The Baptism of our Lord

Mark 1:4-11 / Acts 19:1-7

“The Real Thing”

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. ²He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” ³Then he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” ⁴Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.” ⁵On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied— ⁷altogether there were about twelve of them. (Acts 19:1-7 NRSV)

That’s exactly why Pastors get nervous when other preachers, particularly those called “District Superintendents”, start poking around the churches they serve.  You Teachers know what I’m talking about. There is always that possibility that they’ll ask some question that will reveal a shortcoming in “the flock’s” understanding of an important theological concept.  It sounds innocent, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”  Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” translation from Greek to English provides focus and some clarity. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?  Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart?  Did he get inside you?”  Sounds to me like he’s talking about the difference between “knowing about” God and “knowing “God.  He’s asking about the difference between a faith of the head and a faith of the heart.  The Holy Spirit offers us a faith that comes from God living inside us.

“The Flock” gave the answer that makes every Pastor squirm, “No, we’ve never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”  Luckily Apollos wasn’t there.  He’d gone across the gulf to Corinth (most likely for some important workshop on making disciples)  Paul had some kind of relationship with the people of Ephesus.  He visited them on one of his trips.  The letter titled “Ephesians” that made the canon of the New Testament has a footnote revealing the oldest manuscripts lacked the name “Ephesus” and suggest it was a circular letter meant for all the churches in the region.  Maybe Paul gathered the group and started their journey on “The Way” then Apollos came and stayed for a while.  An earlier reference to Apollos suggested that maybe he didn’t have all his story right.   Aquilla and Priscilla once had to take him aside to teach him some things about “The Way” he didn’t know.  Maybe he forgot the part about the Holy Spirit.  Maybe he was more a follower of John the Baptizer.  The Ephesians knew about John’s baptism.

Paul taught that John’s was a baptism of repentance in preparation for another who turned out to be Jesus.  It signified a changing lifestyle.  When asked what they should do, he told who ever had two coats to share with anyone who had none.  He told the tax collectors to collect no more than the amount prescribed and he told the Soldiers to not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations and to be satisfied with their wages. (Luke 3:10-14)

Those are the things people do to get ready for God’s presence.  When the presence (Jesus) comes the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.  I wish I could skip that part.  However, my prayers and questioning (and the Holy Spirit I think) this week revealed something that made sense to me.

If the Holy Spirit gives us the power to take God into our heart, to allow God to get inside us then we start seeing the world the way God sees the worlds.  The gospels tell several stories of people gaining sight when Jesus touched them, a sight which changed the way they saw things and the way they lived things.  Is it possible that speaking in tongues is speaking in ways that God would speak?  Could it maybe be that when we start talking about returning good for evil and turning the other cheek and the last being first and first being last and resurrection, the powers and principalities of the world hear it as gibberish, as nonsense, as foolishness as speaking in tongues?

If that’s the case then of course speaking in tongues and prophesy will become part of our lives.  It is the result of allowing Christ to become our Savior and Lord.  Have you ever envisioned what it means when we say that Jesus is our Lord?

I see old movies with Kings/Queens and Knights and such and the special ceremonies played out when a brave person was “Knighted”.  The one to be honored knelt before the King/Queen with no protection on their head while the Ruler brandished a sword over their head, finally touching his shoulder with the blade and naming them.  The whole thing was to symbolize the giving of one’s life to the Ruler who could decide, in a moment of complete power, to lop off the Knight’s head.  That’s what it means to claim that someone is your Lord.  Your life is no longer your own but belongs to your Lord.  You buy in to the Lord’s visions and hopes and loves and are protected by the Lord’s power and might.  The Holy Spirit is the carrier of God’s presence in us here and now.  It gives us God’s eyes and  God’s mouth and God’s heart.  Without it we know about God but we don’t really know God.

Today we take the opportunity to reaffirm the covenant we made with God at our baptism.  Some of us have already done that several times.  Perhaps the first was when we confirmed the faith into which we were baptized when our parents and the community of faith promised to show us God when we were infants.  And so…

On behalf of the whole church, I ask you:

Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

According to the grace given you, will you remain faithful members of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world?

Then remember your baptism and be thankful.

The Holy Spirit work within you, that having been born through water and the Spirit your may live as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Amen.

(While we sang the last song [“Forever” during UpWords & “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” at The Celebration] everyone was invited to come to the baptismal fount, reach into the water and take a shell to remember their baptism, those not yet baptized were encouraged to talk with their pastor about that possibility)

“The Inheritance”

Philippians 3:4b-14 / Matthew 18:21-35

I need to start today by telling you that I’m a coward.  I’m not sure when it happened.  I used to be fairly brave (except around roller coasters).  It happened sometime Thursday after spending three days with today’s gospel lesson from Matthew.

You need to know that Matthew remembers Jesus telling this parable to the chief priests and elders of the people while he taught in the temple.  This was after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem while palm branches waved.  It was after he drove the money changers and sacrifice sellers out of the temple, reclaiming it as a house of prayer.  It was after he cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit.

It was told to those who questioned his authority.  Even though he said he wouldn’t answer their questions because they wouldn’t answer his about John’s baptism; Jesus first told them a parable about two sons; one who promised to do some work in his father’s field and then didn’t and the other who said he wouldn’t but did.

After telling the chief priests and elders that, ‘the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God a head of you”, Jesus told them another parable.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. (Mt. 21:33-39 NRSV)

It was when I got to this point in my prayers and study that I wimped out. I think most of us around here don’t know much about the care and feeding of vineyards.  There aren’t many grapes grown around Kennett.  Rice; yes.  Cotton; heck yes!  Some soy beans, a little corn, but no vineyards.

So my brilliant idea was to re-write the parable replacing the vineyard with cotton acreage.  I’ve seen all the work it takes to prepare a productive cotton patch today.  Even those of us who have never chopped it or picked it or stomped it or actually touched a boll know all the hard work required.  Many in our congregation even know what it’s like to be the landlord who leases the field expecting a share of the harvest.  It sounded like a great idea until I read the rest of the story.

Jesus asked them what they thought would happen.  They replied, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

And after talking about the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone, Jesus told them that,”the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. ⁴⁴The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

That’s when I joined the chief priests and Pharisee who, when they heard it, “realized that he was speaking about them.”  And I realized that the “you” wasn’t who I originally thought it was.  I’d have to do a re-write that somehow included all grain and lint farmers as well as lawyers and teachers and store owners and day laborers and anybody else who had received a “vineyard” from God and who had not returned the fruits that were expected to the One who expected them.  The parable revealed God’s judgment on everyone who fails to return to God what belongs to God.  It wasn’t too long after that realization that it occurred to me that judgment also applies to those who have been given churches to pastor.

That’s when I decided that re-writing the parable maybe wasn’t such a good idea.    Maybe it would be okay to do what the Christian church has done for thousands of years and assume Jesus and Matthew were talking about somebody else; Jews maybe, or followers of Islam,  or at least those other so-called Christian sects that don’t agree with me (er us).

Unfortunately that’s when God asked me about the inheritance.  Remember?  The leasee’s mentioned it when they were deciding that killing the son of the landowner might be a good thing.  Their hope was that the inheritance would become theirs to keep.  In the parable the inheritance is the vineyard but … if God is the landowner I don’t think that’s the inheritance being offered.  But it does have something to do with grapes.

I believe the inheritance placed in our care by the Lord of all sits right here on this table and every table set with the Body and Blood; the Bread and Wine needed for World Communion Sunday today.  This is our inheritance from God through Jesus Christ.  The power of God’s mercy doesn’t put those wretches to a miserable death.  That was the judgment passed by those afraid of losing the power and prestige of the temple.  Instead God’s judgment sends another and another and me and you after The Cornerstone rejected by the builders.  Our mission is to claim even those who once rejected the Son, as Children of God and show what that might mean to them in this world filled with hate and dis-ease.

Paul writes, “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8-14, NRSV)

Press on then; and remember when reading scripture the “you” is usually really you.  And The Inheritance is the very presence of God through the body and blood of Jesus Christ that is with us always.  Amen.

“O LORD, You Know” – Jeremiah 15:15-21 / Matthew 16:21-28

“How is your soul?”  When was the last time anyone asked you that question?  It only happens to me about once each year when I complete my yearly “self-evaluation” in preparation for time with the District Superintendant.  “How is your soul?”  It seems just a little archaic, perhaps just too personal.

Personal is right.  Several years ago while serving another church up close to the Missouri River I went to visit a woman who, I had been told, had been an active and vital member of the church for many years.   Then one Sunday she just didn’t show up.  She distanced herself from the friends she’d made at the church and people were beginning to worry about her.  Some tried to breach the subject but she never gave an answer.  All this happened before the new pastor (me) arrived so after a time of getting to know those who were involved with worship and other church ministries, one of them asked me to visit her.

I knocked on the door and was invited in to a well kept living room.  I think she knew the why of my visit so without even asking she began to tell me about her father who had recently died.  Several years ago he’d received the diagnosis of lung cancer and in spite of every kind of treatment the Doctors could offer and the thousands of prayers offered for healing, he died.  She just could not understand why her prayers hadn’t been answered.  She was very angry with God.  She could not worship.  She had become one of the casualties of life’s unknowns.

She was not the first.  Life has a way of testing us in surprising ways.  I’ve discovered there are two ways we respond to those tests of our relationship with God.  We either move closer to God or we step away from God.  Maybe you know people who have done both.  Maybe you’re one of those who, for a time, wrestled with God until finally, you stepped back for a time.  Perhaps you’re still in that struggle and only the habits formed and friendships honored keep you coming here each week.  Please know you are not alone.  Today’s scriptures tell of two others who join you.

Jeremiah was God’s prophet sent to proclaim God’s Word to God’s Chosen people while they lived in The Land that God had promised them.  The problem was; those chosen people were not living the way God intended life to be lived.  Jeremiah told them so.  The leaders didn’t like it so they found various ways to punish Jeremiah for his message. 

Our reading today tells of a time when Jeremiah’s soul had had enough of God’s call to proclaim The Word to a stiff-necked people.

^15-18You know where I am, God! Remember what I’m doing here!
   Take my side against my detractors.
Don’t stand back while they ruin me.
   Just look at the abuse I’m taking!
When your words showed up, I ate them—
   swallowed them whole. What a feast!
What delight I took in being yours,
   O God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
I never joined the party crowd
   in their laughter and their fun.
Led by you, I went off by myself.
   You’d filled me with indignation. Their sin had me seething.
But why, why this chronic pain,
   this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight?
You’re nothing, God, but a mirage,
   a lovely oasis in the distance—and then nothing! (Jeremiah 15:15-18 [MSG])

Did he really say that God was like a lovely oasis that never materialized?  The NRSV translates Jeremiah’s frustration, “Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.” (Jeremiah 15:18b)  That sentence makes more sense to someone who grew up in a desert where dry creek beds where sometimes filled with rushing water during mountain rains but quickly become dry again.  Today we talk about those who talk good but have no real game.  That was Jeremiah’s complaint.  How did God reply?

  “Take back those words, and I’ll take you back.
   Then you’ll stand tall before me.
Use words truly and well. Don’t stoop to cheap whining.
   Then, but only then, you’ll speak for me.
Let your words change them.
   Don’t change your words to suit them.
I’ll turn you into a steel wall,
   a thick steel wall, impregnable.
They’ll attack you but won’t put a dent in you
   because I’m at your side, defending and delivering.”
         God’s Decree.
“I’ll deliver you from the grip of the wicked.
   I’ll get you out of the clutch of the ruthless.” (Jeremiah 15:19-21 [MSG])

Notice God did not turn his back to Jeremiah.  Instead I heard words of challenge, “Take that back Jeremiah.”  At first it sounds harsh but then, “and I’ll take you back.  Then you’ll stand tall before me.”  God restates his call of Jeremiah, reminding him that he is the one speaking truth and encouraging him to not change his words to suit what the others want to hear.  God promises protection and deliverance from the ruthless.   That is good news for those of us who sometimes wonder out loud about God’s promises.

Then there’s Matthew’s gospel.  Today we read the rest of what happened on the road to Caesarea Philippi. Last week we heard Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter was the first to say that Jesus was the Messiah (Christ) the Son of the Living God.  Jesus commended his answer, saying it was divine revelation and that it would be the rock upon which The Church would be built. 

^21-22Then Jesus made it clear to his disciples that it was now necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, submit to an ordeal of suffering at the hands of the religious leaders, be killed, and then on the third day be raised up alive. Peter took him in hand, protesting, “Impossible, Master! That can never be!”

 ²³But Jesus didn’t swerve. “Peter, get out of my way. Satan, get lost. You have no idea how God works.” (Matthew 16:21-22 [MSG])

Did Jesus just call Peter Satan?  I can understand why Peter would not be particularly happy about Jesus’ understanding of the results of being the Messiah of God.  Even more his rebellion against his best friend’s suffering, death, and what is resurrection anyway?  Surely not!  How can that be? 

It is not only unanswered prayers that make us wonder if we’ve made the right choice.  Were you listening when I read Jesus’ teachings a moment ago?

“Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?

 ^27-28“Don’t be in such a hurry to go into business for yourself. Before you know it the Son of Man will arrive with all the splendor of his Father, accompanied by an army of angels. You’ll get everything you have coming to you, a personal gift. This isn’t pie in the sky by and by. Some of you standing here are going to see it take place, see the Son of Man in kingdom glory.” (Matthew 16:24-28 [MSG])

The one who named us “Methodist” understood his call to ministry in relation to a time of betrayal and suffering.  When John Wesley was a child the town’s people saved him from a second floor window of the burning parsonage where he lived with his father (a Church of England Priest), mother, brothers, and sisters.  They made a human ladder to reach him.  The only problem was that it was his father’s congregation that had set fire to the parsonage in the first place, trying to get him to move somewhere else. (Please don’t get any ideas.)  John later wrote of himself as a, “brand plucked from the fire” saved to do God’s work.

When he was a Fellow at Oxford he joined with the other Divinity Fellows as they shared preaching duties in the Chapel.  John, however, only preached two or three times before the leaders of the university banned him from the pulpit.  He spoke Good News that the powers didn’t want to hear and so they decided to take away his ability to preach.  Soon after he was led by his friend, George Whitefield, out of town to do that one thing that he thought most despicable.  He began to preach in the open fields to the miners and farmers and people who the Church of England were conveniently ignoring.  It was those poor folks that led the Great Awakening that reignited the true power of God’s Church in England and soon in the New World.

Speaking of the New World, John saw heard that there were not enough trained ordained clergy to take care of all those who were moving to the New World.  He asked his bishop to send more but it didn’t happen fast enough.  So Wesley decided that he would ordain some helpers and send them to America to baptize and offer Holy Communion to those who were not in optimum, or critical locations.

That’s our heritage as people called Methodist.  We are Christians who were forged in response to our response to difficult circumstances who chose to continue to let our lifelong bet on God’s love and grace to ride.

So…how’s your soul?  There is Good News!  No matter the state of your soul, you are a child of God who is claimed by God’s love and not our own works.  You are blessed to be a blessing even when we aren’t able to see the blessings that surround us.  But really…now how is your soul?

“On the Road Again” – Isaiah 51:1-6 / Romans 12:1-8 / Matthew 16:13-20

Do you know how you arrived at where you are?  It is an important question to consider.  I believe we are where we are because of everything we’ve experienced in life.  But more than that, we are where we are because of all that has happened in history. There is a connection between our lives and the lives of those who have gone before us.

So I’m kind of surprised to have to say, in relation to Holy Scripture that guides our worship this morning, that today I don’t care if you know that Isaiah 51 was most likely written to God’s Chosen People as they prepared to return to the Promised Land from exile in Babylon.  Those returning were the children of those who were taken.  God’s People were exiled from the Promised Land because they were not the nation that God intended them to be.  They were not the people that God created them to be. 

They were warned by other prophets.  But they continued to choose to mistreat the people in their community that were disadvantaged.  They ignored God’s rules about allowing widows and orphans to glean the fields and orchards.  And concentrated only on themselves and trying to become like the nations around them who did not know God.  So they lost the Promised Land.  But God, through the new king Cyrus, was allowing God’s Chosen to return to the Promised Land.  They needed to know that the images shared with them by their parents and grand-parents were no longer true.  The Temple was destroyed, the land was unkempt. But God was returning with them and Isaiah wanted them to know that with God all things were possible, there is hope with God, the land would be restored.  But you don’t need to know that today.

You don’t need to know that Paul wrote to the new Christians’ in Rome. He’d never met them, which was not the way Paul usually operated.  He was writing, not only to introduce himself and ask for their support of his planned visit.  He wrote to tell them his understanding of the relationship between God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the difference it had made in his life.  He wanted them to know that they were all important to God’s creative vision and encouraged them to use the gifts God had given them for the glory of God’s House.  He also wanted them to know that this “church” rested securely and completely upon God’s work and not their own. 

            You also don’t need to know that the verses we read from Matthews’ Gospel sit at the center of everything he wanted the early church to know about Jesus’ ministry.  Until this point, Jesus was born, became a man and invited people to “come and see” the difference God could make in the world.  He healed the sick, vanquished demons, interpreted scripture, and brought life to those who were treated as if they were dead. 

But after Peter’s God-revealed answer to the question he posed to his disciples on the road to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus began to teach them exactly what God’s Messiah would be.  He started talking about picking up your cross, and loving God more than family, and crucifixion, and death, and resurrection. 

Those aren’t the important revelations that came while preparing for this moment on this day.  When I read this week’s scripture I saw that Isaiah’s prophesy ran right into Paul’s letter and ended with Matthew’s memory of Peter, the first to recognize Jesus as “the Messiah (Christ), the son of the living God.”

God’s faithfulness to this creative vision is how you got where you are today.  God has not given up on changing chaos into paradise.  God’s work continues today and you are an important member of God’s Chosen People.  Listen to how it all flows together into one masterpiece of perfect love.  You’ll be reading from “The Message”.

 ”Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug. Yes, ponder Abraham, your father,
 and Sarah, who bore you.  Think of it! One solitary man when I called him, but once I blessed him, he multiplied.

 Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion, comfort all her mounds of ruins. I’ll transform her dead ground into Eden, her moonscape into the garden of God, A place filled with exuberance and laughter,
thankful voices and melodic songs.

“Pay attention, my people.  Listen to me, nations. Revelation flows from me. My decisions light up the world.  My deliverance arrives on the run, my salvation right on time.   I’ll bring justice to the peoples. Even faraway islands will look to me and take hope in my saving power.  Look up at the skies, ponder the earth under your feet.  The skies will fade out like smoke, the earth will wear out like work pants, and the people will die off like flies. But my salvation will last forever; my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

When Jesus arrived in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”

He pressed them, “And how about you? Who do you say I am?”

Simon Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus came back, “God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn’t get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I’m going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.

“And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.”

He swore the disciples to secrecy. He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah.

But they did tell. At least they told after Jesus’ resurrection when he negated his earlier command, telling them to go into all the world, teaching what he taught and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; remembering that He was always with them everywhere they went.   You can’t keep a secret of something like that; can you?

“Come Closer” – Matthew 15:10-20

We began worship this morning with a question, “How do you honor God?”  Several mentioned daily prayer, morning devotion, and weekly worship.  I’ve been witness to some of those things.  It does something to my heart when I see a family gathered around the dinner table at McDonalds or McCormick’s or Mi Ranchito’s with heads bowed and hands joined in prayer before eating.  That’s a powerful witness to and an honoring of God.

I thought of some others during my prayers this week.  We are a nation of sports fanatics.  With the beginning of the football season we’ll soon be seeing wide receivers charging into the end zone pointing to heaven just as baseball players do when the cross the plate after a homerun.  That’s their way of honoring God.

I’ll put a plug in for Deb Stokley and the Lay Leadership Committee by saying that serving on church committees is a way of honoring God.  United Methodist’s even believe that “conferencing” is a spiritual discipline.

We’re in the month of Ramadan when Muslim’s honor their understanding of God with daily fasts.  Our Jewish friends wear yarmulkes (ya-ma-kas), keep certain “feast days” and in Jesus’ day they washed their hands in certain ways before they ate.

Maybe you’ve never thought of hand washing as a religious act.  That’s probably because most of us have been taught through the years that the Pharisees were bad people.  In Matthew’s gospel particularly they are the enemy that is always questioning Jesus about his actions, beliefs, and authority.  I’d like for you to learn to read scripture without that bias because when we do we discover amazing things about our own relationship with God.

Today’s gospel lesson was preceded by all we’ve read during the past few weeks; the death of John, the desire to be alone with the disciples, a day of healing and teaching that ended with a meal of 5 loaves and two fish for 5000 + women and children, a night of prayer for Jesus and hard rowing for the disciples, Jesus walking on the water to their side, Peter’s walking on water for a time, Jesus’ immediately reaching out to lift him up, Jesus calming the storm, the disciples proclamation, “Truly you (Jesus) are the Son of God”, and the Pharisees and scribes asking, “Why do you disciples break the tradition of the elders?  For they do not wash their hands before they eat?”

I know, it sounds like a silly question to us.  Partly because some of us have forgotten that all those commands recorded in the book of Leviticus (yes…the 10 Commandments are in there too) were not just about community relations and personal hygiene.  They were given and written as a guide for those who wanted to honor God by learning to live every day the way God wanted them to live.  Maybe they were the first with the motto, “Putting God First … Every Day.”  The Pharisees were a lay movement dedicated to holding that idea up in front of God’s Chosen People.  Most did it not because they wanted to be mean but because they truly believed it was what God wanted.  So washing hands became a way of honoring God and when Jesus’ Disciples didn’t wash their hands a certain way (there were after all instruction sheets in all the public washrooms they wondered how he could claim to have been sent by God when he didn’t teach his followers to honor God’s rules.

That question comes up often concerning many different aspects of God’s Law.  Most of the reported trouble centered on keeping the Sabbath which is what eventually caused the Jewish of that day to extreme measures to silence this so-called Messiah.  Jesus answered those Sabbath questions with a reminder that the Sabbath was made for humanity and not humanity for the Sabbath.  It was a matter of mixed up priorities and essentially that was the problem with hand washing rules.  They were given for humanity not the other way around.

We know that.  Today we read that Jesus called the crowd together and taught them, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes of the mouth that defiles.” (Mt. 15:11, NRSV)  Makes sense to me but the Disciples led by Peter asked Jesus to explain it more clearly.  After wondering why they were so slow to understand, Jesus explains, “Don’t you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated? But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That’s what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands—that’s neither here nor there.”  (Mt. 15:17-20, MSG)  I don’t think I can say it any better.

So, I’m wondering how you honor God.  This is not a rhetorical question.  I really want to know.  So pick up your cell phone and text or e-mail me right now.  (There was a slide with my mobile number and e-mail address)  Or do it the old fashion way and grab the pencil and paper that’s in the pew in front of you then include it with your offering.  How do you honor God?

• “I honor God by loving myself and all of God’s Children…as a parent I know how I feel when someone is unkind to my child so is our God with His.”
• “Be in prayer 24-7.”
• “By treating people we meet, both personally and professionally, with respect and fairness.  Mark Twain said, ‘always do right – that will please most people and astonish the rest.’”
• Going to Youth Group
• Hang out with Teens is how I honor God.
• I worship God to the highest
• With music, both vocal & instrumental
• I honor God with my praise each day

I’m also aware that there are some things that we do around here that have become, “washing your hands” events and traditions.  I’d like to know what you think those are.

• Acolytes are dumb
• I was just wondering why the Acolytes light the 2 candles on the Altar.  I know it’s important, because we do it every Sunday.  I’m just not sure why.
• I’d like to have the sermon last, as a climax to the service – perhaps followed by a song and invitation.

(Thanks to the two who texted, “Nice Prayer” and “Good Message”)

We honor or dishonor God every day with what comes out of our mouths.  If it is our goal to, “Put Christ First … Every Day” then perhaps the best way for us to do that is by being always aware of what we are saying and how we are saying it.  This includes all those places we move about in that are outside the walls of the church’s buildings.  We witness to our faith in God while waiting for the waiter, driving down the road, sitting at our desk, walking our halls, sitting in the stands/recliners/couches/lunch rooms, and shopping.  Maybe even by washing our hands.  One of the church’s saints wrote about honoring God while he washed the dishes at the monastery.

How will you honor God this week?

It’s About Serving Others

7^th Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 14:13-21

“It’s About Serving Others”

How many times do you have to be told something before you remember it?  One of the things I’m still trying to learn is that if something is important then it’s important to tell it over and over again.  The early church must have thought it important that we know the account of the feeding of the multitudes.  This is the only story told in all four gospels.  Two of them included two stories of 4000 and 5000 being miraculously fed.  This must be important.  There has got to be something we dare not miss, so listen again as Matthew tells the story of the feeding of the multitudes.

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. ¹⁵When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” ¹⁷They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” ¹⁸And he said, “Bring them here to me.” ¹⁹Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. ²⁰And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. ²¹And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:13-21 NRSV)

First you need to know that what Jesus heard was that John the Baptizer had been killed as the result of a foolish promise by King Herod following his step-daughter’s dance that would have made even Nigel Lythgoe happy.  Some believe that John had served as Jesus’ mentor and spiritual guide during his formative years.  Jesus may have even been a disciple of John before he was baptized and heard God call him his own beloved Son.  At the least we’re told that John is Jesus’ cousin.  His death was bad news.

But you also need to know that before Matthew told us about John’s death he told us about Jesus’ trip to his home town of Nazareth.  He’d been on a teaching/healing trip and things were going very well until he stopped to visit his family and old friends.  They started remembering him as the little boy who hung around his father’s carpenter shop.  They couldn’t believe that Jesus was someone special and so, “he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.” (Mattew 13:58)  Rejection is a difficult pill to swallow.

Have you ever received bad news?  How did you respond?  Have you ever been rejected?  How did you feel?  Jesus felt a need to talk to God and so decided to go to a deserted place by himself.  Matthew reports that Jesus went away by himself to pray often.  Jesus learned during the wilderness temptation that God was a source of wisdom and power.  If anyone needed wise advice and a source of power at that moment it was Jesus.  You know how he felt.  You’ve been there.

But after he arrived at the deserted place it didn’t stay deserted very long.  Others heard he was there and searched him out.  And before anyone knew what was happening there were 5000 men plus women and children.  I realized this week how many 5000 is.  There aren’t many towns in Missouri with 5000 residents.  How many can you name within 50 miles of Kennett?  That’s a lot of people and they all came to hear him teach and be cured.

This kind of work was the farthest from Jesus mind when he left that morning.  But we learn an important character trait.  Jesus looked at the crowd and had compassion for them.  Compassion is the word that often describes what Jesus is feeling right before he makes a difference in someone’s life.  He saw the crowd “with passion” and decided to do something to help.  Compassion is defined as “to be moved as to one’s bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity)”  We carry this understanding on today when we talk about “gut feelings”. 

How do people see your compassion?  I know about the sports teams and the children and the schools.  You’ve displayed your passion for those things and Delta Children’s Home, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, even 1^st UMC.  Are there other experiences that drive you to action?  The news has recently been reporting about a little girl in the northwest who heard about children without clean drinking water.  She decided that instead of getting birthday presents she’d like her guests to give money to a program that works to provide clean water.  She’d raised a little more than $300 for her cause.  Shortly after her birthday the young girl was killed in an auto accident.  Her parents decided that the best way to honor their daughter was to continue her cause.  Last I saw they’d raised more than $600,000.  Now that’s compassion.  Jesus had compassion for those 5000+ and acted even though he’d come to this deserted place for other reasons.

It was a good day.  Many were healed but Jesus’ disciple noticed the sun going down.  They went to Jesus and asked him to dismiss the crowd so they could go find themselves something to eat.  Can you imagine their surprise when he responded, “They need not go away, YOU FEED THEM.”  Say What?!  I can imagine them taking a quick inventory of their resources; five loaves and two fish.  I wonder if Jesus had to repeat himself.  I wonder if they asked for clarification.  I certainly would have.  Five loaves and two fish weren’t really even enough for the 12 disciples plus Jesus.  The words echoed in their minds, “you feed them.”

When they reported their resources (probably with a frown) Jesus asked that they give the five loaves and two fish to him.  They did.  Then he looked to heaven because Jesus knew that the source of all things is God and he blessed, then broke, then gave the feast back to the disciples.  Wait, I forgot something.  First Jesus had the crowd sit down on the grass.  I’ve often told others that even Jesus couldn’t do anything until everybody sat down and shut up.  (but I doubt Jesus used the words “shut up”)  Before the miracle happened he organized the crowd.  Then he looked to heaven, blest, broke, and gave the Disciple’s back their five loaves and two fish.  Except it wasn’t five loaves and two fish.  It was more.

Many scholars have spent time trying to explain what happened next.  I guess that’s why I’m not a scholar.  I don’t care how it happened.  I don’t want to try to explain the miracle.  Like the gospel writers who told this story six times, I just want you to know today that 5000 men plus women and children were fed that day and afterward twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered by the disciples.

I also want you to notice that the Disciples didn’t give Jesus a half a loaf of bread and two-tenths of a fish.  They didn’t even offer two and a half loaves and one fish.  They gave it all to Jesus.  I know we often talk in terms of a ten percent tithe when we talk about our offerings to God.  But the truth is, if we want to be part of something miraculous we have to offer it all to God.  But notice what happens to the all Jesus received.  After looking to heaven, blessing, and breaking Jesus gave it all back to be distributed for the needs of those for whom he had compassion.  And after everyone had been fed there were twelve baskets left over to feed the disciples where before there had been only five loaves and two fish.

The disciples were called to be the carriers of God’s miracle that day on the deserted hillside.  I believe the early church wanted all those who would become followers of Jesus Christ to claim that role for all eternity.  Too often we see a need, our gut churns within us with compassion and a desire to make a difference but we’re stopped after a quick inventory of our resources.  The problem is so big and what we have is so small.  We ask ourselves what difference we might make and in that question our problem is revealed.  Because the truth is that with our resources we can do very little.  But when we offer those resources to God miracles occur.  The world is changed. People are fed.  Clean water runs free.  Peace begins to break out. And God’s Kingdom comes near.

Why was this story so important to the early church?  One of the essential components of Christian faith is the understanding that God has decided in God’s great witness, to use us to perfect the world.  But we can’t do it by ourselves.  But with God all things are possible.  Become aware of what your gut is telling you this week.  What needs to be done to make Kennett a better place to live?  Who needs help and what  will change the circumstance?  Become aware of your passions, take inventory of your resources, offer it all to God and wait.  The Church tells us that something special will happen.

“The Least We Can Believe; God’s Grace”

Genesis 22:1-14 – The Message

¹ Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

   “Here I am,” he replied.

 ² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

 ³ Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. ⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

 ⁶ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

   “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

   “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

 ⁸ Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

 ⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

   “Here I am,” he replied.

 ¹² “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

 ¹³ Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram^[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

Matthew 10:40-42 – The Message

⁴⁰ “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

Those three words scare me; “God tested Abraham.”  I don’t like tests.  I’ve never liked tests.  I truthfully don’t know anyone who likes tests.  Those who say they do are only that way because they know they know and if you know that you know then it’s not really a test.  Tests imply some uncertainty and with that come danger.  Tests are only helpful if there’s chance that a person might fail. 

Tests imply risk.  We live in a culture trying desperately to avoid risk.  Unless it’s an outlandish risk that we choose (see: bungee jumping, skate board parks, rock climbing, roller coasters, dating, marriage);  At least some of those risks are welcomed by some of us.  But at the same time we need to be reminded that coffee is often very hot, glass will break if bumped against something hard, knives will cut skin, and small round objects may cause choking if swallowed.

I like stories that begin, “Once upon a time” or “It was a dark and stormy night”, or “it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” But that’s not how this story that scares and mystifies us begins.  “God tested Abraham.”

You’d think Abraham had been tested enough by now.  God asked him to leave his ancestral home and go…someplace; to a land that God would show him and where God would provide children more numerous than the grains of sand.  Abraham went.  There were various other tests along involving his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot.  He struggled through them all, sometimes failing, sometimes arguing, and sometimes trying to stack the deck in order to experience the desired results.  (see Ishmael)  The first child of that promise of descendents more numerous than the grains of sand was finally born (when all Abraham and Sarah’s plans were exhausted).  He was named Isaac.

It was the same Isaac that was the son of this test.  Read verse 2.  Read verse 3.  Did you notice anything odd?  This is perhaps the first time that Abraham didn’t question, didn’t argue, didn’t barter God. It doesn’t even say, “After a restless night, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.”  From the beginning of this test, in spite of our own misgivings and the “cringe-factor” of the request, we can see where this is going.  Abraham is going to do what God asks.  At another time and place we read about Jesus who has “set his face toward Jerusalem.”  I imagine the same look on Abraham’s face.

You can read the rest of the story.  It is not complicated.  Abraham and his crew travel three days until they see the where they are going.  The two servants stay behind while Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice and his father carries the knife and fire.  (The two things that Isaac might hurt himself with.) 

We imagine a young boy but some scholars, who like tracing numbers and looking for clues, have figured Isaac’s age at 27.  Maybe he carried the wood because it weighed the most.  After all Abraham is older than any one who is currently a member of 1^st UMC Kennett.

Read the rest.  The only reason anyone can continue now is because we know how it ends.  God provides.  I thought my spell checker would underline that sentence.  But it doesn’t. I know there’s an official name for the part of the sentence that seems to be missing.  We’d like it better if it answered the question, “What?”  God provides good health.  God provides safe travels.  God provides good homes.  God provides wonderful spouses.  God provides protection.  God provides stuff.

But Abraham’s proclamation cannot be modified by human need.  He has come to know simply that, “God provides.”  I believe that understanding of God’s personality is at the heart of the doctrine of grace.  Our belief in God’s grace is one of the essentials of Christian faith.  Grace is at the heart of our understanding of salvation.  I’ve come to understand salvation in terms of our relationship with God.  The salvation God offers is grounded in God’s grace.  Salvation is not earned but offered.  United Methodist’s believe our relationship is based upon God’s grace and so when we gather we do so to praise the One who has given us eternal life.  We don’t come to worship hoping we can please God and receive God’s love.  We come to worship because God loves us and has provided the way for us to enter into eternal salvation (relationship with God). 

So…how does God provide?  I think it’s interesting that the story of Abraham’s sacrifice is smashed together with Matthew’s remembrance of the time Jesus sent his Disciples out into the world to become Apostles.  Disciples are people who follow a Master, learning what the Master has to teach.  An Apostle is someone who takes what was learned as a Disciple and uses it to do the Master’s work.  So Jesus sends them out to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, give without payment, leave your money bag and suitcase at home, trust those who welcome you, leave those who curse you, beware the persecutions that will happen because you do Jesus’ work, trust God for the right words, remember who you work for, be like your Master, do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul, serve the one who can destroy both soul and body. (first part of chapter 10)

Now at the end of the chapter Jesus starts talking about welcoming prophets, righteous ones, and giving a cup of cold water to these little ones who are his Disciples.  Who is he talking to?  He’s talking to me and you and everyone who receives the blessings of one of Jesus’ Apostles.  God calls us to provide.  When we provide we do so because God has told us to do so.  Isn’t that a masterful way of doing things. 

The way we magnify the grace God provides, provides.  Pray about it.

Trinity Sunday – “What Are Essential Christian Beliefs? Power from God”

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 / Matthew 28:16-20

I really don’t like conflict.  Sometimes I even surprise myself at the extreme’s I’ll embrace to avoid upsetting someone or introducing touchy topics.  I’m guessing I’m not alone.  The scriptures suggested for us this morning go a long way to prove that.  It drives home the fact that, when studying God’s Word, it is important to know what goes before and what happens after every scripture quote.  Beware those who pull a verse from one place and smash it together with a verse or verses from someplace else.  It is very easy for such things to change the meaning and intent of Holy Script.

Take for instance today’s readings from 2 Corinthians.  ¹¹Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. ¹²Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. ¹³The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. (NRSV)

Today has been set aside as “Trinity Sunday”; a time to touch on this mysterious way of putting the wonder of God into language and experience humanity can almost understand.  The whole idea comes from trying to answer the question, “Who (or what) is God?”.  Most likely the Words we read today were chosen because they contain the words “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” or at least words (like Jesus Christ) that point toward one of these words (Son).

As Paul ends this letter (perhaps one of two or three that editors have smashed together, or maybe not) he pens what is most likely the most loved and often used benediction in Christian Worship, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.”  There it is, all three images of the Trinity in one beautiful, powerful, succinct sentence.  Grace comes from Jesus (Son).  Love comes from God.  (BTW…I’m told this is the only place in either testament that the phrase “love of God” is used.)  Communion or fellowship comes from the Holy Spirit.  How nice.  You wouldn’t guess this letter was written because of the conflict that had developed between Paul and the people of Corinth.  Translators have titled this last chapter, “Final Warnings.”

The Message….¹ This will be my third visit to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”^{[a] 2} I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, ³ since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. ⁴ For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him in our dealing with you.

Sounds to me like Paul is setting the stage for a final showdown between his understanding of God’s gospel of Jesus Christ and that of those he called “super-apostles”.  (I don’t think that was a compliment.)  Much of the letter is written to reclaim Paul’s authority as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  I learned this week that authority could be defined as “followability”.  Paul wants them to remember why they chose to follow him towards God’s vision of life and the vision of Good News first revealed to Paul by a blinding flash of light on the road to Damascus to imprison followers of “The Way” to God proclaimed by Jesus.

You can taste the conflict dripping from the first 5 verses of this thirteenth chapter.  The next 10 tell the Corinthians how to live through this conflict.  ⁵Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test! ⁶I hope you will find out that we have not failed. ⁷But we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. ⁸For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. ⁹For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. This is what we pray for, that you may become perfect. ¹⁰So I write these things while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in using the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. (NRSV)

Now we can hear what Paul is trying to say about how to connect to the power God offers.  The NRSV translates, “Finally …..farewell.”  A commentary suggested that the NIV was more accurate, “Finally….rejoice!”  I guess the NRSV (and the KJV, RSV, NRSV, ASV, CEB, CEV, GNB, NCV) couldn’t imagine Paul suggesting a time to rejoice.  They thought the situation demanded a stern “farewell.”  But others (NIV, NASV, Darby, ESV, NLT, TNIV, The Message) used the words “rejoice!” or “be cheerful!” always with an exclamation point.  Most likely because they realize that Paul knows something about power that the powers of this world don’t.  God’s way of life is power.  God’s vision for life provides power.  God is power.  In God’s vision for life we discover the connection between power and love.  When the kind of LOVE God practices is revealed, it overpowers every other practice of power.  That is the source of the “rejoice!”.  Paul knows what the super-apostles don’t.  Paul wants us all to experience the same kind of power he did on the Damascus road.  This kind of LOVE is not easy or simple or soft.  The God of LOVE changes everything.

Matthew ends his Gospel with an amazing display of that LOVE.  Chapter 28 begins with Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary on their way to Jesus’ tomb as morning dawned.  “And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.”(NRSV-Mt 28:2)  The guards froze while the angel told the women that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  They were invited to see the place where Jesus used to be and then told to rush to tell the Disciples the news and that Jesus would meet them in Galilee.  On the way the women met the risen Jesus and worshiped him.

Matthew says nothing about Jesus appearing in a locked room to comfort his followers.  He doesn’t mention a sea-side breakfast or the Emmaus road.  Instead Jesus meets his Disciples on a mountain in Galilee where it was prophesied that the light of the world was first suppose to shine.  While the Disciples journeyed, the powers of the Temple and Rome got their story straight, “Jesus’ disciples had come in the night and stolen Jesus’ body.”  They paid the bribe and made the pact and promised to protect each other’s back.

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)

The Message translates a key verse, “The moment [the Disciples] saw [Jesus] they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.”  My first instinct is to think how odd that those who were actual witnesses to the risen Christ were not all of one accord in their worship.  I want to be amazed at their lack of faith in the evidence before them.  I’d like for Jesus to divide the faithful from the unfaithful right there; sheep on the right, goats on the left.  Goats on their way to wherever goats go and the faithful into the world with a commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)  That would be justice.  That would display the kind of power I think I want God to wield.         

But….I see myself in those old goats if I stare into the image too long.  Maybe you do to.  If I follow Paul’s advice to self examination, the truth, the testing and trying; I find a goat where there ought to be a child reclaimed by God’s LOVE.  Too often I still don’t act like a child of God through the grace of Jesus Christ in communion with the Holy Spirit.  I do pretty well within this sanctuary but out there….outside these walls….away from the safety and security of the saints that fill this place, I’m a goat.  We forget that God’s LOVE is meant to empower us everywhere.  It is not limited to this holy sanctuary.  We’re suppose to carry it with us to our ball games, civic club meetings, work places, break rooms, restaurants, homes, into the heart of every peaceful moment and conflicted relationship that’s part of our life.  And so I need the Good News.

And the Good News is that even in the face of worship and doubt, Jesus gave us the full measure of his trust and called us all to go and make community for God’s House.  Jesus passed along to us the source of the ultimate power that did and does and will change the world, completing with one mighty breath, the creation God envisioned when all that existed was chaos.

To misquote an important thought, the problem is not that God’s LOVE has been tried and found lacking.  It is that truly living and practicing God’s LOVE for the world has been tried, found difficult, and abandoned in favor of our own way acting upon the world.  Our way produces Sin and hell.  God’s way, described as the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the LOVE of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will produce paradise.  We’re reminded that even when we fail the test, the LOVE of God is more powerful than our failure.  That’s why Paul can end his letter with “rejoice!”  God has chosen.  God has chosen to LOVE us and there is nothing we can do about it.  That’s power.

“The Least We Can Believe: Jesus Christ is Lord”

Pentecost

John 7:37-39 / Acts 2:1-21

“The Least We Can Believe:  Jesus Christ is Lord”

I left this year’s meeting of the Missouri Annual Conference last Monday just a little after noon.  It was a good and Spirit filled four days as we gathered around the theme, “Extravagant Generosity”, not only hearing reports of its sightings but also participating in this; one of the essential practices of fruitful congregations.  (Total Offerings received during the 4 day meeting = $145,603. Last year’s total offering was $37,212)

While driving north on 65 to Pomme de Terre, I became aware of all the hay fields that line the highway.  I’m guessing with all the rain it has been a very good year to make hay.  There were fields filled with hundreds of big round bales.  The aroma of fresh cut and raked hay filled the air.  It caused me to flash back to the old, old days when I spent several summers “bucking” smaller, squarer 50-60 pound cousins of today’s five foot round, 2000 pound bales of food.

I can’t help but wonder at the difference in the equipment used now-a-days.  When I was part of a four-man (15 year olds) hay crew, we were given the oldest truck or tractor available.  The one with bald tires that had to be parked facing down a hill if you wanted to start it again when you stopped.  The wagons were creaky and rusty with loose floor boards on the bed.  We used one that we couldn’t all ride on the same side or the bed would fall off the frame.  Most the tractors were named Massey, or Co-op (that one had to be hand cranked to start).  But undoubtedly the most interesting was a John Deere B.  Because their two-cylinder engines created a distinctive “pop”…no “POP!!” when they started or were under load they were simply called “Johnny Poppers”.

Many design features made Johnny Poppers unique; a big fly wheel on the side, separate brake pedals for each back wheel that were located over the axle on each side of the seat (want to stop the left wheel, reach back with your left foot to the pedal on the left and depress – same on the right using right foot – want to stop both wheels, use one foot on each side of the seat and depress the pedal)  Perhaps the most difficult to learn to use smoothly was the clutch, which was operated by a four foot lever located to the right of the steering wheel.  Push it forward to engage the clutch and pull it back to disengage.

I realize that most of you don’t know much about clutches.  Automatic transmissions are currently in style and have been proven to provide better gas mileage and require less maintenance.  So let me offer a simple explanation.  The reason for the clutch is to provide a way to connect a working, running engine to the wheels of a vehicle so it will move.  The clutch pedal (or lever) pushes a clutch plate toward an engine’s flywheel (which is being turned by the engine) causing the flywheel to contact the clutch plate which is connected to the wheels making them also turn.

There is a delicate time when the clutch plate makes contact with the fly wheel that is fraught with possibilities.  If it happens to slowly the clutch will “burn”.  If it happens to quickly the tractor will jump forward.  Remember the operator is reaching forward to engage the clutch with a lever.  If the tractor jumps forward and the driver keeps hold of the clutch his backward motion will disengage the clutch and then you’ve got to do it all over again (after you pick up your buddies and all the hay that fell of the wagon).  Transferring motion from an object that is moving to one that is not is a dangerous and often frightening and always exhilarating experience.  Just ask the Disciples of Jesus who were sitting in the room waiting during that first Christian Pentecost.

As Luke wrote the story of the early church in the book we’ve named “the Acts of the Apostles” (Acts for short).  He described the gathered Disciples of Jesus all together in one place in Jerusalem. 

“…and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” (Acts 2:1-4 NRSV)

Pentecost was already a feast day for the people of God.  The harvest festival of Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai fifty days after the Exodus.  Jerusalem was filled with the faithful who had come to make their offerings at the temple and thank God for the rules (Ten Commandments) that were given to bring life and purpose to a wandering people as they journeyed to The Promised Land.  They heard the sound of the strong-gale force wind sounding like a wild-fire, one that described God’s mighty works in their various mother tongues. (from Acts 2:5-11 The Message)  All were amazed and perplexed asking what it all means.  Others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Pentecost is an amazing reflection on what happens when the clutch is engaged.  It describes the scene when God’s creative engine is engaged by those who were created in God’s image – fire and smoke and the mighty winds that first blew over the chaos described in Genesis 1.  It was awesome!

I’ve come to understand our yearly meeting of the Annual Conference as a time when those gathered are made more intentionally aware of what the Holy Spirit is doing.  We used to argue and fight a lot more about leadership and budget.  I know of few retired pastors who would turn over in their grave at the idea of passing an Annual Conference Budget with no discussion or amendments.  It used to take most of a day to approve what ended up looking mostly like what was originally submitted by those we choose to lead such things.  This year’s budget discussion lasted all of maybe three minutes.  (I’m sure it helps that there’s a whole afternoon workshop set aside for such discussions away from the Bar of the Conference.)

Conference today is filled with worship, amazing sermons, reports and workshops designed to help us experience the work of the Spirit as it has manifested itself in the lives of other Christians.  It is almost impossible to not begin thinking and praying about ways the people with whom we serve God locally can connect to God’s work in the same way.  So when I see some of 1^st UMC’s youth helping to lead worship I start to ask God how we could use those gifts here in the same way.  When I hear about the work others are doing on College Campuses I start to ask how we could invite students at SEMO-Kennett and Twin Rivers-Kennett to join us for the glory of God’s House and the redemption of the world.  And when I hear that the Conference plans to appoint a pastor for a new ministry with the Spanish speaking population in and around Kennett I wonder what new wine they’ve been drinking and what we can do to help ferment the presence revealed in bread and juice to all God’s people.

I’ve come to see the Annual Conference as a kind of clutch, designed to help us engage with God’s work that is already in motion.  Truth be told, it is not “new” ministry that we’re being asked to offer the world.  It is the same work God began and has continued throughout history.  The Bible tells its story.  Kennett’s Saints have witnessed its progress and helped us see who God is and what God wants and how we can live putting Christ first, the same Holy Spirit whose presence was revealed in Kennett, Missouri back in the 1840’s when the people living here called their home “Butler”.

We’re going to spend a few weeks talking about the essentials of Christian faith.  I’ve come to believe that the most essential tenet is faith that Jesus Christ is Lord.  Christians have to believe above all else that if they get their relationship with God through Jesus Christ right….everything else will work out.  That right relationship is at the center of what we call “salvation.”  That makes Jesus Christ, Lord of everything; and everything includes everything.  There is no thing or one who is not under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We often don’t agree on the “how” of Christian life.  I’m still sometimes lost at Annual Conference because of the songs we sing.  The old, old hymns still speak to my soul.  I don’t yet understand how to measure the Christian concepts like “faithful” and “fruitful” and “effective”.  I wonder, now that I am getting old, what role the older can fill.  (as I wondered what role the young could fill when I was young)  I wonder why so many people, clergy and laity, like to talk about “my” church when it is obvious that the church doesn’t belong to them or to me or to anyone but Christ. 

But in the midst of it all I believe that if we all live as if Jesus Christ is Lord we can connect to what God has, is, and will be doing through the Holy Spirit that is God’s presence with us in this moment; and this one, and this one. 

That’s what the Confirmation Class claimed today.  They were asked, “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?”  Do you?

If so…answer by saying, “I do.”  I can feel the friction God’s Spirit fires our spirits.  Hang on.  It is going to be an excellent adventure.

Storms

I dreamed of tornados last night.  Most likely because we’re five days past one that devastated a town on the other side of southern Missouri, Joplin. It was the biggest of many that have swept the U.S. during these seasons of Lent and Easter.  It has also been a season of storms, literal and figurative.  Where is safety from an F-5′s power or the predicted end of earth.  News coverage has shown the first, our minds have played with the possibility of the second.  Where is God?  Who is God?  Why God?

Below is a prayer from Bruce Sanguin’s, If Darwin Prayed,  (http://hackingchristianity.net/2011/05/if-darwin-prayed-bruce-sanguin-review.html)

God Bless the Holdouts

O Risen One,
help us to tease out this sacred tangle:
you, in the Father;
us, in you;
all entwined by Spirit?
A holy braid, not weakened by us?

In fact, you say, a lifeline for the lost,
with the power to forgive sin,
to forge new futures not tethered to the worst
that has happened to us
but rather to the best that you have in store for us?

Forgive us if we, like Thomas,
hold out for just a bit
to touch the holes in your hands and your side,
and to take a peek where life’s thorns have punctured our hope.

But there you are,
enfleshed in today’s tortured,
in the left-behinds and the lonely,
and in our own refusal to give in to despair.

You rise up, again and again,
in the doubters and the holdouts,
who, more deeply than most,
want to believe in the power of resurrection.
Amen.

LORD, help me see your presence in all that surrounds me.  May I take my place in your creation with joy and determination.  May all I say, think, and do bring a smile to YOUR face.