Way. Truth. Life.

Notes:

I wanted to try more to talk about process.  I don't know how many of you might be preachers, but it always seems worth it to share some details of the process.

• This was an exhausting sermon for me this time.  I was well worn out.  This was largely because this was a sermon built out of my own wrestling. I've been starting some summer study, and have been reading Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard. The concept of the eternal love that must be central was heavy on my mind.  And so to have to try to expound upon it took a bit more work.  However, it was very germane to the moment.  It shouldn't surprise us that the things the Spirit brings to us will be the things we must preach on.
• There may have been risk talking about another church, but I try to be delicate when I do that.  The UMC's current trials mirror what the PCUSA dealt with years ago, so I felt like we had some particular insight.
• This is not a typical format for me.  I like David Buttrick's "moves," and so usually it isn't such a synthesis of passages put together.  But here, a thesis could be drawn from each passage that could build upon each other.

• Today marks a midpoint between two significant events in the area that leave a lot for us to think about and discuss over the coming weeks and months.
  • Last Wednesday, our closest ecclesial neighbor to the south, Southside Methodist, made a decision to disaffiliate from the UMC by a vote of over 70%.
    • For those who aren't keeping up with this news, it had meant that the church chose to leave the denomination over some of its decisions to decide who is welcome in full membership of the church.
    • I've had opportunity to talk with some of the members involved with the decision, and in particular some of those who would have preferred to stay within the UMC.
      • I met with some of them at a prayer meeting last week.
      • What I found as we prayed together for an hour perhaps more than any other emotion was sadness, woven in with hope. When we meet people carrying those two emotions in their heart, it's always striking.
      • It wasn't always anger at the situation, nor a headstrong fury over their neighbors in the church, but instead it was a prayer that God would redeem the moment - they loved their church, their home. They wanted to feel like their table could include everyone together.
      • They explained more than anything, they didn't want fear of an unknown to upend something that they truly loved.
      • But even with the risk of them losing something that they loved, they persevered in what they saw ultimately as an act of love, of faith, and of community.
      • Now, with the vote a few days past, I imagine many of them are trying to come to grasp with what to do next. What do you do after a community you love finds they make a decision that go against what are deeply held beliefs of the way to care for others?
      • Lest we believe this does affect all of us, I was reminded that we too as a church have had on multiple occasions had to make similar decisions - we've made difficult decisions as a community over similar issues, as well as others that have caused many of us to have to question what matters at the hearts of our faith. Even decisions about buildings, about vision, about the future, lodge themselves in the core of how we understand our faith journeys, and how we go along together. More than most, I believe our community is acutely aware of what our siblings down the street may be feeling and contending with over the next weeks and months ahead.
  • This Wednesday, we will host a viewing of the documentary "At The River"
    • There, we'll witness the stories of presbyterian pastors in the south who believed deeply in the civil rights movement, even when it wasn't safe for them, and placed them against the majority of their own congregations.
    • Even in the preview that we'll watch today, you'll hear them speak on the concerns they had on their own safety and community. They too, had the potential to lose something great. But they persisted.
  • At the temporal fulcrum of these two events, we find ourselves engaged with these texts, including the stoning of Stephen.
    • These texts - especially when we don't ignore Stephen's inclusion into the lectionary - leave us with a discomforting thought - that there will be a cost to our faith.
    • And should we choose to take this journey of faith seriously, it should not surprise us that there will be moments that would might lead to difficulty and danger. Try as we might to engineer otherwise, the path is narrow and winding, entering wilderness that encloses the path itself. Should we all be prepared to take the journey, how do we have the courage and endurance to enter the dark places - where danger finds itself? These three passages give us some helpful clues.
• Gaze
  • Given the circumstances surrounding Stephen, we could imagine that his mind would be fixed upon those who were leading him to his death. That he'd find himself full of any varying emotions towards them - fear, fury, hatred. Certainly, most times when any of us are faced with opposition towards our deepest held beliefs, we are far more apt to direct our energies against the opposition.
  • But this isn't what Stephen does. Instead, we witness that his gaze goes heavenwards.
    • This word gaze is more than a lofty stare, or a comforting haze, but instead about deeper connection - a connection to God.
    • As Amy Oden puts it, "Stephen’s gaze is a prophetic and defiant act. This kind of gaze refuses to hand over one’s consciousness to the loudest voice or the most frightening bully. His gaze is a prophetic stance that proclaims the reign of God... [is] right here and right now... Eyes fixed on Jesus liberate our attention from those who wish to dominate it."
    • And this gaze changes the dynamics of the narrative. Even with the opposition seemingly victorious, it is a pyrrhic one at best - fundamentally, it is a victory over violence, over silencing the very one who calls out through the wilderness proclaiming life itself.
    • Here, then, is our way to set our compasses through the wilderness - we fix our eyes to where God is - the in-breaking reign of God in this world. Holy events illumine our steps, overtake the shadows of fear and doubt. This gaze towards what is in-breaking helps us to witness that the present still has its value, its truth, its shalom.
• To the preparing Christ
  • There is also an illumined end where we fix our gazes towards - a Christ preparing for us.
  • Here, Jesus reminds the disciples that while there will be difficult times ahead, there is a rest ahead. One abundant, rich, and complete.
  • And should we be unaware of where to go or how to go again, Jesus reminds us that he himself, in his actions, is the embodiment of the way, the truth, and the life. It is indeed his action, his life, that demonstrates a map.
  • Should we believe that Jesus would not do the same as Stephen? Would Jesus have stayed quiet in the midst of humanity calling out for a sense of dignity, of the widest table for all to gather?
  • Moreover, is the way only relegated to human theology, or is it a prophetic reminder of the actions that lead to abundance? Certainly not! Instead, it is a reminder of the bright lights that guide us onwards. That when the path seems deem, our collective hearts downtrodden, we must ask "where is the way of Christ showing itself brightest? Where is the truth of God's in-breaking most apparent? Where is the life of spiritual abundance coming forth like the deepest spring creating lush oases in the desert?" There is where the path takes us next.
• Fueled by sustaining basics
  • Yet, of course, we remember we are finite. We are imperfect. And moreover, we cannot fuel ourselves.
  • So must seek sustenance. A type of sustenance that strengthens, stabilizes us.
  • What beautiful imagery Peter then provides for us! What sustains us, what strengthens us, is as simple as spiritual milk, the same that sustained us from birth.
  • I've wondered what could be so simple, so plentiful, and so rich that it moves us forward?
  • What sustains our friends to the south, our colleagues in ministry from the path before? What sustained Stephen in his final moments? What can sustain us today?
  • I'm convinced that it cannot be anything else but the eternal love of God - Father, Son, Spirit. A love that causes people to stumble in its openness to neighbor, that fixes it gaze to the brightness of the path. A fearless love, for it has its core not in the temporal - the events and causes that consume us in time - but instead to the eternal.
  • Thanks be to God, that love is everything that the Trinity is, all that it does, all that it offers, and all it contains. It is the tenderness of the nursing child, and the stabilizing mortar of stones in which a foundation can be built to persevere even the most trying of moments along the journey.