recede. The

Israelites waited in Egypt and then they got to wait in the wilderness. The Jews waited for a savior.

Elizabeth waited for John, Mary waited for Jesus. Joseph waited in Egypt to keep his family safe.

Jesus waited 30 years to begin his public ministry. The world waited three days while He lay in a tomb. We wait for the return of Jesus Christ in glory.

What are you waiting for this year? Better times? A thinner waist? A contented family? A world at peace? A church on fire for Jesus? Intimacy with God? Scripture tells us that it is good to wait on the Lord. Scripture promises that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. Each year, the church celebrates Advent, which means ‘waiting’ to remind us that we don’t get to run ahead to the manger and have a party while waiting for the baby to show up. No. We live each day one at a time, waiting for God to move in God’s own season.

Join me and spend some time just sitting on that sofa. Listen for God. Talk. Listen again. Read. Even sing carols. Wait on the Lord. Christmas is coming.

Pastor Susan

Take…bless….break….give. These are the words we hear every time we take communion and the Holy Spirit makes the presence of Jesus Christ visible in a way that is nurturing, convicting, inspiring. Notice they are all verbs? Action words? Communion can be seen as a contemplative time where we are drawn inward and it is that. But as our sermon series explores this month, we are only centered in ourselves by the Spirit to be then sent out. Take what God has given you, bless others with it, break old patterns and give what you could have kept for yourself.

The cartoon in our newsletter this month is a reminder that if we looked at what God puts in God’s offering to us no envelope would be big enough to hold it. We are beloved and blessed with His presence. We have our broken places redeemed in ways we could never imagine. We participate in giving what we think we must have only to find that we have received what we could never have bought. From Blessings in a Backpack to UMCOR support, from keeping the lights on at Shiloh to ministry with Breath of Life we have filled our offering envelopes this year with time, effort, love, sweat, and yes, money. We have been more consistently faithful than in the years immediately before this one, which is a sign of maturing in our spiritual life. We have started new ministries and grown the ones we have especially for youth and in outreach. Our relationship with Liberty Elementary, our neighbor, is moving on to a new level of commitment. There is indeed much already in our offering envelopes this Thanksgiving season. I am excited and eagerly anticipating what we will celebrate next Thanksgiving as we look back on the ministries we fulfilled from our commitments this month. Al’s Office Supply? Send those envelopes over to Shiloh!

Pastor Susan

I know you’ve heard these discussions at church…might have been here at Shiloh…or the church you used to go to. I know I’ve been guilty of leading them. And they go like this: if we only had [insert something we don’t have] then we could do [insert a new ministry/activity] and then we would be [insert growing more/reaching more/raising more]. It’s the way we think as humans about the future: have leads to do leads to be. But a few weeks ago I was at a meeting with a fellow pastor who shared that this mindset actually has the whole process backwards. We need to flip our thinking and instead approach our ministry at Shiloh by realizing that first we become, then we do and finally, we have.

First, we become the church that is always looking to serve those outside our walls—-we acknowledge that we exist not to serve ourselves, but to serve those we don’t see on Sunday. We become the church that stretches to do more out of a sense of abundance knowing that God honors abundant service. We become more and more the followers of the One who never built a building, and then we do what that One did. We look for the hungry, we seek the suffering, we love the children. We find a way to do knowing that resources follow when we are in the midst of God’s desire for our neighborhood. And then, after we become and after we do, we will find that we will have what we wanted in the first place. We will have a vibrant church that matters to more than those who are with us every Sunday. We will have a church that would be missed if it suddenly disappeared by more than those who are with us every Sunday. We will have a church that is fully alive because it is fully connected to the One who is the source of all abundance.

 

Pastor Susan