MyQuest | my thoughts on life's journey

Trinity Sunday Preview

Collaborate or Perish

Collaborate or Perish

John 15:9-17

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

13 May 2012

 

    

    Today our annual Super Sale continues down in the gym and the Thrift Shop. A wide array of plants, books, art, clothes, and more is on sale. This is a big event that takes lots of people working together to pull off. We should express our thanks to the key organizers, which include Cherie Ferber, Barb Switzer, Laura Mitchell, Mildred Smock, Gary McConnell, and Sam Pfeiffer.

    The Super Sale originated in our women's social group EVES. The EVES had an annual plant exchange, sharing with each other from the bounty of their gardens. Eventually other church members asked if they could participate as well. According to Peg Peterson, one year the group tried selling some of the extra plants, and surprisingly made a couple hundred dollars. The next year, instead of the plant exchange, they organized a plant sale and made $600. The next year the Super Sale was born.

    And it has grown every year. Plants, books, art, crafts, and thrift store items all go on sale together for one weekend every May. The youth usually provide a car wash, and the Women's Fellowship will sell sandwiches. It is quite the to-do!

    According to Peg, "The best thing about the sale is the way it pulls together so many different people from the congregation in new ways. And we all have gardens made out of each other's favorite plants."

 

    Today's gospel continues the images from last week. We are invited to abide, to be like the vine, drawing our energy from God and bearing much fruit. In today's passage Jesus expands the metaphor. He talks about love, joy, and friendship. Jesus asks us to love one another, in the same way that he has abided in the love of God. He tells us that our joy will be complete when we are filled with his joy. And Jesus calls us his friends. We are not servants of God, but friends of God and friends with one another. All these are images of unity.

    It is Mother's Day, so it would be fitting for us to remember experiences of love and joy with those who have mothered us. Mothers are often the glue that binds everything together, keeping the unity of the family or a group of friends. My Grandma Nixon, Mammoo we call her, was that glue for our family, and things were never quite the same after she died. My mother instilled in me a love of learning and a delight in the beauty of the world. Grandma Jones gave me many gifts over the years. The most special was a quilt that continues to remind me of her loving care. She, who had never attended college, wanted to make sure my sister and I did, so her estate provided the funds for our educations. That Ph. D. at the end of my name could have a little asterisk – "Paid for by Christine Jones."

    I have been blessed with other mothers. Ruth Robinson, my kindergarten Sunday school teacher, highly influenced my faith formation. Kay Boman, a high school teacher, expanded my horizons. Christine Reynolds was my adopted grandmother during college, and we became such good friends, helping each other out. I'd drive her to and from the airport, and she'd cook me a meal every now and then. And there have been others.

I invite you to remember those special mothers in your life. And remember them as a reflection of the love, joy, and fellowship of God.

 

Today's gospel reminds us that love is a "transforming power" drawn from a divine source. The friendship and fellowship God desires for us is the same that God experiences. This is the beauty of the doctrine of the Trinity. Sure, there are lots of complicated aspects of the Trinity that hold no interest for me, but I delight in the Christian teaching that the essential nature of divinity is a relationship. And that, to me, is our core teaching about God. God is relationship. God is love.

Religion professor David S. Cunningham, writes in his commentary on this passage:

 

The love among the persons of the Trinity helps us to understand what wondrous love this truly is: concerned about others; not possessive or subordinating, thus allowing genuine space for the other to be; and superabundant, such that it can be offered without reserve.

 

    The divine fellowship is ecstatic and abundant and overflows filling each and every one of us. It empowers us to love as God loves. To embrace one another -- family, friend and stranger – in relationships of mutual respect and care. This is God's dream for the world, that we might all be friends.

 

    And it has become imperative that humanity embrace this gospel message. In her book Reality is Broken, video game designer Jane McGonigal writes:

 

"Collaborate or perish" is perhaps the single most urgent rallying cry for our times. The ability to collaborate at extreme scales isn't just a competitive advantage in business or in life anymore. Increasingly, it's a survival imperative for the human race.

 

She continues:

 

Surviving the twenty-first century together will require us to adopt longer horizons of thinking, acting, and collaborating.

 

    Now, McGonigal herself thinks that the tools we can use to fix our broken reality have been discovered in the world of video games. I am drawn to her work because of the similarities with faith and spirituality. And in this particular instance, the lessons on collaboration coincide powerfully with the gospel teaching about unity and friendship that arises from the love of God.

    Collaboration has three aspects. First is cooperating. Collaborators begin by "acting purposefully toward a common goal." Next is coordinating – "synchronizing efforts and sharing resources." And finally is cocreating, which she defines as "producing a novel outcome together."

    Think about how you play a game for a moment. Start with something simple like freeze tag. Someone is It and they run around trying to tag other people. When those people are tagged they are supposed to stay frozen until someone else unfreezes them. The game can be a whole lot of fun, but only if everyone cooperates with the rules. If someone keeps running after they've been tagged, then they spoil the game.

    Games work because we all agree to play together and abide by the same rules or practices, and these usually make an object more difficult. Take football for instance. You could go out onto a football field and pick up a ball and run down the length of the field and across the line into the endzone. Maybe you'd enjoy the running, but there wouldn't be a lot of joy in that experience by itself. The joy of scoring a touchdown in a game comes from the difficulty. There are 11 people trying to stop you. There are rules that make it more complicated than just picking up a ball and running with it. All the complexity and the difficulty is what makes it fun, and all the complexity and the difficulty comes from everyone cooperating to follow the rules.

    Which is why cheaters and spoilsports ruin games, not because they win, but because they've failed to understand the very point of the game, which is cooperating to make it more difficult so we can have a joyful experience that we otherwise couldn't have on our own.

    McGonigal describes collaboration as a "superpower." Superpowers, in this sense, are the things impossible to do alone. By working together we actually change what is possible.

When we collaborate in playing games, we establish a common ground, concentrate on the same goals, foster mutual regard, and honor collective commitment. Game players work to make good games happen. As a Sooner fan, I can thank you Cornhuskers for many years of doing your best to make sure we played a good, difficult game.

When good games happen, our joy is complete!

 

And so it is true for the other things in our life. When we collaborate together with others – in a family, at work, in our neighborhoods, at church – we can accomplish things that we could not do on our own. When it works, our joy is complete.

According to the Gospel of John, this is what God desires for us. God wants us to be friends. To have the same loving fellowship that God does. An empowering love which is abundant and overflows. A love that embraces one another in relationships of mutual respect and care.

"This is my commandment," Jesus says, "that you love one another as I have loved you." May it be so.

Sixth Sunday in Easter Preview

The Social Network

The Social Network

John 15:1-8

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

6 May 2012

    According to the World Book Dictionary, the primary current meaning for abide is "to put up with; endure; tolerate," and gives the word use suggestion "She can't abide him."

    That is not how the translators of the Gospel of John intend us to take the word. They meant one of the definitions that the dictionary now lists further down "to stay; remain; wait", "to continue to live (in a place); reside; dwell," or "to continue (in some state or action)."

    One commentary I read said that the Greek word translated abide carries a range of meanings that together convey the idea that "vineyards are long-term investments and labor intensive."

    The gospel writer has taken this imagery of the vine, which would have been familiar to the original audience, and used it describe the followers of Jesus. They are connected with one another and with God in enduring relationships that bring mutual benefit and produce results.

    It is good to read this passage on the church's anniversary and on a communion Sunday. In the practice of communion, or the Eucharist, we are reminded of many things, and among these reminders are our connections with one another, with God, and with all creation. Communion reminds us that these are enduring relationships that bring mutual benefit and produce results. Theologian Daniel Izuzquiza proclaims that there is a "permanent Eucharistic call for a way of life based on radical sharing."

The church has always reminded us of the importance of our relationships with others, with God, and the creation. It does this in both spiritual and practical ways. For instance, we've always understood that the church is some mystical, spiritual connection that transcends time and space, bringing us into relationship with people across the globe and even with those who have already died or will follow after us. The ritual of communion is a reminder of this spiritual, mystical relationship.

And there are very practical connections as well. In the church, we relate to diverse people that we might not have otherwise known. Together we organize activities, make decisions, and reinforce behavior.

In all the writing on the church and social networking, theologians keep coming back to a central point. The church has always been a social network.

We've always invited people into relationships of radical sharing and mutual responsibility for one another. New technologies just allow us to do these things in new ways and sometimes to do them more efficiently, in broader scope, and in a way that allows us to share with those outside the church more easily what it is that we are doing. Now we have a more direct, routine way to experience that mystical, spiritual connection that transcends time and space.

This Easter season I've been preaching about some of the things the church can learn from new developments in technology and design. Today I'm going to talk about social networks, experienced primarily through on-line sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and more.

As I worked on this particular sermon, I realized that one could do an entire series of classes or talks on the various practical, ethical, ecclesiological, and theological issues that arise from these new technologies and their intersections with faith and religion. It is important for our faith to give us insight and guidance into our everyday lives.

In very practical ways, these new technologies have changed how we do church. We use them to organize events, to advertise, for social activism and volunteering, for evangelizing, and more.

In April 2010 the United Church of Christ national office invited all members and churches to participate in an on-line experiment. The UCC Stillspeaking initiative had had success with the television commercials that they had released during the Aughts. Many of you remember the "Bouncer" ad and the "Ejector Seat" ad. In 2010 they thought they'd try something new and released a commercial on-line with the hopes that it would go viral and be seen by lots of people.

    One of the main reasons for doing it this way is that it is a whole lot cheaper than buying television time to broadcast a commercial. In the promotional information, the national church invited people to "do the math." Here's what they wrote:

The UCC has 25,386 fans on Facebook. If each posts [the video] for their Facebook friends to see, it will reach 3,554,040 viewers in minutes. And if just a fraction of these re-post it, even millions more will learn of the UCC.

    At the time I was pastoring in Oklahoma City, where I crunched the math for that congregation. At the time we had 241 Facebook fans, and I calculated that together they had a total of 99,074 friends. CoH was running around 80 people in worship on a good day. But, very quickly, easily, and completely free, we had the potential to reach close to 100,000 people with information about our church and our faith.

    Now, this week I didn't waste my time calculating the numbers for First Central, but my guess is that it is something similar. One of the reasons the national UCC has committed itself so passionately to new media is because it facilitates our evangelism.

Some congregations have been even more innovative. Entire churches now exist only on-line. Others, such as our sister church, Countryside Community, has a Sunday evening service that exists on-line. The UCC is currently planning for ways to use the internet to supply quality preaching and worship to rural churches who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford a minister.

Polls show that an ever-increasing number of people go to the internet for prayer, meditation, religious education, and worship.

And, then there is the array of ethical issues. What are the implications for privacy? Do on-line relationships improve or damage face-to-face relationships? Are we lonelier or not? Some studies show that people connected on-line actually engage in more community involvement and volunteerism. Other articles ask if our brains are being re-wired, and what might this mean? And are we becoming more narcissistic? There are the justice concerns because poor and rural people do not always have access.  We also run the danger of creating a community within the community. All of these are topics that should be explored within the theological and spiritual conversations of the church.

My general sense is that some of the responses to these ethical topics are overwrought. These aren't new ethical questions. You should embody the virtues like kindness, self-control, compassion, generosity, humility, and others in your on-line life in the same way that you should in your face-to-face encounters.

Many are intrigued by the implications of these new technologies for ecclesiology. We are probably undergoing the most radical transformation in Christianity since the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant church arose in the wake of the printing press, as new technology made information available in new ways. That new technology radically altered the church. With the internet, social media, mobile phones, tablets, and all the other technological changes of our time, we are undergoing larger cultural shifts similar to those effected by the printing press, and so, the church is naturally changing as well.

For example, authority is changing. Hierarchies are being replaced by egalitarian networks. Individuals are experiencing greater autonomy and power. Fortunately for us, these developments fit naturally with our congregational heritage. These developments are much more of a threat to denominations who have emphasized centralized authority, and you can see them reacting by trying to reassert that centralized control.

Phyllis Tickle, who is one of the most respected observers of these things, writes that the church is a network -- an interlaced, dynamic structure -- and we are now awakening to what has always been true. She writes:

The duty, the challenge, the joy and excitement of the Church and for the Christians who compose her, then, is in discovering what it means to believe that the kingdom of God is within one and in understanding that one is thereby a pulsating, vibrating bit in a much grander network.

The religious possibilities of new media engage my passions. They are open-ended, adventurous, and egalitarian. They allow us to be present with one another in a way that is not limited to physical location. Last year Chris Steffen stopped by the office one day and said, "Though I haven't seen you in a few weeks, I feel like I just saw you yesterday because of your posts on Facebook."

One of my main passions is that we can more easily share our stories with each other. And watch them develop over time. We can see how others grow and change, how they react to world events and life circumstances, what they believe about the issues of the day, and even how their faith and spirituality informs all of this.

Though I do often feel the challenge of keeping up with it all. With the amount of information, and my ever-growing "friends" list. But also with all the new developments, changes in settings and privacy controls, all the new websites that come along (I haven't gotten into Pinterest, for example). And I sometimes wonder if it is a distraction from other things. So I can respect those who avoid the new technologies, or fast from them.

But I stay involved because I enjoy it and I do discover rich connections and experiences developing through my on-line social networks. Beyond that personal enjoyment, I do think that profound things can occur. I don't want to sound like some ivory-tower thinker over-reacting to mundane routines, but there are possibilities for living out our Eucharistic connections in new ways. Theologian Jim Rice writes,

We now have vivid examples of the 'universal body of Christ' that never before existed. These instantaneous global interactions made possible by new media offer analogies of God's transcendence and immanence that have the potential to lead to profound new insights and understandings about the very nature of God and God's realm on earth.

New insights, drawn from new technologies, but rooted in an ancient reality. At the communion table we have learned of our deep connections with one another. We have been called to a life of radical sharing. We cannot separate who we are from our relationships with God, one another, and all creation.

And whether we use the new technologies of our time or the most ancient forms of social networking – things like sitting on the porch, eating a meal together, taking a walk, praying -- these relationships require long-term investments and are labor intensive. But if we abide, then we will bear much fruit.

Fifth Sunday in Easter Preview

Possibility Scanning

Possibility Scanning

Luke 24:36-48

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

29 April 2012

 

      

     Remember this television advertisement?

 

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

 

    The title of that ad was "Think Different." Go home and Google it after church. The ad included images of Picasso, Einstein, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, and others. The ad was for Apple computers, and it caused an incredible sensation.

    Apple has changed our lives, by revolutionizing not only personal computers but also how we listen to music, how we interact with the devices that we still call phones, and overall how we interact with most digital information. They've also awakened desires we didn't even know we had.

    Now, many of you think I'm something of a techie, and I must confess that I actually am not. I'm a late-adopter and a curmudgeon. I refused to get a cell phone, for instance, until 2005. But the biggest sign that I'm not on the leading edge of technology in my generation is that I have never owned an Apple device of any kind. Hopefully that confession doesn't mean I've lost a huge segment of potential church members, as Apple people are really, really loyal to their brand.

    But even if we don't own Apple devices, their innovation has affected all of the devices we use and how we consume information and media. They have also made design a central element of contemporary existence. No longer are people satisfied with a difficult interface, an inefficient process, or an unwieldy physical object. Everything must be sleek, elegant, and intuitive. The surprise the first time you picked up an iPad, for instance, was that without any instruction you immediately knew how to use it.

 

    Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, Apple's founder and driving genius, was a recent bestseller. I read the book for insights into leadership, innovation, and design, wondering if I could apply any lessons to my job. This week while working on the sermon, I've carried the book around and a handful of you have said, "Oh, have you read that?" It has sparked some interesting conversations.

    When Steve Jobs died last year, he was treated as something of a spiritual guru. I read lots of blog posts and articles on his personal spirituality or how his ideas could be incorporated into spiritual practice. Very little of that appears in the biography. The two basic things you learn about Steve Jobs is that he was a genius and that he was also a real jerk. Actually, that word is too mild. The only words to describe that side of his personality are probably ones not appropriate to use from the pulpit. Basically, he was an arrogant, entitled, difficult human being with explosive anger who was not nice to people. He lived within what his compatriots called a "reality distortion field." This was also part of the secret of his success, in that he didn't accept the world the way it was, knowing that it could be better.

    So, in my opinion, Steve Jobs is not a moral or personal example for us to follow, but there are some of the things I took away from the book: beautiful and efficient design is important at every level of an experience, even the parts people don't see should be beautiful; that discipline, even in the details, is important; that people will succeed when they believe they are part of an exalted mission; that deep collaboration is important; that you must bring together and empower creative people; that ideas must be allowed to generate and develop. And, as Bill Atkinson, one of the early designers on the Mac said, "I got a feeling for the empowering aspect of naïveté. Because I didn't know it couldn't be done, I was enabled to do it."

    This Apple ethos is summed up in the "Think Different" television ad, and its proclamation "Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

 

    Today's contemporary reading came from a commentary on the Gospel story. It strikes a similar note. The "something new" of Jesus' resurrection was not "contained or comprehended by current modes of thinking." Instead the resurrection is the rejection of "systems of thought that limit the vision of the future to the shape of what seems probable according to current conceptions." Professor Cooper writes, "Possibility beyond the probable is the nature of religious hope."

    The resurrection stories of Jesus are their own "Think Different" advertisement. The Jesus of the Gospels can be described as "misfit, rebel, troublemaker," the one "who sees things differently." And many did think he was a crazy person. Others thought he was dangerous, out to change the world, and so they killed him.

    But that violent, horrible execution was not the end of the story. The change Jesus began would not be limited by his death, or by the attempts of the authorities to strike fear into Jesus' followers. No, the revolution that Jesus began would continue despite the crucifixion, maybe even because of the crucifixion.

    And it would catch fire, changing the world, because it was not limited to the status quo. It dreamed new possibilities and had the courage to make them happen.

 

    Jesus appears in this story from the Gospel of Luke and empowers his followers to become witnesses to that change. He invites them to become those who will have the courage to think and act differently. And because they were faithful to that call, the world did change and the good news of that change spread, and over time more and more people benefited from a faith that imagined that this world could be better.

    This Easter we experience the call of Jesus. Jesus is inviting us to become witnesses of the good news that the world can be better. But, what does following this call require of us?

 

    One thing it requires is that we become those who think differently. That we, the church, together become creators and innovators. We are not bound by the status quo, by this troubled, anxious, violent, and fear-filled world. We can imagine a different future and then act creatively and boldly to engage others in making that future a reality. That's really what it means to share our faith, to evangelize, to share the good news. It means recruiting others to collaborate with us in the effort of thinking and living differently.

    This week the Collegium of Officers of the United Church of Christ released a vision plan. We are all tired of reading about the decline of mainline Protestant churches, and all the analysis of why that has happened and what individual churches can do to remain vital. One of the keys to being a vital church is staying focused on the mission of God. Ben Guess, the executive minister of Local Church Ministries, who will keynote the annual meeting of the Nebraska Conference this June, said this week, "The United Church of Christ is emerging, not dying. We have the best opportunity now to become the church that we first dared to be in 1957." Linda Jaramillo, of the Justice and Witness Ministries, said that we must become "bold, effective and responsive servant[s]" of the mission of God.

    W. Mark Clark, the associate general minister, proclaimed that we must let go "of such 'old church questions' as 'How do I make my church grow?' or 'How do we attract new members' to embrace new questions: 'What is God doing in my neighborhood, in my community, in the world?' 'How can I –– and my congregation –– join God in that 'doing'?.'"

 

    What are some of the skills required now and in the future for congregational vitality? Our cultural and religious environment will grow ever more pluralistic and complex. We must learn to thrive in that complexity. We must strengthen our theological and biblical understanding, as these will empower us to engage more effectively in a world of searchers and skeptics. We must train leaders to think and act boldly. We must be radically welcoming. And throughout we must maintain the high-level perspective of the mission of God.

    And one skill we'll need is what video game designer Jane McGonigal calls "possibility scanning," which she describes as "always remaining open and alert to unplanned opportunities and surprising insights."

    Fortunately, that should be easy for us Christians, because our core story includes the resurrection, the event that exploded the status quo and taught us to imagine new possibilities and to think and act differently.

 

    In your worship bulletins you'll find two post-it notes. Post-it notes are ubiquitous in the design world, as a way to brainstorm ideas. We are going to use those post-it notes to spark and share ideas.

    Mark Clark said that the church should ask, "What is God doing in my neighborhood, in my community, in the world?" So, on one post-it, I want you to answer that question. What is something you see God doing in your neighborhood, in this community, or this world? If you do have an idea today, I'm going to ask you to write it down on one of those post-its and then put it on one of the easels either in the parlor or the narthex. You'll see them. They say, "Post your ideas here."

    On the second post-it note I want you to write some way that you can be God's witness in the world. And think "outside the box." Then, I want you to take it home and put it someplace you'll see it. I want it to be a reminder to you to think differently in how you personally participate in God's mission.

     This week, as I look over the ones you'll leave here, I'm going to do a little possibility scanning, staying "open and alert to unplanned opportunities and surprising insights" that you will share.

 

    Friends, Jesus comes to us, now, in 2012, and tells us not to fear. Instead, he shares with us the power of God. Then he calls us to proclaim the good news of forgiveness, love, and compassion. The news of a new, better, more beautiful and more peaceful world. "You are my witnesses," he says.

    Let us respond, so that it might be said of us by all who come to know us:

 

They are the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Fourth Sunday of Easter Preview

Wracked with Awe

Wracked with Awe

John 20:19-23

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

15 April 2012

 

    

    Boredom, anxiety, alienation and meaninglessness.

Boredom, anxiety, alienation and meaninglessness.

How about that for a sermon opener? Really excites you about what's to come doesn't it?

According to some researchers these words describe an ever-increasing number of American citizens. More and more Americans are not engaged by their work, don't believe they will achieve success, feel more disconnected from others and more anxious about the wider world. Now, does that describe any of you?

Just in case in does, I think that today's Gospel lesson might help, but to get at how, I want to begin by looking in an entirely different place – the world of video game design.

 

    One of the more fascinating books I read last year was Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal. McGonigal is a game designer and the subtitle of her book is Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. According to McGonigal, some of the appeal of video games is that they momentarily, at least, lift us out of the boredom, anxiety, alienation, and meaninglessness of our lives by inviting us to be part of an alternative reality full of excitement. In this alternative reality we engage in epic projects, receive immediate feedback, and the thrill of adventure and success. And increasingly video games also involve social connection, as now most people play on-line as part of massive multiplayer games that involve thousands or even millions of other people.

    McGonigal is devoted to finding ways to take what game designers have learned about people and apply those lessons to reality. She writes:

 

Games are showing us exactly what we want out of life: more satisfying work, better hope of success, stronger social connectivity, and the chance to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

 

    In case you thought these desires she lists resonate well with religious practice and spirituality, McGonigal is very explicit that what she's writing about has traditionally been the realm of spirituality. She's aware that there are spiritual connections to her ideas.

    Now, in diagnosing how we've gotten so bored, anxious, alienated, and meaningless, she thinks that one of the major problems of the last generation in American life has been a focus on the individual with all of our language about self-help and self-esteem. She is very critical of that industry. She quotes another writer who says, "The self is a very poor site for meaning." So, what does bring happiness then? She writes,

 

Meaning is the feeling that we're part of something bigger than ourselves. It's the belief that our actions matter beyond our own individual lives. . . Meaning is something we are looking for more of: more ways to make a difference in the bigger picture, more chances to leave a lasting mark on the world, more moments of awe and wonder at the scale of the projects and communities we're a part of.

 

    What video games provide and reality often lacks is the epic scale which contributes meaning and a sense of awe to our lives. What does she mean by "epic"? Three things:

 

• Epic contexts found in "collective stories that help us [to] connect our [lives]. . . to a much bigger mission."
• Epic environments: "vast, interactive spaces that provoke feelings of curiosity and wonder."
• And, epic projects: "cooperative efforts carried out . . . on massive scales, over months or even years."

 

Now, she emphasizes that you don't have to make a significant world-changing contribution yourself to feel this sort of meaning. You simply have to be given the opportunity to participate and contribute with others in something on that scale. Your contribution, however small, is part of this larger project that does participate in changing the world.

 

Let's look again at today's gospel. "Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Divine Parent has sent me, so I send you.'"

    Maybe the most basic lesson of Easter is that death does not have the final say; there will be new life. God will be faithful and will bring about a new creation. This Easter season I'm calling it a "Creative Revolution."

    The second most basic lesson of Easter is that we are invited to participate in that new creation. At the empty tomb the young man appears to the women and tells them to go forth and spread the word. Whenever Jesus appears to the disciples in the gospel stories, he empowers them to carry on the work. Again and again the message is that we are sent forth on a mission.

    So, God is faithful to bring about God's reign. It is a world of justice, peace, compassion, and beauty. Who wouldn't want to live in that world? This is the epic projects of all epic projects, because God's reign is everything we've hoped that the world will be. It's part of a compelling, collective story. Our vision of it evokes awe and wonder. And it requires a cooperative effort that is global and extended over the entirety of human history. Epic context, epic environment, epic project.

    And, we are already invited to participate in it.

 

    A few years ago I was attending a barbecue at a friend's house. At the party, a man was talking to me about the church he attended and he said something to the effect, "I don't go to church to learn anything new, because I don't need to, I go for the fellowship. Isn't that why everyone goes to church?" I answered with an exasperated, "I hope not." And he looked at me puzzled. I went on. "That sounds like a social club to me. I go to church in order to change the world."

    I am Christian because it is this story and this community which inspires me, which challenges me, and which at times convicts me. It presents the heroes and models upon which I would base my life. People like Francis of Assisi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, or my kindergarten Sunday school teacher Ruth Robinson, who didn't change a nation, but who taught children, including me, about forgiveness and love.

    This Christian story tells me that I can be a better person and that this can be a better world. And it tells me some of the practices for accomplishing that – things like compassion, peace-making, prayer, kindness, generosity, and more.

    This story tells me that I am empowered by a divine spirit and sent on a mission. And I have felt that spirit move in and through me. I felt in when I was building a wheel chair ramp while on a mission trip in Helena, Arkansas. As a pastor, I felt it while holding Mary Jane Haley's hand as she learned that her daughter had been murdered. I felt it while standing beside the Sea of Galilee, while worshipping in St. Peter's, even while worshipping in the small country church where my Dad grew up. I have felt it powerfully in my work with youth and children when you see their faces light up with a new epiphany and you know that they understand something that that did not understand before. And I felt it most powerfully the night my father died. In my darkest moment I was overwhelmed by the comforting presence of God's love.

    All of these, and more, are the reasons I am a Christian. Not because I believe all the traditional doctrines, not because I have firm historic or scientific proof for the stories in the Bible, not because the church can answer all of my questions. I'm a Christian for the community, for the adventure, and for the meaning it brings to my life.

 

    Jane McGonigal quotes one video game player as saying that after an hour of attempting to complete one battle scene, when he finally succeeded he was "wracked with awe." I'm not very good at video games, but I understand what experience he's talking about because I've felt it. I've felt it as a follower of Jesus.

    Do you want to spend your life in service to something extraordinary? Do you want to overcome boredom, anxiety, alienation and meaninglessness? Do you desire "more ways to make a difference in the bigger picture, more chances to leave a lasting mark on the world, more moments of awe and wonder?"

    Then this Easter I invite you to follow Jesus and participate in God's "Creative Revolution."

Write the Ending

Write the Ending

Mark 16:1-8

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

8 April 2012

 

    

    So, are you a little surprised by the ending of the Gospel of Mark? The women come to the tomb, hear from this mysterious young man, and then run away in fear. That's it. There is no appearance of the risen Jesus. No comforting of Mary in the Garden. No road to Emmaus. No doubting Thomas. This is it.

    All of the earliest manuscripts of this Gospel end at verse eight, with the women running away afraid, not telling anyone what they've seen and heard. Some in the early church were as shocked and puzzled by this ending as we might be, so later generations wrote two alternate endings. Most Bibles you purchase today will also print those two alternative endings.

One is called the short ending and adds these words:

 

And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.

 

The one known as the longer ending was often presented as the only ending in most older editions of the bible. It narrates resurrection appearances of Jesus. It's the ending of the Gospel of Mark that many of you grew up with. The longer ending includes these infamous verses:

And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.

 

Fortunately, most faith communities have viewed these verses with a healthy skepticism and don't go around picking up snakes or drinking poison to prove their worthiness. And it is one of the great blessings of modern scholarship that we were able to discover that these verses and the entire longer ending of Mark date from the second century and are not original to the gospel.

    

    Which leaves us with the shocking, unsatisfying ending – the women run away afraid and tell no one.

    In our lives, in the stories we read, in the movies we watch, in our tv shows, we prefer that everything be explained, all the loose endings tied up, the plot brought to its natural conclusion. We like our heroes riding away into the sunset or for the couple to get together happily or for the bad guys to get their comeuppance. An open ending unsettles us.

    I love the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away, but plenty of people didn't. The romance with Helen Hunt is set up in the early moments of the movie. Then Hanks spends the bulk of the film alone on an island after he survives a plane crash. His only companion is the volleyball Wilson. For 45 minutes there is no dialogue in this movie. When Hanks is finally returned home years later, Helen Hunt is married with children. There is no resolution of the romance.

    At the very end of the film, he delivers a package that he has held onto for years. He works for FedEx and all through his exile on the island he kept this one package to deliver. It is a reaffirmation of his identity and purpose.

He delivers it to a remote area in West Texas and no one is home. Shortly afterwards, he encounters a woman at a crossroads, there in the middle of nowhere in West Texas. She explains each geographic location that the various roads lead to, and then she drives off. Tom Hanks stands in the middle of the crossroads looking at the various roads offered to him, and then the film ends.

    When I saw this in the theatre a man behind me said to his wife, "That's a stupid ending." I wanted to turn around and say, "That's the perfect ending, and if you don't realize it, I pity you." Fortunately for me, I didn't say anything.

    The reason that man and so many other people didn't like the movie is because there was no resolution. He didn't get the girl. His life wasn't restored. And most significantly, it just ends with him standing there.

    But I think it was the perfect ending. In the opening scenes, it is established that Tom Hanks' character is the sort of person who has life planned out, everything organized, he is in control, and he is strictly governed by his sense of time. On the desert island he controls almost nothing. It is difficult to plan and organize, and time is the most abundant commodity he has.

    At the end, as he is standing at a crossroads, his life is open before him. He can make a fresh start. Nothing is planned. Nothing is organized. He is free to make a variety of choices.

    Much like the film Cast Away, the openness of the ending of the Gospel of Mark makes it the perfect ending, maybe precisely because it unsettles us. The reason is: an open ending offers us listeners and readers our own choices and challenges.

 

    The women are coming to Jesus' tomb to anoint him. They have been there traveling with Jesus and the twelve all along. Many believe that they represent a group of female disciples. Keep in mind that the twelve guys have already run away and that Peter has denied Jesus. The women, however, attend the crucifixion and now come to the tomb.

On the way to the tomb, they make it clear that they expect Jesus' body to be there; they assume he is dead. These women have not understood his teaching that he would be resurrected.

    Maybe they haven't understood because in the Jewish religion the resurrection was something that was supposed to happen at the end of time, when God's reign begins. Yet, from the very beginning of this gospel Jesus has been announcing that God's reign has already begun. The heavens have ripped open and God is set loose in the world. Repeatedly he has criticized the disciples and the religious authorities for failing to see that they were even then living in God's promised kingdom.

    If God's reign is here and now, if it has already happened, then a good Jew should be expecting the resurrection of the dead. So, if everyone had been paying attention and had understood, then they shouldn't have been surprised that the tomb was empty.

    But they are. They see the empty tomb and the mysterious young man and they are afraid. The young man tries to comfort them and instructs them, "Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."

    Jesus is still leading; Jesus is still showing the way on the journey. Once again they are invited to follow.

    And where are they supposed to go? To Galilee. Galilee not only means the specific place, it is also a symbol. Galilee is the beginning. It is the place where Jesus' ministry started and where he performed so many of the signs and wonders and actions of compassion, grace, and inclusion. It is the place where 5,000 are fed. Where the lepers were healed. Where the demons were exorcised. Where Jesus reached out to Gentiles and tax collectors. Where the boundaries that exclude people were broken down in favor of the outcast and the oppressed. The message is that the disciples are to go back to this place and begin again by faithfully living as if the reign of God has fully arrived.

    If they do this, if they go back to all of that, then they will see Jesus. Just like elsewhere in the Gospel of Mark, sight not only means our physical eyesight, but also includes our spiritual insight. If the disciples will continue to faithfully follow the way of Jesus, then they will finally gain the spiritual insight and understanding that they currently lack.

    All of this is what the women are to go and tell. But they don't. They are overcome by fear and run away and the story ends.

 

    This gospel of Mark was not just written to tell a story; it was written to create new disciples. New followers of Jesus. The author's goal was to inspire generations who didn't know Jesus personally to also live as faithful followers of his message that God's reign has begun. Mark wants to inspire later generations to take up Jesus' work of inclusion, grace, justice, and compassion. When they do that, they will encounter the Risen One.

So, when the gospel ends, we, the listeners and readers, are the ones left to follow. The one's left to tell the story. The one's left to do the things that Jesus has done

    We are the ones standing at the crossroads. We are the ones who have to figure out if we are going to run away in fear or follow faithfully back to Galilee. Will we write our own story? Will we make this way of life our own, and thereby see the Risen One in ourselves?

 

    This is the challenge that the Gospel of Mark poses to the church 2,000 years later.

Back in 2006 when I was a pastor in Oklahoma City, a small group from my congregation attended a conference in Stillwater, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State University. (A little side note to this story. The conference was organized by this great guy named Michael Cich who I had only just met.)

    Anyway, as we drove home to Oklahoma City, Judy Hey, who was sort of our congregation's moderator at the time, was talking about how much she would like for more college students to attend our church. Among her reasons she listed, "I want them to know that it's okay to be gay." I told her that in my recent experience on college campuses, that the students knew that it was okay to be gay, they just didn't think it is okay to be a Christian. Judy said, "I guess we could advertise, 'Come to the church where it's okay to be a Christian.'"

    In 2012, the fastest growing religious group in the United States is the "Nones." Those who mark "none" on surveys that ask them to identify their religious affiliation. But surveys also reveal that this group is highly spiritual and interested in religious topics. They are just turned off by most churches. Our challenge as a church and as people of faith is to reclaim and renew Christianity. To tell this meaningful and compelling story.

    And the ending of the Gospel of Mark is a great place to start, because it isn't an ending at all. It is a new beginning that invites us to write our own story. The Christian faith was not settled in the age of the apostles and the martyrs. It was not forever defined by the creeds and doctrines of the church. It did not come to completion in the Protestant Reformation or the establishment of the Plymouth colony.

    The Christian story is on-going and open-ended. God continues to speak to us, and we continue to listen. The Easter story awakens us to a creative revolution in which we get play our own unique part. We are invited, encouraged, and challenged to carry the story forward and write our own ending.

    Go, tell, for Jesus has gone ahead of us, inviting us to follow. When we do, we will see him, just as he told us.

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