Category: Focus Columns

Lent is the liturgical season during which we lift up our need to confess, repent, and forgive.  This can be a time we choose to reveal our deepest troubles as well as choosing to receive God’s greatest gifts.  We journey with Jesus Christ toward Jerusalem and the cross.  Along the way we seek to connect with God and one another.  We walk together, knowing that we need the Holy One and the holiness that lives in each other.

They say that one day three friends met privately to share their innermost confidences and to pray for one another with respect to their major weaknesses and personal stumbling blocks. The first frankly confessed to his friends that he had a serious problem with alcohol. He shared with them a number of times that he found himself inebriated, and told how he was frequently stumbling in this area, literally and figuratively. He asked them for special prayer to help him recognize that he was powerless of alcohol.  They promised that they would.  The second, encouraged by this display of candor, admitted that she, too, had a problem, only with money and not alcohol. She found that she just couldn’t resist skimming occasionally at work, and was guilty of a number of indiscretions regarding this weakness.  She confessed her need to practice faithful stewardship and honesty, and asked for prayer. They promised that they would.  The third friend then reluctantly responded, “I must confess I appreciate the remarkable candor of both of you. My weakness is gossip, and I can hardly wait to get out of here!”

What is sin?  Sin is anything that separates you from God, your neighbor, or yourself.  God in Christ has conquered sin, has overcome death and separation, and shows us daily the way to reconciliation and a new and right spirit.  Consider the guidance we find in Psalm 51.

Psalm 51 was written by King David right after he committed a series of sinful acts in the sight of God and the whole people of God.  David begged for forgiveness; he sought a new spirit and a new way; afterward he celebrated the restoration of his life and relationships. He prayed:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you. (Psalm 51: 10-14)

You, my friends and family, church and city, have repeatedly received this faulty and repentant soul just as I am, and you have repeatedly and unconditionally extended forgiveness, fresh chances, and the freedom of a new life in Christ. Thank you for empowering one soul in your midst to strive for God’s heart.  Your own faithful striving to live into the heart of God has softened my edges, smoothed out rough spots and times, and honed my corners. Mine is a story of a journey, not of arrival; a story of movement, not motion; a story of new beginnings and renewed life.

How about your story?  Where do you find yourself in this psalm, in this story, in this process of renewal?  Are you open to experiencing being a renewed soul as a direct result of God’s mercy being lived out in community?

The past does not determine the future. Our past does not determine our future.  A poor decision  or words spoken harshly and with haste or something we have done or said which we later look back with embarrassment or regret does not eternally set you outside God’s good graces. A call refused can be reconsidered. A wrong word or bad decision or a sin committed can be forgiven. A broken relationship may be healed.  Prodigal Sons return home, lost sheep are found, and  broken hearts are healed.

God will and does put a new and right spirit within us. This is what happens when you allow a loving people to love you.  Allow a forgiving people to forgive you.  Allow a healing and hospitable people to aid and welcome you into the Great Banquet of God on earth as it is in heaven.   If you don’t already have such a faith community, then you are most welcome to visit and connect here at First Christian Church of Decatur.

As always, First Christian Church of Decatur, I am delighted to be your pastor.  Shalom, James L. Brewer-Calvert

She stood in front of the bright lights of late night television. She was quite a sight in her bulky black boots that laced up her legs. She looked into the eyes of the live studio audience and the eyes she knew were watching on TVs in homes across the nation. Over there was the late night talk show host, who was up for jokes and celebrities, and she was neither. She stood still and spoke succinctly and sincerely, knowing that she only had two minutes, two minutes to make an impression, two minutes to get her message across, two minutes to make a world of difference.
She said that she had heard of men and women working the earth in countries where past wars and current civil strife had left landmines scattered and hidden, landmines waiting in deadly silence and mystery for years for unsuspecting people to touch them, resulting in lost feet and hands and lives. She said she had invented landmine resistant boots, handmade boots with thick soles of leather and metal to deflect the blast. She said the boots were field-tested, battle-tested, effective and expensive. She said the shepherds and tillers of the soil and their loved ones would surely benefit; however the cost of the boots was prohibitive. She said she had a website and then she named it, saying that you can give $10 or $100 or more to help purchase pairs of landmine resistant boots for our international neighbors who needed them yet could not afford what would save their lives and feet.
That’s it. Her two minutes were up, and the talk show host was back, cracking jokes and announcing the special celebrity guest.
My Lord and my God! She had two minutes to make a world of difference, and sometimes that’s all we get, and she used every second to drive home her passion, her creativity and resourcefulness, her love for humanity, her hope that there were others, thousands and millions of others who cared and wanted to make a world of difference as well.
As a matter of fact, I did not see her on television. I did not witness her passion and drive and hope for humanity. I heard her story second hand, and now you are receiving it third hand. Someone told me her story who had seen it on late night TV. So I researched it and found that it is all true, and now here I am telling you her story, all worked up because someone wants to make a world of difference and is inviting us to join in and get on board.
Some of us were blessed to hear the Rev. Dr. Holly McKissick speak in 2011 at the General Assembly of the Christian Church in Nashville. Holly McKissick is the pastor of Peace Christian Church in Kansas City. She spoke about what our neighbors are looking for in a spiritual faith community. When our neighbors are asked what they want, what they say is us.
“In survey after survey, what people say they want is this,” she said, gesturing to the over 5,000 Disciples of Christ in the audience. “It’s us.” Holly pointed out that we as a denomination are poised for growth because we embody exactly what people are longing and searching for even if they don’t really know it or can’t articulate it. The frustrating part is that few people know who we are or what we are about. She shared about when she first started in pastoral ministry over 25 years ago, she wished that our church leaders would hire a slick advertising company that would rebrand us into something new, novel, sexy or sleek. (As a matter of fact, we have had the same conversation here as well.) Now, McKissick says, she realizes that’s not the answer. Now she’d settle for an elevator speech.
An elevator speech is a couple of tight, well-crafted sentences which say who we are, succinctly, sincerely, with passion and joy. Every Disciple of Christ needs an elevator speech. All you have to do (don’t you love that expression) — all you have to do is practice. The next time someone says to you, “Hey, your church seems to be really important to you. What kind is it? I’ve never heard of it,” be ready to say something like: “Well, we aren’t really all that well known because we aren’t like some of those faith traditions who think they have all the answers. We know the world is not black and white; we know it is rich and filled with color and varied and filled with hungry kids and flooded towns, and we are just the kind of church that likes to roll up our sleeves and seek to be a sign of God’s healing and hope!”
Or you might tell a story about our practice of hospitality, healing grace, and hands-on missions.
Or you could offer that at First Christian Church of Decatur, “even I am welcomed!”
Holly McKissick pointed out that unchurched people want a spiritual faith community yet are not interested in churches that “are all hung up on gays or straight, black or white,” but rather seek congregations that celebrate the range of God’s creation and help each other through the difficult complexities of life. She said that many of our unchurched neighbors say, “If I could find a church that isn’t trying to own Jesus, but simply follow him, I would go.” What they mean is that they dream of a sacred place, a safe place, a spiritual home and community where they could go with their questions and doubts and still be accepted, like us. If only they could find a church that instead of trying to divide the world was finding ways to live together, like us. If only they could unearth a church that wasn’t trying to own Jesus but simply follow him, like us. If they could find a church like that, they would go.
We are a church like that; you know and feel this because you and I are living out such a faith experience. We have discovered it firsthand. So take two minutes and share your discovery. Share your story succinctly and sincerely.
The point of telling faith stories is not only so the Body of Christ will grow. Holly McKissick reminds us that, “It wasn’t about this denomination for our founders and it sure shouldn’t be for us.” The point is about helping the homeless and hungry just outside our sanctuary and along the city streets. The point is giving another soul, another family, another home the same gifts of God that you have: the gifts of hope, healing and hospitality.
The end of the story is the lame walking and blind seeing and thirsty drinking. “And how will they know it unless we tell?”
As always, First Christian Church of Decatur, I am delighted to be your pastor. Shalom, James L. Brewer-Calvert