Cups Overflowing

Scripture Reading

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Psalm 23

1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters;,*

3 he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths

for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD

my whole life long.,*

Kids to Knowing Place

Three Things I Love

Welcome to Lent at Beulah!

It’s my first real series here, as we dive in to this season of Lent.

Discipleship right down the hall is doing “Meeting Jesus At the Table,” which if you can’t/couldn’t make it today, I encourage you to sign up for the Zoom classes on Wednesdays.

MOST is doing a Lenten offering to help alleviate food insecurity.

Would you look at that? My first series here in this very Presbyterian Church and we’re going to be talking about food!

There are three things I love deeply:

Coffee.

Sharing coffee with friends.

And the environment.

And so that leads us to my coffee mug tree.

I always want to make sure that anyone who comes by my office has a mug to drink a good cup of coffee with.

I usually have a “daily driver.”

Right now that’s this Keg of Glory mug that Sarah got me when I started here, to celebrate both the new job and my insane love for the West Wing.

Sometimes its…(celebrate a couple of mugs)

The Two Modes of Our Generation:

Spiritual, but not religious

This group is on the rise.

We’ve heard the numbers before, but in poll after poll after poll there are a rising number of people in this country who check the box “none” when it comes to religious affiliation.

And yet, spirituality is on the rise.

In our increasingly cold and scientific world, folks in my generation are more and more disposed to want to be connected to something mystical.

Obviously, there are a few problems with this:

One is that a person who just sighs at sunsets and calls is spirituality might never ever grow and change.

And for that matter, when it comes to helping the poor and needy, when it comes to making a difference in the world, this group is lacking.

We in a church can do so much more together than any single one of us could do alone.

But...

A friend of mine is an author and speaker and all around really smart guy, and he noticed something about this crowd.

He said if they are willing to call themselves “Spiritual, but not religious,” that they were actually leveling a critique at you and I in the church.

That we might be

Religious, but not spiritual

And…they might have a point in some circles...

Religious but not Spiritual folks...

Value their particular style of worship over all else.

Are remarkably averse to change.

Have absolutely no interest in welcoming in new people.

And before you go too far down a particular rabbit hole, this has next to nothing to do with worship style.

Religious but not spiritual folks would attend a choir festival every bit as much as they might go to a contemporary worship conference.

So our first gut check of the day: If you’re thinking “Oh, he’s talking about that other service...” you might want to reconsider.

Now, I really really want to say this isn’t us, right?

But Presbyterians in general have a nick name, right?

We are the Frozen Chosen!

I don’t know a better nickname for a religious but not spiritual crowd.

So if you’re feeling called out right now, don’t worry! There’s something we can do.

Lucky for us, it has to do with coffee cups.

Containers

Our religious practices are like the containers.

Every container is a little bit different.

In fact, maybe there are some bigger containers out there (fish tank) and maybe some are smaller.

Maybe you are a high church liturgy person, who really loves the organ (praise be to God!) and choir music.

Maybe you come from a background in the Catholic Church, and so the ritual of sitting and standing and kneeling and engaging your body in worship is important to you.

Maybe you are a contemporary person, who loves to hear the prayers of your community in the language of your cultural expression.

Maybe you are a monk who has built a life of prayer and meditation in the desert, and if so I’d like to speak to you after the service and figure out how you got here...

Every container is a little bit different.

And, unless it has a crack in it (like bad theology or toxic leadership), I think every container is valid.

But every container serves a purpose.

Our spirituality is what we fill those containers with.

Every time I gather with the community in worship, I am in so many ways trying to connect with Jesus.

Maybe I had an experience with Jesus this week, and my regular Men’s Group meeting helps me make sense of it.

Maybe I really connected with Jesus in my childhood, so I am going back to the container that worked for me back then to jump start things.

Maybe I want to be able to engage with Jesus out there in the world, so I need a container that is a bit more portable.

Maybe I need the community to come around and hold the light for me, and that’s how I’m going to better understand Jesus.

Whatever our container is, whatever religious practices we hold most dear, their job is to make sure that we are connecting with the Divine on a regular basis.

Ways we get it wrong

Trying to hold water in our hands.

This is the Spiritual but not religious crowd.

They might get a taste of the Divine every now and again, sure.

But it’s sporadic, and it’s fleeting.

It is not at all sustainable.

And if we’re honest, it’s not even really super comfortable is it?

It’s one thing to do this illustration with cold water, but if you remember I started this analogy with coffee...

But it’s also a crowd in the church too…the you and me Jesus Crowd.

This is a group that comes to church, but more out of entertainment than anything else.

There’s a very small, fleeting container.

But it’s so very based on an emotional high that it can’t last long.

Preserving Empty Containers

Imagine for a moment I decided that because Sarah got me this mug, I was going to keep it special.

I’m going to set it up here, and just never put anything in it.

This cup is going to stay here and stay empty, so that I never have to worry about anything happening to it again.

In fact, if I’m going to preserve it well, I need to make sure that I never ever put coffee in it.

I need to make sure that it stays here in a safe place.

And for sure, I need to make sure that no one ever, EVER, uses it for coffee.

This is one of the biggest responses that the Church in America has had to our issue of declining attendance and numbers.

Don’t change the liturgy.

Don’t change the carpet.

Don’t welcome new people in.

That’s not how we’ve always done it!

Even when I was a contemporary worship leader, supposedly on the cutting edge of worship culture, I got to a point where I said out loud “I don’t want to learn anything new. What we have is fine.”

The goal becomes to preserve the religious practices above all else.

Look, the point here isn’t that there’s anything wrong with the container!

I like the liturgy.

I like the carpet.

I like the songs we sing.

I like the prayers we offer.

But we have to use those things for what they were intended to do:

Connect us and our neighbors with the Divine.

Whatever our container is, however it best serves us, it is meant first and foremost to allow our souls a transcendent experience with the Good Shepherd who leads us beside the still waters.

But speaking of that phrase “Whatever our container is...”

We have a third problem:

Celebrating One Container Over Another

This holds true in churches especially that have two different kinds of worship service...

Oh don’t worry I’m talking about someone else...

But imagine that I have decided that this container, this one is the only right one.

The only way you can hold on to spirituality is with these religious practices.

The only way you can truly worship the Lord is with these selected hymns.

The only way you can actually know Jesus is with guitars and bass and drums. Or without guitars and bass and drums.

First of all, that’s not correct, is it?

Again, unless it’s cracked with something like bad theology or a toxic environment, any set of religious practices that can hold the Spirit is beautiful.

But to assume that there’s only one correct container, only one way to hold our connection to the Spirit, that robs you of some beautiful experiences, doesn’t it?

An example: A Catholic Wedding

A few years back, a friend of mine married his wife, who was Catholic, which of course meant that there would be a Catholic wedding.

I mentioned on Ash Wednesday that I’ve spent some fair amount of time in Catholic worship spaces, but it had been a while.

So I didn’t quite have my sea legs for how long the service was.

I mean, a good Presbyterian wedding? I can knock that out in 20 minutes.

This thing went the distance as we were sitting there well in to our second hour.

So at first I was cranky.

I was thinking about all the theology behind everything in the service.

I was constantly thinking “That’s not how I would do it.”

But mostly I was thinking about the fact that puck drop was in an hour, and I wanted to get home.

But then, I don’t know, I snapped out of it somehow?

I started paying attention to the rituals and the reverence and the dedication of it all, and I got caught up in how beautiful it was.

It’s not my container...

Those rituals wouldn’t be something that would be deeply meaningful to me week in and week out.

Plus I am married to Sarah, and I want to do this for a living, so it’s not like I was thinking about converting.

But I can still appreciate the beauty of someone else’s container.

Specially if it’s filled to overflowing with the Spirit.

This Lent: Set the Table

Container Maintenance

Every now and again, my coffee mug collection needs a refresher.

I might start with just washing the cup every now and again...

But sometimes they develop cracks or they get warn out or something like that.

In the same way, every now and again we need to tend to the religious practices of our lives, and Lent is a great time to do this.

Some people choose to give something up.

This is bigger than giving up chocolate or rock music or something like that just to be a part of the season.

Maybe in your Spiritual walk right now, you have some things that are in the way.

A few years ago, a friend of mine encouraged me to give up doubt for Lent.

That was a transformative season for me, to be sure!

Maybe for you, it’s an over inflated sense of pride.

Maybe for you, it’s a spirit of judgement toward another person.

Maybe for you, it’s a gluttonous need for more, more, more.

If there is something right now that is in the way of your container, go ahead, it’s not too late to give something up for Lent.

Others choose to pick something up.

It’s ok to add a new practice or discipline in this season of Lent if that would help you hold on to your connection with Jesus a bit more closely.

At the buzzer this year, on Ash Wednesday, I decided to pick up the practice of spending at least 10 minutes outside, no matter the weather.

AND! Bike rides don’t count.

I just felt like I connect better with Christ out in nature, so I wanted to make sure that I’m spending time out there.

Don’t worry, I have plenty of good coats.

But what could you pick up this Lenten season?

Perhaps you want to try a different container, even just once?

Maybe you’re being called to visit one of the other services we offer with an open mind and a willing spirit?

Maybe you want to adopt a new prayer book.

Maybe you want to reconnect with someone who has meant a lot to you in the past.

The options are endless!

You don’t need to fill it.

We read Psalm 23 this morning.

This psalm most often gets read at funerals, which I think is a shame.

I love this Psalm, because it rightly reminds us who takes all the action here.

It’s God who makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters.

Something in our busy world that God might have to be a bit more aggressive with us about, huh?

It’s God that restores our soul.

It’s God that leads us in the right paths.

It’s God who provides our comfort.

It’s God who sets the table, even when our enemies are around.

It’s God who anoints us with oil.

And, maybe most important this morning, it’s God who fills our cups to over flowing.

If you walked away from this service with the impression that it’s our job to go out and fill these cups ourselves, then I didn’t quite do my job.

God always has and always will pour out his spirit on the receptive hearts of his people.

We carry these religious practices so that we’re ready, prepared to have God fill us.

Overflowing Cups Are Perfect for Sharing.

Remember, the reason I have so many mugs in my office is because I want to share what I have.

I hope that everyone would come by my place to share a cup of coffee and tell me what God’s up to in their lives.

Though, maybe not today because all my mugs are down here...

We allow ourselves to be filled so that we can share.

If you are filled with the Spirit today, to the point of overflowing, who can you share it with?

Maybe you can think of someone right now who has been spiritually dry for a little while?

Maybe you can think of someone who’s a bit down on their luck?

Maybe you can think of our brothers and sisters in Haiti, who sure could use a sharing of the Spirit right now, couldn’t they?

Maybe you can think of a neighbor that God has been nudging you to invite to church some time?

Whatever it may be, if your cup truly is over flowing, invite someone to come and join us.

If they come next week, maybe they’ll even taste and see the goodness of our Lord…but that’s next week at the table.

(Emergent Prayer scape)

Today on your way in, you were given a container.

We have a table set up down front here, and what we’re encouraging everyone to do is

Take a few minutes with your container at your seat in prayer.

How do you need to be filled in this season of Lent?

Where are the dry places in your faith?

Where are the places where your container could use a little refreshing?

How do you most want to experience God in this season?

And then, when you feel ready, as a sign of offering and of meeting God in a new way, we invite you to come forward and to lay your container here at the table.

They’ll be with us all through Lent as a reminder that we are here not to fill our own containers...

…but to allow God himself to fill us in Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray together.