Sermon Notes from October 6th

• You will have to forgive me about changing the prayer for the day to reflect the feast of St. Francis and to preach about Francis. Normally I try not to insert my personal preferences, but this day is really important to me, for if I had to put myself in a box, which I am loath to do, but if I had to, I would call myself a Franciscan, and it is because St. Francis showed me, more than anyone, what it looked like to have faith.
• What is the difference when you love what you do?
  • Wood worker: make a table just for use in a work room, or something beautiful as a gift.
  • Study a language because you have to for credit, or study because of the beautiful woman who only speaks French and you want to speak with her.
  • Throw dinner together because you are hungry, or make a meal because your best friends are coming over.
  • To love to do something is to add something
  • From Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz: "I never liked Jazz music because Jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked Jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."
• It is something like this why I love Francis so much
• He showed me what it looked like to have faith, to love Jesus
• [About Francis]
  • There is an interesting prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, when the world was growing cold you
  • raised up blessed Francis, bearing in his body the marks of your
    passion, to inflame our hearts with the fire of your love"
  • The church by the time of Francis was in many ways an institutional church in the worst way
  • The church of the 13th century was wealthy, comfortable, powerful. The pope at the time, Innocent III was particularly gifted in power politics and was able to consolidate a good many powers in the church. 
  • The church was cold
  • It was into this church that Francis came, and it could be argued that no single person outside of Jesus and the apostles made a bigger impact on the church with the exception of St. Augustine.
  • But he didn't do it in any ordinary way: he didn't write theology, he didn't change liturgy, he had no authority, he was no bishop or anything like that. He was just a poor beggar. 
  • How did he do it? The answer is painfully simple. He had a radical faith. 
  • He lived more like Jesus than anyone other than Jesus or Paul ever has.
  • He absolutely trusted God for everything; he gave to everyone who asked; he forgave everyone who attacked him; he didn't care about what he wore or his possessions; he served freely; he loved everyone; he exhibited pure joy and radiant peace in his life. 
  • And it all came out of his radical love of Jesus.
  • What he did was to fire the imagination of the people of the church, and even if they couldn't completely do what he did, they saw that the way of Jesus was so beautiful and moving and powerful that they were affected.
  • And they rededicated themselves anew to the faith; gave themselves over to Christ again.
  • People can look at his life even centuries later and still be moved
• A moving example for me is the book Chasing Francis
• About a pastor of a church who has gotten into a rut. Something is missing. Everything is humming along, but the passion isn't there, the excitement. 
• There is infighting in the church and it is weighing him down. Some people want to force him out.
• So he goes to Italy, forced to go to visit his uncle who is a Franciscan priest. 
• He finds a whole new world of Christian witness. His imagination is set on fire seeing how the church there is so involved in the life of the poor, in the arts, in peace making, in the inner journey.
• And he comes back to his church with a new vision. He sees a different calling for his church.
• • Transcendence: Knowledge and theory are not sufficient! Encounter God! Encounter! Francis believed transcendent encounters with Jesus were the key to people's coming to faith. Opening our ears to God's voice in creation, being touched by the Spirit's presence in the community of believers, walking in solidarity with the poor, practicing contemplative prayer and meditation, saying the liturgy, and meeting Jesus in symbol-rich spaces and events like Communion - all of these are vital experiences that can act as portals into the life of God.
  • Community: We are an expression of Jesus on earth. No artificial distinctions between the sacred and the secular. Into the marketplace. The world community: we consume too much. What does it mean to live in the community of the world. Simplicity. Community of reconciliation and peacemakers.
  • Beauty: arts and music. Francis was a singer, poet and actor. The imagination is a beautiful way into people's souls, a way to think about and experience God. The arts used to be a huge part of Christian expression in the middle ages. The church could be a safe place for artists to practice their vocation.
  • Dignity: People come to us broken and looking for acceptance and healing. We also need to fight against the things that rob people of their dignity such as racism, sexism, addictions, injustice, poverty and so on. Give creation back its dignity; we can find areas that are trashed and make it beautiful again for God.
  • Meaning: People are meaning seekers. We have to understand people in terms of the story of which they are a part. We want to invite people to be a part of what God is doing in the world.
• Now the Gospel is problematic for my story.
• A very hard message.
• My interpretation: there is evidence that some of the disciples thought that they were going to get patronage positions in the kingdom of God based on their loyalty. And Jesus is telling them in a hard way that this is not how the Kingdom works.
• About the humility of St. Francis
• What I have realized recently is that it is not really St. Francis that I love; it is the one whom he reflects: Jesus, my Lord.

From Steve's Office:

Dear friends, I pray that you are well. There are just a few couple I wanted to talk to you about. Many of you were able to go to the concert for the Common Cup Company this week. What a wonderful event that was in the life of our congregation! The music was entertaining and uplifting and it was a lot of fun to sing as well as visit with so many people. But one thing I want to mention that I got to see that a lot of other people didn't. The amount of effort to put on the event was tremendous! There was selling tickets and CD's, putting the band up for a whole week, preparing lunches and dinners for the band, and so on. The whole week was a lot of fun. But a lot of people worked hard and with joy and I really want to thank all of them. Really wonderful stuff! Thank you, thank you.

Also, the other thing is that I am getting excited about the Ecumenical Mission for a couple of reasons. First, I know that Danielle, the leader, is a tremendous speaker, and it will be interesting and challenging. I am confident that the content will be first class. And second, this kind of event which is churches all over Sherwood Park is really a rare event. I have never run into anything like it and it is something to be supported. In so many ways, the divisions within the Christian community are such a sadness and tragedy, and this is a small glimpse of what real ecumenical work can look like: Churches coming together to better proclaim the Gospel. Please join me!