This is the fourth sermon in our Lenten series, “Fully Alive: Living as Warrior, Monk and Mystic.” It is followed by a reflection by Kelli Pearson, a member of our congregation, on identifying with the mystic archetype.

John 17:20-26

Have you ever had the experience of being enlarged?  In that moment, you felt yourself a part of something far bigger than your small self. And maybe that bigness felt so big it seemed to have a capital letter — capital-l Life, capital-l Love, capital-g God. Maybe you experienced it when you saw your child’s face for the first time and knew yourself to be part of the great river of Life. May you felt it in a moment of intimacy, and you knew yourself to be in Love. Maybe you were out hiking and felt the boundaries between yourself and the manzanita tree and and the sky become permeable, softer – and you saw yourself not as separate, but a part of All that is.

This sermon is the third in our Lenten series called “Fully Alive: Living as Warrior, Mystic, Monk.” It is followed by a reflection by David Wieand, a member of our congregation, on identifying with the monk archetype.

Luke 10:38-42

Are you, like Martha, distracted by many things? Do you feel fragmented, pulled in many directions? Does it seem as though you too often spend your days tending to the trivial, while those things you really care about, those things your heart beats loudly for languish for another day? Do you wish for more balance in your life, more simplicity? Do you long, like Mary, to choose the “one – or two or three things – necessary” and consistently order your life around those things? 

Do you long to be more present to your life? Would you like to slow down and savor your life more? Do you wish you could experience the feeling you have while on retreat, or vacation or over the weekend in the week-dailiness of your life — – as you’re spreading butter on the toast for our kids, as you’re tackling your morning email inbox, as you head into your 4^th meeting or class of the day?  It’s in the here and now, in the ordinariness of our lives — not in some special, set-aside times like weekends or vacations —  that we long for wholeness. It’s in the here and now that we long for an undivided heart: to be wholly present to this moment.  

Matthew 4:17-23

Since I’m about to give our version of the “State of the Union” address typically given by U.S. presidents, I thought I’d check out last year’s State of the Union address to get a sense of the similarities and differences between that ritual and ours. Similarities? People come in late for that event, too. And, it’s hard to get people to stop talking to each other and get started. Nancy Pelosi has to bang that gavel, hard, several times. Maybe our worship leaders should do that? As for differences:  Joanna or I don’t normally get introduced — “Ladies and gentleman, the pastors of FMCSF!” — and then we don’t walk into the sanctuary as you all stand and clap. Why doesn’t that happen? And you don’t keep standing and applauding once we step up to the podium, such that we have to say, “Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much” as a way of quieting you down and then when we say that you clap even louder and start cheering, and we stand there, humbly. And this clapping and cheering keeps happening again and again throughout the speech. Again, why not?

This year on Mennonite Heritage Sunday, we asked three people from our community to reflect on what was going on in the story of the church and the story of their own lives when they first arrived in our community. Jennifer Graber reflected from 30 years ago, Ann Speyer from 20 years ago, and Jonathan Hershberger from 10 years ago. Video and audio of the reflections can be found here.

Jennifer Graber’s reflection:

In June 1993, my husband Kevin and I moved to the Bay Area for him to begin his neurology residency at Stanford and for me to complete my pediatric residency there. We came to visit in March that year and on Sunday attended FMCSF. We recall being warmly welcomed by a small group of earnest young Mennos, some of whom invited us out for dim sum after church. John Flickinger, Doug Basinger and Dan Flickinger took us to Yank Sing in downtown SF. It was delicious, exciting and, when the bill came, horrifying to us poor residents. The divided bill would have come to $16 per person. As we were contemplating this, our new friends quickly paid, ever generous as they always are. When we moved out in June we returned to church in San Francisco, which was then meeting at the Dolores Street Baptist church on the corner of Dolores and 15^th St (where a lovely newish condo building now stands). The next Sunday, that building had burned down and the church had to find a new place to meet.