The Simple Truth

Based on Luke 18:9-14
First delivered Oct. 27, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            The Christian life in many ways is a paradox. It is in losing your life that you find it. If anyone wants to be the greatest, they must be the servant of all. Some of those greats, the saints of our ancestors in the faith, have talked about how the more they find themselves growing in their relationship with God the more they realize how sinful they are. The closer you come to God, the more you become aware of your need for God and God’s forgiveness.

            That may not make much sense. We are supposed to become less sinful as we grow in our relationship with God. And we do. I suspect if you think back over your life, and you have been working on your Christian discipleship, that you a more mature Christian than when you were younger. You don’t sin like you used to. There are probably less sinners than you but there are a lot of people who sin more than you do. It makes more sense that the deeper you grow in your Christian discipleship the more you live like Jesus.

            Still, some of the great saints of the past have written how they have felt more sinful the closer they have drawn toward God. I think the reason is because as they have drawn closer to the light of God’s glory they are better able to see their flaws. It’s like if you are in a dusty room but you don’t realize how much dust is floating around in the air until a ray of sunlight bursts through the window and then you realize how much dust there is. In the same way, the more we live in to our Christian discipleship the more the Spirit reveals aspects of our lives that need mending. We didn’t realize how far short we are in living a Christ centered life until we start taking our life more seriously.

            Every year, high school graduates head for college. Many of them experience some shock that first year of college. Before they went to college, they had been very successful in school. They had good grades. Maybe they didn’t have to study that hard. They had lots of friends and lots of support from their teachers and parents. But now they find themselves in a lecture hall with 300 other students, none of whom they know. The professor is talking about stuff that is over their heads. Tests are no longer multiple guess or fill in the blanks. Suddenly it takes a lot of effort to get those good grades. Hours and hours of homework. And there are a lot of fellow students who are a lot smarter than they are. All this confidence they had when they arrived at college starts to fade when they realize they aren’t as smart as they thought they were. But they are still smart. They still belong in college. They still have the ability to achieve their goals and do well. But that first year of college can be a reality check. It can be a bit humbling. It also is an example of what we often find ourselves doing: comparing ourselves with others.

            That’s what this parable is about which we heard this morning. Jesus is addressing a common temptation of Christians: the temptation to compare ourselves with others in order to justify ourselves. In this parable it seems obvious that the lesson is we should not be self-righteous. We shouldn’t be like the Pharisee who reminds God of all the good things we do that makes us more religious than others. Instead, we should be like the tax collector who doesn’t even try to justify himself but only begs for God’s mercy.

            One way to respond to this parable is to say to yourself, “I hope I’m like that tax collector and not like the Pharisee.” Or maybe you are thinking, “I’m off the hook for this sermon because I know I’m like the tax collector. I know I’m a sinner and have to depend on God’s mercy. I know I’m not like that Pharisee. If there is one thing I’m not it is self-righteous.”

            But is it possible to become prideful of one’s lack of self-righteousness? I have heard a lot of people give their testimonies over the years. I sometimes wonder if some of them try to outdo others in the level of their sinfulness. They have to talk about how bad was their drug problem, how much sex they had, how they used to be devil worshippers, etc. Think about the worst possible sinner and I was worse than that, they say. I think the point of almost bragging about how sinful you used to be is to make the point that if God can love me and save me, God can surely love you because there’s no way you are as bad as I used to be. It almost seemed like the people giving these testimonies were bragging about how sinful they used to be.

            I wonder if it is possible to wear your humility on your sleeve and smugly think to yourself, “I’m glad I’m not like those self-righteous hypocrites. I confess all my sins and know I’m a sinner saved by grace. Yup, I’ve got the right attitude. I am a humble person.” This sounds like comparing yourself to others and considering yourself better than others. I’m more humble than you. Too bad for you.

            But look at how the tax collector prayed. He did not say, “O God, I am worse than that Pharisee over there. Of all the Jews, I am the worst one. I haven’t done this or that. I am a messed up person, the worse kind of sinner.” The tax collector didn’t list all his sins in his prayer. Instead, he gave a simple and direct prayer. All he said was, “God have mercy on me. I am a sinner.” That’s it. He didn’t compare his sinfulness with others. He didn’t list all his sinful deeds to validate his claim to be a sinner. He probably didn’t feel the need. He knew that God was aware of his sinfulness. It was obvious. He knew there was nothing he could say to get out of the judgment that he deserved. His only hope was for God’s mercy, so that’s what he begged for. And we are told that he went home justified because he asked for God’s mercy, not for God’s approval.

            So, what is the lesson of this parable? That we are not to ask for God’s approval. Instead, we are to ask for God’s mercy. When we ask for God’s approval, we are trying to justify ourselves before God. Trying to get God’s approval isn’t only by telling God how great we are in being a Christian. We also try to get God’s approval by trying to convince God we know how bad we are. We say something like “God, I’m thankful that I’m not self-righteous. I know that I’m saved by grace. I know I’m a bad person and mess up all the time. So, since I know all these things, will you forgive me?” It’s like we want God to reward us because we can detail how bad we are. If we can tell God how bad we think about ourselves then maybe God will forgive us, have mercy on us. Maybe what we are hoping for is that God will have pity on us.

            But God doesn’t want us to grovel or obsess about how sinful we are. It’s enough to acknowledge that you and I are sinners. No matter how much our daily life is patterned after the life of Christ, we still fall short and always will. We are and always will need to rely on God’s mercy. That’s simply the truth. It’s not something to dwell on. It’s not something to obsess about. It’s not something we need to brag about. God doesn’t need to be reminded of our faults or of all the good things we do. God knows what we do. God knows our motives. God knows our intentions. We can’t hide from God. So, really, there’s not anything we can say that is going to earn God’s mercy. God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, God’s grace, is all pure gift. God offers us this simply because God loves us.

            No one likes to be judged. No one likes to be looked down on. The Pharisee was not only bragging about how good he was with his fasting and tithing, but he also was a jerk. It is not our business to compare ourselves with others. Nor do we need to try to justify ourselves. As the old saying goes, we should all mind our own business. By that I don’t mean that we should ignore other people and only focus on ourselves. What I mean is that we should avoid judging other people or looking down on other people. Nor should we judge or look down on ourselves. Instead, we should have the courage to acknowledge that we are not perfect, that we are all works in progress, and that we are all dependent on God’s mercy. And this simple truth can make a way for us to live our lives in freedom, unbound from the chains of guilt and shame. Because the one whose judgment matters the most has already forgiven us. In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. We are free. Thanks be to God!

Preparation for Renewal

Based on Jeremiah 31:27-34
First delivered Oct. 20, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            Back yard gardens for the most part are starting to look pretty shabby. Nothing’s growing anymore. There’s not much left to pick. Soon, we will have a killing frost and that will be the end of the tomatoes for this season. A little frost won’t hurt pumpkins and winter squash, but  eventually those will be picked, the vines will shrivel up, and the garden will be done for the year. Mine never really got started. I had every good intention. I worked over the sod, added mulch and compost, got some starter plants and put in some tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumbers. But then I got busy, before long the weeds were soaking up all the nutrients in that rich soil and the garden became overrun. The garden became a mess. No cucumbers, a few tiny peppers, a handful of tomatoes, and that was about it. And now, all the weeds and the other plants are drying up and soon will be breaking down and decaying. In a few months, the backyard gardens will be barren, perhaps under a blanket of snow.

            In the days of Jeremiah, the people of Israel and Judah were going through a time of decay and barrenness. Due to neglect and lack of discipline, the people had rebelled against God. The rebellion had overrun them like weeds in a poorly tended garden. All their resources were sucked up by their sinful living and their failure to follow God’s way. And the garden that was their land, the land that God had given to them, was lost. The cold freeze of God’s wrath blew over them, scattering them into exile. As a people, they were decaying and barren. Their life as a people was slipping away, becoming like a cold, hard, barren backyard garden in the depths of winter.

            They say the best time to plant trees are in the late fall or early winter. That might seem odd. You probably notice that once spring comes around, at the local greenhouse or the nearby Kroger you will find baby fruit trees for you to purchase and bring home to plant. But actually spring is not the ideal time. The best time is in late fall. The reason is that trees need a rich root structure. The roots need to grow, develop, dig down deep and spread out to soak up the nutrients in the soil. And a tree, like any plant, only has so much energy. So, if you plant a tree in late fall, the tree will go dormant. No buds. No leaves. No fruit. Instead, all the energy of the plant can be focused on the roots. During the cold of winter, when everything aboveground seems barren, those roots of that baby tree are growing, developing, digging down deep so that the tree can be well established in the ground. Then, as we move into spring, the energy of the plant can now be directed toward the production of buds, leaves and fruit, the root system having had a head start over the winter.

            I will always remember this experience from about ten years ago. We were living near Groveport at the time. Jadon and I spent an hour or so one fall afternoon planting crocus, tulip and daffodil bulbs. Jadon would dig the small holes in the ground. Then I would carefully put the bulb in just right. And then Jadon would get to cover it up and pat the dirt down. And I told Jadon, “Just you wait; in a few months, when it’s spring, all these bulbs we are planting will turn into beautiful flowers. We just have to get through winter first.” I told him that in spite of the coming cold, the frozen ground and the bitter temperatures, underneath there is the promise of glorious flowers. Things won’t always appear dead and barren. New life will spring forth in time.

In the cold winter of exile for Israel and Judah, Jeremiah experienced the bitterness with them. He cries out, grieving over the barrenness, the destruction, the loss as a consequence of Israel’s ongoing rebellion against God’s ways. They deserved their fate. But it hurt so. It broke Jeremiah’s heart just as he knew it broke God’s heart as well.

            But even then, during the winter chill of exile, God was at work planting seeds. Jeremiah says God is planting in the house of Israel and the house of Judah the seed of humans and the seed of animals. Before the exile was over, God was at work, preparing for renewal. There is reason to hope that the winter of exile will come to an end. New life will spring forth. There will be restoration. Everything will be made new.

            That’s what God says through Jeremiah. The time will come when God will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah, a new covenant that will be written on their hearts. This covenant will not have any new content. It is the same covenant that God established with Israel and Judah since the days of Moses. It’s just that the new thing that God is doing is that the covenant won’t be engraved on stones or recorded in law books. No, the covenant will be written on the hearts of the people. They won’t have to carry the commandments of God around in scrolls or stone tablets. The law will always be with them because it will be inscribed on their hearts. And by heart, Jeremiah isn’t talking about the organ that pumps blood. He is talking about the center of the will, the conscience, the place where we feel in our gut what is right and wrong. It is there that God will write God’s commandments for Israel and Judah. That day will come when everyone will know the Lord. They won’t have to be taught about God’s ways. They will know it already in their gut. That’s the new covenant that God has in store for Israel when the exile comes to an end.

            What else? In that day, people will suffer for their own sins. No longer will the children suffer from the sins of their parents. Those who eat sour grapes will have their own teeth set on edge rather than their children. It is simple fairness. Those who do wrong are to suffer the consequences of their actions and not future generations.

            This is how it had been. It was the older generation that had rebelled against God so much that God stepped back and allowed them to be swept into exile. And a whole generation grew up in exile. They had not done wrong. They had not even been born. The younger generation grew up in exile, suffering all the indignity and grief because they happened to be born in the time of exile. It wasn’t fair to them. So, God says that in the new day coming, these long exiles, where multiple generations suffer from the sins of their ancestors, will come to an end.

            What else? There will be a time when God will forgive them of their sins and remember them no more. Whose sins? The sins of the ancestors that triggered the exile. God is saying that the time will come that the exile will end, and the reason for the exile will be forgiven and no longer remembered. The past will no longer weigh on the people. It will be a fresh start, a new beginning for Israel and Judah in their relationship with God, who has always loved them and always will, even when they break God’s heart. These are all the words of comfort God speaks through Jeremiah to the people while they groaned through the bitterness of their exile. The time will come when the exile will end. There will be restoration.

What is revealed in this prophecy from Jeremiah is that for God exile, destruction and desolation does not have the final word. God does not leave God’s people to suffer. God does not abandon them or give up on them. Jeremiah says that God plucks up and destroys and God sows and plants, restores and forgives. God makes things new. The God of winter is also the God of spring. With God, there is always a future. Paul says in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” There is hope for the future with God.

            Have you ever seen aerial photos of cities that were decimated during World War II? My dad once showed me some photos of a city in England that had been bombed repeatedly by the Germans. You see block upon block of buildings that have been bombed out. There are piles of rubble everywhere. The pictures don’t do justice to the total destruction you would find closer to the ground: walls pocketed with bullet holes, blast craters that have torn up the streets, burned out cars and trucks, broken glass and splintered furniture. Devastation, similar to what we would find in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and too many other places around the world. And I imagine the residents of these cities in England, France, Russia, Germany, Japan and elsewhere looked around at the visible consequences of war and despaired if they would ever in their lifetimes see their beloved cities rebuilt and restored. But over time, with a lot of hard work, a lot of financing, and with determination, all those cities that were destroyed by the war have been rebuilt and are flourishing. The destruction of World War II did not have the final word. There was a great restoration, not only the rebuilding of cities but a new covenant if you will with the creation of the United Nations, an institution intended to bring the nations of the world together in one place to build relationships, work through differences, and tackle global challenges that will hopefully prevent another global war. And everyone was invited to the table, even Germany and Japan. War and strife were not the final word. Peace was achieved and remains to this day, seventy years after the madness of Hitler’s third reich was obliterated. Surely, in the harsh winter of war, God was already at work planting the seeds that would in time produce the fruits of peace and restoration. Surely it is God, inspiring and working through the efforts, small and great, of people that led to the fruition of the great global restoration after World War II. During the winter, God was making preparations for the spring, when the brutality of war would cease and everything would be made new. If only that spring time of peace could have been permanent. But that is a subject for another sermon. The point is that with God, even in the middle of the harsh winter of war, there is hope for a better future because God will make it so.

            What is true for nations and peoples is true for us as individuals. Each of us go through seasons in our lives. Just as fall is a time where everything is drying up and life is failing so we go through times where we feel spent, our vitality is waning, and our spirits are grey like a cloudy and chilly November day. And then there are times where our lives are like the bitter cold of winter. Our hearts are like frozen clay. We feel barren and exposed like the leafless trees whose branches are buffeted by the howling cold wind from the north. Our lives are shrouded in darkness and there is no warmth, no escape from the harsh realities of the problems and stresses of life.

            But in those harsh and bitter times, surely God is at work planting seeds in the hard places of our lives. The God who renews is already at work preparing the ground of our cold and barren hearts so that in due time new life will spring forth and our lives will blossom again. Fall and winter will pass. Spring will come again. And even if the bitter cold of winter takes our lives, we have the promise of an eternal spring, the life of resurrection, when death will be finally vanquished and there will be nothing but the bursting forth of new life. This is our future hope. As we hear in the prophecy of Jeremiah, as we have seen after the evil of war, as we have experienced in our own lives and seen in the lives of others, death gives way to life, destruction is replaced with reconstruction, barrenness is replaced with fruitfulness because that is what God is always about. With God there is always hope for the future. The restoration doesn’t happen overnight. It does not happen on our time table. It doesn’t magically appear. The restoration that God makes possible requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice, cooperation, and perhaps most of all, forgiveness and letting go of the past. And perhaps, depending on what needs restored, none of us will live to see it to completion. For us, in our God empowered efforts at restoration, it will be for us a promise that will be fulfilled for our grandchildren. But that time will come. God has promised to make all things new.

            So do not despair about the future. In the years to come we may, as a church, as a nation, experience a harsh winter. In our own lives, due to illness or tragedy, we will go through a harsh winter that leaves us feeling bereft of any life at all. And the cold reality of death will eventually take each of us. But with God, the source of life, the One who makes all things new, there is hope. Be encouraged and trust in God. The work we do to forgive, to rebuild and restore, to make peace and to reconcile, is not in vain because this is the way of God.

The Gratitude of Inclusion

Based on Luke 17:11-19
First delivered Oct. 13, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            It came just in time. Last year, it seemed that the entire marching band season for Westerville North, both the football games and the contests, it was raining. Last October was so wet. And it was cold. The weather was consistently awful every weekend of October and early November. And for the past several years, North did not have band raincoats. They used to. But they were ruined when they were stored in a closet while they were still wet. When the closet was opened the next season to pull them out, they were all moldy. They were ruined. So, it was cheap ponchos, because marching band raincoats are expensive. It would take a number of years, and lots of fundraising, until finally there was enough money to buy the marching band raincoats. This summer, there was enough. The raincoats were ordered. And we waited for two months, hoping the coats would arrive before we would need them.

            Amazingly, the weather this year has been great. A little hot sometimes, but no rain. Until this past Friday. Rain was in the forecast. And raincoats arrived at the high school. Just in time. Under a gentle rain, the marching band made their way to the football field wearing their new raincoats, put immediately to use. That the raincoats arrived mere hours before they were needed filled us all with wonder and a good deal of gratitude. A few people thought it was divine intervention. After the absolutely miserable weather last year, it’s as if God held off the rain until the raincoats arrived. It was so wonderful. We couldn’t help but be grateful. And there were a few of us who gave thanks to God. The kids won’t be shivering underneath a thin sheet of cheap plastic, but now will be dry and warm in their lined raincoats so they can focus on playing their best and making great memories. Praise God.

            When things like this happen: what you need arrives just in time, something you have been working hard for finally gets done, something you worried about is now taken care of, the natural response is to be grateful. Gratitude, appreciation for what you have or what you have been given, it sometimes bursts out with a shout. You throw your hands up and shout “Yes!” Or maybe it’s a more intimate and peace-filled sigh of relief that everything is going to be ok. We can express our gratitude in a number of ways. But gratitude has to be expressed somehow. It is a spontaneous feeling that needs to come out.

            This morning we heard the story of a man, a Samaritan, who was healed by Jesus of his leprosy. As he and the other nine were making their way to Jerusalem to show themselves to the priests, as Jesus had told them, they noticed that all of a sudden their leprosy was gone. They were clean. While the others, I’m sure with gratitude and full of joy, rushed to Jerusalem so they could be declared clean and finally be able to worship in the Temple again, the Samaritan expressed his gratitude another way. He turned around and went back up the road to where Jesus was, shouting his praise to God all the way until he got to Jesus, fell at his feet, and gave thanks.

            Why did this Samaritan leave the rest and go back to Jesus to say thanks? Jesus wanted to know. He asked, rhetorically, “Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine?” I can’t imagine the others weren’t grateful for their healing. But only this Samaritan went back, even before getting to the priests, to first give thanks to Jesus. Was there a special reason why he turned back? I wonder if he really thought he would be healed. I wonder if he really thought the priests would even see him. Maybe, for the Samaritan, showing himself to the priests was unnecessary. They wouldn’t have let him in the Temple anyway.

            Let me give you some backstory. You all have probably heard that in those days Samaritans and Jews did not get along. There was some history between these two ethnic groups that left behind a good deal of bad blood. They tried to stay away from each other and that was mutual. If a Jew was in Galilee and wanted to go to Jerusalem, instead of cutting through Samaria, they would take a longer route just to avoid walking through Samaritan territory. Obviously, you wouldn’t find a lot of Samaritans in Jerusalem. They stayed away from each other. It was mutual disdain.

            Considering their mutual hostility, it may be surprising that this Samaritan leper was hanging out with these Jewish lepers. We assume they were Jews. After all, that’s what Jews were supposed to do. In order to become ritually clean so they could go worship in the Temple after getting leprosy, they had to show themselves to the priests. That’s not something Samaritans needed to do. They wouldn’t be allowed in the Temple anyway. Nor would they want to go there. They believed they had their own way of worshipping God without need for the Temple in Jerusalem. For example, Samaritans only considered the first five books of the Old Testament as scripture. And they had built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim and claimed that spot as the dwelling place of God. That was part of the hostility between the two groups. They both worshipped God but they had different ways of doing it. So, these religious differences split them apart.

            But in this case, the Samaritan was living with all those Jews. The division between the Samaritans and Jews became a bit fuzzy because of a much larger commonality: they were all lepers. And leprosy was a disease that drove all of them out into the wilderness, cut off from the larger community, so they wouldn’t contaminate anyone else. They were together in their mutual isolation from the larger society. In their current state, none of them could worship in the Temple in Jerusalem: all of them because they were lepers and the Samaritan because of his ethnicity. They were all in the same boat. The Samaritan/Jew division was swallowed up by their mutual experience of being pushed out of society because of their common illness. They were all outcasts.

            So, here’s the thing: once they were all healed of their leprosy, now all of a sudden the common denominator of being outcasts was removed. The old animosity between Jews and Samaritans could raise its ugly head again. They no longer shared the identity of leper. Now they were Jews or Samaritans again. I wonder how long it took for the old animosity to rise up. I wonder if while the Jews saw that they were healed, they anticipated getting to Jerusalem while the Samaritan began to slow up a little bit.

            As the Jews headed to Jerusalem to show themselves to the priests and be declared clean, perhaps the Samaritan wondered if the priests would even look at him. Maybe, for the Samaritan, there was no reason for him to keep going to Jerusalem. What difference would it make if the priests declared him clean anyway. He wouldn’t be allowed in the Temple because he was a Samaritan. And he really wasn’t interested in worshipping at that Temple. So, perhaps he thought he might as well turn back and show himself to the one who made it possible for God to cleanse him. He would go back to Jesus, the Jew, who included him in the healing.

            And that makes me wonder if the Samaritan, in his heart, didn’t think he would be healed. After all, Jesus was a Jew. Of course he would cure his brothers in the faith of their leprosy so they could worship at the Temple in Jerusalem again. But why would Jesus bother healing a Samaritan? Why would a Samaritan even matter to Jesus? Amazingly, he got healed too. Jesus the Jew included him, a Samaritan, in the healing. To this Samaritan, to be included in the healing must have felt like truly a gift of mercy. The lepers had cried out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us!” I’m sure the Jews felt like Jesus had shown mercy to them. But the Samaritan…even more so. Jesus didn’t have to do it. The Samaritan did not for one second take this healing for granted. Even though he was a despised Samaritan he was healed too. His gratitude toward Jesus was overwhelming. Whether he ever went to Jerusalem or not may be beside the point. He had to go to Jesus, the Jew who included him, to humbly throw himself at Jesus’ feet and express his deep gratitude. Do you think when Jesus asked where the other nine were, that he was indirectly poking at the ancient Jew/Samaritan divide?

            It really feels good to be included for a change. Gratitude naturally springs forth when you receive something good that you expected others to receive but not yourself. Can you think of a time when you were included when you didn’t expect to be? Maybe it was when you got picked in the schoolyard to play on someone’s team. Or it was you who got called on to share your opinion. Someone asked you for advice for a change. You got moved up to first class to fill an empty seat. More tables and chairs were brought in so that the group you were in could come in from outside and join everyone else for the dinner and program. It does feel good to be included, especially when you feel like you are always being excluded or overlooked.  I can imagine that, for this Samaritan, being included in the healing was a big part of why he came running to Jesus full of praise for God so that he could tell Jesus thank you. To receive something good when you don’t expect it is a cause for gratitude.

            So, I have a challenge for us this week. During the week, I want each of us to be aware of what opportunities might come up where you can include someone who is being left out, or give somebody something good they didn’t expect. Do something for somebody that would cause them to need to express gratitude. Whether they end up saying thank you to you, or to God, or both, it doesn’t matter. What can you do this week that will cause another to be grateful? And while you’re at it, try to notice the little things that come your way, the small blessings that you didn’t expect: a parking space up front, never having to stop at a red light, having just enough change, hearing that favorite song on the radio that you haven’t heard in years. Notice what you receive this week for which you can be grateful. Express your gratitude to God and, if it’s applicable, let that person know you are grateful. Let us all seek to generate more gratitude in the world this week. That in itself can provide some healing in these times of divisiveness. Generating gratitude might help bring people together instead of push people apart. Gratitude can help make us whole. Gratitude is healing medicine.

The Grace of Lament

Based on Lamentations 1:1-6
First delivered October 6, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            When was the last time you heard a sermon based on a passage from Lamentations? I bet it’s been awhile. And I doubt you have heard many of them in your whole life. Lamentations is not exactly a common book of the Bible for sermons or, really, for anything. It is one of those books where you may have to use the table of contents to find. We just aren’t familiar with this book.

            A colleague asked me a few days ago what I was going to preach on this Sunday. We are both lectionary preachers. He serves in the Lutheran church. He asked if I was going to preach on the parable of the mustard seed. I said no, that I was going to preach on the Lamentations passage. He looked at me and said, “Whoa!” I said, “Yeah, I’m going dark.” When given the choice between the parable of the mustard seed and Lamentations, most preachers would choose the mustard seed parable.

            Why do preachers tend to avoid preaching from Lamentations? It’s not like the book is hard to understand, like Revelation or Ezekiel or the Song of Solomon. It doesn’t read like Leviticus, a collection of religious laws that don’t apply to us. If you read through Lamentations, it is pretty clear what is going on. It is essentially one long funeral dirge. It is a poetic expression of deep grief and utter despair with a dash of hope. And maybe that’s why preachers tend to steer clear from this book. It’s too depressing. It’s too dark and gloomy. Who wants to hear a sermon about gloom and doom on a Sunday morning? Not many.

            Let’s be honest; we generally don’t do lamenting very well. Even if we have to fake it, we have this idea that in church we have to be happy and have it all together. Many folks come to church fresh and clean, wearing their church clothes, a smile on their face and a more or less cheery attitude. Even if it’s a forced smile.

            Earlier this week I was at a two day seminar at the VA, learning about how deployments affect our warriors, the hidden wounds of war they bring home with them, and how that affects their families. We learned some ways that churches can be supportive of warriors and their families. In one of the PowerPoint presentations there was a picture of this young man who was clean cut, dressed sharp, a big, toothy grin on his face and a sparkle in his eye. The presenter said that this is the face of the Sunday morning guy. It’s the face you present on Sunday morning. Everything is fine, you are filled with the joy of the Lord, you are blessed. The next slide was a picture of the same person. This one was in black and white. You see his side profile with his head bowed down. His toothy grin is gone. He looks burdened and sad. The presenter suggested that this picture captured how this man really felt. Things weren’t fine. He was filled with anxiety and guilt. It was hard for him to see any blessings in his life. And the tragedy is that when he was in church, he didn’t think he could show his true self to others. To do so would have been to make himself vulnerable. People would be uncomfortable around him. He doesn’t want to be pitied. He doesn’t want to come across as a failure or not having it all together. He wants to give the impression that he’s handling his business, he’s confident and competent. When the truth is that he is wounded and lost. And for him, like so many, church is the one place where we can’t be honest about our feelings and the true state of things. It is in church where we slap on a smile, pat everyone on the back, say everything is fine and fake our happiness until we get back in our cars. Then the smile can be put away for another time when we need to pull it out again to assure people that we’re fine when we aren’t fine.

            If there is any place where there needs to be authenticity, it should be the church. The church is supposed to be a hospital for sinners. It is supposed to be a community where one beggar points to another beggar where to find bread. It is supposed to be a community where we believe in grace, where we acknowledge that we are saved by grace and not by our own goodness, where we acknowledge that we are broken, that we are in need of healing, that we are not living our best lives, that we are not living heaven on earth. The church is where we are to value mercy, compassion, empathy, support, understanding. The church is where we are to value honesty, truthfulness, and vulnerability.

            And yet…we can sometimes do a good job of faking it. There is something about coming together on Sunday morning for worship that we want to, as I heard someone say once, “get our Jesus on.” We choose to leave our mess at the door and come in to church with a smile on our face, with no cares in the world, and a song in our heart. For an hour or so, we can pretend that everything’s fine. And if we can’t fake it, well, maybe we can skip church until we can get ourselves together.

            I will never forget this woman who had been a faithful member of the church that I was pastoring. She was there every Sunday. She did the children’s moment. She was a delightful person. But her husband never came with her to church. He wasn’t the church going kind. Well, one Sunday she didn’t come to church. And then another. I reached out to her. She said she and her husband got a divorce. She was going through a lot of strain in her personal life. And she told me that once she felt like she had her life together and was in a better place emotionally then she would come back to church. I told her the door was always open for her. But in the back of my mind I wanted to tell her this is when you need the church the most, when your life is falling apart, when there is no joy, when you are going through loss and grief and sorrow, when all you feel like doing is to lament. But she was like so many others. If they can’t fake happiness and having their life together, then they can’t come to church.

            Why do we feel the need to fake it and not allow ourselves as a community to lament? Why do we not make space in our life together to grieve? Maybe because it’s too painful. It’s too emotional. We want the sanctuary to be a place set apart from all the grief and loss and mess. We want this space and this time to be full of happiness and have-it-all-togetherness. Maybe we don’t want lament in our worship because it would make us vulnerable. We would have to make it plain that we don’t have it all together, that we aren’t happy about how our lives are going, that the current reality of our church is a shadow of how it used to be, it hurts, and we don’t know how to fix it. Rather than acknowledge the grief, we would rather sweep it all under the rug, put on a happy face, and pretend everything’s fine when we know it isn’t.

            Jeremiah, the one believed to be the source of Lamentations, had no problem lamenting the state of Jerusalem and of Israel in their current reality of exile. “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people.” Once upon a time, Jerusalem was a cosmopolitan city. It was full of wealth. All the important people lived there. Foreign dignitaries would travel to Jerusalem to meet with the king of Israel. People from across the land would travel to Jerusalem to do business, to buy and sell, and to worship at the Temple on festival days. The city gates were busy with business dealings, the settling of disputes among the elders of the city, and good old-fashioned gossip and the sharing of news from the hinterlands. But now…Jerusalem is barren. The streets are nearly empty. The hubbub of the crowds is long gone. The gates are rusty. The few remaining elders could sit at the city gates all day long and hardly anyone would pass by. The priests are left to groan because hardly anyone goes to the Temple anymore. The surrounding nations are doing just fine, but Israel suffers, the people dispersed across the world, the former glory days far in the rear-view mirror. Jeremiah is not afraid to name the current reality of Jerusalem and of Israel, of how things used to be and how they are now. Jerusalem weeps at night and there is no one to comfort her. Her friends have betrayed her. Jerusalem is in bitter anguish. All the splendor has departed.

            Reflecting on this passage, we may find our thoughts directed toward how much loss we have endured as a church and as a denomination since the 1960s. For as long as I have been alive the United Methodist Church has been in decline. It is obvious to all of us that our church is not thriving like it once did. Now, it isn’t as dire as how Jeremiah describes Jerusalem and Israel. But there is much less activity in our churches. Fewer people go to church these days. Yes, there are exceptions. Some churches experience impressive growth. There are churches that are thriving. But for most of us, things aren’t so good. More and more churches close every year. And it’s not just our denomination that is going through an extended period of so much loss. People haven’t given up on God necessarily. But an increasing number of people have given up on the church, especially young people. If we allow ourselves, we can resonate with the lamentation of Jeremiah. We can allow ourselves to grieve, to weep, to lament.

            A few years ago, I was pastoring a church that, when I arrived, had an average attendance of six. It was never a large congregation. But in their hey day they had over 100 in regular attendance. But, for a number of reasons, the congregation had dwindled to a mere handful. So much loss. It was All Saints Sunday, and during my sermon, I invited everyone to look around and remember those who used to sit at that pew, and to affirm that those beloveds who were now in heaven were still with us, worshiping with us, and that one day we will see them again.

            At that church, we had joys and concerns and the pastoral prayer after the sermon. During the sharing time, Walt stood up. He and his wife Mary were the pillars of this church. Walt gave the names of a few of the people that were no longer at Bethel but had made their way to the church triumphant. He choked up. It wasn’t a full-on lament, but you could hear in his voice the sorrow of loss. When you are in a sanctuary that can comfortably hold 100 and there is only 6, the loss can’t be avoided. Of course, we didn’t spend all our time together lamenting the loss and knowing that the survival of the church was on life support. There was lots of laughter. We did life together. And every now and again we allowed ourselves to grieve our current reality.

            To lament, to have the courage and honesty to acknowledge that the current reality is one of loss, this opens the door for hope. And with hope comes the capacity to move forward rather than be stuck in despair or frozen in denial. How does hope show up? Hope is what you have when there’s nothing else. Hope is the belief that this isn’t all there is, that God is still with us, that regardless of our current reality of loss and grief that God has not abandoned us, that we are still loved, and that God’s grace is sufficient. Hope is what you have when everything else fails. Hope is the final line of defense against the abyss of despair. Hope is to have confidence in resurrection. It is in times of grief, of loss, of being confronted with death, that hope can really shine. And with that hope we can keep going. It is hope that gets us out of bed in the morning. It is hope that keeps us coming to church every Sunday. It is hope that prompts us to keep giving of our resources, our time and energy to support the church. It is hope that keeps us believing that God isn’t finished with us yet. Hope gives us the capacity to move forward with faith in God.

            There is something powerful and even sacred, to have a good cry while someone else sits with you and shares your sorrow. Mom Nora was the dorm mom for my residence hall in college. She had worked on military airplanes in WW II. She was big and no non-sense. And whenever she introduced herself to all the new residents at Smith Hall, she would say in her gruff voice, “I’m Mom Nora, and I’m a hugger.” And she was. She was the best dorm mom for a bunch of college boys. And on that night, when I was in the living room of her suite, sobbing until I ran out of tears after telling her my mom had just passed, Mom Nora sat in her Lazy Boy, offered an occasional word of comfort, but mostly sat quietly while I allowed the grief to flow out of me while I sat on her couch. A couple other people came in to say a few words of comfort but mostly Mom Nora kept everyone else out so I could have all the time I needed. To have that space to grieve was precious. It was cathartic. It was healing. Lament can do that.

            Mom Nora was there for me as an act of love. I don’t know if she cried also because I was lost in my grief. But surely she shared my sorrow to some degree. And this points to God, the One who loves us with a perfect love. When we allow ourselves to lament, surely God laments right with us. When our hearts are broken, so is God’s. When we mourn our loss, God surely mourns with us. Even in the situation of Jerusalem and Israel, who were desolate, exiled, scattered across the world as a consequence of their unfaithfulness to God, God surely shared their pain. If God is love, then God does not gloat or look down with a scolding eye even when people suffer as a consequence of their sinfulness. There is comfort in knowing that in our grief God grieves with us. God is there to hold us in our times of sorrow.

            We also find strength in times of lament by remembering we are not alone. Not only is God always with us, we have brothers and sisters in Christ all around us. Many of them share in our grief over so much loss over the decades. We are not alone in the loss of membership and resources. But also, with those congregations that are doing well, they are part of our family too. We belong to each other. And World Communion Sunday is an opportunity to remember that we are a part of a community that is much larger than our own little church. We are just one manifestation of a global body of believers, rich in diversity and resources. I don’t know about you but just by remembering how large the Church is as a whole, with a billion members spread all across the world, it gives me encouragement and confidence that not all is lost. We are part of something so much bigger than ourselves. And this eases the pain of acknowledging the losses we have experienced as a church. The more we do things together as a community of churches, the more encouraged we can be to keep moving forward into what God desires for us.

            And that brings me to this challenge laid before you. In your bulletin you find a breakthrough prayer. This prayer was written collaboratively by the Bible study class. The purpose of this prayer is to collectively ask God to reveal to us what God’s hopes and dreams are for us as a church. We all want to see our church be revitalized. The first step is to pray together and seek God’s direction so that once we have a clearer picture we can then creatively put to work the resources we have toward that dream. We don’t want to put our energies going in a direction that does not align with what God’s preferred direction is for us. And so, we pray. I am asking you to pray this prayer every day for forty days. Remember, prayer is a conversation. So, don’t just read the prayer and then move on. Let this prayer be the opening of a conversation with God. Pray the prayer and then sit still for a few minutes and pay attention to what comes to your mind. What images or visions do you see? What kind of people come to mind? It could be that God is placing those images in your mind as a response to this prayer. If you do receive some kind of answer, please share it with me. My hope is that several of you will receive a response from God that, collectively, will give us a rich vision of where God wants us to go in the next chapter of our life together.