Welcome What s Next. And the key to becoming even more resilient? Is to work with the resiliency skills you already

Transcription

1 Welcome What s Next Picking Up Where Jesus Left Off! Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16; Mark 8: 31-38; Psalm 25: 1, 4-5, 9-10 February 25, 2018 Second Sunday of Lent ~ Jesus is a most resilient belover of life. He trusts in the ability of others to reflect and choose wisely and make wise choices in the situations in which they find themselves. He trusts us to reflect personally, trust daringly, to know deeply God is not done, is still speaking, that the best is yet to come. ~He lives this reality: we are able to welcome what s next. We are born able to bounce back, make it through, think! We are born resilient. This is God given! A God of do-overs! It s true! Think about it: So far, everyone here is batting 100% for making it through life s toughest situations. Acknowledging this builds up our selfesteem doesn t puff up, but builds up our core selfesteem, value. We each have personal patterns we can identify that already help us do this: meet what is in front of us and move through it. We each already have resiliency responses! We will name these responses and ones we desire as part of weekly worship this season. (Please pull that page out of the bulletin later and keep it as we reflect at Easter on our truest value.) And the key to becoming even more resilient? Is to work with the resiliency skills you already have your strengths! The real tragedy of life is not that each of us doesn t have enough strengths, it s that we fail to use the ones we have. (Buckingham and Clifton, 2001) We obsess about and over-estimate the power of weakness and fail to recognize and so under-estimate the power of strengths. Go with what works! So, this season we will be all about becoming more self-aware aware of our resiliency responses and supporting these strengths! We can enhance this process for ourselves so that we can actually come to welcome what s next everything on the way to heaven is heaven. This is not Pollyanna-ish at all! This is more than a technique. It is an honoring of our innate and unique ability to bounce back and move forward resilient to embrace do-overs As God does and Jesus did! We have wisdom in our secret hearts. We are awesomely made and able and resilient. ~~~ The entire Jesus story is about taking responsibility to look deeply within, into our hearts, our minds and our motivations. The stories challenge us to ask: How resilient am I?

2 And in today s wisdom teachings I use to hate that phrase, Pick up your cross and follow me. But now, a more mature me with a teachable heart that s actually let go of some old things and learned a few new things over the years, I understand the only way my life is going to change is if I pick myself up and do something about it pick up my cross if I turn myself around and get in line behind Jesus that is, align my ways with the ways of Jesus. That s what Jesus said to Peter, right? Just like Peter, I may not like hearing the facts as if denying the facts will make them go away. But in denying the facts, I am closing down the future. That s beyond NOT being resilient! I don t want to deny the facts it s just that life is very hard sometimes. So, I need to be sure that s a cross and not a chip on my shoulder! For Jesus and for each of us, it isn t an easy journey the journey toward true and meaningful life The journey isn t easy. a life with core integrity, self-respect, truth, joy, compassion. There may be some real suffering and some inner (and for a few, some actual) dying, but there will be new life if I/if you stand up for what is right and just in me/you and in the world and walk my life in new directions. New life if I am resilient! Friends, the cross is not a symbol of oppression and suffering it was coopted from that reality and brought to a new one: The cross is a symbol of liberation, of possibility that cannot be stopped! Pick it up! Don t live in denial of your need for freedom and peace. It is a fact! The only way life is ever going to change is if I change it. I have to do something about my life you have to pick up your cross, too. And live toward freedom!

3 Jesus implores Peter to see the bigger picture and take the longer view of things he implores him implores us to face the faith, not just the facts. Focus on the divine possibility and not on the human, short term outcomes. Jesus implores us, just as God implores Abraham and Sarah, to believe/belove and live within the covenant to understand that laws don t create justice, people do. Jesus himself went out into the darkness and put his hand into the hand of God. This shall be better than a light and safer than a known way. This quiets those competing voices in our heads and invites us to use what works and forget about what doesn t! Those who lose their life who go beyond complaining and blaming and stop living their lives the way they ve always lived them they will find new life. Those who save their lives just keep on living their lives in the same old ways will lose their lives nothing is going to change for them. You already know this. You were born knowing this and each of us has spent a life-time trying to forget it! We critique Jesus and the faith and religion and church and the people in it, missing the point completely. The point? God/Holy Creative Wisdom loves you and you are special and what God most deeply desires for you is what you most deeply desire for yourself. Life can be different. The covenant made with Noah is extended to Abraham and Sarah has been extended to many others along the way and now is extended to you. The real significance of the cross for us today is that it propels us forward. Let s fail forward!! And you know, it takes a community to raise a cross we re here for each other! Like Jesus, we may have skinned our knees and scraped our chins in carrying our cross to our Hill in Golgotha. And, like Him, we no longer need to hang up there nailed on a cross. We can come on down and live anew! The cross is a sign of encouragement, not discouragement. Not a reminder of our failings or shame.

4 No guilt was ever elicited by Jesus or God when life nails us or we nail life. In the power of the empty cross we, too, can take chances be resilient to make a difference make new choices for our lives that will pay off if we take the divine, long view of things live within the providence of God s timing. It feels risky maybe scary to think of changing our choices. But there is something far riskier to us not changing our choices! As a congregation, we are picking up our cross turning complaints and excuses into wisdom and action. We are more fully funding our ministry so we can be cared about and cared for! We are picking up our cross and reaching out, impacting our community as we support Divine Intervention, just.good.food Garden, Arts and Science Literacy Camp, Living Waters, Hope House Bay View Community Center food pantries, Common Ground addressing the issues of our day as we support One Great Hour of Sharing addressing worldwide need. As a congregation, we are picking up our cross. As individuals and as community, we pick up our crosses as we extend care to everyone who comes through our doors no matter what race, gender, sexuality, age, class, ethnicity, health (physical and emotional health), no matter what their life story or life condition. no matter their cross. We pick up our crosses when, taught by our teachable hearts. We live the wisdom of our faith beyond these doors and express our faith not on Sunday mornings, but on all the days we confront the temptation to put ourselves first or last, as the case may be. You pick up your cross as you confront the temptation to hang on to the way the things were or are keeping routines in place, hiding behind old choices and behaviors, blaming others for the way your life is. It is out there, in the world and in your daily life, that you are called to life, not in here, in the safety of this service or this building. Our faith identity is not tied to the name of our denomination or the address of our building, but to our individual names and the cross we pick up

5 a cross which speaks of a love which surpasses human understanding a love that stood up for what is right and just in life and stayed the course all the way through crucifixion to resurrection and new life beyond it. Jesus got nailed for what he believed in and what he did about it. But His kind of love and integrity cannot be stopped by someone s threats, temper tantrums, sarcasm, depression, sabotage cannot be nailed dead. Love is resilient!! You know this is true yet, how often we still do act ashamed of Jesus or maybe that s embarrassed by how others are using the stories of Jesus for their own good or using them to judge us. Blaming/shaming/ignoring Jesus, justifying staying stuck saying life is too hard is much easier than listening to him. This was so for the Pharisees and Pilot and the crowd and it is still easier to ignore him than to follow him today. But not even our inaction can stop the love of God can hold back the covenant and its promise from you. You see, like to Abraham and Sarah, God has promised to always be there for you and has given you a new name. Do you have a sense of it? Despite the facts, they resiliently held onto their faith. They gave God a chance. Their faithful action is their legacy. Will you give God a chance? Will you live out of your strengths and live resiliently? What will your legacy be? Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Mary and Peter and YOU journey out into that Lenten darkness trusting that beyond the darkness you will find the renewed life you long to have. Every step of the journey, each new choice gives us just that much more courage.light. Even the smallest action to stop complaining/stalling and do something about the life you have lifting up even one corner of that cross

6 My life right now it looks a lot like Swiss Cheese. even the smallest new choice cuts a hole in the darkness. I m cutting holes in the darkness because I am beginning to believe in me the way God does. I am beginning to trust myself. To see my resiliency as a God given gift to help me move out into the darkness, into what is yet to come and to welcome it! Close your eyes and put your hand into the hand of God. It is the second week of Lent. ~~~ The entire Jesus story is an invitation to take responsibility, using your resiliency responses. I like Lent because it calls me to remember how resilient I already am and realize deeply the invitation toward new life begins with me! My responses! And I am capable. I can welcome what s next. The good and bad, beautiful and ugly seeming yes, I can. ~And just like Jesus, I travel this life learning as I go.grow. ~And just like Jesus, I am made able to stand up against what is not right/just in life. ~And just like Jesus, I can choose an alternative way to think and feel and act.not alone but in relationship with God and other disciples. This is the part where I find out who I am! How resilient I am! And, I affirm: I can welcome what s next!