Revewing the Mind

 Text: Romans 12:1-8, Isaiah 51:1-6

Arlington Presbyterian Church

August 27, 2017

This was an interactive sermon where the congregation members actually answered the questions as they were posed in the sermon. 

This Romans 12 passage is probably my favorite passage in the Bible. But my journey to appreciate Romans was a bit rocky.

After my first year of seminary, I began to go through the usual 2^nd year existential crisis. I was certain that this whole Christianity thing was too small, that it wasn’t real, and that I was done with it.

The problem was that I was in the middle of a Master of Divinity at a Christian seminary. I had signed up for this ministry gig, even started the ordination process with the Presbytery.

So my advisor, a very smart Catholic woman, suggested that I take a class on the Romans since it was so central to Presbyterian theology. Which I did.

And while the book didn’t get me fully back into the fold as I was slowly but surely cutting out all of my Presbyterian commitments,

Finishing my term as elder at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, finishing my term on the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns for the denomination, I was stuck in field education for just another year...

But it was like the white stones that Hansel and Gretel left on their path to find their way home. And this passage in particular helped illumine a path to figure out how to come closer to God.

Because this text is so meaningful to me, and it is so dense with strange turns of phrase that don’t mean much in English, I want to invite you into the sermon this morning,

to let some of these phrases roll around in your head and to share what they mean to you along the way.

It is helpful to examine some of these phrases like, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” or “spiritual worship” or “renewing of the mind.”

And then to put them all together to see what them mean together.

Living sacrifice is the first of these phrases.

It’s kind of a paradox. In the context of Romans, a sacrifice is a living creature, slaughtered and offered up to the God. In fact, we use sacrifice language in reference to Jesus’ death on a cross.

But a living sacrifice? Let your mind wander a bit. What do you imagine when you hear living sacrifice?

I think of offering one’s whole life, one’s whole being, one’s whole self.

Another odd turn of phrase is spiritual worship.

What’s interesting is that the word for spiritual comes from the greek word, logikos, which according to Strong’s is reasonable, rational, or metaphorical, but it’s more like “what is logical to God.”[i]

The second word here, worship, is translated as service or service to God, which in short might be worship.[ii]

So the translation might be service to God that is logical to God.

Let your mind wander again. What comes to mind when you think of these words: service to God that is logical to God?

Then put them together and you have this idea of giving of your whole self and your whole life which is what makes sense of from our particular lives for God.

This other strange turn of phrase is renewing your mind. It comes after these instructions not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.

When I looked up the word for mind, Strong’s said, it “is the organ of receiving God’s thoughts, through faith.”[iii]

Put this together with not being formed or shaped or made by the age or culture and with the words that follow it, “so that you can discern the will of God.”

                             Let your mind wander again. What does this mean to you?

For me, renewing of the mind is deeply tied to meditation. It’s probably heavily influenced by the fact that I was also taking a Zen meditation at the same time I was taking the Romans class.

But it is through meditation that we are able to slow down our thoughts, to examine them and to examine what is driving our thinking and our actions.

It is through this process of discernment that we can renew our minds so that they can be channels of God’s will for our lives.

It’s not that we cloister ourselves in the church and refuse to participate in the world. It’s that we follow God’s will as we navigate the world.

But what is so beautiful about this passage is that while it gives us this way of understanding how to surrender our lives to God, how to give ourselves over to something bigger, it reinforces this one part of reasonable or logical service.

God is not expecting something unreasonable or impossible from any of us. What is logical or reasonable for one of us is not necessarily logical or reasonable for someone else. (Although, I can guarantee that we will be stretched beyond our comfort zones.)

Paul drives that point home when he says that we are part of one body and that the body has many parts.

We are each given gifts or charisms that are appropriate or reasonable based on our faith or our abilities and limitations. And yet each part of the body is important.

None of us can truly discern the will of God in a vacuum. We aren’t ordained as ministers or elders or deacons independently. It is the discernment of the body that moves us along the journey.

None of us is successful in our careers without the advice and counsel and guidance of mentors and friends and family members an co-workers to reflect back to us where our talents lie, to give us opportunities to stretch and grow.

In keeping with our unusual sermon, instead of an affirmation of faith this morning, we have a time to Settle into our Faith.

Nancy Robinette and others will read the Romans passage in a Lectio Divina style. Lectio Divina is a way of praying scriptures. So we will pray together this text so that we can let all of these thoughts and ideas can sink fully into our bodies.

          Let us pray together…

Settling in with Our Faith

From Romans 12: 1-8

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,

by the mercies of God,

by the mercies of God,

by the mercies of God

to present your bodies as

a living sacrifice,

a living sacrifice,

a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual worship

spiritual worship

spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed

Do not be conformed

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by

the renewing of your minds,

the renewing of your minds,

be transformed the renewing of your minds,

so that you may discern what is the will of God—

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me

Grace given to me

Grace given

grace

I say to everyone among you

not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think,

but to think with sober judgment,

with sober judgment,

sober judgment,

each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body

One body

One body we have many members,

Many

Many

Many members

and not all the members have the same function,

so we, who are many,

who are many

many

are one body in Christ,

one body

one

one body in Christ, and individually we are

members one of another

members one of another

one of another

one.

We have gifts that differ according to the

grace given to us

grace given

grace

given to us:

prophecy, in proportion to faith;

ministry, in ministering;

the teacher, in teaching;

the exhorter, in exhortation;

the giver, in generosity;

the leader, in diligence;

the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

We have gifts that differ according to the

Grace given to us.

Many members, one body

One body

One. 

---

[i] From Strong’s Concordance on Biblehub.com: http://biblehub.com/greek/3050.htm

[ii] Ibid.: http://biblehub.com/greek/2999.htm

[iii] Ibid. http://biblehub.com/greek/3563.htm

We Just Need a Little Gumption in Our Lives

Readings: Matthew 15:10-28, Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Arlington Presbyterian Church

August 20, 2017

On Friday night, after a long dinner with a colleague, I got home and turned on the television as I often do. I am sure I watch too much TV as it tends to be my go-to when I get home and want to relax.

Anyway, I was watching the movie, The Holiday, which stars Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. It’s the story of two women whose love lives are fall apart and decide to swap houses and countries for the Christmas holiday.

Kate Winslet’s character, Iris, is from a small country town outside of London. And in the story, she meets a lonely old man who lives next door to Cameron Diaz’s character, Amanda, in LA.

The old man happens to be a famous screen writer and has worked on some famous movies the likes of Casablanca.

As they get to know one another, he tells Iris that in the movies, there are leading ladies and there are best friends. And that Iris is playing the best friend in her own life.

He gives her a list of movies to watch, all with leading ladies who have incredible gumption.

And while the premise of this movie is silly, I was struck by the word gumption.

I think gumption is the quality that this Canaanite woman exhibits. I checked the definition and everything. Gumption, according to Google, is shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.

We all could probably use a little more gumption in my life.

Last week, after delivering a bold sermon calling us to be vigilant in our daily lives

and to listen in the silence for the still small voice pointing us to examine the ways our laws are crafted, the ways that they are enforced, how the norms within our institutions are shaped…

to examine bias that is normalized in our churches, our schools, our communities and our consumption of the news…

and to stand up and speak out in the face of structural racism and sexism and classism and heterosexism….

I wrote to my new boss at Bread for the World to say that I thought we at Bread need to respond to the tragedies in Charlottesville. And I was met with resistance.

To be fair, there were a few dynamics at play that made this response likely.  

My boss is new and has come from a government agency, not a Christian non-profit. And she was on vacation with her family out of the country.

Our president was also on vacation, out of the country.

And many of the directors were coming back to work after a week of vacation. So their brains weren’t thinking work over the weekend.  

But each day in the office, I heard something from an individual or group asking, how are we going to respond?

And by Wednesday, I couldn’t take it anymore. So I talked with one of our VPs who was our acting president and managing director for the week.

And we came up with a plan, which I shared with the directors on Thursday and then emailed to my boss on Thursday evening.

Our plan was in place by Friday morning and many of you who are members of Bread should be receiving an email today or tomorrow with our response.

As a younger person, I often wondered what I would have done in the 1960’s had I been a young adult during the civil rights movement.

Would I have joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? Would I have put my body on the line like so many people did?

In my teens, my answer was that I probably wouldn’t have the courage to do that.

In my twenties, I hoped the answer would have been that I was part of non-violent protests because I felt so strongly about ending discrimination.

But now in my 40’s, sadly, I must ask myself this question for real—not about what I would have done in the 1960’s, but what I will do now.

What will I do to stand up to white supremacy in our country?

I don’t think it’s enough to stand here and preach a sermon.

It’s not enough to push for Bread to write a statement.

It’s not enough to repost a bunch of articles on Facebook, which I have barely done in the last week, because, frankly, I’m overwhelmed by my newsfeed.

I need some non-activist friends.

I wonder what the Canaanite woman would do? What would a woman with gumption do?

What she did in the story this morning was to recognize Jesus…even before the disciples who followed him everywhere truly recognized him.

She had faith that Jesus was sent by a God that was so powerful as to be able to redeem everyone—not just the people of Israel.

And when Jesus was silent, she kept speaking. When he said no, she claimed him anyway.

And when she asked for Jesus mercy on her, she was pleading with Jesus to heal her daughter.

It wasn’t just about her own well-being but the well-being of another.

But what does that mean for us? As always, I think we continue to proclaim Jesus as Lord. Jesus is the one in whom we put our trust, just as he is the one in whom the Canaanite woman puts her trust.

But I also think it means that we look at what Jesus did. He didn’t just save people so that they would go to heaven in the end times.

Jesus was literally saving people from sickness, from death, from possession by demons.

Jesus was restoring the lives of people who were disenfranchised from the community.

Just as the Canaanite woman pled for her daughter, we too must plea with Jesus to have mercy on us

so that we too may work for the restoration of the people around us into our communities.

Whether that is people of color

or immigrants or

queer and trans people

or women and girls whose voices also get lost in the crowd.

In the passages leading up to the story of the Canaanite woman, whose daughter has been possessed by a demon, Jesus instructs the disciples and the Scribes and Pharisees that it is not what goes into one’s body that makes it unclean, but that it is what comes from the heart.

A good place for us to start is examining our hearts. What is coming from our hearts?

Are we regurgitating ugliness that comes from our new feed on Facebook, from the commentators on CNN?

Are we buying into the code language for race that makes us think that black kids are thugs?

Are we buying into the narrative that poor people are lazy and mooching off the system?

And when we examine our hearts, what do we find God calling us to?

Our Bread email isn’t just a statement denouncing white supremacy and violence, though it does.

Our email invites our members to continue to be part of our monthly time of prayer and fasting and action to end white supremacy and to end hunger

because we can’t end hunger without making some serious gains in addressing racism in our institutions.

I want to extend this invitation to you as well.

You don’t necessarily need to fast from food.

But deprive yourself of something that distracts you from listening to that still small voice calling you to examine the world around you.

Deprive yourself from something that keeps you from finding your own gumption like the Canaanite woman. –I think I need to fast from TV.

And while you are fasting tomorrow, I hope you will spend some time considering what you might do,

what we might do as a community

to find our voice in this movement to end white supremacy and hatred and violence in our community and in our country.

And then on Monday, August 28, you might consider joining the moving forward team as they work to develop our mission plan.

Your discernment and your voice are critical for making this plan a go.  

This has been a hard week for our country and our world. With violence of terrorists and mudslides and new election results and resistance movements.

But even in these moments when we are exhausted by the news and exhausted from our work, we cannot give up.

We must be persistent like the Canaanite woman.

We must dig deep and find the gumption of the Canaanite woman.

And we must have faith like the Canaanite woman, claiming that Jesus is Lord of all.

Amen.

x

Peace in the Midst of the Storm

Readings: Matthew 14:22-33, 1 Kings 19:9-18

Arlington Presbyterian Church
August 13, 2017

I spent much of the evening yesterday on Facebook reading stories about what had happened in Charlottesville in the last 24 hours.

In fact, I had forgotten that there was a Unite the Right rally yesterday and a counter protest that I had been reading about the last few weeks.

I woke up feeling a little under the weather and was focused on getting better for this morning.

In fact, after two weeks of intentional self-care, I had imagined the sermon would focus a little on the time Jesus took before this story to refresh alone

and the weariness of the disciples who were sent off on the boat while Jesus rested.

Nedrin and I ordered cable television service last week and we were having a bear of a time getting our box hooked up.

First, we had the wrong box, so I had to return it to get a new box. Then when we couldn’t get the new box to work,

so we had a technician coming and were basically without television all morning, opting to spend the time cleaning.

So when I opened my computer to a Facebook post from Margaret Aymer asking what folks would be preaching this morning, I began to get a little nervous.

Especially when all the responses were about how folks were changing their sermons.

What in the world was happening? I scrolled down to learn that something was happening in Charlottesville and I remembered the protests today.

Once the cable was working, I was able to change the channel to find some news.

It was Fox News, which is apparently the only 24 hour news channel that we have in our plan. So I watched it for a bit.

I have to admit that I was pretty shocked how strongly Fox News was denouncing the White Supremacists and White Nationals and the Ku Klux Klan.

I want to say squarely and clearly that the actions of the White Supremacists, White Nationalists, and the Klan yesterday and the night before last are pure evil.

The intimidation march around Charlottesville and the UVA campus with tiki torches;

arriving on Saturday at the march in militia uniforms with shields and helmets and weapons…including guns;

and coming after counter-protesters to the point of driving a car into a crowd of people, wounding 19 and killing one woman.

White supremacy and white nationalism is sinful and it is the antithesis of everything that God intends for the world.

In the Matthew texts of the lectionary during Pentecost, we read the Great Commandment of Jesus to go into the world making disciples of all nations.

This is a change from the text the following week that comes just after the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus encourages the disciples to go only to the Jewish people to share the good news.

But in the end, Jesus opens his arms to all people in the world. And he is pretty consistent with God’s repeated disruption of the power structures that we humans tend to establish in our cultures.

On Facebook yesterday, Fr. James Martin put it this way to address any claim of Christianity by the White Supremacists and White Nationals, saying:

“[S]upremacy” is the precise opposite of Jesus’s message.

“In the Gospels, Jesus asks us to love one another, to place others’ needs before our own, even to die for one another. The idea of ‘supremacy’ is absurd to Jesus.

“Indeed, Jesus tells us explicitly that we are never to ‘lord’ power over others, and that we are to be one another’s ‘servants’ (Mk. 10: 42-43).

“The idea that anyone is ‘less than’ because of his or her race is likewise antithetical to Jesus’s message. For example, in his day the Samaritans were avoided, despised and even shunned by the majority of the Jewish people.

“Yet Jesus not only speaks to a Samaritan woman, and reveals his divinity to her; but he makes the hero of one of his most well-known parables the ‘Good Samaritan.’ (Jn 4; Lk 10)

“He even encounters a Roman centurion, someone completely outside of his religion, speaks with him, heals his servant, and praises his faith (Mt 8:5-13).

“So for Jesus, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ No one should be made by the community into an ‘other,’ as white supremacists do to non-whites. There is only us.

“More basically, racism goes against everything that Jesus taught. It promotes hatred, not love; anger not compassion; vengeance not mercy. It is a sin.

“So ‘Christian white supremacist’ is an oxymoron. Every time you shout ‘White Power!’ you might as well be shouting ‘Crucify him!’

“And any time you lift your hand in a Nazi salute, you might as well be lifting your hand to nail Jesus to the Cross.

“And lest you miss the point, your Savior is Jewish.”

The streets of Charlottesville were quiet last night. Thank goodness. I wonder what God was saying in that quiet after the fires and storms and earthquakes of human hate displayed that day.

I imagine God was and is exasperated and disappointed and sad, but proud of all the people who stood up against evil.

I imagine God was surrounding the protesters and the counter protesters with love and grace.

Trying to break the hearts of those so filled with hate. Reminding all of us of her love for all people.

Not just the pandering love of #alllivesmatter. But a love for all when it’s true that #blacklivematter and #queerlivesmatter and #translivesmatter.

The news was definitely not quiet. I was able to get access to CNN and I watched for hours.

I saw replay after replay of the car driving into the crowd.

I saw replays of the attacks of the protesters against the counter-protesters.

My colleague, Marco, who preached here a couple weeks ago, was there.

He is safe. He left for DC before the car struck the crowd.

He reports to me that “there was horrible anger and mean hurtful language.” There were “too many guns (not police) and they were everywhere.”

He also said that “if it hadn’t been for the clergy physically blocking the entrance to the park, the clashes would have been head on and with more people.”

On CNN and on Facebook, I saw statement after statement against the white nationalists and white supremacists and Klan members.

To be perfectly honest, it’s not that hard to make a statement against these groups of people.

We heard strong statements from Senator McCain, from Senator Rubio, from republican congress members. We even heard from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

And yet, from our president, a man famous for making his disdain known, we hear a statement of unity,

but one that did not denounce the white supremacist agenda

even as David Duke explicitly stated that they were there to further President Trump’s agenda.

I have to wonder why?

Why wouldn’t the president make a statement that is more powerfully denouncing evil?

Why wouldn’t the president distance himself from White Supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan and the White Nationalists and the Alt-Right?   

Even though people in his party are denouncing them left and right.

I think the answer is that these people have more power than we give them credit.

They are a real and driving force in our political system! And we cannot pretend otherwise.

The answer is also that these are values that have been poisoning our country for decades.

And while most people in our country and probably everyone in this room can denounce white supremacy,

We get tripped up when we are faced with the truth that our laws and the enforcement of our laws and our institutions are colored by these values of white supremacy.

The point of the counter-protests was to speak loudly and clearly that hate and violence are not values that represent our democracy nor our Christianity.

The point was to demonstrate that love is a more powerful force than hate and to diminish the power of hate.

The point was to stand up with courage in the face of intimidation.

Our faith demands that we step onto the water in the midst of the storm,

to keep our eyes on Jesus and trust that even in the midst of the raging storm of white supremacy, hate will not prevail.

But that is not all of the work that we need to do.

We must be vigilant in our daily lives. We must be listening in the silence for the still small voice pointing us to examine the ways that our laws are crafted,

the ways that they are enforced, how the norms within our institutions are shaped.

We must examine bias that is normalized in our churches, in our schools, in our communities, in our consumption of the news.

And we must stand up and speak out in the face of structural racism and sexism and classism and heterosexism.

It may feel like we are creating storms, that we are rocking the boat.

But the truth is that we as white people are just stepping into the storms that already exist

for our sisters and brother of color,

for our queer friends and family members,

for people who are pushed to the margins.

There is one other thing that we must do, and that is the thing that is the hardest for me.

And that is to love.

To stand in the face of a group of people in our country who feel alienated and replaced,

who are so filled with hate for my very being as a queer woman

                   and to love.

Margaret Aymer, whom Derrick has mentioned on more than one occasion, teaches New Testament at Austin Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian Seminary in Texas. But I like to claim her as a colleague as she was finishing her dissertation at Union Seminary when I was there.

After her survey of preachers on Facebook yesterday, she offered these “Thoughts on Matthew 14” which seem like an appropriate way to close this sermon:

“Jesus doesn't calm the wind when he's walking out to his students in the boat.

“Jesus doesn't calm the wind when he commands Peter to come to him.

“Jesus doesn't calm the wind when he saves Peter from drowning.

“Jesus stands in the middle of danger, on the water, with the wind blowing and commands his students: Take courage. I am. Fear not.

“Preachers. Christians. In the face of the winds of white supremacy and racism, with the seas of church decline roiling beneath your feet, we are still commanded to walk on water, crying out for rescue when we need it.

“In the face of ‘make nice’ culture and fear of offending, we are still required to face into the winds with the truth that racism is sin. We are still commanded: Take courage. Jesus Christ is Lord. Fear not.”

“Preach the Gospel.”

Amen.

Put On A Good Face

Astoria Presbyterian Church
March 28, 2010

-->

I have been feeling very sad this week. It started last week after church. I was thinking about the hurdles in our project, and I just felt this overwhelming sense of sadness. I know that I’m supposed to be upbeat and optimistic about it. I’m supposed to put on a good face and remind you that this is a chance for new folks to take ownership in the project and that perhaps the community will be happier with the smaller building and that we might just find a much better location in the community for our worship space. But last Sunday, I … just … felt … sad. I was sad that so many of you who have worked so hard to follow God’s call are now feeling frustrated and angry and sad and uncertain. And I have felt sad that our ministry together has been put on hold until the project gets settled again.

As I was reading up for my sermon this week, I was prompted several times to think about how Jesus was feeling as he was entering Jerusalem on the donkey, with shouts of disciples who have been following him for so long. Shouts that the Pharisees try to hush…unsuccessfully, of course. Knowing that he will share an intimate meal with his disciples, his closest friends, and wash their dirty feet, only to have them betray and deny him. Knowing that he will face trial after trial and be tortured and sentenced to a brutal death on a cross. How in the world can he keep going through it all? How can he put on a good face and and just keep going.

In all of my sadness, I am drawn instead to Jesus in the garden. There he is so honest. He has finished this Seder meal with his disciples, washed their feet, warned them of their impending betrayal and denial, established the new covenant in bread and wine, and brought the disciples to the garden to pray. He has got to be frustrated and tired and afraid. The disciples can’t even stay awake to pray. It’s late in the evening and there is much drama to come. And how overwhelming would it be to know exactly how you are going to die and not have any way of stopping it? I have to admit that resurrection from death would not be all that motivating for me to suffer such a brutal death. Sweating blood, he prays that this cup pass over him…that things go down a different way. But alas, he prays to God, “not my will, but thy will.” Jesus is faithful to God’s plan for his life to be a savior to God’s people. He is faithful to God’s people—the good the bad and the ugly parts of us.

I relate to Jesus frustration, as I know that you do.

I relate to Jesus weariness, as I know that you do.

I relate to Jesus fear, as I know that you do.

And I try my hardest to relate to Jesus turning over his will to God’s plan, as I know that you do.

I have always looked at Jesus as a role model. I have tried my hardest to pattern my life after his. I have tried to be a friend to the friendless and to be a servant of those around me and to be radically hospitable—no matter what the cost to myself. What has taken me a long time to realize is that it’s not very realistic to go around and be just like Jesus—how many times has any of us cast out demons from people around us? And there are many who would say that we should not look at Jesus as a role model because we can’t be expected to die trying to accomplish our mission in life.

But I think where those folks and I all miss the mark is that we should try to be faithful like Jesus was faithful. Jesus was called to suffer and die on the cross for us and our faithful response is to discern God’s plan for our lives both as individuals and in community. And for us to pursue that plan…that call with as much energy, enthusiasm, imagination, and love that we can muster.

I felt quite distracted by my sadness this week, and was quite frustrated that it was an obstacle to writing my sermon for today. But apparently God’s plan was for me to preach, so in the face of challenging feelings, I had to put on a good face and write. I did take some time to feel my sadness and frustration like Jesus in the garden…to let out my feelings. And in doing so, I was able to get my focus back. And so like Jesus as he was riding the donkey into Jerusalem, I was able to pull it together and put on a good face and write.

I’m glad that we as a congregation have had some “garden time” to express our feelings of sadness and frustration and fear and weariness about the hurdles in our project. But very soon we will need to put on good faces like Jesus on the donkey riding into Jerusalem and figure out God’s plan for us. I look forward to doing this work with you all and to our ministry that we develop together.

Amen

Do This, Not That: A Recipe for Spiritual Living

Do This, Not That: A Recipe for Spiritual Living

Good Morning. I want to thank you for welcoming me here to worship with you this morning. My name is Nancy Neal, and I am a Candidate for Ministry in New York City Presbytery and an Elder at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. Greetings from Brooklyn! I am very glad to be here with you this morning.

Will you join me in prayer for just a moment? (Silence)

God we thank your for gathering us here together this morning. I ask that you be present and work through the words that I speak, through the meditation, thoughts, and prayers of all of our hearts, and that your blessings be upon us, for you are our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Being a candidate for ministry and a relatively new preacher, it is not often that I get calls to preach. Any time I am asked to preach, I jump at the opportunity. So when called to preach at a new church, I am often asked to supply a sermon title. So after spending two days reflecting on the text, I selected the Ephesians passage and was thinking that in a way, Paul’s text functions kind of like a recipe…for spiritual living.

I am sure that many of you are talented cooks. I think churchwomen are kind of famous for it—at least in the churches I have had the privilege to be a part of. Growing up in the low country of South Carolina, women handled any food from the kitchen and men handled any food from the out of doors—including Barbeque, the Grill, and the roast—as in oyster roast or pig roast.

Like many, I watched my mother in the kitchen. I remember her hands having the sweet odor of cooking, which I later learned was the smell of onions on her fingers. Every dish of hers, it seems, started with onions. But I loved the smell because it was familiar and comforting, it was my mother. Of course when I told her this, she was actually quite embarrassed that such a pungent odor reminded me of her.

I grew up with the privilege of having a mother who cooked all of our meals growing up. (We did have other chores, but I think she really just enjoyed cooking.) So I did not learn to cook until I had moved away from home. When I learned to cook, I was living in a small community in Comer, GA with people who frequently ate vegetarian meals. I was so inspired by the food and the effort of the community to eat lower on the food chain, that I decided to become a vegetarian. I owned two vegetarian cookbooks, Laurel’s Kitchen and Moosewood. They were, at the time, the basics in vegetarian cooking. After that summer, I moved back to school and lived with three women who were definitely not vegetarian and definitely not interested in eating low on the food chain. They ate a very “traditional” American diet. So when I showed up with hummos, noodle kugel, rice and beans, chili with texturized vegetable protein, and lentil soup, needless to say, they were all pretty amused.

I got teased relentlessly at dinner when we were all together. As they were pan roasting chicken and beef, microwaving frozen vegetables, and boiling potatoes or rice, I was flipping through my cookbooks trying to figure out what to make. I usually cooked after they finished, while they watched their evening television shows. And when I would finally sit down, they would inquire sarcastically, yet lovingly, about what I had prepared. I can hear Carolyn now saying, “So Nancy, whatcha got there? It looks pretty interesting.” Of course I would offer to share, and she would politely decline.

Now sometimes my food was quite tasty. Other times, not so much. I made lentil soup often because it was easy and always turned out well. (I actually can’t make it any more because I over-did it 15 years ago. And I can’t do red wine vinegar because of the frequency with which I put it on said lentil soup.) But the attempt at the Indian insipered “dahl” over rice was horrible and sat in the fridge for weeks until I was kindly asked to throw it out.

Admittedly, I liked being different from my roommates. I liked eating different food and trying out new stuff—even if it ended up being inedible. I loved the daily adventure. And the kitchen wasn’t the only place where I was different. I was a night owl. They all went to bed by 10:00 everyday and were up in the morning by 6:00. I was more of a 2-9 kind of gal. I think I liked the privacy and quiet of the living room after they all went to bed. I was messy and disorganized and they were all lived very orderly lives.

You may be asking yourself now how in the world this relates to the Ephesians. But the truth is, the Ephesians were a lot like this. They were comprised of two groups of people living quite different lifestyles: the Jews and the Gentiles. And if you remember, Jews and Gentiles were nothing alike. In fact the Jewish traditions were established in order to make themselves different from the Gentiles. So their insistence on hand washing and circumcision—among other things—probably seemed a little odd to the Gentiles. And the Gentiles in their ways, I’m sure seemed—well, un-kosher to the Jews.

You will remember that the author of this letter to the Ephesians was Paul. He was the avid persecutor of Christians who had a huge conversion experience on his way to persecute Christians. As a child we were taught in a song, When Paul was Saul, he wasn’t very nice at all—as a way to remember the character. In his conversion, Saul’s name was changed to Paul. Paul being a fierce persecutor of Christians at Saul became an equally fierce defender of the message of Chris and he traveled Asia Minor starting churches wherever he went. The Epistles, for the most part are his letters to these churches.

In this particular letter, Paul is writing to the Ephesians with instructions for how to live together and to build spiritual lives together in ways that transcend their differences.

In my college apartment, we handled such conflict with light teasing with lots of love. But alas, I was an unsuccessful vegetarian to say the least. I grew up eating meat and loving meat. But I thought it would be a nice challenge for myself to eat lower on the food chain and potentially be healthier in my eating. But after many lapses, I finally gave up my label. I have friends from that time who still have a little v next to my name in the list of friends in their brains.

Once I started eating meat again, the challenge became learning to cook with meat. So for a while I ate meat in restaurants but still cooked predominantly vegetarian meals at home. But eventually I decided I needed to face my fear of cross contamination and under/over cooked meat and try it out. As my life has settled down I eat more meals at home, I have taken up the challenge. I have called my mother a hundred times and of course my brother the professional cook is super-helpful. But as you well know--it takes practice to be good at anything.

I have found that I rely some on recipes, but a lot on intuition as well. And my brother is always offering helpful advice about the basics like, season each ingredient of a dish to achieve a rounder and fuller flavor. Or leave the lid off the pot when boiling pasta. And my favorite is that dry herbs go in early and fresh herbs go in later. To many of you this might be obvious, but for someone teaching herself to cook, these are secrets that have transformed my cooking.

So when I was reading this text and pondering my sermon title, I imagined that the text was like a recipe for spiritual living. The more I have spent time with the text it feels more similar to an outline for a course in kitchen basics than an actual recipe. The tips here seem simple, but can have profound and transforming affects on our spiritual lives.

In the first part of the letter Paul lays out a beautiful theology of the church. He says that historically, everyone, including the Jews, was far off from God at birth and that through circumcision the people were brought close to God. But now, in Jesus death on the cross, everyone is brought close to God, including the Gentiles. He says further,

“For [Christ] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also citizens of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and of the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.”

The second half of the letter gets down to the practical stuff. It’s like, “Now that you know that you are united in Christ and that God dwells in you, this is how you should live, and by the way I am praying for you a lot.”

Our text this morning summarizes this quite nicely. You might have noticed from the long and rambling section I just read that Paul likes to wander a little and repeat himself a lot. This is probably because the letters were read aloud to their intended audience and the repetition helped them to grasp these ideas more thoroughly.

What I love about Paul is that his directions on living a spiritual life are all encompassing. He doesn’t just tell folks to pray their way through life or to just be ethical, devoid of theological framework, or even how to live in community without theological and spiritual context. Our scripture lays the message of a whole spiritual practice pretty clearly.

In the first basic lesson in spiritual living, Paul says, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” The literal translation for the word live here, is walk. Paul is saying to be careful how you walk on your journey through life. And he juxtaposes this idea of careful walking against a background of an evil time. Paul is telling the Ephesians to be alert and attentive to each step they take in life. Be wise not unwise.

In our journey, it is sometimes easy to be oblivious to some the decisions we make because we’ve made them over and over in life. It’s easy to go along with the crowd because we don’t have to be accountable for the crowd’s decision. In particular when two groups are uniting under one banner as the Ephesians were, it is easy to hurt feelings or be too sensitive. Wnderstanding each other takes work, and we must pay attention at each step, at each interaction to do the right thing.

A friend tells me the story of moving into a new apartment with roommates. Each of the apartment bills was in a different roommate’s names. So she got the mail and found the cable bill, which wasn’t in her name. And when she told her roommate that the bill had come and she had opened it, the roommate was upset. It might be obvious that one should not open mail that does not have one’s name on it. But on the other hand, it might be obvious that it’s a community bill and therefore anyone can open it. With different backgrounds and different senses of privacy, people’s expectations can be different. And living in community, we must be wise, not unwise in our actions to try not to step on other’s toes, and to trust when our toes have been stepped on that it was not the intention of the other person.

In the second basic lesson in spiritual living, Paul says, “So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” We have already heard that in Jesus the law has been banished with its ordinances and commandments. But this does not mean free-for-all, anything goes, foolish living--or should I say walking. We must align our will and our actions with the will of God and not be foolish.

The second lesson builds on the first. Be wise, not unwise. But how do we know what is wise? In God’s will, we will find the wisdom.

I have another friend who is struggling to figure out his purpose in life. And he comes across as indifferent about the whole thing. But I know that he suffers deeply for not having a sense of what he is called to do. I don’t want to suggest that because he doesn’t buy into the message of Christ that he can’t find his purpose, but I know that not having the structure and framework of bending his will to the will of God makes his struggle to find his purpose that much more difficult.

Trusting that there is a God who created the universe with wisdom and order can ease our mind that we fit somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily make discerning God’s will any easier, but we do know that it is there to find.

In the third lesson in spiritual living, Paul says, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves.” Be filled with the spirit, not drunk with wine. The word debauchery is literally translated “ dissipation”, which is wasteful expenditure or consumption—foolish behavior.

This word debauchery is used one other time in the New Testament in the story of the Prodigal Son, when he goes into the world blowing through his inheritance. Getting drunk with wine leads to foolish behavior, it is an impediment to discerning. What a great reference. The Prodigal Son, after his debauchery is welcomed home with open arms just as God welcomes us home with open arms when we stray. We find that yet again we are able to connect with the community, the household of God.

The alternative that Paul offers is for being drunk with wine is for them to be filled with the Spirit by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs together. Just as we gather together singing songs of praise and thanksgiving with the knowledge of the presence of the Holy Spirit, Paul encourages the Ephesians to do so also.

I grew up in a very white, very traditional Presbyterian church in South Carolina. While it was spirit-filled at times, it was not lively or energetic spirit like in the Black church tradition of Gospel music or the Evangelical tradition of praise music. What I love about these traditions is that with the intense emotion we feel more open to the power of the Holy Spirit. While I do not believe that we summon the Holy Spirit in our worship, I do believe that we change in a way, that the music opens our hearts in a way to be more attuned to the movement and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Of course there are other ways to do this. There is prayer, meditation, reading of and reflection on scripture. And of course there is being together in community. One of the most important aspects of our worship is that we are together. Spirituality is not an individual activity. We can pray personally, but it is community that gives our spiritual practice a richness that we cannot find on our own. With community comes accountability, feedback in our discerning, the opportunity to share our experiences to help each other understand better.

The closing portion of our lesson in spiritual living reads, “singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, being subject to one another out of our reverence for Christ.” We break from our “do this not that format” to bring us to focus. If we keep our eyes focused on this one point, the rest will come naturally. If we keep our hearts focused on gratitude to God for all of our blessings, we will stay filled with the Spirit and wisdom and discernment will follow. And we do not do this alone. Together we sing songs and make melodies and give thanks to God. And in doing so we put our egos aside and we submit to one another in love.

Think of a time in your life when you have experienced true gratitude—that kind of gratitude that wells up from the tips of your toes and fingers and overwhelms your heart and you just want to soak in the moment. It is in those moments that we’re not afraid of not having enough or of getting our feeling hurt. We are not preoccupied about making the right decision or about looking good enough or saying the right thing. It is in those moments that we feel the peace that only God can give to us.

As with cooking, spiritual life takes practice. It is not something we are born knowing or doing. We learn from our community, we follow our intuition, ans we just practice in every moment of every day. And when we forget or when we stray, we are welcomed home as the Prodigal Son to open and loving arms of God and our communities.

So I invite you this week to keep a song of God’s praise and thanksgiving in your heart and see how much easier it is to bend your will to wisdom of God. And remember that you are not alone. You are a part of this community gathered here. You are part of the greater church, united even in your differences by God.

Blessings and Peace to you this day.

Amen.