 |
|||||
| Home | About | Homilies | History | Directions | |
|
|||||
Words Yonce Shelton Lectionary Readings: Numbers 21:4-9 Prayer of the Day: Don’t bow your heads. Instead, look around. Look at members of your community. Soon you will break bread with them as we remember Christ’s sacrifice. Our whole reason for being here today is to remember our Lord. When we come together we re-member the body of Christ. We create unity out of belief. We bear witness to His power. Let us re-member and remember. Amen. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Believe. Believe. Believe. Words are powerful, especially when one or two can capture where we are. One word can provide focus and space. A word can bring awareness, challenge, hope and more. For the past months, the word numb captured my being. I wasn’t numb all the time, but enough that I noticed and was able to name it. The first Sunday of Lent I had a moment of clarity. A daily meditation that day claimed that ninety percent of what Jesus said dealt with how numbness is related to power, prestige, and possession. Those are my temptations. The reading from Ephesians uses the word “dead” several times to describe one’s being when caught up in trespasses and sins. “You were dead through trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world…following the desires of flesh and senses” (Ephesians 2:1-3). I confessed my numbness and the “three Ps” to you all that Sunday. That week, as I prayed, God helped me understand that getting past the numbness had as much to do with experiencing others as with probing the depths of myself. I prayed for more feeling and awareness. I asked God to affirm God’s love for me. I asked God to remind me of God’s love for me. Then I realized remind missed the mark. The mind is not where I needed help. It was the heart. So I asked God to reheart me of God’s love. I also realized I cannot ask God to heighten an aspect of our “vertical” relationship without me doing so in “horizontal” relationship with others. My intellect can articulate a theology of relationship with God and others – but my heart is making slower progress. I have been trying to reheart others of my love recently. There is a power in naming, expressing, and confessing the struggles and joys this entails. That is what Moses’ people did. They confessed speaking against the Lord and prayed for the serpents to be removed. They named and owned what was harming relationship with God and affecting them. “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” (Numbers 21:7-8) I have prayed for God to allow me the insight to understand relationship in deeper ways. I have prayed for God to help me be in a better place each day so that energy and excitement will allow me to be present for others. I have prayed for vision and creativity in reaching others – for my ministry to be artful. My prayers have been answered, but not just because I confessed. Belief precedes confession. I believe that God is pulling for me to be the best I can be; to be what God has envisioned for me. I believe God loved me into being to become who I am in relationship with God and others. I believe God gave me – us – freedom to choose to give our hearts to God. In doing so, we free ourselves to give our hearts to others too. Believe. That is the word driving me today. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). The word “believes” is found five times in today’s gospel. It is a word that has become more important to me as I think about two things relevant to this Community. First, we are beginning to consider what the Eucharist means for our common life and how we perform that offering. Second, I have been thinking about “membership” in the Community – hence the email asking you to think about that too. The two are related. There is something that draws us to the Lord’s table each week – from our different traditions, perspectives, moods, sins, joys and more. The Eucharist represents a commitment and membership. It is a place where brokenness, healing, thanksgiving, and confession are equally welcome. It all comes together in a unity we choose. But don’t forget: it is started and completed with Christ’s sacrifice. What brings us to the table? What brings us back so often? What keeps us away at times? I could keep talking about why I come here and to the table. But the table is not about me. It’s about us. My thoughts are not worth much without you. So I will just say that I find power and comfort in the word believe. I believe in the miracle of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe in you. I believe in unity with you. I believe in confessing with you. I believe in dancing with you. I believe in the power of relationship. I believe in the power of prayer. I believe that we reheart God and each other every time we pass the bread and the cup. If I can pursue those things here, then I am a member. Whether numb or alive with joy, I am a member. It is a membership that I believe changes the “course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2), even if we don’t understand how. Now that is a prestigious membership. I read a meditation recently asking me to consider the impact our touch can have on others. What if you were the last person to share a gaze, touch, or word with someone? What if your interaction with them was the last one before their death – or yours? How would that change your approach to life? We perform outreach when we think like this. We tell our story when we act like that. We evangelize in the simplest of ways. About the same time, JoJo told me that I write too many poems focusing on negative things; that I should write one about all the good things in my life. I have not written that one yet. But my way of being these past weeks is a testimony to the good things I feel more and more. Sometimes our poems can be written without pen and paper. We choose how to define art that defines us. We choose how to be a member of the world. We choose how to express the pure – and temptations – within. We become better members of other communities by choosing to be a better member of the body of Christ. Come to the table. Touch and be touched. Share. Change. Believe, come, confess — and rejoice. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Amen. Song of the Day: “Life Itself” by Bruce Springsteen (2009) We met down in the valley, where the wine of love and destruction flows You were life itself, rushing over me I knew you were in trouble, anyone could tell You were life itself, rushing over me Why are things that we treasure most slip away in time ’Til we fall away in our own darkness Life itself, in your heart and in your eyes And to life itself, rushing over me Life itself
|
||