HOUSTON MENNONITE CHURCH

By Pastor Marty Troyer
Day 27 of our Learning Christ 40 day reading plan for Lent brings us to one of the most recognizable wedding texts of modern times, 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter.” “Love is patient, love is kind… love never ends.” Ah, I can smell the sweet aroma of flowers and romance even now, wafting through my office. These Pauline words are romantically right there with “Romeo, O Romeo, where art thou my Romeo?” and “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”

Funny thing though about this text, Paul had absolutely zero (zilch, nada, none) intention of it being about marriage! This passage is a classic example of what is commonly called a “proof text,” taking a text completely out of context and making it mean something the author did not intend for it to mean. The church is often guilty of this way of reading scripture, though here there seems to be value in applying the text also to marriage.

If not marriage, then what is it about? How can we read scripture to find its true meaning? Today allow me to share several “tools” that allow scripture to function as it was intended: to teach us how to live in community with God and each other. These 3 tools apply to any and all scripture passages, I’m using 1 Corinthians as an example.

First, treat the book as a whole and ask yourself why the author bothered to write it. What was the authors’ original intent, his goal in writing? This is why there is so much value in reading entire books, not just short “devotions.” None of the books in the Bible (not even Romans) were written to you and I, or to a “universal” audience. They are all specific creations written by particular authors to a specific audience with specific needs/issues with specific outcomes in mind. Paul had been to Corinth and ministered among them, and functioned in an “oversight” way. They had written him with some questions and concerns, and Paul was addressing those issues.

Specifically, Paul writes to a group with many divisions who are struggling to get along. There is tension over leadership, ethics, theology, worship practices, and newcomers. Paul is writing to Corinth to address these concerns. He addresses those concerns not by telling a story (like the Gospel authors did), singing a song (like the Psalmist), or making wise punchy statements (like in Proverbs). Instead, he chooses to write a letter, and follows the standard letter template of the day.

Second, Pay attention to the wider context of your passage; what’s happening before and after your text? The wider context of this Corinthian letter is clearly fellowship within the church. 1 Corinthians 13 is part of a sub-section of Paul’s letter stretching from chapters 11-14 (our reading for Day 27 is chapters 10-15). Every word in these 4 chapters highlights how Paul values relationships within the community. Let’s take a look.

Chapter 11:17-34 outlines Paul’s concern that the way they were celebrating communion was divisive and unjust. He invites us to “discern the body” in 11:29, meaning the church body, and to eat the meal as equals. IN Chapter 12 Paul addresses the gifts of the Spirit, which are given to every individual for the “common good.” Here he addresses them as a group, not as individuals, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it (12:27).” The Corinthian church clearly was not treating everyone as equals, either socio-economically (ch.11) or in leadership (ch. 12). Thus it is here that Paul introduces the love chapter with the words, “I will show you a more excellent way.” Chapter 14 is all about how everyone should have a voice in worship (which our sharing and sermon reflection times intentionally allow for). Everyone’s gifts should function for the “building up” of the others present. So, how does the wider context of the love chapter effect how we read it? It takes his words out of the context of romance, and puts it squarely in the realm of congregational relationships.
Pay attention to Sunday’s sermon to see how important context is for our Gospel reading this week.

Finally, allow the text to read you by asking what does it mean for us today? As I’ve said in the previous two articles in this series, the Bible read properly critiques, challenges, inspires, teaches and paves the way for faithfulness as we enter the story. By relegating the love chapter to romance and weddings, we take a giant leap out of the story. We have to jump back in to be faithful. This is a text about us, our corporate life together, how we deal with differences and how we treat each other as a community of faith. In our Transformation Journey we have said “the Houston Mennonite Church faith community nurtures and challenges us.” Paul would be thrilled and say to us, “Great! You value community? Then I have just the text for you.” Though I said above this text was not written to you and I, it does a stunning job of addressing our issues.

This text, freed from wedded bliss, begins to function as it was intended to function, and as we need it to function: to form Houston Mennonite how to live in community with God and each other. And how are we being called to live? We live, confidently in the Spirit that we have everything we need to be a faithful, loving, open and welcoming, generous, growing congregation that shares Christ in both word and deed with our local community. We live, each with a sense of calling, ministry, and responsibility. “I am called to help our church grow. I am called to invite people and live publicly as Christian. I am called to care for people at HMC. I am responsible to help form the faith of young and old alike. The Spirit of God is empowering me just like everyone else! I have gifts my church needs” We live with love for one another. It is love that sets us apart; love that energizes us as a small congregation; love that binds us together over massive distance; love that beckons us back again each week.

In this final installment about how scripture functions at HMC, what should we say? Let us say boldly and for all to hear, that we are a community that is being transformed. Let’s open ourselves to the written word so that we more clearly will know the living Word! “Love believes all things, hopes all things.” May we, like Paul, come to believe and hope in ourselves as a gospel-formed community.

By Pastor Marty Troyer
I’ve always been Biblically fairly precocious. I have fond memories of reading my picture Bible with dad, flannel graph in Sunday School, Story Book videos, and being the Troyer family Bible trivia champ year in and year out. I also remember being stunned as a freshman in college to learn that the David who killed Goliath as a wily kid was the same David who grew up to become King of Israel. Since that fateful day at Hesston College 16 years ago, I think by my count I’ve read the whole Bible 10 times and the New Testament twice that many times. So hopefully I wouldn’t make such a silly mistake today.

The Christian education I grew up with taught me the stories in scripture. And I knew the individual stories, or lots of them anyway (there are hundreds of individual stories and vignettes in scripture), along with dozens of the main characters. What I, like many, did not know was THE story. It wasn’t until college and adulthood that I realized that the Bible isn’t just a collection of great stories (and it is!), it is moreso a story that has a beginning, middle, and an end. Instead of the Bible being a collection of individual beads you can arrange anyway you want to, it is a necklace with beads strung together in proper sequence. Only in seeing them together can the single stories about David be transformed from stories about heroes to THE story of God redeeming people.

But the truly astonishing thing about the Bible is not that it is just one story. Oh no! The most fantastic feature of the Bible is that it proves to be our story. We ourselves are characters in the ongoing story of God reconciling the world to itself and the divine. We are invited to participate in the greatest story ever told, to stand beside Abraham and Sarah, Peter, Mary, and Martha as participants in the unfolding plan of God. Some have likened “God’s story” to a play in 4 Acts. Act 1 highlights the story before Jesus; Act 2 is the climax of the story in Jesus of Nazareth; we’re characters living in Act 3; and Act 4 is the fulfillment of all God’s dreams for his creation. It is a story whose end is yet to come.

So, how does Scripture function at Houston Mennonite Church? It functions to invite us in to God’s story, to see ourselves and our own individual stories as being the story of the people of God. My story, our story, is God’s story! Michele Hershberger, Professor of Bible at Hesston College, says it this way: “Choose God’s Story as your own. Out of all the ways of understanding who we are and why we are, we choose the Story of how God has been loving and drawing us through Jesus Christ. This story now defines our identity and our way of looking at the world. We ‘believe’ Jesus (God’s Story, Our Story: Exploring Christian Faith and Life, pg 112).”

When we see God’s story as our own, the Bible begins to read and interpret us. This is the story that reveals us as we truly are, and as we were from the beginning intended to be. Likewise, this story above all others reveals the world as it truly is, and as it was from the beginning intended to be. In other words, it becomes our guide and source book. It no longer describes the actions and beliefs of people back then. Instead it describes the actions and beliefs of us today. This is precisely why we call ourselves “The church of the Sermon on the Mount.” Because we believe that sermon is our sermon; and more importantly, that the preacher of that sermon is our preacher. As Hershberger has said many times, “Jesus meant what he said, and he was talking to us.” Jesus’ call for the disciples to “follow me” is God’s call on our lives. When Jesus said in Acts 1 “you will be my witnesses,” he is looking right at us. When he said “come to me all that are weary and I will give you rest,” he’s thinking about your tiredness and need for care. Paul’s notion about everyone having gifts and needing to share in leadership isn’t just an antiquated way of surviving without a pastor, it’s a challenge we must accept to share the work of ministry at Houston Mennonite. And when Paul says in our upcoming Sunday text that “we are ambassadors for Christ…working together with him,” he’s thinking about Malakai, Rosa, Liza and Lilya- our children who will one day grow up to participate in the ongoing work of God on earth.

As I preach each week I seek to respond to God’s call on us by being faithful to myself, the text I’m preaching from, and our context. As I said last week, the texts we use in worship are not random, but intentionally chosen to center us on Christ by inviting us in to the story. As pastor and preacher this is my ultimate goal- to orient your lives to Christ our center as we navigate God’s story together. May this be so for you as you continue to read the Lenten texts, listen to the sermons, hear God’s word read aloud in worship, and study Scripture together corporately in Sunday School and the Journey.

May you enter God’s story as your own!

By Marty Troyer

In the infamous words of a recent film hero, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” Would it be fair and accurate to say the same about our Sunday worship? In other words, is our worship, its themes, rituals, texts and sermons random, or is there an order to it all. Someone must be choosing these texts and themes, right? But who is it, and why choose what is being chosen? These next several weeks I’d like to open the curtain and show you how scripture functions in our congregation. Along the way you’ll see how it is decided what texts and themes we worship with each Sunday, how the living scripture calls us to enter the story of Jesus, and a glimpse at how to read/study the text.

Of primary importance for us is the central place that Jesus Christ has in our life. For it is through the written word of God that we come to know the living word of God in our lives and world. Scripture functions to form us into the image of Christ. How does this happen?

First, we are formed by celebrating the Christian year, or what many know as the Liturgical year. The liturgical year invites us year after year to enter the story of Jesus from birth to death, following him and listening in to each message, glimpsing every relationship. At any given point in the normal civil calendar, there is a corresponding point in the liturgical calendar. It begins by anticipating the birth of Christ, and climaxes in the celebration of his resurrection. But the entire year is a feasting on the story of Jesus. The liturgical year, according to Joan Chittister, “sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are – followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God. The liturgical year is an adventure in human growth, an exercise in spiritual ripening.”

Second, we center ourselves on Christ by connecting to an ancient Christian reading plan known as the Lectionary. Over the course of three years, congregations who use lectionary will encounter the vast majority of Biblical texts together, a healthy balanced diet. I liken the lectionary to eating at a great restaurant, only you don’t get to choose what you order- they simply bring you the food. There are 4 texts for each Sunday of the year: one each from the Old Testament, Psalms, Gospels, and New Testament. The lectionary texts for this coming Sunday are: Isaiah 55:1-9, Psalm 63:1-8, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, and Luke 13:1-9. Using the lectionary highlights our relationship with the broader Christian community, and is intrinsically Christ-like by being in very nature relational. By having 4 texts, the lectionary is itself a dialogue, and invites us to be, like Christ, people who dialogue. Though we typically do utilize the lectionary, at times we stray, but always with intent and discernment from our leaders. Why stray?. Straying allows us to marinate more deeply in texts (our recent series on the Love of God) or to highlight God’s specific call on our community (last year’s series on HMC’s core values).

Third, we profess our Christ-centered reality by literally and symbolically placing a large Bible at the very center of our worshipping community. From this we read our Biblical texts, and I use it as the Bible I preach from each Sunday.

Fourth, Scripture forms us as we listen each Sunday to the ancient texts being read. We typically read three texts each Sunday, a Psalm as call to worship, the gospel, and either the OT or NT text. And, while there are many great and interesting things for us to talk about, perhaps you’ve noticed that sermons at HMC are distinctly centered on scripture. It is overwhelmingly important for us to hear these ancient words, over and over again, if ever we dare hope to be transformed. And so this Lenten season, we have encouraged everyone to read or listen to the entire New Testament. No small task! But a necessary one if indeed we genuinely mean what we say, that we are being transformed. How is your own reading plan going?

Fifth, our children’s and adults education classes that happen every Sunday morning focus on study of scripture and personal formation. Our primary curriculum is called Gather Round. “Through Bible-based sessions for ages three through adult, Gather ’Round offers learners the opportunity to know and love God. Learners respond to Bible stories with drama, music, arts and crafts, games, reflection, and worship.” All are invited.

To answer the question above, let me say “No!” It’s not accurate to say our worship is a box of chocolates. We do know what we’re getting, and more importantly, why. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” says Paul. Only with a Christ-centered focus on scripture is this possible. So let us be filled with courage to know we are part of a powerful ancient tradition centered on the life and teachings of Jesus. We are not alone! So pick up your written or Mp3 New Testament, and enter the story.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.

Further Reflections on the Prodigal Son, by Pastor Marty Troyer

I think the marinade is working! As we continue to soak in the amazingly beautiful and complex story of the Prodigal Sons from Luke 15:1-2,11-32, I feel a richness that wasn’t present with the story a few short weeks ago. Today, I’m struck by the resources of the Father in the story. Coupled with the father’s desire to minister to his son was his ability to do it. He didn’t just want to give something to his son, he actually could! Indeed, the man in our story was apparently quite wealthy. He follows an early inheritance with a ring, sandals, robe and party complete with fatted calf.

As a congregation, we are very much like the father in our desires to do good things. We long to be a healthy vibrant worshipping community of Christ followers who push beyond the walls of our own families and church. We desire to do good things for the local community in need (Food Pantry, MAM); the international community in need (Ten Thousand Villages, Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale and Relief Kits); for our partners in ministry (Western District Conference, our sister churches in Houston); and for our own children and people (Sunday school, discretionary crisis fund, worship, etc…). And this is just the beginning! As much as we love and support these ministries, our desire for doing good isn’t limited to them. Recent desires I’ve heard from folks at HMC about doing good have included international service trips, a community garden on our property, adopting a missionary family, working more deeply at local peace and justice initiatives, and perhaps above all spreading the word that we are a gospel-formed community.

So, while we are like the Father in our desire to do good things, are we also as a congregation like the Father in our ability to respond? Do we have the resources we need to be the kind of community with the kind of character we want? It would be hard to find someone in our church’s leadership who could say anything but “No.” For the second year in a row now, we’ve passed a budget where our income falls far short of our expenses. Cuts have been made. In other words, our desire for good ministry exceeds our ability to fund them by tens of thousands of dollars (our 2010 budget has a $25,000 gap between pledged offerings and pledged ministry!).

The reality is that individuals who commit to each other for the common good can accomplish more together than lone individuals. We saw this in 2009 where we received record levels of giving, going past our pledge to each other. This extravagant giving allowed us to unexpectedly address three needs we otherwise would not have. After the congregation empowered church council to give $428 away, council agreed to support the Interfaith Worker Justice Center, East Spring Branch Food Pantry, and to purchase 12 much needed new worship books. Together we did what none of us could have done alone.

For 2010 we’ve covenanted with each other to give even more. Our pledge to one another was $80,000 this year in offerings to be received, or $1,538.00 per week. A 20% increase from 2009. A stretch no doubt. But one that stretches us to become more like the Father: able to do the good things we feel called to do.

I invite you, as individuals and families, to help provide our congregation with the ability to do good. Your financial contributions are power for good in our world! While not possible for everyone, 10% of total income is an ancient standard of giving to the local church. Some of you should give less than this (or nothing), some of you much more. But most of us are capable of a 10% tithe, and would feel a deeper sense of connection to our church and God’s mission by considering giving at this level. While most Christians agree in theory to the 10% standard, in practice the national average is 2.4%. Imagine how Jesus would have had to alter his Prodigal Sons story had the father character not been able to respond as he wished! While it is my policy as your pastor to not see what individuals give (indeed, I have never seen what anyone but my own family gives), I would imagine we are a typical church in that we have families at all giving levels and percents, and that our average is far less than 10% per giving unit. And so again, I invite you to assess your own giving practices and to join us in making our collective desires to do good possible.

Individuals and families who faithfully give to the church enable us to be like the Father in one more key way. You enable us to experience the joy of giving and the joy of ministry! The Father ministered to his son gladly, joyfully, extravagantly. There was no worry about having enough, overextending himself, checking the budget for allowances or where to get money from. No! There was joy and freedom to do so in a non-anxious way.

And so here we are, soaking in the marinade of this gospel story about a Father’s love for his sons. And like any good marinade, it’s transforming, enriching, and enhancing who we are. It’s helping us to become whom we’ve always wanted to be!

Soak even more by praying with us using our daily prayer practice, which you can find at: houstonmennonite.org/worship

By Pastor Marty Troyer

This is a sermon series I did not choose and could not escape. It has spent three years stewing inside my soul, bubbling thoughts and feelings to the surface until finally, this fall, I could no longer ignore its voice in my head. What is the love of God? Is God personal? How does it feel to be loved? What about those times when I don’t feel God’s presence at all?

These are the questions that linger. And these are the questions that collided in summer of 2009 with an idea for a series of sermons: to preach the same text every week for a month. This collision brought me to a simple story I’ve known since my flannel-graph days: the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). It’s a story of the boundless love of one father for his two sons, and their journey to both throw off and embrace that same love. It is to this story that I invite you over the next month. Read it this weekend before church and see what new thoughts creep up since the last time you encountered it.

But know that when you do, it is a much richer story than I ever before imagined! For instance, I find it to be a perfect story for HMC at this time. Why? Because it, like Epiphany 2 weeks ago, tells the simple story of someone coming, and the host community’s response to having new people around. And this is, at least as we’ve expressed it, our goal for 2010 and beyond. Remember, we’ve said as one of our core Transformation values that “We want to grow numerically.”

And so a story that tells about people coming, and some rejoicing with celebration while others mope with bitterness and longing for the way things used to be is a story fit for a congregation in the throngs of church growth. Because the truth is, that right now whether we ever wanted to grow or not, whether we’ve done anything to make it happen or not- we are growing! Did you notice Sunday that we had 7 more new visitors, and over 70 in total attendance? Did you watch as people searched for an open seat, set up new chairs, and had to reach to share song books? Did you notice how each one of our visitors took communion, engaged the service with a smile, and stuck around afterwards to chat? Did you notice a parking lot spilling over into the grass? Most of them enquired about connecting more in the future. Folks, the wise men are coming (like in Epiphany)! The prodigal is coming home!

And, like the compassionate father in this story there are things we need to do to welcome those who come. Short of killing the fatted calf, what might these changes be? I see them in two categories: things we can do right now, and things we need to plan for in the not-to-far-off future.

Right now things to do:

·         Welcome those around you and celebrate that they are here. Tell them your name, ask them theirs, and help them to feel at home.

·         Invite them to something, anything. Find some upcoming event in the bulletin to invite them to, or adult SS, or next week’s worship, or be gracious and invite them to lunch.

·         Make room for everyone! If things start getting full, scoot in, make sure everyone has a song book, and help people find what they need.

·         Pray for our visitors! Thank God for them, ask God to help them find a spiritual home, and ask God to help us embrace the new culture that visitors create us to be.

·         Expand our seating: we need more seats! So starting Sunday you will see more rows of seats placed in the overflow. Since we have two Sunday school classes that meet in the overflow, this will require some quick changeover of space. We will need help to make this happen, please connect with Gerald Gehman if you want to help with this. Thanks!

·         Parking: our parking issue has not gotten any better. Let me repeat what I’ve said before in the fall: please try to reserve parking along the building for visitors and those with disabilities, lots to carry, and young families. We need 5-10 cars who volunteer each week to park in Terrace United Methodist parking lot, and walk through our path. I park there every week, it’s a nice little walk.

In-the-near-future things to do:

·         Rearrange our current seating arrangement to larger capacity. Feedback on our current arrangement has been nothing but positive. So we’re looking for ways to retain the current “feel” and intimacy while at the same time gaining more chairs.

·         Solidify a team of greeters who also act as ushers, helping people find seats when things get tight.

·         Expand our parking lot to add more spaces.

·         Visit area churches with eyes to see how others welcome (or don’t welcome!) newcomers. Equally important to learn is how it feels to be a new person. Report back to the group with findings.

·         Remodel/renovate our current building to give us more sanctuary space and a larger welcome entrance.

Choose to be the Father

Finally, the most important thing for us to do is make a choice. Will we choose to be like the elder son? Who groaned and complained about someone coming, revealing inside himself an overflowing fear, distrust, and bitterness. His actions remind me of my sister’s church in Oregon. They recently experienced deep conflict and finally a split over the presence of new people (who, gasp, weren’t ethnic Mennonites!!) whose presence many resented because it threatened “our identity.” And so they grumbled and complained; but even worse, their actions unconsciously excluded anyone but the pure. Their subversive actions, like the elder sons, undermined their own ability to embrace the love of God for themselves. Their subversive acts also unfortunately revealed that their “identity” did not mirror that of the welcoming compassionate Father!

Or, will we choose to be the father, who runs with open arms to greet those coming down the road? Or course welcoming his prodigal son would change things! Of course it would cost him money, demand his time, change how he lived his life and interacted with the rest of his family! Of course everything would be different. But different, apparently, is exactly what the father wanted! Paul says that when we are in the will of God, “Behold, there is a new creation!” The Father embraced the new gift of God, the son rejected it. Ultimately, ours is the same choice. To  accept our identity as a transformed people as good news, or to reject it entirely and with bitterness pine for the days of old. The choice is yours.

by Pastor Marty

My 27 month old son Malakai loves books. The first thing he wants in the morning and the last thing he wants at night is to sit on our lap and plow through several books. Currently, he’s in the Christmas spirit with favorites about Jesus’ birth. Perhaps it’s because they are kids’ books, but all of the Christmas books we read to him focus significantly on the presence of animals at the birth of the Christ child. In one, “Old Ox” welcomes all “little ones” into his stable for warmth and safety. In another, the cattle guard the baby Jesus while Donkey warms Mary. In still another, each animal is in turn pictured as presenting the baby a precious gift similar to the wise men.

All of these stories can be attributed to “artistic license,” as Scripture does not include the literal presence of animals by Mary’s side while she delivered the Christ child. (Nor, for that matter, is there ever mention of a stable, or the location of Jesus’ actual birth!). However, there is a longstanding tradition to include the animals like the HMC Christmas choir who sang, “Ox and ass before him bow…” This tradition may have its genesis with St Francis of Assisi, the 12th century lover of animals who was the first to create what we know of as the nativity scene complete with animals, stable, shepherds, parents, magi, and baby Jesus. This picture is a mash up of all the stories spread throughout the gospels alongside a fair bit of creative license. Francis loved animals and nature, and one day, while Francis was traveling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to “wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds”. The birds surrounded him, drawn by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. Francis spoke to them:

My sister birds, you owe much to God, and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you… you neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly. Therefore… always seek to praise God.

No one knows for sure if animals were present at Jesus’ birth. But I, like Malakai and Francis, love to think they were! I love the picture of all creation praising God at the birth of the baby Savior! Creation praises God throughout the Psalms, in Joel, Amos and Revelation. And at one point in his ministry Jesus declares, “If these people were silent then the stones would cry out!”

And so, with a little artistic license, I invite you to take time this Friday (Christmas day) to be like the animals. Set aside time for family, for food, for presents and fun. But also set aside some time to worship God and Christ the newborn king. Pull out an old hymnbook and sing some songs together (we do that quite a bit at our house, and no one seems to mind when we’re off tune!). Read the Christmas stories from Scripture (Luke 2:1-20; Matthew 1:18-2:18; Psalm 148) and reflect silently for several minutes. Jot down a list of things that would be missing from your life and the world if Christmas had never happened. Attend a worship service at a local church near your home. Try a breath prayer: sit quietly for 15 minutes and, as you breathe in say to yourself “Immanuel”; as you breathe out think “God with us.” Find a way to worship that fits your personality, gifts, and mood. And by all means, do it with your dog laying peacefully on your lap! In all that you do this Birthday, be like the animals: Be awestruck at the glory of God in Christ!

The heavens and the angels, the sun, moon, and stars, all that dwell in the sea, and the mountains, and the air, all people, men and women, young and old, wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds,“Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 148).

ADVENT 2009:Visions for Peace-Plans for War

Tuesday night’s Presidential address did little to keep me in the Advent spirit. Plans to escalate war fly in the face of everything I believe is at the core of Christmas, and at the core of what our world needs.

The New Testament calls on various Old Testament texts in order to interpret the meaning of Jesus birth. Strangely these texts have nothing to do with generosity or the mental gymnastics necessary to believe its better to give than receive. No, the New Testament almost univocally pulls on texts that promise justice and peace, deliverance from real-world oppression, an upside-down kingdom, and political-economic-spiritual “light” – a new and better world for all as defined by God. The New Testament supplements those Old Testament readings with its own interpretations of the birth that sharpen the contrast between the President’s plan. “Peace on earth among those whom God favors (Luke 2:14).” “God sent his son into the world…that we might love one another (1John 4:7-12).” “The word became flesh… and was full of grace and truth (John 1).”

On top of both of those accounts, the Christian church for 2,000 years has pulled various Old Testament texts to highlight the Messianic expectation of God’s people. These texts are a highlight reel of what they expected when Messiah (who turned out to be Jesus) finally came. Consistent with the two categories above, peace, justice, love, the upside-down kingdom are mentioned throughout our history of Advent. Perhaps my favorite of these is Isaiah 11:1-10, one of the grandest and most fascinating pictures of God’s kingdom ever! Isaiah’s picture of wolves and lambs together is an extraordinary picture of how the world will look when God answers the prayer: “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).”

As the President spoke directly into the faces of future soldiers who will die for his war plans, I found myself begging instead for the words of Isaiah 11:9: “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of God.” And what is this knowledge of God that Isaiah tells us about? That “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together (11:6).” The message of Advent/Christmas is not security based on military might; nor is it the President’s catchy twist of words that “right makes might.” Violence under any name is still misguided, and ill-equipped to accomplish the necessary ends for Afghanistan or any region. Isaiah counters the “myth of redemptive violence” with his promise the coming Christ-child will overcome evil with his word of righteousness, faithfulness, and peace. Righteousness as pictured in the Old Testament is “the right ordering of the world according to God’s intention, with a special bias toward the poor and the outcast (John E. Toews, pg 401).” Proper ordering of Afghanistan does not include more war or a longstanding imperial presence. It includes faithfulness in relationship and nonviolence that leads to love of enemies. “When we hear the good news of the love of God,…our response includes… placing full trust in God alone…When we who once were God’s enemies are reconciled with God through Christ, we also experience reconciliation with others (Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, Article 8: Salvation).”

This is an extraordinary voice this Christmas season! This is what we are called to be about. As the body of Christ, our fellowship is a foretaste of this vision, our worship is designed to celebrate it, our Christian education must be about forming people to be the type of people who work for this vision, our outreach works to spread it, and our giving is directed towards this end!

But this Advent vision was alarmingly absent from the President’s plan. The President sadly chose not to listen to the strategy of Isaiah but rather to listen to his war council.  He erroneously chose to believe one story over another: the story that proclaims violence can and does solve our problems.

But, as Christians, that is not our story.

Ours is the only story that can “win” in Afghanistan.

This Christmas, I grieve violence done in our name. I grieve that we are not creative enough to think of new and different plans. I grieve our inability to read the history of violence as being woefully deficient. I grieve our incalculable spending for destruction and our petty spending for development. I grieve the loss of life in American and Afghan families. I grieve that the church has yet to muster up a nonviolent training program (Isaiah 2:4 says that when Messiah comes they “shall not learn war anymore”) to rival that of Westpoint. But mostly, I grieve that another story besides that of Jesus birth has so captured our attention again this year that once again we will miss hearing the angels song: “Peace!”

I pray that you would believe Christmas is more than generosity and more than a miraculous virgin birth. Much moreso, it is the birth of a miraculous picture of the world as it should be! This Christmas, may we all come to more deeply believe in the proper ordering of our world as Isaiah saw it, and the story of peace that Scripture so boldly proclaims. Will you join me in this prayer for “righteousness”:

Your kingdom come, your will be done, in Afghanistan as it is in heaven. AMEN

Advent Prayer
Mary’s Song-
can we sing it on a bleak mid-winter midnight
while we wait for good news
and the wars just get worse
and the children keep dying?

Is the Child winning the battle
and we just can’t see well enough?

But we can pray- that the hope of the world
keeps being born in us
and God will do the rest! AMEN

Words for Worship 2, #175 by Linea Reimer Geiser.

One thing, more than any other, has captured my attention in the last several years. Its beauty, complexity, and force overwhelm me at times. I’ve caught myself at times being either giddy or afraid just thinking about it. And I think I understand a little more about Jesus when in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) he says that we are blessed when we hunger for it, because I am energized to talk about and work for it. What is this one thing? Justice!

Defining Justice
Did you know that the Bible talks about justice well over 1,000 times (a very conservative count)? Or that Jesus confronted the authorities of his day with their injustice 40 times? We are told over and again that the Lord loves justice (Isaiah 61:8) and executes justice (Deuteronomy 10:18); and that, like God, we are to “do justice” (Micah 6:8) and hunger/thirst/seek after justice (Matt 5:6 & 6:33).

But what exactly is justice? And why do I care about it so much? Justice, as I am learning, is mercy and kindness applied on a social scale. It is love writ large. In the same way love and mercy should define individual relationships, justice is the biblical term for what should define community. Beyond acts of charity towards individuals, justice creates patterns of behavior, systems of community, and relational interactions so there is no longer need for acts of charity. If a ministry of mercy would feed the poor through a food pantry, a ministry of justice would explore the systemic reasons why poverty exists in the first place, then seek to change the system so poverty is no more. The Bible closely ties justice to righteousness, and defines both words as that which creates and sustains right-relationship. And so to “do justice” is to do that which is necessary to establish right relationships at all levels within a community.

The book Kingdom Ethics suggests that justice has 4 dimensions: 1). “Deliverance of the poor and powerless from the injustice that they regularly experience; 2) lifting the foot of domineering power off the neck of the dominated and oppressed; 3) stopping the violence and establishing peace; 4) restoring the outcasts, the excluded, the Gentiles, the exiles and the refugees to community.”

Embracing an ethic of Justice
As a Mennonite, my church passed on to me a solid pacifist ethic that centered on interpersonal nonviolence and nonparticipation in international war. But in general my ethic did not include justice. My faith had little room to process such social realities as racism, sexism, homophobia, economic justice, political corruption, environmental degradation, judicial inequality, health care, globalization, or poverty. I saw the world (and myself in it) made up of individuals with the power to choose, rather than as systems or interconnected communities with a corporate identity. Justice demands seeing the world as one interconnected community, where the actions of the individual affect the reality of everyone.

How have I come to the point today where I fully embrace and work for both peace and justice? I work for justice today because I have been swept up by the beauty and power of Jesus’ picture of the Kingdom God longs to establish. Ours is a kingdom where lambs snuggle with lions, the mountains and hills are leveled, dividing walls are broken down, all are welcome at the banquet table, neighbors and aliens are loved like we love ourselves, debts are wiped clean, injustice is punished and violence defeated, and religion is cleansed from being the purveyor of cheap grace. I love justice (Isaiah 61:8) because it is how God intends the world to be!

I work for justice today because I find myself more and more praying the prayers of Isaiah, the Psalmist, Jesus and Paul. “Rise up, O God! Lift up your hand! O Lord, you will do justice for the orphan and the oppressed (Psalm 10)!” These prayers boldly acknowledge there is brokenness in the world, address a God who longs to fix the brokenness, and call us to participate in the solution. It remains impossible for me to ignore that God’s heart beats with justice.

I have a long list of reasons I have embraced an ethic of justice in my adulthood: mentors, books, awareness, our move to Houston. But the core root of my conversion has been Jesus himself, who continues his unrelenting invitations for me to follow him. As early Anabaptist leader Hans Denck said so well, “no one can truly know Christ unless he follows him in life, and no one may follow him unless he has first known him.” As Christ was in the world, so are we called to be. As I draw closer to Christ my peace ethic has grown to embrace concern for all of God’s creation. Last week I drew the distinction between being a pacifist and being a peacemaker, this too has been part of my journey as I follow Jesus ever more closely. For peacemaking and justice are parallel terms, if not synonyms, and both are rooted in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

On Sunday we conclude our worship series on being Pilgrims in the City by looking at what it means to be socially just citizens. I invite you to look at the texts for the service (Amos 5:21-24, Micah 2:1-2 & 6:6-8, Mark 12:35-13:3, Psalm 146) and to ask yourself the following questions for further discussion:
• When did I fall in love with justice?
• How do I define Justice?
• Where do I see injustice in our world, and what would it mean for someone to “do justice” in response?

Grace to you and peace from God and the Lord Jesus Christ!

On Sunday afternoon, October 25, our church took a driving tour of the neighborhood our building is in.

What, if anything, did we learn about our church’s neighborhood by driving around on Sunday afternoon? I think we would all benefit from further conversation about this topic, but here are several of my own reflections.

First, the diversity of our neighborhood stands out starkly to me. The drive north through Hilshire Village, past the old church parsonage, onto Long Point avenue never ceases to expand my thinking. This is a drive through the border of 2 separate realities. Though we don’t directly sit on this boundary, this is our location: incredible gentrification, development, affluence, and relative homogeneity sit right next to diversity, an amazing blend of cultures, poverty, and rows of apartments. Walmart, a store I generally detest on ethical grounds, has greatly inspired me by their placement of the world’s first and only U.S. Spanish language store. They put their best money-making research and development minds together and found that here, more than anywhere else, a Spanish language store could thrive. I ask myself every time I see it, are we Mennonites as bright as the folks down at Walmart? Can we too put our best and brightest minds together to assess who is living in our neighborhood, and how we can best reach out to them?

Second, though some needs may be more evident on the surface, I’m deeply struck that every single home, business, and community in our sphere of influence needs the gospel that Christians claim to already participate in. The folks who live in the gentrified “McMansions” (what my Scavenger Hunt partner called them) along Westview need God/salvation/joy/discipleship as much as any poor apartment family up on Long Point. Is loneliness and isolation a key life issue for those who live in Hilshire Village; the same way that poverty and vicimization is perhaps the story of others in our neighborhood? Don’t all people suffer the effects of their own pride, sin, innapropriate sexual desires, love for money, greed, and belief in violence that redeems?

When I drive through our neighborhood I celebrate the diversity I see and the gifts that come with it! I long to be a church that is open to rich and poor, black, brown and white, life-time Christian or new to the faith. I also feel the stress and pain of city living on each of the streets, and in each of the homes I drive by. And I know that Houston Mennonite Church offers something special to every person and family in our neighborhood. We offer worship, prayers, and discipleship that can introduce our neighborhood to the God who gives life. But the most important thing we can and do offer our neighborhood is ourselves. We are a Christian community, formed by the gospel of Jesus Christ to love and be loved by others!

So, it is not about finding the right program to reach some specific need, or crafting specific words to say to specific people. It’s not even about locating a handful of local pacifists who need Jesus. No. It’s about being ourselves. It’s about seeing ourselves as part of God’s good news proclamation to the people across the street and around the world. It’s about welcoming our neighbors in to the deepest levels of our faith and of our faith community. Finally, it’s about opening ourselves to the transformation that God is bringing to us, and praying for God’s kingdom to come here in Houston.

The heart and soul of Christianity is relationship to God. It may be many things, but it is nothing without this. Likewise, Christians may be many things, but we are not Christian lest we have a sense of connection to God. The word “religion” itself expresses this idea, it’s root meaning re-ligamented, or re-connected. Scripture defines this relationship by calling us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” Jesus further provides a picture of relationship when he says, “You are the branches, and I am the vine. You can do nothing without me.” Augustine, and early church leader, said “Our souls are restless until they find their rest in [God].”

These are all statements Christians know to be true, and God’s reminders to take the time required to cultivate this depth of connection. Worship on Sunday’s may be necessary for us to connect to God, but it’s certainly not sufficient. Prayer, silence, scripture, renewed commitments, thanksgiving, testimony, singing, study, and dreaming are all deeper ways to relate to God. Lately I have been meeting regularly with a spiritual director to walk with me in my own spiritual life. Through him, I find myself challenged and encouraged to love the God who is love.

In loving God, a miraculous and marvelous thing happens to us. Dorotheos of Gaza, an ancient Mother of the Church invites us to picture what love of God looks like: “Suppose we were to take a compass and insert the point and draw the outline of a circle. The center point is the same distance from any point on the circumference… Let us suppose that this circle is the world and that God is the center; the straight lines drawn from the circumference to the center are the lives of human beings…Notice that the closer they are to God, the closer they become to one another; and the closer they are to one another, the closer they are to God.”

It is only through our love and relationship with God that energy, creativity, and desire for loving others comes to fullness. Loving God allows us the freedom to see those in our lives as God sees them, and to treat them as God treats them. Likewise, compassion for others is a core way for us to fall more deeply in love with our Maker. Why? Because loving other people helps us to see what God is doing in their lives, and opens us to their stories of redemption, pain, and praise.

In the business and busyness of life in the city, Christians must find the time to connect deeply with God. We are not social activists, or performers of good works. We are Christians, people defined primarily by our relationship to God. It is out of this relationship that all other motivation flows.

I encourage you all, in whatever ways are meaningful for you, to drink deeply from the wells of devotion and spirituality that we have inherited. In doing so, we taste the reality of what our founder, Menno Simons said to be true for us all: that “we are bone of bone and flesh of flesh with Jesus Christ.” Set aside time tonight, rise early tomorrow, or plan a weekend personal retreat as a way to re-ligament yourself to the heart and soul of our existence. As you do, may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace! And may your love grow for all!