Kingdom of God – Salvaged Faith

The Next Right Thing

Posted on August 28, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 23:50-54

For the last several weeks, we have been exploring some bold and untold stories from the Bible… mostly from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures.

These next two weeks, we’ll look at two lesser known figures from the gospels.

We start with a man who shows up in all four gospels.

Matthew describes Joseph of Arimathea as a rich man and a disciple of Jesus. (27:57)

John describes him as a secret disciple, who was afraid of what his fellow Jews might think. (19:38)

Mark adds that he was a respected member of the Sanhedrin, or Jewish Council, who was looking for the Kingdom of God. (15:43)

And Luke adds a bit more detail to his life story. He was good and righteous, and he did not agree to the decisions and actions of the Council. (23:50-51)

In all four of these gospels, Joseph is the man who shows up after death of Jesus and asks Pilate for the body of Jesus.

He shows up to bring dignity to the body of Christ and places the body into his own tomb.

As we think about what it means to be disciples in our own lives today, let’s dive deeper into the life of Joseph and his bold actions.

First, let’s talk about his background.

Biblical scholars aren’t exactly sure where ancient Arimathea might be, but usually identify it as Ramah… the town where the prophet Samuel was born and eventually buried.

His home would have been less than 10 miles from Jerusalem and so he would have lived near to this seat of power in the land.

What he did for a living… we are not sure… except that either his family or his work brought him wealth.

And two of our gospels identify Joseph of Arimathea as a member of the Council… or the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin acted as a kind of tribunal for the Jewish people and the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. It was kind of like our Supreme Court and would take appeals from cases of lower regional courts.

There would have been seventy-one elders who sat on the council… including, apparently, Joseph of Arimathea.

Together, they were the ones to whom all questions of Jewish law ultimately were decided under the leadership of the High Priest.

They would have declared fast days and regulated the Jewish calendar and represented the Jewish people to the Roman authorities.

They would have released judgments or decrees about tithing and property and divorces and taxes.

So when Jesus is accused of a number of violations of Jewish law… like healing on the Sabbath, threatening to destroy the Temple, and claiming to be the Messiah… those accusations would have been made known to the Sanhedrin where he would have been brought up on trial.

The gospel accounts of this trial vary a lot. In some cases, he was taken to the court… and in others to the home of the high priest, Caiaphas… and in others, to the home of the former high priest, Annas for a sort of “pre-trial conversation.”

Some accounts include false testimony given by witnesses.

But in all, Jesus tends to not directly answer the accusations – either remaining silent, or replying “You say that I am.”

The end result of the trial in all cases is that the Council, the Sanhedrin, turns Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. Rather than simply breaking Jewish law, they accuse him of treason towards the Roman empire itself, a crime resulting in execution.

So… where is Joseph of Arimathea in all of this?

Like many other people of the Jewish faith in this time, he has heard the message of Jesus and believes in the good news he has to offer.

Under the rule of Roman oppression, the people were hungry for freedom.

They were looking for the Messiah.

They wanted God’s reign to come.

Well… most people.

Some of our gospels describe how a few of these religious leaders had become comfortable in their arrangements with the Roman authorities.

They were free to practice their faith and were granted a lot of power even in the midst of the rule of the Empire.

So for a man like Jospeh with considerable wealth and power… well, it wouldn’t have been surprising if he had decided to cling to his own power or if he were wary of an uprising among the people.

What the scriptures tell us is that he wasn’t comfortable with these accusations against Jesus.

He believed Jesus was the Messiah… even if he didn’t want his peers to know about it.

And Luke’s Gospel tells us that when the Council was trying Jesus and decided to hand him over to the Romans, Joseph was not in agreement.

But, he was also out voted.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the situation that Joseph found himself in.

He was a good and righteous man who loved God, followed the law, and yearned for the Kingdom of Heaven to be known on earth.

But he also existed with a system that had rules and authority.

He wasn’t just a cog in the system… he had a seat at the tables of power.

He was a man of privilege, just as much as he was a man of faith.

John’s gospel tells us that most of the time, that privilege probably took priority over his faith.

He followed Jesus secretly.

He didn’t let his convictions interfere with the other roles that he played in his life.

It was something that he kept to himself in his own private time.

And you know what, I think that probably describes how a lot of us live out our faith.

We follow Jesus, but we do so in our own private time.

We don’t make a big deal about it and maybe the people that we work with or go to school with or hang out with as friends don’t know that it is a part of our lives.

We can be hesitant to be more outspoken, not wanting to upset anyone or to offend.

But also, let’s be honest… it is way more convenient to let Jesus be something we worry about on Sundays rather than an every day part of our lives.

And then… there are those big moments that really test us.

Someone does something that we find questionable or immoral.

There is a large, public, national discussion about something controversial and you DO have a faith position on it.

You encounter a situation where you are challenged to stand up, to speak out, to express out loud something that maybe you really haven’t figured out.

What do you do then?

Jospeh found himself in that situation as he took his seat among the Sanhedrin that day.

And to be honest, we don’t know how he chose to respond.

Did he sit back, silently, watching it happen?

Was he afraid to speak up?

Or did he take a stand and argue on behalf of Jesus?

Did he whisper quietly to those around him, encouraging them to let Jesus go?

Was he complicit in the sentence… or did he try as hard as he could to change the outcome?

We don’t really know.

But what we do know is that we face those moments in our lives where we are invited to take a stand.

Where we are invited to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

And the truth is, we don’t always do it.

Sometimes we are complicit.

We cling to our power and our position.

We get comfortable and complacent and pretend like its not our responsibility.

And there are other times that we try as hard as we can to do the right thing and it still goes the wrong way.

We get outvoted or ignored.

Our actions don’t make the impact that we would like.

We find ourselves in the minority, or without the power to affect real change.

And holy cow, that can be discouraging.

We don’t know what Joseph did in the Sanhedrin that night, but we know the outcome of that meeting.

Jesus is handed over, found guilty, and crucified.

And I can imagine that Joseph was devastated.

He yearned for the Kingdom of God and the man he believed to be the Messiah had been executed.

I’m sure he wrestled in his own spirit that day… wondering what more he could have done, feeling shame that he didn’t act sooner, filled with grief and guilt and uncertainty.

And I think when we find ourselves in that place… when everything feels like it has gone wrong and is off track and falling apart, it is easy to retreat.

It is easy to hide.

It is easy to wallow in our shame and guilt.

But I want us to think about Joseph of Arimathea in those moments.

He was a good and righteous man.

He yearned for the Kingdom of Heaven.

And instead of letting all that had gone wrong, all the ways the system had failed, all the shame get to him…

He did the next right thing.

He kept his eyes on the Kingdom of Heaven.

He continued to act as a follower of Christ.

He took his power and his privilege and did what he could to bring love and life and mercy into a moment of terror and death.

As a member of the Sanhedrin, he had the authority to approach Pilate and he did.

He asked the Roman authorities for the body of Jesus.

Often, criminals who were executed would have been left on display after their death as an act of humiliation intended to deter other crimes.

Experts talk about how burial of these criminals was usually forbidden and corpses often were left to decompose or were eaten by animals.

But Joseph of Arimathea steps out into public and takes actions that will bring dignity to the body of his Lord.

Joseph… and in some accounts, his fellow council member Nicodemus… went and took that lifeless body down off the cross.

They brought fresh linen and spices and carefully prepared his body for burial.

And Joseph carried Jesus to his own family tomb and placed him there, sealing it shut with a stone.

He risked his reputation, his wealth, his status, his seat on the Council…

And yet, he knew it was the right thing to do.

It was something he could do.

We all will face difficult moments in our lives where we are challenged to take up our cross, to risk our own reputation, status, or power, in order to follow Jesus.

And, friends, we won’t always get it right.

And even in moments when we do get it right, we won’t always change the outcome.

But every new moment gives us the opportunity to do the next right thing for the Kingdom of God.

May we find the courage and the strength to respond with the love of Christ.

May we find the grace to move past our failures and to keep our eyes on Jesus.

And may we act to further the reign of God wherever we go.

Amen.

The Church in Antioch

Posted on July 18, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 11: 19-30

In our lesson for today, Luke notes that this new community in Antioch represents the very first time that people were called, “Christians.”

Before this, we’ve had a lot of different descriptions of these folks.

Jews. Disciples. Followers of the Way. Those who were part of “This Life.”

It was hard to describe this community.

And largely that is because this movement started among and as an extension of the Jewish faith.

Jesus himself was considered a Jewish rabbi, who recruited disciples to follow his teaching… like many other Jewish rabbis of the time.

And yet, there was more to Jesus than this.

He wasn’t simply pointing to God’s Kingdom.

He didn’t just have a particular teaching about what it meant to be Jewish.

He was ushering in a whole new kind of relationship between God and the world that brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.

While Jesus walked among those first disciples and the crowds, he described the kind of life we were now called to embody.

Think about the Sermon on the Mount…

In ‘The Message’ translation, as the sermon continues after the Beatitudes, Eugene Peterson writes:

“Let me tell you why you are here…”

The whole sermon is full of instructions for the people of God.

It reminds us of the attitudes we are supposed to carry with us into the world and how we can serve God and God’s Kingdom.

We are supposed to fulfill God’s laws – God’s plans and guide for how we love and live with one another.

And as we do, we become salt and light.

Our very lives, our witness, helps others to experience God.

Think a bit about what it means to be salt and light.

We aren’t called to be salty in a way that is angry and bitter and ill-tempered.

Salt takes what is already there and brings out the flavors. It helps us taste what is hidden.

When you sprinkle salt on watermelon or tomatoes, the flavors are more bright and sweet.

When you add salt to soup, it becomes rich and deep.

Salt is used for curing and preserving and healing.

That is our job!

We bring out the “God-flavors of this earth” (MSG) by pointing to the good news and movement of God and lifting up stories of life and hope.

In the same way, the light of God within us helps others to see God.

Our faith is not meant to be secret or private… but to shine far and wide so that others might have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ as well.

So the testimony and witness of the Book of Acts tells us about how those first Jewish disciples lived in the way Jesus called them to live.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God within them, they were salt and light… not just for themselves, or for their neighbors, but for the entire world.

We see it in that first community in Jerusalem that gathered to break breads and pray and learn at the feet of the apostles.

We see it in how they cared for the vulnerable within the community.

We see it in how people were healed, and faith deepened, and understanding of the Kingdom of God expanded and grew.

Even when persecution and threats could have driven them underground, hiding away the light of God in their hearts, they shone.

And suddenly, this small group of Jewish disciples who believed that Jesus was the Messiah became an international movement of Jews and Gentiles.

Which brings us to Antioch.

If we remember, the experience of Pentecost was itself had a global impact because Jewish faithful from across the world had returned to the city for the festival.

But, after the death of Stephen, some of those disciples fled and returned home… some all the way to the northern end of the Mediterranean Sea.

They began to be salt and light back home, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with their fellow Jews.

And because Antioch was a huge, cosmopolitan city – a crossroads of the world at this time – some of those folks from Phoenicia and Cyprus and even people as far away as the north African city of Cyrene found themselves together.

As the Holy Spirit led them, they pointed to what God was doing in the world and just like Peter had experienced in Caesarea, Gentiles began to join the movement as well.

That’s the thing about salt and light.

It can’t be hidden away.

It can’t be contained to just one thing.

If you salt your potatoes on the plate, some is bound to land on the chicken and broccoli, too.

If you set a light in one corner of a room, eventually the whole space will be illuminated.

Jesus was telling those first disciples that if they followed his way, the whole world would notice.

So why are we surprised when they do?

The leaders of the church in Jerusalem heard about these happenings and decided to send Barnabas up to check on things.

You know, I have to be honest, before this summer and taking the time to really look closely at the book of Acts, I really didn’t know who Barnabas was… but he is such an instrumental part of this early Jesus movement!

Barnabas is the guy in chapter 4 who sells his land and gives the proceeds to the poor.

Barnabas is also the guy who vouches for Saul when he comes back to Jerusalem after his transformation.

And he’s the guy who gets sent to this community in Antioch.

This is an incredibly strategic decision on the part of the apostles.

Scripture tells us that Barnabas was actually from Cyprus, this island in the northern Mediterranean Sea.

Although he was Jewish, a Levite in fact, he had a cross-cultural identity, growing up outside of Israel in a region that had been ruled by various empires and was a major player in regional trade.

So Barnabas would have largely understood the customs and traditions of this Roman trade city.

And when he arrives, what he finds is a mixed Jewish and Gentile community that is full of salt and light and the power of God.

Barnabas himself is a non-Hebrew Jew.

He has heard about Peter’s experience with the Roman soldier, Cornelius.

So when he arrives and sees the Holy Spirit moving among this diverse group of folks, he is filled with joy and starts to figure out how he can encourage them to grow even more fully into their relationship with God.

His gets himself situated and preaches a few sermons, but then realizes that this needs to be a team effort and he goes to Tarsus to search for Saul.

Yep, that Saul.

The one that Barnabas had vouched for in Jerusalem.

The one who had stirred up some conflict among the other Greek-speaking Jews and got sent back home.

Home for Saul was on the northern Mediterranean.

You see, he, too, had this kind of dual-identity.

Firmly Jewish, and yet also a Roman citizen, fluent in the Greek culture and world.

Together, these two became a dynamic team that helped to shape the church into more than just a Jewish sect.

The Spirit of God truly had moved beyond Jerusalem… beyond Samaria… and from Antioch would move to the ends of the earth.

As such, this group of folks needed a new name.

They were more than a Jewish community.

The Holy Spirit fell upon all who would believe in Jesus Christ so that they might be salt and light for the world.

As Paul would later write to the church in Galatia, “You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26-28)

And if we are all one in Christ, made God’s children through faith in Christ, what better name for this group than Christian.

These Christians in Antioch understood why they were there.

To know God and to know Jesus.

To be salt and light for the world.

And to reach out in love to their neighbors.

In fact, when they heard about a potential disaster, a famine, headed towards the people of Judea, they took up a collection and sent it to Jerusalem to help.

We are here today, because of that diverse and vibrant community in Antioch.

Because of the way they didn’t let labels get in the way of who was welcome.

Because they let their light shine beyond their city to bring healing and hope to the world.

From Jerusalem… to Samaria… to Antioch… to right here in Des Moines, we are called to do the same.

To let our light shine so that others might know God.

To bring out and support the work God is already doing healing and bringing hope to the people of this community.

To love our neighbors.

Whether that is providing milk and juice for the families at Hawthorne Hill…

Or signing up to tutor at schools this fall…

Or volunteering with Vacation Bible School…

Or the ways, big and small, you make a difference in the lives of others through your daily work…

Be light.

Be salt.

Be evidence of God’s grace to a world that is desperate for hope.

Expanding Our Vision

Posted on July 11, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 10: 1-5, 9-15, 19-20, 24, 27-28, 34-36, 44-48

Eighty five years ago, I probably would not have been welcomed in this pulpit.

As a woman, ordination was out of the question.

A combination of tradition and a patriarchal society and a way of reading the scriptures precluded the church from welcoming women as preachers and pastors.

It still does in some places and traditions.

But here I stand… ordained, my calling from the Holy Spirit confirmed by the church.

As a young(ish) woman, I have always lived in a church that ordained women. I have always been a part of a church that valued the contributions women made in ministry, in leadership, and in the world. It has been a given.

But I also know what it took to get here.

Late this spring, folks from Immanuel joined with other churches in our circuit to read together through a series of essays called, “I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist.”

While their experiences were contemporary, these pastors wove into their narrative the history and legacy of exclusion and discrimination of our church. While some Black Methodists chose to leave, for those that remained within this denomination, separation and exclusion and discrimination continued to be our legacy.

Our church divided over slavery, rather than taking a stand for the full humanity of our siblings.

When we finally re-united, it was as a segregated church, with black churches and clergy all set apart in the Central Jurisdiction until 1968.

The impact of that structural racism continues to be felt today.

What surprised us the most as we read through that book of essays, however, were parallels between these stories of exclusion and discrimination and our current debate within the church about the lives and leadership of our LGBTQ+ siblings.

I am here today because how we understood God’s call in the life of women changed.

In the same way, we have claimed a more expansive vision of what it means to be the church from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

The church is more diverse and beautiful and powerful today because we have recognized how the Holy Spirit is moving through one another.

I wonder where God is going to change our minds next…

This isn’t a new question…

It is a question as old as the church.

As we journey through the book of Acts, we see God’s Kingdom widening.

From Jerusalem, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

The faithful Jewish disciples begin to welcome and share the good news with those on the margins of the community…

And those who are converts in more far flung places…

And now we have a story about God speaking into the life of a Gentile and how God moves Peter to share the good news.

As the leader of the apostles, Peter had been visiting all of the house-churches where the followers of the Way were gathering in the wider area, especially on the coastal plains of Sharon.

He had just been to Lydda and then spent some time in Joppa.

And it was there, moved by the Spirit, that Peter had raised a faithful servant named Tabitha from the dead.

He was able to do amazing things, working and teaching in that community.

He was faithfully serving God and thought he knew exactly what that meant.

He presumed that he understood the rules of faith.

But just like Saul in the chapter before, Peter was about to have his world turned upside down yet again.

He was about to catch a glimpse of the scope and the breadth and the depth of God’s love for all people.

Our story today starts in the home of a gentile. A captain of the Roman army, named Cornelius, receives a vision from God and sends for Peter.

Let’s talk a little bit about this guy and what it means…

A Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish, someone who was not a part of the family of Israel, either through birth or conversion.

An outsider… as far as the faith was concerned.

There were gentiles, like Cornelius, who were described as “God-fearers” or “God-worshippers” which meant that they would have practiced elements of the Jewish faith and worshipped the God of the Israelites, but they were limited in their participation.

The temple had many different courts, and the requirements to move further and further into the temple, towards the holy of holies, left many out. The big open area you see in the photo is called the Court of the Gentiles. That was the only part of the temple Gentiles could enter, divided from even the steps leading up to the building by a wall.

These folks would not have kept the same ritual laws and for that reason, it was forbidden for Gentiles to enter these holy places or for Jews to enter the homes of Gentiles… lest they encounter something that would have made them unclean.

But many faithful god-fearing folks like Cornelius continued to show up. They continued worshipping God from those outer courts. In spite of the barriers, they wanted a relationship with God.

And God wanted a relationship with them.

So God prepares Peter’s heart for a more expansive vision of who was included in the Kingdom of God.

Before he is summoned to Caesarea and the home of Cornelius, Peter is given a vision of the clean and unclean joining together and he is asked in the vision to eat something that is unclean.

He doesn’t want to embrace it.

Everything in his very being tells him that it is wrong.

The holy was being profaned by the ordinary.

And then the voice in his vision speaks: “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”

There is a knock at the door and the Holy Spirit whispers to him… go.

Peter is summoned to the home of Cornelius, and although he was not allowed by Jewish custom to enter, he did.

He entered the home of a gentile and broke bread with the unclean.

And when Cornelius asked about why God had brought him there, Peter shares the good news of Jesus Christ.

As he preaches to the entire gathered household, the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they receive the gift of faith.

The profane, the ordinary, the unclean… these people who were outside of all that Peter knew to be holy… the spirit and presence of God filled their lives.

He and his companions could see it… feel it…

And Peter exclaims: “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”

None of the disciples could deny their gifts.

Water was brought and Cornelius and his whole family were baptized on the spot…

They were part of the family of God…

At various points throughout the history of the church, faithful folk stood up and exclaimed: These people have received the Holy Spirit… just like we did – How can we stop them from being baptized?

How can we deny them a place at the table?

How can we continue to reject their leadership when God has so clearly spoken in their lives?

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was against women preaching in principle… until he witnessed the Holy Spirit working through the lives of women like Sarah Crosby, Grace Murry, and Hannah Ball. He relented and licensed them for preaching in the circuits across England.

Likewise, Wesley was a staunch opponent of slavery the very first Discipline of the church prohibited members from owning slaves.

In fact, that Methodist egalitarian spirit is what drew large numbers of Black people to the movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

As Rev. Erin Beasley writes: “Under Methodist, all Christians became brothers and sisters despite their background… “ and no matter their gender, ethnicity, or class.

And yet, even as God pushes us to expand our vision of who is included, that long-memory of what we had believed is hard to shake off.

It is not easy to let go of control.

Or upend our expectations.

Or give way for others to lead in new ways.

Sometimes the witness of the Holy Spirit is sometimes rejected by those who are trying to follow God’s will.

Even after John Wesley licensed women to preach, it was not until 1956 that women were granted full clergy rights in the church.

The anti-slavery position of the early Methodists quickly became more lenient as they sought to establish more congregations in the South. Black ministers like Richard Allen were not allowed to be ordained as elders… requiring them to be supervised by white clergy… eventually leading these folks to leave the church.

It is hard to let go of our traditions, our rules, our power.

We hang on to what we know and understand.

There is an uproar in Jerusalem when the hear about what Peter had done.

The apostles summon him back to the city to account for his actions.

They start with criticism. They launch into accusations. They read off the rules.

I can imagine their frustration growing as they start to wrestle with the implications of what has just happened.

The leaders of the early church, like Peter just days and weeks before, believed that faith meant one thing, and God was trying to show them it meant something else.

It doesn’t stop the Holy Spirit from moving however.

Not only does God act by giving us these unique and undeniable experiences of grace and power and Holy Spirit-led transformation… like Peter experienced with Cornelius…

But God also expands the vision of the whole church by calling those who have had these life-altering experiences to tell their story.

The apostles were furious and demanded an explanation.

Peter gave them one.

He told them about his vision.

He told them about how God led him to the house of Cornelius.

He connected what he had experienced of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with what he witnessed first-hand in Caesarea.

In chapter 11, verse 16-17 he testifies: “I remembered the Lord’s words: ‘John will baptize with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?”.

“I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another,” Peter says.

I give thanks that the apostles rejoiced in his witness.

They came to understand that God wants to be in relationship with all of us.

With the whole of creation.

With you and me.

And we keep learning that lesson…

We keep discovering and remembering and learning all over again just how far our vision needs to expand…

With black and white and brown.

With young and old, and gay and straight,

Folks who are married and single and divorced and widowed.

cis-gender, transgender, and non-binary folks,

with those struggling with mental health and those who love them.

With life-long Americans and with people who have just arrived in our country.

Are we there yet?

No.

Have we sometimes taken steps backwards?

Absolutely.

Like Peter, we are still learning that God shows no partiality to one group of people or another.

It has been a hard lesson… centuries and millenia in the making…

But God keeps pushing us… stretching us… calling us into a more expansive vision of what the church can and should be.

God is God.

And we can fight it.

We can resist it.

But God will keep pouring out the Holy Spirit on whomever God chooses.

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Us!

Posted on May 23, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Luke 4:18-19, Acts 1:8, 2:1-4, 38-39

One of the things that we have re-discovered and remembered this year is that church is not a building.

We have a building, sure.

But the church is the people.

You and me.

The body of Christ.

In the same way, the presence of God is not confined to this physical structure.

And, we don’t have to travel to the Holy Land to be in the presence of God.

It is right here.

Among us.

Wherever two or three are gathered, there I am… Jesus said. (Matthew 18)

Well, that is exactly what happened on that Pentecost morning.

The disciples were gathered together, worshipping, praying, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.

Waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then there was a sound…

Like the howling of a fierce wind…

The entire room was filled with an overwhelming presence…

Tongues of fire danced over their heads…

The Spirit of the Lord was upon them.

The presence of God was right there, in their midst.

When the Spirit of the Lord first appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he heard the call to go back to Egypt and liberate the oppressed.

That power and presence of God released the slaves and set them free for the promised land.

Through a pillar of fire and smoke, the Spirit of the Lord was with the people as they journeyed.

God provided food for their hunger and water for their thirst.

God led them and healed them.

God dwelt among them.

On the mountaintop, the power and presence of God was seen for miles around in wind and fire and Moses journeyed back down forever changed.

He brought with him commandments that would allow them to live according to God’s will.

Laws to help them love God and to love their neighbor.

God wanted this people to bear God’s image to the world.

Yet, as time went on, and the people became settled and rubbed shoulders with folks from lots of different places and cultures, it became harder and harder to stay connected to God’s presence and power.

While the spirit of God continued to call prophets and leaders to keep reminding the people, it was easy to forget about a God who dwelt somewhere else.

So God decided to dwell among the people again.

The Word became flesh.

Jesus entered our lives.

And the Spirit of the Lord was upon him.

As Luke tells us, the Spirit of the Lord sent him forth to preach good news to the poor and heal the sick and to set people free.

People experienced the presence of God through his touch and his words.

And then Jesus promised this same power would be given to the people.

That the Spirit of God would come upon them.

That the presence and power of God would dwell in them.

And they, too, would be sent forth to preach, and to heal, and to change the world.

God would turn the world upside down starting in Jerusalem… heading out to Samaria… and to the ends of the earth.

This was not a promise just for the disciples.

Not just for the Jewish people.

God’s Spirit was pouring out on all people.

On that day of Pentecost, tongues of fire danced over their heads.

God’s presence filled their hearts.

And people from every corner of the world experienced it.

They heard God speaking to them.

They felt God’s presence among them.

And they allowed the gift of the Spirit to fill their lives.

Three thousand people were added to their community.

It is good to be in this space together with folks once again.

But I have to be honest… It is not the space that makes this time of worship holy.

The psalmist may have cried out “How lovely is your dwelling place” and at the time they were talking about the temple.

But the miracle of Pentecost is that the spirit of God dwells in you.

The very presence of God that set that shrub in the wilderness on fire…

And that led the people of Israel through…

That dwelt in the temple…

That filled the life of Jesus Christ…

The Spirit of God filled those first disciples… and then three thousand…

Through them, the presence and power of God moved from Jerusalem…

To Samaria…

To Rome…

And across the oceans…

And right now God’s spirit is upon you.

God’s power dwells in you.

Oh, and how lovely are your faces.

God’s presence is right here in this very room because you are here.

God is with you at home… on your couch… sitting around the kitchen table.

Because the gift of the Holy Spirit is yours.

Right here in the greater Des Moines area, God is with us.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in this city…

One of the unexpected miracles of Pentecost was the way that this presence of God brought people together.

In the time of exile, Jewish faithful were scattered the winds.

They made their homes in far away places and learned new cultures and languages.

But when able they made the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem to be in the presence of God.

Over these last fourteen months, we have felt a bit scattered to the winds.

We have felt like we were in exile.

Exiled from one another and familiar places.

But that exile is not just a result of quarantines and distancing.

This past year we have experienced political discord and division in our responses to racism and vaccinations and masks.

Although the official language we might speak is the same, the words we use have meanings that separate us.

And so even when we gather in the same space, we are not unlike those pilgrims to Jerusalem who can’t understand one another.

When I read through these verses in Acts once again, I am reminded that this division and discord is not what God intends for us.

As Jana Childers writes in their commentary on this passage, “The human community… begins to be mended. As the Spirit arrives… instead of widening confusion, there is dawning comprehension, incipient reunion. What was divided is mended… The Spirit-baptized are drawn together, this time in the Spirit’s power, for the purposes of extending the realm of God.” [1]

We are drawn together in the Spirit’s power to extend the realm of God.

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at the beginning of his ministry, he read from the scroll of Isaiah.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he said,

God has chosen me to preach good news to the poor.

To offer forgiveness and pardon to prisoners.

To be an agent of healing and ease the load of the burdened.

And when he finished reading he sat down and told the people, “Scripture came true just now in this place.”

Right there in Nazareth, the realm of God, the Kingdom of God, was at hand.

The as the disciples claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit and began to preach and teach and heal in Jesus’ name… the realm of God became a reality on the streets of Jerusalem.

People who had been divided began to hear and understand.

It didn’t matter their background or their language or their culture… the presence and power of God rested upon them as the Holy Spirit danced in their midst.

And over the course of this summer, we are going to explore just what it meant for those first disciples to be led by the Holy Spirit and how the realm of God expanded.

We’ll learn about what it means to be a community centered in God.

How to speak God’s truth in the face of opposition.

Along the way, we’ll meet sorcerers and centurions and kings.

We’ll experience earthquakes and shipwrecks, tragedy and miracles.

In the footsteps of Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Silas, Lydia and Tabitha, we will witness how the Spirit of God becomes known to the people of Antioch and Damascus, Lystra and Philippi.

And we will discover how we are “part of the widening circle begun in Acts – part of the growing momentum, building ripple by ripple…”[2] until the realm of God stretches to every corner of this world.

As United Methodists, we see ourselves as part of that widening circle. In our Book of Discipline, we claim that:

“Guided by the Holy Spirit, United Methodist churches throughout the world are called afresh into a covenant of mutual commitment based on shared mission, equity, and hospitality… we commit ourselves to crossing boundaries of language, culture, and social or economic status. We commit ourselves to be in ministry with all people, as we, in faithfulness to the gospel, seek to grow in mutual love and trust. We participate in God’s mission as partners in ministry, recognizing that our God-given gifts, experiences, and resources are of equal value… creating a new sense of community and joyously living out our worldwide connection in our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” [3]

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in Des Moines.

We might have a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds and gifts, but there is one Spirit.

And right here in this city, God is calling us afresh to focus on our mission… to cherish what each person uniquely brings… and to reach out in love welcoming all.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us to bring good news and offer forgiveness and heal what is broken and divided.

May the winds of the spirit blow…

Amen.

[1] Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, page 19.

[2] Ibid.

[3] 2016 Book of Discipline, ¶125, p. 95-96

Follow the Star: Repent

Posted on January 24, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Mark 1:14-20, Jonah 3:1-5,10

Over the last year our routines, our work, our families, our vacations… so many parts of our lives were unexpectedly turned upside down and inside out.
Including our church.
One of my mentors often reminds me that church is often the place that we go to escape the change that happens in the world. It has often been one of the only stable places we can turn.
Churches are notorious for being stubborn and afraid to try new things…
After all, we’ve never done it that way before.

But this year, we had to.
We had to adapt.
We had to change with the circumstances.
We had to embrace a new way of being together and being the church.
We had to repent and believe the good news.

The Greek word we translate into “repent” is metanoia.
It is a reorientation.
Turning around.
Changing our thoughts and our actions.
And in scriptures, we are called to repentance, transformation, when we encounter a new understanding of reality… God’s reality.

Well, we’ve certainly had to do that this year.
In light of the reality of a deadly virus, we reoriented ourselves.
We embraced new practices like online worship and small groups and studies.
But we also noticed some things about our church that honestly, we should have changed a long time ago, but we were too stuck in old ways to do it.
One example of this is how our church, like a lot of churches, can get stuck in cliques and groups.
You notice it at coffee time when people tend to sit down with the same group of people every week.
It’s who we know, who we are comfortable with.
But sometimes that means that a new friend to our church is left out.
Now, if I had come down to Faith Hall between services, and mixed up all of the seating arrangements, ya’ll would have revolted on me.
But when worship moved online, we began to host our Zoom coffee time and our breakout rooms got randomly assigned.
No one gets left out and anyone who wants to stay gets to “sit at a table” with different folks each week.
In the process, we’ve made new friends, learned more about each other, and I think our church is stronger as a result.
That is repentance in action.
A new understanding of who we are and new practices that help us to be more faithful to who God is calling us to be.

As we seek to follow the star and align our lives more closely to God, let’s take a deeper look at how repentance plays a role.
Today, we have two different scriptures that help us to embrace what that means. One is an example of how we turn from actions that have separated us from God. The other is how we might turn towards God’s call in our lives.

Let’s start with Jonah.
One of our more traditional ways of speaking about repentance is naming and confessing our sins.
I have to admit that every time I hear the word “repent” I picture someone standing on a street corner holding up a sign.
And, honestly, that’s kind of what Jonah did!
In the Message translation, God’s instructions come to Jonah: “Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.” (3:1-2)
So Jonah walked for three days through the city telling them the end was near…. “In forty days you will be destroyed.”

Notice, Jonah doesn’t tell them to repent.
But his words help the people of this city see reality in a new way.
They recognize their evil and their sin and they turn from it.
The entire community repents, turns around, reorients themselves to God’s preferred future.
They have no promises of mercy, no hope of restoration.
But confronted with reality, they realize they simply cannot go on a moment longer the way they had been living.
They turn from their ways in a moment of repentance.

Over the last year, there have been a number of moments when we have experienced this kind of clarity and need for repentance.
From the death of a black man on a street in Minneapolis, to raging wildfires perpetuated by climate change, to the brazen display of Christian nationalism in the insurrection a few weeks ago, we have been confronted with images that lead us to cry out… this is not who we want to be.
We may disagree about what concrete actions and policy changes need to happen, but our lives have been collectively reoriented, altered, as we have realized there are systemic and interpersonal realities we must turn from.
I think back to the story of the Ninevites who saw their impending doom.
They recognized just how far their lives and their actions were from what God intended for them and they did something about it.
Whenever we are confronted with reality, a new reality, a different reality, we have the opportunity to hold our lives up to the measure of God’s intentions for us.
If what we discover leads us to change our thoughts or actions, that is repentance.

But there is another piece of this story that is important.
God repents.
When God sees how the people have claimed a new reality, how they have truly turned from evil, the divine mind is changed.
God turns from calamity and destruction to mercy and grace.
God experiences metanoia, too.

In our gospel reading from Mark, we find Jesus himself as the street corner preacher, calling everyone he encounters to repent and believe in the good news.
He is not pointing out their faults or their lack of faith. He is not calling them to turn from something that was bad or evil, but calling them towards a new reality, a Kingdom reality.
His words reach Simon and Andrew, James and John, simple fishermen who drop their nets and leave their jobs and their families.
But as Thomas Long, a preacher and professor at Candler School of Theology claims, “Jesus disrupts [their reality] not to destroy but to renew.” He notes how their roles as brothers and sons become transformed into new relationships in God’s family and how even their work becomes a part of how they serve the Kingdom. “Their past has not been obliterated; it has been transformed by Jesus’ call to follow.”
In the light of Christ, they see themselves in a new light and the potential of who they could be.

I have watched over these last years how the people of Immanuel have heard this call and have turned towards God, using their gifts and strengths to serve the Kingdom.
The ways that you have come to understand that church is not simply a place where you find comfort and the familiar, but where you hear the call to become more of what God believes you can be.
I think about the young woman in our church who felt the tug to make blankets for our homeless neighbors.
Or about our knitters who made prayer squares… which we have also shared with essential workers at our local care centers.
I think about men and women in our church who have built sets for VBS that have helped our children to grow closer to Jesus.
And about those who give their time on Sunday mornings in the AV booth to make sure that we remain connected to God and one another.
Or those who manage our finances, or lead us in music, or make sure the food pantry is filled.
And I think about the countless stories you have shared with me about how you are finding new ways to live out your faith in your work place, in your homes.

Repentance is not simply turning from our past and our failures, but it is also about turning toward who God has created you to become and the Kingdom reality that God is bringing to bear upon this earth.
It is, as our first National Youth Poet Laureate said on Wednesday at the inauguration, the remembrance that we are “not broken, but unfinished.”
That there is more to do, more to experience, more ways to serve, that there is a fullness that awaits us if we simply could repent.
Turn around.
Turn towards God.
Change our hearts and our actions.
To allow ourselves to be transformed.
May it be so.

Imagine the Abundance

Posted on October 27, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21, Matthew 14:3-21

Friends… do you know how much potential you have?
I’m not talking about the potential for worldly success… although you have that.
I’m not talking about the potential for raising funds as a church… although I know its there.
I’m talking about your potential in Jesus Christ.
I’m talking about the untapped depths and lengths and height and breath of Christ’s love in your life.

Oh friends…
I’m going to take a few minutes to be honest this morning.
Honest about the discouragement and frustration and heartburn that some of us as your leaders here at the church have been feeling.
Our worship attendance has been down, but so has participation on Wednesday nights.
I had one gentleman stop me the other day in the hallway and say, “Pastor, I think you are doing a great job… but where is everyone?”
And it is hard not to take it personally.
And I know that our families and our members are busy.
You are engaged in your community and sports.
You are working more hours than you want.
You are traveling to visit family out of town.
You want a morning to sleep in.
It’s hard to get your tired bones moving as fast you could before.
I get it.
I’m right there with you.

But, if you are anything like me, when you take a moment to catch your breath in the midst of the rushing too and fro, do you ever wonder if there is something else you are missing?
Do you stop and notice that perhaps there is something… some power… some spirit that is lacking in your heart?
Do you ever feel like you are going through the motions instead of tapping into the incredible love and power and promise of Jesus?

For many, and this isn’t only Immanuel… this is the state of the church in the U.S…. church has become just another item on a long list of activities and social commitments. As your schedules ebb and flow, it might be something that falls off the calendar for a season.
And as at least one person recently shared with me, when they stopped coming, nothing much in their life really changed.

In my head, I thought – surely that can’t be the case.
But in my heart, I started to fear that maybe this was true.

Does church actually make a difference in your life?

If it is simply a collection of activities and social commitments – maybe not.
You can join other clubs.
You can busy yourself with other volunteering opportunities.
If you aren’t happy about a decision either locally or in the denomination, you can step away to find a place that is a better fit.

But to be honest, that’s not how most of you describe Immanuel.

At the start of this series on the Feeding of the 5000, I asked what drew you here.
What was it that compelled you to join the crowds of people here on 49th Street?
And you talked about the people.
You talked about the relationships.
You talked about family.
And something we are all learning in the midst of our incredibly busy lives is that you have to make time for family.
You have to guard your time with your family.
You have to set it as a priority, or something else will come in and decide it is more important.

Starting in Lent, eight of us began gathering at 6:30 in the morning at Java Joes for a Covenant Discipleship Group.
It was dark and none of us wanted to be up that early, but we decided to make time and carve out this little window, because it was important.
We were initially only going to meet for eight weeks, but those relationships became so important that we have continued to meet once a month at 6:30 am, just to maintain them.

Our Wednesday Night Ladies give their time every single week to be here and to prepare meals for our Immanuel family.
It is not just a service opportunity, it is a community, a small group. They watch out for one another and check-in when one is struggling.

The same could be said for the Monday night group at Java Joes.
Or Wednesday afternoon Bible study.
Or Re:Ignite.
Or Chancel Choir.
Or the Sunday morning Women’s group.
Or Praise Ringers.
Or the list goes on…

When you set aside time for your family and make it a priority every single week, you solidify relationships that will sustain you for the long haul, through thick and thin, good times and bad.
You learn how to be present in the midst of disagreement and work through it.
You discover what it means to be served, but also to serve.
You get to know someone’s beautiful quirks and annoying habits and what it means to love them anyways.
THAT’s what it means to be family… and it is why so many of you show up here week after week.
And let me tell you… if you haven’t connected with one of these opportunities, you actually are missing something that will change your life and I or any other staff member would love to have a conversation with you about how to get involved.

But I would be lying if I said that after that first Sunday of this series I went home encouraged and energized.
I didn’t.
I actually felt a little bit frustrated.
Because I think that church is about far more than family.
What it means to be church is not just about the relationships that we have with one another – as beautiful and holy as they are.

Being church is about being caretakers of an incredible message that this world is hungry to hear and experience.
That is why thousands of people left their work and picked up their families and traveled to the countryside to catch a glimpse of Jesus.
There was something about his message and his actions that tapped into this yearning in their souls. A hunger to be healed, to be known, to be empowered.

I think about those first disciples.
They were kind of like a small group in the church.
They spent a lot of time together and traveled and ate.
They became like a little family and they cared for one another.
They provided for one another.

But in this miraculous event, Jesus invited them to not just look to their own needs, but to look outward at the crowds all around them.
It was an invitation to not just be a part of Jesus’ church, but to BE the church. To themselves be the hands and feet of God in the world.

And so he took their meager gifts and transformed them and the result was this amazing abundance of food and relationship and ministry.
I’m not just talking about their five loaves and two fish on that day in the countryside.
I’m talking about their very lives.
He transformed them from a faithful little family group into a world-changing movement that has turned everything upside down.
He directed their eyes and their hearts outward.
Jesus put his Spirit within them and strengthened them for the work ahead.
And they traveled the world with this message.
They faced controversy and conflict.
Some were killed for the good news they proclaimed.
But even persecutors like Saul were transformed by the power of Christ and became leaders in sharing the gospel.
It couldn’t be stopped!
It couldn’t be tamed!
Everywhere they went, people were hungry to hear and experience it…
and people were afraid and challenged because they really did challenge the powers of this world that are hellbent on sin and death.

We are here today, this morning, because the power of God poured out upon those disciples and their gifts. It filled them up and it spilled over to everyone they encountered.
We are like those twelve baskets of leftovers gathered on that holy, miraculous, evening… the outpouring of God’s abundant spirit of love that has no end and cannot be stopped.

And thank God for that… because that good news is still desperately needed!
I asked you in worship two weeks ago to lift up what kind of ministry you would do if you had incredible resources at your finger tips.
You lifted up the need for daycare and rent relief, homeless youth and a clothing closet, hungry children and adult language classes for immigrants and refugees.
You named the potential for ministry with troubled teens and mental health needs, for warm coats and temporary housing, scholarships and pay it forward opportunities.
You see the needs of veterans and teachers, families at the Ronald McDonald house, single parents who struggle, and the potential for a garden. You named the opportunity to buy back guns or create a soup kitchen or help the underemployed.

Oh friends… imagine our church doing all of that?
Can you imagine the difference we would make in the lives of our neighbors?
Can you picture how the love of Jesus would become real to so many people?

But also… I imagine just thinking about it you will first become incredibly tired, because we can’t do all of those things – at least not all at once.

But I also think about what might happen if we don’t.
If we didn’t even try.
If we keep thinking of ourselves just as a family… simply as a social club… merely as a place to stop by a few times a month and make ourselves feel better…

Peace Lutheran Church in a suburb of the Twin Cities was about to close.
The congregation experienced conflict. And then greying… which literally means the hair in the congregation was getting whiter. Young people weren’t showing up. The decline of U.S. Christianity was partly to blame, but so was the internal focus of the church members.
They only had twenty folks left in worship and when their new pastor arrived they had 18 months worth of funding before they would be done.
So Pastor Greenlund asked if they wanted to go out with a whimper… or with a bang.
They said if we are going to die, lets die well.
So they sent fliers to their entire neighborhood saying that they would fix anything in homes – free of charge – no expectations or qualifications.
They fixed roofs and furnaces, made kitchens accessible, cleaned homes for shut ins, rewired houses.
And you know what… people noticed.
They thought the church might have died already, but neighbors began to believe and trust that the little church on the corner actually, really cared.

This church was on the verge of giving up… but they tapped into something beyond themselves.
They let go of what they wanted and started to ask what God wanted.
They let themselves and their gifts be transformed.
People from the community are throwing in their own money to keep the amazing work of this little church going.
Their membership has quadrupled.
Abundant miracles are taking place all around them. (Read more here!)

When I think about you… this congregation… this family… I see incredible potential.
Not because of anything that you already possess, but because I know and trust in the God who has called us together.
Right here in this time and in this place.
God didn’t do that by accident.
And the prayer that Paul got on his knees to pray for the Ephesians, I am praying now… daily… for you:

I ask God to strengthen you by the Spirit.
Not with a brute strength, but a glorious inner strength.
I pray that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.
And I ask Christ that with both feet firmly planted on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.
Friends, I pray that you would reach out and experience the breadth!
Test its length!
Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights!
Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything… far more than we could ever ask or imagine, by working within us… deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in Christ.
Glory to God in the church.
Amen.

Spirit of Self-Control

Posted on August 27, 2017Leave a comment

Many of you know that I spent some time this spring focusing on my health. I joined a gym, worked out five times a week, and kept to a limited food plan focused on building lean muscle and burning fat. For the six weeks of the challenge, I practiced incredible self-control.

And the week after, I gave myself a break. I stopped worrying about what I ate.

If I’m honest, I haven’t ever found my focus again.

About two months ago, I started back up at the gym. I missed the workouts and the community. My goal is not to fit into some unrealistic ideal of how society thinks I should look, but to be strong and healthy and have the energy I need to do this work.

One thing I didn’t change however, is that I haven’t turned my attention to how I was eating again.

So this past week, while thinking about this sermon on self-control, I thought that perhaps I should at least look at how I was doing in that department.

And I planned really healthy breakfasts, with veggies fresh from my garden.

I packed lunches each day, instead of running out to buy something.

But by dinner time, I lost all semblance of self-control.

Wednesday night, we got Chinese takeout. I ate all my food, PLUS two crab rangoons and potstickers.

Thursday night, we ordered pizza. I had four pieces of taco pizza, a couple of breadsticks, AND a cookie!

And in each case, we were having a lazy night, eating in front of the television, and I didn’t even realize how much I had consumed until I started counting it all up the next morning.

If you aren’t focusing on the task at hand, you will lose sight of your goal. Self-control is all about not allowing yourself to be distracted away from your purpose.

This morning we heard the familiar story of Samson and Delilah – of a man who was tempted into giving up his secret strength.

But to understand this story we need a little bit of background.

There was a man named Manoah whose wife was barren. Try as they might, they could not have a child.

But one day, an angel appeared to the woman and promised her that a child would be born to them – a child that would be holy – a child that would save Israel from their enemies. But in order for this to come to pass, the child must be set apart as holy and must live a certain way.

This vow – this promise was called the Nazarite vow.

And so even before this child was born, the mother lived according to the Nazarite vow and then when the child Samson came into the world, he was declared a nazarite.

Now, being an infant – he couldn’t choose this himself – but according to the tradition – a father can declare his son a nazirite. Samson had the right to refuse this status and to end his promises, but nowhere in the scriptures does it say that he does this.

To be a nazarite meant that he had to follow three rules.

First, he had to abstain from any fruit of the vine. He couldn’t eat grapes or drink wine or even use wine vinegar with his food.

Second, he had to refrain from cutting his hair. As time went on, the long hair on his head would have been a sign of his vow.

Third, he couldn’t touch dead bodies.

So Samson took on these vows for himself and God blessed him with strength as a result of his faithfulness.

However, Samson had a weakness.
He had a distraction in his life.
And that distraction was women.

It’s not so much that his love for women was a bad thing. But time and time again, his weakness for the members of the opposite sex put him in terrible situations.

And eventually, as we heard this morning, Samson was tempted away from his Nazarite pledge because he lost sight of what was most important.

He put this woman, Delilah, before the pledge that he and his parents had made to God.

As soon as he let Delilah cut his hair, his strength vanished, he lost his control over the situation, and was captured.

So, Samson because our poster child for what NOT to do in practicing self-control.

Where do we turn to understand what it means to allow God’s spirit to fill us with self-control? What is this fruit of the spirit that Paul commends us to embrace?

When we look to the gospels of Jesus Christ, one of the places I think we can see this fruit is in the command to stop worrying.

As the gospel of Luke tells us – “don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. There is more to life than food and more to the body than clothing.”

I could personally take that as a license to never diet again! To just take a deep breath and not focus on how much food I eat at all.

But when we look at the full context of this passage, Jesus is really trying to tell us not to be distracted.

This command to stop worrying is not about trying to save us from anxieties and troubles by promising everything will be okay.

No, Jesus is trying to tell us to stay focused on what is most important.

This advice not to worry about food and clothing and tomorrow end with the powerful statement:

Seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness…. And everything else will take care of itself.

In other words, focus on God and what God asks of you.

That really is all that Samson had to do. Focus on God and what God asks of you.

The key to self-control is to let God to have the central place in your life.

The key to self-control is to allow the purpose God has given you guide your actions.

In my scripture study around the sermon today, I learned that the word for demons in the New Testament – daemonia – means “to be controlled by another.”

And in a real sense, every time we let food or worry, power or desire, or anything else to become the focus of our lives instead of God, those things begin to control us.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “the devil made me do it.”

In his sermon on “Self-Control and Freedom,” Charles Rush reminds us that people used to assume that there were spirits that caused us to indulge in pleasure, so anytime someone succumbed to a temptation – they saw it as a demonic possession.

“We no longer believe that,” he says, “but their insight was right about the [spiritual fact that] cravings… become compulsions. At some point… they begin to control us. At some point, our character becomes misshaped and misaligned in order [to] adjust itself to increasing demands our compulsions put on us. We are no longer free, but are driven by our compulsions.” (http://archive.christchurchsummit.org/Sermons-2006/060716-SelfControlAndFreedom.html)

It’s not that things like eating and drinking and sex are evil… but they can spiral out of control if we allow them to be the central objects of our lives.

Self-control is a barrier that prevents other things from distracting us from God’s purpose in our lives: to seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

And discipline or a rule of life allow us to set boundaries that will help us to keep focused on what actually matters the most.

For the Nazarite, discipline and self-control was found in three simple rules – avoiding grapes and wine, not cutting their hair, and avoiding the dead. The purpose of the rules was to constantly remind them that they had been set apart by God for a purpose.

Many disciples of Jesus Christ today also have a discipline that helps them to focus first on God.

Some of you set aside time every morning to pray.
Some of you use the Upper Room daily devotional.
Some of you have made intentional choices about what you will eat or wear or drink because it is a witness to your faith in Jesus Christ.

Whatever it is, it is part of how you are creating space for God’s purpose to be prioritized in your life.

One of the things that I hope for this morning is that this might be a moment to reflect on whether or not self-control is a part of your spiritual life.

What are the temptations that try to sneak their way before God in your life?

Do you have… or do you need… a discipline or a practice that helps you to focus first on God?

As J. Hampton Keathley writes that Samson was a raised up by God to be a judge, a ruler, and was meant to lead Israel. “Samson strangled a lion; yet he could not strangle his own love. He burst the fetters of his foes; but not the cords of his own lusts. He burned the crops of others, and lost the fruit of his own virtue when burning with the flame kindled by a single woman.” (https://bible.org/series/1-2-3-john-comfort-and-counsel-church-crisis/bible.org/ttpstudents.com/sessions/node/5399?page=42)

We should be honest about the things that threaten to distract us from our faith and keep us from being in control of our actions. And then we should pray about how we can turn them back over to God.

I want to invite you to a simple prayer practice right now that helps us to do so.

Close your eyes and clench your hands up tight.
Picture the distractions and worries you have in your life that you have brought with you… even into this very place of worship.
Then in your own time turn your hands, still gripping, over so that they are facing down.
Imagine God’s hands underneath yours and slowly open your hands so that the things you are carrying fall into God’s hands.
If you do this at home or in your own time, you can repeat this several times.
Then turn your hands face up, but this time with the palms open and ask God’s Spirit to fill you afresh.
Let go of your desires.
Turn your heart over to God.
And seek first the Kingdom.
Amen.

Rising Strong: Go All In

Posted on May 14, 2017Leave a comment

You know, in churches we like to use words like repentance and transformation – all words for making radical changes in our lives. But, the truth is, the church is often the LAST place change occurs. One of my mentors often reminds me that church is often our escape from rapid change that happens in the world… it’s one of the only stable places we can run to. But sometimes, we just are stubborn and afraid to try new things, to take risks, to do it the way we’ve never done it before.

I firmly believe, however, that God is not done working on the people of Immanuel. The Holy Spirit and God’s sanctifying grace are always and every day working to make us better and more faithful. To make us stronger because we are people of the resurrection.

In this series, Rising Strong, we are looking at what it means to be children of the resurrection. What does it mean to let Easter change our lives?

In the first week of our series, Pastor Todd reminded us that we need to be ourselves. You have got to be you. But that doesn’t mean that is the you will be forever. No, as Max Lucado says: God loves you just the way you are… and refuses to leave you that way.

Will you pray with me: (prayer)

What does it mean to live as a child of the resurrection? What is asked of us? What will be required?

As Jesus began his public ministry, he calls out: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

The Greek word that we translate into repent is metanoia… it is a reorientation or a fundamental transformation in the way that we experience the world and everything that God created.

Metanoia is not simply owning up to past sins – although, that is part of it, because repentance is seeing ourselves fully – the good and the bad –through the power of Christ. We see the dark parts of our lives, but we also discover gifts and strengths that have been dormant or hidden. Repentance is a new awareness of who we are and who we are called to be.

As Jesus moved to Capernaum, change started to happen in Galilee. People began experience their faith differently.

People like Simon Peter and Andrew. People like James and John. Brothers who were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.

I used to think of fishing as a sort of leisure activity – lounging in the sun by a lake, waiting for a fish to come by and nibble. Until the Discovery Channel began to air their series: Deadliest Catch.

The show follows fishing crews in the Bering Sea as they attempt to bring in the most king crabs during the winter season. It’s not easy work. The worst storms occur during crab-fishing season and the waves can be as large as 30 or 40 feet tall! Add that to the frigid 38 degree water and there is plenty of danger.

In fact, more than 80 percent of the fatalities Alaskan fishermen suffer on the job are due to drowning — either from falling overboard or as a result of a boat accident.

While the Sea of Galilee might not be quite as cold – the temperature averages from 60-90 degrees throughout the year – fishing was dangerous… especially considering that it was done without all of the safety equipment of today!

The Sea of Galilee is known for having violent storms caused by wind funneling down into the valley the lake is located in. I read about a storm just over twenty years ago that sent ten feet high waves crashing into towns on the western shore. Try to imagine those kinds of waves on the Saylorville Lake and you get the picture.

Besides being dangerous because of the waters, fishing was also extremely labor intensive.

Nets were tossed into waters by the shore or dropped from boats and then drug to round up the fist. Those nets had to continually be washed and boats kept in repair. Newly caught fish must be sold immediately or smoked or salted for storage.

Suffice it to say – Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were not lazy young men. They were hard workers whose families depended upon their labor.

But then Jesus came to Galilee… “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And he called out to these brothers: Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.

Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

You know, Andrew and Peter and James and John didn’t just leave their nets.

They left their jobs, they left their families, they seem to have left everything behind in order to start on this new path and follow Christ. They went all in. They gave everything they had. They let the radical, amazing call of Jesus completely transform their lives.

So what does it mean to go all in today?

Is this call so powerful that we, too, are called to leave families and jobs hanging in the balance?

Thomas Long, a preacher and professor at Candler School of Theology says that in a sense, yes:

“… Jesus disrupts family structures and disturbs patterns of working and living. He does so, however, not to destroy but to renew. Peter and Andrew do not cease being brothers; they are now brothers who do the will of God (Matt. 12:50). James and John do not cease being sons; they are now not only the children of Zebedee but also the children of God. All four of these disciples leave their fishing nets, but they do not stop fishing. They are now, in the nearness of the kingdom of heaven, fishers for people. Their past has not been obliterated; it has been transformed by Jesus’ call to follow.”

These first disciples came to see themselves in a totally new way. When Jesus called them to follow, they saw the potential of who they could be. Not just brothers and sons and fishermen, but a part of the Kingdom of God.

Sure, they were ordinary guys, but they discovered within themselves a new purpose and direction. They just had to use the talents, abilities and life experiences they already possessed in a new way. Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John went all in and became disciples… but they never stopped being fishermen.

When we go all in today, we come to see our lives in the light of the resurrection.

We come to understand that God wants us to use all of the gifts and skills in our lives for the Kingdom.

While other kids in my class would get stage fright or be wary of volunteering for a demonstration… I was always the kid with my hand shot up in the air waiting to be picked. Words just seem to come naturally and I was always comfortable talking in front of others. So I majored in speech and rhetoric communications in college, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to use that degree.

Because, you see, I also love science and math and thought that all fit together if I became a meteorologist. And not just a t.v. weather girl… I wanted to be one of those people you see behind computers doing calculations and teaching viewers El Nino patterns.

I never imagined I’d be a pastor. Even after I decided to go to seminary… I thought I would use my skills teaching in a small college and helping students find their way.

Until I finally heart God’s call for my life. Repent! Shift your thinking! Go All In! You are supposed to be a pastor!

Holy cow, was it scary to think about. It was overwhelming!

I didn’t know what it would mean for my life – especially how it would impact my future husband. I wasn’t sure what it would mean to be itinerant in the United Methodist Church and have little control over where God would send me. I didn’t grow up in the church, how could I ever lead one?

But, when I decided to go all in and give this crazy call a chance, everything started to make sense.

If metanoia is having a greater understanding of the reality that we experience – then I began to see how all of the pieces of my life fit together. And I was able to embrace my calling and followed Christ.

That doesn’t mean that it has been an easy road– but for now – I truly feel like this is my part to play in the Kingdom of God.

I imagine many of you are sitting out there, thinking, well, that’s all fine and good for Pastor Katie or Pastor Todd, but I’m not called to go all in and give everything to God. I’m a normal person!

Well, really, so am I. And so were the disciples.

You know, those four in the boat were fishermen before they heard God’s call to go all in. And God took what they had and who they were and used it for God’s kingdom.

And that same invitation comes to us whoever and wherever we happen to be. A carpenter might hear Christ call out, “Follow me and I will make you builders of people.” A chef might hear Christ call out, “Follow me and you will feed my hungry people.”

Just like those first disciples – we are called to take the best of what God has given us and use it for the Kingdom of God. Our act of repentance is not only realizing the places where we have failed in our lives… but also recognizing the gifts and strengths of who we are and how God wants us to use them.

The message of Christ is not “Help Wanted – Fishermen Only!” As one pastor put it, “The point is that you and I were meant to become a part of the tremendous divine plan to bring light to a dark world.”[1]

Jesus calls out: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

How are you called to be a part of the Kingdom that Christ has begun?

What does it mean for YOU to be a child of resurrection in the work you do outside this building?

Just imagine what might happen if every person in this room decided to go all in… to give all of your gifts and skills over to God.

In love, service, and in prayer, God could truly change this world.

[1] http://www.lectionarysermons.com/jan24ser99.html