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Monday, March 18, 2024

What Greatness Is

The Wednesday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on March 20, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Mark 9:30-37.

            Jesus was called a lot of things while he was on this earth.  He was called Rabbi.  He was called Immanuel, God with us.  He often called Himself Son of Man.  But one of the things He was often called was “Teacher”.

            That is, of course, one of the reasons Jesus came to earth--to teach us.  It’s not the only reason, obviously.  Jesus came to save us from having to take the punishment for our sins.  But Jesus also came to teach us.  He taught us with words and He taught us by his example.  Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever walked on the earth.

            One of the things about being a teacher—and if you’ve ever tried to teach anyone anything you know this—one of the things about being a teacher is that a teacher has to have a ton of patience.  A teacher has to go over stuff, and then go over it again, and then go over it again.  A teacher has to present the same stuff in different ways, at different times, hoping desperately that one of these approaches will get through and the student will finally get it.  And then, just when the teacher thinks maybe the student really is starting to get it, the student does something or says something and the teacher’s heart just sinks, because the teacher knows the student still really does not have a clue.  It takes a ton of patience to be a teacher.

            I suspect that sort of thing happened to Jesus a lot.  He’d tell the disciples something, and then he’d tell them again, and then he’d show them, and then he’d go over it one more time just to make sure, and he’d think they were getting it, and then they’d do something or say something that showed that they were nowhere near getting it.  It had to be very frustrating for the divine Teacher to have to work with students as dull as the disciples.

            Our reading tonight described one of those times.  It starts with the disciples having an argument.  Now, that in and of itself is not so bad.  Even the best of friends will get into an argument once in a while.  But here, we’re told that the disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest.

            When Jesus found that out, he must have just shaken his head.  Of all the things for Jesus’ disciples to argue about.  He’d told them so many times about needing to be servants.  He’d told them so many times about how they needed to be humble and how they needed to put others ahead of themselves.  And there they are, arguing about which one of them is the greatest.

            But, Jesus was a teacher.  He had patience.  And so, Jesus tries to teach them again.  He tells them, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

            And then, the way this is written, you can just see Jesus thinking, “Telling these guys is not going to be enough.  I have to show them.  I have to give them an illustration, or an example, or something.”  So, he takes a little kid who’s there, he picks him up and he says to the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

            We’re not told how the disciples reacted to that.  Mark leaves the story there and moves on to talk about something else.  Did they get it, do you think?  Do you think this time they really understood what Jesus was telling them?  For that matter, do we?

            We understand that Jesus tells us to be humble.  But there’s more to it than that.  Let’s think about this for a minute.

What are little children?  Little children, by definition, are people who can do nothing for you.  I mean, that’s not their fault.  They cannot help being little kids.  They’ll grow, and they’ll learn, and they’ll be able to do stuff.  But a little kid, one or two or three years old, cannot do anything for you.  I mean, yes, we can get love and affection from them, and that can make us feel good.  But from a practical, real-world standpoint, a little kid cannot do anything for you.  There’s no advantage to be gained by being kind to a little kid.  They cannot help you financially, they cannot help you socially, they cannot help you accomplish anything.  And this was especially true in the society in which Jesus lived, where little kids were not considered of any value at all until they got old enough to work.

            So, when we welcome a child, when we’re kind to a child, when we help a child, we’re doing something for someone who cannot return the favor.  We’re acting with no selfish motives whatsoever.  We’re acting simply and purely out of selflessness and love.

            That’s what Jesus was trying to tell his disciples to do.  It’s what he tells us to do, too.  To act with no selfish motives.  To do things for people with no thought about whether they can do anything for us.  To act simply and purely out of selflessness and love.

            But Jesus does not just leave it there.  He goes on to say, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.”

            When we see a little child, we are seeing Jesus.  When we look into the face of a little child, we’re looking into Jesus’ face.

            Now, if you have to deal with little kids every day, you may be a little skeptical of this.  Because we all know that little kids do not always appear to us to be like Jesus.  Little kids don’t always do what they’re told.  Little kids misbehave sometimes.  In fact, sometimes little kids can get into big trouble.

            But you know, that might not be so unlike Jesus after all.  You know, Jesus was a little kid once, too.  We’re not told much about what Jesus was like when he was a little kid, but I would not be surprised if, when he was two or three years old, Jesus did not always do what Joseph and Mary told him to.  I would not be surprised if Jesus misbehaved sometimes.  I’m not saying Jesus sinned, because he was the divine Son of God, but a two- or three-year-old kid misbehaving is not sinning.  They’re just doing what two- or three-year-old kids do.  

            Jesus said that when we do something for a little kid, we’re doing it for Him.  But that’s not all.  Jesus went on to say that we’re not just doing it for Him.  When we do something for a little kid, we’re also doing it for God the Father.

            That’s pretty awesome, because you know, it usually seems like there’s really nothing we can do for God.  I mean, God is all-powerful.  God is all-mighty.  God sees everything and knows everything and can do anything.  What can we do for God?

            Well, this is what we can do for God.  Love people.  Especially love people who cannot do anything for us in return.  That’s how we do something for God.  

Yes, God can love them, too, and God does, but God asks us to love them as well.  And when you think about it in this context, this is an honor from God.  We are given the honor of being allowed to do something for God.  God could do it without us, but God chooses to do it with us.  That’s a privilege!  That’s an honor!  The all-powerful, all-mighty God who sees everything and knows everything and can do anything allows us to do this for God.  That’s an awesome thing, when you think about it.  God does not need our help, but God allows us to help.  What an incredible honor that is.  

The disciples wanted to become great.  And Jesus said yes, you can become great.  Here’s how.  You can become great by taking advantage of the opportunity God gives you to serve God by loving the people God created.  And you can especially become great by loving the people God created who cannot do anything for you in return.  Those are the people God especially wants you to love and to help and to welcome among you.  Jesus said, whenever you do that, you’re doing it for me.  And when you do it for me, you’re doing it for God the Father, too.

We don’t know how the disciples reacted.  Maybe, this time, they finally got it.  More likely, they again did not understand.  Or, if they did understand, it was just for a little while, and then they went back to being who they were before.  Because that’s what usually happened with the disciples.  No matter how many times the Teacher tried to explain things to them, they never really seemed to understand.

And so often, we don’t understand, either.  But the Teacher keeps working with us, just like he worked with the disciples.  We’re allowed to read and re-read the Bible, so that eventually we can get the message.  And the Holy Spirit works on our hearts, too, so that we truly can understand and be changed people, God’s people, people who accept the honor of doing things for God the Son and for God the Father.

When we look into the face of someone who cannot do anything for us, we’re looking into the face of God.  When we do something for someone who cannot do anything for us, we’re doing something for God.  When we love someone who cannot do anything for us, we’re loving God.  And when we do that, then we truly become great in the eyes of God.

 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

The Body

The print version of the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.

              There’s an old story about how all the different parts of the body started arguing about which one of them should be the leader.  The brain started out and said, “Well, all the thoughts, all the ideas for what we do come from me, so clearly I should be the leader.”  

The heart said, “Yeah, but I’m the one who gives us all our emotions, all our feelings.  All of our good motivations come from me, so clearly I should be the leader.”  

The eyes said, “Well, but I’m the one who provides the vision, who makes sure we know where we’re going, so clearly I should be the leader.”  

And one by one, all the various parts of the body made their arguments why they should be the leader.  Finally, the neck started to say why it should be the leader, but before it could even get started, all the other body parts started making fun of it.  They said, “You, the leader?  The neck?  What good are you?  All you do is hold the head up.  Why in the world would we make you the leader?”

Well, the neck got really mad at that, so it tightened all its muscles and constricted all its blood vessels, and pretty soon the brain began to feel a pounding, and the heart was having to work a lot harder to pump blood, and everything in the body was feeling really bad.  And so all the body parts said to the neck, “Okay, okay, you can be the leader.”

The moral of this story is that being a leader really does not require brains or heart or vision.  Sometimes all you need to do to be a leader is to be a pain in the neck.

In our bible reading for tonight, the Apostle Paul compares the people of Christ to a body.  He says that we are all one body.  Yet, he says, the body is not made up of just one part.  It takes many parts to make a body.

He goes on to explain that each part of the body has a role to play, and it is important that each part plays the role that it has.  If any one part of the body does not do its job, the entire body will be less.  If any one part of the body is suffering, the entire body will suffer.  Everything about the body is interconnected, and it all has to function properly for the body as a whole to be what it should be.

I found that out three and a half years ago, when I was diagnosed with bulging discs in my back.  The physical therapist gave me a bunch of exercises to do to strengthen my back, and what I found out was that when you strengthen your back you don’t just strengthen your back.  You work on your upper body, your stomach, your legs, everything, because it’s all connected.  If one part of your body hurts, everything hurts.  And if you want one part of your body to get stronger, you have to make your entire body stronger.

The Apostle Paul, of course, was not a physical therapist.  He was making an analogy to the church, the body of Christ.  He was saying that each person has a role to play in the church, and it is important that each person plays the role that he or she has.  If any one person in the church does not participate, the entire church will be less.  If any one person in the church is suffering, the entire church suffers.  And if we want the church to be stronger in following God, every person in the church needs to be stronger in following God.

Now, we say that, and it makes sense.  And people tend to nod their heads in agreement.  But we don’t look at it that way, do we?  We have certain people that we consider to be more important than others, certain people that we consider the leaders of the church.  And that’s true of any organization–there are always people who are considered to be more important, people who are considered to be the leaders.

Some people might consider me, as the pastor, to be a leader of the church.  And maybe there’s some sense in which I am.  But if there’s nobody here to hear what I say, if there’s nobody watching the livestream, if no one reads the church newsletter or looks at the things I say on facebook, then I’m not the leader of anything.  I’m just sending words out into the void.  Because again, one part of the body can do nothing unless the other parts of the body are doing their jobs.  The entire body needs to be working toward the same goal.

And in fact, it goes a step farther than that.  If people are listening and watching and reading, but they’re not doing anything about what I say, then I’m still not the leader of anything.  Because words are meaningless without action.  That’s one of the things the Apostle James meant when he said, “Faith without works is dead.”  

Now, don’t take that the wrong way.  I am not saying everyone should listen to me and do exactly as I say.  What I’m saying is that all of us–the pastor, the church council, the trustees, the United Methodist Women, people who are not part of any committee or church group–we all need to be on the same page.  We all need to be working together.  We all need to be working toward a common goal of serving the Lord.

            To once again use the analogy of a body, if one foot goes forward and the other foot goes backward, the body won’t get anyplace.  If the legs want to go to the left but the arms want to go to the right, we won’t get anywhere.  In fact, we’ll fall down.  Again, we all need to be working together, toward a common goal of serving the Lord.

            And the only way we can work toward a common goal is if we’re all working.  Because again, each part of the body has a role to play.  As Paul also says, one part of the body cannot say to another part, “I don’t need you.”  Every part of the body is not just important, but necessary, for the body to function properly.  If there’s a part of the body that’s not used, it will atrophy.  It will wither away.  And before long, it will be useless.  

            As Paul also points out, every part of the body does not do the same thing.  Each part of the body has a gift, and it needs to use the gift it has.  That’s true of the church, too.  Everyone does not have the ability to lead worship, although I suspect there are some people who have that gift and simply don’t use it.  Everyone does not have the ability to sing or to play an instrument.  Everyone does not have the ability to lead a Bible study.  

            Everyone may not have those gifts–but everyone does have some gift.  And it’s up to us, with God’s help, to figure out how we can use the gifts God has given us to serve Him.

            Because I’ll guarantee you that there is a way.  That’s why God gave us the gift–to use it in His service.  And that’s true no matter what the gift is.  Including some things we may not think of as gifts.  Being able to be organized is a gift.  Being an optimistic, cheerful person is a gift.  Being a good driver is a gift.  Anything that you are good at–or even anything that you’re just half-way decent at–is a gift that can be used to serve God.  It’s just that sometimes the ways those gifts can be used to serve God may not be obvious.

            And so, I encourage you to think about it.  And I encourage you to pray about it.  Think about the things you are good at.  Think about the things you’re just kind of good at.  Think about the things that maybe you don’t think you’re all that good at, but that you just enjoy doing.  In fact, what I’m really saying is, think about the things that make you, you.

            And then ask God, how can I use those things to serve You?  And then–and this is the really important part–be open to hearing God’s answer.

            Because my experience is that whenever we say to God, “Show me how I can serve you,” God answers that prayer.  And usually God answers it pretty quickly.  But the answer may not be what we were looking for.  The answer may be something that we were not thinking about at all.  And the answer might not come from a person or place we were expecting it to come from.

            I don’t say that to scare you off from this.  But this is not something to be done lightly, either.  We need to be serious about this.  Again, when we ask God to show us ways to serve, God takes us up on it.  So we need to be ready to do what God shows us to do.

            All parts of the body are important.  If one part suffers, the entire body suffers.  If one part of the body does not do its job, the entire body is less.  So let’s move together as a body.  Let’s move together as a church.  Let’s strengthen each other in our faith.  Let’s all use the gifts God has given us to serve God.  When we do, the entire church will be stronger.  And our community and our world will be better, too.

 

Love Never Fails

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on March 17, 2024.  The Bible verses used are 1 Corinthians 12:27--13:13.

            The Bible verses we read tonight are among the most popular in the Bible.  In fact, some surveys say they’re the most popular.  

            It’s easy to understand why.  It’s about love, and who does not want to hear about love?  Everyone wants to hear about love.  Everyone wants to feel love.  Everyone wants to be loved.  That’s why Hallmark Channel movies are so popular.  That’s why so many popular songs are love songs.  After all, whether we’re talking about movies or songs or Bible passages, things become popular for a reason.  They speak to us somehow.  They have a message that’s important, or that appeals to us, or that makes us think or feel or something.  All scripture is useful, as the Apostle Paul told his young friend Timothy, but we still have certain passages that speak to us more at certain times.  That’s perfectly natural.

            But the thing that can happen about our favorite Bible passages is that sometimes, because we’ve read or heard them a number of times, we stop thinking about it.  We take it for granted.  And that can be true of pretty much anything, too.  For example, how many times have you heard the National Anthem?  If you go to sports events, you’ve probably heard it hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times.  How often do you really think about what the words mean?  Probably not very often.

            What we read was the end of First Corinthians Chapter Twelve and all of Chapter Thirteen.  Chapter thirteen is often called “the love chapter.”  It gets used at weddings a lot.  It gets used at funerals occasionally, too.  Again, as you heard, it talks about love, what love is and what love is not.  And you’ve heard sermons preached on that before, and you will again.  But today, I want to talk about the rest of this passage, too.  And I want to start with the part of chapter twelve we included.

            In chapter twelve, Paul writes about gifts of the spirit.  He says that we all have different spiritual gifts, and that they’re all important.  He compares it to the parts of the body.  He says that all parts of the body are important:  the feet, the hands, the ears, the eyes, all of it.  He lists some of the gifts of the Spirit, such as teaching, prophesying, working miracles, healing, helping, guidance, all sorts of things.  He says we should work together to develop the gifts we’ve been given so we can serve God.  But then he says this:  “And yet I will show you the most excellent way.”

            Now, if you were listening when we read today’s Bible verses, you know what comes next.  But pretend you don’t.  Imagine that you’re one of the people in the town of Corinth that this letter was written to.  You’re reading his letter, or more likely someone is reading it to you.  And you’ve heard Paul say that all these spiritual gifts are important and that we need to work together to develop them so we can serve God.  

And then you hear:  “And yet I will show you the most excellent way.”  What would you think?  I’d be thinking, “Most excellent way?  What could be more excellent than working together to develop our spiritual gifts to serve God?”

Paul tells us.  The more excellent way is love.  Paul says it does not matter how awesome our spiritual gifts are, or how hard we’ve worked to develop them, if we don’t have love.  Someone could be the greatest speaker in the world, they could be the greatest prophet ever known, they could have so much faith that they could literally move mountains, and none of it would matter.  None of it matters without love.

Did you ever wonder why that is?  I mean, we just kind of take it for granted sometimes, don’t we?  We hear that, and we think, well, of course none of that matters without love.  But why not?  Why do prophecy or evangelism or even faith not matter without love?  

I mean, suppose that I was a really great speaker and evangelist.  I know that’s quite a stretch, but just suppose it.  And suppose I was also a real jerk.  Maybe that’s not as much of a stretch, but again, just suppose it.  If, by my great speaking ability, I was able to bring people to Christ, why would it matter that I was a jerk?  Why would it matter that I was doing it for personal glory or for fame or for whatever reason?  As long as I was able to get someone to accept Jesus as their Savior, why would it matter what my motivation was for doing it?

Paul answers that question.  He says, basically, that that’s the way children think.  And he’s right.  Kids will say, well, as long as I do what I’m supposed to, it does not matter why I’m doing it.  But parents, you know better, right?  You’ve told your kids to do something and seen that look on their face.  You’ve seen them trudge slowly out to do what their supposed to do, like a condemned person walking the last mile.  And you don’t like it very much, do you?  And you say something, and the kid says, “What’s wrong?  I’m doing what you told me to do.”  Children think that our motivation does not matter.  Adults know that it does.

Paul also answers the question in another way.  He answers it by saying that love is the only thing that will never pass away.  It’s the only thing that will never fail.  There will come a time when all the great prophecies will cease and pass away.  There will come a time when all the collected knowledge of mankind will cease and pass away.  There will come a time when all the greatest speakers will pass away and their words will be gone forever.  

And besides, while we’re on earth, none of our prophecies, none of our knowledge, none of our speeches, will really be full and complete the way they’re supposed to be.  He says that, while we’re trying to see God’s kingdom, but we can only see a reflection of it in a dim and cloudy mirror.  We can only get a vague glimpse of God’s kingdom while we’re on earth, and that’s going to show up in all of our prophecies, and all of our knowledge, and all of our speeches.  None of them are going to be accurate or true.  The only time they will become accurate and true is when completeness comes, when the Lord returns and, as Paul says, we can see clearly, face to face.

The gifts of the spirit that we’re given are important.  I’m not saying they’re not, and Paul did not say that, either.  And as Paul says, we should work together to develop them as much as we can to serve God.  

But no matter what gifts we’re given, and no matter how hard we work to develop them, they’ll never be quite right.  We will never be able to develop them completely while we’re on earth.  And ultimately, they will all cease and pass away, just as we, ourselves, will all cease and pass away from the earth someday.  The only thing that will remain, the only thing that will never fail, is love.

Think of it this way.  Think of a teacher or coach you really liked.  Do you remember specific lessons they taught you?  Or do you remember that they cared about you and wanted to help you do the best you could?  Think of a pastor or a Sunday school teacher who made an impression on you.  Do you remember specific things they taught you?  Or do you remember that they cared about you and were there for you whenever you needed them?  If you grew up in a loving home, think of your parents and grandparents.  Do you remember specific things they taught you?  Or do you remember that they loved you and cared about you and that they’d be there for you no matter what happened?

Love never fails.  The things we do without love eventually will always, inevitably, fail.  But the things we do with love will live on.  In fact, when we do things out of love, the love we show will love on long after the specific thing we did has been forgotten.

That’s why the gospels, and the letters, and all of the New Testament emphasize so much that God is love, and that what we’re supposed to do is love God and love other people.  We talk sometimes about the things God has done, and God has done great things.  God created the world out of nothing.  God created everything we see, every tree, every rock, every plant, every animal, every bird, every insect.  God created you.  God created me.  And God is still creating.  And it’s awesome what God has done and what God continues to do.

But imagine if God had created all that without love.  Can you even imagine that?  I’m not sure I can.  What would the world be like without love?  What would God be like without love?  What would you and I be like without love?  It’d be terrible.  No one would want to live in a world like that, and no one would want to worship a God like that.  I really cannot imagine it and I really don’t want to even try to imagine it.

And praise God, we don’t have to.  Because God did create us with love.  And God created the world with love.  Because God is love.  And when we show love to someone, we are behaving in as much of a God-like manner as it is possible for humans to behave.

It’s important for us to work together to develop the spiritual gifts God has given us.  But it’s more important for us to use them with love.  Love is the most excellent way.  Love never fails because God never fails.  And God is love.

 

Saturday, March 2, 2024

God Knows Best

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on March 3, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7.

            The comedienne Lily Tomlin once said that humans developed language to satisfy our deep inner need to complain.

            There may be truth in that, because it’s undeniable that human beings love to complain.  It does seem to be part of our nature.  No matter what’s going on, we’re never satisfied.  Things are never quite right.  They’re never quite good enough.  We always want more.  We always want better.  It’s just the way we are.

            Now, it could be argued that there’s an upside to that.  After all, much of what we call progress has come out of a desire to want more, or to want better.  Many of our greatest inventions have come because we wanted a better, easier way to do things.

            But there’s a downside to it, too.  This feeling that things are never right, that they’re never good enough, can keep us from appreciating what we have.  We cannot just be happy to be what we are and to have what we have.  We always feel like we’re missing something, like there has to be something better out there, and that we cannot be happy until we get whatever that something is.

            That’s one of the lessons we can take from our reading from Genesis tonight.  God had put human beings in paradise.  Literally, paradise.  Adam and Eve had everything they could ever need.  They had peace.  They had joy.  They had happiness.  They had each other.  What else could anyone want?

            Well, what they wanted was the one thing God had told them they were not supposed to have.  And is that not just like human beings?  If we’re told we cannot have one thing, that one thing is the only thing we want.  It’s the only thing we can think about.  It’s sort of like if you told me I cannot have pork chops.  I don’t eat pork chops very often, but if you told me I could never have them again, all of a sudden they’d be all I could think about.  I’d want them all the time.

            And that’s how Adam and Eve were with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Now, maybe you say, hey, wait a minute.  They did not get tempted to eat from the fruit of that tree until the serpent started telling them about it.  And there’s truth in that.  But at the same time, if they had not been thinking about that tree, if they had not been thinking about how cool it would be to eat some of that fruit, what the serpent said would’ve had no effect on them, right?  I mean, no matter how great you told me life would be if I started eating Brussels sprouts regularly, I would not be tempted to do it, because I don’t like Brussels sprouts.  You can only tempt someone to do something if they’re already thinking it’d be cool to do it.

            That’s how the serpent was with Adam and Eve.  And that’s how evil attacks us, too.  It hits us at our weak points.  It hits us on things that, on some level, we’d really like to do anyway.  And it tells us, oh, go ahead.  It won’t hurt anybody.  Nobody’s going to know.  And if they did, nobody’s going to care.  It’s not really bad.  Just go ahead and do it.  Whatever “it” happens to be.

            That’s what the serpent said to Adam and Eve.  Go ahead.  Eat the fruit.  It won’t hurt anybody.  Nobody will know.  It’s not really bad.  Just go ahead and do it.  

Adam and Eve had everything they needed.  But they were not satisfied with it.  They wanted more.  And by wanting more, they ended up losing what they had.

            But think about this:  why did Adam and Eve want more?  Why were they not satisfied with what they had?  Why did they desire the one thing that God had told them they could not have, rather than being grateful for the hundreds and thousands of things that God had given them?

            It comes down to a matter of trust, really.  Adam and Eve did not understand why God would tell them they could not have this one thing.  And when the serpent gave them a reason, they accepted that reason.

            Think about what that reason was.  The serpent basically told Adam and Eve that the reason God would not let them have that one thing was because God was trying to keep something from them.  God was trying to keep them down.  God was preventing them from being what they could be.  If they just stopped listening to God, and did whatever they wanted to do, they’d be so much better off.

            And they believed it.  That’s sad, isn’t it?  God had given them so much.  Again, God had given them everything they would ever need.  But despite that, they could not trust God.  They could not believe that God must have a good reason for not wanting them to eat the fruit of that one tree.  When the serpent told them God’s reasons were not good at all, they believed him.

            And that’s just like human beings, too, isn’t it?  God gives us so much.  God gives us everything we could ever need.  And yet, if God tells us we’re not supposed to have something, we have a hard time trusting God.  We have a hard time believing that God must have a good reason for telling us we’re not supposed to have things.  And when someone tells us, or when we tell ourselves, that God’s reasons are not good at all, we believe it.

            You know, contrary to popular belief, there are not a whole lot of things in the Bible that God has told us not to do.  And when God does tell us not to do certain things, there are reasons.  It’s not because God is trying to keep something from us.  It’s not because God is trying to keep us down or keep us from being what we could be.  It’s because God understands life better than we do.  And God knows we’ll be happier if we live our lives God’s way rather than living them our own way.

            I said that it comes down to trust, and it does, but it comes down to something else, too.  Why do we have trouble trusting God?  Because of our arrogance.  We don’t want to accept that God knows better than we do.  We don’t want to accept that anyone knows better than we do.  After all, nobody has a right to tell ME what to do.  I’ll do whatever I want.  And we do.

            I suspect you’ve done that at times.  I know I have.  When you did, how’d it work out for you?  It sure has never worked out for me.  It may have seemed like it did, for a little while.  When Adam and Eve first ate the fruit, they probably thought it was going to work out for them, too.  Hey, we know all this stuff we did not know before!  It was only later, when they had to accept the consequences for what they’d done, that they found out that doing things their own way was not going to work out for them at all.

            You know, arrogance is one of those sins we don’t talk about a whole lot.  And yet it’s all over the Bible.  It may be the sin that the Bible talks about the most.  The desire to do things our own way.  The belief that--whether we’d ever put it this way or not--that we know more than God.  The feeling that God’s rules are old-fashioned, that they’re a relic of the past.  Those rules were written thousands of years ago--they don’t apply today.  They certainly don’t apply to ME.  I’m a free human being.  I can do whatever I want.  Who is God to tell me what to do?  Who is anybody to tell me what to do?

            And the thing is, God will let us do that.  God will let us act out of our arrogance.  God will allow us to ignore God and do things our own way.  

            But think how God must feel when we do.  I don’t have any children, of course, but I often think that one of the hardest things about being a parent is when you see your child making decisions, going down a road, and you just know that it’s not going to work out well for them.  You know that the decisions they’re making, the road they’re going down, is only going to lead to sadness.  And yet, there’s nothing you can do about it.  All you can do is let them know you still love them, and be there to pick up the pieces when it falls apart as you know that it’s going to.

            I suspect that’s how God feels about us, many, many times.  God sees the decisions we make.  God sees the road we’re going down.  And God knows that what we’re doing is not going to work out well for us.  But God does not stop us.  What God does, though, is continue to love us.  And God will be there to pick up the pieces when things fall apart.

            But how much easier, how much better our lives would be if we just listened to God in the first place?  How much easier, how much better our lives would be if we put aside our arrogance?  How much easier, how much better our lives would be if we stopped insisting on doing things our way and instead started doing things God’s way?

            Yes, God has given us rules for living.  But not because God is trying to keep us down or keep anything from us.  God gave us rules for living because God loves us.  So let’s put aside our arrogance and start living our lives God’s way.  Let’s trust God, because God always knows best.

 

Life in the Spirit

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on March 3, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Romans 8:5-11.

[            “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”  The Apostle Paul, who wrote the letter the Romans, made that distinction between the flesh and the Spirit pretty often.  So did Jesus, for that matter.  In Galatians Paul tells us about the acts of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit.  As Christians, we are supposed to live our lives according to the ways of the Spirit, not the ways of the flesh.

            And we hear that, and we kind of nod our heads.  It sounds good.  Live by the ways of God.  Live as God would have us live.  Set aside our human concerns and focus on divine concerns.  Sounds logical.  Makes sense, if you’re a Christian.

            It sounds good, but actually living it is a lot trickier.  Because those ways of the flesh are pretty important to us.  And it’s perfectly understandable why.  I mean, this flesh thing is the only thing you and I have ever lived in, right?  And this world is the only world you and I have ever lived in.  It’s our entire reality, in a lot of ways.  It’s our only frame of reference.  It’s all we’ve ever known.

            And so we get pretty protective of this flesh we live in.  We do what we can to keep it going.  Most of us try to eat right.  We try to get some exercise.  We try to get enough rest.  We don’t always succeed at those things, but even when we don’t we feel like we should.  That’s why nobody ever lost money promoting a diet or exercise program.  We’re all trying to keep this flesh we live in going as long as we can.

            That’s also why so many people get so scared when something like COVID comes along.  And don’t get me wrong, this is not a criticism of anyone.  I’m not saying we should not be concerned illnesses or that we should not take precautions to prevent them.  My point is simply to emphasize how important this human body is to each of us and how much it scares us when our human body is threatened.

            And again, that’s understandable.  I’m not saying it’s wrong.  But here’s the thing:  each of us, at some point, is going to die.  No matter how much we eat right and exercise and get our rest and get physical check-ups and get screened and everything else, at some point each of us is going to die.  This human body was only designed to last for so long.  Maybe eighty years, maybe ninety, maybe even a hundred or more.  But no matter how hard we try to prevent it, each of us is eventually going to reach our expiration date.

            Now, again, obviously, I’m not saying that we should do anything to make that date come sooner.  God put us here for reasons.  There are things we’re supposed to do while we’re here.  And in fact, as long as we are here that means there are still things God wants us to do.  But the fact remains that, at some point, we’ll run out of time to do those things.  It will be time to leave here, move on, and find out what comes next.

            And so, while this flesh we live in is very important, our Spirit is even more important.  And so, as the Apostle Paul says, you and I need to live in the realm of the Spirit.  That’s the only way we can please God.  We need to have our minds governed by the Spirit.  That’s the only way we can have life and peace.  We need to have God’s Holy Spirit living in each of us.  That’s the only way we can truly belong to Christ.

            So, here’s the question--how can we do that?  How can we get past the importance of our flesh and get to where we truly live in the realm of the Spirit, so that we can please God?  How can we get to where our minds are governed by the Spirit, so we can have life and peace?  How can we have God’s Holy Spirit living in us, so we can truly belong to Christ?

            Well, I think it starts with a decision on our part.  I say that because God has already made His decision.  We know God wants us to live in the realm of the Spirit.  We know God wants our minds to be governed by the Spirit.  But God’s not going to force it on us.  We have to make the decision that we want that.  We have to make the decision that we want to live in the realm of the Spirit, that we want our minds to be governed by the Spirit, that we want to have God’s Holy Spirit live in us.

            Now, maybe it seems like it’s obvious that we should want that, but think about it.  If we really want that, then the chances are that we’re going to need to make some changes in our lives.  And I don’t mean to imply that we’re all bad or evil or sinful or anything like that.  I mean, yes, as Paul writes in the letter to the Romans, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

            What I’m talking about is that any time we want anything, at least anything that’s important, the chances are that we’re going to have to give up some things to get it.  When Wanda and I decided that I’d become a pastor, that meant I had to give up some things.  So did Wanda.  We both had to be willing to give up our employment.  I had to be willing to go back to school for three years.  We had to be willing to leave a town that we really liked, and leave friends who we really cared about.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s all been worth it.  I have never spent one minute regretting the choice we made.  But still, there were things we had to give up to get to where we are.  And there still are.  That’s just the way it works.

            And the things Wanda and I had to give up were not bad things.  There was nothing inherently wrong with the jobs we had.  There was nothing wrong with the town we lived in--we still like going back to visit there.  There was nothing wrong with the people--we still keep in touch with some of them.  But still, we had to give them up, because God had something different in mind for us.  It was a great place to live, with great people--but it was not the place God wanted us to be.  It was for a while, but then it was not.  And we had to give it up.

            I’m sure you can think of examples like that in your life, too.  Times when you knew you needed to make a change in your life, but you knew you would have to give up some things to do it.  There may have been nothing inherently wrong with those things, but you had to give them up anyway.  Because anything worth having requires giving something up to get it.  Again, it’s just the way life works.  

            And God’s Holy Spirit requires us to give things up, too.  There may not be anything inherently wrong or bad about those things.  There may be nothing wrong or bad about the way we’re living our lives.  But even so, there is probably something, probably more than one thing, that we need to give up.  Because God has something different in mind for us.  And if we want to live in the realm of the Spirit, if we want to have God’s Holy Spirit living in us, we need to give up those things in order to have that.

            So it starts with a decision on our part that we really want God’s Holy Spirit living in us.  But it does not end there.  Because, this is not something you and I can do by ourselves.  We have to do our part, but we cannot do it by ourselves.  Because giving up things, things that we like, people that we like, a way of life that we like, is hard.  Even if we fully believe it’ll be worth it, it’s still hard.  And if we try to do it on our own, the chances are we’ll slip back.  No matter how good our intentions are, we will probably slip back.  We are not strong enough.

            So that brings us to the other thing we need to do.  If we want to live in the realm of the Spirit, if we want God’s Holy Spirit living in us, we need to pray.  

            Because, as I said earlier, God wants this for us.  God wants us to live in the realm of the Spirit.  God wants us to have our minds governed by the Spirit.  And so, when we pray, when we ask God to help us do this, God will give us that help.  God will strengthen our resolve.  God will help us resist the temptation to slip back.  God’s Holy Spirit will show us what God wants for us, and God’s Holy Spirit will help us get it.

            But here’s the thing.  And this may be the best thing of all.  What do we get for all this?  Paul tells us.  We get peace.

            And is that not what we all need right now?  Would you not like to feel at peace with everything that’s going on?  When it feels like so many things in the world have gone sideways, it would be awesome to feel peace.

            But what is peace?  It’s not things going the way we want them to.  It’s knowing that we’ll be okay no matter how things go.  It’s still okay to want things.  It’s still okay to ask God for things.  But if we’re living in the realm of the Spirit, we’ll have confidence that we’ll be okay whether God does those things or not.  We’ll truly mean it when we say, “Thy will be done.”  We’ll trust that God is in control, whether it’s obvious or not.  We’ll know that God is taking care of things, even if we cannot see God working right now.  

            But we don’t just get peace.  We get life.  Life in the realm of the Spirit.  And that helps us have peace, too.  Because we know that there is another life after this one.  We still want to keep our lives here, of course, and that’s okay.  We should want that.  Again, God has things for us to do while we’re here.  But we know that, even under the best circumstances, this flesh we live in is still only temporary.  And no matter how long we live, it’s not very long compared to eternity.  But when we live in the realm of the Spirit, we know this life in the flesh is not the only life.  We know we will go on to eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

            So, will we make that decision?  Will we decide that we want to have our minds governed by the Spirit?  Will we decide we want to live in the realm of the Spirit?  And will we pray and ask God to help us make that decision a reality?

            Life in the flesh is important, but life in the Spirit is more important.  Let’s make the right decision, and find the life and peace that comes from living in the realm of God’s Holy Spirit.

 

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Forgiving Jesus

The Wednesday night Lent message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on February 28, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Mark 3:20-35.

Jesus’ first miracle came at a wedding in Cana, when He turned water into wine.  This was a pretty unmistakable sign that it was time for Jesus to leave Nazareth and start his ministry on earth.

            Jesus’ leaving must have been hard on His mother, Mary.  She knew it had to be this way, of course.  She remembered what the angel Gabriel had told her.  She knew who Jesus was.  Still, it was hard.  Jesus had been a part of her life for thirty years, more or less.  And now, he was not there anymore.

            There probably was not a day that went by that she did not think of him.  She wondered where he was.  She wondered what he was doing.  She wondered if he was all right, if he was eating properly, if he was getting enough rest.  She wondered all the things that a mother wonders when her son is away from home, out on his own.

            Once in a while, of course, Jesus would come back to Nazareth.  And I’m sure he looked in on Mary, to see how she was doing.  It would sure be interesting to know how those conversations went, don’t you think?  Did Jesus tell Mary about all the things he’d done?  Did he tell her about being tempted in the desert?  Did he tell her about healing people?  Did he tell her about taking on demons?  If so, how would Mary react to that?  Would she be proud of Jesus?  Would she be worried about him?  Did she ever try to get him to come back home, to come back to the carpenter shop?

            Well, we don’t know any of that, of course.  But if she ever did try to get him to come back home, it did not work.  Jesus was never there very long.  He’d be there for a little while, and then he’d be gone again, back to his ministry.  And Mary would be alone again, left to wonder and worry about him.

Obviously, communication back then was not what it is now.  It’s not like Jesus had a cell phone Mary could call.  She could not send him a text or an email.  She could not even contact him on facebook.  Still, though, I’m sure she heard things.  Probably lots of things.  Maybe she heard about the time he fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Maybe she heard about the huge crowds he was drawing to hear him preach.  Maybe she even heard about him walking on the water and calming the storm.

            If she did, she must have been really proud of him.  I mean, think about it.  Think about if your son or your daughter could do stuff like that.  Most parents are proud of their children anyway, but this would be something really incredible right.  To think that your child was doing that.  It’d be incredible.

            But she probably heard some other things, too.  She probably heard about the times Jesus broke the Sabbath law.  She probably heard about the times he argued with the Pharisees.  She probably heard about the times he got into trouble with the authorities.  And you just know that there were some people eager to tell her about stuff like that, right?  After all, it’s not like gossip is a recent invention.  People did it back then, too.  There were probably people who just could not wait to tell Mary when they heard something critical of Jesus.

            So we come to our Bible reading for tonight.  We’re told that Jesus and his disciples go to a house, and there’s a huge crowd there, so big that Jesus could not even eat.  Then we’re told, “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’”

            Now, we don’t know who this “family” was that thought Jesus was out of his mind.  Some people think it was not actually his family at all, at least not in the sense of blood relatives.  And that does kind of make sense, because people sometimes gave “family” a broader meaning back then.  People who were family friends were sometimes referred to as uncles or cousins, even though they were not actually related.  Whoever it was, though, it must not have been Mary, and it must not have been Jesus’ brothers, because we’re told later in the passage, “Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived.”

            And that’s the part I want to focus on.  Jesus is talking to the people, and he’s telling them things about God and about their faith.  And the things he’s telling them, the way he’s interpreting scripture and telling them who God is, are things they’ve never heard before.  They’ve certainly never heard them from the Pharisees.  And Jesus is saying it like he’s someone in authority, like he knows this stuff and has no doubt that it’s true.

            And because of that, some people think Jesus has gone nuts.  And other people think he’s possessed by demons.  And in the middle of all this chaos and confusion, Mary and Jesus’ brothers show up.  They cannot even get in the door because of the crowd.  So they send a message to Jesus to tell him that they’re there and want to talk to him.

            And here’s Jesus’ response.  He says, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”  Then he looks at the people around him, the people who believe in him and trust him, and he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

            Can you imagine Mary’s reaction, when she heard that response?  She was worried about Jesus.  She’d heard he might be in trouble.  She came down to check on him, to see if he could help.  And Jesus sends a response that basically is a rejection of both Mary and of his brothers.

            Now, I don’t think Jesus really intended it that way.  It’s hard for me to believe that Jesus would’ve deliberately hurt his mother.  I think he was more making a point about how we are all brothers and sisters if we follow God.  Or, he may have been afraid that Mary and his brothers were going to try to make him stop his ministry.  Or there may have been other reasons Jesus said what he said.  But still, think of this from Mary’s point of view.  Mary has come all this way because she loves Jesus and is worried about him, and Jesus refuses to even see her.  Can you imagine how she must have felt?

            We don’t know what happened after that.  Mark drops the story at that point and moves on to something else.  So do Matthew and Luke in their versions of the story.  We’d like to think, of course, that maybe after the meal was over and the people had left, Jesus went to see Mary and explained things to her.  But for all we know, that may not have happened until much later or it may not have happened at all.  For all we know, Mary and her sons may have simply turned around and gone home, feeling like Jesus did not even care about them anymore.

            Have you ever had someone you love hurt you like that?  Have you ever felt rejected by someone you were really close to?  Someone you were just trying to help?  If so, then maybe you have some idea how Mary felt here.  To have her own son, a son whom she’d been through a lot to have and to raise, and who, after all, was supposed to be the Son of God, reject her, and in a really public way.  It had to hurt.

            But here’s the thing.  Somehow, Mary got over it.  Somehow, Mary got past the hurt.  I don’t suppose it was easy.  It probably took some time.  It probably took some prayer.  Maybe it took talking to Jesus at some point, we don’t know.  But somehow, Mary got over it.  We know she got over it because we see her with Jesus later in the gospels.  In fact, we see her at the cross when Jesus is dying, and we see her going to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. 

            In other words, Mary forgave Jesus.  Does that sound odd to you?  That Mary would forgive Jesus?  After all, Jesus is the divine Son.  Jesus is without sin.  And yet Mary forgave Jesus.  Did Jesus sin, that Mary had to forgive him?

            No, I don’t think so.  I believe that Jesus did not sin while he was on earth.  He was tempted to, but he did not.  But I still think that Mary forgave him.

            You see, I don’t think we have to sin, necessarily, to hurt people.  We can hurt people by accident.  We can hurt people with the best of intentions.  We can hurt people by things we say or do when we don’t even realize how they’re going to take what we say.

            And that can happen to us, too.  We can be hurt by people who have no intention of hurting us.  But despite their intentions, we’re still hurt.  And we have to find a way to get past it.  And that way past it is to forgive them.  We need to forgive them for hurting us even if they don’t know they hurt us.  We don’t forgive them to help them.  We forgive them to help us.

            I don’t think Jesus intended to hurt Mary.  But I suspect Mary was hurt.  And I suspect Mary needed to forgive Jesus.  Not because Jesus needed to receive forgiveness.  But because Mary needed to give it.  She needed to forgive Jesus so she could get past the hurt and have a relationship with her son again.

            Who do you need to forgive?  I suspect there’s someone.  I suspect we all have someone we need to forgive.  I’d encourage you to think about who it is.  I’d encourage you to pray about it.  And I’d encourage you to find a way to forgive them.  It won’t be easy.  It may take some time.  It may take lots of time and lots of prayer. 

            But keep trying.  This period we’re in right now, this period of Lent, is a time for forgiveness.  We usually think of that as us asking for forgiveness from God, and that is a major part of it.  But Jesus said several times that the amount of forgiveness we received is related to the amount of forgiveness we give.  

So again, keep trying to forgive them.  Even if they don’t think they need forgiveness, keep trying to forgive them.  Even if they’re not interested in receiving your forgiveness, keep trying to forgive them.  Keep trying until you can do it.  Because you’re not forgiving them because they need to receive forgiveness.  You’re forgiving them because you need to give forgiveness.  You’re forgiving them so you can get past the hurt.  That’s the only way we can ever be free of it.  And it’s only when we’re free of that hurt that we can truly be the people God wants us to be.