Category: Blog

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If you have been reading my devotions for a while now, you know that I talk often about my two children and what they teach me about God and my faith journey. Today will be no different as a moment with my children hit me in a funny and convicting way of all places while trick or treating.

Earlier on Sunday morning, I had prepared a Pastoral Prayer that quite literally asked God to show us what it means to be generous and joyous through our children; but how quickly I forgot my own words. Sunday night was Halloween and so let me paint a picture for you. My beautiful Princess Ariel and my handsome gruff Pirate began their trick-or-treating journey in our own neighborhood around 5pm. My parents had come over to enjoy the experience and to watch how quickly they got the hang of going door to door saying, “Trick-or-Treat!” Our youngest learned within about 3 houses that the faster he runs from one door to the next, the more candy he will receive, and if he is friendly enough to our neighbors and hugs them, he may even get an extra candy in his bag. After almost 45 minutes of this, we got in the car and headed to a friend’s neighborhood to walk around with them. By this time it was 6PM and Emmaline and Charlie already had 1/3 of their bags filled. When we met our friends in their driveway, my children immediately noticed that their children’s bags were empty and so they each reached into their own bags and pulled out 5-6 pieces of candy to give to the other two kids. You would have thought that I would have been so very proud of their generosity, but I got caught up in the moment when I saw my favorite sour candy being surrendered to these other children. “Wait,” I said, “those are mommy’s favorite candy…”

How quickly I had forgotten my prayer from morning worship. How quickly I grew selfish. How quickly I made it about me.

Maybe you can remember a time like this in your own life. Can you picture what your own children looked like when they first discovered how much fun trick-or-treating can be? Do you remember going house to house and greeting your neighbors along the way? Maybe you used to look forward to the time at the end when all of the candy was combined and the parents secretly figured out which candy they would sneak out of the bag while the children were sleeping (no judgment, we all do it). And can you remember a time in your life past the holiday traditions when your children showed you the generous face of Jesus when you needed to see it most?

These moments happen for me more times than I care to admit. And so, as we look again at our Scripture from Sunday (Luke 16), what might God be teaching us that the youngest amongst us understand and practice intuitively that we grownups can learn from?

As you re-read Luke 16:1-13 again, I challenge you to look for a “glass-half-full” interpretation of the dishonest steward. His title alone, I admit, made me almost discount the story altogether, but the Gospel writer includes it for a reason. While as parents and grandparents; partners and friends, we want to encourage honesty and trustworthiness in all of our relationships, the character of the trickster is a part of Jewish folklore and stories from the Bible (see the story of Jacob and Esau if you need a reminder). And so why is it included here, right after the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal (lost) son? I believe it is to evoke the sense of urgency one feels if they lose their sheep, or their income, or their child. One commentator wrote of this passage,

“the parable turns on the steward’s shrewd response to the urgency of his situation and invites hearers to understand that they are likewise in the midst of a crisis that demands an urgent decision if a disaster is to be avoided.”

In Jesus’ parables, stewards are expected to invest the talents that were placed in their safekeeping, and when they are faithful, then they are given even greater responsibilities.

One of my favorite preaching professors, Fred Craddock wrote this on the Scripture. He said that very few of us will get to do things that are so very important that they get recorded in history, but those of us living in the day-to-day will have more humble ways to be stewards of our gifts. He writes, “more likely the week will present no more than a chance to give a cup of water, write a note, visit a nursing home, vote for a county commissioner, teach a Sunday School Class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice, and feed the neighbor’s cat.”

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.” Luke 16:10 NRSV

And so my question for us to ponder this day or this week is this.

Are you being a shrewd steward of the talents and gifts God has given to you? Are you being faithful with the smallest of treasures; with the candy at the bottom of your bag? You don’t have to be caring for large amounts of oil and grain-like the debtors in our parable do; it could be something very small and maybe seemingly insignificant that God uses to bless someone else. But do you use your position, your wealth, and your privilege to respond to the needs of others with urgency and joy? Do you hold nothing back in trying to make the world a more fair place to live by using the excess you have at your disposal? And does that graciousness extend to both neighbors and strangers alike? Because in the end, our God is in the business of making sure that everyone has ‘candy in their bag’ and that no one is left out.

AMEN

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In my 35 years of life, I have been able to worship in many locations and in many communities. My parents always encouraged traveling and worshipping in different places whenever we were out of our normal routine. In the few times a year that Ryan and I are not leading in worship in our own churches, we make a point to worship somewhere else on that Sunday so that we can experience a different thing and be a part of the Kingdom of God in a new way. I have worshipped in Europe and India; in Haiti and Honduras. I have preached in a school cafeteria, sang on a rooftop, and sat in the oldest pews in Ireland. And believe it or not, I felt God as powerfully as I did in different locations as I do in my ordinary one. You see, God’s power and presence is all around us, in every crevice and corner, every musical note or handclap of praise. God’s power and God’s presence is real and alive and moving in every culture and is spoken about in every tongue.

The problem becomes, sometimes we get in a rut and become too comfortable. When God’s presence becomes predictable, we stop expecting to be surprised.

Early in my ministry, Ryan and I were sent to a Worship Conference here in Orlando and we learned from a worship leader from Southern California who had recently written a book about his epiphany regarding Spirit-led worship. The book, Discover the Mystery of Faith by Glenn Packiam dives deep into the “Christian Culture” of performance worship and critiques what worship is really supposed to be about. Glenn was a member of the Desperation Band that was popular in the early 2,000s and he began to ask the question about what they were doing performing on large stages and who were they doing it for. It led him to dig even deeper into the theology of worship which I wanted to share a part of with you today.

The beginning of the book challenges us with this Latin phrase:

Lex Orandi
Lex Credendi
Lex Vivendi

In other words, the way you worship and pray (orandi) shapes the way you believe (credendi) which in turn shapes the way you live (vivendi). Think about that order for just a second. What a wide and prophetic thought. This would explain how I could have experienced so many different ways of worship in my lifetime and yet, all were authentic and representative of the way of life for the collective people that were gathered. Haitians clapped with their hands and feet because drums were too expensive to own for their church. My Dinner Church family sang off-key but came eagerly to receive the bread and the cup because they hadn’t ever felt comfortable in a traditional church setting before. Europeans stood in next-to-empty cathedrals that were beautiful and ornate, but not as full as they could be.

The way you worship and pray shapes the way you believe and in turn shapes the way you live. When you think about REVIVING your presence with God in corporate worship, what is it that you do as a member of this body that shapes what you believe? And then is the consistency and seriousness of your worship practice shaping how you live? When we REVIVE our presence in Worship, it is less about the hour of church in the end, and much more about the transformation happening the other 167 hours in your week. For instance, if you lift your hands in worship as a sign of surrender on Sunday mornings, do you also surrender your hands and feet and finances and time to be used by God in the rest of the week? If you come forward (when we were in the habit of coming forward) with open and eager hands to be filled up through the sacrament of Holy Communion, do you walk into your job, or marriage or community involvement with openness and eagerness during the week too? When you hear the Word proclaimed and you are challenged by what the preacher has said, do you find ways to rub shoulders with those in your own life that you disagree with and listen to them more deeply than before?

These questions are only litmus tests for how we measure our own presence in worship. We have all been challenged to increase our prayers and our presence in worship by 1% this year which is a great goal. And we will know if our presence in the hour of worship is in fact being REVIVED when the community around us looks a little bit more like God’s Kingdom at the end of this year. If the hour of worship is our place to practice what we believe, then the rest of our time will be shaped as well. There will be small changes at first. A little less anxiety, a little more peace, a more contemplative heart and hopefully a lot more joy. If we REVIVED our presence in worship a little more this year, how might this shape how we live as a faith community? What might it say to this community about the people called Methodists and the family called First Winter Park? I look forward to finding out more together with you.

¹ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
²     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come into his presence with singing.

³ Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he that made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
    and his courts with praise.
    Give thanks to him, bless his name.

⁵ For the Lord is good;
    his steadfast love endures forever,
    and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100:1-5 NRSV

AMEN.

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I must admit that I prefer the version of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew over Luke. But this Sunday, as we talked about Prayer in our new Sermon Series, Revive, I saw this Scripture in a new light. If you remember, the Scripture Pastor David preached from was Luke 11: 1-8 which begins with Jesus praying in a certain place and then teaching his disciples how to pray. What I struggle with in Luke 11:5-8 is just how human and raw it really is.

As a mom, nighttime is a coveted time. It is the time I look forward too for relaxation and downtime and reconnection to my husband after a busy day. I rarely find myself out and about in the evenings because I am home soaking up school day stories, helping with dinner, bath time or entertaining the latest inspirations of my children’s imaginations (tea parties, cupcake baking, fort making and rocket ship building…just to name a few). I am fully engaged from 5-8PM in the evening and once they are in bed, I rarely want to be bothered. And so, I felt a sting of guilt when reading this passage on Sunday as if it was speaking to me. I think we all struggle with carving out time to turn off work or school or family responsibilities and the nighttime may be a coveted time for you too. There is nothing wrong with having healthy work/life boundaries and sticking to them. But what if there was something deeper in Jesus’ admonition that followed the Lord’s Prayer in Luke.

Here are the words again from the NRSV:

“⁵ And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; ⁶ for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? ⁸ I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.”

After Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer came Jesus’ admonition to forgive others, but in this passage comes the assurance that God answers prayers. If a neighbor answers another neighbor’s request, then shouldn’t we also believe that God answers those who call out to God in need too? In order to better understand this comparison, we have to understand the structure of homes in a typical Galilean village. Homes were small, one or two rooms only and very close together. Therefore, if I were to have gotten up, gotten the bread, answered the door and unlocked the bolt; it would have woken up my entire family. If we think of this situation with modern eyes we may miss something. In Jesus’ day, they didn’t sleep in separate rooms, there wasn’t privacy or an entertaining area for guests. It was all one big space and so you can imagine the inconvenience for the door to be answered in the middle of the night and heaven help the family if there is a sleeping baby involved. Can you see the deeper meaning here? Not only were homes different in those days, but so was the expectation of hospitality. How far we have moved from the expectations of hospitality in today’s culture. In Jesus’ day, there was a sense of shame for any neighbor that did not provide for the needs of their friend, even if it was at an inconvenient time.

Jesus often drew parables from common experiences, like pastor’s who share their personal stories in their sermons. Maybe Jesus remembers being a kid woken up in the middle of the night for his father Joseph to offer bread to a needy neighbor. We don’t know, perhaps. Regardless, this parable requires us to compare our expectations of a neighbor with our assumptions about God. We know that God does not slumber or sleep (Psalm 121:4), and so a friend might have to be woken up to respond to a need, but our Heavenly Father knows our needs and is ready to meet them. They may not be answered in the way we hope or in the time frame we demand. But we worship a God that is not stopped by inconvenience when it comes to His Children. Therefore, we may pray confidently, not because we trust in our own persistence, but because we know that in a time of need, God is even more trustworthy than a neighbor or a friend.

I think there also something here about the use of the bread imagery. You see, bread was a staple part of the Jewish diet (I learned that quickly having travelled to the Holy Land almost two years ago). And so, when Jesus says, “I am the BREAD of life” (John 6:35) it means that Jesus is the staple and the constant part of life. You can’t survive without Him. How interesting that it is bread that the neighbor is asking for in the middle of the night, not milk or honey, or medicine, or an extra blanket, but BREAD. Maybe, just maybe this had a double meaning too. And that understood in its fullness means that we are called to meet the needs of neighbors at inconvenient times and also offer them Jesus while we are at it. It may be uncomfortable, it may mess up your routine or your coveted relaxation time, but we have been given the gift of life and we are called to share it.

AMEN

In honor of our upcoming Pumpkin Patch at Trinity Christian Academy, let me offer this devotion for us to consider this morning. As all of us are getting decorated for Fall, maybe we place things from our fireplaces or hang wreaths on our doors. Maybe we are helping our children and grandchildren pick out their costumes and we have our fingers crossed hoping for cooler Fall weather. It is a season of change, both in weather and within us.

In the DeLaune household, we have a beautiful home to decorate. We have baby pumpkins on our fireplace mantel, fall-themed stickers on the windows and an Autumn themed dining room table waiting to be used. The rest of our house may be a mess, but we are learning to love oranges, browns, and greens in this new season as a family. Both of the kid’s schools are doing science experiments and parties that are all Fall themed and I find my schedule way more packed this time of year.

So, the question becomes, can we slow down together for just a minute and look at how the images, decorations, and overall ambiance of this busy season can point us back to Jesus?

In all my years of Children’s Chapel, Camp Counseling, and disciplining my own children, I have always loved what can be learned from the Pumpkin and what it can symbolize in our walk of faith. In many ways, we are like a Pumpkin. As members of Christ’s Holy Church, we are picked, even chosen by God to be the bearers of light in this world. This Saturday we will have a chance to serve at the Pumpkin Patch at our Church’s off sight preschool, TCA and we will get to meet the community that has all come out with their families to pick out a pumpkin. Remember that we too have been “picked” to be a part of God’s Family and that comes with some beautiful responsibilities.

Part of those beautiful responsibilities is first allowing Jesus to clean out all of our gooey insides to help us look more like him. The dirt of sin and shame is washed off of us and we are cleaned out by the Holy Spirit from the inside out. In much the same way, we clean our pumpkins on the outside and then do the slimy work of cleaning out the inside. Let’s just say that it isn’t my favorite part of this season. But it is necessary. Because before light can shine through, the inside must be cleaned out.

Then Jesus gives us a new identity. We are a “Happy” Jack-o-lantern kind of family, but no judgment if you like the scary kind. The point is that the pumpkin is transformed and given a new identity, sometimes we even name our Jack-o-lanterns, and it is the same way with Christ. Through coming to know Christ, growing in your faith, worshipping, serving and discipling that is done through the faith community, we develop a new identity.

Last we celebrate that the light of Christ now has a place and a purpose within us. It is a light that shines best in the darkness and illuminates the night. The light of Christ is attractive and inviting and draws people in. But it also helps point the way in the darkness. Are we people that are helping point the way back to Jesus in the midst of darkness?

Over these next few weeks, I invite you to see this time as a season of healthy change and illuminating grace as you unpack the analogy of the Pumpkin in your own faith journey. And I invite you if you haven’t already been asked to come out this Saturday, at 12:30PM to our Reeves Campus to unload pumpkins or to encourage our Team that will be there. Sign up to volunteer at the Pumpkin Patch, come and invite your neighbors to the Awesome Autumn Festival or come and participate at the MSEE Fall Festival. There isn’t a shortage of ways that you can serve or deepen your relationship with the people and ministries of this church. I hope you will join us!

“What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”  John 1:3-9

AMEN