The Invitation

Isaiah 6:1-8    In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

John 3:1-17    Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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There are all sorts of rules related to invitations.  Rules that may seem confusing and mysterious to us, although there are books on etiquette you can read that will tell you all you need to know.  

Recently we received an invitation to a family wedding.  In fact, Kim and I received one invitation and each of our children received a separate invitation, letting them know they were invited and that they were invited to bring a date.  We all appreciated that the invitations made that clear, because it’s a question that feels awkward to ask.

The invitation included several cards in it.  One was a response card with a self-addressed stamped return envelope, so we can rsvp.  Another was an invitation to a pre-wedding dinner and another was an invitation to a post-wedding brunch, each of these including instructions for how to rsvp, by phone or email.  I appreciated all the detail because it was a complicated affair and we surely would have been confused and made mistakes without the clear instructions.

Not every event requires such formal invitations, fortunately.  But one thing is always true – an invitation wants a response.  Or, in the French, repondez – s’il vous plait!

In our scripture readings today we hear invitations.  In the story from Isaiah, the prophet is confronted with a vision of God that is so overpowering all Isaiah can think of is his own unworthiness.  “Woe is me!” is his reply.  But then the invitation is made explicit to him: Whom shall I send?  And the prophet replies, “Here am I; send me.”  He says yes; he accepts the invitation.

It’s a “call story,” of which there are many in the scriptures.  The call stories show us how God now and again reaches down and chooses someone for some work.  Each of the prophets of Israel is called by God, each of the disciples is called by Jesus. 

But it’s not very clear whether Nicodemus is called, is it?

He approaches Jesus in the dark of night, probably wanting to avoid being seen by others.  He was a Pharisee, after all, one of those who stood opposed to Jesus’ teaching.  But the fact that he comes at all is a response – a response to what he has seen and heard and felt.  Something about Jesus has touched him, and he responds to that by coming.

However, the conversation between the two men begins to look like a disaster for Nicodemus.  He is too literal-minded and fails to understand what Jesus is saying to him.  I am not without sympathy for Nicodemus, because it almost seems as if Jesus is being deliberately obtuse.  He might have helped Nicodemus out a little bit more.  But as it worked out, Nicodemus seemed to get more confused each step of the way, and he retreated, back into the dark.

He was not sure what he was being invited to and he didn’t know how to respond.

I wonder how many of us receive a call, an invitation, we don’t understand and don’t know how to respond to.

When I was a young woman I would sometimes be filled with a powerful sense that God was calling me to something.  I had the seraphs and the smoke and the Holy, Holy, Holy part – not literally, of course; I just mean a clear sense of the grandeur and power of God – but I didn’t hear the voice saying, “Whom shall I send?”  I didn’t get the invitation.

Not until some years later, anyway.  One day I did hear the voice, and the invitation clearly had my name on it.  Now it was up to me to respond.  So at last I knew what I was invited to.  At last, I could respond.  That didn’t make it easy, but at least I knew.

We often use the word discernment to describe the process of listening and trying to hear and understand the call, the invitation God sends out.  Our church nominating committee works together to discern who among us God might be calling to serve as elders and deacons.  Then they approach certain individuals and ask them to prayerfully discern whether God is, indeed, calling them, inviting them, to serve. 

It is entirely possible that you didn’t know that’s how the process works.  I think the nominating committee should consider sending out engraved invitations to the men and women they ask to serve – to let them know the distinction of this invitation. 

Those who have served on the committee know it is not easy work.  There is not a simple process to follow, although there is a temptation to simplify it by going through the membership book, alphabetically, and checking off names as you call them.  There is no blueprint for making this work; it requires faith and trust.  It absolutely requires the Holy Spirit; by the power of the Holy Spirit we hear the invitation.

Last Sunday, we heard the story of Pentecost.  On that day the apostles received the Holy Spirit and they were empowered to speak and share the good news. This was their invitation into the life of the Church – a powerful invitation.  And by their response this was the beginning of the church.  The Spirit invited, the Spirit enabled them to respond.  Without the Spirit there would be no church.

I don’t just mean that the Spirit was necessary to launch the church; the Spirit is necessary every day to sustain the life of the church. 

By the power of the Holy Spirit we can hear the invitation and respond to the invitation. 

On Trinity Sunday, we can try to explain the trinity – which I sometimes have tried to do, foolish as I am.  But I believe it might be more fruitful on this day to contemplate the Spirit, and how the Spirit works, inviting us into the fellowship of God.

Once I took a confirmation class on an overnight retreat during which they were supposed to write their joint statement of faith.  All went pretty well; there was one argument about some wording, but by pausing for prayer, and to take some deep breathes, we worked through that.  And then they were pleased to show me what they had accomplished.  They had a beautiful statement with only one problem I could see: there was no Holy Spirit in it.

They simply didn’t know what to say about the Spirit, so they left the Spirit out.  The problem is, though, if we leave the Spirit out we are leaving ourselves out.  We need the Spirit to hear the invitation, and we need the Spirit to respond to the invitation.

Some people say the best explanation of the trinity, if we must explain the trinity, is to say there are a father and a son in a relationship, and the Spirit is the love that flows between them.  And this love that flows between them is so bountiful it overflows and creates, sustains, and enlivens the world and all who are in it.

That gives us a different way of seeing it and thinking about it, doesn’t it?  A helpful way of seeing how the Spirit is important in our faith and our lives.

On that dark night Nicodemus visited Jesus, he was given an invitation into the life of the Spirit, into the fellowship of God.  Perhaps it wasn’t as clear as some invitations are.  When Jesus stopped at the lakeshore and called out to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me,” there was no mistaking it for an invitation.  And so they dropped their nets and followed him.  Others would be invited to follow, some would say yes and some would say no.  Perhaps not give an outright no, but offer several excellent excuses for why they could not come.

In the case of Nicodemus, the invitation was not so clear, nor was the response.  Nicodemus walked away into the darkness saying nothing.  But this is not the last we will see of him. 

Some invitations knock you off your feet with their directness, and their demand for a response.  Other invitations are subtle, taking some time and care to discern.  I think most invitations we receive from God are of the subtle variety.  That is why it takes the communal discernment of the nominating committee to extend the invitation to serve in a leadership capacity.  Then it takes the prayerful consideration of those who have been chosen to discern whether they are also hearing a call.  Finally it takes this whole congregation to affirm the call.  And today we ordain and install into leadership those who have affirmed and been affirmed. 

But let us remember that although there are many particular calls, the call into the fellowship of Christ is universal.  It’s in this conversation with Nicodemus that Jesus utters those famous words: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  And in this we may hear the invitation we have all received.  God sent the Son as an invitation to life, to love, to peace.  Through the Spirit we may say yes.

May you say yes.

The Perfect Space

Acts 2:1-21     When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!”

Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions.  Your elders will dream dreams.  Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.  I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.  The sun will be changed into darkness, and the moon will be changed into blood, before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes.  And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

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When I took the position as Campus Minister at Bloomsburg University, I knew that there was no church.  There was no campus church where I could gather students together for worship and Bible study.  It wasn’t like the campus ministry experience I had when I was a college student, when I walked down to the Lutheran Student Center every Sunday, and sometimes on an evening during the week for a Bible study or a book study.  Nice building with a sign out front, right across the street from the Quad.  We had a real sanctuary, a fellowship hall, a classroom – all of it dedicated to our particular brand of Lutheranism, ELCA.  The Missouri Synod Lutherans had their own building next door, with their own sanctuary, fellowship hall, and classroom. 

I knew that the ministry at Bloomsburg would be different – no building, no church.  We had a small office in the student union, for which we were grateful.  And we had access to meeting rooms we could use for all our activities – worship, study, social.  There was one room, called the Multicultural Center, that was sort of “our room,” and it worked pretty well for our needs.

My first semester I went down to reserve the room for the weekly activities I was looking forward to offering and I discovered I was late – about 8 months late.  The Multicultural Center was already booked up for most of the year.  So we had to make do; move around here, there, and everywhere each week, wherever there was space available.  We were vagabonds.

This wasn’t an ideal situation.  Some weeks we were in a tiny windowless room with a big conference table taking up all the space.  Other weeks we were in a cavernous ballroom with nothing.  Every week we would have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for anyone to find us.  I was discouraged before I even began. 

I began to have a feeling that I would experience many times over the years – I call it building-envy.  I would look at other campus ministries that had their own place and turn green with jealousy, thinking, “I could do so much if I had a building like they have!” 

It has become the equivalent of church in our minds – the building.  When we think of church we think of structures, often with steeples and crosses on top – the cross in particular is how we identify it as church, much as the golden arches say McDonalds.  Big or small, doesn’t matter, but if it’s a church it’s a building.

When I was in seminary, I traveled with my class to Cuba for a three-week cross-cultural experience.  We visited lots of churches.  There were some beautiful and grand old Roman Catholic cathedrals.  They had been there for centuries.  And there were tiny storefronts, with bars over the windows, and a bunch of chairs and a podium crammed in, a cross on the wall and this was church, too.  The cathedrals and the storefronts looked nothing alike but they were both church.

There is a line in the movie, Field of Dreams, “If you build it they will come.”  And this has been the mantra of the church of Jesus Christ for centuries.  If you build it – build a church – the people will come.  It happened right here a little over 50 years ago.  Some people came together and organized and built this church, and then the families came pouring through the door. 

It has happened all over the world.  Churches with resources build big glorious structures and churches with little or nothing borrow old shopping centers or movie theatres, or put up prefab buildings.  They open their doors and wait for the people to come.

Those built with stone or brick have cornerstones, with the dates engraved on them to tell the world how long we have been here. And we remember the people who laid the foundation of the building, the people who bought the chairs we are sitting in.  We remember the people who had a vision of a church and they built it.

But then we come back to 2015 and we remember that it’s been a while since anyone could say with much confidence, “If you build it they will come.” 

The buildings haven’t been filled for a long while.  I know one church with a dwindling, aging congregation that gathers every Sunday in a sanctuary large enough to hold about five times as many as there are.  And they now say to one another, frequently, how sad they feel when they come to church.  How inadequate they are to fill the space they have, and that makes them sad.

We come to our buildings Sunday after Sunday and spread ourselves out, because that’s what we are accustomed to doing over long habit, although anymore it can make us lonely worshipers, isolated from one another.  We sit where our families have sat for years, maybe even generations.  I preached in a church once that was built for four hundred but had fewer than two dozen regular worshipers.  There was a man who sat in the second from the last pew every week because that’s where his family had always sat, even though there were now 20 empty pews in front of him. 

Sundays when we fill the seats with children and adults of all ages are rare.  They are exhilarating but also disorienting because we have almost forgotten how to worship with noisy and boisterous little ones. 

We speak to each other quietly about our insecurities, about not wanting to be the last one left, the one who has to turn out the lights and shut the place down.  We occasionally utter the words, “The church is dying … the church is dying … the church is dying …”

Today we hear the words Peter quoted from the prophet Joel – your young will see visions and your elders will dream dreams.  We wonder: where are the young with their visions?  And our elders have stopped dreaming dreams.

We are at risk.  But it is not because the people have stopped coming to our buildings.  That is not the cause.  We are at risk only because we seem to have forgotten what it is to be church.

On that day of Pentecost the apostles didn’t have a building.  They had a borrowed room; they huddled in this room – their hiding place – waiting for something to happen.  They didn’t know yet what would happen or who they would be or where they would go.  Promises had been made, which they didn’t really understand.  They were waiting for something, but didn’t know what they were waiting for. 

Then the Holy Spirit broke in and changed everything.  They were enlivened and empowered to speak and to hear.  The Spirit gave them ability to communicate with others and make the gospel known far and wide.  Peter opened the window and began to speak to the people of all nations down in the streets of Jerusalem and this was the beginning of the church.

There was no building.  There was no fellowship hall or Sunday school wing.  There were men and women and the Holy Spirit.  Somehow this was enough, and the text tells us 3,000 were added to their numbers that day, and each day thereafter their numbers increased.

They did not have a building, but no one could deny they had church.

Back in those early days of my campus ministry a wise mentor said to me, “I know you feel bad because you don’t have your own space.  But do you have a chalice and a plate?  Do you have the bread and the wine?  If you have the sacrament, wherever you go, this is your space.  This is church.”

We have all we need – we have the word, the sacrament.  We are also fortunate enough to have a really nice building, but in some ways this is the least of what we have.  We have the Holy Spirit and the promise of God and God does not go back on God’s promise. 

It took the power of the Holy Spirit to move those 12 men out of that little room, their comfort zone, and out into the world.  It took those fiery tongues and a powerful wind to open that window and open their mouths to speak the gospel, the good news.  That same Spirit will move us out of our comfort zone to meet the world that is waiting for some good news, a world badly in need of some good news. 

By the power of this Spirit we may be sent out to meet the young where they are and listen to their visions.

And our elders will once again dream dreams.

Playing with Sacred Stories

From the time I learned to read, there was never a time when I was not a reader.  In college “required reading” became the priority while pleasure reading was often sacrificed, but after finishing my PhD I re-learned the joys of fiction and discovered many new favorite authors.  Living in Iowa City, home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, provided me with a rich environment for feeding my love of books.

When I discerned a call to ordained pastoral ministry and began my seminary education, my passion for reading accompanied me.  By this time, I had learned to embrace the supplementary reading along with the required texts. I always knew that literature had something to contribute to my education.  Fiction would have a voice in my education and my ministry.

I learned that, in writing sermons, my inspiration would come from literature as much as from Bible commentaries.   So when preparing a sermon on Isaiah’s suffering servant, I re-read The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.  When writing a sermon for Epiphany, I drew from Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.  A sermon on the second coming of the Son of Man lent itself to being shaped by the story A Single Light by Maia Wojciechowska.

Giving a sermon is telling a story.  The preacher connects the story we find in scripture with the story we find ourselves living, and literature often helps us make the connection.  There are occasions when I draw from nonfiction, such as biography or history, to tell the story.  There are times when books or articles about contemporary culture can help frame a sermon.  However, my first love, and the material I am most likely to go to, is the novel.

Telling our stories is an essential part of our humanity; it is the means by which we teach what we value and share our history.   In the telling, in the sharing, in the reading we find meaning. 

This is why I have come to think that the way to preach the good news is to simply share the stories.  For each text, tell the story, and the stories behind the story.  Weave my story and our story into the telling.  Invite the stories into our lives and have a conversation with it.  Don’t be afraid to add shape and texture to the story, but take care not to do violence to it. 

A story is a living thing if it’s any good at all.  I appreciate the old, old stories, but I don’t want to put them behind glass.  I want to play with them.  As we handle the stories they may give rise to questions and direction that guide us and shape us.  There is power in the story.  Of course. 

How far do you think we can go with this?