Worthy Adventure

I used this quote by Stanley Hauerwas in the sermon on Sunday and I want to revisit it after seeing this sign on Sunday:

“Christianity: It’s An Adventure”

What we do when we educate kids to be happy and self-fulfilled is to absolutely ruin them. Parents should say to their kids, “What you want out of life is not happiness but to be part of a worthy adventure. You want to have something worth dying for. It’s awful when all we have to live for is ourselves.

The phrase "worthy adventure" is a helpful quick test for our decisions. I just finished shopping so I'm thinking especially about our consuming decisions. And who can pass up the profound implications of a "POOP PUMPING: Hike at your own Risk" sign? 

Think about all the things you consume - the stuff you buy, the things you eat, the news you listen to. 

Are they moving you into a worthy adventure? 

I have a mixed bag from my own shopping day. The first aid kit and the squirt guns for camp are definitely part of a worthy adventure; the bag of gummy bears might have been an impulse buy. 

News is a consumer item and I can tell almost immediately what media someone consumes by what they spew. Let me just throw out there that lectures, sneering, or arrogant certitude never make for an adventure.

Curiosity is part of a worthy adventure; ask more questions and listen to a variety of resources. In this time that political ads are ramping up, listen to what they are trying to sell, is it a worthy adventure? 

POOP PUMPING: Hike at your own Risk. I feel like that describes a life of following Jesus. It is the risky journey of trying to figure out what has worth and what is excrement (I used the thesaurus on that one so I didn't say s&%* and upset my dad). 

Communion

The last shall be first and the first shall be last.

Jesus says something like this close to a dozen times so that's a signal to me as a preacher to pay attention. 

I think he means it.

I invite the church to clearly state:
Black lives matter, 
LGBTQ lives matter, 
Native lives matter, 
Women's lives matter, 
Disabled lives matter,
Refugee lives matter,
Poor lives matter.

The church needs to clearly state these lives matter not because they are noble or worth more, but because the state and church have historically and repeatedly deemed them as worth less. 

It's exhausting to reread the history of the Three-Fifths Compromise or the Dred Scott decision where the Supreme Court justice stated that black people were of "an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race . . .(black people) had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Church documents are equally as belittling and demeaning in their support of white, landowning men as the ones with authority and worth. I was going to pull out some historical documents, but reading what churches are saying right now became depressing so I stopped. 

I know that some of you will be irritated and offended. I'm kind of sorry. I try to be nice. But . . . 

The proclamation that the last shall be first isn't any more popular now than it was during Jesus' time.

It's uncomfortable when you are the ones in first right now. We don't need to make any proclamation that "White Male lives matter" because the state and church have said that clearly for hundreds of years. You are loved; you do matter. There's really never been any doubt about that so please breathe through the bubbling defensiveness and listen to some other voices for a bit. 

Here's the fun and wonderful news of God's kingdom - it's not a hierarchy. 

The vision of God's kingdom is communion so first and last are absorbed in the circle of saints. We get to follow Jesus to the fringes, to those places where people feel discarded, and break bread together, listen, feel uncomfortable and learn to love. All of us do matter, but some need to hear it a little louder over all the voices saying they don't.