We Are All Broken by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    In two weeks, we will have a new home together. We are moving to the Mammee Indoor Theater. The time since we made this decision has gone really quickly, hasn’t it? We started weekly worship here in October of 2009, a little over 2 years ago. This is the place it all started. We will always remember this as our first home. I’m a little sad about leaving. I’m excited about our plans for our new home in Mammee so I’m reminded of a phrase we have used around here before: joy and sorrow live together. I’m feeling some joy and some sorrow as we make this transition together.

    So I think it’s important for us to reflect, as a community, on who we are during this move. Church for us is not about a building.  We will never own a building.  Church is not about bricks and mortar.  We will not fight about what color the carpet will be, etc. 

    You will recall if you have been in worship for the past couple of weeks that we are basing our worship series on the book by Henri Nouwen called Life of the Beloved. You see, here at The Village, we understand that we are God’s beloved children, and we are living as God’s beloved children. That is our reason for being a church.

    We are seeking to be a beloved community – a community of hope for broken people out there, like us, who wander into our community looking for God. They are just like every one of us. Our t shirts tell our story: “No perfect people allowed.” One of our newer members, Jodi, was telling me yesterday that wearing the shirt has caused her to engage in many conversations with people. They love her shirt and they ask her about it, and then she tells them about this new church that she has found for her family.

    A critical part of being God’s beloved community, is this. We understand that people are not perfect. People are hurting. People have made mistakes. People have done bad things. People have had bad things happen to them, people have made mistakes, and they are looking for hope and healing. God is the source of that hope and healing. And in this community we can live that out with one another. But it means we have to be real with each other. People need authenticity. They don’t want churches filled with plastic people who are all pretending that everything is perfect. Show them a church that is fake and they will run screaming into the night.

    Our friend, Rock, tells me that when she first came to The Village she went home and told a friend that she found this church where the people really seem to genuinely care about one another, but she figured we all went home and yelled at our partners and cheated on our taxes.  Rock is kind of cynical.   She said we could not really be for real. But over time, she decided we are for real. Not perfect, but real, an authentic community where we can all be who we really are.

    So let’s take a look at today’s scripture and see what Jesus has to teach us about what his vision is for the “Beloved Community” of his followers. First, we’ll see what a group of religious folks of his day thought was good and proper. Now, in their defense, they were following the law of Moses. (1John 8:1-11 from The Message translation for those following along from the Net):

 1-2 Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them. 3-6The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, "Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?" They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.

 6-8Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, "The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone." Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.

 9-10Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. "Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?"  11"No one, Master."  "Neither do I," said Jesus. "Go on your way. From now on, don't sin."

    So here is what happened: Jesus modeled a new way of being community. In the Old Way, you judge a sinner, have no grace, put her to death.  In the New Way, have some grace, consider the reality that we all sin, treat your sister or brother with some love; give an opportunity for healing.  Decide if you are really perfect and blameless before God.  Are you loving and kind and generous and forgiving when you are slighted?  If so, go forward with your judging.  But if you have faults, then give some of the grace you get. 

    Now, we don’t know what happens next in the story.  I would so love to know what happens next in the story, wouldn’t you? Because you know that someone in that crowd had sympathy for the woman and wanted to reach out to her, right? Perhaps another woman who had made the same mistake? Or maybe the woman’s best friend from childhood who wanted to hear her side of things, but was forbidden from talking to her because of the rules of the day? But perhaps another person, who had also been touched by the healing love of Jesus, snuck over to her house later than day, and over a cup of tea (or whatever they drank in those days) they had a good cry, and some healing began. Isn’t that what Jesus would want?  Isn’t it the beloved community.   And don’t even get me started about how little power a woman had in that society anyway and where was the man in this story? But we don’t go there today.


    Henri Nouwen, in the Life of the Beloved, has some good words for the woman in the story, and for us, when we get caught up in our own human brokenness and sorrow. He encourages two responses. First, he says, we should just face our brokenness squarely and befriend it, “step toward it” and “embrace our brokenness” (p. 75). 

    He talks about being with a friend who realized that his marriage was over. Henri went to visit this friend. No words can fix the brokenness in this sort of situation, but the presence of a friend with us, can provide some healing. In seminary, we call this the ministry of presence. There is power in being present without trying to fix someone, recognizing that a situation can’t be fixed, but we just have to sit with someone in the pain and let them know they are not alone. Henri wrote about a friend going through a divorce and how Henri was there with him and that all his friend could do was “stand in [his] pain and grow strong through it” (p. 77).  Have you ever watched someone stand in their pain and just be strong as they grow through it?

    It’s not so hard to say to someone, when something good happens, that this is a blessing from God. That is easy.  This is the hard thing, writes Nouwen: “Didn’t you know that we all have to suffer and thus enter into our glory?” (p. 77)  He goes on to say that “Real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into the gateway to joy” (p. 78)

    So he invites us, and challenges us to embrace our pain and lean into it.   Here’s the thing, no one gets through life without pain.  Then he says, the second thing we can do, is to “Put it under a blessing” (p. 78). This is really a stretch for us, but try to hang in here with me.

    He says “Our brokenness is often so frightening to face because we live it under the curse. Living our brokenness under the curse means that we experience our pain as a confirmation of our negative feelings about ourselves. It is like saying, ‘ I always knew that I was useless or worthless, and now I am sure or it because of what is happening’” (p. 78).

    So when we are living as Beloved Children of God, and being the Beloved Community, our call is to pull our brokenness out from under the shadow of the curse and into the light of blessing. This is not an easy task. It takes some spiritual muscle. This is why we need this community to help us.

    The world is much more likely to support us in our self-rejection than in our self-love. But God is calling us to self-love and self-acceptance and that is the voice we want to listen to.   Remember that a few weeks ago we talked about listening to God’s voice of love and acceptance.
We need to do everything we can to allow God’s blessing to touch our brokenness. Gradually, (Nouwen writes), “the brokenness will come to be seen as an opening toward the full acceptance of ourselves as the Beloved” (p.80).

    Twelve Step programs know this process quite well. Addictions make us slaves but when we confess our dependencies and express our trust in a higher power, then we can be set free.  When bring it out into the open, the source of our suffering becomes the source of our hope. We put our brokenness under a blessing (p 80).

    I see us, at The Village, being this kind of community for one another. I see us sharing our brokenness and encouraging one another. We offer grace to one another. But we can always do better.   That’s why we have to come back every week. 

    You see the question is this, do we embrace our brokenness and put it under a blessing, in a way that we can move on with God’s healing, or do we just get stuck in that mess of brokenness, never to break out?   Ever see anyone get stuck in their brokenness?  Ever been their yourself?  Held your own pity party?

    Being the beloved community for one another, means that we call one another out, from sorrow to joy. Yes, joy and sorrow live together. This means we don’t hide from our sorrow, but it also means that we don’t stay there. We live as God’s people of hope and joy.

    For the woman in the Bible story, there was a second chance at life, literally. She could have been stoned to death. But she lived. She had a choice then. She could live as a condemned woman, an outcast, who had been shamed by her community. She could have lived as a broken woman for the rest of her days. Or she could have chosen to put her brokenness under a blessing, and live with the joy of having her life restored. She could have decided to wake up every day thankful that she is alive, and to live every day to the fullest. I hope she became the most passionate evangelist for Jesus on the planet. I mean, what a story she had to tell: “My life was saved because Jesus forgave me, and told the other people in my village to forgive me. We need to live as broken people who know that we are all forgiven!” What a message! 

    So, my friends, what will be our message? In two weeks, we are moving to a new home. A new home gives us a chance to get some new attention from a new crowd of people. Folks are going to be watching us, and asking, “What’s up with The Village Church? Who are these people and what do they have to offer me?”

    What will we tell them?  I hope we will tell them this:   We are part of God’s beloved community. We know we are broken, just like you. There is no secret we are broken, but joy and sorrow live together. So we will walk with you through your brokenness. We invite you to face your brokenness, and put it under a blessing. Let God turn your sorrow into joy.


    We have an amazing community here, and there are other people out there in Mammee and across NW Ohio and SE Michigan who are waiting to be part of our beloved Village community. Let’s get ready to be a part of God’s beloved community with them! Amen.

“Chosen” by Rosie Best (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    It’s really lovely to be with you today, when Cheri asked me if I would come and preach I felt honored to be CHOSEN to step in. Then she told me it was because she was going to be in Florida this week, and I tried not to be jealous!

    Last week Cheri was talking about the book, Life of the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen. She spoke about what it means to be the Beloved, the subject of that book. I hadn’t read this book before preparing for today, and I found it really helpful in understanding something that I believe all of us need to understand. It was helpful to me in a dry place, but more on that later…

    Nouwen uses the analogy of the communion to talk about what it means to be BELOVED. In the communion service, the pastor or priest will take the bread and wine and they are TAKEN, BLESSED, BROKEN and then SHARED. If we are to understand what it means to be BELOVED, then we have to understand that God has done the same thing with us… Cheri in the rest of the series is going to talk about the other aspects of this, but for today, we are going to concentrate on the idea of being TAKEN.

    When God gets a hold on our lives, we are taken… all of us. It’s essential for us to know this in a very deep place in our lives. It’s kind of hard to relate to the idea of being TAKEN or chosen , so Nouwen immediately uses, what he considers a warmer way of thinking of this: “As children of God, we are God’s chosen ones.” (51)

    In Kenneth Grahame’s book, The Wind in the Willows there is a beautiful chapter called Dulce Domum (chapter 5). It tells the story of Mole, who steps out of his house for the first time.  After a long adventure, he suddenly realizes he is close to home and recognizing it as a place long forgotten. I believe that in this way, we have a sense of God’s truth in our inner being… and that sometimes we feel so very far away from God that we feel flooded with despair … Today is about reclaiming our chosen-ness and about coming home… Having that realness of being chosen to be close to God.

    CHOSEN  You have been CHOSEN…

    There are, of course, circumstances where we’d rather not be chosen – a Tax audit, or as the subject for a bully, for example. That isn’t the kind of chosen I mean.  The Scooter Store & AARP haven chosen me for spam emails and I don’t really want that.   It’s the being picked out of a crowd chosen. That is an idea that most of us like. It brings with it the idea of being special… of being something… of being unique… of being wanted. Somehow, being chosen can help us get through the humdrum of daily life… I want to show you a cartoon (and we did in worship but can’t on the net due to copyright issues) that I came across just after I knew I was going to be speaking on this subject.  But in it’s three frames, a rabbit is at a computer working when it asks “God all I do is sit behind a computer all day.  Surely my life has some greater purpose than this.  A light comes down from heaven, centered on the rabbit, followed by the trumpets of heaven. 

    Oh boy, isn’t that sometimes how the day to day existence seems to be… we are going about our day… maybe thinking, “I’d rather sandpaper my armpits than put up with this!” and we hope, pray, yearn for the heavens to open up, and the trumpet to proclaim that what we are doing MATTERS! We want to feel special! Loved! Chosen!

    Okay, so I want to acknowledge that the cartoon came from MthruF.com and that the third frame isn’t the last frame… There’s one more, where the booming voice of God announces “Actually . . . No - This is not for you”.   Please tell me I am not the only one who worries that this is what the real answer is going to be!

    CHOSEN… it’s not a trick. God has chosen us and that doesn’t change.   Let me tell you I believe that God does not make junk.

    I need to tell a personal story here. I came to this country in 1993 and joined a church in town. I was a Youth Pastor and Children’s minister for several years. I was loved! I was considered to be an intelligent, caring, enthusiastic, and creative member of the team. Then after nine years, something changed. All my life been looking to marry a 6’4” Rugby playing Prince, shining armor and trusty steed optional, however, I had started working at a local school and I met a 5’3” Jewish American Princess and I finally understood what it meant to lose your heart to someone! I wasn’t planning to be gay, I didn’t want to be gay… but sometimes GAY happens!

    Suddenly the church, which shall remain nameless, forgot everything about me, and as quick as you could say, “Oh no she di’nt!” I was no longer chosen… in fact I was asked to never step foot in the church again. It was a very GRACELESS act.
Some of you can relate to being unchosen…

    Cheri talked last week about parents who get excited about children being born. I’m the youngest of 5 children. My parents decided they were done with children when they had a daughter. Unfortunately she came in at number 4. I was described as “the shakings of the poke.” The “unexpected package,” the “surprise.” For all these words, you can begin, if you are a sensitive child, to think… unwanted, in the way, taking up space…

    Some of you can relate to being unwanted.  Let me it clear, I am not trying to shame my family.  I am an actor and director. One of the great things that people describe about theatre is the great feeling of family, community, standing in the spotlight feeling special. I wish this were the only story. But for every moment of the special feelings… Theatre is a world that can be spoiled by petty dramas, divas, and the rejection, of running to see when the cast list goes up with all the excitement of I did great in the audition, only to find that you got the role of TREE #17… AGAIN!!!!  Or understudy as someone cried out in worship.

     You can feel pretty dejected, and rejected when that happens. Even getting the lead doesn’t protect you from trouble… then you have to deal with the looks from others who think, “She didn’t deserve that role,” “He’s just the teacher’s favorite!” “She must think she’s all that.”

    Some of you can relate to being rejected…  But this isn’t Debbie Downer does the gospel. This is GOOD NEWS. YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN! Part of the mystery is this (quoting Nouwen):  “When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else excluded” (54)

    Hours could be spent telling stories of the lack… but the Gospel… or Good News is that we don’t have to live in the bad place anymore. This truth is in each and every moment we live and we have a choice to embrace this truth with every single ounce of our being…

    I don’t know what your story is… I know that there are many voices around you that would try to minimize who you are, or undermine your creativeness, or tell you that you are useless, worthless… fill in the gap with your favorite things that pull you down…

    It’s not the truth about who you REALLY are. YOU ARE CHOSEN!  You can let any number of people try to tell you who you are… BUT YOU ARE CHOSEN!

    God is about reclaiming what has been beaten, abused, rejected and outcast. God is about healing the broken hearted. Building up, restoring, recreating…and setting you free into what you are created to be.

    Nouwen has an action plan to help you embrace this reality.

·    Unmask the lies: Start believing the truth about you. Reject all things that diminish who you are. Expose those lies. Don’t give into the voices of doubt and destructiveness. “Let the word of God dwell in you richly.” You have to live in the truth - embrace your God-given dignity and chosen-ness. When I was really struggling to make this a reality in my life, several years ago, someone challenged me to ‘live’ in Ephesians 1-3 and to rewrite it as a personal letter to me from God. This is why I chose the scripture for today.
·   
·    Surround yourself with Truth: Look for people and places where truth is spoken and where you are reminded of who you are called to be.  The Church I was at before was not going to do that.  They were not going to set me free.  Because I was kicked out, I discovered what it was to be me.  God is like that.  God doesn’t cast you out, God uses that show you what God already knew about you.
·   
·    Celebrate your chosen-ness: Maintain an attitude of Gratitude. Live in thanks when truth is spoke, say “thank you” when someone acknowledges who you truly are. 

    You have been chosen, but you have a power to choose. You are chosen, and you can choose to live by these guidelines or not. I pray that you will. “Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence – priceless and irreplaceable.”   Or you can slough things off. 

    Each of us has had those experiences with the Church.  As the old saying goes “Jesus I love you, but I can’t stand your wife”.  You see the Church is called the bride of Jesus. There are so many who have been hurt and blinded by the church.   But there are places like The Village where this is something is being challenged, where people are trying to change this.  And I salute you for this.  This is a struggle for many.

    So, for today, I am going to invite you to make a choice in the right direction… If this has been a struggle of yours, or if you just want to be reminded today of the place you have as one of God’s chosen, then I am going to invite you to step forward for a blessing… by making the mark of the cross and affirming that you are God’s chosen.

    Do you have a place where you feel like this?  A group of friends and believers who affirm you?  If not, look, these places are out here.  If you are near the corner of Monroe & Central in Toledo through February, or The Anthony Wayne Trail and Conant Street in Maumee thereafter, come join us.   We believe you are chosen by God for something amazing and we’ll try to help you figure out what that is.

“We Are Beloved” by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    If I could choose to name one writer whose books most profoundly affected my spiritual life as a young pastor in my first ten years of ministry the answer would be easy: Henri Nouwen. He was still alive when I started reading his books in the early  1990’s. He died in 1996. He wrote an astounding 40 books during his life. One was an amazing book called “Beyond the Mirror.” He had an experience where he came close to death, and reflected on the intensity of that experience.

    In another book, “Inner Voice of Love,” he revealed his own clinical depression and showed his vulnerabilities. It was something you don’t often see: the human side of one of your spiritual giants. I’ve dealt with depression in my life, but not to that level.  It was amazing to see this level of vulnerability shown by such a spiritual giant.

    In other books he talks about how after he spent years as a prestigious University professor, he chose to live in a L’Arche community in Toronto. There are  130 of these communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live with those who care for them. This life of a pastoral servant gave him the most joy as he lived out his faith in the simple daily tasks of being a care giver to some of God’s most misunderstood children.

    My favorite book of Henri Nouwen’s is this tiny little book that, for me, summarizes his understanding of the relationship between us and God. In fact this book sums up the core of my own theology and here it is in five words: we are God’s beloved children. The book is called “Life of the Beloved”. Henri wrote it at the request of a Jewish secular friend, living in New York City.

    The friend said to Henri:  “Why don’t you write something for me and my friends?. . . You have something to say, but you keep saying it to people who least need to hear it. . . What about us young, ambitious secular men and women wondering what life is about after all?” (p. 16-17). So Henri Nouwen wrote “Life of the Beloved”  as a way to try to engage non-religious people into the idea that God loves them, and wants to be an active part of their lives.

    The book is written to be a sort of spiritual primer, an invitation to the Christian life, if you will. It is a good book for anyone of us who want to take a deep breath, and get to the core of who we are and who God is.   And who we are in relationship to God.

    So we’re going to focus our worship on it, for the next six weeks. You might want to pick up a copy and read it.

    Henri Nouwen says that living the life of the beloved begins with recognizing the voices in our lives. Voices are powerful.  Just think about this for a moment. We know that babies can hear the voices of their parents in the womb. Even before we are born, we can hear the voices of those around us. So the parents in the home, preparing for our birth, are the voices most familiar to us once we are born: the mother who carries us, and whatever parent is living in the home and whose voice we hear. That’s why crazy excited birth parents talk to the tummy of a pregnant woman, singing songs, reading favorite books, saying sweet soothing words, and telling silly stories. We want the child to be born, feeling welcome, and hearing our familiar voices, and having warm and fuzzy feelings. We want the child to know our voice.

    We want the child to feel beloved.  The story of Jesus’ ministry begins with a voice. We heard this story in our scripture for today (Mark 1: 9-11 if you’re following along on the Net).

    In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  Would you like this kind of dramatic sign for you? 

    God’s voice was heard when Jesus was baptized. Not just any voice: THE VOICE. The voice of God saying: you are my beloved child. I have got to believe that Jesus carried that voice with him throughout the next three years of his ministry. What do you think?

    When people were challenging his authority, and questioning his actions and his motives, do you think he might have paused to remember that voice? On the day of his baptism the heavens opened and God’s voice said, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”        

    You know sometimes the voice of the world tells us one thing, but God tells us we are beloved children. I think we would do well to listen to God!  But we don’t, do we?

    What voices do you choose to listen to?

    From the time we are children, we all hear voices, don’t we?

    They are those human voices of judgment and criticism.

    The loudest voices of all become those of self-rejection.
    What are some of those voices you have been listening to all of your life?

You’re not smart enough.

You’re not pretty enough, or good looking enough.

You will never amount to anything.

You don’t have enough money.
You screwed up.

No one likes you.

You come from a bad family.

You’re black, brown, gay, transgender, slow, disabled, divorced, adopted, you’re different.

    We all listen to those voices and we internalize that negativity.  But we don’t have to.

    There is another voice!  There is another voice!  The soft gentle voice, the bold courageous voice of God deep inside and here’s what it says:   you are beloved child!

    You don’t have to give in to self rejection any more.  Every one of us has people in our lives that have encouraged us. We have people who have loved us. You have people who have told you that you are important to them, people who have told you that you matter. You have experienced the joy of knowing that someone values you. You have heard that voice that says you are beloved.

    But for some reason, it is so much easier for us to listen to the one human voice that say we are worthless, than to a hundred human voices that say we are important. And we think to ourselves, if that person who says they love me, could really see everything about me, the worst side of me, would they really still love me?  They would walk away if they really knew me.

    And so, Henri Nouwen writes, we continue on this eternal quest for something that will make us feel whole: some book, some fitness program, some perfect life partner, a great job, anything that will make us feel worthy. The compulsiveness keeps us busy, but it just keeps us moving toward burn out.  It moves us towards spiritual death. Let me say that again, This is the way to spiritual death.

    We “don’t have to kill ourselves” (p. 30), because We are the Beloved. This is the simple truth.  That voice of acceptance is the only voice we need to listen to.
God says, “I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and I care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child” (p 31).

    Nouwen writes: “Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper” (p. 31).

    Friends this is why Jesus came: to show us to this well.  So often, we just stumble around listening to that voice of criticism and judgment. But we choose to listen to it.  God is standing here ready to speak in that soft tender voice: “It’s ok, you are my child. I made you, and I love you. I know every hair of your head, every mistake you have made and I know every mistake you will make, and I still love you. I just want to be in relationship with you. Don’t turn your back on me.” That’s what God says.

    Will you say “yes” to this life and “yes” to this voice? When the voices of self-rejection start getting louder, will you tell them to “hush, go away” so you can hear God’s voice? Because, you see, we get to choose.  And God wants us to choose this life – the life of being the beloved. We are God’s beloved children! Remember this promise. Claim this promise. Live this promise.  We are God’s beloved children.

    Now, I want to share with you the words of a person I had the pleasure of crossing the spiritual journey of, several years ago.  Morgan Guyton and my journeys crossed paths about 12 years ago.  We walked together for awhile and he is now doing incredible things himself.  But just this week he shared on his blog what hearing this kind of message did for him.  If you want to read more, here is a link to the blog - http://morganguyton.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/pastor-cheri/#more-1647

    And, if you do not have a faith community where you hear that voice of God telling you that you too are a beloved child of God, go out and look.  We are not the only one, believe me.  But if you find yourself near the corner of Monroe & Central in Toledo right now, or Maumee on the corner of Conant Street and the Trail in March, come join us. We try to remind each other of that voice as often as we can and spread that out in our world.

Let the Miracles Begin by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    There are four Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament – four different tellings of the life of Jesus. Sometimes folks get bent out of shape when we point out that there are some minor differences in these four stories. One story-teller remembers something happened here and another puts it there in the story. I can tell you in my family, we love to tell stories over and over again, but we NEVER disagree about the details of an old family story. (Note: SARCASM HAND IN THE AIR HIGH)

    Of course, each story teller has their own bent on the story. That’s why it’s good to have four gospels. With each one, we learn a little more about the life, the wonder, the magnificence of Jesus. John’s Gospel, the fourth, is known as the book of signs, or miracles. It’s built around some amazing actions Jesus took. We call them miracles. John called them signs – because every sign was meant to point the people to God. You see a simple miracle, could be more like what a magician does. It amazes and points to the skill of the magician or the miracle worker. But Jesus was not about himself – he was always about drawing people’s attention, pointing people to God. Leading people to the love of God was Jesus’ whole purpose. So the Book of John is a book of signs.

    In our scripture reading for today (John 2:1-11 for those following along on the net), we get Jesus’ first miracle; this is the first of the signs pointing people to the power of God. This is a fun one because it’s at a party. Jesus and his mom are attending a wedding. The host has apparently underestimated the need in purchasing the wine, and they run out. This is horrible. No one wants to run out of wine in the middle of a wedding reception. Can you imagine the embarrassment to the family, the bride? Jesus’ mother, like any good mother, is aware of everything going on behind the scenes. She catches on that the kitchen staff has run out of wine and there is about to be a big mess at this party. She knows who her son is, after all, J-E-S-U-S. If he can’t fix a little problem like this, who can?

    So she goes to him with the problem. But Jesus’ first reaction is something like this, “Mom, it’s none of our business, and it’s not time for me to start showing my stuff yet.”  Well, sometimes, Mother knows best.  She tells the servants to do what Jesus says. He is an obedient son.

    So he walks over to some empty water pots that are usually used for ceremonial cleansing. He tells the servants to fill them up with water. Lo and behold, when they do, the water turns into the best wine ever! The party is saved and everyone thinks the host is the most generous, because most hosts bring out the cheap wine towards the end of the party but he starts serving the best wine at the end.  This is a great party.
                                        .
    Jesus’ disciples know that he was worked this miracle, and for the first time they see the glory of God in this sign. That’s what John says in his gospel. Because of Jesus’ willingness to use his gift, people see God! This is the beginning of the Jesus movement to change the world. We’re here today, and it all started at that party. I must admit that I like that it all started at a party. Food for thought when we are planning events for The Village.  It’s ok to reveal a picture of God while having privilege along the way.

    So what does this tell us about miracles? To be honest, I’m not an expert in miracles. Some people spend their whole lives studying miracles and trying to prove how they might have happened by natural or supernatural means. I have a pretty simple belief system when it comes to miracles. I think if God wants to works miracles, then God can. I also think God can use human beings to work miracles. And I think sometimes we pray for miracles, and God does not choose to interrupt the natural systems that are already put in place in creation, and we just have to accept that.

    In this story, I think we have a miracle. I read it, and  I’m willing to believe there is a miracle.  But there is a crucial decision point that comes in this story.  Jesus allows himself to be used. His mother encourages him. OK to be honest she pushes him, she is a bit pushy here, I’ll admit that.  But Jesus has a choice, and he chooses to use his supernatural gifts to change the water into wine.

    I don’t have that gift.  But I have other gifts, and so do you.  We all have gifts. And we can all work miracles in our own contexts. I saw a story this week on CNN Headline news about someone who works miracles. They have this series called CNN Heroes. They give out awards every year to regular people who do extraordinary things.

    Actor Rainn Wilson, from the show The Office,  was nudged by a young activist, Aaron Jackson, to use his influence to help work some miracles. Together they are healing children.  Aaron Jackson was a young man of privilege who was traveling in the third world, in Haiti and saw the children there in need.  He decided to make a difference, and he went to Haiti and is helping to rid the children of Haiti of stomach/intestinal  worms.  They are now able to absorb food and come back to life.

    I must confess I’m a sucker for these CNN hero stories.  And why not? They point to the power of ordinary people to use our God given gifts to change the world. Aaron Jackson managed to get that worm eradicating medicine to every child in the entire country of Haiti!

    Friends, I believe we can work miracles too. Oh probably not in just the same way Jesus did. But we can do amazing things like Aaron Jackson, and let them be SIGNS that point to God. There is nothing stopping any of us from doing that.  We can bring hope to a broken world and point to God.
   
    There is nothing stopping each one of us.  We all have gifts. We all have passion. We all want to follow Jesus, and serve God and change the world. We just have to discern the particular niche where we can best do that.

    Here’s how we do it. We match our gifts with our passion for some particular brokenness in the world.  You see, I can stand up here and tell you about all sorts of worthy projects until I am blue in the face. Ministries in Toledo, agencies that can help here and around the world.  But you as individuals, and we as The Village, can’t respond to all of them. And that’s ok, because God has lots of followers here in Toledo, in Ohio and around the world.

    But there are some things that are there just for us. Like the children in Haiti and the worms in their stomachs were there just for Aaron Jackson and Rainn Wilson. That was their passion. And they had the skills and the resources to say Yes to God and do something about  it.

    So, in order to work miracles, and to point to God, first of all, we have to identify what breaks our hearts. Because once you know what breaks your heart, then you know where God wants you to work miracles in the world.

    And here is the thing: you will be able to work miracles, because you will be on fire with the power of God moving you to change the situation. You will be unstoppable.
Have you ever seen anyone with that kind of focus? Have you ever been that person?
That’s who Jesus was.

    Nothing could stop Jesus from acting and pointing people to the power of God’s love.  That’s how I get when I start talking about why the church has to be a place where everybody is welcome.  Have you seen me when I’m fire about someone not being welcomed in a church.   That’s my passion – making church a place where the walls come down and everyone has a home. It breaks my heart when people get kicked out of church and don’t have a place at God’s Table.

    What breaks your heart? That’s the place for you to start.  That’s place where you can work miracles for God. We all can.  Tell us here on this note what breaks your heart, (we put hearts on a board in worship) so you can start to work on what we can do together to change the world.  God may call you to do this yourself, but if you need a place where other dreamers want to change the world, we’re here.  Right now, we’re at the corner of Monroe & Central, but because we need more room for dreamers and doers like you we will be at the corner of Conant Street & the Anthony Wayne Trail (The Maumee Indoor Theater) starting Sundays in March @ 10:30.

MAKING THE ASK by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    A few weeks ago, back before Christmas, I was sitting in an elementary school cafeteria, chatting with another Jody, while our kids played in a chess match.  So people are soccer moms, I’m that and a chess mom now too.   Our two kids are in 3rd grade together and have gone to the same school for 3 or 4 years. In the midst of the conversation I had the opportunity to talk about The Village. She said, “You know, our family does not have a church, and we’d like to find one. We just can’t find the right fit.”

    I invited her.  She said she thought they would like to come.  I’ve heard that before.  It was a busy time, in December around the holidays so it was 2 or 3 weeks before they made it. The first week, it was just Jody and Terry but they loved us. Then next time they came back with the three kids, and they have been back every week since.

    Just like that, in the snap of my fingers, a family of five that had no church home, has become part of our Village community. This weekend Terry was here Friday night and Saturday for our launch team retreat. They are totally committed. Do you know why?  Because someone “made the ask.”

    I took a risk to invite them to my church.  Now, sure, you can say it’s my job. But guess what, I have a fear of rejection too. I don’t like to get the cold shoulder.

    I’ve went to dinner once with a group of parents from the neighborhood. I asked a new mom, “Would you like to visit my church?” She looked right at me and just said, “No.” She didn’t give me any socially acceptable excuse, like, “I have another church.” or “I’m not really religious” and she didn’t make a joke: “I like to sleep in on Sunday.” She didn’t even say, “I don’t do church.” She just said, “No.” It was really awkward.   I still wonder what that was all about.

    But I keep inviting people anyway, because eventually I come across a family like the one I just told you about. They were just waiting. They were looking for us. The Village was made for them, and they were made for us. But unless I had stumbled across the opportunity to invite them one afternoon at a chess match, they would have lived right around the corner from us, and never known we were here. My children would have gone to school with their children for years, and I would have missed the opportunity to invite them to The Village.

    In our scripture for today (Mark 1:14-20, from the Message Translation for those following along on the net), Jesus “makes an ask” of four people who will become his disciples. The story is so simple:

18Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work. Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass." They didn't ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed.

 19-20A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee's sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets. Right off, he made the same offer. Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed.

    Just like that, snap your fingers, immediately they came along.  Now I have to believe there was something magnetic about Jesus’ personality that made it just about impossible for those men to say no to him. Of course, we know he was the son of God. He had the light and power of God shining all around him. I think Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were astute enough to know this was no ordinary invitation. They knew in their gut, this was the offer of a lifetime. So they dropped everything and gave their lives to this mission with Jesus.

    But here’s the thing: JESUS HAD TO ASK THEM.

    THE ASK is crucial.  Sure, they might eventually have wandered their way into the mass of Jesus’ followers, but they could have just lingered on the edges in that case. But to be invited, meant that they were given an opportunity to commit and jump in with both feet.  They signed on the dotted line.

    Those four men faced a turning point in their lives. It was a breakthrough for them. Once they joined the movement of Jesus, their lives were never the same. This turning point, this breakthrough has happened to all of us.  It has happened to us too.

     Being part of this community has changed our lives. We have something that other people don’t have. We have the reassurance of God’s love. We have a community to encourage us. This community makes a difference to us, and together with other Christian communities we make a difference in the world.

    The Village is about to enter a new phase of our life together. We are moving to a new site in Maumee and launching a new worship service at Easter time. When you move to a new location, it’s an opportunity to get some new attention from a new group of people. We create some buzz when we move into a new neighborhood. We will take out some advertizing, put up some signs, and do some things to let people know we have come to town.   We joked at our leadership retreat yesterday how we are going to be the church and give Northwest Ohio something to talk about.  It’s a chance for us to build some new momentum for the church we believe God created us to be together.

    Our theme for 2012 is HOPE. We are bringing God’s hope to NW Ohio and SE Michigan. We are inviting the people of Maumee, and the greater Toledo region to embrace HOPE. We know people need HOPE. We have found our hope in God, and God has called us to share that hope with others.

    It’s not enough just to stay here in this wonderful community we have created, Jesus wants us to go out like Peter, Andrew, James and John did, and fish for some more disciples. Jesus wants us to invite some friends, neighbors, some co-workers and some strangers to experience the hope that we experience when we gather with The Village people each week.

    But they experience this community if WE don’t ASK THEM.   We have to make the ask!  We are the only people Jesus has available to ask some particular people that God is going to put in our path. I was the one that God put in Jody’s path on that day at the chess match.  I was the one to invite her. And then she was the one to go out on a limb and invite her husband and then they invited their kids.

    Someone invited you here. Do you remember who?   Who are you going to invite?  We are going to make it as easy as possible to invite folks over the next few months. In addition to worship each week, with great music, relevant messages, and the best coffee in town, every month we are going to have other events that are going to be easy to invite someone to.

    We call them “Taste and see events” because you can come and get a little taste of The Village at each event.  We are going to have silly fun showing Grease Sing a Long – to have fun and see our worship space.  Then on February 18th we are going to have a service project at the  Seagate Food Bank and spend three hours helping to feed hungry people.  Then on February 4th, we are going to go see the movie “Red Tails” and talk about the heroes of that movie and what they did for our country. 

    And then on March 18th we are going to have a concert and fund raiser for “Feed Your Neighbor” at the Village Idiot.  You can’t go wrong with the Village Church at the Village Idiot.  You can come hear music, feed the hungry, and hear about our ministries. And we are going to keep giving you great things to invite people to during Holy Week, and on Mother’s Day, and beyond (wait until you see what the Outreach & Marketing Team has planned this summer, and in October, let just say zombie makeup may be required.   In each of these we will be the church in our world.   We are going to give them something to talk about while we “follow Jesus and change the world”).

    Our goal is 100 people on Easter Sunday because we know there are people out there who are looking for hope for their lives and who are waiting for an invitation just like Terry and Jody and their 3 kids.

    Now we are not really even making a big deal about inviting strangers to The Village. But I, for one, am going to remember this scene of a guy inviting a stranger to church. If he can do this, I think I can certainly tell someone I know about The Village and what it means to me. Because I never know when there might be another Terry and Jody who are just waiting for someone to invite them to church.

“When We Weep . . .(God is still with us)” by Cheri Holdridge & Kurt Young

    Travis just sang a sad song for us (“Tears in Heaven” for those following along on the net). You may remember the tragic story of when singer Eric Clapton’s four and a half year old son fell from an apartment window in NYC and died. Mr. Clapton wrote this song while he was grieving. Any parent can relate to this song, whether we have lost a child to death, or we have just feared this awful tragedy, a parent’s worst nightmare.

    In our story from Matthew for today, Matthew 2:13-23 for those following along at home or on the road, babies are killed, not by accident, but because of the evil decision and deeds of King Herod.  He was the ruler of the area when Jesus was born.  He had heard from the Wise Men about the child being born and the star. He heard about the Messiah being born. 

    This wicked, evil man put out an order.  Kill all of the boys in the region, two years or younger.  That’s right, he ordered soldiers to kill innocent babies and toddlers to protect his own reign.   This is not a story we often tell in church, the Slaughter of the Innocents.   THIS IS THE TRUTH: EVIL EXISTS IN OUR WORLD.

    When people die in our world, especially when the death seems untimely, such as the death of a child, people try to make sense of it. We try to comfort ourselves by saying there must have been a reason. “It was their time.” “God needed another angel.”  We say these things because we hope it will make us feel better. In my experience it rarely makes the grieving parent or grandparent, or sibling, or friend feel any better. Because it does not make sense. And we want to believe God is a loving God.

    So how can God think it is the right time for a young child to die?   Surely God did not want a bunch of infants and two years olds to be slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers. Would a loving God have chosen that? I want nothing of that God. Do you? No thank you!

    These are hard questions.  Does God choose for a young father to be killed by a drunk driver and that driver to walk away unscathed?  Does God choose for an 80 year old woman to be shot by a by a gunman, a mistaken target, when some younger gang member was the intended target?   And even then, did God intend for the younger target to be shot instead?  I don’t think any of this is part of God’s plan. I think all of this is of human sin. There is evil in our world. And human choice. And there are natural forces. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Stuff happens.

    This book, this Bible we read, and live our lives by, is a book of real stories about real people. We turn to this book for hope. We find miracles in here, and healings. We find words of encouragement. But sometimes we find stories that are just painful.

    We find stories where the bad guys win. We find stories that are of the things of the world, evil things, not the things of God. I don’t like to preach on those stories. I’m guessing you don’t like to hear them.  But they are in here.
And when we make the decision to be followers of Jesus, we get this WHOLE BOOK.
We are stuck with the whole thing: the good and the bad.

    So what do we do with a story like this? What do we do with a story of babies being killed because a terrible, insecure king named Herod, who did not like the idea that Jesus was born to be the new King of the Jews. And so Herod, in his evil and twisted mind, used his power, to kill all the babies in Bethlehem and the surrounding area under the age of 2. Now experts tell us it was only possibly around 20 babies. To be honest, when I had read this story in the past, I thought it was hundreds. But it really does not matter how many. If you are the mother of that baby, it does not matter if it is only one.

    If it is your baby, the loss is unbearable.  If ti is your baby, there is no good explanation.  There are no words to take the pain away.  There is just agony.
All I can think is this: Jesus came to bring salvation to the world, but he could not grow up fast enough to save those babies from the likes of Herod and his evil.
Not even Jesus could save them.

    But I began to imagine as I pondered this text this week, what it must have been like to be a brother or sister of one of those baby boys. What would it have been like to live in a family with that legacy? “Your brother was killed because he was born around the time of that young man Jesus – they say he is the Messiah. God sent him to save us all.”

    Do you think those families had some bit of hope, because of that promise?   Do you suppose, that even in the midst of such grief, that they might have been able to dig deep into their souls, and find a tiny ember of hope, burning ever so bright? God is still with us. In fact, God loves us so much, that God sent God’s own child to earth to love us. Wow!
    That could not entirely heal the pain of losing my baby. But it would give me some comfort in my grief.  To be a sibling who survived Herod’s massacre, I think, might have made one feel a strong sense of purpose. My brother will not have died in vain. I will find this Jesus and I will follow him. Herod will not win. Love will win. God’s love, come to earth in Jesus will win.

    Friends, I believe that’s what this painful and oh, so real story has to say to us today. It’s a painful story, a difficult one for us even today, thousands of years later.  Even as God’s love was born into the world, and the power of evil was trying so hard to vanquish it, the power of love was strong.

    You see, those weeping mothers and fathers had a choice. They could give in to their despair, and give up on God. I would have been tempted to be there.  They could stay in their anger and turn away from God, because God allowed their babies to be taken from them.

    Or they could turn to God, and embrace hope. An innocent child was taken from them, simply because he was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. So each family had a question: would they turn to God, and cling to the promise that God is still with them, and that God loves them. Would they trust that ultimately the power of God’s love always wins over the evil forces of this world? Or would they give up on God? We know of course, that God never gives up on us, but we CAN give up on God.  Have you ever wanted to give up on God? 

    So what does this say to us today?  For one, it tells us, that even the most painful stories in the Bible can speak to us, so we need not avoid the hard stories in the Bible. But that’s a minor point.  I think the message is this. We will all experience some kind of tragedy. We will all confront evil in this world. This is a time when we have a choice. We can get angry at God and turn away from God because we think God let us down.   We will all get angry, and to that.  But that’s hopefully something short.

    Or we can take the path that I believe those mothers and fathers in Bethlehem took long ago. We can acknowledge that the evil in the world is not from God. Evil comes from human sin. (And some bad things happen just by accident and forces of nature.)  God does not make this happen.  But out of any tragedy, God still loves us, and God can bring blessing to us. God wants to heal us and comfort us, and restore our lives to wholeness. God does not want to leave us in that place of weeping and mourning and brokenness. There is a time for that, and then there is a time to move on.

    When we weep, God weeps with us.  And then when it is time for the weeping to end, God reminds us that there is still a baby over in Egypt, ready to come back to us, to grow up and be our teacher and our Savior. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is always with us. That is the good news of today.  God is always with us.  God is ALWAYS with us.  Let’s follow Jesus and embrace that hope.

    Do you have a place where you can weep?  Do you have a community that can weep with you?  Do you hear voices that tell you God loves you and will take you through these times?  Do you have hope?  If not, find a community where you can get all of this.  There are many out there.  If you are near Central & Monroe in Toledo, and in just a few months Conant Street & the Trail in Maumee, come join us.  We will weep with you, because we have, but we also will show you hope. 

Overcome With Joy by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

      Are you done with Christmas?  Is it over.   Is that so last month, for you?  When did you pack away your Christmas decorations? Have you eaten, or thrown out, all your Christmas cookies?   My mom had a co-worker that kept her Christmas tree up all year long. LOL. Of course, we thought she was a bit nuts. And she was!

      But at our house we always keep our tree up through Jan 6th. It’s Kurt’s Birthday. It’s also a holiday in Puerto Rico, one of the places he lived when he was growing up as a Navy brat. The holiday is: El Dia de los Tres Reyes – The Day of the Three Kings – also known as Three Kings Day, or Epiphany on the Church calendar.

     January 6th is the day we celebrate the day the three kings, or the wise men, from the East arrived at the home of Mary and Joseph and Jesus to bring gifts to the baby. Now in all the Christmas pageants, we see these wise guys showing up at the manger with the shepherds and the angels, but actually we think Jesus was about 2 years old by the time they got there, and the family was living in a house in Bethlehem by this time.

      This is how the story goes. These men were scholars, probably astronomers from a country to the East of Israel. They had read in books, about a prophecy of a king that would be born, and a star that would point to this king. When they saw a bright star in the sky, one they had never seen before, they felt compelled to follow that star and investigate.

      They went to see Herod, who was the identified King, living in Jerusalem, placed there by the Roman government. They said, “We are here looking for a child who has been born King of the Jews.” Herod tried to hide his anger at this affront to his authority. He pretended that he also wanted to worship this newborn King. He consulted with his religious scholars and told the wise men that the prophets said the child would be born in Bethlehem. Then he told them that once they found the child they should let him know where they found him, because he wanted to go worship the child too. Of course, that was a lie. Herod was an evil man.  The wise men were on to him. They knew not to trust him.

     They found their way to Bethlehem.  This is when the story gets really good.  You see, those wise men are just like us.  They were looking for the Messiah.  They were looking for a Savior.  They were looking for someone who would bring hope and healing to their broken world.  Isn’t that what we are looking for?

      Isn’t that why we come here to The Village every week?  Let’s just pause here a moment and consider that question.   What are you looking for today? When you come here, to this holy place, to this community of Jesus followers – what are you looking for?  The answers we got in worship were peace, belonging, fellowship, hope, hugs, encouragement, guidance, to be reminded that God’s grace is enough. 

     The wise men went to see the baby, because they wanted to encounter the holy presence of God on earth. And guess what! That’s just what they got. “Instructed by the king, they set off. Then the star appeared again, the same star they had seen in the eastern skies. It led them on until it hovered over the place of the child. They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time! They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him.”
   They were overcome with joy. And do you know what they did?  They kneeled in humility and worshiped Jesus. That’s what God invites us to do today.  We get one more chance at Christmas today.  We don’t have to let go of our Christmas joy quite yet. (We even got to sing one last Christmas carol today.)  We can kneel at the baby bed of Jesus, and imagine what it means that God wants to come into our lives.

    You see Herod was the political King of that time and place, and he was outraged that Jesus came. He went crazy, because he wanted all the power. He could not fathom that God was more powerful than him. He could not comprehend that vulnerability, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness were values that would out over political power, selfishness, greed, and judgment. But those wise men, understood. They had great status in their own right, but they chose to give up their power and status. They knelt in humility and were awestruck by a baby. They were filled with wonder at God’s promises.

      God wants us to be awestruck today.   What does it mean to you, for Jesus to come into your world today? We’ve prepared a little space up here where we can kneel and pray. I want to invite you to come up here and open your arms or hands and pray in an attitude of humility or vulnerability.

    I think that’s what Three Kings day is about.   It’s about the contrast between Herod, who was not humble at all, and the Wise Men from the East, who were completely humble.  They traveled across a vast distance, and had really no clue if they would find anything. But they had hope. They wanted to believe.

     We want to believe in Jesus too.   We want to believe Jesus can change our lives.  Other people might laugh at us for getting out of bed and driving across town to come to this humble little church on this dreary January day, thinking this will change our lives. But we have seen a star. We have seen the light of God. We have seen God transform broken lives into healed, strong amazing examples of new life. We know Jesus can make something of us too.

      So I want to invite you to come kneel beside the baby today. We had a baby basket up by the stage in worshp, to represent, the bed where baby Jesus might have slept. We to received Holy Communion and after we were invited to come and kneel, somewhere near the basket.  You can imagine a simple baby’s bed.  Come kneel down where you are.   Open your arms or hands in a position of vulnerability and humility.

      We all need Jesus, and God sent Jesus to the world to be here for all of us. So today, I invite us to ask Jesus to come to you again, and be your hope.  Amen.