Prayer

Lord as we ponder your words open our hearts that we may understand and know you. Amen 

Sermon    

I read a funny post. It said “I collect antiques because I have this genetic condition that prevents me from producing my own.  Ya that is me.  Part of it is the hunt, the bargaining. But part of it is that connectedness that comes.   To sit and look at the find and wonder “what was it’s story?”  Who owned it? Where has it been.   I believe we are for the most part people who seek a connection.  The ironic thing is we desire the connection but live in a time that creates more and more distance.   Cell phones, texting and messaging  speech has been reduced to 1s and 0s beamed to a satellite.  Talking about the distances between us.  The idea that in many ways the conversation is not real because of the lack of physical presence.   The distance that technology creates the subtleness of communication that is lost. 

I always think maybe I should do something a little old fashion.  Write letter. I have letters still from my Grandmother and from my sister.  It is so personal.

 Now the reality is that first no one outside of  medical profession could read my handwriting and then there is getting the paper a lot of it for each time I would make a mistake. Then the stamp and all that jazz     

It is I believe a paradox, the easier it is for us to be connected to each other, through the internet, email, cell phones social media the farther apart we actually become. 

This idea can be expanded in that the more we are connected to the greater world and our work the greater the distance from those times of personal connection and deepening of our spiritual connectedness to God and each other. 

Several years ago, the Theologian Michael Yaconelli in his work called “Dangerous Wonder the Adventure of child like faith”   writes :

The death of the soul is never quick. It is a slow dying, a succession of little deaths that continues until we wake up one day on the edge of God’s voice, on the fringe of God’s belovedness, beyond the adventure of God’s claim on our lives. 

He speaks of cattle ranges in northern California were if you hit a cow that has wondered out on the road you are responsible for the death of that cow.   

 Now cows don’t sit back and think my life as a cow is horrible I can’t stand to be milked one more time  goodbye cruel world.    No, he tells a story about one old rancher’s interpretation of the cow on the road. The cow is there munching away on the grass and moves from one yummy spot to the next. And then in time finds that it has made it to the fence line. Where of course the grass is green on the other side and somewhat tastier. For some reason. The cow Munches its way down the fence line till it finds a break and then begins to munch its way alone aimlessly until it is on the road and has become part of an automobile. 

 Cows don’t intend to get lost they just munch their way to lostness. 

The drifting away from God is not a planned event in people’s lives it is something that happens.  I think it is the result of the tension between tradition and a modern world. 

When asked most people who are not going to church will say. I believe in God, but I don’t believe in the institution of the Church. It is dated and does not really speak to me.   

 I would like to say this is not true. But Can I? 

Is Admiration for the faith  I believe in God  enough.   Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, complained of the petty preachers of his day who preached artistic sermons. “Whereby Jesus hath obtained admirer rather than followers Crowds admire Jesus, are fascinated by his teaching just think the world of his witness, But there is a great distance between admiration and discipleship a distance bridged only by something called commitment. Here is commitment, which can detach us, cut us loose from other worthy commitments.

The Gospel sounds a lot harsher than it really is.  We read to much into the word hate. 

Following Christ and claiming our faith does mean we must be prepared at times to make sacrifices for the proclaiming of the kingdom. 

For us I believe that it is defining how we can be a people of faith that are not stuck in the old institution of the church. That we are a people that are prepared to make the sacrifice at time to find the way to connect and close the distance between what it is to be Church today and the modern world.  To look at creating spiritual connections first with people