Sometimes it feels like life is out of control and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.  Things move at a whirlwind pace, commitments never let up, someone always wants us to do something.  It’s like being on an amusement park ride that spins and spins and spins, and we want to get off but can’t seem to stop it.  Beginning on January 15 and continuing for five weeks in worship, we’ll explore strategies to help stop our lives from spinning out of control.

January 15: Setting Boundaries—What’s Lawful and What’s Beneficial

January 22: Figure Out Who You’re Going to Obey

January 29: Sometimes We All Need A Time Out

February 5: When Even Superglue Doesn’t Work

February 12: You’ve Got to Give It Away

Advent is like that–it is a time of light becoming brighter, the light of the Christ Child.  When we begin the month, we are searching and anticipating.  It is too early to sing carols, and the abundance of Christmas in the shopping malls seems harsh.  But as the month draws on and the story unfolds, the path becomes brighter, until at last we arrive at Christmas Eve.

First Sunday of Advent:  November 27

It Begins with Longing – Isaiah 64: 1-9

Second Sunday of Advent:  December 4

Comforted Along the Journey – Isaiah 40:1-11

 Third Sunday of Advent:  December 11

Children’s Christmas Pageant

Fourth Sunday of Advent:  December 18

Surprises Along the Path – Luke 1:26-38

Christmas Eve:  December 24, 7:00 pm

The Path Becomes Clear

Christmas Day:  December 25, 10:00 am

Blessing of the Toys and Hymn Sing 

Week 1:  (Don’t) Gimme That Old-Time Religion
Week 2:  Jesus’ Priority: What Matters Most?
Week 3:  Jesus’ Grace: Am I Accepted?
Week 4:  Jesus’ Work: Where Is God?
Week 5:  Jesus’ Example: What Brings Fulfillment?
Week 6:  Jesus’ Death: What about Suffering?
Week 7:  Jesus Resurrection: Is There Hope?

Copies of the book are available for purchase in the church office for $10.  Invite your family and friends to join us!  For more information, please contact the church office.

July 3         Heaven—Then or Now?

July 10       Hell—Or, What Happens to Bad People

July 17       The Enormous Expanse of Grace

From where does temptation come?

How can I lean on God to avoid temptation?

Lent 4, Year B ~ Numbers 21:4-9

Kenwood UMC ~ March 22, 2009

This morning our scripture from the Old Testament book of Numbers is one that can be difficult for us to make sense of. Some of the pieces of this text trouble us, and I wanted to begin today by setting some of those before us—and then explaining why we’re not going to tackle all the questions today!

In this text, we meet the Israelites during their wandering in the wilderness. This event takes place after they have been rescued from Egypt and delivered by God. And it takes place during the 40 years before they get to the promised land. But on this journey God has given them food to eat, water to drink and direction.

Nevertheless, the people get impatient, just like we would in that circumstance, and they grumble against God and against Moses. Now, here’s the part we struggle with—God sends poisonous serpents which bite the people so that many Israelites die.

What do we make of this God who sends serpents—how can we understand this kind of punishment? I don’t want to spend a lot of time unpacking this, except to say that clearly, the God of Jesus is not a punishing God. We don’t know why the Israelites perceived that God had sent these snakes—perhaps they stumbled into a den of poisonous snakes, and it was easier to blame God for sending them than to admit the hadn’t been watching where they were going.

But what’s really interesting for us today is what happens next. The Israelites come to Moses and confess their sin. And as a result, Moses makes a serpent of bronze which becomes a symbol of forgiveness and new life.

It is that act of confession that I would like to spend some time with today. Because the ability to confess is one of those practices that can draw us closer to God on our journey towards transformed living. Each week during Lent we’ve been focusing on one practice, and this week our practice is confession.

I am grateful to President Obama for knowing our practice for the week and giving us a great illustration on The Tonight Show this week. I don’t know how many of you caught this, but he was chatting informally with Jay Leno about his bowling skills—or lack thereof. He scored a 37 in a game he played on the campaign trail. For those of you who don’t know bowling, that’s bad. Really bad. And he told Jay that he’s been practicing on the White House bowling alley and he’s up to “Special Olympic” level now.

Ouch. You know what happens next. The Special Olympians get up in arms, the White House issues an apology, and Obama himself calls the head of Special Olympics. He says that he was wrong, asks for pardon, and invites Special Olympians to the White House.

That was confession. And make no mistake, it is hard to do. When we’ve done something wrong, it’s easy to want to brush over it, or forget about it, or hide it. You know, the special piece of china you broke when your spouse wasn’t home that has just kind of disappeared. Or the words you said in anger under your breath—only someone heard them.

When we confess, we let God know that we know that we’ve done wrong. And to do that we have to somehow state our confession. Now, if we were Catholic, and I know many of you grew up Catholic, that would mean that you confess to your religious leader. You will be relieved to know that Protestants are OK with going straight to God.

But I will say that an act of confession can be helpful. Having an intentional time or practice of confessing our sins makes a difference. Whether we mentally go over our day every night and talk to God in our heads, or whether we record our confessions in a journal, doing so regularly makes a difference. I have an accountability partner who is another clergyperson, and when we get together a couple of times a month, one of the things we do is try to confess our failings to one another. It’s important for confession to be personal and relational—between you and God or you and someone else. Because confession is about healing relationships—relationships with God and relationships with others.

God values confession. It is important to God that when we have not behaved as we ought to, we confess our sin—we acknowledge it. Why is that so important for God? Because when we fail to confess, when we just cover over the shortcomings, they grow and fester inside of us. And they become bigger than they are, more powerful than they should be. But when we admit them, when we come to terms with them, we are more able to feel God’s forgiveness and grace wash over us.

Earlier in the service, I broke some twigs during our corporate prayer of confession—corporate means we all do it together. You each have a twig for you to use now, as we enter a time of personal confession. I want to invite you to confess your sins to God silently, and to break your twig as a symbol that you are broken, that you are still on this journey of discipleship and still learning how to be faithful. I also want to invite you to take your broken twig with you when you leave worship today, as a reminder of the importance of the practice of confession.

Let us silently confess our sins before God.

Third Sunday of Lent, Year B ~ Exodus 20:1-17

Kenwood UMC ~ March 15, 2009

Allie Finkle loves rules. She says that the “reason why is, rules help make our lives easier. For instance, the rule about not killing people. Obviously, this is a good rule.”[1] Allie is nine, and she is the main character in a series by Meg Cabot called Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls that my daughter Kate has just started reading.

Allie’s not so different from all of us. While we may not LOVE rules, most of us would acknowledge that they do help make our lives easier. Allie says she especially likes science and math because they have a lot of rules—“like the one about gravity….[and] like that five minus three will always be two.”[2] But she isn’t so crazy about the things there are not rules for—like friendship, for instance.

Allie kind of hits it on the head. Rules make us feel secure. They make choices easier, they make traffic flow, they make ordering in restaurants smooth. But, wow is it difficult when we get into those situations where there aren’t any rules. Like friendship. Or dating. Or marriage. Or faith.

Wait, there are rules for faith! We just read them a few moments ago. The ten commandments. Those are our rules. Follow those, and we’ve got it made, right? No more questions.

If only it were that easy. First of all, some of those commandments are harder than they look. Honor your mother and father—what if I’m an orphan. Or if my mom or dad aren’t really deserving of honor? And, you shall not murder—does that apply to the spider I squashed with my shoe this morning?

Sometimes faith involves a little more than rule following. But I would also argue that the ten commandments are not just rules for us to follow. That would be far to simple for this God we worship. The ten commandments do more than just tell us how to behave. They remind us that we are in a relationship, a relationship with a God who loves us and can show us how to find a life of righteousness. You sang about that this morning, right kids?

And that brings us to our practice for this week. Here at Kenwood this Lent, we are examining a different practice each week, a practice which can help us draw closer to God on our journey of transformation. And this week our practice is to obey—to obey God’s life-giving Word.

Now, there are a couple of assumptions in that practice—the first is that we know how to obey and the second is that we find God’s Word life-giving. Let me touch on each of those for a moment.

For those of you who have trouble with obedience—I’m right there with you. I’m glad it was taken out of the wedding vows before I had to do that myself. But as I have gotten older and hopefully wiser, I have come to understand that obeying a loving God is very different from obeying rigid rules, or obeying an authority you don’t entirely trust.

God is completely trustworthy. And God’s rules are full of love and mercy. Obeying them does not have to be a burden, but something that gives us life. That’s one of the reasons we chose to include a bit of a different reading of the commandments this morning alongside the more traditional reading. And that reading was focused not on shall nots, but on celebrates. Celebrate love, celebrate images of God, celebrate God’s name, celebrate the wonders of God, celebrate those who love you, celebrate by seeking life in each person—celebrate. I can obey rules that invite me to celebrate. Those rules can truly become a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

And when I celebrate, I discover that’s God’s rules, God’s Word, is life-giving. Now, I specifically used the term God’s Word because I want to push us this morning beyond the Ten Commandments. It is way too easy to follow the Ten Commandments and say, OK, I’m done. God’s Word, as it is found in the Bible, is far more rich and complex. And following God’s word requires time and study. But when you devote time and study to God’s word, you begin to discover that it is a source of life.

If you do not currently have a practice of following God’s word through regular study and formation, I want to invite you to discover one. I’ve placed a few resources on this table up here for you to take a look at—I will be glad to help you order one if you are interested. I would also encourage you to think about a long term study of scripture, through Disciple Bible Study, Companions in Christ or other classes which begin here at Kenwood each fall.

The closer we draw to God’s Word, the more we learn about it, the more it illuminates our path. And the more it lights up our path the more it becomes a source of transformation in our faith journey—and the easier it becomes to obey. I invite you to pursue the practice of discovering a relationship of obedience with God’s word as part of your Lenten journey.

Our hymn of response affirms our belief that God’s word is a light on our journeys of faith. It is number 601 in your red hymnals, “Thy Word.”

[2] Ibid, p. 2.

Lent 2, Year B ~ Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Kenwood UMC ~ March 8, 2009

PRAY!

I have not had a good week with contracts. Those folks who are in Disciple Bible Study with me on Thursday nights know this, because I had encountered the last straw just before I arrived to facilitate Bible study. It had started last weekend with a bad customer service experience with a damaged product which needed to be returned to the store. We had entered into a contract—we paid money, the product should work. We had made a deal, and the provider wasn’t holding up their end of it. My experience with broken deals and contracts continued throughout the week with the cable television provider, the cell phone provider, and the company from which we lease the copier here at Kenwood. At every turn, I found myself thinking, wait a minute, we had an agreement here, and you are not living up to your end of it.

We have a lot of contracts in life. Each week one of my kids has a spelling contract. We enter into a contract when we purchase or rent a home, or buy or lease a car. We enter into a contract when we get married. We understand contracts.

But did you know we have a contract with God? Yes, that’s right a contract with God. Actually, the Biblical word is not contract, but covenant. A covenant is similar to a contract—an agreement between two parties to each perform certain duties. But a covenant—at least a covenant with God–is also a little different.

The difference with a covenant with God is that God, thankfully, has a better customer service record than Comcast or AT&T or even Ukrops. God always keeps God’s end of the bargain—and that is to love us unconditionally and fully. For Abraham and Sarah, that live took the form of promising them a great family—a seemingly impossible promise to fulfill. So impossible that it makes Abraham and Sarah laugh.

Can you identify with them? Can you think of a time when you have behaved in such a way that it was laughable to you that God might still love you? I think we can all identify with that. We’ve all had times when we’ve acted in ways that are so out of step with God’s desires for us that we think, “whoa, I’ve really messed up. No way God can love me now.” I have to be honest and say that I had a couple of conversations this week with customer service departments when I was not exactly nice and pleasant and, well, “Christian” in how I was speaking to people. I was angry.

But does that mean God breaks God’s end of the bargain? When we get angry, when we stop coming to worship, when we pull away from God, when we do things we KNOW are not in keeping with a Christian lifestyle, does that mean God forsakes us, or stops loving us? No. That’s what’s so amazing about this covenant God makes—he keeps it no matter what.

And even though God never breaks his end of the deal, we certainly do. And the sad thing is, when we break our end of the deal, the only people we are hurting is ourselves. We are driving ourselves farther and farther away from the One who loves us with an everlasting love. His love doesn’t stop—we just stop being able to feel it. And that, my friends, is why the practice of keeping our end of the covenant is one of the ways we can draw closer to God this Lenten season.

And that leads us to the inevitable question—what is our end of the covenant? Well in our scripture today, God lets Abraham know what his end of the covenant is. When Abraham is ninety-nine years old, God appears before him and says this, according to Eugene Peterson’s translation of the Bible called The Message: “I am The Strong God, live entirely before me, live to the hilt! I’ll make a covenant between us and I’ll give you a huge family (Genesis 17:1-2).”

There it is, our end of the covenant. Life entirely before me. Live to the hilt.

OK, that’s a contract a lot heftier than agreeing to two years of a particular cell phone service, or even heavier than agreeing to a 30 year mortgage. Live entirely before me. Live to the hilt.

Matthew Henry, an English clergyman living in the late 16 and early 1700’s, comments on this scripture and invites us to observe that “to be religious is to walk before God in our integrity; it is to set God always before us, and to think, and speak, and act, in every thing, as those that are always under his eye…. If we neglect him, or dissemble with him, we forfeit the benefit and comfort of our relation to him.”[1]

What exactly does that mean? When we live entirely before God, we give ourselves wholly to God. We understand that our lives are lived not out of what we desire or want, but what God lovingly desires for us. And we try to live our lives listening to God’s deepest desires for us. When we do not listen—well, we find ourselves distant and absent from God. And that distance and absence is usually painful.

Now, friends, this living entirely before God is not something that happens overnight. It is a process, a process lived out over our entire lives. There will be seasons when we feel very good about our life before God. And seasons when we feel not very good at all. But God always invites us back into the process, back into the relationship, back into the covenant. God never closes the door on God’s love for us.

And so this second week of Lent, I want to invite you to participate in the practice of covenant, of living your life more wholly and completely before God. And to begin, I want to invite you to turn with me to page 607 in your hymnals, where you will find a covenant prayer modeled after the one which John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, used in his life. I want to invite us into a time of silent centering, and then to all say the prayer together.

[1] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Volume 1, Genesis to Deuteronomy. Genesis XVII. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc1.Gen.xviii.html

Lent 1, Year B ~ Genesis 9:8-17

Kenwood UMC ~ March 1, 2009

Each summer our family vacations at the same beach. We’ve gone there since 2003, and so it is a place our kids, who are 8 and 5, have grown up with. The journey there is always very exciting, but also very tedious, as journeys can sometimes be. And as we get near the end the anticipation is building. We have learned that it is helpful to have a sign, some sort of a marker so that everyone ones we are about to embark on the vacation journey, we are about to reach the beach. For us, that sign has become the bridge going over to the island. It’s a lot like the bridge going over to Nags Head which many of you may be familiar with. And when we reach that bridge, we put down whatever book we are reading, or whatever movie is on the DVD player, we turn down the radio, we open the windows and smell the beach air, and together as a family we experience that sign that tells us our vacation journey is about to begin.

Friends, our journey of Lent is about to begin—in fact, it has already begun. It started on Ash Wednesday, last Wednesday night, when we gathered here in the sanctuary to begin to come to terms with how we are separated from God. And this journey that we will share together, over the next 6 weeks, will be an experience of moving—sometimes forward, sometimes, backward, sometimes round in circles. But as we learn about ourselves and our relationship right now with God, we will not stay the same. And it is our hope that by the time Easter rolls around, we will be transformed.

But in order to be transformed, we are going to have to allow ourselves to change—to be different. So to accomplish that we are going to be looking at practices each week which can shape or transform us as disciples of Jesus. We don’t assume that transformation happens—that you just say, OK, God, transform me, and there you are. We assume that we have to do some things—change some behaviors—in order to open ourselves to transformation.

Now, I want to be clear that no one is going to force you into these practices. This journey is something you have to want to embark on. You have to feel the tug of God on your heart, inviting you to go closer. But I hope you will take the risk, I hope you’ll take the first step because I believe that the invitation is coming from God to all of us.

So, today, we begin by looking at the practice of gathering. Gathering, you say? The scripture was about the aftermath of the flood. There was no one left to gather with. Yes, there were. There were those on the boat. Noah and his family. The animals, two of every kind God had created. There was, in fact, quite a group to gather together—quite a noisy, smelly, raucous group.

But I think it is significant that they gathered before God before they went running willy-nilly off the boat. You know they had to have been excited. Dry land. Finally. After 40 days and 40 nights. The possibility was ahead of them that they might get more than 3 feet of distance between themselves and another creature. But before they begin to spread out, they get off the boat and build an altar, in Genesis chapter 8. And here in chapter 9 we see that God has been pleased by this, and that God makes a promise to them never again to destroy the earth. And God gives them a sign—not only for their hope, but for God to remember. It is the sign of the rainbow.

It was really important that they all received that sign together. It wasn’t one person telling the others about it, or the giraffes filling the elephants in on the news. They all saw it—they heard God say: this is the sign of the covenant—this rainbow is a sign of my promise. There was not going to be a mix up, because they had heard it together.

There is something about gathering, gathering with our community of believers, that strengthens our discipleship. We are not created to relate to God all by ourselves, but to relate to God within the context of a community of believers. And as we gather, as we worship, as we seek God together, we find strengthen in our relationships. And we are able to affirm for each other when and how we see God working in our community and in the world.

We gather at this table for another sign, not a rainbow, but a meal. And once again, something ordinary, something God has already created, takes on new meaning when we gather to receive it. In our gathering we invite God to be present, we invite God’s grace to be known to each of us and to the community.

As we begin this season of Lent, let us gather together. Let us be with one another as companions on the journey. Let us hold one another accountable, confess to one another, move forward with one another in faith. May God’s mercy and grace wash over us, and may we draw closer to God through the power of drawing closer to one another. Amen.