Episodes
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Stay the Course: A Sermon Preached by T.C. Morrow- Sunday, March 17, 2019
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Monday Mar 18, 2019
This Lenten season, we are exploring “Traveling the Redemption Road”. As we journey in these days leading up to Holy Week and Easter, it is a period of particular invitation to open ourselves to growth in our relationship with God. As Pastor Ginger reminded us two weeks ago, Lent is not simply a time to pick up failed New Year’s resolutions. Rather, Lent is an invitation to do something just a little differently than your regular routines, in order to open yourself more fully to God’s grace. Now it doesn’t mean you are necessarily going to come to Easter worship having had a huge a-ha movement. But don’t discount that possibility.
Will you join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
Invitations to silence are a hard thing for me. During the last two years, I have had spurts of trying to schedule a time for silent retreat. I guess I should get that on my to do list again, since I often find that what I avoid in terms of spiritual practices is often exactly what I need the most.
So it is with some trepidation that I come today to testify to a word I received recently during a time of silence.
On Saturday three weeks ago, I sat in a football stadium and accepted an invitation to be in silent prayer for a few minutes. No, I wasn’t in packed stands at a big revival. But I had started the day committed to engaging as fully as possible in the Day of Prayer starting off the special session of the General Conference of The United Methodist Church. The invitation came for ten minutes of prayer in silence, though I don’t think it even end up that length. I know I fidgeted some, though fortunately my mind didn’t wander to the Eagles loss in the same spot in the 2002 NFC championship game.
I prayed and as we were invited to open our eyes after the time in silence, a phrase popped into my mind: Stay the course. And I mean, seared on my mind in block letters: STAY THE COURSE.
Steadfastness is a theme in today’s Lectionary scripture passages. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is a thank you for their support of his ministry mixed with his encouragement to them to keep on keepin’ on. From the very beginning of Christianity, there have been disagreements over what it takes to be a Jesus follower. Some of Paul’s other letters show the disputes of the first century in greater detail. Here in today’s lesson in chapter 3, we read of enemies of the cross of Christ. For Paul, this includes people focused on the wrong things. For Paul, it is people focused too much on conformity to religious and cultural norms and not enough on the transformative power of Jesus Christ. In the face of opposition, Paul encourages the community at Philippi: “Stand firm in the Lord.”
Back to that Saturday three weeks ago in St. Louis. A few hours later, I had the pleasure of meeting in person for the first time someone who I had worked with over the phone. He looked me in the eye and said, “Stay the course.”
I don’t normally take things as signs from God, but twice in one day with a phrase I can’t think that I ever use! This Lent I am pondering what all it means to Stay the Course.
First a note on the context in which I process this message from the Holy Spirit. I want to speak a word to the deep pain and grief and anger so many LGBTQ United Methodists are feeling right now. I know our allies feel it too, and my wife and I appreciate the outpouring of love and support from allies - and I am sure we are not alone in that appreciation. But a brief word to my LGBTQ siblings. Maybe like me you have been transported back in time to the months or years that you spent time reconciling your faith, or at least your participation in organized religion, and your sexuality or gender identity. As I wake up at two or three AM too many times in these weeks, my mind flashes back to my dorm room in the second semester of freshman year, pleading with God to let me know if I am not supposed to be in any leadership at any level in the church, since the last thing I want to do is lead anyone astray. Those days of wrestling in the spring of ’96 are so far away from my current reality, but weeks like these last few trigger the memories.
And these last few weeks, even when I get enough hours of sleep, I wake up exhausted. It hurts literally and figuratively.
We need to be gentle with ourselves and give ourselves permission to grieve continued injustice and denominational harm. Lent is maybe the best time of the liturgical year to pause and sit with whatever we are feeling or not feeling right now, especially before we make big decisions. It brings to mind what the disciples might have gone through in those days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when maybe they could affirm there would be more to the story but did not yet know what new life was going to come forth.
One immediate thing that Stay the Course meant was submitting paperwork to the District Committee on Ministry. Due two days later, I sent it on the Tuesday morning prior to heading over to the Conference, knowing that likely the day would bring passage of the so-called Traditional Plan. The paperwork is part of an annual process to remain a certified candidate for ordained ministry, one of the various steps needed as I continue to make myself available for ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church.
I phrase it that way on purpose because part of Staying the Course is continuing to engage in ministry regardless of what any denominational body says or does. I would love to be able to put on a clerical collar and attend rallies I’ve helped organize outside the White House. But I show up in those spaces with the same authority from God regardless of what title is in front of my name or what I can use to accessorize my wardrobe. That authority is as a follower of Jesus Christ and it comes before any institutional blessing. Now do not misunderstand me, I am a rule follower at hear and I have great respect for our ordering in human institutions. Yet I know I cannot wait for an end to sinful institutional homophobia before responding to following Jesus and striving to faithfully live my baptismal vows. We cannot let the sins of racism or ableism or sexism or transphobia or homophobia or anything else stop ANY of us from responding to God’s grace and God’s desire for ever deeper relationship with each of us.
Staying the Course means not allowing anyone or anything to derail the values and commitments and actions and ministries of this congregation. Not knowing what is going to emerge in or from the United Methodist Church means we are living in a time of great uncertainty and tension. But even as we care for ourselves, we continue to plan summer youth mission trips, we engage in the ID Ministry, we make sandwiches, we teach Sunday School, we engage in advocacy in our city and beyond, we partner with the congregations of Asbury UMC and John Wesley AME Zion. We continue to stand up to the hatred of white supremacy all too evident this week in the mosque attacks in New Zealand.
As a lesbian and as a Christian and as a lifelong United Methodist born to two cradle Methodists, Staying the Course for me today means I’m not picking up my canoe right now and heading to another river, though I have heard from some across the denomination who are doing so. Right now I’m not headed to another river, but I acknowledge that I don’t know exactly where the course goes down river. After all, Methodism sprung forth as a renewal movement. John Wesley died a priest of the Church of England, but we along with many other branches in the Wesleyan family are heirs to that renewal movement.
In today’s Lectionary Gospel lesson in Luke 13, we see religious leaders keen on maintaining the status quo trying to get Jesus to stop his community organizing and transforming lives outside the confines of the religious norms. “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” In the face of forces meant to pressure him into inaction, Jesus remains resolute in his work of kin-dom building. He continues to teach and heal and defy expectations.
In Philippians Paul asks the Christian community similarly to remain resolute in their work of kin-dom building. In chapter 3 verse 20, Paul says, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” In other words, where we ultimately put our loyalties and energy is in the kin-dom. We are to live as though we are part of an outpost of the kin-dom – living the kin-dom now.
As we seek to live as citizens of the kin-dom and travel the redemption road, we are invited to open ourselves to the places where we need transformation. We are invited to community with fellow travelers on the journey. We are invited to stay the course of the journey, knowing that there will be bends in the river, streams merging, and occasionally a river even bifurcates, or splits. But we are not alone. We have each other through small groups and shared ministries, Bible studies and coffee hour, worship and mission. And most importantly of all, we have God alongside us on this journey. In our times of deepest pain and in our times of greatest joy and everything in between, God is with us. Open yourself this Lenten season to where the flow of the Spirit may be guiding you. And amidst it all, stay the course in growing ever closer to God.
Amen.
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