A Christ-Centered Life

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, June 30, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Luke 9:51-62.

            What is the absolute number one thing in your life?

            Now don’t say “God” just because you’re in church and it’s what you’re supposed to say.  Actually think about it.  Be honest with yourself.  I’m not going to make you say it out loud.  But really think about it.  What is the absolute number one thing in your life?

            Is it your spouse?  Is it your kids or grandkids?  Is it your friends?  Is it your job?  Is it your land, especially if you’re a farmer?  Is it a material possession?  Is it something you really like to do?  What is it?

            Now, when I said don’t say “God” just because you’re in church, I did not mean to criticize you or to imply that your faith in God is not sincere.  I know each of you cares about God--that’s why you’re here on a Sunday morning when there are a lot of other places you could be.  But for most of us, including me, it’s not all that clear-cut that God is the number one thing in our lives.  God is important.  In fact, God is very important.  But for most of us--again, including me--God is one of many things that are important to us.  

And while we might think that God is number one, and we might hope that God is number one, I think the only way we can know for sure is if we’re put to the test.  It’s only if we have to choose between God and something else that’s very important to us that we can truly know whether God is the most important.  And most of us will probably not be put to that test.  And I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of happy that I probably won’t be put to that test, because I don’t know whether I’d pass.

But this is what Jesus was talking about in our Bible reading for today.  People keep coming up to Jesus and saying they want to follow him.  Saying that they will follow him.  They’ll follow him no matter what.  Buuuut….  But first let me do this.  First let me do that.  First let me do something else.  And after that, I’ll be right back here and follow you, Jesus.  Yes sirree, no doubt about it.  I’ll follow you completely.  After I take care of some other things first.

Jesus rejects that.  He does not accept the people who say they’ll follow him “but”.  He’s nice about it.  He does not get mad at them.  He does not say they’re going to hell or anything like that.  But Jesus does not accept them, either.  Jesus knows an excuse when he hears one.  And Jesus knows that what he’s hearing from these people is excuses.

Let’s look at some of the things people say.  The first one says, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  And Jesus says oh, really?  You say that like you’ll be gone for a specific time and you’ll go to a specific place.  That’s not how it works.  I’m going to keep moving.  The only specific place I’m going to go to is the cross.  And I know you’re not going to follow me there.

The next one says, “Lord, please let me go and bury my father.”  A reasonable request, right?  But you see, from what I’ve read, this was a figure of speech.  The man’s father was not dead.  What he was saying was, I need to stay with my family now.  Just wait until someday, when my father is gone, and then I’ll be free to follow you.  And Jesus says that’s not gonna work.  If you want to follow me, you need to follow me now, not wait until a far off someday.

The third one says, “First let me go back and say good-bye to my family.”  Again, sounds reasonable.  But Jesus says, look, you can’t move forward with me if you’re looking backward at someone else.  Even your family.  You either follow me, and follow me now, or you don’t.  There’s no middle ground.

Jesus says it’s not good enough to make him one priority out of many.  It’s not even good enough to make him the top priority.  Jesus says our entire life needs to be centered around following him.  Every aspect of it.  No excuses.  No “buts”.  No “let me do this first”.  Our entire life needs to be centered around following Jesus.

That’s a tough standard.  Jesus is asking a lot.  Is he asking too much?  I don’t know.  Can you honestly say that your entire life is centered around following Jesus?  Maybe you can.  But I don’t think I can.  Some of the time, maybe, but not all the time.  There are too many other things that I allow to get in the way.  They’re not bad things, necessarily.  Sometimes they’re even good things.  But they’re not necessarily Christ-centered things, either.

What does it even mean for us to have our entire life centered around following Jesus?  Is it even possible?  A lot of us have jobs.  If we don’t have jobs, we do things as volunteers.  Or we have family responsibilities.  How can we do all the things that life requires us to do every day and still have our entire lives centered around Jesus?

Well, here’s what I think.  First of all, I don’t think Jesus requires everyone to quit their jobs and start wandering around the country sharing the gospel the way he did.  After all, if everyone did that, there’d be no one to grow the food or to process it or to transport it.  There’d be nobody to keep the lights on.  There’d be no one to make the clothes or to pick up the trash or to do all the other things that are necessarily to keep a society functioning.  So that’s not what we’re talking about here.

What I think we’re talking about, really, is an attitude.  When you go to do your job, do you think about how doing your job can be a way of serving God?  When you’re with your family, do you think about how taking care of your family can be a way of serving God?  When you do whatever it is that you do to relax, do you think about how doing that can be a way of serving God?  As you go about your daily life, doing all the things we do every day, do you think about how doing those things can be a way of serving God?

I think that’s what Jesus is talking about here.  Everything we do, every aspect of our lives, should have to do with serving God in some way.  Even when we’re taking a little down time, even when we’re just having fun and relaxing, there should still somehow be a way in which that serves God.

That’s still a tough standard.  That’s still asking a lot of us.  And I don’t think I can honestly say I do that, either.  But here’s something to remember.

The twelve disciples were the people closest to Jesus when he was on earth, right?  They traveled with him for about three years.  If there was ever anyone who followed Jesus, it was them, right?

And yet, how many times did Jesus have to straighten them out?  How many times did they make mistakes?  How many times did they misunderstand?  We have one right in our reading for today.  They go to a Samaritan village and the people don’t welcome them.  And James and John, the two disciples who were probably closest to Jesus, ask if Jesus will let them call fire down from heaven to destroy those people.

And Jesus says, “What in the world are you guys talking about?  Have you not learned anything from your time with me?  Are you dumb as a box of rocks or what?”

Well, the Bible does not actually say that.  It just says that Jesus rebuked the disciples.  But if Jesus did not say that, I suspect he thought it.  At that time, the disciples were not interested in following Jesus.  They were interested in getting revenge on these Samaritans.  These people, who they really did not like anyway just because they were Samaritans, had rejected them, and they wanted to make them pay.

There are so many times where stuff like this happened.  There’s the time in Matthew Sixteen where Jesus is trying to tell the disciples that he’s going to be killed, and Peter says, hey, Jesus don’t talk like that.  And Jesus tells Peter that he does not understand because his mind is on human concerns rather than heavenly concerns.

That, right there, is the problem we have.  Our minds are on human concerns.  But the good news is that Jesus does not condemn Peter.  He sounds a little upset with him at the moment--if you remember, he says to Peter “Get behind me, Satan”.  It’s hard to think of a worse name Jesus could call you than to call you Satan.  But still, Jesus does not send Peter away.  He knows that Peter is doing the best he can.  He’s doing his best to follow Jesus.  He’s doing his best to keep Jesus at the center of his life.  

Peter fails sometimes, because he’s human.  That’s why our minds fall back on human concerns so much--because we’re human.  But Jesus forgives Peter.  Jesus even forgives Peter when Peter denies knowing Jesus.  That’s when Peter had the ultimate human concern, right?  He was concerned with saving his neck, even at the expense of denying knowing the Savior.  But Jesus even forgave Peter for that.

Jesus forgave Peter for those times when he failed to keep Jesus at the center of his life, because Jesus knew what was in Peter’s heart.  And Jesus will forgive us for those times when we fail to keep Jesus at the center of our lives, because Jesus knows what’s in our hearts.  Jesus knows we’re not perfect and we cannot be.  If our hearts are focused on keeping Jesus at the center of our lives, Jesus will forgive us when we fail.  

But that does not give us an excuse.  Because if our hearts are not focused on keeping Jesus at the center of our lives, Jesus will know that, too.  We still have to do our best.  We don’t have to beat ourselves up when we fail, but we should not make excuses for ourselves, either.  When we don’t keep Jesus at the center of our lives, we need to confess that to God and ask for forgiveness.  And then we need to try again.  And again and again, always trying to keep Jesus at the center of our lives.

Jesus gave us a tough standard.  And Jesus knows it’s a tough standard.  But Jesus does not accept a number two position in our lives.  He tells us it’s no good to say that we’ll follow him but….  Our lives need to be centered around Jesus Christ, not just sometimes, but all the time.

The Stories of Our Lives

It’s wedding season.  I did a wedding last Saturday and I’ll do another one this Saturday.  I have two more scheduled this summer.  Some pastors aren’t all that thrilled about doing weddings--in fact, some pastors have a lot of war stories about weddings.  But I really enjoy them, and I can honestly say I’ve never had a bad experience with a wedding.  That’s not to say everything came off perfectly--it rarely does.  But as I like to say, if anything goes wrong, it will just be a story that the couple will tell in years to come.  It’s not a problem.

But what I really enjoy about weddings is getting to hear people’s stories.  It’s fascinating to me how two people get together.  Sometimes people have known each other forever, sometimes they’ve only known each other for a short time.  Sometimes people have grown up in the same way and have similar backgrounds, sometimes they’ve grown up in far different families, maybe even different cultures.  Sometimes people have lived in the same town all their lives, sometimes they’ve lived half a world apart.  And yet, somehow, they’ve found each other, and they’re convinced that this is the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.

You know, when you think about it, it’s really kind of an awesome thing, the way two people find each other.  I think about Wanda and me.  We’re different in a lot of ways.  I love sports--Wanda’s not interested in them.  Wanda loves arts and crafts--they hold no interest for me at all.  Wanda loves classic country music--I love 70s soft rock.  I love old comedies--Wanda loves the romantic movies they run on the Hallmark Channel.

Just to look at us, you’d think we really did not have a lot in common.  And yet, we’ll have our thirtieth anniversary this year, and Wanda shows no signs of throwing me out.  It’s kind of an amazing thing, really.

And I truly believe that God was involved in getting us together.  First, there was the matter of getting us to the same town, Pierre.  Then, both our offices moved, so we were working in the same building.  Then, not knowing I was there, Wanda took an apartment right across from mine.  She did not live there long, because they raised the rent and she could not afford it.  But it was long enough for us to get together.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

The thing is that every married couple has a story.  Every married couple, and every couple that’s going to get married, has a special and unique history.  And part of the fun of doing weddings is getting to know that history.  And then, having been lucky enough to stay in the same parish for several years, I get the fun of watching the couple grow in their lives together.

I hope, of course, that every marriage I do will last “till death do you part”.  I have no way to know that, of course.  But if both parties to the marriage are committed to it, and if they’re both committed to make God a part of it, then their chances are pretty good.  That’s what Wanda and I have tried to do.  And I hope that’s what all the couples I marry will do, too.

Free

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church Sunday night, June 23, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Galatians 3:23-29.

            Have you ever felt like you were trapped?

            There are a lot of things in life that can trap us.  Jobs can trap us--we can feel like we’re stuck in a bad job, a job we don’t like but one that we feel like we have no choice but to keep doing.  We can feel trapped financially--we go into debt, for whatever reason, and we get stuck in a situation where all our money is going to try to pay those debts and no matter how much we pay we just don’t seem able to get out of it.  We can feel trapped in a relationship--we know it’s not really working, but we don’t see any way to easily get out of it.  We can feel trapped by a health situation--we wish we could get better, we wish we could do the things we used to do, but we no longer can.  We can even feel trapped in things we like.  We volunteer for something, because we believe in it, but then it seems like we get stuck working on it more and more and we feel like we’re no longer in control of this thing we volunteered for.  Instead, it’s controlling us.

            That’s the thing about getting trapped, right?  When we’re trapped, we don’t have any control over anything.  Or at least, it seems like we don’t.  It feels like we have no choice but to keep doing what we’re doing.  We don’t like it, but we don’t see any way out of it.

            That’s how a lot of the people of Israel had come to feel about the law before Jesus came.  They felt like they were trapped by the law.  Back years ago, when it was just the Ten Commandments, that was something people could understand.  They could follow that.  But since then, there had come all these rules and regulations.  There had come all these explanations and technical decisions.  We’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath, we’re supposed to keep that as a holy day?  Okay.  But what do you mean by work?  Is it okay if I feed my cattle?  Is it okay if I go visit a friend?  And constitutes keeping the day holy?  Do I have to sit and pray and meditate and read the scriptures all day?  Or can I relax a little bit and have some fun?

            And so all sorts of decisions were made, and rules were put forth.  And a lot of them got pretty technical, and eventually people got to where they could not even remember all the rules, much less follow them.

            And they felt trapped.  Because after all, the law had come from God.  It was important that they follow it, because it was what God wanted.  And a lot of them wanted to follow it.  They wanted God to be pleased with them.  They wanted God to look on them with favor.  But there was just so much law.  They could hardly even remember all of it.  They were trying so hard to do everything right, but it was just so hard to do.  They were never sure if they’d done things right, or if they’d done enough.  The law had become a burden to them.  And they felt trapped by it.

            That’s what Paul means when he says that before Jesus came, “we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.”  Faith in God was not something that was giving them joy.  It was not giving them hope for a future.  It was something that made them live in fear, looking over their shoulders, constantly afraid of making a mistake or doing something wrong.  

            If you’ve ever lived like that, you know it’s no way to live.  When we live in fear of making a mistake, what’s going to happen?  We’re going to make mistakes, right?  We’ll probably make them anyway, because none of us is perfect, but we make even more of them when we’re afraid of making them.  We overthink everything.  We second-guess everything we do.  We get afraid to take chances and miss opportunities.  And we get depressed, and we get frustrated.  It’s a terrible thing.

            So let me ask you this:  have you ever felt trapped, and then something happened that you got out of the trap?  You got out of that bad work situation, and into a job that you liked with people you liked.  You somehow finally got your debts resolved.  You got out of that bad relationship.  Your health finally improved.  Somebody came and took some of the burden off you, so you could get back to enjoying that thing you volunteered for.  If that ever happened, how did that feel?

            It felt awesome, right?  It felt incredible.  I’ve felt it a couple of times.  I hope you have, too.  I felt it when I became a pastor and for the first time in my life had a job I really loved.  I felt it when I finally got my student loans paid off and was no longer in debt.  Feeling trapped is terrible.  But when you get out of the trap, when you get out of that bad situation, when you’re finally free from it, it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.  There’s nothing like it.  And somehow, it makes all the time being trapped worth it.

            That’s what Paul says Jesus did for us if we accept him as the Savior.  If we have faith in Jesus, we don’t have to worry about it anymore.  We’re not under the law any more.  We have the grace and forgiveness offered through the life and death of Jesus Christ.

            In other words, we’re not trapped by the law any more.  We’re free of its burden.  We don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes.  We don’t have to worry about whether we’ve done everything right, or whether we’ve done enough.  We’re out of the trap, and we’re out of it forever.  We’re free, and our sins are forgiven, through our faith in Jesus and by God’s incredible love and grace and mercy.

            Now, that does not mean that we can just do whatever we want because, hey, God will forgive us.  Paul dealt with that in the sixth chapter of Romans.  He says, in effect, that God’s forgiveness is not a get out of jail free card.  Yes, we’re free, but we’re not free to sin.  What we’re free from is worry.  We don’t have to worry about whether we’ve done every little thing right, whether we’ve taken care of every last detail in accordance with the precise specifications of the law.  We’re free to serve God as best we can.  We’re free to love God and to follow God.  And when we do, when we do that to the best of our ability, we can be confident that God will see what we’ve done, and that God will bless what we’ve done.  God will not hold it against us if we did not do everything perfectly.  God is not going to judge whether we’ve dotted every i and crossed every t.  God is going to judge what’s in our hearts.

            Here’s an example of what I mean.  When I was in seminary, I had to go to Kansas City to take this one class.  The class lasted a week.  I got to know some people there, including a guy who was a musician for a huge church in the Kansas City area.  He said that, in that church, everything about the worship service had to be absolutely perfect every week, or someone was going to get fired.

            Can you imagine being part of a church like that?  Can you imagine the pressure you’d be under?  Can you imagine how little joy there would be in a church like that?  Talk about feeling trapped.  Where’s the forgiveness in that?  Where’s the grace in that?  I would never want to be part of a church that had that attitude.  Not that they’d ever hire me anyway, but even if they did, who’d want to be part of that? 

I don’t even know if God would want to be part of a church like that.  Because God does not expect perfection from us.  God knows we’re not capable of perfection.  God just asks us to do the best we can.  Do the best we can to serve God, to love God, to show love to others, to go and make disciples.  Do the best we can to do the things Jesus told us to do, and trust God to take it from there.

How we do that will be different for each of us, because God made us all different.  And there’s freedom in that, too.  I don’t have to serve God in the same way that you do.  You don’t have to serve God in the same way I do.  I don’t even have to serve God in the same way that other pastors do.  None of us has to feel trapped into fitting into a certain mold.  We’re all free to use the gifts and talents God has given us in whatever way we can, as long as we use them in God’s service.  That’s an awesome kind of freedom. 

God does not want us to be trapped.  God does not want us to feel pressure to be perfect.  God does not want us to feel like we have to fit a certain mold.  Jesus came to set us free from all of that.

If we accept Jesus as the Savior, we are free.  We are free to love God and to serve God in the best way we can.  If we do our best, we can trust God to use it.  God will bless what we do.  And God will bless us.

Get Back in the Game

This is the message given Sunday morning in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are 1 Kings 19:1-15.

            Elijah.  One of the greatest heroes of the Bible.  Ranks right up there with Moses as one of the people who saved, not just the people of Israel, but the very worship of Yahweh.  In fact, it was he and Moses who appeared with Jesus at Jesus’ transfiguration.  There are very few people in the Bible more important than Elijah.

            And in our Bible reading for today, he is running for his life.  The king, Ahab, and the queen, Jezebel, want to kill him.

            To understand why, we need to go back a little bit.  Ahab became king of Israel, and we’re told that he “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.”  In other words, the kings before Ahab had been no great prize, but Ahab was worse than any of them.  He also was influenced by his wife, Jezebel, to start worshiping the false god Baal.  And so finally, God says, “Enough!”  God tells Elijah to announce that there will be a drought in Israel.  And there is.

            Now, of course, when that happened, Ahab could’ve changed his ways.  He could’ve said, you know what, I messed up.  I brought this on myself and on the whole country because of the things I’ve done.  I’ve been worshiping this false god, Baal, instead of the one true God.  I’d better change my ways.”

            Ahab could’ve done that.  But you know, people in power really don’t like to admit they’re wrong.  What do they usually do?  They find someone to blame it on, right?  So Ahab blames Elijah for the drought.  And Elijah goes on the run.

            But then Elijah comes back.  And Elijah proposes a contest between God and Baal to see who’s the one true god.  Some of you probably remember this story.  The prophets of Baal and of God are to prepare an offering but not to light the wood for the fire.  Instead, they’re supposed to pray to their god to set the wood on fire.  Whichever one does it is the one true god.  And of course, Baal cannot do it and God can, so God is proved to be the one true god.

            Now, here’s another chance for both Ahab and Jezebel to admit they were wrong.  But if there’s one thing people in power dislike even more than being proved wrong, it’s being made to look foolish.  And by winning this contest, Elijah made both Ahab and Jezebel look foolish.  So, Jezebel swears to kill Elijah, and that’s where our reading for today starts.

            Now, at this point, Elijah has a decision to make.  He could stay right where he is.  He could trust God to protect him and to save him.  Or, he can get scared and run away.

            As you heard, he chose to run.  He goes to Mount Horeb, which is referred to as the mountain of God.  And he stayed there forty days.

            We’ll pick up the rest of the story in a little bit.  But first, let me just ask you:  is there any way you can relate to how Elijah felt at this point in the story?

            I don’t mean that you necessarily had to run for your life.  But what I mean is, have you ever had a time when you thought you were doing everything right, and yet everything turned out wrong?  Have you ever had a time when you really believed you were doing what you were supposed to do, like you were doing your best to do your job well and to be a good person and to be a good Christian?  And yet, the thanks you got for it were to get blamed for everything and to have everyone accuse you of being responsible for everything that went wrong?  Can you kind of relate to that a little bit?

            If so, what did you do?  Did you feel like just walking away from everything?  Like just going off by yourself, getting away from all these people who were dumping all this stuff on you?  And if you could’ve, maybe you’d have just left everything behind and gone off to live in a cabin in the mountains or something?  I mean, you probably did not actually do that, but did you feel like you’d like to?

            That’s how Elijah felt.  And you know, that’s a feeling we can get in a lot of situations.  I think we all have times when we just get fed up.  We get totally frustrated and fed up with everything.  We just feel like we want to go somewhere where no one is blaming us for anything, where no one is demanding anything from us, where no one is holding us responsible for anything.  We may feel like quitting, but what we really want is just a time out, right?  We want a time out where we can just get away from everything for a while.

            If you’ve felt that way, if you’re feeling that way now, know that God understands.  Because look at what God does for Elijah when he ran away.  First, God sent an angel to help him.  The angel made sure Elijah had enough to eat and enough to drink.  And God gave Elijah some time by himself.  God gave Elijah a time out.  God waited forty days before God called to Elijah.

            And then, what happens?  God comes to Elijah, and God simply asks Elijah a question.  God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

            Now, this is where the printed word leaves itself open to interpretation.  Because you can hear God saying that in a few different ways.  You can hear God saying it angrily, “What are you doing here, Elijah!”  You can hear God asking it without much emotion at all, “What are you doing here, Elijah.”  Or, you can hear God asking it gently, even kindly, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

            I cannot prove it, but I hear God asking it that last way.  Because Elijah does not sound at all scared or upset when he answers the question.  He tells God what has happened, and God says He’s going to pass by.  And there’s a wind, and an earthquake, and a fire, but God is not in any of those.  God is in a gentle whisper.  Elijah answers, and God asks him again, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  And again, of course, Elijah tells him.

            Elijah may have felt like quitting, but God knows that what Elijah really needs is a time out.  And God gives it to him.  But God has more for Elijah to do.  So what does God do?  He sends Elijah back into the game, and in effect he tells him what plays to run.  He tells Elijah to go back the way he came, to go back to Israel, and he gives him instructions for what to do and how to do it when he gets there.

            I think that’s the message God gives us, too.  When we get tired, when we get fed up, when we feel like we’ve just had enough of everything, God understands.  God does not get upset or angry with us.  God understands that we might just need to get away from things for a little while.  If we cannot take a physical break from things, we can take a mental break from things.  God understands that.  God’s okay with it.  God will allow us a time out once in a while, when we need one.

            But after a while, God is going to say the same thing God said to Elijah.  “What are you doing here?”  Now, we don’t have to be afraid when God asks that question.  We can answer God honestly, just like Elijah asked God honestly.  But when we do, we need to listen for God’s response.  And God’s response often comes in a gentle whisper, just as it did for Elijah.

And when God answers, what God is likely to do is let us know that the time out is over.  It’s time for us to get back into the game.  And God will, in effect, tell us what plays to run.  God will tell us where we’re supposed to go, what we’re supposed to do, and how we’re supposed to do it.

I’ve said before that we don’t get to retire from being Christians, and we don’t get to take a vacation from being Christians, and that’s still true.  I still believe that.  But God knows that life can get really hard for a sometimes.  And God knows that once in a while we just need a break, a time out.  And God is okay with it if we take one.  After all, even Jesus got away from everything and went off by himself once in a while.  It’s okay if you and I do it, too.  

But only once in a while, and only for so long.  Because God has more for you and me to do.  The game is still going on.  And if we don’t get back into it on our own, God is going to come to us and ask us, “What are you doing here?”  The game’s over there.  And I need you to get back into it.

It’s always a good thing to try to hear what God has to say to us.  But if you’re feeling frustrated, if you’re feeling fed up, if you’re feeling like you just need to get away from things, listen even harder for what God is saying.  God may be giving you a time out.  But he may be about to ask, “What are you doing here?”  And when God does, it’s time to get back in the game.

"Understanding" Communion

We offer a Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  A couple of Sundays ago, during the service, we shared in Holy Communion.  There’s a story related to that which I’d like to tell you about.

After the service, a little girl came up to me, probably about four or five years old.  She had gone to the restroom while we were sharing communion, and so she had missed it.  She asked me if I would give her communion then, even though the service was over.  And I did.

Now, some would say that you shouldn’t give little kids communion, because they don’t really understand it.  If that’s how you feel, I’m not going to argue with you.  And yes, I’m sure that this little girl did not really understand communion.  But let me ask you this:  how many of us, as adults, really understand communion?

Yes, we say that the elements are the body and blood of Christ, and we say that communion is one of God’s means of grace.  But how does that work, really?  How is it that we can take ordinary bread and ordinary grape juice, recite a liturgy, and somehow that bread and juice become the embodiment--either physically or spiritually or symbolically or some combination thereof--of Jesus Christ?  How is it that we can take ordinary bread and ordinary grape juice, recite a liturgy, and then somehow eating the bread and drinking the juice instills God’s grace into us?

How does that work?  Do you understand it?  If so, then please explain it to me, because I don’t.  Not really.  I believe it.  I trust it.  I believe that sharing in Holy Communion is one of the most important things we do in the church.  But exactly what happens, and how it happens, is something I don’t know.

That little girl might not have understood everything about Holy Communion, but she understood a few things.  She understood that it was something we do in church.  She understood that it was something important.  And I think, even though she might not have been able to put it this way, that she understood that this is something we do to feel closer to God.  And she did not want to miss out on that. 

And maybe that’s all we need to understand.  Communion is important, and it’s something we do to feel closer to God.  If we all take Holy Communion with that attitude, I think God will be able to fill in the rest.

Hope

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 16, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Romans 5:1-5.

            How many of us here enjoy suffering?

            Yeah, that’s what I thought.  I don’t know anyone who truly enjoys suffering.  There’s no fun in suffering at all.  Suffering is painful, it’s frustrating, it’s depressing.  A lot of times, it’s lonely.  In fact, a lot of times nobody even knows we’re suffering.  The source of our suffering is not obvious--we don’t have a broken bone or anything--and we don’t say anything about it to anyone.  And so, nobody knows about it.  We just suffer in silence.  And we’d do just about anything to get rid of our suffering if we only knew how to do that.

            We know, of course, that suffering is a part of life.  I don’t know of anybody who’s never had to suffer somehow.  Some may suffer more than others, but no one is exempt from suffering.  In fact, I don’t doubt that there are people here today who are suffering in some way.  I may or may not know what the cause of it is, but I know there are people here who are suffering.  That’s just the way it is.

            It’s the way it is, and we have to accept it, whether we like it or not.  And we don’t like it, of course.  We wish there was no suffering.  And yet, here’s the Apostle Paul, in our reading for today, making sure we know that, as Christians, we are going to suffer.  And of course, we know that’s true.

            We know it’s true, but we don’t talk about it a whole lot.  It’s certainly not something we emphasize when we try to bring people to Christ.  You know, I went to Annual Conference a week ago, and they had various workshops about things we could do to build our churches and things like that.  Not once did I hear them say, “Tell people that if they become Christians they’re going to suffer.”  Suffering is not one of the big evangelistic tools we use.  You don’t see any inspirational Christian posters that say “Glory in your suffering.”  And yet, that’s what the Apostle Paul tells us to do.

            We wonder sometimes why that is.  I mean, if we’re serving the one true God, if we’re doing our best to love God and to show love to others, why does God not give us an easy life?  It only seems fair, right?  We do things for God, God does things for us.  We serve God, God helps us.  We love God, God makes our lives easier.  Why not?

            That’s not how it works, of course.  That’s not how it’s ever worked.  Some of the greatest heroes of the Bible had very difficult lives.  Paul himself wrote about something he called a “thorn in his side,” something that was very painful to him.  He prayed repeatedly for God to take it away from him, and God refused.  We don’t know what that “thorn in the side” really was, but we know that Paul had to live with it for the rest of his life.

            There are others.  Joseph, in the Old Testament, was thrown into slavery and later thrown in jail for a crime he did not commit.  And of course, Jesus himself was tortured and ultimately killed in a very painful way.  Being a Christian does not mean that we will not suffer.  In fact, sometimes being a Christian causes us even more suffering on earth.

            We wish God would get rid of our suffering.  And not just ours, but all the suffering on earth.  God could do that, you know.  God can do anything.  But God chooses not to.  

            And you know, we really have to be a little bit careful about wishing God would get rid of suffering.  Because that’s part of what the temptation of Jesus by Satan was about, right?  Satan says, Jesus you don’t have to suffer hunger.  Neither does anyone else.  Just turn those stones into bread.  Satan says, Jesus, you don’t have to suffer the indignity of going around the countryside trying to convince people you’re the Messiah.  And they won’t have to suffer from not believing, either.  Just jump off the top of the temple.  The angels will catch you, everyone will see it, and they’ll all believe in you.  Satan says, Jesus, I’ll give you the whole world.  You can stop the suffering of everyone, everywhere, forever.  Just bow down and worship me.

            God chooses to allow suffering in the world, at least for now.  Why?  Well, because we live in a broken, fallen, sinful world.  And until that day when Jesus comes again, it’s going to remain a broken, fallen, sinful world.  And that means we’re going to suffer sometimes, whether we like it or not.

            Paul does point out some benefits that can come from suffering.  He says suffering produces perseverance.  Suffering teaches us to keep going, to keep working, to keep trying, even when things go against us and even when things look bad.  And perseverance produces character.  The things we go through, the things we overcome, make us stronger.  And then comes the big one.  Character produces hope.

            But they raises another question, right?  Why is hope so important?  If suffering is the first part of a chain that leads to hope, then what is there about hope that makes the suffering worth it for us as Christians?  Why does God want to give us hope?

            Well, first, understand what we mean when we say “hope”.  And I’m sure a lot of you do understand, but just to make sure, we’re not talking about hope in the sense we often use it in conversation.  We’re not talking about hope in the sense of “I hope it’s a nice day” or “I hope the Twins win the World Series”.  “Hope”, in that sense, is just a wish, a desire for something to happen but with no idea whether it actually will.  The kind of hope we’re talking about here is a feeling of expectation that something good will happen and trust that something good actually will happen. 

            That’s the hope God gives us.  That’s the hope we have as Christians.  We expect, and we trust, that God will eventually make something good happen.  We expect, and we trust, that better days are coming.  We expect, and we trust, that there will come a day when all suffering will end.  We may not know when that will happen.  We may not know how that will happen.  But we expect, and we trust, that God will make it happen.

            And we need that.  Because you know, when you think about it, suffering, even really bad suffering, is not the worst thing that can happen to us.  At least I don’t think it is.  The worst thing that could happen to us is if we were suffering without hope.  If we were suffering, and we had no hope that things were ever going to get better.  That our suffering was going to get worse and worse until we died.  And that our death was going to be final, that there was no heaven, no place we were going to go where we will be released from all our suffering and be in the presence of God.  That kind of hopelessness is about the worst thing I can imagine.

            But as Christians, we never have to face that.  Because we do have hope.  Yes, we have to suffer sometimes, but we never have to suffer without hope.  No matter how bad things are, no matter how much we may suffer, we always have that hope.  We expect, and we trust, that things will get better.  Maybe they’ll get better in our life here on earth, or maybe they’ll get better in our eternal life in heaven.  But they will get better.  No matter how bad things are, no matter how much we may suffer, God never, ever leaves us without hope.

And that is why, as Paul says, we can glory in our suffering.  Not because we want to suffer.  Not because our faith makes the suffering less hard or less painful.  But because we have that hope.  We have the hope that comes from faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  We have the hope that comes from the promise of salvation and eternal life that our faith gives us.  We glory in our suffering because we know that our suffering is not forever.  We glory in our suffering because we trust in the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

            We suffer because we live in a broken, fallen, sinful world.  But this world is not our real home, nor is it our final home.  Our real home, our final home, is with God in heaven.  That’s the hope, that’s the expectation, that’s the trust we have.  That hope is a gift from God, made real to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And with that hope, we can handle the suffering and anything else life can throw at us.

Jesus Is Coming Soon

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 2, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Revelation 22:12-21.

            There’s one thing about me that really frustrates Wanda.  Well, actually, there are a lot of things about me that frustrate Wanda, but there’s one that I’m going to talk about right now.  Wanda will ask me to do something.  And I’ll say “Yes, of course, dear, I’ll do it.  I’ll do it soon.”  And then some time passes--a few days, a year, whatever--and I have not done it yet.  And she’ll say, “You said you were going to do that.”  And I say, “I know.  I am going to do it.”  And she’ll say, “Well, when?”  And I’ll say, “Soon.”

            It seems to frustrate Wanda when this happens.  She gets kind of impatient when “soon” does not mean within a short period of time.  I’ve tried to explain to her that “soon” is a flexible concept, that it does not necessarily mean right away, but for some reason that explanation does not seem to satisfy her. You married men, does any of this sound familiar to you, or am I the only one?

            The thing is, I think I’ve got some pretty solid backing on this one.  Look at our reading for today from Revelation.  At the start of it, Jesus says, “Look, I am coming soon!”  And near the end, he says it again.  “Yes, I am coming soon.”

            Well, it’s been nearly two thousand years.  And he has not come yet.  We say, “Jesus, you said you were going to come back.”  And Jesus says, I know.  I’m going to.  And we say, “Well, when?”  And Jesus says, “Soon.”

            Sometimes we get impatient with that.  In fact, it’s one of the ways non-Christians will mock Christianity.  “Well, your Bible said Jesus was coming soon.  Where is he?  Did he fall asleep?  Did he get stuck in traffic?  What’s taking him so long?”

            We wonder, too, why Jesus seems to be taking so long.  We look at the world.  Yes, I’ve said many times that there’s a lot of good in the world, and a lot of beauty, and I believe that to be true. But there’s a lot of bad in the world, too.  You don’t need me to go through the list for you.  And in recent months, even the weather has seemed like it’s been crazy.  Blizzards, tornadoes, floods, all kinds of things.  And back-and-forth:  stuck in a snowstorm one week, getting a sunburn the next week, back to a snowstorm the week after.  It all just leaves us shaking our heads.

            We sometimes feel like maybe it’s time for Jesus to come.  And yet, he has not come.  So, if we assume that Jesus was telling the truth, what did he mean when he said he would be coming “soon”?

            Well, there are a few different explanations.  One is that the word translated as “soon” does not refer to a specific period of time, but simply means “without unnecessary delay”.  In other words, Jesus will come when the time is right.  And I think that’s true.  Jesus will come when the time is right.  After all, he’s Jesus. Whatever time he chooses will be, pretty much by definition, the right time.  If he delays, it’s for a good reason.  But while that may be true, it’s pretty much Jesus saying, “I’ll come when I come.”  It does not really tell us anything.

            Another explanation is that the word translated as “soon”, again, does not refer to a specific period of time, but instead means “suddenly”.  When Jesus returns, we’re not going to get any advance warning.  God is not going to give us a countdown.  It’s not going to be “Jesus will come in five months, so you’d better get ready.”  When Jesus comes, he’s going to come now, and we’d better already be ready, because we’re not going to get any more time.

            I think that’s true, too.  God has given us prophets, He’s given us the Bible, He’s given us theologians and preachers and teachers and scholars.  God gave us Jesus himself, the first time Jesus came to earth.  I suspect that’s all the wranings we’re going to get.  It’s up to us to be ready when the time comes, no matter when that time is.

            But I think there’s another aspect to this, too.  We’ve talked before about how God is a long-term God.  After all, God exists in eternity.  

Here are a couple of ways to think of this.  We think of someone who’s lived a hundred years as having lived a long time.  A hundred years is nothing to God.  The Bible tells us that a thousand years are like a day to God.  So while we’ve been waiting two thousand years, for God it’s only been a couple of days.

Another way to think of this is to think of the Old Testament prophecies.  How long did it take some of them to come true?  Quite often, it was hundreds of years.  That includes the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah.  People waited and waited.  And some of them gave up.  But eventually it happened, because as the angel said to Mary in the first chapter of Luke, no word from God will ever fail.

Or, think of it this way:  our best scientific guesses are that the universe is about fourteen billion years old.  Our best scientific guesses are that the earth is about four and a half billion years old.  And we have no idea how much longer they may last.  And of course, God existed before the beginning of the universe.  So what’s two thousand years compared to billions?  Almost nothing.  It’s like less than a second out of a day.  So when Jesus says he is coming “soon”, it may be “soon” to him.  It’s just not soon to us.

But here’s the thing.  All these things are true. Jesus will come when the time is right.  Whether that’s in the next week or in the next billion years, Jesus will come when the time is right. He says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”  Just as the first chapter of the gospel of John tells us that Jesus was involved in the creation of the world, this passage tells us that Jesus will be involved in the end of the world and in the creation of the new heaven and new earth.  We might live to see it, or we might be gone for many years.  But even if we’re not around to see Jesus come again, there will be a day when it’s time for us to leave this world.  Jesus will come for us, one way or another.  And you and I had better be ready.

Because this passage makes clear that not everyone is going to go to that new heaven and new earth.  It says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.  Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”  And later, it says, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll:  If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll.  And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prohpecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.”

That phrase “wash their robes”--I’m sure there are some who understand what that means, but I suspect there may be some who don’t. The full phrase is to wash your garments in the blood of Jesus Christ.  It’s symbolism.  It means to accept the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.  It means to accept Jesus as the Savior  To allow the blood of Jesus Christ to wash away our sins and allow us to come into the presence of God.  If we have accepted that sacrifice and accepted Jesus as the Savior, our sins are forgiven and we have salvation and everlasting life.

But some will not accept that sacrifice.  And while it might be nice to think they’ll go to heaven anyway, that’s not what the Bible tells us.  That’s not what the words of Jesus are.  We don’t have to like that.  As I said a couple of weeks ago, there’s a part of me that does not like it, because there are people I know who have not accepted Jesus as the Savior, and there does not seem to be anything I can do about that.  I don’t like to think that they may miss out on salvation and eternal life.  And of course, it’s not up to me to decide whether they will.  But the Bible does make pretty clear that not everyone goes to heaven.  Whether I like that or not is irrelevant.  It’s just the way it is.

And if we ignore that, we just get ourselves into more trouble.  Again, if we add anything to this prophecy, God will add to us the plagues described in it, and they are some pretty awful plagues.  And if we take words away from it, God will take away our share in the tree of life and the Holy City.

So these are words we need to take seriously.  Jesus is coming soon.  We may not know what “soon” means to God, but we know what Jesus coming means.  If we’re ready, if we have faith, if we believe in and trust Jesus as the Savior, it means salvation and eternal life.  If we’re not ready, then it’s going to be too late.  Our fate will be set, and we won’t get another chance.  Not because that’s how I want it to be, but because that’s how the Bible tells us God said it is.

I can make an excuse to Wanda when I don’t get things done when I should.  But I don’t think our excuses are going to work with God.  So let’s be ready.  And let’s do what we can to help others be ready.  Because this is not just a matter of life and death.  It’s a matter of eternal life and death.