A modest attempt at practicing what I preach

I actually started writing this on the flight home, as we prepare to land in Amsterdam. It was a good trip and I'm so glad I followed my heart and took a couple of weeks with my family and friends in SC. On Sunday I had the opportunity to preach at the church where I was confirmed. There were a few people who remembered me, but even the ones who didn't were incredibly gracious in their response to my message.

It was never my intention to address the political climate surrounding the presidential primary the day before, but several people expressed gratitude for a message that challenged the current "all or nothing" agenda that seems to be so popular these days. (I had originally included a whole "bridges versus walls" section but rethought that pretty quickly... thinking Pope vs Trump.)

Instead, I shared the experience of a clergy friend inviting a man to join her at her table in a crowded Panera. And I asked people to consider welcoming a stranger on the off chance of making a new friend.

Little did I know that I would have that same opportunity as soon as I boarded my second flight of the day. When I arrived on board, i found myself face to face with a small, elderly woman who spoke absolutely no English.

This left me expecting a quiet flight, but it's amazing how much you can communicate without words. From helping her with the seat belt to figuring out how to work the entertainment system, we managed to share a few precious moments.

It did not take long to figure out that she was Russian (newspaper clue), but she confirmed that by pointing to several places on the map... Flying to Amsterdam, then Moscow, then on to Siberia.... and I thought my trip was long!

We found the game center and she showed me how to do sudoku - I'm terrible - and I eventually figured out there were a bunch of movies that were dubbed in Russian (she picked Lincoln - bold choice). I shared yummy cheese straws, she shared dark chocolate covered almonds, we laughed over spilling Asian Chicken entrees on our amble bosoms, and slept side by side as comfortably as you can in coach.

As we prepared to deplane, she reached over and squeezed my hand with a big smile. Like my friend Monica, I made a new friend, but this time using only smiles, hand gestures and pointing.

When the plans in our minds don't match our expectations, it's easy to get annoyed or feel disappointed. All I had to do was think of how I would want someone to treat me if I was in her shoes and the rest came easy.

All of this counterbalances the annoyance I felt toward the guy behind me who kept pushing on my seat all night and my eye roll at the herd of high school students that held up my line at passport control... apparently I'm a work in progress.

Now where is the cappuccino?

Peace, Deb

(c) Deb Luther Teagan 2016

Sermon - Press on Toward Jesus' Call (Lent 2C)

 Philippians 3:17-4:1           St Paul UMC, Spartanburg, SC              February 21, 2016 

Some of you knew me when I was young. In 1971, I was  confirmed in this congregation, back when Poston Hall was the church. After I graduated from Clemson, I settled in Anderson and worked as a blood bank technologist at the hospital there. I joined a small UMC congregation in Wild Hog, near Pendleton, and with a group of youth and other volunteers, spent my summers immersed in the Salkehatchie Summer Service community. 

Eventually I heard the call, first as a Lay Speaker, then as a candidate for ordained ministry. My years at Duke were wonderful for expanding my knowledge and growing my faith. In 1993, I was ordained as a Elder in the South Carolina Conference. I thought that might be the most exciting thing that would ever happen to me. And then I met this tall, handsome Air Force pilot and life was really never the same.  In 1995, we got married with the belief that we could serve God better together than apart. 21 years later, we still think that's true, but there have been some detours and bumps along the way. 

When we moved to Stuttgart, Germany in 2014, this was our 11th military move. I am amazed at the places and ways I have been able to serve God and the church, both thru appointment and as a volunteer. But there was a particularly difficult period in my life during out third Air Force move. In Illinois and North Dakota, I was able to secure appointments, but in New Jersey, that didn't work out. For the first time in my adult life, I was not earning a paycheck. I was not a leader in a congregation, The only way that people knew me was someone's wife, and as great as that is, it didn't feel like enough. 

Sundays came and I didn't want to go to church. In hindsight, I realize that I was angry with God and maybe even with my husband that my call to ministry had been interrupted. And then on one gorgeous September morning, the world went absolutely crazy, and only 90 miles away from our base, the events of 9/11 unfolded before us.  

Within a few minutes, my neighbors and new friends were calling me to ask me important questions of faith. "How could God let this happen?" "What do I tell my children?" and "Where do we go from here?" When we planned a neighborhood prayer meeting, they looked to me for guidance. And when this  group turned into a weekly bible study, I realized that this was my next call. God hadn't made a mistake at all, It just took a little longer than I hoped to figure out what would come next.

It's so very easy to get caught our ideas and preconceived notions about what our lives should look like. Are we going to the right schools? Have we chosen the right careers? We want the perfect house in the best neighborhood with the most amazing car sitting in our three car garage with our amazing kids by our sides. 

None of these things are wrong in and of themselves but this part of Paul's letter reminds us that what people see us doing speaks volumes about who we are. We can say that we are Christian, reciting scripture left and right, but if we are not living out the Good News every day, the power of the that proclamation is lost. Being a Christian is more that just claiming Christ. It's about becoming more like Christ through actions, words and works which point to Jesus. 

Paul's letter to the Philippians was written to help them stand fast and grow in the midst of a worldly, secularized culture. Paul wanted them to understand that there was really nothing simple or easy about imitating Christ. In this letter, he brings forward many suggestions for living faithfully in Christ, but I wanted to highlight a couple of ways this passage helps us understand what that means. 

First, the life of faith is a life of transformation. We have to be willing to grow into our faith. Our Methodist roots are especially helpful here. John Wesley claimed to be a Christian long before he had a personal experience of faith. We celebrate May 24th as Aldersgate Day, when Wesley's heart was "strangely warmed" at the notion that Jesus didn't just die for the whole world, but for each one of us individually. The rest of his ministry was focused on first helping people turn to Christ, and then growing into their faith by intentional discipleship.  

If you play a musical instrument, you have to practice in order to get better. If you want to be a better cook or a better athlete or a better parent, you are only able to do that if you keep working to make progress toward perfection. The same is true for the life of faith. Paul calls that "pressing on." Choosing Jesus is easy. Living a life of faithful discipleship is hard.  

Second, Wesley encouraged, even demanded, that people participate in the ongoing process of sanctification. Among those activities were bible study, enthusiastic worship, Christian conversation, and service to those in need. The practice of accountability was one of the key features of his model of Christian practice, the Class Meeting. Our willingness to confess our shortcomings is just as important (or maybe even more so) as our willingness to proclaim Jesus as our Lord and savior. It is in the development of Christian friendships and the sharing of our joys and our failings that we are able to see how and where God is calling us to live and serve.  

You may have heard that Wesley taught on the subject of Christian Perfection. We get it wrong if we thing that Wesley was expecting that we would live perfectly. We all make mistakes and bad choices many times a day. But going on toward perfection is not about never breaking the rules. It's about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:28-31). Really, living on to perfection is about growing in faith so that we can become "whole" - and more fully the people that God created us to be.i 

The third way Paul challenges the Philippians is to meet people where they are, not where we want them to be. The Gentile converts in Philippi were being required to follow Jewish dietary laws, of which Paul was highly critical (See Act 15). Instead of placing extraordinary burden on those around us, he calls us to be imitators of him and of Christ in our relationships with those around us. Sometimes this means hanging out with people and in places that make us uncomfortable. If Salkehatchie taught me nothing else, it's that God is most real and present in those places.  

No where is the world's migrant crisis felt more accurately than in Germany. Of the 1 million people escaping war through Europe in 2015, over 750,000 of them sought asylum there. Resources are certainly taxed, and there have been some instances where folks have had difficulty assimilating into the uber-structured society. But I am constantly amazed at the willingness of the German people to help these families and individuals make new lives and homes there. And the church is playing a pivotal role in that happening.  

In addition to the ministries of the Evangelische (Lutheran) and Roman Catholic Churches in Germany, the United Methodist Church is working to incorporate migrants into the life of the community and the life of the church. Interestingly, both the Lutheran and Methodist denominations in Germany have chosen to take a friendship approach to ministry, not a salvation approach. And a year in to the process, many churches are reporting an increase in the number of unchurched migrants asking how to have a relationship with Christ because to the gift of hospitality freely offered.ii 

I take my identity documentation very seriously. For the last 21 years, I have carried a card identifying me as a dependent of a member of the US Armed Forces. On any given day, I may be asked to show this card between 3 and 8 times, depending on where I am going and what services I require. I have a US and a European driver's license. And because I live outside the boundary of US borders, on most days I travel with not one, but two US passports. The first one gives me permission to live in Germany as a sponsored foreign resident. The second passport is my tourist passport, allowing me to travel outside of German and broaden my understanding of the world and what it means to see someone as a neighbor.  

But however important my US citizenship and documentation are, they don't tell anyone anything about what kind of person I am. Even the things I say about myself paint only a partial picture. More than anything, people know me by the way I behave, and whether the things I say about who I am match the way I live.  

We are never too far from redemption. God is waiting for us, even seeking us, to follow him down the road. He is not only waiting for us to turn to him like a father sitting by the door after a long absence, but God is actively pursuing us and present with us along the road – remember the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). When we look through his eyes at the world around us, we see all the ways that we can be the hands and feets and voice of Christ's love in the world.iii 

As Christians, we are called to be imitators of Christ. That means taking the words he said and the lessons he taught seriously and in the context of how they were delivered. Prosperity gospel says that if we do good things, then we will be rewarded with blessings – money, power and good health. Pushed to its furthest limits, this miscalculation assumes that if we are poor, powerless or sick, we have done something to displease God. Time and again I hear people confess that they thought the becoming a Christian would make their lives easier, but instead it often makes it harder. 

But if you look at Jesus' life, you will see at best an itinerant preacher, who depended solely on others for places to sleep, food and even the clothes on his back. He hung out with those who lived on the fringes of society – even outcasts could look to Jesus for a helping hand and a ready declaration of God's love for them. We look at people who lived out their Christian calling in those places with those people and we call them saints. But sainthood isn't about being the one who sacrifices the most. It's really about being the one who sacrifices at all, and who is willing to be neighbor to anyone who is in need. It's about meeting people who may be very different from us where they are, and knowing that God will is already working in their lives, often through us. Hopefully, we notice and act appropriately.  

I leave you with this story of what it might look like to press on and take a stand for Jesus. My friend Monica is a pastor in Northern Virginia. She posted this on Facebook yesterday. "Just did something completely un-American. While sitting at a two-top table in Panera, I saw a gentleman walking around with his tray looking for a place to sit. I noticed he did not want to take up a big table, so I offered him a seat at my table. After finishing up the email I was working on, I shut my laptop and engaged in small talk. 30 minutes later, I am grateful to have a new friend...When we don't let language differences, cultural differences, or fear get in the way, we are likely to find friends and neighbors all over the place. So, next time you are sitting alone in a coffee shop or restaurant, go ahead and invite the 'stranger' to sit with you. Who knows? You might wind up with a new friend, a new perspective, or even an invite to the family's house for tea." 

This is our challenge, to build bridges when it feels more natural to put up a wall. But Paul reminds us to keep our eyes on the prize, press on and stand firm in the Christ... if that isn't a lifetime's work, I don't know what is. 

Amen. 

Peace, Deb

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 i http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/a-plain-account-of-christian-perfection

ii http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/how-a-church-overcomes-hostility-to-christianity, also http://www.umc.org/how-we-serve/german-bishop-on-migrants-meet-people-not-problems and http://www.umc.org/how-we-serve/united-methodists-in-germany-welcome-refugees 

iii Joseph Yoo, WHEN YOU REALLY WANT TO WEAR A MASK TO CHURCH, Ministry Matters, 2/15/2016 (http://www.ministrymatters.com/)