Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship · May 18, 2008
First Sunday After Pentecost
Prayer of the Day
God of our beginnings, and our endings, and all the times in-between; thank you for the foundation of your love and the relationships you encourage, upon which we can stand and stretch. Thank you for Jesus and his witness to the power of love and your redeeming hope in our lives. We pray for open eyes, and ears, and hearts to your guiding grace with us. Amen.
An Introduction to the Scripture
I want to give you just a brief introduction to these verses the Church is asked to consider for today. Actually, the greatest part of our New Testament is made of letters that were written either by Paul or attributed to Paul. They are letters he wrote to churches all over the Holy Land and the places where he was a missionary bringing the good news to new people.
The church in Corinth, we feel fairly certain, was a church that was started by Paul. It was a church he deeply loved, but it was not an easy church start. There were ups and downs, and there were disagreements. There were power struggles.
First and Second Corinthians combines shorter letters that were sent by Paul to the Corinthians over a number of years. They’ve been cut and pasted together in the form we have them in our Bible now.
One thing these letters clearly do for us is to debunk any idea that the Church is a perfect place, filled with perfect people, who love God and each other perfectly at all times. Just not like Broadway Christian Church at all. The opposite of Broadway.
I especially like what Eugene Peterson says in his biblical interpretation, The Message, writing about the Corinthians:
But however much trouble the Corinthians were to each other and to Paul, they prove to be a… blessing to us, for they triggered some of Paul’s most profound and vigorous writing.
And I would add they reveal the reality of church life at its best and at its worst.
Our Scripture today is from the 13th Chapter of 2 Corinthians, and our verses are the concluding words that Paul has written to a tumultuous church setting with cantankerous church people, in the midst of a contentious relationship with their founding pastor. So his final words are…
Scripture
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
However, when it has all been said and done, finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order. Listen to my appeal. Encourage one another. Agree with one another. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Amen. May it be so in many places.
Message
Rejoice
Kim Ryan
I want to ask you to think back – go back in your mind – to 1983. Go back 25 years, if you can. For some of you, that is just remembering what your history lessons were from 1983. Let your mind ride back. Do you remember some of the things that were happening in 1983?
· The moonwalk dance was performed for the first time. Now, this isn’t walking on the moon. This is the dance by Michael Jackson. Remember that?
· The first woman astronaut went into space in 1983. Anybody remember her name? Sally Ride.
· The first African-American astronaut went in to space. His name was Guion Bluford.
· It was the year Tom Brokaw became the anchor of NBC.
· It was the year Microsoft Word was released.
· It was the year when the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday was established.
· It was also a sad year when the U.S. Embassy and the Marines were bombed in Beirut. Many of you will remember that time.
· It was also the year when Ronald Regan declared 1983 as the Year of the Bible. Do you remember that? I didn’t either. I found it on the Internet. Who knew? I didn’t know that.
It was that year – 1983 – when I began in ministry. In the 25 years since, there has been one thing that has had the greatest impact, made the greatest change in the way I now do ministry. Does anybody want to take a guess?
It is E-mail. Twenty-five years ago, I could not have imagined e-mail. Nor could I have imagined the impact it would have on the way I do ministry now. When e-mail first emerged, I did not embrace it. I will tell you that. I resisted it for a very long time. I felt like it was an intrusion. It was not the way I had imagined myself doing ministry, sitting in front of a computer screen, reading e-mails.
Therefore, for Lent, eight years ago, that season of self-discipline when one is to take something on or give something up, I wanted to give up e-mail, but I didn’t. Actually, I took on being friendlier to my e-mail. It helped. I had 40 days of forced “e-mail friendliness.”
Now, I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship, a like-dislike relationship, with e-mail. I realize one of the things that helped me in that way is I had to set some boundaries with it. So, I do work e-mail from Monday to Thursday. I do home e-mails in the mornings, but never on Sunday. I take e-mail Sabbaths. When I travel, I refuse to do e-mail.
Here are the things that finally won me over. The ability to set a meeting date with several at one time with just a “Send” and a “Reply.” It’s quick. Being able to send a lot of needed information to a lot of people at once. It’s good. I especially like being able to communicate at no cost with friends and family who are somewhere else in the country or somewhere else in the world. I love that. But here was the real conversion point for me. Here was the point that completely turned around my appreciation for e-mail.
Four years ago, I began having a day of prayer once a month. I extended the opportunity for people to send their prayer requests to me. Some of you have called. Some of you have told me in person, “Please pray for this in my life.” But most of you have sent e-mails. In the last four years, I have had over 100 e-mails in prayer requests. It is wonderful.
In April, I received an e-mail from a very good friend of mine in Kansas City, Bob Hill. He is the pastor at Community Christian Church. To me, this e-mail was the epitome of what I have come to truly love and appreciate about the gift of e-mail. With Bob’s permission, I’m sharing just some pieces of that e-mail he sent out to five friends.
Dearly Beloved,
I have been quiet of late, not because of a lack of interest, but attending to Christine [his mother-in-law] and Priscilla [his wife] amid some roller-coaster days.
I wanted you to know there has been a turn in the road for Christine. She entered hospice care yesterday after deciding she wanted to stop treatment. The plan with hospice, for this part of Christine’s journey, is clear. We don’t expect this to last more than a few days.
So now we wait, watch, appreciate, give thanks, say, “I love you,” and abide in the gladness that we are not alone.
Immediately, five of Bob’s “beloved ones” across this country were in prayer with him, and with Priscilla, his wife, and with Christine, his mother-in-law. As I was praying for Bob, I realized I was also being blessed by the words on the computer screen that were such messengers of a sweet truth, given voice in one of the deepest experiences of life, death. “So, now we wait, watch, appreciate, and say, ‘I love you,’ and abide in the gladness that we are not alone.”
I heard in those words a moment of synchronicity that echoed the spirit of Paul’s ending words in that letter we just heard. Paul, who very likely knew his days were limited, and we now know from biblical studies that his days were limited. He did not have much longer to live.
Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order. Encourage one another. Agree with one another, and live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
“When it’s all said and done, friends, it comes down to this.”
Whether the words come via the ancient text of thousands of years before our day, or they come to us by the means of technology, communication from cyberspace, our hearts know when a sweet, profound truth is being spoken. Whether we are an ancient, grumpy Corinthian, or a technology-challenged grumpy minister, our hearts know and long for such sweet and profound truths about life.
If not, then why else would a college professor’s 75-minute lecture be taking, not only this country, but the entire world by storm? Do you know of Randy Pausch? Some of you do. I first heard of him at lunch with Rick and Jacob, because they were discussing the YouTube lecture they had watched. Frankly, I had to ask Jacob, “Exactly how do you get to YouTube?” I asked would he show me after lunch how to do that. They are so much cooler than I am. Even Rick!
Randy Pausch is a respected, loved computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is 42-years-old. He was asked to give “The Last Lecture,” which I understand college professors are often asked to do. If you had one last lecture, what would you want to say? Only, in Randy’s case, it really was his last lecture, because he had just received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, with only a few months to live.
In September 2007, he delivered his Last Lecture to a room filled with students, and colleagues, and friends, and his wife. This lecture made its way, through the modern miracle of computer technology, to YouTube so that… (I thought you spelled it “U-Tube,” but Jacob corrected me. It’s “YouTube,” in case you need to know that.) It made it so you can watch that entire 75-minute lecture on your computer screen, and it’s wonderful. Since September, there have been over two-million viewers that have gone to that YouTube site to watch that lecture. Two-million viewers across the world have sought out and received the sweet truths spoken by a professor you wish you had, by a man you wish you knew, by a son, a brother, a husband, a sweetheart, a father you wish was yours.
Beyond the stages and the reality of grief, Randy speaks life’s truth in his lecture that is called, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” although he calls that a “head-fake.” What the lecture is really about is how to lead a worthwhile life. What it’s really about is leaving a legacy to his children – his three small children – so they can see and hear him share his life lessons.
I cannot begin to share with you that 75-minutes worth of wisdom. Let me, however, just lift up some of the key life lessons Randy wants to share.
· Value parents, mentors, leaders, teachers, friends, and students.
· Have fun.
· Decide if you are a Tigger or an Eeyore, of Winnie the Pooh fame. By the way, choose to be a Tigger.
· Help others.
· Wait long enough, and people will surprise you with their goodness. It may take a while, so be patient.
· Tell the truth.
· Be earnest.
· Apologize when you mess up.
· Show gratitude.
· Be good at something.
· Don’t give up. Brick walls are there to make you ask, “How bad do I want this?”
· Enable the dreams of others.
“When it’s all said and done…” Sweet, profound truths.
Randy’s lecture is now in book form, for those of us who like to absorb our wisdom more conventionally.
So, here’s my question. Here’s my question for us this morning. Does time have to be short before we appreciate the most important realities of life? Well, maybe so. I hope not. I have to believe the remembered and treasured words of a Paul, the apostle, or a Randy, the professor, or a Bob, the son-in-law poet, can propel us in living these sweet truths of life, that life and endings bring to us.
One of the things Randy said he had gratefully learned from his father is, “If there is an elephant in the room, introduce it.”
Isn’t that great? A year ago we introduced and named an elephant in our room. I don’t really have to tell you what that is. Do I? It’s been spoken of very openly this morning. We named our elephant. We call her “Transition.”
We knew Rick was going to retire, which would mean some changes were going to take place. So, a year ago, that elephant walked into our midst, plopped herself down right in the middle of us, and she sort of settled in there for about a year. We would say, “Yes. There she is.” We would pat her. Some of us were afraid of her. Some of us were angry with her. Some of us tried to ignore her. Some of us were, just frankly, bored with her. “Enough already!”
But whatever the case, Transition is now up on her feet. She is trumpeting her presence with us. Rick’s retirement date has been announced: September 1. Jack brought us the update of the Interim Search Process. Transition is on the move. We are in a time of endings and a time of changes. Transition is happening in our midst.
I read this recently from a Catholic priest who I think said it so well.
These are the main givens we humans are given. Things change and end. Things are not always fair. Our best-laid plans can go wrong. Suffering is a part of growth. People are not always loving and loyal. These givens are actually the gatekeepers of spiritual awakenings. The givens of human nature can hurt us, and try us, while they make us stronger. They are a product and a price of growth.
So says David Richo.
We are living into such givens of life, whoever we are. The words of Scripture, the words of poets and prophets speak to us in our living reality, offering us profound truths to guide us and keep us. Which truth would you like to write on your heart, or on your hand, or across your doorway to remind you how to live as you come and go into life and into the changes of life?
There are all kinds of endings. Graduations are endings. Retirements are endings and beginnings. Changes in relationships, changes in careers are endings and beginnings.
The words offered to us, wherever we are, and whatever changes are happening in our lives as individuals or our life together as a congregation: “Wait. Watch. Appreciate. Say, ‘I love you.’ Abide in the gladness that we are not alone.” Those are Bob’s words.
By the way, his mother-in-law, Christine, made an incredible turnaround and has gone back to her assisted-living home.
Randy’s words: “Have fun. Help others. Enable the dreams of others. Be a Tigger, not an Eeyore. Show gratitude.” And Randy is still living with his family.
And Paul’s words: “Put things in order. Encourage each other. Agree with one another. Live in peace.”
It’s all good. It’s all precious gold refined from the life experiences of the deepest kind.
Finally, I have to tell you my favorite part of Paul’s words in those last verses of Chapter 13 in 2 Corinthians. The most intriguing part of that Scripture to me is the word Paul chose for “farewell.” If you look in your Bible, it has a little footnote by it. Every Bible I’ve looked in has this. “Farewell.” The footnote at the bottom of the page says, “Also means ‘rejoice’.” Hum!
“Farewell – rejoice – for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will be with all of you.” All of us.
Amen.
Benediction
Life is short. We do not have long to gladden the hearts of those who journey with us. Therefore, be swift to love and make haste to be kind, and may the peace of God be with you and keep you. Amen.
