"Let my heart be broken by the things that break God's heart." Bob Pierce

Continuing our journey with Koheleth, the cynical author of Ecclesiastes, we will consider his take on suffering and death beginning with the often sung Ecclesiastes 3, "For everything there is a season. . . ."

That Scripture always makes me think of Forrest Gump and the band, The Byrds. The movie tells the great heroics of a simple man and, at the same time, it honestly interweaves the struggle and pain of life from war to illness to death.

This week especially feels like the times of “killing, weeping, and war” are all around us. But strikingly, of all the things Koheleth calls meaningless, he does not carte blanch list suffering and death among them.

Now, in no way, do I think he is simply saying, “Everything happens for a reason” implying God wants us to be sorrowful. But, if not that, what is Koheleth communicating in chapters like Ecclesiastes 7?

Well, consider this thought from Biblical scholar Ellen Davis, “The sorrow that Koheleth commends is not ‘the foolish sorrow which people make up for themselves’ (Martin Luther) but the real trouble that all must face who do not shrink from the challenges of loving and living.”

So, as we consider Ecclesiastes 7, what God is trying to tell us -

collectively and in our own personal seasons of life.

We live in challenging, heart-breaking times, but thankfully, God gave us powerful, challenging, and life-giving words for just such a time as this. Come to this sermon as a means to weep, pray, listen, learn, and love together.

What is futile? Is your work? For example, have you ever felt like Sisyphus who had to push a huge boulder up a mountain just to watch it roll back down again?

It seems that our work, ranging from simply trying to keep the house clean to attempting to end a treatable disease across the globe, can too often feel impossible while our efforts seem futile.

In this sermon, as we continue through the book of Ecclesiastes, we will explore the purpose of our work, or as Dr. Ellen Davis puts it, “The Perversions of Good Work.”

Part of the great gift of Christianity is we are a part of a larger global body (sometimes our differences can cause that gift to feel like a painful burden, but that is a another story and opportunity for prayer). On this Sunday, we will look at the work God has for all of us together and the ways God helps us share the load, allowing each other rest. For the moving of the boulder is a different proposition when shared. And, sometimes, we learn from one another that the boulder doesn't even need to be moved!

For as we discussed last week, we can be comfortable in doing things our own ways, or we can be free when we walk into God’s alternative and liberating ways. God is asking us to humbly acknowledge our limits and step into the uncomfortable but utterly significant and liberating work and ways of God. Thankfully, God feeds us for this challenging and freeing work with grace that is always sufficient.

What do you most enjoy or gives you great pleasure? Why?

What do you do that makes you feel righteous? Why?

I ask, because as we continue journeying through Ecclesiastes and the author’s search for meaning, we encounter several things he “tests” to determine if they are the point of life. This Sunday we will focus on two that are sometimes propped up as opposing things: pleasure and righteousness. (Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “the righteous are no fun.”) And his statements on each individual's subject appear contradictory as well.

But heed my warning, Ecclesiastes takes us on a ride as the Teacher (the author of Ecclesiastes) sometimes sounds like a babbling brook flowing both directions.

For at one moment he announces:

"I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself.’ But again, this also was vanity." (2:1)

Yet a few chapters later, he declares:

"So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun." (8:15)

Is he seeking to be contradictory? No, I don’t think so. Rather, he’s shaking up our “standard” religious categories of "pleasure equals bad" and "righteousness equals good."

So read over the passages in Ecclesiastes and ask yourself when you agree and disagree with his seemingly disparate opinions? Then, read over the Gospel passage, and ask yourself what cross, your own or another’s, you are being asked to carry at the moment. Does it bring you pleasure or pain? Does it make you righteous or just worn down?

Are you a cynic? Or just feeling, at times, like there’s no point to it all?

Well get ready for our new Sermon Series, “What’s the Point? A Look at Life through the Lens of Ecclesiastes.”

Ecclesiastes is one of the most simple yet confounding books of the Bible. It questions God and systematically shoots down most of our simple explanations for the meaning of life. As Temper Longman puts it, “The sentiments of the main speaker of the book sound incredibly modern. Expressing the uncertainty and anxieties of our own age, he is driven by the question, ‘Where can we find meaning in the world?’”

So come to this sermon to explore these life questions and more, not through the old familiar Scripture passages but with an ancient author who repeatedly proclaims, “Vanity of Vanities! It’s all Vanity.”

Is it? Come and let’s ask God together. And if you have friends who feels like life is just “chasing the wind” (another great phrase from Ecclesiastes), invite them to listen along.

I trust you have heard a story about a group of teens or a high school team who all shave their heads to be in solidarity with their friend fighting cancer?

Or what about the pastor in Houston who asked his always well clad congregation to come casual this week. Why? Because some of his members had lost everything, and he wanted them to feel comfortable coming in the clothes on their back.

There are all sorts of ways to be in solidarity with others, and obviously from the examples above, our appearances can be one of them. But if we want to be in solidarity with Christ, then we are asked, in Romans 13:8-14, to “put on the armor of light.” What on earth is that? Where do we get it, and are we even “ready to wear” it once we find it?

In a summer that has ranged from gunshots in our neighborhood field in Alexandria to violent protests in our neighboring city to the dark storm clouds flooding Houston and now the Caribbean and Florida, I have counted worship with you as a time to be in solidarity with others who look to God to light our way and lean on each other to learn the practices of faith that can enlighten our own lives and our world.

So come to this sermon just as you are, but come ready to put on the armor of light, and see something God’s longing to reveal to you.

We hope this will help you in considering being a part of the Covenant Bible Study that will begin October 1, 2017 at 5:00pm in the Chapel. Learn more or register here!

Ruth and Naomi - A torrid story of loyal love which emulates that of Jesus: "Wherever you go, I’ll go."

Although this verse is often read at weddings, it’s not actually a promise made between two romantic partners, but rather a daughter speaking to her mother-in-law. She saw the despair of this woman and committed to be her "ally" and stick with her through a journey of homelessness, immigration, and more.

"Wherever you go, I'll go." This week I had the privilege of going to the U.S. Congress to offer the opening prayer. CHUMC's Beth Nielsen met me there and generously offered my relatives a tour. She showed us the "Suffragists Statue" by sculptor Adelaide Johnson, which has three Suffragists beautifully carved but one lump of stone is left untouched. We don't know who she envisioned carving or why it's left undone. But it got my mind going...

"Wherever you go, I'll go." God, the great creator, chiseled this beautiful earth and each of us but God has left some parts of our lives for us to design and complete. We don't know God's plans for us but we know that God sends us partners, friends and even strangers to journey with and with whom we can draw nearer to God and seek justice for others.

"Wherever you go, I go." So go over the Scriptures below, and come to this sermon to explore the fierce courage and commitment of Ruth and conclude our "Walking with Women in Scripture" sermon series. And ask God, who is your "Naomi" at this moment?

When’s the last time you felt used? Like someone wanted something you had or needed something done you could do, but they didn’t actually value YOU, the person who had the gift or ability.

When’s the last time you felt misunderstood? Or alone? Or lost? Or useless?

In this sermon, we will look at two women with special abilities that were both misunderstood and used by the men around them as well as discarded and isolated when deemed no longer useful. But these feelings and experiences are not limited to women alone. They are realities that most of us have encountered at one time or another. So read the Scriptures below about “The Witch of Endor” and “The Fortune-telling Slave Girl,” and ask yourself where you see similar practices in our world today? Then contemplate the emotions these women might of felt and when you shared those feelings.

Finally, come to this sermon ready for God to speak to us about breaking free from both the ways we are “enslaved” by others' selfish actions and the ways we "enslave" ourselves and others with our own self-talk, thoughts and emotions.

In this sermon, we will learn from yet 2 more radical women in Scripture. We’re actually spending this month studying women in the Bible, because listening to the minority voice gives us a deeper and different understanding of God and ourselves. But Lord knows I had no idea all that would happen this month when I chose this topic.

Honestly, I’ve struggled for the best words to share with you about Charlottesville and the weeks and years that have led up to such a display of hatred and violence. There is no doubt how our God feels about white supremacy and any heresy that claims one "type" of human is superior, above, or should dominate over another. God abhors it. But, I believe, there remains within us deep doubts about “if and how” we might excise this sin from within us and our communities.

Thankfully, we serve a God who tells the truth about sin and shows the way to transformation no matter how hard the truth is to swallow and how challenging the path may seem. And God does not ask us to do any of this alone. I love how Rev. Maria Swearingen sums it: as Christians we are “a people who have chosen to shape their lives around the liberating story of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And this gospel tells about an early community of people, some Greek, some Jew, some male, some female, some free, some slave, who began to break bread together, and in the mystical breaking of that bread, discovered their truest, deepest selves. And in discovering their truest, deepest selves, they also discovered how deep the lies that originally defined them were. That “slaveowner” and “slave,” that “Roman citizen” and “immigrant” had so warped their self-understanding that they’d lost their deepest humanity. And the gospel of Jesus meant to help them find it again, together.”

So, come to this sermon where together, we will explore two stories where women were defined, confined, and at risk because of their ethnicity: Esther the Jew in a Persian Palace and the Unnamed Canaanite Mother who approaches her ethnic enemy, the Jewish rabbi named Jesus. I encourage you to read over the Scriptures and, as you read the stories, ask yourself who / which characters have power and what kind of power do they have?

As prep, I also want to recommend a sermon by Dr. Brenda Slater McNeil on the Book of Esther. In it, she strips away every shiny gloss we put on the passage and dives deep into the denigration, injustice, and dangers the women (from Vashti to Esther) face but also unearths their power. Here’s a link – it’s totally worth the hour!

Have you ever heard of Zelophehad’s daughters? No worries, if you haven’t. Though the daughters are mentioned by name 5 separate times in Scripture, seldom do they appear in our readings and teachings.

They’ve been called the first female lobbyists, religious rebels, and more. One blogger sums up their story like this, “Five Women Who Changed God’s Rules.”

What can this story about five overlooked sisters teach us about how we use our own voice for change: be it questioning authority, seeking God, trusting leadership, working for justice, or something else altogether? Consider the Scripture passages that inform this sermon as you prepare to listen.