Jeremiah 1:4–10 The Lord knew and called the prophet Jeremiah before he was born.
Luke 4:21–30 A prophet is not welcome at home; a crowd tries to attack Jesus.
You might have heard about it on the interwebs or the news: First Presbyterian Church in Muscatine, Iowa (where I was pastor for 5 years before returning to Texas in 2012) made the news this past Sunday.[i] It made the news because
Donald Trump showed up for worship last Sunday.[i] http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/25/3742627/trump-presbyterian-immigrants-oops/
"State of the Church: To Build Up and To Plant"
Jeremiah 1:4–10 The Lord knew and called the prophet Jeremiah before he was born.
Luke 4:21–30 A prophet is not welcome at home; a crowd tries to attack Jesus.
4th Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
January 31, 2016
The Rev. David Ivie
First Presbyterian Church Forney, Texas
You might have heard about it
on the interwebs or the news:
First Presbyterian Church in Muscatine, Iowa
made the news this past Sunday.[i]
It made the news because
Donald Trump showed up for worship
last Sunday.
Now as most of you know Donald Trump
is running for President
and the Iowa Caucus is approaching
very quickly, in fact it is this coming
tomorrow evening Feb. 1st,
and this is how life is in Iowa
during campaign season.
Politicians criss-cross the state
and show up in churches on Sunday morning,
they eat in local diners,
and make speeches whenever they can.
So it's not too surprising that
Donald Trump would show up in a Presbyterian church in Iowa in January.
He does after all profess to be a Presbyterian,
even though he currently holds no membership
in a church,[ii]
he was baptized and confirmed in a PC(USA) congregation in Queens, NY.
And so he is there on Sunday morning
greeting people and shaking hands.
Some of the people I know got their
pictures made with him,
though others were less enthusiastic.
Turns out the sermon made headlines
with the Washington Post.[iii]
The scheduled epistle reading was 1 Corinthians 12,
on how we are one body with many members, so
Pastor Pam preached on
how everyone is important because everyone
is part of the one body,
and she went on to say this includes Syrian refugees
who are Muslims,
Mexican migrants[iv].
"Jesus has come for them,
Jesus has come for everyone."
It's not like this would be shocking to hear
from a pulpit,
It is after all the message of the gospel.
And it's not new to Donald Trump.
Last October church stated clerk
Gradye Parsons
wrote an open letter[v] to Donald Trump
challenging Trump's statements
on immigrants and refugees,
using the bible and history of Jesus
to speak against some of Trumps
proposed policies.
The reason I bring this up
is not to start a discussion on politics,
but to point out
the role that churches and faith have
within the political arena.
When Pastor Pam
preached the sermon she did,
she was operating within the long
tradition of proclamation
that announces what the bible and theology
say about social issues.
When Gradye Parsons
wrote the open letter to Trump
he was acting just like prophets of old
who remind us what God is saying
and encourage us to let God's word
influence how we vote
and how we make public policy decisions.
Churches and people of faith
have a responsibility
to be very engaged in politics without
the political arena becoming a place
where we forget who we are,
that our feet are planted in God's kingdom.
We are not to be owned by
special interests groups,
we are to be at the table making
sure that faith is turned into action.
This is what MLK Jr. did
and countless others have done
and continue to do.
God has something to say
about how the world works,
and it is our role to remind
those in power
those who have privilege and entitlement
that God has a story too.
This is the charge that God
gave to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah told God that he
couldn't do what God as asking,
but God said don't you worry about
any of that, I will give you the words to say,
and I have prepared you since before you were born
to dig up and pull down,
to destroy and demolish,
to build and to plant.
But the won't always be readily received.
Look at what happened
to Jesus in Luke chapter 4.
Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah,
but then he begins to interpret
this reading to the people there,
basically telling them that they
are not as special as they think they are.
He reminds them that God
used Elijah not to provide for the towns in Judah
but for the foreigner, the widow of Zarephath.
He reminds them that later on God
didn't cleanse the Israelites from
leprosy,
but God did cleanse Naaman, the Syrian.
And of course
anytime someone tells you
that you're not as great as you think you are,
when someone suggests to you
that God may love the foreigner
or the immigrant as much as God loves you,
this may not set so well,
and so the people ran Jesus out of town.
But this is the role of the prophet,
to build up and to plant.
The church is not as important in people's lives
like it has been in the past.
But the role the church has to play
is still very important.
Specifically, I would suggest to you
that our church here in Forney
as small as it may be,
has an important voice in our community.
Last summer our session voted unanimously
to recognize marriage equality for all
allowing the pastor to perform same sex weddings
here in our sanctuary.
The discussion only lasted a few minutes,
because the motion
is so closely aligned with who we are.
(In fact one elder commented we spent more time
discussing the buying the piano than
we did about this.)
And after the session we changed the sign out frontand posted on Facebook
"Love and Marriage for All"
and left it up for the rest of the summer.
Not everyone agreed with the sign out front.
I got a call one Sunday after worship
from a guy who said that we were making
this up, that we were twisting God's word
to do what we wanted it to do.
And someone on Facebook started quoting
scripture as if I've never heard them before.
But it was the right thing to do.
The decision to love is always
the right decision to make.
Our community needs to know
that there is more than one way
to be a Christian,
that it is possible to be deeply faithful,
and to be progressive at the same time.
Most people don't understand this,
and many people have never
experienced Christians like we have here
in this church.
So it was important because
we said, yet again, this is who we are.
And it was also important because
we did the best we could to
let people know that you don't have to be
homophobic and heterosexists to love Jesus.
People who live and work in Kaufman County
need to know there is a place of worship
where all of God's children are accepted
for who they are.
We may not be the only one.
But people need to know that we are one
such church.
It takes a lot of courage for an individual to come out.
And it takes a lot of courage for churches
to come out also.
We are a great church.
We have a lot to offer.
As Warren Ketteman said
at one of our home dinner gatherings last summer:
"FPC Forney is a small, vibrant, caring group of believers where everyone is welcome."
That is right on.
My point is that we shouldn't be
the only ones who know this! J
We shouldn't be the best kept secret
in town.
I set before us today
a challenge for us to build up and to plant.
To find ways to expand the sense
of community that we enjoy.
I'm not talking about becoming a big church;
I don't think that is going to happen
and I don't think that you really want that.
But people need to know we are here,
so that if they want
they can come and share in what God
has provided here.
I think sometimes we are a little too comfortable
with the way we are,
that we don't want to change too much
because we might lose the sense of home
we feel here.
I know. I feel that too.
But we've got room in here for over 120 chairs,
so having 70 in worship compared to 40 or 45
in worship would still feel really good.
And we have room for more on Wednesday
nights as well.
The Hebrew words used in Jeremiah
are banah "to build" and natah to plant.
Banah to build can obviously mean to build
and physical structure like a house
but it also means more figuratively to
establish as in to make something permanent,
to provide stability,
to make some prosper. and
natah "to plant" means to set something upright
so that it is fixed in the ground, it implies
to plant a people.
So this is not talking about growing numerically,
or simply getting more members.
It's not about membership but discipleship.
The text is inviting us to talk about a place where
disciples come and go,
where people's lives are changed,
where we help people know they are loved
and empower them to love their neighbor.
This year we will celebrate 10 years in this building,
as it was dedicated Dec 2006.
But it's not about the building, it's about the
life we have because God has built us
as a people who love Jesus and try
to love like Jesus.
We have a good story
a wonderful story to share.
And God has instructed us to build up
and to plant.
to speak out for justice even if it's not
the most popular stance to take.
So I will be challenging us this year
to expand our sense of community.
God has placed his words
in our hearts and in our mouths,
God has enabled us to speak a word of grace
in our community.
Now we need to help others do the same. Amen
[i] http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/25/3742627/trump-presbyterian-immigrants-oops/
[ii] http://pres-outlook.org/2015/12/pcusa-stated-clerk-responds-to-questions-on-trumps-membership/
[iii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/24/reaching-out-to-iowa-evangelical-voters-trump-attends-presbyterian-service/
[iv] http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2016-01-24-US--GOP%202016-Trump/id-6b690f977ad94eb286fc7ec7579cc426
[v] http://www.pcusa.org/news/2015/10/2/clerk-issues-letter-trump-refugees-immigrants/
