March 17, 2019 - Second Sunday in Lent - Gifted and Sharing the Faith

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

― Frederick Buechner

Pastor Ray quoted Buechner in his sermon on how to use the gifts God gives each of us

The sermon, for me, was hard to take in. I was distracted and disappointed throughout the service.

This Friday the New Zealand Christchurch terrorist attacks on worshipers in two mosques joined the list of places where tragedy has struck. The death toll stood at 49 until last night, which was the same count as the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. I played as song about the Orlando shooting yesterday afternoon called  49 Candles in remembrance of the worshiper / victims. It served as a navigational beacon in an ever-moving river of faith for me over the weekend. For me it is hard to heal until getting close and trying to understand the wound.

I still don't know exactly what drove me my spirit this morning, the world's deep hunger or my own. I certainly wasn't feeling Buechner's deep gladness but God was definitely calling me to worship. Since Friday I was filled with a desire to go to church to gather with others as a response to Christchurch. I haven't always felt this way and there were particulars of this tragedy that made it unique in my sense of worship. Since October 5, 2017, when I attended the "Impromptu Service of Prayer and Lament in Times of Violence" for the Las Vegas shooting, I feel the longing to hear and experience the generosity, fidelity and neighborliness which builds an energy that is released in corporate worship. It is a balm that heals the recent attacks against humanity's spirit.

The particulars in Christchurch mosque attacks were that the white supremacist killed his victims while they were worshiping. Also I no longer have expectations that the current President would be a consoler-in-chief. President Trump will never attempt to sing Amazing Grace like President Obama did at the AME Memorial in Charleston. I think Obama's leading that singing was another kind of healing. The song in the link shows I was not alone in that experience. It was also an expression of some emotion within my heart I would not have been able to articulate without the President singing.

A Creator Vigil for Christchurch will happen on Wednesday of this week. Today's service acknowledged the tragedy in the Prayers of the People.  I felt a deeper connection needed to be restored to Sunday worship as a result.

My wife played for me contemporary artists singing Psalm 104 trying to recreate what the melody and accompaniment of the original probably evoked and we both lamented what has been lost over the years. This stirs something deep in the heart which our Psalm readings on Sunday barely echo. Today's words in the Prayers of the People felt like dry bones when it came to Friday's attack and more than one person talked about how the prayer did not connect with them. Perhaps that was a valid feeling but I look forward to Wednesday's Vigil to anchor memories of this both personal and public moment.

Today Pastor Ray reminded us of the Great Commission at a ministry meeting. The instruction of the resurrected Jesus Christ was, to his disciples, to spread his teachings to all the nations of the world. The most famous version of the Great Commission is in Matthew 28:16–20, where on a mountain in Galilee Jesus calls on his followers to make disciples of, and baptize, all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I don't believe that means all followers must convert everyone to our Christian beliefs.

During the service we all affirmed the two Great commandments when Jesus said "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it ' You shall love your neighbor as yourself'.  

I thought about Christchurch and today I pray to God and I pray to Allah in support of all Muslim worshipers

Prayer: Holy God, you have made us members of the faiths that sprung from Abraham, connected like muscle and bone regardless of nationality or particular faith. If one suffers, we all suffer.  We share, in common, grief for the tragedy in New Zealand, and for the seemingly relentless reality of those seeking to divide us through hatred.

That the faithful should die while in worship is heartbreaking. We seek to transform the world by doing what Jesus taught us: treating the stranger as we would treat ourselves, loving our enemy, and working for justice.

At this moment we pause in our confusion and grief.  Through sacrament, song, and friendship, may your Spirit bind our broken hearts, and send us out with renewed dreams of a better day. 

We ask this in your name God and the name our Muslim neighbors give you, Allah.

Amen.