Peace Church Sermons

Called to Obey

2012-01-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

Book of Jonah
Series on the Church as Called
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Jonah is a great narrative for our time, filled with irony and humor. It asks us to suspend our historical, critical minds. The book of Jonah begs us to hear a outrageous story and learn a lesson from it. We often are so busy asking questions of historicity and are so serious about the facts that we effectively avoid considering the questions that the scripture asks us about our character, about our obedience. Well of course, we don’t want to think about our own obedience to God.

Obedience is an unpopular word in our culture. It feels so old-fashioned to say, “We are called to obey God.” But we are. For our own good, as well as for the good of others. We are called to live lives pleasing to God, not to do what we want. Life is better when we do what God says and go where God says go. Jonah helps us to laugh at ourselves for the ridiculousness of going our own way, the other way, running away from God. Jonah is the reluctant prophet. He did not want to go to the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire, to try to rescue people in a place where Israelites had been grossly mistreated. It is easy to see why he played the avoidance game with God, until God saved him with a three-day entrapment in the belly of a big fish. I don’t care whether you believe a person could live in the belly of a big fish for three days or not. What matters to me is that you care enough about the power and authority of this scripture to allow your soul to be shaped by it in Christian faith and obedience.

The lectionary (the ecumenical set of readings we follow) would have us read most of chapter 3, but I had decided early in the week that we had to read all of chapters 3 & 4. Then as we came closer to Sunday, I became convinced that we needed the whole story, the book of Jonah – which only takes about 3-4 minutes to read.

As the text is read by several voices, I invite you to reflect what God is calling Jonah to do and why he is running? Think about why Jonah gets mad when God’s desires are fulfilled. Notice how the outsiders in the story (the sailors and the Ninevites) are more faithful than the insider, Jonah.

Pay special attention to the boundless mercy of God, which begs Jonah to move beyond his prejudices, fears, and presuppositions to a more profound awareness of the power, providence, and great mercy of God. See Jonah’s struggle to obey God and consider your own struggle.

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NRS Jonah 1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 "Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

4 But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. 6 The captain came and said to him, "What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish."

7 The sailors said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, "Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?" 9 "I am a Hebrew," he replied. "I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." 10 Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, "What is this that you have done!" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them so. 11

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Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you."

13 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. 14 Then they cried out to the LORD, "Please, O LORD, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you." 15 So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows. 17 But the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2:1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying, "I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3 You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4 Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple?' 5 The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O LORD my God. 7 As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the LORD!" 10 Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.

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3:1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"

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5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish." 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

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4:1 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3 And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." 4 And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?" 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. 6 The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live." 9 But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 10 Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

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The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. (pause, then slide)

What is God calling you to do? Where is God calling you to go? To whom does God want you to reach out and speak of mercy and love you have experienced? Why do you not want to do this? I’ll give you a moment to consider...

God is calling me not to the Ninevah of my own neighborhood and city. I’m nervous to establish real relationships with the people around me. Many of them scorn people like me, ministers of the Gospel. They think I’m narrow-minded or judgmental, like all those Christians they’ve heard about. They think I’m “holier than Thou.” They think I’m boring and super-spiritual, certainly not any fun. They will not want a relationship with me. And if they do want a relationship with me, they might ask too much of me. I might not have enough time or energy for them. I probably cannot answer all their questions or solve their problems anyway. It is hard to defend one’s Christian faith, as it is a world view, a perspective on truth, a relationship, not a provable data. It is hard to share faith. It takes a long time to build the kind of friendship that allows for that kind of deep sharing.

After all, God, my main responsibility is to the relationships I have with people already in the church. Isn’t it? Besides it probably would not make much difference. Those people in my neighborhood – they’re not interested in the Gospel, in the church. To each his own. I mean who am I to tell them the best news I’ve ever heard, the news that liberates me from the values of broken, lustful, materialistic world, news that reminds me of your boundless, steadfast love, news that has given peace to generations of Christians. They wouldn’t want to hear this news, would….. they, so why should I waste my time building friendships with them? (pause)

Then again, I don’t really want to create storms in the lives of those with whom I take refuge, while I’m avoiding the people God calls me to care for. I don’t want to land in the belly of a big fish, so to speak. Maybe I should try to do what God calls me to do. Obey. Live out this love that has been given me. Share it with others. Obeying God is not easy, but storms and slimy isolation are not great alternatives.

God, why do you have to love everyone? I mean, wouldn’t it be better if you called us your favorites and we could forget about all those people who are late to the party of Your grace and love?

Okay, okay, I’ll go to Ninevah in neighborhood. I’ll get out of my little shell and share your love. Yes, I will. I will trust and obey.

Called to Listen

2012-01-15T06:05:00.000-08:00

1 Samuel 3:1-20
After Epiphany: The Church is Called
Elizabeth M. Deibert

My dad’s birthday was three days ago. He would have been eighty-nine this year. My dad had plenty of faults, like all of us, but what people really appreciated about him was his ability to listen well to others. Listening is an under-appreciated, under-practiced skill. I believe the church is called to listen well –to listen to God and to one another with careful attention. This is a crucial factor in being faithful.

The Stephen Ministers in training are learning the value of listening to people in need, not trying to fix them or correct them, but hearing their stories in order to better care for their needs.

The Book Discussion Group on Thursday night practiced the art of listening to voices beyond the Christian faith with the goal of finding some common ground and learning helpful information about how a listening mind perceives of God.

The Movie Group watched The Help which was the story of a group of black women, maids from Jackson, MS, who had been long-silenced by their place in society. When a young white woman began to listen to their perspective, it was the impetus for major change in her, in them, and in their community.

Each of you spent time 70-80 percent of your waking time in some form of communication, writing, speaking, reading, or listening. Much of what we communicated is through body language. But of all the time we spend in communication, over half of it was spent listening, and usually doing a poor job ot it. We are at best distracted listeners. We occupy our minds with what we intend to say next while the other person is talking. We multi-task, such that the person who’s talking does not receive our full attention. Isn’t interesting that God has given us the ability, the freedom to do many things at once, such that we have to discipline our minds to focus well on the task of listening?

And it’s even worse, if we talk about listening to God? How many things run through your mind when you are praying? How many of us took time this week to really listen to God? Or did we just forge ahead assuming we knew everything we need to know to be faithful?

What does it mean to listen to God? Is it in silent prayer alone that we hear God speaking? Or some combination of silence with other acts worship – singing, scripture reading, sacraments, giving, sharing peace, acts of service, listening to others?

At the beginning of our service today, you sang, “Lord, speak to me, that I may speak in living echoes of Thy tone.” Are you really asking God to speak to you and do you really want to share with others what God is saying to you?

We are reading an amazing narrative about God’s choice of a young boy to deliver an important message. Scripture teaches that God often chooses those whom we least expect to send messages we might not so be eager to hear.

The Story of Samuel, the boy who could hear God’s voice at a young age.

1 Samuel 3:1-20

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. 2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" 5 and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down.

6 The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

8 The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'"

So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10 Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

11 Then the LORD said to Samuel, "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. 12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. 14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever."

15 Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. 16 But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." He said, "Here I am." 17 Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you." 18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, "It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him."

19 As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD. (NRSV)

Imagine being a boy working for an older priest in the temple. Being scared to tell him the message you had heard in the night. Eli pressed him, “What did God say to you? Don’t hide anything from me, boy, or God will do something bad to you.” That’s a pretty scary place for Samuel. He’s thinking, “Let’s see – do I want Eli mad at me or God mad at me?”

But Eli did not get mad. He trusted God’s word coming from Samuel. He had perceived the authenticity of the voice in the night. He knew he himself was not calling Samuel’s name. He had not heard anything in the night. He was getting old. Hard to see. Hard to hear. Must have been a message from God to the boy. That’s why he told him to respond to God, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”

The message was not a huge surprise to Eli. He knew his sons were a huge disappointment. He knew in his heart of hearts he should have restrained them, but the message that this mess known as his family was not to be repaired was disappointing. There was no sacrifice he could make to recover the damage his sons had done. In one sense, Eli already understood Samuel to be the replacement son, in spiritual sense. Samuel had a servant’s heart, an obedient and willing spirit. Samuel had the sensitivity to hear God’s voice.

What about us? Are we listening for the voice of God like Samuel? Can we hear God’s voice and have the courage to share what we’ve heard, even if it is a message that makes others uncomfortable?

Can we hear God’s message, even if we, like Eli, are not the primary receiver of the word of truth? Can we hear God’s message even if it is the difficult news of God’s disappointment with us or those whom we call family or affiliates? Can we hear God’s truth from someone who has less experience, less maturity, less power than we have?

Eli empowered Samuel by acknowledging that God might be speaking to him, by encouraging him to listen, and by asking for and accepting his message from God with humble trust.

We should all be Elis in the church, nurturing the young ones in the faith, encouraging them to listen for the voice of God and then respecting them enough to listen to what they have heard from God, instead of thinking we know it all because we are older and wiser.

We should all be Samuels, listening carefully enough that we cultivate both the ability to hear God speaking, and the courage to speak the truth we have heard in love. I wonder what might happen tomorrow, if you went through your day, saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” If you read scripture and prayed and meditated, and said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” If you listened to others, saying to God, “Help me to hear your voice, Lord, speaking to me, as I try to carefully listen to this person.”

What made Martin Luther King, Jr. such a powerful figure was his ability to hear messages from God, as a young man, and to communicate difficult messages with courage and love. This ability was cultivated by his roots in the church, where he heard the message of Christ who proclaimed good news to the poor and release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.

MLK’s ability to hear and speak the truth was cultivated by hearing stories of faithful young prophetic voices like Samuel’s. Hearing God’s voice was critical for the prophetic witness of Dr. King. In January 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott, he received a threatening phone call late at night. He couldn’t sleep. He went to his kitchen and took his “problem to God.” He was at a breaking point of exhaustion and about to give up. He spoke to God and says that in that moment he experienced the presence of the Divine and “could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice, saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever.’” His fears and his uncertainty ceased then and there because God spoke and gave him “inner calm.” God provided the interior resources for him to do the work God had called him to do – challenging work of righting wrongs. He needed God to speak first. Then King could act. He listened prayerfully then proclaimed prophetically. Prayer was crucial in propelling the Civil Rights Movement. “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” (Luke Powery, sermon)

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is chocked full of messages from scripture, because this servant of God was listening to God, not just talking to the people. King said, “We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children.”

“In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

This “I Have a Dream” speech is said by some, including our own Professor of Rhetoric, David Thomas, to be one of the best speeches ever written. I encourage you to listen to it or read it in its entirety today or tomorrow. Listen especially for the Christian moorings of his speech.

The civil disobedience and prophetic proclamation of Martin Luther King, Jr, whose real birthday is today, the 15th, is rooted in theological obedience, in prayerful listening to the call of a God of justice who says “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”(Amos 5:24 NRSV)

God speaks. We serve. But the first task of any follower of God is to listen. Will you turn off all the noise in your house and in your mind and stop all the busyness of your life long enough to listen to God? Will you stop talking and invite God to speak? And when God does, will you have the courage to share what you perceive to be God’s message? And lastly, will you listen humbly and with genuine interest to the messages God has given to others?

Church, we are called to be excellent listeners. Work on it

Defining Moments

2012-01-08T05:32:00.000-08:00

Luke 2:25-33, 41-52, Mark 1:4-11
Epiphany & Baptism Sundays
Elizabeth M. Deibert

The new year is a time of reflection, though some of us are so busy in the holidays we rush into the new year, with our tongues hanging out. But this is a good time to renew your sacred covenant with God as you did last week in worship with Pastor Tricia, and it is a good time to consider the sacred journey of your own life. Yes, each of has a holy history, which shapes us. What has God done in your life? in your birth and early development, your youthful questioning and your mature believing? How has your baptism, your nurture, and your call to Christ’s service impacted you? What are the defining moments of your existence?

We will read today the defining moments of Jesus’ early life, beginning with his parents’ act of faith on his behalf, followed by his self-defining moment of separation from his parents, and finally, his decisive moment of beginning ministry.

First, we look at his presentation in the temple. This is the story of Jesus’ parents coming to the temple to do what was expected of faithful Jews 40 days after the birth of a baby. They bring an offering and the mother’s purification is declared. We often bring babies for baptism, and Christians from some traditions have baby dedications. Nearly all people, whether actively pursuing faith or not, recognize in the birth or adoption of a baby, that something sacred has happened. This sacred moment needs a marking, a celebration of the goodness and love of God.

And in the case of Jesus, when he was brought to the temple, two faithful people there, Simeon and Anna, immediately recognized that Jesus was no ordinary child. Simeon’s song inspired Joseph and Mary, as you might expect. Simeon confirmed what they had heard now many times – that the child they were raising had a special calling. And because of Jesus’ perfect fulfillment of his calling, every human being born thereafter has a special calling, given by God. What Simeon saw was God’s salvation, coming in the person of Jesus Christ, God-with-us, who unites us all to God, as he is the light of revelation to all people.

We can close our eyes to this revelation, but oh, how much better it is when we open our eyes and see how blessed we are, as children of the living of God.

Luke 2:25-33

²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. ²⁷ Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, ²⁹ "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; ³⁰ for my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹ which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, ³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." ³³ And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.

Having read that defining moment of Jesus’ dedication and Simeon’s declaration in the temple, we now turn to the next story the Gospels give us about Jesus, now an adolescent, and acting like one. Jesus is with his parents and then he disappears. Every parent has had a missing adolescent at some point or another. Imagine the concern of a missing kid for three days. Imagine the frustration of the parents upon finding him to hear, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know I would be in my Father’s house?” Huge defining/separating moment. I belong to my Father in heaven more than I belong to you.

Every kid after Jesus needs to make that claim, and we give them opportunity in adolescence, to be confirmed – to make that separation. I am my own person and I belong to God, more than to my parents. We hope that every teen at Peace will make this step – will ask questions, as Jesus did, and will grow in wisdom, and in favor with God and with humanity.

This is a major step, and whether you were officially confirmed or whether you had some other form of identity resolution, separating yourself from your parents’ identity, it is crucial to realize at some point in life that you belong to God, and as grateful or ungrateful as you might feel toward your parents and their influence, you must take responsibility for yourself and your own faithfulness. Hear the moment when Jesus stepped out from under his parents’ wings and declared himself a resident in God’s house.

Luke 2:41-52

⁴¹ Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴² And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. ⁴³ When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴ Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. ⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." ⁴⁹ He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" ⁵⁰ But they did not understand what he said to them. ⁵¹ Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. ⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. (NRSV)

While there must have been many meaningful events in Jesus’ boyhood and early adulthood, we do not know what they were. We just know that he increased in wisdom and in stature or years, and that he became more and more appreciated by God and by humanity.

That’s our aim as followers of Christ – to grow in wisdom, to become more pleasing to God and to all the people around us. And how wonderful if it can be said of us, when we are gone, that we grew in wisdom, that our lives were pleasing to God and a blessing to others. To please God and be a blessing to others, we must work toward greater faithfulness, knowing that we cannot earn God’s grace and love. We have already been declared, as Jesus was, “God’s beloved children.” So as children of God, heirs of Christ, we try to live into our name, our calling, our truest identity.

Hear the moment of Jesus’ baptism when the Holy Spirit descended on him like dove and a voice came from heaven, announcing his unique status and favor as God’s Son. This is the favor and the identity that is imparted to us, through his union with God and with us.

Mark 1:4-11

⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶ Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸ I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." ⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." (NRSV)

Those who develop the healthiest sense of personal identity are those who understand their continuity with family and group of origin, who appreciate their own uniqueness as a person, and who maintain a healthy affiliation with the people of their past, present, and future.

We have seen how Jesus’ birth, dedication, temple time of questioning, while separated from his parents, and his culminating blessing and call to ministry in his baptism shaped his self-understanding and direction.

I am wondering how you would write the sacred history of your life…..Think about it. For me, it was an infant baptism, followed by a strong nurturing family and church family in a small town Presbyterian Church. My self-defining/separating moment came in the mid-eighties when I felt called and pursued ordained ministry, despite some of my family’s members questioning whether women had a place as pastors of churches. There has been no one moment when the heavens opened up for me, or the voice of God spoke audibly, or the light of Christ was shining in a presence that I could call visible, but I have known Christ to be near, in difficult and in joyful times in my life. One of those difficult times for me was a season in which I was not serving in a professional ministry role, and felt a sense of loss.

I have deep and clear sense that this particular ministry is my calling, and that in particular, I am called to lead you into your own sense of ministry, to fulfill God’s calling to you, to be in ministry. Every one of us belongs to God. Every one of us is called by God to some form of ministry in serving Christ.

Every one of us has different shaping events. My mother’s faith was profoundly shaped by the loss of her own father at fifteen. My father’s faith was shaped by his year-long experience in a TB hospital in his mid-thirties.

Ponder for a moment what have been your defining moments in the faith – your baptism, your confirmation, your ordination to ministry as pastor or elder, your first decision to return to church as an adult, your decision to give your gift of music for the glory of God, your initial willingness to serve on a ministry team with others, your experience at church camp or conference when you knew you wanted to be a disciple of Christ?

Consider whether people could say of you that you grew in wisdom and in favor with God and humankind. After your death, will people be interested in your defining moments because your life by the power of the Spirit was a blessing to others. We have a sacred history of our own, a history in which we must find continuity with our past, a sense of unique purpose in our own identity and calling in the present, and a meaningful affiliation with the people around us to carry us from present into the future. One day when we are no longer able to do, but only be with God, we will hear God’s message: “You are my beloved.” May we be faithful, such that God can also say, “With you I am well pleased.”

Enlightened

2011-12-25T12:43:00.000-08:00

John 1:1-14
Christmas Day
Elizabeth M. Deibert

All-powerful and unseen God, the coming of your light into our world has brightened weary hearts with peace by your presence. Open our eyes anew to the great good news of your Word made flesh, Jesus, that we might forever seek to know him, to love him, and to serve him. Amen.

We heard the familiar lessons and carols which tell the story of Jesus’ birth last night, and today with the help of John’s Gospel, the poetic prologue of John’s Gospel, we reflect on what happened. By energy level and by attendance and by mood, we all know that the climax has come and now we begin to wind down the Christmas season, but in the church officially, the Christmas season is just beginning. Europeans understand this, as some of them culminate with gift giving on Epiphany, the traditional time of remembering the arrival of the Magi with their gifts. But we tend to start as soon as Thanksgiving is over with an enthusiastic and vigorous Advent, and when Christmas comes, we’re done, we’re exhausted. Some of us keep the decorations up, and we Deiberts are among them, so we will encourage you to remember Epiphany by coming to our house with gifts of leftover food and drink and we will make merry and light many candles on the 12^th day of Christmas, to remember the light of Christ, the light we celebrate this morning in the Word made flesh, who is God from the beginning.

Hear the Gospel:

John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (NRSV)

How can the Word share at the same time both the life of the Creator God and the life of the enfleshed creature? It is no wonder that the world did not know him—why would we accept a fellow human being as the source of all life? Who would expect the divine wisdom to hide under such a thick veil of historical conditioning? How can it possibly be that through a creature darkness is overcome, all are enlightened, and we are given power to become children of God? (Cynthia Rigby, Feasting on the Word)

“And the Word became flesh” is not only an astonishing pronouncement; it is also, arguably, the most significant claim of the Christian faith. According to John, it is the very basis upon which we become the children of God. St. Gregory, a fourth-century theologian, testified powerfully to why it matters that God entered fully into creaturely existence. “That which is not assumed is not redeemed,” he proclaimed. His words have shaped our understanding of Christ and salvation ever since. The humanity of Jesus Christ is no mere costume. Jesus Christ was not just “veiled in flesh” as Charles Wesley’s hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing states.

“Fully flesh, the Godhead see” would be a more accurate line to sing. I’m sure Wesley from the heavens knows we should be singing it that way. Apparently Wesley originally named it the Hymn for Christmas Day. And for those who get upset about the words of carols changing, Wesley’s first line was not “Hark the Herald Angels sing, Glory to the newborn King.” It was “Hark how all the welkin ring. Glory to the King of Kings.” If you’re like me, you haven’t used the word “welkin” recently. It appears eighteen times in Shakespeare’s plays, but hasn’t received a lot of play in the last couple of centuries. “Welkin” is a word for the vault of heaven, the place where stars and angels dwell.

Furthermore, written in the mid 1700s, he intended it to be sung to traditional music, not that wild melody of Mendelsohn’s, which Wesley would have considered entirely inappropriate and not sacred at all. And Mendelsohn who lived in the mid 1800’s was not pleased either, for this Jewish composer did not want his music attached to to a poem for Christmas Day. But how much control do they have now?

But back to John’s Gospel, which speaks of the Word becoming flesh. It is not a temporary condition or thirty-three-year experiment on the part of God. The real Word really became real flesh. This is the content of the gospel. This is the miracle of Christmas. It is through entering into our flesh that Jesus reveals to us who God actually is, has been, and will be. It is through plunging deeply into the sinful, ignorant realities of our existence in this world that Jesus restores us to that for which he created us. It is in this unlikely way that he is our true light. Apart from God’s full entrance or assumption of our flesh, God is not really with us. Correspondingly, understandings of the incarnation that compromise on the full divinity of Jesus Christ fail to convey that it is God we know, truly, in him. No theological insight has exercised more influence in shaping Christian doctrine than that the Word—known to us in Jesus Christ—was God. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the church affirmed that Jesus Christ is not simply like God the Father (homooisios), but is of the very same substance as the Father (homoousios). With John, the church concurred that this particular human being is not only godlike, but actually God. (C. Rigby, Feasting on the Word)

All other Christian doctrines are premised on this crucial truth. But this is not a day to be long-winded about Christian doctrine but to glory in the goodness of the One who joined us here, who brought light to our darkness.

So to conclude the sermon, I’ll share some poetry from Ann Weems about the Word made flesh, the light coming to enlighten all the people.

“In a wave of wonder, in an extravaganza of imagination, in a roar of deafening waters, in a drum roll of thunder, God said let there be Light! And the dazzling sun of Day made her entrance, singing her song of Life. Then in a stunning display of fireworks, lightning leaping in bolts, stars hurling through ink black sky, moon floating above, the Light of Night took her bow.

The stage was set, right from the beginning the Word was there, with God. The Word was God.” “And without the Word was God…Right from the beginning the Word of God was spoken in miracles. Right from the beginning, in the light of God’s love, the people of God were created for covenant-keeping. I will be your God and your will be my people. Right from the beginning the Word was Love and the Word was Light and the Word was Life. Right from the beginning God’s people were invited to way in the way of the Word.

God saw that it was good. It was very good. Until, that is, somebody left the door open in paradise, and Death walked on stage and turned off the light. (Lights off)

Somebody or somebodies thought they didn’t have to listen to God… Somewhere along the way we thought we didn’t have to listen to the Word of god, thought we didn’t have to walk in covenant. We turned off the light and quarreled in the darkness. (Ann Weems tells the story of our brokenness, our sin)…The people of God had chosen Death instead of Life. God was grieved to the heart… But God loved the people, even though they walked in darkness…And God forgave them and God sent a great Light, the Word of God Incarnate…

Our darkness begins where our covenant ends. If the love of God is not written on our hearts, there is no covenant light, and flailing in the dark gets us nowhere.”(Ann Weems, From Advent’s Alleluia to Easter’s Morning Light)

But God entered into that darkness to show us that the Light which was from the beginning, the Word is still creating, is still calling, still leading us to be enlightened. “What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.  The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out. (as Gene Peterson translate it.) The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

Our job is to draw near enough to Christ’s face, to be enlightened by the Light which has already invaded the darkness. What child is this? No ordinary child. This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angel sing. This infant is the Light shining in darkness, the Word which IS GOD!

Amazed

2011-12-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

Luke 2:1-20
4th Sunday of Advent
Elizabeth M. Deibert

How can we capture the amazement of this season once again? It is so easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of creating “Happy Holidays” that we forget that this is Christmas. Christ’s Mass. The greatest of day all of days, the day when God entered our humanity, became one with us. There are many reasons for our love of Christmas – family memories, musical concerts, favorite foods, festive lights, an excuse to shop and throw parties, but the real reason for this season is this amazing gift, the one that Mary wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. There is something amazing about Almighty God becoming a helpless, little baby.

Let’s unwrap the brightly colored, excessively consumer-oriented, tinsel-covered holiday and discover the real gift of Christmas – the real amazement of this Gift of all gifts. Before we read the story which will be read countless times all around the world this week, let’s stop and think for a moment about how odd this story of the Incarnation really is. An unwed young mother, Mary, a virgin, visited by an angel. A devout fiancée, Joseph, who hung in there despite all the glares from others. It’s good he listened to the voice of God coming through his dreams, telling him not to abandon Mary because ancient law allowed for her stoning. And this child, given by the Holy Spirit, must be carried in the womb, all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That’s no a walk around the park. That’s a walk from here to Tampa. No wonder the poor girl went into labor.

Part of the amazement of the nativity for us is the idea that the Son of God was
born not in a neonatal unit but in a room full of animals. But actually it was pretty normal for them. We learn from linguistic scholars that the inn may not have been the stable of a first century Motel 6 but the upper part of a regular house. The lower part was where the animals came inside at night for protection. So Jesus was born in ordinary conditions – not extraordinary – in an ordinary house, in the lower part of the house, where the animals came for food and rest at night.

I think the most amazing part is that the first birth announcement went not to
important people but to a bunch of migrant shepherds! Let’s hear the afresh the story of the humble birth and be amazed with the shepherds who received first news.

NRS Luke 2:1-20 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Luke tells us that an angel of the Lord with the glory of the Lord shining all around dares to stand in front of some Jewish sheep-herders and make them the first human beings on earth to hear the news the a savior has been born, that Israel’s Messiah has come? Why not somebody important? What about Emperor Augustus, doesn’t he need to know? Or Quirinius? Or the chief priest?

Or a Pharisee or scribe? Or, how about having it first announced during worship at the Temple. At least the angels should announce to Mary and Joseph themselves there after the delivery. They had been visited by angels, but not by the multitude of heavenly hosts. But the angels visit shepherds. They are beyond amazed. They are scared, terrified. But the angel insists that they should not be afraid, because it is good news. Prior to this in Luke’s story, the verb “feared” came from the angel commanding NOT to fear (1.13); from the angel Gabriel to Mary commanding that she not fear (1.30); Jesus as he calls James, John, and Simon commands that they NOT to fear their career change to catching people (5.10); Jesus tells Jairus NOT to fear that his only daughter has already died (8.50); Jesus commands his fearing disciples NOT to fear dying as they proclaim the Gospel, but instead He tells them to fear losing their soul by not proclaiming it (12.4-7); Jesus COMMANDS his disciples NOT to fear giving up all material goods to gain the Kingdom of God (12.32).

As I read this passage to Gretchen this week, this verse was her favorite.
The angel said to them “Do not fear, for I bring you good news of great joy which is for all the people.” No one left out here, the news is for all the people.

And the angel continues: “This will be a sign for you: you will find an infant, wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.” A baby, some rags, and a feeding trough. That’s what the angel of the LORD standing in the glory of the LORD gives some no-name shepherds as the evidence of the greatest news ever brought to this world. “The shepherds hurry to the feeding trough, and there, they bring the amazing news to Mary and Joseph. Can you imagine the sense of relief and confirmation for them. How many times did they wonder if they were crazy for listening to angel voices in the night. Confirmation they receive: This ordinary baby is the ultimate sign of God’s favor for humankind — Savior, Messiah and LORD all rolled into a sticky, wrinkly newborn” lying in the dirty hay. Amazing.

So the shepherds resolve to go and personally see what the Lord has MADE KNOWN to them (2.15), they in turn immediately MAKE KNOWN to others that the Incarnation has happened in an infant (2.17)! And all who heard it are amazed. I have never noticed this verse before. Who was there? People in the house, people in the neighborhood, animals, Mary and Joseph. All who heard it were amazed.

The shepherds’ revealing of the Incarnation begins to happen right here in this scene, because Mary herself hears it (2.19)! It’s as if they immediately begin to tell about it to whomever is around. That’s what happens I guess when you have a terrifying and amazing experience. When you share it, others are amazed too.

Let’s think about the faithful actions of the shepherds. They see and hear. Shepherds are not so preoccupied, so busy with their own sense of self-importance. They have time under the stars to listen for the voices of angels. Do we? They have a spirit of openness to being amazed by the work of the Lord. Do we? The shepherds do not hesitate to go, as the angels told them. They do not form a committee to study and explain this appearance of angels. They do not make a long range plan to visit the child at some later date. They apparently do not even worry about their sheep. They had experienced a life-changing visitation from the heavenly hosts, so they were amazed and went hastily. Apparently, they left a lot of sheep behind, because anybody knows you can’t go somewhere fast with a bunch of dumb sheep. Sheep were their livelihood, but when the angel of the Lord spoke to them, their work became secondary to seeing the infant King. Would ours?

The shepherds saw, heard, and obeyed. (Look at the amazement on their faces.) Are we so quick and so uncalculating when God speaks to us? Or do we stop and make a more sensible, reasonable plan. Would we have dropped our work and gone to a barn in some little town to worship an humble new baby born to a poor young couple? Would we dare to imagine that the Son of God would be born to us under such conditions of poverty and embarrassment?

The shepherds were the very first evangelists. They told the news which they had
received and all who heard it were amazed. In the telling of the news, amazement happens to others. What might have happened if the shepherds had been too busy to hear angels, too distracted to see visions of heavenly hosts, too calculating about their income to sacrifice the flock by traveling so hastily to find the baby? I suppose God would have found someone else who had time to be amazed. Could God have come to you? Would you have had time to see and hear, to be amazed enough to go? Could you have been one of the first evangelists, telling the good news of great joy which has come for all the people? Speaking of amazement creates amazement.

In their courageous, naive amazement the shepherds found confirmation of the message the angel had brought them. In their courageous, naive amazement they were able to be the first visitors to the newborn Savior of the world. Because of they had time to see and hear and go, they observed first-hand the helplessness of a God, who chose to come among us as one of us. As the story of Christ’s life unfolds in Luke’s Gospel, there is more amazement. Mary and Joseph’s AMAZEMENT at Simeon’s prophesy while holding Jesus (2.33); the home-town folk’s AMAZEMENT at Jesus’ first sermon in Nazareth (4.22); the disciples AMAZEMENT at Jesus’ control over the storm (8.25); the crowd’s AMAZEMENT “at all that Jesus was doing” shortly after He healed a boy (9.43) and after he healed a mute man (11.14); Peter’s AMAZEMENT at finding Jesus’ linen clothes in the empty tomb (24.12); the disciples’ AMAZEMENT when they saw and touched the risen Jesus’ bodily wounds (24.41) after the walk to Emmaus.

I hope that as you busy yourself this week wrapping and unwrapping gifts, you will make time to unwrap the real presence of God who comes to bring peace to all people. Immanuel, God with us, comes to all of us and is not ashamed to live with us in the dangers and the desperation of life. The amazing marvel of Christmas morning is that God’s power is made perfect in the weakness of an infant child. Will you take time see and hear the angels voices and be amazed? Will you go to Bethlehem to bow before the supreme gift of Christmas - the presence of God in a humble child?

If you can lay aside your fears and be amazed and share your amazement with others, you will find yourselves like the shepherds, returning to your life after this celebration of his birth, glorifying and praising God for all you’ve seen and heard. Our presents for one another bring pleasure for a season but God’s presence, the real gift of Christmas, brings peace for a lifetime and beyond.

Blessed

2011-12-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

Luke 1:39-56
3^rd Sunday of Advent
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Usually when we call someone “blessed” we mean things have gone well for them in some measurable way. But we know that in scripture, being blessed is not always defined by success, but by obedience in hard times. The Beattitudes from Luke say, “Blessed are you are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate and exclude and treat you terribly bad, because your reward will be great. Elizabeth called Mary blessed. Elizabeth called Jesus, the fruit of Mary’s womb, blessed. Why did she say that Mary was blessed? Because Mary believed, she trusted the word of the Lord. Faith is a gift, but trust is an active verb. Let us hear the story of the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth and see what we learn from the Blessed Mother Mary, venerated by the whole church for 1500 years, then somewhat ignored by the Protestant part of the church, anxious not to put Mary in the place of the Divine. Well, reverence for Mary is returning to open-minded Protestants, just as weekly communion is returning, as we recover from our over-reaction in the Reformation. How can we not call the mother of our Lord “blessed”? After all, she is the perfect example of faithfulness for the church.

Luke 1:39-56

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

⁴⁶And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." ⁵⁶And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

(NRSV)

How can we not hold Mary in highest human regard, for she is the god-bearer, the one who carried Christ, not just an ordinary child. She carried to full term God incarnate, Immanuel. Talk about being receptive to God! Mary was. Mary is worthy of our fullest regard and honor. She is not only the mother of our Lord, but she represents the church, as we are called to embody Christ for the world. She has shown us what it means when we sing, “let every heart to prepare him room.” Christina Rossetti wrote a beautiful poem about gifts for Christ: What can I give him, poor as I am, if I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. What can I give him, give him my heart. Mary gave him chromosomes. Mary gave God her womb, and by her gift, a new covenant of love with us was born. God became one of us, and by living with us and suffering with and for us, dying and rising, he defeated death for us. We have much for which to be thankful at Christmas, but maybe today, we should simply give thanks to the One who bore for us savior, when half-spent was the night. Thanks, Mary, for listening to the Angel and believing this incredible news so you could live courageously into it, despite the risk of all family and cultural disapproval.

Just yesterday I stumbled upon a new version of Mary’s Song, written to go with a familiar English Christmas carol. So, thanks to my friend, Gia, who graciously lets me import music at the last hour, I want to sing now in the middle of the sermon, because after all, I’m preaching on one of the oldest songs in the church, Mary’s Song. If Gia will give me a low starting pitch, I’ll sing the first verse for you acapella, as they have sung Once in Royal David’s City to open the Festival of Lessons and Carols for nearly one hundred years.

Mary Gladly Told Her Cousin (“Once in Royal David’s City” PH #49)

Mary gladly told her cousin, “Praise the Lord! My spirit sings!”
Young and humble, she’d been chosen! God was surely changing things!
God of love, her words ring true As we sing her prayer to you:

“Now my soul is gladly singing At the greatness of the Lord.
I rejoice, for God is bringing His salvation to the world.
All who live will say I’m blest Even in my lowliness.

“God is mighty, just and holy, And he’s done great things for me.
Those who fear him know the mercy That God gives us endlessly.
Mighty ones are brought down low; Lowly ones find blessings flow.

“God has filled the poor and hungry, And he’s sent the rich away.
God is active here in history, In a real and wondrous way.
God has promised, and I’m blessed, For I know God’s faithfulness.”

It is impossible to overestimate the significance of Mary’s hymn, the Magnificat. The only extended speech in Luke given by a female character, it casts Mary as a prophet. In the tradition of Hannah and Miriam in the Hebrew Scriptures, Mary celebrates God’s unfolding salvation of her people Israel. She announces God’s compassion for the lowly and introduces a key theme of Jesus’ ministry – the reversal of social structures. “Mary proclaims the topsy-turvy future of God as an already accomplished fact—possibly because that future can already be glimpsed in God’s choice of Mary as the bearer of the Messiah. The song proclaims the reality and promise that the singer embodies…”

Her song inspired the Feast of Fools celebration in Medieval times, as people had a little fun reversing the social status and privileges of people, not taking themselves so seriously. (Feasting on the Word) Christians who are part of the Occupy Wall Street movement could easily be quoting Mary’s song this week, imagining the powerful coming down their thrones, the hungry filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty.

While more Americans than ever (15%) slipped below the poverty line this year the wealthiest 1% now controls 40% of the nation’s wealth. It was half that, 20% in the early 80’s. Another way to size it up: the top 10% hold 70% of the wealth, and the bottom 50% of country’s population hold 2%. That kind of disparity is damaging to our nation. Economic injustice should always be a concern to faithful Christians, because our Scriptures call us to another way, the way championed by Mary’s Song. We may have different ideas about how to solve the problem of the growing wedge in our economy, but we cannot be indifferent to it. Mary affirms that the God who came to us in Jesus Christ lifts up the lowly and fills the hungry with good things. Remember that the first words out of Jesus when he began his ministry were, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me …to proclaim good news to the poor.”

I wonder what the new megachurch pastor who is in Lakewood Ranch now to start a new church would say about Mary’s Song. The recent newspaper article says he preaches a prosperity gospel, encouraging people to feel good about being rich. On Celebration Sunday, congregation members bring all kinds of gifts like brand new flatscreen TVs and computers to give away to anyone, including first-timers who attend.

We haven’t tried that method of outreach. But we will give you postcards today encouraging you to share them with your friends, family, and neighbors who might be interested in special Christmas services at Peace. We cannot promise to give them any fine material gifts when they visit, maybe a recyclable grocery bag that says Peace with a pen inside. But we will offer inspiring worship and nurturing discipleship. We will offer authentic relationships and compassionate outreach.

We will encourage a responsive stewardship that commits to helping those in dire need, as we are doing in four ways this very month – gifts to our missionaries in Pakistan, Alternative Gifts International – a way to give things to your own family and friends while making a difference for those in need, Angel tree gifts for Beth-El and our own buddie, the Tuite family in Vero Beach, and last but not least, the Joy Offering, a Presbyterian collection for racial ethnic colleges and retired or struggling ministers.

We will not promise you health or wealth here, nor do we aim to be mega-in-size, but just mega-grateful and mega-faithful, and mega-generous toward God and our neighbor. But I will promise you will be blessed at Peace. You will be blessed like Mary, if you seek to be like Mary. Remember the commercials a few years back when Michael Jordan was the basketball phenomenon. “Be like Mike.” Well, I challenge you today, “Do not tarry to be like Mary, even if God’s call is scary, or your life is feeling harried.”

Be like Mary. Be receptive to God’s will for your life, even if it is disconcerting to you, as it surely must have been to her. You know about a year after we got here, I nearly left this call, thinking it must have been a mistake. Some of the early movers and shakers were leaving Peace and criticizing me constantly on the way out. I feared the few left would lose hope because of the others. Our three older kids were not very happy. In a dead-end position at Eckerd College and misunderstood by some in the church, Richard was not happy. Even Ben the golden retriever thought the neighborhood was a little stifling with all the HOA rules. I was thinking surely God had brought us to the wrong place, and we would have to toss in the towel. But God was teaching us something about trusting. We were learning to have faith in the uncertain times, trusting God to provide, and God did. Now we rejoice in the church growing here, which is deeply attentive to God’s Spirit in Christ, prayerful and pious, in the best sense of that word, yet also committed to acts of compassion, to social justice. We are to be like Mary, who one verse is saying “Here am I, servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your Word.” And a few verses later is boldly announcing God’s concern for the poor and intent to bring the powerful down from their thrones.

I have often wondered how a young woman like Mary could handle the strain of her news and then sing this song of praise. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” There is only one way she could sing this powerful song of praise, with vision for social change. She had earlier said to the Angel: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me, according to your word.”

That kind of receptiveness to God’s word and will is what made her the perfect servant of God, mother of Christ, and model for the church. “Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.” For Christ to enter, we have to get ourselves out of the way – that’s meekness – not having an ego too large, submissive to God’s Spirit. All generations have called her blessed, because she gave birth to Immanuel, God with us. Her womb is more spacious than the heavens to be able to hold the all fullness of God inside herself. We cannot understand the logic of that any more than we can understand what happens to us in the Eucharist when we receive Christ by faith, and become Christ for the world. But we simply say humbly with Mary, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me, according to your word.”

God chooses ordinary people, young people, even powerless people by the world’s standards, to accomplish challenging and unfathomable goals. Are you open to hear the voices of angels calling you, to serve God with your whole self? That’s what it means to be blessed, even as you are being a blessing to God’s world, still in need of the full reception of Christ’s presence and power? A beautiful change is in gestation in the church. The final triumph of life over death is inevitable. I pray we will welcome Christ into our lives as Mary did. I pray we will nurture his growth in us, trusting him to fill us with all goodness and truth in believing. How will you greet Christ this Advent, this Christmas? Will he know you have been waiting for him, especially in the dark nights of your soul? Will he find you eager to embrace him and to do his will?

Comforted

2011-12-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 40:1-11
2^nd Sunday of Advent
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Where do you go when you need comfort? Do you turn to a comfortable friend or family member? Do you have comfort foods? Comfortable place in the house. I remember as a little kid when I was scared or sad, I would go to the smallest room in the house, a half bathroom, just off the kitchen. That small place felt more secure than the 18 x18 rooms of the Civil War era house I grew up in. One night recently I was coming home from making two pastoral visits, one of them to Gretchen and John, and a profound sadness came over me. I realized Richard had gone to visit his aunt and Rob Tuite in Vero Beach for the night. Andrew and Rebecca had their plans, and I was going to have the rare experience of being completely alone on a Friday night. Usually I relish such time alone, but for some reason, this time, it was not very comforting. I was thinking about how hard it is to die and to watch someone die slowly. I was thinking about how hard it is to have someone die suddenly too. I was thinking about how many people are so stressed or depressed or just plain unhappy much of the time.

Sometimes I get that same feeling of dis-comfort, dis-ease when I view the world, when I think about the struggles of people, who are poor or grieving, when I watch our government wrangle over issues without solving anything, when I think about global issues of imbalance between the haves and the have nots. And sometimes when I consider the fact that so many people in today’s world see the church as irrelevant or useless, I feel sad.

Where can we turn when life is heavy, when we are feeling like we’ve received more than our share of bad news, when we feel trapped in a difficult situation and see no way out? We can turn to our God and shepherd, to our friends and family, especially at church, who can provide the support of faith and love for us, when we feel far away.

Today’s scripture is one of comfort. The Israelites had been in exile in Babylon, taken from their homes, forced to live in a new place and to mix with people they did not understand. Exile usually means being away against your will from your own homeland, but to stretch the term a bit, we could refer to any experience in which we feel profoundly estranged. Maybe it is your new single life, after divorce or death, that makes you feel exiled. Maybe it is your workplace or school, where you do not fit in. Maybe it is in your own nuclear family or family of origin, that you feel misplaced, trapped, or misunderstood. I had an exilic-type experience when we moved to England with four children and I was no longer the pastor of a church. No one forced me to go there, and there was much to be excited about, but I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

To comfort myself on Sunday afternoons, I’d play familiar hymns on the piano and cook warm and comforting egg custard. I’d drink tea, like a good Brit, and find the long, dark, damp cold afternoons a little more bearable. Richard and I still find tea-drinking to be one of those comforting experiences. But more significantly, we find prayer, worship, and scripture reading to be a comfort in hard times. Gretchen Frueh, as she nears death, has been eager to hear words of comfort, so we read Isaiah 40 together this week. Many Christians and Jews who are grieving are eager to hear the 23^rd Psalm, which reminds us of the comfort of the Lord our shepherd.

Hear these words of comfort from the second part of the Book of Isaiah, words which comforted exiles long ago and now for two thousand years have pointed to the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came to bring comfort, hope, and joy to all the world. Scholars say that this is the conversation of God’s heavenly council. Seems to me that when we read these words as Christians who believe in a Triune God, these could be the voices of a Triune God, speaking within God’s self and to the prophet, 2^nd Isaiah about the things that are coming to comfort God’s people.

Isaiah 40:1-11

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

³A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

⁶A voice says, "Cry out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. ⁷The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. ⁸The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

⁹Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, "Here is your God!"

¹⁰See, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. ¹¹He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

(NRSV)

First there’s is the comforting reassurance of “enough.” Yes, they have had enough suffering to bear. They sinned, as we all do, but their painful consequences have over-shadowed their failings at this point. Sometimes people get worse than they deserve, and God sends a message of “Comfort.”

The next word after “comfort” is “prepare” Now since it was our word for last week’s message, I will not dwell on the preparation part but will simply note that these words are quoted by John Baptist in the Gospels in his charge to prepare for Christ’s ministry. They have also been made familiar in song, through the music of George F. Handel in “Messiah” and in the anthem the choir will sing today.

The charge is to make straight the path in the desert for God because when God comes everything’s is going to be leveled. Valleys raised. Mountains lowered. Rough places smoothed out. Hard times made easier. Mountains were dangerous places to travel in those times. The leveling was a safety issue. Some economic leveling could be a safety issue for us too. We waste a lot of government money on people who are under-educated, who don’t receive enough primary and preventive medical care, people who are caught in a cycle of poverty and violence and addiction. The promise of leveling everybody and everything brings more good news: when it happens, the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people shall see it together. All people. All people together will see. That’s a great message of comfort.

The next part of the text is perhaps the most significant for us, in these days of ours. The voice tells the prophet to cry out and he says what should I cry? And the answer is: People are like grass, like flowers. They fade away. You know that to be true. Stop and think about how quickly life goes by. Your grandparents gone. Your parents gone. Your siblings. Your friends. Your spouse. Soon it will be you. Our lives are so short, so powerless compared with the power of God’s word and God’s breath. So life is not about us; it is about God.

And in particular, it is about the coming of God. So our message is not “Look at me. See what I can do.” That’s a juvenile message. Unfortunately, some adults are juvenile enough to keep saying that, only in more sophisticated and convoluted ways than a five year-old child. They live as if it is all about them. No, our message is not about us. It is about someone much greater than ourselves. The message we are shouting out is this: “Here is your God and our God!” See the One who loves us best and loves us all. See the One who is coming, who has all the power and all the honor and glory. See the One who is coming, who is but a child himself, weak so he knows our weakness, yet powerful as only God can be. See the One who is coming, who is the Good Shepherd of the flock, who always leaves the flock to find the lost, who comes especially to take care of the young and those with young. Our God cares most about the most vulnerable people in society.

Jesus showed us and the prophets teach us that God is most concerned for the weakest of society and so should we be concerned – concerned for their food, their education, their healthcare and their over-all welfare. We should equally be concerned if the weaker ones develop an unhealthy dependence on welfare and lose their will to make a meaningful and responsible contribution to society.

Christ is coming again, as we discussed last week. And will feed his flock like a shepherd concerned that each one has enough. He will come to protect the little ones from danger. Painful as it is to ponder the abuse of young children by coaches, priests, and even family members, I thank God that people are getting caught more often. It has always happened, but now people are talking and children are getting rescued from miserable situations.

So do not fear to lift up your voice, to speak of the One who comes. How will people know if we do not share the news? This One, the Lord, our Shepherd, is a comforter to all who feel alone, estranged, silenced, forgotten, weak, tired, and unfairly punished. Life is hard. We get tired. We get old. We fail. We wither and perish, but God’s word of love and comfort is stronger than death, wider than the oceans, and more reliable than your best and most loyal friend. God’s word can be trusted. Don’t look for ultimate comfort anywhere else. It cannot be found in the refrigerator or in the bottle or in the pill or in the bed. All those means of comfort will wither and you will not need more. Ultimate comfort cannot be found in wealth, in power, in success. There is never enough to satisfy. Let us find ultimate comfort in the God who comes to be one of us, one with us, the shepherd who feeds and provides for us. Let us sing and shout with the angels of heaven to all the world, “Here is your God. Here is comfort. Make straight the path to prepare for his coming.”

Prepared?

2011-11-27T04:05:00.000-08:00

Mark 13:24-37
1^st Sunday of Advent
Elizabeth M. Deibert

The highest holy days in the Christian year have seasons of preparation. In preparation for Good Friday and Easter, we have the forty days of Lent. And in preparation for Christmas, we have the four weeks of Advent. Advent is a time of preparing not just to celebrate the wonder of Christmas, remembering the birth of Jesus Christ, but it is a time to prepare for the second coming of Christ, especially in the first two weeks of Advent. All the passages in the first two weeks are about the second coming of Christ, not about the first coming.

Talk of the second coming of Christ (mentioned 17 times in the New Testament) is something that generally makes Christians like us a little nervous. Well, it does.

First of all, we have heard the predictions of Christ’s return given in great detail even with dates, and that kind of audacious certainty among some Christians and sects has not seemed plausible to us.

Secondly, we tend to avoid thinking of end times, because we cannot imagine very easily the end of our own life, much less the end of the world. But if we are honest, we do sometimes wonder what happens between this life that we know and the life beyond death, which we do not exactly know.

Thirdly, there are many confusing terms associated with the discussion of end times. Eschatology is the five dollar word for the study of the last times. Parousia is the Greek term meaning arrival, coming, or presence. The term Epiphany, also from the Greek, is used to speak of Christ’s appearing and also the celebration of 12th day of Christmas. The word “Apocalypse” which literally means “unveiling or revelation” is also used to refer to the end of the world.

A literal interpretation of the Bible names four important events:

The Millennium: Revelation describes an important interval lasting for 1000 years when Christ rules. 1 This is a golden era; a time of universal peace.

The Tribulation: This is a 7 year interval when a world religious-political leader called the Antichrist takes power.

Armageddon is a terrible war provoked by the Antichrist. Most people on earth will die. God's anger, hatred, and wrath are poured out over the earth at this time. A series of violent events as prophesied in Daniel 9, Matthew 24, and Revelation 4-19 will occur.

The Rapture: 1 Thessalonians 4 describes a miraculous event when Christ will descend from the heavens towards the Earth. Many conservative Protestants believe that faithful "born again" Christians who have previously died will be resurrected, rise from their graves, and ascend to meet Jesus in the sky. Immediately afterwards, "born again" Christians who had not died will also ascend into the air. They will abandon cars, airplanes, factory jobs, homes, families, friends etc. Others will be “Left Behind” as the series of books says.

These passages of scripture are difficult to understand. They have spawned many conflicting beliefs about the end times. A lot of church strife has resulted from disagreements about end time prophecy. For example, the Roman Catholic Church and most mainline Protestants do not have expectation that a rapture will occur in the way I just described. There are at least six major theories on the end times, but we do not have time in this sermon to address them in all their complexities. I can only recommend that you come to the Bible study on the Book of Revelation in the new year, where some of them will be discussed. Peace has an unusually high number of teaching elders, ministers, people who have been well-trained in Biblical studies (at least half a dozen beyond Tricia and me), so I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities you have to grow in faith here at Peace.

But let’s get on with Mark 13 now, where the charge from Jesus is to be ready, be prepared, be alert, be awake. Pay attention to darkness and light, to subtleties like fig trees producing tender branches, to the words of Christ, which will never pass away, even though heaven and earth will pass away.

Mark 13:24-37

"But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, ²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. ²⁶Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

²⁸"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³²"But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. ³⁵Therefore, keep awake-- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."

(NRSV)

Notice that in this text Jesus says that no one knows the day or the hour – not the angels in heaven and not even the Son himself. Obviously, knowing the hour or day, or trying to predict it is a futile exercise, while being ready, while not knowing the exact day is the key to faithfulness.

We Deiberts made a rather late start on our Thanksgiving trip Tuesday evening. It was difficult to stay awake. Richard and I were drinking coffee and eating ice chips and hot cinnamon candy to stay alert. We struggled to make conversation until finally, we pulled into the hotel north of Jacksonville, where we would spend the night and have breakfast with Richard’s brother and father, on our way to spend Thanksgiving with my family in N. Carolina. I walked into the hotel lobby to get the room key, and the night time front desk operator, happy for some company at 1:00 am, noticed my cross and engaged me in a conversation about the end times and the Christian poetry she writes. She wanted me to read some of it online. All I wanted was a room number and a key, so I could put my head on a pillow, but she wanted a friend with whom to share her belief that since 1959 all the pieces are in place for Christ to come again. I smiled, said something about how we don’t really know when Christ will come again, but affirmed with her what I could affirm and that was that we want to be ready. Ready, even at 1:00 am.

So what does it mean to be ready for the second coming? Let’s think about what we do to get ready for a visit from someone special. We clean up and get dressed. We prepare food or beds or rooms that will be welcoming and pleasing to the guest. We set aside time, so that we will not be distracted. How can we turn our Christmas preparations into Advent of Christ preparations? Can we focus on adorning our hearts even as we focus on decorating our homes? Can we focus on spiritual food as much as physical food? Can we give lasting gifts, such as the blessing of a compliment, the gift of helpfulness, the affirmation of a listening ear, as much as the gifts of clothing or knick-knacks or new technology? Can we give a young child the gift of generosity without spending more money than necessary?

Can we emphasize the reason for the season by making the worship of Christ our focus, rather making church that something extra we have to squeeze into our already frenetic schedules?

When Christ comes again, I would hate for him to be as upset with his Church about our hypocrisy as he was about the Pharisees’ arrogant posture of faith. I would hate to hear him say “I told you to be ready. What are you doing here?” It is our job to help prepare the way for Christ’s coming. We are to live authentic Christian lives, to be humble about the error of our ways, eager to be faithful, ready to receive the gift of God’s grace daily yet willing to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to be busy serving others, and slow to condemn them.

Staying awake means having an active faith, exercising discipline in our lives. When my family arrived at my brother and sister-in-law’s house for a Thanksgiving Family Reunion on Thursday morning, it would have been disappointing to find them in their pajamas asleep. (Actually, I think my 25 year old nephew was in the shower when we arrived.) But it was clear that my brother, his wife, and to a lesser degree their adult sons, had been preparing all week for the arrival of 30+ family members. When we arrived, they were ready.

We do not know exactly when or how or where or what the second coming will look like, but we know we are to be watching for it, ready for it, awake to it. Many things will distract us during this busy season. In the verses prior to our text, Jesus warns against false messiahs and prophets. Many advertisers and merchants will hold up false messiahs, which are aimed at making you or your family happy. But real joy is not found in material possessions. The real joy you give will not be purchased with money, but will be the interest you show in your family members and friends, and the kindness, forgiveness, and generosity of spirit you exhibit in your togetherness.

At such busy times, especially when we are stressed out and sleep-deprived, it is easy to fall asleep on Christian love. We can get so busy creating a Christmas in our own image, rather than Christ’s image, that we fail to be truly generous with those who really need our gifts – the poor and the lonely. We do not want to fall asleep on the things that make a huge difference for people in need, Alternative Gifts International and Angel Tree Gifts for the Families at Beth-El Farmworker Mission. We do not want to fall asleep on comforting those who mourn, showing up for the Blue Christmas Prayer Service to be in solidarity with those who are lonely or sad at Christmas.

As one Advent rolls into another, and we proclaim each year that it is time to be ready, it will be tempting to simply fall asleep on the eschatology of this present moment, because it is not nearly as natural as eating sugar cookies, going to concerts and parties, buying stuff, and watching football games. Do we subconsciously busy ourselves with more than we can accomplish because we don’t want to deal with what really matters? Have we created an idol of our own Christmas celebration, forgetting the One whom we celebrate on Christmas?

It was a teenager at Peace who was amazed that the session would have to decide to have a Christmas Day service when Christmas falls on Sunday. “Isn’t the day about Christ’s birth?” she asked. So why would we even consider cancelling worship on Christmas Day? I was sorry to have to inform her that attendance at Christmas Day services is not usually high, even on Sunday. I hope you will remember this teen at Peace when you make your decision about Christmas Day worship, because your action will shape all of us.

As children we all learn that the anticipation of the big day is almost more fun than the day itself. So let us anticipate Christ’s coming well. Let us prepare our hearts, our souls, our minds, as well as preparing our homes. Let us prepare for the second coming as well as preparing to celebrate the first. Let us prepare in such a way that we keep alert to the things that really matter – giving gifts that truly bless others -- gifts of love, joy, kindness, helpfulness, and generosity toward those in need. Let us limit our activities so that we are not put to sleep by the exhaustion of the season.

One year, after the Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols Service, when our four children were small and just tucked in bed, Richard and I had a glass of wine while lounging by the fire place at about 10:00 and before we knew it, we had fallen asleep unprepared for Christmas. We woke up on the floor, very startled to realize that it was 4:00 am. Never have we been so focused and so fast. I’m praying to have the same sense of urgency every Advent as I had that Christmas morning. The master of this universe has left us his servants, in charge of the house, while he is bodily away from us. He will return some day or night. Will we be ready? Will the house be as he wanted it? Have we paid attention to his desires? Will we be glad to see him, or wish that we had a few more hours to scurry around, to clean up the mess we’ve made?

Please pray with me, the word of a 17^th century Advent hymn:

O, Lord, how shall I meet you? How welcome you aright? Your children long to greet you, my hope my hearts’ delight. O kindle, Lord most holy, a lamp within my breast, to do in spirit lowly all that may please you best.” Amen.

Judged

2011-11-20T04:44:00.000-08:00

Matthew 25:31-46
Christ the King Sunday
Elizabeth M. Deibert

May the word you speak to us today, Lord, take root in our lives and bear fruit that is pleasing to you.

This is a difficult passage. In 21 years of ordained ministry, I have avoided preaching it. I prefer to talk about God’s mercy than God’s judgment. This passage makes me uncomfortable because I know I don’t have enough money or time to help everyone who needs help. But this year, I decided it was time to face my fears and deal with this text. In one week’s time here at our ministry center, I have had two encounters with people in need, one of them quite startling. I was here Thursday night in the dark, and had not locked the door. A man needing help walked in. It took every ounce of faith I could muster to look him in the eye and treat him like he was Jesus, because he startled me badly, and I found myself frantically reaching for my cell phone. We did not stay in the building. When I learned he needed gas, we exited quickly to drive in separate cars to the gas station, where I could more safely be compassionate.

Jesus uses sheep and goats to describe the difference between those who were faithfully compassionate and able to enter into his kingdom and those who were not. Now before we read the text, let’s get on board with the differences between sheep and goats. In Jesus’ time this would be understood.

Goats are rough and tough. They can run and jump and climb much better than sheep. They can fend for themselves. Many goats have horns, which they are inclined to use. Goats are rowdy and self-reliant. They are selfish. They are bullies. They are too smart for their own good. They never stay where you put them. They can jump over or shimmy under pretty much any fence. They refuse to conform. They like to break things…and eat things…and get into things.

Sheep are friendly, gentle, trusting, even naïve and innocent. They stay together in herds and follow each other around. They might get lost, but they are not mean or mischievous. I read online about modern-day farmers, who said, “We were never able to keep sheep and goats together in a harmonious group. The feisty goats kept picking on the more docile sheep.”

The goats would bully the sheep away from the good grass and the water. Separation of sheep and goats is often necessary for the survival of the sheep. So Jesus uses the imagery of the sheep and the goats to help his disciples understand God’s intention to protect the weaker ones. Then he makes the connection between the animals and the peoples, as if dividing those who would bully from those who would be gentler and kinder. He makes reference to caring for the needy – the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and the one in need of clothing, the sick and the one in prison. It seems that neither the sheep nor the goats were aware of their own compassion or lack of it. Jesus takes that opportunity to identify himself with those who are poor and needy.

Matthew 25:31-46

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³ and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. ³⁴ Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸ And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹ And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' ⁴⁰ And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

⁴¹ Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (NRSV)

Christ morphs from shepherd to king in the passage. There are only two references in the New Testament to eternal punishment and this is one of them. There are many references to eternal life, and to God’s grace superseding our sinfulness. I find lots of help in interpreting this passage by reading this portion of A Declaration of Faith: We are warned that rejecting God’s love and not caring for others whom God loves results in eternal separation from him and them. Yet we also told that God loves the whole world and wills the salvation of all humankind in Christ. We live in tension between God’s warnings and promises. Knowing the righteous judgment of God in Christ, we urge all people to be reconciled to God, not exempting ourselves from the warnings. Constrained by God’s love in Christ, we have good hope for all people, not exempting the most unlikely from the promises. Judgment belongs to God, not to us. We are sure that God’s future for every person will be both merciful and just.

Some think Jesus was reassuring his disciples who were the weaker “sheep” of society that the bullies around them would get their just reward for persecuting his followers. But for our day, I think perhaps it helps to remember all the places where Jesus reverses things, or reminds those who think they are first, that they might just be surprised to find themselves last.

Instead of trying to sort out who we are, I am inclined to think of us all as chimeras, a crossbreed of sheep and goat. I see this warning of the separation as a reminder to all of us living in unhealthy, selfish ways. It is not that we can measure ourselves up to figure out whether we are sheep or goat. No, notice in the story that each is totally surprised. “When was it that we saw you in need and helped you?” Jesus, the one who came to serve, makes it clear that service is key for those who want to live in his kingdom.

“God wants to save our souls and redeem us and give us the gift of life—true, deep, authentic human life. God wants to save us by touching our hearts with love. God wants to save us by persuading us to care and see other human beings who need us. God wants to save us from obsessing about ourselves, our own needs, by persuading us to forget about ourselves and worry about others.” “The story of the sheep and goats is a diagnostic tool designed to inspire faithfulness, root out self-centered living, and help each of us measure who and where we are as we grow in the likeness of Christ.” “There is not a word in this passage about having correct theology. There is only one criterion here, and that it is whether or not you saw Jesus Christ in the face of the needy and whether or not you gave yourself away in love in his name.” “Jesus teaches that God’s reign—the full revelation of which we await—is characterized in the present, not by powerful works and miracles, but by deeds of love, mercy, and compassion, especially toward those most in need. Jesus’ kingly ministry is to be reflected in his followers’ exercise of shepherding care.” (Feasting on the Word by Armstrong, Stegman, Buchanan, and Douglass)

I’m going to close with a story about a eighty-seven year old man named Carl, WW2 vet and quiet servant of the church, always there, quietly caring for the shrubs and flowers in the church yard. He was watering one day, when three rough and tough teens walked by and insulted the older man. He offered them some water, but they gave him the finger and walked on. A couple of weeks later, it happened again. This time when he offered them water, they turned the hose on him laughing, and stole his wallet and his watch. In the scuffle, Carl got tangled in the hose and fell. Shortly thereafter, the pastor arrived and found Carl pulling himself together.

About a week later, Carl was startled to find one of the boys back again. He quickly said, “I brought you your stuff back. Your money too.” Carl nodded and smiled, and the teen continued. He said, “I felt bad after that day we were so mean to you.” Carl said, “Thanks. What’s your name, kid?” He said, “Joe” And the two talked for a while about Joe’s life and why he had gotten involved with a rough group of teens.

Several months later Carl died, and at his memorial service, the pastor noticed Joe seated at the back of the church. Afterwards, the pastor and Joe talked about Carl and agreed that Joe would take over Carl’s watering job. Eventually, Joe became involved in the church and got baptized. You see, it seems that Carl was a gentle-minded sheep and Joe was a bullying goat, but Carl’s kindness transformed him.

We cannot really separate ourselves into sheep and goats. Only Christ can. We cannot judge ourselves or others. Only Christ the Shepherd King can. We can only live in tension between God’s warning and God’s promises. We can humbly respond with surprise and thanksgiving if we did anything pleasing to God and apologetically, if we failed to see and to care as we should have. “Lord, have mercy on our souls.” When I read this text, I understand what the Old Testament calls the “fear of the Lord” as an awe-inspiring respect and desire to please God. At the very least, this text should keep us from a cheap grace and a lazy faith.

'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸ And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹ And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' ⁴⁰ And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

Let us pray: Lord, inspire us to care for the people who are most needy. To remember as Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other….Let us care for the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. For we know that intense love does not measure, it just gives… Help us to see you in the poverty of being hungry, poor, foreign, or in prison. Help us also to be compassionate toward those who are unwanted and unloved, starting in our own homes and neighborhoods. Please forgive us for failing to see your face in all the people around us.

The Gift of Gratitude

2011-11-13T11:55:00.000-08:00

Luke 17:11-19
Gratitude Season #5
Elizabeth M. Deibert

If we could only begin to appreciate all the healing work the Spirit of Christ is doing all the time, we would fall on our knees every hour in thanksgiving. Did you get better from the cold or flu? Give thanks. Are you beginning to process your grief over a terrible death? Give thanks to God for the healing process that is just started. Can you walk again after knee surgery? Give thanks. Is your heart functioning well, despite your arteries being previously blocked? Give thanks. Has your heartburn or blood pressure calmed down with meds? Is your bitterness over divorce subsiding? Your anxiety, your compulsions or your depression under control? Give thanks.

Jesus Christ is the great Healer. The story we will read today is one of twenty-one different stories about Jesus’ healing power in the Gospels. Some people find these stories hard to fathom because first of all, we cannot imagine having God in human flesh with us, walking through life with us. But secondly we want to say that miracles like these do not happen anymore. Oh, we understand a lot more about the human body now. We know why people get better. We can explain the science of it. And so we stopped thanking God for the miracles. It is not that God stopped performing great miracles. It is that we stopped giving thanks.

Jesus healed ten lepers and only one came back to give thanks. Ten cured of leprosy, but nine found to be sick with amnesia or dementia it seems. Or it could be attention defecit disorder, because Jesus sent them to see the priest, and though their lives were absolutely transformed along the way, they forgot to go back and thank Jesus. I suppose some of us have amnesia, dementia, or ADD, because there are a lot of us forgetting to be thankful as well. How can you possibly wake up in sunny Florida and not be thankful for the sun, for the moon, for the sunsets, for the green grass, and the flowers year ‘round?

How can you possibly wake up in the USA and not be overwhelmed with thanksgiving for the wealth, liberty, justice, and peace we have come to expect as normal? Why are we not dancing with gratitude every single day? We take our healing and run, just like the lepers. We take the beauty of every day and run through our daily activities without noticing. We take our comforts and freedoms and wealth, and run to spend more on ourselves. And Jesus stands there, waiting for a thanks, waiting for days, months, and years.

Here the word of the Lord from Luke’s Gospel:

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³ they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" ¹⁴ When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. ¹⁵ Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. ¹⁶ He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸ Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" ¹⁹ Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

“Your faith has made you well.” Take that out of context and you will abuse it and many people will lose faith. If you say “Have faith and then you will be well,” people will assume that some level of faith is required, like a certain level of chemotherapy or radiation or a certain amount of advil should be taken to relieve the pain. No, no, no. The healing took place while the ten were in transit, as it often takes place in our lives, when we least expect. All ten were healed of leprosy, the disease that was so scary, so disfiguring, so dreaded by all. But one comes back to thank Jesus. And Jesus tells him, after he gives Jesus the gift of gratitude, that his faith has made him well. His faith has saved him. Faith seems related to giving thanks. What about the rest – the other nine? Their leprosy is healed, but are they well? We’re not sure. If wellness is about appropriately giving thanks, then perhaps not. Faith is not about quantity of belief, but about quality of trust expressed in thanksgiving. A life of gratitude makes us well, the word for “well” can also be translated “save” To be filled with gratitude saves us, whether we are physically well or not.

The nine were physically healed and rushing to get on with life. Going to the priest was required before they could circulate in soceity again. They had to be certified as clean, as not contagious, as not a danger to the public. They had been in total isolation, some of them for years, and now they were going to get their discharge papers from the rehab office, but they forgot to thank Jesus first. They were going back to work after a long time off, but they forgot to thank Jesus. They were promised a new freedom from disease, a release from pain, isolation, and the horrible judgment of others, and they forgot to thank the One who gave them release from misery. They were assured a new life with new relationships, the opportunity to work again, to start over again, and they forgot to thank their Healer, who gave them a new lease on life.

Back in 1860, on Lake Michigan in September, the ship Lady Elgin was filled with 400 passengers having a grand time. Unfortunately a schooner filled lumber crashed into Lady Elgin and the larger boat full of people began to sink. People survived on lifeboats and other pieces of wreckage for nearly six hours while the north wind blew them toward Evanston, Illinois. Local residents woke that morning to the sound of screaming people, and Edward Spencer, a seminary student at Northwestern, jumped into the water with a rope around his waist and rescued many people. One by one he pulled them to the shore. Thirty people survived there in Evanston, and seventeen of them were rescued single-handedly by Edward Spencer. Sadly however, Spencer never recovered from the ordeal. He was never the same again. Dropped out of seminary, became quite ill. When asked by a reporter about what he remember of this heroic night, he said, the only thing he remembered was that not one of the seventeen people thank him for saving them. Really? Do we all become so consumed with taking the gift that we forget to thank the giver?

Ingratitude. It is kind of repulsive to hear about it in a story like this one, but we hardly notice the ingratitude in our own lives. Ingratitude is our first step away from God. I have noticed in twenty-one years of ministry that the most meaningful relationships are with those who suffer but are still full of gratitude toward God and gratitude toward humanity. Whereas those who suffer and increase in bitterness are exhausting. They suck the life of the people around them. As embittered people age, they often become more isolated because no one wants to be around them.

What makes us so ungrateful? There are three things for sure. Unrealistic expectations. Entitlement attitudes. Forgetfulness.

Do we expect too much from God? Does God owe us anything? When we begin to assume that our simplest blessings are owed to us, then we are on a slippery slope toward ingratitude. God promises never to forsake us, but God never promised us a cushy life. Do we deserve a life free from pain and suffering when God in human flesh had a life full of pain and suffering? Suffering is part of life. We are not promised to live to seventy, although most people these days do. We are not promised to outlive our children, even though most people do. We are not assured a happy childhood or a loving marriage. If you happen to have one, give thanks to God. Have you had the pain of losing your spouse to death, half of all married people do, at least once.

Do you know why people like us need to go on mission trips? It is not so we can help the people in under-developed countries, it is so they can help us grow in gratitude, as we witness their abject poverty and foundational insecurity coupled with grateful hearts, trusting in God.

There is no better gift we can give God or the world than a heart of gratitude, which overflows in generosity. This is the gift that keeps on giving, because it not only pleases God but it is a gift to our families, our friends, our neighbors, our congregation.

“To practice gratitude intentionally changes an individual life, to be sure. It also changes the character of a congregation. When Christians practice gratitude, they come to worship not just to “get something out of it,” but to give thanks and praise to God. Stewardship is transformed from fundraising to the glad gratitude of joyful givers (with little money in their pockets but lots of rocks). The mission of the church changes from ethical duty to the work of grateful hands and hearts. Prayer includes not only our intercessions and supplications, but also our thanksgivings at the table. There are those who believe that worship—this practice of gratitude—is almost primal, an essential part of being human. (human in the sense of our best selves, not our worst selves) John Burkhart once wondered whether “humans can survive as humans without worshiping. To withhold acknowledgment, to avoid celebration, to stifle gratitude,may prove as unnatural as holding one’s breath.” Worship is certainly at the heart of the Christian life, and the story of the leper who returns to give thanks points us to that truth.” (Kimberly Bracken Long, Feasting on the Word)

“Go on your way; your faith has made you well” is no longer a problematic saying, even when physical healing does not come. Instead, it is a description of a life of blessing for the church: as we go on our way, we rejoice and give thanks; for in giving thanks in all things, we find that God, indeed, is in all things.” (Kimberly Bracken Long, Feasting on the Word) So in all things and at all times, we offer prayers of thanksgiving, we make offerings of gratitude, we give promises of faith, committing ourselves to the service of God.

These acts of faith, these efforts at trust become our participation in the work God is doing to heal us, to make us well, to save us from all that would tear us away from our identity as God’s beloved children. Karl Barth was fond of saying that the basic human response to God is gratitude.

Perhaps that is why every year, Peace’s Gratitude Season lengthens because we are learning just how much we need gratitude to be well. I was inspired this week by someone in this congregation who has been practicing gratitude with great discipline. She is stopping every hour to give thanks to God for something, and here’s the real deal: no repetition. So 15 waking hours a day, remembering to give thanks for something different, and then the next day finding 15 more new things. Live into the wholeness, into the salvation which is yours in Christ, by practicing gratitude, in all circumstances.

Let us bow before God now and silently count our blessings, beginning with the boundless of Jesus Christ, which gives us new life.

Gratitude & Generosity

2011-11-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Gratitude Season #4
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Several months ago, I mentioned to my sister Carol, a Baptist, that at Peace we have this really amazing way of working on a life of gratitude. We keep rocks in our pockets to help us remember to say thanks to God for the many gifts we receive throughout the day. So instead of griping about life, as is so easy to do, we give thanks for all the good. She thought that was a great idea, and shortly thereafter, she sent me a book, called “Choosing Gratitude.” She said she had found it very helpful, in her own life, particularly as she struggles with a chronic illness to choose gratitude over grumbling, worship over whining. Several years ago, if my sister sent me a book, I might have grumbled even about that, thinking I have nothing to gain from her theological perspective, but lately the Spirit of God has challenged me to a greater sense of unity in the midst of Christian diversity. So I read the book and was grateful for it, and in fact, it helped shape this sermon series on Growing in Gratitude this year.

Let’s remember where we’ve been these last three weeks. We began with Paul’s rejoicing over the steady faith of the Thessalonian Christians, despite persecution. We talked about gratitude being the bedrock of faithfulness. Gratitude grows in a heart that trusts in and loves God, no matter the circumstances. We heard the story of Jonni Eareckson Tada, who says that many decades in a wheelchair have taught her to thank God even for her quadriplegia. It’s a gift wrapped in black she says. It is a bruising of a blessing, the shadowy companion that walks with her daily, pulling and pushing her into the arms of Jesus. The next week was our equation – Guilt + Grace = Gratitude. We were challenged to have an attitude of gratitude. Because it is no platitude that we will not wilt, our heart riddled with guilt. Go on, full tilt, in this race of full of grace, always ever seeking Christ’s face, never willing to step out of pace, working for God, with God conquering sin, ready every day to do it again.

Last week we read the story of the rich farmer who thought that a bigger barn was the perfect the answer to his surplus, but God called him a fool for being storing up so many treasures on earth. We must guard against the greed we see in this story because we recognize that we are the rich, living in a country with 1/20 of the world’s population, consuming ¼ of the world’s resources. There are multiple ways to simplify our lives, but it begins with a commitment to being rich toward God. We need to grow toward a pattern of God getting the top 10, savings getting the next 10% and then living on the 80% that left, unless you are blessed with a larger eighty, in which case you might be even more generous.

Today we are focused on the connection between gratitude and generosity. If we were mathematical again this week, the sermon title would be as you see there at the bottom of the screen. (click) I worked on this equation quite some time yesterday so I do not want you to miss its full value. X Gratitude divided by N E grumbling + I B greedy = Y B generous. For those of you who have never enjoyed word problems in math, let me offer this simple explanation. Grumbling and greed steal away our generosity, no matter how much gratitude you had in the beginning. Faithfulness begins with gratitude to God, but if when you start to feel sorry for yourself, grumbling about this or that, and if you start to let the world’s values about money and your own fears of the same start making you cling to your possessions, then there’s not much left to give away. If on the other hand, we have arrived at gratitude from the sum of guilt and grace, and we add on generosity to that, then we find that instead of negative numbers, we have the positive factor of a grace-filled life which then leads to more gratitude.

It is time now to read what Paul is saying to the church in Corinth, a church about which he could have grumbled quite a bit, because they were questioning his pastoral authority and generally demeaning his person, just because he had some physical weakness, some near-death experience or thorn in his flesh. But Paul did not grumble, he just challenged them to be generous toward others in need because of the surpassing grace of God which is a gift from God.

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

The point is this:

the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,

and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

⁷ Each of you must give as you have made up your mind,

not reluctantly or under compulsion,

for God loves a cheerful giver.

⁸ And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance,

so that by always having enough of everything,

you may share abundantly in every good work.

⁹ As it is written, "He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;

his righteousness endures forever."

¹⁰ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food

will supply and multiply your seed for sowing

and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

¹¹ You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity,

which will produce thanksgiving to God through us;

¹² for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints

but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.

¹³ Through the testing of this ministry

you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ

and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others,

¹⁴ while they long for you and pray for you

because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you.

¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

The key factor is the surpassing grace of God. If we are overwhelmed by the surpassing grace of God, such that you see it as an indescribable gift. If you start with the perspective that you deserved nothing and got everything, then you understand surpassing grace, the indescribable gift. If you thought you were dead and found out you were living by the gift of God, then you have gratitude for the indescribable gift. If you’re like the Mission Beth-el farmworker kid living in a crowded and dilapidated down mobile home and you receive your first brand new bike for Christmas, then you know the feeling of an indescribable gift. If you lost a job, or a house or and by the grace of God and the help of friends and family, you are still able to pay your bills somehow, then you know the indescribable gift of God. If you’ve lost a marriage or a child or a close friend, and you are still able to wake up in the mornings with gratitude in your heart, then you know the depths of God’s gift of grace. Grateful hearts are always full, and easily contented, while an unthankful heart is never content, always dwelling on scarcity, never having enough this or enough that.

True story. A church group from New Bern, NC went to the Caribbean Islands on a mission trip. They went to a leper colony, and that evening in worship, they were profoundly afffected to see so many people with such disfigured bodies. At the end of the service, the pastor invited the congregation to choose a final hymn, and one of the lepers, a woman who had no nose and no lips, stood up weakly and asked for the hymn, “Count Your Blessings.” Are you grateful for the roses on thornbushes, or griping about the thorns on rose bushes? (Choosing Gratitude, p.89-90)

German pastor Martin Rinkart, who wrote the hymn Now Thank We All Our God, a hymn we sang a couple of weeks ago, served in the walled town of Eilenburg during the horrors of the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648. Eilenburg became an overcrowded refuge for the surrounding area. The fugitives suffered from epidemic and famine. At the beginning of 1637, the year of the Great Pestilence, there were four ministers in Eilenburg. But one left his post for healthier areas and could not be persuaded to return. Pastor Rinkhart officiated at the funerals of the other two. As the only pastor left, he often conducted services for as many as 40 to 50 persons a day--some 4,480 in all.

In May of that year, his own wife died. By the end of the year, the refugees had to be buried in trenches without services. Yet, while living in a world dominated by death, Rinkart wrote this timeless prayer of thanksgiving for his children. This was their table blessing:

Now thank we all our God With hearts and hands and voices;

Who wondrous things hath done, In whom this world rejoices.

Who, from our mother's arms, Hath led us on our way,

With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.

We should never measure our own generosity by what we give but by what we have left. And it is amazing how God supplies what we need when we actively trust and give generously. As Anne Frank said in her diary, “No one has ever become poor by giving.” When we give to God, we are just taking our hands off what already belongs to the Creator of heaven and earth.

So we should give to God what’s right, not what’s left. :) Some people say we should give til it hurts. But it seems from this passage, we learn to give until it feels good, until our hearts are so practiced at trusting that we are joyful and even cheerful, knowing that our lives are no longer in our hands, but in God’s hands. Rejoice in the indescribable gifts of God and take the seeds God’s given you and cast them out, knowing that the more you cast out, the more you will reap. We give not to prove our devotion to God, but because we are filled with gratitude because of God.

God is able to provide you everything in abundance, so breathe. Breathe in gratitude and breathe out generosity. The key is believing that God is able to provide, but you can’t believe it until you give enough to have to trust it. As you are giving more than you think you can, don’t count what you are giving away. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Keep an inventory of the gifts of God, and keep reaching in your pocket for that gratitude rock to remind you that God has given you the best gift you’ll ever receive – everlasting love.

This is love not intended to leave you as you are but love aimed at transforming you into the best person you can possibly be. And because of God’s abundant love, there will always be enough of everything you need and even more than enough, when you share generously.

Paul does not want the Corinthians to give because he is pressuring them. He wants them to give gladly and from the heart. It is truly more blessed to give than to receive. So we can be cheerful givers of God’s grace all that we have and all that we are, even in these hard economic times, remembering that we have so much for which to be grateful and thereby so much to give.

Every time I touch a gratitude rock, I am grateful to God for you and for the way the equation of gratitude and generosity rocks our little piece of the world when we live into it. Peace Presbyterian Church would not exist apart from the generosity of the people in this room, who have given their time, their talent, and their treasure “to make God known by growing as disciples of Jesus Christ, building a community of Peace, and caring for the needs of others.” You are a generous people. And in your generosity, you are discovering that you reap what you sow. For many of you, this is the first church, where you’ve had a strong sense of responsibility for the ministries of the church, and you never knew how meaningful it could be.

I’d like to end with a Thomas Merton quote:

To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything he has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

Guarding Against Greed

2011-10-30T04:33:00.000-07:00

Luke 12:13-26
Gratitude Season #3/ All Saints
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Sometimes we have to station an adult near the snack table at church to guard the children against greed. What does greed look like at the snack table? The kid version is racing to the table and piling a plate full of snacks, with no regard for whether there will be enough for the rest of the people. The adult version is more covert, a lingering by the table or returning with regularity. Or giving into the compulsion to finish what was left behind by everyone else, even when you have had enough.

Guard against greed. We can be greedy with time. My time’s more important than yours. At least we behave that way. Perhaps your Sunday morning relaxation is more important the five or six people who arrive here each Sunday at 8:30 to set up this worship space for you. Greed with time. Do you manage to keep yourself looking busy when your spouse or someone could use a hand with the dishes or the yardwork or the kids. Do you greedily dominate the conversation by your tone or talking.

Greed is the desire to have more than I really need. It is the propensity to put self ahead of others, to buy more than I can really afford, to cling to more than I need, to think that I deserve more stuff than others. Greed can be expressed in so many places and so many ways.

Jesus says, “Be on your guard against all kind of greed. Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” He says this in response to the complaint of a brother, presumably a younger one, who wants his older brother to share the family inheritance. This is something we would consider only fair, but in Jesus’s time inheritance was heavily weighted toward the first born son. So he had the option to be generous or greedy. Jesus says, “Be on your guard. Be careful. Be alert. Greed will creep in gradually and take over. Your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

Hear the word of the Lord to us today from the Gospel of Luke:

Luke 12:13-26

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." ¹⁴ But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" ¹⁵ And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." ¹⁶ Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷ And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' ¹⁸ Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' ²⁰ But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' ²¹ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." ²² He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. ²⁴ Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! ²⁵ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁶ If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Did you know that in the 1950’s the average size house was half the size of the average size house now? Social research tells us that the same number of people reported they were very happy in the 50’s as in our decade. Here’s what is even more surprising: there were no self-storage units in the 1950’s. Now there are nearly 50,000 such companies in the United States. Not many in other countries at all. So with our houses twice as large as in 1950, we still cannot find enough space for all our stuff. We have a problem, folks. It’s called greed.

We encourage the greed of children on Halloween. Do you know Americans are projected to spend nearly twice as much on Halloween as we spent in 2005? And we’re in a recession? We will spend 6.9 billion dollars on costumes and candy for a holiday which started as the Eve of All Saints Day, a time to remember those who have died. All Hallows Eve. Halloween. 6.9 billion. Can you imagine how much that is? It’s actually a dollar for every single person on the face of the earth. On the other hand, if you divide that 6.9 billion by 307 million Americans, it comes to $22.50/person. That’s doesn’t sound so bad, unless you have a family of six. (That would be me.) But let me suggest this: if we gladly spent $22/person buying candy, costumes, and pumpkins, we can certainly put in an extra check this Sunday or next for 22 dollars per person for the Manatee Food Bank to feed people with real food.

We encourage greed in our culture. We celebrate overconsumption of food, alcohol, clothing, entertainment, and stupid knick-knacks. We countenance the overpayment, the monetary greed of certain professions -- movie stars, athletes, CEO’s, specialized physicians, just to pick on a few. Of course we all expect the well-educated, high-achieving CEOs to make much more than the average employee. But listen to this: the ratio of CEO to average worker went from 40:1 in 1960 to 500:1 in 2000 and is now about 300:1. I’m not going Occupy Wall Street, but I do think that it is unethical for the person at the top to make that much more than the person at the bottom. It does not seem right to me that the top 1 % of our country’s population would control 30-35% of the nation’s wealth. And that we in North America, with 1/20 of the world’s population would be consuming 1/4 of the world resources. All this is to say we are the rich ones who have built bigger barns. We may not feel very rich in this season of recession but we still are.

One bit of good news is that in the last four years, the average American went from saving 2% to saving 5%. If only we could all save 10%, give 10% to God, and live on the other 80%, then life would be in balance. Of course, there are some who can live on less than 80%. You could give away more than 10%. You have the opportunity to make a big difference. I dream of being the pastor of a church where people take tithing seriously, where they actually do it, lots of people. Call me an idealist, but I know tithing is possible for most of you. It’s a matter of deciding to be rich toward God and building on your commitment.

It has been my pattern over the years to be very honest with you about money. Money should not be such a taboo subject. It was a frequent topic of Jesus’. So I need to tell you that your giving is not a secret from me, your pastor. It is not public knowledge either. I will do my best not to judge you by your giving, just as I do my best not to judge you by what I see of your kindness or faithfulness, your worship attendance or involvement in Lively learning or ministry teams. Plus I will be honest with you about what we Deiberts are doing. We’ve been giving $200 /week for the last couple of years, although we are little behind this year, I’m sorry to say. Just in case your wondering, my salary is public knowledge. I make approx. $73,000 plus benefits. When Richard completes his 6 month provisional Florida medical license period and can earn an income again, we will increase our giving to Peace. Our finances are not stellar. We waste money. We have not been good savers. We’ve been going into some debt with college expenses these last two years. But it is our conviction that God comes first, then everything else. Despite some strain, we are trying to hold to our commitment to be rich toward God, and fulfill our pledge of 10,000 this year. I know if we cannot quite make it, it will be okay, but we’re trying. Whatever you’re giving, I hope you can say that it is challenging you, stretching your faith in God. If not, then well, maybe you need to re-evaluate.

Have you thought about giving to God in your death? Statistically speaking, many of us will be gone in 20 years. What about setting up an annuity to take care of your end of life needs and make an immediate gift to God through the church? Mark Shoemaker of the Presbyterian Foundation can help with that. What about endowing your pledge? Multiply what you are giving now by 20 and make a plan now – before something happens – to ensure that the church doesn’t suffer when you are gone. What about tithing in your death, even if you never fully tithed in life. Surely the kids could be content dividing 90% of your estate. There are many ways to be rich toward God in estate planning.

Guard against greed. Be rich toward God. In the Renaissance period, people built massive cathedrals, which took more than a generation to build. A stone mason and his son could spend their whole life-time working on one cathedral. By comparison to the house they lived in, the cathedral was unbelievably majestic and large. Some might call them a waste of money, but those cathedrals have endured for centuries. Their sheer size and beauty speak of the glory of God. I’ll never forget little four year old Rebecca walking into the the Ely Cathedral and saying, “Wow!” Compare that with modern day church and society. Shopping malls and country clubs, hotels and sports arenas, bank buildings and some houses are much more glorious in size and architecture than nearly all of our churches, especially in Florida. Houses of God look like barns around here, and some of them are pretty small ugly barns. Something is wrong with that picture.

Will we have a hard time next year when we begin to talk of raising capital funds for a church that costs about the same amount as 5-10 of our houses? I sure hope not.

Will we lose our home here at MAR? I sure hope not. I wish we had 3 or 4 people who could step forward as a private investor group and buy this building for 900,000, and lease it back to Peace and MAR for the next four years while we prepare to build.

Will we be able to give increases to hard-working part-time staff? I sure hope so. I hope we can increase the hours of Pastor Tricia and of Director Gia, because they both put in many more hours of ministry than we pay for. The shopping mall, the baseball stadium, and the restaurants will continue to be fully staffed. Will the church?

Will we be able to meet again our goal of being a 20% benevolence church, contributing as we intend to Mission Beth-El and to Family Promise and other valuable missions, because we are rich toward God and care about suffering people. I hope so. We were not able to make that goal this year, but we did tithe, giving away at least 10%.

But here’s the real question for you to answer in your heart of hearts: Are you being rich toward God, or are you giving God your leftovers? When you die, will God be happy with the way you used your money? Or will God remind you of your foolishness in spending on frivolous or selfish items?

I know many of you are trying to downsize, to simplify, to scale back, to live on less, because less is truly more fulfilling. But it is a constant battle in our culture to guard against greed.

There are multiple ways to simplify, but it begins with a commitment to be rich toward God. God gets the top 10, right from the beginning. Then you have to try to live on what’s left. Peace will not send you a bill, but if you make a pledge, it helps you to keep your commitment to God. “You cannot serve God and wealth.” Jesus declares. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your reward.”

Jesus challenges his followers at the beginning and he comforts them at the end. He names the sin of greed and through the parable names us all fools, but he reassures us that God will take care of us. So, whether I am up to my ears in medical bills like the Tuite family, or whether I am struggling month by month to pay all my bills or whether I am trying to change a lifetime of living too comfortably to begin to be sacrificial generous, I can become rich toward God. No matter the economic circumstances, God is telling us to trust, to not be discouraged, and to keep reaching further in giving, in being be more generous than we think we can. (singing) “Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?” Jesus says “Do not worry about your life – food, clothing, or anything else. Look at the birds. They don’t have bigger barns, BMWs, boats, or bank accounts, but God takes care of them. Jesus loves you and will care of you too. “His eye is on the sparrow. And I know he watches me. I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free. For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

Lord Jesus Christ, give us the courage to trust you with our pocketbooks, our lifestyles, and our bank accounts. Lead us, Lord to make investments in your heavenly treasures, the ones that last, where no thieves can break in and steal. Give us the will to live more simply so all may simply live. Take our lives, our hearts, our budgets and let them be consecrated Lord to you. Amen.

Guilt+ Grace = Gratitude

2011-10-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Ephesians 2:1-10
Gratitude Series #2
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Give me, O my Lord, that purity of conscience which alone can receive your inspiration. My ears are so dull, that I cannot hear your voice. My eyes are so dim, that I cannot see the signs of your presence. You alone can enable my hearing and clarify my sight, and cleanse and renew my heart. Teach me to sit at your feet and hear your word with gladness, and full resolve to be more faithful, through Christ our Lord. (adapted from John Henry Newman, 1800’s)

Today we elect elders and in my twenty years of experience with elder nominating committees, there is always at least one persons who says “no” to the call to serve as elder or “yes,” with great hesitation because they feel unworthy. “I’m not good enough to be ordained, to be seen as a leader in the faith I’ve not always lived.” And they are speaking the truth. Elders about to be elected, you are not good enough. There is no one good enough, no, not one. Not I, not you, not Mother Teresa, not anyone, apart from God’s grace. That’s one of the essentials of our Christian faith that is often lost in most modern church thinking. Total depravity is the official doctrine, which dates back to St Augustine in 4^th Century. In modern parlance “We’re all jerks.” Oh sure, we are created in the image of God, but that image is distorted by our propensity to sin. We are not capable of loving God fully, but rather are inclined to serve our own will and desires.

We had an interesting debate about this in one of our worship reflection classes recently. What does it mean to be human? There are two answers. To be human is to be created in the image of God. To be human is to be depraved and far from the image of God. Both are correct and so it becomes a matter of emphasis. Catholics and Protestants in the West have emphasized our depravity, our inability to live as we should and Orthodox Christians from the East have seen thought this doctrine leads to widespread pessimism. Even though humanity has fallen, the potential for divine vision remains intact in the innermost soul. And the power of the resurrection of Christ can shine through in abundance, if the disciple gives obedience with generosity of heart. (John Anthony McGuckin)

But all Christians would agree that our aim as followers of Christ to regain our best humanity, is to be truly humane, to be like Jesus, living fully as God intends. All would agree that we simply cannot achieve that, least not of entirely of our own volition. We are in desperate need of God’s grace, but even with it, and because of it, we cannot stop striving to become the faithful people we are intended to be.

This paradox is seen most clearly in the verses of our text today, especially in the last three verses. Hear the word of the Lord:

Ephesians 2:1-10

You were dead through the trespasses and sins ² in which you once lived,

following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air,

the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

³ All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh,

following the desires of flesh and senses,

and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy,

out of the great love with which he loved us

⁵ even when we were dead through our trespasses,

made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved—

⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him

in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

⁷ so that in the ages to come he might show

the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God

-- ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (NRSV)

You were dead. You were lost. You are a wretch, a loser, a child of wrath, a sinner. These things used to be preached in church revivals, but we’re not hearing such slams of our character much anymore. We are in a culture of praise and affirmation. Don’t tell me “I’m bad.” Tell me I’m good and maybe I’ll actually become what you say. It’s true that I do good things on occasion, though even in my good, I am often puffed up with pride, thinking wrongly that I deserve God’s blessings. People are motivated more by affirmation than criticism, that’s for sure. But guilt is guilt. And grace always follows, but let’s not presume upon God and act like God doesn’t care that we sin, or that there are not natural consequences of sin. What bothers me is that we are so quick to accept our tendency toward sin, that we begin to ignore the guilt and take for granted the grace. Grace is no longer amazing when we blithely assume it will be there. It’s always there, just as sure as the sin.

Some say that messages of guilt were too great, too destructive, not helpful, and I can see at times what they mean. But it seems to me it is worse when we lose our remorse for sin. We do not even recognize the deathliness it creates. If you’re only seeing salvation as your ticket to the afterlife, then you might not appreciate the way sin is deathly even now. Excuse the sin and have no need for grace. No need for grace and there no gratitude. No gratitude and the world’s a mess, everyone blaming, no one accepting responsibility.

Why cannot we get back to real and honest acknowledgement of our sin? Don’t wallow in guilt but realize that in fact, you are a jerk sometimes. Furthermore, when you’re not being a pain in the patooty, you certainly have not achieved perfection as a child of God. And not only that, you are caught up in complicated systems that mistreat people – sin of a global nature. So we begin with sin, with guilt, but we do not ever stop there. No, once we’ve appreciated our fallibility, our flaws, our faults and our foibles, we can appreciate even more what it means that God is there offering gifts of grace, goodness, and generosity.

If you’ve never done anything wrong, or if you have all kind of excuses for why you did wrong that end up putting the blame on other people, or if you don’t think God has high expectations of you, then grace is kind of a ho-hum thing. Oh, grace, that’s nice, but it doesn’t really hit home. But if you know you’ve screwed up in some pretty bad ways or you let God down significantly because God has the bar pretty high up there, then you are really grateful to know that there’s this free gift of love that you do not deserve and cannot earn, but still have. It is the gift of God, not the result of works. Nothing you do can achieve God’s favor, but it is given nonetheless. Hallelujah, it is given through the gift of God’s life, death, and resurrection in the person of Jesus Christ.

So we cannot stop at guilt, but must go on to grace, and we cannot stop at grace but must proceed to gratitude. The last verse of our text makes it clear. You cannot just read verses 8 and 9 and be done. (slide) God’s given me the gift of grace and that’s all the matters.

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God

-- ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

No, we are created in Christ for a purpose and that purpose is to please God with our good works. So we move from guilt to grace to gratitude. And our gratitude is to try to live more like Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism in our Book of Confessions is oriented around two opening, “What is your only comfort in life and death?” That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me….(it goes one to describe that freedom) Question 2 is this – How many things must you know that you may live and die and the blessedness of this comfort? Three. First, the greatness of my sin and wretchedness. Second, how I am greed from all my sins and their wretched consequences. Third, what gratitude I owe to God for such redemption.” Three things – Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude. That’s what we need to know.

When my kids were little, I think they learned rather quickly that there’s nothing that makes mom madder than refusing to apologize. If you cannot say “I’m sorry” then you’re in more trouble than you thought. If you start with “I’m sorry, then we can have a productive conversation, no matter the problem.” If you cannot find a way to see that in some small or large way, you are part of the problem – whatever the problem is – then we do not have a starting place. Refusing to acknowledge your faults is what’s called an unrepentant heart. I am going to venture to say that unrepentant hearts are the causing more problems in today’s families, churches, communities, countries than any other problem.

The world would be a better place with more repentant hearts, because people who say they are sorry and mean it, are at least taking the first step toward more graceful, grateful living. And the guilt + grace = gratitude life multiplies the goodness everywhere. This is what God intends. You know this to be true. When people acknowledge their own guilt, there’s room for grace. When grace is received with gladness, the glad heart works hard to please God. We are made for good works, good works which are the fruit of grateful hearts. Grateful hearts are generous toward God, eager to please God, zealous for God, and full of goodness and grace toward all the people God has made.

To conclude this sermon, I have written a rhyme, a rap, a poem of sorts.

When you’ve built up guilt from the trend toward sin,

then it’s time to embrace the goodness of grace.

Because of God’s grace, which in Christ gives you space,

have an attitude of gratitude, giving thanks for your place,

Bless the Spirit each day for your brand new face

in the wonders of Jesus’ amazing grace. There’s not a trace

of that old sin, that ugly sin that you were dead in,

that deceptive sin, a rubbish bin, falsely claiming to be your friend.

So have an attitude of gratitude. It is no platitude

that you will not wilt, your heart riddled with guilt. Go on, full tilt,

in this race of full of grace, always ever seeking Christ’s face,

never willing to step out of pace, working for God,

with God conquering sin, ready every day to do it again.

Gratitude: Bedrock of Faithfulness

2011-10-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Gratitude Season at Peace – 1
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Today we begin a five week series on gratitude because without gratitude, one cannot live a faithful Christian life. You might avoid many acts of evil. You can attend worship weekly. You can work diligently to please God, but you cannot be truly faithful to God, without gratitude. Gratitude is the bedrock of faithfulness because gratitude is the most fundamental and appropriate response to the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. Gratitude grows in a heart that trusts in and loves God, no matter the circumstances. And from an attitude of gratitude spring all kinds of wonderful fruits. It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us joyful.

Have you ever noticed that people who have more, inevitably want more? We live with the illusion that thanksgiving comes when we get what we want. But I’m guessing that actually the opposite is true. Gratitude is more profound and evident when we do not have what we want, but trust and thank God anyway. Look at the dispute between the NBA players and owners. Do any of them really need bigger salaries than they already have? It is a lose-lose argument when everybody is greedy.

Consider all the political debates over the economy. When will people on both sides acknowledge that it is a complicated issue, which requires more of us than playing the blame game. This mess we are in -- it is not entirely Wall Street’s fault. It is not entirely the fault of politicians in Washington – certainly not the exclusive fault of one political party or another. We have all participated in a system which ran amuck because we wanted more than we could afford, and for a while, we had more than we could afford. I am no economic strategist, but I know that fixing the problem is more complicated that cutting government spending or raising taxes or creating jobs. It is some combination of all of the above.

It is a complex system with all kinds of variables, and I’m tired of hearing simplistic arguments and fierce blaming. I believe if we all worked on gratitude, we would be much better off, whether the economy improves or not.

If you drive north of here on Lakewood Ranch Blvd, you will see the site work being done in preparation for the new dental school LECOM is building. They’ve been doing site work for weeks and weeks. Got to get the foundation right. What happens when you build on an unstable foundation? Building falls down or cracks or is damaged by high winds. We need the solid foundation of Christ, with our a bedrock of gratitude to sustain us in a storm. I am saying that the bedrock of Christian faithfulness, the foundation upon which all Christian attributes are built is gratitude for your life in Christ. And gratitude is not merely being thankful for what one has, but trusting in the love of Jesus Christ, who shows us God is with us, God is for us, and God is beyond us – so we can trust in God, no matter the circumstances.

This gratitude is seen in the earliest words of the New Testament. The first letter to the Thessalonians was written by the Apostle Paul in 52 AD, about twenty years after Christ died and was raised. Paul begins this letter with gratitude to God for the faith, hope, and love of the Christians in Thessalonica. Paul established the church there among mostly Gentile households, but then he was forced to flee. After his own attempts to return were thwarted, he sent Timothy back to check on them, and having heard a positive report from Timothy, he writes to encourage them to continue to hold fast to the God they have come to know in Jesus Christ, and not to return to the idol worship of their former days.

Hear the word of the Lord:

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. ² We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly ³ remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵ because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. ⁶ And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, ⁷ so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸ For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. ⁹ For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰ and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead-- Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

(NRSV)

Note that Paul thanks God for their faith, and does not just pat them on the back. Gratitude expressed in general or to others is good, but the heart of our gratitude should arise as an expression of thanksgiving to God, who is the giver of all good gifts. If all I express is gratitude for a person or group of people, then I am in essence putting my ultimate trust in them, not in God. That’s why, friends, the healthiest relationships are ones where a mutual gratitude to God is in the center of the relationship. Mutual gratitude to God leads to gratitude expressed for others, but the reverse is not always true. Mutual gratitude expressed to one another is largely dependent upon not disappointing one another. When I disappoint Richard or he, me, I can still be grateful to God for him, even if I am not feeling gratitude toward him. I can handle the disappointment better, if I know my life rests not in Richard’s care for me, but God’s care for me. If I am overly dependent on Richard, or he, me, then our marriage becomes idolatrous. Your job, your colleagues, your family, your lifestyle can become an idol, when you expect to be completely satisfied by them.

Another reminder of our sermon 2 weeks ago on the commandments – first two commandments of the ten – love God first. Don’t put other things before God. Or as Jesus summarized, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” How do you love God? Primarily with a grateful heart.

Did you know that the word Eucharist means “thanksgiving” so our weekly communion is a weekly expression of gratitude to God. To have communion with God is an expression of gratitude. And when we pray at the table, the prayer called the “Great Prayer of Thanksgiving” we are thanking God and rehearsing again each week what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. When you give thanks at your meal time, it is primarily an expression of gratitude, an act of loving trust in God.

The best gratitude is gratitude to God for blessings, not just gratitude for blessings. Our gratitude is to God, who gave us this place to worship, not gratitude for this place of worship. Do you see the difference? I am grateful to God for the house I live in, instead of being grateful for my house. You see, if I am just grateful for my house, then I have every right to grumble now because my house is worth half of its value back in 2005 when we moved in. No, it is crucial that my gratitude belongs to God, and is misplaced if my gratitude is for my house. My house deserves no praise, no trust should be placed in my house. It is just a house, and a rather dirty one sometimes. No, my gratitude is for the God, who provides a place for me to live.

Do you see why so many Americans are angry? They have been worshipping their possessions, their lifestyle of comfort, their privileges as a wealthy, super-power. Those of us who can re-direct our gratitude away from those things to the God who sometimes provides those things and sometimes provides other things, even some hardships which make us better people, will find ourselves on a better foundation. Our world is not crumbling because our world is the One God is in charge of, not this world of being the rich and powerful.

The Gospel Paul shared with the Thessalonians was not a comfortable, easy Gospel. The people were persecuted for the exclusive devotion they gave to the God of Jesus Christ. This faith put them at considerable risk in a Roman imperial society, but they held to their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope in Christ, because they were so filled with gratitude for the powerful message of the Gospel.

This message filled them with faith, hope, and love. They received the Word with joy and with conviction. The Holy Spirit empowered them and their gratitude was the foundation upon which their faithful living was built.

My friends, everything else in life is going to be stripped away. In the end it is going to be you and Jesus. Nothing else will matter. It will not matter what you did to make money or what you wore or drove or where you lived or even who your family is. Your accomplishments will likely be forgotten in a generation. Your name will be forgotten even by most of your family members in a few generations. They might find you on ancestry.com but they will not remember you. How quickly can you name your great grandmother or great grandfather? What will matter is your life with Christ, which is endlessly full of love and purpose. Will there be a group of Christians still giving thanks to God, because you laid a foundation of gratitude to God here in this place. Will your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope empower the next generations to continue to trust in God?

I want to end with the stories of two persons who became quadriplegic, paralyzed in both legs and arms in their late teens. The first one was the son of our congregation members in Alabama, Paul and Carol. Karl Blake died just a few years ago. He was in his forties. From the time of his accident, life was difficult. He lived with his mom and step dad, who had helpers who came in to care for his daily needs but for the most part, Carl was not a happy man. Though he was a Christian, he was bitter about his life’s limitations. The other person is Joni Eareckson Tada. After her initial struggle with despair during the first two years of rehab, Joni found gratitude -- the bedrock of faithfulness. She found gratitude for her life with its limitations. She wrote a book about how her Christian faith sustained her in the struggle. Joni then became mouth artist, holding the paint brush in her mouth. She was a popular Christian speaker, and went on to write over forty books. Joni talks about giving thanks in everything (as in 1 Thess 5:18) but also giving thanks for everything. (Eph 5:19-20)

Joni says most of us are able to thank God for grace, comfort, and sustaining power in a trial, but we don’t often thank God for the trial, for the problem. “What feels like manure turns out to be fertilizer.” (Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, Thanksgiving 2010) Now I am not recommending that you go out and rashly remind all your struggling, despairing friends that they should be grateful for their struggle. That’s a conclusion they need to reach without undue pressure from us, but when someone like Joni expresses gratitude for her struggle, it speaks louder than words. When the Thessalonians held onto to their faith in the midst of persecution, it was a beautiful witness that inspired Paul’s gratitude and faith and because he recorded it, it has inspired many Christians after him.

Joni Eareckson Tada says that many decades in a wheelchair have taught her to thank God even for her quadriplegia. It’s a gift wrapped in black she says. It is a bruising of a blessing, the shadowy companion that walks with her daily, pulling and pushing her into the arms of Jesus. And that’s where the joy is. (from the forward by Tada in Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss) The joy is in being filled with gratitude in all circumstances. Rejoicing in the Lord, no matter what. If you can do that, you have a foundation of faith which is unshakable.

Sins, Debts, and Trespasses

2011-10-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

Matthew 6:9-15 & Luke 11:1-4
Ordinary Time
Elizabeth M. Deibert

One of the most frequently asked questions by newcomers to Peace is, “Why do you say the Lord’s Prayer that way?” Quite a few of you actually appreciate the move away from the Old English language. We haven’t been reading the King James Version or praying with thee’s and thou’s for number of years. after all. My usual short answer is that the ecumenical version is a compromise between debts and trespasses. How many of you spent most of your life saying “debts” What about trespasses?

Well, I asked my personal resident theologian to do what he loves – Biblical, theological, ecclesiological research. Yes, two or three weeks ago when I decided to preach on this, I asked Richard, who had already begun his new medical practice in Arcadia, if he would pull together a little info on the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer. It was a Saturday morning. About eight hours later he emerged from the study with an answer to my question, “Sins, Debts, Trespasses: Why the Differences?”

So the first thing we learn is that Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer includes the Greek word translated “debts” in the prayer itself, but in the verses after the prayer, the word “trespasses” is used to further guide the followers of Christ as to the vital importance of forgiving others when you pray to be forgiven by God.

Hear the Gospel according to Matthew, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:9-15

⁹ "Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. ¹⁰ Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread. ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ¹³ And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. ¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

So Jesus gives His disciples this model prayer, then immediately clarifies what He has just taught. It’s a Jewish way of teaching by paralleling or repeating, using different words for beauty and emphasis. After giving the prayer, Jesus elaborates that forgiveness of “debts” actually means forgiveness of “trespasses.” He shows that these two words are large enough to be used interchangeably. He does not really explain any other portion of the prayer in that way, which says something of the import of that charge to forgive others.

Now in Luke’s Gospel, the words in the prayer are different. Luke uses the Greek word for sin, and then the word for debts. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those indebted to us.” Luke also leaves off the “Your will be done on earth as it is heaven.”

Luke 11:1-4

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." ² He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. ³ Give us each day our daily bread. ⁴ And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial." (NRSV)

Now thanks to St Jerome of the 4^th Century who translated the original Greek into Latin, and to William Tyndale, the English Reformer, who first translated the Bible into English, the debts and sins from the Greek all turned to trespasses, despite the use of different words in the original manuscripts. And twenty-three years later, when the printing press was revolutionizing the world, the first Book of Common Prayer was published and it followed Tyndale’s translation -- trespasses. But the Presbyterians, always trying to studiously do their academic homework in original languages, retained the strict meaning of the Greek word, “debts” while everyone else went on praying “trespasses” as a synonym for “sins” That’s a synopsis of the history. If you come to the worship reflection class, you’ll get the full hand-out on that history, which I have only summarized here.

Now, speaking personally, as one who grew up saying “debts” I always thought “debts” leaned toward financial obligations too far, and “trespasses” seemed like a property issue. That’s why I have appreciated the ecumenical version of the Lord’s Prayer, which follows more closely the most reputable modern translations of Matthew and Luke, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” and “Save us from the time of trial” in place of “Lead us not into temptation.” I valued the clarity of that language, and the breadth of meaning with the word “sins” I don’t know about you, but my offenses are not limited to issues of finances and property.

But having stubbornly held to this ecumenical version of the prayer while some of you groaned, I had a change of heart recently, and here’s why: Our youth were traveling with First Presbyterian to Montreat this summer, and had a brief worship service prior to leaving. When the First Presbyterian leaders said, “Let us now say the prayer Christ taught us” they assumed our kids would know the same prayer their kids say. But our kids stumbled a bit with the “traditional Presbyterian Lord’s Prayer.” At that moment, it became clear to me that, as hard as we try at Peace to be ecumenical, to appreciate what is good about Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, as well as every branch of Protestantism, we should be raising children and youth who can say every form of the Lord’s Prayer with relative ease.

So you will notice in the coming months that we will move from one version to another, always providing words on the slides in in the bulletin. I know that some of feel more confused than ever, but I think you’ll be able to adjust. It might help you to actually reflect a little more on what you are saying. In our noon day prayers every week day in the church ministry center, we alternate quite easily between versions.

Sins, debts, trespasses. What’s the difference? Oh, there’s a difference in those words. But they are all trying to speak of the distance we fall short of God’s glory. We sin against God. We are indebted to God for the free grace we are given.

And despite that grace, and despite our best intentions, we trespass again and again by our stepping outside the helpful boundaries of God’s commands. God has shown us what is good, and what does the Lord require of us but to do justice and love kindness, and walk humbly with God. But we don’t. We go our own way. Looking back at last week’s sermon on the commandments, we do not keep God first. We worship other gods – idols of power, prestige, and personal pleasures. We are not careful to honor God with our words. We do not keep the Sabbath holy. We have not always honored Father and Mother or respected life, marriage promises, the property of others, truth, and been simply grateful for what we have. We fail to love God fully and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

But God forgives us. For –gives. God offers prior generosity. Calvinists like to talk of irresistible grace while Wesleyans speak of prevenient grace, but let’s not divide into theological word camps again. Before we ask for mercy, God has given it. Before the prodigal (wasteful son) returned home, the father rushed out to welcome him. God forgives us. The notion of forgiveness is sometimes difficult to translate into foreign languages, but here are some of the ways. "Forget the wrong," "no longer see the wrong," "put the wrong behind one's back," "lift the wrong from between us"

God’s forgiveness is always there for us and we are to ask for it and be thankful for it. When we do, then forgiveness toward others should also increase. Remember, we do not pray each week, “Forgive us our sins as we continue to hold a grudge against those who are mean to us.” “Forgive me my sin while I we justify my bitterness toward the one who has hurt me.” “Forgive us our sins as we continue to nurse old wounds and allow hate to creep into our lives like a thief in the night, stealing all our joy.” No, we pray “Forgive us our sins AS/LIKE/WHILE/IN THE SAME WAY AS we forgive those who have sinned against us. Or "Forgive us our guilt as we also pardon each one who has done us wrong."

Some of you have heard the saying, “If you really forgive, then you have to forget.” There are plenty of hurts that I cannot completely erase from my mind. But I can place them in a file labeled forgiven, finished with them. The drama is over. I don’t think we have to develop amnesia to be forgiving. No, you don’t need to forget, but you need to stop dwelling on the offense. Put it away in the back of your mind. Stop rehearsing it. Stop holding it against the person. Stop counting it. God is not counting your offenses, which are many each day.

Work out your hurt in constructive ways, if you’ve been seriously offended. You need professional help to work out deeply broken relationships. See a pastor, mental health counselor, psychologist, Stephen Minister or Spiritual Director. Pray for a changed heart, but most of all, do not allow yourself to live in bitterness. It will kill you – body, heart, and soul. You don’t need to be a doormat for someone who is mistreating you. You do not need to accommodate to the irrational desires of the addicted or mentally ill. You do not need to be manipulated by the immaturity of your children. But you do need to learn to speak your truth clearly and kindly to those who have hurt you and then move on to forgiveness. Hanging on to your hurt will only hurt you.

How can we move on? We can only forgive others well, if we are constantly aware of and grateful for the forgiveness we have in Christ. That’s why the church must continually focus on our need for Christ’s forgiveness. We need to confess our sin every day to God. Sometimes we need to confess to someone else. If we have penitent hearts, ready always to acknowledge our own sin, it is hard to cling the errors of others. If you can remember every time you see the speck in someone else eye, that you have a LOG in your own eye, then you cannot remain in a spirit of unforgiveness.

One way to move toward forgiveness is to imagine all the things in the other person’s life that might be difficult for him or her. Then think about how much better you will feel when you set down the heavy load of anger that you are carrying around. Start treating the person in your thoughts and actions with a calm, respectful dignity. Feelings follow actions.

Acknowledge to yourself that there will be moments when your trigger points are triggered, but you are not pulling out the guns of hatred, you are finding with God’s help, the tender mercies of love. That’s what it means to forgive. It means to decide in advance that you will give mercy when mercy is not deserved.

Talk to Wes and Gertie about the mourners in the village of Nickel Mines, PA and how the Amish Christians forgave the man who killed their innocent little school girls five years ago in early October. The wife of the killer was in a prayer group or Bible study for young mothers in Gertie and Wes’ Presbyterian Church. Many of the first responders were members of their church. Just hours after the attack, an Amish neighbor went to the wife to comfort her with the forgiveness of the Amish families. Did they feel forgiving at that point? I doubt it, but they knew what the right response was, so they mustered it humbly, until the feelings began to follow.

George MacDonald, a Scottish minister whose sermons and novels influenced CS Lewis, once wrote, “It may be infinitely worse to refuse to forgive, than to murder, because the latter may be an impulse of a moment of heat; whereas the former is a cold and deliberate choice of the heart.”

Martin Luther King, Jr, said, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” It is an attitude which we cultivate by humbly remembering how indebted, we are to Christ for our own forgiveness.

“Forgiveness unleashes joy. It brings peace. It washes the slate clean. It sets all the highest values of love in motion. In a sense, forgiveness is Christianity at its highest level.” (John MacArthur)

Let us pray, using Petersen’s modern version of the Lord’s Prayer, freely translated: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what's best -- As above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. You're in charge! You can do anything you want! You're ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Guarding Against Greed

2011-10-06T04:16:00.000-07:00

Luke 12:13-26
Gratitude Season #3/ All Saints
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Hear the word of the Lord to us today from the Gospel of Luke:

Luke 12:13-26

Will we have a hard time next year when we begin to talk of raising capital funds for a church that costs about the same amount as 5-10 of our houses? I sure hope not.

I know many of you are trying to downsize, to simplify, to scale back, to live on less, because less is truly more fulfilling. But it is a constant battle in our culture to guard against greed.

The Delight of Duty

2011-10-02T05:33:00.000-07:00

Exodus 20:1-20
World Communion
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Let us pray: “God of mercy, grant that the Word you speak this day may take root in our hearts, and bear fruit to your honor and glory, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.” I just returned from a trip to NC for my mother’s birthday. It was a trip which defines the delight of duty. Of course, I needed to be there – duty. Of course it was tiring and expensive 24 hour turn around. But what a delight to make my mother happy on her 85^th birthday! A delightful duty.

^NRSExodus 20:1 Then God spoke all these words: ² I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ³ you shall have no other gods before me. ⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, ⁶ but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. ⁷ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. ⁸ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work-- you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. ¹² Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. ¹³ You shall not murder. ¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ You shall not steal. ¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. ¹⁸ When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, ¹⁹ and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." ²⁰ Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin."

Today we look at the Ten Commandments as a gift. There is something in every one of us that resists rules and boundaries. We want freedom, not restraint, even when restraint is good for us.

Young children must be taught not to snatch away toys from their peers. (8^th Commandment –do not steal) They are taught not to hurt other people (in the pattern of the 6^th Commandment – do not murder) , to keep their promises (leading toward the 7^th Commandment—do not commit adultery), to use respectful words (3^rd Commandment – do not take the Lord’s name in vain), not to talk about people behind their backs (9^th Commandment – do not bear false witness) , to be respectful toward their parents (5^th Commandment), and not to be greedy when there a plate of cookies on the table (10^th Commandment – no coveting things that rightly belong to someone else).

We need a mature attitude toward a set of rules because they protect us, guide us, help us. Especially in the hard times, rules guard us from danger and destructiveness. They provide some security and purpose by giving direction for living. Think about Moses and Israelites. They had been wandering in the wilderness for so many years. Life there was difficult. They often went without food or water, and as you heard last week, that made them irritable indeed.

While at Sinai, the people waited a long time for Moses as he went up and down the mountain to speak with God. In their impatience and uncertainty about God, they took matters into their own hands and had Aaron construct a golden calf to worship. They had been arguing and complaining to Moses a lot. Moses was at his wits end, trying to lead the people through the wilderness. They said they’d rather be slaves again back in Egypt. When people are out of control, out of patience, out of their comfort zone, that’s when they are most likely to be out of touch with God’s ways and desires. Also when people begin to question God to the point of putting other things before God, then they are in great need of direction from God. Thus the 10 Ten Commandments were timely. God’s people needed to be roped back in, reminded of who they were and what was expected of them.

Those of you born a generation before me have a reservoir of scripture learned at an age when things stick. How many of you learned the 10 Commandments as a kid? 23^rd Psalm? The Beatitudes?

Christian children today do not learn those very well, if at all, but we assume the heart of Judeo-Christian values are still shaping their lives, as they shaped generations before them. Not really. Not so much. We have a generation of Christian youth who are not very Christian at all. As Kenda Creasy Dean of Princeton Seminary says, many of today’s youth are “Almost Christian.” They want to feel good, do good, and believe in God.

And if they are not getting what they want, they might question God. They are reflecting the faith they see and hear in us, a faith which is not very substantial.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that Judeo-Christian scriptures should be taught in schools or that the Commandments should hung in public courtrooms. Richard and I were co-pastoring a new church in Montgomery, AL, when Judge Roy Moore came into the public arena. Judge Moore was removed from office as Chief Justice for Alabama for his refusal to remove a monument of the 10 Commandments from the state courthouse when ordered to do so by a federal judge. I do not want public figures like Roy Moore, a fundamentalist, defining the faith for me or for the children growing up in a pluralistic society, where respect and understanding are desperately needed for building peace in neighborhoods and among the nations. I don’t want the fundamentalists of any faith group asserting themselves to try to control society’s beliefs.

But I do want us in the church to take our role seriously to teach the faith to the kids in our own congregations. We need to get serious about teaching the content of Christian faith to our children – not because we fear Muslims or any other faith group, but because we want our kids to be able to know and affirm the heart of what we believe. The Commandments are a good place to begin, especially when understood in light of the Great Commandment given by Jesus Christ. Love the Lord your God with all that you are, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. That’s how Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments into two essentials. Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. That covers Commandments 1-4 – Worship God. Have no idols. Guard the name of God. Keep the Sabbath holy.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself. That covers Commandments 5-10. Love and honor your parents. Respect life. The life of another person, even an enemy, is precious in the sight of God. Keep your promises, especially to those with whom you have made a sacred covenant to be faithful. Don’t steal other people’s stuff. Don’t talk about people, especially if it’s not true. Respect boundaries and don’t lust after other’s people’s cars, boats, houses, bank accounts, or spouses. Don’t even go there in your mind.

“With the order of the commandments, God makes it possible for the people to view their new lives, even in the wilderness, not as chaotic and terrifying, but as meaningful and potentially fruitful. As many scholars have noted, the Sabbath commandment at the center of the Decalogue, with its insistence on rest and restoration for every person, animal, and field, communicates that life is about more than productivity and work.” (Amy Erikson, Workingpreacher.org )

We know that staying within these parameters makes our lives more spiritually and emotionally healthy, just like exercising and eating lots of vegetables and less sugar, fat, and red meat makes us more healthy, physically. We know that living outside the commandments means more heartache and pain for ourselves and others. We know that ignoring commandments leads diminishes spiritual strength. In a sense, it clogs the arteries of our spiritual heart. So why do we not choose to live within the constraints of commandments? Well, first of all, because we have not really focused on the content of the commandments. And second, because it is darn hard, just like physical exercise and resisting french fries. It is especially hard when we read Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, where he challenges us to think beyond our simple understanding of the commandments to a higher level of moral reasoning.

You have heard it said, “You shall not murder.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment... You have heard it said, “You shall not commit adultery,” but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. You have heard it said, “Do not swear falsely,” but I say to you, do not swear at all. You have heard it said “Love your neighbor” but I say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who mistreat you.” “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? With the judgment you make on others, you will be judged.” Jesus challenges people to look beyond the letter of the law to the intent of the law. He challenges all who might think they’ve got the law mastered. (Matt 5-7)

How can we possibly delight in a set of duties which are trapping us in sin at every turn? Our delight in Christian duty begins with a heart of gratitude for who God is and what God has done for us. We can rejoice with the Apostle Paul that through the law and our disobedience, we see our need for grace, and called to forgive and love back.

Paul says to the Romans, “But law came in, with the result that trespass multiplied, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What then are we to say? Should continue in sin, in order that grace may abound? No way, absolutely not,” Paul says. He goes on to talk about how we do not want to be slaves to sin. (Romans 5 & 6)

So I return to the notion of delighting in our duty. Andrew and Rebecca, our teens, do not delight in kitchen duty, which they share on an every other day basis. No many of us do delight in the dishes, unless we cultivate an attitude of gladness. It is a matter of discipline and attitude. You can grumble that you have to do the dishes, or you can focus on being a help to your family or yourself and making the kitchen a more enjoyable place to be. A servant spirit is a Christ-like attitude which must be cultivated by practice – just like learning a musical instrument or mastering a sport requires hours of practice.

Discipline and attitude are everything when we are working to live as Christ calls us. In marriage, seeds of adultery are sown not just the moment there is lust in the eye, but it begins the moment you stop delighting in the things that you love about the one whom you married. It’s easy to name flaws in a spouse, but can you creatively express personal frustration, while continuing to delight in your life partner’s charming qualities? Sometimes a marriage is so badly damaged, it cannot be saved, but Christians should always approach divorce with penitence, trusting God to forgive when we have done all we can to heal a broken marriage.

Covetousness is a huge problem in our culture and nobody questions it at all. It begins the moment you allow yourself to move away from a spirit of gratitude to God for the many blessings of your own life. We are among the wealthiest 5% of the world’s population, but we want more. Perhaps we will look back on this recession as one of the best things that could have happened to our overgrown consumerism. How could we possibly think we deserve more? Let’s get on with thanking God for what we have. If you must compare yourself with someone, compare yourself with someone who doesn’t own a computer or have running water. Idolatry begins as soon as we let any activity or person or passion become more important, more urgent, more consuming that our devotion to God.

There’s a reason the commandments begin with God -- our relationship with God affects our relationships with others. If you do not wholeheartedly trust God, it is difficult to endure personal relationship problems because you see no way through. If you begin to idolize other people or be guided by your own personal passions more than you love God, you will have trouble keeping commandments 5-10. If you are not in close relationship with God, praying and taking time to build your spiritual muscles, then you will have trouble truly loving your neighbor, whether that’s your wife, son, colleague, person on the street or in your church.

If we can delight in God’s great love and in the gifts God has given us, particularly the people God places in our paths, and we can continually build that spirit of delight into our lives, rather than diminishing it with our disobedience, our slavery to sin, our grumbling, then we will want to live in ways that please God. Then duty can become delightful because we rejoice in what is right, not just in what satisfies our self-centered urges. But this delight in duty must be intentionally cultivated. I challenge you to live a life so exemplary in commitment to God and compassion for neighbor that the children of this church and the people of this community will want to model their lives after yours. They will see you operating out of trust in God, even if your church becomes temporarily homeless. They will see you struggling to forgive and understand your neighbor or family member, even when you have been betrayed by them. They will delight in following your footsteps because you have so faithfully followed Christ’s.

Holy Hunger -- September 25, 2011

2011-09-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

Holy Hunger

Exodus 17:1-7

The Reverend Chris Adams

The last time Pastor Tricia and I worked together in worship was at the February Presbytery meeting. We preached a sermon together, based in the story of Jesus calling Peter to get out of the boat. It was a dialogue sermon between the two of us and one additional pastor and we offered the message seated together in an actual boat. We called it, “Three Bored Pastors.” It was a lot of fun and a joy to work together.

As I remember now, my character (I guess that’s what we call it) was very hungry. Over and over, to interject a little humor into the message I told the others that I was hungry. Over and over Tricia and Tim responded, “You always are.” Did I mention it was fun?

To be honest though, I wasn’t really. Hungry that is. In fact, as I read the Exodus story again this week, only part of which we have today it occurred to me that I have never really been hungry. Not the way the Israelites seemed to be anyway.

It’s funny how we talk about being hungry and thirsty. My children, four years old to fifteen, come in to me sometimes, “Dad I’m hungry!” My youngest daughter has this recent routine where the last thing she says before we turn off the light for bed is to tell us that she is thirsty. It’s a great stall tactic to get just one or two minutes more out of the day.

But to be honest, none of my children have ever really been hungry or really been thirsty. I am not saying I want them to be; of course I don’t. It’s just funny how we use those words and do not distinguish their meaning from other ways of being hungry and thirsty.

You probably watched the media coverage of this year’s drought in east Africa. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, one of the medical correspondents with CNN I think, traveled to Somalia and reported on the crisis level, shortage of food there caused by the drought. I remember the video of a small boy that was literally starving to death. Dr. Gupta reported that even if they could keep him alive, his life would be forever changed by this event because his body would never fully recover. His brain would be smaller than normal because his young developing body was hungry for so long.

That kind of hungry is nothing my children will ever experience, I pray.

Remember the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. The country’s infrastructure was destroyed and even now has not even begun to recover. In the weeks and months following, because clean water wasn’t available, a cholera epidemic devastated the already desperate situation. Moms and dads had to choose whether to give their thirsty children infected water or watch as their children became more and more dehydrated. If you have children, can you imagine that kind of decision? But we won’t have to make such a choice.

That kind of thirsty is something my children will probably never experience, again I pray.

You see, we use words like hungry and thirsty, but they clearly aren’t the same as the kind of hunger and thirst other people in our world know all too often. I have never really been hungry and really been thirsty.

So how can I read a story like this Exodus story and make any sense at all out of it?

You see, we pick a side pretty quickly in this story and it’s the side articulated by Moses. Perhaps that’s because the story is told from the perspective of Moses, and so naturally that is the way the author is leading us.

But have you ever considered that you might read a story like this differently if you lived, say in East Africa or Haiti? I guess I wonder how much our experience affects our ability to identify with this story. You see, don’t you, that the story never declares that God is on one side or the other. It simply points out that there is an argument.

You see, friends, I have never really been hungry or thirsty, and so it’s pretty easy for me to get self-righteous with such a story and take the side of Moses in this quarrel. That’s what the words at the end mean. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah, meaning trial and quarreling.

The traditional interpretation of this story is that the Israelites are just ungrateful to God for being delivered and fail to appreciate Moses and the strain of his leadership of a stiff-necked people. That’s the way I have always seen the story, anyway. In fact, that’s clearly a way to understand the story. If you read Chapter 16, then there is even more grumbling and an even clearer denunciation of that grumbling.

The Israelites are ungrateful it seems. They constantly grumble, and Moses and even we see that today as testing God, who has been gracious in delivering them from Pharaoh. In fact, Moses even asks them in the story, “Why are you testing the Lord?” It seems the Israelites are never satisfied. That’s the way we understand this.

But if I were a father that had just made a life and death choice about my dying child and her need for food or water in Haiti or some other place in desperate need, I wonder if the demands of the Israelites wouldn’t seem quite so obnoxious. I wonder if I might want to have a word with Moses about the things that are lacking?

Because in the end, water is provided to the people, just like quail and manna and just about everything else the Israelites needed. The very thing that they needed the most is there when Moses cries out to God about getting ahead of the people and leading them. When Moses follows the instructions of God, then the rock (even a rock) provides life-giving water.

That’s the good news of this story. God provides. God provides life-giving water to the Israelites, in spite of the quarreling and disagreement. Of course God does this. Would we expect anything else? Of course God provides for His people. You and I, we believe in that don’t we.

The Israelites grumble, they ask, and Moses with God’s help delivers. In fact, if I were to again put on my parenting hat this morning, I would notice that surely the way not to spoil these Israelites would be to stop giving in to their every demand. Every parent knows that giving in to whining only encourages more whining. Right?

Except, again, let’s look again at the story with different eyes. The Israelites aren’t asking for another piece of candy or the latest video game they saw on television. They are asking for water, and food, and shelter. They grumble for the basic necessities of life, and God provides. That’s what happens in this story, and over and over in the story of God with God’s people.

So here’s the question... What are we grumbling for today? What is it that we that are not particularly hungry and thirsty really want from God?

Or do we understand a story like this one as prohibiting grumbling? Are we not supposed to ask God for things anymore, because of this story and the grumbling of the Israelites? We certainly wouldn’t want Moses and others to think we are spoiled. We certainly want God to know how much we love Him and appreciate all we have been given. So maybe we think that means we don’t ask?

There are some pastors I know that won’t ask God for healing as they visit a person in the hospital or suffering from cancer. They figure, and I know this because I have asked, that God already knows what they need so they don’t have to ask. They only need to pray to the Almighty deliverer of all things. Maybe that’s okay.

But for me, there is something intimate about asking. I realize that we might be disappointed if the answer is no, but I want to ask anyway. I want to grumble a little. I want to be sad and disappointed when the world is not as God created it to be. There isn’t supposed to be death, and sickness, and poverty, and hunger and thirst. That’s not what God created.

So I want to join the Israelites and do a little grumbling this morning. I want to join the people of East Africa and Haiti, and the Middle East, and India, and the Sudan. I want to join people that live without a job, and a home, and healthcare. I want to join people that sit by the bedside of someone they love with the specter of death in the room. I want to grumble.

I don’t want to just assume God knows what we need. Sure, I believe the Almighty knows. I know God knows the ways we suffer in the world, after all, He created the world without suffering and so surely God knows when people and creation end up less than what He created. In fact, I believe as Paul says in Ephesians 4 that Christ is already in all things and through all things and works in all things.

But I want to grumble a little, because grumbling demonstrates my dependence on God. I share intimacy with God when I get down on my knees, with you and others, and grumble about the things that aren’t yet part of the Kingdom of God. Does that make me spoiled? Does grumbling make us the new Israelites, testing the Lord? Maybe.

However, it’s not like we are grumbling for our version of a piece of candy or whining like a child. I am not advocating grumbling to God for a new car, the expensive kind, or a better house, or more comforts. You see, when so much of the world lives without the basics, that kind of grumbling isn’t about anybody but us. It’s just selfish. It’s not the holy hunger for the Kingdom of God.

Holy hunger and a thirst for justice seems to be different. It seems almost worthy of grumbling. Maybe that’s not quite what you see in today’s lesson? But maybe that’s also because we have never really been hungry or thirsty. Maybe we have never heard shots ring out in our neighborhood at night and wonder if it’s close. Maybe we have never returned to the place where our home used to be to discover that fire, or tornado, or flood has destroyed everything. If we have, then I wonder if we might read the story differently.

Grumbling is what we do when we realize that things aren’t as they are supposed to be. We are sad when we live in a world that falls short of the glory of it’s creator.

The good news for you and I today, my friends, is that God provides. That’s our God’s answer to grumbling. God grants the wishes of the grumblers, then in the ancient world and now.

Awes and wonders continue to happen in our world. People are healed. The hungry are fed. The thirsty are quenched. Prisoners are freed. Wars end. The unemployed get hired. The homeless find shelter. The naked are clothed. The sun rises and sets on all of creation, which sings of the glory of God.

I guess, in the end, just as I was back in February sitting in that boat with Pastor Tricia and Tim, I am still hungry. Perhaps as my friends reminded me that day, it seems like as God’s people, we always are. We all still share that holy hunger for the Kingdom of God.

The good news is maybe not what we expect. The good news is that we find joy in knowing that we can grumble. That God hears our prayers and answers. That God is out in front of us creating the world into what God intended all along, and in the end we trust in Jesus Christ, the one in whom every tear is wiped away and every prayer is answered.

We trust in the Holy One of Israel, the one who will return to bring all things to their God intended end, to bring Shalom to the entire world! May we continue to grumble joyfully in our holy hunger until then...

Thanks be to Almighty God. Amen.

Who is Going with Us?

2011-09-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Matthew 20:1-16; Luke 14:1-6; 12-14
Series on the Foundations
Elizabeth M. Deibert

When you’re a teenager and you hear about an event coming up, what is the first question that comes to your mind as you decide whether you want to go? Who else is going? Who’s going to be there? Who is going with us? Maybe some of you who attended the Adult Night Out with Peace last night wondered, “Who is going?” You knew Peace people were going, but maybe you knew nobody in particular. As we mature, we usually feel more secure about going places, even if we’re not sure who will be going with us.

This is the fifth week of a five sermon series on the Foundations of Presbyterianism, in which we have we have looked at the mission of the church, asking “What are we doing?” We have remembered Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, asking “Whose in charge?” We considered the ancient marks of the church, asking “What makes us who we are?” Last week we examined the great ends, the goals of the church, asking “Where are we going?” And now we ask, “Who is going with us?” The section of the Foundations we are dealing with today is titled “Openness to the Guidance of the Holy Spirit” In this section, we learn that the Church is marked by both continuity and change. The great slogan of the Reformation is “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda scundum verbum Dei….“The Church reformed and always being reformed according to the word of God.” We do not reform the church just for sake of change, for a sense of freshness or innovation. No, we reform, as we believe the Spirit of Jesus Christ, speaking through the Word, prayerfully interpreted by the people is calling us to “not to be conformed to this world, but transformed by a renewing of our minds.” (Romans 12:1-2)

That’s what happening in the Presbyterian Church now, as we receive this new form of government, as we are more open to the Spirit, less prescriptive in our ordination standards, believing that anyone who joyfully submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ can be called to ordination to service as elder or minister.

For many years, unity in diversity has been a high value of Presbyterians. We take the words from Galatians 3 very seriously – there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all of you are one in Christ.” We believe we should actively seek to become more diverse and should guarantee the full participation and representation of all persons, “regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, disability, geography, or theological conviction.”

We require one essential for membership – trust in Jesus Christ, which includes renouncing evil and affirming reliance on the grace of God. We expect of those being ordained as leaders that they live exemplary lives of faithfulness and that they can affirm the questions of ordination. But we always want to be open to the Spirit’s calling persons different from ourselves. We respect differences of opinion in theology, politics, and sociology. We are open to all others, even those we are tempted to scorn, because we see in the gospels that Jesus was radically open and hospitable to those whom the religious authorities of his day shunned. This boundless love of Christ, which seems to put everyone on a level playing field, is our subject today in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The parable in Matthew teaches the profound generosity of God to give freely to all, even those we deem less deserving.

Hear the good news: ^NRSMatthew 20:1-16 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴ and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. ⁵ When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. ⁶ And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?' ⁷ They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.' ⁸ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.' ⁹ When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰ Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹ And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹² saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' ¹³ But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?' ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

It is not fair. It never will be fair. That’s grace – the free gift of God that I do not deserve and cannot earn. So why not live it up, do whatever the H you wanna do, until you get to the end of your life as if you know when that is? Because, despite what the world tries to tell you, that is not really living it up. That’s living it down, living it rough, living it hard, though it may initially seem easy. That life of self-indulgence, party until you drop, do as you please is not the best way to live. It looks attractive but it’s not. It looks liberating but it’s not. It looks enjoyable but it’s not. No, the free life is the life lived for others. The best life is the life given over to God. The joyful life is one in which we worship God, love others, and respect what God has created. We were made for this, and in this we are becoming who were intended to be. To do anything else is to run away from our destiny. You are a child of God, destined to live a life pleasing to God. The consequences of sin (doing things not pleasing to God) are not pretty; they are harsh. So move toward God. Live for God. Live for others. And then accept that God will continue to be generous to all people, which means those who think they need to be in first place, will often be put on hold. It’s not fair, but it is right. It is about building our character, developing our righteousness, our likeness to Jesus Christ.

And moving from one reversal story to another, we turn to Luke 14, where Jesus cares more about healing a sick person than about obeying rules, where Jesus challenges the important leaders that they’d better start thinking about the people they ignore, the people they consider beneath them.

Hear the gospel: ^NRSLuke 14:1-6; 12-14 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. ² Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. ³ And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, "Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?" ⁴ But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. ⁵ Then he said to them, "If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?" ⁶ And they could not reply to this….¹² He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴ And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

If we are gathering for worship on a Sunday, and we are too pre-occupied not to notice the hurting among us, then shame on us. If we hold a committee meeting to accomplish the work of God without taking time in that meeting to attend to the cares and concerns, burdens and the joys of the people gathered for that work, then shame on us. We are the church, not just a civic organization. We all need the healing power and presence of the Spirit of Christ, and we certainly must attend to that Spirit when we gather two or more together.

When someone comes to the doors of Peace or when we go out from this place to be God’s peace in the world, we must sow love generously, not being concerned with how much we get in return. Our reward is not in being paid back by the recipient of our generosity. Our reward is in the resurrection. Every single person we encounter – no matter their problems or ugly circumstances or sins is a beloved child of God, for whom God’s grace is a boundless, free gift. They, like us, do not deserve such grace.

Our job is live faithfully and to encourage faithful living, within the constraints in which we find ourselves. Our responsibility is to open our minds and hearts to people, whose constraints are different from ours.

Everyone of us has a skeleton in the closet. Some of us have closets with glass doors, while others have solid or locked doors to their skeletons in the closet. Our role is promote healing and wholeness and right living within the context of each person’s life and all its unique challenges.

Jesus said his mission was to announce good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. When challenged by the Pharisees and scribes about the company he kept, he said “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." (Matt. 9:13) In the parable of the sheep and goats, he says, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' (Mat 25:40 NRS) He taught his disciples again and again about the last being first. Saying "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." (Mar 9:35 NRS) He challenged them in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; Jesus says he will know us by our fruits, by the evidences of God’s grace in our lives. ²¹ "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' ²³ Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' (Mat 7:21-23 NRS) We are taught in the gospels, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. (Mat 23:12 NRS) The Apostle Paul adds to this by affirming the strength of weakness: Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)

So in the end, we do not know who is going with us? What we do know is that God is free to call whomever God chooses, and we are called to love all people as we have been shown love by Jesus Christ. If he could say from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” who am I to hold anything against anyone?

When the thief on the cross, said “Jesus remember me,” Jesus responded without hesitation, “Surely today you will be with me in paradise.” In fact, Jesus served his betrayer Judas at the table, so why would I withhold Christ’s body from anyone who comes? There is no worthiness, only neediness met by the love of Christ. I’d be wary of any Christians who think they own a corner lot on Holiness Street, and equally I’d be concerned about people who act like they can live however they want because they own stock in heaven.

Hear this story sent to me by Jim Padula: Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into serious conflict. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference and finally, it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence and a growing wedge.

One morning there was a knock on the older brother’s door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I 'm looking for a few days' work," he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with? "Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That's my hateful younger brother! Last week there was a meadow between us. But he took a bulldozer to the river levee and just to spite me, put a creek between us! See that pile of lumber by the barn? I want you to build me a fence an 8-foot fence -- so I won't need to see his face anymore." The carpenter said, "I think I understand the situation.

The older brother had to go to town, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day -- measuring, sawing and nailing. About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had just finished his job.

The farmer's eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all.
It was a bridge .. A bridge that stretched from one side of the creek to the other! And the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming toward them, to shake hands. "You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I've said and done."

The two brothers met in middle of the bridge, in an embrace. They noticed the carpenter smile and turn to leave. "No, wait! Stay a few days.” said the older brother. But the carpenter replied, "Got many more bridges to build,” and he disappeared in the sunset.

The church is different from every other community I know in this way: power is found in weakness, forgiveness is the truest sign of strength, riches are found among the poor, those who are hungry, get filled, and people who are excluded and despised because of their faithfulness, get rewarded in the end. Those who are weeping will be rejoicing, the lowly are lifted up. If Jesus ever excluded anyone, it was those who thought they were God’s favorites. The tables are turned completely upside down in the realm of God and that’s why we must stay open to all such surprises that the Spirit of God might bring to us. Who is coming with us? Anybody who wants to come.

Where Are We Going?

2011-09-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Colossians 1:3-14
Series on the Foundations
Elizabeth M. Deibert

You know what was so frightening about 9/11 was that we did not know where we were going. This unprecedented act of terrorism on our soil ushered in a new world for us, a world in which we were not safe. We always knew some parts of the world were not safe, but we thought over here in our piece of the world, we were secure. This sudden attack left us feeling very vulnerable, so we have spent the last ten years trying to make our part of the world a safer place. In these ten years, I hope we have also come to a deeper appreciation of the value of helping make the whole world a safer for all people, no matter their race, country, their culture, or their religion. We do not have control everywhere, but we can do our part to build trust and harmony with nations whose leaders are open to that. And we can listen carefully to those leaders who blame us for some of the world’s problems, because great as our country is, we are far from perfect, and like any other great world power in history, we have our blind spots and failures. But we are thankful to live where we live.

Where are we going as a nation? The last ten years have been challenging, compared with the 80’s and 90’s, where many of us enjoyed security, stability, and success. I cannot answer where we are going as a country. That’s not my job. In fact, I cannot always say where we are going as a church. But I can say with confidence that God is with us, and that we Christians need to keep our focus on living lives worthy of Jesus Christ.

This requires stepping back to examine where we are going. Here at Peace, we’re in the fourth week of a five week series on the Foundations of the Church, because for the first time in thirty years, the Presbyterians have a new form of government, affectionately called the new FOG. And because I don’t want us to be lost in the FOG, we have spent this time on its very significant opening.

And since most of you could be counted new members of this church, as we’ve only been a church two years, I am taking you on this journey of theological inquiry, using this Foundations statement, grounded by scripture. We have looked at the mission of the church, asking “What are we doing?” We have remembered Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, asking “Whose in charge?” We pondered last week through readings and song the ancient marks of the church, asking “What makes us who we are?” And today we examine the great ends, the goals of the church, asking “Where are we going?” Now even if this intensely theological, doctrinal journey has seemed long or winding to you, I hope that you will find yourselves more acquainted with the path of the Presbyterians and of Peace Presbyterian in particular.

Yes, sometimes, in order to get perspective on where you’re going, you have step back and examine your past, you have to think about why are you who you are. You have to wonder where am I going? What are my priorities or goals? Are you a person who likes to make a task list and then check things off, that you’ve done or are doing reasonably well? That’s easy if it’s a grocery list, or a packing list, or a simple household task list, but a little harder with broad goals. One of my broad goals coming out of seminary as a new mother was to balance my calling as a mother with my calling as a minister. Some weeks, months, and years, when I stop to consider this, I say, “Okay, not bad.” Other times, I say, figure out a new way to balance. Make adjustments. A more recent goal is to spend more time exercising and in faith-building prayer. Thus the prayer walks, which I invite you to do with me on Saturday mornings at 10.

Are you a goal-setter? Or are you one who floats along, thinking only occasionally about the chief aim of your life. How many of us have set new year’s resolutions, only to ignore them by January 15 because it was too hard? Goal setting is not helpful unless you make a commitment to keep getting up every day and trying to do some little thing to achieve your goal. The tragedy in life is not in failing to reach your goals, it is failing to set them or set them high enough.

One of the first things we did as a new church development back in 2006 was establish what we then called “Core Values” and later we named them goals. The Presbyterians one hundred years ago wrote some goals which are still at the heart of our denomination’s identity today. Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul had some goals for his new churches.

The Gentile Christians who comprised the Colossian church were a little insecure about their status before the God of Israel. They were not certain about what Christ had accomplished for them and the fundamental change which had taken place in the created order by his life, death, and resurrection. Paul’s goal for them was that the good news in them would bear fruit. He badly wanted them to fully comprehend the grace of God. Paul prayed for them daily, asking that they would be filled with God’s wisdom, strength, patience, endurance, and thanksgiving, so that their lives would be worthy and pleasing of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the before all things and in him all things hold together. Hear now Paul’s encouragement to the Colossians to grow toward maturity in Christ:

Colossians 1:3-14

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, ⁵because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel ⁶that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. ⁷This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, ⁸and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. ¹¹May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. ¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (NRSV)

Number one Peace goal and fourth goal of the Presbyterians – Worship. Communal Worship is essential to being Christian. Get away from it and you will languish in faith and practice. Paul who twice mentions his own prayers, says, “Be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father,” who has given you this gift of grace and hope. He talks of growing in strength from the power we receive from God’s glory in worship. Worshipping God is first and foremost, acknowleding God’s prime status, as in the first four commandments, and the great commandment: loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Number two Peace goal and goals four and five in the PC(USA) relationships that are true and holy and just and peaceable. Faithful relationships mean that we take the dignity of others seriously. We listen to people, even those different from us. We care about their concerns. We live a consistent life of Christian love in all the areas of life: personal intimate relationships, work, school, family, neighborhood, and church. In our private and public life, we are faithful in loving care. Paul calls it the “love for the saints” and “bearing fruit in every good work.” Loving your neighbor as you love yourself, the second half of the great commandment, and the second half of the ten commandments are all related to being in right relationship with other people.

Number three Peace goal and two Presbyterian goal – nurturing discipleship. The shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God. Growing toward full maturity in Christ and helping others to do the same is a lifelong commitment. I hope many more of you will be involvement Lively learning this year, or maybe you will commit to Stephen Ministry training or the Men’s Group on Tuesday mornings or the weekly prayer walk with me. All God’s children need to be nurtured in faith. Why not give it one more disciplined hour out of your 115 waking hours. I know you have good intentions at home, but it is harder to keep your spiritual growth goals with no accountability, no fellowship.

Number four goal of Peace is compassionate outreach. That fits with the number one great end of the church, proclamation of the gospel for the salvation (the healing, the wholeness, the peace) of all humankind. Paul says you have heard of this hope, this gospel which has come to you. You see the fruit of it in your life, in others’ lives, as we together begin to comprehend the magnificence of the grace of God. What makes you a child of God? Grace – God’s free gift of love that we do not deserve and cannot earn. (Belonging to God: A First Catechism) We reach out because we have been rescued from the darkness and transferred into the realm of God’s marvelous light. This marvelous light is such a blessing, we want all to be able to enjoy it. So we care for the needy with Christ’s love – whether their needs are physical, emotional, or spiritual.

Number five goal of Peace is responsive stewardship. You might wonder how that fits with the Presbyterian goal: the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world. Stewardship is all about how you use the gifts you have been given – gifts of time, of treasure, of talent. When you choose to spend your Thursday mornings packing groceries at Beth-El Farmworker Ministries or one of your evenings or overnights providing hospitality for homeless people in the Family Promise program, then you are exhibiting the kingdom of heaven for the world. When you are willing to drive an old car, or eat more simply or forego expensive trips or entertainment, so that you can give more generously to support benevolent missions of the church, then you are exhibiting the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus said meant the first would be last and least, greatest, and the lost, found. When you give your time at church, and love your neighbors like nobody’s ever seen before, instead of doing what pleases you and yours all the time, then you a demonstrating the realm of God, where self-sacrifice is valued over self-service, where love is found when it is given away.

Do you want to do your part to make this world safer? Then join with me in a recommitment to Peace Presbyterian’s goals, in order to fulfill our mission to make God known by growing as disciples of Jesus Christ, building a community of peace, and caring for the needs of others. That is the best gift we can offer the world – to be more fruitful and faithful, peaceable and respectful Christians.