Love Anyway: Coming Down the Mountain

Today is Transfiguration Sunday which is a transition day in the life of the church. This is the last Sunday of Ordinary Time following Epiphany and Lent begins on Wednesday. In the life of First United Methodist Church, today was full indeed!

There was worship and a mission lunch to help raise money for mission team heading out to Heifer Ranch in Arkansas. Enough extra money was raised to purchase two lambs. The team going down in a couple of weeks will be there during lambing season. Personally, I am looking forward to the trip!

This evening there is another conversation around racial healing and justice with our sister congregationSt. Mark United Methodist Church. Tonight we gather at their church and begin with a potato bar. Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple will be there, as will Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsey. Joining with our sisters and brothers from St. Mark to work toward a better Wichita, a better denomination and for the transformation of the world is energizing and exciting.

Transfiguration Sunday is always a stretch for me. Today, I wanted to focus on Jesus coming down the mountain into our messy and messed up world. Been challenged by Jesus to Love Anyway is daily and encourages me, maybe encourages us all to embrace the hard and difficult work of Love. I was also able to invite people to Ash Wednesday and to the lenten journey. You can find the entire worship service or just the sermon here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love Anyway: Confronting Brokenness

Today’s service as filled with great music, new members and wrestling with a difficult text. After Jesus blessing all those people who came to hear the Sermon on the Mount after telling them they, THEY are salt and light and precious, he throws down a challenge.

The challenge is to be “more righteous” than the religious leaders, to follow and live the law in a way that shows glory to God. The lectionary today has Jesus saying things like, “you have heard it said, but I say to you….” Jesus says insulting someone is the same as murder, looking at someone with lust is the same as committing adultery and in the middle of this passage Jesus speaks about divorce and that there is not reason for divorce.

Hard passages and I did my best to do justice to the time, the scripture and what that means for us today. As a divorced and remarried woman, I think I can not avoid these scriptures when they come up in the lectionary. Wresting with the text is important for me and for my congregation. I believe that grace is sufficient for us all.

You can the entire service or just the sermon here.

Love Anyway: Facing the Darkness

The second week of this new sermon series brings us to what I “lovingly” call “Valentine’s Sunday.” That is not on the liturgical calendar, but a tradition I created over 25 years ago. I sign Valentines for every person who comes to the church that Sunday. Now the worship service itself may or may not be focused on Valentines, but at least everyone receives a hand signed card.

At First United Methodist Church, that includes all the bulletins that are mailed out to our television viewers, around 120. I discovered that all the focus on Valentine’s Day toward a love interest or partner meant that many people felt left out. I am of the mind that everyone needs a little love and signing Valentines is one small way to share.

Our alto scholarship student, Sam Kuemmerele, sang a Martina McBride song, “Anyway.“ Our interim organist, Ralph Phillips found this piece and it was perfect for the sermon series. Ms. McBride is wonderful, Sam was amazing. You watch her sing during worship service here. Her song comes at 36:01.

The song is based on Kent Keith poem, that I have gone back to year after year. I didn’t refer to it in this sermon, but it would have worked. Having it sung was perfect. Here is the poem in its entirety. Believe…..Sing…..Trust…..Do…..Love….Anway.

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Love Anyway: When blessings become curses

I am back in the pulpit and it felt good to be back. My study leave was good for my soul and spirit, but now it’s time to go back to work. I was actually in the church building on Tuesday doing everything that needed to be done before I was OFFICIALLY back in the office tomorrow.

Not only was it my first Sunday back in the pulpit, it is Ground Hog Day ( and Punxsutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow which means an early spring), it is also a global palindrome day, 02/02/2020. It has been 909 years since the date is exactly the same forward and backwards, the last time being 11/11/1111. AND  it is Super Bowl  Sunday and the Kansas City Chiefs are playing for the first time in 50 years. In worship, there was a lot of red!!!

Finally, today we began a new sermon series based partially on Jesus’ sermon on the mount in Matthew 5. This first week we look again a the Beatitudes. These wonderful blessings are not as simple as they appear on the surface. Like much of what Jesus shares, the Beatitudes challenge me to go deeper, beneath the surface.

It is not always easy to love and to live kingdom values when the world is not interested in meekness, a hungering for righteousness and pureness of heart and spirit. Yet Jesus blesses us all, not because we have earned or deserve, but because that is who God is.

You can find both the entire service or just the sermon here.