Gifts of the Spirit

September 25^th, 2016      “Gifts of the Spirit”     Rev. Heather Jepsen

Exodus 18:13-27 and 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, 27-31

          Our worship this morning is all about spiritual gifts.  God has given each one of us something special to use in the community of faith.  Our goal today is to talk about those gifts and encourage everyone here to do something to share their gifts with this particular community of faith.

          Since the earliest days of the church community, power and responsibility have been shared among the people.  Our reading from Exodus is one of the first examples of the work of elders in the church community.  The Israelites have just come out of the land of Egypt.  Even before they receive the 10 commandments and the plans for the tabernacle, they begin to organize their leadership.  Moses has been working overtime trying to be the leader of the people and his father in law, Jethro, knows that is not a sustainable plan.  He encourages Moses to set up a system of elders to help him lead the people.  Moses can’t run the church alone, he needs a Session!

          Why would we imagine things to be any different today?  We might not be as numerous as the nation of Israel but we certainly have our share of issues to address in the life of the church.  From taking care of the building, to managing staff, to engaging in mission at home and abroad, to running a Christian Education program, and providing quality worship and pastoral care, the work of the church is way too much for one person to handle.  Just like Moses, I need a Session of elders to help me lead this church into the future.  Lucky for me, God has placed the gifts needed for leadership into the hearts of you, the congregation.  

          Our reading from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth is one of the most famous writings on spiritual gifts.  The church in Corinth was a wonderfully diverse community and in that community, Paul saw a metaphor for God.  Just as a body is made up of many and diverse parts, so too is the body of Christ at its best when it embraces diversity.  Paul encourages everyone in the community to embrace their spiritual gifts and to use them for the building up of the community of faith.

          In our modern individualistic culture, talk of gifts given for the use of all can be counter cultural.  We often feel that what we have been given is for our use alone.  Paul would totally disagree.  According to him, each of us has been given a gift from the Holy Spirit.  These gifts are not for our use as individuals, and they are not individual blessings.  Rather, these gifts are given for the mutual benefit and blessing of the church.  God knows the needs of this particular church community, and God has given us what we need through the spiritual gifts of those present here today.  We have what we need to be a successful church right now; we just need to use it!

          So, what are your spiritual gifts?  Nominating committee has been encouraging folks to take a spiritual gifts inventory.  From leadership and discernment, to shepherding and faith, to mercy and hospitality, this spiritual gifts survey gives each of us a chance to examine and think about what areas we are skilled or gifted in.  I found that I am good at teaching and exhortation (or preaching) which really isn’t a surprise.  But I am not good at everything.  Evangelism and apostleship are some of the areas where I am weak.

          If you haven’t had a chance to take the survey, make sure you grab one on the way out today.  The nominating committee has also included a list of church committees and how they connect with the listed spiritual gifts as part of the survey.  Not surprisingly, each of the committees from deacons to elders, Christian Ed to Mission, connects with a certain group of spiritual gifts.  I want to encourage you to take the survey, discover what your spiritual gifts are, and consider how you might best use them in the life of the church.

          The future of this church depends on the members of this church.  It is up to us to invest in our future, not only financially but also with gifts of our time and energy.  The ministry of this church is the work of each member of this church community.  God has already given us the gifts that we need to grow our church; it is up to us to share those gifts with each other, with the church, and with the world.

          In the spirit of sharing leadership today, I am going to turn over the second half of this sermon to you.  Now is a time for you to share your thoughts about sharing your spiritual gifts within the church community.  We are going to stretch ourselves a bit today and engage in some testimony. . .

Finding Fools

September 11^th. 2016     “Finding Fools”       Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 15:1-10 with Psalm 14

          This morning’s gospel reading is one of the most familiar narratives in our Biblical texts.  It can be a challenge to find something new to say about such an old story.  But as your pastor I found this narrative, combined with today’s Psalm about the fool, to be a rich ground for theological thinking.

          Jesus has been traveling with large crowds throughout the countryside.  He has been preaching, teaching, and healing and he seems to have no regard for the type of people who are drawn to his presence.  It appears that both the Pharisees and the scribes, as well as the tax collectors and sinners are all a part of the group that is keeping tabs on him, albeit for different reasons.  The tax collectors and sinners see something they need, instruction and welcome into the religious circle.  The Pharisees and scribes see something that threatens them, a religious teacher who refuses to follow the rules.

          As the religious authorities grumble about the company Jesus keeps, he sees an opportunity to teach the whole group and so he offers these parables.  When I saw Tom Long preach this past summer, he talked about a parable being a story with a trap door and these two are no exception.  Parables seek to orient by dis-orienting and these two stories certainly throw first time listeners off base.

          We start with the lost sheep.  “Which of you having a hundred sheep and losing one, doesn’t go leave the 99 to search for the one, and when he finds the one, celebrates?”  Listeners are disoriented, asking themselves what is going on.  What happens with the 99?  Who is watching them?  It makes no sense to leave the others to search for one sheep.  We miss the part about the celebration because we are stuck wondering why a shepherd would abandon 99% of their flock.

          Then Jesus asks, “What woman having 10 coins and losing one, wouldn’t sweep the house, find the coin, and then throw a giant party?”  Again listeners are disoriented.  Why is Jesus using a woman as an example?  That is completely unheard of.  More than that, is the woman supposed to represent God?  That is offensive and strange.  On top of it, why would she spend the coin throwing a party after she went to all the trouble to find it?  Listeners again are shocked and miss the point of the story.

          On the surface, both of these parables seem to be about repentance.  God is looking for those who have become lost, and heaven rejoices over the repentant sinner who returns home.  Ah, but here is the trap door!  A lamb can’t repent, a coin can’t repent.  These stories can’t be about repentance so they must be about something else. 

          On closer examination we realize that these stories are directed not to the tax collectors and sinners who have gathered to listen.  No, these stories are directed at the Pharisees and scribes who stand on the side lines grumbling.  These stories aren’t about repentance at all.  These stories are about joining the celebration.  Both the shepherd and the widow throw parties to celebrate the return of their lost items.  These stories are about who is coming to the party, who we are willing to party with.

          Psalm 14 is an interesting partner in this conversation as it seeks to address who is lost in our world today.  Although attributed to David, scholars believe that this Psalm was probably written during the Babylonian exile.  The people are captives in a foreign land and all appears to be lost.  Everyone has gone astray and evil doers are the ones who prosper.  It seems that even God cannot find a wise man upon the earth.

          This is why “fools say in their hearts, there is no God.”  This is a Psalm about practical atheism.  Not to be confused with philosophical atheism, which is the belief system that says God does not exist.  Practical atheism is the outright dismissal of the relevance of God.  The practical atheist claims that God is nowhere to be found in the world, therefore God does not matter.  Rather than being a simpleton, the fool in this Psalm is someone whose mind is hardened, someone who is not open to instruction or change.  This is the person who claims God doesn’t matter and religion has no relevance.  This is the fool who says there is no God.

          In our modern day and age we see these people everywhere.  I am sure we all have plenty of friends and neighbors who don’t necessarily claim that God doesn’t exist, but who simply claim that God and church don’t matter.  They are too busy for church, they don’t think the stories of Jesus have any relevance, and on the whole they don’t think any of it is worth much anyway. 

          It is no wonder that so many people feel this way.  On this anniversary of September 11^th, I am sure that many of us are thinking of the ways our country has changed in the past 15 years.  Some stories are not new, like unrest and violence in the Middle East.  But some things are very different, like a blanket distrust of Muslims, our experience of air travel, and our general narrative of terrorism.  Many folks could easily look around at the world, and like the Israelites in Babylon, claim that the world is full of injustice.  Evildoers seem to prosper, they all are corrupt, and there is no one who does good.  When we look at the world today it is easy to see how one could come to the point of claiming that God is irrelevant.  We can see how someone could be so lost as to claim that “there is no God.”

          When I read Psalm 14 next to the parables of lost things that Luke offers, I began to find an interesting connection.  Perhaps these fools, these folks who have hardened their hearts and minds against God, are the lost things God is seeking in our world today.  Jesus is telling us stories of a loving God who is searching in compassionate concern for what is lost.  And to lose faith, to be the fool, is to wander into a place where one can be found again.

          Those of us who come to church regularly, and work for social justice causes in our world, can find it hard to have patience with those who have written God off entirely.  Believe me, I know.  I often find myself in situations where folks roll their eyes at my chosen profession, or assume that I’m the fool for believing what I believe.  Yet, today’s readings lead me to wonder if these aren’t the very folks that God is seeking.  Those who have hardened their minds and hearts and the very ones the shepherd is leaving the 99 behind to chase after.

          These parables challenge us to ask not how we will convince these people to repent, but rather how we will welcome them into the community that is the church.  If God is throwing a great big party, inviting friends and neighbors in celebrating the finding of what has been lost, are we willing to participate?

          Today we are celebrating communion.  When we gather at the table we look forward to a place where people from all times and places gather together as one family to celebrate with our risen Lord.  Presbyterians have an open table, and everyone who is here today is welcome to share in the sacrament.  But of course it wasn’t always that way, and it is not that way in many other churches today.  In Penny Nixon’s article in Feasting on the Word she tells the story of a church where “people wearing rainbow sashes, indicating their solidarity with LGBT people, were refused communion.  A person who was offered communion took his wafer and began to break it into pieces to share it with those who had been denied and deemed unworthy.  The church officials, the religious insiders, called the police.”  Penny asks, how do we respond when our place as religious insiders is threatened?  If just anyone can come to the party, then where is our special place as the faithful?

          In our topsy turvy post 9/11 world, it is easy to come across people who have no hope, those who say in their hearts that there is no God.  How do we as religious insiders recognize these beloved ones who have gotten lost?  How do we welcome them back into the shepherd’s flock, celebrating with them and God at our reunion as a united people?  We have to ask ourselves if our relationships are based on merit or mercy, for if we find the mercy of God offensive then we end up excusing ourselves from the party of God’s grace.

          As we leave the table of grace this morning, nourished for the journey ahead, may we partner with the God who seeks after all that is lost, and look forward to the day when all the fools are found and everyone gathers together in the kingdom.  Amen.

The Value of Every Life

September 4^th, 2016  “The Value of Every Life”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 and Philemon

          We have a wonderful pairing of lectionary texts this morning.  One, the Psalm for the day, is familiar for many of us and a theme that we often return to.  The other, our letter from Paul, is definitely a minor text in the scriptures and this may be the first time some of you have ever read or studied it.  Both of these texts speak to the value of all life.  The Psalm speaks of our value in God’s eyes, and the letter tells us how that knowledge must inform our behavior with each other.

          We begin in familiar territory with the Psalm.  Many of us know and love this Psalm.  It is a beautifully poetic rendition of God’s love for God’s people.  Rather than focusing on God’s relationship with the nation of Israel, like our Psalm from last week, this is a discussion of God’s relationship with one person, an individual. 

          God is described as ever present in the Psalmist’s life.  God is behind every corner and around every turn.  There is nowhere the Psalmist can go to escape the gaze of the divine.  God is also present internally, in every thought and emotion.  God searches me, God knows me, from my words and actions to the very thoughts in my head and the feelings in my heart.  God is ever present in my world.

          In wonderful language the Psalmist describes their loving creation at the hands of the divine.  “It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  God made us, God knows us, and God values us as a unique and intricate part of creation.  We matter, because God made us and knows us and loves us.

          Of course, we as individuals are not the only people that matter.  That is where our letter from Paul to Philemon comes in.  Modern scholars have come to determine that not every Pauline letter was actually written by Paul.  But this letter to Philemon is a Paul original.  What makes this letter so unique is that it is a personal letter.  As you know, the majority of letters from Paul that are in our Bible were written to groups of people, like the church in Rome or the church in Corinth.  But this letter was written to an individual, Philemon, and it deals with a personal situation, his relationship with his slave Onesimus.

          As with many of Paul’s letters, we get only one side of the conversation and so we are a little sketchy on the details.  Philemon appears to be a leader in his Christian community.  In the letter we get a sense that he may have been converted by Paul at one point in the past, as Paul mentions that Philemon “owes him even his own self.”  Philemon appears to be a man of wealth as he is clearly the head of a household.  He owns slaves, he seems to be a financial benefactor of Paul’s, and a church meets in his home. 

          In the letter, Paul is writing to make an appeal to Philemon.  While he has been in prison, Paul has been served by Onesimus, an old slave of Philemon’s that ran away.  We need a little historical background at this point.  First, about being in prison; in the ancient Roman culture, prison was not a punishment itself but was where you would wait for a trial.  If you were convicted of a crime, your punishment would be physical, like a beating or death.  While in prison, the prisoner needs to rely on friends or family to take care of them.  Apparently, Onesimus had been fulfilling this role for Paul.

          And, we a need a little background on slavery.  In our modern imaginations, when we hear the world slavery we think of the slavery of African Americans in the history of our own country.  But in the ancient Roman culture, slavery was not based on race; instead it was all about economics.  People from poor families were born into slavery, or people who were captured in other countries were made to be slaves.  Although the background was different, the basics are the same as they once were in America, a slave is a human who is treated like property.

          It seems that at some point, the slave Onesimus ran away from his master Philemon.  We don’t know why he ran away; perhaps Philemon was a cruel master, perhaps Onesimus had gotten into trouble, or perhaps he simply didn’t want to be a slave anymore.  Regardless of why he left, Onesimus ended up in Rome helping out Paul who was in prison. 

          In the letter, Paul seems quite fond of Onesimus.  Onesimus has been converted by Paul and is now a fellow Christian.  Onesimus has been useful to Paul and as Paul says, he has become “my own heart.”  Paul makes clear his desire to keep Onesimus by his side, and yet, Onesimus is a runaway slave so Paul knows that the right thing to do is to send him back to his master.

          So, this is the appeal that Paul makes.  Paul is asking Philemon to accept Onesimus back into his household.  It’s not clear to us whether or not Paul is asking Philemon to release Onesimus from slavery, (which is what I would hope) or if he is simply asking him to take Onesimus back without punishment.  In the letter, Paul says that he would like Philemon to take Onesimus back “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother.”  This sentence continues to be open to interpretation regarding what exactly Paul meant.

          This week I found this letter from Paul to Philemon to be a wonderful connection to the idea of the value of the individual we find in the Psalm.  The Psalmist claims I was created with love by God, I am valued and known.  Logically it follows that other people were created by God, that they too are valued and known.  Paul is asking Philemon to treat Onesimus recognizing that value.  No longer as a slave or as property to be owned, Paul is encouraging Philemon to welcome Onesimus as a brother in Christ.

          If we imagine the situation we realize that this is a lot to ask.  Technically and culturally, Onesimus is the property of Philemon.  Philemon has a right to punish Onesimus, even to the point of killing him.  That would be expected behavior for the time.  But Paul is asking Philemon to resist the trend of society.  Paul is asking Philemon to give up his rights, and that is asking a lot of the leader in a community.  At the heart of the letter is Paul’s appeal to Philemon to accept back one who has wronged him, not as one who has wronged him, but as a brother in Christ.  Paul is writing about the transforming power of the gospel, and the gospel’s power to bring reconciliation to the Christian community.

          I believe we have two issues in play here; the value of other people as beloved children of God, and the requirement that places on us when we are in conflict.  These things are as relevant today as they were in Paul’s time.  How do we respond to those who have wronged us in some form or another?  It is my experience that when people have treated us unjustly, we are eager to get on our high horse and give them what they deserve.  There is nothing like righteous anger and self-justification to really make us feel alive.  I know I am tempted to fall into that trap.  In this letter, Paul is asking Philemon to do something different.  Philemon had a right to do whatever he wanted to Onesimus; but Paul is asking him to recognize the value in another Christian and in their relationship in the faith.  Paul is asking him to welcome him back without punishment, as a brother in Christ.  

          Paul frequently writes about being lifted up or being brought low by the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Paul speaks of himself as being brought low.  Once a Pharisee of high standing, Paul is now a prisoner for Jesus Christ and he rejoices at his loss of stature.  At the same time, Paul writes about others being lifted up in Christ.  In Christ there is new freedom and previously marginalized groups like foreigners, slaves, and women are lifted up by the gospel.  In this letter to Philemon, Paul is asking Philemon to willingly give up his rights as a slave owner and to be brought down by the gospel.  And Paul is asking that Onesimus would be given freedom in Christ and lifted up.  It’s a great image and it plays right into that idea of the value of all people.  If every life is of value then all should be treated equally.  Naturally that will lead to some being brought low and some being lifted up.  That is the transformative power of the gospel.

          As we look around our world today it is interesting to consider who might be lifted up by the gospel of Christ and who might be made low.  In any given situation we may find ourselves moving in either direction.  Regardless of our social standing though, all of us are lifted up by the love of God.  Our texts this morning remind us that God made us, God loves us, God knows us, and God values us.  Just so, God made our neighbor, God loves our neighbor, God knows our neighbor, and God values our neighbor.  Let us work toward reconciliation in our world, celebrating all people and all lives as being of value.  Amen.