A Prayer for the Big Picture

I was looking for the word to describe why I’m going to do what I’m going to do this weekend. I discovered it:  multivocal.  (It’s actually pronounced mul-TIV-o-kul.)   From the basic interpretation of “many voices,” it denotes something having different meanings of relatively equal validity. 

Scripture is multivocal. Rarely does a Bible passage have a point. Rarely can we determine the meaning of a word or sentence. The richness of God’s word to us is that it can say different things to us at different times.

This weekend I plan to preach on the same passage that Morgan preached on last week:  Ephesians 3:14-21. I have no quibble with his excellent sermon and no reason to correct what he said. Rather, as our Monday evening RE-Focus group pondered this passage and Morgan’s sermon, we found ourselves going down a different path – one that I hadn’t yet taken from this passage before.   

Paul offers here what I call “A Prayer for the Big Picture.”  He prays these things for his hearers:

·        That they may be strengthened inwardly                               (v. 16)
·        That the love of Jesus Christ will dwell in their hearts          (vs. 17, 19a)
·        That they will grasp the immensity of God                             (v. 18)
·        That they will be filled with God’s fullness.                            (v. 19b)

This can be another way of grasping the Big Picture called Why Am I Here?  When life is fragile and short, what marks time on earth well-spent?  When life is long, what matters most?  When we dwell in the valley of the shadow of death, what do we focus on? 

Paul points us in this prayer to the Big Picture. We’re not here to figure life out – to answer some cosmic question – or just to “do the best we can.” The quality of human life is measured by our capacity to open our hearts to God and experience love.

This is Paul’s prayer for Ephesian people and for you.  How well is your life responding to this prayer?  Do you know the inner strength of God that enables you to be patient – forgiving – thoughtful – and kind?  Do you know you are loved with a love that surpasses all human understanding?  Are you ever bowled-over and awed by the hand of God in the world?  And are you growing in love?  Is your heart becoming fuller as you age, or emptier, or more apathetic and cynical?

Scripture is multivocal.  Familiar passages, read again, will yield new meanings.  I’ll invite you this weekend – at Saturday LifeSign and at Sunday services – to listen again to this familiar prayer.  See if it helps you see God’s “BIG Picture” for your life in a new light.

Pastor Larry

Bishop Young Jin Cho

I understand that for many of us, the identity of the Bishop of United Methodists in Virginia is too far removed from us to make much of a difference. The head of your particular division or company may be more important to you than to your neighbors.

But since we have chosen to affiliate with Burke United Methodist Church, since we are all members of this Body of Christ, and since the nature of the person “at the top” influences the culture and direction of the body as a whole – I want to say a word about our new Bishop.

Young Jin Cho reminds us of the power of the worldwide church – and the global character of United Methodism. He is the first Asian Bishop in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of United Methodist churches and the first non-Anglo / person of color ever to serve as Bishop of Virginia. If we ever despair of the world not changing much, here is proof that that’s not true.

Young Jin served for 22 years as the pastor of the Korean United Methodist Church of Greater Washington in McLean.  Under his leadership the church bought a smaller United Methodist church with cash, successfully completed three building projects, and guided it to become the largest worshiping congregation in our Conference (over 1000 people in worship each week). I would venture to say that more people have been sent into ordained ministry in the last 20 years from KUMC than from any other church in the Conference.

Young Jin became the Superintendent of the Arlington District in 2006.  This means he has offered spiritual and institutional guidance to roughly half of all UM churches in Northern Virginia, and his influence has been widely felt as well.  I had the privilege of working with him for several years prior to my arrival here at Burke.  Young Jin believes that in every aspect, the church’s vitality depends on its strong prayerful connection with God through Jesus Christ.  When we attend to our spiritual identity, then other measures of growth and fruitfulness will appear.  When we ignore the disciplined spiritual life, everything else is hollow.

Young Jin begins his duties on September 1. Because of our mandatory retirement age, he will only be able to serve as Bishop for one four-year period.  Since it takes any new Bishop (or pastor) about two years to get to know a new community, Young Jin’s assignment anywhere else would have severely limited his ability to make a difference for Jesus Christ.  Since he knows Virginia and vice-versa, his assignment here offers a unique opportunity for both continuity and re-focus.

I hope to welcome Young Jin here at Burke UMC in the near future, as his schedule permits. In the meantime, I invite your prayers that his leadership will indeed deepen our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our ministries in His name.

Grace and peace, 

Pastor Larry

Little Demons

I’m nerdy enough to be excited by the almost-certain discovery of the Higgs boson this week.  You may have read about this.  Particle physicists believe they’ve found the “missing piece” that explains what’s called the Standard Model of physical reality.  It’s a particle without mass that seems to attract and interact with other mass-less particles, and together they create mass.  It’s a transformational particle.  The Higgs boson is why, in short, there’s something instead of nothing. So it’s sometimes called the “God Particle.” 

That’s also part of The BIG  Picture, what we’re exploring in sermons this summer.  When “Christ fills all in all,” at some level we’re talking physics and cosmology.

The Bible passage coming up this Sunday is a look at cosmology, but from a very un-scientific viewpoint.

In Ephesians 2:1-10, Paul mentions “the ruler of the powers of the air, the spirit now at work among those who are disobedient.” Paul is referencing the ancient belief that the universe is as alive as the earth.  His contemporaries considered the skies to be as teeming with life as is planet.  Heavenly beings were both angels and their opposites – unholy beings which are called “powers” or “principalities” or “rulers of the air,” all dwelling miles over our heads.

Very few of us could believe that to be literally true.  But we so often find ourselves being ruled by powers that seem to be “in the air we breathe.”  There’s something about the Washington area, for example, that forces us to serve the gods of Work and Efficiency more here than most other places.  Why is that?  Just seems to be part of the atmosphere.

Another unholy ruler of the air might be Speed.  Our guiding verse is often The Faster the Better. The computer industry has done a wonderful job in convincing us that increasing our processor’s speed by milli-seconds is worth replacing a fairly new, fully operable device – and at some expense  Cell telephone companies compare their service with racing motorcycles. When our mission teams arrive in another country, our first drive is to get the project completed quickly.  We serve this invisible authority called Speed, which is (by the way) never – never – named as a holy value.

We can name others: 
·         Choice (fewer options is always bad);
·         Position (we’re either #1 or failures)
·         Newness (new is always better).

The gospel sets us free from the tyranny of these principalities and powers. We are freed by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  He alone has cut the bonds that bind us to these false gods, gods such as Work and Speed and Newness, little pretend-gods which exhaust us and demean us.  You are healed and held together by the love of God in Jesus Christ, never by trying to satisfy one of these little demanding rulers.

Knowing that cosmologists and particle physicists have debunked that old worldview doesn’t in itself set us free.  Only Jesus Christ does that.  Only in Him are we a freed and forgiven people.

Remember The BIG Picture. 

Pastor Larry

Living Large

Ever since we started planning for our summer sermon series, The BIG  Picture, I’ve been thinkingabout living large.  (No, please do not insert weight joke here.) Am I “living large” with the life I’ve been given? Are you?

Marti Ringenbach’s sermon last weekend got me to pondering one verse in particular of the passage she read.  The apostle Paul is writing to the Ephesians (Ephesus is in modern-day Turkey) about the immensity of what God is doing for us in Jesus Christ.  He says that God is setting forth in Christ a plan for the fullness of time – to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (Eph. 1:10)

There’s enormity in those words!  God’s plan is to gather up – that is, to bring together, to reconcile, to heal – everything!   Everything that in our lives is broken, alienated, hostile or divided – God will re-unite.  Our planet. Our nations. Our families. Our souls and spirits. Our hearts and minds. Everything that exists will be healed.

Once we even glimpse this astounding promise, we can understand more deeply the work that God wants us to do.  It’s the same work – healing, making peace, reconciling, forgiving.  Making one where there now is two.  Repairing the breech. Binding the wounds. Fostering agreements. Ending hostilities.

Yet we often settle for just “straightening our desks.” Rather than leave a messy top and get outside to do the big things, we stay around tidying up the small details. I need to confess this small thing; I need to examine myself; I need to explain myself; I need to forget it; and so on. 

Yes, I still believe that the small things, like mustard-seed faith, are important. But sometimes we act small out of fear, not love.  Someone wise said, “Your playing small does not serve the world.”

Here’s that Marianne Williamson quote in its fuller context: 

            “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

I resonate with those words.  I’ve just begun a new decade – well, at least the first number is new – and that sort of thing does tend to re-focus our view of life. We ponder, “What am I called to do?  Why am I here?  What are my gifts?  What is God planning and wanting from me?”

And God reminds us that his plan includes healing and reconciling, forgiving and uniting. We have the capacity to do so much more of this than we usually settle for.  It takes vision and courage, true, but God gives us vision and courage through the Holy Sprit of Jesus Christ.

God helps us do what God wants us to do.

I hope you’ll reflect on your life today.  Are you helping to bring reconciliation at work?  How’s your marriage? Are you ending divisions or perpetuating them? What alienation is Christ nudging you to bridge? 

You are powerful.  Remember The BIG   Picture.  Risk a little larger today.
 

Pastor Larry

Seeing The BIG Picture

Dear Friend of Burke UMC,

It’s been hot!  It’s going to be hot today. 

 “How hot is it?”

Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.
The cows are giving evaporated milk.
The trees are whistling for the dogs.

So stay cool.

+          +          +          +          +          +          +

Do you remember those old computer-generated pictures you’d see in the mall?  Colorful canvases of abstract shapes in rows and waves.  Apparently, if you looked at them in a certain way, another shape would emerge – a knight, or a guitar, or Jesus – a vision that you missed at first glance.

Our summer sermon series The BIG Picture is a bit like that. Our familiar picture is of Jesus’ birth, his teaching, his death, his resurrection.  But Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians invites us to see something new about Jesus beneath the familiar picture.

Ephesians gropes for language to covey the immensity of God’s plan – which is to heal and reconcile everyone and everything in all creation.  It’s not about offering personal salvation to one individual after another, so much as bringing everything together in universal wholeness. 

God reconciles us to him through Jesus. God makes us one with every human being; no more “us and them,” friend and enemy.  God heals Planet Earth, Nature itself.  Heaven and earth are united. The Body of Christ fills everything that exists with love – a “fullness” that “fills all in all.”  From the tiniest quarks to the most distant black holes, it’s all saturated with God’s healing energy. 

Immense!

Our sermon series will start as Ephesians does – from a distance – like approaching a painting in the mall.  In chapter 1 Paul first rhapsodizes about the enormity of Christ’s presence.  As he draws closer he starts pointing out the major brushstrokes of God’s masterpiece – Jesus, salvation, the church (he’s quite unapologetic about the cosmic importance of the church). He gets closer still and names your role in all this – your marriage, your relationships, your speech, your emotions, your nightly prayers. 

Along the way we’ll have the opportunity to step back and refocus. Every Monday evening this summer I’ll host a conversation called Re-Focus.  We’ll talk about the sermon; we’ll talk about how God is or isn’t apparent in our lives; we’ll pray for each other.  Join us any Monday evening this summer, 7:30 – 8:45 pm for Re-Focus.   

By summer’s end I hope we’ll have seen new images emerge from the familiar picture.   The masterpiece of God called Jesus Christ will have revealed a new perspective on your everyday life.

This summer, think BIG!

+          +          +          +          +

It’s been hot!  It’s going to be hot today. 

“How hot is it?”

The birds are using potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

 

Stay cool.

Pastor Larry

People Shining Like the Sun

The famous Trappist monk Thomas Merton had an Epiphany moment once in downtown Louisville.  

It was an ordinary Saturday afternoon, and Merton had some leave time from nearby Gethsemani Monastery, where he lived.  As usual, Merton was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of noise and frantic motion that’s typical of any downtown but which was so foreign to this contemplative man.   

But that afternoon he had an “epiphany,” a sudden realization of the divine glory of plain, ordinary folk.

Merton wrote of that revelatory moment: "I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."

At least several times a year, I also see people walking around “shining like the sun.”  The men all look more regal, the women more angelic, the youth more lovely, the children more holy.  I catch little glimpses of the beauty and glory of plain, ordinary people.

It happens when they’re ‘on stage.’

I love events like the Variety Show and our children’s and youth musicals; everyone seems to glow in a lovelier way.  I just feel more humbled by their talent, more grateful for their initiative, more moved by their earnestness.  You – my ordinary fellow church-goers – reveal to us who you really are!  It’s a glorious thing, and I can’t explain it either.  (“It cannot be explained,” Merton said.)  But it’s true.  You just shine.

I don’t know if this makes any sense to you.  I’m sure you’ve had moments when you see you son or your daughter, your wife or your husband, in a different light.  You see beyond what they look like to who they really are. And it’s joyous, and poignant, and moving far beyond what anyone else sees in that same moment.

Our annual Variety Show is this weekend – Saturday evening at 7:00 and Sunday afternoon at 3:00.  It’s the creation of our own glorious Debbie Allred, entitled Library – The Musical!  It’s free, and there’s free food and free laughter, and free camaraderie for you to boot.

But most importantly of all – you too will see people “shining like the sun.”  Don’t miss it!

             Pastor Larry

Yelling at the Gas Station

I’d never yelled out the window at a stranger before.  Until last night.  

I was pulling into the local gas station – the one with the cheap gas prices and lots of cars in line. There’s always a fair amount of gentle chaos there.  Since some cars have tanks on the driver’s side and others on the passenger’s side, drivers often need to approach the same pump from opposite directions.  Respect and civility are necessities. 

As I pulled up to my pump, the car over my left shoulder and on the other side pulled away, and two cars headed for the same spot. The woman beeped her horn and gestured that she’d been waiting.  I heard an angry young man shout back, “This is my pump. Get the f--- out of here!” And I immediately yelled out, “Hey!”  (as in “I’m the adult and we don’t tolerate that sort of language around here. Stop it!”) 

Immediately I realized, of course, that it’s not my call what sort of language other people use at the gas station.  I also envisioned this guy yelling at me to mind my own business, or worse. I don’t even know if he ever heard me.  The woman at the pump directly next to me did, though, but she avoided any eye contact with me. And the woman that I was speaking up for was nowhere to be seen. 

I got out of the car and started my gas line, thinking about that immediate rebuke. I never did see the angry young man – he apparently went to the cashier, then gassed up quickly and left.

 I’ve thought since then how much was there in that event – his public coarseness; the possible sources of his anger (and lack of restraint); to what degree he was aware of or sorry for his own outburst; the threatened woman and her hasty backing away; the woman next to me not wanting to get involved; my own anxiety as to whether yelling was a wise thing to do; and so on. 

Not sure I have a moral to this story, it’s just something that has made me think.  Does this sort of incident happen to you?  What have you seen others do that’s been inspiring or helpful?  And what would Jesus want us to do in that situation?   

You are in my prayers as you encounter the sometimes rude and coarse aspects of public life.  May the Lord be with you.  

Pastor Larry