Church on Morgan
July 19, 2015 | Mark 1:9-13
The scripture reading this morning comes from the Gospel of Mark chapter one verses nine through 13 and Those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee. It was baptized by John and 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, please And in the spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness He was in the wilderness 40 days tempted by Satan and he was with the wild beast and the in the angels awaited for him The Word of God for us the people of God Good morning, it's good to see everybody If you're new to church on Morgan or we've never met before my name is Justin and I am the campus pastor This new faith community that we are creating together, which is really exciting And I want you to know that this is sort of an open source kind of thing in fact the church was maybe the first open source Program that ever existed and what I mean by that is we're creating this together And if you've got gifts and you've got passions talents you got ideas We want you to know that we're hoping that you'll help us shape this and build this For this shared vision the shared mission that we have as a church as a community Which is that somehow we would figure out a way to put on display the love of God Especially for our neighbors in downtown Raleigh The folks who live work and play along the food corridor and the more square area where our building will soon be complete We feel like this is a holy task and job that God's given us. It's also So much fun to try and dream about how we can be the church And so we know we haven't always as the church and as individuals. We haven't always got it right And we won't always get it right in the future But our vision is that somehow together we might pursue that life which is worth imitating that life of Christ and together We're trying to do that. That's why we provide these resources like a daily email or Times to get together as community and to build relationships Whether that's over a happy hour or the rest or a Sunday morning gathering where we come together and do this really bizarre thing That doesn't really happen anywhere else in the world Where you gather in groups and sing right when was the last time you did that at your friend's house, so But it's beautiful and we're glad you're here and there is something profound and mysterious about it all and a few Sometimes I feel like I have the best seat in the house sitting up front and being able to hear our entire community sing Kind of over me and over those of us in the front. So some weeks somebody's gonna have to come join me up here to check that out so This summer all of Edenton Street United Methodist Church, which we're a part of has been in this sermon series called beautiful things and it's based on this idea that We get both in the Psalms and in Romans where it says from the beginning of creation God has revealed what God's nature is alike to all humanity just by the things that God has made right? You can tell a lot about a person just by the things they create so it's this deep insight that while Maybe not everybody's heard the full story or knows the full identity of Christ There's some things that we surely shouldn't miss that all of humanity should pick up on That when we look around at the oceans and the mountains and and the seas and the birds and the animals of the field that We see something about the brilliance of God who's behind all of these so for the last couple weeks We've looked at things like rocks and rain and flowers And my hope is that if you've been here with us those weeks That those are all now triggers for you that when you see a rock You don't see it like you used to but you see that rock and you remember that God is our refuge The God is the one we can hide behind that we all hide Eventually and somewhere but but God is the great rock who who is there for us to hide behind and in Or maybe you were here when River and Lisa Yeboa preached and she talked about rain And now maybe every time it rains my hope for you is that you would remember that that our God is faithful And the way that the rain that falls down to the earth accomplishes what it sets out to do that God's promises are faithful The God is true. And last week we talked about flowers Lily specifically and I went off about clothes. It was maybe one of the weirdest sermons I've ever preached But if you weren't here, you can check it out online But the idea there is that we're really fond of a number of metaphors for God like God is king or shepherd or or whatever But we often miss some of these more beautiful ones that that God longs to be our clothing That God is the great tailor and designer in the universe that that outfit you've been searching for that would make you feel at home And all that you are intended to be and communicate all that you are to the whole world Christ says I'm the only one who can do that but I would love for you to put me on and So whenever we see the lilies or the flowers, hopefully you remember that God is that great clothing who gives us identity? Who shapes us who fashions us this morning? We're going to turn our attention to birds and I'll be honest with you. I do we have any birders in the room. I don't even know there's a thing until recently a birder We got birders. Yeah, they're there. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made you raise your hand by default if you're a birder You don't want to raise your hand but the I Just I didn't get it right like I knew this world existed I knew that there were people out there who got really into Naming all the different birds and Bob binoculars and their idea of fun is a Saturday standing outside just looking for birds, right? and and then just about a week or two ago It was actually I guess two or three weeks ago My family we were down at the beach and we came up. We were just walking and we came across a bird sanctuary which it's not where they worship, but it is a place that's preserved for them and these are often birds that are endangered or because we're building up so much stuff that They have less and less area to make a home or to nast or to have their babies and it happened to be this very sort of like pivotal time That just happens for like two weeks out of the year where these certain birds all fly into the coast They lay their eggs. They sit there on them and hatch Before they make their way elsewhere and so they had roped it all off and like the entire Audubon society was there with the I mean the bird was like from me to you and they would have binoculars like this long, right? matching t-shirts name tags and the rest and And so we had no idea what was going on or what it was about but our kids were interested just based on all of the equipment and These folks were so kind to invite us up and to begin to teach us a lesson about all these different birds and where they all come from and all Their nesting habits and how they all find the same place every year at this time to lay these and they let us look through their binoculars and you could see these baby baby birds hatching out of eggs, you know 30 feet away and It was a really beautiful thing We found ourselves going back the next day and the day after that to to see these birds and to watch them And and so while I've maybe not always been inspired by birds and maybe you haven't either The truth is that they are an inspiring creature most of the great song writers have at least one song in their catalog about a bird, right? Poets love the subject of birds and the scriptures themselves are full of birds There's birds everywhere it opens and Genesis 1 creation is this image of God hovering over chaos like a bird creating order out of it all, right? and birds will come and feed the prophets birds will actually be food for those wandering in the desert for 40 years birds Become sort of the currency of mercy in the temple court It's with birds that your sins are forgiven in the Old Testament era, right? And so It's interesting that of all the birds And of all the images that could possibly happen in this pivotal moment when Jesus at the age of about 30 begins his public Ministry and he does so through being baptized all for the gospel writers Matthew Mark Luke and John Which rarely happens, but all four of them recount this one image They tell the story all differently, but they all get this thing Say it the same which is that when Jesus was baptized and brought up out of the water that they said It was like the spirit of God descended on him like a dove like a dove. This is why in Christian imagery there are lots of birds in the scriptures, but this is the one that's given such prominence, right? If you go to a tattoo parlor you will see lots of images of doves on the wall Just like you'll see lots of crosses you show up around Pentecost time and there'll be imagery of doves on our bulletins and on our table Dove has become sort of synonymous with the Holy Spirit and To me this is actually really strange when you start to dig in a little bit about doves Because of all of the birds that God could have chosen to associate with God chose a dove and We in our Christian imagery we we just sort of go well. Yeah, it's this beautiful pure white bird It's about holiness and it's undefiled and it's it makes a lot of sense But that's a little bit of a revisionist history That's not exactly the bird that that these early writers would have had in mind in fact I don't know if you know this and I know We're sort of in this Google age So you're all gonna fact check me in about 30 seconds, but this is actually true I've looked like far and wide and I've seen it again and again again a Dove is the exact same thing as a pigeon. These are two different words for the same bird A pigeon is a dove a dove is a pigeon Dove is the English word for this animal pigeon comes from the French, right? but both named the exact same large class of birds and So we picture this beautiful white undefiled sort of bird But the truth is what the readers would have had in mind and what these people who walked the streets would have had in mind It was much more what we would imagine if I said that the spirit Hovered and descended on Christ like a pigeon, right? It sort of loses some of its poetic influence It pigeons here's what we know about pigeons. They're utterly harmless Right, they have no defense mechanisms. They're taken down at by children They have incredibly small brains. They have stubby legs. They're the easiest bird to pick off This is part of why they were made currency for mercy is that anybody could catch one a kid could go grab one, right? It was like anybody can catch a dove anybody can catch a pigeon And so it's sort of raised this question I've kind of been wrestling with all week of why would God Associate of all the birds that the God could have chosen. Why would God associate with a pigeon? Why not an eagle? Right or a falcon or my son would probably enjoy if if maybe God had chosen a pterodactyl, right? I mean like why not pick something epic and sort of monstrous who clearly can rule and hover over creation It's hard to imagine a pigeon creating order out of chaos over the the deep, right? This is not sort of what comes to mind So here's two things I've learned about doves and pigeons this week and there are things that you probably many of you probably already know but first is that While there are while most birds Would prefer to avoid humans, right? They're they're wild and they're unfriendly in fact when my son and I were on the beach and we were checking out all these birds That were nesting we would try to get closer. We didn't have binoculars and so we'd get up right on the rope fence and as we did so Birds began to dive bomb us like truly I didn't know that was like a real thing and I got scared like they would go up and they would come straight at us and Just missed by like an inch or two like get away, right? I had never seen this before experiences, so we we moved back And and this is actually fairly normal behavior for birds most birds do not want to be near you They don't want to be around But pigeons seem to be everywhere we are pigeons long to be close to us They are with us in our worst places like I think I have an image here that and in our best places, so this is a picture of Piazzo and Venice and this is sort of a famous place a great Galleries and museums and food and all these people gather in this courtyard and it's full of pigeons Pigeons long to be where people are they they show up in the most beautiful places like galleries and museums and the courtyards of the rich But pigeons are also in kind of the worst in the hardest places where we are one of the I don't know if you know this about Mike Tyson's story, but it's really fascinating if you've ever watched any documentary or anything about him, but he grew up in a very poor project government subsidized housing in New York City and Was picked on quite a bit as a kid as a little kid. He was bullied like crazy. He had a list. He had a high voice his family was incredibly poor. He couldn't afford clothes. He had almost no friends and so He writes about and talks about how his childhood his only real friends were the pigeons that that him and some of his friends would hang out with the pigeons On the rooftop of the projects He said it was the first loving relationship he ever had in his life And if it wasn't for pigeons, he probably never would have became the greatest heavyweight boxer in the world In fact, the first time he ever got in a fight was when a friend of his came up on the roof Or a buddy of his from school came up on the roof and killed one of his pigeons And he and he punched him for doing it because it was the only thing that he felt loved him in the world And after he knocked him out all the guys said man, you that was incredible And from then on out he found kind of hit but this was the place he felt love, right? So whether you're in a government subsidized Housing project in the middle of New York City where kids don't know where their next meals coming from or here in the Piazzo in Italy wherever there are people pigeons are close by and Because of that ironically, they're so present that we often don't recognize or even respect them, right? Pigeons are not the most respected bird among humans We we I told somebody at the church this week and they I'm talking about pigeons and they they're without even a moment's hesitation said Oh rats with wings, right? I mean this is what we think about about birds who want to be close to us We we either we just don't even recognize them, but or we don't respect them and And so and so we've been our history has been that we would be quick to kill them I read some like bird history this week and believe it or not like a hundred years ago apparently like 45% of the Birds that were in existence were pigeons There are these writers who would say that there were flocks of pigeons so large It would take three days for the flock to pass in the sky. They would literally blot out the Sun one Birder from a hundred plus years ago had Notice that there was one flock that they saw that they estimated was somewhere in the neighborhood of two billion pigeons, right? And and so their desire to be with us and their great number and how they surround us Let us over time to just kill them to exterminate them And we've there's a couple species of pigeons that have been made extinct But what's fascinating is they just keep coming back They just keep showing up where we are and no matter how much we kill them and push them and threaten them and Provide all the reason for them to fear us. They continue to draw close And so I think maybe one of the Reasons that the God would identify with a dove with a pigeon Is to give us this beautiful reminder that that the god of the universe longs to be close to you Like the pigeons who are everywhere where we are in fact pigeons are everywhere on the planet except for Antarctica And in the driest parts of the Sahara everywhere else pigeons live wherever we are they are wherever we are God is it's this beautiful reminder that got longs to be close to us And sometimes we struggle to believe that God seems far But this is a reminder that got us close Psalm 145 says it this way says the Lord is near to all who call on him And act 17. There's this also this beautiful sort of passage that talks about He he is ever present if we would just ask he's he's there near us all of the time always surrounding us if we would just have eyes to see that God is with us God is with us in our best moments and Our weddings at our birthdays and our celebrations God is with us in the worst of days and our funerals and our dying and our struggling and our pain and Unfortunately for us much like we handle the birds we we often handle God's spirit. We either don't recognize Its nearness or we don't respect its power We don't respect the power of God's spirit that ever is ever so close to us but here's sort of the second thing that I learned about doves slash pigeons this week and This is also to me. This was fascinating, but Many of you may know this but doves or pigeons are many of them are great Messengers they're great carriers and the reason they're great carriers messengers Maybe we've seen like in a movie somewhere. They write a little note tied around a bird's ankle and send them off and like is that real? It's it's actually real And pigeons can be raced people race them from and they'll have races that are 500 miles long you release pigeon They know how to get somewhere right? This is Crazy thing where you can take a pigeon out of its home You can move it anywhere and it can find its way back Again and again, and so as folks began to realize that they turned him into great messengers And so this goes all the way back into antiquity in fact you can see in the Old Testament Noah when he's on the ark He's the the flood has subsided and he wants to know whether the land is dry out there No ascends a dove no ascends a pigeon a carrier messenger to go out and to come back with a twig or whatever to let them know whether it's safe to get off the boat, right and from that time, you know three four or five thousand years ago to even ancient Greece the way that they would communicate the the winners and the Olympic Games and early Greece and Athens around the city is that whenever someone won they would write the winner on the foot of a pigeon and they Would send them loose to go to all the cities and that's how they would announce the winners of the Olympic Games This had continued even into the modern age before we had telephone and internet the way that stockbrokers would often Exchange trades was over carrier pigeons Perhaps the most famous carrier pigeon is one named share a me any of y'all ever heard of share a me This is actually a picture of this this pigeon this bird, but in World War one There's this fascinating story about how allied forces got behind enemy lines And their their allies were shooting at their enemies But they didn't know that they were back there their allies were back there behind the enemy lines And so they were getting shot at themselves their own people a friendly fire was taking place They were all getting shot and so and kind of an active desperation they grab a Pigeon and they write we're behind the enemy quit shooting for the love of God They send this dove across and it flies through all of the artillery It's actually shot twice once in the chest once in the foot has its foot blown off. It keeps going Lands on the other side they read this message and they stopped shooting and they said that on that day 157 lives were spared because of this pigeon So they nursed it back to health They put it on a boat sent it back to the US and now it sits in the Smithsonian It was awarded this Medal of Honor for its lives that it saved This is the story of share of me this this homing pigeon right this and so when I was hearing this and thinking about this that even from Antiquity that the earliest ideas of what people would associate with a dove or a pigeon was not only an animal that needed to and long to be close to you but an animal that that always came with a message an Animal that brought something to say it was how communication happened in antiquity and so It's not surprising to me that in this passage where Jesus is baptized That right before the message is given We're told that the the spirit descended on him like a dove and how I even like to imagine like a pigeon, right? You see those folks standing in the piazzas with pigeons on their arms. This is more of what I imagine now there's a pigeon on Christ's shoulder and they hear this voice Jesus hears this voice out of heaven and it says this is my son the beloved and Whom I am well pleased It's like the the great telegraph from heaven This in this message that's so profound that the world should stop and listen. It's like the gospel writers are saying pay attention There's a message here. You need to hear and it's simply this. This is my son who my love and I'm well pleased Henry now, and who is one of my favorite writers and If you've never read anything by Henry now, and you need to Maybe a great book to start with would be the life of the beloved I love this book, but in here he he had a number of friends who weren't Christians who found his work Fascinating and he would hang out with him in New York City, and he had one friend who was an editor who wasn't a Christian and said Henry I love your work But you know, you're always writing to Christians. I wish you would write something for me and my friends and So that's why he wrote this book this book was written for his friends who were not Christians and In the very beginning of the book his first premise is he says the most important word That I hope you'll take away from this entire book the word that all of humanity needs to hear more than any other word What you and your friends need to know is the word beloved That when God says over Jesus said his baptism you are my son My beloved in whom I'm well pleased Henry now It says that is like the heavens are being opened and we're experiencing and hearing the most intimate truth about every human being on the planet that in the same way that God says over Jesus you are my son whom I love he says over you you are my son You are my daughter who my love and I'm well pleased with and That's the beginning of kind of the spiritual journey that Henry now belongs to take his friends on He says the one word that the world most needs to hear is that they are loved And so later in his life Henry now and moved into This community called larsh and it was a place where and it continues to be a place where adults with intellectual disabilities Many of them could not speak cannot feed themselves Take care of themselves. They stayed at this house and Henry now and a number of other folks Would help take care of their physical needs, but they lived in what they believe to be really deep and true community They would share meals. They would worship together daily. They saw each other as peers and in his book He tells us this is maybe one of my favorite Henry now in stories And it's stuck with me for a long time And so I want to read you just a page or two of this excerpt from life of the beloved as he begins to name the power of Telling the world that they're loved that they're loved And so he says not long ago in my community I had a very personal experience of the power of a real blessing which is exactly what that is when God says you are loved It's a blessing shortly before I started a prayer service in one of our houses Janet a handicapped member of our community said to me Henry can you give me a blessing and I responded in a somewhat automatic way by tracing my thumb tracing with my thumb the sign of the cross on her forehead Instead of being grateful. However, she protested vehemently. No, that doesn't work. I want a real blessing I suddenly became aware of the ritualistic quality of my response to her request and I said I'm sorry Let me give you a real blessing when we're all together for the prayer service She nodded with a smile and I realized that something special was required of me After the service when about 30 people were sitting in a circle on the floor I said Janet has asked me for a special blessing She feels that she needs that now and as I was saying this I didn't know what Janet really wanted But Janet didn't leave me in any doubt for very long As soon as I had said Janet had asked me for a special blessing She stood up and she walked toward me I was wearing a long white robe with ample sleeves covering my hands as well as my arms Spontaneously Janet put her arms around me and she put her head against my chest and without thinking I covered her with my sleeves So that she almost vanished in the folds of my robe and as we held each other I said Janet I want you to know that you are God's beloved daughter that you are precious in God's eyes Your beautiful smile your kindness to the people in your house and all the good things you do show us What a beautiful human being you are I know you feel a little low these days and that there's some sadness in your heart But I want you to remember who you are You're very special you're deeply loved by God and by all the people who are here with you And as I said these words Janet raised her head and she looked at me and her broad smile Showed that she had really heard and received the blessing and when she returned to her place Jane Another handicapped woman raised her hand and said well, I want a blessing too So she stood up and before I knew it had put her face against my chest and after I'd spoken words a blessing to her Many more of the handicapped people followed Expressing the same desire to be blessed The most touching moment, however, came when one of the assistants a 24-year-old student raised his hand and said what about me? Sure, I said come he came and as we stood before each other. I put my arms around him and I said John It's so good that you're here Your God's beloved son your presence is a joy for all of us When things are hard and life is burdened some always remember that you're loved with an ever-lasting love And as I spoke these words he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and he said thank you. Thank you very much it's The most important Profound deeply true thing that's ever been spoken about who you are in your identity Is that you're a child of God and that you're loved not for anything you've done or can accomplish or pull off in this world, but just because you are and It's not an easy message to hear Right. I heard an interview just this week of a man who is going through something really painful And he said I begged God to give me a word and I fasted for days and I was reading the scriptures and I was listening intently and at the end of That I swore I heard God say to me. I love you, and you're gonna be okay And he said to be honest with you my response was essentially I I know that and I wanted to flip the birds to heaven right? I mean it just kind of like give me a real word Right he said but as he sat with that for a moment. He realized as much as he knew it He didn't really know it as much as he had heard it. He hadn't really heard it It's not easy to hear this message that we're the beloved of God in a world that is always shouting to us that We don't measure up that you're ugly that you're worthless that you're a disappointment That you you haven't sort of accomplished anything But I believe that if we can get quiet enough if we can get still enough This is exactly what each and every one of us will hear It's the power of prayer at the end of the day is that for us when we slow ourselves down and we listen for the voice of God This is what you'll hear You're my daughter You're my son. I love you With you I'm pleased It's a life changing message to hear You know Jesus in Mark's gospel. He's the only one that hears that no one else hears it, but Jesus But it's enough to get him through the next 16 chapters right in Hearing God say this over his life. He can get through all of sort of the great days and the low days All of the praise and the blame all the admiration and all the condemnation It's got the ability to get him through anything and everything knowing that voice deep down inside and so Kind of wrapping up as we think about doves and pigeons and the the birds who draw close to us with a great message We need to hear You know, there's part of me that thinks still like well It doesn't feel very regal or divine or powerful or mighty a pigeon, right? I still kind of wander about I the the powerful eagle or the falcon But I think the the witness of Jesus life is that this gentle whisper That comes to all of us and says you're loved and you're a child of God and may look frail and Not powerful by the world's standards, but it's strong enough to hold back the beasts That's what Mark says is that Jesus from this moment on was immediately pushed out into the world full of beasts and demons and Violence and terror, but this gentle whisper would get him through it all So my prayer for you this morning is that you would find time this week to slow down and to get quiet enough that you two might hear This gentle whisper in your life that you're loved by God that God is pleased with you Let me offer a prayer for us God Your your voice is often the hardest to hear and it's not because you aren't close to us It's not because you aren't ever present near us every step of the way But the other voices in our lives are just so loud That we ignore it that we don't see you that we don't respect that voice that we think we need to hear something else We pray this week That you would speak this word to us all afresh anew That we would hear in the deepest parts of our soul that that we're loved that you love us And not because of anything we've done, but simply because we're your child We thank you for that for the power it has to free us from all the traps of this life We pray we'd be a community that not only knows that deeply ourselves But carries that word that word with us to the world that word that we so desperately need to hear that We are in fact loved. Thank you for the doves. Thank you for the pigeons Who haunt us who chase us Who stay near to us and remind us that there's a message waiting to be heard God we love you and we thank you for this time. It's in your name. We pray. Amen [BLANK_AUDIO]