Episodes
Sunday Jun 30, 2013
Check-In: Calling Home
Sunday Jun 30, 2013
Sunday Jun 30, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder 2 Timothy 4:9-22
I want to start by say a few words about some very significant recent events. One is that Exodus International, the best known organization doing so-called “reparation therapy” --intended to help gay people become straight-- has announced it is closing and its president Alan Chambers has apologized for the organization’s participation in oppressing LGBTQ people.
I’ve never talked about this publicly before but for many years Foundry was a stop on the Exodus International underground railroad. Individuals would leave its treatment programs having reached the realization that they would never stop being gay and someone would tell them to come here, and they would visit Foundry. They came here to find hope that, despite what they had been taught all of their lives, that they could be gay and a follower of Jesus.
For many years I tried to say in one way or another that you can be LGBTQ and a follower of Jesus during in every service because I knew that there was a good chance that someone who had just left a 6 month or 18 month program intended to turn them straight might be in the pews.
Exodus International closing its doors and apologizing is a tipping point.
A second recent event was the Supreme Court decisions on marriage equality this week. The DOMA decision was a tipping point. From now on, the force of gravity is with us. The struggle is not over but the force of gravity is with us.
History will recalls how important the work of faith communities was in this victory. The witness of the churches of Washington DC was critical to marriage equality. I want to especially remember the leadership of our friend Rev. Louis Shockley in opening the doors of Asbury Church at 11th and K to host the interfaith service for marriage equality. Today is Lou’s last Sunday as pastor of Asbury and I wonder if there is anyone who would join me in send him a note of appreciation for his leadership on Foundry’s behalf?
Not all houses of faith have the gift of prophecy but very little change on behalf of justice happens unless people of faith speak and act even when others in the same faiths work against change.
U.S. v. Windsor was a tipping point.
The third event I want to talk about is Rev. Adam Hamilton’s letter to his congregation. Adam Hamilton is the pastor of the largest United Methodist church in existence anywhere: Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS. In a letter to his congregation this past week, Adam stated clearly that he believes scripture includes both eternal truth and statements that do not reflect eternal truth but the limited understanding and worldview of the writers in the time they lived. He said that he believes that the one of two statements in the New Testament that seems to condemn same-gender affection do not represent eternal truth but like teachings on slavery and the role of women in the church, these statements reflect the cultural prejudices of the culture in which they were written.
Adam has long been considered an enlightened evangelical middle of the road pastor. The struggle for inclusion within the United Methodist Church has now shifted. If we have faith, the force of spiritual gravity will not be with us in the United Methodist Church.
So it has been a good week.
There are other concerns we need to be studying and praying about. This past week I have seen one of our members interviewed several times on news shows about the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act. Penda Hair has devoted her life to voting rights and I am going to ask her to do a workshop here in early fall to help us understand the court’s decision and what needs to happen legislatively. Who would join me in sending Penda a note of appreciation for her commitment to voting rights?
A tipping point is not the end of the work. We are dealing with deep seated prejudices that take generations to heal.
Still this has been a very good week.
Tonight is our last 5:30 regular service. We are encouraging 5:30 regulars to continue to meet in small groups and to become active in our morning services. Friendly to new faces.
PRAYER
We’ve been talking about pitstops on the road trip of life … things you’ve got to stop and take time to do on a journey. You’ve got to refuel. You’ve got to check your road map. You’ve got to get out of the car and stretch.
The scripture we’ve used in this series is the letter the Apostle Paul writes near the end of his life’s journey to his young friend Timothy who was just beginning his journey.
And we want to look at one more passage from Paul’s letter’s to Timothy this morning.
It is the very last paragraph of the second letter to timothy and it is a very unusual paragraph because it shows us a side of Paul that we rarely see in his writings.
Paul is always so determined, so optimistic, so stiff-upper- lip. He may sometimes seem defensive in reaction to the constant criticism and opposition he experience, but there seems to be not an ounce of neediness or self-pity in the Apostle Paul.
In this last paragraph of second Timothy we see a glimpse of the vulnerable apostle; the lonely apostle; the needy apostle.
Of course, he is in prison and he will eventually be executed and he knew that was a good possibility. But that wasn’t what was bothering him the most.
What was bothering him the most was his colleagues in ministry who had abandoned him.
“Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.”
“Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm … You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message.”
“At my last trial no one came to my support, but all deserted me.”
Then he makes his plea to Timothy – “Do your best to come to visit me. Do your best to come before winter.”
Perhaps because the likelihood of Paul being executed in winter was good.
Perhaps the unspoken request was: Do your best to come to me before I die.
The journey to the Kingdom of God is not a smooth ride.
I remember the time I was listening to one of the greatest scholars on the writings of the Apostle Paul talk about when his life ended no one would have ever guessed he would be a hero of the faith and people would still be studying his letters 2,000 years later.
Half the churches he had founded had abandoned his teachings and turned either to the message taught by the Judaizers or the extreme Gnostics. He had become alienated from the majority of those who had entered ministry under his teaching. The Jesus movement as a whole seemed to be leaning toward another gospel that either required gentiles to become Jews before they could become Christians or else tried to replace the God of the Hebrew Scriptures with some other deity.
In these few words at the very end of the second letter to Timothy we see Paul vulnerable and lonely, hoping perhaps that Timothy had not turned on him like all of the others and hoping he could see Timothy one more time.
We seem Paul trying to connect with someone he loved; trying to check in; trying to stay connected. Trying to find love and nurture for his spirit when he had poured out so much of his life teaching and nurturing others.
We do not know if Timothy ever managed to visit the Apostle Paul before his death. But we do know that tough old Paul opened his heart to Timothy and shared his need.
On road trips communication –I mean real communication-- is both hard and essential. Staying in touch with those we love and need is both essential and hard.
The only writings we have by the Apostle Paul are letters he sent to churches and friends.
He wrote and sent the letters in a time when there was no post office system, no telephones, no email, no Facebook, no twitter.
To get a letter to someone, you needed to find someone who was traveling to where ever it was that you were writing and get them to take the letter with them and personally deliver it for you.
Perhaps because communication was so hard, Paul’s letters were long, in depth, thoughtful, profound.
And yet even these letters were not enough. Paul longed to see Timothy in person so that they could talk and Paul could look into his eyes.
On life’s journey, it is essential to check-in with, stay in touch with, stay connected to those we love and need. No matter how important and critical our destination is, our work is, no matter how determined we are to get it done, we need time with those persons who love us and who we love and whose love we need.
I am not sure email and Facebook and twitter, as much as I like them, has really deepened our communication with those we love.
I worry sometimes that even in the church, we have started to think that email or a status report or a tweet is a substitute for looking someone in the eye and listening to their hopes and dreams and pain and possibilities.
I tried to do premarital counseling once by Skype. It did not go well because there was so much communication I missed by not being there.
I wonder how it might change our world if we began to tithe our time to personal face-to-face conversation with those we love and need on our journeys of life. If we tithed our work time so that we spend four or five or six hours a week in in-depth conversation with people we work with about the meaning and purpose of our work.
If we spent five or six hours a week of our non-work time in face-to-face conversation with those we love and need about the condition of our souls.
I love the Apostle Paul we see in the last paragraph of Second Timothy. Paul’s letters are so passionate for the kingdom, so focused on the work to be done, so positive about the victory of justice that you sometimes might think that Paul is a superman.
But he is not. He needs love and support like we all do.
In our journeys of life, we don’t want to focus so much on the destination that we forget to listen deeply to one another along the way. Check in. Call home.
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