To An Unknown God (5/21/2017)

A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Text: Acts 17:22-31

For a little bit of context, let’s look at the verses which precede today’s text:

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. ¹⁸Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ¹⁹So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? ²⁰It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” ²¹Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

Now it may be that the Athenians were superstitious people – people who covered all their bases by erecting a shrine “to an Unknown God,” just in case they had missed a god in the creation of their pantheon of deities.  Or perhaps they were sophisticated enough to know that there were gods or dimensions of deity that would always extend beyond the human capacity to know.  At any rate, the writer of Acts indicates that Paul was unhappy to find such a proliferation of gods throughout the city of Athens.  However, he did not vent his anger with the Athenians over their polytheism in the same manner he would later with the Romans (Romans 1:18-23.).

Mixon Muses: More than Enough

Our Stewardship theme for this year is “More than Enough,” drawn from Paul’s familiar message to the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 6:6-9). The best-known phrase from that passage is the one that proclaims, “God loves a cheerful giver.” And that seems so true. Who does not love one who gives cheerfully, willingly, gratefully?

In this passage Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to fulfill their promise of a generous gift to the needy church in Jerusalem. Strategically, as a means of bridging the gap between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, he wants the new churches outside Jerusalem to show their appreciation and gratitude for the “mother church” in its time of need. In particular, he is using a little guilt here to get the Corinthians to follow through on their pledge of support.

Pastor Gregory Says… (8/24/16)

Imagine being a part of the early church. You wouldn’t have had much going for you and your little tribe of Jewish and Gentile misfits. After all your “king” rode a donkey and waved a white flag of surrender, he was nailed to a cross as a political prisoner standing up for liberty and justice for all, and his glorious come-back in resurrection was the ultimate upset to a first century reader as it’s two women greeting him on his way to restore the Kingdom. On top of that, it was illegal to be Christian, as to follow Christ meant you were not following Caesar – prepare to hide or prepare to die.

Or How Blessed You Are? (6/26/2016)

A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Text: Philippians 4:4-13

Dr. Seuss has been a good guide for us through this month in which we’ve celebrated our graduates and all those moving ahead in their education. He helped us see the possibilities and challenges of the places we might go. Through the eyes of the Lorax, he helped us see the consequences of greed and the need to love creation and care for the earth. Horton, the elephant, taught us something about the compassion and care of a most improbable daddy. We have encountered the doctor’s wit and wisdom, his art and passion, his challenging expectations and his tender heart.

In his little book, The Parables of Dr. Seuss, Robert Short describes the good doctor this way: “Dr. Seuss is a doctor of the soul, a doctor of wisdom, or a healer of the heart. So I don’t think it would be stretching things too far if we thought of Dr. Seuss as a sort of ‘spiritual cardiologist,’ a doctor who can work on many levels and with many different types of people” (Robert L. Short, The Parables of Dr. Seuss, p. 84).

Holy Week is coming…

Thanks to Greg Griffey for bringing the Word last Sunday. I very much appreciated his insight into the “Conversion of Paul” story and the importance of connecting to the “other.” This Sunday we will return to a story from Genesis. This ancient tale of Abram bargaining with God involves a time when falls into a sort of terrifying asleep and yet, in the darkness, he is reassured by God that God is with him and will keep the covenant they have made.

Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter are rapidly approaching. March 20 we will have a Palm/Passion service, beginning with a procession of palms, and ending at the foot of the cross. Maundy Thursday we will have a simple soup supper and Communion around the tables. Friday the Sanctuary will be open from 12 noon to 3:00 with recorded music and reflective reading available. You might even walk the Labyrinth as you recall the events and significance of that ancient Friday when Christ was crucified. Easter will begin in quiet and darkness as it must have been on the first Easter morning as Mary made her way to the tomb. Of course there will be plenty of music and celebration of the Resurrection, and we will hold our annual brunch in the Fellowship Hall afterwards with all of us bringing finger food to share. I look forward to sharing this sacred season with you.

In Adult Spiritual Formation this Sunday, we will pick up where we left off in the video series, Saving Jesus Redux: Who Was Jesus? This well-done video series has generated good questions and lively discussion among those who gather for our Sunday class. Everyone is invited to join in.

Join us Sunday at 10:00 AM for worship, study and the sharing of community. Bring someone along share in the experiences of the day.

Together, let us strive…to know God’s love!

Pastor Rick

This Sunday

On our journey through the darkness of the Lenten season we come this Sunday to the remarkables conversion of the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road. In his miraculous encounter with the living Christ, he is struck temporarily blind. He must learn to walk in his own uniqueness darkness until he can complete his own transformation into a new creature in Christ. But the good news is that he does not have to walk this road alone. Reluctant as he may be initially to make a witness to the fire-breathing Saul of Tarsus, Ananias follows God’s lead into the darkness of this unfamiliar and frightening relationship. As their roads converge, Paul, with the aid of Ananias, begins to craft a new perspective on the faith that will change the world.

I am delighted that Greg Griffey has agreed to preach this Sunday. Greg, a hospice chaplain with Sutter Health, has been attending our church since the first of the year. Greg is a native of the hills of western Virginia and a graduate of Wake Forest Divinity School. I look forward to his contribution to our Lenten discipline of learning to walk in the dark. Sunday is also an all family service with communion.

We had a very good discussion last Sunday in Adult Spiritual Formation, so we decided to continue exploring our Lenten study book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Tayor. You are welcome to join us.

Join us Sunday at 10:00 AM for worship, study and the sharing of community. Bring someone along share in the experiences of the day.

Together, let us strive…to know God’s love!

Pastor Rick

 

Joy Bursts Forth (12/13/2015)

A Sermon preached by Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church of Palo Alto

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Text: Luke 3:7-18 (The Message); Philippians 4:4-7

Merry Christmas, you brood of vipers. Rejoice! And again I say, rejoice! You nest of snakes. Hardly the holiday greeting you were expecting this morning or wanted to hear. Is this some sepulchral spirit of Christmas past trying to scare old Scrooge into changing his wicked ways? Is God mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore? Has this prophet gone mad on locusts and wild honey, giving the business to those who have come out to hear him?

Is this the text we will really want read on Gaudete Sunday, that Sunday supposedly focused on joy? Yet, here it is, courtesy of the committee that sets the lectionary. I know the group that worked on this Sunday’s worship in our Advent Planning Workshop chose Paul’s exhortation of the Philippians to “Rejoice!” as the focus text for today. I apologize to them for straying into the wilderness with John. As we have wrestled the past two weeks with the stark contrasts between the anxieties, fears and terrors of the world in which we live and promises of hope and peace, it seemed disingenuous to leap directly into joy today. Still, we ought to get to rejoicing before we’re done The truth is my own feelings for you are much closer to Paul’s for the church in Philippi than John’s for the crowd at the Jordan.

In fact, you may have observed that I am not John, the Baptist. Instead I am Rick, the Baptist. I confess a fascination with John’s exhortation but I do not see you as a brood of vipers or our community as a nest of snakes. You may also have noted that most of the time I talk about we and us rather than you. I assume that whatever it is you wrestle with I do as well, that the challenges of my life are not altogether different from the challenges in yours. And certainly we inhabit the same planet, holding its difficulties and possibilities in common. John may feel free to shake his finger at those who come to hear him. Perhaps as an ascetic and prophet, promised of God to be proclaimer of the coming Messiah, he has earned that right. But I feel no more worthy of untying John’s sandals than he did those of Jesus.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I wonder how we can connect John’s word of repentance to Paul’s words of affirmation and the joy of this day? The consensus among the reflections I consulted is that joy comes with righteousness, not the kind of perfectionism too often associated with righteousness, but with setting your heart right with God and finding right relationship with all creation. Both John and Paul affirm this, each in his own way.

John’s over-heated rhetoric is full of hyperbole. He shouts to get the attention of the crowd and to hold it. Perhaps that’s what you have to do when you’re preaching outdoors without the aid of amplification. The older I get the less I like people shouting at me. But, note that people are flocking to hear John, walking all the way from Jerusalem and the surrounding territory to the Jordan in the blazing sun, just to be called names and chastised. How many of us would make the effort? Right, I didn’t think we’d be organizing a field trip any time soon.

Still, look at the crowds being drawn to practitioners of overblown proclamation in our own time. How do you explain the appeal of many of our current candidates for political office? Why are people drawn to the bad news hurled at them? How many show up because it is “the popular thing to do”? I know John, the Baptist, doesn’t belong in the same category with Donald Trump and Anthony Scalia. Nor do I intend to do depth analysis of the psychological appeal of a negative word. Suffice it to say, humans often tend be fascinated, even obsessed with bad news. Just flip on your television for the daily broadcast.

But once John has their attention, he has something more to say, something that lowers the heights and lifts the depths and makes the rough places smooth. He may not articulate it the way Jesus or Paul will, but he, too, has a vision of God’s Beloved Community. He sees the possibility of it coming on earth and he longs for that coming. Maybe his rhetoric is over the top, but joy comes in the fulfillment of such longing. John has come to proclaim it so.

What John knows, however, is what we all know somewhere deep inside. In order for the Beloved Community to become real some things have got to change. When he shouts “Repent!” he’s not urging folks to writhe around in sack cloth and ashes, ruing their wrong doing and pleading for mercy at the hands of an angry God. He’s urging people to get with the program. Turn things around. God’s Beloved Community will come through our own practice of justice and equity, of peace and love, of compassion and care. Repentance is not meant to be the burden of self-flagellation and striving for perfection. It’s the joy of living in right relation to God, to neighbor, to all creation, even to one’s self.

To their credit the crowd gathered around John – at least some of them – don’t run in terror or turn their backs in disgust. They get the picture enough to hang in with him. They see good news in what he’s proclaiming and they want to tease it out. “What must we do, John? What must we do to be saved? What must we do to know health and wholeness? What must we do to experience real joy in our difficult lives and troubled world? And John is ready for them. He shows compassion for those that turn to him in much the same way Jesus will. The answers are simple – and challenging, but if it was too easy it wouldn’t really be satisfying, would it? Share, he says. Practice fair trade. Be honest in your dealings. In short look to right living, the living that links to right relationships. Another way to put it, love God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself. If your living, your relationships, are rooted in love, you will certainly see that that joy bursts forth. It’s like the old song sings, “Since love is Lord of heav’n and earth” – when I recognize it and embrace it as my way of life – “how can I keep from singing?”

Bruce Epperly writes of Luke’s account of the Baptist, “What is central to John’s speech is not the harshness of his language – indeed, his inflammatory rhetoric – but the possibility that we can change our lives.” He says, “We can let go of injustice, materialism, consumerism, and inequality to become citizens of a realm of freedom, love, and abundance.” God’s Beloved Community! He concludes, “John always points to Jesus’ messianic age: his refining fires temper the dross of our lives to make our lives something of beauty and love, and prepare us to meet the coming Christ. The good news is that when we change our lives, we open to a wellspring of new possibilities for ourselves and our communities” (Bruce Epperly, “The Adventurous Lectionary, Advent 3, December 16, 2012,” patheos.com). And joy bursts forth.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, he is saying something similar to what John said but in a gentler tone. Still, Paul is urging his friends to get with the program and to stick with it. He is concerned with right living, the sort that brings in God’s Beloved Community. He urges his friends in Philippi, “Let your gentleness” – your generosity, your magnanimity, your compassion, your Christlikeness – “be known to everyone…Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” And joy bursts forth. How can it not if we live like that?

Repent! Rejoice! They’re related, more than we had thought. As another old Quaker song sings, “to turn, turn will be our delight, till by turning, turning we come round right.” Or perhaps it is in our coming round right that we find our delight, that joy bursts forth. In a contemporary story of repentance, of making an about face, and rejoicing that may speak more to us than John’s preaching on the snake pit, Phillip Campbell tells of his grandmother who late in life left her long-time congregation to join another. When questioned as to this surprising move, she said “she liked it there because of the positive message she received. For the first time in her life, she felt God’s loving presence. ‘God wants me to be happy,’ she said. ‘I never knew that before. I thought church was about keeping me from doing what I was not supposed to do. And I never felt like I was good enough.’ Late in life, Campbell says, “my grandmother heard a word of God’s grace and experienced a joy she had never known before. She began to heed Paul’s instruction to the church in Philippi: ‘Rejoice in the Lord, always; and again I will say, rejoice’” (Phillip E, Campbell, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration, “Philippians 4:4-7, Pastoral Perspective,” p. 62).

God wants us to be happy, to know joy in right living, to find the wonder, the grace, the healing of the Beloved Community. Yes, there is work to be done. Yes, times can be tough and the way hard. Yes, sometimes God seems far away and hope wanes, but then a voice is heard, crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Holy One. All creation shall see the salvation of God. The Beloved Community will be known on earth as in heaven. We will see Emmanuel, God with us. And, lo, in the midst of it all, joy bursts forth. Amen.

STEWARDSHIP: Live Free

LIVE FREE is the theme for our yearly stewardship drive, ending in Stewardship Sunday on November 22.

In I Timothy 6: 7 (RSV), Paul states “For we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world.” He speaks about the rich in this world, in verses 18 and 19, saying that: “They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.” We are all rich in God’s grace—therefore, LIVE FREE to take hold of life.

We need to realize that stewardship is not only giving money to the Church, but encompasses giving of our time and talents as well. We may not all be rich in monetary means, but we can give a portion of what we have by helping in other ways. Paul also states in II Corinthians (SRV) 9: 6-8: “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work.” LIVE FREE to do God’s work from what God has given you.

I can remember while growing up that whenever there was something we needed, my parents would say, “don’t worry, the Lord will provide” and He always did. This is just one example we all need to remember as we think about our commitments to our Church and humankind. Can we follow the example of those who donate their time, talents, and money for the good of others? First Baptist Church of Palo Alto is a very giving congregation for both the budget and the chosen missions. But each year we must review our Church expenses and missions. Give freely so that you may LIVE FREE to do God’s calling.

Laura Garcia
Stewardship Chairman

Living is Christ (8/30/2015)

A sermon preached by Randle R. (Rick) Mixon First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Text: Psalm 90; Philippians 1:20-30

“We all will die someday. Mortality rates remain at 100 percent, and nobody among us is getting any younger.” So writes Brian McLaren, tongue in cheek, in the beginning of this week’s chapter from We Make the Road by Walking. However, turning quickly to the point, he completes his opening by asserting that “Among the Spirit’s many essential movements in our lives is this: to prepare us for the end of our lives, without fear” (Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking, p. 249). It seems a curious thing to take a chapter entitled, “Adventures in the Spirit of God: Spirit of Life” to focus on death but that is indeed what he does this week.

As we come to the end of this journey with McLaren, it seems appropriate to spend time considering matters of life and death. He offers three scriptures from which to choose – the great 90^th Psalm, with its contrasting claims for God’s eternal majesty and the fragile, limited life of humanity; Jesus confrontation with Sadducees about marriage in the afterlife (Luke 20:27-38); and Paul’s deep sharing about life and death with his friends at the church in Philippi. Each text says something significant about the nature of mortality and of eternity. In each case we are challenged to see death as part of life, inevitable in its coming, but not inevitably to be feared. Each tries to give us a view of life and the Giver of Life that will allow us to move from the limitations of the past through the present to God’s good and glorious future.

McLaren writes that “So many of us are afraid to even think about death much less speak of it.” Now I don’t know how that is for all of you but I have heard some of you say you are not afraid of death. Others may not be so certain. We won’t take a poll this morning, but McLaren continues to argue that “That fear [of death] can enslave us and can rob us of so much aliveness” (McLaren, op. cit. p. 249). What do you think? It makes sense to me. You know how it is when you worry so much about something going right that you ultimately spoil it? Surely those who live in fear of death are proportionately robbed of life. That is both sad and unnecessary for those claim to follow the way of Christ.

McLaren asserts that “The Spirit moves within us to help us face death with hope, not fear…with quiet confidence not anxiety” (McLaren, op. cit., p. 249).  Does that sound right to you? Can you feel the Spirit of Life moving in you, bringing hope, quiet confidence, as with Paul, even joy? In spite of being in prison, in chains, Paul writes to the Philippians, “Rejoice in God always; again I will say, Rejoice…Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4: 4, 6-7).

How can someone in such dire straits be as positive, as hopeful as Paul? The only answer I can discern is that, for Paul, living is Christ. That’s what he tells his friends in Philippi. He does not seem to be boasting or showing off for them. Of all the churches he planted, this is the one for which he seems to have the most affection and hope. This is a community in which he is freer to bare his soul than any of the others. So he lays it on the line for them, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” How many of us can hear ourselves making such a claim – living is Christ, dying is gain?

If you love life as much as I do it is difficult to imagine how dying would be gain. I hear the old song, “I love life so I want to live, and drink of its fullness; take all it can give…” or Dylan Thomas urging us to “rage against the dying of the light.” Is Paul suffering from a martyr complex here? A few scholars have speculated as to whether or not he was suicidal. I hear none of that in this passage. I think that, living in Christ, Paul had overcome any fear of death.

Whatever had driven his early rage against followers of Jesus was subsumed in and transformed by his encounter with the living Christ. Lying on the ground dazed and helpless he saw through blinded eyes that living is Christ and he gave himself over to that new reality. For someone who had given himself so completely to Christ, Paul believed that dying to this present life would only bring him closer Christ, lead him deeper into the reality of that life-giving relationship. But what is this reality? What does it mean for us today? What would it mean for you or me to make as our central life claim that living is Christ?

As I was working on this sermon, I recalled a verse from Rosemary Crow’s song, “Weave.” I think many of us are familiar with the chorus,

Weave, weave, weave us together,
Weave us together in unity and love.
Weave, weave, weave us together,
Weave us together, together in love.

As I learned it, the final verse of the song sings,

A moment ago we did not know
Our unity, only diversity.
Now the Christ in me greets the Christ in thee
in one great family.

When I first heard those words, that last line struck me as a curious claim – “the Christ in me greets the Christ in thee.” Isn’t that sort of absurd and a touch heretical? Christ in me? I don’t think so. At least that’s not how I learned it in Sunday School. Jesus is Christ and I’m a sinner headed for hell if I don’t get my act together. As I’ve come to let go of any notion of hell – except that which we create for ourselves, maybe even through fear of death – I have come to wonder about this way of Christ we walk. “For our days on earth are a mystery, a searching for You, a yearning for the Great Mystery to make itself known” (Nan C. Merrill, “Psalm 90,” Psalms for Praying).

I said to the Bible study group recently that I have come to wonder about the role of “Christ-consciousness” in our lives. I know this may sound heretical for some, but what if a dimension of the Great Mystery was the willingness of Jesus of Nazareth to allow Christ to take root and grow in himself. There is then an evolution of consciousness as Jesus lives into his Christness. Perhaps part of the mystery is that, if Jesus can own his Christness, we might at least follow him along that road, growing into our own Christness. Is this what he means when he invites to come and follow him? If this sounds silly to you let it go, but what does it mean to claim that living is Christ, that Christ in me meets the Christ in you?

Indulge me for a few minutes more to explore some of what it might mean to be Christ. What do you think were characteristics or qualities of Jesus that made him Christ? Might you also claim these as the Christ in you? I realize this list came from our human consciousness, what we know or think we know of goodness or righteousness, God’s desire for creation, the Jesus way. But maybe we can claim that these characteristics and qualities show us what it means to say living is Christ. Paul writes to the Philippians,

“⁸Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4: 8-9).

Remember that one of the truth claims of our tradition is that in Christ death has been defeated. Through the resurrection Christ has shown that death, though a necessary rite of passage, has no real meaning for God who is all about life and living in every form. “Think about these things,” Paul instructs. McLaren picks up the challenge, “To be liberated from the fear of death – think of how that would change your values, perspectives and actions. To believe that no good thing is lost, but that all goodness will be taken up and consummated in God – think of how that frees you to do good without reservation. To participate in a network of relationships that isn’t limited by death in the slightest degree – think of how that would make every person matter and how it would free you to live with boundless, loving aliveness” (McLaren, op. cit., p. 250).

These seem to be the sort of things Jesus and Paul thought about that shape our faith tradition. These sound like the kind of qualities that might form a Christ-consciousness. These feel like qualities that will bring to life God’s Beloved Community to reality. In these ways, living is Christ. Can we claim it for ourselves? Amen.

A Strong Foundation (8/16/15)

A Sermon preached by Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church of Palo Alto
Sunday, August 16, 2015

Text: 1 Corinthians 3:9-17

Twice in the last three years I have made a pilgrimage to Overland Park, Kansas, for the biennial Mission Summit of the American Baptist Churches in the USA. These trips have been particularly evocative not only because Kansas is my birthplace but also because my earliest memories come from that part of the world.

Overland Park is a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas, where our family lived from 1950 to 1953. For me, that period spanned ages three to six. As I have mentioned before, during those years my father was the founding pastor of Prairie Baptist Church in Prairie Village, the suburb next to Overland Park. In that time of the post-war boom in the church, American Baptists had a program called “Churches for New Frontiers,” in which they purchased land and planted churches in promising suburbs.

My father, following a missionary yen, left a church of 1000 members to pastor a congregation of 13, which met in someone’s living room where the pulpit was the top of a new-fangled television set. At least this is the story I’ve been told. The vivid memory I do have from that time is of my father, wearing work clothes and his grey fedora, helping to roof the first building on the lot at 75^th and Roe. That building was eventually the parsonage, but in the beginning it served as the church building. Upstairs was left open as a single large room which served as the sanctuary and the rooms in the lower level functioned as classrooms.

I don’t know how much of that building beyond the roof was the work of parishioners, but I’m certain someone laid a strong foundation there. I don’t mean only the foundation of the physical plant. After 65 years, that little house is long gone, but Prairie Baptist Church seems to be going strong.

I also can’t tell you the full extent of my father’s evangelistic passion that led him to leave a large congregation for one that didn’t even exist when he signed on. It must have been some of that same passion that led Paul to travel all around the Mediterranean carrying the gospel to the Gentiles and planting churches all along the way. Part of the story of my father’s missionary journey across Kansas was that, in spite of low pay and a growing family (my younger sister, the last of four siblings was born in 1951,) he stayed long enough to lead the congregation through its first crisis. He helped the congregation through the tension that arises when a second wave of members arrive, challenging the comfort and control of the charter members. I believe my father, like Paul, was a “master builder” who laid a strong foundation and the congregation weathered the challenge and grew and prospered.

People in Palo Alto also laid a strong foundation for this congregation now in its 122^nd year. We have a long and rich history of faithful witness and service. But, as we face an unknown, uncertain future, I wonder what it is that constitutes a strong foundation for a church. In the hymn we just sang Rod Romney wrote that the “The church’s strong foundation is God’s eternal love…” Does that sound right to you? Is that the rock on which our church is founded, the pillars sunk deep in the soil that lift our spire towards heaven, the grounding from which our ministry rises and shines? Is it a foundation on which we can continue to build?

We know that Paul was dealing with a contentious congregation in Corinth. He believed he had laid a strong foundation – the one foundation of Jesus Christ, the sure foundation of the empowering Holy Spirit, the strong foundation of God’s eternal love. But he was worried about what was being built on that foundation. He was afraid that false prophets, bad teachers, and self-centered preachers were leading the people astray and creating chaos in the congregation. I suppose my father must have worried that the charter members of Prairie Baptist Church would not be hospitable to new folk, would not offer a warm welcome to strangers so that the message of God’s eternal love would distort and die from inbreeding.

How do we encourage one another and work together to carry the gospel forward into God’s future? In a column on “adaptive change,” Amy Butler reflects, “The old ways just are not working. The church is in need of creative leadership to take it into the future. We might need to think outside the box, to consider solutions we have never thought of before, to pursue adaptive change. What will this mean?” she asks, then answers, “Well, it will mean that people will not be happy…but life moves on…and the Spirit of God blows fresh wind wherever it wills. It’s our job to respond, discomfort or not. It’s adaptive change, and it’s true for our individual lives and for the church.”

In conclusion, she wonders, “When will we have the courage to boldly embrace this kind of change, to encounter the new opportunities that come as possibilities and opportunities instead of problems? Change is hard. This is a true statement. But change comes, whether we want it or not. The Spirit of God is always creating new possibilities where we prefer to endow old institutions. Will we have the courage to embrace this change? Or will we keep searching the aisles, hoping to replace what we had?” (Amy Butler, “Choosing Adaptive Change,” 8-11-2015, baptistnews.com).

The strong foundation is laid, foundation of God’s eternal love. The question is what will we build on it moving forward? Paul says we might resort to “gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw.” But we know that, literally, wood is the only one of those resources with which we might build a building. Paul is more concerned with the qualities that characterize a congregation than he is with building a church building. He is wants us to consider when the refiner’s fire is lit, what will be destroyed and what will be purified?

Remember the three little pigs? Neither the house of straw nor the house of twigs survived the wolf’s bad breath. Only the sturdy brick structure built on a strong foundation withstood the horrible huffing and puffing. We have been given this strong foundation of God’s love for us and all creation, a foundation that can withstand any evil powers that threaten to disrupt us and consume us. What will we build on it?

I don’t mean to be a prophet of gloom, but the good news is being undermined, distorted and destroyed by the false prophets, bad teachers and self-centered preachers of our own time and place. The threatening powers are not just individual, they are also structural and systemic. Some of the biggest challenges to the church are embedded deep in our traditions and too often operate outside our consciousness – like racism, classism, sexism, power and privilege. As Amy reminds us change is hard.

Brian McLaren writes that “Jesus promised his followers three things. First, their lives would not be easy. Second, they would never be alone. Third, in the end all will be well.” “But,” he continues, “all is not well now, and that raises the question of how…how does God get us from here to there? How does God put things right?” (Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking, p. 245).

In this chapter on the “Spirit of Holiness,” McLaren focuses on God’s judgment, which, at first, struck me as a curious emphasis. As I imagine some of you do, when I hear the word “judgment” I think of “hellfire and brimstone.” We were raised to believe in a literal separation of the “sheep and goats.” It was better to be scared into heaven than to burn in hell. It was a terrible legacy that led us far from any strong foundation based on God’s eternal love. For me, anyway, the notion of eternal punishment simply will not reconcile with a God who is love and eternally loves by definition.

McLaren’s argument sounds to me something like the parent who expects the best of us because she loves us so. In his view, this a God of restorative justice not a God of vengeful retribution. The place of judgment is to make things right, to restore the blessed order of creation, to build the Beloved Community on the strong foundation of God’s eternal love. The call to be the best self, the best community that we can be is a call to fulfill God’s vision for us from the beginning of time.

Paul says we – you and I collectively, the church of Jesus Christ – we are “God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in” us. To live into that reality is not an easy thing. To establish God’s temple in the here and now, to be God’s dwelling place will constantly shape and re-shape our witness. It is inherently counter-cultural, not easy but worthwhile work. If we trust that we are never alone in the work, we can also trust that in the end all will be well.

In our words of preparation, McLaren writes, “If we believe in judgment [as] God’s great ‘setting things right,’ we won’t live in fear. We’ll keep standing strong with a steadfast, immovable determination, and we’ll keep excelling in God’s good work in our world. If we believe the universe moves toward purification, justice and peace, we’ll keep seeking to be pure, just and peaceable now. If we believe God is pure light and goodness, we’ll keep moving toward light each day in this life. Then, someday, when our time comes to close our eyes, we will trust ourselves to the loving Light in which we will awaken, purified, beloved, forever” (McLaren, op. cit., pp. 247-248).

A strong foundation is laid. “Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.” Let the church continue to be built and re-built on God’s eternal love. Amen.