Do the Right Thing

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, April 25, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Joel 2:1-32.

            God is big.  God is really big.  We really cannot imagine just how big God is.  I mean, you could take the biggest thing you can think of, multiply it by ten, and then double it, and you’d still be nowhere near how big God is.  God is bigger than the universe.  God is bigger than everything.

            Most of us know this, but I bring it up because sometimes, as Christians, we forget it.  Or maybe the better way to put it is that we don’t think about it.  We tend to make God too small.  We tend to try to bring God down to our level.

            Now, to some extent, this is probably inevitable.  Because God is bigger than anything we can imagine, we have to shrink God down just so we can think about Him at all.  And that’s not necessarily wrong.  But what can happen is that we just focus on the aspects of God that we like, and ignore the aspects of God that we don’t like.

            And so we say things like “God is love”.  “God is forgiving.”  “God is merciful.”  And of course, those statements are all true.  God is love, and God is forgiving, and God is merciful.  And we should all thank God every day that God is all of those things.  But those things are not all God is.  There’s a lot more to God than that.  And we need to recognize those things if we’re going to live as God wants us to.

            In our reading from Joel, Joel tells the people that the day of the Lord is coming.  And while we might think that would be good news, for them it’s not.  The people of Israel have sinned against God.  They have turned away from God.  And now, they are facing one of the aspects of God that we don’t like to talk about so much:  God’s judgment.  God has judged the people of Israel, and the judgment is not a favorable one.  

            Israel is facing a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness.  They are facing what Joel calls “a large and mighty army...such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come.”  And he goes into detail about what that army is going to do.  You heard it, and there’s no need for me to repeat it.  But it’s going to be really bad.  Basically, everything is going to be wiped out.  There’s going to be nothing left.  This is the Lord’s army, with the Lord Himself at the head of it.  No one is going to be able to endure the judgment that God is going to give.

            God is love, and God is forgiving, and God is merciful.  But God does not allow us to take advantage of that.  God does not allow us to just take those things for granted.  God’s love, and God’s forgiveness, and God’s mercy, do not allow us to ignore God and just do anything we want, trusting that God will always forgive us.  God’s love will not prevent God from issuing God’s judgment.  God’s forgiveness will not prevent God from making us take the consequences for our actions.  God’s judgment is real, and it is not something we want to be on the wrong side of.

            But judgment is not all there is to God, either, and it’s not all there is to the book of Joel.  After saying all these things about the day of the Lord, Joel says this:  “‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’”  

            Joel says, in effect, it’s not too late.  God’s judgment is real, but God has not given up on us.  There’s still time for us to turn this around.  There’s still time to return to God.  

            How do we do that?  Joel says, “Rend your heart”.  Now, there’s a churchy word if I’ve ever heard one.  “Rend your heart.”  When do we ever say we should “rend” something, other than in this context?   I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “rend” in my life, outside of church.  I don’t know why it’s used here.  What it means is to tear something.  Tear your heart open before God.  Let everything out--all the selfishness, all the arrogance, all the pride, all the envy, all the things that take us away from God.  Let it all out.  Get rid of it.  Humble ourselves before God.  Ask for forgiveness, yes, but do more than that.  Acknowledge that we have no right to expect God to forgive us.  We really don’t even have the right to ask God for forgiveness.  In fact, we don’t have the right to be in God’s presence at all.  We need to give up any pretense that we have any goodness whatsoever.  Rip our hearts open before God, begging God to forgive us and give us another chance.

            Joel reminds the people that God is gracious and compassionate.  God is slow to anger and abounding in love.  But even so, Joel says, don’t take these things for granted.  Don’t think God is just automatically going to forgive you.  God does not owe it to you to give you another chance.  God is not obligated to do anything.

            And I love the way Joel puts it.  He says that if the people do this, if they do come to God humbly, asking forgiveness, “Who knows?  He may turn and relent and leave a blessing.”

            “Who knows?”  If we tear open our hearts, if we return to God, if we acknowledge God as the Lord, if we treat God the way God deserves to be treated, God just might forgive us and give us another chance.  He might not--again, God is not required to do this--but He might.  So let’s do it.

            Now, notice, this is not said as an attempt to manipulate God.  This is not, well, we’ll act in a certain way to make God do something for us.  This is, “We’ll do the right thing, and then we’ll see how God responds.”  We’ll hope that, in this instance, God’s desire to forgive and to be merciful are stronger than God’s judgment.  But we have no guarantee of that.  But if we do the right thing, then maybe--maybe--God will exercise forgiveness and have mercy on us.

            And you know, when you think about it, that phrase contains a lot of what we’re supposed to do as Christians.  Do the right thing.  Not because we expect God to reward us.  Not because we think it will benefit us on earth.  Not even because we think it’ll help us go to heaven.  Do the right thing because it’s what God wants us to do.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing.

            Now, when I say “the right thing”, I’m talking about what’s right in God’s eyes.  Jesus told us a bunch of those things.  Love God.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love your enemies.  Seek God’s kingdom.  Treat others as you would like to be treated.  Forgive.  Repent of your sins.  If we follow the words of Jesus, we will do the right thing in God’s eyes.  

            The people of Israel did the right thing.  They tore open their hearts.  They turned away from evil.  They repented of their sins.  They acknowledged the greatness of God.  They acknowledged that God was their Lord, and they approached God that way.

            They approached God humbly.  They did not ask God to give them back everything they’d had.  They did not ask God to make them great and powerful.  They did not ask God to treat them like they were anything special.  They just asked God to spare them and give them another chance.  They knew they did not deserved it.  They knew God did not owe it to them.  But they asked anyway.  They asked because they knew God was their only chance and their only hope.

            And their hope was justified.  From the rest of the chapter, you know that God did hear their prayer, God did forgive them, and God did give them another chance.  In fact, God did more than that.  God promised to give them prosperity, and promised that anyone who called on His name would be saved.  God’s desire to forgive and to be merciful were stronger than God’s judgment. 

            God is, of course, the unchanging, eternal God.  That means all those aspects of God that existed in Joel’s time still exist today.  God is still love, and God is still forgiving, and God is still merciful.  But God still gives judgment, too.  And it’s still a bad thing to be on the wrong end of God’s judgment.

            So, when you think about God, remember that God is more than love and forgiveness and mercy.  God is all those things, but God is also judgment.  And we don’t want to be on the wrong end of it.  So, let’s tear open our hearts.  Let’s do the right thing--the right thing in God’s eyes.  Follow the words of Jesus.  Obey God’s commandments.  Not because we expect God to reward us, but just because it’s the right thing to do.  And who knows?  Maybe God will not give us the punishment we deserve.  Maybe God will forgive and be merciful.  God forgave the people of Joel’s time.  He just might forgive us, too.

 

A Matter of Trust

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 25, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Isaiah 25:1-9.

            I don’t know about you, but I find it very tempting to just not pay attention to the news anymore.

            Now, I’m not saying that’s the right thing to do.  But it just seems like, when we pay attention to the news, all we hear is bad news.  And I’m not going to go down the list of things--you know it as well as I do.  But it seems like the news is just one bad thing after another after another.  And it’s depressing to see it.

            And the thing about it is that, for almost everything we see, it seems like there’s nothing we can do about it.  We see all these bad things, and we have no idea what we might do to make them better.  And so we add frustration to our depression, and that just makes us feel worse.

            That can happen in our personal lives, too.  Sometimes bad things happen to us personally.  And sometimes it seems like there’s nothing we can do about those things, either.  

            The temptation, in response to all this, is simply to withdraw.  To pull back into what we think of as a safe area, to ignore the world, and just try to get through our lives as best we can.  But I don’t think that’s really what God wants us to do, and it’s really not even possible anyway.  No matter how much we may try to withdraw, the world has a way of forcing itself back into our consciousness.  So there we are, depressed and frustrated, and forced to deal with situations that it seems like we can do nothing about.

            The people of Isaiah’s time would’ve been able to relate to all this.  They did not have twenty-four hour news channels, but they knew they were living in a time when things were pretty bad.  Israel was under pressure from enemies on every side.  And it seemed like there was nothing they could do about it.  Certainly, the common people did not think there was anything they could do about it.  And I would think they were feeling pretty depressed and frustrated, too.

            The prophet Isaiah, in our reading for today, tells them, and us, how to deal with this.  The passage is written as a prayer to God, but Isaiah surely knew that God was not his sole audience.  Don’t get me wrong--Isaiah was addressing God, and I’m sure he meant every word he said.  But he clearly knew other people were going to hear what he said, and he said these words with that knowledge in mind.  He wanted the people of Israel to benefit from his words, and we can benefit from them, too.

            After saying that he will exalt and praise God’s name, Isaiah says this:  “in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.”

            It seems to me that there’s so much packed into that statement, and it’s all stuff we need to remember about God.  First, God is faithful.  What God does, God does in perfect faithfulness.

            When we get depressed and frustrated, I think we tend to forget about that.  God is faithful.  God sees what’s happening in the world.  God sees what’s happening in our personal lives, too.  God knows what’s going on with you, and God knows what’s going on with me.  And God is not just going to abandon us and allow these things to happen forever.  God is faithful.

            Second, God has done wonderful things.  In this context, “wonderful” does not just mean something really good, although it includes that.  “Wonderful” means things that are incredible.  Things that are awe-inspiring.  Things that just make us go “Wow!”  

            And so, we know that in addition to being faithful, God is good.  And God is all-powerful.  God is, literally, awesome.  We said that God is not going to allow our situation stay as it is forever, but it’s more than that.  God is going to do some things that are amazing.  God is going to do things that are so astounding that we would not believe them possible, until we remember who it is that’s doing them.  There is no such thing as impossible for God, because with God, all things are possible.

            Third, the things God is doing are “things planned long ago”.  Nothing ever comes as a surprise to God.  Nothing that happened in Isaiah’s time, and nothing that happens now.  Nothing that happens in the world, and nothing that happens in our personal lives.  God knows everything that’s happening, and God has a plan for all of it.  That does not mean God caused it all--human beings still have free will.  But God has a plan to turn all those things for good.  Those wonderful things that God is going to do are things God has planned to do all along.

            We hear that, and maybe we agree with it.  But then we look around, and--we don’t really see any evidence of it.  We don’t see God turning our situations around for good.  Sometimes we don’t see God doing much of anything.  We just see the bad things that are happening, and they seem to keep happening, with no sign that they’re going to get better.

            That was true of the people of Isaiah’s time, too.  They could see no sign of things getting better.  And so, Isaiah reminds people of all God has done in the past.  He says, “You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.”

            In other words, whenever we’ve had trouble in the past, God has been there for us. God has always provided what we needed when we needed it.  If God has done that in the past, we can trust God to do that again.  God has always been there for us, and God will always be there for us.  That was true for the people of Isaiah’s time.  It’s true for our time today, too.

            So, as it so often does, it comes down to a matter of trust.  Can we trust what God has said?  And can we trust what God has done?  Can we trust that, because God has been faithful in the past, God will be faithful again?  Can we trust in God’s goodness?  Can we trust in God’s power?  Can we trust that God has a plan, even if we don’t understand what the plan is?  In short, can we trust that God loves us and that God will do right by us, even when it looks like things are going wrong?

            It’s not easy.  Sometimes it seems like it should be easy, but it’s not.  It never has been.  One of the threads that runs through human history is a failure to trust in God.

            When we don’t trust God, all kinds of things happen, and almost all of them are bad.  One of the things that happens is what we already talked about, that we try to withdraw from the world.  But when people of faith withdraw from the world, what happens?  The people who don’t have faith take over.  And that’s not going to lead to good things for anyone.  God can still use it, of course--again, God can use anything for good.  But it’s still going to make things harder for a while.

            But the opposite thing can happen, too.  If we don’t trust God, we start thinking we have to do things ourselves.  We try to force things to happen, rather than allowing them to happen in God’s way and at God’s time.

            Have you ever done that?  I have.  I did not realize it at the time.  If I did, obviously, I would not have done it.  I thought I was doing God’s will.  I thought what I was trying to make happen was exactly what God wanted to happen.  But in fact, I was doing my will.  What I was trying to make happen was exactly what I wanted to happen.  But again, I did not realize it.  I had convinced myself that what I wanted had to be what God wanted, and so if it was not happening then God must want me to make it happen.  But in fact, I was trying to force things to happen my way, rather than allowing them to happen God’s way.  I was not trusting God.

            It’s not easy to trust God.  But it’s worth it.  Look at how Isaiah closes this passage.  “The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth….The Lord has spoken.  In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’”

            God is the Sovereign Lord.  God is faithful.  God is good.  God is all-powerful.  And God loves us.  God does has a plan.  He always has had a plan.  We may not always understand the plan, but that’s okay.  God does not ask us to understand it.  God asks us to trust it.  God asks us to trust Him.  If we do, God will end our tears.  God will save us.  We will rejoice and be glad in God’s salvation.

            When we look at the world, things can look bad.  And sometimes they look bad in our own lives, too.  And in fact, sometimes they will get worse before they get better.  But they will get better.  God makes that promise, and God always keeps God’s promises.  That was true in Isaiah’s time.  It’s true for us today, too.

 

Overwhelming Righteousness

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on April 18, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Isaiah 51:1-16.

            Do you ever just kind of feel overwhelmed by everything?

            I do, sometimes.  I think we all do.  It just seems like life comes at us fast and hard sometimes.  And these days, that seems to happen a lot.  COVID.  Riots.  Violence.  Injustice.  Societal unrest.  And just in the lives of people around us, or maybe in ourselves, we have all kinds of things going on.  Health issues.  Financial issues.  Relationship issues.  The pressures of work or school.  

            It just seems like it never ends.  And if affects us.  It has to.  We lose patience.  Our mood gets sour.  Our tempers get short.  We feel like we just need a break, a chance to refresh ourselves, a chance to just catch our breath.  And it seems, sometimes, like we never get one.  Every time we think we’re going to, here comes something else to knock us back.  It feels like we’re running as fast as we can just to stay in the same place.  And we get tired.  And it’s hard.

            The churchy thing to say, of course, is to trust God.  Find our rest in God.  And of course, that’s absolutely right.  But how do we do that?  How can we find our rest in God?  How can we learn to trust God when it seems like life is coming at us faster than we can deal with it?

            God knows it’s hard for us to do that.  And so, God gives us some help with it.  God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, tells us how to handle these situations.

            God starts out by telling us to look to the past.  Think of your ancestors, your parents, grandparents, and so on.  God reminds us that they had some hard times, too.  And yet, God was always there for them, and God got them through it.  After all, if He had not done that, you and I would not be here.  So, if God did that for them, God will do it for you, too.

            In Isaiah, God references Abraham and Sarah.  But you and I don’t have to go back that far.  Most of us don’t have to go back that many generations to get to the generation that first came to this country.  In my case, it’s just two generations, to my grandparents.  For a lot of us, our ancestors came here with very little.  They endured all kinds of hard conditions.  They went through things most of us can only imagine.

            And yet, they made it.  They made it because they trusted God, and God was there for them.  God was with them, and God helped them get through it all.  

            I don’t mean to minimize the problems we have now.  They’re serious, and we need to take them seriously.  But it’s a human trait for each generation to think that they have things worse than anyone ever has.  It’s not true.  Every generation has serious problems.  And every generation needs God’s help.  And if we turn to God, and we ask God for help, God will be there for us.  God was there for Abraham and Sarah.  God was there for our ancestors.  God will be there for us, too.

            But God does more than just help us survive.  God helps us live life abundantly.  God says he will “make [the] deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.  Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.”

            Sounds good, right?  But sometimes we think, yeah, well, I don’t see much of that around here.  I don’t see that “abundant life” I’m supposed to have.  I see problems.  I see all kinds of bad stuff going on that I don’t like and that I don’t seem able to do anything about.  That “joy and gladness” must have been shipped to the wrong address, because I sure don’t see much of it here now.

            I wonder if that’s the reaction the people of Isaiah’s time had, too.  Because the next thing God says is “Listen to me, my people.  Hear me, my nation.”  In other words, if what I’ve said is not enough, listen up, because I have more to say.

            And here it is:  “My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations.  The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm.  Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies.  But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail.”

            Listen to the things God promises in that statement.  Righteousness.  Justice.  Hope.  And most importantly, salvation.

            God’s righteousness will never fail.  The time will come when God makes everything right.  I don’t know when that will be, but it will come.  

            But even now there are times when God’s righteousness prevails.  Not always--the world is not yet as it should be or will be.  But there are times.  There are times when what is morally right does happen.  And there are times when justice is done.  

If you look past the headlines, you can see those times.  You can think of those times.  Times when someone did something good for someone, with no thought that they’d get anything in return.  Times when someone did the right thing with no thought of any reward, just because it was the right thing.  Times when people showed love to each other, even if there was no one else around to notice.  Righteousness does sometimes happen.  Justice is sometimes done.

And that should give us the hope that God promises.  For one thing, they help us recognize that righteousness and justice do exist, even if they don’t prevail all the time.  But God has placed enough of a sense of righteousness and justice in human hearts that we’re willing to act that way sometimes, then with God’s help we can act with a sense of righteousness and justice more of the time.  Maybe all the time.  Things can get better.  With God’s help, they will get better.  We can see a day when God’s righteousness and justice prevail.  That’s the hope you and I have through the Lord.

And it’s what God promises us.  God says, ““Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart:  Do not fear the reproach of mere mortals or be terrified by their insults.  For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool.  But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.”

When the bad things are all around, when life seems ready to overwhelm us, this is what we need to remember.  Don’t worry about what mere mortals can do.  They’re not going to win.  God’s going to take care of them.  God’s righteousness and justice are going to prevail.  And when they do, it will be forever.

And when God says forever, God means forever.  Literally.  Not just here.  Not just in our lives on earth.  God’s righteousness is forever.  God’s justice is forever.  And our salvation, through our faith in Jesus Christ, is forever, too.

God makes that point again a little later on.  “I, even I, am he who comforts you.  Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundations of the earth.”

God says, why are you so worried about what human beings are doing?  Whatever they do, it won’t last.  And it certainly won’t prevail against God.  God is the one who created everything.  And not just everything on earth--God created the stars and the planets and the entire universe.  Think of how powerful, how awesome, how incredible, God really is.  And that same powerful, awesome, incredible God created you.  And created me.  That God is not going to allow us to be overwhelmed by mere human beings and mere human concerns.  God’s righteousness, God’s justice, and God’s salvation go way beyond anything mere humans can do.  God’s righteousness, God’s justice, and God’s salvation will always prevail in the end.  They will prevail on earth, and they will prevail in heaven.

It’s okay if life seems overwhelming sometimes.  It happens to everyone.  But when it happens to you, stop for a minute.  Remember all the times God has been there in the past.  All the times God has been there for your ancestors, and all the times God has been there for you.  Know that if God has been there in the past, God will be there in the future, because God is the unchanging, everlasting God.

The concerns of this world gets overwhelming because this world is all we know.  But God knows eternity.  God is bigger and stronger and better than anything in this world.  So trust God’s strength and God’s goodness.  Know that God’s righteousness and God’s justice will win.  And know that, if we stay close to God, God’s salvation will be there for us.

 

The Time Is Now

This is the morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 18, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Romans 13:8-14.

            The definition of a Christian is someone who believes Jesus Christ is the Savior, the divine Son of God.  And you think, well, duh.  You really went out on a limb with that one, didn’t you, pastor?

            But here’s the thing.  If we truly believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, as the divine Son of God, we need to do more than just make that statement.  We need to do what Jesus told us to do.  Jesus says that a couple of times in John, Chapter Fourteen.  “If you love me, keep my commands.”  “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.”  

If we truly love Jesus, if we truly believe Jesus is the Savior, we need to do what Jesus told us to do.  And while Jesus told us to do many things, the main things he told us to do have to do with love.  He said the two most important commandments are that we love God and that we love our neighbor as ourselves.  Jesus told us to love even our enemies.  The last time he spoke to the disciples before his arrest, he told them he was giving them a new commandment:  “love one another”.  They were to love others as Jesus loved them.

That’s a pretty high standard.  To love people as much as Jesus loves them.  Because Jesus loves completely and unconditionally.  That’s what we’re supposed to do, too.

We don’t, of course.  I mean, sometimes we do.  But a lot of times we don’t, too.  It’s hard.  And it’s not just a problem we have.  It’s a problem Jesus’ earliest followers had, too.  That’s why so many of Paul’s letters, and the other letters we have in the New Testament, talk about love so much:  because we have a very difficult time loving to the extent we should.

The Apostle Paul, in the part of his letter to the Romans that we read today, writes about love.  He says that all the commandments--“You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” all of them--can be summed up in the statement “love your neighbor as yourself”.  

Paul calls love a debt, a debt that’s always outstanding and can never be fully paid.  In other words, no matter how much love we give, we always owe more.  We never reach a time when we’ve loved enough, when we don’t need to give any more love.  Love is always owed to everyone.

But you know, you’ve heard all this before.  There’s certainly nothing new or profound about it.  Those of you who’ve been going to church for a long time, you’ve heard any number of pastors stand here and talk about how we need to love each other.

And it’s not that it’s wrong.  I mean, we probably all agree with it.  But, because we’ve heard it all before, there’s nothing new or exciting about it.  Nobody’s sitting out there going, “Hey!  Did you hear that!  Paul says we should love each other.  He says we should always give more love to everyone!  That’s amazing!”  The reaction, when we hear stuff like this, is more likely to be “yeah, yeah, yeah.  We get it.  We should love each other.  We know.”  It’s something we’ve heard over and over and over again. 

And that was true back in Paul’s time, too.  No one reading or hearing Paul’s letter to the Romans was thinking “What?  We should love each other?  What a concept!”  People knew that one of the main things about the followers of Jesus was that they were supposed to love each other.  There was nothing new about it then, either.

But what there was in Paul’s time is something there is in our time:  there’s a kind of complacency about it.  In theory, we might agree that we always owe more love than we can give, and so we should always try to love more and more.  In practice, though, I suspect most of us feel we love just about enough.  Now, that may not apply to everyone.  Maybe you are constantly trying to love more and more.  Maybe you are always trying to increase the love you give.  I hope so.  That’s an awesome thing to do.

But a lot of us are not really doing that.  And again, that was true in Paul’s time, too.  And so Paul tries to fight that sense of complacency.  He tries to create a sense of urgency about our need to give love.  He says we need to do this now.  Immediately.  Don’t wait.  Don’t think we’ve already done enough.  He says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

Think about that.  “Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

It seems to me there are a couple of ways we can think about that statement.  One of them is to believe that the time is near at which Jesus will come again.  And while I’m not making a prediction, Jesus said several times that we need to live with an awareness of that possibility.  He told us that we don’t know when the day will come, and so we need to be ready all the time.  And so, we need to increase the love we give now.  We need to love others more and better and more fully and more consistently now.  We should not be complacent about it.  We should not put it off until some later time.  We don’t know that a later time will come.  The time to keep working to pay that debt of love is now.

But you know, most of us are complacent about Jesus coming again, too.  Again, in theory, we agree that Jesus could come again at any time.  And some of us even think it could be soon.  But very few of have changed our lives in anticipation of that.  Very few of us have thought, “I’ve got to show more love to people.  I’ve got to love more fully and more consistently, because Jesus might come back at any time.”

So, that leads us to the other way to think about Paul’s statement.  We may believe that Jesus won’t come for hundreds of years, but none of us is going to live that long.  If Jesus does not come in our lifetime, all that means is that the day will come when we go to meet him.  And we need to be ready for that day, too.

None of us knows when that day will come.  And sometimes we try to be complacent about that, too.  Especially when we’re young.  We think, well, yes, of course, I’m going to die someday.  But it’s not going to happen any time soon.  I’ve got plenty of time.

But we don’t know that.  Every day there are young people who die, sometimes without warning.  My first boss, when I worked in Pierre, died suddenly at age thirty.  It happens.  Every day someone, somewhere goes to bed with all kinds of plans for the next day and simply does not wake up again, at least not on earth.  

I’m not saying that anyone should be obsessed with the idea of death.  But we do need to live our lives with an awareness of it.  We need to recognize that we are going to die, and that we need to have our life in order before we do.  And the most important thing about getting our life in order is to get our relationship with Jesus Christ in order.  So if, as Jesus said, the way to our faith in him is to keep his commands, and if his main command is that we love each other as he loves us, then we’d better get to work on loving others now.

And I say get to work on it because it’s not an easy thing to do.  Loving fully and consistently is not something that comes naturally to us.  Love is a part of human nature, no question about it.  But so are things like selfishness and arrogance and pride.  We have it in us to love as Jesus loved.  But it’s not always easy to bring it out.

How do we do it?  By staying as close to Jesus as possible.  Or, as Paul put it, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Spend some time every day thinking about Jesus.  Whether that’s through prayer, or through reading the Bible, or through taking some quiet time to focus on Jesus, or however we do it, we need to do it.  There are lots of ways to do it, and any way that works for you is a good way.  But we need to do it.  

And we need to do it consistently, every day.  If we’re going to love fully and consistently, we need to stay close to Jesus fully and consistently.  We cannot do this by ourselves.  But if we stay close to Jesus, if we feel God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts, we can.  Not perfectly, because humans never do anything perfectly.  But we can do it.  Jesus would not have told us to do something that was impossible.  With Jesus’ help, we can do this.

But the time to do it is now.  As Paul says, the hour has come for us to wake up from our slumber.  The time to love fully and completely and consistently is now.

Let’s show our love for Jesus by keeping his command to love one another.  And you know what?  If enough of us do that, we just might make the world a lot better place.

 

Light in the Darkness

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church April 11, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Luke 11:33-36.

            How is it with you tonight?  Does it feel like your body is full of light?  Or does it feel like your body is full of darkness?

            Now, when we talk about your body, we’re really talking about your mind and your heart, right?  I mean, your left big toe is not going to be full of darkness, unless you smacked it against the furniture or something.  When we talk about the body being full of light or darkness, what we’re really saying is, how are you feeling?  Are you happy or sad?  Do you feel joy or sorrow?  Are you feeling good about how your life is going?  Or do you feel stuck, like your life is at a standstill or even going backward?  Another way to put it is to ask the question John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, used to ask:  How is it with your soul today?

            We’d all like to be happy, of course.  I don’t know anyone whose goal is to go through life being sad.  On the other hand, we know that no one is happy all the time.  We know, as it says in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, that there is a time for sadness and grief, just as there is a time for joy and happiness.  Even Jesus was not happy all the time, so we certainly should not expect to be.

            And really, when we talk about happiness in the context of being full of light, the way Jesus talked about it, we need to define our terms.  Because the kind of happiness that fills us with light is more than just a momentary thing.  I mean, I’m happy when I eat ice cream or when I watch a funny TV show or when the Twins win a ball game, but it’s not like any of those things are going to change my life in any significant way.  Those things might make us happy for a moment, but that’s all. 

Now, that’s not unimportant--sometimes, when we have a lot of stuff to deal with, just having a moment’s break, a chance to think about something besides our problems for a few minutes, is exactly what we need.  But even so, it’s still a temporary thing.  If our soul is dark, something like that is like striking a match.  It provides a bit of light, for a little while, but before long the darkness comes back again.  What we’re talking about is a happiness that stays with us, regardless of the circumstances.

Jesus said that the eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are healthy, if they’re letting in light, then your body will be full of light.  If your eyes are not healthy, if they don’t let in light, then your body will stay dark.

In other words, the question we need to ask is, what are we seeing?  What is it that’s in our field of vision?  When we look out at the world, what are we focusing on?

It is very easy, right now, to focus on the darkness.  We’re still dealing with the coronavirus, and even though things are opening up around here, there are still a lot of places where things are locked down.  There have been a lot of economic effects of the lockdowns, too.  We got a little rain this past week, but we’re going to need a lot more if we’re going to have good crops.  There’s all sorts of political turmoil going on around just about any issue you can name.  Even just in the United Methodist church, there are arguments going on and there’s a very good chance the denomination might split.  And I’m sure you can think of a whole lot of other areas in which we see darkness.  It’s easy to do.

But then, Jesus never said being a Christian would be easy.  In fact, he said just the opposite.  He warned his followers that following him would cause them all kinds of problems.  He said they would be hated for following him.  He said they would suffer because they were following him.  But he also told them not to worry about it.

And we hear that, and we say, “What?  Don’t worry about it?  I’m going to suffer, and everybody’s going to hate me, and you say don’t worry about it?”  If that’s not worth worrying about, what is?

Well, Jesus actually answered that question.  In Matthew Chapter Ten, Verse Twenty-eight, Jesus says the only thing we should worry about is “The one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”  That’s what Jesus says is worth worrying about.  Not what happens to us on earth.

But Jesus did not just leave it at that.  As we said a couple of weeks ago, Jesus recognized that our human concerns are important.  That’s why he healed people and fed people and such.  He told his followers that God’s Holy Spirit would be with them.  And he told them, in Luke Chapter Twelve, Verse Twelve, that when they got into trouble, the Holy Spirit would tell them what to say.

That’s how we can change our focus.  That’s how we can shift our focus from the darkness to the light.  By trusting God’s Holy Spirit.  By focusing on God’s Holy Spirit.

Does that sound simplistic?  Maybe it does.  Maybe that just sounds like a pastor thing to say.  Sort of like saying that “Jesus” or “prayer” is the answer to everything.  It’s easy to say “trust God’s Holy Spirit” or “focus on God’s Holy Spirit.”  But how does that take care of the problems we have right now?

Well, it doesn’t.  Not directly, anyway.  But if we truly trust God’s Holy Spirit, it will change our perspective on those problems.  Trusting God’s Holy Spirit gives us confidence that things can get better.  In fact, it gives us confidence that things will get better.  We may not know how.  We may not know when.  But they will.  Trusting God’s Holy Spirit helps us realize that the darkness will not last forever, and it will not win.  God wins.  God will always win.

Trusting God’s Holy Spirit means that we trust that God is all-powerful.  We trust that nothing happens that God does not allow to happen.  We don’t always understand why God allows some things to happen, but we also trust that God is all-knowing and all-wise.  And so, when God allows things to happen, God must have good reasons for doing so.  As God says, speaking through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah Chapter Fifty-five, Verses eight and nine, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Trusting God’s Holy Spirit reminds us of that.  It reminds us that God is under no obligation to explain things to us or to do things that meet with our approval.  God has plans and purposes that we know nothing about.  And the chances are that we would not understand them if God tried to explain them to us.  

Our human perspective is always so limited.  We think of a hundred years as a long time.  And it is, to us.  But not to God.  God sees hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of years into the future if the world is going to last that long.  And God is going to use all the things that are happening now to accomplish His plans and His purposes.  If we trust God’s Holy Spirit, we’ll trust that.  And we’ll remember what it says in Romans Chapter Eight, Twenty-eight, that God can use all things for the good of those who love him.

There may be a lot of darkness now.  But there have been lots of times of darkness in the world.  And yet, somehow, the light always comes through, and the light always wins.  And we can be confident of that because of Jesus.  After all, as Jesus said in John Chapter Eight, Verse Twelve, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

I’ve quoted a lot of different Bible verses tonight.  That just shows that God, speaking through the authors of the Bible, made this same point over and over again.  No matter how dark in may seem, the darkness is not going to win.  The darkness cannot defeat the light.  The light will always come shining through.  The light of Jesus, the light that shines through God’s Holy Spirit, will always be there.  It cannot be extinguished.  It cannot even be dimmed.  It is always there, for everyone who is willing to look for it and see it.

God’s light is not hidden.  It is not placed under a bowl, where no one can see it.  It is on the stand, shining brightly, just waiting for us to look and see it.  Just waiting for us to be guided by it.  Just waiting for us to allow it to light our way.

Until the day Jesus comes again, the darkness will always be there.  But so will the light.  Do not let your eyes focus on the darkness.  Do not let your eyes fill your heart and soul with darkness.  Instead, focus on the light, the light of the Lord.  Let your eyes fill your heart and soul with light.  

The true light that gives light to everyone has come into the world.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  And it never will.

 

Jesus Explains It All

The message given Easter Sunday evening, April 4, 2021, in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 24:13-49.

            It’s the first Easter Sunday evening.  They did not call it that, of course.  They did not call it anything, really.  The women had gone into the tomb in the morning, and found it empty.  They had been told that Jesus had risen.  But--what did that mean, really?  

Had Jesus really risen from the dead?  Was he really alive?  Was it possible?  Yes, he had said he’d be able to do this, but--could it actually be true?  Or was this some sort of a trick on the part of the Romans, or the Pharisees?  Were they just trying to fool Jesus’ followers into thinking Jesus was alive, so they’d come out of hiding and the soldiers could arrest them, just like they’d arrested Jesus?

            And if Jesus was alive, well, what did that mean?  Was Jesus going to resume his ministry?  Were they going to start traveling with him again?  Was he going to go back to healing people and driving out demons and doing all that stuff he had done before?  Or this time, having conquered death, would he raise an army and battle the Romans and restore the nation of Israel to its former glory?  Was this going to be the kingdom of Israel reborn?

            Everybody was in a state of confusion.  Nobody knew what was going to happen.  For that matter, nobody really even knew what had happened.  

            Luke has just told us about the discovery of the empty tomb.  Now, the scene shifts.  It’s later in the day.  Two guys are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, which we’re told was seven miles away.  That sounds like a long walk to us, but of course people were used to walking everywhere back then.  It was probably no big deal to them.

            These two guys are walking along, talking about what happened.  We’re told that one of them was named Cleopas.  We don’t know anything about him, other than his name.  But that’s better than his friend, because we’re not even told the other guy’s name.  He’s simply “Not Cleopas”, I guess.

            They were not among the Twelve Disciples, the inner circle, but they apparently were followers of Jesus and were acquainted with the disciples.  They refer to Jesus as “a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.”  And they refer to the disciples who went to see the empty tomb as “our companions”.  They’re also described as being downcast about Jesus’ death.  

            Jesus shows up, but they don’t know it’s Jesus.  They tell Jesus what’s happened, not knowing that he obviously knew all about it.  And then Jesus starts explaining it all to them.  It says, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

            When Jesus leaves, they realize who this was they’d been talking to.  They go find the remaining eleven disciples, minus Judas of course, and tell them about it.

            And Jesus shows up again!  And we’re told, “He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

            You know, recently one of my confirmation students asked why Jesus does not explain things more.  So many times he spoke in parables or in figures of speech.  He’d answer questions with questions.  Why did Jesus not just come out and say what he meant?  Why did Jesus not just say what he had to say and make everything clear to us?

            It’s a good question.  It’s one that a lot of us have probably wondered about at one time or another.  We assume Jesus had reasons for the way he did things, and we assume they were good reasons.  

            We could speculate about it.  Maybe Jesus did not explain things because we would not understand them.  I mean, think of all the times Jesus did try to explain things to the disciples and they did not understand.  And in fact, in John Sixteen, Twelve, just before Jesus is going to the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says that he has more to say the disciples, but they would not be able to handle it.  So maybe that’s why Jesus did not explain things--he knew it would do no good anyway.

            Or, maybe Jesus did not explain things because he knew we would not accept them.  There were times that happened with the disciples, too.  In Matthew Sixteen, Jesus tells the disciples he’s going to be killed, and Peter says no, that’s not going to happen.  Think how that must have made Jesus feel--I’m the divine Son of God, I’m telling you what’s going to happen, and you’re arguing with me?  So maybe Jesus decided there was no point explaining things if people were going to argue with him about it.

            But whatever the reason is, there are times Jesus did not explain.  But here, he did.  He explained it all.  He explained it to Cleopas and Not Cleopas.  He explained it to the eleven disciples.  All of it.  He started with all the great prophets going back to Moses.  He explained how all this stuff that had happened hundreds of years ago was pointing to him.  And he opened their minds, so that they could understand everything he was saying to them.

            That would be such an awesome thing.  To have Jesus explain everything to you.  And to be able to understand it all.  Maybe that’s one of the things that happens in heaven.  Maybe in heaven you have everything explained to you, and you have all your questions answered, and it all suddenly makes sense.  Or maybe, in heaven, you feel such joy and peace in the presence of God that none of it matters anymore.  I don’t know.  But still, it would be an awesome thing to have Jesus himself answer all your questions and making everything about life clear to you.  I think that’s something we’d all love.

            But you know, there’s another way to look at this.  There’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain that goes, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me.  It’s the parts that I do understand.”

            We have a lot of questions about the Bible, and that’s fine.  There’s nothing wrong with asking questions.  It’s natural to want to know more and to understand more.  But at the same time, nowhere in the Bible does the Lord say, “You must understand everything.”  What we’re told, over and over again, is that we should trust.  That we should have faith.  That we should believe.

            When it came to telling us how we should live, Jesus made it simple.  Love one another.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love even your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you.  

There’s nothing complicated about that.  What happens is that we complicate it.  We complicated because, while those things are simple, they can be really hard for us to do.  We don’t want to do them.  And so we make excuses.  We claim we don’t understand, to avoid having to do what Jesus said.  And we look for loopholes, to avoid obeying Jesus’ commands.        Too often, we’re like the expert in the law who Jesus talked to.  When Jesus said love your neighbor, he said, “Well, who is my neighbor?”  He wanted an excuse.  He did not really want to have to love his neighbor, and so he was looking for a way to narrow things down.  He was looking for a loophole.  And too many times, so do we.

There may be parts of the Bible we don’t understand, but there are plenty of parts we do.  There are plenty of things that Jesus made simple.  So let’s stop complicating them.  So, on this Easter Sunday night, let’s stop making excuses.  And let’s stop looking for loopholes.  Let’s not worry so much about the parts of the Bible we don’t understand.  Instead, let’s focus on obeying the parts of the Bible we do understand.  And let’s start by doing the simple things Jesus told us to do.  Let’s love God and love our neighbor.  Let’s love even our enemies.  Let’s simply, as Jesus said, love one another.

            It would be awesome to have Jesus sit down and explain all the scriptures to us.  It would be awesome to have Jesus open our minds, so that we could understand it all.  Maybe that will happen someday.  But unless and until it does, I think Jesus would like us to focus on the things Jesus said that we do understand.  Live according to those things.  Trust God.  Be faithful to God.  Serve God.  Love God.  Love one another.  Feel that love and show that love with all of our heart.  With all of our mind.  With all of our soul.  With all of our strength.  And don’t just do that once in a while.  Do it all the time.  Every day.  Day after day after day.

            If we do those things, we just might find that our faith is not all that hard to understand after all.

 

The Unfinished Story

The message given on Easter Sunday morning, April 4, 2021, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Mark 15:42--16:8.

            It’s the first Easter morning.  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, all go out to Jesus’ tomb.   

They knew where Jesus had been placed.  They had watched when Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body and put it in the tomb.  They go out with various spices to anoint Jesus’ body.  This was considered a necessity in the Jewish religion.  It was a way of preparing a body for burial.

            The women knew that a stone had been rolled against the entrance of the tomb.  And yet, the way this is written, it never occurred to them ahead of time that this could cause a problem for them.  They’re on their way to the tomb, just after sunrise, and on their way there, all of a sudden they start asking, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

            Now, this is described as a large stone.  We’re not told how large in the Bible, but from what I’ve read, it could have weighed a ton or more.  Obviously, these women are not going to be able to move a one-ton stone by themselves.

            But they don’t go back and ask for help or anything.  They keep going out to the tomb.  They get there, and they discover that the stone has already been rolled away.

            I wonder what they thought, when they saw that.  Were they relieved, grateful that they were not going to have to go get help?  Or were they scared, thinking that someone must have moved Jesus’ body?  John tells us that was Mary Magdalene’s assumption.  But at any rate, they go into the tomb.  And they see someone, described as a young man dressed in white.  And at that point, we’re told that they were scared.

            But the man tells them not to be scared.  He tells them Jesus has risen!  And he tells them to tell Peter and the other disciples what has happened.  But despite what he says, we’re told that, “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled the tomb.  They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”  And that’s where Mark leaves the story.  The gospel of Mark ends on that note.

            Now, if you’ve read the gospel of Mark, your Bible may have more verses.  There are many Bibles that do.  But those extra verses do not appear in the earliest versions of Mark’s gospel that we have.  It’s thought that people were uncomfortable with the gospel of Mark ending this way.  It felt unfinished.  So it’s thought that those verses were added later, to bring the gospel to what was considered a more “proper” ending.

            But on that first Easter morning, the story was unfinished.  No one understood what had happened.  Jesus was not in the tomb, that much was certain.  But--had he really risen from the dead?  Was he really alive?  Was it possible?  Yes, he had said he’d be able to do this, but--could it actually be true?  Or was this some sort of a trick on the part of the Romans, or the Pharisees?  Were they just trying to fool Jesus’ followers into thinking Jesus was alive, so they’d come out of hiding and the soldiers could arrest them, just like they’d arrested Jesus?

            And if Jesus was alive, well, what did that mean?  Was Jesus going to resume his ministry?  Were they going to start traveling with him again?  Was he going to go back to healing people and driving out demons and doing all that stuff he had done before?  Or this time, having conquered death, would he raise an army and battle the Romans and restore the nation of Israel to its former glory?  Was this going to be the kingdom of Israel reborn?

            So many questions, and no real answers.  The man at the tomb had said that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee.  So, there was really nothing to do but go to Galilee.  Maybe they’d get some answers there.  But for now, all they really had was questions.

            We think of Easter as a celebration.  And it is!  And it should be!  The tomb is empty!  He is risen!  Jesus has conquered death!  And he did not just conquer it for himself.  He conquered it for us!  For you, and for me, and for everyone who believes in Jesus as the Savior!

            But Easter is a celebration because we know what comes next.  We know the answers to those questions.  The disciples, the women, none of them knew the answers.  They were waiting.  For them, the story was still unfinished.

            But when you think about it, the story is still unfinished.  Jesus rose from the dead.  He came back and appeared to the disciples.  He appeared several times, in fact.  But then, he went back up to heaven.  And the disciples were still on earth.  And it was up to them to continue Jesus’ ministry.  It was up to them to go and spread the gospel to all nations, so that as many people as possible would come to accept Jesus as the Savior.

            And they did.  But of course, the disciples all passed on, too.  And so did the people they talked to.  And so did many other generations of Christians.  After all, it’s been nearly two thousand years since the time of Jesus.  

            It has been the responsibility of all those generations to continue Jesus’ ministry.  It has been their responsibility to go and spread the gospel to all nations.  And they have.  And now, it’s up to this generation.  It’s up to us.  To you, and to me.

            Not by ourselves, of course.  We do this with all the other Christians all over the world.  But still, each of us needs to do our part.  You do, and I do.  It is the responsibility of every Christian, everywhere, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

            How do you feel about that?  And how are you doing with it?  Are you happy, eager to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ?  Or do you feel more like the women as they left the tomb?  Trembling, and afraid to say anything to anyone?

            If it’s the latter, Jesus understands.  Jesus knows he left us with a tough job.  Jesus knows how hard it can be to spread the gospel.  He knows that better than anyone.  After all, he did it, and look what happened to him.  He was killed.  So Jesus knows this is not an easy job he has given us.

            And Jesus understands why we’re scared of doing it.  There are all kinds of reasons.  Sometimes we don’t feel confident enough in our own faith.  We think, I have all kinds of questions myself.  How can I spread the gospel to others?  

            Sometimes we’re afraid of how people will react.  We think, I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of religious nut.  I’ll just turn them off.  Besides, the people I know probably believe already.  I don’t really need to say anything.

            Sometimes we just don’t want to stand out.  We think, no one else I know talks about the gospel.  If I talk about it, people will think I’m strange.  They might start avoiding me.  I could lose friends.  I don’t want that to happen.

            Jesus understands those reasons and all kinds of others.  But here’s the thing.  Jesus understands them--but Jesus does not accept them.  Jesus does not allow us to make excuses.  Jesus did not say “Go and spread the gospel unless you have some questions.”  Jesus did not say, “Go and spread the gospel unless you’re afraid of turning people off.”  Jesus did not say, “Go and spread the gospel as long as you feel comfortable doing it.”  Jesus just said, “Go and spread the gospel.”  Period.  

            We don’t always feel comfortable doing it.  I don’t always feel comfortable doing it, either.  But that’s not an excuse.  We need to face our excuses, face our fears, and go and spread the gospel anyway.

            Because here’s the thing.  Easter is a celebration.  But it’s only a celebration for people who believe in Jesus Christ.  Because belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.  Not because I say so, but because Jesus said so.  If you and I don’t go and spread the gospel, there are people who won’t believe who might have, if only we’d tried to reach them.  There will be people who are not saved who might have been, if we had only tried to tell them about Jesus.  There will be people who miss out on salvation and eternal life who might have had it, if only we had told them about the good news of Jesus Christ.

            I understand why we hesitate.  I feel all those same things.  And sometimes I give in to those feelings.  I have missed many, many chances to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to people.  Probably a lot of us have.  And it’s too bad.

            But we cannot go back and change the past.  What we can do is move forward.  What we can do is start now, today.  What we can do is overcome our fears and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

            The women left the tomb trembling and afraid.  They did not know what the empty tomb meant.  You and I do.  So let’s stop trembling.  Let’s stop being afraid.  Let’s go and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Then, next year, even more people can celebrate the glory of Easter!