A Call to Repentance

The message given in the Ash Wednesday service in the Wheatland Parish on Wednesday, February 26, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.

            Ash Wednesday is usually the one and only time of year we read from the book of the prophet Joel.  It’s certainly the only time it shows up in the Lectionary.  So I think it’s important that we understand some of the background of it, so we see how it can apply to our lives today. 

Our best guess is that Joel lived in about the fourth or fifth century B. C., although some would say he lived earlier.  We don’t know anything about Joel—where he lived, what he did, any of that.  The only thing we know about him is that his father’s name was Pethuel, which we know because the first verse of the book says, “The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

            This was a fairly quiet time in the history of the Jewish people.  They were not free—they were a small part of the huge Persian Empire.  But they were not really enslaved, either.  Things are going kind of the way they go in our lives a lot of the time—not real great, but not real terrible, either.  Life’s not what you wish it was, but it’s not that bad.  Could be worse.

            And if we think about what we read today, we can see why it’s used on Ash Wednesday.  Because what Joel says is, you know how you’re thinking things could be worse?  Well, they’re going to be worse.  They’re going to be a lot worse.  Joel says the day of the Lord is coming.

            Now, maybe you’re thinking, what’s so bad about that?  After all, we’re Christians.  We talk about Jesus coming again all the time.  We think of it as a good thing.  The apostle John, at the end of the book of Revelation, prays, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”  Why does Joel say the day of the Lord is going to make us worse?

            Well, remember, we’re talking Old Testament here.  This all happened before Jesus came.  Joel, and the people he was talking to, were still operating under the system of Jewish law.  The way to heaven, in Old Testament times, was to follow the law.  And Jewish law was not being followed very well.  So the day of the Lord was not necessarily going to be a good thing for them.

            And also, the idea of who God was, was different then.  Not that God has changed, but the attributes of God that were emphasized are different.  We tend to emphasize God’s love, and God’s forgiveness and mercy, and those certainly are attributes of God.  But in Old Testament times, they emphasized that God’s power and God’s righteous and holiness, and those are attributes of God, too.  And they are still very important attributes of God.  We need to recognize them and deal with them, even if they make us uncomfortable sometimes.

            And the thing is, when we emphasize God’s righteousness and God’s holiness, then we realize just how far short you and I fall from God’s standards.  And when we think about how far short we fall from who God wants us to be, and then we think about how powerful God is, and how much God can punish us for our failures if God chooses to do that, well, then the day of the Lord is not going to be a very good thing for people who are not following Jewish law.

            That’s why Joel calls for the people to turn back to God.  The churchy word we use for that is “repentance”.  Now repentance includes asking for forgiveness, but it’s more than that.  For one thing, it includes doing things to show how sorry you are.  Remember, we read “declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly”.  “Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar.”  Those things were about demonstrating, in a real, physical, public way, how sorry you were.  Now, of course, it needed to be done sincerely.  Repentance is not just about saying “I’m sorry”, it’s about making a sincere effort to change our lives and turn them over to God.  The thing is, though, that repentance, as it was done in Old Testament times, was not a private matter.  It was to be done in a very public way.

            And while you did this, you pleaded with God.  When you repented, you asked for forgiveness, but you did not just say, “God forgive me.”  You begged for mercy.  You said, please, God spare us.  Have mercy on us.  There was no thought that God’s forgiveness was automatic.  You had no assurance or even necessarily any expectation that God would forgive you.  You begged, you pleaded, and you hoped that God would forgive you.  As Joel says, if you do all this stuff, “Who knows?  [God] may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing.”  God may not do that, too, but maybe God will.  Who knows?  All we can do is ask and see what happens.

            So, does any of this apply now?  After all, we don’t feel obligated to follow Jewish law.  Our salvation comes from our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  So does all this talk about repentance and begging for mercy apply to us today?

            Well, for one thing, God is still holy.  And God is still righteous.  And God is still powerful.  Again, we may not emphasize those qualities of God today, but they’re still true, and we still need to recognize them and deal with them.  And it’s also still true that you and I fall far short from God’s standards.

            But we say, well, hey, I’m not perfect.  God knows I’m not perfect.  God cannot expect me to be perfect.  God loves me despite the fact that I’m not perfect.  Like we just said, I’m saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not by being perfect.  So why do I have to worry about all this stuff?

            Well, God does know that we’re not perfect.  I suspect God knows that a lot better than we know it.  And God does love us despite the fact that we’re not perfect.

            But we call ourselves Christians.  We call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ.  We say that we do have faith in Jesus Christ.  If we mean that, then we’re holding ourselves up to a standard.  If we say we follow Jesus Christ, then we’re saying we’re going to do what Jesus told us to do.  That includes things like loving our enemies.  That includes things like praying for people who persecute us.  That includes things like forgiving people over and over and over again.  That includes turning the other cheek when someone strikes us.  It includes a whole lot of stuff that does not come naturally to us, stuff that you and I really do not want to do.

            When we think of all that, we realize that when we say, “I’m not perfect”, we’ve never made a truer statement in our lives.  I mean, let’s face it, you and I are not even in the same zip code as perfect.  From where you and I are, perfect would be a very long distance call, and we may not even be able to get a signal.

            When we think about that, it makes us realize just how much Joel’s call for us to turn back to God, for us to “repent”, for us to ask for God’s forgiveness and mercy, still applies.  You and I need to repent and ask for forgiveness at least as much as the people in Joel’s time did.

            Now, does that mean that you and I need to make a big public show of our repentance?  No, I don’t think so.  In fact, that’s what Jesus warns us against in our reading from Matthew 6--making a big show of how holy we are.  

But we do need to be sincere about it.  And I think we do need to take some time with it.  I don’t think a perfunctory “God forgive me” is what God is looking for.  We may not need to make a public show, but I think we do need to do something to show, to ourselves as much as to God, that we really are serious about this.  We need to show that we’re not just saying the words, that we truly are sorry for what we’ve done.  We need to fully acknowledge our sins and truly turn back to God.

            And I also think we need to understand that God does not owe it to us to show us mercy.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I do believe that every time we go to God and sincerely and seriously ask God for forgiveness, God will give it to us.  But we need to understand that God’s forgiveness is a gift that God gives to us.  God is not required to forgive us.

            That’s why verse fourteen of our reading from Joel is so important.  Joel does not promise that God will forgive them and bless the people of Israel if they repent.  Joel does not promise that God will do anything.  All he says is “Who knows?”  Maybe God will forgive us and bless us.  Maybe God won’t.  Who knows?

            The reason we’re supposed to repent, the reason we’re supposed to ask God for forgiveness, the reason we’re supposed to give our lives to God, is because God deserves that.  We would have nothing without God.  None of us would even be here without God.  God deserves our praise, our thanks, and our love.  God deserves everything about us.

God knows whether we’re serious about this.  God knows whether we’re truly sorry for what we’ve done.  God knows whether we’re going to do something change, or whether we’re just saying the words.  We need to ask God for forgiveness humbly, recognizing who we are and how far short we fall.  We need to recognize God’s holiness and righteousness and power, while at the same time asking God to apply God’s love and mercy and forgiveness to us.

            In Joel’s time, when the people of Israel repented, God forgave them and blessed them.  If we sincerely and humbly and seriously repent and ask God for forgiveness, who knows?  Maybe God will forgive us and bless us.  And in fact, I think God will, but not because God owes it to us.  But because we do worship an all-loving, all-caring, all-merciful, all-compassionate God.

The Lone Savior

The message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, February 23, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 17:1-9.

            Do you ever get lonely?  I think probably most of us do, sometimes.  Lonely, after all, is not the same thing as being alone.  We can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely.  Lonely is a feeling that no one cares about us.  Lonely is a feeling that no one knows what’s really going on in our lives, and that no one would care about it if they did know.  Lonely is feeling like there’s no one who understands us, no one who knows what it’s like to be us.  Lonely is feeling like no one is there for us and no one is going to be there for us.

            It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.  And it can be a powerful motivator.  Humans will do all kinds of things to avoid that feeling of loneliness.  Some of the things we’ll do are good, and some of them are bad, but either way, we human beings will go to all kinds of lengths to avoid the pain of loneliness.

            If you feel lonely now, or if you ever do, know that Jesus understands.  Jesus understands what it’s like to feel like nobody understands you, because Jesus went through that himself while he was on earth.

            Think about this--while Jesus was on earth, he was unique.  And I mean that in the literal sense of the word--Jesus was unique.  Jesus was fully human, and yet he was fully divine.  He was the Savior, the Messiah, the Son of God.  Part of the trinity--God the Son--and yet, at least temporarily, separated from the rest of the trinity.  

            There was quite literally no one on earth who knew what it was like to be Jesus.  No matter how hard they tried, they could not do it.  No one could know what it was like to be who Jesus was.  No one could know what it was like to be able to do what Jesus did.  No one could know what it was like to be to feel what Jesus felt.  Even if they tried, they could not know that, and I really question how hard they tried.  It seemed like, most of the time, the disciples had their own agenda, had things they wanted Jesus to do, a lot of the time had things they wanted Jesus to do for them.  

            And even when Jesus was trying to tell them what was going to happen, and why, and what it all meant, they still could not understand.  And in fact, they tried to argue with him.  Right before the passage we read, Jesus was telling the disciples about how he was going to be killed and would be raised on the third day, and Peter started arguing with him.  He was saying, no, Jesus, that’s not going to happen to you.  And Jesus finally says, get behind me Satan!  Peter could not understand.  None of them could understand.

            Jesus had to be terribly lonely.  I suspect that’s why there are so many times in the gospels where we read that Jesus went off by himself to meditate and to pray.  We don’t know what happened at those times--Jesus never said, or at least if he did it’s not recorded--but I suspect at least part of it was just an attempt to reconnect with God the Father.  It was an attempt to get rid of the loneliness he felt on earth, the feeling that no one understood what it was like to be him.  It was an attempt to feel the closeness with the rest of the Trinity that he had felt when he was in heaven.

            And so we come to our passage for tonight.  What we call “the transfiguration”.  Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and they go up a high mountain.  There’s no one else there, just the four of them.  And suddenly, Jesus is transformed.  He’s changed.

            Try to imagine seeing that.  I mean, yes, Peter, James, and John believed in Jesus as the divine Son of God.  But as far as we can tell, he had always looked, well, pretty normal.  The Bible does not tell us anything about Jesus’ appearance, and so most people assume there was nothing particularly remarkable about it.  But now, all of a sudden, they see Jesus change, right in front of their eyes.

            Think about this description of Jesus:  “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”  You would not even be able to look at that, right?  You cannot look at the sun, at least not for more than a fraction of a second.  You have to either shut your eyes or turn away.  The disciples may have seen the countryside it up by the light coming from Jesus, but they would not have been able to look at Jesus himself, not for very long, anyway.

            In that moment, Jesus was no longer bound by his human form.  He was no longer bound by the restrictions placed on him by the fact that he was fully human.  He was, simply, fully divine.  We don’t know if his appearance was actually what it is in heaven, but the disciples at least got a glimpse of some of what Jesus looks like in his true glory.  And Jesus, for a little while, actually got to feel some of his true glory again.

            Can you imagine what that must have felt like for Jesus?  It must have been incredible.  Think of it this way--very few of us are fully and completely just who we are most of the time.  Maybe you are, I don’t know, but most of us have some part of ourselves that we keep concealed from the rest of the world.  It’s not necessarily that we’re trying to be someone that we’re not, although it can be.  It may be that there’s something about us we think people would not like.  It may be that there’s something we’re ashamed of.  It may be that there’s something we think people would not understand.  Or, there may simply be things about ourselves that we want to keep private, for whatever reason.  But most of us have those things, those things about ourselves that no one else knows about.

            But then, you get into a situation where you can totally be yourself.  Maybe you’re with the right person, the person you know will accept you and care about you no matter what.  Maybe you’re with a bunch of strangers who you don’t care what they think of you.  Maybe you just reach a point in your life where you say the heck with it, I’m going to just be myself and not worry about whether anybody likes it or not.

            If you’ve ever been in that situation, you know it’s an incredibly great feeling.  To just be who you are, who God created you to be.  To be one hundred percent of who you are, with no shields, no filters, no nothing.  Just to be totally and completely yourself.  That’s an awesome feeling.

            And that’s what Jesus was feeling at the transfiguration.  For that moment, he could be himself again.  And he was with Moses and Elijah.  Now, Moses and Elijah are not on the same level as Jesus.  Great as they were, they were still human beings, not the divine Son of God.  But still, they were people who could understand Jesus.  They were people who fully understood who Jesus was.  And Jesus could be fully himself with them.

            It did not last, of course.  We don’t know how long Jesus was with them, but eventually Moses and Elijah left, and Jesus was back to being fully human, as well as fully divine.  And he had to go back down the mountain with the disciples, and go back to his life on earth.  

I have to think, though, that this made things easier for him.  Because it reminded him--not that he did not know it, but it reminded him that his loneliness would not last forever.  His need to not fully be who he was would not last forever.  Yes, he was going to have to go through some really hard things.  Arrest, beatings, mockery, finally death.  Then, resurrection.  And then, in the end, going back to heaven.  Being reunited with the other members of the trinity.  Again being fully who he was, with none of those human restrictions any more.

So here’s the point.  If you feel lonely, if you feel like no one understands you, if you feel like there’s no one else like you, know this:  Jesus understands.  If you feel like you cannot truly be yourself:  Jesus understands.  Jesus knows what you’re going through.  Jesus knows exactly how you feel, because he felt it himself.

And because Jesus understands, you can always go to him.  You can go to him in prayer.  You can tell him exactly how you feel, and he will understand.

And sometimes, that’s the main thing we need--just someone to understand.  But the chances are that we’ll get more than that.  I mean, we probably won’t get to see Moses and Elijah, but we will get something.  We’ll get encouragement.  We’ll get strength.  We’ll get the knowledge that what we’re going through will not last forever, even if it feels like it will.  A day will come when we no longer have to feel lonely.  A day will come when we no longer feel we cannot be by ourselves.  It may not be today.  It may not be tomorrow.  But it will come.

If you feel lonely, please know that.  And if you don’t feel lonely, look around you.  Try to see people who do.  Because the chances are, they’re around you.  They’re around all of us.  They won’t tell us.  Nobody walks up to you and says, “I’m lonely.”  No one comes up to you and says, “I feel like I cannot be myself.”  But there are signs.  There are signals.  And we can see them, if we take the time to look.  And we’ll be more likely to see them if we ask God to help us see them.

Jesus knows what it’s like to be lonely, because he felt it.  He knows the pain loneliness can cause, and he does not want anyone else to have to feel that pain.  If you are lonely, Jesus will help ease your pain.  If you’re not lonely, try to ease the pain for someone who is.  It will help them.  It will probably make you feel better.  And you know what?  I think Jesus will be proud of you, too.

God's Encouragement

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, February 23, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 17:1-9 and 2 Peter 1:16-21.

            Do you ever get discouraged?

            I think most of us do.  In fact, it seems like it comes pretty easily to us human beings.  Discouragement, pessimism, disappointment--sometimes it seems like life is full of those things.  Even if we try to be optimistic, even if we try to stay upbeat and encouraging, it seems like life has a way of trying to drag us down.

            And it seems like the world does not help us much when it comes to stuff like this.  You turn on the news, and all it seems to be is bad news.  You go to social media and a lot of the times it’s people writing about how awful things are.  You go to the coffee shop and it seems like all we hear is complaints and criticisms.  And none of this is because people are bad people, not really.  It’s because people are people.  As I said, negativity seems to come naturally to us.  Patch Adams once said that the most radical act anyone can commit is to be happy.  There’s a lot of truth in that.  Staying upbeat, staying positive, in the face of all that the world throws at us, is not an easy thing to do.  And we don’t always have a lot of company in doing it.

            If it makes you feel any better, though, know that even Jesus had a hard time staying positive sometimes.  The Bible is full of times when Jesus got angry, when Jesus got disgusted, when Jesus was frustrated.  All those things we feel, Jesus felt them, too.  Remember the time he overturned the tables of the money changers and started chasing people with a whip?  Remember the time he said to Peter, his most trusted disciple, “Get behind me, Satan”?  Remember the time when he’d just been teaching the disciples about humility, and then he caught them arguing about which one of them was the greatest?  Jesus, even Jesus, got discouraged sometimes.  So we should not be too hard on ourselves if we get discouraged sometimes, too.

            God understands when we get discouraged.  But God does not want us to stay discouraged.  God did not want Jesus to stay discouraged, either.  That’s one of the lessons we can learn from our Bible readings for today.

            We read from the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of Matthew.  This comes right after one of those times of Jesus’ discouragement that I mentioned, the time Jesus told Peter “Get behind me, Satan”.  If you remember, Jesus was trying to tell the disciples about how he was going to suffer, and be killed, and then rise again on the third day.  And Peter starts arguing with him!  He says, “Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!”  

Now think about that.  You’re there with Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, God the Son.  And he starts telling you what’s going to happen, and you start challenging him!  You basically try to tell Jesus, the divine Son of God, that he does not know what he’s talking about!  I mean, ten out of ten for courage, I guess, but minus several thousand for clear thinking.

That had to be discouraging for Jesus.  Here he is, trying to prepare the disciples for what’s coming, and the leader of the disciples starts arguing with him.  He had to be wondering if he was really even accomplishing anything on earth.  I mean, if even the people closest to him could not understand, could not trust him, could not really believe, what good was any of this stuff doing?

But God the Father understood.  And God the Father did not want Jesus to stay discouraged.  So, six days later, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and he goes up on a high mountain.  And he is transfigured.  Now there’s a churchy word for you.  I suspect none of us has ever used words like “transfigured” or “transfiguration” in any context other than in this story.  All it is, really, is a fancy word that means “a thorough or dramatic change in form into something more beautiful or more elevated”.

That’s what happened to Jesus.  He was changed.  And it was dramatic.  We’re not told how long it took, whether it happened in an instant or if it took some time.  But he was dramatically changed.  And he was definitely something more beautiful.  We’re told that “his face shone like the sun” and “his clothes became as white as the light.”  We assume he still appeared to be in the shape of a human being, although the Bible does not specifically say that.  But it was clear, to all of the disciples, that Jesus was not just a human being.  He was something higher.  He was something better.  And, yes, he was something more beautiful.

And he was not alone.  Moses and Elijah were there, too.  I wonder how Peter, James, and John knew who they were.  I mean, Moses and Elijah lived hundreds of years before this.  In fact, in Moses’ case, it was over a thousand years.  It’s not like anyone had pictures of them.  I guess, when you see something like that, you just know.  And how awesome would it be to know what Moses and Elijah said to Jesus, and what Jesus said in response?  I mean, don’t you wish there was a transcript of that conversation?  It had to be incredible.

But of course, we don’t know what they said.  We just know one statement.  We’re told that “a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”  And of course, that echoes the voice that came down from heaven when Jesus was baptized.  But in this case, the voice added three more words.  Those three words, words about Jesus but addressed to Peter, James, and John, were “Listen to him!”

I would think all this had to be encouraging to Jesus.  That feeling of discouragement he had must have left him.  Jesus, of course, is greater than Moses and Elijah--great as they were, they were still just human beings, while Jesus is the divine Son of God.  But still, they must have had some sort of message for Jesus, and one would think that message must have come from God the Father.  That had to encourage Jesus and strengthen him.  And not only that, but for a little while--we don’t know how long--but for a little while Jesus got to be more of what he truly was.  We don’t know if Jesus fully became what he is in heaven, but he became closer to it.  He was able to shed some of the restrictions of his earthly form, at least for a little while.

That had to be encouraging for him, too.  You know, Jesus had been on earth for over thirty years by this point.  And while thirty years is nothing in eternal terms, it’s quite a while in earthly terms.  I wonder if, at this point, Jesus remembered what it felt like to be in his heavenly form.  I mean, he knew who he was--he knew he was the divine Son of God and all that.  But did he remember what it felt like to be in heaven?  Did he remember what it felt like to be fully divine, without the restrictions of also being fully human?  Maybe he did, but maybe he did not.  I have to think that being closer to that form, being closer to being what he truly was, being reminded of what that felt like, also had to be incredibly encouraging to Jesus.

And you know, this was all encouraging to the disciples, too.  Especially Peter.  It had to be hard on Peter when Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”  To have Jesus call you Satan--I mean, Peter had to feel pretty small at that point.  I said earlier that it was probably not very smart of Peter to be arguing with Jesus, but at the same time, I think it was well-intentioned.  Jesus was saying that he was going to be killed.  Peter did not want Jesus to be killed, and you can’t blame him for that.  He probably thought he was coming to Jesus’ defense, saying that he would not let Jesus be killed.  And then, to have Jesus chew him out and call him Satan, well, Peter had to be pretty discouraged at that point, too.  

But despite that, when the time came for Jesus to be changed in this way, what did he do?  He took Peter with him.  James and John, too, of course.  But even though Jesus was upset with Peter, he did not give up on Peter.  He brought Peter with him.  He wanted Peter to see.  He wanted Peter to be encouraged, too.

And Peter was.  This whole thing made a deep impression on him.  That’s why we read the passage from Second Peter.  Peter is re-telling this story of Jesus being transformed.  He remembered it well, even though Peter’s letters were written many years after these events took place.  It had to be encouraging to Peter to know that, even though he’d made Jesus upset, Jesus still loved him.  In fact, Jesus loved him enough to keep him in his inner circle.  Jesus loved him enough to let him be one of the privileged few who not only saw Jesus in his glory, but he also saw Moses and Elijah.  That had to make Peter feel incredibly privileged and special.

If people like Peter and even Jesus got discouraged sometimes, it’s okay for you and me to get discouraged, too.  God understands it.  It’s not a sin.  But God does not want us to stay discouraged.  God wants us to bounce back and to feel encouraged again.  God wants that because God knows we’ll be happier that way, but God also knows we’ll be able to serve God better if we’re in a positive, hopeful frame of mind that we will if we’re always negative.   So, if we keep our eyes open, and keep our hearts open, we’ll see God doing something to help us get over our discouragement and get back to feeling positive about God’s world and about our lives.

The chances are we won’t get to see Moses and Elijah.  We probably won’t see Jesus in his glory, either, not while we’re on earth.  But God will do something.  It may come in a big way, but it may come in a small way.  A song that has meaning to us.  A kind word just when we need one.  Something that just, coincidentally, seems to go better than we expected it to.  There are all kinds of ways God will send encouragement to us.  It’s up to us to be looking for those things, so we recognize them when God sends them to us.

We all get discouraged sometimes.  It’s natural and normal.  But we worship the almighty, all-powerful, all-loving, all-caring, all-merciful, holy and perfect God.  The God who promises salvation and eternal life through faith in His Divine Son.  That, in and of itself, should be enough to keep us from staying discouraged.  In fact, that should be enough to make us rejoice!

Working For God

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, February 16, 2020.  The Bible verses used are 1 Corinthians 3:1-9.

            When you meet someone, what’s the first thing you do?

            Well, you look at them, of course.  But then you start talking to them.  And you start asking questions, right?  You want to know more about them.  You probably start out with the most basic thing--their name.  And then you might ask if they’re married, if they have kids, where they’re from, that sort of thing.  But at some point, the chances are that you’re going to ask this:  “What kind of work do you do?”

            We just kind of assume that everyone is doing some kind of work.  And the fact is, just about everyone is.  Most people have jobs.  But even if you don’t, you still do some work.  Most retired people I know either work part time or do volunteer jobs or have productive hobbies or something.  If you’re unemployed, you still have a kind of work you do, even if you’re not able to do it right now.  And even so, the chances are you’re not going to just sit around doing nothing--you’re still finding a way to make productive use of your time.  Even kids have some kind of work they do--school work, or chores at home, or something.  Pretty much everyone has some kind of work that they do.

            So I’d like you to think about something.  As you do your work--whatever it is--as you do your work every day, how often do you think about how your work serves God?

            The answers will vary, obviously.  There are probably some of us here who think about that a lot.  There are probably others who think about it once in a while.  And there are probably some who never think about that.  There may be some here for whom it’s never occurred to you that your work might serve God.

            But we all should.  And we should think about it a lot more than we do.  Think about what the Apostle Paul says in the last verse of our reading for today, verse nine:  “For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

            Now, maybe you say, well, but Paul was talking people who are focused on bringing people to Christ.  And yes, he was.  But I don’t think that’s all he was talking about.  Remember, Paul himself was not always a full-time evangelist.  He had a trade.  He was a tent-maker.  And while he was on his great missionary journeys, that’s how he supported himself--he made tents and sold them.  And I’m pretty sure that, while he was making tents, Paul was thinking about how that work might serve God.  Paul thought of himself as being in service to God in everything he did.  And you and I should do that, too.

            Because the fact is that every good work that anyone does is in service to God in some way.  Whatever our work is, when we do it we are using talents and abilities that God has given us.  And that, in and of itself, is pleasing to God.  That’s the reason God gave us those talents and abilities, after all--so we could use them.  God is happy about that.  In fact, God’s happy when we use our talents and abilities even when we don’t actively think about how we’re serving God by using them.

            But being aware of it--thinking about how doing our work, using our talents and abilities serves God--helps us make better use of them.  It helps us serve God better.  For one thing, if we think about how our work serves God, it’s probably going to inspire us to do a better job, right?    I mean, obviously, we should always try to do our work as well as we can.  But it’s one thing to try to do a good job for ourselves, or for our boss, or for a customer.  But if we think of our work as something we’re doing for God, well, that has to be more of an inspiration, right?  We’re not just doing something for a paycheck, or for a promotion, or to build up our business.  We’re doing it to serve God.  And when we think about what we do as working for God--when we think of what an honor and a privilege it truly is to be allowed to work for God--that ought to inspire us to do the absolute best job we can.

            But the other thing is, when we think about how doing our work, how using our talents and abilities serves God, we’re also likely to think about more ways we can use those talents and abilities.  We’ll start actively, positively, thinking “how can I take what I do, the talents and abilities I have, and use them to serve God?”

            And I know a lot of people here already do that.  There are people here who’ve put in countless hours in service to the church.  There are people here who’ve put in countless hours in service to the community.  There are people here who’ve put in countless hours in service to their neighbors.  Sometimes that’s done by working through an organization, sometimes it’s done just by seeing something that needs to be done and doing it.  Sometimes it’s done just by being there for someone when they need us.  There are all kinds of ways in which we can use the talents and abilities God has given us to serve God.

            And again, when we do those things, we’re serving God whether we think about it in those terms or not.  But here’s the thing.  If we don’t think about it in those terms, then we’re simply doing something to be nice.  We’re doing something to be kind.  We’re doing something to help people.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for being nice.  I’m all for being kind.  And I’m all for helping people.  I’m pretty sure God’s all for those things, too.  We should all be nice.  We should all be kind.  We should all help people.  Most of us--definitely including me--should do a lot more of that kind of thing than we do.

            But if we do these things with an awareness of serving God, we can take it farther.  We can take another step forward.  We can go from just being nice and being kind to seeing what we do as a chance to share God’s word and show God’s love.  We can do use our talents and abilities to bring people to Christ.

            I can’t tell you exactly how that will play out for you.  But I’ll guarantee that it will.  If we do one thing.  If we pray.  If we ask God to give us chances to bring people to Christ.  If we ask God to help us do our work with the awareness that we are serving God, if we ask God to help us see how we could use that work to bring people to Christ, and if we ask God to give us the courage to take advantage of the chances that God puts in front of us to bring people to Christ.

            God tells us that we can pray for just about anything.  We can go to God with anything--whatever’s on our minds and in our hearts--and God will be there for us.  God will give us what we need.  But I have to think that one of the prayers that pleases God the most is when we pray, “God, give me chances to serve you.  Give me the chance to use the talents and abilities you’ve given me to serve you.  Give me the chance to use those talents and abilities to bring people to you.”

            The reason I think that prayer pleases God is that any time I’ve prayed anything like that, God has answered that prayer almost immediately.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that to sound like I’m bragging.  I don’t pray that way anywhere near as often as I should.  And there are many times when I’ve failed to follow through on the answer God gave me.  But the point is that if we pray that way, God will answer.  And the chances are that answer will come pretty quickly.

            But be careful.  When we pray that way, we need to mean it.  Because while God will answer, that answer may come in a way we don’t expect.  It may come in a way that takes us out of our comfort zone.  And when we get that answer, we may be tempted to say, “Um, God, that was not exactly what I had in mind.  Can you give me some other way to serve you?”

            And that’s where trust comes into it.  If we really trust God, if we really consider ourselves to be working for God, then we need to be okay with whatever way God comes up with for us to serve.  We need to be okay with it even if it’s not the way we would’ve chosen.  We need to be okay with it even if it makes us uncomfortable.  If we’ve asked God to give us chances to serve, and God gives us those chances, we need to be willing to do what we can to follow through with it.  God will understand our reluctance, and God will forgive us for it.  But God does not want us to make excuses.

            All of us have work to do.  But when we think of our work as being in God’s service, it puts our work in a whole new light.  It inspires us to do our work better.  It inspires us to look for new ways to use the talents and abilities God has given us.  And it inspires us to ask God to help us use those talents and abilities to bring people to Christ.  And bringing people to Christ is probably the most important work of all.

A Poem About Being Different

A POEM ABOUT BEING DIFFERENT

Dr. Seuss once said (and there’s no doubt)

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

But of course, that’s something that’s easy to say

When you’re already famous for doing things your way

I wonder, did he say that back in the day

When he was young and still trying to find his own way?

Did he say it when he was feeling alone

With no one to talk or call on the phone?

Because when we’re young, we want to fit in

And then when we’re older, we want that again

No one wants to stick out like he was a sore thumb

We feel like an oddball, goofy or dumb

It’s no fun to be different, it’s no fun at all

And that’s true whether we’re big or we’re small

But if it’s the case that you’re feeling that way

Here’s something that might help, it might make your day

Jesus was different from the day he was born

And I’ll bet sometimes he felt a little lost or forlorn

There was no one on earth like Jesus, not one

Born of a woman, but still God the Son

It had to be hard, yet he still made it through

And he told us that we need to be different, too.

To our worst enemies, we’re supposed to give love

It’s pretty hard to do that, when push comes to shove

When someone hits your right cheek, offer your left?

If someone takes your shirt, go along with the theft?

And not just go along, but give him your coat?

I don’t really like that--it gets my goat

When you say it like this, it sounds kind of nuts

But Jesus said do it, no ifs, ands, or buts

He said if we just love the folks who love us

We’re like all the others, with no need to fuss

See, anyone can love the ones who love them

Its easy to be a friend to someone who is a friend

But for those who don’t love us, can we love them, too?

After all, that’s what Jesus told us to do

But remember, God’s Spirit will help us along

And with God’s Spirit we can never go wrong

And if we should falter or stumble or fall

God’s Spirit will help us overcome it all

So dare to be different, no matter the cost

Because what we’ll gain is much more than we’ve lost

Let’s be like Jesus Christ just as much as we can

And we’ll receive our reward from the divine Son of Man

What God Has Prepared

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, February 9, 2020.  The Bible verses used are 1 Corinthians 2:1-16.

I’ve spent almost my whole life in small towns.  I grew up in one, went to school in one, and have worked in a few.  And as I think you know, Wanda and I both love small towns.  The only time we did not live in a small town is the three years we spent in the Sioux City area.  And don’t get me wrong, the people there treated us very well.  We still here from them, and it was wonderful to go back there and see a lot of them last summer.  

But even so, we were very happy when we got the chance to come here and come back to small-town living again.  We love the things that go on in small towns.  We love the people who live in small towns.  We love the way you can get involved in things in a small town.  That’s not necessarily good or bad--it’s just who we are and what we like.

But the thing is, there sometimes is a mindset that we get into in small towns.  And it’s understandable, and sometimes I do it, too, but it’s important that we recognize it.  It’s a mindset that allows us to be defined by our limitations.  We start thinking about all the things we cannot do, rather than all the things we can do.

It happens in the community.  We think, “Well, we’re just a small town.  We don’t have very many people or very much money.  We cannot do a whole lot.”  It happens in the church.  We think, “Well, we’re just a small church.  We don’t have much money.  We really cannot do a whole lot.”  It happens in our personal lives, too.  We think, “Well, I’m only one person.  I don’t have much money or much power.  I really cannot do a whole lot.”

I don’t mean to sound critical, because it’s perfectly understandable why this happens.  But when we start to think this way, we need to remember our Bible reading for today.  We especially need to remember the ninth verse:  “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived--those things God has prepared for those who love him.”

That’s a really profound verse.  It’s the antidote to being defined by our limitations.  Because our God, the God we worship, the God we love, the God we are trying to be faithful to, has no limitations.  God’s power is unlimited, just like God’s love is unlimited.  And that means there’s no limit to what you can and I can do when we rely on God’s power and on God’s love.

Do we need to be realistic about that?  Well, yes, to an extent.  But only to an extent.  Because God’s view of what’s realistic could be a lot different from ours.  When Wanda and I decided that I would leave the law practice at age forty-seven and go to seminary with the idea of becoming a pastor, we talked to a lot of people who thought that was not realistic.  Some of them were in my own family.  Some people thought I was going through a mid-life crisis or something.  Now, don’t get me wrong--it’s not that they did not love us or that they did not care about us or anything like that.  Once we showed we were determined to head down this path, some of those people became our biggest supporters.  It’s just that they did not think what we were planning to do was realistic.  And in human terms, maybe it was not.  But it was what God was calling us to do, and so we trusted that it even if it did not seem realistic in human terms, it was realistic in God’s eyes.

Now, there are still are certain realities we have to deal with, of course.  But the thing is that God understands that.  God is not going to ask us to do things unless God has equipped us to do them.  God is not going to ask me to be an auto mechanic, or a basketball player, or any of a thousand other things that God has not given me the talent to do.  God knows--better than we do, really--the talents and abilities God has given us.  God is not going to ask us to do things that we clearly are unable to do.

But at the same time, because God knows our talents and abilities, God knows that each of us has talents and abilities we’ve never used.  Maybe we’ve never had the self-confidence.  Maybe we’ve never had the chance.  Maybe it just never occurred to us that we might have that talent or that ability.  

Or, maybe we’ve tried to develop that talent or ability on our own, rather than asking for God’s help.  Because remember who this God we love is.  This is the God who created the universe out of nothing.  This is the God who made it rain for forty days and forty nights.  This is the God who produced food for the Israelites when they were starving in the desert.  This is the God for whom the impossible is possible.  In fact, this is the God for whom the impossible is not even hard.

              And that’s where our bible verse comes into it.  God has prepared things for us that are beyond our ability to understand.  God has prepared things for us that no eye has ever seen.  God has prepared things for us that no ear has ever heard.  God has prepared things for us that no human mind has ever conceived of.

            So while we need to be realistic about our limitations, we should not place those same limitations on God.  We serve a God who is not limited by anything except God’s own decisions about what’s right and what’s wrong.  The only limitations God has are the ones God creates.  God can, literally, do anything God chooses to do.  We should not place limitations on God.

            And we also should not place limitations on what we can do with God’s help.  Because that’s simply another way of placing limitations on God, the same God we just said had no limitations other than the ones God creates.  Our verse says that God has things beyond our imagination planned for those who love God.  If you love God, that means you.  And, it means me.

            If you doubt this, look back at your life.  Can you think of a time you did something you did not think you could do?  I suspect you can.  If you really think about it, you can think of a time where you were faced with a situation, and you were not sure what to do, but you knew you had to do something.  And so you did, and you discovered you could do figure out the right thing to do, and that you could do it.  Almost all of us have times like that.

            We can think of times like that in our churches, too.  Look at the things our churches have accomplished we have active church school programs and active Vacation Bible Schools in Onida and Gettysburg.  Who’d have thought a little church like this could do that?  The Gettysburg church built an addition to the church that cost around three quarters of a million dollars and paid for it in four years.  Who’d have thought a little church could do that?  Attendance at the Agar church has grown by thirty to forty percent over the last couple of years.  Who’d have thought a little church in a little town could do that?  And that’s just scratching the surface.  We could go on and on and on with things that all of our churches have done, things that most people would not have thought a little church could do.

            And in fact, if we had tried to do them by ourselves, we could not have done them.  But we did not do them by ourselves.  We did them with the power of God.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I know there are a lot of people who have worked very hard to make all of those things happen.  But there have also been a lot of people who have prayed very hard to make those things happen.  A lot of them, of course, were the same people.  We went past the limitations that a lot of people would’ve seen, and instead decided to rely on God’s unlimited power.

            So, what else could we do?  What else could God have planned for us?  Because I believe that God is just getting started around here.  I think there are all kinds of things God has planned for us.  Things that no eye has seen, that no ear has heard.  Things that our human minds have not yet conceived.  God has those things prepared and planned for each of the churches of the Wheatland Parish.

            I don’t know what those things are.  I don’t know when those things are going to happen.  But I’m convinced that they are.  And I really believe they’re going to start happening fairly soon.  Some of you may remember that several years ago, I said that I believed God was going to do something special here in the churches of the Wheatland Parish.  After I said that, our churches went through some struggles.  But I remain convinced that God is going to do something special here in the churches of the Wheatland Parish.  I think, through those struggles, God was laying the groundwork for what God is going to do.  

Some would say that the things I mentioned earlier are special things, and they are.  But I think there’s more to come.  In fact, I think there’s a lot more to come.  Again, I think God is just getting started here.  Again, I’m not putting a timeline on when it’s going to happen.  But I do believe that, at some point in the future, we’re going to look back on where we were and where we are and be amazed at all the things God has done.

Again, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived--those things God has prepared for those who love him.”  I know that the people of the Wheatland Parish love God.  So let’s open ourselves up to what God wants to do here.  When we have an idea, or when a thought strikes us, or when we see something start to happen, let’s be open to it.  When God stirs something in us, let’s try it and see where it goes.  Let’s not put limitations on ourselves.  Let’s not put limitations on God, either.  Let’s free ourselves to imagine.  Let’s free ourselves to dream.  And let’s free ourselves trust God.  

            God is not restricted by artificial limitations.  God is not restricted by what we think is realistic, either.  So let’s stay open.  Let’s keep our minds open.  Most of all, let’s keep our hearts open.  God gives each one of us all kinds of chances to serve God.  God gives our churches all kinds of chances to serve God.  Sometimes, those ways to serve are things we never dreamed of.  But if we stay open, we can notice them.  And if we trust God, we can follow through on them.  We can stop putting limitations on ourselves.  Instead, we can trust the leading of God.  God has all kinds of things prepared, things we’ve never dreamed of.  And nothing is impossible for God.