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May 29, 2022
Rev. Patricia Wagner He was one of us Son of Man, child of Mary, A human being, made of flesh and bone, Feel your hands His were just like yours Had a heart beating within his chest A heart that warmed and raced and broke, A mind that soared and pondered And eyes that sometimes could not stop weeping Like ours this week. He was blessed, tempted, befriended, tormented. Who knew tenderness, and savagery and practiced forgiveness. He taught us To love ourselves To love our neighbor To love our enemies All as God loves us And to lay down our lives for one another And then he did Rather than take back what he’d taught us Rather than to deny the Christ within him. To renounce those who said there was no God but Caesar, or corrupt religious power, both who proclaimed God lived by their limits. Death might have ended Jesus’ life But not the Christ within him. Christ arose. On Easter morn And then, once more and finally according to both Matthew and Luke. Luke gives us two accounts of the ascension. The one David read And again, in the Book of Acts of the Apostles. The Risen Jesus, still bearing the scars of his mortal life Has been appearing among his followers On the 40th day, the disciples asked him: Lord is this the time when you will restore the kingdom? Still hoping it seems for what Judas and the rebels wanted for that kingdom of Israel to rise again in glory and power. Jesus was always speaking of the Kingdom of God. And he does, again: “Yes, you will receive power from the holy spirit to be my witnesses” Mou martyres in Luke’s original language: my martyrs the holy spirit will give you power to bear the cost of following me. And then he is raised up. The scarred, resurrected one, becomes Divine light and grace his human journey ended, enfolded into the pervasive presence Of the Eternal Jesus becomes Christ for the world. Here is a poem by Anglican priest and poet Malcolm Guite, We saw his light break through the cloud of glory Whilst we were rooted still in time and place As earth became a part of Heaven’s story And heaven opened to his human face. We saw him go and yet we were not parted He took us with him to the heart of things The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings, Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness, Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight, Whilst we ourselves become his clouds of witness And sing the waning darkness into light, His light in us, and ours in him concealed, Which all creation waits to see revealed. His light in us We enabled by the power of the spirit To be his martyrs, his witnesses. His light in us seems deeply concealed this week And our readiness to be his martyrs, his witnesses challenging. I wanted to hear the voice of a victim And found Taylor Schumann, who was shot through a door By a young man with a gun at her college in Virginia, bullet fragments lodged in her eye. Taylor is an evangelical Christian And this is her witness: I believe in the power of prayer deeply. And I think when we pray about gun violence we are not always open to hearing what God has to say. Are we really willing to be used to reduce this violence? If God’s answer to our prayers requires personal sacrifice, are we willing to hear that? Every single year, 40,000 image-bearers of Christ are taken from this earth by these acts, If we are truly pro-life, must we not speak for life? 40,000 image bearers, including all those children What happens when we think of one another this way? When our understand of Christ for the world Means Christ in all? Caryll Houselander was on the underground train in London, A crowded train in which all sorts of people jostled together Suddenly, she says I saw with my mind, Christ in them all. Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passerby – Christ.” I had long been haunted by the Russian conception of the humiliated Christ, the lame Christ limping through Russia, begging His bread; the Christ who, all through the ages, might return to the earth and come even to sinners to win their compassion by His need. Now, in the flash of a second, I knew that this dream is a fact . . . Christ in us Alright, we say, but what do we do with those who commit such Horrific crimes, surely Christ is not in them. But Yes, she says, their sin is in reality their utmost sorrow Christ is suffering in them. Even in those sinners whose souls seem to be dead. Because Christ Who is the life of the soul, is dead in them. They are his tombs, yet from such tombs he can rise. The Christ weeps in those who have no mercy these angry, broken, manipulated sick, and likely grieving men. pleading: Stop, stop, stop…… But Christ, there, too, in that classroom of holy innocents And in their teachers, their holy mothers spreading their arms like angel’s wings that they would know God’s love in death. Christ dwelled in them, And they rose with Christ Each elder, each child, each teacher, rose to light, to grace upon grace. And we, we here in this room With hearts that beat, and minds that ponder And hands fit for work We have been given power by the holy spirit We, says the risen Lord, not the kingdoms of the earth We have been been given power to become Christ witnesses, Christ’s martyrs. Paul says to the church at Ephesis: God will give to you, A spirit of wisdom and revelation So that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened You may know what is the hope to which he has called you. Let us feel the Christ within our bones Within our tears, within our voice. Let us bear witness To the Christ within In Jesus’ name. Amen. Patricia Wagner, Maple Grove UMC
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Did anything happen this week you weren’t expecting?
Good things, hard things? Costs up, market’s down, Losses, gifts, And you had to figure out what to do Make choices, Adjust. Feel like you are not getting it right, Because we are all doing this for the first time We are all improvising. And maybe, aside from all the wondrous order of the universe Creation is full of improvisation, Of responding to the choices every creature makes. And bringing forth new possibilities. And what we sense, we creatures of both habit and impulse, Is that God the eternal, is in the flow, In the movement of our lives, Its changing rhythms, unexpected turns, Working, as Marjorie Suchocki says, with the world as it is to bring it to where it can be. Working with us, as we are, and bringing us to where we can be. Jazz is a form of music that we don’t typically hear in worship Worship, at least in many traditions, Feels reliably steady Whereas Jazz can seem like it evolving as you hear it, Jazz has unexpected notes, movements, rhythms, But somehow, with the right director And musicians who know music in their souls. It all comes together. A good metaphor, says my friend and teacher, Carolyn Bohler For the nature of the Divine. A name for God “Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you” Says Jesus in Matthew. Maybe God is like a jazz conductor, say Carolyn, Who helps us know what to do when the time comes. Like with the music we will hear now from our choir and instrumentalists: Missa Jazzis Ancient hymns to the life of God in Christ put to new melodies, new rhythms, We and the musicians, the singers will have to lean in, trust one another, and their director, Greg, go with the flow and not worry about mistakes but keep flowing, together. So, in the movement, the rhythm of your life, You respond to what is new Trusting that you are not alone. earning to live in the flow. Responding in way, that, with our loving Jazz Conductor Brings forth something good. Patricia Wagner, Maple Grove UMC ![]()
May 15, 2022
Cathy Davis, Assistant Pastor Scriptures: Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35 Here we are on the fifth Sunday of Easter, in this season known as Eastertide. Which is the fifty days following Easter, taking us up to Pentecost. Christ is risen! He’s appeared to Mary in the garden, to the disciples in the upper room, on the beach of Galilee and on the road to Emmaus. Christ is alive – it’s a time to celebrate and yet, it’s not the same, everything has changed. Life with Jesus as his disciples knew it, is gone. What was, is no more. The hopes and dreams of many followers for a political uprising and social reform to usher in a golden age, a new kingdom, those have been dashed. It’s time to recalibrate. Those first followers of Jesus are between ‘what was’ and ‘what will be.’ They have left behind the tried and true, or it has left them, and they don’t yet know what will replace it. Times such as these are what are sometimes referred to as liminal space – it’s a time of transition, a threshold. Between worlds. The old one has been left behind, and what’s to come is still a mystery. That’s where those first followers of Jesus found themselves…living in the mystery of life, death, and resurrection. And in the fear, grief, confusion and even excitement of it. Eastertide is also a season known as "mystagogy” which is an initiation into the “mysteries” of Christ. It’s a spiritual process of moving from the visible to the invisible, into deeper spiritual realities, those that can’t be easily explained. In the midst of this season of mystagogy, our lectionary Gospel reading for today takes us back to John 13:31-35. To the Last Supper, Maundy Thursday, to words spoken by Jesus right after Judas leaves the Passover meal. These verses are also the beginning of Jesus’ Farewell discourse that goes through the next few chapters. And in these chapters, Jesus provides instructions to his disciples on how to live, in his visible absence. I didn’t really want to go back to the Maundy Thursday scriptures right now. I was hoping for stories about the Risen Christ and his appearances to the disciples - walking beside them, comforting them, breaking bread with them, and yet, perhaps today’s scriptures on how to carry on in uncertain and troubling times may be exactly what’s needed right now. Of the two scripture we read from today’s lectionary, one looks back and one looks to the future with these disciples. As we look back in the Gospel of John we hear, love each another as I have loved you and as we look forward in the Book of Acts, we read about Peter’s vision from God that does away with the labels of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ and welcomes the ‘outsiders’ into the new church community. These readings remind me of the need to take the wisdom of the past and yet also stay open to what God is creating new, now, and the potential the future holds. The words Jesus gave to his disciples to carry them into the future was, “Love each other. Just as I have loved you.” He said, “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” The Eastertide season is also a time to shore up our identity as Christians, this is when the newly Easter baptized members, deepen their understanding of what it means to be a Christian. And Jesus has established love as the defining characteristic “everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” It is by our love they will know us. And yet, especially during difficult times - times of change, of anxiety, shock, grief, fear ---- love is not usually our initial response. We may be more likely to strike out or withdraw. Here we are in this season of transition, of now and not yet. When we are not sure what the future holds but we know the past is now the past. We have all experienced these liminal spaces. Those times in our lives when we’re transitioning – by choice or not. Those who are graduating from high school or college – they’re in liminal space – standing at the threshold of something new. Now and not yet. When we wait for the birth of a child. When a loved one dies, our old life dies too, and we wait as new life slowly emerges. When we’ve experienced a serious health crisis. When we go through a divorce. We have a new identity, new relationships. When there are major social and political shifts, and we wait and watch, wondering what’s next. When a pandemic hits, people are sick and dying, we stop gathering, we’re uncertain what the future holds. These difficult times and many others, are between ‘what was’ and ‘what’s next’ – what do we do in times such as these? I’m reminded of a poem by Dan Albergotti called Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale, some of his suggestions are: Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Review each of your life's ten million choices. Think of all the things you did and could have done. So, it’s said, change is inevitable, transformation is optional. Jesus gave instructions for transformation to the disciples – he said, love each other, and he said it the most important commandment. This is how his followers are to become, to belong to, the body of the Risen Christ, this will sustain them even when there are any number of things threatening their faith. In his book, We Make the Road By Walking, author Brian McLaren says, “Jesus was living by a different interpretation of the old stories…Instead of arming his followers with daggers, swords, spears, chariots, and war horses, he armed them with faith, hope, service, forgiveness, and love.” Theologian Ian Paul says that these words from John 13 and the farewell discourse that follows, was “consolation to the inner circle but also becomes a word of consolation to us, facing different kinds of challenges and tragedies.” He says: “The future home with God is found now in the present, as we take our place amongst the people of God and as God makes his home with us now, by the Spirit.” When our world falls apart, when war breaks out, when covid surges, when we’re fearful of who get elected to a political position, when stocks are plummeting, and cost are rising, when our spouse, child, parents, or siblings die. When we head to college, we leave an old life behind and begin a new one. It’s a good time to return to love. To press in on love. We listen again as Jesus says, you do know how to love, you know how to do this, because you have been loved by me. Author Richard Rohr says: “Perhaps we don’t want to hear these commandments to love one another because we can never live up to them through our own efforts. We’d like to whittle this down to a little commandment, like “Come to church on Sunday,” so that we could feel we have obeyed the commandment.” Love demands a lot of us. We are asked to be vulnerable, face fears, to let go of judgments or forgive an offense. Patterns and responses that are natural and can be difficult to change on our own. It is in Christ and through Christ, as Paul so often said, that we are transformed. Last Sunday’s Gospel reading was John 15: 4 & 5 and a portion of that read: Those who abide in me, and I in them, bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Another McLaren quote from his book We Make the Road by Walking, he said: "Where the Spirit is moving, love for God always, always, always overflows in love for neighbor." Today, the high school graduates were given the book Three Simple Rules by Bishop Rueben Job. These are the three general rules for holy living that Methodism founder John Wesley taught – the rules are: do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. Rules for holy living. And Jesus said, “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” Last week I had a conversation with longtime Maple Grove member Judy Becker. I have known Judy pretty much since the day I came to Maple Grove over 20 years ago. I was welcomed in then by her warmth and kindness. I really got to know her when we were in a year-long Disciple Bible study together and she has remained a friend and wise teacher in my life. For years Judy served in visitation roles here at Maple Grove. She used to visit the first-time visitors who came to church, and she also visited church members, especially those who were homebound. And when I began working at Maple Grove, Judy mentored me in pastoral care, I went along with her on her visits and she taught me then, and continues to say today, it’s all about the people. Judy didn’t rush a visit, she patiently listened, she remembered important details, taking notes as needed. She related to people in what Jewish scholar, Martin Buber called an I-Thou relationship, and he describes that as an attitude of reverence, a loving “yes” to God and to others. She treated people as though it was an honor to be with them. Last week Judy and I were talking about her and her husband, Willard’s upcoming 70th wedding anniversary. They were married, right here, in this sanctuary 70 years ago on May 24th. And I want to wish Judy and Willard a very happy anniversary. But somewhere in our conversation, as it often does with Judy, it turned to the bigger, deeper concerns of life and the nature of God. And Judy said to me, “it is really very simple, God is love.” She said, “The older I get, the more I love what’s around me.” She went on to say, “we help God enter into the world through our love.” Holy living. It’s not what we see, it’s how we see. Holiness looks out through the eyes of love. In his book The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr gives what he calls his only definition of a true Christian, he says, “A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That, he says, is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone.” He goes on to say, “Isn’t that ironic? The point of the Christian life is not to distinguish oneself from the ungodly, but to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else." We become what we press into. We probably know this to be true now, more than ever. Our social/political breakdown may have something to do with too much pressing in on fear, division and hatred. In an Eastertide homily, Pope Francis talked about how the Risen Christ had left a message for his disciples to go back and meet him at Galilee, the Pope said we need to return to those moments of being captivated by the love and mercy of Jesus, but he said, “not in a kind of nostalgia but rather it is returning to our first love, in order to receive the fire which Jesus has kindled in the world and to bring that fire to all people.” St. Ignatius of Loyola says that we are to “find God in all things in order that we might love and serve God in all.” Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. According to Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. And according to our Acts scripture from today’s reading, love is inclusive. Love doesn’t decide who is worthy and who isn’t. Peter’s transformative vision from God reversed centuries of rules and practices deciding who was ‘clean’ and who was ‘unclean’. Many years ago, I went to a conference in Arizona with some friends. It was about spiritual practices for connecting with the Divine. One morning my friends and I went to a restaurant for breakfast and the waitress was just terrible! The worst I’ve ever had. It was not a busy morning there, and yet she took a long time to get to our table, she made it very clear that she was not in the mood to be waiting on us. After an extended period of time our food arrived, delivered grumpily with items missing, she didn’t check back with us, neglected to refill coffee, and we had to flag someone else down to bring us our check so we could get to our conference on time. However, inspired by what we had heard at the conference, we made a decision to respond with love. It was definitely not an earned love. We each tipped her $20 for our $10 breakfasts. It was a gratuitous tip, and it felt loving, not because of the money but rather because we set aside the question of whether she deserved it or not, whether she was worthy or not. According to Dr. King the necessary ingredient for the Beloved Community was agape love. He said that “agape is the love of God operating in the human heart. Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes” and “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.” Maple Grove is one place we can practice creating a community of agape love and strengthen our identity as followers of Christ. In this Eastertide season of mystery, this time of now and not yet, we recalibrate, and even as we wait for what’s to be we can:
And on those days, allow this community of Christians, to love you, because that is what we do, that what followers of Christ do, they help God enter into the world, in our lives, through love. ![]()
May 8, 2022
Rev. Patricia Wagner Scripture: Acts 9: 36-43, John 15:4-5 Acts 9:36-43 36Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. Scripture: John 15: 4-5 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. I Choose you, says a mother to her child, says a child to her mother, says the one to whom they both belong. My mother was a nurse at OSU, she was the surgical nurse requested by Dr. James, and Dr. Zollinger for their particularly difficult surgeries. When Jack Nicklaus needed hand surgery, mom was called in. But she spent most of her career working in the outpatient clinics, her heart was in caring or those of lesser means and she would come home with stories of trauma and resilience. She was born in 1927, so was a child of the Great Depression. Her father was a pastor, and there was almost no salary for a while. He was paid in bushels of corn, tomatoes, and beans, so with that, and the food from their garden her mom fed the family of six as well as all the hungry men passing through who came to their back door. My Mom would make pies when we had company always making a second one which she sent home with her guests. She was always giving things away, we don’t need this, she’d say, and she was disappointed in us when we chided her for being generous forgetting that it was hers to give, her life to offer. We can forget that, folded into the domesticity of mother’s lives is a path of holiness. Like her mother, mom ended her days on her knees in prayer by her bed. The strength to feed, to make, and make do, to care for those in the household and those at the door or the hospital, was possible because they were connected to a source. Came from and led into union with God Just once in the New Testament do we hear the word, mahetria, the feminine form of the Greek noun for disciple: It is in our story today, Tabitha, a widow, is a disciple. She does good works, and when she dies, the women are bereft. They lift up all the garments she has made, What shall they do without the one who has clothed them with love. We get the despair, its hard not to feel that for the nation, our sense of union, failing, or the world economy, or the only three months old. But seemingly endless war on Ukraine. And of course, we have our own issues in our own particular lives and homes. We may find ourselves shutting out the hard parts drinking it away, ignoring it, walking away. But Walter Brueggeman, a bible scholar says, The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the that can also steel yourself against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. In the 15th chapter of John, Jesus gathers his disciples around him. He foresees the hardships and death he is about to face and wants to console them. He knows the trials they will face in the days ahead. And wants to prepare them. Rather than arming them with words and strategies to defeat the enemy, Jesus speaks of vines and branches. Of hope and trust I abide in God, you, now abide in me, he says, make your home in me just as I do in you.” You cannot go it alone, he says, you will not bear fruit abide in my love. Paul knew this story, walks into this community of bereft at Tabitha’s death as one who was abiding in God’s love, and through God’s spirit, life returns to Tabitha and to that community of faith. We hear this story of resurrection in Acts and we think it impossible, we see the devastation in Ukraine and in other places and think, how can it return, we sense the strife among us, and the reports of what is ending. Yet, Jesus says, abide with me and be open to the restorative power from which all things come. I heard a radio reporter tell of visiting a place that was home to dozens of severely disabled children, whom parents had left to institutional care and then their caregivers, as the invasion came left behind again. There were others who came, who stepped in when parents and caregivers failed. But they, like the reporter, sounded shattered. Bereft on behalf of these innocents caught in war. As the reporter was recording, one of the young girls, who was blind, with infirmity of mind, and body, became interested in the reporter and his microphone, and she took it in her hands, she spoke, with delight, and then she began to sing. To sing! She was singing the song in her heart. The life that we listening to her had presumed was beyond hope was insistent on saying, I am here and I can give you my song. In the depression, Grandma always answered the back door at the clinic. Mom was present to the sick. We enter into the world we’ve been given, and to which we are called and in the midst of it, sing our song. A song given by the one in whom we abide. A song for all those who abide or hope to abide. The magnificent community, this magnificent community. For if we abide in the love of the Christ, then we abiding in one another, we build a bridge. I’ve been thinking this week about a mom named Naomi who was a nurse and her daughter, Wynonna, and their song about what endures the love between God and us, between the Christ and us, and between all of us. That we can bear God’s love in the world. Love that is greater than death. Love that abides. Love can build a bridge between your heart and mine. Love can build a bridge, don’t you think it’s time. Don’t you think it’s time? |