Spiritual Friendship in a Facebook World

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon May 13, 2012

John 15:9-17

“I do not call you servants any longer,” Jesus says in our Gospel lesson for today. “But I have called you friends.”

                                                   

And of course my mind goes immediately to Facebook.

For the uninitiated among us, Facebook is a multi-billion dollar online social networking tool—about to be traded publicly—with which you, too, may “friend” an unlimited number of the eight hundred thirty five million other people on the planet who also use Facebook. And join in the frenetic craze to keep in touch with those you say you love the most through news feeds, status updates, photo galleries, political posts and counter-political-posts.

In two seconds flat with the click of a mouse on the wall of your “friend,” you may “like” everything from the mundane report that your nephew got his hair cut this morning to the reminder that your former high school sweetheart’s new wife’s birthday just happens to coincide with Mother’s Day to the groundbreaking news that our nation’s highest elected public official has finally come out of the closet in support of marriage equality. Himself, of course, the child of a marriage that would also have been illegal in the state of Texas at the time of his birth. With Scriptural citations also abounding in support of such blatantly prejudicial “family values.”

If you are like me, you might “like” such groundbreaking news so much that you would update your own status report to say something like, “It’s about time.” Or “Alleluia!” Or “May the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) follow suit at General Assembly this July.” And then see where your Facebook friends follow.

Some of them will undoubtedly “like” your “like.” And they may even go so far as to comment on your “like.” Or re-post your “like.” Or comment on their re-post of your “like” that they “like”-d. Of course we may not want to admit it, but there maybe might be a few Facebook friends who don’t like the “like.” Who mutter to their mouse, “there she goes again on one of her liberal crusades.” Which would be true except that marriage and family have always been fairly conservative values, even though the expression of those values has evolved over time and across cultures and even in the trajectory of the biblical witness.

So if your Facebook friends are truly your friends, they will know that your heart is good and your intentions are pastoral, and they will simply ignore the Facebook “like” that they don’t like, because the friendship matters more than the conflict. And then they will go on about their on-line business.

But then, of course, there are those Facebook friends who are really more like “on-line acquaintances.” Or really just people we feel guilty for not “friend”ing in the first place. I mean, let’s be honest, if you weren’t actually friends in high school, but they “friend” you on Facebook twenty years later, are they really now your actual friend? I doubt it.

These so-called Facebook friends might scathingly “un-like” the “like” that you really do “like.” Or even sabotage the “like.” Or if they really truly don’t like the “like” or your comment on the “like” or the fact that you saw fit to remove their blatantly un-like-able comment on your “like,” well they might just (and I gasp) “un-friend” you for your comment on the “like” they didn’t “like”! Or you might “un-friend” them. Even though you were never really “friends” in the first place!

Whew! This is what we have become in the Facebook friendship world. Which is not, I hasten to add, what I think Jesus had in mind when he called us his friends and asked us to befriend one another. To love one another as he has loved us.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Facebook. I think it is a great tool for staying connected in a transient society. And I have even used it to find a job on more than one occasion. But I am also slightly worried about what all this “friend”-ing and “like”-ing and “un-friend”-ing and “un-like”-ing might have to reveal about the fracturing fundamentals of human connection and divine intervention we expect to experience in the basic sociological and theological phenomenon we call human friendship.

The fact is that we, as a species, are social animals. From the beginning God saw that it was not good for us to be alone. We were created to live in relationship, which is how I interpret those earliest chapters of Genesis that our marriage equality opponents use to deny this covenant relationship for same-gender loving couples. We were created to live in relationship.

And yet we have become lonelier as a species than we have ever been in modern memory. According to a 2010 AARP survey, thirty five percent of adults older than forty five are chronically lonely, as compared with roughly twenty percent a decade ago. And according to research quoted in an article by Stephen Marche in May’s Atlantic Monthly, sixty million Americans are “unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.”

We have fewer close confidants than we used to. Twenty five percent of us say we literally have no one to talk with about our deepest fears and hopes. Twenty percent of us say we have only one such friend. For an astounding total of forty five percent who are one person away from complete and utter isolation. Even though we may have six hundred ninety-three friends on Facebook.

And this loneliness is profoundly hazardous to our health. When we are lonely, we are less likely to exercise, more likely to eat to the point of obesity, less likely to survive a serious operation, more forgetful, less able to deal with stress, and more likely to need the care of a nursing home at an earlier age than our less lonely counterparts. Studies by John Cacioppo at the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago reveal that loneliness literally affects our DNA, altering the way our genes are expressed in our white blood cells!

In another age a sermon on friendship might sound frivolous for a pastor and a congregation so fundamentally focused on mission beyond our walls. But in the age of Facebook, honest-to-God spiritual friendship is an issue of survival. And I mean that literally.

At Madison Square you know what it is to be “welcomed home” by the God who created us to be spiritual friends in the age of Facebook. But I would suggestion this community has some decisions to make about how you are going to move forward in a new era as friends of God and friends of one another. Because the truth is that real friendship, true friendship, spiritual friendship of reciprocal love with genuine space for the other to live into the fullness of who God created them to be, the kind that Jesus called for in his farewell address to his disciples . . . well, it is just plain messy.

When we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may be forced to confront those parts of each other that we really may not ever “like.” Not ever. And when we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may find thoughts and words and actions rising from our own minds and hearts and bodies that embarrass us, that shatter the myth of “spiritual centeredness” we would all like to hold of ourselves in this house of our God.

When we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may have to learn over and over and over again the meaning of forgiveness and trust and love. And we may be forced to change our minds—and our public positions—on social matters of seemingly great controversy. Because we, like our president—or our children—now have true friends who are gay . . . or homeless . . . or undocumented . . . or in need of the full spectrum of reproductive health services. And we can no longer pretend that our friends are not human, made in the image of God.

And when we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church--and not just Facebook friends--we may have to believe the divine image dwells also in those with whom we have very painful disagreements on these matters of great controversy. And we may have to trust that someway, somehow, the love of God is enough to save us all. 

In his book called Anam Cara, about spiritual friendship from the perspective of Celtic spirituality, John O’Donahue writes that “one of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen.” Not only in an online profile carefully crafted to promote a public image of perfection but in every nook and cranny of the secret soul-life within us that holds our deepest promise and our deepest shame. And when we finally, faithfully, freely connect with another person in the fully messy human reality of our lives in honest and open spiritual friendship—with the gift of the grace of God as our 4G network—our souls really can begin to flow together in beauty and light loving one another as we really are and not who we “virtually” are.

I think this is what Jesus meant when he asked us to be friends with one another. To lay down those parts of our lives that seem to have such great importance but really do not. In order to make time to be someone’s friend. And in the process maybe save their life. Or at least their very human spirit.

Here at Madison Square you rightly pride yourselves for prizing spiritual friendship above superficiality. This is, truly, an open and welcoming community of faith bearing witness to the universal and unconditional love of God. It is written in your DNA.

But I would suggest it is time to ramp it up a bit, especially as the report of your Transition Team comes before you next and as you prepare yourselves next month to elect a Pastor Nominating Committee that will seek your next installed pastor. You have said a great many goodbyes and hellos in just the short time I have served you as your interim pastor. Many have been wonderful. Many have been painful. But you are a new community now. And now is the time to re-commit this new community to the grace of rebuilding and repairing the friendships that may have been muddled throughout this transition. Or to look around this sanctuary and pick out someone you do not know and go out of your way to invite that person to dinner, or lunch, or Starbucks. Or to take a risk of sitting in a different pew next week that will place you worshiping beside a complete stranger, and watch the love of God bind you together in ways you never imagined. Or to approach the coffee hour fellowship after worship as an every Sunday communion in the spirit of soul friendship. Especially today as you “welcome home” the newest member of this family in faith. And to really . . . truly . . . mean it.

You are my friends, Jesus says. I have chosen to see the depths of your soul in all of its glory and all of its grit. And “I am giving you these commands,” Jesus says, “so that you may love one another” in return.

And so we will. And so we must.

Because it is the only way to save the world.

I pray it may be so. Amen.

Branching Out

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon May 7, 2012

John 15:1-8

“I am the vine,” Jesus says. “You are the branches.”

A sermon on this subject should be probably preached by someone who is a good gardener.

I am not a good gardener.

For most of my life I have rushed in great haste with a few extra dollars through whatever nursery just happened to be around the corner. I would grab whatever looked nice with no clue what to do with it.

The one thing I did know is that plants need water. So I watered them. At first. And then I would forget. For weeks sometimes. And then of course they would wilt to the point they had surely already died and I could no longer ignore them. And in a fit of massive guilt I would rush in with the water pail to drown them back to life.

It was a meditation on death and resurrection. But then I found out that over-watering is just as bad as under-watering. So it became a meditation on my inadequacies as a gardener. What’s a preacher-girl-on-the-go going to do with a grapevine?

I’ve decided we should use this vine as an actual meditation. A disciplined demand to focus on the moment, an invitation for us to let go of the anxiety of what is to come: the do I have enough money list, or the “who am I mad at today” list; or the “what guilt is consuming me today” list; or even just the grocery list. To take the precious time out of a sea of passing time to embrace the “eternal now” of this one grapevine here on our communion table, its lifeblood flowing through our cultivating, collaborating hands. What might we learn if we notice . . . pay attention . . . wonder . . ? With the vine. With the Jesus who says he is the “real vine.” With the God who is the Gardener.

That is our invitation . . .

So let’s look at the grapevine. It has been rooted in the earth, just like us. It has been nourished by the mist, just like us. It has been breathing in and breathing out the very Spirit of God, just like us. It is our mirror image. This vine that we tend at the table breathes in our exhale (carbon monoxide), and breathes out our inhale (oxygen), in a mutually interactive Spirit-filled gift of reciprocity. We literally cannot live without each other. When we see ourselves as the gardener, we have to admit we depend on the grapevine. Literally. Just as much as the Grapevine depends on the Gardener.

If God is our Gardener, does that mean God depends on us as much as we depend on God . . ?

I’m guessing the first century followers of Jesus did not know the periodic table of elements and the relationship between oxygen and carbon dioxide. But they did know that the livelihood of the gardener depended on the fruitfulness of the grapevine. They did know that the biblical prophets spoke of God’s people as a vineyard tended by a God who needed them to bear fruit. And they did know that a grape could not grow separately from a branch on the vine. That a Gardening God needed good grapes. That, in their own way, they too could not live without each other. Literally.

Have you considered how very much God needs you? How does this knowledge impact your faith? What does God need from you? What do you need from God? What does God need from this congregation? What does Madison Square need from God?

The first century followers of Jesus also knew that a good gardener of grapevines had to work awfully hard to grow good grapes. It was a long-term investment. For the first few years, the vines were not even allowed to bear fruit. Their branches were drastically cut back, leaving the plant to look almost dead. The vine needed a chance to mature in order to bear the best fruit possible when the time was finally right. The branches had to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . year after year thinking they were ready bloom. But the gardener made them wait until they were really ready.

What part of you feels you are ready to bear fruit . . . what part of you is longing to bear fruit . . . but is on hold until the Gardener God decides you are ready? What part of you may feel as if it has been cut back too far . . . what part of you is just biding its time until it is ready to bloom? What about for Madison Square?

In fact, the pruning of the branches on the grapevine was one of the most labor-intensive tasks for the first century gardener of the grapevine. If a branch did not bear fruit, the gardener would remove that branch from the vine. Even if a branch did bear fruit, the gardener would prune it back, because pruning the branches somehow produced even more fruit. And so, at some point, every single branch was pruned. The pruning of branches in a vineyard was about cleansing, healing, transforming, cultivating new life. It was not a judgment per se, although it may sound that way to us. It was just good gardening.

What part of you is no longer bearing fruit and needs to be pruned? What part of you is still bearing fruit but should make way for new life to grow?

Pruning is still a scary experience. It does not seem to end well for the branches that are pruned. “Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned,” Jesus says. Ouch. Do we really want this?

But fire, if we think about it . . . is also a gift from God . . . a burning flame of the Holy Spirit . . . a transforming grace, not a bitter end. The ashes from the pruning become the fertilizer for the field . . . and the cycle of growth continues . . . because with God, as with gardening . . . nothing is ever wasted.

What is there to fear in the fire? It, too, is a gift of grace, even if it may not feel so in the moment. What is God asking you to relinquish to the transforming flame of the Spirit? How about for Madison Square? An interim period is a special time “set apart” to invite the pruning grace of God into the garden of a congregation. It may feel as if the most precious, the most fruit-bearing branches are lopped off just at their most abundant. We may wonder if the Gardener has lost her mind . . . or at least his sense of timing . . . In what ways is the Gardener inviting the Madison Square garden to trust the cycles of the seasons . . . the pruning . . . the burning . . . the new growth yet to come?

“Abide in me,” Jesus says, “As I abide in you.” And what does it mean to “abide”? It’s about dwelling in that place of grace. It’s about staying put there. It’s about enduring whatever comes because you are completely and thoroughly attached to the vine. It’s about steadfast constancy . . . never giving up . . . never giving in . . . clinging to the vine when you have nothing else to cling to . . . and trusting the vine to continue clinging to you.

How do you need the vine of love to abide with you . . . to cling to you . . . to nourish you? How are you clinging to this vine? We may think our “job” in the vineyard of God is to “bear fruit”? But fruitfulness, according to Jesus, is the result of doing our job. Our job is to abide in the love of God. Then the fruit will come!

The Gardener is glorified . . . the Gardener is grateful . . . when the branches of the grapevine bear generous fruit. The grapes are, in many ways, the entire purpose of the garden. The best grapes come from branches that are growing closest to the central vine . . . they have a higher concentration of nutrients. It’s about staying connected to the source . . . but letting that source use your gifts to the fullest extent possible. The branches, the vine, and the Gardener do all the work . . . the grapes are the fruit of their labor of love . . .

Perhaps you are one of those branches that really is ready to bear fruit. In mission . . . in stewardship . . . in music or art . . . in ministry with our children and youth . . . in caring for the community. If you could bear just one kind of fruit on the other side of this pruning . . . what would that fruit be?

“I am the real vine,” Jesus says. “You are the branches. God is the Gardener.” We are one community, abiding in love, bearing fruit for mission. Yes, there will be pruning . . . but you have already been pruned by the message I have spoken. Yes, there will be burning . . . but you have already been on fire with the grace of my love . . . so now let there be fruit-bearing . . . that the world may know the Gardener . . . one good grape at a time . . .

Because that is who you are . . . Amen . . .

Saving Paradise

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon April 29, 2012--Good Shepherd Sunday

Psalm 23
John 10:11-18


About ten years ago, theologians Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker embarked on an artistic quest through the Mediterranean. They were seeking the earliest expressions of Christian art and how those forms of art depicted Jesus. They were imagining what that art might have to say about the liturgical and ethical formation of the early Christians for whom this art was created. And, perhaps most importantly, they were exploring what the liturgical and ethical formation of early Christians might have to say to us, we who are twenty-first century American Christians celebrating “Earth Day Sunday” on this Fourth Sunday in the Season of Easter. A Sunday that has us reading Psalm 23 year after year alongside a lection from John’s Gospel describing Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

The two scholars (whose findings are compiled into a massive tome titled Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (emphasis added)) embarked on their exploration of early Christian art with the explicit expectation of discovering the manner in which early Christians portrayed the Crucifixion. Meaning that they expected to discover early Christian renderings of a suffering, dying Jesus. On a cross.

Instead, the sanctuaries they explored revealed images of a Jesus who was very much alive. And surrounded by a lavish and vibrant natural world that was also very much alive. And it just so happens that the most popular early church portrayal of Jesus was the image we celebrate on this Good Shepherd Sunday: a glorified Christ surrounded by adoring sheep grazing in green pastures, with lushly painted gardens enveloping the entire community of faith as they gathered for worship. The image reinforced by written quotations from Psalm 23.

Imagine, if you will, how a similar scene would feel in this sanctuary. If the chancel were filled from top to bottom with a vision of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. With our stained glass windows along the sides of the sanctuary saturated in ivy. With four aisles (instead of three) flowing symbolically with living water, as if they were the four rivers flowing in the Garden of Eden described in Genesis 2. How would all this sensory imagery shape our experience of worship?

We would feel as if we were worshiping in Paradise, would we not?

This was, in fact, the conclusion of Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker upon viewing sanctuary after sanctuary of early Christian art. Over and over again they discovered churches drenched in a lush visual garden of grace. As they imagined what it would be like to worship in these churches, they discovered the dominant sensory experience of early Christianity was the recovery of “Paradise.” Not Lost. Not in need of a cross to cover the sin. But Found!

Of course we all, to this day, dream of “Paradise Found” as an archetypal image of the heavenly realm. We might conclude this early Christian art was an escapist attempt to deny the suffering of this world in favor of a future fulfillment. But when Brock and Parker broadened their study to include ancient liturgies and ritual practices and prayers of the early church, they realized the permeation of paradise in the liturgical life of early Christians was meant to reinforce the reality of Paradise here and now. At least as much (if not more than) as an afterlife hope.

Baptismal liturgies used in the fourth century by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem openly describe this ritual as a “portal to Paradise” through which disciplined, dedicated catechumens renounced their greed. Their fear. Their violence. Their desire for the power to dominate others. Their rage against the powers that have dominated them. After a great season of thorough preparation, they stripped themselves of their burdens and their sins and emerged naked as a “new Adam” from the waters of re-creation, passing through the gate of the garden of the Good Shepherd.

Upon rising from the baptismal waters as a new creation in Christ they were clothed with white robes and escorted to the feast of Paradise—their first Holy Communion—chanting Psalm 23 as they processed to the table: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. God leads me through the still water. God prepares a table before me . . . God anoints my head with oil.

As they gathered around the table for the Eucharist, they drank milk and honey to break their fast. Then the rest of the community joined them in sharing the bread and wine of paradise. And, get this, the bishop declared these new baptized members of the church to be grafted to the tree of life at the center of the garden! Firmly rooted. Forever in Paradise.

But the portal to Paradise was not just a moment in time. It was certainly a struggle to stay rooted in the Paradise to which they had been grafted. And so the ritualized practices of the community of the church developed, cultivating within the faithful a commitment to the ethical grace of learning once and for all how to live together as one humanity in the generous garden of God. They had to “practice Paradise,” as do we, every time they gathered to worship God. And that is what it meant to be the church.

Now this may sound like a highly idealized view of early Christianity. And indeed it may very well be. They clearly had their problems and conflicts, just like we do. All we have to do is re-read the lesson from the Gospel of John to notice that. Clearly Jesus—or at least the Gospel writer in the name of Jesus—warns against those who might put their own personal needs ahead of the flock. You could assume from the context he means the Pharisees. What’s more, anyone who has actually functioned as a shepherd in the real world would say it’s not exactly a high compliment for us to be compared with sheep, even if it is as Christ’s own “flock.”

But consider, if you will, how our worldview would shift, how our environmental ethics would shift, if we really did worship the God of the garden, rather than the Lord of the laptop. (And I love my laptop!)

The thing is, we really have been created by the God of this good garden we call planet earth to live in perpetual Paradise with God and with one another. We really have. And the thing is, we really do need to fundamentally shift our vision away from the assumption of Paradise Lost to the ethical imperative of Paradise Found. Because we really were created to be stewards of this earth, humans from the humus, Adam from the adamah in Hebrew.
And we really do present the practical gifts of Paradise every Sunday in our Sacramental use of water and bread and wine. I think we do this because deep down in the part of us that is not yet in complete denial that we are fundamentally creatures of the earth we know that we cannot take these things for granted! That water and bread and wine really are “sacred.” A sign and a seal of God’s grace given to us. In abundance. In Paradise.

If Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker are right (and I think they are), then the Sacrament of Baptism we celebrated just two weeks ago (and reaffirmed today with our newest members) really was designed to serve for us as a portal to Paradise. Not just for those individuals involved with the Sacrament, but for all of us. And if they are right, then the Sacrament of Communion we will celebrate next week really is offered to us as the feast of Paradise, training us to know the world through our senses, as a joyous experience of the gift of life.

And if they are right, then the liturgy of the gathered community in worship every Sunday really is intended to cultivate within us the ethics of Paradise. And the minute for mission we received from Mr. Norwood today about faithful stewardship of our electronic waste really is a mandate for us to practice “Saving Paradise,” as if our lives depended on it.

Because they do. Spiritually and socially.

Perhaps I am naïve, but I would like to hope that twenty-first century Christians on the brink of a possible environmental disaster just might start to live differently if we truly believed we had been grafted into the tree of life at the center of Paradise. If we truly trusted the Good Shepherd to supply our need and not just our want. If we truly embraced a disciplined life of ethical grace. I would like to hope that this Earth Sunday could be a taste of Every Sunday, celebrating the abundance of God’s good creation and vowing to practice faithful stewardship of it.

Naïve or not this really is the invitation from our Good Shepherd on this Earth Day Sunday here at Madison Square. That we celebrate the Paradise God has given us in this good creation. That we claim ourselves rooted and grounded at the center of the garden, unable to be who we really are without it. And that we commit ourselves to saving this Paradise one electronic waste donation at a time. May we respond to this invitation with an alleluia for the abundant life God asks us to share.

I pray it may be so.

Amen.

Infant Baptism, Take Two

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon April 22, 2012 

Psalm 103: 15-17                   

                      

1 John 3: 1-3        

      

On Tuesday mornings at 9:15, the cheerful cacophony of small children chattering among themselves fills the fellowship hall on the second floor of our educational building next door. The 3, 4, and 5 year-olds from the Madison Square Child Development bound up the stairs with great anticipation to join me in a time of singing and story-sharing and prayer and blessing. It has become one of my very favorite times of the week. It brings everything we say we are about here at Madison Square Presbyterian Church into one pure portal of grace. I am the luckiest pastor alive in this moment!

Every week I ask the children what they want to sing. I have taught them a few of my favorites: “This Little Light of Mine.” “Rejoice in our God Always.” “This Is the Day That Our God Has Made.” But every week, without fail, they turn to that old classic: “Jesus loves me . . . this I know . . . for the Bible tells me so.”

They have it memorized! They are very proud of their memorization skills. I am proud of their memorization skills! In two languages! Because we sing “Jesus Loves Me” in sign language, as well as in English. “Little ones to him belong,” we sing together every Tuesday. “We are weak, but he is strong.” You know how it goes, right? “Yes, Jesus loves me . . . yes, Jesus loves me . . . yes, Jesus loves me . . . the Bible tells me so . . .”


The Bible really does tell us so, of course. Right here in the 19th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. “Then little children were being brought to him,” the gospel says, “in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray.” Which is exactly what Jesus did, once he had given his disciples a true “come to Jesus” lesson for speaking sternly against those who had brought the children to him.

Now we are enlightened twenty-first century Presbyterians. We might easily look down our noses at those clueless first century disciples who refuse to “suffer the little children,” as that passage is interpreted in the King James Version of the Bible. They just didn’t get it, we might find ourselves mockingly lamenting. We, of course, know that “Jesus loves the little children,” don’t we? “All the little children of the world.”

But if you look at this passage in context, there is a bit more to the story. The blessing of the children in Matthew’s Gospel comes right in the middle of the three chapters that describe what happens between the Transfiguration and the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Meaning that Jesus is literally halfway down the road to the Passover Festival when the children come to him. Halfway down the road to the Temple where he will clash with the religious authorities who will ultimately condemn him. Halfway down the road to his Last Supper with his disciples. Halfway down the road to the worst form of betrayal we can possibly imagine.


You could forgive him, perhaps, for being a little distracted, couldn’t you? By all rights he has a lot on his mind. And the disciples do, too, even though they haven’t quite caught on to what “Holy Week” will really be all about in the week that follows this chance encounter with children. What they do know is that Jesus is on a mission, and the children are a distraction. Or so they think. (And let’s just be honest. Don’t we fall into the same trap sometimes? Don’t we? Be honest . . . )
The good news, of course, is that Jesus does not follow the lead of his disciples. Instead, he takes the lead. Right here, in the pivot point of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus makes the children his highest priority. He lays his hands upon them, as he has been asked to do. He prays for them, as he has been asked to do. And then he takes it one step further by declaring them to be the very ones who inherit the kingdom of God.

If the experience of Jesus in this passage of Matthew’s Gospel is anything like what I experience on Tuesday mornings with the children of the Madison Square Child Development Center, you can bet that Jesus is far more blessed by them on his journey to Jerusalem than they are by him. I would go so far as to suggest that it is this blessing of the children that sustains him through the cross just as much as anything else that comes before or after. Those kids are just plain worth it. They are worth everything.

What the disciples discover at this crossroads on the journey to Jerusalem is that the children are not a distraction from the mission. The children are the mission, itself!


We at Madison Square have discovered the same thing at this “crossroads” time for discerning the ongoing mission for this congregation. In the Focus Groups that have been meeting and reporting to your Transition Team about the deepest values and commitments for Madison Square in the future, ministry with children and youth has emerged as a top priority. The children are the mission, itself.

This is good news for those who approach us now, as the twenty-first century disciples of Jesus, with children of their own wanting to know Jesus the way we know him here at Madison Square.

Laura Waldrum, for example, whose story you just heard in our Moment for Mission this morning. Her twins are some of the most enthusiastic participants in our Tuesday morning singing.

And Ben and Rebecca Baker, for example, who are always on the lookout for children who need the nurturing, embracing, empowering community that Madison Square knows uniquely how to provide.

And Gina Acree, for example, whose daughter MacKenzie is the spitting image of who I was at that age. And oh, how I pray for her to weather the teenage girl years to come better than I did . . . and for this community to be there for her when those years are hard.

And all those parents who come here with their children seeking a church where their families will be received as 100% “normal” and affirmed in the grace of God. And they are! Integrally woven into the fabric of this church . . . at “home” in every way a family can be “at home” here at Madison Square.

And of course we cannot forget the parents of Evy-Lou Bowhay-Carnes and Nathan Chapman, whom we have baptized together into the Body of Christ in the months since I joined you on the journey. We laid hands on them and prayed for them in our sacrament of infant baptism, just as Jesus did with those other children so many centuries ago. We made covenant promises to them that God’s grace and love are available to them before they even know how to ask for it. When others are asking for it on their behalf. Just like they did with Jesus.
We made a pretty big commitment to those children, as I emphasized over and over again last Sunday. And if we are going to make this commitment real, if we are going to make this emerging mission with children and youth real, we need to keep putting our money where our mouth is and our talent where our treasure is.

In the past year Doerte Weber-Seale, Gina Acree, Gin Courtney, and Susan Shaw-Meadow have worked tirelessly to stabilize and shore up this vital ministry with children and youth in the midst of what was, to put it bluntly, a time of pretty great turmoil. Jane Armstrong has been a beautiful and tender guide for our acolytes as they lead us in worship, and John Sawyer has lent his creative gifts for fun craft projects with the kids. Last year Ellie Holmes made a huge contribution, and many others have pitched in to help keep things going for our fabulous kids. We have great reason to shout “alleluia!” for this ministry here at Madison Square.

But these faithful volunteers cannot do it alone, just as the Board of the Child Development Center cannot do it alone. Our children still need your help, now more than ever. If you have one Sunday morning to spare in a month, maybe you could help out next door during Children’s Church. Or if you are only available for a limited time, Vacation Bible School is just around the corner. Or if you really just “aren’t good with kids” (and let’s face it, some of us just aren’t) ask Doerte or Susan how you can help in other ways, behind the scenes, perhaps. Because our ministry with children and youth belongs to all of us and not just some of us.

This is, after all, why Presbyterians recognize infant baptism in the first place. Because every one of us is, in the end, an infant in the arms of God. Utterly dependent on God’s grace. Desperate for a touch and a prayer no matter what stumbling blocks those other disciples might put in our way. Eager to rest in the arms of a love that will not ever let us go. Our children show us who we really are in the eyes of God. That is why they inherit the kingdom of God.

And so we say, as Jesus did, “Let the children come. Let them come! See what manner of love our God has given unto us . . . that we should all be called children of God!

“For that is who we are.”

Alleluia! Amen.

What the Wounds Would Say

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

April 15, 2012 Sermon

John 20:19-30


You may have “life in this name,” the Book of Memory and Hope teaches us.

You may have life in this name! The name of the risen Christ, the one whose wounds have been healed, and we can see them, and we can touch them, and they don’t hurt anymore! Which means maybe someday our wounds won’t hurt anymore, either. Which is why we want life in this name!

Which is why the parents of Evelyn Louise Bowhay-Carnes have presented their child to us for the Sacrament of Infant Baptism. They have said, in this act, that they want life in the name of the risen Christ for their child. They want the peace of Christ, the shalom of Christ, the healing and wholeness and hope of Christ, the peace that passes all understanding of Christ, to be with her. And also with you. And I dare say, also with them, as they seek your help in raising her in the faith.

And so we made covenant promises with God and with one another to make this so in our Sacrament this morning, trusting that the risen life we claim in Christ will be made real for Evy-Lou. Her parents expressed their commitment to journey with her to discover the wonder of God’s love made manifest here this day. And we, her congregation, pledged to welcome her into the full life of this community. To open our hearts to her in her most vulnerable places. To lead her always to the table of sustenance. To offer her the wisdom of the ages as she hungers for truth.

And she will hunger for truth!

We said we would love her, that we would support her, that we would care for her as she lives and grows among us. We said, “I Do.” We said it a lot! And our “I Do’s” were as binding in this sacred covenant vow this morning as ever a marriage vow was that has been made among beloved partners throughout all time.

What God has joined together, let no one put asunder.

So we are “one body” now with Evy-Lou, much the way married partners become “one body” in their commitment to one another. She has joined us in the font of our identity. “Clothed with Christ,” with us, in the spirit of resurrection.

Which is why we come back . . . Sunday after Sunday after Sunday . . . for this new creation we become when the risen Christ holds our flesh in his hands and breathes the Holy Spirit through us, as he did with the disciples in that upper room in our Gospel of John text.


There’s just one problem.

This is the second Sunday of Easter. The afterthought Sunday. The one where the Great Alleluia already seems hung up on the shelf for next year. The one where year after year poor Thomas gets a really bad rap for his infamous “doubting,” held up for all to “anti-emulate.”

We have come back for this new life in the name of the risen Christ we have promised Evy-Lou in her baptism, only to find ourselves surrounded with a rag-tag group of scared and confused and yes, “doubting” disciples in their first century Jerusalem home. With the door locked shut. For them and maybe for some of us. Because they, and perhaps we, are still afraid.

The disciples know what “those good religious authorities” did to Jesus. They handed him over to be crucified! The disciples know it could happen to them, too. And to us, too. So we lock the door. Bolt it shut. In fear and trepidation.

And, I might add, with good reason.

We call it “church hurt,” here at Madison Square. That profound violation of body and spirit that occurs when religious law is invoked with religious fervor against some of God’s most faithful people. It happened to Jesus. It happened to Thomas. It has happened to many of us. And we will do whatever it takes to keep it from happening again, won’t we?

Hence the locked door. The fearful gathering. The refusal to trust what has not yet earned our trust, or what we have not yet let earn our trust. And so we wait . . . behind a locked door . . . and wait . . . and wait . . .

It has been a long week.

The thing is nobody knows “church hurt” better than Jesus does. Nobody. He literally bears the scars on his body, his hands, his feet, his side. These wounds that Thomas is so desperate to see.

It is, after all, not so much evidence of the resurrection that Thomas seeks as it is evidence of the crucifixion! Because the crucifixion was real, and it hurt, and you just can’t gloss it over and say everything is “okay” now, can you? Thomas is not “okay”!

Because the thing is, Thomas bears “church hurt” wounds, too. All the disciples do. Maybe their wounds as visible as the wounds of Jesus, and maybe ours aren’t either. But those wounds are still with us, whether those wounds are from “church hurt,” or just plain “regular hurt,” and they aren’t going away, and so we have to figure out how to keep going forward with them, not in spite of them . . .

And that is what the resurrection is all about.

Thomas finally trusts the resurrection is real when he can see for himself that the wounds of crucifixion really have been healed, not ignored. Transformed, not tossed aside. Transfigured, to use theological language. They just plain don’t hurt anymore!

This is the resurrection hope we cling to Sunday after Sunday as we come home for new life in the name of the risen Christ. That whatever wounds we bear, and whatever wounds we have inflicted, they just aren’t the final answer. They just aren’t. That we have been baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and our wounds can be healed, too!

That, in our baptism, they already are.

When I met with the parents of Evy-Lou in preparation for this Sacrament, we talked about what Baptism meant to them. We talked about the kind of life they want for Evy-Lou, the kind of church they want for her, the kind of faith they want for her.

And, like every parent that ever was, they shared how much they want her to be well. How much they want to protect her from pain. And how much hope they found in this congregation that Evy-Lou would be loved and nurtured and celebrated and anointed with grace and mercy. Given all the spiritual tools she will need for a life of joy and service. The shalom she will need to live a resurrected life in Christ.

But the truth is, as hard as we try, we will not be able to keep Evy-Lou from pain in her life. There will be wounds that are hers and hers alone, just like there are for all of us. And we, even in our deepest desire to be faithful to our covenant vows to her this morning, we will make mistakes. And so will you, her parents . . .

The promise of Baptism to Evy-Lou today is not that she will be without pain in her life, as much as we wish it would be so. The promise of Baptism to Evy-Lou today is that she has been clothed with Christ for every part of her life, and even into her death, and that this clothing serves as a great seal of resurrection protection that will transfigure whatever wounds she bears into God’s promised shalom hope and grace and love.

This is, in fact, the baptismal promise for every one of us.

That we may trust our wounds to the God who knows what it is to be wounded. And our healing to the God who knows what it is to be healed. And our new life daily to the God who is desperate to give us all a second chance . . . or a third chance . . . or a three-hundredth chance. That we may, with our wounds—and not in spite of them—even learn how to trust “church” again.

Because, in the end, this is the only way we will recognize the risen Christ in our midst. When we trust our wounds to one another, and watch them heal before our eyes.

I pray it may be so for us this day.

Amen.

Threatened With Resurrection

 By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

April 8, 2012 Sermon--Resurrection of Christ Sunday

Mark 16:1-8


“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to no one, for they were afraid.”

Oh, dear.

This really was not what we were expecting. We have become so used to John’s Gospel story on Easter Sunday. An entirely enthusiastic reunion with Mary Magdalene and Jesus and Peter and a gardener to set us free in lily-white dresses and blue satin sashes. Which is what we all want in the end, is it not?

Somehow we have ended up here. Gospel of Mark version, original ending restored. Our key witnesses over-laden with unused ointment, tongue-tied in terror, an alleluia stuck in their throat, replaced with something that sounds more like a resounding, “aaaaaaaaaaa . . ?”

They are threatened with resurrection, here at the empty tomb. Where things just aren’t making a whole lot of sense . . .

It is worth remembering, of course, that these three women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome), they have seen it all. They have birthed and they have bled and they have fed and they have bathed their young, like good Jewish women of Galilee. They have scrubbed the scales of the fish in the Lake of Galilee until they had no more scales to scrub, working their fingers to the bone. They have figured out ways to make ends meet that they were sure were not ever going to meet. And they have buried their old, and far-too often they have buried their young. And they have seen the cross a thousand times. And yes, they were there when they crucified our Lord . . . 

And the thing is, they can handle all of that! In a way, they can handle all of that. They know all too well the fragile thread of human existence, and death is nothing new to them, and bitterness is nothing new to them, and doubt is nothing new to them, and resentment is nothing new to them. And they have figured out a way, in their own way, to handle all of that!

It’s the other side of that cross that brings them to their knees. This “nothing” that is a profound something by its very nothingness . . .

Which is that He is not here! He has been raised, as he said!

Which means that how they have been “handling all of that” is now radically undone! It doesn’t need to be “handled” at all! Jesus has gone right on back to work in Galilee! Right on back to where the ministry began in the first place! Right on back to preparing a place for them—and us!—to follow. And by God, the angel says to anyone who will listen, if you know what is good for you’ll get right on out of whatever tomb your cross has put you in and get back to work right along with him! Because God isn’t done with Jesus yet. And Jesus isn’t done with you yet. And God knows Jesus isn’t done with me yet!
Alleluia! Amen!


But can we just admit the threat of resurrection for a minute? Can we just admit that Jesus knows how we too easily entomb within the holy temple of our bodies a burning rage or despair or sadness over whatever cross we have borne. Or guilt. Or vengeance. Tell the truth! And that tomb of terror sits right here, where the compassionate heart of God is supposed to be beating with joy within us. Can we just admit we might very well be more threatened by the thought of God emptying that tomb that dwells within us than we are by the cross that put it there in the first place? Because that tomb makes sense to us. We have oil and spices to lay on those bitter wounds. We have figured out how to “handle” it.

And yet here we are on Easter Sunday morning. With two Marys and Salome. And the stone on that tomb that has encroached itself around the beating heart of God within us been rolled away, with no effort on our part. With absolutely no effort on our part! And what do we find instead . . ?

That the beating breathing boundless body of Christ bids us back to that life-giving Lake of Galilee. Wherever that lake may be in your life and in mine. To resurrect together his ministry of justice and peace and healing and wholeness. And grace, in the end. And grace . . .

Which is what the ministry of Jesus has always been about, after all. And a little thing like a crucifixion isn’t going to get in the way of that. Not now. Not ever. And that is the gospel truth.

Alleluia. Amen.

We at Madison Square know this story in our bones, do we not? We know how God can wrestle a resurrection out of a devastating despair, because God has done it right here in our midst. Can I get an Amen? We know that a trip back to Galilee to figure out how to do Christ’s ministry in a new way for a new day is worth the weary ride.

We have seen a resurrection in this congregation, have we not? And we will see it again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again because it is the mission of Madison Square “to seek and be receptive to the Spirit of God” in all things, and that Spirit is indeed “working all things together for good for those who love God and are called to God’s purpose,” and that means us!! And that Spirit has already rolled away the stone, and has already gotten us started on this resurrection life, and we are just getting started!

Alleluia! Amen.

And so when the angel says, “Go and tell,” we really can go and tell. Because we have seen it, and we have lived it, and we know it can change the world. We know that it already has.

“There is no bad from which good cannot come,” the beautiful Spanish proverb is translated into English. No hay mal que por bien no venga. And this is the gospel truth. There is no bad from which good cannot come.

So whoever you are, from wherever you have come, whatever you have done, whatever has been done to you, whatever has been left undone . . . the tomb is empty for you! The ministry continues for you! The alleluia has been shouted for you! The new life begins with you!

So go . . . and tell!

Alleluia! Amen.

The Gift of Mission

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon March 18, 2012

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 61:1-4; Matthew 21:12-17

In the year 1999, on the cusp of a new millennium, in the Season of Lent, churches in the United Kingdom embraced an advertising campaign designed to encourage lapsed churchgoers to return to the pews for Easter Sunday. They wanted a campaign that would grab the attention of a fickle public, that would shake them out of their religious complacency and inspire them to a renewed commitment to the faith of their forebears.

Church leaders worked with an organization called the “Churches Advertising Network” to develop a marketing strategy. They settled on a poster for their outreach. An outline of Jesus was inked in black on a deep orange-red background. It was adapted from a famous photo of Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who was a leading figure in the Cuban revolution and other Latin American liberation movements.

The poster was plastered over billboards and bus stops and subway stations throughout the British nation. And although we did not have Facebook or Twitter or Youtube at the time, the poster “went viral” on the internet in this country, as well.

“Meek. Mild. As If,” the poster says, under the picture. “Discover the real Jesus.”

Did it get your attention?

There was backlash, as you would imagine. It was “grossly sacrilegious,” one commentator declared. And in the Season of Lent, in the year 1999, on the cusp of a new millennium, the debate raged on throughout the UK over what was and was not an “appropriate” image for the “real” Jesus.

Church leaders and the campaign creators defended the poster. “Jesus was not crucified for being meek and mild,” they said. He challenged authority, they said. He was a revolutionary figure, they said. Even more revolutionary than Che Guevara, they said.

And the controversy raged on.

As much as they defended the poster, church leaders and the campaign creators were quick to point out that the revolution of Jesus was purely non-violent. He did not, in the end, take up arms against his oppressor, even though others in his time did. And even though others in his time wanted him to. But as non-violent as Jesus was, they insisted, the real Jesus really was anything but “meek and mild.”

Our Scriptures say the same thing.

Our Call to Worship this morning shares the message of Jesus in the first sermon he ever preached. You could, I would argue, call it his “mission statement.” “The Spirit of our God is upon me,” Jesus says, “because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of our God’s favor.”

And of course Jesus is preaching from the same Scripture that is our Old Testament reading. It is Isaiah’s prophetic witness from the 61^st chapter, a text in which Isaiah inspires the people of God to rebuild their Jerusalem temple and indeed their entire nation after a period of crushing exile in Babylon. But, Isaiah cautions them, as much as God is urging you to rebuild, make sure you do so in a way that honors God’s covenant with “the least of these” in your community. Make sure you comfort those who mourn. Make sure you display the glory of your God. Make sure the poor and captive and infirm and oppressed are ever before you as your barometer of social justice.

And of course this Scripture is most emphatically not fulfilled. 500 years after Isaiah’s proclamation, when Jesus comes to preach his very first sermon on Isaiah’s text, the Jerusalem temple has been restored as Isaiah has said it should be, but it has been on the backs of the poorest in the land. With human bodies literally built into its walls because Herod the Great’s timeline refused to yield to their fundamental need to rest and he ordered the workers to just keep building around those ones who had fallen behind.

500 years after Isaiah’s proclamation, when Jesus comes to preach his very first sermon on Isaiah’s text, the Jerusalem temple has indeed been restored as Isaiah said it should be, but the elite temple hierarchy is as corrupt as ever, and they are deluding themselves into believing they are keeping their people’s identity alive through their collaboration with the imperial violence of the Roman Empire. 500 years after Isaiah’s proclamation, the temple has been restored, but the very rules and regulations of that temple keep the poor and the captive and those with physical ailments and those who are oppressed from entering through the temple gates. The very people who serve as the barometer of social justice in the kingdom of God are kept from entering the temple of God. And remember that they believed God’s physical presence literally resided in that temple. And so they were literally kept from God.

500 years after Isaiah’s proclamation, Jesus is furious. “Today this Scripture from Isaiah is been fulfilled in your hearing!” he declares. Finally! And then he thrusts himself into the heart of that same temple in our Gospel lesson from Matthew, where he over-throws the tables of the money-changers and drives out the religious pilgrims who have bought into the system of economic exploitation that thrives at the Temple and condemns the collaboration between the elite religious establishment and the Roman imperial domination that controls every aspect of their lives.

What Jesus is doing in our Scripture lessons for today is what those who study social justice movements call “direct, non-violent action to disrupt a corrupt political and economic system.” And it works. And it leads directly to the crucifixion. Which is why the British advertising campaign for Easter 1999 adopted the Jesus-as-Che-Guevara-poster. Which is why Christians who take the message of the gospel as seriously as we take its messenger are still at risk when we experience the Spirit of our God upon us to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed.

It is far easier to buy into our popular Western religious imagination that still wants to sanitize who Jesus was and what he said and how he said it. To keep Jesus “meek and mild.”

But . . .

The Madison Square mission clearly states that we are called “to serve actively and creatively as an agent of love, reconciliation, peace, and justice in the community and in the world.” And the gospel message clearly states that we must bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed.

And so we must.

The good news for Madison Square is that, as far as I can tell, this congregation already is doing just that. Witness the forty people gathered at City Hall last Wednesday to call upon our elected officials to endorse a Department of Peace at the federal level of government and the ten or more others who told me you were gathering with us in spirit even though you were not able to gather in person. 

Our advertising campaign in the season of Lent has been the bright blue t-shirt and radiant smile adorning our collective “Body of Christ” as we rallied in the heart of our own small San Antonio temple. And no, we didn’t turn over any tables or call the City Hall a “den of robbers.” We simply collected our voices together in a communal lament of the $508 billion dollar annual price tag of violence in our society. $508 billion dollars spent on incarceration, hospitalization, draining our judicial system, and burdening our police force in response to violence. And we asked our City Council members to endorse, instead, an investment in non-violent methods of conflict resolution.

Our advertising campaign in the season of Lent has been the prayers for peace and justice that permeate our worship every Sunday and the prayerful action that carries us from this sanctuary into the world at war with itself, as we live out our mission “to serve actively and creatively as an agent of love, reconciliation, peace, and justice in the community and in the world.”

Of course this was one Wednesday night witness with one really cool bright blue t-shirt is but the tip of the iceberg. But make no mistake. Every witness matters, every act of courage strengthens the hearts of those who fear to speak, every movement toward a more just and equitable society leads us further toward the peace that passes understanding. And with God, no good effort is wasted.

We do not have any idea—yet—what the results of our peace-making, justice-seeking, Jesus-inspiring Lenten advertising campaign will be. But rest assured there will be results beyond anything we can imagine. And rest assured that the peace-making, justice-seeking, Jesus-inspiring Lenten meditation on the Madison Square mission is shaping us in ways we can are only beginning to see bear fruit.

And it will lead to resurrection joy in the end. I promise you. It will.

In the meantime we are here, a little more than midway through the Season of Lent 2012, meditating on a Madison Square mission that just might grab the attention of a fickle public. And shake them—and us!—out of our religious complacency. And inspire us to a renewed commitment to the faith of our forebears. Which includes “to serving actively and creatively as an agent of love, reconciliation, peace, and justice in the community and in the world.” With an advertising campaign in a deep blue t-shirt that says, “Ask me about a Department of Peace.” And through our witness it will be so. Amen.