Sermon for Kansas City Mennonite Convention

During the Kansas City convention this past week, I was invited to preach a sermon at the contemplative service on Saturday evening. After a long week, full of many different emotions, I felt called to reflect on the consequences of our actions, and the pain in the midst of our church community. Here is basically the text of my sermon.

Sermon for convention

http://mennoniteusa.org/news/delegates-grapple-with-israel-palestine-resolution/
this is a picture of my delegate table. You can see a bit of the back of my head.

Good evening friends, it is good to gather in this service of contemplation and worship this evening.

We have come to the last night of convention. Tomorrow, we return home. Back to the usual rhythms of life, whatever those might look like for you. Janeen did a wonderful job expressing some of the emotions that you may have brought to this space this evening-joy and exhaustion and grief and hope and all the rest.

For me, I'd like to start with a confession. I have wept more this week than I have in any week since my father died 6 years ago. I have felt the pain because of the choices of the church and how we treat one another. So I have a simple prayer for my sermon this evening. I pray that I might not cause any more pain in this service.

So with that, lets turn to the scripture text. We've been working through the story of Luke 24, the Emmaus Road. We've reflected about being on the way together. And Janeen, as she planned this service months ago, thought, since it's the last night of convention, it might be good to reflect on the end of our passage, and to talk about what happened after Cleopas and his friend dashed back to the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus, equally fleet of foot, came to the disciples gathered together in the upper room.

There is much to chew on here-the disciples with their disbelieving joy, the traditional “Shalom Alchem”, “Peace Be With You” greeting, Jesus eating the fish so resonate of the feeding of the 5000, and the nets left by the sea, the scriptures opened a second time to explain the journey that the Messiah had to take. But what caught me when I read this text months ago, and where I want to draw you as well is to the hands and feet that Jesus showed to his disciples. It's an ancient tradition to contemplate the wounds of Christ. To reflect on the pain of our savior.

SLMF 40th Anniversary Sermon

Matthew 13:52

Good morning friends,

it is good to gather in worship with all of you today!

I hope that this Sunday morning finds you well!

We have a special occasion today-

Today, as you know, we are celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the founding of the St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship, our little congregation here. It was in January of 1975 that a small group gathered in Edgewood Children's center for the first worship service of a new congregation.

This is the first of at least two events LCG has planned this year to acknowledge this milestone. We're also hoping to invite back parts of our family who have moved away in a more formal weekend of celebration later in the spring.

It's an important part of the rhythm of life to mark these kind of anniversaries, to engage our memories and connect with the things that have gone before, to remember that we are part of something a lot bigger than just a momentary community-we are part of a great cloud of witnesses, part of an institution built before us and that will last beyond us.

Our scripture text this speaks to the value of both remembering our history and claiming our new directions. After telling a bunch of parables, like the one about the farmer who goes out to sow his field, and throws the seed in different kind of ground, and the one where he talks about the weeds in the field that are left until harvest, Jesus asks his disciples who have heard these stories to commit themselves to bring treasures both new and old out of the storehouse.

That I think is the heart of the gospel-to tell an old old story in a new way for a new community. And I think that this is one of the really special things we get to do at anniversary celebrations-these moments like this Sunday give us an opportunity to bring out treasures that are special occasion things-the fine china, the heirloom pieces, and give them a day in the sun. This is an opportunity to turn aside from the novel, and focus on the core things that make us who we are. And in the same way that birthdays or wedding anniversaries give us the opportunity to celebrate those that we love, and in the very act of celebrating them, remember why we love them, so too are we called to remember today where we have been so that we have a better sense of where we are going.