Sermons - Mary Ellen Frackenpohl

Sermons by Lay Minister Mary Ellen Frackenpohl

"For God, All Things Are Possible" First Presbyterian Church of Potsdam, NY October 11, 2009 Lay Minister Mary Ellen Frackenpohl Job 23:1-9, 16, 17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31 Job Says: “God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face.” (Job 23:16-17) We all face the darkness at some points in our lives. Where is God? Why me? Why won’t God hear me? What happened to my faith and my assurance that all will be well with God? If only we could have answers to these questions, and prove our case, God would listen! Where is God? From Hebrews: “Indeed the word of God is living and active. Before God, no one is hidden, … but all are laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” (Hebrews 4:23-24 edited) Can we bear this? Can we accept that God is all knowing, that no sins are hidden, that the good we do may be outweighed by the wrongs? It’s a matter of facing the truth that God knows it all, is indwelling in each of us, is ready to judge us, and to love us. “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God”, Jesus says. (Mark 10:23 edited) Oh Lord, we say, right along with those first disciples, how then can we be saved? What can we do? Jesus simply says, “for mortals it is impossible, but not for God.” It’s rare for the Sunday lectionary to have scriptures that serve together quite so well! The despair and loneliness, the discouraging awareness of guilt, the hope that God will save us from ourselves; all this works together, we hope, for good! Sometimes we are most afraid of what we most need! It’s one of the perplexing mysteries of the human heart. Happiness, peace, healing and all the other elements of fullness of life can be right in front of us, but instead of embracing them, we back away in fear. We know what we need to do to have more blessed and satisfying lives, but in the face of something immensely promising, we are too often like the young man, in our gospel story from Mark: we walk away sad. This fine young man who approaches Jesus says that all his life he has these kept these rules, these commandments. Let’s stop right there! Is that humanly possible? All of us, if our souls were laid bare for judgment, which the writer of Hebrews says they are and will be, each of us would be found guilty. No one is left out. “For mortals it is impossible…”) That’s a ‘given’. But Jesus loved this young man. And so he told him to remove one great barrier to following Jesus. “… go, sell what you have, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” What is this treasure, this wealth we are supposed to sell and give to the poor? We always think of money wealth, don’t we? - especially when it’s that stewardship time of year. Money, investments, whether they are stocks or bonds or houses, or boats or jewels we think of as wealth, or lack of it! We think of THINGS. We spend a lot of time worrying about – the money thing. We don’t often look at the wealth we accrue simply by being alive – not the money things, but our days of living and learning and growing in understanding of what life is all about. We’re never too young or too old to learn. Who we are as living, struggling people, what we grow into as persons, is wealth beyond our imagination. We grasp at understanding, search for faith, yearn to feel good about ourselves and our lives. We are our own wealth. The story of the young man begins so well - all the rule keeping and the desire to follow Jesus. He may be wealthy, but he’s obviously looking for something more, otherwise, why would he search out Jesus? People who are satisfied and content do not seek Jesus, but only those who know there is something missing from their lives. The young man admits that he needs something more than what he already has in his life – he wants and needs to share as completely as possible in the life of God. What must he do to inherit eternal life? The answer stuns all of us. You must give up what is most valuable to you, what it is that we most cherish. The young man – along with everyone who hears this story is shocked. Jesus is telling him that he will only know the fullness of life by doing something that seems utterly reckless and wildly preposterous. He will find happiness in being stripped of his possessions. He will move more deeply into life with God by letting go – by forever loosening his hold on what he owns. The young man goes away grieving, for he had many possesions. So do we. We find ourselves unable to let go of what is most important to us, and we back off. But we learn what it is that stands in our way. “Indeed the word of God is living and active, sharper than a two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow,” (Hebrews) “God has made our hearts faint, the Almighty has terrified us. If only we could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover our faces” we cry like Job. We would like to hide. Once in a while, like this young man, we actually see ourselves in relation to who God is, what God requires, see the glory and wonder of God. But it is always elusive – this understanding. Our insights slip away. If we write them down, hoping to build on them, a week or so later, they mean nothing to us. Perhaps we aren’t meant to see and to know. We lose ourselves as fast as we find us! Lives move in circular motion, faith, hope, no faith, despair. God remains mystery, and sometimes we fall back on what we can see and handle and count. Jesus clearly states that we can’t do salvation for ourselves. Only God can grant that. Jesus points us in the right direction. What we do with our lives, not just money things, but all our lives, can make or break us, and our neighbors. If we hoard the hard earned understandings we’ve gained, and do nothing to act on them, we won’t be following Jesus. We can’t begin to hear his teaching if it’s only about us. It’s our selfishness that keeps our heads down, our time protected, our abilities unused. God grants us enormous gifts, each of us receives them in different proportions and content. Jesus asks the questioning young man about the commandments – how has he managed with those? He says he’s kept them all. That means he hasn’t murdered or committed adultery, or stolen, or lied or cheated, and has honored his parents – his heritage. Sounds pretty good to us. But Jesus said he lacked one thing. He had to rid himself of his material wealth, give the proceeds to the poor, and THEN get on with following Jesus. Our own self gets in the way, not just our money, but our sense of personal righteousness, of privacy, of individual rights to all the good that comes to us. If things aren’t good, we cry “Why me? Where is God? I’d plead my case, and God would listen. Where is God?” We need to pay attention to who is it that Jesus chose to teach? Not the spiritual types, or the wealthy, the distinguished, the temple leaders and government folks. Jesus spoke to, chose, lived with the poor in spirit, the ones who spiritually speaking have absolutely nothing to give and absolutely everything to receive like the prodigal telling his father “I am not worthy to be called your son.” Jesus doesn’t seek out the champions of faith who can rejoice even in the midst of suffering, but the ones who mourn over their own suffering and over the suffering of others because that’s just the way it makes them feel to be in the same room with them. Jesus chose not the strong ones, but the meek, in the sense of the gentle ones, who know they haven’t got much, and don’t much care. They wonder if their neighbor doesn’t need help way more than they do. Jesus doesn’t gather the ones who are righteous, but the ones who hope they will be someday, and in the meantime are well aware that the distance they still have to go is even greater that the distance they’ve already come. Not the winners of great victories over evil, but the ones who see it all over again when they look in the mirror to comb their hair in the morning. Not the totally pure in heart, to use Jesus’ phrase, but the ones who maybe as shopworn and clay-footed as the next one, but somehow keep some inner freshness and innocence intact. We try so hard, as Christians. We think such long thoughts, manipulate such long words, and both listen to and preach such long sermons! We each one of us has known, if only for a moment, something of the shattering love of God, and once that has happened, we can never rest easy again for trying somehow to set forth that love, not only in words, myriads of words, but in our lives themselves. Our lives are our wealth – the energies, the hopes, the love, the sharing and helping. We are to give away ourselves. Jesus loves the ones that can see and work for God’s side, even when anyone can see that God’s side is going to lose. Jesus looks at them, and says, “Bless you.” AMEN

"And She Was Very Beautiful" First Presbyterian Church of Potsdam, NY July 26, 2009 Lay Minister Mary Ellen Frackenpohl Psalm 14;  II Samuel 11:1-15;  Ephesians 3:14-21;  John 6:1-21 “…And She Was Very Beautiful” (Temptation and Grace) And she was very beautiful! Very beautiful. And the king was restless, bored. He was at home in his palace while his troops were at war. He was powerful. He was a successful warrior – heralded as an heroic leader in war, a builder and uniter of the kingdom of Israel. He‘d done it all! And she was very beautiful. There is no point in pretending we don’t understand it. We meet it daily in life, whatever our age or condition. And we fall for it. The story of David, anointed king, chosen by God to lead God’s people is a universal story of power and temptation, lust and greed, cover-ups and destruction; sin and consequences. Temptation. We all know about it. And we fall for it over and over. “She was very beautiful.” He had way too much: I needed ….. He was in the way – you can’t stop progress… The human condition…. we break the rules. Temptation overcomes us. When we are babies, we don’t know right from wrong. As soon as we begin to be taught rules, we break them. Somehow we have to see if we can get away with it. We become convinced that no one will know. Governors, senators, presidents, people with power and those with none, all are tempted. The story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden apple is our story. We always seem to have to test the strictures laid on us by parents and friends and commandments. God gives us practical, functional rules, and we ignore them, or see them as too abstruse or outdated or unimportant in our daily lives. The consequences of our rule breakages bring us woe and sorrow and shame. We can’t seem to get it that God’s already given us directions that work. Fast forward by several hundred years, we come to more familiar stories. Jesus has been busy – he’s healed the sick, ministered to a gathering crowd. He and the disciples are tired and hungry, and they realize that all these people in the crowd must be hungry too. Jesus asks Philip where they are to get something to eat. Philip says “six months wages wouldn’t be enough to feed this crowd.” William Easum is a church leader who's dedicated his life work to helping churches thrive and engage in real mission. He writes, "Established churches worship at the feet of the sacred cow of CONTROL." He says that one of the most often used controlling statements he’s heard over the years in any church he’s served is, "We can't afford it." That is merely the echo of Philip the disciple, who told Jesus there simply wasn't enough money to buy food for all those people. We don't have enough money. Or, there isn't leadership potential. Or, we’re just ordinary folks. Or, we can't do it. Or, we like things just the way they are. Leave us alone! I think that's what we really mean whenever we say, "We can't afford it". David G. Mullen, There is a Boy Here... We’ve heard those excuses. Now, I suspect that each one of us here has at least once, made a flip remark about the feeding of the 5000 and walking on water. Familiar stories often go right past us, and we derive no thoughts or hopes or inspiration. So look at this “5000”, the crowd that was fed by the five loaves and two fish: There are boundless ideas about how this came to be. After all, surely Jesus didn’t perform magic, did he? We humans always look for rational explanations. Do you suppose that many of the people in that crowd of “about 5000” had brought lunch with them? After all there were no fast food shops along the river bank, no rest stops on the way with snacks in handy expensive packaging. If you were going out for the day, you would be without food if you didn’t carry it with you. And having carried it with you, you wouldn’t be feeling very generous towards those who were foolish enough not to have planned ahead. ‘Why share with those dolts? They should learn to prepare for such situations.’ Just maybe the miracle was the praying that Jesus did – he gave thanks for the tiny lunch one boy had brought and was willing to share. Maybe the biggest thing that could have happened was the softening of hearts and opening of individual baskets of food, those with ordinary things like peanut butter and jelly, or gourmet tidbits, so that all could be fed. Isn’t that what it’s all about? That would surely qualify as a miracle. Jesus was a very practical man. Beyond the “how could this be” is an often unmentioned lesson. This parable is the only one mentioned in all four gospels. It’s the only Jesus incident that John shares with the synoptic gospels. Only in John are the 5000 simply called ‘people’. In the others, it is 5000 men, not counting women and children. In other words, the terminology leads us to no real idea how many there were in that crowd, though it tells us gender bias was alive and expected. A more telling point is that there was no screening of the crowd, as far as we can tell. Jesus didn’t send the disciples into the crowd, asking questions about behavior and faith. People weren’t judged by the lives they’d lived, or the generosity or lack of it in their lives, or how successful they were in fulfilling the laws, or if they loved God. They were hungry and were fed. Practical help. They were surely no better at keeping the rules than we are. And Jesus didn’t judge them for it. Grace. You are probably aware that there are Christian Churches that carefully define those who may or may not, receive communion, God’s feast. That appears to me to be a sin of great magnitude. It is not human judgments that count. We don’t have that power. Only God can see what and who each one of us is. We the people, have no right to put limits on God’s grace. God loves all of us. God’s grace is available to all. Jesus didn’t ask that crowd whether they believed in God, kept the commandments, loved their neighbors. He saw to it that they were fed. All people in the eyes of God, are accepted and fed, including sinners as well as saints, (which of course means everyone). A church can be open wide to people of all colors, educational levels, differences in faith journey experiences. It becomes the very body of Christ, the ligaments and joints sustaining God’s hope and promise, a mosaic of people that make up a church. ALL are held in God’s love. Like that 5000 or so crowd that Jesus fed. We can’t earn this acceptance in God’s realm. It’s a given. God’s grace is for everyone, and nothing we can do will change that. We aren’t in charge. The power is not ours. God holds the power, grants the grace, loves us despite our shortcomings. Of course there are consequences of sinning; the pain we cause, the guilt we carry, the embarrassment when we are exposed, the effects in lives of those around us. We may not love ourselves very well. But God goes right on loving us. God is grace unlimited. Fredric Beuchner writes “To worship God means to serve God. Basically there are two ways of doing it. One way is to do things for GOD that God needs to have done – run errands, carry messages, fight on God’s side, feed lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for God that YOU need to do – sing songs, create beautiful things, give things up, tell what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in God and make a fool of yourself for God in the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.” After this meal, the people were amazed! They decided that Jesus surely was the Messiah, and they were preparing to make him king, a temporal king. Jesus faced that temptation squarely. He disappears, going back up the mountain by himself. At nightfall, the disciples get into the boat and start across the sea to Capernaum, without Jesus. The sea became rough, and after rowing 3 or 4 miles, they saw Jesus walking towards them on the water. They were terrified! Wm Paul Young in the book “The Shack” talks about walking on water. He says in effect, one can only walk on water if Jesus is walking right with us. By ourselves, we’d better to learn to swim. There is an international project: “This I believe”, which asks diverse people to share and discuss the core values that shape their daily lives. This was begun in the 1950’s by Edward R. Murrow It might be a good project for any one of us. It would be a great discipline. What do I believe? In the Project, the short faith statements are recorded and can be heard on the radio. A favorite is by a kindergartner named Tarak McClain. In the interview, Tarak reads 30 of his 100 beliefs. Included are, “I believe God is in everything. I believe hate is a cause for love. I believe people should go outside more. I believe I should not whine. I believe it’s okay to die but not to kill. I believe we live best in a community.” Thanks be to God.

"The Saints of God" First Presbyterian Church of Potsdam, NY October 14, 2007 Lay Minister Mary Ellen Frackenpohl Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7    2nd Timothy 2:8-15    Luke 17:11-19 “What we do today, changes the world tomorrow!” Dr. Carol Brees told us that last week. She said too, that it’s not our big faith, but Jesus’ power that rules. God is here. God is in charge. We do have choices – each of us. In the beginning days of the Christian faith, believers were called saints, as distinct from non-believers. Saints were special only because they were believers. It was probably before the term “Christian” was coined. So going back to our origins, we’re all saints of God. It’s nothing to be smug about or embarrassed by, it’s just who we are! Congregations, Christian congregations are peopled by saints. Pastors, also saints, come and go. Congregations remain. I’ve just gone and come from leading worship in the Waddington Presbyterian Church for the last 6 + years. That congregation is still there, ordinary saints worshiping and praising God, and serving their neighbors. It’s all of us, the people of congregations that make up the church of God. In my years of being “away”, I certainly lost touch with things here, but when I was able to worship here, I learned a lot. I learned all over again what a singing congregation this is! Now we all realize that we have one of the best church music programs in the north country, but you all sing too! It’s quite a change from a congregation of 30 or so shy singers! One or two years ago, on one of my Sundays here, we had some of our family with us. It just happened to be the day that baby blankets made by the knitting group were dedicated, before sent away to Ethiopia, and they were spread out along the railings. Our children were here in abundance, I think both Westminster and Bell choirs participated, and attendance was great. I realized that we have a vibrant, living, ministry here, and I was glad that our family could see it. You’re here all the time. Or could be! I don’t know if you ever think about it. Think about all the things going on in this church; the choirs, the special concerts and recitals, the Thursday night free will dinners, our MINC mission connections, the Sunday Schools, the college student program, the children piling up on the steps for their special time, the joy of new babies born into the church family, the steady rejoicing in hope and faith and endurance as we gather in our buildings for learning and giving thanks and serving. We are all created in the image of God, filled with breath and life, celebrated at birth, celebrated into life eternal at death. We are a rainbow of diversity, gifted in wondrous ways, and generous in sharing our gifts. Do we remember to give thanks? But now, lets suppose that there are 10 of us here who are sick with an antibiotic resistant form of TB. Our sickness wouldn’t show to the general public, would it? So our communities force us to wear signs that label us as dangerous due to this highly contagious disease. Then let’s suppose that one of the ten is a foreigner; again, it doesn’t show. We look a mix, just like everyone else. So we would be required to wear a sign, so that everyone who sees us knows that we aren’t citizens. We could go on and on with this: 10 of us who come to church and give back nothing in the way of spiritual or physical or monetary energy; 10 of us who tithe, but could do a lot better; 10 of us who secretly plot against people or nations – and on and on. In each case, it would take labels to identify us. Now our society is great at labeling. Labeling, of course requires making judgment calls. No problem for us. We’re good at that, in fact we excel at it. We decide all sorts of things for other people – generally to make ourselves feel and look good. That despite Jesus’ express teaching that we are NOT to make judgments. Now with leprosy, it doesn’t always take written signs. Leprosy shows. Disfigurements are obvious and recognizable. Those lepers weren’t allowed to get any where near others. So there they were, standing back away from the path, calling to Jesus for mercy. Certainly no one wanted to go anywhere near them, and most likely most turned the other way. But Jesus called over to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” That doesn’t make much sense to us until we realize that the priests were the deciders. They decided who was in and who was out. We can assume that their judgments were clouded by human politics, just ours are today. Now of these 10 lepers, all of whom were healed, nine were Jews. The 10th was a Samaritan. Samaritans practiced a different kind of Jewish faith, and they were scorned and reviled by the Israelites. All of them were healed. One returned to give thanks: the Samaritan, the stranger in the land, returned. Maybe he had more to be thankful for? After all, he was in more danger than the others – his legal status showed more when he was leprous simply because he was more closely watched and loathed from a distance. Anyway, he turned and came back. This one man’s return gives us a thanks percentage of 10%. Only 10 % of those 10 lepers returned to give thanks. Pretty paltry, isn’t it? Most of us would be disappointed if we gave ten gifts and received only one thank you. 10% isn’t a high rank for the group. Despite our call to worship and to give praise and thanks to God, very few of us take it to heart. We face the world, and forget about listening for God. We stay within our safe boundaries, fit into the culture, and forget to turn back to thank God for the gifts of life and love and hope. This congregation has a wonderful history of praising and teaching and serving. Some of the early founders of this congregation moved in the 1800’s, families and all, to Ohio, to start Sunday Schools (It’s called the Lyman expedition.) You’ll be able to learn more about it when we begin to celebrate the 200th birthday of our church in the year 2011. Past generations have bequeathed us glorious buildings – a lovely sanctuary for worship, one of the finest pipe organs found in the area, teaching and outreach possibilities that serve community and world. When I first came to this church 50 plus years ago, Mabel Kelly, was the mission lady. She was a little grey haired lady, and she gathered goods and money and sent off gifts of clothing and health supplies to missionaries around the world. She didn’t talk about it much – she just did it. But the congregation gave thanks for her work! Sometimes it’s hard to see these buildings as a great heritage, for they require lots of attention and take lots of money to maintain. So do the programs! Blessings are like that. They come with responsibilities. A leper who is healed will still need to defend himself from those who want to keep him out of the mainstream. Blessings are gifts from God. But when we receive them…and we do…how do we respond? Now when we talked about the puny 10 % response from the 10 lepers, 10% seemed pretty low and embarrassing. We are ashamed for the others. The blessing of cleansing from terrible disease, and no thanksgiving from 90%! Dreadful, you say? When we flip that 10% to ourselves, it gets a little scary. 10% of what we are and have? How can we thank with only 10%? God has given us life. God has called us to be here. You say you didn’t hear a call – you just happened to come because the building was attractive, was easy to find, or someone invited you? God is in charge. We’re all here because God calls us to be here. Calls come in the dark of the night, in the pain of broken lives, in the joy of love and opportunities, through the reaching out of neighbors, through finding ways to make a difference for God, for good. Some of our greatest blessings come when we actually respond to God’s calls, and have to go forth and do something to better our world! What was it that Jeremiah said to those Israelites? Those who had been exiled to a foreign land – to Babylon, in current day Iraq? Jer. 29:4-7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat what they produce – (raise children, enjoy grandchildren) seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” The apostle Paul writes “The word of God is NOT chained.” 2 Tim 2:9b It’s not chained! It’s proclaimed here! It’s read in Sunday Schools, study groups, read in meetings, read in homes. But it’s not chained in any of these places. It flows out to change the world, little by little, and God is in charge. Last Sunday, according to the “Watertown Times” Swanee Hunt, daughter of oil magnate H. L. Hunt, was to be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls. The article reported that in 1981, her income was $70,000. She decided to give away half her income. “That was a great decision”, she says, and she has stuck with it all these years. She founded a charitable foundation 26 years ago to help poor and powerless people around the globe. Ms. Hunt pooh poohs our usual whines. “Well, I’ll just leave it to somebody else because I can only do a little.” In fact, she says, “…it would not take great sacrifice for those of us who have so much to obliterate extreme poverty in this world. We just aren’t organized and haven’t exerted the political will to do it.” Marion Acres from the Chipman Church tells of her experiences during the collection of food for the New Beginnings Center. The food drive was well designed to alert people that the gifts of food would be picked up at their homes on “Make A Difference” Day. Who do you suppose gave most generously? The people who had the least. They know what it is to be hungry. We really don’t have excuses, do we? We are organized, we’re a group of ordinary saints. We can conjure up the will to turn back, to give God thanks for the blessings and gifts we’ve been given. If we pool our resources, we can do great things! Everyone’s “little” grows large. If we look just a little farther in our Jeremiah reading, we find: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” So what will we do today to change the world tomorrow? We will live simply, share generously, care deeply, speak kindly. God is here, God is in our world, God is in charge, God will use our energies. For we are the saints of God. Amen