Celebrating Ministry!

Woodlawn Chapel Friends:
On behalf of our entire family, thank you for the tremendous celebration on Sunday! You pulled one over on me! It was wonderful to share this moment with both our family and Woodlawn Chapel family! I was touched by your generous gift of a new robe, and the gift for our family was appreciated, too. Thank you for your love and prayers, and the many ways you have supported this degree, the work of this church, and our shared ministry. Blessings on you! -- Chris 

"What The Ritz Carlton Could Learn From Jesus"

“What The Ritz Carlton Could Learn from Jesus”
10/22/06
Text: Mark 10:35-45
Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating
©2006

Focus: Jesus redefines greatness by reminding the disciples that the life of faith is a life of service.


Cesar Ritz began life tending his father’s cows in Switzerland, and ended it tending the Kings of Europe. He was called the “king of hoteliers and the hotelier to kings.” He had a passion for greatness and a desire that each of us hotels would offer guests an unparalleled experience of luxury.

After his death, his widow Marie continued to expand the empire. The first American Ritz was the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, opened in 1927. A room cost $15. Throughout history, no company has set the bar higher for customer service than the Ritz Carlton hotel chain. The company’s motto is legendary – “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” The company has the highest standards for how customers are to be treated, and have won the prestigious Malcolm Baldridge Award for service twice. Cesar Ritz’ hotels were the most luxurious of the time – the first to have private bathrooms, electric lights, fine linens, the finest of foods. Greatness, for the Ritz, is defined by how well the customer is served. It is a vision, says their company web site, inspired by the life of founder Cesar Ritz.

Cesar Ritz knew that the heart of service was answering that voice inside of all us that longs to be number one. What is not said on that web site, however, is that this vision of greatness hounded Cesar Ritz so much that he became a victim of his own success.. The demands for elegance and high standards became so much that eventually Cesar Ritz had an emotional breakdown. Ultimately, he was banned from the lobbies of his own hotels due to yelling obscenities at the guests.

Greatnesss is not about being number one, and true greatness is not achieved by anxious pursuits of success. Rather, it comes as we answer the call to become who we really are.

There once was a woman who became worried when her husband began dressing like Napoleon Bonaparte. You know, the hat, the uniform, the shoes, the sword. He would begin barking orders to her in French. He insisted that everyone refer to him as the Emperor. The deeper he got into his delusion, the more worried his wife became. So, she urged him to go to a psychiatrist. The man walked into the doctor’s office in full regalia, and the doctor looked at him and said, “What’s your problem?” The man replied, “I don’t have a problem. I’m one of the most famous people in the world. I have a great army behind me, I have all the money I’ll ever need, and I live in great luxury.” “So why are you here?” the doctor asked. “It’s because of my wife,” said the man. “She thinks she’s Mrs. Smith.” [1]

The challenge for us is to become who we really are. That’s what Jesus wants us to hear this morning.

He calls us to set aside our addictions and anxious preoccupations with status, prestige and hierarchy to do something more with our lives—to assume our identity as disciples, the people God has called us to be. In this memorable scene from Mark, Jesus is walking toward Jerusalem, completely aware of the destiny which lies ahead. Suddenly, the two so-called “sons of thunder,” James and John, come running toward him. They corner him with a proposition, “Do for us whatever we ask of you.” Mind you, Jesus has just told them what constitutes faithful discipleship: accepting a child, giving money to the poor, seeking treasure in heaven, trusting in God to provide what you need. “Many who are first will be last,” Jesus has just said. Plain as day, Jesus has taken the disciples aside and told them what is going to happen next. “We are going to Jerusalem,” he tells them, “and I’m going to be condemned to death, mocked, humiliated, beaten, and killed, but after three days I will rise again.”

But the disciples don’t understand. They cling to a notion that Jesus may be bringing about a revolution. Sensing this, James and John begin the process of bidding on their future; they want a share in this glory and greatness. They take their offer straight to Jesus. Wouldn’t their father Zebedee be so proud!

“Teacher,” they say, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

In one of his books, my old preaching professor Tom Long has said that this scene almost looks like an old war movie. Tom imagines Jesus as a tough, war-tested sergeant, ordering his men into combat. Hunkered down in the fox hole, bullets whistling over head, the sergeant preps his men for battle. The only problem is that the soldiers in his square are named Moe, Larry and Curly. “Just as their valiant leader cries, “OK, boys, over the top” and begins to climb out of the treach, one of those stooges pulls on the hem of his uniform jacket. With a silly smile on his face he says to the leader, “Hey, look! We have matching ties and blazers, can we sit on either side of you?”[2]

Looking them straight in the eye, Jesus winces as he anticipates their request. “What do you want me to do for you,” he asks.

Filled with selfish pride, they forget the parts about trusting God and receiving the kingdom like a child. They forget about the pathways of service Jesus has been describing, and forget about risking security for the sake of love and compassion. The disciples have forgotten who they are. Instead of following Christ in the pathways of giving and sharing, they become preoccupied with securing their positions. “Give us the prime positions of power and status in your organization.” They wanted the prized positions, the theological equivalent of the corner office – a place of proximity to the center of power, a place where they could be noticed and honored.

Jesus’ reply is simple: “You do know what you are asking.”

The task, says Jesus, is not to grab at power or to be consumed with status. Discipleship is not about winning first place; it is about serving. Authentic leadership in ministry comes from sharing in that cup of Christ. It comes as we use whatever talents, time, and treasure God has given us to serve others. Walking that path toward Jerusalem, Jesus redefined greatness and offered a view of what it means to be truly great. He called all disciples – you, and me, and James and John, to give up our often pathetic quests for status and greatness and become who we are truly meant to be: servants who come not to be served, but to serve.

Disciples, then and now, have struggled to claim that identity. Our candidates for public speak freely of their commitments to “public service,” but their lives are defined by posturing and pointing their way to greatness. Our corporate ladders are strewn with the worn out souls of persons who have focused only on the push to be Number One – leaving behind families and marriages. Churches preach and teach Christ as the giver of happy and successful lives, but neglect to talk seriously about what it takes to live as servants of each other and of those who are most at risk in our society.

It shall not be so among you. In your lives, first live as servants. Bear the burdens of others, become involved in the lives of those who are in need. This is the definition of what it means to follow Christ. Christian life is not some sort of abstraction; it is a concrete way of living daily in this world. Jesus calls us to be who we really are.
This past spring break, we traveled to Memphis for a few days. Because of an Internet deal, we were able to stay at a very nice hotel. It had big pillows and a doorman who held the door open for us each time we came and went. We went to the Peabody Hotel, where the ducks march into the grand lobby at 10:00 and leave for their own penthouse apartment at 4 p.m. Both those hotels were exquisite; incredibly beautiful and luxurious hotels. But neither taught me a lesson about service. Instead, the hotel which left the biggest impression on me was a humble old motel on the south side of downtown, a modest motel where the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. The front part of the old Lorraine Motel has become the setting for the National Civil rights museum. It is a museum every American should visit. Its exhibits tell the story of the civil rights movement. The winding path through the museum leads you straight to the balcony where that great servant of the Lord was shot. You see the small room where he spent his last night. You hear the mournful sounds of Mahalia Jackson singing, “Precious Lord, take my hand, I am weary, I am worn…” And you think to yourself: this is what it means to truly become God’s servant. Amen
[1] William J. Bausch, Storytelling, Imagination and Faith.” Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1991).
[2] Quoted in Carlo Wilton, LectionaryPreaching Workbook Year B, p. 225

Family Fun At Woodlawn Chapel's Retreat!

Woodlawn Chapel's Family Retreat was a big success! The weather was perfect, the food terrific, and the fellowship out of this world. We grew closer as families and as the family of God! Mound Ridge is a beautiful facility connected to the ministry of the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy. Thanks to all who participated, and plan on joining us next year! 

“Persisting In Integrity”

Job 1:1, 2:1-10

Psalm 26

10/8/06

A Sermon by:

The Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating

Woodlawn Chapel Presbyterian Church

Scripture focus:

Then Job's wife said to him, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die..."

Job 2:9

FOCUS: In the face of suffering, one discovers what one really believes. For Mrs. Job, the challenge is to discover what it means to “persist in integrity,” to discover God’s presence in their pain and grief.

Sermon:

This week, another layer of our innocence was swept away.

The peaceful, gentle clip-clop sound of horse and buggy was pierced by gunfire, helicopters and sirens. The private world of the Amish enclaves was invaded uninvited guests. That world seems so different from ours, like distant cousins who see each other only sporadically. But this week the worlds collided in a slaughter of innocents. Sounds of laments were heard, and anguish was on the face of all who witnessed those horrific killings.

Of course we have seen it before, too many times, in too many places. The pit in our stomachs grew deeper, and we silently raged against God…why? Why, O Lord, were these children taken?

That’s the obvious question. Larger questions loom in the background. These moments cause us to rethink our faith, and while we were doing that the other day, the Amish community did something unthinkable. They promised to forgive this murderer. They did it quickly, in typical fashion, without fanfare or press conference. They reached out in love and graciousness to his wife and children. They took steps to make sure that the man’s widow was care for, and they expressed forgiveness in the midst of their own penetrating, numbing grief. That their act of forgiveness caught the rest of the world off guard reminds us that the larger question at work in events like these is this: What does it mean to persist in faith in the midst of suffering?

And that is a question with which we have been struggling for sometime.

Some churches, of course, will have ready made answers to those questions. In thos communities, pastors will offer their congregation off the shelf answers to those difficult questions, with the aim of calming fear. Questions risk a less confident faith. In order to promote spiritual stability, these communities will provide easy answers, often demonstrating logical steps believers must follow to regain Christian confidence. I believe such churches promote a misguided sense of spiritual maturity. As one has said, they encourage a spiritual plateau in which “nothing phases the believer, no matter what comes. It is all manageable by the person of faith.”¹

Instead of quick answers, perhaps we should be listening to Job. What’s compelling about Job’s story is the way it raises questions instead of providing answers. And I believe that there are times when our willingness to raise questions instead of seeking easy answers leads us more closely to the sort of dynamic faith that will support us when the foundations of our lives are rattled.

True faith, as David Nelson Duke has said, leads us passionately into the heart of God. True faith is the reminder that, as the Rev. William Sloane Coffin often said, God’s heart is the first of all of ours to break in the midst of suffering. God’s heart cries out in agony as children are murdered, and as the world is filled with grief and pain.² In God’s heart, we find a model of what it means to persist in integrity.

Look at the story of Job and Mrs. Job not for easy answers…but for questions that define their spiritual crisis, and which could deepen faith. Instead of walking out on God, Job persists in walking in faith. Like the Amish farmers, Job does something remarkable, and almost unthinkable: in the face of suffering, he finds the face of God.

In the midst of my ruminating about Job and Mrs. Job, Mrs. Keating reminded me that the kid’s bathroom had a leaky faucet. That was the ruse. Once inside of Lowes, she also said, “You know the light fixture in that bathroom really needs to be replaced, too.” So, plumbing and electrical repairs on the same day…good material for a sermon on suffering! In fairness, let it be said that we shared the work 50/50. I replaced the light, Carol changed the faucet. Both are now working, mostly, and it only took two trips to the store. Home repair is not such a bad metaphor for understanding the important work which Job is calling us to do. It takes effort to keep a house in good shape. It requires a certain amount of diligence to dig in and get the job done, a commitment to repairing what needs to be fixed.

As the curtain rises in this theological drama, Job’s house appears to be fit and immaculate. Really, for most of Job’s life, his spiritual “home,” was well repaired and in good working order. Job had enjoyed the good life, and he was reaping the rewards of hard work. It was spotless. Living in one of the tonier neighborhoods of Uz, Job was a model citizen…a man who loved God, and lived well. His house was well ordered. They always believed that if you did what was expected of you, God would do what was expected of Him.

The inventory of his life in chapter one tells the story. Seven sons. Three daughters. Seven thousand sheep, three thousands camels, five hungred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, servants, houses, parties, everything. Job was set for life.

And then one day, it was all gone. Removed. Not long after, huge sores appeared all over Job’s body, on his feet, on his head, on his hands, and everywhere in between. The foundations had really been shaken. The beautiful house of Job’s life had been ransacked and now lay in ruins. This is not just a broken light fixture or a worn out faucet. The entire structure is missing. It would take more than a little effort to fix this house; in fact, like most people who are suffering, Job learns that he needs a whole new tool box. More than a quick trip to the hardware store will be required; Job’s home, his whole world, had been knocked flat into the ground.

And Job sits in stunned silence, scraping his wounds with a broken piece of pottery. “Naked I cam from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed by the name of the Lord.”

Such faith pushes Mrs. Job beyond her limits. “Curse God!” She tells him, or as one translator has suggested, “Give up your integrity! Curse God and in so doing put yourself out of your misery!” Her pleas are understandable. Her vision of God was shaken. She believed in a mechanical God who is supposed to respond in a predictable fashion. The God she knew no longer exists. One commentator has said that Mrs. Job is issuing her husband a warning: “the God we thought we knew is gone. Do not antagonize this new God any further – the rules o the new God are unknown to us.” In plain language, Mrs. Job wonders if there is any God at all.

It is a place we all been.

The voice on the other end of the phone was tearful: “I’m not terribly happy with God at that moment.” Her voice was filled with emotion as she relayed the difficulty her family was experiencing. Like Mrs. Job, It seemed to her that God had abandoned her family, leaving them orphaned. Job, however, continues to cling to his faith. Rather than walking away from God, he begins a journey of transformation. He looks for his toolbox, and gets to work.

And the good news is this: as Job scrapes himself with that broken piece of pottery, as he sees that he himself is broken, he discovers that God is there with him in that brokenness. Centuries later, the Apostle Paul, who knew his own share of brokenness and suffering, would capture this sort of dynamic faith in these words:

“What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Indeed, who? Amen.

1 David Nelson Duke, Anguish and the Word, p. 28.

2 William Sloane Coffin, Letters To A Young Doubter, p. 109.

1

© 2006 Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating

AWOL - Second Sermon In A Series On Suffering

“AWOL”
Sunday, October, 15, 2006
Psalm 22
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
The Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating
Woodlawn Chapel Presbyterian Church

Scripture Focus:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?"
-- Psalm 22:1

"Oh, that I knew where I might find (God), that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments..." (Job 23:3-4)


Focus: In the face of God’s seeming absence, both Job and the Psalmist are called to a transforming moment of faith: waiting and believing that God shall come again.

Sermon:

A little girl was attending her first wedding. The entire event had her mesmerized. Her eyes intently focused on the details: the candles, the ushers, the flowers, the music. As the bride began walking down the aisle, the girl’s eyes practically popped right out of her head. “Momma!” she cried. “She’s beautiful, but why is sharing wearing all white?” Her mother smiled. “Why, honey, white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life!” The little girl thought about this for a moment, but then said, “Then why is the groom wearing black?”
Some questions defy easy answers.

That certainly was the case when a young bride-to-be came to see me to plan her wedding. As she sat in my office, it became apparent that she really had little interest in meeting me. We kept talking about her wedding, the details of which had been primarily arranged by her mother. As we talked, it became very apparent that neither the bride nor the groom had any interest in faith. Finally, I asked her about their religious convictions, and she bluntly told me that she had left faith behind. “My father died when I was in high school,” she said. “Since then, God and me haven’t had much to say to each other. I’m pretty much here because my mother is paying for the wedding.”

It was an honest response. She could have made up something that sounded faintly religious (that happens a lot). She could have lied to me, but instead she told me the truth: when her father died, so did her faith. To this bright and beautiful young woman, God had gone AWOL…absent without leave, without reason, without justice.

For her, God was absent.

In essence, she felt God had failed her. The late theologian Lewis Smedes sums up her experience by saying: “What good does it do if God exists out there somewhere in the great beyond but isn’t down here when we need God the most?”1 In fact, when her questions went unanswered, she went looking for something else.

When the life of seminary would become hectic and confusing and I'd wonder what I was doing there, some afternoons I'd retreat to the massive Princeton University Chapel. Inside of this gothic cathedral, I'd look at the purple light streaming in through the stained glass windows. Sitting quietly in that place, I'd wonder..."Are you here, Lord?" Sometimes, I would feel God's presence in that magic, mysterious place. Other times, I'd think about the generations of Princeton students who had passed through those doors, bringing with them their questions of faith, their debates and arguments. Had they gone away empty, looking for something else? Where was God to be found?

It is an experience shared by so many. Where were you, O God, we shout, when that 21 year old took a bullet in Iraq? Or where were you when those innocent children died of malnutrition in Africa? How do you explain HIV? Cancer? Hunger? Extreme poverty? And, while we’re asking, just where were you when those babies were slaughtered in East Saint Louis? It is, says Gerald Mann, the question God hears the most. "Why do innocent people suffer?"

My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?

As I was wrestling with my sense of call to ministry in college, a friend would keep peppering me with questions. Why do you think you can be a minister? Why believe in God, anyway? What good does religion do? He kept trying to trap me into saying something that would expose me as not having a perfect faith or something. On and on he went, tossing out all sorts of questions. At first I was mad, but now I realize that what he was doing was being honest with me about his own struggles of faith, and his own sense that God was absent. His root question was really the same as the Psalmist’s, wonderfully paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in The Message:
“God, God…my God! Why did you dump me miles from nowhere? Doubled up with pain, I cal to God all the day long. No answer. Nothing. I keep at it all night, tossing, and turning. And you! Are you indifferent, above it all, leaning back on the cushions of Israel’s praise? We know you were there for our parents: they cried for your help and you gave it; they trusted and lived a good life. And here I am, a nothing…everyone pokes fun at me; they make faces at me, they shake their heads: ‘Let’s see how God handles this one; since God likes him so much, let him help him!”

Those questions are not easily dismissed.

Nor should they be. In the book of Job, his friends have tried to help him through his suffering by tossing out easy answers and glib responses. Job’s friends have all tried to bring some measure of comfort to his misery by trying to fix what is wrong with him. They offer pious sounding religious sentiment, but fail to get at the real heart of this mystery of suffering. They offer lines that look as though they’ve been lifted from greeting cards. Simply put, these friends of Job’s are what Eugene Peterson calls “fixers,” people who are attracted to suffering the same way vultures are attracted to roadkill.2

Within the pages of scripture, however, what I hear is a word that takes suffering seriously. These questions are not easily dismissed. My young bride walked away from the church not because God was absent but perhaps because the church had not entered into her suffering. What would have happened if the church had been able to honor her questions, perhaps allowing her to stretch her faith so that it could see hope? What would have happened if we had accompanied this young woman on her journey of suffering so that she, too, could see what happens to both Job and the writer of Psalm 22.

Yes, pain and suffering happen, and it is real and deadly, and devastating. But something else happens, too. What I sense in both the book of Job and Psalm 22 is a persistent hope that does not reduce the mystery of God’s presence in suffering to easy answers. These are the cries of faith longing for answers, yes, but also longing for God. Where grief and pain caused the young bride to cut all connections to God, Job clings to faith. He pushes deeper. He rejects the easy answers and greeting card messages. Instead, he pushes back at God and allows his faith to grow.

Job dares to ask real questions and does not let go of God. In the midst of the suffering, the Psalmist’s understanding of who God is grows. This moment of suffering becomes a time of transformation because the Psalmist clings to the notion that God will respond. Rather than turning his back on God, Job offers his lament, and like the Psalmist discovers a moment of transformation that enlarges his faith. Both the Psalmist and Job plunge deeper into faith. Rather than moving on, they move deeper into the mystery of God’s presence, and dare to bring their complaints directly to God. They discover something: God is not absent. God is suffering with them.

As you might expect, I quickly lost contact with that young bride. Disillusioned, she gave up on the church, on God. She and her husband moved out of the area after their marriage, so I didn’t have much of a chance to keep up with them. What I wonder about, however, is this: how many people feel that same disappointment with God? How many of them have been so wounded by God’s absence that they have simply given up on faith altogether? Challenged by the suffering they have witnessed or experienced, they shrug their shoulders and move on to something different. The mystery of faith holds no delight for them. It has become some sort of a relic. Faith is reduced to some sort of performance ritual, and when God didn’t perform the way they expected, they simply moved on to a different venue.

But what would happen if we, as disciples of Christ, would change the prevailing conversation in our culture? What would happen if we stopped trying to hard to fix people’s suffering and instead listened to their stories? What would happen if instead of providing easy answers, would simply allow ourselves to accompany people in their suffering? What would happen if we allow them to hear not only words of false encouragement, but the words of God’s son, Jesus the Christ, who opened himself to the suffering of the world, baring his hands to the cross and its rough wooden beams, and who from that place himself cried out to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

For Christ, it was a prayer that began in utter hopelessness, pain, and suffering; yet ended with the promise of resurrection. Shout hallelujah, give glory to God, for God has never let you down, never looked the other way, never wandered off to do his own thing; God has been right there, listening. Amen.

1 Lewis Smedes, “When God goes on leave of absence” www.cses.org/csec/sermon/smedes_4005.htm
2 Peterson, The Message, p. 840.
1 © 2006 Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating

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