God Calls You to See What Others Don’t

God Calls You: to See What Others Don’t  I Samuel 3:1-10; Romans 12:1-8

Several years ago while participating in the Lewis Fellows Young Clergy Leadership program, our group of 30 pastors gathered in Atlanta, Georgia for 3 days of workshops. One afternoon, our discussion sessions suspended and we were all encouraged to walk from our downtown hotel to the historic district of the city known as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s childhood home. Because we were studying leadership, it was important, we were told to get to know the culture and surroundings which shaped the greatest American civil rights leader of all times.  Those of us who had not been to this site were eager for the opportunity to visit and absorb as much as we could.

As we began to walk around MLK’s childhood home, it became apparent that one of the greatest  influencers we learned upon Martin’s life was his father. Though raised in separate but not equal segregated Atlanta schools– his Martin Sr. was known to push his son to not become complacent in his studies or in his life.

One historian wrote: “Martin Luther King, Sr., quite often referred to simply as “Daddy King,” served as the first role model for young Martin Luther King, Jr. and one of the principal influences in molding his personality. . . . He assisted in the organization of voter registration drives, participated in the NAACP, and sat on the board of Morehouse College. As pastor of the local church, he embedded strong religious ideals in his son and linked him to the church. The lectures from both King’s parents on the subject of racial harmony stuck with Martin and armed him against all forms of prejudice.”[i]

As the national park service guide concluded the tour, he summed up our experience in the home by saying, “If it wasn’t for Martin, Sr. paving the way– calling out academic and spiritual gifts in his son, we might not be standing here today talking about this man who did so much good for our country and the racial equality of all humankind.”

Similarly, today, our lection for this morning directs our attention to one of the greatest priest and prophets of all in time found in the Old Testament: Samuel, who would begin his life of service at a young age through an apprenticeship.  Samuel, who would become a spiritual leader for turbulent times of transition in Israel’s life together– guiding and anointing the first two kings in the nation’s history.

But, as we know, we don’t just arrive in life without being under the influence of someone who teaches us. Who was the influence behind the spiritual upbringing of Samuel, like Martin Luther King Sr. was to his son? The answer arises in our lection for this morning.

In Samuel’s childhood, Eli served God in the temple as the head priest. Though not his father, Eli had been in relationship with Samuel from his toddler years. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, who struggled to conceive, prayed hard for Samuel’s arrival. Eli was there to give Hannah a word of encouragement that God heard her prayers and one day she’d have a child. And, when Samuel was born and once weaned, Hannah dedicated Samuel to God in the temple for a life of service. Eli became his guardian.

Yet, while this story sounds beautiful from its beginning, it is important to note that all was not perfect. There were great problems in the land.  Historically, since Moses and Joshua lead the nation of Israel to the Promise land, the people weren’t very good at listening or paying attention to God’s plans for their lives. The leadership system in place of judges did not receive wide-spread support from the people.  The spiritual foundation in the land became increasingly far off-center of what God’s presence in their lives looked like. 

Furthermore, in a culture were religious leaders passed from generation to generation, Eli’s biological sons were not up for the job. The son to son business of serving in the temple would stop with Eli. In fact, prophets had already showed up at Samuel’s doorstep foretelling the consequences of the sons’ corrupt behavior.  Personally, I can imagine that Eli grieved the sadness of unmet expectations on part of his family– they were not the family he wanted them to be.

So with all of this true, it didn’t exactly seem like a moment in time when God would show up . . . when God would do something new… when God would bless.  

Yet, if we know anything about our God we know that when we least expect is the very time that God does begin to move.

And, Eli emerges as the natural first choice. But, Eli, what? What was God thinking in picking him to begin this new movement in Israel’s history that would begin with the call of Samuel.

This is what we know: Eli probably thought his moment in time of doing anything significant with his life had passed.  It was his time to retire– to kick back and enjoy life a little. And, physically, his health is failing. He’s going blind in fact. Look with me at verse two where we are told about Eli, “whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see.”

Again, let me reiterate that seems completely unlikely that Eli would be the one to SEE anything significant. He couldn’t see.

But, he does see.  In the paradigm of how God works in the world– using the most unlikely of us for the most unlikely of tasks, God calls out Eli to use his gift of prophecy or discernment to SEE things for Samuel.

In our New Testament lesson for today, we heard the words of Paul that we’ve stuck close to all weekend if you’ve been around for our chili cook-off and special Bible study sessions this morning. We’ve learned that we all have spiritual gifts. And these gifts are meant not for ou r own good, but to build up the Body of Christ. And, most of all, we’ve learned that using our spiritual gifts is how we move in and through our corners of the world with SIGHT bigger than just what we know.  Offering our gifts to God is how we worship the Lord with our daily lives.

If our gift is service, we will see things that need to be done and do it–  we’ll see when the kitchen needs to be cleaned, the paper products to be refilled in the bathroom, the food collected here to be taken over to the food bank. And, we will do.

If our gift is mercy, we will see the hearts of the hurting and broken– offering a listening ear, a tissue, or simply being a presence.

If our gift is encouragement, we will see the bigger spiritual picture of individual and groups concerns– offering a word of motivation, placing a meaningful book in a person’s hands at just the right time, or offering to share a testimony in worship of where we see God at work in our lives.

If our gift is teaching, we will see the deeper truths in the texts of scripture and other literature that are meant to grow others in wisdom and knowledge– enjoying the research process of preparing to teach as much as the teaching and watching the joy come to folks eyes when they get a new understanding.

If our gift is giving, we will see how our momentary resources can be used for the good if managed well– being ok with less new things so that more funds can be directed to mission organizations, being ok with not getting credit for making donations, actually preferring it this way, and being blessed by seeing the fruits of their personal sacrifices bless the community at large.

If our gift is leadership, we will see the bigger picture of how to position just the right people in just the right places to bring transformative change in the administrative life of a community– being the one who steps up and says a word, being the one who coaches others to claim their callings too, being the one who inspires vision in practical ways.

And, if our gift is prophecy, we will see the possibilities of what God can do that may not seem clear in the present moment– using our voice to say yes to God’s leading and helping others do the same.

And such was Eli’s gift. When Samuel came to Eli twice in the middle of the night thinking that it was him who was calling his name, “Samuel, Samuel,” Eli redirects him back to bed. By the third time Samuel hears a voice calling his name and still comes to Eli thinking that Eli was trying to tell him something, Eli sees the situation clearly. It was the Lord doing the calling. And because this was true, it was Eli’s job to help Samuel recognize this and respond accordingly.

In verse 9, we hear Eli’s prophetic word: “Therefore Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”

Though it might be easy to be critical of Eli– talking about his failings throughout his life and most certainly mentioning that he raised poorly behaved sons– I believe that in this moment in time Eli fulfilled God’s calling upon his life to see what others (aka Samuel) did not.

You see, with all the life-changing, spiritual game changing, Holy Spirit filled moments that Samuel would soon lead within the nation of Israel, it was Eli’s six words that helped this boy who had not yet known the Lord to SEE the Lord for the first time. Using his discernment gift, Eli became the influential person who help Samuel think about the inconceivable plans that God had already prepared for his life.

It might be easy at this juncture of the sermon to think that calling to use your spiritual gifts is just for professional Christians or “those important” people (whoever those people are). But need I remind you that God places a calling to use our gifts on ALL of our lives. No one who desires to be used by God is left without a gift. No one.

Over a year ago now after a series of sermons, Sunday School lessons and discussions in Church Council, we agreed as a church to begin a deacon ministry again. And, so we asked for names from all of you of folks you thought had the gifts to do this job full of the gifts of mercy, service and encouragement. And, with my list given to me by the Congregation Care team of who your recommendations were, I began to make some calls to several of you.

While a few said “yes” eagerly right away, most of those I called were quite shy. “Who me? No, I can’t be a deacon in this church?” (And you’d go to tell me the reasons why we shouldn’t pick you).

But then after some time had passed, several of you came back to me and said, “Well if you believe in me and congregation see these gifts in me, I think I need to give it a try to serve.”

And such an experience is not isolated to merely the deacon ministry. Countless times, I’ve seen the same situation played out in our community life together. Many of you have found yourself in positions of service, leadership or care that you never in a million years imagined you’d be. But, you’re the ones signing up now to be being the liturgist, leading one of our ministry teams, helping out in children’s Sunday School or serving in our hypothermia project because why? Someone used their gifts to encourage you to use yours.

This is the big picture my friends– God wants God’s body on earth to be blessed. God wants us to have every gift we need for the kingdom building that awaits us. And so God gave us each other. But, not just so we could bump shoulders and see someone sitting beside us in the pew. But, so that by using our calling– seeing God through OUR particular lens of giftedness– we help others see what they might never see if it weren’t for us.

I dare say if Martin Luther King, Jr. was not taught serious study of the things of God from his father, we would not know his name today or have freedom in all the corners of our land where it exists today.  If  Eli hadn’t told Samuel to go and respond to the Lord when God called, we wouldn’t have known King David and all that he would teach us about praising God’s name through song.

I dare say too that there are countless new stories ready to be written in our community if only we each use our gifts to help others see what they could not see without us recognizing it first. 

In 2003, I attended a meeting of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Charlotte, NC where seminary professor and social advocate, Tony Campolo spoke. It came time to give the offering for missions after the sermon. And, the gentleman guiding the program asked Tony to pray before the ushers came forward to receive the offering. Seemed like a very normal churchy thing to do.

However, to the shock of many, Tony refused to pray. “What?!?” we were all thinking in our seats. Instead he said something like this: “We don’t need to pray for the offering tonight because this is what I know about God. God has already given each us in this room enough resources to meet our $15,000 offering tonight. All we need to do now is to give. So, I’ll start by emptying my wallet with the cash in it and maybe some of you could do the same.”

And, just like Tony said that night, we got our $15,000 plus mission offering plus some in that very room.

Rest assured I’m not asking you to empty your wallets this morning . . . . though I am sure the trustees wouldn’t mind.

But, what I am saying, like Tony Campolo said about giving, is that in this church, just like other local communities of faith, God has given us every resource we need to do what we are called to accomplish.  God has given us teachers. God has given us servers. God has given us encouragers. God has given us leaders. God has given us those who can show compassion. God has given us givers. God has given us prophets.

This question then just sits on our shoulders: are we going to all God to use our gifts so that others can be blessed through us? How are you going to make God known by seeing what others don’t?

AMEN

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[i] Gregg Blackely “Formative Influences on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” Peace Magazine. http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v17n2p21.htm

God’s Calling to Take Care of Yourself

God Calls You to Take Care of Yourself

I Corinthians 6:11-20

Today we begin a series of messages in this season of Epiphany all about God’s calling to us. It’s the time of year that the Christian calendar asks us to do some consideration again about this life of faith that we’ve committed to live in. It’s the time of year for us to hear from scripture again some of Jesus’ hopes for our becoming as people called the Body of Christ. And, today’s “God Calls You” blank inserts the words “To Take Care of Yourself.”

As I was preparing for this sermon this week, I thought back to previous studies I’d heard on the Corinthian text and the topical sermon series I’d heard or preached before. And, I realized this. I’d never heard a sermon or preached one for that matter on caring for self. Not one. I wondered why?

It seems we tow a good line as leaders and faith seekers in Christian community on the topics of self-sacrifice, selflessness and extending beyond the bounds of our own natural abilities so that God can work mightily through us, but rare it seems that we ever talk about care of self.  While we are eager to talk about becoming something “more:”  more loving, more giving, more serving, more faithful, it is rare that we talk about the physicality of a body from which all of the loving, giving serving and faithfulness comes or do we ever talk about our limits of care.

I don’t know why this is, other than generations of doctrine and preaching and study has seemed to do a great job disconnecting the body and the soul. Because of humankind’s fall in Genesis 3, we learn we’re condemned to a sentence of bodily suffering, pain.  The body is bad and will die while the soul is good and will abide in the presence of God forever, if redeemed.  Yet, we have forgotten that God previously said over the words of our birth that we were made in God’s very own image and called “very good.”

As a result of all of this confusion, we easily think us regular church going people, what’s the point when it comes to our own health and well-being? If we really need rest or a day of solitude and someone from the church calls us to do something, then the “godly” choice is always to say yes to others and to the church. Furthermore, if we want our lives to be pleasing to God, then we’ve got to learn to give up beauty, give up pleasure, or even lay our own medical problems on the altar of denial, so we have time for everyone else other than us.  Though we are taught all along about love and grace and all that jazz, we believe the only way God will REALLY love us is we die to self by putting ourselves last.

There’s a poem about JOY which you may have heard. It is the acrostic for the word JOY: Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last.  I remember my father saying to the children in Vacation Bible School once that “If you really want to be happy in life, you’ll learn to love Jesus more than anyone else, even yourself.” As I grew older and had the ability to consider the deeper meaning of this saying I saw so regularly, I doubted the claim of “I wasn’t really loving Jesus if I was loving myself.” 

Is this what Jesus’ own ministry modeled for us? Did Jesus never eat, sleep, take retreats or be quiet from time to time? But, Christian culture seem to teach me and my peers–  loving yourself was a bad thing. It you took a mental health or catch up on your sleep day, you just didn’t talk about it.

But, is this what our epistle lesson from this morning is seeking to say about care? Deign it? In the eyes of Paul, do our bodies matter?  How might our calling be to care for ourselves be the foundation of all our care for others?

We find our lection for this morning found smack dab in the middle of a long series of instructional teaching from Paul to the church in Corinth, a church we know that Paul helped to found and nurture in its infancy.  Paul sought to teach this gathered community– new coverts to the way of Christ– what living out their baptism (as we were talking about last week) would look like in the practical every day issues in a particular context. 

(As an aside, this is often why, we as modern readers have a hard time with the epistle scriptures. While there is much to learn from the “big ideas” of these letters, we often reach dead ends of frustrating fundamentalism when we take the directives of Paul too literally).

 In the verses previous to and after our lection we hear Paul describing his concerns for order in the church, legal matters, marriage and the process of worship.  So, with this understanding, it seems less random these verses about sexual morality and food before us today which say in verse 13: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” or in verse 18: “Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.”

It’s like we are listening into a thousand plus year old conversation, though one-way, about food and sex morality’s place in the life of faith. Paul wanted the church at Corinth to know that even as he taught much about “freedom in Christ” and the truth that being in Christ meant they were no longer bound to laws about this and that behavior– still limits existed.  “All things are lawful for me,” Paul reminds them but adds, “not all things are beneficial.”

It’s his way of saying, in the story of Christ’s grace, we are not left out of the family of God for what we do and our actions do not change the way God looks at us or thinks of us, BUT freedom in Christ has limits. The limits are meant for our good.

Such is summed up when we reach verse 19, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your body.” 

Like a young child who will not take instructions without their parent or caregiver answering their thousand, “Why?” questions, Paul gives the whys for his considerations for this particular community about how they partner sexually and what food they put in their mouths. 

Their bodies are not bad. Their bodies are not just flesh and bones with nothing to do with their souls. Their bodies gave life and thus were a part of God’s very own Self.  Therefore, a call resounds to care for their bodies. 

I wonder how many of us in this room made New Year’s Resolutions? (Raise your hands)  And, among all of you who made resolutions, I wonder how many of your stated intentions related in some way to your body or health.  (Any brave souls to raise your hands?)

If you raised your hand, you are in good company of your peers. A recent article about our New Year’s Resolution practices in one US city[i] states that the top five resolutions made this year included to:

1. Spend more time with friends and family

2. Become fit in fitness

3.  Lose Weight and tame the bulge

4. Quit Smoking

5. Quit Drinking

No matter that social studies say that 80% of New Year’s Resolutions fail by January 20th (that’s only 5 days away in fact), there seems to be a compulsion in most of us to improve our satisfaction with our bodies and an equally strong compulsion to not.

According the National Center for Heath and Disease Control, nearly 2/3 of adults and children in the United States are overweight; nearly 1/3 are obese.  And, if we single out the church going crowd the statistics are worse. A recent study by a Purdue University sociologist “found that religious participation in the United States specially, participation in the Christian denominations (for which the Baptist church was highlighted as a chief offender)– correlates with status as overweight or obesity.[ii]

At first reading of this I wanted to shout, “Oh come, on, so not true!” But, sadly I think the statistics tell our story. Our relationship with our bodies is out of control. Our disconnectedness of body and soul is out of control.

Have you been to a church dinner lately? Have you met a group of pastors lately? Though our church and its leaders might be able to say that we’ve cared for the sick and dying and we’ve given good weddings and funerals, when it comes to taking care of our own health, our own well-being, and our own mental peace, we do a really lousy job of it. We don’t really think our bodies matter that much.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at clergy gatherings where fellow colleagues have boasted of “never taking their vacation” or “working from sun up from sun down.” I can’t tell you how many pastoral encounters I’ve had in homes when a piece of cake or pie has been shoved on me though I really keep saying, “I’m full.” I can’t tell you how many times the sin of gluttony has been ignored in church life as if it is ok to eat and eat and eat some more and the sin of lust has been ignored and we all know what happens when that comes out . . .  We as the church global have problems with God’s call to care for our bodies.

All of this talk this morning is not meant to knock those of us who in the midst of a life-long struggle with body image, time management and finding ways to love exercise (though we hate it so), but it is this text that asks us to stop and ponder what IS God’s calling to our bodies again. It’s our time now to ask us what God’s calling to “glorify God in our bodies” looks like?

In my early years of faith, I heard a lot about salvation as the process of being made right with God. Salvation as making a stated confession to a community of my sin, repentance and faith in God. Salvation amounted to a prayer of confession and a lifetime of service in the church, hoping to lead as many others as possible in this prayer of confession too.  It was such a big deal that people would ask, “What was the day that you came to Christ?” And, when you appropriately answered, your salvation story was complete.

But, even as my understand of salvation began to change over the years, a class during my 3rd year of seminary, shifted my theology in a completely different direction. Salvation was not, as Dr. Esther Acolotse, put it in pastoral care class one afternoon about a moment or a limited engagement experience. Salvation, she suggested was about become a human being– the human being God designed each of us to be at creation. Salvation was about a journey to be made whole.

Such words lingered with me long that day after class and have stuck with me until now. That, yes, God calls us to take care of ourselves because our salvation depends on it.

But, what does this look like, you might wonder? I’m still trying to figure it out, of course, but what I’ve learned is that there is no way that I can act on God’s calling for care of self if my schedule is out of balance.

If we try to over work or under work, if we say “yes” when we should be saying “no,” we wind up cranky, drinking too much caffeine, and eventually physically ill.

But, if we remember when we look at the week ahead that it is good to care of ourselves– the time we need to cook meals at home, the time we need to go on walks, the time we need to decompress– as much as we say “yes” to other things, a funny thing happens.

We feel better. We might just sleep better. We enjoy my life more, and we exude the joy of being exactly the person God created us to be.  And, sure there are always times in your life and mine when we need to go more than others, but afterwards we always must remember to take a step back and not let this constant rush be our norm.

So, let me be clear with you today. Hear this calling of the Lord– take care of yourself. Spend time with people who make you happy. Eat foods that your body will smile about when receiving. Take naps on your days off when you are tired. Stay at home some nights and do something that has no other purpose than enjoyment.  Consider the long-term consequences of who is in your bed– make your bedroom activity a place of beauty and not conflict.  And, above all, know that these activities like eating, drinking, sleeping, walking are not unspiritual– we are in fact by engaging them, glorifying God through and with and by our bodies. We are saying the image of God is in us! We are saying to our Creator that the craftsmanship of us is good!

The stakes are high with this calling, my friends, for you and I get into more trouble than we can ever know now if we don’t live into this. Not only what we first might think– facing life with preventable health concerns dragging us down– but in our community relations with one another. If we are ever going to be the presence of God to one another as other callings upon our life will ask of us– we must first start with ourselves.

After all St. Teresa of Avila once said to her community:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours.

So, what are you going to do to care for yours? AMEN

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[i] Top Ten New Years Resolutions. Albrecht Powell. http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm

[ii]Mary Louise Bringle. “Eating Well: Seven Paradoxes of Plenty.” http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/HealthArticleBringle.pdf

It’s Time to Grow Up

Grow Up!

Hebrews 5:12-6:3

In the lectionary cycle, we are reaching the end of the time of year that is named “ordinary time.” Next week, we will celebrate a service of remembrance of Thanksgiving and then the following Sunday, November 27th will begin Advent. (Hard to believe we are at Advent again, isn’t it?)

Though “Ordinary time” isn’t the most exciting descriptor of course of all the good work we’ve been exploring together in worship since we celebrated Pentecost Sunday in June, it’s the liturgical season we stay in the longest in any given year.

Ever wonder why the color of the pulpit cloth and my stole is green and has been green for seemingly forever (unless you are Ernie and just noticed the color change last week?). Green is a color that symbolizes growth, and summer and early fall– the time of year that ordinary season occurs every year– it’s a time in the life of the church to put all our attention on “spiritual growth” without the highs and lows of the religious holidays such as Epiphany, Good Friday, Easter or Christmas to distract us. During ordinary time, we are to devote ourselves to the business of deepening our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

All of this to say, when reflecting about the fact that our “ordinary” (aka growth season) in the church is nearly over, I could help but take the opportunity and go off the lectionary for this week and do a check-up of sorts about how it is that we are doing in the “growing up” portion of our own spiritual lives. Drawing upon some wisdom from the writer of the book of Hebrews– a book we don’t hear too many sermons from in a given year given its complexity and unknown authorship, but has much to teach us about the richness and the beauty of what following Christ is all about.

Let me interrupt your regularly schedule sermon narration to ask for a true confession time: are any of you willing to admit that you still are holding onto an object of sentimental value from your childhood? It could be an old lunch box, your favorite stuffed animal or that leather jacket that you just had to have your senior year of high school but is now five sizes too small with no possible way that you could find your way into anytime soon? If so, feel free to raise your hands now.

If I were to make my own true confession it would be that I still have a baby blanket that my great-grandmother made me for me. It’s a carefully crocheted in pastel colors that has stood the test of time, these 31 years of my life. Mu, as she was affectionately known on my father’s side of the family, died when I was a year old, so though I have no memories of her, the blanket is still special to me– even though as you can obviously see, I am no longer a baby in need of a blanket.

Why is it that we hold on to such things– long past their time of practical usefulness to us? The obvious answer is the emotional comfort the continuity of such objects in our lives provide.

But in the case of my blanket and your  fill in the blank items as well, we keep them close for comfort’s sake, but in doing so, might we also have our “growing up” stumped a little in the process? Do we really NEED such things from our childhood?

In the same way, the preacher of our text for this morning, is too trying to find a way to say to his congregation a word or two about the “growing up” that he feels they need to do as well, letting go of what had worked for them in the past.

I don’t know if along the way in your educational life, you ever encountered a teacher that was known to challenge their students: challenge in the sense of motivating students beyond originally felt was one’s capacity for study. Well, if you have had such an experienced or journeyed with your child in such a hard experience, then you have an idea already what the Hebrews preacher is up too.

If we were to read on past where our lection ends today at verse two of chapter six, soon we’d be in some of the most complex passages in all of the New Testament. Passages which speak to the nature of some of Christianity’s most important concepts: faith, the place of Jesus in relation to God and even about who angels are.

Like any good teacher, the Preacher of Hebrews knew, that if we went over his congregation’s head and just jumped into all of this deep stuff, without some good hook, they’d soon stop listening and maybe even fall asleep during the end of the sermon. So, this is where the words of our text come in. Look with me at verse 12: “By this time you ought to be teachers, but instead you need someone to teach you the ABC of God’s oracles over again.”

Though at first glance this verse seems to sound like a lecture given from a lofty pulpit with a harsh tone, it isn’t actually. It is a rhetorical strategy used by the preacher/ teacher to say: “Listen up friends. I am about to tell you about some of the most amazing teaching you’ve ever heard, but you aren’t ready. So I won’t.”

The hope of the words that follow, then is persuasion for the congregation to listen up, to prove their teacher wrong. That, yes, really yes, they could handle it. They were ready for more. To say with the nods on their heads that yes, wanted to journey with the preacher into conversation about the deep waters of faith.

Because if we understand the type of teaching in Christian community commonplace among converts at this time, we realize that much like our regime of offering Sunday School for children and adults, the intended audience of this sermon had also been through instructional teaching for a year or sometimes three at least. These listeners were not those who had never been around Christianity before and need a 101 lesson. Rather, they at least had heard the basics.

But, even with this true, the preacher says, in 6:1: “Let us stop discussing the rudiments of Christianity.” What does this mean? Doesn’t everyone need a refresher course every now and then?

But the preacher is saying: the time of hashing and rehashing over the same “Jesus was important teacher. Jesus died for my sins. Jesus rose again which is why we celebrate Easter…” just can’t last forever. As good as it was to know and hear the basics, life in the ways of God was so much more adventurous than this. They were asked to no longer stand still. In fact, the Hebrews preacher suggests that staying in the same place spirituality that they had always been was in fact NOT standing still, as it might seem. Rather, it was indeed going backwards.

The analogy employed here in Hebrews, is in fact one that has stood the test of time from ancient to modern.  Look with me at verse 13 when the preacher says, “Anyone who lives on milk is still an infant, with no experience of what is right. Solid food is for  adults, whose perceptions have been trained by long use to discriminate between good and evil.”

And such a statement we understand from this preacher: “Are you still an infant in the faith? No. Well, then why in the world are you still drinking milk only? Don’t you know that as adults, your calling is to eat and teach others to also eat solid spiritual food– food that cannot be merely gulped as a whole, but food that needs to be carefully cut into smaller pieces to be digested slowly.”

A friend of mine was taking her young son to the dentist for his annual check-up. When the dentist examined my friend’s son’s teeth, immediately he had that look of alarm that every parent knows. Something was up. The dentist began to ask more about the child’s diet and when and if he still took a bottle at night.

When the answer to the milk in a bottle question was yes, the dentist was quick to respond: “You know that this is not good for your son. He has to stop drinking milk this way and taking bottles altogether at his age. He’s growing up you know, and if he keeps at this ‘infant-like’ behavior the growth of his mouth as an adult will actually be stunned.”

So, the question before us this morning is, are we still drinking milk spiritually or have we moved on to steak or a plate full of the most beautiful sautéed vegetables (for the vegetarians in the room)?

Not that there is anything wrong with milk if we are new to the faith– of course. When we are newborn in terms of accepting Christianity as our spiritual home, milk is perfect. Actually, it is indeed THE most nourishing substance we can provide and surround ourselves with, often taking it in as newborns take milk from their parents– being feed by those who are more experienced at spiritual food than we are and taking it all in.

Drinking spiritual milk would look like coming to Bible study and asking as many questions as we need. Sitting in worship, not saying much but listening well.
Not tithing part of our income to the church yet, but giving what spare change we can find in the bottom of our purse. And, reading scripture or other devotional texts  as we feel moved to do so. All of these baby steps in faith become beautiful testaments to the work of God that is beginning to take root in our souls. And if this is where you are today, I say, keep drinking up the milk. Go for it. Drink up.

But, what about the rest of us? Why are we still drinking milk (like the picture on the front cover of our bulletin for this morning)?

What about those of us for whom we raised in the church?

What about us who have been re-associating ourselves with church and now realize we’ve been a member regularly attending WPBC for five years or more?

What then, is the” grow up” message of our text for this morning? How might the spiritual practices of our past be holding us back, stunning our growth, much like the mother who couldn’t refuse her child his bottle at night but then got the bad news from the dentist? What might a life of solid spiritual foods look like?

But, the truth be told, I can’t describe what spiritual solid food will look like in your life and what it will look in mine. If we take a minute and consider just a moment how it is that we digest a meal such as the one we have on the altar table, we might find some clues to get us moving in the right direction.

Consider thinking about spiritual food like we do solid food.

Spiritual food like solid food takes time to come together. Just as we can’t come home from work quickly and put together a five course meal in the matter over 30 minutes or less if we haven’t prepared ahead of time, we can’t expect to receive spiritual nourishment if we just call upon  God when a crisis hits or our guilt gets the best of us.

Spiritual food like solid food takes time to digest. Unlike drinking a cold glass of milk in under a minute if we want, eating solid foods takes time. To eat solid foods, we must slow ourselves down to chew so that we simply don’t choke. Growing spiritually does not come from reading a couple of sentences devotional every now
and then– it comes in setting the intentions of our days that growing in relationship with our Creator is actually something we want to put into our schedule. Not lunch on the run, or lunch multitasking while on our email, but lunch with time and space to enjoy every bite of God’s love given for us in the Word called the Bible.

Spiritual food like solid food comes in various forms. At some points in our lives, we could eat chicken fingers and mac and cheese for every meal. But as we grow
older, we often learn to eat foods we would have turned our noses up to as kids– broccoli, spinach, and carrots, just to name a few. In the same way, the intake of spiritual foods in our lives will probably look different with each passing year. Sometimes it will look like lots of Bible Study classes. Sometimes it will look like weekends devoted to social justice projects. Sometimes it will look the quiet devotion of abiding in deep friendship with other believers. But regardless– it is nourishment that we need at the time and we must eat up, not being to picky complaining that our spiritual food doesn’t look as good as our brother or sisters’.

So this morning, I ask you, again, do you want to grow up? Do you want to have something other than milk for dinner? Do you want to taste and see that the Lord is indeed good? Then, come join me, come join your fellow believers on this journey in the feast of spiritual foods that our heavenly Parent has laid before us.  Let’s do this important work and grow up in the faith together.

I promise you that as you learn to eat your spiritual food, it will taste better than you could have ever imagined as you keep chewing it, preparing it, feasting on it and sharing your meal with others.

AMEN