Summertime Faith

So, we’re kind of in the middle of summer now.  We relax a little bit in the summertime.  It feels like life slows down a little bit.  The life of the church slows down a little bit, too.  We don’t have a lot of our activities.  Sunday school and Faith Builders take a break for the summer.  Youth groups do, too.  So does the church choir.  Things just take on a little slower pace in the summer.

That’s okay.  We all need to have a little bit of a break once in a while.  The thing is, though, that we’re not allowed to take a break from being a Christian.  We’re not allowed to take a break from our faith.  Our lives need to be just as dedicated to Christ in the summer as they are at other times of the year. 

I don’t see anything in the Bible that says we get to take a summer vacation from doing the things Jesus told us to do.  That includes loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind.  It includes loving our neighbor as ourselves.  It includes going and making disciples of Jesus Christ.  None of those things changes just because it’s summer.

So how do we stay dedicated to Christ?  Well, some of the answers are obvious.  Keep praying.  Keep reading the Bible.  Keep attending worship services.  If you’re out of town, attend a worship service where you are.  Do what you can to stay close to God.

But when we pray, I think we need to pray in a specific way.  Pray that God will help you stay alert.  Pray that God will help you keep your eyes open.  Pray that God will help you see the chances God gives you to show love to God and love to others.  Pray that God will help you see the chances God gives you to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

It’s easy enough to miss those chances under the best conditions.  I know--I do it all the time.  But it’s even easier to miss them when we relax.  We can just kind of put our minds on cruise control and not see the people around us.  We can totally miss times when people need us, when they’re reaching out to us for help.  We don’t mean to do it.  We just aren’t paying attention.  And so we miss chances to serve God and to change people’s lives.

So don’t let summer lull you into missing those chances!  Relax, but still pay attention.  God puts all kinds of chances to serve in front of us every day.  Let’s see those chances, and let’s make the most of them.  Let’s be just as dedicated to the Lord in the summer as we are the rest of the year.

Being There

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 25, 2017.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 17:1-13.

            Through this sermon series, looking at the earthly life of Jesus, we’ve seen Jesus have a lot of ups and downs.  He’s had some very high highs and some very low lows.  He’s had times when everyone loved him and times when everyone was out to get him.  And, of course, he’s had everything in between.

            So now, Jesus is about two and a half years into his ministry.  He’s not at the end yet, but as the saying goes, he can see it from there.  I mean, he knew it from the beginning.  But it’s one thing to know something’s coming when it’s still a long way off, and it’s another thing to know that it’s coming up pretty soon, within a matter of months.  Jesus knows that betrayal and a very painful death are coming, and it’s not all that far away.

It must have been on his mind.  We know that because, right before this, Jesus told the disciples about it.  In the section of the Bible right before this, we read, “From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

            Jesus was trying to get the disciples ready for what was going to happen.  But I wonder if maybe he was trying to get himself ready, too.  After all, this was a really hard thing Jesus was going to do.  Can you imagine knowing something like this was going to happen to you, and not being able to tell anyone about it?  That would be a terrible burden to carry.  It would make a hard thing even harder.

            When we have something on our minds and in our hearts, when we’re facing a hard thing, we all need someone to talk to.  Even Jesus needed someone to talk to.  That’s why we emphasize the need for all of us to be there for people who feel alone.  Some things are just too heavy for us to carry by ourselves.  We need to have someone to help us carry the load.  And we need to help other people carry their loads.

            That’s true even if there’s nothing we can do about the situation.  There was nothing the disciples could do about Jesus’ situation.  Jesus did not expect them to do anything.  In fact, he did not want them to do anything.  Jesus knew it had to be this way.  You may remember, when Jesus says this, Peter responds, “Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!”  And Jesus turns on Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me.”

            Jesus did not want the disciples to do anything.  He just wanted them to listen.  He just needed someone to talk to, someone to help him carry the load for a little while.  We all need someone to talk to, someone to help us carry the load for a little while.  We need to look around us, so we can see people who need our help, people who need help carrying the load, and we need to be there for them. 

And when we’re the ones who need help carrying our loads, we need to open up and let people know that, so they can help us.  Jesus opened up to the disciples.  We need to open up to each other.  Life is too hard for us to go through by ourselves.  Life was even too hard for Jesus to go through by himself.  If life was too hard for Jesus to go through by himself, you and I should not expect to be able to go through life by ourselves, either.

Jesus opened up to the disciples.  And I’m sure they did their best to be there for him.  They did their best to understand.  But of course they did not understand.  And probably, they could not understand.  No matter how hard they may have wanted to understand, they were limited by their perspective as first century human beings.  It’s like the other thing Jesus said to Peter:  “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

That sounds like a criticism, but at the same time, can you really blame Peter?  Sure he had human concerns in mind.  He was human.  Human concerns were going to be what he had in mind.

For that matter, what concerns do you and I have in mind?  Human concerns, right?  We wonder if we’ll get enough rain.  We wonder if we’ll have enough time to get done all the things we want to get done.  We wonder if our money will go far enough.  We wonder about our children, or our grandchildren.  We wonder what the world will be like when they grow up.  We wonder about the world now, for that matter.  These and a hundred other concerns go through our minds every day.

Human concerns.  No matter how hard we try to open ourselves up to God’s Holy Spirit, no matter how hard we try to let the Lord lead us and guide us, we always seem to get dragged back into these human concerns.  It was like that for Peter, and it’s like that for you and me.

So it’s six days later.  Jesus goes up on a high mountain.  He takes Peter, James, and John with him.  And suddenly, Jesus changes.  He is “transfigured”, as the Bible says.  “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.  Just then, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”

At this point, the story shifts to tell us the disciples’ reaction.  They’re stunned, as you and I probably would be.  They’re shocked, they’re startled, they’re surprised.  They’re also terrified.  They fall face down to the ground until the whole thing is over.

In a way, though, it’s kind of disappointing that the story shifts to the disciples like that.  I mean, I’m not second-guessing the Bible.  It tells us everything we need to know.  It’s just that it does not always tell us everything we’d like to know.  I’d love to know what Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus about.  Wouldn’t you?  We don’t know if the disciples could hear them or not.  They may have been too out of it to notice at this point.

But whatever it was, I would sure think it had to help Jesus.  Because Moses and Elijah would not have had their minds filled with human concerns.  Maybe they did while they were on earth, but not any more.  They came from heaven.  They’d have had in mind the concerns of God.  That means that Moses and Elijah could be there for Jesus in a way that the disciples could not, no matter how hard they tried.  Moses and Elijah could understand Jesus in a way that the disciples could not, no matter how hard they tried.  

Now, don’t misunderstand.  Moses and Elijah were still not like Jesus.  There’s only one divine Son of God.  Jesus is part of the trinity.  He’s God the Son.  Moses and Elijah, great as they were, are not part of the trinity.  They are not God.  But still, as great prophets who were now in heaven, they could see things from a perspective that Peter and the other disciples could not see.  They could understand things that Peter and the other disciples could not understand.  And that had to be a great help to Jesus, to be able to talk to people who could better understand what was happening and what he was going through.

And then, of course, we have the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!”  And again, the story shifts to the disciples’ reaction, but that had to be a pretty great thing for Jesus to hear, too.  Even if he believed it before, even if he was confident that he was doing what God the Father wanted him to do, it still had to make Jesus feel better to actually hear those words and know that Peter, James, and John had heard them, too.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he said that it was to love God.  He could’ve just stopped there.  If he had, probably everyone would’ve agreed with him.  But Jesus did not stop there.  He went on to say that there’s another commandment that’s just as important.  Just as important as loving God is loving other people.

We all need someone.  We all need each other.  We know that, and yet--so often we don’t see the needs of others.  We don’t mean to not see them.  We just get focused on what we’re doing.  We get focused on our own stuff.  We get so focused that we can walk right past someone who’s hurting and needs us.  I know.  I’ve done it many times.

We all need someone.  We all need each other.  We know that, and yet--so often we’re afraid to reach out to someone when we need them.  We think we should be able to handle it ourselves.  We think it makes us look weak if we admit we cannot.  We think other people have their own problems.  We think no one probably cares anyway.  I know.  I’ve done that, too.

We all need someone.  We all need each other.  Even Jesus needed someone.  Jesus was there for lots of people, but there were times when Jesus needed people to be there for him, too.  That’s how it is for us.  We can be there for lots of people, but there are times we need people to be there for us, too.

It’s best if we can really see things from someone else’s perspective, and really understand.  But even if we cannot do that, we can still be there for someone.  We can listen.  We can try to understand.  And when we cannot understand, we can still be there and show love.  Jesus needed that.  So do you.  And so do I.

Dear Parents

            This post is aimed at a specific group of people.  It’s aimed at parents who have children at home, and who believe in God, but who don’t come to church very often.

            First, let me say that I understand.  You lead busy lives.  There are a lot of demands on your time.  A lot of times you’re working five days a week or more.  If you’re not working on Saturday, you’re running around trying to get things done.  Or, you’re taking kids to some sports tournament or other weekend event.  Or, there’s a big concert you want to go to.  When Sunday comes, you want to relax.  You want to go to the river, or play golf, or get some work done around the house, or just sleep in and rest.

            I understand that.  After all, I spent a lot of years as a member of a congregation before I became a pastor.  I’m not upset with you for this.  I don’t think God’s upset with you for it, either.

            But here’s the thing.  Your kids are learning from you all the time.  Sometimes, they learn when you’re actually trying to teach them.  More often, they learn from watching you.  They see what’s important to you.  They see what you value.  They see what you think is worth your time, and they see what you don’t think is worth your time, too.  And the things that are important to you become important to them.  The things you value become the things they value.  The things that you think are worth your time become things they think are worth their time.  The things you don’t think are worth their time become things they don’t think are worth their time, too.

            So if they see you taking the family to the river for the weekend, they understand that going to the river is important.  If they see you taking them to a sports tournament on the weekend, they understand that sports are valuable.  When they see you go to a concert in Sioux Falls, whether you take them or not, they understand that going to concerts is something that’s worth the time it takes.

           

            And when they see you taking them to church only once every six weeks or so, maybe less, they understand that going to church is not something that’s very important.  It’s not something that has much value.  It’s not something that’s really worth the time it takes.  It’s certainly not as important as those other things.  At best, it’s something that we might do once in a while, when it’s convenient, when we can’t find anything better to do.

            If that’s what your kids see, that’s what they’ll come to believe--that church is not very important.  And it’s a very short step from there to believing that faith in God is not very important, either.  It’s certainly not important enough to let it affect our lives in any significant way.

            Maybe you’re okay with having your kids believe that.  But I really don’t think most of you are.  I think you just never really thought about it in this way.  I think you never really thought about what message your children might be getting.

            Again, I’m not upset with you for this.  I don’t think God is upset with you for it, either.  But I do want you to think about it.  In fact, I’d like you to pray about it.  I’d like you to really think about what message your kids are getting about the importance of Christian faith, and whether that’s the message you want them to get.

            If it is, then fine.  But if it’s not, then I’d ask you to do something about that, something that lets your kids know that church is important.  If you’re out of town, or at the river, find a church near where you are and worship there.  If it would help for us to offer a mid-week worship service, let us know that--if there’s interest, we’d be happy to put one together.  And when you are in town on Sunday, take the time to come to church, even if it’s not always convenient.  Your kids will see that church is important to you, and it will become important to them, too.

I know your kids are important to you.  I know your Christian faith is important to you, too.  If kids don’t have faith as an important part of their lives when they’re young, they’re a lot less likely to have faith as an important part of their lives when they’re older.  So please, think about this.  Pray about it.  After all, your kids are not going to stay young forever.

Filling the Hole

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 18, 2017.  The Bible verses used are John 6:53-69.

            Our reading for today picks up on our reading from two weeks ago, the last time I preached, so we’re going to start with a quick review of what we talked about then.  Jesus said that the way to eternal life is through belief in him. That was not a popular thing for him to say at the time.  It got Jesus into a lot of trouble with the Pharisees to say that he was the divine son and that belief in him was the way to eternal life.

            It still can get us into trouble to say that.  For one thing, it can sound arrogant or judgmental to say that.  It can sound like we think we’re better than everyone else when we say that belief in Jesus is the way to eternal life.  It is, as some of the disciples said, a hard teaching.

            It’s a hard teaching for another reason, too.  A lot of us--probably most of us--know people who don’t believe in Jesus as their Savior.  Some of them are in our families.  Some of them are our friends.  We don’t like to think of them not having eternal life.  That’s especially true if we think of them as good people, people who treat others well, and try to help others and mind their own business otherwise.  We’d like to say that if you’re a good person, that’s good enough.  We don’t want to think of people like that, people we care about, not having eternal life.

            That’s what makes this a hard teaching.  We want to come up with a way around this, but Jesus did not give us one.  We either accept what Jesus said or we don’t.  We either accept that Jesus is the way to eternal life or we don’t.  Those are the only choices we get.

            As you heard, many people in Jesus’ time chose not to accept it.  Verse sixty-six says, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”  Now, understand, when it says “many of his disciples”, we’re not talking about the twelve.  We’re not talking about Peter and James and John and the rest.  They were still there, but by this time Jesus had a lot of other people following him, too.  There was a crowd of people around Jesus a lot of the time by this point.  And when Jesus said this about how he was the way to eternal life, many of them turned away from him.  

            The Twelve were still there.  But they were not saying much.  Finally, Jesus asks them, “You do not want to leave, too, do you?”  And Peter responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

            “Lord, to whom shall we go?”  Or, Peter could also have said, “To what shall we go?”  And that’s what I want to talk about for the rest of this message.

            Everybody, every human being, is looking for something.  We want something to give our life meaning.  We want something to give our life purpose.  We want something to be passionate about, to be enthusiastic about.  It’s like we’ve got this hole in our lives, in our hearts, in our souls, and we’re looking for something, anything that will fill that hole.

            We look for that in all kinds of things.  Some of them can be destructive or harmful, to ourselves and others.  Things like drugs or alcohol or sexual encounters or material goods or all kinds of other things.  We sometimes look to things like that to fill the hole in our lives.

Sometimes, but not always.  In fact, a lot of times, we look to good things, or at least neutral things, to fill it.  Because again, what we’re looking for is something that will give our lives meaning and purpose.  And so we look to fill that hole in ways we think might do that.

Sometimes we look to our work to fill that hole.  Sometimes we look to caring for our family.  Sometimes we look to a hobby that we really like.  Sometimes we look to volunteering in our community or even at the church.  We’re hoping that, through those things, we can find meaning and purpose in our lives.  We’re hoping that, somehow, if we do enough of those things, that hole in our lives, in our hearts, in our souls, will somehow be filled.

Have you done that?  I have.  I’ve used all kinds of things to try to fill that hole.  Music.  Baseball.  Years ago, when I lived in Pierre, I used the Pierre Players theater group to try to fill that hole in my life.  There are other things, too.  And I suspect that, if you think about it, you can think of things you’ve used to fill that hole, too.

But none of those things ever quite work, do they?  They help.  They make us feel better, for a while.  But they never quite fill that hole.  Because that hole is a God-shaped hole.  And the only thing that can really, finally fill the hole is God, through belief in the divine Son Jesus Christ.

And so, we come back to the question Peter asked, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”  We come back to that because we’ve tried going other places.  We’ve tried going to other things.  We’ve tried going to other people.  And none of them worked.  Again, that’s not to say that those other places, other things, other people we went to were bad.  They may have been good.  But they were not sufficient.  They were not enough.  They could not fill the hole.  They were the wrong size and the wrong shape.  The only things that can fill the hole are the word of God and the love of God.  The only thing that can truly, adequately, completely fill the hole is faith in Jesus Christ.  Nothing else.

That’s why it’s not enough just to be a good person.  Don’t get me wrong, we should try to be good people.  But it’s not enough.  Jesus calls us to more than that.  Our Christian faith calls us to more than that.

There’s a quote that was floating around facebook for a while.  You still see it sometimes.  It’s often attributed to the rapper Eminem, although it seems to be unclear whether it originated with him.  Anyway, what it says is, “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.”

I’ve seen a lot of people post that.  And it sounds good.  It’s something a good person would say, right?  Those are not bad words.  But they’re not enough.  They are not the words of eternal life.

Jesus has the words of eternal life.  Jesus’ words did not say “if you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”  Jesus said we get no credit for that whatsoever.  Jesus said, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.”

Here’s what Jesus said.  Jesus said love your enemies.  Jesus said do good to those who hate you.  Jesus said bless those who curse you.  Jesus said pray for those who mistreat you.  There’s no “if you’re nice to me I’ll be nice to you” there.  Jesus says if you hate me, I’ll still love you.  Jesus said if you curse me, I’ll still be nice to you.  And Jesus told us to do that same thing.  Those are the words of eternal life.

And when we hear those words, a lot of us say the same thing people said in our Bible reading for today.  “This is a hard teaching.  Who can accept it?”  A lot of Jesus’ teachings are hard teachings.  We feel like we cannot do them.  We feel like we really don’t want to do them.  We don’t want to accept them.  And on hearing them, a lot of us are tempted to turn back and no longer follow Jesus.

But when we’re tempted to turn back, we’re again faced with the same problem Peter was faced with.  We still have that God-shaped hole in our lives.  And there’s nothing else we can fill it with.  We’ve tried and we’ve failed.  And no matter how tempting it is to try again we know, deep down, that we’ll fail again.  And so we say, as Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus gives us a lot of hard teachings.  We struggle with them sometimes.  We struggle with doing what Jesus told us to do.  And sometimes we fail.  And sometimes we’re tempted to give up.  

Don’t give up.  Yes, you’ll struggle sometimes, and yes, you’ll fail sometimes.  I struggle and fail, too.  But don’t give up.  Because, just like Peter, we have come to believe and to know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.  Faith in him is the only thing that will fill that God-shaped hole.  Because he, and no one else, has the words of eternal life.

Moving Past the Scars

Recently, I was thinking about the story of Doubting Thomas.  You remember the story, right?  Jesus had risen from the dead, and had appeared to the disciples, but Thomas was not with them.  The disciples told Thomas they’d seen Jesus, but Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  So later, Jesus appeared to the disciples again, and this time Thomas was there.  He shows Thomas his hands and his side, and Thomas believes.

The story is presented as one of belief in the risen Jesus.  Jesus wanted Thomas to believe, of course.  But we’re told that, when Jesus appeared to the other disciples, he showed them his hands and his side, too.  In other words, Jesus showed the marks in his hands and his side to all the disciples, not just Thomas.

And that got me wondering if there could be more to the story than what we originally think.  Maybe there was an additional reason Jesus showed the disciples his hands and his side.  Maybe what Jesus was telling the disciples was this:  “Look, I conquered death, but I still went through the pain of it.  I was betrayed, and that hurt.  I had nails put into my hands, and that hurt.  That pain was real.  It had to be this way, and I forgive everyone for it, but it still hurt.  I still have the scars, and the scars aren’t going away.”

Some of you have felt a lot of pain in your lives.  You’ve felt physical pain.  You’ve felt emotional pain.  You’ve felt the pain of betrayal.  Some of you are feeling some or all of those types of pain right now.  That pain is real, and it hurts.  Physical pain is real, and it hurts.  Emotional pain is real, and it hurts.  The pain of betrayal is real, and it hurts.  And even when it’s done, even if you forgive people for it, you still have the scars.  The scars are real, and the scars aren’t going away.

One of the many things the story of Jesus tells us is that Jesus understands pain.  Jesus knows exactly what it feels like.  Whether we’re talking about physical pain, or emotional pain, or even the pain of betrayal, Jesus knows exactly what it feels like.  He knows how much it hurts.  And he knows that all of that pain leaves scars.  He knows those scars never completely go away.

Jesus felt the pain, and he had the scars.  And yet, he was able to forgive all the people who had given him that pain.  He was able to forgive all the people who betrayed him.  The scars were still there, but Jesus was able to move past them.  If he had not done that, would he really have conquered death?  I don’t know, but I suspect not.  He would still have been living in the pain, rather than moving on to rise from the dead and live in love and peace.

That’s what you and I need to do, too.  We need to forgive those who’ve given us pain.  We need to forgive the people who have betrayed us.  Is it easy?  Absolutely not.  It’s hard.  It was probably hard for Jesus, too.  Betrayal, especially, is one of the hardest things in the world to forgive.  Betrayal means being hurt by someone close to you, someone you trusted, someone you completely opened up to, someone you believed in.  It’s really hard to forgive that.

But we need to.  Because forgiveness is the only way we can move past the pain.  It’s the only way we can move past the scars.  Until we forgive, we’re still living in pain, rather than moving on to rise past it and live in love and peace.

If you’re still dealing with the scars, Jesus understands.  But Jesus wants you to forgive.  And he’ll help you forgive, if you ask him to.  You can talk to me, too, of course, and I’ll provide any help I can.  But ultimately, it’s something you’ll have to do with the help of Jesus.  And you can, because all things are possible with God.

The influence of scars is strong.  But Jesus is stronger.  Trust in his power.  Then, you’ll be able to move past your scars.  You’ll be able to live in love and peace.

The Way to Eternal Life

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 4, 2017.  The Bible verses used are John 6:35-58.

            Let’s look at some of the statements Jesus made in our Bible reading for today.  “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.”  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  “Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

            Those words from Jesus seem to make it pretty clear.  Jesus said that belief in him is the way to eternal life.  And Jesus made other statements that are similar.  At John Fourteen, Six Jesus says “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  In the third chapter of John, Jesus says, “The Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him...Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

            If we believe that the words of Jesus are true, there does not seem to be any way around this.  Jesus said, quite plainly, that the only way to eternal life is through belief in him.  There’s no hesitation about it.  There’s no equivocation about it.  Jesus does not leave wiggle room there.  We can choose to believe Jesus’ words, or we can choose not to believe them, but we cannot be honest about it and not recognize what Jesus said.  Jesus said that the only way to eternal life is through him.

            As you heard, that was not a popular statement in Jesus’ time.  It’s not a popular statement today, either.  We’re not supposed to make black-and-white statements like that.  We’re supposed to see shades of grey.  We’re supposed to tolerate other points of view.  That’s especially true when it comes to religion.  We’re supposed to believe that all faiths are equal.  We’re supposed to believe that all roads lead to heaven.  We’re not even supposed to say that Christianity is superior to other religions, much less that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life.

            That’s true even among Christians.  A lot of us are uncomfortable saying that Christianity is the only way to eternal life.  And I can understand why.  It’s a statement that sounds kind of arrogant, right?  And arrogance is supposed to be a sin, right?  Who do we think we are, that we think we have the only way to eternal life?  

Not only that, but saying that Christianity is the only way to eternal life sounds pretty judgmental.  What makes us think we have the right to judge people?  We’re supposed to leave judgment up to God.  Who do we think we are, that we think we can judge other people’s faith, or lack of faith, like that?

But here’s the thing.  What I think about this really does not make any difference.  What I say about this really does not make any difference.  I’m not the one who’s saying Christianity is the way to eternal life.  I’m not judging other people’s faith, or the lack of it.  I’m reading the words of Jesus.  I’m reading what Jesus said.  Again, we can choose to believe those words, or we can choose not to believe them.  But we cannot be honest and pretend Jesus did not say them.  And we cannot be honest and pretend Jesus did not really mean them.  

The words of Jesus are quite clear.  Jesus did not say that all faiths are equal.  Jesus did not say that all roads lead to heaven.  Jesus said the way to eternal life is through him.  And if we’re going to be honest, we have to deal with that statement.

Again, I understand why it makes people uncomfortable.  It makes me uncomfortable, if you want to know the truth.  I know people who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior.  I’m sure some of you do, too.  Some of them are my friends.  I don’t like to think of my friends missing out on eternal life.  I’d like it if I could say, well, if you just do your best and treat people well and try to be a good person, that’s good enough.  But that’s not what Jesus said.  Again, we can choose not to believe Jesus’ words if we want to, but we cannot be honest and pretend Jesus did not say them or that he did not mean them.  We either believe that Jesus was telling the truth or we believe he was not.  I’d like it if Jesus had provided an out for people who do not believe, but that’s not what Jesus did.

Jesus did not provide that out because Jesus is the out.  See, God does not owe it to any of us to give us eternal life.  None of us, Christian or non-Christian, deserves eternal life.  We are sinners who have fallen short.  But we’re provided an out through Jesus Christ.  God loves us so much that he sent Jesus into the world, so that whoever believes in him will not get what he or she deserves.  Instead, whoever believes will get eternal life.  Not because we’re so good, but because God is so good and loves us so much.  God does not give us what we deserve.  God, through Jesus Christ, gave us the chance for so much better than what we deserve.  God gives us the chance for eternal life.  And all we need to do is believe.

So, what does that mean for us?  Well, for one thing, it means we should be incredibly grateful to God.  If we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we should thank God every day that God gave us eternal life.  We should thank God every day that God does not give us the punishment we deserve for our sins.  We should thank God every day that God loves us so much that God sent Jesus, the divine Son, into the world so that, through our belief in him, we can have eternal life.  God would not have had to do that.  God did it out of love for us, a love we don’t deserve and could never earn.  We should always be incredibly grateful for that.

But it also means that we need to do everything we can to bring others to faith.  We need to do everything we can to convince people that Jesus Christ is, in fact, the Savior.  We need to do everything we can to bring others to eternal life.  Because again, if we truly believe what Jesus said, then there are people we know, right here in our own community, who are not going to have eternal life.  

And again, that’s not because of what I say or because of what I think.  What I say and what I think doesn’t matter.  I’m simply reading the words of Jesus Christ.  And again, we can choose not to believe them if we want to.  But if we do choose to believe them, then we need to take them seriously.

And that means that we have a duty, we have an obligation, to continue to reach out to people.  We have a duty, we have an obligation, to try to bring people to faith.  We have a duty, we have an obligation, to try to fill this church on Sunday morning.  Not because I want to be the pastor of a big church, but because we don’t want people in our community to miss out on eternal life.  This is not something we do for ourselves.  It’s something we do for others.  It’s something we do out of love, love for God and love for other people.

And this is not our duty as United Methodists.  It’s our duty as Christians.  Every Christian church in town has that same duty, that same obligation.  I hope they take it seriously.  I hope we take it seriously.  We’re not in competition with the other Christian churches.  We’re on the same team.  If everyone in town was coming to church on Sunday morning, our Christian churches would not be big enough to hold them all.

So how do we do this?  Because one of the things that holds us back is that we’re afraid we’ll offend people.  We’re afraid that if we reach out too much, if we try too hard to bring people to church, they’ll get mad at us.  I think we tend to overestimate the chances of that happening, but certainly, we don’t want to be obnoxious about it.  We don’t want people to roll their eyes whenever they see us coming.  There is a certain amount of tact and discretion that needs to be involved here.

So, what should we do?  Well, for one thing, we should pray.  But we should pray for some specific things.  We should pray for God to put us in the path of people who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  Some of them probably already are in our path.  If they’re not, pray for God to send you where you will meet them.  After all, Jesus told us to “go” and make disciples.  Jesus did not say for us to sit and wait for God to send people to us.  He told us to go, go where they are.

Then, we should pray for God to give us the faith, and the trust, and the courage, to talk to them about Jesus.  We need to both share God’s word with them and show God’s love to them.  Because God does love them.  God loves everybody.  And God calls us to love everybody, too.  Again, that’s why we want to bring people to faith--because we do love them and we don’t want them to miss out on eternal life.  That love needs to be present in all of our interactions with people, but especially in our interactions with people who don’t believe.  As has been said, you and I may be the only Bible some people ever read.  We need to make sure people are seeing God’s love in us.

We won’t always succeed.  Even Jesus did not always succeed.  But we need to try.  And we need to keep trying.  And we need to not get discouraged if we don’t see immediate results.  We’ve talked before about how God is a long-term God.  We need to be long-term Christians.  God never gives up on anyone.  We should not give up on anyone, either.

Jesus said that he is the way to eternal life.  If we believe that, we need to do everything we can to help others have that eternal life.  It’s our duty as Christians.  It’s our obligation as Christians.  And it’s the most loving thing we can do.

Memorial Day

We went to see my parents in Armour last week.  We’d just been there a couple of weeks earlier, but they were having a mother-daughter tea at the nursing home.  My mom did not have any daughters, just sons, so Wanda, as her daughter-in-law, accompanied her there.  It sounds like they had a good time.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

There’s a rural cemetery south of Delmont where my grandmother, one set of great-grandparents, and a couple of uncles are buried.  There are several other people there who are related to me, although in some cases it’s a distant relationship.  Because we were going to Armour anyway, Wanda and I decided to go a few extra miles and decorate the graves of my relatives.  It was some extra driving, but I’m glad we did it.

But that’s not what I want to talk about, either.

To get to that rural cemetery, you can, if you so choose, go past the farm on which I grew up.  You can also go around the edge of Delmont, which is where I went to school and played ball and which is my original home town.  And, if you so choose, you can take a few minutes and drive on into town and look around.  We did so choose.

That’s what I want to talk about.

I had not been that way in a couple of years, since immediately after the tornado that hit Delmont.  No reason why not, really, I just had never had any occasion to go that way.  I wondered how I would feel, seeing the old farm and the old town again.  I knew the farm had changed--my parents sold it nearly eleven years ago, and the new owner had made quite a few changes, as is his right.  I imagined that the town had changed, too, although I did not know how much.  So I wondered.  Would I be sad that things were no longer as they had been?  Would I be happy that things were being kept up and made better?  How would I feel?

Well, the fact is that I really did not feel much of anything.  The farm has changed significantly.  So has Delmont.  So much so, in fact, that neither really has much relationship to the way it was when I grew up.  As such, it really has no relationship to me.  I don’t feel connected to either the farm or the town any more.  It was not my farm.  It was not my town.  I felt like a stranger there.

I do feel a connection to the farm, but it’s the farm that still exists in my memory.  The farm where, in my memory, my Mom and Dad still live, where Mom still bakes chocolate chip cookies and where Dad still takes time to play ball with me and my brothers.  I feel a connection to Delmont, too, but it’s the Delmont that still exists in my memory.  The Delmont where, in my memory, the United Methodist church still stands and holds services and where the ball park still hosts several nights of games each week in the summer.  That where the connection exists.  Not in the way things are now.  In my memory.

Memory is a funny thing.  The fact is that a lot of the time, I was not all that happy growing up.  The reasons for that are not relevant here.  I’ll just say that my unhappiness had nothing to do with my family--in fact, my family is one of the things that helped me get through those years.  But the point is that, when I think about those years, I don’t think about being unhappy.  I can, when I choose to.  And once in a while, a bad memory comes back at my unbidden.  But most of the time, the things I remember are the happy ones.  If I’m honest with myself, I realize that my memories of those years are better than those years actually were.

But that’s the thing about memories.  While we can enjoy our memories, we should not try to live in them.  It’s good to remember the past, but we should not try to live in the past.  Because the past that we remember no longer exists, and it probably never really did.  We can feel a connection to it, but the world that exists now is the world in which we live.

Life goes on.  Everything has its time and everything ends.  When something ends, that can be sad.  But then, something begins again, and that’s happy.  We need to let go of the sadness and hold on to the happiness.

So the farm is different.  That’s okay.  In some ways, it’s been improved and looks better than it did before.  So Delmont is different.  That’s okay.  It has a lot of new buildings and looks better than it did before.  It’s time to let go of the past and move on.