ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 11, 2023 Context: Yesterday, I talked about carving out more space where we acknowledge and embrace God’s presence. Faith tells us God is everywhere, and though at times we might create an expectation that God will not make an appearance in a certain place or time, Advent is about recognizing how God sneaks into those places and times we least expect. This is a prayer to offer in those places where we least expect to encounter God, including the office, the classroom, when we are doing laundry, stuck in traffic, at a sporting event, or having dinner with that uncle who wants to spend the entire meal telling about his most recent conspiracy theory. Yes, God is found even in those moments for those who are open to the possibility. And if open, then we are available to the one we call the Prince of Peace. Prayer for the Week: It is easy to notice you in certain places, O God of the Universe and beyond, yet I have too often relegated you to one area of life while assuming you have no plans of appearing in another. Yet if you are the Everlasting God who exists in a moment of time even before it is a moment, then why should I ever convince myself that there are moments without you? Today, wherever I find myself—wherever I have previously convinced myself to be inattentive to your Spirit—provide me with the perceptive vision of faith that is capable of seeing beyond my limited expectations. This I request in the name of the Christ Child, who was born in the most unanticipated birthing center. Amen.
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ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 10, 2023 In the last month or so, I have obligated Cypress Creek Christian Church on a few occasions without actually asking the church. No, I did not buy a new piano for the church with an IOU. But in a note I sent to the Rabbi at Jewish Community North, I expressed my concern for his congregation and also for him. There is growing hate, including hate manifesting itself in violence toward those we do not understand. It is utterly baffling to me that such a thing is happening. In the note, I told the Rabbi that if there was anything Cypress Creek Christian Church could do for his community, that he should call me. You may remember that immediately after the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, our church was one of the driving forces to have other people of faith join Jewish Community North for the first Shabbat service after the tragic event. CCCC had a strong representation of solidarity. In II Corinthians 1, we read: God is the one who comforts us in all our trouble so that we can comfort other people who are in every kind of trouble. Whether someone is Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or some religion we do not know, the Apostle Paul does not limit where we are to go or to whom we are to go. We all know what it is like to feel alone or fearful, ostracized or anxious, yet when someone makes the effort to come alongside us, it makes all the difference. I hope you don’t mind me obligating you. I did so because I trusted that you understood what it means to be a person who is striving to Put Love First In All Things, a lot like Jesus. As you have comforted me with your immeasurable love and mercy, O God, I seek to be a source of comfort and encouragement to others. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 9, 2023 A few years ago, Richard Rohr, the Franciscan Monk, quoted St. Francis of Assisi, “Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart,” And then Rohr went on to write…. Generations of Christians seem to have forgotten Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence. We’ve relegated visions of a peaceful kingdom to a far distant heaven. We hardly believed Jesus could have meant for us to turn the other cheek here and now. It took Gandhi, a Hindu, to help us apply Jesus’ peace-making in very practical ways. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), drawing from Gandhi’s writings and example, brought nonviolence to the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In recent Christian history, there has been a strange battle line (intentionally using a war image) between those who, as Rohr suggests, relegate the idea of peace to heaven and those who look at Jesus and see someone who embodied his expectation of how his followers would live in the here and now. For those who have been the victims of continuous violence, the idea of a peaceful kingdom beyond this life can be very comforting. But those who are the perpetrators of violence or those who sit silently while violence occurs, ignoring what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, is to ignore one of the primary messages of Jesus. In that Sermon, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” I do not believe Jesus was saying that to be a child of God one must be a peacemaker. Instead, once we joyfully discover the love of God that makes all humanity children of God, then peacemaking is the only faithful response. Of course, as St. Francis suggested, this peace needs to begin within us if it is ever going to be embodied through us. As I said yesterday, we have some work to do. O Lamb of God, O Prince of Peace, may the life of Jesus guide me to a place of peace in my own life. And then, from there, I pray to be a conduit of peace in my little part of the world. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 8, 2023 Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Don’t be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27). God said to King David, “A son has just been born to you. He’ll be a man of peace, and I’ll give him peace with all his surrounding enemies” (I Chronicles 22:9). Zechariah spoke a prophecy: “Because of our God’s deep compassion, the dawn from heaven will break upon us, to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide us on the path of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). Again and again, we read of God seeking to give us peace or to provide the tools to get us to a place of peace. This coming Sunday is Peace Sunday in the Advent experience. Let us remember that in the gift of Christ Jesus, God’s peace has come into the world. It already exists, yet it has not yet been fully known or embraced. Our work is to take what has been given and find new and creative ways of living it for the sake of all creation. We have some work to do. In Christ Jesus, you have given us the great gift of peace. Lord God, guide us to places where we might experience this gift, claim it as our own, and then allow its power to radiate from us and into the world. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 7, 2023 Today, I want to take a moment in my Etching to thank the 2023 Leadership Team. If you have not ever served on the Church Board or the Elders, you may not realize everything that occurs behind the scenes. Year after year, I have found myself in awe of how God called forth and utilized people for the mission of Putting Love First In All Things. I think about the words from 1 Corinthian 12, where we read: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone (vs.4-6). The spiritual gifts, alongside the unique insights and passions, make for a true team by which much of the administrative work (Board) and spiritual care (Elders) of the church is done. I want to give a special shoutout to two people who are concluding their terms of service: Tom Gallatin, Chair of the Church Board, and Sheri Ragan, Chair of the Elders. They have both provided grace-filled guidance to their respective groups. Cypress Creek is a better place because of these two people working alongside the other Board Members and Elders. Cypress Creek is more faithful, in part, because of your leadership. Remember the Annual Congregational Meeting immediately after worship this Sunday, in the Centrum. Gracious God, you have a wonderful ability to bring forth the right people at the right moment. Today, we give you thanks for the long history of exceptional leaders who have served Cypress Creek Christian Church and for the way you are once again doing so as we transition from 2023 to 2024. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 6, 2023 Yesterday, I attended a fabulous, though deeply troubling, lecture on Christian Nationalism, sometimes referred to as White Christian Nationalism. The speaker was Amanda Tyler, the Executive Director of the Baptist Joint Committee For Religious Liberty. It was sponsored by Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston and was hosted by Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. My friend Rev. Chad Mattingly and I sat between a Jewish Rabbi and a Muslim Imam. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but this was no joke. Christian Nationalism uses the word Christian and commandeers Christian symbols for things that in no way represent the life of Jesus. Christian Nationalism has more to do with power and greed, seeking to prey upon the vulnerable and those who want to blame someone for their problems. The working definition of Christian Nationalism is a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to merge American and Christian identities. It attempts to use nostalgia, seeking to replicate an ideal time that actually never existed. Christian nationalism tends to be racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, antisemitic, and promotes hate toward many groups including the LGBTQ+ community. The last thing Christian Nationalism wants you to do is actually talk about Jesus and his radical love that stepped across every boundary and barrier religion and politics attempted to fabricate. The story of the Good Samaritan challenges Christian Nationalism on so many levels. The parable normalizes the absurd—Jesus’ depiction of a “feared outsider” (the other) being the one who embodied God’s hope for the world. I had many takeaways from the lecture, but maybe the most important was Impact vs. Responsibility. Christian Nationalism most negatively impacts vulnerable and marginalized communities, yet the responsibility to confront Christian Nationalism falls upon Christians. We must speak passionately and prophetically about Jesus and how Christian Nationalism is the antithesis of anyone seeking to follow in the ways of Jesus. Help me, Gracious God, to know the ways of Jesus more fully, and to be able to both speak and act in a way that makes clear his unconditional love for all people. In this work, help me to be both humble and bold, for hate dressed in the garments of religiosity is still hate. And this world does not need another so-called religion promoting what is not of Jesus. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 5, 2023 John’s Gospel does not have any of the fun Christmas stories. Instead, it is a more philosophical and heady approach to understanding who Jesus was and is. John begins with the words: In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. Later, in chapter 1, we learn how this eternal Word, which is God, took on flesh and lived among us. I sort of prefer the manger and the shepherds, but John offers something that is both profound and absurd. It’s not like we have multiple examples of similar events that we can compare. It’s almost as if the Gospel writer wanted to set the absurdity bar high, as the life of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection would continue to have people scratching their heads and wondering what kind of nonsense this is. Yet it appears as if God is suggesting that the world is going in the wrong direction, and for the world to turn away from what it knows and move in an entirely new direction, it is going to feel absurd… until it doesn’t. That’s the movement of faith. Your story, O God of Creation, is unsettling to a world that is rather comfortable with things as they are. May the Jesus story unsettle us wherever our comfort is dismissive of your dream for us. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 4, 2023 Prayer for the Week: One Advent candle has brought new light into the world, and that gift is from you, O God of Hope. Let it shine into those unseen places within us where despair, anguish, or grief silently reside. Speak to us through the stories, music, and symbols, reminding us how you are not yet done with us or this world in which we live. Allow the Good News of the Christ Child’s coming to be for us a message by which hope dwells more deeply within us, nudging out all that is not of you or your dream for our lives. We speak these words to you, O God, in the belief that you know our greatest needs and deepest hurts. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 3, 2023 In today’s sermon, I will quote Dr. Emilie M. Townes, a Professor in Womanist Ethics at Vanderbilt Divinity School. In an article entitled Lament and Hope: Defying this Hot Mess (great title), she writes: With our all-too-human unpredictability, lament can serve as an anchor to help us find our bearings on how to live as people of faith. We learn from biblical laments that it is imperative to name what is wrong with as much precision and honesty as possible, even if it hurts or causes us to wince. From the Psalms to Joel to the cross, laments tell the truth of the suffering that is smothering our worthiness, our dreams, our ability to work toward a better tomorrow. As the title of the article suggests, lament and hope are inescapably tied together. Hope is never theoretical, but deeply rooted in reality. And if we do not name the reality and feel the lament, then there is no real possibility of hope. Hope exists honestly in one moment of time, while believing that the circumstances of that moment are not God’s final wish. In the Season of Advent, specifically this first Sunday of Advent, we focus on hope, but not some abstract notion of wishful thinking. We claim a conviction that God, even when we find ourselves under the weight of despair’s shadow, is not finished. To some, it might sound like nonsense, but some of the greatest moments in history were birthed out of hope. In this most sacred season, O God, draw us into the hope of the Christ Child, a hope that takes seriously the full range of the human experience while beckoning all creation toward your dream for life. Amen. ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 2, 2023 The day before… When something unexpected happens, we often forget about what occurred the day before. When we are waiting with great anticipation for something, the day before it occurs seems to painfully drag. Today is the day before Advent, and it is already a mix of emotions. I love this season of the year, and I am truly excited for tomorrow, but I am also trying to focus on today. Yes, tomorrow will be wonderful as we light the first candle on the Advent Wreath and begin singing some of the traditional songs of the season. But I don’t want to look ahead without acknowledging that today contains the same number of minutes as tomorrow, and within each of those minutes is an equal amount of possibility—the possibility to do the very things the Christ Child came to invite the world to do. Tomorrow will be awesome, but why should I assume that today, the day before Advent begins, is not fully capable of being equally awesome? Just a thought… Prepare me, Lord of this Advent Season, for the journey that begins tomorrow. Yet with my mind attuned to what will occur, let me also be mindful of what is already occurring around me in this moment. What opportunities are there to enflesh the love of the incarnate one, Jesus Christ? I’m sure there are more than I could ever imagine, but I pray for the chance to act on at least one of them today. Amen. |
AuthorRev. Bruce Frogge Archives
May 2024
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