Monday, July 21, 2014

A Witness to New Life

Yesterday, during worship at Newtown United Methodist Church, I assisted Dorry while she served communion to the congregation. As each worshiper came forward, Dorry tore a piece of bread from the communion loaf and gently placed it in the worshiper's outstretched hands, saying, "This is Jesus Christ, the Bread of Heaven." Then, I offered the communion chalice to the worshiper, saying, "This is Jesus Christ, the Cup of Salvation." The worshiper dipped the bread into the cup and ate. Again and again, we did this until everyone who came forward was served. But no matter how many times we repeated this ritual, it felt no less personal and powerful. Dorry and I were privileged witnesses to each worshiper's intimate encounter with the Risen Savior. There's a warmth, a radiance, a hum in serving communion that is difficult to describe.
I don't know how many times my father served communion over more than twenty years of ministry, but early in that ministry, at the first church he served after being ordained, he hit upon the power of communion in the life of the Christian. On one communion Sunday, his sermon began with a pair of parables told by Jesus:  “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
-Mark 2:21-22 (NIV).

Dad then asked this question: "Is there any way in which you are guilty of trying to fit Christ into an old life that was not designed and arranged for him in the first place? In regard to your personal relationship with Christ, are you trying to put a new patch on an old garment or pouring new wine into old wineskins?"

He explained, "Jesus Christ is not someone who can be placed on one of the few empty shelves in your life to be taken down and dusted off for special occasions. He refuses to become a mere appendage or surface decoration. ... As we approach this [communion] table, we must confess how our Christianity (or, more accurately, our 'Church-ianity') often forms a thin veneer over our fundamentally unchristian attitudes and practices and aims."

"There is a radical dimension to Christianity that requires a man to make a radical departure from his past if he wants to be a Christian. You must free yourself from the score of things which consume your time and energy and and money and which serve selfish purposes in order to make room for Christ to operate freely. There must be that conscious decision to put the new wine into a new wineskin."

"This, my friends. is the beginning of conversion -- the change from old to new that you must experience if you are to name Christ as your Savior in any meaningful way. God is constantly reaching out to you, touching your heart in a hundred ways, calling you through people, through events, through the Church, and most importantly, through his Son, asking you to make that surrender that signals the end of the old and the start of the new. ..."

"Jesus Christ invites you to join him at this [communion] table. As you bow you are bade to remember that this sacrament is not a religious ornament to decorate your old, shabby life. Rather, if it is taken seriously, it signals a deep change in you, a re-opening of your life to a complete takeover by your Lord. No man or woman or young person should rise after receiving these elements [of bread and wine] and go away the same person. Miracles can happen here. It is really an exciting adventure. Come, and maybe for the very first time, or maybe as a wonderful recurrence, Christ will enter and give you new life."

Yesterday, as I helped to serve communion, I didn't witness a mere ritual. I witnessed new life in the making. No wonder it was such a compelling experience.

From "New Wine in Old Wineskins"
Mark 2:21-22
Preached at Adams Shore Community Church (EUB)
Quincy, Mass.        
   

Sunday, July 13, 2014

An Afternoon With The Beautiful People

Yesterday, Dorry and I hosted more than 40 people in our new home; it was a graduation party for our daughter, Adrienne, who earned her high school diploma a little over three weeks ago from North Penn High School. It was heart-warming to see so many friends and family members celebrating Adrienne's success and wishing her well with a future that's looking bright. What took me by surprise, though, was the many guests who congratulated Dorry and me for guiding and supporting Adrienne to this momentous point. It was truly affirming to be in the company of so many people who were "in our corner," so to speak -- and to know that there were even more folks like them who were not there with us yesterday afternoon.

Our Grad With Her Brother
Today, as I flipped through a few of my dad's sermons, I found one that captured the spirit of yesterday's get-together. He preached that sermon -- entitled "Beautiful People" -- on July 14, 1987. Dad began by making clear that he was not referring, as we often do, "to those who are slim and handsome and trendy and rich and found doing all the right things in the right places." Instead, "the real 'beautiful people' [are those] who know the grace of God in their own lives and reflect that grace to others as they give of themselves[.]" 

"When you are with such people, Jesus Christ is not just an abstract concept or a murky figure from the pages of the Bible, but he is incarnated right there before your very eyes. When you know the basically selfish bent of humanity and you are associated with those who give of themselves and do so graciously, then you know that Paul was right when he said, 'it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.' The beautiful people are the best proof, the only proof of the validity of the Gospel."

Dad said that the Christian has a great resource in developing the kind of gratitude that makes beautiful people: "As receivers of the Gospel, the Good News, we know that God loves us just as we are; [God] made each of us unique and though stained by sin, we are precious in [God's] sight. Jesus Christ believed you and I were worth dying for. If that isn't affirmation, I don't know what is! Ultimately, it is this affirmation from God that breaks through our hard exterior and frees us to show love and appreciation to others, frees us to be beautiful and to call others beautiful. ... A Christian is one who can love and affirm and encourage others because every day he feels the Spirit of God loving and affirming and encouraging him."

Dad closed with this prayer for his congregation: "May all who enter this house of God be made to feel important and appreciated."

With so many guests in our house yesterday, it was a difficult to talk at length with everyone; to make sure that they all knew, in a personal way, how much we valued their traveling to Newtown to celebrate with us. So to all our friends and family, those who were with us and those who were not, please know that you are important to us and are greatly appreciated. You are truly Beautiful People! 

"Beautiful People"
Philippians 1:1-11
Preached 7/14/1987 @ Paoli United Methodist Church

Friday, July 4, 2014

From Independence To Interdependence

I hope you are enjoying this 4th of July holiday weekend. I had a great time at a backyard barbecue hosted by some of our new neighbors, and I'm looking forward to Newtown's fireworks tomorrow evening.


Independence Day was my dad's birthday. He would have been 72 this year. Amazingly, his brother, my Uncle Bob, was born on Flag Day. Now that's a patriotic family.

I dug through the barrel today to see if Dad ever preached about Independence Day. He did ... in 1976 during a service at Grace United Methodist Church  celebrating our nation's bicentennial. He talked about his admiration for our founders because they saw "the need to rise up and face the demands of the hour, the need to sacrifice oneself for an idea whose time has come." As Dad put it, "our forefathers felt impelled by Divine Providence to see to it that an idea whose time had come in America -- independence -- was made a reality on these shores. And for this they risked their lives, and many died. They realized, as the line of the old hymn puts it, that 'new occasions teach new duties.'" My father believed that "the supreme value for these great leaders of the past" was to "secure full life for persons" ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as Jefferson put it), and, in 1776, independence "was the means to a full life for persons."

So, two hundred years later, in 1976, what new idea did my dad believe to be necessary to secure a full life for persons living in a new time? "If the cry of 1776 was for independence, the cry of 1976 must be for interdependence." With words that have only grown more appropriate now in 2014, Dad described why interdependence was an idea whose time had come in 1976: 

"Times are different.  We can no longer just stay at our own level in splendid isolation from the other people on the earth. Rising [nations], dwindling resources, the availability of transportation and communication, technology, nuclear weapons -- all of these things make us realize how closely intertwined our lives are today. The material standard of living I adopt affects someone living in India. Race relations in Rhodesia affect me in Millersville. This is truly a 'global village' we're living in today. We can no longer be concerned about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness just for ourselves alone. Given the 'global village,' if everyone doesn't have life, liberty, and the opportunity for happiness, no one has it. That's how closely our lives mesh today."  

Dad called on American Christians to be "wise and alert." Echoing John Wesley's famous declaration that "the world is my parish," Dad urged his parishioners to "become citizens of the world. ... Our witness is to counter prejudice, to advocate the simple life, to show absolute respect for every person, to help others face this new day of interdependence." As Dad saw it, "[t]he day has come to declare -- and more than declare -- to live our interdependence."

I thank God for our independence, and I pray that I will be more mindful now of our interdependence.  Happy 4th of July, everyone!

From "A Declaration of Interdependence"
July, 1976 - Grace UMC, Millersville, PA

Postscript: A few days after writing this post, I came across a copy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In it, Dr. King made this observation about our interdependence: "I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."