Youth Group
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The Grace High School Youth Team: Youth Day 2010.
Pictured from left to right are: Mayowa Laniran, Keri Beck, High School Youth Leader, Eric Germundson, Patrick Sullivan-Lovett, Mother Esme, Tess Anderson (in front) Tristan Kramer, Robb Beck, High School Youth Leader, Erika Skille. Not shown but a big part of the picture!: Lizzy Knope
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 9th, 2010
Rogation Sunday
Grace High School Youth Day
The Rev.Esme J. R. Culver
Acts 16:9-15
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
John 5:1-9
Psalm 67
".....take up your mat and walk"
There are lots of reasons to remember Rogation Sunday today....the beautiful weather, the ground warming itself and preparing to receive seeds and plants that will beautify our lives and provide food for our tables. I am reminded of Rogation Sunday by the weeds that are multiplying around my house....time to do the haying! Time to stop simply wishing that the garden could be made new .....time to get out and create the change that needs to happen in order for something beautiful to happen that the world can enjoy.
Rogation Sunday reminds us that while God has gifted us with this creation we call earth, we are the ones who are to tend it. It will not flourish...will not have the power to nurture us unless we nurture it. We have to get up and get moving, sometimes beyond our comfort zone, to tend, to take joy in, to bask in the possibility of beauty in all we encounter. We are to tend to all those who are a part of our world so that they, too, can find joy in the living....happiness in newly sown hope for the future.
Jesus gives us an example of moving out among the sick and the needy in today's Gospel as he encounters the man at the pool....Beth-Zatha. But Jesus doesn't merely see him and heal him, he hears his story first. He hears that the man has been at the pool for 38 years....a seeming lifetime.
We are told that the waters were stirred when an angel of the Lord entered the pool at certain seasons of the year......those who cam to the pool believed that the first person in the pool after the waters were stirred by the angel would be cured of his ills. The man offers what seems like excuses for his continuing condition. Someone else always gets to the newly stirred waters first.
So Jesus asks a good question...."Do you want to be made well?"
The question seems to clarify that.... for this man....healing is not going to be automatic....not a matter or desire or preference...but rather ..through his own free will, he can make a choice....a decision that could reveal important insights about himself. He could say yes or no...but he doesn't answer Jesus' question at all. Instead he seems to complain that others are reaching the water before him. This has been happening for 38 years....it's a long time to be coming in second...or worse, not even entering the race. And the man sounded a little like a victim in the story.....always being beaten out. He doesn't seem to want to be cured......Perhaps to be cured would place him beyond his comfort zone....place him out in to the world living a healthy life....a life that requires work, responsibility, and dealing with the challenges of life.
Perhaps instead of trying new things, venturing into new possibilities, the man, like many of us, would simply rather stay with the status quo. Perhaps the fear of change is too great a challenge to take on....too overwhelming to actually live into. Like a turtle, it is safer to withdraw into a little shell for protection from any intrusions that could suggest change. Like many of us, withdrawing from possibilities in fear and avoidance of facing new demands and expectations that might be placed upon us. And we, too, watch as the world passes by, making its way toward a newness of life that we are too afraid to venture into.
Jim Hollis, in his book "On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions." states "No doubt a lesson we all carry inscribed in our bones is: "You are small and powerless, and the world is large and powerful. You just have to deal with that for the rest of your life." He says this is "our common existential truth." Mediated in various ways by our families of origin and tempered and reinforced by other experiences and is the central message of our journey. "Our fragility is an over generalized assumption that continuously places us in a shadow complex that says, "I do not wish to confront this disproportionate relationship to the world, ....so I will cling to the fantasies of rescue from others...." (James Hollis, On this Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions, (Toronto: Inner City Books, 2003), pp. 45-47.)
Jesus doesn't say to the ill man who is using excuses for not getting to the healing waters of the pool, well move a little faster...or ...keep more alert....keep watching for those new opportunities....maybe change your strategy for reaching the pool. Rather he is far more direct.......sounding almost stern in his response. "Stand up, take your mat and walk."
Stand up...take your mat and walk. It is what we are being told to do. At some level, no matter where we are, we are to simply get up and get going with the things we need to do for God's people and the earth they live in.
We are instructed by Jesus, through his actions and now through His words, that we are to take care of ourselves and to get up and get going . The world awaits our actions on its behalf.....we are the instruments through which the nurture and the healing of all God's creation will begin.
It did not take long for the high school Grace Youth to figure this out. In preparation for this Youth Day service, I asked the youth to envision and design their own church. If cost were no object, what would their church look like....what would be it's mission...what would it do in the world?
It soon became apparent that their church was to be designed as a healing place....a place for the homeless to come and stay for a few days or weeks while finding work or permanent accommodation. The church would have medical staff available....nurses, doctors to take care of people who needed medical help. The church would have a garden in which to grow food to feed the hungry....would have daily meals and showers. It would even have a basketball court so that kids could have fun and play....it would be always open to all who needed to find comfort and safety.
But it would not be content just to receive people, it would also have a mobile unit...We envisioned a church that was literally on wheels, with the permanent structure being there for office work. so that it would not simply just be stuck in one place, but would have the ability to go out into the world ....out to meet the people in the world who need it to be where they are.. As one in the group observed...."You don't have to go out of your way to find people in need....there are people all around us who need help......but what do we do about it?" The actual church would have the capability to move out of its own space to where the people lay waiting....even perhaps near the edge of a healing pool, stirring the waters of hope for the hungry and the destitute,...finding those people, like the man Jesus encountered, who are lying next to the pool with a deep-seated desire to reach its healing waters, but without the incentive or the courage to go into it alone.
I next asked our young people to write down their own vision for an ideal church, and you will hear Lizzy recite them verbatim for you in a few minutes. I asked them to write prayers of the people...and Tess will read them. The individual visions and prayers are all about helping the world by helping people....being out among them...the way Jesus was out among them....by showing them an alternative way to live, in the same way Jesus is showing the man what it is he must do in order to change his life.
Listen now to the voices coming out of this ideal church. We begin by hearing the first of two meditations chosen by our young people, then we will hear their voices through statements of belief and then we will hear the second meditation they have chosen to share with you today.
We can do well to listen to the voices of the future church...we can do well to heed the words that we are hearing and will hear...... We can do well to understand the same sentiment today that the ill man heard from the lips of Jesus, as he lay waiting something he could believe in.
Our young people know well that we are all called to do more than just feed...to do more than just heal. We are called to nurture and grow new hope, new possibilities in the world we encounter.
As Easter people, we are to provide opportunities for new growth to occur where there were weeds before....we are to create and embrace the promise of new possibilities for living.....not just to those who are waiting in the shadows to discover them.... but for ourselves as well.
What do we know of that needs to be healed in us...what is in us that is unable to move.. ....keeping us stuck in the same place for 38 years. Who do we hear asking us "Do you want to be made well?" What do we gain by staying where we are? What do we have to give up ...what do we have to give away...what part of us has to change if we were to stand up and take our mats and walk.
On this Rogation Sunday, our youth is looking out at the world and asking......"What does it feel like to "take up your mat and walk." What does it feel like if you don't?"
End
Written to the glory of God for the youth of this parish,
E. J. R. Culver+
May 9, 2010
1
The Grace High School Youth Team: Youth Day 2010.
Pictured from left to right are: Mayowa Laniran, Keri Beck, High School Youth Leader, Eric Germundson, Patrick Sullivan-Lovett, Mother Esme, Tess Anderson (in front) Tristan Kramer, Robb Beck, High School Youth Leader, Erika Skille. Not shown but a big part of the picture!: Lizzy Knope
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 9th, 2010
Rogation Sunday
Grace High School Youth Day
The Rev.Esme J. R. Culver
Acts 16:9-15
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
John 5:1-9
Psalm 67
".....take up your mat and walk"
There are lots of reasons to remember Rogation Sunday today....the beautiful weather, the ground warming itself and preparing to receive seeds and plants that will beautify our lives and provide food for our tables. I am reminded of Rogation Sunday by the weeds that are multiplying around my house....time to do the haying! Time to stop simply wishing that the garden could be made new .....time to get out and create the change that needs to happen in order for something beautiful to happen that the world can enjoy.
Rogation Sunday reminds us that while God has gifted us with this creation we call earth, we are the ones who are to tend it. It will not flourish...will not have the power to nurture us unless we nurture it. We have to get up and get moving, sometimes beyond our comfort zone, to tend, to take joy in, to bask in the possibility of beauty in all we encounter. We are to tend to all those who are a part of our world so that they, too, can find joy in the living....happiness in newly sown hope for the future.
Jesus gives us an example of moving out among the sick and the needy in today's Gospel as he encounters the man at the pool....Beth-Zatha. But Jesus doesn't merely see him and heal him, he hears his story first. He hears that the man has been at the pool for 38 years....a seeming lifetime.
We are told that the waters were stirred when an angel of the Lord entered the pool at certain seasons of the year......those who cam to the pool believed that the first person in the pool after the waters were stirred by the angel would be cured of his ills. The man offers what seems like excuses for his continuing condition. Someone else always gets to the newly stirred waters first.
So Jesus asks a good question...."Do you want to be made well?"
The question seems to clarify that.... for this man....healing is not going to be automatic....not a matter or desire or preference...but rather ..through his own free will, he can make a choice....a decision that could reveal important insights about himself. He could say yes or no...but he doesn't answer Jesus' question at all. Instead he seems to complain that others are reaching the water before him. This has been happening for 38 years....it's a long time to be coming in second...or worse, not even entering the race. And the man sounded a little like a victim in the story.....always being beaten out. He doesn't seem to want to be cured......Perhaps to be cured would place him beyond his comfort zone....place him out in to the world living a healthy life....a life that requires work, responsibility, and dealing with the challenges of life.
Perhaps instead of trying new things, venturing into new possibilities, the man, like many of us, would simply rather stay with the status quo. Perhaps the fear of change is too great a challenge to take on....too overwhelming to actually live into. Like a turtle, it is safer to withdraw into a little shell for protection from any intrusions that could suggest change. Like many of us, withdrawing from possibilities in fear and avoidance of facing new demands and expectations that might be placed upon us. And we, too, watch as the world passes by, making its way toward a newness of life that we are too afraid to venture into.
Jim Hollis, in his book "On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions." states "No doubt a lesson we all carry inscribed in our bones is: "You are small and powerless, and the world is large and powerful. You just have to deal with that for the rest of your life." He says this is "our common existential truth." Mediated in various ways by our families of origin and tempered and reinforced by other experiences and is the central message of our journey. "Our fragility is an over generalized assumption that continuously places us in a shadow complex that says, "I do not wish to confront this disproportionate relationship to the world, ....so I will cling to the fantasies of rescue from others...." (James Hollis, On this Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions, (Toronto: Inner City Books, 2003), pp. 45-47.)
Jesus doesn't say to the ill man who is using excuses for not getting to the healing waters of the pool, well move a little faster...or ...keep more alert....keep watching for those new opportunities....maybe change your strategy for reaching the pool. Rather he is far more direct.......sounding almost stern in his response. "Stand up, take your mat and walk."
Stand up...take your mat and walk. It is what we are being told to do. At some level, no matter where we are, we are to simply get up and get going with the things we need to do for God's people and the earth they live in.
We are instructed by Jesus, through his actions and now through His words, that we are to take care of ourselves and to get up and get going . The world awaits our actions on its behalf.....we are the instruments through which the nurture and the healing of all God's creation will begin.
It did not take long for the high school Grace Youth to figure this out. In preparation for this Youth Day service, I asked the youth to envision and design their own church. If cost were no object, what would their church look like....what would be it's mission...what would it do in the world?
It soon became apparent that their church was to be designed as a healing place....a place for the homeless to come and stay for a few days or weeks while finding work or permanent accommodation. The church would have medical staff available....nurses, doctors to take care of people who needed medical help. The church would have a garden in which to grow food to feed the hungry....would have daily meals and showers. It would even have a basketball court so that kids could have fun and play....it would be always open to all who needed to find comfort and safety.
But it would not be content just to receive people, it would also have a mobile unit...We envisioned a church that was literally on wheels, with the permanent structure being there for office work. so that it would not simply just be stuck in one place, but would have the ability to go out into the world ....out to meet the people in the world who need it to be where they are.. As one in the group observed...."You don't have to go out of your way to find people in need....there are people all around us who need help......but what do we do about it?" The actual church would have the capability to move out of its own space to where the people lay waiting....even perhaps near the edge of a healing pool, stirring the waters of hope for the hungry and the destitute,...finding those people, like the man Jesus encountered, who are lying next to the pool with a deep-seated desire to reach its healing waters, but without the incentive or the courage to go into it alone.
I next asked our young people to write down their own vision for an ideal church, and you will hear Lizzy recite them verbatim for you in a few minutes. I asked them to write prayers of the people...and Tess will read them. The individual visions and prayers are all about helping the world by helping people....being out among them...the way Jesus was out among them....by showing them an alternative way to live, in the same way Jesus is showing the man what it is he must do in order to change his life.
Listen now to the voices coming out of this ideal church. We begin by hearing the first of two meditations chosen by our young people, then we will hear their voices through statements of belief and then we will hear the second meditation they have chosen to share with you today.
We can do well to listen to the voices of the future church...we can do well to heed the words that we are hearing and will hear...... We can do well to understand the same sentiment today that the ill man heard from the lips of Jesus, as he lay waiting something he could believe in.
Our young people know well that we are all called to do more than just feed...to do more than just heal. We are called to nurture and grow new hope, new possibilities in the world we encounter.
As Easter people, we are to provide opportunities for new growth to occur where there were weeds before....we are to create and embrace the promise of new possibilities for living.....not just to those who are waiting in the shadows to discover them.... but for ourselves as well.
What do we know of that needs to be healed in us...what is in us that is unable to move.. ....keeping us stuck in the same place for 38 years. Who do we hear asking us "Do you want to be made well?" What do we gain by staying where we are? What do we have to give up ...what do we have to give away...what part of us has to change if we were to stand up and take our mats and walk.
On this Rogation Sunday, our youth is looking out at the world and asking......"What does it feel like to "take up your mat and walk." What does it feel like if you don't?"
End
Written to the glory of God for the youth of this parish,
E. J. R. Culver+
May 9, 2010
1