Gethsemani Abbey

  It's hard to define grace at times.  I know that it's a free gift, but it's hard to put that into terms in a world so caught up in the idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
  But this past weekend was grace.  It was a gift, and one I was so grateful for.

  I spent the weekend at Gethsemani Abbey, near Bardstown, KY.  I'd been making plans to spend some time there for two years, and it all finally fell into place.  I give thanks for a gracious and wonderful wife who encourages me to go and do such things, and as hard as it was to leave Rachel & Caleb behind for a weekend, I knew that the time at the abbey would be time well spent.

  I just didn't know how wonderful it would be.

  It's hard to describe what life at the abbey is like.  It's so easy to pray there.  I noticed it while I was there, and it's been compounded since I have been back.  There are no pressing things to do at the abbey.  There aren't a million other distractions that float in and out of your mind while you pray.  There isn't anything tempting you away from time in prayer.  You can just sit and be in prayer, sit in silence and let the love of God wash over you, sit and pour your heart out to Christ.  It's wonderful, and I don't know if I'll be able to duplicate it at home.  I will certainly try, but an unscheduled weekend is a rare commodity, especially in a world of sermons and Bible studies!

  There is a bit of a schedule--they do pray the hours there, which are a welcome distraction.  Some of these last fifteen minutes, some last up to an hour, depending on which service it is.  I went to the Vigil service at 3:15 AM once.  I thought it would be a quiet, dark, short prayer service.  The lights in the church were on full blast, and the service lasted an hour!  It was nice, but I couldn't fall back asleep afterward, meaning that I was pretty tired the next day.

  I spent a lot of time in prayer while at the abbey.  I rested some and caught up on some reading.  My primary goal had been to let the love of God embrace me, and I had a wonderful experience of God's love.  I took a walk to their sculpture garden and spent some time before a beautiful statue of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani... I imagined Christ embracing me, wrapping his arms around me and letting his love complete me.  It was pure gift, and I'll hold that memory in my heart.  When the winds of the world buffet my life, I'll return to that place, to that feeling of warmth and grace, and let the love of Christ hold me up.

  I give thanks that there are those individuals who are called to the monastic life, who dedicate their lives to prayer for others.  I certainly am not... I can't sing on key, and they do a lot of singing.  They go through the entire Psalter every two weeks!  I imagine that the wife and child would eliminate me as well.  It's a wonderful life to join with for a period of time, but as I rejoin the world I pray that I have the dedication to continue to spend time in prayer, to continue to let the love of God wash over me, lift me up and send me outward.  I pray that the unhurried pace of life there will somehow open my eyes to the rush in which I too often find myself, and that I will slow down, take a deep breath, and trust Christ to lead me forward, single step by single step, and that I do not have to do everything at once.  I hope to continue to grow and mature in Christ, but it is a process that takes decades, not minutes.  I hope that I will find the wisdom and revelation to slow down, to breathe, and let God do a work in me.

11-15 E-News

Announcements

Thanksgiving Lunch—Thursday, Nov. 22 @ 2:00 at the church. Please talk to JoAn Wright if you're interested in joining this wonderful tradition.

Wednesday Night Suppers—There will be no Wed. Night Supper next week, Nov. 21. The following week, guests associated with Fair Trade products will present on the work of the church through fair trade, and they'll also bring some products to sell that would be great Christmas gifts!

New Hope News

Sunday School—This Sunday, the adult class with discuss generosity.

Pray For:

Lynn Meyer

The new elders of New Hope—Larrie, Walt, Pete & JoAn.

Give thanks. Think about how you might display your gratitude to the world.

Pray for those who do not know Christ.

Links

The Common Good

What Christianity can look like

Do we need a food ethic?

Yes, I'd like to see Skyfall. I feel like The Line might be a more effective use of time, though.

Some info on the neighbors

The Grateful Gobbler is November 22. (Monies raised go to support Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition.

Keith's Random Thoughts

I don't ask for prayers very often, but I would be most grateful if you would take a moment or two to lift me up before our God in heaven. See, I'm going to be spending a few days at Gethsemani Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. It's a place of silent retreat, meant to cultivate the growth of the soul. I'm greatly looking forward to my time there, hopeful that Christ will do a work in me—I'm hoping that He will slow me down, calm me down, enough to hear his voice.

I have many hopes for my time there. I hope to have my sins revealed, that I may repent of them and turn from them. I hope to see where my own brokenness is preventing Christ's work through me, that I may get out of the way of grace. I hope to vision forward, to see how the Lord is calling me to serve. I hope to rest, secure in the love of our eternal God.

I have many hopes, but I also need to set them aside and let God do a work. I want to let God lead me, to use the time as God sees fit. I could effectively design a retreat that left out room for God, therein defeating the entire purpose. I'm taking some books and journals, but in the end I simply desire stillness before God, that the love and power of God may surround me and entice my soul to lay down the burdens it has picked up and revel in the amazing love of God. I hope to worship unencumbered, to be without restraint, to listen without anxiety and grow as a disciple.

So I ask for your prayers. I shall spend much time in prayer there, and perhaps the Lord might speak to all of us, calling us back to him, back to faithfulness, and together we might walk the road that Christ has set before us.

Thank you.

Text for this Sunday

2 Kings 2:1-13

Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.” Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know; be silent.” Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ When he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.

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Veterans' Day Thoughts

  Yesterday was Veterans' Day, a time set aside for slowing down and giving thanks for those who have served this country and those who continue to do so.  I've always had a lot of respect for the Armed Forces--as a kid who spent his formative years reading Tom Clancy novels, the Armed Forces was always portrayed as powerful and fast, two aspects that tend to capture the fascination of little boys.  As I've grown, I've continued to admire those who have chosen to go and serve.  I was ready to enlist as a chaplain in the Air Force Reserves at one point, but the unpredictability of it scared me off, as well as the requirement of one weekend a month, a sacrifice that would be quite challenging as a solo pastor in a small church.  The decision to serve is not an easy one, and I am grateful for those who have chosen to make it, often placing their own lives in harm's way so that others may enjoy the freedoms that come with living in this country.

  As I was lying in bed this morning, I was thinking about what it means to honor those who serve. It's an easy thing to say thank you once, but it's much harder to live in a way that reflects our gratitude.  In essence, this is the struggle of Christianity, too--how to express gratitude continuously, rather than just doing so on certain occasions.

  It seems to me that one way to honor the service of our veterans is to live in such a way that strives for peace.  We certainly look forward to the day when our guns will no longer be needed, and when we will no longer have to send men and women to places where death looms around every unknown corner.  While the reality of sin mean we will not achieve this until Christ returns, we can do our best to strive for this now, to live for peace and work for peace, urging peaceful solutions to the conflicts that arise as well as reaching out to political leaders in the hopes that they, too, might lift their voices and work for peace.  Perhaps the cries for peace would be so overwhelming that the ears of those who sow violence would be overwhelmed by those who surround them.  Perhaps the seeds of hatred that have been planted would be trampled by feet that are willing to serve and to love, selflessly, and war will be no more.

  I know that such dreams are too lofty for these chaotic times.  We have been at war in Afghanistan for far too long.  There is war in Syria, and turbulence in many other spots around the globe.  Peace seems like a distant dream.

  But Christ has promised to bring us peace at the last.  We can dream of it, we can hope of it, because our dreams and hopes are rooted in him.  We will not need guns to achieve peace--the Son of Man will come riding on the clouds, and death and violence will be no more.  May our very lives reflect this hope--may we demonstrate to the world a little slice of what peace looks like, that our love may overwhelm.

Sermon for 11/11/12

1 Kings 19:19-21 

  So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was ploughing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Go back again; for what have I done to you?’ He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

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I was going to begin this sermon with an illustration from one of my favorite movies, The Hunt for Red October. But no one has seen it. I tried to make Rachel watch it, and she fell asleep halfway through. So we're going to reach a little farther back in history...

When the Spaniards were invading Mexico, they had a leader named Hernan Cortes. He was a leader who made some enemies, and some of the men in his expedition decided to overthrow him, probably to claim riches for themselves. When Cortes learned about their plans to take over the expedition and sail back to Cuba, he had all of his ships taken out to sea and sunk. This demonstrative action destroyed any path backward—the only way the expedition could go was forwards. It was decisive and complete, and there would be no looking back.

It's tempting to look back. It's an easy thing to do—we can spend our entire lives looking over our shoulders, wondering what might have been or what could have happened. We can invest all of our energy into reliving previous experiences. Of course, if we do so, we miss out on most of what life offers today. Looking back has a real cost to it.

Now, there is some benefit in looking back. Obviously, we're preaching out of a book written almost 2,000 years ago, telling a story of an event that happened well before that. We value our history—but we don't live in history. We let our history inform and guide us in the present, but as the faithful people of God, we're called to discern what God is doing in the world and in our lives today. God is on the move, and he wants us to be a part of it.

So we can't spend all of our energy looking back. We'll miss the doors God is calling us to walk through today.

Cortes was aware of the danger of looking back. He knew that if he destroyed his ships, the decisive action would force his troops to look forward. There would be no going back.

In today's story, the prophet Elijah is told by God to call Elisha as his servant, that Elisha may one day assume Elijah's ministry. So Elijah goes and calls Elisha, but Elisha has a life. He has a job and responsibilities. There is a lot for him to leave behind. Elisha might have spent his entire life looking back at what might have been without a decisive action, so he takes an action to sever his ties with his old life—before leaving the fields, he slaughters his oxen and feeds them to his fellow workers. Once his oxen are gone, there is no going back for Elisha. He has said goodbye to the old, and he is looking ahead to the new. A serious action pushed him out into the world to follow Elijah into ministry, and all he has now is the way forward.

Now, we could go one of two ways with this, and I think there's value in both. One of the possibilities is to talk about what the oxen are in your life that you need to leave behind in order to go forward into the life God is calling you to live. Maybe you have something that you're in the midst of that is preventing you from entering fully into the ministry you feel called into. That's an oxen that needs to be slaughtered. When Christ calls us, he calls us into the new, and he often calls us to give up something. It's not going to be easy, but each of us can examine our lives to see if there is something we need to give up. Might be a habit or a particular sin of which we are fond—whatever it may be, I pray that you have the courage to set it down and move forward.

The other path we could go, though, and the one that I think is the most helpful, is to remember the actions of God, for God has acted decisvely when it comes to dealing with the past. Let's talk about Jesus Christ.

See, we all have sin in our past. We all have sins in our lives. It's part of being human—we're imperfect. We can't live the perfect Christian life like we want to—sin gets in the way. For many of us, there are very different sins, but each of us has our own sins. And it would be easy to spend our entire lives beating ourselves up, berating ourselves for our faults. We could be so incredibly negative that all of our energy would be invested in looking back in regret.

But God has acted, and done so with great drama. In Jesus Christ, God sent his own Son to sever the power sin has over us. In this one dramatic act, God destroys sins power and breaks the bonds our sinful pasts have over us. In doing so, he promises each of us that our sins will not have power over us—we don't have to look back upon them. In Christ's atoning death, he releases us from a life of regret and pain and releases us into freedom—freedom to be used for God, a responsibility to others to proclaim the truth that sin no longer has power over us. Our past will not determine our destiny.

So Christ has acted to sever our ties with our sinful pasts. We are released from the need to atone for our sins.

What are we released into?

This is where we can marvel at this story. I believe that we are freed from sin and death for a purpose—to be at work in the world, helping others to come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And the way that happens is personal relationships.

Notice the call of Elisha. Elisha's out working in the field, guiding his oxen along with 11 other workers. Then Elijah shows up and invites him into a wild life of ministry. What does Elisha do? He agrees! He gives up his steady, stable job and chooses to follow God. Elijah's personal relationship is the tool God uses to bring Elisha into ministry.

Let's recognize something here—God was at work in Elisha long before Elijah showed up. This was part of God's plan—and he was just using Elijah to call Elisha to claim Elisha's role in God's story. God was at work in Elisha's heart and his life long before Elijah appears on the scene.

In the same way, you and I are each called, as disciples, to form personal relationships with other people. Some of these people will not be Christians. And so we are called to be a witness to them—to show them selfless love. God is at work in these people. We're called to help them see God at work. It's not about us—it's about us getting out of the way and letting God do a work in them through us. We are the channels God uses to reach out to others. Evangelism is about building up personal relationships and letting God use those for his glory, for his purposes. Elisha was called through a personal relationship—not by anything Elijah did, but by what God did through Elijah.

So let God use you in the same way. Build relationships and see what God does. Look for openings to talk about your faith—and let God do the heavy-lifting. Amazing things will happen.

Let us pray