Who Is Knocking?

Luke 11:1-13
9th Sunday of Pentecost

At Hope church a Korean United Methodist congregation gathers every Sunday afternoon, bringing immigrants, professors, students, and others from South Korea from all over northern MN. A few times they invited me to preach to them – Zane often went with me. I was always quite aware that I was the only person in the room who was born in this country. They were a most gracious and polite congregation. Most of the service was in Korean – the hymns and the prayers and scriptures. Then I would stand up to preach, and often they asked me to pray. The last time I was with them I prayed after the sermon and then led them in the Lord’s Prayer.

But there was a moment then, a moment you get in worship sometimes, a little rustling or unsettling, and you realize you have done something wrong, like when Rich and I didn’t know you were supposed to greet one another after the announcements on our first Sunday. I noticed something was wrong and then asked about it.

“Pastor,” the leader replied, “we usually sing the Lord’s Prayer.”
“In Korean?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“By all means, let’s do that,” I said.
And so I sat down and they began to sing, in Korean, Albert Hay Malotte’s Lord’s Prayer. I sang it quietly in English.
It astonished me, sitting there, to hear this song of a prayer that Jesus taught in Aramaic, that had been finalized probably in Greek and then Latin, set to a tune by an American, sung in Korean in Duluth MN. This prayer really finds its way around.

“Lord, teach us to pray,” the disciples asked Jesus, and this was his answer – a little over half of what we now know as the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus addresses God as Father, or Abba, Daddy, and then there are two petitions of praise to God – hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come – and then three petitions for our lives – give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sings as we forgive those who are indebted to us and don’t bring us to the time of trial. Part of the prayer then is directed to God and part is asking for help for our own lives, that which we need, that which we need to work on, and that which we want to avoid.

It is a solid prayer; it covers a lot of ground. It is known in so many languages, and it is so familiar we can hardly hear it. We print it in the bulletin to make sure our guests know which version we are using – where we stop – or for those who are unfamiliar with it. But if you worship very often you know this prayer really well.

In fact sometimes people say we know this prayer too well. It is rote, we don’t think about it. So these are the words that Jesus gave us so long ago – do they work if they are too familiar? I’ve led this prayer in worship probably more than 700 times so far in my ministry. I think the combined retired clergy in the room have probably led this prayer in worship at least 10,000 times. If you say it every Sunday for 60 years, give or take a few, you’ve said it a couple thousand times.

Lord, teach us to pray.
Of course this isn’t Jesus’ only teaching about prayer. Luke pairs a few teachings together in this text. The next bit, which Will read, is about what we can expect from God in prayer. So someone goes to a friend at midnight, knocks on the door, and asks for bread. Not for himself, of course, but for a guest that has just arrived. The man responds from inside – leave me alone; I’m in bed and my children are asleep and I’m not getting up. Keep pounding on the door, Jesus says, and the man will get up not because you are a friend but just to get you to be quiet.

So is God like Bruce in Bruce Almighty – God gives god-powers to Bruce who becomes overwhelmed by the prayers (in Buffalo, NY only) so he answers them all “Yes.” ? Is that it?

And then another story – if your kid is hungry, will you give them a snake instead of a fish, or a scorpion instead of an egg? Of course not. A parent, most parents, even pretty rotten parents, generally give the child what they need.

These are weird stories about God. So is God a little better than us at our worst?

Lord, teach us how to pray.
And then Jesus tells us to seek, and to knock, and to ask.
But sometimes it seems that when we ask it doesn’t work out. Sometimes it seems that when we seek we don’t find. Sometimes it seems we knock in the middle of the night and nothing happens, we say the Lord’s prayer the 1,000th time and don’t know what it is for.

Lord, teach us how to pray.
Jeladdin Rumi is a Sufi mystic and poet from the Muslim tradition from the 14th century who has gotten quite popular in the last decade. He wrote a poem about a man praying to God all night long, saying, in his tradition, “Allah, Allah.” Someone came along and said, “So, I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?”
The man fell silent and went to sleep.
In his dreams he saw a guide who asked why he quit crying out to God.
“Because I never heard anything back.”
“This longing you express is the return message,” the guide said.

The connection is in the longing, in the asking, in the desire, in the repeating, in the knocking on the door all night long. Praying over and over and over gives us a connection, it burns a pathway in our brains and souls to God, it keeps the phone lines open, it increases the bandwidth of the connection. It isn’t about polite conversation, it isn’t about taking turns in responding, it isn’t about waiting quietly for God to say something. It’s about persistence, tenacity, irritating repetition.

Lord, teach us how to pray.
In Jesus’ stories we often know exactly who we are. In this one we are the ones knocking on the door. We are the ones with the inconvenient but well-excused request. We are the ones with the holy purpose, demanding help so we can go ahead doing what God has asked us to do in the first place. But sometimes I think it is helpful if we think about the story a new way, if we switch up the roles a little. What if we are the ones in bed with our families all sleeping, tired from a long day, not wanting to get up, and God is the one knocking on the door of our house, demanding a response, demanding help?

Sometimes we are the ones sleeping, sometimes we are too tired and crabby to hear, but God is always banging on the door, asking us to open it, to keep the connection going, to respond, to keep praying even if we don’t know what the prayer does, or how to pray, or what words to use and what use it all is.

Lord, teach us how to pray.
Teach us how to keep using the Lord’s Prayer so that when we are old and dying and don’t remember much and someone takes our hand and starts saying the prayer our brain remembers it, deep within and we are connected to that person and to prayer again.
Lord, teach us how to pray.
Teach us how to keep praying. Teach us how to set aside our politeness and demand a response from you, to keep praying even though we don’t know what to do or what to say or how to sit or what to do.
Lord, teach us to pray,
and teach us how to be awake when you bang on our door in the middle of the night.
Amen.

Sibling Rivalry

Luke 10:38-42, 8th Sunday after Pentecost

I know Martha.

I’ve always been concerned, as a follower of Jesus, what I am supposed to do. When I was twelve I was certain I needed to be a missionary to be a good Christian, and I really did not want to do it!

I hung out with the Campus Crusade folks for a few years – the boys were very interesting – and wondered how to be good enough to be a Christian.

Then I went to the Conference United Nations/Washington DC trip, with Clare Karsten and Toby Horst, and I learned that Christians could get involved in peace and justice issues. I wasn’t a great activist but I was hooked.

Then I worked at a camp for inner city children and wondered how I could help those living in poverty.

In my first appointment I wrote the application papers for Habitat for Humanity in Winona County. In my second appointment I started a ministry for urban young adults. In my third appointment I helped settle a family of 14 refugees from Sierra Leone. In my fourth appointment I chaired the board of CHUM, which works for justice for the poor but also provides food, shelter, health care and community for the homeless in Duluth.

I’ve served on many committees in the Minnesota Annual Conference and have gone to General and Jurisdictional Conference.

I know Martha.

But Mary isn’t a stranger to me, either.

Even as a child I would wander off to pray or write poetry. I snuck into the empty sanctuary when I could, I sought out God’s presence.

When I got to Hamline I discovered I loved Biblical studies, and I took every class I could. In seminary I won an award for biblical studies at UTS, mostly because I was interested in a time when most students did not care for it.

I’ve led spirituality retreats at every church I’ve served and I’ve hosted many worship services for my colleagues.

I’ve studied Centering Prayer and wondered how to incorporate more meditation into my life and my Christian teaching.

I know Mary.

I’ve always thought of Mary and Martha as two different people but you know – they both live inside me. And what do you think – they fight. They fight with each other. They argue and they fuss.

“Mary, get up and get in here and help me. There is a world to feed and you are sitting down doing nothing. People are dying. You need to do more than pray.”

“Martha, sit down a minute and think about what you are doing. If you don’t take time to rest and to listen to God, how do you know you are even doing the right thing?”

“Jesus said to offer mercy to your neighbor.”

“Jesus also said I have chosen the better part.”

So they fight. And I get confused. What kind of Christian am I supposed to be? What kind of pastor am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do?

But I found a way to help them get along.

A few years ago I started a Covenant Discipleship group at Hope because I wanted to help my congregation grow spiritually. What I discovered was that it helped me grow in my understanding of what it means to be Christian. It helped me make peace between my Mary and my Martha.

You see, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was all about prayer, study, and time with God. And he was all about changing the world through action. He figured out we needed both of these to grow as followers of Jesus. So our United Methodist Rule of Discipleship is this: “To witness to Jesus Christ in the world, and to follow his teachings through acts of compassion, justice, worship, and devotion under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

So every week for the last few years six other women and I got together and shared what we had done in the way of mercy: acts of compassion and justice, and piety: acts of devotion and worship. Some of the women were amazing at devotion; I did better with justice. We all struggled with some of it, and tried to do more of the part that was harder for us.

I started the group because I thought it would help my congregation grow spiritually. Of course I forgot it would do something to me to0, and what I discovered was that my Mary and my Martha didn’t fight so much anymore. I found room for both of them – Martha reporting on compassion and justice and Mary on devotion and worship. Some weeks one did more than the other, but I found more balance between the two.

Isn’t this great? Mary and Martha don’t have to fight. Of course, what about the text today? Doesn’t Jesus say, “Mary has chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken away from her?”

Well, this is one story we need to take into context. Just before this story we have the lawyer asking about eternal life, and the answer is: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind – I hear acts of piety here – and your neighbor as yourself – acts of mercy, right there. Both are present. Then the rest of the story is about acts of mercy and Jesus’ statement, “Go and do likewise.”

Then after this story of Mary and Martha we learn about prayer. And if you think that is all about piety and not about mercy then we need to look at it more closely.

This text is balanced itself by it’s location in the Gospel. Mary and Martha do not have to fight. There is time for each of them. The key is to listen to Jesus, to what Jesus is saying to you – is he telling you to “go and do likewise” like the lawyer or “she has chosen the better part” to Martha? What is Jesus saying to you right now?

Mercy on the Other Side

Luke 10:25-37, the story of the Good Samaritan

Last week Zane and Theo and I were biking to a nearby playground and we struck up a conversation with someone across Snelling Avenue. We mentioned living next to this church and the woman said, “Oh, I don’t go to church on the other side of Snelling.”

I’ve lived in St. Paul four times now, always within a mile and a half of Snelling. I didn’t know it was such a great divide! I knew the river was, but not Snelling.
I’m glad the good people of Cleveland Ave had mercy on this side of Snelling and came across!

This is the 4th time I’ve moved to St. Paul but my first in this neighborhood. I’m still figuring things out. I’ve been asked to serve on the MN Conference Urban Task Force. I went to a meeting where several nonprofit leaders and city leaders discussed the issues St. Paul is facing. We all sat with maps in front of us as they spoke, and at one point one of my colleagues leaned over and said, “Your neighborhood is fine.”

It is fine, isn’t it. But hers isn’t. Lots of them aren’t. Trouble isn’t too far away. I’m not sure where the dividing lines are: University, Dale, West 7th? This congregation sits in a beautiful, privileged area. How do we show mercy on the other side of town?

Why do I ask this? Because I am a United Methodist.
Why do I ask this? Because I am a follower of Jesus.

Following Jesus is frustrating business. We’ve got another irritating scripture lesson today. We are so familiar with it perhaps it isn’t too irritating anymore. But we have the lawyer testing Jesus today, searching as an accomplished lawyer – no offense to the multiple lawyers present – for the loophole, the weak spot, in the commandment. He asks, “What must I do to have eternal life?” and Jesus asks him to answer. “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” Seems that there is no wiggle room, expect for the one he found: define “neighbor.” And then we have this story.
You may wonder why I memorize the gospel every week – and I don’t every week, and sometimes I will mess it up, and I’m okay with that. But when I do the work to memorize it I have to pay attention to it, understand why the words are in the order they are, notice the connections between the sentences. And what I noticed this week in this very, very familiar story is what side of the road the three travelers were on.
So the man was beaten, stripped, robbed, left for dead. And three people come by.
The priest happens by, sees him, and passes by – on the other side.
The Levite comes by, sees him, and passes by – on the other side.
The Samaritan traveling on the road comes near – then sees him, was moved with pity – then responds in this cascade of actions:
went to him, bandaged his wounds, poured oil and wine on them, put him on his animal, brought him to an inn, took care of him, paid for his future care, promised to come back. Total, complete, extravagant care.
Are we to believe that the priest and the Levite were terrible people? and the Samaritan a saint? That is an easy way to look at this text, but then what does it mean for us? Are we terrible? Or are we saints? What would we do?
The first step is in seeing and coming near – or seeing and passing by on the other side. Mercy needs proximity, it needs a connection, it needs to be near. At least it works better that way.
If you don’t get close, don’t take a good look, you can kind of talk yourself out of the reality of what was there. “He was probably dead. He was fine. He was sleeping. He was a trap.” And they stayed on the other side.
But drawing near, now, is a different story. Crossing to the other side, coming near – it is harder to ignore the human in front of us, it is harder to shut off the mercy in our hearts.
Putting ourselves in the way of opportunities is the first step in acting with mercy.
So this week and next about 25 of our folks are working just north of I-94 near Dale, building a house for someone they may not have met under other circumstances. Each of those people are taking mercy to the other side of the street
Proximity defines a lot of our relationships. And we can’t take care of everybody. If you try to as your pastor I would have to worry about you. But the gospel keeps pushing our boundaries. Jesus keeps trying to get us to take down our walls, to cross the road. Jesus wants us to take our mercy to the other side.

Because this all ties in with that first commandment. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” There are no walls in that, no boundaries, no roads we won’t cross. The way to learn to love God that completely is to practice on each other, loving, with no boundaries, no walls, no streets we won’t cross. Because that is the way God loves us. And we are invited to enter into that love – and then, as Jesus said to the lawyer, you will live. In the fullness of life.

So we spend our lives not being sinners or saints but trying to do better, trying to expand our heart so we are ready to go to the other side, the side where Jesus waits for us.

God invites us to cross over to the other side of our prejudices, to the other side of our fear, to the other side of our divisions. God invites us to cross over, so we may live.

Flying Coach, No Luggage

Luke 10:1-16
July 8, 2007

(Sometimes my sermon title comes too far ahead of the sermon and after I struggle with the text for awhile I realize that the sermon will have no relationship to the title. This is happening today.)

During the last week of June Mayflower moves the pastors of the Minnesota Annual Conference. I’ve moved often enough that I know some of the movers – we had the same crew leader this last time as we did four years ago. Now the Conference will pay to move 14,000 pounds for a longer move (it was 13,000 last time.) Last time we were overweight at 14,700 pounds. We’ve added one person to the family since then, so Kelly and I worked hard to get under the new limit. We donated an antique safe to Hope, we filled two dumpsters, took two carloads to Goodwill, and donated things to a neighborhood garage sale. When the moving truck showed up at our new house I ran out and asked, “How much did the truck weigh?”
“15,700 pounds.”

You can see why this text might make me nervous.

This story is part of a long section in Luke where Jesus is teaching about discipleship – what it means to follow him. He is sending out his followers – 70 of them – to the villages nearby where he is planning to go soon. He sends them in pairs with very specific instructions on what to carry, what to do, how to behave, and how to leave. “No purse (which means no money), no bag (which means nothing extra) and no sandals (extra sandals, I think.)”

The directions for what to take seem harsh – why take nothing with you?
Is Jesus encouraging everyone to be an ascetic, with a begging bowl, enjoy nothing, deny yourself?
This doesn’t fit for a guy who was always at dinner parties, eating and drinking, called a glutton by his enemies.

Is Jesus trying to teach his followers that they need to depend upon God and not feel secure with their wordly goods?
Perhaps – there is plenty of that sort of teaching in the Bible.

But Jesus is trying to do something else here, too. The clue is in what he keeps telling his followers to say, if they leave or if they stay: the kingdom of God has come near.

We need to know something about the world these people lived in to understand what is happening. The Israelites were under Roman occupation and living under constant threat of death, violence, and poverty. The people were very poor and had little freedom. So to protect themselves they pulled inward, built walls between themselves and others, and tried to protect what they had.

Jesus sends out his followers with a very specific purpose in mind, one designed to offer a different way to live. The seventy were sent out to develop community with those they encountered, to not only announce the kingdom of God but to make it real among the people, real in the breaking down of walls. So they don’t carry an extra cloak because then they need to ask someone for a bed. They don’t carry food because then they have to find a family who will feed them. They don’t have anything extra because then they have to depend upon someone else. That binds them to those they visit, which is different than being a salesman or a guru with big bucks staying in the big hotel with something fancy to say and sell.

They are to choose a house to enter, offer peace, and, if they are accepted, stay put there. That means that the family that welcomed them, a hospitable family most likely, will become leaders in the movement. They are not to search out the best bed, or the best food, but to stay put until their work is done.

Then, now that they have this relationship, they are to do three things: eat what is set before them, cure the sick, and announce that the kingdom of God has come near.

If they are not welcome, they are not supposed to curse anyone, but to shake the dust off of their feet in the middle of the street and then announce, “The kingdom of God has come near.”

Eating together is first. It is the first thing that happens. Jesus is all about eating. He knows that when you eat together, things can change.

Peter Storey was a Methodist bishop in South Africa who tells a story about one of his pastors who was arrested during apartheid. The man was arrested in the middle of the night and the Bishop went to the prison to visit him. He was not allowed to speak with him about very much, but he made arrangements to serve communion. He invited the guard, the Afrikaner guard, to join them, and he did.

So the Bishop put out a hunk of bread and the cup. He said it is traditional to serve the least of these, so he first served the pastor prisoner. The man ate the bread and drank from the cup. Then, the Bishop said, one serves the stranger, so he then served the guard. He gave him a piece of bread, and then handed him the cup.

Now they didn’t use intinction, and they didn’t have the separate little cups. The guard was in a quandary – if he took the cup he was breaking a lot of taboos. But, the Bishop said, something deep in him responded, and he took the cup and drank.

The prisoner was not set free right away, and the guard was still the guard, but something changed in that encounter. The kingdom of God had come near.

The Kingdom of God is not a place in the future, it is now. It is not somewhere we can’t get to – it is right here. It happens when we see each other for who we really are, when we take down the barriers between us, between us and the world, between us and God.

We eat together, we offer healing, we announce the kingdom of God. We do that in this community, certainly, we eat together, we offer healing to one another in many ways, and we know God is near. How then, does this happen for the world around us? How is the kingdom of God known because we are here, at this address, at this time?

Amen.

What Do These Stones Mean?

Joshua 4:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-7
July 1, 2007, Fairmount Avenue Church
Rev. Michelle Hargrave

I come to you from Duluth, where, in the summertime, we take the boys to the lake several times a week. We would watch the bridge go up and down, get a snack of some kind, and then go to the water’s edge and do what all children do: redistribute the rocks. Throwing the rocks into the water seems to be required.

It is so satisfying to pick up a rock. They feel so permanent, so old, so solid. Yet so many of them, and certainly the ones we love the best, are rounded and smooth, worn down from years of wind and waves and ice. This rock is smooth, fits in my hand quite nicely, and has the suggestion of a heart shape.

So I come to you as one who is grounded in what is old – the church, even more in God, yet as one who has been smoothed by life, one with a heart to love you.

~~~

The people of Israel had been wandering in the desert for 40 years, which in the Bible means “a long time.” A whole generation had passed, and this new generation was about to cross into the Promised Land. Moses had died and there was a new leader: Joshua. He was not as great a leader as Moses, but he was appointed by God. To cross into the Promised Land the people needed to get across the Jordan River during the high water time. Joshua told 12 priests carry the ark into the Jordan river, and when their feet rested in the waters the water stopped and stood in a heap. And the people crossed over while the priests held up the ark. (Holding up the ark all that time was another miracle, if you ask me.) After the entire nation crossed the Jordan Joshua had another twelve men, one from each tribe, gather the stone that each priest had stood on, take them out of the river and set them up together as a sign.

And when the children asked, “what do these stones mean?”

the people would tell the story how the stones were a sign that God had been with them and had led them to this new home.

~~~

Stacking stones like that is something deep in us. Cairns of stones are all over the world, signifying one thing or another. Gravestones mark the places we are laid to rest. And our buildings are, in a way, piles of stones and bricks, meant to be permanent signs, permanent places for us.


We choose this text at the merger meeting a few months ago. I asked everyone, “How shall we celebrate this merger?” and people talked about how it has been a journey for everyone involved. The people of Cleveland Avenue have been on this journey for a few years now, trying to determine how best to continue their passion for ministry in St. Paul. You have done a beautiful and graceful job. The journey began to include the people of Fairmount Avenue a few months ago, and it has been a whirlwind process since then. And today we are all one church, strong in tradition but with something new moving among us.


One thing that happens in a merger is the realization that, even though we pile stones and bricks together to make something permanent, God’s spirit is still moving. Cleveland Avenue’s spirit no longer lives in the same stones it once did. That is a painful thing. But God calls us forward, and reminds us that the church is not in a building. And if the people of Fairmount Avenue think the building is a fortress here, remember when the ceiling fell in downstairs? God was shaking the bones of this place a little bit. We will care for this building and it will continue to be a blessing to the community, but these bricks are not just signs of the past; they are a living sign of a living church.

~~~

The early followers of Jesus understood that the stones could no longer hold their history, or their worship, or their hope. They lived in a time when their buildings were being torn down, the temple was destroyed for the last time, and they could not build wonderful buildings to worship in because they had to hide. They also knew, however, that Jesus had been killed, but that new life had arisen out of his death. And in that belief they began to see the new life in themselves. And they talked about not worshipping in stones or near stones but being living stones themselves, living with the undying presence of Christ, living with the Spirit of God, living stones that God could build a church out of.

We have stones for you to take today, stones as a remembrance of this day, when God has brought us all to a new place. These stones have been polished by strong forces but still carry a deep strength. Take one of the stones after communion today,
and when the children ask,
“What do these stones mean?”
“These are a sign that God has been with us on this journey,
What do these stones mean?
God has brought us to a new home.”
What do these stones mean?
God has a dream for us in this place to be living stones!

Amen.