Sermon for June 27, 2004 - Pentecost 4 - Resurrection Luke 9: 51-62 The Rev. Diane Livingston, Interim Chaplain and Deacon Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi Sunday morning in America - church time for many. Maybe church on Sunday is a new thing for you - something you have recently incorporated into your life. Maybe this habit or schedule is one passed down to you from your family when you were growing up. No doubt the act of worshiping our God has different meanings for many of us. As one can easily see in this community and others in our state and country, there are different styles and times of services and generally people go where they enjoy what goes on around them. If we are fed or nurtured by what happens around us in worship, we will probably want to return. We may even think about what happened in this space (our prayers, the music, the silence, the sharing of the Eucharist, the sermon, the scripture, the flowers on the altar, the color of the altar hangings, those who sat near us on the pew before or behind us, the conversations we shared as we left the church or ate goodies in the Student Center). One of my most favorite neighbors a few years back began to attend the same church that Bill and I were connected with and as we talked informally during the week about the ups and downs of life, one day he shared that he looked forward to Sunday all week long. Initially I was surprised: I don't think any one had ever verbalized that to me. What also surprised me was that, as I thought about it, I felt the same way but had never spoken the thought. Being in church can be a disciplined way of refocusing on God. We shut out the world outside (of course we know that it is there and we will return to our responsibilities) but we allow this time to help us continue or to get back on the path of following God. Some of us enjoy walking the labyrinth and coming to church regularly can be like entering the path of the Labyrinth and walking and praying our way to God's presence where, at times, we receive direction or strength to help us along our paths. This morning I invite you to think about a different slant on coming to church. That is, if you equate being in church as saying YES to following Jesus and being a disciple. Going to church can be a dangerous thing! Living in America where there is much freedom about who will be worshiped and how that will be done except in cases where we argue the rules so much that maybe indeed there is not such freedom, it is easy to forget that life here is not like everywhere else. In Austin when Bill was in seminary, we met an Anglican priest who had come quite suddenly to the states from Nigeria in Africa. Because he and his family were Christians and were living among others who were against Christianity, the community had become more dangerous. One night his family's house was attacked. He and his wife shared how they had hidden in a closet with their children all night until morning when help had come and they were quickly air-lifted out and taken to safety. As refugees they were taken to Austin which is one of many official refugee cities in the United States. A friend of ours who lives in McComb grew up in Japan. I have heard her talk about the her life as a young person there after she converted to Christianity and how she would feel standing in a group waiting for the bus while she held her Bible - an outward and visible sign to others that she was a Christian among many who were not. Even in the United States, think of the period not too long ago where our African American brothers and sisters who were Christians gathered to worship God and to stay focused on loving God and asking for the strength and courage to endure hatred and harm toward them. If you recall history, sometimes it was while gathered in churches that great harm was done to them as in church bombings. These are extreme examples you say and many involve life in other countries so that will probably never affect me. However, I contend that going to church today in this country can still be a dangerous thing. Go with me to today's scripture: Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. No one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Because faithfulness would require Jesus to lay down his life, the call to discipleship to Jesus inevitably means unconditional commitment to the redemptive work of God for which Jesus gave his life. Going to church can be a dangerous thing because we WILL hear these words and other words of Jesus and if we commit to being like the one we claim to be a disciple of, then we will seek to make them real in our lives. Serving God and being a faithful disciple of Jesus will no doubt look different for each person. My friend Ethel who for many years has been caring for her husband who has Alzheimer's is being a faithful disciple; parents who take seriously their parenting and seek to learn and be open to how they will guide and care for their children and build Jesus and the love of God as the center of their family rather than the ways of the culture which focus on success, power, being better than others, and getting one's way all of the time; persons who share their gifts and bring joy to others by doing so - like my friend Sharon who taught Sunday School for elementary children for 20 years and who was as dynamic in her final year of doing so as in her first and who allowed God's love to flow from her to every child who entered the classroom, not just those whose parents she knew. In Vacation Bible School this week our children began talking and thinking about the idea that God is still working on us - that God, as one child expressed it, never really gets done with us. Though I am sure that God rejoices when we open ourselves to God's love and begin to live that way, I imagine that there is hope that we will start a journey with our faith that will go beyond understanding, beyond comfort, beyond control. Truly faith is about a road, not a specific place on the road. Along the way, we will see new things, as Jesus promised, hear new words, reconsider old words. New companions will appear and they will stretch us. New needs will require us to abandon former ways of perceiving reality. This moving around with no stationary home that Jesus speaks of today, this "Nowhere to lay his head" idea may confirm that though we may physically live in the same town or house all of our lives, we cannot stay in one place in our faith walk as we follow Jesus. Going to church can be a dangerous thing: One should not rush into discipleship with glib promises. On the contrary, the radical demands of discipleship require that every potential disciple consider the cost, give Jesus the highest priority in ones' life, and having committed oneself to discipleship, move ahead without looking back. The things that we have committed to in our lives that are of God, that bring us closer to what God has created us to be are unpredictable and changing and downright difficult at times. As we pattern our lives after Jesus, we will be strengthened to persevere if that is how we turn toward Jerusalem and answer our call; we will be strengthened to persevere as in a job, a marriage, a project. If we can be open to the way of Jesus, we may try new ways in the church and in our lives when that is what is needed, we may look forward, not cling to tradition that is no longer working and then discern what paths to take. At those times we will know first hand the confusion, the rootlessness and the unsettled feelings of Abraham, who at a very advanced age, went to a land that he had never seen; of Moses whose journey was to a land that existed only as promise, and of Jesus whose journey led him to a hill outside the city and then beyond the disciples' sight. Give us the courage to truly hear Jesus' words, to live dangerously if that means turning our face to Jerusalem and following Jesus. Give us the courage to live dangerously so that we may move around the foxholes, the nests - hearing our call in life - and look forward, not necessarily doing things the same way we always have. Help us live dangerously so that we may get dirty if it means being near one who hurts and needs us. Now for a reality check: we will mess up - just as James and John in today's scripture did when they suggested that Jesus command fire to come down from Heaven and consume those who had not received Jesus. Jesus will show us the same mercy that he did them. Let us look toward life and prepare to experience the greatest joy there is. Let us reach out our hands to those in need within this space and out there too; let us give freely and let us have the courage to be disciples of Jesus. Help us to step back and remember who Jesus was and what he didn't have and what he calls us to this day. Let us live dangerously if that means not looking back once we commit and if that means loving and giving in whatever ways discipleship calls us to do.