Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Williamsburg Landing Sermon

Hey All!

So I wanted to include my sermon that I wrote for Williamsburg Landing, a local retirement community. It was off lectionary, focusing on the John reading for the week and the Ephesians reading. I included the Ephesians reading in my sermon because the John reading had been read earlier in the service.


“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said,
‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
   he gave gifts to his people.’
(When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” This is the word of God for the people of God.
            I wanted to add this Scripture in with the Gospel lesson today because it is a truly powerful passage and it fits in perfectly with what I want to talk about.
Introduce self – summer intern (explain Calling 21), talk about school
This Ephesians passage really speaks to me because this summer is all about discovering my call and discovering what it means to be worthy of the call. I’ve been able to do so many amazing things, from teach music at VBS to helping at music camp, to writing liturgy for services, preaching, teaching Sunday School, doing music sessions for Respite Care center and WindsorMeade, and so much more. I’ve been thrown into the deep end of what it means to be in ministry and I’ve been slowly developing what I want my ministry to look like. The Ephesians reading and the John reading focus on Jesus being the bread of life, and us being a part of the body of Christ. For most United Methodist Churches, and many other denominations, the first Sunday of the month, which is this Sunday, is communion Sunday. For me, communion signifies our unity to the body of Christ. When we partake in the elements, we are a community sharing in the common call.
In Winchester, they have a program called WATTS, which stands for the Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter. The local churches each take a week during the coldest months of the year and house homeless guests. The guests are provided with a hot dinner, a cot to sleep on, breakfast, and they are usually given a bag lunch for the day. At Shenandoah, we at the Spiritual Life office saw that this was a great program and we wanted to get involved. Since we couldn’t house homeless guests on campus for a lot of reasons, we decided that every Sunday night for the duration of the program, SU students would take dinner and provide a Bible study. I’ve been volunteering at WATTS for two years now, and it has been such a meaningful experience for me. I’ve helped organize volunteers, coordinate transportation, and eat and talk with the guests. It’s so powerful to hear their stories and be in community with these people. When we go and eat with the guests, I truly feel like part of the body of Christ. We are not only providing food, we are feeding their souls as well. Even though we may not get everyone involved in the Bible study, the ones who do come absolutely cherish having that time to talk about Godly things. And even the ones who don’t come, they see us, and what we come to do, and they are grateful. This program helps the guests look for jobs, regulate their medications, and give them a place to stay so they don’t freeze at night. I feel honored to be a part of this program and it I think it exemplifies what we are called to do as a part of the body of Christ.
I’ve found that food is a wonderful common ground. Whether it’s a pot luck, family dinner, food bank, or communion, we always gather around food. When the people came to Jesus, they were expecting food, and yet they received so much more. He told them to go out and do the work of God through him. There’s a book that I read last year called “Take this Bread,” by Sara Miles. It’s a story about this woman’s conversion to Christianity and what she does with her life afterwards. Sara was raised an atheist. Her parents had had bad experiences in the church so Sara grew up learning to hate the church. When she got older, she worked as a restaurant cook and spent a lot of time in impoverished and dangerous areas as a newscaster and writer. She led a pretty rough life through her 20s and 30s. When Sara was 46, she by chance walked into a church. She had absolutely no intention of regularly coming or becoming a “religious nut” as she called it. It happened to be Communion Sunday that day, she participated, and her life was changed forever. Just by partaking in that simple act of receiving bread and wine fundamentally changed this woman’s life. She had no clue what she had gotten herself into and started reading anything and everything about religion and Communion, trying to figure out what this feeling was. This is a quote from her prologue, “I stumbled into a radically inclusive faith centered on sacraments and action. What I found wasn't about angels, or going to church, or trying to be 'good' in a pious, idealized way. It wasn't about arguing a doctrine — the Virgin birth, predestination, the sinfulness of homosexuality and divorce — or pledging blind allegiance to a denomination. I was, as the prophet said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I found it at the eternal and material core of Christianity: body, blood, bread, wine poured out freely, shared by all. I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the poor, the despised and the outcasts are honored.”
This is what encapsulates what we are called to do and share through the church. When Sara discovered this, she knew that she had to act on the issue of hunger where she lived. She opened a food pantry in her area and it exploded to many different locations. This food pantry program has feed hundreds upon hundreds of people…and it was all inspired by a woman eating a piece of bread and taking a sip of wine.
Now what I learned from reading this book is that it doesn’t matter what your background is, or who your family is, or what you’ve done, all are welcome in Christ’s body. It gave me a new perspective when I took communion or even shared a meal with my friends. I read this book after my first experience with the WATTS program, and even though I had already deemed that experience “awesome and fulfilling,” once I had read this book, the experience took on a completely new meaning.
So what does it mean to be worthy of the call? I think we’ve seen that to be worthy of a call means to feel completely unworthy of the call. I think that’s when God uses us most because that’s when we are most open to God’s plan. I love Isaiah’s call story because it’s so fresh. Isaiah is kind of having trouble reconciling that he is living among sinners but he doesn’t know how to be worthy to reach them. He cried out “ ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’” Then an angel took a coal and placed it to Isaiah’s lips and told him that his lips were clean and his sins forgiven. “Then (he) heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’” Now there are a lot of call stories in the Bible, and they all come from different perspectives and different plots, but I just love the call story of Isaiah. Even if we feel like there isn’t a job for us to do or a call for us to follow, there is. Calls change and transform all the time, and no matter where we are in life, there is always a purpose behind where we are.
Now since I’ve been an intern this summer, I’ve been kind of obsessed with this concept of call, if you haven’t noticed already. What I love about the John reading is that when the people come to Jesus, they are coming for physical food, right? Jesus takes the opportunity to present a call to them. When they ask “‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” This is in essence a call. Jesus is telling them to believe in him, and everything else will fall into place. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?
Through the two readings today and the stories, we can see that the concept of the body of Christ and serving him through call takes on many different shapes and forms. When we partake in a meal together, whether it is communion or just a normal meal, we are being the body of Christ together. I’m so glad to have been able to come and share and worship with you today and I hope that I will have another opportunity to visit Williamsburg in the near future. Thank you again for inviting me to come today, and now let us sing “Let there be Peace on Earth,” number 211.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Well I can't believe that things are actually winding down around here. I officially have three more days in the office and then on Thursday I leave Williamsburg to go to Winchester and then the next day I'm going to Maryland to spend some time with friends and family before going back to school on the 19th to help out with freshman move in day on the 20th and help out with Welcome Week. I can't believe that it's already August, where did this summer go? It feels like I just started my internship a couple of weeks ago and yet SO many amazing things have happened.

This week has been quite busy as I had three music sessions this week, had two services today which I had to prepare for, and preparations for Helping Hands tomorrow and Tuesday. Helping Hands is a program for 4-6th graders and gives them an opportunity to learn about and do mission work. I will be taking a group of kids down to Respite Care and doing music to show them how powerful music can be and that it is a mission to care for those who are suffering from dementia. Also, just as some fun things that I did this week, Kristin and I got to go to Busch Gardens again and we also went swing dancing on Thursday night! It was Kristin's first time swing dancing and she did wonderfully :)

I had quite a wonderful weekend this weekend, filled with fun stuff and my LAST Sunday here at Williamsburg UMC. I taught Sunday School today and led two services at Williamsburg Landing, a local retirement community. I have the cutest story from after my first service. One of the ladies pulled me aside and was talking to me. At one point, she asked if I was married. I told her no. She then told me with a big smile on her face, "Someone is going to catch you one day." And as I was about to leave, she also told me, "I hope you find the love of your life just like I found mine." Isn't that the sweetest thing ever!? I felt so blessed by that woman telling that and kind of gave me hope, haha.

Anyway, I'm probably going to post at least one more time with a sum-up of the summer and any last stories I want to share. This summer has gone by so quickly and it's been so wonderful. I think I am ready to spend some time with my family and friends before school starts, though. I'll thank you all now for being such faithful readers and thank you for going on this journey with me!