Sermon: The Gifts of the Spirit

Day of Pentecost
May 27, 2007
Readings: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm104: 24-34, 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, John 14:8-17
The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell

Fall on us afresh, Spirit, Comforter, our Advocate;
Help us receive the gift we need today.
For only you give breath to the Word,
only you bring the Word to life. Amen.

Today we celebrate Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit. In just a few short weeks, the apostles have experienced Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, and now this amazing, perplexing gift. Their emotions must have been complicated indeed.

On the one hand, the disciples may have been ready for Christ to put them in charge of his earthly mission. On the other hand…not so much. Suddenly the disciples have a boatload of responsibility. Now they ARE the church. Every-member ministry, or the priesthood of all believers, can have its daunting aspects. Thank God the disciples had the Spirit to guide and comfort them in the physical absence of Jesus.

Recently, I think I've experienced the Spirit on the move at Reconciler. I've felt a current of energy, excitement, harmony, and renewed purpose as we plan for the future as well as worship together.

Ten days ago we had the most focused, hopeful Council meeting I've attended since I've been at Reconciler. Seemed like we were all grabbing an oar and doing our part to move forward as a community of faith. Then last Wednesday we had an excellent Worship committee meeting where there was again a feeling of forward momentum. We expressed a variety of views on some fairly weighty topics. On several issues we reached a happy consensus, on another issue we agreed to simply let every voice be heard.

To speak in one's own voice, and let others speak in theirs, often requires courage, vulnerability, and humility. We need to let go of the urge to control and compete. I think this is Paul's message in 1st Corinthians 12: we are to use our gifts to confess Christ as Lord and build up community, not to show off our spiritual giftedness. Paul asks us to speak from the heart, knowing God communicates through imperfect human beings and human speech. Each of us hears God in our own language. Yet the same Spirit inspires us all, gives us breath.

In today's epistle reading, Paul writes to the church at Corinth about the great variety of spiritual gifts. He reminds the Corinthians they are all members of the body of Christ. Why does Paul write this? Is there a specific problem at Corinth he is addressing? Is there something church communities today can learn from it?

Gordon Fee, a Biblical scholar, believes the Corinthians are almost certainly abusing the gift of tongues. They may think that only people who speak in tongues are truly spiritual. As a correction, Paul emphasizes the importance of other spiritual gifts.

Paul has no problem with ecstatic speech: he himself speaks in tongues. But he does object when people talk in tongues in public worship, without interpreting. When no one understands the message, the community is not built up.

Gordon Fee thinks today's passage is part of a larger argument between Paul and the Corinthians about what it means to be spiritual. Some Corinthians may be living out an "otherworldly" spirituality, denying the physical, material side of Christianity. They may see themselves as already like the angels, and understand tongues as the language of angels."

But Paul understands spirituality differently. Life in the Spirit does not free us from our bodily existence, but liberates us to live in power and weakness on this earthly plane. Between the already here and the not yet, Paul calls us to loving, responsible relationships in community.

Paul's famous passage about love follows closely on the heels of his passage about spiritual gifts. Paul writes in 1 Cor 13: If I speak in the tongues of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

For Paul, love is the essential ingredient for the expression of spiritual gifts. Love aims to build up the community, tongues without translation do not.

So I think there are two essential messages in today's passage from 1st Corinthians: 1) all of us have spiritual gifts and 2) It's through Christian love, as Paul carefully defines love, that the gifts of each individual can be brought out, and a truly spiritual community can flourish.

Some time ago, I took part in a church retreat at Three Rivers monastery in Michigan. As our group attended monastic services, and talked about Benedictine spirituality and our lives, I felt a current binding us together, moving us along. It was as if we were being swept into the rhythm of the monks' prayer life. Our divisions of race, gender, status, and orientation seemed not to matter so much. When the monks chanted, it was as if their goal was to blend as thoroughly as possible. And yet the individuality of each monk is respected; they aren't clones. The Spirit allows them breathing room.

A woman dealing with some difficult emotional issues was on our retreat. She said of our time together: "This must be the way Jesus wanted it. Everyone working together, filling in gaps for each other, without even thinking about it." She experienced the presence of the Spirit in our midst.

The current we felt at the monastery is very different from the current described in Madeleine L'Engle's book, A Wrinkle in Time. This sci-fi classic, written by a devout Christian, features a planet taken over by an evil disembodied brain, called "It." The pulse of IT controls the minds and bodies of the planet's inhabitants. Each morning, all the people walk out of their houses at exactly the same moment. Children bounce their balls on the sidewalk in identical rhythm.

This is not the unity to which Paul calls the followers of Christ. Paul is not stressing unity in diversity, so much as diversity within unity. We are not to erase our individuality to form community, but love each other in our incarnational particularity.

Meg, the heroine of A Wrinkle in Time, learns that she can rescue her little brother Charles Wallace from the powerful clutches of IT, by actively loving her brother. For the one thing "IT" cannot do is love. IT is a totalitarian force requiring strict conformity, where the Holy Spirit Is a liberating presence that builds relationships founded on love and respect.

Paul calls the Corinthians, and us, to value each other's gifts. Some people's gifts are flashy, like speaking in tongues. But there are quiet gifts, just as valuable, that don't need interpreting. Paul frequently refers to his own ministry simply as diakonia, meaning "service." Author Marlene Wilson advocates a ministry of "quiet unspectacular things that matter, precisely where you are and with what you have." These include hospitality, active listening, refraining from gossip, helping with everyday things, bearing one another's burdens, and receiving each others' gifts.

This list is not so different from the list Paul sets down in 1 Corinthians 13: "Love is patient; love is kind....love does not insist on its own way." These behaviors call us to a certain simplicity in the midst of our complexity.
I think of the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." I think too of these words from theologian Martin Marty:

All truly deep people have at the core of their being the genius to be simple and to know how to seek simplicity...they are so uncluttered by any self-importance within and so unthreatened from without that they have what one philosopher calls a certain "availability"....Successful living is a journey towards simplicity and a triumph over confusion."

As Christians, we're called to be available and receptive in a chaotic world. Ours is not to be an otherworldly spirituality, but one grounded in the here and now. For Paul, being receptive to the Spirit is the essence of Christian life. What unites the Corinthians in all their diversity is their "common, lavish experience of the Spirit," their conversion experience.

Here in this place, I invite us to receive and revel in one another's gifts, and drink deeply of the Spirit that unites us. For it is the Spirit, God working in and through community, that allows us to move forward, reconcile, and rejoice. Let us serve simply and humbly, respect one another's differences, and speak the truth clearly in love. In so doing, may we build up the body and help others know the "common, lavish experience of the Spirit."

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Sermon: Ascension Sunday

Sermon: Feast of the Ascension
May 20, 2007
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler

Rev. Tripp Hudgins, preacher

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
(Luke 24:45-47)

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

I loved Jerry Falwell.

Yes, I admit it. I loved him. I imagine that may come as a surprise to many. He was a divisive, difficult, hyper-political, sometimes racist, vitriolic crazyman from Lynchburg, VA. And yet, I loved him.

For those of you who are unaware, Rev. Jerry Falwell died on May 15 at the age of 73. He has been a fixture on the national religious and political stages for as long as I can remember.

Now, I will also admit that my love of Jerry was not always gentle affection. No. Most of the time Falwell served that J.R. Ewing (Do you remember Dallas?) function in the Baptist peanut gallery that resides in my head. This is true. But he has been present no less, part of the "great cloud of witnesses" leading me toward salvation.

Growing up in Virginia, it was almost impossible to talk about or think about faith without Jerry's voice ringing in your head. And, eventually, it was almost impossible to talk about politic without the same thing happening. Jerry was simply present in the midst of all of it, haranguing us, his audience with word after word. It was almost impossible not to respond somehow.

So, I formed my faith life in the shadow of Jerry Falwell. I chose the reaction formation route. What Jerry did. I would do the opposite. At first it seemed like a really good idea.

But in the process there is this temptation, a strange temptation…

Leave the scriptures behind.
Leave the tradition or the culture of the church behind.
Remain mute on matters of faith.
Reject Christianity all together.

Maybe I am alone in this. Maybe I am the only one who does this when I encounter a personality as unwavering a Falwell's was. But just in case…

Do we accidentally undermine the church in the process of trying not to be like Jerry? Do we actually accomplish the opposite of our goal or presenting an alternative when we try to rescue our faith by succumbing to any one of the above temptations? Do we actually maroon our faith somewhere, or abandon it in some way?

I think so.

Instead of following this path, we need to speak out. As tiresome and implausible as it may seem to many of us, we have to speak out. I know that some of us might be tired of debating Jerry. I do. But it is essential that Christians of all stripes speak truth to the world, and not just the Jerry's. It has been so since the earliest days of the Church. It will continue to be so.

We cannot abandon the story. We cannot stop reading the scriptures and proclaiming our interpretations just because Jerry was never convinced that we were even remotely on to something.

We must seek alternative voices. We must go where people are speaking.

So, who are the alternative voices? Who else is speaking? Who can help us reclaim the church if, as I do, we believe we need to?

Was William Sloan Coffin, the esteemed preacher from Riverside in the 1960's and 1970's, your alternative voice? Is Jim Wallis, from Sojourners and God's Politics fame? Perhaps that Emergent Church guru, Brian McLaren, has something to contribute in his "generous orthodoxy."

Perhaps I am that voice.
Perhaps you are that voice.

Perhaps it is you and I who are called to embrace the scriptures once again, to sit at the feet of Jesus and have our hearts and minds opened to the scriptures.

What would it sound like to embrace scripture? Is it something that people could listen to, something people could hear?

Have our minds been opened to hear the scriptures?

Are we willing to sit with Christ, and listen to what he says about the scriptures? Listen to the words again.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Now, remember, the scriptures here are the Hebrew Bible, the books of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Jesus was not reading from second Corinthians.

Our interpretive task today, however, is from Luke.

Do you see the parallel that Luke presents to us in this passage? Do you see how suffering goes with repentance? Do you see how resurrection is paralleled with forgiveness? Jesus' life is the ultimate model of compassion. This is what Luke wants us to know.

Repentance leads to forgiveness. Repentance teaches us compassion. Through repentance, we learn that all of us are struggling in this world. We all make mistakes, hurt people, hurt ourselves. And we must be prepared to name this kind of suffering. Then forgiveness is available to us…God's forgiveness and the forgiveness of those whom we have harmed. This is suffering and resurrection at the relational level.

The message that we are to proclaim to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem is this…Jesus is the model of all compassion. God is compassionate. Yes, there is suffering. No, faith is not easy. I do things wrong. I have to repent. But there is forgiveness. And that forgiveness is so great that it even overcomes death in the end.

We are to offer such compassion to all of the world. That is evangelism. That is mission.

In the process, we will encounter diversity. We will encounter hostility. We will encounter opposition. But there are ways to understand this as well.

Listen to these words from Becca Hartman, a senior at Northwestern University and an American Baptist. Her words are about interfaith dialogue, but they apply to our task today.

In interfaith dialogue, we do not suggest that all religions are the same; they are not. We do not ask individuals to give up or dilute their beliefs for the sake of peaceful conversation. In fact, it is in respectful listening and even vulnerable sharing with people of diverse religious traditions that we learn how to articulate and celebrate our own beautiful traditions and beliefs.

You see, what Becca says is true not just in interfaith dialogue, but in intra-faith dialogue as well. What I fear we often do as liberals or progressives, is give up the truth behind these words from Luke's Gospel. We dilute our faith hoping to not offend someone else. We dilute our faith hoping not to be mistaken for someone else.

We are to engage scripture. We are to deepen our roots in scripture and the tradition of the church, not abandon it because one individual voice seems to hold sway.

We are to proclaim and demonstrate the truth behind these words from Luke. Compassionate action and proclamation go hand in hand. We are to seek repentance and the forgiveness of those we harm. We are to interpret this passage on the public stage proclaiming it to all the nations, as well as in our personal lives. This passage is the seed of compassion. This interpretation of scripture is the seed of compassion. The story of the suffering and resurrection of the messiah is the story of compassion.

What is compassion without the self-knowledge that leads to repentance?

It is empty.

A dialogue like the one Becca describes is only possible when we have delved into our own traditions and learned to own them, warts and all, foibles, sins and their richness. We must become apologists for the faith. Jerry Falwell, in leading a conversation on the national stage compelled me to learn how to do this. Perhaps mine was to some degree a reaction formation, but he has shaped a debate for generations of Christians in America. The debate is not over. Jerry did not win it. It continues.

We are called to speak compassion. If people believe that our faith tradition is not about compassion and transformation of the individual and the community, most likely it is because no one is telling them. We are called to speak compassion.

Perhaps this is the interpretation that the world needs to hear…that we need to speak.

I share all this with you because of my own search for God and the incredible impact that Jerry Falwell had on that journey. I need a language. I need a community. And when I began my search, I was handed the rhetoric of the Moral Majority. I found its words and its actions confusing.

But, at the time at least, there were no other voices that I was aware of. No one else seemed to be speaking. So I chose to live without faith. It was much easier than any other course of action that I could devise. Perhaps I was lazy. This is certainly within the realm of possibility.

Eventually, intuitively, I turned to the church. I took classes in college. I lived with Christians. I sang hymns. I participated in the charitable life of the church. I marched on the state capital. I slowly found a voice. I learned compassion. I learned to love Jerry Falwell.

Jerry was right. Faith, though personal, is never private.

Jerry was right. Salvation can be found in the church…in the community of the faithful, the shared life of those who are the Body of Christ.

Jerry was right. We are to be passionate in the proclamation of the Gospel.

We dare not duplicate his mistakes in our attempts, however. We cannot marry the church to any one political party, to any one platform. And we must be constantly vigilant to follow the way of compassion, the way of repentance that leads to forgiveness. The more public our profession of faith becomes, the more difficult repentance becomes. Our egos get involved. We don't want the humiliation. And yet, if we are to speak and model such compassion as described by Luke's Gospel, then we have little choice.

This is our day to observe the Ascension of Christ, that strange moment in the history of the church where Jesus flies away in to the heavens. This is yet another moment in the story that shifts the definition of how God is present in the world.

At Christmas, God is born…a small child.

During Epiphany and Lent, we find God present in the life and work of Jesus.

Our understanding of incarnation is changed in the resurrection of Jesus proclaimed at Easter.

And again, our understanding is changed today. We are the Body of Christ. The Church is the incarnation of God. We are to go out into the world and be the incarnation of compassion.

It is an active faith.
It is a working faith.
It is a giving faith.
It is a speaking faith.

If we do not speak, proclaim what Jesus asked us to proclaim in Luke's Gospel, then the body is mute. Christ was a speaker. We remember his actions and his words. Many ask, "What would Jesus do?" I want to know, brothers and sisters, "What would Jesus say?"

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Reconciler Update

As we approach the end of the season of Easter summer is upon us. We are hoping to remain active as a church over the summer even in the midst of our travels and vacations, holidays, and enjoying the beach. In the announcements you will find the various ways we will continue to meet together as a congregation that is not Wednesday evening Bible Study, which will resume in the fall. Some of these are events you could invite friends who are not part of our congregation to attend, while having a booth at two summer street festivals are events where Reconciler will be present to our communities.
In a sense this summer is a chance for us to be a worshiping community together while reaching out to those who wont necessarily find us or wish to come initially to our Sunday evening worship.
I would like to call this outreach as ministry of presence. It means allowing people to see us and see the church without needing to immediately be immersed in the worship life of the Church. Christian worship for those who are not vary familiar or comfortable with Christianity can be an awkward experience, and even if it isn’t people tend not to think of church as something to put on the list of fun things to do on a weekend. These ministries of presence I hope to be a way to both let people know Reconciler is here and open to them and offer ways to get to know us outside of our worship. So, I ask to keep this summer in your prayers, ask God to keep your eyes open to those God might be sending to us, and if there might be one or more of the events we have planned that you might invite someone who has shown interest in what you do Sunday nights. Pray that God will guide us to be open and ready to receive those God will send our way.

Announcements:
The Pulse a gathering of Christian in the Arts is Monday May 21st 7-10 PM at the Chopin theater Division and Ashland and Milwaukee, Wicker Park.

Worship Committee would like to invite all interested Reconcilers to come to a worship committee meeting 7:30 PM Wednesday May 23 at Kaffein in Evanston -- to discuss such hot-button liturgical items as: Which version of the Lord's prayer we want to use? What kind of processional cross do we want to purchase? And....what about inclusive language? Let us know if you have other questions or ideas.

Pentecost (also known as Whitsunday) is coming up on May 27th. On that day, we celebrate the birthday of the church, when the Holy Spirit descended on Christ's disciples. Look for a special liturgy that Sunday evening at Reconciler and a possible surprise or two.

Jubilee USA's Annual 2007 Grassroots Conference... Come to Jubilee USA's annual 2007 grassroots conference June 15-17 to find out more about about Sabbath Economics, the international debt crisis, economic justice, and globalization. $35 early bird registration includes Saturday and Sunday lunch and breakfast. See Jeremy for more details.

Summer events to put on your callender:

Potluck Supper and Reading of the book of James at Charity and Jeremy’s house 7 PM Friday June 29th. This is sponsored by the Social Action Committee.

Nidge North Potlucks and Movie nights TBA

Summer Neighborhood Festivals:
Reconciler has decided to have a booth at two summer festivals this year. We will need members of reconciler to commit to help staff these booths at intervals over the weekends of the festivals. The festivals are:
Celebrate Clark Street July 14 & 15
And the Glenwood Arts Festival August 25 and 26th.
Our focus at the Glenwood Arts Festival will be Larry’s iconography and any of our Artists in the congregation who might want to display their art.

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Sermon: Fifth Sunday of Easter 2007
May 6, 2007
Rev. Tripp Hudgins
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

Citified

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Here are some song lyrics for you…ready? Sing out if you are so inspired.

Somewhere out there on that horizon
Out beyond the neon lights
I know there must be somethin' better
but there's nowhere else in sight.
It's survival in the city
When you live from day to day.
City streets don't have much pity
When you're down, that's where you'll stay.
In the city…
- The Eagles

Hot town summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirt and gritty
- Joe Cocker

Come along
Into the city
Where the girls are pretty
And you can't go wrong
- The Who

Oh don't lean on me man, cause you cant afford the ticket
I'm back from suffragette city
Oh don't lean on me man
Cause you ain't got time to check it
You know my suffragette city
Is outta sight...she's all right
- David Bowie

We built this city on rock and roll.
- Starship (Formerly Jefferson Airplane, then Jefferson Starship)

What is it that is so fascinating about cities…These song lyrics are easy examples of how we identify ourselves with city life. We can find suffering with the Eagles, romance of a sort with Joe Cocker and The Who. We find Bowie beinge, well, Bowie. We can find a claim to crativeity with Starship. Our cities claim us somehow...and we identify with them. The cities are also difficult for us. There is something morally and ethically challenging about cities.

Think about it, to be "citified" is not a compliment. It is how one describes the loss of rural self-sufficiency. How can we be complete, the ethos suggests, if we are so dependent upon someone else to feed us? And the list of problems implied by being "citified" goes on. It suggests haughtiness, uppitiness, classism reigns. We are aprehensive about our cities.

This apprehension about cities is not new or unique to us in this country.

In Genesis, we encounter the first menitioning of cities in the Bible. The writers of Genesis send Cain off to the city. Where did Cain go after he had been banished by God? He went into the city. Listen to this passage as it speaks about entertainment and industry…and crime. Remember, this is after Cain has killed Abel, and has had his "run in" with God.

16Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. 18To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. 19Lamech took two wives; the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. 21His brother's name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe (The entertainment industry?). 22Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools (Industry?). The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

23 Lamech said to his wives:
'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
24If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.'

This last bit of the passage may be the most telling. Remember, this is the Old Testament, and justice is that "eye for an eye" justice. Killing someone for wounding you might very well be construed as lawlessness. The cities are frightening places...lawless places.

The city is a difficult place to live. But we seem drawn there…and repulsed by it at the same time.

Throughout the Bible, the Israelites struggle with settling down. They struggle with what it means to live together in community. Things in the promised land seem to be going well, but eventually the land cannot support them when a great drought comes along. So, thanks to the help of Joseph, the Israelites settle in Egypt. This, as most of us likely know, does not work out so well for the Israelites. They are enslaved. Eventually, Moses will come and with God's help, will rescue the Israelites.

They live as nomads again. But this time it is in the wilderness…it is forty years of trial and struggle and the city seems more and more ideal. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The city has always been a danger to them. Yet it is no longer desirable to live as nomads.

So where do they go? In the end, they choose the city…

Jerusalem. The city of Peace. The city of Harmony. The city of Wholeness…

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home (Oh, won't you please take me home)
- Guns n' Roses

The city, brothers and sisters, is a mixed bag for us. We know this. Whenever you bring so many people into one location, you condense both the assets of such a life together and the troubles of such a life together. If you all recall, in Chicago Cabrini Green, the (in)famous public housing project, was right across the street from Lincoln Park. Wealth and poverty are neighbors. One cannot escape the sight of the other.

The University of Chicago sits in the center of Hyde Park and is bordered by some of the most under-served neighborhoods in the Chicago metropolitan area. Though you can cross the street to walk the campus, getting out of Woodlawn or Inglewood and into the hallowed halls of the University of Chicago is a pretty steep climb. Our cities have huge problems. They highlight all of humanity's ills, our beauty and potential.

Our cities have become a strange poetry.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

When America was young, only five percent of our population resided in urban areas. Scholars suggestⁱ that the population structure has almost completely reversed. Our sprawling metropolises are now home to the vast majority of Americans. Suburbs stretch off into the horizon. Cities collaborate and assume one another, absorb one another, annexing land and businesses. Their infrastructure is so complicated that historians and urban planners alike struggle to understand them, to maintain them.

And yet, America has a love affair with its cities. We write songs about them. Chicago Is My Kind of Town, and New York, New York are now iconic. We can have the Kansas City Blues. We have asked the question, Are You Going to San Francisco? Heck, we have even referred to the entire country as the City on a Hill adopting the vision from Revelation as a national vision, a proclamation of God's providence in giving us the Holy City, the city in Revelation, the city that descends from the clouds ushering in God's permanent residence among us.

But this optimism denies a need in our cities. This distracts us from the truth about our cities. Jerusalem has been known as the city of peace. It has also been known, if you recall, as the city that kills the prophets. Now it is a city divided between three faiths, a place known for its violence and cruelty as much as it is known for its sanctity.

Our own cities terrify some of us. "White flight," the movement of affluent white Americans to city suburbs abandoning the inner city to poor minorities, is a great example of how we struggle to make peace with ourselves, how we struggle with our own sins as a nation.

So, where then do we start? How then do we respond to the needs of the city, proclaiming instead the holiness of a city?

Tony Campolo, the popular evangelical theologian and preacher, has an interesting theological notion that may help us...and it is likely even more appropriate to share on Communion Sunday.

A couple of weeks ago, some of us were at the ABC/MC Discipleship Dinner. Tony Campolo was the preacher for the worship service beforehand. In the midst of his sermon he looked out at us and said "The poor are the sacramental presence of Jesus." He reminded us of the passage from scripture where Jesus says "whenever you do this for the least of these..."

"Don't get thrown off by the word 'sacramental.'" he said. "I know that some of you are thinking about the Roman Catholic idea that bread and wine become flesh and blood. Now, I know that as Baptists we cannot go there even though we turn wine into grape juice every Sunday. We need to find a middle way, like the Anglicans and the Lutherans have done. The sacramental is the fulfillment of a promise made by Jesus. Jesus promises to be present in bread and wine. Thus, we trust that he is. His love is manifested in the symbolic. Thus, because he said so, he is present in the least of these."

The poor are the sacramental presence of Jesus. There is wisdom in this that can be seen in our passage from Revelation. If the poor are the sacramental presence of Jesus, what then of our cities? Our communities? Our communities are the sacramental presence of God. Can this be? Is it too far a stretch? Can God's love be known in our communities? Can they be seen as sacrament? Can our communities be the focus of our love and affection as Church?

Father Edward Foley, a liturgy professor at Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park, says that "God has a love affair with the world." We may be called to be known by our love in John's gospel, but the entire premise of the gospel is that "God so loved the world." The love we learn to share with one another is the love that is to be given to the whole world. The focus of that love is not one another. The focus of that love is upon the world. We love the world because in its completion, God is present in it..."I am the Alpha and the Omega."

In this new way, we are called to be citified.

The focus of God's love is upon our villages, our town, our cities, our communities, urban and rural. If we want to know what it means to be relevant, it is in this truth of the Gospel. The focus of the love of the Church, the Body of Christ, is the world.

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

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Reconciler Update

Reflection

In our current Bible Study at Reconciler, we've been working our way through sections of Egeria's Travels. Egeria was a fourth-century pilgrim, from the western part of the Roman Empire -- likely Spain or Gaul -- who took a three-year tour of sacred sites in the Holy Land, based in Jerusalem. Her travelogue is colorful and gives us valuable information about how Christians worshipped at that time.

As we look together at Egeria's travels, interesting things come up. We marvel at the lengthy and numerous services that took place during Holy Week in Jerusalem, complete with long processions and all-night vigils. People worshipped for days on end. What dedication. How exhausting. What did they do with the old people and the little kids?

One of us wonders if Christianity is too easy today, compared with the liturgies that Egeria describes. Shouldn't people be able to look at Christians and say: "Wow, they really do that? They make that level of sacrifice?"

Others of us reflect on our travels in the Holy Land, and express mixed emotions about sacred sites with "scary holy people" abounding, and relics that may or may not have been authentic. Holy places can have their corrupt and strange elements, as well as being places of beauty and inspiration. St. Gregory of Nyssa -- a contemporary of Egeria's -- wrote that he saw no advantage in going to Jerusalem, corrupt as it was. And yet, such naysaying has never stopped the flow of pilgrims to the Holy Land.

The seasons of the Church year, along with our rotating lectionary of Scripture readings, are also a kind of pilgrimage. Instead of a making a physical trip, we symbolically venture into the desert with Christ in Lent, and journey with Jesus to Jerusalem in Holy Week. Our liturgical year is a pilgrimage through time rather than space. One need not go to the holy sites; they are brought to us.

Some things that Egeria describes are still present in our Holy Week celebrations today, like venerating the cross on Good Friday. And we do some things Egeria doesn't mention, like footwashing on Maundy Thursday. Liturgy, which means "work of the people," is not a static thing, but evolves with the Christian community. We seek to balance threads of ancient tradition with contemporary expressions of our own time and place.

In a sermon last week, I talked about how Jesus the Good Shepherd speaks to his sheep, his followers, who know his voice. As servant leaders we're called to listen both to Jesus's voice and to our own internal voices, since Jesus is a part of us. In a changing Church, in a changing world, what parts of our tradition and liturgy do we need to hold on to? What can we shape, alter, or let go of? How do we be faithful to the voice of Jesus, yet still be true to our own authentic experience?

We'll continue the conversation about Egeria's travels this Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel, looking at her descriptions of the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday in Jerusalem. On May 23rd, we'll gather at Kaffein at 7:30 p.m. for an open meeting of the Worship Committee, to talk about worship at Reconciler. Why do we do what we do? What do we need to hold on to? What might we shape, alter, or discard? We hope you will be there! We want to hear your voice.

God's peace,
Laura+

The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell

for The Pastoral Team,

The Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler


ANNOUNCEMENTS*ANNOUNCEMENTS

Social Action committee meets this Tuesday Evening, May 8th, at 7:30 at the 'Nidge (Parsonage).

Bible Study continues this Wed. May 9th at 7:30 p.m. in the side chapel of Immanuel Lutheran Church. (Prayers at 7:00 in the Sanctuary at Immanuel.) We are studying the pilgrimage itinerary of Egeria, a 4th century nun who visited the Holy Land and recorded the various worship practices and holy sites she found on her way. The study will focus on how the worship she describes became the source for the development of lectionaries, the church year and the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter. There will be four sessions. Our first session focused on the interaction of place, prayer, scripture text for marking foundational events and people for the Faith. The second and third sessions will focus on the Holy Week and Easter liturgies in Jerusalem, which eventually spread throughout the Church. The fourth session will focus on worship at Reconciler as it relates to the forms of prayer and liturgy Egeria witnesses to in her itinerary. This final session will lead into the worship committee's open forum on May 23rd (see below).

Worship Committee would like to invite all interested Reconcilers to come to a worship committee meeting 7:30 PM Wednesday May 23 at Kaffein in Evanston -- to discuss such hot-button liturgical items as: Which version of the Lord's prayer we want to use? What kind of processional cross do we want to purchase? And....what about inclusive language? Let us know if you have other questions or ideas re: worship at Reconciler.

Next Council Meeting is Thursday May 17th at 7:30 at the Nidge.

Pentecost (also known as Whitsunday) is coming up on May 27th. On that day, we celebrate the birthday of the church, when the Holy Spirit descended on Christ's disciples. Look for a special liturgy that Sunday evening at Reconciler and a possible surprise or two.

Jubilee USA's Annual 2007 Grassroots Conference... Come to Jubilee USA's annual 2007 grassroots conference June 15-17 to find out more about about Sabbath Economics, the international debt crisis, economic justice, and globalization. $35 early bird registration includes Saturday and Sunday lunch and breakfast. See Jeremy for more details.

Summer Community Outreach. We are planning to have a booth and be a presence at The Glenwood Arts Festival and the Edgewater neighborhood street festival this summer. Both Festivals are in August. Please consider helping out with the booths as part of your summer plans. More information to come.