Monthly Archives: March 2013

Someone Lost…

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Life, Pop, Pop Culture, Social Media

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This sermon was delivered at St. Paul United Church of Christ, Old Blue Rock Rd., Cincinnati on March 10, 2013.

Last night, the following was trending on Twitter: reasons we stopped talking.  For those new to Twitter, trending in social media means that it’s a very popular topic, and many people respond with their own answers and tweets.  So people were giving reasons why their relationships had ended.  Reasons included: “You didn’t make an effort to talk to me or make us work.”  “You changed.”  “You shattered my best friend’s heart.”  “We weren’t making the effort to communicate.”  “You doubted my intelligence.”  “I couldn’t trust you.”  “Because I always tend to push people that care away.”  “I was treated like a fool.”  “I really wish I knew, no clue.”

While some of these reasons are commonly found in romantic relationships, I think they can apply to any broken relationship.  A relationship breaks apart, and the person who you love and care for is no longer part of your life anymore.  And your mind goes through all of the possible reasons this happens.

Have you ever endured a broken friendship or relationship of some sort?  Specifically I’m talking about the kind of relationship with someone close.  Whether its parent-child, brother-sister, best friends, boyfriend-girlfriend, spouses – ending relationships hurt.

So who is affected?  How are they affected?  Our broken relationships ripple into the rest of society.  Not only are we hurt to our very core, but the negativity that is created by those relationships seeps into all that we do.

Luke 15 reminds us of those who have been affected by the ripping of a relationship: the story of the lost (or the one who wanders away), the story of the one who has lost something or someone and those affected by this broken relationship.

Today I give you reflections on three perspectives:

I start from the perspective from the one who was lost.

If you see me in Luke 15 – I’m the lost sheep.  I’m the coin – although coins typically don’t react to being lost.  I’m the son who wants to experience the wild and crazy life from home.

And now that I’m far from home, I’m scared.  Now that I’m away from those I love, I miss my previous life.    How would it be if I go home?  Would they curse at me or give me the cold shoulder?

Do I dare go back?  How would they take me if I go back?  What would my shepherd or my family think if I were to go back now?  I’ve messed up so much by leaving.

I’m holding on to so much shame from the past.  I don’t deserve love after leaving.  I’ve messed up so much with my life.  There is no way I could go back or dare to go back.  Maybe I’ll just stay here – away from everything.   But I’m not good being so far away from home.  They may have lost me, but I’ve lost myself too.  I don’t know who I am now that this relationship is over and I’m in this place of exile.

Maybe you’ve been like me… a friend who decided to walk away from a friendship.  A significant other who left their love.  A child who walked away from a parent.

Could it be that it’s not too late to go back?  Could it be that they are looking for me?  Might they rejoice when they see me again?  Dare I risk my heart by contacting them?

Now let’s look through the eyes of the one who has lost.

When you see me in Luke 15 – I’m the shepherd who has lost the sheep.  I’m the woman who has lost her coin.  I’m the father whose son has left home.

Have I said something to make them leave?  Have I done something to sever this relationship?

I keep going over and over in my head to see where I’ve messed up.

I don’t know who I am without this person in my life.  I live with the guilt that I did something wrong.  Should I spend all of my time trying to repair this relationship, or should I just love them and let them go.  If they love me, they’ll return when they are ready.  Which is best?

So yes, not only have I lost the relationship with my loved one, it’s starting to affect the relationship I have with myself.  I blame myself.

And it’s starting to affect the relationship I have with my other loved ones.  They think I’m obsessing over this.  I’m not spending enough time with them.   Let them go, they tell me.  I wish I could.

Might my loved one come back?  Or should I go after them?  These decisions are horrific to make.

In Luke 15 – the shepherd went after the sheep while leaving the others behind.  The woman frantically searched for the one coin.  But the father allowed his son to leave, knowing that loving someone means letting them go.  Which of these examples should I follow?

Finally, I give you the perspective of the one affected by the broken relationships

When you see me in Luke 15, I’m one of many sheep, left vulnerable by our shepherd running after just one other sheep.  I’m the son, faithful to the very end and angry that my father doesn’t appreciate me and my steadfast commitment to him.

I feel left behind.  To the one grieving their loved one, you aren’t the only one left.  All you do is spend your time thinking about the one who walked away.   From where I’m standing right now, I feel so much less important in your eyes.  And I’ve been by your side the whole time.  I’ve been trying to stand by you while you grieve this relationship.

So now that he’s back, you want me to rejoice with you?  He left you behind!  I never left your side and you can’t give me the time of day.

I feel lost too.  I don’t feel safe in our relationship.  My trust is lacking because you have decided to spend your energy on someone who deserted you.

What could I have done to make you love me more???

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It’s tough to celebrate life when we’ve lost a relationship.  It’s tough to rejoice when we see our loved ones return to a relationship with someone who hurt them terribly.  Here’s a few points to think about when building and grieving relationships.

  • Loving another person in any capacity is risky.  When we love someone, we have no idea if they will leave or crush our hearts at some point.  Is it worth the risk?
  • Broken relationships affect so many.  When someone walks away from us, how do we react?  How do those reactions affect the friendships we still have?  Do we lose a string of relationships because one relationship ends?  Does that feed into our loneliness?
  • Broken relationships call for a period of grieving.  One thing I wish is that we could escape grieving in our life.  But that’s not going to happen.  We will grieve when we lose an important item or a way of living.  And we will definitely grieve when a relationship is lost, a friend, family member or significant other leaves or dies.   Are we setting aside the proper time and space for that grief?  Are we honoring our friends’ times of grief?
  • We often can lose ourselves and others trying to deal with broken relationships.  Again, we go over and over in our heads what led to the severed friendship.  How is this loss making us doubt ourselves?  How is this robbing our committed loved ones from our love and time with them?
  • Is it best to run after a person when they leave, or if you love something let it go?  I guess it all depends on the situation, lots of prayer and time to listen for God.
  • It’s tough to find trust after it has been lost.  How do I know whether or not you are going to leave me again?  How do I know you still love me?  We don’t know.  That takes faith.
  • If abuse is part of that relationship, then sometimes our only option is to walk away.  Yes, we will still grieve, but we each deserve the dignity of being physically, mentally and spiritually safe.  And being made in God’s image, none of use deserve abuse as part of our lives.  There are times when broken relationships are unavoidable, and safety is a primary reason.
  • Lastly, God is the God of broken hearts.  Our God walks with us when our relationships break and we try to piece together how that relationship ended.  God gives us the grace to throw aside our shame and repair relationships when they can be repaired.  If a relationship can not be repaired, God walks with us in our grief.  God gives us seeds of trust when all trust is lost.  And in one way or another, God will help us see resurrection once again.

What Does Failure Mean?

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Pop

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thumbsdownThroughout my life, I’ve wondered if failing at something meant that I shouldn’t be doing it.

I failed my first time at my driver’s test.  The second time I passed without any issues.

I received a third place on my piano solo during my senior year of high school.  Each year until that point, I had received a first place.  This particular year, I was performing Clair de Lune.  Every day, I would practice at least an hour or so on the piece.  Months of dedicated rehearsal felt wasted.

I failed the first time I applied to seminary.  I doubted God’s call in my life.  It took me years to find the courage to reapply once again.  When I reapplied, I found the seminary to which God had called me.

I did not pass my second-year seminary oral examination during the first try.  I completely froze during the exam.  Oh how devastated I was!  I used the experience to become stronger in my oral delivery skills and think quicker on my feet.  The failure forced me into a time of reflection, challenging me on how dedicated I was to the call from God.  From that failure, I was called by God to walk with others who had experienced similar failures.

During each of those failures, I wondered if I should stop trying.  Maybe God was calling me in a different direction, and I was the one who was wrong in my perceptions.  There was great praying and reflecting after each incident.  Should I continue in the process?  We often think that failure is a mandate that we cease our efforts.

In my failures, there was also great lamenting and grieving.  My emotions swung high and low.  I found moments of hope and promise then moments of dead ends and finished desires.  When our dream fails, even temporarily, we forget that a piece of us dies with that failure.  Our journey through life includes the grieving process – a slice of life we hope to avoid.  At some point, we must acknowledge the sidestepping grief just delays pain as all of us will have our days of heartaches.

I don’t think God causes us to fail.  And I don’t think our self-worth is always the cause of the failure, either.  Many factors often determine whether failure happens – from the judge’s perspective, to where God may be calling us, to our shortcomings.

Each day we succeed at a variety of tasks, and each day we fall short of our expectations.  In our careers, we perform some tasks easily and achieving great results, and other tasks do not produce the tasks we expect.

I still find little failures in my life.  Should I continue to write when something is rejected or my last product was mediocre?  Should I try a project at church when it didn’t work spectacularly the first time?

And then I remind myself success is not how others adore my talents but my faithfulness to God’s call.  I’m working for God’s kingdom not my glory.  If I am called to write, and I write, then I am successful because I have completed what I’ve been asked to do.   If I live in a mindset of fear and despair that causes me to cease my efforts, then my talents have been buried, and there’s no chance they will multiply.

Something Greater – A Sermon on the God Who Expands Outside of the Box

04 Monday Mar 2013

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Image0255This sermon was delivered on March 3, 2013 at St. Paul United Church of Christ, Old Blue Rock Rd, Cincinnati.

During this past week, I watched the PBS documentary Makers: Women who make America.  Watching this program was a great way to usher in women’s history month which started on March 1.  This program documented the transitions, achievements and rights that women have accomplished in the past 60 years.

Did you know there was a time when women were not allowed to run in marathons?  I never realized the story of the 1967 Boston Marathon when Katherine Switzer signed up and ran the race.  Women were not allowed at that time to run in the marathon, and the race director tried to physically pull her out of the race.  Instead, she continued to run.  The men running along side of Katherine were so excited to see her in that race.  The call of God stirred inside of her, got her on that path and kept her running.  Because Katherine followed her call, more races became available to women.

As I continued to watch this documentary, I never realized how many limitations there were on women sixty or seventy years ago.  Sure – so many women were called by God to stay at home and take care of their children full time, a truly important and beautiful vocation.  But, there were so many women who were called elsewhere, maybe in the workplace or as social activists, other valid and genuine calling.  But sixty years ago – society frowned upon that.  As this documentary showed, jobs were primarily open to young, single women before they were married.  There were segregated help wanted ads – one list for men and one for women.  And jobs for African American women were even more limited – mostly to maids.  All of this opened my eyes to a world that I never had to live in, even though, now, I’m one of these women called outside of the box.

Maybe there are still small limitations here and there, but today women can honor the direction that God is calling them without society saying a definite no.

We’ve locked God in a box and have a very limited view of the Divine working in the world.  Even when society is becoming more relaxed, there are those of us who sell ourselves short even when we are being called to something greater.

I also realized that I was holding myself back in my younger days, not seeing that God’s dreams was bigger than human dreams.  During my senior year in high school, I gave a speech that would shock all of you right now: it was on “why women shouldn’t be pastors.”  Yes, looking back, it’s very ironic.  I’m sure I probably used the text from 1 Timothy 2 – that women should be silent in churches.  After taking various speech, acting and debate classes over the years, it was the only time I received a C on any speech.

In 1991, even I didn’t think it was possible that I could be a pastor.  I had squished God inside of a very small box.  As God’s ways are bigger than my ways and God’s dreams bigger than my dreams, God got the last laugh on that one.

By the time I was in my late twenties, my mind had not only changed about female clergy, but I could also tell that God was starting to call me in that direction.

But women clergy is still kind of something new in our culture.  While women really started becoming pastors in the seventies and eighties, I’ve had people tell me that they’ve never met a female pastor before.  It’s a joy to be a testimony on the still-speaking God in our world.

Reflecting upon this scripture today, I kept wanting to focus back on two particular verses: Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

What we often see are two opposing viewpoints using God.  Some would tell me that God’s ways are not my ways and I shouldn’t be a pastor.  They would quote the same 1 Timothy 2 text that I used in my high school speech to quiet me.  But what if God doesn’t take sides and God wants everyone’s voices to be heard?  What if God wants women to be pastors?

When I look at whether a group of people should have rights, I don’t just quote scriptures that limit them – whether it’s women, or racial minorities or when others have a different sexual orientation.  I personally base my ethical frame with these principles in mind: Is there Justice where everyone has the same rights and the same way to achieve?  Are all people being loved as we would want to be loved?  Are we giving others the same dignity we deserve?

I often think that if we are afforded certain rights, shouldn’t others have the same rights as we have.  People who are older or younger?  People who are gay or transgendered?  People who celebrate their faiths in other ways?

I also remember the scripture of the Syrophonecian woman that used her voice to stand up for her own dignity.   Even when Jesus felt limited by what people deserved love and grace, God was working through the voice of this woman to show a greater way of living.  And Jesus changed his mind.

I think about Mary Magdalene.  According to John’s gospel, she was the first follower asked to spread the good news of resurrection.  Yes, according to this gospel, it was a woman.  I think about Acts 2 and how women are called to prophesy.  I think about early church leaders like Phoebe and Lydia.

What great things are God calling us to?  What kind of world is God seeing that we can’t see?  Women can stay at home if that is where God is calling them.  Women can go into the workplace if God is calling them there.    Likewise, if a man is called to be home while his wife works, that is fine too.  Men can be nurses and secretaries like women can be doctors and CEOs.  There is something greater than our societal limits: it’s God’s call.

And many say that I’m being disobedient by standing up here today and being in this pulpit.  Even my 18 year old self would say that.  But what I didn’t realize at 18 was that God was bigger than a few Bible verses.  That God called both men and women into the pulpit and to teach in various contexts.

Women and minorities have had visions for years, vision and dreams that God has called us to.  But why do we hold back the dreams of others by holding back their rights?  Why should humans limit when God has called?  How does the Church still limit what God has called?  When we limit people we limit God’s action in this world.

For many of us who have felt limited by the church or a few doctrines or for those of us who have limited ourselves, we deny ourselves nourishment of social justice that everyone deserves.  Years ago, nourishment was denied when American society had separate water fountains or lunch counters or help wanted sections.   We have forgotten that all of us deserve these great things because we are ALL made in God’s image and that God’s ways are bigger than our ways.

It’s true that humans often place God in a box and sometimes it is done to control other people.  We, as individuals and the Church, can no longer place God in a box.  God is in all and around all and always present.  God is the God of resurrection and new starts.  And God will find a way to burst out of the box that we put Him… or Her… in.

In what ways is God calling you to new areas?  What kinds of things have you been called to – even though society still has certain expectations?  The God of great thoughts and dreams will walk with us as we follow our great call, leading us in new places that have been closed to us.