That's Nice

The message at the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg on July 30, 2014.  The Bible verses used are 1 Peter 3:8-18.

            I don’t know how many of you are on facebook, but if you are, you’ve noticed that every once in a while there’ll be a saying that just takes off, “goes viral” as they say, so that you’re seeing it everywhere.  There was one going around recently that I found out was actually a quote from the singer Eminem.  It said, “I don't care if you're black, white, straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor.  If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you.  Simple as that."

            That sounds really good.  The trouble is, it’s not really a Christian attitude.  What I’m talking about is the part that says, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”  Because the implication is that if you’re not nice to me, I don’t have to be nice to you.  I can treat you in exactly the same way you treat me, whether it’s good or whether it’s bad.

            Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  In other words, we’re not supposed to treat people the way they treat us.  We’re supposed to treat people the way we’d like them to treat us.  Jesus said that if someone demands our shirt, we should give them our coat, too.  Jesus said if we’re hit on one cheek, we should turn the other to them.  Jesus said we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

            In our reading for tonight, Peter says something similar.  Peter says, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.  On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

            That’s a really hard thing to do.  I’ll tell you right out that there are plenty of times I don’t do it.  There are plenty of times I don’t repay evil with blessing.  There are times I don’t repay blessing with blessing.  It’s a really hard thing to do.

            Peter goes on to talk about why we should do this.  And this is important, because I think we get it wrong sometimes.  

I don’t know if you got the same stories when you were a little kid that I did, but a lot of times in these kids stories, the hero of the story goes to the bad guy, to the bully, and treats him or her with kindness and respect, and as a result the bully changes his or her behavior and becomes nice.  Well, it’d be nice if real life worked that way, and maybe sometimes it does, but there are a lot of times when it does not.  In real life there are a lot of times when we treat the bully with kindness and respect and the bully just takes advantage of the situation and bullies us farther.

See, Peter did not tell us to repay evil with blessing because that will make the evil person change their ways.  It might, or it might not.  If it does, that’s wonderful.  But that’s not why we’re supposed to repay evil with blessing.  There is one reason, and one reason only, that we are supposed to repay evil with blessing.  We’re supposed to do that because that’s what Jesus did.  We’re supposed to do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Peter said, in fact, that we may suffer for repaying evil with blessing.  And he said, if we do, we don’t need to worry about it.  We’re in good company.  Jesus did that, too.  Jesus suffered, and even died, for our sins.  Jesus suffered the ultimate evil, and he repaid it with the ultimate blessing.

The only reason we’re supposed to do this is because it’s what Jesus did.  It’s the right thing to do.  Peter says that for our trouble, we may have people talk about us.  They may say all kinds of stuff about us that’s untrue.  They may even threaten us.  But Peter says it’s okay.  He says it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

            Still, of all the things the Bible tells us to do, I think this may be the hardest.  We like the gospel according to Eminem a lot better.  We like the gospel that says, “If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you.”  That’s a lot easier than the gospel that says, “If you’re a jerk to me, if you threaten me, if you talk about me behind my back, I’ll still be nice to you.”  We know what we’re supposed to do.  But it’s really hard to do it.

            I wish I had a nice, simple way that made it easy for us.  I don’t.  As I said, I struggle with this as much as anyone.  So, instead, what I’m going to do is talk about some things, that, when I think about them, do help do these things.  Here they are.

            One of them is to remember that I don’t know other people’s stories.  All of us are shaped by a lot of things.  The family we grew up in.  The place we grew up in.  The people around us when we were growing up.  The experiences we’ve had since we got older.  The jobs we’ve held.  The people we’ve worked with.  The places we’ve lived.  The things we’ve gotten involved in.  The chances we’ve had.  These and all kinds of other things all contribute to make us who we are.

            And that can be for good or for bad.  If I’d grown up in a different family, if I’d grown up in a city rather than on the farm, if I’d grown up with more money or with less money, if I’d been better looking or worse looking, if I’d been more athletic, if I’d gone to school in a different place, if I’d gotten a different job, if I’d never met Wanda, I might be different in a lot of ways.  I don’t know what those ways are.  I might be better or I might be worse.  There’s no way to know.

            And there’s no way to know about other people, either.  So when we run into people who treat us badly, who are not nice to us, who basically act like jerks, we need to remember that.  We need to remember that we don’t know what went into making them that way.  That does not justify bad behavior, but it can make us more understanding of bad behavior.  It can help us make allowances for people and treat them well even when they don’t treat us well.

            Another thing I try to remember is that all of us, each and every one, are God’s children.  That’s true of the nicest person you’ve ever met, and it’s true of the biggest jerk on the planet.  Each one of us is one of God’s children.  That means that every person we see is our brother or our sister.

            That helps me.  It helps me when I’m dealing with someone I’d rather not have to deal with.  It helps when I remember that God loves that person every bit as much as God loves me.  After all, we say that nothing can separates us from the love of God, right?  So nothing can separate other people from the love of God, too.  That person I don’t like, that person who did not treat me well--that person’s a child of God, just like I am.  That person is my brother.  That person is my sister.  Again, that does not excuse bad behavior.  But it does help me remember that I need to treat each person with respect and love, no matter what they say and no matter how they act, because their family, just like I’m family.  We’re all part of the family of God.

            There’s one other thing that helps me, too.  It helps me when I remember that I claim to be a Christian.  Because as Christians, we don’t follow some other human being.  We follow Jesus Christ.  And Jesus Christ did not say, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”  Jesus said, “You can curse me and I’ll love you.”  Jesus said, “You can beat me and torture me and I’ll forgive you.”  Jesus said, “You can kill me and I’ll die so your sins can be forgiven.”

            If Jesus had said, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you,” none of us would be saved.  Because none of us has been nice to Jesus.  Oh, maybe sometimes we are, but not always.  There are a lot of times we ignore Jesus.  There are a lot of times we pay no attention to Jesus at all.  In fact, there are plenty of times we deliberately do not do what Jesus told us to do.  If Jesus had said, “If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you”, we’d all be lost.

            But Jesus did not say that.  And as people who claim to follow Jesus, we should not say it, either.  You and I, as followers of Jesus, are called to love everyone.  Even the people who we think don’t deserve our love.  After all, Jesus loves us, and we don’t deserve his love.

            Now, don’t get me wrong.  Even knowing all that, I still fail a lot of times.  There are plenty of times I don’t show love to people the way I should.  But these things do help me.  Maybe they’ll help you, too.  And then, maybe we can be closer to being the people God wants us to be.

Just Be There

This is the message from the Oahe Manor service Sunday, July 27, 2014 in Gettysburg.  The Bible verses are Romans 8:26-39.

That reading has one of my favorite Bible verses in it.  No, it’s not that last one about nothing separating us from the love of Jesus.  That’s a great verse, too, and I like that one.  But the one I’m talking about is at the start of our reading.  “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself interecedes for us through wordless groans.”

I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of times when I’m not sure just exactly what I ought to pray for.  I know that I need to pray.  And I may know what I want God to do.  But I also know that what I want may not be the best.  So, I’m not sure what to pray for.

I could, of course, always pray that God’s will be done.  And of course, that is what we pray every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  We say, “Thy will be done.”  But at the same time, just how effective is that?  I mean, it’s a good reminder to us that, no matter what we may want God’s will should prevail.  But on the other hand, it’s not like God needs our permission to do God’s will.  If God wants to do something, God’s going to do it whether we agree or not, right?

When we pray, “Thy will be done”, we’re praying that our be the same as God’s will.  That’s an important thing for us to pray, but it does not always help me in the situations I’m talking about.  If I don’t know what I ought to pray for, it may be appropriate to pray, “Thy will be done”, but it’s not particularly satisfying.

And then, too, sometimes I may not know what I want God to do.  Again, I know I need to pray.  Maybe I know something’s not right and I know I need God to do something, but I just don’t know what it is.  Or, maybe I know something’s not right but I’m not necessarily looking for God to do anything.  Maybe I just feel like I need to be in God’s presence, like I need to get closer to God, even though I don’t have anything in particular to say to God.

Do you ever have those times?  Those times when you know you need to pray, but you don’t know what it is you should say?

Well, if you do, fall back on this verse.  “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”  All we need to do is place ourselves into God’s presence.  If we do that, we don’t need to say anything.  We can, if we want to, but we don’t have to.  If we don’t know what to say, the Holy Spirit will do the praying for us.

  And look what happens next.  God will hear the Holy Spirit’s prayer on our behalf.  Because God searches our hearts and knows the mind of the Spirit.

Now, it’s certainly okay for us to pray on our own behalf.  I know many of you do that a lot, and that’s fine.  I’m not telling you that you should not do that.  In fact, I’d encourage you to keep doing praying.  All I’m saying is that, if you have times when you don’t feel much like praying, or when you feel like praying but don’t really know what to pray, don’t let that stop you.  Pray anyway.

And when you pray, don’t feel like you have to say anything.  Just present yourself to God.  Just say something like, “God, here I am.  I don’t know what to say to you, but I’m here, and I’d just like to be with you for a while.”  When we do that, the Holy Spirit will pray to God on our behalf.  and God will hear, and God will answer.

We have such an awesome God, you know?  It’s amazing that God wants us around at all.  God is so much greater and holier and more powerful and better than we are that we’d be able to understand if God did not want to have anything to do with us.  But instead, we are allowed by God to come into God’s presence.  In fact, not only does God allow us to come, God invites us to come.  God wants us to come.  Nothing makes God happier than when we come into God’s presence.  And if we come and have nothing to say, the Holy Spirit will say it for us.  That’s how much God wants us to be in God’s presence.

So if you get discouraged, if you get down, if you feel like you need something and you don’t even know what it might be, think of this verse.  And go to God.  Go to God and say, “Here I am.  Please be with me, and please let me be with you.”  And then, just be silent and be in God’s presence. Don’t worry about what to say.  Just be there.  If there’s anything you need to say, the Holy Spirit will say it all for you.

Loving Alike

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, July 27, 2014.  The Bible verses used are Romans 10:1-13.

            This week we start a new sermon series that will take us up to Labor Day.  The series is called, “Why Do We Do That?”  We’re going to look at some of the things we do, sometimes as Christians and sometimes specifically as United Methodists, and try to answer the question, “Why do we do that?  Why do we do it that way?”  And what we’re going to start with is this question, “Why do we allow for so many differences of opinion within the United Methodist church?”

            Because there’s no question that we do.  We have very few things that you have to agree to in order to be a United Methodist.  The membership requirements for being a United Methodist are contained in one paragraph of the United Methodist Book of Discipline.  At the risk of boring you, I’m going to read it to you:

When persons unite as professing members with a local United Methodist church, they profess their faith in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Spirit.  Thus, they make known their desire to live their daily lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.  They covenant together with God and with the members of the local church to keep the vows which are a part of the order of confirmation and reception into the Church.

And here’s what those vows are:

1.  To renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of their sins;

2.  To accept the freedom and power God gives them to resist evil, injustice, and oppression;

3.  To confess Jesus Christ as Savior, put their whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as their Lord.

4.  To remain faithful members of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world;

5.  To be loyal to The United Methodist Church and do all in their power to strengthen its ministries;

6.  To faithfully participate in its ministries by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service, and their witness;

7.  To receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

That’s it.  That’s all you have to do to be a member of the United Methodist church.  We don’t have a lengthy catechism you have to memorize.  We don’t have a laundry list of things you have to agree to.  If you do agree to those things I just read, you can be a member of the United Methodist church.  It’s that simple.

            Now, that’s not to say the United Methodist church does not take stands on things.  It does.  It takes stands on all sorts of things.  It takes stands on theological issues, it takes stands on spiritual issues, it takes stands on social issues, sometimes it takes stands on political issues.  But the thing is, no one is required to agree with any of those stands to be a United Methodist.  Why is that?

            As I answer that question, I want to make one thing clear.  Nothing I’m saying here is intended to be a criticism of other denominations.  Other denominations have their own ways of doing things, and they have reasons why they do things that way.  I’m not trying to tell any other denomination what it should do.  I’m trying to explain why the United Methodist church does things the way it does.

            The reason we take this approach, the reason we don’t have a big laundry list of things you have to agree to in order to become a United Methodist, is because we think this is the approach Jesus took.  When Jesus went out to talk to people, what did he do?  He said, “Follow me”.  He did not give people a long list of things that had to believe before they could come and follow him.  He did not tell them they had to memorize a bunch of stuff before they could come and follow him.  He simply said, “Follow me.”

            Jesus was not interested in creating a bunch of people to study theology.  The world already had enough people studying theology.  They were called “Scribes” and “Pharisees” and “Teachers of the Law”.  There were enough people who knew how believers in God are supposed to live.  Jesus got into arguments with those people sometimes, but he really did not disagree all that much what the Scribes and the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law said about scripture.  He just could not see that there were very many people actually living as if they believed it.

            So Jesus kept it simple:  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Later on, Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

            You could say, really, that Jesus’ laundry list had one item on it.  Love.  Love for God.  Love for each other.  The United Methodists add a couple of things, but the things we add are things that are related to love.  That’s all Jesus required.  Why should we require more?

            When John Wesley started the groups that eventually became United Methodism, he found a situation that was a little bit similar to the situation Jesus found among the Jewish people.  The world had plenty of people who’d studied theology.  They were called priests and bishops and so forth.  There were enough people who knew how believers in God are supposed to live.  Wesley did not disagree all that much with what the priests and bishops said.  He just could not see that there were very many people actually living as if they believed it.

            So Wesley kept it simple, too:  “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”  And also “An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.”

            You could say that Wesley’s laundry list had very few items on it.  Love, have love for God and love for others, accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and show that love by doing good.

            As long as we agree on our love for God and on our love for others, as long as we agree that we need to show that love by doing good, we can disagree on a lot of the other stuff.  Wesley said, “Think and let think.”  He said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.”

            Now, understand here, I am not saying “Don’t study the Bible”.  We should study the Bible.  We should think about God.  We should know what we believe and we should know why we believe what we believe.  The point, though, is that what we are allowed to disagree about the details.  We’re allowed to have different opinions on the finer points.  We’re even allowed to disagree with the official stands of the church.  It’s okay.  The most important things are that we love God, love others, accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, and show that love by doing good.

            There’s one other thing about this, too.  We allow people to have different views on things because we recognize that no human being is ever perfect.  We recognize that the official stands of the church, while they may be well-intentioned, can sometimes be wrong, because they are decided by human beings.  So, we don’t all have to agree with them.  In fact, as United Methodists, we should have no problem at all if someone does disagree.

            What it comes down to, really, is a recognition that the things we agree on are far more important than the things we don’t.  The important things are, one, love and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and, two, going out and showing that love to as many people as we can.  When we let ourselves get hung up on other things, when we start worrying too much about our disagreements on issues and forget the things that unite us, we don’t show love.  And then we fail to be what the church is supposed to be.

            Love and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and going out and showing that love to as many people as we can.  Those things are what following Jesus means.  They’re what Jesus asked people to do.  They’re what Wesley asked people to do.  And it’s what we continue to be asked to do.

            Nobody can agree on everything.  So we should be thankful that, in the United Methodist church, we don’t all have to agree with everything.  We can think and let think, and we don’t have to think alike.  All we need to do is love alike.  That’s why we don’t have a catechism or a laundry list.  Jesus gave us the list.   “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’  We may not always think alike, but we can always love alike.  And when we do, we can be God’s people, living in God’s world.

Finding Peace

This is the message given at the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg on July 23, 2014.  The Bible verses used are 2 Thessalonians 3:16-18.

            Tonight we again look at a “Three-Sixteen”, the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of a book of the New Testament.  Tonight it’s 2 Thessalonians Three, Sixteen:  “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.  The Lord be with all of you.”

            That sounds a lot like a benediction, and it kind of is.  It comes at the end of the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians.  It’s a blessing that Paul is giving to the people at Thessalonica.  Paul asks the Lord to be with them and to give them peace.

            It’s a nice thing to say.  And I’m sure Paul meant it.  It’s something all of us want for ourselves, and it’s something we’d all wish for others, at least the people we care about.  We all want to feel the Lord with us.  We all want God to give us peace.

            But how does it happen?  How do we get that peace?  Because there are an awful lot of times when we don’t feel like we have it.  Life can be really unpeaceful at times, right?  And you don’t need me to tell you why.  

We don’t very often feel true peace in our lives.  Even when we’re really trying to feel peace, and even when we feel like things have calmed down at least a little, it feels a lot more like a truce or a temporary cease-fire than real peace.  I’m not going to ask you, but I suspect all of us here have something going on in our lives that is really bothering us.  If it’s not in our life, then it’s in the life of someone we care about.  And when something is bothering us like that, it’s hard for us to feel true peace.  True peace, real peace, is hard to find in our lives.

            Peace is defined as the freedom from any strife or dissension.  It’s defined as being in a state of harmony.  That’s what we want.  That’s what we’d like the Lord to give us.

            Now, realize what peace is not.  Peace is not everything going perfectly.  And we’re lucky that it’s not, because you and I are not likely to ever have a time when things are going perfectly.  And one of the biggest reasons for that is that you and I are not perfect.  If you and I cannot be perfect, then our lives cannot be perfect, either.

            But peace does not mean everything is perfect.  We do not achieve peace, we do not achieve a state of harmony, by having never having anything go wrong.  We achieve peace, we achieve a state of harmony, by being okay with whatever happens, right or wrong.

            Now, when I say that peace is being okay with whatever happens, I am not saying that we should just accept bad things and not try to change them.  There are a lot of things in the world that need to change.  Poverty, hunger, disease, oppression, inequality, all kinds of bad things exist in this world.  And they’re only going to change if people do something to change them.  People like you and me.  Peace does not mean accepting the bad things of the world and not trying to do something about them.

            But it’s entirely possible to try to make things better and still be at peace.  And I think that, even though this is a benediction, Paul gives us some clues as to how we do that.

            Listen again to what Paul says.  He says “may the Lord of peace himself give you peace...The Lord be with all of you.”

            True peace, real peace, only comes from God.  The only way we can get peace is if we get it from God.  And the only way we can get peace from God is if the Lord is with us.  

            What we’re talking about, really, is trusting God.  We’re talking about doing whatever it is we can do, doing it the best we can, and trusting God to take it from there.  We will not do everything perfectly.  But we also know that God does not expect us to be perfect.  God asks us and expects us to do the best we can at the time and under the circumstances.  And God asks us to trust that when we do that, God will take it from there and make things work out the way they’re supposed to work out.

            If we do that, then we’ll achieve that state of harmony.  We’ll be at peace.  We’ll be okay with whatever happens.  Because we’ll know we did the best we could, and we’ll know that God is taking it from there.  And if God is taking care of things, then we know things will be okay.

            That all sounds really good.  And it is really good.  The times I’ve done it I’ve felt really good about life.  But there are a lot of times I cannot do it.  And what happens when I cannot do it is that I start to worry.  I start to feel like I’m responsible for everything.  I try to take control of the whole situation, rather than just doing my part as well as I can and letting God do God’s part.  I make myself responsible for making things work out the way they’re supposed to rather than trusting God to make them work out.

            So how do we stop doing one and start doing the other?  How do we get ourselves to just do our best and let go and let God take care of things?  How do make ourselves do the things we need to do to feel that peace and harmony that we want to feel?

            I wish I had a nice, simple answer for you.  I don’t.  I’m no better at this that you are.  There have been times when I’ve felt like I was at peace, like everything was going the way it was supposed to go and God was taking care of everything.  But there have been other times when I did not feel like that at all.  There have been times when I’ve felt like nothing was going the way it was supposed to go and I could not see how it ever would.  And sometimes there’s not a lot of time between when I feel one way and when I feel another.

            I’ll tell you something that helps me, though.  It’s a phrase from the Lord’s Prayer.  Now, maybe you’re thinking it’s “thy will be done”.  It’s not.  It used to be.  “Thy will be done” is where I used to go when I was looking for peace, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  If it works for you, that’s great.  But for me, there’s a different phrase that helps me when I’m trying to get God’s peace.  The phrase is “Give us this day our daily bread”.

            The reason I go there is not because I love food, although, of course, I do.  The reason I go there is that I think this phrase refers to a lot more than just food.  I think what Jesus is telling us to pray is:  “God, give me enough of everything I need for today.  Enough time.  Enough patience.  Enough energy.  Enough enthusiasm.  Enough love.  Enough joy.  Enough forgiveness.  Enough of everything.  Including, enough peace.  Give me enough for today.  And give me enough trust to believe that, when tomorrow comes, you’ll give me enough for tomorrow.

            The reason I go there is that, for me, the main reason I don’t have peace is because I worry.  And when we pray for God to give us enough of everything we need for today, and we pray for God to give us enough trust that when tomorrow comes God will give us enough of everything for tomorrow, and when we can get that prayer to really sink in, what have we done?  We’ve eliminated worry.  We’ve taken worry right out of the equation.  It’s gone.  We’re trusting God to take care of it.  What we’ve told God is that we’re willing to take it one day at a time.  If we trust God to give us enough for today, and if we trust that God will give us enough for tomorrow when tomorrow comes, what do we have to worry about?  Nothing.  And when we have nothing to worry about, we can be at peace.

            If only it was that easy, of course.  It’s not.  It’s not easy at all.  It’s something I have to pray pretty much every day.  Sometimes more than once a day.  Asking God, not to take care of all my problems forever, but to just give me enough of everything I need for today.  And again, that includes asking God to give me enough trust to believe that God will also give me enough of everything I need tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.

            Like most things, it takes time.  And it takes effort.  And I mess up and slide back sometimes.  But as I’ve kept at it every day, day after day, I have found that I have more peace in my life.  I feel like I am in more in harmony with the world and with God.  I feel like there are more days where I feel like things are going to go the way they’re supposed to go and that God will take care of things.

            So if you’re having trouble feeling peace, I’d suggest that you try it.  Every day, ask God to give you enough for today.  Enough time.  Enough patience.  Enough energy.  Enough enthusiasm.  Enough love.  Enough joy.  Enough forgiveness.  Enough of everything, including, enough peace.  And may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.

Do the Right Thing

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish Sunday, July 20, 2014.  The Bible verses used are Genesis 8:15-22 and 9:8-17.

            So we’ve come to the last week of our sermon series on Noah.  Noah has survived the flood.  He’s stayed faithful to God.  He’s saved all the animals.  And he’s given thanks to God for bringing him and his family through it all.  So what’s left?

            What’s left is God’s response.  And the way we’re told this is interesting in a couple of ways.

            First, we’re told that, when Noah gave the burnt offering to God, “the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart, ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of human beings...never again will I destroy all living creatures...As long the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’”

            Now, the way that’s written, it makes it sound like God made this decision only after Noah gave thanks to God.  It sounds like Noah’s decision to give thanks to God had an impact on God, and influenced God’s promise to never wipe out all living creatures from that day forward.

            So does that mean that, if Noah had not given thanks, God would not have made that promise?  I don’t know.  The Bible does not say that, and I’m not saying it’s true.  I do think, though, that it’s something to think about.

            As we talked last week, Noah did not give thanks to God because he wanted God to make this promise.  Noah did not know that God would make any promise at all.  Noah gave thanks to God because God deserved thanks.  Noah gave God thanks because it was the right thing to do.

            I’ll bet everyone here has had times where you did the right thing with no ulterior motive, just because it was the right thing to do.  Think about those times.  What happened as a result?  Probably sometimes nothing happened.  Probably sometimes nobody even noticed or cared.  But sometimes, I’ll bet something did happen.  In fact, I’ll bet that sometimes something really cool happened, something you never expected.  

            Because that’s the thing.  When we do the right thing with no ulterior motive, just because it’s the right thing, we never know what may happen as a result.  Maybe nothing at all will happen.  In fact, maybe nobody will even notice or care.  But maybe something really cool will happen.  It may happen right away, or it may happen sometime in the future.  We may know that it happened because of what we did, or we may never know that what we did had any impact at all.  But still, sometimes, when we do the right thing with no ulterior motive, just because it’s the right thing, something really cool will happen.

            Noah did not know what would happen if he did the right thing.  He did not know anything would happen.  And again, we don’t know that anything did, really.  We don’t know that God would not have made the same promise if Noah had not given thanks.  What we know is that Noah gave thanks, and then God made the promise.  Noah did the right thing, and something good happened.

I also find it interesting that we’re given God’s response in two parts.  First, we’re told God’s inner thoughts, which we just talked about.  Only after that are we told what God said to Noah.

What that points out, I think, is that God did not have to tell Noah about God’s decision.  God did not have to say anything to Noah.  God could’ve let Noah, and all the rest of us, wonder whether God might do this again.  God could’ve let us all wonder whether God would cause another flood or would do something else to wipe out creation if things got too far out of hand.

And think how much different our lives would be if God had done that.  Because, you know, there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the world right now.  The Middle East seems to be falling apart in about five different ways.  Eastern Europe is once more worried about Russia.  There are all kinds of terrorism threats.  It seems like the world is as divided and as dangerous now as it’s ever been.

And it seems like our country is as divided as it’s ever been, too.  Name an issue, and you’ve got people on all sides arguing about it.  And each side seems to be convinced that it has God’s truth on its side.  And each side seems to be convinced that those who don’t agree with them are not just wrong but are evil and must be defeated by whatever means necessary.  We don’t even seem able to have civil discussions about things we disagree on any more, because, after all, who’d want to have a civil discussion with someone who’s evil?  You don’t discuss things with evil, you defeat evil.  

And that’s not just happening in politics.  It’s happening in the church, too.  It’s even happening in the United Methodist Church.  Our denomination seems to be so focused on the things we disagree on that it’s getting in the way of all the good things we do.

When we see all this stuff going on, sometimes we wonder what God must think about it.  We wonder if God must not be pretty upset about some of the things that happen in the world.  We may not have reached the point we got to in Noah’s time, where Noah was the only righteous man left, but sometimes it feels like maybe we’re headed in that direction.  And if God had not told Noah about God’s promise, we might be getting worried about whether God might decide to do what he did in Noah’s time--to wipe out creation and start all over again.

But we do have God’s promise, and God did tell Noah about it.  But God did not just make the promise to Noah.  Listen to what God says, “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature on earth.”  In other words, this is not just a promise God made to Noah.  It’s not even a promise God just made to human beings.  This is a promise God made to all of creation.  And God gave us the beauty of the rainbow so that we would always be reminded of God’s promise.

Did you ever wonder why God made that decision?  And did you ever wonder why God told us about it?  Why did God not reserve the right to have another flood again, if people got too far out of hand?  And even if God did not want to reserve that right, why tell us?  Why not leave us wondering?

We don’t know, of course.  It’s certainly not because of anything we earned.  It’s certainly not because of anything we deserve.  And I really don’t think it’s because human beings, as a group, are better now than we were in Noah’s time.  Human beings are what we are, and I don’t think we’ve changed a whole lot over the years.  We may have figured a few things out, we may have made technological advances, but human nature seems to be pretty much what it’s always been.

What could the reason be?  I don’t know, and my opinion is really no better than yours, but since I’m standing up here I’ll tell you what I think.  I think God gave us that promise and told us about it because God does not want us to live our lives in fear.  And God especially does not want us to live our lives in fear of God.  God wants our love, not our fear.  And we cannot really love someone if we’re afraid of them.  So God let us know that, no matter what we do, God will never destroy creation again.  Another way of saying this, I think, is that God decided not to destroy creation again, and God decided to tell us about that decision, because it was the right thing for God to do.

Now of course, God, being God, always does the right thing.  You and I do not.  But we know that even when we do the wrong thing, even when it seems like a large part of humanity is doing the wrong thing, God will not destroy us.  God will give us another chance.  God will give us the chance to turn around, to ask for forgiveness, and help us get ourselves on the right track again.  Sometimes we do that.  Sometimes we don’t.  But as long as we’re on this earth, we always have that chance.

And when we take advantage of that chance, incredible things can happen.  When we turn around and ask for forgiveness and with God’s help get back on the right track again, incredible things can happen.  When we do the right thing with no ulterior motive, just because it’s the right thing, incredible things can happen.

Noah did the right thing.  And God did the right thing.  God made a wonderful, beautiful promise to us out of love.  So wherever we are in our lives today, let’s take advantage of that promise.  Let’s turn around, ask God for forgiveness, and ask God to help us get ourselves on the right track again.  Let’s do the right thing.  If we do, incredible things will happen.

The Power of Hope

This is the message from the Gettysburg WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service on July 16, 2014.  The Bible verses are Ephesians 3:4-21.

            Our sermon series for these summer Wednesday night services is “Three-Sixteens”, looking at Chapter Three, Verse Sixteen in various books of the New Testament.  Tonight we look at Ephesians Three, Sixteen:  “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”

            The Apostle Paul prays that God may strengthen us with power out of God’s glorious riches.  So that tells us some things right there.  For one thing, it tells us God has glorious riches.  That’s not a surprise, I suppose.  If we start from the premise that everything belongs to God, then naturally God has riches.  And if they’re God’s riches, then they’re probably glorious.  No big news so far.

            But get this:  God gives some of those glorious riches to us.  That’s amazing in all kinds of ways.

            For one thing, as we’ve talked before, God has no real reason to give us anything.  God certainly does not owe it to us to give us anything.  We don’t deserve to have God give us anything.  God is the holy, righteous, perfect God.  We tend to be unholy, self-righteous, imperfect people.  God is so far beyond anything we could ever hope to be that God has no need to take any notice of us at all.  God certainly has not need to give us anything.

            But God does.  God does give us things.  And not only does God give us things, God gives them to us out of God’s glorious riches.

            Think about what that means.  It means that God does not give to us out of God’s leftovers.  God does not give us stuff by accident.  God does not give us stuff that’s mediocre or unimportant.  God gives to us out of God’s glorious riches.  God gives to us out of the best stuff God has.

            That’s pretty incredible, you know?  God has no real reason to give us anything.  Yet, not only does God choose to give us things, God gives us out of God’s best.  Think of the love that shows.  Think of how much God must love you and me.  To not only give us things, but to give us out of the best that God has.  That’s an incredible love God has for us.

            That should make us feel really good.  And I think it does.  It does make us feel good to think about how much God loves us.  It does make us feel good to think about how God gives us out of God’s best, out of God’s glorious riches.

            But then, we step back.  And we look at our lives.  And we think, “Wait a minute.  Where’s all this good stuff God’s giving me?  Where are all those glorious riches God’s giving me?  I’ve got all kinds of problems.”  Maybe our health is bad.  Maybe we’re running out of money and have bills to pay.  Maybe we feel alone and unloved.  Maybe we feel like our life’s a mess and we have no idea what to do about it.  And we start wondering.  “What happened to all those glorious riches I was promised?  They must’ve gotten lost in the mail, because they sure did not get to me.  I’ve got two things here, diddly and squat.”

            Now, most of us understand that when Paul is talking about God giving us out of God’s glorious riches, that does not necessarily mean money.  But what does it mean?  What are these glorious riches we’re promised God will give us?  And if they don’t make our lives better, if they don’t help us with our problems, what good are they?

            Well, let’s look at what Paul says about these glorious riches.  First, he says those riches will strengthen us with power.  That sounds good.  When we have problems, power is one of the things we need.  We need to have the power to solve our problems.  And we know God has power:  lots and lots of power.  So, that sounds like a good thing:  God gives us some of God’s power.

            But what kind of power is Paul talking about.  He says it a little farther along.  What Paul is talking about, in his words, is the power “to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.”

            Okay, yeah, well, that may not be quite what we had in mind.  I mean, we know, as Christians that Jesus loves us.  And we know that if Jesus loves us, then that means God loves us, because Jesus is part of the Holy Trinity--God the Son.  And we know that love is very important to us.

            But at the same time, when we’re going through some of this stuff, that may not feel all that helpful.  Okay, God loves me, and that’s cool.  But my health is still lousy.  I still cannot pay my bills.  I’m still alone.  My life’s still a mess.  If God loves me so much, why does God not do something about some of that stuff?  In other words, what actual good is God’s love doing me?

            These are important questions.  Because love that does not do any actual good is really irrelevant, right?  I mean, we could talk all day long about loving the people of Haiti, or about loving the poor people in Africa.  Or, for that matter, we could talk all day long about loving the unchurched children of this community.  But if we don’t do anything about it, if our love does not do anything to help the people, what difference does our love make?  Remember what is says in James?  James says, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?’”

            Is that in effect what God is doing?  Is God just telling us, “I love you, go in peace” while doing nothing about our needs?

            Obviously I don’t think so.  But if that’s not what God’s doing, then what is God doing?  How does this power that comes from God’s glorious riches actually help us?

Well, let’s look at exactly how that power comes to us.  Paul says that comes to us through God’s Spirit in our inmost being.  And he says when that happens, Christ dwells in our hearts.

            Is that a big deal?  Well, again, obviously I think so.  But why?  What makes it a big deal?  Does it solve our problems?  Does it improve our health?  Does it pay our bills?

            Well, yes and no.  Obviously, the Holy Spirit is not likely to show up tomorrow with a check.  And there are plenty of good, sincere Christian believers who have cancer, or who have strokes, or who have Alzheimer’s, or who have any of a thousand other things.

            But Paul does not tell us the Holy Spirit will do those things, either.  What Paul says is that the Spirit, God’s Spirit will dwell in our inmost being.  What Paul says is that Christ will dwell in our hearts.  And the difference that makes is enormous.  Because the difference that makes is hope.

            And hope is huge.  Because hope is the thing that keeps us going.  Hope is what tells us that, no matter how bad things are right, now they won’t be like this forever.  Hope is what tells us that, no matter what we have to go through, we don’t have to go through it alone.  Paul said that hope, along with faith and love, is one of the three things that remains after everything else is gone.  Hope is what tells us that everything can be overcome.  Even death can be overcome through faith in Jesus Christ.

            Hope may not solve all our problems, but it helps us look at them in a completely different way.  Hope is what tells us that even when we struggle to pay our bills, we still have tremendous worth as human beings, as God’s children.  Hope is what tells us that we are not alone, that there are people who love us if we just go out and find them.  Hope is what tells us that even though our life is a mess, God can still bless that mess and turn it into something beautiful.  And hope is what tells us that even cancer, even a stroke, even Alzheimer’s, cannot defeat us.  It can take away our mind, our health, even our life, but it cannot take away our soul.  Our soul, our hearts, our inmost being, belong to God.  And they always will.

            Of all God’s creatures, human beings are the only ones to whom God has given the gift of hope.  It is one of God’s most glorious riches.  A dog, or a cat, or a bird, cannot hope for a better life.  All it knows is the life it has.  A dog, or a cat, or a bird, does not have a feeling of self-worth.  It cannot have faith that God will bless its life.  And it cannot feel God’s Spirit in its inmost being.  That’s a gift that reserved for human beings, for you and for me.

            Out of God’s glorious riches, God gives us the power to hope.  That power comes from God’s Spirit entering our inmost being.  It comes from Christ dwelling in our hearts.  So let’s open our hearts.  Let’s let God’s Spirit enter our inmost being.  And let’s feel the power of hope that is given to us from the glorious riches of the all-powerful, almighty God.

Every Step of the Way

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish Sunday, July 13, 2014.  The Bible verses are Genesis 8:6-20.

            In our sermon series about Noah, we talked last week about how depressing it must have been for Noah while he was on the ark.  Nothing to do but take care of the animals and wait for the rain to stop.  Then nothing to do but take care of the animals and wait for the water to go down.  Day after day, week after week, month after month, nothing to do but take care of the animals and wait.

            We did not talk about what Noah might have been doing while he was waiting.  You think he might have been praying?  I sure do.  For one thing, we’re told that Noah was a righteous man who walked faithfully with God, so praying sounds like something he’d probably have done.  There’s more to it than that, though.  

I think Noah was praying because that’s the sort of thing we human beings tend to do when things are not going well for us.  We pray.  We pray a lot.  We pray, God, where are you?  Why are you not doing something to help me?  You must see what I’m going through here.  You must know what’s going on.  Why don’t you do something about it?  What are you waiting for?  And the longer our bad situation lasts, the more desperate our prayers get.  We pray more often.  We pray longer.  We keep asking God what’s going on.  We keep asking why God is not acting.

And then, finally, God does act.  God acts, and our situation finally changes.  We get out of our situation and into a new one.  As we said last week, life can begin again.

And when that happens, what do we do?  Well, we get on with our lives.  And that’s okay--in fact, to an extent it’s a good thing, it’s what we need to do--but too often, what do we leave behind?  God.  We stop praying.  The bad situation is over, so we feel like we don’t need to pray any more.  We were so desperate for God to do something, but then after God does it, we just kind of go, “Oh, okay, good.  About time.”  And we move forward, leaving God behind us.

That’s not what Noah did.  Look at what Genesis says.  The water finally recedes.  God tells Noah he can come out of the ark.  He does, along with his family and all the animals and birds and everything.  And then, we’re told, “Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.”  

In other words, as soon as Noah got everyone off the ark, the first thing he did was give thanks to God.  Noah did not leave God behind.  Noah kept God with him.  Noah’s life was going to begin again, and Noah wanted to make sure God would be part of this new life he was going to have.

Now, God had a response to Noah’s thanks, and we’re going to talk about that next week.  I don’t want to talk about it today because God’s response in not the point, at least not today.  We don’t thank God so God will give us a specific response.  Noah did not know what God’s response would be to the offering he gave.  I mean, I’m sure Noah thought and hoped God would be pleased, but he did not know what, specifically God would do in response to him.

In fact, Noah did not know that God would do anything in response.  God was certainly not obligated to.  We don’t thank God because we want God to do something in return.  We thank God because it’s the right thing to do.

And we know that.  I suspect pretty much everyone here would agree with that.  But still, a lot of time, that’s knowledge does not sink in.  I think there are a lot of times we pray in an attempt to try to manipulate God.  We think that if we pray in a certain way, if we use certain words, if we pray at certain times, we can get God to do things for us.  

We’d never say it that way, of course.  And we know better.  We know that’s not really how it works, that we cannot manipulate God in this way.  And we probably don’t even realize that’s what we’re trying to do sometimes.  But we still do it.  And I do it, too.

The thing is that, too often, we think of God as being like us.  That’s not entirely our fault.  After all, human beings are our only real frame of reference.  God is so far beyond us that we cannot even really imagine what God is like.  But we have to imagine God somehow, so we imagine God as similar to ourselves, as similar to human beings, just to give ourselves a way to wrap our minds around who God is.

The disciples had the same problem.  They had Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, right there with them.  And they knew that.  They knew who Jesus was, or at least they said they did.  But still, he looked like a human being, and he walked like a human being, and he sounded like a human being, so they’d always make the mistake of thinking of him as a human being.  A really good human being, a really smart human being, Teacher, Rabbi, and all that, but still, a human being.

That’s why whenever Jesus did a miracle, the disciples would be standing there with their mouths hanging open.  They’d be going “Good grief, who is this?  How’d he do that?”  Because even though they claimed to know who Jesus was, they just could not understand or deal with the reality of it.  And it would happen every single time.  Jesus would drive out demons or calm a storm or something, and the disciples would say, “What the what?  What just happened here?  Who is this guy anyway?”  They thought they knew better, they thought they knew who Jesus was, but they still could not wrap their minds around the fact that this really was Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, standing there in front of them.

And because we tend to imagine that God is similar to human beings, similar to ourselves, we sometimes tend to treat God that way, too.  We claim to know who Jesus is, but we cannot really understand or deal with the reality of it.  Instead, we start expecting God to react to us the way we’d expect a human being to react to us.  We think, well, if I do this, God will do that.  If I do something good for God, God will do something good for me.  If I thank God when God does something nice for me, that’ll make God feel good and God is more likely to do more nice things for me.

Again, a lot of times we’re probably not even aware that we’re doing this.  And it’s not that doing it makes us horrible, evil people or anything.  It makes us human, that’s all.  And God understands that we’re human.

But at the same time, God asks us to be more than human.  God asks us to go beyond ourselves.  God asks us to go beyond our natural human instincts.  The Apostle Paul said that we are to be “imitators of God”.  In other words, we’re not supposed to try to make God be more like us.  We’re supposed to try to make ourselves be more like God.

One of the ways we do that is to make sure God is always a part of our lives.  And that brings us back to Noah.  When Noah got himself and everybody else off the ark, the first thing Noah did was thank God.  That was not because Noah wanted God to do something for him.  It was because Noah knew the only way he had survived the flood, and the only way he would survive the new life he was going to start, was if God was with him every step of the way.  He was not asking for anything in particular.  All he wanted, all he hoped for, was what the disciples had when Jesus was with them.  Noah wanted Emmanuel.  He wanted God with him.  God had been with him in all the long days and weeks and months on the ark.  But Noah knew he still needed God to be with him in the days and weeks and months to come.

And so do we.  Maybe some of us feel like we’re still on the ark, waiting for things to get better and wondering if they will.  Maybe some of us feel like we’ve survived the storm, and we’re ready to start our new life.  Maybe some of us feel like we’re just getting on the ark, like the storm is just about to hit, and wondering how or if we’re going to get through it.

No matter where we are, we still need God.  We need God every step of the way.  We need God when we’re just getting on the ark, when the storm is just about to hit.  We need God while we’re on the ark, waiting for things to get better.  And after things do get better, after we’ve survived the storm and are ready to move on to our new life, we still need God.  We need God to be with us each and every step of the way.

The first thing Noah did after he got off the ark was thank God.  When we survive the storms of our lives, the first thing we need to do is thank God, too.  Not because we expect God to do something in return.  Because we need God with us every step of the way.

God Remembers You

This is the message given in the United Methodist Churches of the Wheatland Parish Sunday, July 6, 2014.  The Bible verses used are Genesis 7:17--8:9.

            You’ve probably heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Maybe some of us even have it.  It’s called SAD for short.  It’s something that affects people’s moods, and it can be serious.  Sometimes it affects people in the summer, but usually it comes in the winter.  

In the winter, of course, we have really short days.  Not much sunlight.  Not only is the sun not up for very long, but we tend to have a lot of grey, cloudy days where we cannot see the sun even when it is up.  That affects most people to a certain extent.  Very few of us like it.  But for some, it can cause a real and serious depression.

I bring that up because, as we think about the story of Noah, we don’t often think very often about all those days he spent in the ark.  So, try to imagine you’re Noah.  You go into the ark, you and your family and all these animals and birds and such.  And it starts raining.  And it keeps raining.  And it keeps raining.  Maybe sometimes it rains harder and sometimes it rains more lightly.  Maybe sometimes it’s a total downpour, other times a moderate rain, maybe sometimes it even slacks off to a misty drizzle.  But it keeps raining.

It rains forty days and forty nights.  Now, Noah knew it was going to--God had told him so--but still, day after day after day of rain.  And we don’t really know whether forty was an exact figure.  Some say that was an expression that was used back then for an unspecified amount of time, sort of like the way we use a phrase like “a few weeks”.  We know more or less what that is, but we don’t know exactly.  So Noah may not have known exactly when the rain was going to stop.

Think how depressing that would be.  To have it rain, and keep raining, and keep raining.  Not knowing when it would stop.  Stuck on this boat.  No one to talk to except your wife, your three sons, and your sons’ wives.  Seven people to talk to.  Seven people who probably are not in all that good of a mood, any more than you are.  Seven people who cannot do a thing to change your situation.  You could go to the top deck and get some fresh air, and you’d probably need to after a while after being stuck below with all those animals, but it’s damp, humid air, because all it does is rain.

You think about what’s happened to the earth.  All your friends:  gone.  Your home town:  gone.  Your house:  gone.  All your family, except those seven people on the boat:  gone.  Your livestock:  gone.  All the hills, the trees, the grass, even the rocks:  gone, washed away in the flood.  Everything you had, everything you’d worked for, everything you enjoyed about your life, other than your family, gone.  Nothing left.

You talk about a Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Noah must’ve had it in spades.  That’d be an incredibly hard thing to deal with.  I start to get depressed if we get bad weather that lasts a couple of days.  This is bad weather for over a month.  And it wiped out absolutely everything.

And then, eventually it stops raining.  The sun comes out.  And you cheer up a little.  Except--you go to the top deck, and you look out, and all you can see is water.  No land anywhere.  Not even a hint that there might be land anywhere.  The entire earth is flooded.

And you have no idea how long the flood might last, either.  In fact, you don’t know that it’s ever going to end.  God told Noah that it was going to rain for forty days and forty nights, and that the earth was going to be flooded.  He told Noah to save at least two of every kind of animal and every kind of bird.  But God did not tell Noah that the water would recede eventually.  Maybe Noah assumed that, but maybe not.  And even if Noah did assume it at first, when time went by, day after day, week after week, month after month, Noah must have started to wonder.  “Am I ever going to get off this boat?  Am I ever going to set foot on dry land again?  Or is this it?  Is this how I’m going to spend the rest of my life, stuck on this ark, taking care of these animals?”

            I think most of us, maybe all of us, have times when we can relate to how Noah must have felt.  Because most of us have times in our lives when we’re in a situation we don’t want to be in.  It feels like bad things are happening, and we don’t know when they’re going to stop.  We feel like we’re stuck.  We feel like we don’t even have anyone to talk to, no one who’ll understand, anyway.  No one who’ll be able to help.  And we feel like we’re losing everything we had, everything we worked for.  We feel like we’ve even lost our friends and our family.

            And we fell like we don’t know how long things are going to go on like this.  In fact, we don’t know if it’ll ever end.  We wonder if things will ever get better.  Or maybe this is it.  Maybe this is how it’s going to be the rest of our lives, stuck where we are, in a situation we don’t want to be in, with no chance of anything changing.

            I’ll bet a lot of us have been there.  I’ve been there.  But here’s the point.  When Noah was feeling this way, what happened next?  The Bible describes it in four words.  It says, at the beginning of Genesis Chapter Eight, “But God remembered Noah”.

            God remembered Noah.  Now that does not mean God ever forgot about Noah, of course.  In fact, it means the exact opposite.  It means God was with Noah all the time.  God was with Noah when Noah was building the ark.  God was with Noah when Noah loaded the animals into the ark.  God was with Noah when Noah and his family went into the ark.  God was with Noah while it was raining.  God was with Noah whether it was a drizzle or a downpour.  God was with Noah when the rain stopped.  God was with Noah even when Noah was depressed.  God was with Noah even when Noah did not feel God there with him.

            And that’s not all.  God not only was with Noah, God did something about Noah’s situation.  It did not happen right away, but it did happen.  God sent a wind to dry up the water.  Eventually the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  Then the tops of the mountains became visible.  Eventually, Noah sent out a dove.  The first time it did not find dry land, but the second time it did.  And eventually Noah and his family were able to leave the ark and go out onto the land.  God brought Noah through the storm.  And Noah’s life could begin again.

            When you and I feel like life has become overwhelming, when we feel like we’re stuck in a bad situation and there’s no one who can help and there’s no chance of anything changing, think about this story.  God remembered Noah.  And God will remember you.  And God will remember me.  God has never forgotten us.  God is with us all the time.  God is with us when it starts raining in our souls, whether that rain is a drizzle or a downpour.  God is with us when we’re depressed.  God is with us even when we don’t feel God there with us.

            And just as God did for Noah, God will do something about our situation.  It may not happen right away, but it will happen.  Eventually the downpour we feel like we’re in will stop.  Eventually the sun will shine again.  The floodwaters will recede from our lives.  It may happen slowly.  At first, we may just get some stability and rest.  Then, some hope becomes visible.  Then, we take a few tentative steps and find out that the situation really has changed.  We’re able to leave our situation and go on to a new one.  God will bring us through the storm.  And our lives can begin again.

            If you get nothing else out of this sermon series about Noah, I hope you’ll get that.  That no matter how depressed you feel, no matter how bad things seem, you should not give up, because your situation is not hopeless.  God is there, and God is hope.

            When Noah was at what must have been his lowest point, God remembered him.  When you and I are at our lowest point, God remembers us.  God remembers, and God acts.  God makes the storms of our lives come to an end.  God blows away whatever it is that’s overwhelmed us.  God makes the bad situation go away and puts us in a new situation, a situation with endless possibilities.

            God saw to it that Noah survived the storm and got a new life.  God will see to it that you and I can survive the storms of our lives and get new lives, too.