AfterWords: Walking...onto the Stage

 

Ephesians 4:1-7

My son-in-law, Edgar Rodriguez, or “Mr. Rodz” as he’s known at McAllen Memorial High School, lives and breathes ‘theatre.’ He has been an actor, set-builder, and is now a teacher and director. I am amazed and astounded to see how he works with young people in high school. He is able both to see that ‘something’ inside his students and pull it out of them. The shy, timid young lady is cast in a part that taps something inside of her…and two months later she stands boldly on the stage reciting her lines. The rough and rowdy young fellow takes a part, dons the costume, and six weeks later stands before the audience composed, focused. My son-in-law takes a random group of young people, hands them a script, constructs a set, gives them costumes, and they present a work, a musical, a drama that somehow touches our hearts.

Shakespeare says, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts….” He is right. The world is a stage, and you and I are part of a vast cosmic drama being played out through history, a drama that reveals the story of God’s love for the world and enacts the redemption of this world. God is the director, his son has the lead role, and you and I the supporting cast.

Perhaps due to the accident of architecture, we often get it wrong. For some reason, we construct the buildings where our congregations gather kind of like theatres. We have rows of seats or pews filled with people all facing a raised platform…a platform where a few folks speak, read, sing, pray, and so forth. It might even feel like those who sit in the rows are observers or an audience. But, in this cosmic drama, there is an audience of one—God. All the rest of us are players. Nowhere in Scripture are we called to be ‘spectators,’ nowhere. All of us have a part to play … and that is what Paul points out in todays reading. We have received ‘gifts’—parts to play.

We receive a playbook (the Bible), a director’s guide if you will, that lays out the history of the narrative, that provides the plot. Of course, the plot is God’s unfolding redemption of the Creation…a redemption that includes you and me and all of us. The guide doesn’t give us lines to say—we get to ad lib. But, we are shown how to speak—with grace, with kindness, with forgiveness. The playbook doesn’t lay out all of our actions and turns. But, we are taught how to move—serving, helping, building. And, we are given character, persona, shape in our lives. We have often called these ‘spiritual gifts,’ but we can just as well call them costume and character. God by His Spirit gifts us with parts to play (see 1 Cor. 12:1-11).

Shakespeare gets one thing wrong: “…and all men and women merely players….” In God’s drama, there are no “merely.” Every player matters, every character is important, every gift given is done so with purpose. We are players in God’s cosmic drama of redemption. Every Sunday we gather, we greet, we serve, we learn, we sing, we read, we pray, we hear God’s word—yet, all of this on Sunday is a dress rehearsal for playing out this redemption drama in our daily lives: at home, at school, at work, in the streets, at the stores, in the restaurants and bars, in the parks.

Silence on the set. Lights. Action! Let us live our part in the story of redemption today….

Sunday, August 25, 2024
“Walking…onto the Stage” (Also, “Walking…for the Long Haul”)
Watch/Listen: HERE

AfterWords: “Walking…Together in a Straight Line”

 

Ephesians 2:19-22

When I was a young teenager, I had the chance to help crew a yacht in an informal regatta. The boat was a 52’ ketch named So Long…fast, fun, beautiful. After the owner, Don Atkinson, had the boat out of the bay and in the open sea, he offered to let me steer. That and then is where I learned some important lessons. Our heading was 240 degrees—WSW. With no landmarks, it’s hard the keep the boat going in a straight line. With the currents, waves, and wind pushing from various directions, it’s hard to keep the boat going in a straight line. Focusing on the clouds on the horizon doesn’t work—they are constantly shifting and moving as well. The only way to move in a straight line is to keep an eye on the compass mounted by the wheel. Once I figured that out, all I had to do was to glance down at the compass every now and then, and make the small corrections I needed to make.

The church—the family of faith—also must make corrections and make sure they are going in the right direction. Paul uses the metaphor of a building in his letter to the Ephesians. On one hand, this is a bit ironic since Christians didn’t build church buildings until after the 3^rd Century. Until then, Christianity was illegal and no town or city had a “church” as we think of it today. The church in Paul’s writings—in all of the New Testament—is always a reference to the gathered people of God in Christ Jesus, never a building. But, the church—the Jesus people—in Ephesus were very familiar with buildings. The city was growing and thriving on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire. So, buildings were going up.

Paul references the absolutely important role that the ‘cornerstone’ plays in building a structure in the 1^st Century. Three sides had to be smooth, flat, and each side perpendicular to the other sides. One surface ensured a level floor, a smooth foundation...and this made the roof right as well. One side provided the measure for a straight wall—both as it stretched out and as it stretched up. The other side for the other wall. Without a 'true' cornerstone, the building would be ‘off,’ and maybe even unsafe.

As Paul teaches us, Jesus is our cornerstone…and our compass. As a congregation, we must come again and again to the Cornerstone and make sure we’re building a true church. We must come together and glance at the compass and make sure we’re going in the right direction. Not only does this apply to the gathered family of faith but also to us as individuals. We need to check ourselves. We need to make those small corrections to ensure we’re true to how Jesus calls us to live and minister.

Our Sunday gatherings, our worship services, are a time we come together and set our lives—family and individual—by the cornerstone of Jesus as we sing hymns and song of worship, as we join our hearts in prayer, as we hear the public reading of Scripture, and we listen to the proclamation of the Good News. All of these provide our weekly check-up…our measure by the Cornerstone…our glance at God’s compass to ensure that we are walking together in a straight line. Let us gather again and again and again…that we might build in our fellowship that temple for God that Paul refers to, that we might keep this ship going in the right direction.

 

Sunday, August 18, 2024
“Walking…Together in a Straight Line”
Watch/Listen: HERE

AfterWords: "Walking...with Purpose"

 

From Ephesians 2:1-10

In Paul’s relatively brief letter to the Ephesians, he mentions ‘walking’ at least eight times. As we read this week’s passage, we come upon two of his mentions—how we do not want to walk and how we do want to walk.

Paul begins by reminding his readers that before we came to Jesus, we walked in “sin.” The word Paul uses here for sin is the Greek word hamartia – a term often associated with archery that means to miss the mark. We walked, yes, but we did not get where we were going. We walked as we often do--in circles or we meandered aimlessly…without real purpose. In our 21^st Century world, we often find ourselves sucked into that circular walk of consumerism. Others walk forward passionately without a clear destination in mind. No matter what it is that occupies our walks, it is not the walk that God calls us to—we miss the mark.

Ephesians 2:8 is probably one of the best-known verses in the New Testament: “For by grace you have been saved through faith….” God’s grace—the undeserved, unearnable agape love and favor of God towards us—is the very thing that saves us from an aimless or circular walk. As Paul indicates, we must respond to that grace—and that response comes through faith. God uses that moment of response to save from the chaos of our lives, to shine His light into our lives, pour out peace into the craziness of our worlds…and to start us walking in the right direction.

At that moment we respond in faith, we are remade. Ephesians 2:10 tells us clearly that “…we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Everyone who responds in faith is given a clear purpose: We are to do “good works.” We are to do good, to shine light in the darkness, to bring peace to others.

Too often, people think they do good to earn God’s favor, to get God’s attention. No. We have already received God’s favor, God’s grace, and we have responded in faith. Now, we spend our lives doing good in every way we can. We live our lives doing good—in our homes, in our schools, in our businesses, in the park, in the grocery store…everywhere! We do good. And, if anyone asks why, the answer is simple: “Because God has been good to me.”

Perhaps this call to do good, this basic purpose in our lives, led John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, to encourage us  to “Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.” Amen.

Sunday, August 11, 2024
“Walking…with Purpose”
Watch/Listen: HERE

AfterWords: “A Story of … Moving Forward”

 

The ‘Great Commission’ passage at the end of Matthew’s Gospel (28:16-20) provides us with a plan for moving forward, for living out the Christian faith. But….

But, we often overlook something striking, surprising. Jesus has lived his life on Earth. He has ministered, taught, healed, suffered, died, and been resurrected. He is now ready to move this “kingdom of God” message from the Judean/Galilean lands to the rest of the world. The Commission sends his followers “into all the world.”

But, his followers. If we were going to start a world-wide movement, if we were looking to teach and make disciples around the world, we would want the best, the most passionate and devoted to the cause. Yet, who does Jesus have? He has “eleven” disciples. Not ten; not twelve – eleven.

Eleven is an odd number—numerically and metaphorically. The Bible reveals numbers that are special, important: three, five, twelve, forty. Forty disciples would be so much better—more to go into the big wide world awaiting them. Twelve would be the minimum, but with Judas gone, now Jesus has only eleven. If they were to go out two-by-two as he had sent out disciples before, there would be an odd man out. Ugh. Eleven…

And, not even all eleven are on board: “…some doubted.” What did they doubt? Perhaps they doubted this was really Jesus. Maybe (probably!) something seemed very different about him. Perhaps they doubted this mission to the world—doubted if it would be embraced, doubted their own ability to do this. But, they doubted. In short, Jesus has a less-than-ideal group to send out.

However, there is something about this group that does stand out. There is something about this group that speaks to Jesus and speaks to us today. In fact, we quickly realize that we are not too different from this group. We are not a ‘perfect’ group of Jesus-followers ourselves. And, if we are honest, we gather on Sunday with our own doubts: Is God going to work in my life? Can God save my marriage? Will following Jesus actually change anything in my life? We are not too different from those disciples. But, we, too, have that something that stands out in Matthew 28.

What is that ‘something’? They show up. After all they’ve been through, they show up. Even though they get the message second hand to go to the mountain (the women tell them), they show up. Even though their worlds have been turned upside-down, they show up. And, that is what you and I do each week: we show up. More than anything Jesus asks us to simply show up. When we show up, Jesus can use us to build his kingdom. When we come to worship—even with our doubts, Jesus will use us, send us, entrust his sacred message to us.

This is good news for us! We do not have to be the best. We do not have to be perfect. We do not have to have it all together in our minds. We just need to show up…and Jesus will receive us.

Sunday, August 4, 2024

“A Story of…Moving Forward”

Watch/hear sermon HERE