"But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works" James 2:18
When my son Edward was just a toddler, I would stand him up on the table and call for him to jump from the table into my arms. Did Edward believe I would catch him? Yes. How did I know he believed? Because he jumped. Suppose he wouldn't jump. "Do you believe I will catch you, Edward?" I might coax, and he may nod yes. But if he never jumps, does he really believe I will catch him? No. Faith is active, not passive. Faith takes a stand. Faith makes a move. Faith speaks up.
There are a lot of Christians who claim to have great faith in God but are spiritually lethargic and don't do anything. Faith without action is not faith; it's dead, meaningless (James 2:17, 18)! If it isn't expressed, it isn't faith. In order to believe God and His Word, we must do what He says. If you don't do what He says, you don't really believe Him. Faith and action are inseparable.
Sadly, one of the common pictures of the church today is of a group of people with an assumed faith but little action. We're thankful that our sins are forgiven and that Jesus is preparing a place in heaven for us, but we're basically cowering in fear and defeat in the world, just hanging on until the rapture. We treat the church as if it's a hospital. We get together to compare wounds and hold each other's hands, yearning for Jesus to come take us away.
The church is not a hospital; it's a military outpost under orders to storm the gates of hell. Every believer is on active duty, called to take part in fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19, 20). Thankfully the church has an infirmary where we can minister to the weak and wounded, and that ministry is necessary. But our real purpose is to be change agents in the world, taking a stand, living by faith, and accomplishing something for God. You can say you believe God and His Word. But if you are not actively involved in His plan, are you really a mature believer? Amen and Amen.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
A Second Chance in Life
The setting of today’s sermon is a church in the city of Antioch. It is the largest city of Syria at the time. Located 300 miles north of Jerusalem, it has become a settlement for many Jewish people. A church has been started and the congregation has been growing and prospering. The Bible tells that the believers are first called Christians in this church. And things have gone well, but now God is forcing their hand to get beyond their doors. And the congregation responds by sending out the very first missionary team.
The team consisted of Paul, Barnabas, as well as young John Mark. Who was John Mark? We learn in the book of Colossians that John Mark was a cousin, sometimes translated nephew, to Barnabas. His mother, Mary had a house in Jerusalem where the believers would meet regularly.
He was a young man with the right connections and though young in his faith, he was given the opportunity to be a part of the first great missionary journey; a journey that would go down in the pages of the Bible to be remembered for all time. What a great opportunity and he had to be so excited to be a part of it.
The glorious sounding journey has been transformed into the day to day struggle of sailing and working and toiling. Food is scarce, the journey is long. The sun beats down every day. And these long dreary days are interrupted by moments of opposition, rejection and even persecution.
I know someone who works for the railroad. He told me that this life on the train consists of huge stretches of boredom interspersed with terrifying moments of panic. There is very little in between. I think that was probably what life was like of John Mark.
And after a while, he decided that this perhaps was not what he wanted to do with his life. Chapter 15, verses 37-38 tells us very clearly that John Mark had deserted Paul and Barnabas in the middle of their journey. Deserted is a strong word. They needed him and he was not there.
So here we have a young man that in one sense is a failure, he quit, and he gave up. John Mark was entrusted with a great responsibility, yet he failed in it. If that was the end of the story, it would be depressing.
Let me tell you the story of another man. This man went bankrupt at 22. The year he went into politics he was defeated. The next year he started in business again and failed. The next year he was elected to legislature. At 29 he had a nervous breakdown and everyone thought he was finished in politics. A few years later he was defeated for speaker of the house. A few years later defeated for office of state elector. At 34 he ran for land officer and was defeated. That same year he ran for congress and was defeated. Two years later he ran for congress and was defeated again. A few years later ran for congress and were defeated for the third time. Later ran for senate and was defeated. Following year he lost in Vice President Nomination. A few years later he was defeated in second bid for senate. Yet in 1860 he was elected as the 16th President of the United States of America. This was Abraham Lincoln, who was beaten to his knees time and time again. He was called a failure. He was ridiculed, but he gained strength through God, understood second chances, and led the United States through one of her toughest times.
History of every nation is filled with those who stumbled but came back stronger.
A failure is not someone that falls down, but someone who never even tries, never gets up, never learns that God is their only source of strength, and never learns about the glories of grace and the wonders of a second chance.
John Mark failed but John Mark would not stay a failure. That is the key. Failure is part of life. Every one has failed one time or other.
The reason we fail is that we risk something. We try new things, changing jobs, falling in love, starting a business. We risk failure when we try anything new. The only way to avoid failure is to never reach out, remaining fixed where you are. We will never become what God wants us to be unless we risk failure.
So we need to remember that everybody fails. It is universal.
And we need to understand that it is impossible to succeed without some measure of failure.
When a child learns to walk they fall down. It takes failure at times to learn and grow. How did you learn to ride a bicycle? You fell down and got back up. And so success is really a matter of getting up one more time.
And we need a positive mindset, maybe I have messed up, but God will give me a second chance and I will make the most of it. This failure can shape me and strengthened me and make me stronger. It is just adding to the overall picture of my life, a picture not of failure but overcoming adversity.
Some people do not understand that until later on in life. Sometimes they never see it. In this world, often our life seems like a jumble of poor choices, bad breaks and crushing failures, but viewed from the top side we will be able to see how those trials were shaping the picture of our life.
Cross-stitching is taking the thread and basically sewing a picture onto canvas. But if your ever looked at the underside of a cross stitch, it looks like a total mess from the back. But if you look at it from the top, you see it makes sense.
I am sure that John Mark, at this point, thought his life resembled the back of the cross stitch. But he was given a second chance and he made the most of it and his life became a beautiful picture for God.
What is it that you have stumbled at? What do you need a second chance at? I am sure you can think of something. We all can. You see John Mark is one person we can all relate to.
I think it is so easy when we read the stories in the Bible to put ourselves in the position of the person who is right. If it is the story of the rich man and Lazarus, we see ourselves as Lazarus. If it is the Pharisee and the taxman praying at the temple, we picture ourselves as the taxman whose prayer was pleasing to God.
But in the story of John Mark, and his desertion, it has never occurred to me to put myself in the place of Paul or Barnabas. I always see myself as John Mark, because I know how often I fail. I am John Mark. You are John Mark. We all Fail.
What is it you are failing in? Prayer time? Tithing? Involvement in Church? Morality? Sharing your faith?
There was a woman who failed in marriage so many times. One day she sat in a restaurant staring at a gentleman…finally he went over to her and said, “Do I know you, you kept on staring at me. She said, “I was thinking, you look just like my third husband.” He said, oh, you been married three times? She said, “No, twice.”
Well, some fail in marriage, some fail in business, some financially, some spiritually and morally. What do you need a second chance in?
Have you ever set a goal and failed to reach it? I have. Have you ever striven to be a spiritual giant, and ended up being disappointed? I have. And so we all need a John Mark, someone we can look to with empathy, and learn from, because we have been there too.
What happened to John Mark? We do not know why he went home, but as we saw a moment ago, the writer of Acts uses a word, translated as deserted; it is the same Greek word we get apostasy from.
Giving up is a serious matter, because the road was too tough, home was too far way, and the courage was not there yet. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Maybe it was not a sudden thing. Maybe the spiritual fire inside has not gone out, but it has gotten less and less over time. Somewhere alone the line, it started downhill. We try to live on level ground all the time, but life has its valleys as well. Maybe we were not ready for that, and we all of a sudden started to go downhill.
Maybe priorities got mixed up. What used to be first is now third place. Maybe that is how it is with us. Tithing used to be important, but now, I will give a few dollars if I think about it. Reading our Bible and praying used to be up on the list, but you know I am so busy these days. The family used to be here and the job here, but now no longer the case. We need to make a decision to put our priorities back where they belong.
Let us go back to John Mark, only this time the setting is in Jerusalem. There he is sitting at home, and no matter where he looks or what he sees; it has a way of reminding him of his uncle and Paul still out there. It kept on reminding him, “John you lost your chance. You had one of the greatest opportunities a young man ever had. You could have been with these two Godly men on a journey that will forever be remembered in history, but you could not take it. You gave up, you failed. There is not much greater than the regret of saying, “I blew it.”
The saddest words of tongue or pen are these four words, “It might have been.”
I had an opportunity to get that job, buy that property, invite those people to church, help that person in need, make that decision for Christ. The voice of remorse always seems to remind us of these things. I pray that no one here, will get to the end of their life and that could be any day, and have to regret in not making a decision to give their life to Christ, because that is a regret that will last for eternity.
Well, John surely has a great deal of regret and you can almost hear his conscience. “John Mark, I wonder where Paul is tonight. I wonder if your uncle is hungry. I wonder if they are in danger. I wonder if you could help them. I wonder if they need you now.”
And so his conscience eats at him. Many of the Christians in Jerusalem would meet at his home to observe the Lord’s Supper. What is he thinking every time he sits around the Lord’s Table? He is thinking, Jesus, Jesus, you went to the cross, you stuck it out for me, but I could not stick it out for you.” And his conscience eats at him. And I imagine John Mark repented and begged God for a second chance.
What does God do whenever any of us come and say, “God, I blew up! I quit. I made a mess of it. And I want another chance.” It is called repentance. We repent when we become Christians, but it does not end there. Repentance is not just sorrow, it is a change of action, a change of character and it continues as long as we fail, which is throughout our lives.
Five years later in the Bible, there is a second missionary journey that is being planned. Paul and Barnabas are planning on going again….Paul has already lined up a young man by the name of Silas to go with him, but John Mark has had five years of growing up, five years to think about his failure. And he comes and says, “Let me go. I blew the first chance, I quit, I know, but I am sorry, and I won’t fail you again. Please let me go.” And Paul said “NO!”
I am not sure what to make of this? We can be quick to condemn Paul, but he had his reasons. He was devoted to the Lord’s work, and obviously thought it would be better not take John Mark.
However, John’s uncle Barnabas is wiling to give him a second chance. Paul and Barnabas decide then, to split up. Paul took Silas, and Barnabas took John Mark.
Thank God for the Barnabases in life that pat you on the back and say, hey, don’t worry about it, let us try it again.” Barnabas name means encouragement, and that is what he was to John Mark. He gave John a second chance, and that is what the great grace and mercy of God is all about. He gives His children second chances and third and fourth and fifth.
We need to learn that when it is over it is over. God forgives. You may remember that date, or that marriage, or that thing that took place in your life. But God forgives us, he gives us another chance. And the Barnabases in life that say, I believe in you, I forgive you, I know you make a mess, but I love you. We need to take that advice and get on with our lives, get back right with God, and do our best not to fail him again.
Five years had gone by, and John Mark had his second chance. Did he make the most of it? Well we do not know much about the specifics of Barnabas and John Mark’s journey because the focus shifted to Paul. But we do know ten years later the Apostle Simon Peter writes a letter to the church in Asia.
In 1 Peter 5:13, he says, “The church in Babylon sends you her greeting, as does my son John Mark.”
His son in the ministry. John Mark came a long way. And I think Peter knew John as a boy, and I think he knew of John’s failure, and I think Peter got a hold of him and said, “Son, look at me, do you know who I am? I denied the Lord three times of the very night of his death.”
And he took John Mark under his wing and John served the Lord faithfully.
And what of Paul, Paul who refused to let John Mark go again? Listen to the words of 2 Timothy 4:9-13:
Do your best to come to be quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmaia. Only Luke is with me. Get John Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.
Did you see it? Bring my cloak, my scrolls, the parchments, and what else? That’s right, BRING JOHN MARK!
What happened to John Mark in the end? What happened to this scared boy, who failed the first time and went running home? He got his second chance and he made the most of it. John Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark, which is considered to be the oldest of the Gospels. It is the Gospel that gives the overview of Jesus’ life. It was written to bring people to the confession or understanding that Jesus really was the Messiah.
It was written, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, by young John Mark. Church history tells us that the churches in Ethiopia and Egypt were started by John Mark. The symbol that was used in the early church to stand for the name of Mark was a lion. A lion does not sound like a chicken. A lion does not sound like a coward. A lion does not sound like a quitter.
We need to see the roadblocks in life just as barriers that need to be crossed and gone around and through. They are a part of life, and they are needed. There is an old song that says “There is no victory without a battle, no crown without a cross, no resurrection without a death, no empty tomb without a Calvary, no sunrise without a sunset, no maturity without hardship, no successes without failures.”
Each and every one of us here today will face setbacks in our life, and I want to emphasize that some of those will hit at your faith in God. The good news is that God always gives us second chances.
Maybe your life has not been worth much up till now, maybe you have made a mess of it, maybe you failed. I just want to emphasis this morning that it can all be changed by the touch of the Master’s Hand.
Ephesians 2:4 says “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”
I want to tell you this morning that our God is rich in mercy. We have a God that delights in second chances. If you need one, repent of your sins and confess him as Lord. Pledge your heart to god and you will receive your second chance.
If you have already received one, make the most of it. May His name be blessed day by day. Amen.
The team consisted of Paul, Barnabas, as well as young John Mark. Who was John Mark? We learn in the book of Colossians that John Mark was a cousin, sometimes translated nephew, to Barnabas. His mother, Mary had a house in Jerusalem where the believers would meet regularly.
He was a young man with the right connections and though young in his faith, he was given the opportunity to be a part of the first great missionary journey; a journey that would go down in the pages of the Bible to be remembered for all time. What a great opportunity and he had to be so excited to be a part of it.
The glorious sounding journey has been transformed into the day to day struggle of sailing and working and toiling. Food is scarce, the journey is long. The sun beats down every day. And these long dreary days are interrupted by moments of opposition, rejection and even persecution.
I know someone who works for the railroad. He told me that this life on the train consists of huge stretches of boredom interspersed with terrifying moments of panic. There is very little in between. I think that was probably what life was like of John Mark.
And after a while, he decided that this perhaps was not what he wanted to do with his life. Chapter 15, verses 37-38 tells us very clearly that John Mark had deserted Paul and Barnabas in the middle of their journey. Deserted is a strong word. They needed him and he was not there.
So here we have a young man that in one sense is a failure, he quit, and he gave up. John Mark was entrusted with a great responsibility, yet he failed in it. If that was the end of the story, it would be depressing.
Let me tell you the story of another man. This man went bankrupt at 22. The year he went into politics he was defeated. The next year he started in business again and failed. The next year he was elected to legislature. At 29 he had a nervous breakdown and everyone thought he was finished in politics. A few years later he was defeated for speaker of the house. A few years later defeated for office of state elector. At 34 he ran for land officer and was defeated. That same year he ran for congress and was defeated. Two years later he ran for congress and was defeated again. A few years later ran for congress and were defeated for the third time. Later ran for senate and was defeated. Following year he lost in Vice President Nomination. A few years later he was defeated in second bid for senate. Yet in 1860 he was elected as the 16th President of the United States of America. This was Abraham Lincoln, who was beaten to his knees time and time again. He was called a failure. He was ridiculed, but he gained strength through God, understood second chances, and led the United States through one of her toughest times.
History of every nation is filled with those who stumbled but came back stronger.
A failure is not someone that falls down, but someone who never even tries, never gets up, never learns that God is their only source of strength, and never learns about the glories of grace and the wonders of a second chance.
John Mark failed but John Mark would not stay a failure. That is the key. Failure is part of life. Every one has failed one time or other.
The reason we fail is that we risk something. We try new things, changing jobs, falling in love, starting a business. We risk failure when we try anything new. The only way to avoid failure is to never reach out, remaining fixed where you are. We will never become what God wants us to be unless we risk failure.
So we need to remember that everybody fails. It is universal.
And we need to understand that it is impossible to succeed without some measure of failure.
When a child learns to walk they fall down. It takes failure at times to learn and grow. How did you learn to ride a bicycle? You fell down and got back up. And so success is really a matter of getting up one more time.
And we need a positive mindset, maybe I have messed up, but God will give me a second chance and I will make the most of it. This failure can shape me and strengthened me and make me stronger. It is just adding to the overall picture of my life, a picture not of failure but overcoming adversity.
Some people do not understand that until later on in life. Sometimes they never see it. In this world, often our life seems like a jumble of poor choices, bad breaks and crushing failures, but viewed from the top side we will be able to see how those trials were shaping the picture of our life.
Cross-stitching is taking the thread and basically sewing a picture onto canvas. But if your ever looked at the underside of a cross stitch, it looks like a total mess from the back. But if you look at it from the top, you see it makes sense.
I am sure that John Mark, at this point, thought his life resembled the back of the cross stitch. But he was given a second chance and he made the most of it and his life became a beautiful picture for God.
What is it that you have stumbled at? What do you need a second chance at? I am sure you can think of something. We all can. You see John Mark is one person we can all relate to.
I think it is so easy when we read the stories in the Bible to put ourselves in the position of the person who is right. If it is the story of the rich man and Lazarus, we see ourselves as Lazarus. If it is the Pharisee and the taxman praying at the temple, we picture ourselves as the taxman whose prayer was pleasing to God.
But in the story of John Mark, and his desertion, it has never occurred to me to put myself in the place of Paul or Barnabas. I always see myself as John Mark, because I know how often I fail. I am John Mark. You are John Mark. We all Fail.
What is it you are failing in? Prayer time? Tithing? Involvement in Church? Morality? Sharing your faith?
There was a woman who failed in marriage so many times. One day she sat in a restaurant staring at a gentleman…finally he went over to her and said, “Do I know you, you kept on staring at me. She said, “I was thinking, you look just like my third husband.” He said, oh, you been married three times? She said, “No, twice.”
Well, some fail in marriage, some fail in business, some financially, some spiritually and morally. What do you need a second chance in?
Have you ever set a goal and failed to reach it? I have. Have you ever striven to be a spiritual giant, and ended up being disappointed? I have. And so we all need a John Mark, someone we can look to with empathy, and learn from, because we have been there too.
What happened to John Mark? We do not know why he went home, but as we saw a moment ago, the writer of Acts uses a word, translated as deserted; it is the same Greek word we get apostasy from.
Giving up is a serious matter, because the road was too tough, home was too far way, and the courage was not there yet. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Maybe it was not a sudden thing. Maybe the spiritual fire inside has not gone out, but it has gotten less and less over time. Somewhere alone the line, it started downhill. We try to live on level ground all the time, but life has its valleys as well. Maybe we were not ready for that, and we all of a sudden started to go downhill.
Maybe priorities got mixed up. What used to be first is now third place. Maybe that is how it is with us. Tithing used to be important, but now, I will give a few dollars if I think about it. Reading our Bible and praying used to be up on the list, but you know I am so busy these days. The family used to be here and the job here, but now no longer the case. We need to make a decision to put our priorities back where they belong.
Let us go back to John Mark, only this time the setting is in Jerusalem. There he is sitting at home, and no matter where he looks or what he sees; it has a way of reminding him of his uncle and Paul still out there. It kept on reminding him, “John you lost your chance. You had one of the greatest opportunities a young man ever had. You could have been with these two Godly men on a journey that will forever be remembered in history, but you could not take it. You gave up, you failed. There is not much greater than the regret of saying, “I blew it.”
The saddest words of tongue or pen are these four words, “It might have been.”
I had an opportunity to get that job, buy that property, invite those people to church, help that person in need, make that decision for Christ. The voice of remorse always seems to remind us of these things. I pray that no one here, will get to the end of their life and that could be any day, and have to regret in not making a decision to give their life to Christ, because that is a regret that will last for eternity.
Well, John surely has a great deal of regret and you can almost hear his conscience. “John Mark, I wonder where Paul is tonight. I wonder if your uncle is hungry. I wonder if they are in danger. I wonder if you could help them. I wonder if they need you now.”
And so his conscience eats at him. Many of the Christians in Jerusalem would meet at his home to observe the Lord’s Supper. What is he thinking every time he sits around the Lord’s Table? He is thinking, Jesus, Jesus, you went to the cross, you stuck it out for me, but I could not stick it out for you.” And his conscience eats at him. And I imagine John Mark repented and begged God for a second chance.
What does God do whenever any of us come and say, “God, I blew up! I quit. I made a mess of it. And I want another chance.” It is called repentance. We repent when we become Christians, but it does not end there. Repentance is not just sorrow, it is a change of action, a change of character and it continues as long as we fail, which is throughout our lives.
Five years later in the Bible, there is a second missionary journey that is being planned. Paul and Barnabas are planning on going again….Paul has already lined up a young man by the name of Silas to go with him, but John Mark has had five years of growing up, five years to think about his failure. And he comes and says, “Let me go. I blew the first chance, I quit, I know, but I am sorry, and I won’t fail you again. Please let me go.” And Paul said “NO!”
I am not sure what to make of this? We can be quick to condemn Paul, but he had his reasons. He was devoted to the Lord’s work, and obviously thought it would be better not take John Mark.
However, John’s uncle Barnabas is wiling to give him a second chance. Paul and Barnabas decide then, to split up. Paul took Silas, and Barnabas took John Mark.
Thank God for the Barnabases in life that pat you on the back and say, hey, don’t worry about it, let us try it again.” Barnabas name means encouragement, and that is what he was to John Mark. He gave John a second chance, and that is what the great grace and mercy of God is all about. He gives His children second chances and third and fourth and fifth.
We need to learn that when it is over it is over. God forgives. You may remember that date, or that marriage, or that thing that took place in your life. But God forgives us, he gives us another chance. And the Barnabases in life that say, I believe in you, I forgive you, I know you make a mess, but I love you. We need to take that advice and get on with our lives, get back right with God, and do our best not to fail him again.
Five years had gone by, and John Mark had his second chance. Did he make the most of it? Well we do not know much about the specifics of Barnabas and John Mark’s journey because the focus shifted to Paul. But we do know ten years later the Apostle Simon Peter writes a letter to the church in Asia.
In 1 Peter 5:13, he says, “The church in Babylon sends you her greeting, as does my son John Mark.”
His son in the ministry. John Mark came a long way. And I think Peter knew John as a boy, and I think he knew of John’s failure, and I think Peter got a hold of him and said, “Son, look at me, do you know who I am? I denied the Lord three times of the very night of his death.”
And he took John Mark under his wing and John served the Lord faithfully.
And what of Paul, Paul who refused to let John Mark go again? Listen to the words of 2 Timothy 4:9-13:
Do your best to come to be quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmaia. Only Luke is with me. Get John Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.
Did you see it? Bring my cloak, my scrolls, the parchments, and what else? That’s right, BRING JOHN MARK!
What happened to John Mark in the end? What happened to this scared boy, who failed the first time and went running home? He got his second chance and he made the most of it. John Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark, which is considered to be the oldest of the Gospels. It is the Gospel that gives the overview of Jesus’ life. It was written to bring people to the confession or understanding that Jesus really was the Messiah.
It was written, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, by young John Mark. Church history tells us that the churches in Ethiopia and Egypt were started by John Mark. The symbol that was used in the early church to stand for the name of Mark was a lion. A lion does not sound like a chicken. A lion does not sound like a coward. A lion does not sound like a quitter.
We need to see the roadblocks in life just as barriers that need to be crossed and gone around and through. They are a part of life, and they are needed. There is an old song that says “There is no victory without a battle, no crown without a cross, no resurrection without a death, no empty tomb without a Calvary, no sunrise without a sunset, no maturity without hardship, no successes without failures.”
Each and every one of us here today will face setbacks in our life, and I want to emphasize that some of those will hit at your faith in God. The good news is that God always gives us second chances.
Maybe your life has not been worth much up till now, maybe you have made a mess of it, maybe you failed. I just want to emphasis this morning that it can all be changed by the touch of the Master’s Hand.
Ephesians 2:4 says “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”
I want to tell you this morning that our God is rich in mercy. We have a God that delights in second chances. If you need one, repent of your sins and confess him as Lord. Pledge your heart to god and you will receive your second chance.
If you have already received one, make the most of it. May His name be blessed day by day. Amen.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Genesis 45:1-15
Let us Pray: Breathe on us, O God, that we may be filled with your Spirit - and led by your living word - Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless the word of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. We ask it in his name. Amen.
I would like to tell you a story today. Listen to it.
Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength. People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. "This horse is not a horse to me," he would tell them. "It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?"
The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse. One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. "You old fool," they scoffed, "we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high. Now the horse is gone, and you 've been cursed with misfortune."
The old man responded, "Don't speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I've been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?"
The people contested, "Don't make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse."
The old man spoke again. "All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don't know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can't say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?"
The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn't, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.
After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn't been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. "Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us."
The man responded, "Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don't judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase? "Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don't say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don't."
"Maybe the old man is right," they said to one another. So they said little. But deep down, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.
Now the old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments. "You were right," they said. "You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever."
The old man spoke again. "You people are obsessed with judging. Don't go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments."
It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured.
Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again. "You were right, old man," they wept. "God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son's accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever."
The old man spoke again. "It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows."
How quickly we judge.
How are we to know whether at any given time we are experiencing one of life's ups or downs? It may look one way when it really turns out to be another.
There is a bible story that speaks to us of this - the story of Joseph.
Joseph's life had been a series of ups and downs. His brothers had sold him into slavery. He received a pretty prestigious position for a slave, but then he was wrongfully accused of sexual trespass and thrown into prison.
Joseph made some advantageous connections while in prison, but then it seemed all for naught because he was soon forgotten when the one whom he helped was restored to authority.
Some time later Pharaoh had a dream which could not be interpreted. Only then was Joseph's God-given talent called to mind by his former acquaintance. Joseph successfully interpreted the Pharaoh's dream and was placed in command of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.
Pharaoh's dream had warned that seven years of famine would follow seven years of plenty. It was Joseph's responsibility to make sure that the bounty from the first seven years was stored so that it could be adequately distributed during the lean years. It was in the middle of the famine that Joseph's brothers made their trek to Egypt to buy grain for the family.
Little did they realize that the brother they had sold into slavery so many years ago would now be the one responsible for saving the nation of Israel from starvation.
There are many things that could be said about how Joseph and his brothers related to one another - but in the end one thing emerges very clearly that Joseph comes to realize that those things that others had meant for ill - turned out to be good.
A roller coaster of events - but each - in the hand of God - had a purpose.
Who is to know but God?
Our faith is that God can take the bad and turn it to the good. It is also that those things which seem very good to us - can lead to evil.
Our faith is that we should not judge. Rather we should entrust all we have and all that we are and all that we experience into the hands of God - knowing - believing - that it will be OK.
We see only a fragment, says the old man in our story. How can we judge.
And indeed he is right.
Paul writes this in his famous chapter concerning love:
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Do not judge. Rather Love one another and love God, blessed be his Holy Name, now and forever. Amen
I would like to tell you a story today. Listen to it.
Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength. People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. "This horse is not a horse to me," he would tell them. "It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?"
The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse. One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. "You old fool," they scoffed, "we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high. Now the horse is gone, and you 've been cursed with misfortune."
The old man responded, "Don't speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I've been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?"
The people contested, "Don't make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse."
The old man spoke again. "All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don't know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can't say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?"
The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn't, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.
After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn't been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. "Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us."
The man responded, "Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don't judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase? "Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don't say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don't."
"Maybe the old man is right," they said to one another. So they said little. But deep down, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.
Now the old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments. "You were right," they said. "You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever."
The old man spoke again. "You people are obsessed with judging. Don't go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments."
It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured.
Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again. "You were right, old man," they wept. "God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son's accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever."
The old man spoke again. "It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows."
How quickly we judge.
How are we to know whether at any given time we are experiencing one of life's ups or downs? It may look one way when it really turns out to be another.
There is a bible story that speaks to us of this - the story of Joseph.
Joseph's life had been a series of ups and downs. His brothers had sold him into slavery. He received a pretty prestigious position for a slave, but then he was wrongfully accused of sexual trespass and thrown into prison.
Joseph made some advantageous connections while in prison, but then it seemed all for naught because he was soon forgotten when the one whom he helped was restored to authority.
Some time later Pharaoh had a dream which could not be interpreted. Only then was Joseph's God-given talent called to mind by his former acquaintance. Joseph successfully interpreted the Pharaoh's dream and was placed in command of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.
Pharaoh's dream had warned that seven years of famine would follow seven years of plenty. It was Joseph's responsibility to make sure that the bounty from the first seven years was stored so that it could be adequately distributed during the lean years. It was in the middle of the famine that Joseph's brothers made their trek to Egypt to buy grain for the family.
Little did they realize that the brother they had sold into slavery so many years ago would now be the one responsible for saving the nation of Israel from starvation.
There are many things that could be said about how Joseph and his brothers related to one another - but in the end one thing emerges very clearly that Joseph comes to realize that those things that others had meant for ill - turned out to be good.
A roller coaster of events - but each - in the hand of God - had a purpose.
Who is to know but God?
Our faith is that God can take the bad and turn it to the good. It is also that those things which seem very good to us - can lead to evil.
Our faith is that we should not judge. Rather we should entrust all we have and all that we are and all that we experience into the hands of God - knowing - believing - that it will be OK.
We see only a fragment, says the old man in our story. How can we judge.
And indeed he is right.
Paul writes this in his famous chapter concerning love:
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Do not judge. Rather Love one another and love God, blessed be his Holy Name, now and forever. Amen
Monday, September 27, 2010
Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 124; and Mark 9:38-50
Let us Pray - O God, light of the minds that know you, life of the souls that love you, and strength of the hearts that seek you - bless the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen
It might be good to have your bulletin stuck in your bible at one of today's readings and have the bible open to the other because I am going to refer directly to some of the verses we found there - and do a little adlibbing as it were on those verses.
But let me start by asking you here today - how many of you like things to be orderly? To have everything well defined? To have all the loose ends wrapped up??? Come on - put up your hands - who likes things to be under control, to be well organized? to be predictable?
There is nothing out of the ordinary in this, it is a part of human nature. You can see it very clearly wherever people go.
People, for example almost always take the same seat at school or at church, or they start dinner by always eating what they like first and leaving the rest for later or perhaps vice-versa.
If someone changes things on us - if they take our seat for example, or tell us that we should eat our peas first and our meat second, we become upset.
Most of us really believe in the saying - "there is a place for everything and everything in its place".
We believe in it because we know that if things get out of order - if we can't predict where the bedroom chair is, or where someone has left their shoes, or where the cups and saucers are, then we are likely to stub our toes in the dark of night, or spend endless minutes searching for what we need while the kettle boils dry.
It is a helpful trait - this trait of orderliness, of habit, of custom, of predictability, so helpful in fact that none us really likes being taken by surprise - except of course on birthdays and other special occasions - and even then we kind of expect, or hope, that a particular kind of surprise is coming: some gift, or party, or thing that will please us and show us that we are loved.
The human desire for orderliness and predictability is a good thing, because of it our science and technology, our agriculture and our medicine is made possible. Yet sometimes this trait, this part of human nature, gets in our way.
It is this fact that lies behind today's Old Testament Reading and today's gospel reading.
As we heard, in verse 24 Moses gathered 70 leaders of the Israelite community together one day so that they might assist him in bearing responsibility for watching over and caring for the people of God. He calls them to go out with him to the Tent of the Ark of the Covenant which was placed outside of the rest of the camp, and to receive there from God the same gift of the Holy Spirit that he had.
And so they do. Just as planned. While there each one of them is filled with the Spirit of God and each one prophecies, each one speaks for God the words of God, words meant for the health and well being of the Israelite family.
But there is a catch.
It turns out that two of the seventy leaders did not go out to the Tent of the Ark of The Covenant.
Instead, for some unknown reason, they stayed in the camp with the rest of the people and it is there that the Spirit descends upon them, and it is there that they prophecy, and it is there that they are caught by a young man.
They are caught by him breaking the rules and regulations set down by Moses, they are caught doing things out of turn, improperly, and without due authorization, and the young man runs out to the tent of the Ark of the Covenant and he reports all that he has seen to Moses.
Joshua, who is with Moses, Joshua, who is the chosen successor to Moses, hears the young man's report at the same time Moses does, and like John the Apostle in today's gospel reading, he attempts to put an end to the irregularity.
In verse 28 we hear him say to Moses:
"My Lord Moses, Stop Them! - Stop them from disobeying you. Stop them from doing things in the way they are not supposed to do them. Stop them from defiling the Spirit of God."
My Lord, Stop Them...
How many people have we tried to stop?
How many people have we stifled because they are not doing things the way we think they should be done? Because they are not precisely following the plan that we expect them to follow?
It is a serious question.
It is a serious question because I would guess the most damaging thing that anyone of us does in the course of an average week, whether it be at lodge or in a church committee, at work, or in our homes, is our attempt to ensure that everyone works at their job in the way that we believe they should.
Just as we want the shoes left at the door, and the bedroom chairs set carefully in the corners, and the cups and saucers put in the left-hand cupboard, so we want - and expect - that those who are doing the same kind of work we are doing to be known to us, and to do it in the same way as us, in the way that we sincerely believe that God wants us - and everyone else - to do it.
And that can be a major problem. Our good and natural desire for order and predictability, our sense of what is proper and right, can lead us into all manner of serious problems.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I was in a small rural church one time that had a major dispute about where the chicken should be placed in the kitchen prior to serving them for the annual Chinese New Year supper.
One woman actually left the church community because several new comers to the church had convinced the rest of the women working in the pantry that it would be more efficient to put the chicken on the counter beside the sink instead of the counter next to the refrigerator.
"It's not the right way to do it", she said. "We've never done it that way before, and I am not going to be part of doing it that way now. I won't have any part of that kind of thing. Those new people are going to ruin this church. They don't know anything. They aren't even from around here."
Sound familiar to anyone? Ever wonder what that kind of attitude does to a community? Or to a church? Or even to our own sons and daughters - who somehow can't quite do things just like the old man does....
The apostle John came up to Jesus one day. In verse 38 of today's gospel reading we hear him say:
Jesus, I was walking down the road with the rest of the disciples, and we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, we tried to stop him because we don't know who he is, we tried to stop him because he doesn't follow us.
It's like an echo isn't it - these two passages we are looking at today.
Jesus - We tried to stop him!...
My Lord Moses, stop them!
What was John missing?
What was Joshua missing?
What was my lady in the kitchen serving chickens missing?
What are we missing?
What are we missing when new people come into our church or our lodge or club or our small group- and then leave it just as quickly as they came?
What are we missing when members of our own family tell us that we are driving them away? And when strangers tell us that they do not feel welcome in our midst?
Is the sound of grumbling heard too often in our tents? Are the expectations we place upon others to do things just so - just a little bit too much?
But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Do you think I really care if Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp instead of here? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit in them. Would that they would prophesy in the camp, and speak God's word in the tabernacle, and communicate the will of the Lord to one another while walking through the desert and when they are eating and when they are playing.
It is good to have order.
It is good to do things in certain ways.
Having customs and traditions and rules and regulations makes sense to me.
They make sense that is until they get in the way of embracing other people - until they become instruments of judgement instead of instruments of grace, until they become things that blind us to what God is doing in our midst instead of helping us to see. And then they have to prioritized - according to the simple law of the Spirit - the law of love - the law that embraces all our relations - the law that the Apostle Paul tells us in the Letter to Romans gives life..
But Jesus said to John, "Do not stop him! Do not prevent him from doing good in my name simply because he is not following you and the other disciples. He is on my side. For no-one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. Truly, I tell you, whoever give you a cup of water to drink because you bear my name will by no means lose the reward."
Whoever is not against us is for us.
Sometimes my friends when we try to work together, we end up working apart. We rip and we tear at each other because others aren't serving God in the way we want them to, because they aren't doing those things we are doing those things we think need doing and doing in a particular way.
To paraphrase Moses, We are jealous for our Lord, instead of allowing our Lord to be jealous for himself.
And sometimes when we work apart, whether this be by accident or by design, we are really working together.
The lodges and the service clubs, the cancer societies and the food bank volunteers, are all in one way or another, about the work of God. They each do it differently - but they each do it because they want to make a difference, because they want the human family to prosper and to be whole.
And even within the lodges, even within the church, where people do things differently than we expect or hope, - or do different things than those things we want them to they still do it because they care and they believe, and they still hope that it will make a difference and that God's work will be done, as do in fact we.
No matter how different we may seem to be to one another, if we are really using the name of God, the name of Jesus, in our work of helping and healing, we are working together .
Blessed are we when we understand this. And blessed is the world in which we work, and for whom we work.
The world needs us to work together - even if we work at different things or work in different ways for the same goal.
It needs the hope we offer, the food we share, the relationship with God that we have entered into.
The world needs the message we bear about our common brother and sisterhood, the word we have about our unity in the family of God, and about how God loves us and wants to help us be whole.
The world needs us.
It needs to see that we are - in fact - all related and that our relationship is one of peace - of shalom - of God's righteousness and God's love.
We are dedicated by our vows of faith and our pledges of loyalty to being loving and caring members of God's family. We are set apart by our faith - we are made holy in other words - so that our presence in the larger world and in the intimacy of our families is a life giving presence.
As Christians we have committed ourselves to doing the work God calls us to do and to seeing others in the way that God sees us, and judging others in the way that God judges us.
We can only really keep our vows and pledges, we can only be true to our commitment,
we can only fill the world's need for us if we embrace one another and celebrate our common bound in God, the bound that was signed and sealed upon the cross of Christ.
upon the cross of the one who said before he died, for us:
A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greet your relations today - those in the pews ahead of you and behind you.
And greet your neighbours in the same way - and with the same signs of peace, the peace that truly only comes through the faith in the one who said: 'They who are not against us are for us'.
Praise be to the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, now and forevermore. Amen.
It might be good to have your bulletin stuck in your bible at one of today's readings and have the bible open to the other because I am going to refer directly to some of the verses we found there - and do a little adlibbing as it were on those verses.
But let me start by asking you here today - how many of you like things to be orderly? To have everything well defined? To have all the loose ends wrapped up??? Come on - put up your hands - who likes things to be under control, to be well organized? to be predictable?
There is nothing out of the ordinary in this, it is a part of human nature. You can see it very clearly wherever people go.
People, for example almost always take the same seat at school or at church, or they start dinner by always eating what they like first and leaving the rest for later or perhaps vice-versa.
If someone changes things on us - if they take our seat for example, or tell us that we should eat our peas first and our meat second, we become upset.
Most of us really believe in the saying - "there is a place for everything and everything in its place".
We believe in it because we know that if things get out of order - if we can't predict where the bedroom chair is, or where someone has left their shoes, or where the cups and saucers are, then we are likely to stub our toes in the dark of night, or spend endless minutes searching for what we need while the kettle boils dry.
It is a helpful trait - this trait of orderliness, of habit, of custom, of predictability, so helpful in fact that none us really likes being taken by surprise - except of course on birthdays and other special occasions - and even then we kind of expect, or hope, that a particular kind of surprise is coming: some gift, or party, or thing that will please us and show us that we are loved.
The human desire for orderliness and predictability is a good thing, because of it our science and technology, our agriculture and our medicine is made possible. Yet sometimes this trait, this part of human nature, gets in our way.
It is this fact that lies behind today's Old Testament Reading and today's gospel reading.
As we heard, in verse 24 Moses gathered 70 leaders of the Israelite community together one day so that they might assist him in bearing responsibility for watching over and caring for the people of God. He calls them to go out with him to the Tent of the Ark of the Covenant which was placed outside of the rest of the camp, and to receive there from God the same gift of the Holy Spirit that he had.
And so they do. Just as planned. While there each one of them is filled with the Spirit of God and each one prophecies, each one speaks for God the words of God, words meant for the health and well being of the Israelite family.
But there is a catch.
It turns out that two of the seventy leaders did not go out to the Tent of the Ark of The Covenant.
Instead, for some unknown reason, they stayed in the camp with the rest of the people and it is there that the Spirit descends upon them, and it is there that they prophecy, and it is there that they are caught by a young man.
They are caught by him breaking the rules and regulations set down by Moses, they are caught doing things out of turn, improperly, and without due authorization, and the young man runs out to the tent of the Ark of the Covenant and he reports all that he has seen to Moses.
Joshua, who is with Moses, Joshua, who is the chosen successor to Moses, hears the young man's report at the same time Moses does, and like John the Apostle in today's gospel reading, he attempts to put an end to the irregularity.
In verse 28 we hear him say to Moses:
"My Lord Moses, Stop Them! - Stop them from disobeying you. Stop them from doing things in the way they are not supposed to do them. Stop them from defiling the Spirit of God."
My Lord, Stop Them...
How many people have we tried to stop?
How many people have we stifled because they are not doing things the way we think they should be done? Because they are not precisely following the plan that we expect them to follow?
It is a serious question.
It is a serious question because I would guess the most damaging thing that anyone of us does in the course of an average week, whether it be at lodge or in a church committee, at work, or in our homes, is our attempt to ensure that everyone works at their job in the way that we believe they should.
Just as we want the shoes left at the door, and the bedroom chairs set carefully in the corners, and the cups and saucers put in the left-hand cupboard, so we want - and expect - that those who are doing the same kind of work we are doing to be known to us, and to do it in the same way as us, in the way that we sincerely believe that God wants us - and everyone else - to do it.
And that can be a major problem. Our good and natural desire for order and predictability, our sense of what is proper and right, can lead us into all manner of serious problems.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I was in a small rural church one time that had a major dispute about where the chicken should be placed in the kitchen prior to serving them for the annual Chinese New Year supper.
One woman actually left the church community because several new comers to the church had convinced the rest of the women working in the pantry that it would be more efficient to put the chicken on the counter beside the sink instead of the counter next to the refrigerator.
"It's not the right way to do it", she said. "We've never done it that way before, and I am not going to be part of doing it that way now. I won't have any part of that kind of thing. Those new people are going to ruin this church. They don't know anything. They aren't even from around here."
Sound familiar to anyone? Ever wonder what that kind of attitude does to a community? Or to a church? Or even to our own sons and daughters - who somehow can't quite do things just like the old man does....
The apostle John came up to Jesus one day. In verse 38 of today's gospel reading we hear him say:
Jesus, I was walking down the road with the rest of the disciples, and we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, we tried to stop him because we don't know who he is, we tried to stop him because he doesn't follow us.
It's like an echo isn't it - these two passages we are looking at today.
Jesus - We tried to stop him!...
My Lord Moses, stop them!
What was John missing?
What was Joshua missing?
What was my lady in the kitchen serving chickens missing?
What are we missing?
What are we missing when new people come into our church or our lodge or club or our small group- and then leave it just as quickly as they came?
What are we missing when members of our own family tell us that we are driving them away? And when strangers tell us that they do not feel welcome in our midst?
Is the sound of grumbling heard too often in our tents? Are the expectations we place upon others to do things just so - just a little bit too much?
But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Do you think I really care if Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp instead of here? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit in them. Would that they would prophesy in the camp, and speak God's word in the tabernacle, and communicate the will of the Lord to one another while walking through the desert and when they are eating and when they are playing.
It is good to have order.
It is good to do things in certain ways.
Having customs and traditions and rules and regulations makes sense to me.
They make sense that is until they get in the way of embracing other people - until they become instruments of judgement instead of instruments of grace, until they become things that blind us to what God is doing in our midst instead of helping us to see. And then they have to prioritized - according to the simple law of the Spirit - the law of love - the law that embraces all our relations - the law that the Apostle Paul tells us in the Letter to Romans gives life..
But Jesus said to John, "Do not stop him! Do not prevent him from doing good in my name simply because he is not following you and the other disciples. He is on my side. For no-one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. Truly, I tell you, whoever give you a cup of water to drink because you bear my name will by no means lose the reward."
Whoever is not against us is for us.
Sometimes my friends when we try to work together, we end up working apart. We rip and we tear at each other because others aren't serving God in the way we want them to, because they aren't doing those things we are doing those things we think need doing and doing in a particular way.
To paraphrase Moses, We are jealous for our Lord, instead of allowing our Lord to be jealous for himself.
And sometimes when we work apart, whether this be by accident or by design, we are really working together.
The lodges and the service clubs, the cancer societies and the food bank volunteers, are all in one way or another, about the work of God. They each do it differently - but they each do it because they want to make a difference, because they want the human family to prosper and to be whole.
And even within the lodges, even within the church, where people do things differently than we expect or hope, - or do different things than those things we want them to they still do it because they care and they believe, and they still hope that it will make a difference and that God's work will be done, as do in fact we.
No matter how different we may seem to be to one another, if we are really using the name of God, the name of Jesus, in our work of helping and healing, we are working together .
Blessed are we when we understand this. And blessed is the world in which we work, and for whom we work.
The world needs us to work together - even if we work at different things or work in different ways for the same goal.
It needs the hope we offer, the food we share, the relationship with God that we have entered into.
The world needs the message we bear about our common brother and sisterhood, the word we have about our unity in the family of God, and about how God loves us and wants to help us be whole.
The world needs us.
It needs to see that we are - in fact - all related and that our relationship is one of peace - of shalom - of God's righteousness and God's love.
We are dedicated by our vows of faith and our pledges of loyalty to being loving and caring members of God's family. We are set apart by our faith - we are made holy in other words - so that our presence in the larger world and in the intimacy of our families is a life giving presence.
As Christians we have committed ourselves to doing the work God calls us to do and to seeing others in the way that God sees us, and judging others in the way that God judges us.
We can only really keep our vows and pledges, we can only be true to our commitment,
we can only fill the world's need for us if we embrace one another and celebrate our common bound in God, the bound that was signed and sealed upon the cross of Christ.
upon the cross of the one who said before he died, for us:
A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greet your relations today - those in the pews ahead of you and behind you.
And greet your neighbours in the same way - and with the same signs of peace, the peace that truly only comes through the faith in the one who said: 'They who are not against us are for us'.
Praise be to the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, now and forevermore. Amen.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
I Timothy 6:6-19; Psalm 91; Luke 16:19-31
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
The parable or story that Jesus tells us in today's gospel reading is a very difficult passage for most of us. It, along with the epistle lesson of this morning, speak to us of the difficulty that some people have with wealth - with money - with accumulating property.
Do you notice how I said, some people? How I have avoided pointing the finger? How I have avoided condemning wealth itself?
Indeed I believe that it is as Paul says, that it is "the love of money that is the root of all evil" - and not money itself.
No - I am not here today to condemn the wealthy, nor am I here today to make you feel guilt about how much you may have and to urge you to share it lest you go to hell.
You, after all, may already share generously of the bounty God has allowed you to receive.
You, after all, may not love money or seek out wealth.
You, after all, may well have the attitude that Paul urges upon Timothy, the attitude of godliness with contentment, the attitude that flees from pursuit of worldly gain and pursues righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and
gentleness.
But I do want the Spirit to move among us today and for us to think about what true riches are, and about the great chasm that divides some people from others, a chasm in this life that the scriptures suggest may be duplicated in the next.
A preacher by the name of Taylor Mills once told us that:
In today's parable, the rich man crosses paths with poor Lazarus every day. He sees Lazarus waiting at the gate of the house - the dogs licking his sores. Lazarus sees the rich man go in and go out. And he waits for the servant to bring out the rich man's breadcrumbs for him to eat. Indeed Lazarus longs for those crumbs, even though - as was the custom in some places where water was scarce and food abundant, the crumbs were used, instead of water, to clean one's hands with when the meal was done.
It's clear that the rich man knew about Lazarus. He refers to Lazarus by name, even after both of them have died. But notice something else: the rich man never speaks directly to Lazarus. not even from Hell where he is under torment.
And when he is in Hell he still expects Lazarus to serve him: "Father Abraham," he calls out, "have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames." And then again, "Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment."
Even after the rich man undergoes the divine reversal of fates, he still hasn't changed how he treats Lazarus. It's as if the chasm that separated them after they died also existed when they lived. The rich man kept Lazarus at a distance. And now that he's in trouble, he expects Lazarus to cross that distance to help him.
That's quite the attitude - and quite the chasm.
Now, none of us have a poor person at the end of our driveway waiting for the dirty crumbs from our tables. And as I said - I am not here to guilt you out today
But - don't you love it when someone says "but" to you?
But, if we allow the devil to make us think that this story really has little to say to us then we have taken the first step toward becoming like the rich man.
I said at the very beginning that today's gospel reading is a very difficult passage for most of us. And it is so precisely because it causes us to ask questions like:
- how am I like the rich man?
- who is it I ignore - or treat as less than fully human?
- who is our Lazarus? The one whom I regard as less than I am?
That's not nice - especially not nice since we are aware that there is a lot of need out there, and since we are aware that we have only so much time, only so much money, only so much compassion.
The whole passage - given our context as a people who have so much more than 90% of the world's population - is distressing; even for those who share their time, give their money, and spend their compassion on the poor and needy within our town and indeed within our world community.
I'm not trying to point the finger at you. Compared to most of the privileged people in the world, most if not all of you speak to those who have a different station in life. You do not regard street people as your inferiors or treat those on welfare as your servants. You do care about the poor of our community and of our world.
You pray each week for people like the people of parts of the African continent, people with AIDS, the oppressed and the homeless.
And on top of all this, you tithe your income as the Bible says you should - knowing that what you give to God through the church will indeed be blessed by God and used to not only run this place - but to do many good works in God's name.
But the parable still is difficult for most of us here in Hong Kong who believe, - for those of us who flee wealth and pursue godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness, - for those of us who are content, as Paul was content, to have the
bare necessities of life.
Difficult because we know that we have so much - and don't know how much more we can afford to give - or are expected to give....
It is always the wrong people who get guilty feelings
It is always the saints who are most aware of their shortcomings,
It is always the holy who wonder
- have I done all I can do?
- am I being too self-centred?
- am I putting my family and it's comfort way too far ahead of
everyone else?...
It is not having money that is the problem - it is allowing that money and concern about money to dominate us to point where we do not care about others outside our sphere of interest.
It is a good sign that most of us have difficulty with today's gospel reading.
It tells me that most folk still care - that they are heeding Moses and the Prophets and have listened to - and are being convinced - by the testimony of the one who has risen from the dead.
Indeed you are here today precisely to listen to the one who has been raised from death, the one who the rich man while in Hell told Abraham his five equally rich brothers would heed.
You are here - I am certain - not simply to be blessed and strengthened by God, but to show God true worship... to show God true worship by listening to his word - and then by going and doing it.
You are here - I am certain - not simply to enjoy a song - or have the children gain a good experience, but to listen to the words the Risen One and to be shaped by them so that you may indeed seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
So allow the words of Jesus in today's gospel and the teaching of Paul that he shared with Timothy to do that - without getting too much into guilt - unless of course God is putting the conviction upon you that you love money - and that you have allowed a chasm of non-caring to grow up between you and whoever your Lazarus is.
I think that we all need to struggle with this stuff. And that it is one of the most difficult things to struggle with since it comes down to examining how we live - and how we care for one another.
So I encourage you to feel uncomfortable - but not to feel guilt unless you really need to feel guilt, and if you feel guilt - to do what guilt suggests you should do -
to repaint and thin - I mean to repent and sin - no more, and to trust in God's mercy day by day and if need be, hour by hour and minute by minute.
The sad truth is that those of you who do not feel uncomfortable today are most likely to feel nothing at all - except perhaps anger that the word of God, and that I, your preacher, have raised the topic of money and our attitude towards it in the
first place.
Think back to the parable with me for another minute or so.
After the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers to warn them about the torment that may await them for not caring for the poor and afflicted, Abraham tells him that if his brothers have not heeded the message of Moses and the Prophets - that they will not be convinced even by one who has been resurrected from the dead.
That is the sad part of the great chasm referred to in my sermon title today, my friends.
There is a chasm between those who love money and those who seek true riches, between those seek out the newest toys that our society is so desperate to sell us all and those who pursue righteousness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Between those who need to get ahead - to get a larger home - a better job - a more exotic vacation and those who have sought godliness with contentment.
It is a chasm of blindness and indifference. A chasm that leads to all kinds of evil, and which plunges people into ruin and destruction, perhaps even into the eternal and unbridgeable Chasm between the Bosom of Abraham and the torment of hell.
Remember how the Rich Man - even in hell - where he knows the truth of his lack of caring - still does not address Lazarus personally - how he still regards him as one who can be sent by others - as a servant to help him - rather than as one who has received his just reward from God?
Those in love with money simply will not get the picture, if they do get it - they still end up wandering from the faith.
So today I tell you all this
To those who seek true riches - I tell you - continue pursuing righteousness and faith and love, feel uncomfortable, struggle with the question of what you are doing
and not doing, the question of how well you love your neighbours - and how well
you love your God, feel uncomfortable - but also feel assured - for the one who rose from the dead has promised to help you and to forgive you - and he will be true to his promise - and he will guide you day by day as you continue to yield your life to him. He doesn't expect you to do everything for everyone - only to do everything you can - and to trust him for the rest.
And to you who love money - should you be here today - I tell you - listen to what Moses and the Prophets say - listen to the one who has risen from the dead, and know that if you do not change - if you make excuses for your lack of caring for others - instead of making amends. If you cling to what you have rather than letting it go, if you judge others less worthy because of their poverty and others as greater because of their riches, then you will pay for it.
God is forgiving - but God is not mocked. If you, being rich, can't bring Lazarus fresh water to relieve his distress in this life, then know that he will not be able to do that for you in the next life.
Hear again Paul's words:
Godliness with contentment is great gain - for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
To this I might add the Love of God - and loving our neighbours - all our neighbours - as we love ourselves is the root of all goodness.
Blessed be the one who rose from the dead and who speaks to us now. And blessed are all those who hear his words and act upon them. Amen
The parable or story that Jesus tells us in today's gospel reading is a very difficult passage for most of us. It, along with the epistle lesson of this morning, speak to us of the difficulty that some people have with wealth - with money - with accumulating property.
Do you notice how I said, some people? How I have avoided pointing the finger? How I have avoided condemning wealth itself?
Indeed I believe that it is as Paul says, that it is "the love of money that is the root of all evil" - and not money itself.
No - I am not here today to condemn the wealthy, nor am I here today to make you feel guilt about how much you may have and to urge you to share it lest you go to hell.
You, after all, may already share generously of the bounty God has allowed you to receive.
You, after all, may not love money or seek out wealth.
You, after all, may well have the attitude that Paul urges upon Timothy, the attitude of godliness with contentment, the attitude that flees from pursuit of worldly gain and pursues righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and
gentleness.
But I do want the Spirit to move among us today and for us to think about what true riches are, and about the great chasm that divides some people from others, a chasm in this life that the scriptures suggest may be duplicated in the next.
A preacher by the name of Taylor Mills once told us that:
In today's parable, the rich man crosses paths with poor Lazarus every day. He sees Lazarus waiting at the gate of the house - the dogs licking his sores. Lazarus sees the rich man go in and go out. And he waits for the servant to bring out the rich man's breadcrumbs for him to eat. Indeed Lazarus longs for those crumbs, even though - as was the custom in some places where water was scarce and food abundant, the crumbs were used, instead of water, to clean one's hands with when the meal was done.
It's clear that the rich man knew about Lazarus. He refers to Lazarus by name, even after both of them have died. But notice something else: the rich man never speaks directly to Lazarus. not even from Hell where he is under torment.
And when he is in Hell he still expects Lazarus to serve him: "Father Abraham," he calls out, "have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames." And then again, "Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment."
Even after the rich man undergoes the divine reversal of fates, he still hasn't changed how he treats Lazarus. It's as if the chasm that separated them after they died also existed when they lived. The rich man kept Lazarus at a distance. And now that he's in trouble, he expects Lazarus to cross that distance to help him.
That's quite the attitude - and quite the chasm.
Now, none of us have a poor person at the end of our driveway waiting for the dirty crumbs from our tables. And as I said - I am not here to guilt you out today
But - don't you love it when someone says "but" to you?
But, if we allow the devil to make us think that this story really has little to say to us then we have taken the first step toward becoming like the rich man.
I said at the very beginning that today's gospel reading is a very difficult passage for most of us. And it is so precisely because it causes us to ask questions like:
- how am I like the rich man?
- who is it I ignore - or treat as less than fully human?
- who is our Lazarus? The one whom I regard as less than I am?
That's not nice - especially not nice since we are aware that there is a lot of need out there, and since we are aware that we have only so much time, only so much money, only so much compassion.
The whole passage - given our context as a people who have so much more than 90% of the world's population - is distressing; even for those who share their time, give their money, and spend their compassion on the poor and needy within our town and indeed within our world community.
I'm not trying to point the finger at you. Compared to most of the privileged people in the world, most if not all of you speak to those who have a different station in life. You do not regard street people as your inferiors or treat those on welfare as your servants. You do care about the poor of our community and of our world.
You pray each week for people like the people of parts of the African continent, people with AIDS, the oppressed and the homeless.
And on top of all this, you tithe your income as the Bible says you should - knowing that what you give to God through the church will indeed be blessed by God and used to not only run this place - but to do many good works in God's name.
But the parable still is difficult for most of us here in Hong Kong who believe, - for those of us who flee wealth and pursue godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness, - for those of us who are content, as Paul was content, to have the
bare necessities of life.
Difficult because we know that we have so much - and don't know how much more we can afford to give - or are expected to give....
It is always the wrong people who get guilty feelings
It is always the saints who are most aware of their shortcomings,
It is always the holy who wonder
- have I done all I can do?
- am I being too self-centred?
- am I putting my family and it's comfort way too far ahead of
everyone else?...
It is not having money that is the problem - it is allowing that money and concern about money to dominate us to point where we do not care about others outside our sphere of interest.
It is a good sign that most of us have difficulty with today's gospel reading.
It tells me that most folk still care - that they are heeding Moses and the Prophets and have listened to - and are being convinced - by the testimony of the one who has risen from the dead.
Indeed you are here today precisely to listen to the one who has been raised from death, the one who the rich man while in Hell told Abraham his five equally rich brothers would heed.
You are here - I am certain - not simply to be blessed and strengthened by God, but to show God true worship... to show God true worship by listening to his word - and then by going and doing it.
You are here - I am certain - not simply to enjoy a song - or have the children gain a good experience, but to listen to the words the Risen One and to be shaped by them so that you may indeed seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
So allow the words of Jesus in today's gospel and the teaching of Paul that he shared with Timothy to do that - without getting too much into guilt - unless of course God is putting the conviction upon you that you love money - and that you have allowed a chasm of non-caring to grow up between you and whoever your Lazarus is.
I think that we all need to struggle with this stuff. And that it is one of the most difficult things to struggle with since it comes down to examining how we live - and how we care for one another.
So I encourage you to feel uncomfortable - but not to feel guilt unless you really need to feel guilt, and if you feel guilt - to do what guilt suggests you should do -
to repaint and thin - I mean to repent and sin - no more, and to trust in God's mercy day by day and if need be, hour by hour and minute by minute.
The sad truth is that those of you who do not feel uncomfortable today are most likely to feel nothing at all - except perhaps anger that the word of God, and that I, your preacher, have raised the topic of money and our attitude towards it in the
first place.
Think back to the parable with me for another minute or so.
After the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers to warn them about the torment that may await them for not caring for the poor and afflicted, Abraham tells him that if his brothers have not heeded the message of Moses and the Prophets - that they will not be convinced even by one who has been resurrected from the dead.
That is the sad part of the great chasm referred to in my sermon title today, my friends.
There is a chasm between those who love money and those who seek true riches, between those seek out the newest toys that our society is so desperate to sell us all and those who pursue righteousness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Between those who need to get ahead - to get a larger home - a better job - a more exotic vacation and those who have sought godliness with contentment.
It is a chasm of blindness and indifference. A chasm that leads to all kinds of evil, and which plunges people into ruin and destruction, perhaps even into the eternal and unbridgeable Chasm between the Bosom of Abraham and the torment of hell.
Remember how the Rich Man - even in hell - where he knows the truth of his lack of caring - still does not address Lazarus personally - how he still regards him as one who can be sent by others - as a servant to help him - rather than as one who has received his just reward from God?
Those in love with money simply will not get the picture, if they do get it - they still end up wandering from the faith.
So today I tell you all this
To those who seek true riches - I tell you - continue pursuing righteousness and faith and love, feel uncomfortable, struggle with the question of what you are doing
and not doing, the question of how well you love your neighbours - and how well
you love your God, feel uncomfortable - but also feel assured - for the one who rose from the dead has promised to help you and to forgive you - and he will be true to his promise - and he will guide you day by day as you continue to yield your life to him. He doesn't expect you to do everything for everyone - only to do everything you can - and to trust him for the rest.
And to you who love money - should you be here today - I tell you - listen to what Moses and the Prophets say - listen to the one who has risen from the dead, and know that if you do not change - if you make excuses for your lack of caring for others - instead of making amends. If you cling to what you have rather than letting it go, if you judge others less worthy because of their poverty and others as greater because of their riches, then you will pay for it.
God is forgiving - but God is not mocked. If you, being rich, can't bring Lazarus fresh water to relieve his distress in this life, then know that he will not be able to do that for you in the next life.
Hear again Paul's words:
Godliness with contentment is great gain - for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
To this I might add the Love of God - and loving our neighbours - all our neighbours - as we love ourselves is the root of all goodness.
Blessed be the one who rose from the dead and who speaks to us now. And blessed are all those who hear his words and act upon them. Amen
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Isaiah 42:1-9 Matthew 3:13-17
Most gracious God, bless the thoughts of our hears and the words of my lips. Help us to grown in faith and in love that we may be pleasing to you and a blessing to others. We ask of it in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
When I walk through the book shops, toy shops and video shops here in Hong Kong, I noticed that there are literally hundreds of varieties of super heroes in the toy stores, on video tapes, books and toys. All of them had one thing in common. They overcame “Evil” through violent destruction of the evil ones.
Professor Dr. Walter Wink of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City calls it the belief in ‘redemptive violence.” Evil must be overcome with violence.
Our reading from the Prophet Isaiah this morning looks forward to the coming of the Messiah, and it proclaims a different kind of approach, especially in verse two and three.
There it says of the promised one:
He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. IN faithfulness he will bring forth justice.
What I find most interesting in today’s reading is the role the promised one will have in bringing about justice. Three times, in this short reading, his task is described as, “bringing forth justice.”
Justice is a big word in this reading, indeed it is a big word in the Bible.
The prophets were the mouthpieces for God’s justice, agents for God. They were preoccupied with calling God’s people to doing justice – to equitable behavior. They preached God’s will is a society in which all people are treated fairly.
God, according to the Hebrew prophets, is especially concerned for those overlooked in the normal routines of the world:
- The poor and the weak
- Those not important enough to be heard or see in the council rooms of the rich and powerful
- Those cannot afford to hire top rate lawyers, such as Martin Lee, costing millions of dollars Hong Kong to represent them in the courts.
Justice is so central a characteristic to the kind of society that God wants, that anything less would mean that the people were not God’s people. The prophets tell us that despite all their prayers and religious ritual, without justice, God would turn a deaf ear to his people’s prayer.
All in society, particularly the poor, were to be given their most basic rights for food, clothing and due process. The prophets not only confronted the unjust in society, they also stirred up among the forgotten the longing for a day when all would be made new, when justice would light up their dark world.
Isaiah says that the promised one will establish justice, especially for those in most need, “…to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from dungeon, those who live in darkness.”
He also says that the promised one will be made a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, for those who in the past were not God’s people..
The Gospel of this morning tells us that on the day Jesus appeared at the Jordan, he found John baptizing those who confessed their sins and expressed a need for God’s deliverance from their various forms of captivity.
Sin is a form of blindness, a kind of slavery and an absence of light.
The Gospel reading of this morning tells us that the one promised by Isaiah appears to be part of this repenting and enslaved community. Of course he had no need for the washing, he could have kept his distance. Instead he chooses to be intimately united with them and so enters John’s cleansing waters.
Jesus may be without sin, but he too is part of a people enslaved by the Roman occupation, a people living in the dungeon and darkness of a foreign power.
In Matthew’s account of the baptism, the voice from heaven speaks words over Jesus which are very similar to the ones we heard in the Isaiah passage.
While John recognizes that Jesus has no need for repentance, Jesus says it must be done, “to fulfill all righteousness.”
What does that mean?
First of all, Jesus’ presence to John’s baptism puts the stamp of approval on what John is doing. John truly is the precursor, truly the one calling people to readiness for the promised one of God.
God wants this baptism for Jesus, for it will be the occasion for God to announce that the promised one has come who will set things right. Justice will be established through him, and people will be invited by him to live in right relationships with each other and with God.
Jesus receives h is commission to do exactly that on this day.
The baptism of Christ Jesus is a lesser point for Matthew, the epiphany that follows is the key point, that epiphany or revelation that comes when the voice from heaven says, in words which are much like the words in this morning’s reading from the prophet Isaiah: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
The voice is speaking not to Jesus. Rather it is speaking to us. Do we hear it?
Are we ready to live the just life this One makes possible for us through our own baptism?
- That baptism in which we receive the same Spirit that Jesus had.
- That baptism that makes us, like Jesus, a people beloved and pleasing to God?
I think that most of you are familiar with the Gospel reading regarding the dream Joseph had. In the dream he was told the true identity of the child Mary was carrying. The child would be called, “Emmanuel, God with us.”
Well how far would God be willing to go to be with us?
Would God address sinners from a safe distance? Calling us to repentance from the clouds as it were, not soiling his hands with our sinful and tired world?
Would God send still more prophets to call us to himself?
No, God had already done that many times over with no results.
The human response to how obstinate the human race is, would have been to throw up hands in disgust and proclaim, “Enough already! And strike us all dead. To send in the super heroes to blow up the homes of the wicked and kill all whose who have worked evil.
But our God is not some kind of humanly invented hero.
Our God is completely different from us and our God surprises us.
- Not by zapping those who have sinned with thunderbolts.
- But by entering our flesh, taking on our human condition.
- By identifying with us so completely that he even goes down into the water to mix with those people who are admitting that they are sinners in need of redemption.
There must have been better people praying in the Temple that day who we would have thought to have been more “worthy” of a divine visitation than those at the River Jordan. But instead of going to those at the Temple, Jesus is immersed into the same water that has washed over sinners.
Who can resist a God like this?
How did Jesus set things right? How does he fulfill all righteousness?
His baptism shows us he would not use brute force to get us to be a just people – forgiven and right before God and just with one another.
Rather it shows us that he chose to move among us, winning us over to him by his reaching out to the fringe, to the outcasts, the sick, those who are sinners, those who are the poor and imprisoned.
He would do this gently, since there are already languishing people who have had too much to suffer. IN the words of Isaiah once again – Jesus would not break “a bruised reed…and a smoldering wick he shall not quench…”
By joining people in the waters of their own predicaments, God had taken the first steps in acknowledging their importance in the plan He has to set things right; to bring justice and right relations to all people.
Jesus has come for people who are broken or like a ‘smoldering wick,’ feel depleted, about to go out.
He enters the waters, not where the movers and sharers of society meet to make deals that affect so many others, but where those who know their needs and have turned to God have gone.
They have gone out to John because they cannot make it on their own. They need to hear and experience that God has head their distress and has come to breath a new Spirit into them.
This Spirit descends upon Jesus, but soon it will descend on all who follow him into his baptismal waters.
At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, as he takes his leave of his disciples, Jesus promised to be with us till the end of time.
He is still Emmanuel, God with us.
He has given us His Spirit through our baptism so that we are not left alone throughout our lives to stumble along and get tripped up by sin and the unjust ways of our world.
Jesus’ baptism shows us how close God wants to be with us, and our baptism establishes this closeness for all of our lives.
We gather together today to remember this and to draw closer to God and to one another in His name. We gather together today to be strengthened by the one who is different from our super heroes. We gather together today to worship and follow the one who does not use violence to end violence – but who instead enters into our lives in every way and transforms us – giving to us that which we need to be faithful servants of God.
Today’s readings does not call us to do anything in particular.
Rather they call on us to understand and to know what it is that God has done and will do, and how it is that God will do it.
They are a testimony from God to us about Christ Jesus, and a reminder that God has come to be with us in Him, and that He has come to help us to be with God – and to live in the way that God wants all people to live.
Praise be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – and forevermore. Amen.
When I walk through the book shops, toy shops and video shops here in Hong Kong, I noticed that there are literally hundreds of varieties of super heroes in the toy stores, on video tapes, books and toys. All of them had one thing in common. They overcame “Evil” through violent destruction of the evil ones.
Professor Dr. Walter Wink of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City calls it the belief in ‘redemptive violence.” Evil must be overcome with violence.
Our reading from the Prophet Isaiah this morning looks forward to the coming of the Messiah, and it proclaims a different kind of approach, especially in verse two and three.
There it says of the promised one:
He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. IN faithfulness he will bring forth justice.
What I find most interesting in today’s reading is the role the promised one will have in bringing about justice. Three times, in this short reading, his task is described as, “bringing forth justice.”
Justice is a big word in this reading, indeed it is a big word in the Bible.
The prophets were the mouthpieces for God’s justice, agents for God. They were preoccupied with calling God’s people to doing justice – to equitable behavior. They preached God’s will is a society in which all people are treated fairly.
God, according to the Hebrew prophets, is especially concerned for those overlooked in the normal routines of the world:
- The poor and the weak
- Those not important enough to be heard or see in the council rooms of the rich and powerful
- Those cannot afford to hire top rate lawyers, such as Martin Lee, costing millions of dollars Hong Kong to represent them in the courts.
Justice is so central a characteristic to the kind of society that God wants, that anything less would mean that the people were not God’s people. The prophets tell us that despite all their prayers and religious ritual, without justice, God would turn a deaf ear to his people’s prayer.
All in society, particularly the poor, were to be given their most basic rights for food, clothing and due process. The prophets not only confronted the unjust in society, they also stirred up among the forgotten the longing for a day when all would be made new, when justice would light up their dark world.
Isaiah says that the promised one will establish justice, especially for those in most need, “…to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from dungeon, those who live in darkness.”
He also says that the promised one will be made a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, for those who in the past were not God’s people..
The Gospel of this morning tells us that on the day Jesus appeared at the Jordan, he found John baptizing those who confessed their sins and expressed a need for God’s deliverance from their various forms of captivity.
Sin is a form of blindness, a kind of slavery and an absence of light.
The Gospel reading of this morning tells us that the one promised by Isaiah appears to be part of this repenting and enslaved community. Of course he had no need for the washing, he could have kept his distance. Instead he chooses to be intimately united with them and so enters John’s cleansing waters.
Jesus may be without sin, but he too is part of a people enslaved by the Roman occupation, a people living in the dungeon and darkness of a foreign power.
In Matthew’s account of the baptism, the voice from heaven speaks words over Jesus which are very similar to the ones we heard in the Isaiah passage.
While John recognizes that Jesus has no need for repentance, Jesus says it must be done, “to fulfill all righteousness.”
What does that mean?
First of all, Jesus’ presence to John’s baptism puts the stamp of approval on what John is doing. John truly is the precursor, truly the one calling people to readiness for the promised one of God.
God wants this baptism for Jesus, for it will be the occasion for God to announce that the promised one has come who will set things right. Justice will be established through him, and people will be invited by him to live in right relationships with each other and with God.
Jesus receives h is commission to do exactly that on this day.
The baptism of Christ Jesus is a lesser point for Matthew, the epiphany that follows is the key point, that epiphany or revelation that comes when the voice from heaven says, in words which are much like the words in this morning’s reading from the prophet Isaiah: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
The voice is speaking not to Jesus. Rather it is speaking to us. Do we hear it?
Are we ready to live the just life this One makes possible for us through our own baptism?
- That baptism in which we receive the same Spirit that Jesus had.
- That baptism that makes us, like Jesus, a people beloved and pleasing to God?
I think that most of you are familiar with the Gospel reading regarding the dream Joseph had. In the dream he was told the true identity of the child Mary was carrying. The child would be called, “Emmanuel, God with us.”
Well how far would God be willing to go to be with us?
Would God address sinners from a safe distance? Calling us to repentance from the clouds as it were, not soiling his hands with our sinful and tired world?
Would God send still more prophets to call us to himself?
No, God had already done that many times over with no results.
The human response to how obstinate the human race is, would have been to throw up hands in disgust and proclaim, “Enough already! And strike us all dead. To send in the super heroes to blow up the homes of the wicked and kill all whose who have worked evil.
But our God is not some kind of humanly invented hero.
Our God is completely different from us and our God surprises us.
- Not by zapping those who have sinned with thunderbolts.
- But by entering our flesh, taking on our human condition.
- By identifying with us so completely that he even goes down into the water to mix with those people who are admitting that they are sinners in need of redemption.
There must have been better people praying in the Temple that day who we would have thought to have been more “worthy” of a divine visitation than those at the River Jordan. But instead of going to those at the Temple, Jesus is immersed into the same water that has washed over sinners.
Who can resist a God like this?
How did Jesus set things right? How does he fulfill all righteousness?
His baptism shows us he would not use brute force to get us to be a just people – forgiven and right before God and just with one another.
Rather it shows us that he chose to move among us, winning us over to him by his reaching out to the fringe, to the outcasts, the sick, those who are sinners, those who are the poor and imprisoned.
He would do this gently, since there are already languishing people who have had too much to suffer. IN the words of Isaiah once again – Jesus would not break “a bruised reed…and a smoldering wick he shall not quench…”
By joining people in the waters of their own predicaments, God had taken the first steps in acknowledging their importance in the plan He has to set things right; to bring justice and right relations to all people.
Jesus has come for people who are broken or like a ‘smoldering wick,’ feel depleted, about to go out.
He enters the waters, not where the movers and sharers of society meet to make deals that affect so many others, but where those who know their needs and have turned to God have gone.
They have gone out to John because they cannot make it on their own. They need to hear and experience that God has head their distress and has come to breath a new Spirit into them.
This Spirit descends upon Jesus, but soon it will descend on all who follow him into his baptismal waters.
At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, as he takes his leave of his disciples, Jesus promised to be with us till the end of time.
He is still Emmanuel, God with us.
He has given us His Spirit through our baptism so that we are not left alone throughout our lives to stumble along and get tripped up by sin and the unjust ways of our world.
Jesus’ baptism shows us how close God wants to be with us, and our baptism establishes this closeness for all of our lives.
We gather together today to remember this and to draw closer to God and to one another in His name. We gather together today to be strengthened by the one who is different from our super heroes. We gather together today to worship and follow the one who does not use violence to end violence – but who instead enters into our lives in every way and transforms us – giving to us that which we need to be faithful servants of God.
Today’s readings does not call us to do anything in particular.
Rather they call on us to understand and to know what it is that God has done and will do, and how it is that God will do it.
They are a testimony from God to us about Christ Jesus, and a reminder that God has come to be with us in Him, and that He has come to help us to be with God – and to live in the way that God wants all people to live.
Praise be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – and forevermore. Amen.
Friday, September 24, 2010
I Peter 2:1-10 and John 14:1-14
"Gracious God - bless now the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. Breath your Spirit into us and grant that we may hear and in hearing be led in the way you want us to go. Amen.
Peter begins the second chapter of his first letter to God's
chosen people with an exhortation -
He writes: "Rid yourselves then, of all evil; no more lying or hypocrisy, or jealousy, or insulting language. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up in your salvation."
In the last verse of today's gospel reading Jesus says: "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."
What do you crave for? What do you yearn for? What blessings do you ask God for?
A couple of items for you to ponder as you think about that question.
Some years ago a well-known televangelist sent green prayer cloths to thousands of his viewers. God supposedly told him that the prayer cloth would be a point of contact, between him and the audience, for releasing God's blessing - with one essential condition. His viewers needed to send lots of money with the prayer cloth, or as he put it, "Sow your very best seed."
To those who returned the green cloth with some money, the televangelist promised great prosperity: "Send me your green prayer cloth as my point of contact with you!" he pleaded. "When I touch your cloth, it will be like touching you! When you touch this cloth, it will be like taking MY hand and touching me. I want the anointing that God has put upon my life for miracles of finances and prosperity to come directly from my hand to yours... You can reign in life like a king!" According to this televangelist, within months of sending in her prayer cloth, one woman received $286,000 in bonds and $65,000 in cash. Also, as a bonus, her husband was delivered from alcoholism.
That's interesting. Get rich and have your family problems
solved in a moment by just sending for a prayer cloth. It seems
like a good deal.
The second item is something that appeared in an American newspaper some years ago.
The Rev. Patrick Leary is the rector of the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer in Las Vegas, Nevada. He says visitors to the cathedral there often make the same request.
Can you guess what it is??
"Father, will you pray for me to win?"
The article continues by saying that Father Leary pointing around at the beautiful church and said to the reporter, "I tell them if it was that easy, do they think we'd still have a debt on this place? I believe in the power of prayer, but even prayer has its limits."
"Even prayer has its limits." Do you believe that??
If you do - what do you do then with these words of Jesus: "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it"?
Think of the possibilities - a new car, a new home, a cure for
baldness. All we have to do is ask.
"If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, a well know preacher many years ago, said that once, when he was a high school student, he had a very difficult examination. But he had discovered that verse, "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do..."
He believed that verse meant that all he had to do was ask and he would pass the exam. He told God he was believing
God's promise, and he wanted a good grade. The next day young Weatherhead took the examination, but when the grades were in, he had failed. He was disillusioned. He rebelled and almost lost his faith. He came to the conclusion that the promises of the Bible were not good - all because God had not granted his wish for a good grade.
The next year he repeated that course. He worked hard, and he passed. This time he decided that he did not need God that he could get along by himself.
I think that this is a conclusion that many of us reach we need something, we want something, we and we pray for it -and - when we don't see the results that we want we come close to losing our faith. At the very least - we conclude as did Dr. Weatherhead that we can, or we must, get along by ourselves.
Fortunately, Leslie Weatherhead changed his opinion over the years.
Fortunate because his life touched hundreds of thousands of people,
bringing to them the blessings of God in a way that the televangelist I mentioned earlier has not.
After some years had passed, Dr Weatherhead came to understand that his own powers and abilities were in reality the power that God had given to him. He began to realize that God had already given him the power to pass the examination, but he had not used that power the first time he took the examination..
God never gives us more power than we need. As Dr. Charles L. Allen has said, "Until we are willing to use what God has already given us, there is no need to ask for any more."
"If you ask Me anything in My name," said Jesus, "I will do it." Quite a claim. But let's examine it a little closer.
Notice first of all that Jesus is talking to his disciples.
"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?", Jesus asks his disciples. "The words
that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.... I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son...."
Jesus is giving his disciples words of encouragement." You've seen the blind recover their sight," he is saying. "You've seen the lame made whole. Hey, You're going to do greater works than that!"
Jesus was talking to the church. He was not talking about new houses or new cars or passing examinations. He was talking about the work of the Kingdom. He was saying that when his disciples decide to get into action doing the work God has called them to do, and when they enlist God's help, nothing is impossible! And that's true. Nothing is impossible for the church of Jesus Christ!
What do you crave, what do you desire the most?
Do you thirst for pure spiritual milk?
Do you yearn to do the works that Jesus did?
Do you desire that the church, that the people of God, that you yourself, might make a great witness to the world and bring glory to God's name?
Dr. Robert Schuller, that legendary advocate of Possibility Thinking, says that there are two words that have killed more God-inspired dreams and hopes than anything else he can think of.
The two words are "Be realistic!"
If we Christians, Dr. Schuller says, were "realistic" then nothing would be accomplished. He cites the example of Tom Dempsey--a young man who was born with half a right foot and deformed right arm but a ton of faith.
Dempsey wanted to be a football player--in spite of his considerable handicaps. And he did play football. He became a kicker for his high school team. But that wasn't enough. He wanted to play college ball. And again, he became the kicker on his college team. But when he graduated from college, his dream became even wilder and more fantastic. He wanted to be a professional football player!
A professional football player with half a foot and a deformed right arm. Impossible! No coach would accept him. They all shook their heads. All except one, and it is ironic and more than coincidental that Dempsey became a kicker for the professional football team, The New Orleans SAINTS!
The rest, as they say, is history. In 1972, Dempsey kicked the longest field goal ever--63 yards! All because he was not realistic! All because, Schuller tells us, Tom Dempsey had faith in Jesus Christ who gave him the strength to do what he dreamed.
Amazing things are accomplished in this world by people who believe and will not give up. Our text for the day says that you and I are capable of amazing things when we set out to serve Jesus Christ. Jesus was speaking to his church when he said, "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." Nothing is impossible for the church of Jesus Christ.
But there is something else just as important... Jesus adds a qualifier: "And whatever you ask in My name," Jesus promises, "that will I do, that the Father may be glorified..." Christ will do anything we ask if it glorifies the Father. Here is where we generally stumble. Not everything we do in the church is done to the glory of God.
Isaac Asimov, familiar to many as a noted scientist and author, once told a hilarious story about a Rabbi Feldman who was having trouble with his congregation.
It seemed they could agree upon nothing. The president of the congregation said, "Rabbi, this cannot be allowed to continue. Come, there must be a conference, and we must settle all areas of dispute once and for all." The rabbi agreed.
At the appointed time, therefore, the rabbi, the president, and ten elders met in the conference room of the synagogue, sitting about a magnificent mahogany table. One by one the issues were dealt with and on each issue, it became more and more apparent that the rabbi was a lonely voice in the wilderness. The president of the synagogue said, "Come, Rabbi, enough of this. Let us vote and allow the majority to rule." He passed out the slips of paper and each man made his mark. The slips were collected and the president said, "You may examine them, Rabbi. It is eleven to one against you. We have the majority."
Whereupon the rabbi rose to his feet in offended majesty. "So," he said, "you now think because of the vote that you are right and I am wrong. Well, that is not so. I stand here" --and he raised his arms impressively-- "and call upon the Holy One of Israel to give us a sign that I am right and you are wrong."
And as he said this, there came a frightful crack of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning that struck the mahogany table and cracked it in two. The room was filled with smoke and fumes, and the president and the elders were hurled to the floor. Through the carnage, the rabbi remained erect and untouched, his eyes flashing and a grim smile on his face. Slowly, the president lifted himself above what was left of the table. His hair was singed, his glasses were hanging from one ear, his clothing was in disarray.
Finally he said, "All right, eleven to two. But we still have the majority."
We all know that not everything that is done in the church is done to the glory of God.
But wouldn't it be great if we had a dream for this church that was big enough that we would have to depend on God to accomplish it? And wouldn't it be great if we searched our hearts and souls with prayer so that our dream would match God's dream? Wouldn't it be great if we yearned for the pure spiritual milk that will helps us to grow in our salvation - and which affects the whole around us?
George Barna, a church-growth specialist, asked a group of pastors how they believed Christ would rate their church if He were to return today. Fifty-three percent of those pastors said Christ would rate their church as having little or no positive impact on souls or society.
How sad. How very sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could see concrete evidence that our community is a better community and our town is a better town because this church is here? Christ tells us we can see such evidence - if we dream great dreams and if those dreams are to God's glory and not our own.
What do we crave? What do we yearn for? What do we desire?
All prayer is answered my friends. Even the prayers that we ask strictly for ourselves and for our families.
Sometimes the answer is no - I have plans - trust me in this. sometimes it is - no, not yet, the time is not right.
Other times it is yes - I thought you'd never ask And still other times it is yes - and just wait to see what else I have in store for you.
What God does for the faithful - what God allows to happen to them - how God answers their prayer - always works for the good.
As that is true for each of us as individual believers is doubly true for us as the church -- for us as the people who gather in God's name to worship and work together the works he calls us to work.
If we dream a dream for this church and if it is truly God's dream, then great things will happen and each of us can be part of it.
What is your dream? What do you desire the most?
Is it pure spiritual milk that you may grow in your salvation and
continue to know that God is good? Is it to do the works of God - even greater works than Christ did that God's name may be glorified?
I started this message with the first words from today's reading
from the First Letter of Peter. I would like to conclude with the last words from that reading - where Peter writes:
"You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy; but now you have received mercy."
We have a purpose - and we have the tools that we need to accomplish that purpose, so much so that we can do even greater things than did Christ - should we desire to.
"You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." Why not put Christ to the test?
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen
Peter begins the second chapter of his first letter to God's
chosen people with an exhortation -
He writes: "Rid yourselves then, of all evil; no more lying or hypocrisy, or jealousy, or insulting language. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up in your salvation."
In the last verse of today's gospel reading Jesus says: "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."
What do you crave for? What do you yearn for? What blessings do you ask God for?
A couple of items for you to ponder as you think about that question.
Some years ago a well-known televangelist sent green prayer cloths to thousands of his viewers. God supposedly told him that the prayer cloth would be a point of contact, between him and the audience, for releasing God's blessing - with one essential condition. His viewers needed to send lots of money with the prayer cloth, or as he put it, "Sow your very best seed."
To those who returned the green cloth with some money, the televangelist promised great prosperity: "Send me your green prayer cloth as my point of contact with you!" he pleaded. "When I touch your cloth, it will be like touching you! When you touch this cloth, it will be like taking MY hand and touching me. I want the anointing that God has put upon my life for miracles of finances and prosperity to come directly from my hand to yours... You can reign in life like a king!" According to this televangelist, within months of sending in her prayer cloth, one woman received $286,000 in bonds and $65,000 in cash. Also, as a bonus, her husband was delivered from alcoholism.
That's interesting. Get rich and have your family problems
solved in a moment by just sending for a prayer cloth. It seems
like a good deal.
The second item is something that appeared in an American newspaper some years ago.
The Rev. Patrick Leary is the rector of the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer in Las Vegas, Nevada. He says visitors to the cathedral there often make the same request.
Can you guess what it is??
"Father, will you pray for me to win?"
The article continues by saying that Father Leary pointing around at the beautiful church and said to the reporter, "I tell them if it was that easy, do they think we'd still have a debt on this place? I believe in the power of prayer, but even prayer has its limits."
"Even prayer has its limits." Do you believe that??
If you do - what do you do then with these words of Jesus: "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it"?
Think of the possibilities - a new car, a new home, a cure for
baldness. All we have to do is ask.
"If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, a well know preacher many years ago, said that once, when he was a high school student, he had a very difficult examination. But he had discovered that verse, "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do..."
He believed that verse meant that all he had to do was ask and he would pass the exam. He told God he was believing
God's promise, and he wanted a good grade. The next day young Weatherhead took the examination, but when the grades were in, he had failed. He was disillusioned. He rebelled and almost lost his faith. He came to the conclusion that the promises of the Bible were not good - all because God had not granted his wish for a good grade.
The next year he repeated that course. He worked hard, and he passed. This time he decided that he did not need God that he could get along by himself.
I think that this is a conclusion that many of us reach we need something, we want something, we and we pray for it -and - when we don't see the results that we want we come close to losing our faith. At the very least - we conclude as did Dr. Weatherhead that we can, or we must, get along by ourselves.
Fortunately, Leslie Weatherhead changed his opinion over the years.
Fortunate because his life touched hundreds of thousands of people,
bringing to them the blessings of God in a way that the televangelist I mentioned earlier has not.
After some years had passed, Dr Weatherhead came to understand that his own powers and abilities were in reality the power that God had given to him. He began to realize that God had already given him the power to pass the examination, but he had not used that power the first time he took the examination..
God never gives us more power than we need. As Dr. Charles L. Allen has said, "Until we are willing to use what God has already given us, there is no need to ask for any more."
"If you ask Me anything in My name," said Jesus, "I will do it." Quite a claim. But let's examine it a little closer.
Notice first of all that Jesus is talking to his disciples.
"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?", Jesus asks his disciples. "The words
that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.... I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son...."
Jesus is giving his disciples words of encouragement." You've seen the blind recover their sight," he is saying. "You've seen the lame made whole. Hey, You're going to do greater works than that!"
Jesus was talking to the church. He was not talking about new houses or new cars or passing examinations. He was talking about the work of the Kingdom. He was saying that when his disciples decide to get into action doing the work God has called them to do, and when they enlist God's help, nothing is impossible! And that's true. Nothing is impossible for the church of Jesus Christ!
What do you crave, what do you desire the most?
Do you thirst for pure spiritual milk?
Do you yearn to do the works that Jesus did?
Do you desire that the church, that the people of God, that you yourself, might make a great witness to the world and bring glory to God's name?
Dr. Robert Schuller, that legendary advocate of Possibility Thinking, says that there are two words that have killed more God-inspired dreams and hopes than anything else he can think of.
The two words are "Be realistic!"
If we Christians, Dr. Schuller says, were "realistic" then nothing would be accomplished. He cites the example of Tom Dempsey--a young man who was born with half a right foot and deformed right arm but a ton of faith.
Dempsey wanted to be a football player--in spite of his considerable handicaps. And he did play football. He became a kicker for his high school team. But that wasn't enough. He wanted to play college ball. And again, he became the kicker on his college team. But when he graduated from college, his dream became even wilder and more fantastic. He wanted to be a professional football player!
A professional football player with half a foot and a deformed right arm. Impossible! No coach would accept him. They all shook their heads. All except one, and it is ironic and more than coincidental that Dempsey became a kicker for the professional football team, The New Orleans SAINTS!
The rest, as they say, is history. In 1972, Dempsey kicked the longest field goal ever--63 yards! All because he was not realistic! All because, Schuller tells us, Tom Dempsey had faith in Jesus Christ who gave him the strength to do what he dreamed.
Amazing things are accomplished in this world by people who believe and will not give up. Our text for the day says that you and I are capable of amazing things when we set out to serve Jesus Christ. Jesus was speaking to his church when he said, "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." Nothing is impossible for the church of Jesus Christ.
But there is something else just as important... Jesus adds a qualifier: "And whatever you ask in My name," Jesus promises, "that will I do, that the Father may be glorified..." Christ will do anything we ask if it glorifies the Father. Here is where we generally stumble. Not everything we do in the church is done to the glory of God.
Isaac Asimov, familiar to many as a noted scientist and author, once told a hilarious story about a Rabbi Feldman who was having trouble with his congregation.
It seemed they could agree upon nothing. The president of the congregation said, "Rabbi, this cannot be allowed to continue. Come, there must be a conference, and we must settle all areas of dispute once and for all." The rabbi agreed.
At the appointed time, therefore, the rabbi, the president, and ten elders met in the conference room of the synagogue, sitting about a magnificent mahogany table. One by one the issues were dealt with and on each issue, it became more and more apparent that the rabbi was a lonely voice in the wilderness. The president of the synagogue said, "Come, Rabbi, enough of this. Let us vote and allow the majority to rule." He passed out the slips of paper and each man made his mark. The slips were collected and the president said, "You may examine them, Rabbi. It is eleven to one against you. We have the majority."
Whereupon the rabbi rose to his feet in offended majesty. "So," he said, "you now think because of the vote that you are right and I am wrong. Well, that is not so. I stand here" --and he raised his arms impressively-- "and call upon the Holy One of Israel to give us a sign that I am right and you are wrong."
And as he said this, there came a frightful crack of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning that struck the mahogany table and cracked it in two. The room was filled with smoke and fumes, and the president and the elders were hurled to the floor. Through the carnage, the rabbi remained erect and untouched, his eyes flashing and a grim smile on his face. Slowly, the president lifted himself above what was left of the table. His hair was singed, his glasses were hanging from one ear, his clothing was in disarray.
Finally he said, "All right, eleven to two. But we still have the majority."
We all know that not everything that is done in the church is done to the glory of God.
But wouldn't it be great if we had a dream for this church that was big enough that we would have to depend on God to accomplish it? And wouldn't it be great if we searched our hearts and souls with prayer so that our dream would match God's dream? Wouldn't it be great if we yearned for the pure spiritual milk that will helps us to grow in our salvation - and which affects the whole around us?
George Barna, a church-growth specialist, asked a group of pastors how they believed Christ would rate their church if He were to return today. Fifty-three percent of those pastors said Christ would rate their church as having little or no positive impact on souls or society.
How sad. How very sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could see concrete evidence that our community is a better community and our town is a better town because this church is here? Christ tells us we can see such evidence - if we dream great dreams and if those dreams are to God's glory and not our own.
What do we crave? What do we yearn for? What do we desire?
All prayer is answered my friends. Even the prayers that we ask strictly for ourselves and for our families.
Sometimes the answer is no - I have plans - trust me in this. sometimes it is - no, not yet, the time is not right.
Other times it is yes - I thought you'd never ask And still other times it is yes - and just wait to see what else I have in store for you.
What God does for the faithful - what God allows to happen to them - how God answers their prayer - always works for the good.
As that is true for each of us as individual believers is doubly true for us as the church -- for us as the people who gather in God's name to worship and work together the works he calls us to work.
If we dream a dream for this church and if it is truly God's dream, then great things will happen and each of us can be part of it.
What is your dream? What do you desire the most?
Is it pure spiritual milk that you may grow in your salvation and
continue to know that God is good? Is it to do the works of God - even greater works than Christ did that God's name may be glorified?
I started this message with the first words from today's reading
from the First Letter of Peter. I would like to conclude with the last words from that reading - where Peter writes:
"You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy; but now you have received mercy."
We have a purpose - and we have the tools that we need to accomplish that purpose, so much so that we can do even greater things than did Christ - should we desire to.
"You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." Why not put Christ to the test?
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen
The Lamb of God
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
The scripture readings for today are each so rich.
We have the prophet Isaiah declaring how the promised one - was called from his mother's womb to be the one who brings salvation to the people of Israel - and more - who is appointed to be a light to the gentiles.
It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the
tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will
also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my
salvation to the ends of the earth."
And we have Paul speaking to people of Corinth - to the believers in that
city - and saying that they will be kept strong and blameless till the time
of the promised one's return - strong through the spiritual gifts that God
has poured out on Christ's people through the Holy Spirit - and blameless
because of the what Christ has done for us on the cross.
Very rich materials indeed. As is today's Gospel lesson with it's account of the testimony that John the Baptist makes about Jesus - and it's description of how Andrew first visited with Jesus and then on the following day, brought his brother - Simon Peter - to meet Jesus.
Today I want to focus mainly on the gospel lesson - and within that -
mainly upon part of the testimony that John the Baptist made about Jesus on two separate days. The first part.
"Look" said John on the first day, pointing to Jesus as Jesus draws near to
him and his disciples "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
And on the second day John again says to his disciples as Jesus approaches."Look, the Lamb of God".
What does John the Baptist mean when he calls Jesus the Lamb of God?
What is a Lamb of God - that Jesus could be called "The Lamb of God?
Is John referring to the thousands of lambs that were sacrificed daily at
the temple in Jerusalem? Those lambs whose blood was spilled as a means of connecting the people with God? Those lambs whose death expressed the worshippers' acknowledgement of God's power over life and death?
The lambs that were sacrificed at the temple each day died as a way of
thanking God for the abundance of the harvest, for the increase in the
people's herds and flocks, and as a thank offering for the birth of a new
child.
The time of sacrifice was a time of communion - of communion between those who came to worship as the law required and of communion between them and God.
The flesh of the lamb was consumed by the worshippers and by the priests who offered the sacrifices. Much as we do today as we gather to commune with God and to thank God for being our God - prayers were said, psalms were sung, scripture was read, and the people affirmed by their presence and by their offering that they were the children of God and brothers and sisters to one another.
Is it these lambs of thanksgiving - of communion that John refers to when he calls Jesus 'The Lamb of God'?
Or is John referring to another kind of lamb - to the Passover Lamb, - that lamb that every household in Israel slaughtered each year and whose blood was then painted on the doorposts of their homes as a way of remembering the first Passover - that time when the angel of the Lord passed over the homes of the children of Israel as they suffered in slavery in Egypt and struck down the first born of their taskmasters?
The flesh of the Passover Lamb was entirely consumed on the night of the Passover - thus commemorating the strength that God gave the people to make their escape from bondage in Egypt - an escape that led them to the land of promise - to the land where God would give to them - in abundance – every good thing they needed.
Which kind of lamb is 'The Lamb of God'?
We believe that it is both kinds of lambs - but in particular - we believe
that the is the Passover Lamb that John the Baptist had in mind - that Lamb whose blood signified that those who sheltered behind it were to be spared death and given new life in a new land.
But when John points at Jesus and says "behold the lamb of God" - he says something more about Jesus than the images of the Passover Lamb and the Lambs of Thanksgiving might suggest to us. He says that this person, this Lamb of God, provided by God's own hands, does more than simply spare the lives of his chosen people and help to bring them to the promised land.
He is saying that this particular lamb - this particular person - has been
given by God to take away the sins of the whole world.
Sin, as every child of Israel knew, leads to death.
Permanent Death.
Final Death.
Caput.
Fini.
That is - indeed the point of the story of Adam and Eve - who upon eating
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - come under the sentence of death. And that is the message of the story of Noah and the flood and the message of every prophet sent by God to the people of Israel.
Sin leads to death.
Not just for the people that God has chosen - but for all humankind.
As the Apostle Paul so simply puts it in his letter to the Romans
"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"
What John is indicating when he points to Jesus and says "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" is that this man - this Jesus – is the one promised by Isaiah and so many of the other prophets: - that he is the one who is sent by God to bring salvation to the ends of the earth - the one who will free all people from slavery to sin and reconnect them to the perfect and holy God who created and sustains us.
He is saying that Jesus will free all people from the sentence of death,
not just those people God chose at the beginning to be his people - and he is giving to those who hear him - to his own disciples – an indication of how that would come about, namely by the offering of his body and his blood.
Just as the Passover lamb is slain so that it's blood may cause death to
pass by the homes of the children of Israel and it's flesh may sustain the
people as they escape from their bondage, and just as lambs in the temple were killed so that the prayers of thanksgiving and dedication might be heard by God and so that the people might rejoice and eat together, So the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the World will offer his body and his blood for us - and to us - once and for all.
From the time of his baptism by John, Jesus is led like a lamb to his
eventual slaughter in Jerusalem.
His teachings and his healings, the miracles he works, and the journeys that he makes, all of his ministry, leads to one moment - his sacrifice on the cross.
"Here is the Lamb of God" we say, as we stand stunned, watching our Saviour's blood drain from his body for our salvation.
Here is one who was unblemished - one who was with out sin - an innocent one taking upon himself the punishment that should be ours; giving his life that we may have life.
As all the saints and the angels in heaven say
"Worthy is the Lamb, the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!"
I am going to tell you a story:
A tourist visited a church in Germany and was surprised to see the carved figure of a lamb near the top of the church's tower.
He asked why it was there and was told that when the church was being built, a workman fell from a high scaffold. His co-workers rushed down, expecting to find him dead. But to their surprise and joy, he was alive and only slightly injured.
How did he survive? A flock of sheep was passing beneath the tower at the time, and he landed on top of a lamb. The lamb broke his fall and was crushed to death, but the man was saved.
To commemorate that miraculous escape, someone carved a lamb on the tower at the exact height from which the workman fell.
That expresses a tiny bit of what it means when John says "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" The sense indicated by Isaiah with his promise of one "who will bring salvation to the ends of the earth".
And with it's visible symbol, the carving on the bell tower that gives
testimony to what happened, it expresses a tiny bit of another important
part of the gospel reading today - that of John calling out to his own
disciples - and to all those who would hear his voice: "Look - the Lamb of God."
As you know it was because John the Baptist said "look" that Andrew and another disciple - most likely the Apostle John - turned and followed Jesus and became excited by what they experienced with him and became his disciples.
And it was because of Andrew telling his brother Simon "We have found the Messiah" and then bringing Simon to him - that Simon became Peter – the Rock of the Church.
I call you to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Like John the Baptist, I do not want you to follow me: - I want you to follow the one who gives everyone who comes to him life and that abundantly. - I want you to follow the innocent one, the pure one, the one of God and from God who offered himself as the unblemished sacrifice for our sins, once and for all.
I want you to follow Jesus and have the angel of the Lord's judgement pass over your house and for you to escape from bondage and enter the promised land.
And more - I want you to be like John - and Andrew - and Simon Peter – and every disciple since
I want you to call to those who trust you and to those who will hear your voice - I want you to call to them and say "look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is still with us - to make us free and to make us holy and to give us eternal life"
There is not one of us who does not need to draw closer to the Lamb of God. There is not one of us who does not need to come to Jesus and be cleansed and forgiven and given life. There is not one of us who does not need to experience Jesus and his transforming love on a deeper basis - day by day.
The Lamb of God my friends is here,- here in the book we read here; in the songs we sing; and the prayers that we pray; here in the love that we share and the forgiveness we grant in his name; here in the laughter and here too in the pain. He is here in the Spirit that God poured out upon the world in response to his sacrifice.
He is here and he is in heaven above, interceding for and protecting his people and calling to all the world to come and be healed.
Blessed be his name - now and forevermore. Amen.
The scripture readings for today are each so rich.
We have the prophet Isaiah declaring how the promised one - was called from his mother's womb to be the one who brings salvation to the people of Israel - and more - who is appointed to be a light to the gentiles.
It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the
tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will
also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my
salvation to the ends of the earth."
And we have Paul speaking to people of Corinth - to the believers in that
city - and saying that they will be kept strong and blameless till the time
of the promised one's return - strong through the spiritual gifts that God
has poured out on Christ's people through the Holy Spirit - and blameless
because of the what Christ has done for us on the cross.
Very rich materials indeed. As is today's Gospel lesson with it's account of the testimony that John the Baptist makes about Jesus - and it's description of how Andrew first visited with Jesus and then on the following day, brought his brother - Simon Peter - to meet Jesus.
Today I want to focus mainly on the gospel lesson - and within that -
mainly upon part of the testimony that John the Baptist made about Jesus on two separate days. The first part.
"Look" said John on the first day, pointing to Jesus as Jesus draws near to
him and his disciples "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
And on the second day John again says to his disciples as Jesus approaches."Look, the Lamb of God".
What does John the Baptist mean when he calls Jesus the Lamb of God?
What is a Lamb of God - that Jesus could be called "The Lamb of God?
Is John referring to the thousands of lambs that were sacrificed daily at
the temple in Jerusalem? Those lambs whose blood was spilled as a means of connecting the people with God? Those lambs whose death expressed the worshippers' acknowledgement of God's power over life and death?
The lambs that were sacrificed at the temple each day died as a way of
thanking God for the abundance of the harvest, for the increase in the
people's herds and flocks, and as a thank offering for the birth of a new
child.
The time of sacrifice was a time of communion - of communion between those who came to worship as the law required and of communion between them and God.
The flesh of the lamb was consumed by the worshippers and by the priests who offered the sacrifices. Much as we do today as we gather to commune with God and to thank God for being our God - prayers were said, psalms were sung, scripture was read, and the people affirmed by their presence and by their offering that they were the children of God and brothers and sisters to one another.
Is it these lambs of thanksgiving - of communion that John refers to when he calls Jesus 'The Lamb of God'?
Or is John referring to another kind of lamb - to the Passover Lamb, - that lamb that every household in Israel slaughtered each year and whose blood was then painted on the doorposts of their homes as a way of remembering the first Passover - that time when the angel of the Lord passed over the homes of the children of Israel as they suffered in slavery in Egypt and struck down the first born of their taskmasters?
The flesh of the Passover Lamb was entirely consumed on the night of the Passover - thus commemorating the strength that God gave the people to make their escape from bondage in Egypt - an escape that led them to the land of promise - to the land where God would give to them - in abundance – every good thing they needed.
Which kind of lamb is 'The Lamb of God'?
We believe that it is both kinds of lambs - but in particular - we believe
that the is the Passover Lamb that John the Baptist had in mind - that Lamb whose blood signified that those who sheltered behind it were to be spared death and given new life in a new land.
But when John points at Jesus and says "behold the lamb of God" - he says something more about Jesus than the images of the Passover Lamb and the Lambs of Thanksgiving might suggest to us. He says that this person, this Lamb of God, provided by God's own hands, does more than simply spare the lives of his chosen people and help to bring them to the promised land.
He is saying that this particular lamb - this particular person - has been
given by God to take away the sins of the whole world.
Sin, as every child of Israel knew, leads to death.
Permanent Death.
Final Death.
Caput.
Fini.
That is - indeed the point of the story of Adam and Eve - who upon eating
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - come under the sentence of death. And that is the message of the story of Noah and the flood and the message of every prophet sent by God to the people of Israel.
Sin leads to death.
Not just for the people that God has chosen - but for all humankind.
As the Apostle Paul so simply puts it in his letter to the Romans
"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"
What John is indicating when he points to Jesus and says "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" is that this man - this Jesus – is the one promised by Isaiah and so many of the other prophets: - that he is the one who is sent by God to bring salvation to the ends of the earth - the one who will free all people from slavery to sin and reconnect them to the perfect and holy God who created and sustains us.
He is saying that Jesus will free all people from the sentence of death,
not just those people God chose at the beginning to be his people - and he is giving to those who hear him - to his own disciples – an indication of how that would come about, namely by the offering of his body and his blood.
Just as the Passover lamb is slain so that it's blood may cause death to
pass by the homes of the children of Israel and it's flesh may sustain the
people as they escape from their bondage, and just as lambs in the temple were killed so that the prayers of thanksgiving and dedication might be heard by God and so that the people might rejoice and eat together, So the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the World will offer his body and his blood for us - and to us - once and for all.
From the time of his baptism by John, Jesus is led like a lamb to his
eventual slaughter in Jerusalem.
His teachings and his healings, the miracles he works, and the journeys that he makes, all of his ministry, leads to one moment - his sacrifice on the cross.
"Here is the Lamb of God" we say, as we stand stunned, watching our Saviour's blood drain from his body for our salvation.
Here is one who was unblemished - one who was with out sin - an innocent one taking upon himself the punishment that should be ours; giving his life that we may have life.
As all the saints and the angels in heaven say
"Worthy is the Lamb, the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!"
I am going to tell you a story:
A tourist visited a church in Germany and was surprised to see the carved figure of a lamb near the top of the church's tower.
He asked why it was there and was told that when the church was being built, a workman fell from a high scaffold. His co-workers rushed down, expecting to find him dead. But to their surprise and joy, he was alive and only slightly injured.
How did he survive? A flock of sheep was passing beneath the tower at the time, and he landed on top of a lamb. The lamb broke his fall and was crushed to death, but the man was saved.
To commemorate that miraculous escape, someone carved a lamb on the tower at the exact height from which the workman fell.
That expresses a tiny bit of what it means when John says "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" The sense indicated by Isaiah with his promise of one "who will bring salvation to the ends of the earth".
And with it's visible symbol, the carving on the bell tower that gives
testimony to what happened, it expresses a tiny bit of another important
part of the gospel reading today - that of John calling out to his own
disciples - and to all those who would hear his voice: "Look - the Lamb of God."
As you know it was because John the Baptist said "look" that Andrew and another disciple - most likely the Apostle John - turned and followed Jesus and became excited by what they experienced with him and became his disciples.
And it was because of Andrew telling his brother Simon "We have found the Messiah" and then bringing Simon to him - that Simon became Peter – the Rock of the Church.
I call you to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Like John the Baptist, I do not want you to follow me: - I want you to follow the one who gives everyone who comes to him life and that abundantly. - I want you to follow the innocent one, the pure one, the one of God and from God who offered himself as the unblemished sacrifice for our sins, once and for all.
I want you to follow Jesus and have the angel of the Lord's judgement pass over your house and for you to escape from bondage and enter the promised land.
And more - I want you to be like John - and Andrew - and Simon Peter – and every disciple since
I want you to call to those who trust you and to those who will hear your voice - I want you to call to them and say "look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is still with us - to make us free and to make us holy and to give us eternal life"
There is not one of us who does not need to draw closer to the Lamb of God. There is not one of us who does not need to come to Jesus and be cleansed and forgiven and given life. There is not one of us who does not need to experience Jesus and his transforming love on a deeper basis - day by day.
The Lamb of God my friends is here,- here in the book we read here; in the songs we sing; and the prayers that we pray; here in the love that we share and the forgiveness we grant in his name; here in the laughter and here too in the pain. He is here in the Spirit that God poured out upon the world in response to his sacrifice.
He is here and he is in heaven above, interceding for and protecting his people and calling to all the world to come and be healed.
Blessed be his name - now and forevermore. Amen.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Luke 17:5-10
A nun who works for a local home health care agency was out making her rounds when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it there was a station just down the street. She walked to the station to borrow a can with enough gas to start the car and drive to the station for a fill up.
The attendant regretfully told her that the only can he owned had just been loaned out, but if she would care to wait he was sure it would be back shortly. Since the nun was on the way to see a patient she decided not to wait and walked back to her car.
After looking through her car for something to carry to the station to fill with gas, she spotted a potty she was taking to the patient. Always resourceful, she carried it to the station and filled it with gasoline. As she was pouring the gas into the tank of her car two men walked by. One was heard to exclaim, "Now that is what I call faith!"
Back to the sermon:
I am going to tell you a story, this story about a business traveller who was on his way from his home town to a large city in the Middle East by road. One night he met two other travellers travelling on the same road as he was. Their name was Fear and Plague. Plague told the traveller that once they arrived at the city, they were expected to kill 100,000 people in that city. The traveller asked Plague if Plague was to do all the killing by himself. Plague said, “Oh, no. I shall only be killing a few hundred people; it is my friend ‘Fear’ who will do the killing of all the others.
Fear, whether it is real or imagined, can discourage us, overwhelm us, beaten us and even strangle us. Dreadful things happen everywhere. There are people around the world paralyzed by fear. Fear is such a terrible thing!
Fear is widespread in this society of ours; in fact it is widespread throughout the world. We have personal fear – fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of not being loved, a fear of having no work, a fear of not being up to the measurements of our peers, a fear of not being able to help our families, a fear of being looked down by others. We also have social fear, fear that war and disasters will go on forever, a fear that society will collapse, a fear that the pollution in the air will kill us, and so on and so on. Even inside the church too there are fear, personal fears, social fears and spiritual fears. Do you have any fears?
There are many people who feel:
- That they are not able to do anything of real importance
- That they cannot and do not make a difference to society
- That they cannot and do not make a difference to anyone
- That they are unable to do even a part of what it is that God asks them to do
- That they will let God down or that God will let them down.
There are so many Christians in this world who are in a mess. They have forgotten what their faith is all about. They have forgotten that as long as it is the will of God, God will give to you the strength and the means to have it accomplished. Do these feelings describe your life – fear, despair, a sense of failure, a sense of not being competent, and a sense of hopelessness? Do you feel unexcited by your worship of the Lord? Do you feel unsure of just what the good news of the Gospel is? Do you feel burdened by life and by the tasks set to you by God? And yet wanting to believe, wanting to do the right thing, wanting to have the life that God has promised us even in the here and now?
Wanting, and yet……
How can I feed the hungry?
How can I clothe the naked?
How can I help the sick?
How can I bring peace to those around me?
How can I help my family?
How can I help others?
How can I spread the gospel of Jesus Christ?
How can I forgive the people who have hurt me so badly?
How can I even experience the joy that is supposed to be part of life with God, let alone help bring it to others?
The disciples had exactly the same feelings. From our Gospel reading of today, we hear of them crying out to Jesus. A cry similar to one that you may have made to God at one time or another.
They were feeling that what they were facing in life, not to mention what they were facing or will be facing as the ones following Jesus was too much for them to bear, too much for their small faith to handle and so they cry out to the Lord, “Jesus please increase our faith”. “Lord, help us believe enough so that we can do what it is that you have commanded us to do – help us trust enough so that we can live as you say we should be living. Lord, take away our fear.”
Jesus please increases our faith.
And what did Jesus do – how did he answer their prayers? Did he laid his hands upon them and pray and give them more faith as they asked? Did he just snap his fingers and grant them a double dose of his Spirit and his Faith?
No, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ – he did not – instead he told them that “if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted it in the sea and it would obey you.”
If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and plated it in the sea and it would obey you!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do you not find that answer of Jesus to be a strange answer? But really it is the best answer that could be given, for you see, the real issue for everyone of us is not “how much faith do we have?” but rather the question of “do we have any faith at all?”
I would like to share a story with you: Many years ago a shoe company in England sent one of its sales people to Africa to start a business. After a few months this salesperson sent a message back to his head office telling them that he is coming home as nobody in Africa wear shoes and therefore it is a waste of time and money being there. This shoe company did not give up, so they sent another salesperson to Africa to replace the returning one. After a few months this second salesperson sent an urgent message to head office asking them to send more order forms as nobody in Africa is wearing shoes and there are plenty of opportunities making sales. The second salesperson saw the opportunity in his situation – not the difficulties that he is facing, and more to the point, he had in himself and in his products, and because of that he succeeded where the first salesperson failed.
I would like to suggest to you that faith is a bit like being pregnant. You see, you cannot make a valid distinction between having a little faith and a lot of faith, anymore than claiming someone is a little pregnant but not really a lot pregnant. I think you will be completely confused or started laughing if one day I tell you that my wife, Jenny is a little bit pregnant. You would think that Edwin must have either gone crazy or he is too happy and said the wrong thing for there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. It is a matter of either she is pregnant or she is not. Same with faith, it is either you have faith or you do not. You cannot just have a little bit of faith. It is something that does not make sense to the one who is listening. If we do believe in the promises of Jesus, the promises of God our Father in Heaven, even a little bit, then my brothers and sisters, we are already on the right path. I do sincerely believe that all of you who are here today are on the right track. All of you, who, if you are like the disciples were asking for an increase of our faith, are already, going on the right way.
Having said all that, and having understood the distinction between having faith and not having any faith, the question for us to answer is not how much faith we have, but what do we really have faith in.
There are many Christians in this world who look at themselves instead of God. Often we look at ourselves and say – I cannot do that. I am not strong enough, loving enough, giving enough, wise enough; I do not have the income or the money, the power or the faith to be successful in what I am doing. And those doubts, my brothers and sisters are completely true – we by our own powers are not able to accomplish what God wants us to achieve. We do not have what it is needed what it comes to dealing with what is truly important matters. We will not even last a day in this world without God looking after us. But my brothers and sisters in Christ, God has the power; God is able to do anything that he wishes to do. All we need to do is pray to him and believe in him. Ask God for help and his power will be able to flow through us, and he will work through us to complete what he wants us to complete.
Some of us, at one time or another has met people who have been through very difficult and trying times, and our thoughts were that they must be people of great faith to come out of their trial and tribulations as well as they have. If we ever say to them with respect and admiration that we do not think that we could have faced what they have faced. Your faith must be very strong indeed. Do you know what their answer would be? Their answer would almost always be with words like these: “My faith is no greater than anyone else’s. I just did not know what I had until I have need for it. God helped me through it. If it was not for him I would never have been able to make it.”
Have you not heard of this kind of thing yourselves? Is it not one of those times when we may have said to ourselves: “I wish I had a faith like theirs”?
I wish I had a faith like theirs!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you know that those people of faith that we admire are correct in what they tell us. We very often do not realise just what we have in ourselves. We let our faith in God lie sleeping inside of us, and we go out looking for it. While all the time, God is there, and our faith in God is there, but our faith is doing nothing because we allow it to go to sleep.
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ covers all areas of human life:
- It tells us of forgiveness and peace
- It tells us of eternal life
- It addresses the problems of poverty and of war
- It gives solutions to despair and answers to human distress.
But most of all, my brothers and sisters in Christ, it tells us:
- That alone by ourselves we can do nothing
- That we are, as many of us think, inadequate, incapable, sinners lost in a dark world.
- It tells us that are not alone, and that God cares for everyone of us
- That God works in the lives of all those who believes in him
- That God’s good purposes cannot be stopped by anyone or anything
- That his word does not return to him empty
- That he desires to transform not just the human heart but he wants to transform the world in which we are all living in
- And that all we need to do is to reach down to that little seed within us and begin to do what we have been called by God to do and God will do the rest
God will do the rest, which is his promise, however, we must do our part, just like Moses having to stretch out his rod, , just like Moses striking the rock with his staff in order to get water for the people, or the people who need healing must come to Jesus first. God will work in us and through us and bring his word to pass. He will pluck up the mountains and fill in the valleys. He will bring about the kingdom of God here on earth as we pray for. We are after all his partners in his work in this world.
What I am trying to say this morning is not ‘have more faith’ – but rather work with the faith that you already have inside you. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when we started acting in faith the very first thing we will notice is that a little is a lot.
There is a Chinese proverb that tells us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. I should know as I am Chinese by race, and I am suggesting to you to take the step; follow he commands of God – hear his advice found throughout the scriptures and believe – believe in what God has promised us will come about. He is not one who speaks empty words.
Remember that no matter how small the step you may be taking, each step will bring you closer to your destination when it is taken. But you have to take the step, you have to start claiming God’s word as your own if you are to receive what God has promised and do what God has called you to do.
When you practice your faith, when you pray, when you believe and when you do, then in the language of the story that I began this talk with, you will overcome – God will overcome – plague and his far more dangerous companion – fear, and the blessings of life will be completely yours, yours and your family and the world. Praise be to God, day by day – Amen.
The attendant regretfully told her that the only can he owned had just been loaned out, but if she would care to wait he was sure it would be back shortly. Since the nun was on the way to see a patient she decided not to wait and walked back to her car.
After looking through her car for something to carry to the station to fill with gas, she spotted a potty she was taking to the patient. Always resourceful, she carried it to the station and filled it with gasoline. As she was pouring the gas into the tank of her car two men walked by. One was heard to exclaim, "Now that is what I call faith!"
Back to the sermon:
I am going to tell you a story, this story about a business traveller who was on his way from his home town to a large city in the Middle East by road. One night he met two other travellers travelling on the same road as he was. Their name was Fear and Plague. Plague told the traveller that once they arrived at the city, they were expected to kill 100,000 people in that city. The traveller asked Plague if Plague was to do all the killing by himself. Plague said, “Oh, no. I shall only be killing a few hundred people; it is my friend ‘Fear’ who will do the killing of all the others.
Fear, whether it is real or imagined, can discourage us, overwhelm us, beaten us and even strangle us. Dreadful things happen everywhere. There are people around the world paralyzed by fear. Fear is such a terrible thing!
Fear is widespread in this society of ours; in fact it is widespread throughout the world. We have personal fear – fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of not being loved, a fear of having no work, a fear of not being up to the measurements of our peers, a fear of not being able to help our families, a fear of being looked down by others. We also have social fear, fear that war and disasters will go on forever, a fear that society will collapse, a fear that the pollution in the air will kill us, and so on and so on. Even inside the church too there are fear, personal fears, social fears and spiritual fears. Do you have any fears?
There are many people who feel:
- That they are not able to do anything of real importance
- That they cannot and do not make a difference to society
- That they cannot and do not make a difference to anyone
- That they are unable to do even a part of what it is that God asks them to do
- That they will let God down or that God will let them down.
There are so many Christians in this world who are in a mess. They have forgotten what their faith is all about. They have forgotten that as long as it is the will of God, God will give to you the strength and the means to have it accomplished. Do these feelings describe your life – fear, despair, a sense of failure, a sense of not being competent, and a sense of hopelessness? Do you feel unexcited by your worship of the Lord? Do you feel unsure of just what the good news of the Gospel is? Do you feel burdened by life and by the tasks set to you by God? And yet wanting to believe, wanting to do the right thing, wanting to have the life that God has promised us even in the here and now?
Wanting, and yet……
How can I feed the hungry?
How can I clothe the naked?
How can I help the sick?
How can I bring peace to those around me?
How can I help my family?
How can I help others?
How can I spread the gospel of Jesus Christ?
How can I forgive the people who have hurt me so badly?
How can I even experience the joy that is supposed to be part of life with God, let alone help bring it to others?
The disciples had exactly the same feelings. From our Gospel reading of today, we hear of them crying out to Jesus. A cry similar to one that you may have made to God at one time or another.
They were feeling that what they were facing in life, not to mention what they were facing or will be facing as the ones following Jesus was too much for them to bear, too much for their small faith to handle and so they cry out to the Lord, “Jesus please increase our faith”. “Lord, help us believe enough so that we can do what it is that you have commanded us to do – help us trust enough so that we can live as you say we should be living. Lord, take away our fear.”
Jesus please increases our faith.
And what did Jesus do – how did he answer their prayers? Did he laid his hands upon them and pray and give them more faith as they asked? Did he just snap his fingers and grant them a double dose of his Spirit and his Faith?
No, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ – he did not – instead he told them that “if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted it in the sea and it would obey you.”
If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and plated it in the sea and it would obey you!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do you not find that answer of Jesus to be a strange answer? But really it is the best answer that could be given, for you see, the real issue for everyone of us is not “how much faith do we have?” but rather the question of “do we have any faith at all?”
I would like to share a story with you: Many years ago a shoe company in England sent one of its sales people to Africa to start a business. After a few months this salesperson sent a message back to his head office telling them that he is coming home as nobody in Africa wear shoes and therefore it is a waste of time and money being there. This shoe company did not give up, so they sent another salesperson to Africa to replace the returning one. After a few months this second salesperson sent an urgent message to head office asking them to send more order forms as nobody in Africa is wearing shoes and there are plenty of opportunities making sales. The second salesperson saw the opportunity in his situation – not the difficulties that he is facing, and more to the point, he had in himself and in his products, and because of that he succeeded where the first salesperson failed.
I would like to suggest to you that faith is a bit like being pregnant. You see, you cannot make a valid distinction between having a little faith and a lot of faith, anymore than claiming someone is a little pregnant but not really a lot pregnant. I think you will be completely confused or started laughing if one day I tell you that my wife, Jenny is a little bit pregnant. You would think that Edwin must have either gone crazy or he is too happy and said the wrong thing for there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. It is a matter of either she is pregnant or she is not. Same with faith, it is either you have faith or you do not. You cannot just have a little bit of faith. It is something that does not make sense to the one who is listening. If we do believe in the promises of Jesus, the promises of God our Father in Heaven, even a little bit, then my brothers and sisters, we are already on the right path. I do sincerely believe that all of you who are here today are on the right track. All of you, who, if you are like the disciples were asking for an increase of our faith, are already, going on the right way.
Having said all that, and having understood the distinction between having faith and not having any faith, the question for us to answer is not how much faith we have, but what do we really have faith in.
There are many Christians in this world who look at themselves instead of God. Often we look at ourselves and say – I cannot do that. I am not strong enough, loving enough, giving enough, wise enough; I do not have the income or the money, the power or the faith to be successful in what I am doing. And those doubts, my brothers and sisters are completely true – we by our own powers are not able to accomplish what God wants us to achieve. We do not have what it is needed what it comes to dealing with what is truly important matters. We will not even last a day in this world without God looking after us. But my brothers and sisters in Christ, God has the power; God is able to do anything that he wishes to do. All we need to do is pray to him and believe in him. Ask God for help and his power will be able to flow through us, and he will work through us to complete what he wants us to complete.
Some of us, at one time or another has met people who have been through very difficult and trying times, and our thoughts were that they must be people of great faith to come out of their trial and tribulations as well as they have. If we ever say to them with respect and admiration that we do not think that we could have faced what they have faced. Your faith must be very strong indeed. Do you know what their answer would be? Their answer would almost always be with words like these: “My faith is no greater than anyone else’s. I just did not know what I had until I have need for it. God helped me through it. If it was not for him I would never have been able to make it.”
Have you not heard of this kind of thing yourselves? Is it not one of those times when we may have said to ourselves: “I wish I had a faith like theirs”?
I wish I had a faith like theirs!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you know that those people of faith that we admire are correct in what they tell us. We very often do not realise just what we have in ourselves. We let our faith in God lie sleeping inside of us, and we go out looking for it. While all the time, God is there, and our faith in God is there, but our faith is doing nothing because we allow it to go to sleep.
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ covers all areas of human life:
- It tells us of forgiveness and peace
- It tells us of eternal life
- It addresses the problems of poverty and of war
- It gives solutions to despair and answers to human distress.
But most of all, my brothers and sisters in Christ, it tells us:
- That alone by ourselves we can do nothing
- That we are, as many of us think, inadequate, incapable, sinners lost in a dark world.
- It tells us that are not alone, and that God cares for everyone of us
- That God works in the lives of all those who believes in him
- That God’s good purposes cannot be stopped by anyone or anything
- That his word does not return to him empty
- That he desires to transform not just the human heart but he wants to transform the world in which we are all living in
- And that all we need to do is to reach down to that little seed within us and begin to do what we have been called by God to do and God will do the rest
God will do the rest, which is his promise, however, we must do our part, just like Moses having to stretch out his rod, , just like Moses striking the rock with his staff in order to get water for the people, or the people who need healing must come to Jesus first. God will work in us and through us and bring his word to pass. He will pluck up the mountains and fill in the valleys. He will bring about the kingdom of God here on earth as we pray for. We are after all his partners in his work in this world.
What I am trying to say this morning is not ‘have more faith’ – but rather work with the faith that you already have inside you. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when we started acting in faith the very first thing we will notice is that a little is a lot.
There is a Chinese proverb that tells us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. I should know as I am Chinese by race, and I am suggesting to you to take the step; follow he commands of God – hear his advice found throughout the scriptures and believe – believe in what God has promised us will come about. He is not one who speaks empty words.
Remember that no matter how small the step you may be taking, each step will bring you closer to your destination when it is taken. But you have to take the step, you have to start claiming God’s word as your own if you are to receive what God has promised and do what God has called you to do.
When you practice your faith, when you pray, when you believe and when you do, then in the language of the story that I began this talk with, you will overcome – God will overcome – plague and his far more dangerous companion – fear, and the blessings of life will be completely yours, yours and your family and the world. Praise be to God, day by day – Amen.
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