It's Not About Points

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on June 26, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 19:16-30.

            There’s an old story about this guy who dies and goes to meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven.  St. Peter says, “Okay, so you need to tell me why we should let you into heaven.”

            The man says, “Well, you know, I lived a pretty good life.  I think I should get into heaven.”

St. Peter says, “Well, here’s the deal.  You need 1000 points to make it into heaven.  You tell me all of the good things you’ve done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item.  When you reach 1000 points, you get in.” 

“Okay,” the man says, “Well, I was happily married to the same woman for fifty years and never cheated on her, not even in my mind.” 

“That’s wonderful,” says Peter, “that’s worth two points!” 

“Two points?” he says. “Well, I attended church all my life and gave my ten percent tithe faithfully.” 

“Terrific!” says Peter. “That’s definitely worth a point.” 

“Only one point? My goodness! Well, what about this: I started a soup kitchen in my city and worked in a shelter for the homeless?” 

“Fantastic, that’s good for two more points,” he says. 

“TWO POINTS!” the man cries. “At this rate the only way I can get into heaven is by the grace of God!” 

“Now that’s what we’re looking for!  That’s worth a thousand points.  Welcome to heaven!”

Now that’s just a story, of course.  And yet, how often do we look at our faith that way?  We know, and we say, that we get into heaven by faith in Jesus Christ and by God’s love and grace and mercy.  And yet, we often feel like we have to earn our way to heaven.  Like we need to accumulate points with God in order to receive our salvation.

That’s what the guy Jesus was talking to in our Bible verses for tonight seemed to think.  He comes up to Jesus and says, “What good thing must I do to receive eternal life?”  Not “what must I believe to receive eternal life?”  Not “who must I believe in to receive eternal life?”  “What good thing must I do to receive eternal life?”  He was trying to accumulate points, and he wanted to know what he could do that would boost his point total over the line.

And you can see that as the conversation continues.  Jesus tells him that he should keep the commandments, and he answers “Which ones?”  Again, how can I get that high point total?  Which commandments will give me the most points if I keep them?  

Jesus gives him a list.  And the guy basically says, yeah, yeah, I know all that.  I’m doing all that.  But I don’t feel like it’s enough.  My point total is not high enough yet.  There’s got to be something else, something that’ll get me over the limit.  What is it?

And Jesus, of course, responds, “Go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor”.  And of course, the man turns away, sad because, we’re told, he had great wealth.

But you know, I wonder.  What was it that really held him back?  Because if you were paying attention, you noticed that I cut off Jesus’ quote.  Jesus did not just say, “Go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor.”  He told the man to do that, of course, but he told the man to do one other thing.  That other things was, “Then come, follow me.”

Which was it that was the real stumbling block?  Was it that he did not want to give up his possessions?  Or that he did not want to follow Jesus?

Probably it was both.  Because this guy was simply looking for a good thing to do.  He wanted a box to check, something that, again would give him brownie points with God.  

That was not what Jesus had in mind.  Jesus knew what he was telling this man to do would be incredibly hard for him.  Jesus deliberately told him to do something incredibly hard.  After all, in all the gospels, there is not another instance of Jesus telling anyone they had to sell all their possessions.  This man is the only one Jesus told to do that.  Did you ever wonder why?  Why would Jesus single this man out to do something he did not ask of anyone else?

Well, it was not because Jesus was trying to be mean to him.  Jesus was trying to make a point.  It’s not the fact that this man had wealth that was the problem.  The problem was that this man was too attached to his wealth.  His wealth was getting in his way.  His wealth was keeping him from truly worshiping God.

Think of it this way.  If this man had sold his possessions, and given the money to the poor, but had not followed Jesus and had not changed his life in any other way, would he have received eternal life?  No, I don’t think so.  The only thing that would’ve changed about him would’ve been his financial status.  He would not have loved God more.  He would not have loved his neighbor more.  He would not have done any of the things the followers of Jesus are supposed to do.  He just, again, would’ve been trying to earn his way into heaven, trying to accumulate more points.  But he would not have done anything to show his faith in God or his faith in Jesus as the Savior.  And so, in God’s eyes, he really would not have accomplished anything.

What Jesus was telling this man, and us, is that getting eternal life is not a matter of doing things and accumulating points.  Getting eternal life requires a change in our life on earth.  To receive eternal life, we need to follow Jesus.  And we need to get rid of everything that’s holding us back from following Jesus.

Jesus recognized how hard this would be for the man to do.  He told the disciples about it.  He said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  In other words, as Jesus later acknowledged, it’s impossible.  It’s impossible for humans.  But it’s not impossible for God.  We cannot get into heaven by doing good things and accumulating points.  But we can get into heaven by having faith in Jesus Christ and receiving God’s love and grace and mercy.

But to do that, we need to get rid of the things that are holding us back from following Jesus.  For this man, it was wealth.  What is it for you?  What is it for me?  What is it that’s holding us back from truly following Jesus?

None of us here, and probably no one watching the livestream, would be considered wealthy by American standards.  Still, don’t just discount that wealth and possessions could be holding us back.  A person does not have to be wealthy for wealth and possessions to have a hold on them.  No matter what our financial status is, we’re all subject to letting wealth and possessions be more important to us than they should be.  And so, we’re all subject to letting wealth and possession hold us back from truly following Jesus?

But it can be lots of other things, too.  In fact, it can be almost anything.  Anything that’s more important than to us than it should be.  Anything that, if Jesus asked us to give it up, we would be hesitant to do so.  Sports.  Chocolate.  Quilting.  Music.  None of those are bad things, of course.  In their place, they can be good things.  They can even be used to honor and glorify God.  Okay, I’m not sure how chocolate can be used to honor and glorify God, but the other things can.  But the point is that even things that are not bad, even things that can be good, can be things that hold us back from following Jesus if they become too important to us.

So take a look at your life.  Is there something that’s holding you back from following Jesus?  Maybe not–I don’t know.  It’s not my place to judge you.  Only you can answer this question for you, just as only I can answer this question for me.  

But it’s an important question, and it’s important that we do answer it.  So again, we all need to take a look at our lives.  Is there something that’s holding us back from following Jesus?  And if there is, what can we do about that?  How can we get rid of that thing that’s holding us back?

Well, we can try to do it on our own.  But–I don’t know about you, but I seriously doubt that I can do this on my own.  I could maybe do a few little things, maybe make a few changes at the margins.  But I very much doubt that, on my own, I could truly make the kind of changes in my life that Jesus asks us to make.

So how do we make these changes?  How do we get rid of the things that are holding us back?  We do it the same way we get into heaven–by the grace of God.  

We need to ask God to help us make these changes.  We still have to do our part–we cannot expect God to just automatically and magically change us.  But we also need to allow God to do God’s part.  We need to allow God to help us make those changes.  More than that, we need to rely on God to help us make these changes.  For me, this might be impossible.  But as Jesus said, with God, all things are possible.

So, if you feel you need to make changes in your life, if you feel there’s something that’s holding you back from following Jesus, ask God to help you.  Ask God to pour out God’s Holy Spirit on you.  Ask God to show you what you need to change, and to give you the courage and the strength to change it.

We can never accumulate enough points to go to heaven.  But through faith in Jesus and by the grace of God, we can all have salvation and eternal life.  For humans alone, this is impossible.  But with God, all things are possible.

 

Reminders of God

The message given on Sunday morning, June 26, 2022, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Acts 17:16-34.

            The Apostle Paul is considered to be the first traveling Christian evangelist.  He went all over the world to spread the gospel, or at least all over the part of the world that he knew about, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

            He has already visited a lot of cities at this point in his journey.  He started in Antioch, then went to Syria and Cilicia.  He went to the cities of Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, then to Phrygia and Galatia, then to Philippi in Macedonia.  He then went to Thessalonica, then Berea, and now Paul is in Athens, Greece.  

            Paul was waiting for Silas and Timothy, who were supposed to join him in Athens.  And while he was waiting, he walked around the city.  Seeing the sights, trying to learn more about the place.  Trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak.

            And as Paul walks around, he sees a lot of idols.  Because the Greeks, at that time, had a god for just about everything.  They had a god for the sun and a god for the moon.  They had a god for the rain and a god for the wind.  They had a god for grain, a god for cattle, a god for traveling, a god for the home.  You name it, they had a god for it.  And then, just in case they missed something, they had one more god, the “unknown god” that Paul referenced in our reading.

            And that, of course, is the hook Paul used in his evangelism.  He said, you have an unknown god.  Would you like to know Him?  Because I know Him, and I’ll be happy to tell you about Him.  God is the One who created everything.  He’s everywhere, and He does not need anything from us.  We, however, need everything from Him.  We are His offspring, God’s sons and daughters.  And God calls each of us to repent of our sins, because His divine Son, Jesus Christ, will judge the world with justice.

            Well, some of them believed, and some did not.  Some were willing to consider it and hear more.  That’s pretty much how it always is when we try to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.  Some people believe, some don’t, and some don’t want to make up their minds.  It’s kind of how human beings are.

            But here’s what I got to thinking about.  Suppose the Apostle Paul was to come to one of the towns of the Wheatland Parish.  Suppose the Apostle Paul came to Gettysburg, or Onida, or Agar.  And he started wandering around, looking at all the things we have in our towns.  What would he see?  What would he think?  Would he think we were worshiping Jesus Christ?  Or would he think we have a bunch of idols, just like the Greeks did?

            I started thinking about what Paul would see, as he walked around.  He’d see the churches, of course.  I hope he would approve of them.  He might wonder why we needed so many.  Why would the towns of Gettysburg and Onida need four or five different churches, if they all claim to worship Jesus Christ?  Maybe he’d think these towns were really on fire for Jesus, that we needed that many churches because none of the buildings was big enough to hold everybody.

            If he came here on Sunday morning, of course, he’d find out that was not true.  So what else would Paul see?

            Well, he’d see the fire department building.  I assume he’d be okay with that.  He’d see the schools, at least in Onida and Gettysburg.  I assume he’d be okay with those, too.  I have no idea how he’d feel about the sports complexes.  And he’d see the business places and the houses.

            What else would he see?  Would he see anything that appeared to be an idol?  And would he see anything that appeared to be offered to some sort of unknown God?

            I think these are questions worth thinking about.  What is it, as a community, that we worship?  And if we say that, as a community, we worship Jesus Christ, what proof of it is there?  What would Paul see, if he walked around our town, that shows we worship Jesus Christ?

            Now, you might say, well, the whole point is that we’re not supposed to have a bunch of idols.  We’re not supposed to show off and have a bunch of altars and stuff all over town to prove we worship Jesus.  In fact, Jesus specifically told us not to make a big, public show of our faith.  

            Okay.  There’s certainly truth in that.  So let’s look at it another way.  Suppose Paul walked up to you.  Or to me.  And he started talking to us.  And he asked us about our religious faith.  And he asked us who or what it is that we worship.

            We might say that we worship Jesus Christ.  And Paul says, really?  That’s great!  Awesome!  I worship Him, too!  So tell me, what are you doing as a result of that?  What are you doing to share the gospel with others?  What are you doing to show love to your neighbor?  What about you is different because of your faith in Christ Jesus?

            Now, I don’t mean to suggest you would not have an answer.  You might have a really good answer.  I cannot presume to know what your answer is.  But I think that I need to think about what my answer would be.  Maybe you do, too.  Maybe not–maybe you already know what your answer is, and maybe you’re perfectly satisfied with it.  But maybe you need to think about it, just like I do.

            Because if we truly worship Jesus Christ, our lives should show that somehow.  Because to worship Jesus Christ means to put Jesus Christ first in our lives.  It means that worship of Jesus is not just one of many things in our lives, it’s the most important thing in our lives.  It’s the thing that everything else in our lives is dependent on.  If we worship Jesus Christ, that worship affects everything we do.  There should be nothing in our lives that is not affected by our worship of Jesus Christ in some way.

            I’m emphasizing this because we human beings are really good at compartmentalizing things.  And I’m just as good as anyone.  And it’s really easy for us to compartmentalize our faith.  To have our Jesus time and our non-Jesus time.  Our prayer time and our non-prayer time.  Our church time and our non-church time.

            And don’t get me wrong.  I’m not suggesting that we should spend every waking moment praying and reading the Bible.  That’s not practical.  But I am saying that we should not segregate our prayer time.  We should not segregate our Jesus time.  That time should influence all the other times of our lives.  That time should be a part of everything we do.

            So, is it?  Does our worship of Jesus Christ affect everything else in our lives?  Again, I cannot say what your answer is.  Each of us needs to answer that question for ourselves.  If your answer is yes, that’s great.  In fact, that’s wonderful.  That’s awesome.  But if our answer is no, or if we’re not sure, well, then we probably want to look at doing something about that.

            What can we do?  Well, one thing we can do is what Paul told the people of Athens to do.  Understand who this God is that we worship.  Think about how God is so powerful that He made the world and everything in it, and did so just by speaking a word.  Think about how God does not need us for anything, and yet God offers us the honor and privilege of being allowed to serve Him.  Think about how God is everywhere, so He is always there when we need Him.  Think about how God gives us the honor and privilege of not just being His servants, but His offspring, His children.  

            Those are all really amazing things, when we think about them.  Those things show both the power of God and the love of God.  Power, in that God can create the entire universe and be everywhere at once and has no need to even have us around.  And yet, a love so strong that God wants to be near us, and for us to be near Him.  A love so strong that God does not just treat us as His servants, which God would have every right and ability to do.  Instead, God treats us as His children, and loves us and gives us everything we need.  And not just everything we need on earth, but the chance for salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            I really think that, if we could somehow keep who God is in the forefront of our minds, we would not be able to stop worshiping God.  We would not have to worry about whether our worship of God influences the rest of our lives.  It would happen automatically.  Maybe that’s how it is in heaven.  Remember, in Revelation, where it tells about how everyone is constantly worshiping God?  Maybe in heaven, we never stop thinking about who God is, and so the worship of God happens without anyone having to even think about it.

            But while we’re on earth, what can we do?  Well, here’s a thought.  Maybe we need to do something like what Moses told the people of Israel to do.  Talking about the commandments, Moses told the people to “tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

            I’m not saying to do that literally, but the point is:  give ourselves reminders.  Do something to remind ourselves of who God is.  Not just once in a while, but all the time.  So often that we cannot possibly forget it.  Maybe it seems silly to you.  Maybe it seems like overkill.  But if we did something like that, I think we’ll be a lot more likely to remember who God is.  And if we remember who God is, I think it’s a lot more likely that worshiping God will be involved in every aspect of our lives.

            The Apostle Paul is not likely to come to our town, and he’s not likely to ask us what we worship.  But God is already here, and God already knows.  Let’s make sure we’re worshiping God.  Not just on Sunday morning, but with our entire lives.

 

God's Encouragement

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on June 19, 2022.  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!

 

It's About God

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 19, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Genesis 22:1-19.

It’s Father’s Day, of course, and one of the most famous fathers in the Bible is Abraham.  In fact, he’s often referred to as “Father Abraham”.  Some of you probably remember the old Sunday School song “Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham.”

Abraham was not always “Father Abraham”, of course.  He was not even always “Abraham”--he began his life as Abram.  God changed his name to “Abraham”, which we think meant “father of many”.  

But of course, he was not always a father of many, either.  If you remember the story, Abraham and his wife, Sarah, had been married for a long time, but had no children. They were now getting up there in years, past the age of having children. Yet, God promised them that they would, in fact, have children. And they did. Against all odds, except for the odds of God, they had a son, Isaac.

Imagine as either a mother or a father, how you would feel about that. You've been wanting a child all your life. You've never had one. It looks like you never will. Then, unbelievably, you do have a child. You'd be overjoyed, right? That child would become the most important thing in your life. I mean, children are often the most important things in our lives, but it would be even more so in this situation. And to know that child was a direct result of God fulfilling a promise to you, well, you'd be incredibly thankful to God. You'd do anything in your power to protect that child and love that child that God had given you.

Then, at some point, along comes God again. God tells Abraham to take his son, Isaac, the only son he has, the only son he thinks he's likely to ever have, and go out and kill him. God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to God.

One of the things that strikes me, every time I read this story, is the incredibly matter-of-fact way the author of Genesis tells it. No emotions are told to us. We are not told Abraham's reaction when God told him to sacrifice his son. We're not told what he said, how he felt, any of it.

It does not take too much imagination to figure it out, though. How would you feel? We'd probably go through all five stages of grief. We'd be in denial: did God really say that? I must've heard wrong. God does not really want me to kill my son. Then there'd be anger. What's the matter with you, God? Why would you tell me to do this? What's wrong with you? Then there'd be bargaining: God, I'll do anything you want if you'll just let my son live. Then would come depression, when reality set in and we realized that this really was what God wanted us to do and we were going to have to do it.

The Bible does not give us any of that, though. It goes right to acceptance. As soon as God stops talking, it tells us about Abraham's preparations for the trip.

We don't know if he told Sarah. He clearly did not tell his servants. He tells them to stay put while he and Isaac go off to worship and then they'll come back. He did not even tell Isaac what was going on. In fact, when Isaac asks about it, he evades the question.

Abraham's heart had to be breaking. But he was willing to go through with it. He built an altar. He arranged the wood for the fire. He tied up Isaac and put him on the altar. Again, this is all told to us very matter-of-factly. We don't know if Abraham ever told Isaac why he was doing this. We don't know if Isaac fought, if he thought his dad had gone nuts, or what. Abraham pulls out his knife and raises it. He's just about to kill Isaac when an angel of the Lord stops him. The angel tells him that it was all just a test, and that Abraham passed, because he did not withhold even his son from God.

That's quite a test. I guess that's why the Bible tells us to pray that we not be led to a time of testing. That's about the hardest test anyone could ever have.

Do you think you could pass it? For most of us, it's probably pretty hard to say. It's hard to imagine being in a situation where God told us to kill anyone, really. Maybe in a war, but even there, I'm not sure. But God telling you to kill your own child?  Could any of us actually do this?

If you don't have children, imagine being told by God to kill your spouse, or your parents, or someone else who's really important in your life. And leave aside the fact that we'd probably say someone who said they were told by God to kill someone was mentally ill. Imagine having no doubt about it actually being God who wanted you to do this. Could you?

See, we talk all the time in church about how God should be the number one thing in our lives. But this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where stuff gets real. Because if we say no, then we're saying that God is not, in fact, the number one thing in our lives. God may still be important, but other things–like our loved ones–are more important.

I'm not saying that in a judgmental way. I'm also not saying that I could do it.  I very much doubt that I could–I don't even like to hit a bird on the highway.  And again, it’s very hard to imagine being in that situation, where God told you to kill your own child.  But it’s still a fact that, if we say we could not do what Abraham did, if we could not do this even if we were completely and totally convinced it was what God had told us to do, then we're saying that there are things in our lives more important than God and obeying God's will.

I doubt that any of us will ever be tested the way Abraham was. But we get other tests. We get them all the time. We get them every day. Every day, in a hundred different ways, we make choices between doing what we know God wants us to do and doing what we want to do. And every day, in a hundred different ways, we have to decide whether God is the number one thing in our lives or not.

And every day, in a hundred different ways, we fail. At least I do. I know I do. Every time I put my own desires ahead of doing something for someone else, I fail. Every time I see a chance to do something for someone, and I don't do it, I fail. Every time I close my eyes to the needs of someone else, I fail. Because those are things God is telling me to do. When I don't do them, I'm saying that God is not the number one thing in my life. God may still be important, but other things are more important.

I could go on about other ways I fail these tests. What about you? What are the ways you get tested? What are the ways you fail? What are the things you do, or don't do, that show that God is not the number one thing in your life?

Don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying we're all terrible, horrible people.  We're people, that's all. We don't always fail the tests. There are times when we do exactly what God wants us to do. There are times when we do make God the number one thing in our lives. But there are a lot of times we don't. And we need to do something about that.

But what? What do we do? How do we get ourselves to where we pass those tests? How do we get to where we really do make God the number one thing in our lives?

You know, I wonder if maybe that's why Genesis tells us this story so matter-of-factly. Maybe that's why we're not told how Abraham felt about any of this. It's not that Abraham did not have any feelings about this. Of course he had feelings. It's because Abraham's feelings did not matter, and Abraham knew his feelings did not matter. Abraham knew it was irrelevant whether he wanted to do this or not. This was not about Abraham. It was not about Isaac, either. It was about God.

That's what we need to remember. When we get these tests, when we make these choices, that's what we need to keep in mind. Our lives are not about ourselves. They're really not even about others, although others are obviously involved. Our lives are about God. If we want to make God the number one thing in our lives, we need to remember that our lives are about God, and not about ourselves.

Abraham was able to remember that. He knew this whole thing was not about him, and it was not about Isaac. It was about God. Because Abraham remembered it was about God, he was able to pass the test. And he got his reward from God.

If we remember that it's about God, we'll pass our tests, too. And we'll get our reward. We may or may not get a reward in this world, but we will definitely get a reward in the next one.

 

Worthy of Our Calling

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on June 5, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 1:1-16.

            We talked last week about how we should live our lives the way the Lord told us to.  We should do that, not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven, but because God deserves that from us.  As I was reading the Bible this week, I realized that the Apostle Paul had said that much better and much shorter than I did.  He said, “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

            That’s an awesome phrase:  “a life worthy of the calling you have received”.  You know, pastors love to talk about how they’re called to be pastors.  In fact, one of the things you have to do to become a pastor is to write your “call statement”, a statement of when and how you felt God calling you to be a pastor.  Actually, you have to write it, and discuss it, several times, for several different groups of people.  You write it so many times that, after a while, you start to wonder if it’s even real.  It starts to feel like someone else’s call statement, rather than your own, just because you’ve had to go over it so many times.

            But the truth is that calling is not just for pastors.  Each one of us is called by God to do something.  Probably a variety of things, as we go through our lives.

            Sometimes we get a little scared of that idea.  We think, what if God calls me to do something I cannot do, or something I don’t like doing?  But it’s not likely that God would do that, because God knows us better than we know ourselves.  God was not going to call me to be a professional basketball player, because God knows I have no talent for that.  God was not going to call me to be an airline pilot, because God knows I don’t like to fly.  God was not going to call me to go and be a missionary in Africa, because God knows I would be no good at that.  

Now, God may sometimes call us to stretch ourselves a little bit, to take some risks and try different things.  But if God is calling us to do something, God will provide us with the means and the ability to actually do it.  God would not call us to do something we simply are not capable of doing.

But God will sometimes call us to do things we don’t realize we’re capable of doing.  Because the only way we can really find out whether we can do something is to try it.  I did not know if I could be a pastor until I became one.  They teach you some things in seminary, and they’re good things to know, but the fact is that the only way to learn how to be a pastor is to be one.  To jump in, make some mistakes, hopefully learn from them, and hopefully make fewer mistakes, or at least different mistakes, as time goes on.

But the point is that each of us is called to do something.  That’s true for all of us, no matter who we are and no matter what age we are.  Everyone, from kids in school to people in the nursing home to everyone in-between, is called to do something.  What it is may change over the course of our lives, but everyone is called to do something.  If God did not have a purpose for us to be on earth, we would not be.  As long as we’re here, there is a reason for us to be here.

And when you think about it, that’s a pretty awesome thing.  To think that God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-everything God, would call on us–puny, weak, little old us–to do things for Him.  

Because, when you think about it, there is nothing we can do for God that God could not do without us.  In fact, God could probably do things easier without us.  God allows us to “help”, but the truth is that you and are I probably no help at all for God.  Most of the time, we probably just get in the way and make things harder and more complicated than they need to be.

When we think of it that way, we realize what an honor it is that God would call us to do anything.  It is a privilege to be allowed to serve God in some way.  We really should be kind of humbled to realize that God, as powerful and awesome as God is, would love us enough to let us serve Him, and in fact would love us enough to call us to serve Him.

But while a calling is an honor, and a privilege, it is also a responsibility.  Obviously, we have a responsibility to do what God has called us to do, and to do it to the best of our ability.  But we also have a responsibility to, as Paul says, live a life that is worthy of the calling we have received.

How do we do that?  Paul tells us that, too.  He says, “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

That sounds good, of course.  We probably agree with it.  But agreeing with it is one thing.  Doing it is something else.

The world is in a lot of conflict right now.  Our country is in a lot of conflict right now.  In fact, the United Methodist church is in a lot of conflict right now.  Everywhere we look, there seems to be conflict.

And when there is conflict, you have people who are one side and people who are on the other side.  And that’s not inherently wrong–it’s okay to have opinions.  But when we’re dealing with conflict–when we’re dealing with people who disagree with us, sometimes quite loudly and strongly–it can be very hard to do Paul tells us to do.  It can be hard to be humble, and gentle, and patient.  It can be hard to bear with others in love.  It can be very hard to keep any unity of Spirit through the bond of peace, especially when it seems like the people on the other side have no interest in having unity or peace with you.  Our instinct, when we’re challenged, is to fight back.  Our instinct is to give as good as we get.  Our instinct is to treat others, not as we would like them to treat us, but as they actually do treat us.

Paul understands that, but he does not give us an excuse for it.  What he says, basically, is that that’s what children do.  Kids are ruled by their emotions, “tossed by the waves, blown here and there by every wind.”  

Paul tells us that, if we want to live lives worthy of our calling, we need to grow up.  And how do we do that?  By speaking the truth in love.  If we do that, not only do we grow up, we become like Christ.  Paul says, “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

Speaking the truth in love.  That has two components to it, you know.  The first is to speak the truth.  Paul does not say that we should compromise in order to get along with people.  We are to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, but not at the price of truth.  And when we speak about truth, in this context, we’re talking about God’s truth.  The truth that Jesus Christ is the Savior.  The truth that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  The truth that Jesus is the only way to heaven, that we cannot come to God except through Him.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  We cannot compromise the truth of Jesus Christ.  If we are to live lives worthy of our calling, we must speak that truth.

But how we speak that truth is what makes the difference.  If we follow our basic human instincts, if we fight back when we’re challenged, if we give as good as we get and treat people the way they’ve treated us, rather than the way we’d like them to treat us, we’re probably not going to be patient, or gentle, or humble.  And we’re probably not likely to speak the truth in love, the way Paul told us to.

So, if we’re going to do this, we need to overcome our basic human instincts.  We need to not respond like children, ruled by our emotions.  We need to respond as the mature body of Christ.  Speak the truth, yes–again, we do no one any favors when we compromise the truth.  But speak the truth in love.

How do we do that?  I think we need to focus on it.  We need to put some thought and effort into it.  And we need to do that ahead of time.  If we wait until we’re in a conflict situation, it’ll probably be too late.  The only way we can overcome our basic human instincts is to prepare and get ready ahead of time.

And for me, that means calling on God’s help.  If you can do this without God’s help, more power to you, but I know I cannot.  My emotions will get in my way.  I need God to help me focus on this.  I need God to take control.  I need God to show my how I can respond patiently, and gently, and humbly.  Again, still speaking the truth.  But speaking it in a patient, gentle, humble way that shows the maturity of someone who is at least trying to be worthy of  the calling God has given them.

God has given each of us a calling.  And God wants us to live lives worthy of the calling God has given us.  So let’s focus on that.  Let’s ask God to help us be humble, and gentle, and patient.  Let’s ask God to help us speak the truth in love.  Then we can, as Paul says, “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

 

Better than the Pharisees

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 5, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 9:18-34.

It is amazing the way the human mind works.  We have the ability to create incredible, awesome things. We have created computers that can make incredibly complex calculations in less than a second.  We can communicate all over the world in an instant.  We can send people into outer space and bring them back.  We truly are amazing.

            But of course, the human mind is amazing in other ways, too.  We have an incredible ability to justify ourselves to ourselves.  If we want to, we can convince ourselves to do all kinds of bad things, and find a way to convince ourselves that they’re not really bad, that they’re even good.  The human mind can find a way to rationalize anything, if we want to badly enough.

            And the human mind is also amazing in its ability to find ways to believe that the things we want to be true actually are, and the things we want to believe are not true actually are not.  We can do this despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.  It’s called “confirmation bias”.  We accept anything that agrees with what we already believe or want to believe, and we reject anything that disagrees or even calls into question what we don’t believe or don’t want to believe.  

            And please understand, this is not the pastor acting like he’s better than anyone else.  This is not me saying you do this and I don’t.  I do it as much as anyone.  I’m sure I do it more than some people.  But the point is that almost all of us do this to some degree or another, whether we realize it or not.

            So what does all this have to do with our Bible reading?  Well, look at what happened here.  A woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came to Jesus, touched the edge of his cloak, and was healed.  Jesus said that her faith had healed her.  Jesus goes into the house of a girl who has died.  Jesus restores her to life and heals her.  Two blind men come up to Jesus.  He asks them if they believe he can help them.  They say they do, and Jesus heals them.  They can see.  A man who is possessed by a demon and cannot speak is brought to Jesus.  Jesus drives out the demon and the man speaks.

            Now, that’s all pretty strong evidence of Jesus’ power, right.  It’s pretty strong evidence that Jesus has power that could only come from God.  And a lot of people did believe that.  News of what Jesus did spread all over.  People were amazed at what Jesus could do.

            But what do the Pharisees say?  Listen to it.  “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”  In other words, they were saying Jesus’ power did not come from God, but from Satan.

            Now, think about that.  That’s an absurd statement, when you think about it.  Why would Satan want to drive demons out of people?  It’s Satan who got the demons into people in the first place.  The demons work for Satan.  Why would Satan want to drive them out?  What the Pharisees were saying makes no sense whatsoever.

            And yet, somehow, the Pharisees were able to make themselves believe it.  They did not want to believe that Jesus was the divine Son of God.  They did not want to believe that Jesus had power that came from God.  And so, despite everything Jesus did, they refused to believe it.  It did not matter what Jesus did.  It did not matter what Jesus said.  It did not matter what anyone else did or said, either.  They had made up their minds that they were not going to believe in Jesus, that they were not going to accept Jesus, and that was that.  

And so, no matter what happened, they were going to find a way to explain it that did not include belief in Jesus.  The explanation did not make any sense.  The explanation was, in fact, ludicrous.  But they believed it.  They believed it because it fit with what they wanted to believe.  And that was good enough for them.

My point here, though, is not to hammer the Pharisees.  Because, remember, almost all of us do this, to one degree or another.  And we do it, sometimes, in regard to our faith.

You know, the gospels tell us a lot of things that Jesus said while he was on earth.  Not everything, of course–the gospel writers did not follow Jesus around with a recording device and transcribe every statement he made.  I wonder, sometimes, about some of the things Jesus might have said that we don’t know about, but the fact is that we have quite enough to do trying to deal with the things we know Jesus said.

And because some of the things Jesus said are hard, because some of them tell us to do things we don’t do and don’t want to do, because some of them are things we’d really rather not believe, we try very hard to find ways to explain them and rationalize them away.  We try very hard to come up with reasons why we don’t really need to do the things Jesus told us to do.  Too often, we don’t read what Jesus said and then decide to live our lives based on that.  Too often, we decide how we’re going to live our lives and then try to read what Jesus said in a way that allows us to live our lives our way.

And again, I have done this, too.  Many times.  I’m sure there are times I still do.  I’m an expert at convincing myself to do the things I want to do and convincing myself I don’t need to do the things I don’t want to do.  

But think of some of the things Jesus told us to do.  Love your enemies.  Do you do that?  Do I do that?  I mean, we might not do things that hurt our enemies, but do we really love them?  If so, what is it that we do that shows we love them?  Because the next thing Jesus says is “do good to those who hate you.”  Do we do that?  How often have you done something good for someone who hates you?  How about “bless those who curse you”?  I mean, we might, sometimes, manage to look past people who curse us.  We might be able to get over it and move on.  But do we really bless those who curse us?

And again, I just want to emphasize, this is not me telling you you’re a bunch of sinners who fall short.  I struggle with this as much as anyone.  And I come up with all sorts of good excuses for why I should not have to do these things, even though Jesus said to do them.  And when I say “good excuses”, they’re not really good excuses at all.  But they’re good enough for me, at the time, because they let me do what I want to do and excuse me from doing what I don’t want to do.

And the thing is, I did not even get to the hardest things Jesus said.  Things like, “if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also.”  Things like, “if someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.”  Things like, “give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.”  Most of the time, we don’t even consider doing those things.  We know Jesus said them, but we usually either try to explain them away or, if that fails, just ignore them.

So, in many ways, we’re no better than the Pharisees.  We know what Jesus said, but it does not fit what we want to believe.  And so, we find reasons to explain away what Jesus said.  Our explanations may not make a lot of sense, but we convince ourselves of them, because they do fit what we want to believe.

So, the question is, what can we do about this?  I mean, I hope we want to be better than the Pharisees.  I hope we want to truly follow Jesus, and stop making excuses.  So what do we do?

            Well first, we need to take Jesus’ words seriously.  That means we need to take the Bible seriously.  We need to read it, yes, but we need to take some time with it.  We need to think about how we can apply what it says to our lives.  We especially need to think about how we can apply what Jesus said to our lives.  Not explain it away, not come up with reasons why we don’t have to do what Jesus said, but actually apply it to our lives.

            And then, we need to start actually applying it.  We need to actually start doing the things Jesus told us to do.  Yes, some of them are hard, but we need to stop using that as an excuse.  We need to find a way to apply Jesus’ words to our lives, no matter how hard they may be.

And for me, that way is through God’s Holy Spirit.  Maybe it’s different for you, I don’t know.  But I know that I cannot do this by myself.  I will keep making excuses.  Even if I tell myself I’m not going to, I will.  The only way I can stop myself from making excuses, and truly apply Jesus’ words to my life, is with the help of God’s Holy Spirit.

            So that’s what I suggest all of us do.  Including me.  Read Jesus’ words, and as we read them, ask God’s Holy Spirit to be present with us.  Ask God’s Holy Spirit to help us really take Jesus’ words seriously.  Ask God’s Holy Spirit to take away our excuses, and help us truly apply Jesus’ words to our lives.

            I don’t mean to imply this will be easy.  God’s Holy Spirit is not a magic genie who’s going to cross his arms, nod his head, and boom, everything is changed.  But at the same time, there is nothing that is beyond God’s power.  If we do our part, we know God will always do God’s part.  If we truly open our hearts, and follow the leadership of God’s Holy Spirit, this can happen.  We can stop making excuses and truly apply Jesus’ words to our lives.

            Let’s be better than the Pharisees.  Let’s stop ignoring Jesus’ words just because they don’t fit what we want to do.  Let’s take Jesus’ words seriously.  Let’s open our hearts to God’s Holy Spirit, and truly live the way Jesus wants us to live.  Then, everyone will know that we truly do believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.