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God of Earth and Sky and Sea

04 Thursday Dec 2014

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A Prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent:

God of earth and sky and sea,
God of rich and poor and in-between,
God of lost and God of found,
God who is like a shepherd to us,
we walk the path of Advent awakenings,
mindful of your call to repentance and change,
thankful for your offer of mercy and grace.
You are ever before and behind us.
You are the one constant amid a sea of change.
You are the shepherd who feeds his flock,
the one who gathers the lambs in his arms (Isa 40:11).
You long for us to receive your word of comfort.
You announce that our penalty is paid,
that we are free to live with godlike compassion,
that we are empowered to bring comfort to the world.
Still we turn away,
and walk in paths that suit our own interests,
and fail to welcome the one who is different,
and justify our prejudices with Scripture verses.
Forgive us our sins, and change our hearts, O God.
In this time of waiting and watching,
we pray for all who need the comfort of your presence,
for all who need the comfort of your Church.
To those who are sick or in pain, bring wholeness.
To the lonely and discouraged, renew hope.
To the grieving and troubled, speak comfort.
To any who struggle with self-judgment, extend your grace.
To any who are exiled from your Church, awaken their faith.
(We silently bring our prayers for particular persons now.)
Make of us your forgiven and reconciling people.
Use us to welcome others into your kin-dom.
Stir up within us the faith to trust you with our blind spots,
our shortcomings, our very lives.
And even though our lives are transient like the flowers of the field,
feed us with your word that stands forever (Isa. 40:8).
In the name of the Christ who comes among us to heal and to save. Amen.

Words (c) 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Breaking the Bread of Abundance

09 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Justice, Sermon portions

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loaves-and-fishesThere’s a Gospel story (Matthew 14:13-21) about a day when Christ’s abundant life was on full display! It begins when Jesus withdraws from the crowds, and goes by boat to a deserted place by himself. However, the crowds follow him on foot. Among them are many sick people, and Jesus is moved with compassion. The day soon passes and evening comes. Jesus’ disciples urge him to send people away into the surrounding villages to get something to eat. Perhaps they are exhausted by the overwhelming need.

You and I can handle only so much too and we get “compassion fatigue.” We grow weary because of the needs presented by particular circumstances. We see the pain etched on children’s faces as we watch the evening news – children in Syria and Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, Haiti, Honduras, or Chicago’s south side – and it is often more than we can bear.

We work all day long doing good things for people, giving back to the community, making the world a better place, and at the end of the day we just want to kick back and enjoy a nice glass of Chardonnay. We don’t want to worry about families without health care, workers losing their jobs, homeless persons sleeping on the church steps, soldiers on the battlefront, or an endangered planet. We don’t want to worry about whether there is still racism, sexism, or homophobia working their ugly campaigns of deception in what we wish were a more humane and decent world. We don’t want to deal with other people’s problems.

“Send them away,” we say. “The hour is late. Let them go and take care of their own needs for awhile.”

That, my friends, is our human reality. The needs are great. The work of justice and compassion never ends. We get tired. We want an easier way.

I believe the reason we sometimes grow weary is because we haven’t reached into the well and taken a drink of living water in awhile. The reason we grow weary is that we have bought the cynical, secular paradigm that says this life is based on scarcity.

But Jesus refuses to send the crowds away, and instead says to the disciples after a long day of serving others, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

Don’t you hate that? Don’t you hate being reminded that it isn’t all about you? Don’t you hate the feeling that Christ has higher expectations of you than you do? Be honest now!

The disciples reply, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Scarcity! There’s not enough, Jesus. Get your head out of the clouds and listen to the bean counters for a change.

But Jesus says, “Bring the five loaves and two fish here to me.” And he has the crowds sit down on the grass. He takes the loaves and fish, and blesses and breaks the loaves. He gives the food to the disciples and the disciples give it to the people.

Jesus demonstrates God’s generosity. Jesus makes the grace and goodness of God visible to the crowd. Jesus breaks the bread of abundance and shares it with all.

God is the one who gives to us in abundance, and it is from abundance, not scarcity, that we are invited to give.

Too often the message is scarcity on the lips of those who profess to follow the Lord of abundant life!

Where can your faith become more life-giving as you bear witness to God’s abundance?

Words (c) 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Prayers you won’t hear on the lips of people following Jesus

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Prayers, Reflections

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Prayers you won’t hear on the lips of people following Jesus

(If you do hear any of them, I guess you know what that means)

Lord, shield me from the needs of people I meet today so that I don’t feel responsible to do anything to meet their needs;

Lord, defeat the (insert other political party name here), so that your kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven;

Lord, help me to keep the ordinary activities and choices of this day separate from the private spiritual journey I’m on;

Lord, help me to look beyond the pained expressions on the faces of bullied teenagers, stressed-out parents, and neglected elders, to see your glory;

Lord, keep others from interrupting my day with their personal worries or fears that have nothing to do with the good I hope to accomplish today;

Lord, prevent others from asking me about my faith in you (let my actions speak for themselves);

Lord, remove my guilt when I have more pressing things to do than stop and help a neighbor;

Lord, give me a pure heart, unstained by the sins of this world (by keeping me at a safe distance from those whose morality doesn’t look like mine);

Lord, help me to appreciate the exclusive claims of Christianity and its superiority over other religious traditions;

Lord, make me great in your coming kingdom;

Lord, I believe, and there is no unbelief in me;

Lord, I thank you that I am not full of myself like other people!

Words (c) Mark Lloyd Richardson

What Gift Can We Bring?

05 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Poems, Reflections

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wise-men-1Today is the eve of Epiphany, a day celebrating the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world, and especially to religious outsiders and seekers. It also marks the one-year anniversary of this blog, in which I have endeavored to share a word of grace, hope, and peace with my readers. My posts have included prayers, poems, portions of sermons, and other reflections on spirituality and the life of faith from a progressive Christian perspective.

Pastoral ministry is demanding. Most of the time I feel as though I’m way behind in doing what needs to be done to strengthen the church I serve and help people become more faithful and fruitful in ministry to the world. So my posts have sometimes been few and far between. Still I value those who read, and especially those who trouble themselves to make a comment or offer feedback.

For me the most important qualities of Christian disciples are humility, compassion, a desire to serve humankind, and a heart for all God’s children. Beliefs and theologies can vary. Religions and traditions can vary. If you are convinced that every human being is a child of God and you want to bring people together to build a shared humanity and strengthen the common good, then I don’t care if you are an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Sikh, a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew! Please, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, for the sake of the natural world and all its creatures, and for the sake of our future on this planet, let us work together to make a better world.

I am a Christian pastor, but I have great admiration and respect for people of all faiths and people of no faith, because I have been around long enough to understand that religious beliefs don’t always make people more compassionate or kind or loving. Sometimes, in fact, religious beliefs just inoculate people into thinking they don’t need to change or embolden them to be boisterous in their condemnation of those who think differently than they do. Sometimes religious beliefs make people less tolerant, less trusting, less loving, and (to be honest) a pain in the neck. Still I believe in the power of love to transform the world.

On this twelfth day of Christmas and Epiphany Eve, I share a poem I wrote ten years ago.

What Gift Can We Bring?

No one dare boast of her place in God’s Kingdom.
No one dare brag of his place in God’s Realm.
We are but children reborn of our Mother,
And in the arms of our Father beheld.

Still, in this season we sing out God’s glory —
We who have come to experience God’s grace.
Still, in this time when a star shines out brightly —
We come rejoicing, and look on Love’s face.

How is it that we can sing when we’re lonely?
How is it that we can stand while afraid?
How is it that we still love the Old Story
Of all creation made new and reclaimed?

We are not brighter or richer or stronger,
We are not privileged alone to know Love.
We are with all of God’s children together
Graced by the Christ here on earth and above.

What can we bring to the Child born among us?
What can we offer our Savior and King?
All that we are is a gift we’ve been given —
Our grateful hearts the best gift we can bring.

Words (c) 2002 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Wonder

24 Monday Dec 2012

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Wonder

In distant fields
shepherds
keep silent watch over their flocks.
In long ago skies
angels
come down to earth on bended wings.
In far away Bethlehem
a son of David
is born in a humble stable.

Some days
faith feels strangely distant,
tradition needs a good dusting off,
genealogies sink unnoticed into the past.
Some days
we honestly wonder
if we have misplaced our sense of wonder.

Then a star tumbles across the night sky,
a full moon leaps upon the stage,
a deer strides gracefully across our path,
a pelican performs a perfect dive,
a child laughs,
a friend cries,
a grandparent passes through the veil,
and we set our eyes upon the miracle that is life.
In the midst of this miracle
we are astonished again by grace,
we are captured anew by wonder.

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Words (c) 2006 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photos (c) 2012 Dallis Day Richardson

A Fallen Soldier

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in Reflections

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Veterans Day is observed on November 11 each year as a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.

I have known many veterans and have served as a military chaplain myself. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to all of our uniformed men and women who serve with honor, even as we continue to pray and work for a global community where conflicts and violence diminish and peace and prosperity prevail for all people.

Several years ago I was called to the bedside of a parishioner, retired U.S. Army Colonel Alphonso Topp. He had just died, surrounded by his loving wife and adult children. He was a career officer with an extraordinary military record, yet he was also a man of peace, a man of prayer, and a follower of Christ. He had a strong faith, and went to his grave with hope in the resurrection to eternal life.

As I reflected on his friendship and support I wrote this poem, which I shared at his memorial service.

This Veterans Day, take some time to remember and give thanks for the service and sacrifice of those wearing your country’s uniform.

A Fallen Soldier

His stature was unbowed even as his body
strained beneath the gravity of the years, even
as his legs faltered and refused to carry him.

Bravery is not enough in the end, nor is loyalty.
A man needs someone to care about, someone to
live beyond his appointed years and remember him.

It is the living who give testimony to the fallen—
who say he was the friend or the father I needed
when life cast its shadows over my dreams.

We mortals cannot know the day or the hour
when a soul shall gradually fold itself up
like the last tent on an abandoned battlefield.

The sun must finally set upon this life; then comes
a night of holy rest, the glow of dawn upon the hills,
and a bugle sounding forth a glorious new day.

Words (c) 2008, 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Renew Your Church, Lord

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Prayers, Reflections, Worship Liturgy

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Dear Lord,
You are the Breath of life
Who from earth’s very beginning
Has enlivened all of creation
With your powerful presence.

You are the Song of freedom
Who throughout human history
Has stirred our hearts toward the truth
That alone is able to set us free.

You are the Strength to love
Even in the midst of life’s sorrows,
Knowing that beneath any suffering
We are embraced in everlasting arms.

You are the Font of forgiveness
Who grants mercy before justice, and
Calls us to become reconcilers
Amid the many conflicts of this world.

Daily our gratitude rises within us
because of your extravagant grace.

Daily we count our blessings,
believing that the life we receive from you
is life indeed and abundantly good.

Your Church, Lord, is a people,
not a steeple.

Your Church is a testing ground
for all who choose to follow you,
for all who put their trust in you
and live their lives in you.

Every day we hear your invitation –
to listen and heed your voice,
to open our hearts to compassion,
to be agents of peace in your world.

Every day our choices are opportunities –
to draw closer to you and your Kingdom,
a Kingdom of love and light!

Renew your church, Lord!

Renew our vision
for reaching new people
with the gospel of hope in Jesus Christ!

Renew our commitment
to being Christ’s body in the world –
Christ’s arms and feet,
Christ’s hands and ears –
always extending the generosity of grace
to the least, the last, and the lost!

Renew our belief
that every person we meet
is a child of God –
co-workers and caregivers,
mechanics and store clerks,
farm workers and corporate CEOs,
Republicans and Democrats,
Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews,
the neighbors we haven’t yet met,
the strangers we don’t yet know,
the enemies we can’t yet love.

Renew our spirits, Lord.

Renew our faith.

Renew our joy
in being servants of the King of kings
and Lord of lords!

By your Spirit
make us one with Christ,
one with each other,
and one in ministry to all the world,
until Christ comes in final victory
and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

May it be so, Lord.
May it be so!

Words and photo (c) 2012, Mark Lloyd Richardson

Look Who God Let In

09 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Reflections, Sermon portions

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The New Testament book of James reminds us that we do well if we fulfill scripture’s royal law, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (2:8). Our neighbor is not only the person next door, but the one we haven’t yet bothered to get to know, the one of a different socioeconomic class, the one of another religious or cultural perspective. Our neighbors are increasingly diverse. As Diana Eck reminds us in relation to our own Constitution, “We the people” in our religiously pluralistic society includes the Muslim, the Buddhist, and the Hindu.

“If you show partiality,” James warns, “you commit sin” (2:9). The command to love our neighbors challenges us at the core of who Christ calls us to be. It challenges us to be inclusive in our welcoming. It challenges us to widen the scope of the ones we call our neighbors. It challenges us to live the gospel values of hospitality, compassion and grace.

When it comes to the church and who is in and who is out I am always stunned by God’s graciousness.

People I cannot relate to, God lets in.

People I don’t understand, God lets in.

People whose life decisions I can’t embrace, God lets in.

People who are stubborn or opinionated or worse, God lets in.

People who are not like me – fine, upstanding sinner that I am – God lets in.

God lets in all kinds of people. It’s the church that sometimes closes the door in the face of the hurting, the addicted, the self-righteous, the poor, the sojourner, or the different.

I favor the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church.

I am constrained by the Gospel of Jesus Christ to accept those whom God accepts.

As a follower of Christ I believe in my heart that God accepts me and loves me as I am.

God’s grace is so unfathomable that you and I experience it even when the people around us know we don’t deserve it.

God’s love comes to us even when we know ourselves to be unlovable.

I have felt the assurance of God’s forgiveness and grace in my life. How can I deny it to other sinners?

The doors to God’s grace open wide to a vast array of imperfect people. How can I close a door that God opens?

As another pastor is quoted as saying, “I am so glad that God wants people who sin and struggle with sin to come to church, because as Pastor, I would hate to be excluded from the church I serve in.”

God’s kingdom is an alternative Realm where the least, the last, and the lost are God’s most urgent concern. How these neighbors are treated is a sign of how well the church understands God’s purposes.

A wonderfully inclusive welcome statement at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community in Daytona Beach generated a lot of buzz on the Internet recently. It reads:

“We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, y no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail, or could afford to lose a few pounds.

“We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing,’ just woke up, or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s baptism.

“We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, and junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like ‘organized religion,’ we’ve been there too.

“If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

“We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!”

Again I ask, if God opens a door to my neighbors, who am I to close it?

Words (c) 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson

 

Choosing to Receive a Life

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Reflections, Sermon portions

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In John chapter 6 Jesus reminds his questioners that it wasn’t Moses who provided manna in the wilderness. It was God – the same God “who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33).

The manna only met the Israelites’ immediate needs for sustenance, not their ultimate human needs. The bread of God is different. It is the gift of life, the pouring out of Jesus’ life for the sake of the world.

Jesus has been living bread in my life! I see illumined in Jesus a life filled to the utmost with the presence of God!

People were healed with a touch.
People were forgiven with a word.
People were given new life through a holy conversation.

I have always felt that Jesus is a friend who is so close to God that he has brought me closer just by hanging out with him!

So when Jesus says, “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (6:51c), there are several meanings.

First of all, it recalls the opening chapter of John, where we hear “and the Word became flesh and lived among us” (1:14). These are the words we usually ponder at Christmastime as we consider the incarnation, the gift of Jesus’ life that is born from God’s love for the world.

Likewise, we see an allusion in John’s words to Jesus’ death. Jesus will give up his life, his flesh, as an expression of the same love revealed in the incarnation. He offered himself to God in death, thus releasing his life for the life of the world.

Finally, we hear a clear eucharistic note in John’s words. Jesus mentions his flesh and his blood as gifts of true food and true drink (6:55). We are invited to have a sacramental meal with our Risen Lord, and to witness to the life that is ours through Christ.

Craig Barnes says this about our role as witnesses to the life we have in Christ: “When Christians take on the vocation of being witnesses, it has a dramatic effect on how they conduct their lives. They stop trying to achieve a life and choose instead to receive one. As long as their goal (is) achievement, their constant companion (is) complaint because they (can) never achieve enough. But the day they (decide) to start witnessing the many ways God is still creating their lives, their companion (becomes) gratitude. Even when their lives take a hard turn, there is still opportunity for quiet moments of thankfulness, because by now they have learned how to find the manna and the gentle stream that flows into every desert” [M. Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), p. 64].

How to find the manna – how to find the living bread that comes down from heaven – how to be nourished by the very presence of the living Christ in our midst – these are the desires in every believer’s heart!

Still we do sometimes run into problems. We get wrapped up in trying to “achieve a life,” in trying to earn our standing before others or before God, in striving to be “good enough” or “smart enough” or “well off enough” to convince ourselves that we have achieved what we set out to achieve.

Protestant Reformer Martin Luther defined sin as “the heart curved in on itself.” Too often we are curved in on ourselves, even us followers of Jesus, focusing mostly on our own needs and wants, our own aches and pains, our own preoccupations, our own temporary achievements.

Jesus beckons us on one of the most important journeys we will ever undertake – the long, countercultural journey outside of ourselves toward the true center of our being, the God who creates us and loves us and saves us from ourselves.

Jesus invites us on a journey toward wholeness as we risk living and loving for the sake of a calling bigger than ourselves. No more hearts turned in on themselves, but rather hearts turned outward in Christ-like love for the world!

Words (c) 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson

God is going to get what God wants

02 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Reflections

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Retiring United Methodist Bishop William H. Willimon recently said, “The best training for being a United Methodist bishop is, fortunately, exactly the work that is done by any faithful Methodist preacher: Tell the truth as God tells it to you; try to miss as many meetings as possible; expect the church to be thoroughly tainted with sin (including your own); try to love Jesus more than the praise of your people, and keep believing that despite all of the church’s setbacks, in the end God is going to get what God wants! Hallelujah!”

Because I try to be a faithful Methodist preacher, and because I’ve always admired Bishop Willimon’s prophetic voice, I share here some words I recently wrote for our church newsletter:

Too often the church that claims to follow the Risen Christ into the world is mostly absent from the real human needs that exist in all communities.

Do you care whether your neighbors experience the presence of God in their lives?

Do you want all people (and I do mean “all”) to feel welcome in Christ’s church?

Do you desire to live more deeply into the heart and mind of God so that your life becomes the reflection of divine grace it is intended to be?

Do you hope to make a difference in the world through an act of daring surrender of your will to the will of your Creator?

Dorothy Day once said, “The greatest challenge of the day is how to bring about a revolution of the heart.” This applies to individuals and to the church as the body of Christ.

There is more of God than you or I can possibly know. We are daily being called into a deeper and fuller humanity in which the lines of race, gender, religion, nationality, class, and sexual orientation are blurred, and we all breathe the same air of divinely offered potentiality as God’s beloved children.

As for me, I am a progressive, evangelical, ecumenical, open and affirming, contemplative, socially active and globally concerned Christian!

I do not believe that faith is primarily a matter of what one believes – I believe faith is mainly about trusting in the God who loves us and calls us to love one another!

I do not believe that worship is either traditional or contemporary – I believe that worship is either relevant to our lives or not!

I do not believe that orthodoxy (“right belief”) is more important than orthopraxy (“right practice”)! Indeed, Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” ~ John 13:35. Servant ministry trumps theology any day!

I do not believe that Christians are the only people whom God loves, or that God cares more about straight people than LGBTQ people. I do not believe that heaven is reserved solely for followers of Christ, but rather that God will bring into God’s Realm whomever God chooses to eternally embrace (and that just might be everyone; we cannot fully know the mind of God)! Indeed, Jesus said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold” ~ John 10:16.

Perhaps most importantly, I do not believe that church is mainly about having our personal or spiritual needs met; rather God’s message to the church is the invitation to surrender our lives to the Spirit whose grace transforms us and sends us out to be instruments of Christ’s blessing in a hurting world.

Bishop Mary Ann Swenson preached at the California-Pacific Annual Conference this June, saying that “People looked to Jesus, because Jesus looked for what God was looking for—justice, compassion, the kingdom come.” I say Amen to that!

Words (c) 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo (c) 2012 Dallis Day Richardson (University of Redlands Chapel)