Sermons & Meditations

2 Corinthians 8:1-9
Presented May 24, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Seventh Sunday after Easter

Scott Peck begins his book The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace with a version of an old story entitled “The Rabbi’s Gift,” a story I’ve encountered in a number of different forms. The gist of the story focuses on a once-famous monastery that had fallen on difficult times. At one time, its many buildings were filled with young monks, the church building resounding with rich chanting of the Psalms. But now the monastery was dying. Only five monks remained: the abbot and four others, all over seventy years of age.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in the hermitage. And so they would whisper to one another, “The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again.” At just such a time, while the abbot was agonizing over the imminent death of the order, it occurred to him that he might visit and ask the rabbi if he had any advice that could save the monastery.

The rabbi warmly welcomed the abbot to his hut, but when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know how it is,” he lamented. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” And so the seasoned rabbi and abbot wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. When the time came for the abbot to leave, the two embraced. Said the abbot, “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years, but I have still failed in my purpose for coming. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you might offer that would help me save my dying order?” Sadly, the rabbi responded, “No, I am sorry. I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is among you; the Messiah is one of you.”

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Acts 8:26-40
Presented May 10, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Fifth Sunday of Easter

The longer I serve in ministry, the more convinced I become that the call to live as communities of God’s people requires a fundamentally new way of thinking; it demands the embracing of thought patterns many would see as countercultural. The prophet Isaiah, you may recall, once proclaimed for God to the ancient Israelites,

My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Indeed, our surprising and sometimes baffling God again and again calls us to grapple with new perspectives, to venture forth onto unforeseen paths, to embrace the risky pathway of discipleship. It is a matter, the Gospel writers tell us, of denying self, taking up the cross, and following in the footsteps of Jesus—the One who little concerns himself with status and position in life, but who instead models a life of servanthood, peacemaking, generosity, and gratitude. Along the way, as we take seriously this call to another way of living, we may well find the tidy plans we have for our lives disturbed and turned upside down!

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1 John 3:16-24
Presented May 3, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Our church’s Outreach and Growth Ministry Group recently took a look at the number of “hits” on our website in recent months, and discovered that the section of the website most visited—more than double any other section—was Community. It’s not surprising, really, that this would happen, for we live in a society literally starved for genuine community, parched by a lack of authentic interaction among neighbors. Quaker author Philip Gulley’s book entitled Porch Talk is based on the author’s observation that we have quit building homes with front porches. The author laments the loss of the significant conversations that occurred on many of those porches, not only within families, but also the valuable contact with neighbors who were passing by. Writes Philip Gulley,

This is the irony—we have more talk than ever before [these days], but too little communication; so many words, but so little meaning. “Bombardment” is the word that comes to mind—talk radio, 24-hour news, hundreds of television channels, and, God help us, gas pumps that spout the news along with fuel—coarse exchanges fraying the ties that bind….

I do not wish to romanticize the porch. Not all of the talk reached the level of Plato or Jefferson, but there was a luster to those talks, a certain glow and depth lacking in these days of e-mail and instant messaging. Perhaps it was the parenthesis of silence, the bracketing of conversation with reflection.

When my wife and I bought our home, we gave careful consideration to the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Little did we realize the most valuable real estate would be the two hundred square feet of our porch. On it, we have solved all of the world’s problems, evening after pleasant evening, arcing back and forth in our wicker swing, the twilight breeze bearing all our cares away.

Truth be told, it is easy to romanticize the past. And yet, who among us does not recognize the truth in Philip Gulley’s observations? Surely this critical element of meaningful communication has been all but lost in many areas of contemporary life, as we have created a climate in larger society that encourages going it alone in life. All too many live lives cut off from others, even their own family members. In a recent issue of Newsweek, in “The Last Word” column, Anna Quindlen laments the fact that parenting in our culture has become largely a solitary activity. Writes Quindlen, “It used to take a village to raise a child, but there isn’t a village anymore. Instead of extended family, there’s a playground where everyone pretends everything’s fine.”

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