Yesterday was my last Sunday at Oak Grove. I haven't been on staff there, but I've been part of that community for almost three years, and it has become so incredibly special to me. I preached at both services, since Randy's last Sunday was last week, and he's enjoying well-deserved vacation time before beginning his new ministry at Courthouse Community UMC. The sermon I preached is below, after the "jump". Feedback is always welcome.
Rev. Patti Money
Oak Grove UMC
June 17, 2012
Ezekiel 36:24-28
“Open Your
Hearts”
There’s
something that can easily happen to those of us who have been followers of
Jesus a long time…say, more than five or ten years. Those of us who grew up in
Christian families and grew up going to church are especially susceptible to
this. I’m going to call it the “plastic Jesus” effect. We get into a rut. We
come to church every week, we go to small group or Sunday School, we are
involved in ministries, we sing the songs, we pray the prayers…but they have
little effect on us. Our faith gets taken for granted. And instead of having a
faith that centers around a Jesus who is alive and whose love and teachings
fuel our passion for everything we do…our Jesus becomes plastic.
[Play
“Plastic Jesus” video”]
If
you’ve been part of the church for most of your life, I’d be shocked if you
haven’t had a time in your life when your Jesus became plastic. In fact, if
you’re sitting there thinking, “I don’t know what Patti is talking about. This
doesn’t apply to me,”, then I challenge you to dig a little deeper into your
life and into your soul...and see what you find.
From
a distance, the difference between what is alive and what is not alive is not
obvious. How often do we lean close to flowers in a vase to sniff and see if
they’re alive or fake? Have you ever picked up a piece of fruit in a bowl, only
to find that it’s plastic? But there is a difference…a plastic orange is just
for decoration…but a real orange is a nutritious fruit that will nourish your
body, give you energy to go about your life, and give you a good dose of
vitamin C to keep you healthy.
When
our Jesus becomes plastic, when we stop allowing God’s love to transform our
hearts, our minds, and our lives on a daily basis…our hearts become hard.
[show this slide]
Our hearts become like stone. A stone
heart can’t feel love. A stone heart can’t give love. A stone heart can’t be
changed. A stone heart can’t grow. However, we serve a God whose mission is to
make all things new and who can transform even the stoniest of hearts. Listen
to this reading from the book of Ezekiel:
[Show
scripture slides]
The
book of Ezekiel comes from the Old Testament…the first part of the Bible.
Ezekiel was a prophet…someone who spoke God’s truth to God’s people, who
pointed them to what would happen in the future. During Ezekiel’s time, God’s
people…the Israelites…were in exile. Over time, they had stopped making their
relationship with God and their faith the center of their lives. They had begun
to take God for granted, and God became less real to them. Their hearts had
become like stone. As a result, they had ceased to be the people God had called
them to be…a light to the world, a testament to God’s power, God’s love, and
God’s holiness. Eventually, they were invaded by a foreign nation. They had
been forcibly removed from their home, had their cities destroyed, and sent to
this strange land. They were living in a foreign land called Babylon…in the
vicinity of modern-day Iraq. They lived there for seventy years…free to move
about their assigned area and go about their daily lives, but prisoners
nonetheless.
[show this slide]
Into this place of despair, God gave
them a word of hope. This was not how the story of the Israelites would end:
being captives in a foreign land. God was going to bring them out of exile, out
of Babylon, and back to their home. God was going to forgive them for their
sins. God was going to replace their old hearts of stone with brand new hears
of flesh that were alive and beating. And through all of this, God would
restore God’s relationship with them and turn them back into the people that
God had called them to be.
Living in the 21st century
and having the perspective of the entire Bible, we know that God fulfilled that
promise. Not only did the Israelites return to Israel, have their cities and
lives rebuilt, and have their relationship with God restored…but God continued to
show love and grace and mercy to them…and continues to show it to us. Several
hundred years after this passage was written, God came down in human flesh in
the person of Jesus, whose life, death, and resurrection gave us the
possibility of forever having our hearts of stone turned into hearts of flesh
and forever having the freedom to make the choice to be God’s people, to do
things God’s way, to be God-willed and not self-willed. It’s an amazing,
incredible, mind-blowing gift that God has given us. The possibility of being
transformed from who we are and who we have become to who God is calling us to
be…which is more than we could ever imagine.
But, for those
of us who have been Christians for a long time, who have been part of the
church for a long time…it’s easy for us to take all of that for granted. It’s
easy for us to take God for granted, to take Jesus’ life, death, and
resurrection for granted…to forget about God’s power to transform lives. It’s
easy for our Jesus to become plastic, for our hearts to become stone.
Sometimes, when
we experience the ugly side of the church and the ugly side of Christians, we
are left with wounds. And our instinct is to protect ourselves, to encase our
hearts in a shell…to wrap them in stone. If we don’t expose ourselves, we can’t
be hurt. We can’t be disappointed. Our hearts can’t be broken…because stone
hearts don’t break.
A stone heart is
safe. A stone heart can’t feel love. A stone heart can’t give love. A stone
heart can’t be changed. A stone heart can’t grow. A real heart…a heart of
flesh…feels pain and compassion. A real heart is open to giving and receiving
God’s love and the love of people. A real heart grows and changes. A real heart
can be hurt and experience pain. A real heart is exposed and vulnerable. And in
our human nature, it is our tendency, even here in the church-especially here
in the church where we openly acknowledge that there is something wrong with
us, that we are sinners in need of God’s grace-to want to put up barriers
around our hearts and lives to protect ourselves from being hurt.
The problem with
that is that as followers of Jesus, we have an opportunity to live our lives
with a passion and purpose that is not our own. The problem is that being safe
and putting up barriers to our hearts…not letting others in, not letting God
in, does not allow God to transform us into who God is calling us to be, the
person we need to be to partner with God to change the world.
The reality is, in order to fully
experience God’s love and power in our lives, we need to be in relationships
with other followers of Jesus. Ann Voskamp is a best-selling author who wrote a
book called 1000 Gifts: A Dare to Live
Fully Right Where You Are. She also writes regular blog posts on her
website, and a few months ago she posted a blog titled, “Why You Need to Find
Community, Even When You Are Really Hurting.” I want to share a few sentences
of that post with you:
Love is
a skill that can’t be learned in seclusion. Love is a tree, each person a
branch. And a pile of cut off branches doesn’t make a tree. Love can only be
comprehended in community. You
need imperfect people in your life to perfect your practice
of love. There are no solitary saints; all sanctification [the process of
becoming who God wants us to be] is forged in community. The chance to love
imperfect people is another chance to perfect His love in me.
It
is only by being in relationship with other followers of Jesus that we can
become who God is calling us to be. It is only by being in relationship with
others that we can fully experience God’s love and grace…that God can turn our
hearts of stone into hearts of flesh…and keep them that way.
But we have to be willing to open our hearts to
God and others…
[show
this slide]
My family has been here at Oak Grove for almost
three years. I’m United Methodist clergy, but have been on “family leave” and
working as a chaplain for the past four years. My first church…my first
experience as a pastor…was a really painful experience for me and for my
family. I’m not going to get into the gory details, but when I left that church
in May 2008 I was very hurt, angry, and confused. I didn’t know what I was
going to do for the rest of my life, but I knew one thing for sure: I was NEVER
going to be a pastor again. No. Maybe I’d be a hospital chaplain. Maybe I’d be
a stay-at-home mom. I was definitely not going to be a pastor again.
Ahem. One week from today, barring any unforeseen
changes, I will be officially appointed as the new pastor of the Cheriton
Charge on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Two weeks from today, I will be
standing in the pulpit as their new pastor. I will be a pastor again. How did
that happen again?
God brought me and my family to Oak Grove at a
time when I was running from God and running from the church. I had built walls
of stone around my heart to protect myself-I had actually done it even before I
was a pastor, which was part of the reason I failed as a pastor. After that
experience, the walls got even higher and thicker. I didn’t want to experience
that hurt again, and keeping other people and even God out seemed a logical
solution to prevent being hurt. But, I was miserable. I was going through the
motions of faith. For over a year, we came to worship, we sat on our comfy
chairs in the 11:00 service, we sang the songs, we prayed the prayers, and then
we went home. That was it. That was the extent of our church involvement…until
something amazing happened. God began breaking through, and taking down the
barriers of my heart. And God did it in and through this community of
faith…people giving me nuggets of compassion and grace and love…showing love to
Susanna and then Greg…smiles of recognition…knowing my name and remembering
things that I had told them…inviting me to be more involved…seemingly
insignificant things that, over time, made a huge difference. My heart of stone
began to turn to flesh. 
[show this slide]
[show this slide]
We began to feel more connected…we attended Oak Grove
Q&A, joined the church, and had our baby baptized. I began to restore my
relationship with God, to pray again on a regular basis, and to actually be
engaged in worship and during Randy’s sermons. I began reaching out to people
and became more willing to offer myself and leave myself vulnerable. And then
something amazing happened…God began reminding me in a very real and powerful
way that I had been called, and was still called, to be a pastor, and God told
me in not-so-gentle terms that I needed to take the steps necessary to return
to full-time ministry…as a pastor. Saying “yes” to God…again…and doing what I
needed to do to be a pastor again was the scariest, bravest, hardest, but also
most rewarding thing that I have done in my 35 years on this earth. It was
scary because I knew that I would be hurt again. It was scary because I didn’t
know where I would be or what would happen. And it was scary because in order
to become the person and pastor that God’s called me to be, I had to step out
of my comfort zone and reach out to people, leave myself vulnerable, open
myself to God’s voice, and acknowledge some areas of my life that needed to
change. It was hard. At times, it was extremely painful. It’s not really
enjoyable being the liturgist at 8:15, sitting in front of the entire
congregation, and having tears run down your face because God just hit you with
a spiritual two-by-four during the sermon. It’s rather anxiety-inducing to
share your story of failure in ministry with a fellow clergy person whose
sermons have made you cry. It’s scary to offer to lead a small group on
“Glimpses of the Gospel in Harry Potter” when you’re afraid that no one will
sign up for it…because that’s what happened when I offered a small group study
at my church.
It’s been a rough two or so years in some ways. And
it’s so, so difficult to say goodbye to you and go on the next step of my
journey. However…when I look at who I was two years ago, or even one year ago,
and see who I am now…how God has transformed me and is transforming me…it’s all
worth it. The pain, the fear, the anxiety, and the change has all been worth it
because I am becoming who God is calling me to be, and there is a peace that
passes understanding and supercedes all the other stuff. I feel free.
[Show
this slide]
It was like my heart has been changed
from stone to flesh.
How’s your heart these days? Stone or flesh?
How’s your Jesus? Plastic or real?
In the book of Revelation, the very last
book of the Bible, Jesus tells us that he is standing at the door,
knocking…asking us to let him in. Knocking on the door to our heart, asking us
to open our heart…
…So we can experience God’s love
….So we can be transformed and made new
….So we can share God’s love with others
….So others can be transformed and made
new.
One of the most well-loved Christian
artists in the past few decades was Rich Mullins, who died in a car crash about
15 years ago. One of his lesser-known songs is called “The Hatching of a
Heart”. Watch this video, listen to the words, and hear God speaking to you…
[Play “Hatching of a Heart” video]
[Show this
slide]
Getting a new heart is hard work. It’s
painful. But we don’t do it alone: we do it in community, and most importantly,
we do it with God, who is in the business of making all things new.
Open your hearts, Oak Grove. Open your
hearts to God, who seeks to love you as you’ve never been loved, to fill your
hearts and lives with an overflowing love, and to transform your life more than
you could ever imagine. Open your hearts to each other, to give and receive
love. Open your hearts to the world, to share God’s love with everyone you met.
1 comment:
What a wonderful story, Patti! I remember some of the pain you experienced, and I'm so glad you found healing through God's people. Thank you for sharing.
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