Sermons & Meditations

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Presented September 13, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

In his novel entitled Life Goes On Quaker author Philip Gulley tells the story of Sam Gardner, pastor of the Friends Church in the fictional town of Harmony, Indiana, recalling his seminary days, particularly a time when it felt to him as if he had lost his faith. Sam confided in one of the professors, lamenting that he no longer knew what to believe; he couldn’t accept much of his childhood faith, yet yearned for the simplicity of that faith he held in his younger years. After listening to Sam pour out one frustration after another, the professor reminded him of some words spoken by Oliver Wendell Holmes, one-time Supreme Court Justice. Said Holmes, “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.” Sam’s professor recognized that Sam was in the midst of the painful process of letting go of inadequate images and understandings of God, while standing on the verge of embracing a deeper faith, a relationship with a God of far greater proportions, a God able to stretch Sam’s vision and faith well beyond that with which he had been raised. Indeed, the professor reminded Sam, “You’ve been stretched. Now you have to fill your mind with a grand vision. That’s why you’re here.”

It’s tempting—and often far more comfortable—to hold onto a static faith, a faith that provides easy answers. And yet ultimately, when confronted by life’s uncertainties and struggles, such a faith offers precious little to sustain us through those difficult times. In truth, a faith that does not impel us to stretch and to grow is no faith at all. Faith is a verb, a process and not a static reality.

You don’t need to be a seminary student to find yourself dissatisfied with simplistic answers and with an unquestioning faith. Many of us gathered in today’s worshiping community have faced unsolicited events in our lives that have shaken us, sometimes to the core. A crippling illness attacking your life, or that of a loved one; the disillusionment and despair that accompany a broken relationship or divorce; the loss of a job, often accompanied by a sense of having been betrayed by one’s employer, as well as a fear about making ends meet; the challenge of making a difficult decision that may impact the lives of others in both anticipated and unforeseen ways; an accident that forever alters how you see and experience life—these are only some of the experiences and events that can cause us to re-examine long-held beliefs and practices.

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Mark 7:1-23
Presented August 30, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker has a novel entitled Meridian, the story of a young African-American woman who dedicated herself, heart and soul, to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Meridian had rejected the church as reactionary, but finds herself, without fully understanding her motivations, drawn to visit churches once again. The year is 1968, and as she enters a Baptist Church and observes the community at worship, she begins to sense a different quality to that which she had experienced some years before, in those days when she found much of the church to be wary and anxious about the cost of the civil rights struggle, unwilling to change and to grow. Yet now, there is a new “feel” in the church; writes Alice Walker, “[Meridian] was suddenly aware that the sound of the ‘ahmens’ was different. Not muttered in resignation, not shouted in despair. No one bounced in his seat. No one even perspired. Just the ‘ah-mens’ rose clearly, unsentimentally, and with a firm tone of ‘We are fed up.’”

On the Sunday Meridian attends, the church has invited a father, whose young son had been slain during the civil rights struggle, to share a few words. It is the anniversary of that death. The father’s grief is so intense that he has had periods of insanity, but today, he is willing to stand before the congregation. Yet no words come as he stands awkwardly before the people, even though his throat was working and his eyes, redder than ever, were without tears. All the slain young man’s father could eventually say is, “My son died.” Still, Meridian senses the congregation with him, and feels a new resolve among the people, a determination that no longer would they allow their children to be destroyed by the racism built so deeply into the fabric of American life. Meridian finds herself drawn by that new resolve, and it is as if she hears the church saying that day, “the church, the music, the form of worship that has always sustained us, the kind of ritual you share with us—these are the ways to transformation that we know. We want to take this with us as far as we can.”

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Psalm 34:15-22; John 6:60-69
Presented August 23, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Quaker author Philip Gulley has written a series of “Harmony novels,” describing life in the small fictional town of Harmony, Indiana, particularly experiences within the life and fellowship of Harmony Friends Church and its pastor, Sam Gardner. Gulley describes one of the church’s characters, often a thorn in the side to Pastor Sam, in this way: “He knows just enough Scripture to be annoying, but not enough to be transformed.” We all know persons like that, don’t we? Persons who can quote individual verses of Scripture, but demonstrate precious little of the spirit behind those Scriptures. Persons who display little or none of the compassion and mercy, the forgiveness and grace, manifest in Jesus. Persons who are adept at pulling out Scripture references to prove their point, to compel others to do what they want, or to extend harsh words of judgment against one another. Persons who are not only annoying, but sadly, often dangerous, as Scripture has been used to justify everything from slavery to spousal abuse, from bigotry to homophobia, from crusades and inquisitions to violence and warfare.

The Bible has long been on best seller lists, but there’s a whole group of people who, like that character in the Harmony novels, claim to love the Bible while displaying little awareness of what’s actually in that Bible. And what’s in the Scriptures is a whole host of perspectives and experiences, yearnings and desires, frustrations and failures, callings and challenges, affirmations and uncertainties, that somehow all connect to the central story line that runs throughout the Bible—the story of God’s gracious, out-reaching, and transforming love. Indeed, the Latin root of our word Bible is biblia, meaning “the books.” The 39 books comprising the Old Testament and the 27 forming the New Testament contain a myriad of differing—and sometimes conflicting—perceptions and portrayals of the life of faith. Yet those varied insights and experiences are woven together by the fundamental story of our Creator God’s abundant compassion and love.

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John 6:51-58; Ephesians 5:15-20
Presented August 16, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

There’s a significant level of satisfaction we experience—isn’t there?—when we achieve a major accomplishment in our lives. Being chosen for a new job, particularly in the competitive climate of our day; the completion of a degree program at a school or university; the notoriety that comes when our work is well-respected and appreciated—these are some of the accomplishments in which we can take pride. At one time or another, each of us gathered here this morning, no doubt, has had some moment of glory—a time of personal satisfaction that comes from basking in the limelight, enjoying the acclaim that accompanies well-deserved recognition and appreciation.

But, truth be told, that kind of satisfaction seldom lasts. Indeed, in our competitive world, there is little time to rest on past laurels. Instead, we frequently find ourselves driven to achieve more and more. Sadly, this drive to succeed frequently forces life out of balance, particularly when our primary focus in life comes to center upon the attainment of greater riches and increased notoriety, no matter what the cost to ourselves or to others. Along the way, we likely discover, not greater satisfaction, but remarkably increased levels of dissatisfaction in our living. In a culture such as ours, seemingly obsessed with personal status and material wealth, our values can easily run askew, often before we fully realize what is happening.

This reality may be heightened in our day and in our success-worshiping culture, but inner dissatisfaction is really nothing new. Jesus spoke to the gnawing dissatisfactions of every age, found deep within the human soul—the yearning for deep and abiding relationship with our Creator God, the longing to discover life with meaning and purpose, the aching for deeper intimacy with those we love, the thirsting for a more profound experience of community. In today’s Scripture lesson Jesus is inviting his hearers to pay attention to their deepest longings—longings he offers to satisfy, as he embodies the remarkable grace of our God. But John the Gospel writer has Jesus speaking in language we find baffling; even more, the people of Jesus’ own day would have found his words to be disturbing, and even revolting. After asserting that he is the living bread of life, Jesus claims, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in me” (6:53, paraphrased).

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John 6:1-21
Presented July 26, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

One of the qualities of life among the Church of the Brethren, one of the values of the gospel we hold most dear, is that of nonconformity. A key text comes from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter twelve:

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect (12:1-2).

Paul’s words remind us that nonconformity is not an end in and of itself, but rather, the result a new way of thinking—a renewing of the mind—that comes to us as we center our lives on discerning the mind of Christ and the will of God, and then seek to live out this new life perspective in all our encounters and relationships. Part of that new way of thinking is a willingness to grapple with difficult questions. What does it mean for us to live, here and now, as if the kingdom of God were fully present in us and among us? How willing are we to stand against the values and mores of the culture around us, when the gospel compels us to live differently from that culture? Indeed, what shape will our living take, should we fully embrace life in God’s realm? What does it mean to be peacemakers living in a world far more prone to opt for violence and warfare? What does it mean to embrace the call to simplicity, to a life of downward mobility, in a world that extols upward mobility and defines human value in terms of how much we have and earn and are willing to hoard? How do we affirm our dependence upon God and our interdependence with the entire human family, while living in a world that ever encourages us to “look out for number one,” to care for ourselves alone?

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