Mark 12:28-34

Throughout the summer, we have been exploring the theme “Called In.”  We have been hearing about lots of different ways that God calls all of us to be responsive and responsible to the world around us, to speak Good News in places of despair, and to bring healing and hope to all the places that need them, which, if we really think about it, is everywhere.  Our exploration of the theme has been focused on the idea of “calling” and listening for the voice of God calling us in to join this work of creating and recreating a new kind of world. 

And to give a little more structure to this theme, we’ve been focusing on these concentric circles that started with our call in to the world, then the city, the congregation, and finally, now, to the self.  As we’ve gone on throughout the summer, we’ve described these different sub-themes in many different ways.  I’ve heard them described as concentric circles, as phases, chapters, or stages.   Somewhere along the way I started leaning toward calling them movements to help remind us of their connection to each other and the ways they overlap and are always leading us toward one another. 

But at various points throughout the summer, I’ve wondered: Did we start in the wrong direction?  We started wide, called in to the world, and now we’ve arrived at the narrow, called in to the self.  But every once in awhile I’d think to myself, “Did we get this wrong?  Should we have laid a foundation of inner transformation and calling before we started to explore our missional outward calling?” 

But then again, I think there’s also some wisdom to the idea that when discerning this call of God to love, we start with the widest net, listening for the voice…

Romans 12:1-2; John 8:32 & 14:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17

Speaker: Julie Hart

I love the Mennonite church and joined it almost 30 years ago because of its strong commitment to peace, justice and following Jesus.  But, I have been a professor at a Catholic University for the last 12 years where our motto is “Contemplate Truth & share with others the fruits of your contemplation.”  I am puzzled that this focus on Truth is not emphasized much in the Mennonite Church.  Many Catholics talk about Truth as internally written on our hearts, as a piece of God planted in all of us at birth as offspring of God.  I wish the Mennonite church could have helped me understand this aspect of Truth more fully.  Gratefully, this emphasis on an internal truth at my Catholic university has led me to understand myself and my research with veterans in a deeper way.  I call this Truth our moral identity- our innate sense of right and wrong.

Following ten years of research interviewing 114 pro war veterans who over time transformed into passionate antiwar activists, I realized that the bible, from the prophets to Jesus & Paul and later theologians like Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis and Richard Rohr were describing this same spiritual transformation but focusing on the Truth within, written on our hearts.

Consider Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2 about the renewing of our minds so we might discern God’s will or truth for us.  “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God.  This offering is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed- within- by the renewing of your mind.   Then you will know what God wants for you; what is good, true and pleasing to God.

In John 14:6 John quotes Jesus as saying, “I am the way, the…

Ephesians 4:1-7,11-16

Many pastors and preachers have probably at some point heard the quote often cited to Karl Barth that we must preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  There’s some debate about if Barth actually said that, but in general the notion stands that as people of faith, not just preachers, we all need to be willing to put our faith tradition in conversation with the world around us.  For those of us in the Christian tradition, anything less would be to limit the all-encompassing, holistic nature of the Good News that is meant to permeate all of life and not just prepare us for some ill-defined future existence. 

And I think we in this congregation, no matter who is up here on a Sunday morning, do a decent job of approaching this pulpit with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  But I’ve often thought that this idea needed an addendum, that we needed a third hand or at least a back pocket.  You see, I believe that truly good preachers need to have a Bible in one hand, the newspaper in the other, and a copy of the Church directory in their back pocket.  Or as our installation this morning might suggest, a library cart full of copies of the Church newsletter following you around. 

For just as much as the Good News is not confined to some otherworldly, spiritual plane of existence but is meant to transform the living, breathing, physical world around us, just as much as that is true, I think it is also true that this holistic Good News doesn’t take hold in some impersonal vacuum.  The Good News of Christ takes shape through this weird, imperfect, hopeful, frustrating, and beautiful thing we call the Church. …

Called In: City
Mark 5:21-43

“Who touched me?”

This summer we are exploring the idea of calling.  More specifically, we are attempting to pay attention to the ways we are being “called in” by focusing on a series of concentric circles leading us ever more inward.  The last three weeks we considered how the “world” was calling to us, how the world calls to others with different faith traditions, and how the Divine is calling to us through the holiness of the other no matter how distant they seem.  We were inspired by Ginny Nussbaum’s de-centering banner that both forced our attention as wide as the cosmos while also pulling us inward. 

Likewise, today we are blessed by a new banner depicting our move toward the next concentric circle, the city.  Created by local artists Shannan and Jason Anderson, this piece utilizes images and figures from our fair city to create the shapes you see here.  Some of these images you might recognize, others may seem vaguely familiar, and still others might seem completely foreign; which, I think is a perfect way to think about how we are called in to our community.  At some point over the next few weeks, I invite you to come closer and discover the intricacies of this work. 

You can read more about this piece of art and the Andersons in the bulletin, but I wanted to call your attention to something they wrote about what they have made for us.  Drawing on the title they gave to the banner, “Common Threads,” they write, “The message we share with you is that we are all connected in this universe even in a busy, vibrant, city like Columbus, we are all held together by a common thread.”

As we move more and more inward in these concentric circles, these common threads…

(No audio available)

Romans 8:18-25

“The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.  Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.  There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

This is how Psalm 19 begins, with a grand declaration of the ways that the natural world reveals God’s glory and God’s handiwork.  And this happens not just in secret messages here and there for those with the right knowledge or skills to be able to decipher them, but day to day and night to night creation uses “words” in a language all its own to reveal God.

Another common passage of scripture that is called upon when thinking about creation revealing God to humanity is Psalm 148 where all of creation is invited to praise God together.

“Praise God, sun and moon; praise God, all you shining stars!
Praise God, you highest heavens, and  you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for God commanded and they were created.
God established them forever and ever; God fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling God’s command.
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!”

The psalmist paints a picture of all of creation, both living things and non-living alike effusively praising God the Creator, calling out our admiration and worship with words, with deep bellows, with rustling wings and cackling chirps, with booming thunder and blooming silences.  This psalm is called up to help us realize that while all Creation praises God in its…