Things Must Happen

The message given in the Sunday night worship service of the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, August 28, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Revelation 5:1-6a and 6:1-17.

            In our reading for tonight, The Apostle John is being given a vision.  At the right hand of God he sees a scroll.  There’s writing on both sides.  It’s sealed with seven seals.  There’s no one to found who’s worthy to open the seals.  And John begins to cry.

            We’re given no indication that John has any idea what’s on the scroll.  I wonder, if he had known what would happen when the seals were opened, whether he’d have been crying.  He might’ve preferred the scroll to stay sealed.  But we’ll come to that in a minute.

            Because someone is found who’s worthy to open the seals.  The Lion of Judah.  The Root of David.  The Lamb who had been slain.  Jesus Christ.  Jesus is worthy to open the seals.  And he starts to do so.

            I know some of you are familiar with the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  It’s something we don’t hear a lot about these days.  I think people more familiar with them years ago than they are now.  But if you’ve ever heard that phrase, this is where it comes from.  As the Christ opens the first four seals, a horse and a rider appear each time.  And what they represent is not good, at least not in our eyes.  Conquest.  War.  Famine.  Death.  These are the plagues, the bad things that are going to happen as the end of the world approaches.  Which is why I wonder whether John knew what was going to happen when the seals were opened.  

            When the fifth seal is opened, the martyrs make an appearance.  The people who have been killed because they stood up for the word of God.  And they ask when their murders are going to be avenged.  They want God to get going and wipe out evil now.  But they are each given a white robe and told to wait.

            Then comes the opening of the sixth seal.  And there’s an earthquake larger than any earthquake anyone has ever seen.  And everyone goes to hide.  They are desperate to get away, because they know God’s judgment is coming.  As it says, “The great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?        

One of the things we always wonder about is why God allows bad things to happen.  Now, understand what I said there.  I said God allows bad things to happen.  I did not say God causes bad things to happen.  Many of us--maybe most of us--have had some really bad things happen, either to ourselves or people we care about.  I’m not saying God pointed a finger and said “This bad thing is going to happen to you now.”  But if God is all-powerful, as we believe, then God could stop bad things from happening.  And God chooses not to, at least much of the time.  And we wonder why.

            But what our reading for today shows is that allowing bad things to happen is part of God’s plan.  As it says in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, there’s a time for everything.  Including a time to weep and to mourn.  A time to die.  A time to kill.  A time to hate.  A time for war.  Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for all those things.  And it also tells us that God has made everything, which must include all those things, beautiful, in its time.  God has made things like death, killing, hatred, war--God has made all those things beautiful in their time.

            To me, that means that God allowing all of those things must, in some way, be part of God’s plan.  And we’re also told, in Romans Eight, Verse Twenty-eight, that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

            And again, it is not God causing these things to happen.  It’s God allowing them to happen.  The fact that the Christ is the only one worthy to open the seals shows that God has power over those bad things--conquest, war, famine, and death.  And when the seals are opened, God does not command that conquest, war, famine, and death take place.  Those things are simply set free.  They are allowed to happen.  The forces that cause these things are given the ability to do what they wish to do.  God does not require them to do those things.  God simply has stopped restraining them.

            And you may remember that Jesus told us all this would happen.  In Matthew Six, Jesus says, “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars... Such things must happen...Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”  Jesus told the disciples all this.  But Jesus told them one other thing.  Jesus told them, “Do not be alarmed...Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.”

            These things must happen.  We run into that phrase time and time again.  In Revelation, in Ecclesiastes, in Matthew, in other places.  These things must happen.  Again, in some way, a way that does not always make sense to us, these things apparently are all part of God’s plan.  This is the way it needs to go.

            Why?  We don’t know.  We could speculate.  In part, I suspect it has to do with some of the qualities of God that we tend to ignore.  You know, we like to think about God as being a loving, caring, forgiving, compassionate God.  And that’s all true.  God is all of those things.  But what we don’t like to think about is that those things are not all God is.  We don’t like to think about God’s wrath.  We don’t like to think about God’s judgment.  Now don’t get me wrong--I’m not saying God is up in heaven with a big red pen, just waiting to catch us making a mistake so God can punish us.  But Jesus spoke about a day of judgment, and so does the book of Revelation.  And we forget that at our eternal peril.

            I suspect God’s righteousness, God’s justice, God’s holiness, are all tied it up in why these bad things must happen.  That’s not a full explanation, and I don’t intend it to be.  Only God knows that full explanation.  God just told us that these things must happen, and if we believe in God then we don’t have much choice but to accept that.

            It sounds kind of scary, when we think about all these bad things happening.  That’s one of the reasons we don’t like to think about God’s judgment--it scares us.  We know, deep down, that we’re not the people we should be.  We try to hide it, a lot of times.  We try to pretend that we’re pretty good.  We try to convince ourselves that what we’re doing is okay, that we’re doing the best we can.  After all, we tell ourselves, God does not expect us to be perfect.  God knows we’re going to mess up.  It’s okay.

            But deep down, we know it’s not okay.  I mean, we may be pretty good, in human terms.  But we know we could do better.  God does know that we cannot be perfect, but God also knows that very few of us are truly doing the best we can.  Most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, know we have plenty of room for improvement.  Most of us have lots of times when we don’t follow God as well as we should.  We don’t trust God the way we should.  We don’t love our neighbors the way we should.  We know how unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness we are.  No matter how many excuses we try to make for ourselves, deep down, we know.  And we know that God knows, too.

            And so, when we think about God’s judgment, we get scared.  But we don’t have to be.  The disciples were probably scared, too, when Jesus started talking about all this stuff in the gospel of Matthew.  But remember what Jesus told them.  “Do not be alarmed...whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.”

            That’s what it comes down to.  Standing firm in our faith to the end.  Not making excuses for ourselves, but repenting of our sins and asking for forgiveness.  Not being perfect people, but standing firm in our faith.  Continuing to believe in God, no matter how many bad things happen.  Continuing to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, no matter how desperate the situation may be.  Continuing to love our neighbor, even when our neighbor does not seem to deserve our love.  Standing firm in our faith, no matter what.

            Because the worse things get, the more tempting it is to give up on God.  And the worse things get, the more the world tries to get us to give up on God.  And the worse things get, the more Satan tempts us to turn away from God.  

            But God is always there.  No matter how bad things get, God is always there.  No matter how bad things get, Jesus Christ is still the Savior.  The same Christ who was worthy to open the seals and allow these terrible things will, in the end, triumph over them.  And because of that, you and I do not need to be alarmed.  We don’t need to be scared.  All we need to do is what Jesus said.  Stand firm in our faith.  If we do that, we will be saved.  We will have eternal life.

            God has allowed some bad things to happen.  And God is going to allow still more.  We don’t know why.  But we do know that we don’t have to be scared.  If we stand firm in our faith, we will be able to stand up to God’s judgment.  And we will be saved.

           

 

The Only Way

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, August 28, 2022.  The Bible verses used are John 6:53-71.

            There are several times in the gospels in which Jesus says that salvation can only be found through faith in Him.  In John Fourteen, verse six, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  In John Three, verse eighteen, He says, “Whoever believes in [the Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the one and only Son.”

            We have another example of it in our Bible reading for today.  Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

            This is one of the things that can put some people off of Christianity.  It sounds discriminatory.  It sound self-righteous.  Its sounds arrogant.  How can you Christians say that your faith is the only one that leads to heaven?  How can you act like you’re the only ones who have it right, and everybody else is wrong?  What an elitist, sanctimonious thing to say.

            A lot of people have a hard time with what Jesus said.  Even people who claim to be Christians have a hard time with it.  A poll taken last year showed that nearly seventy percent of people who described themselves as born-again Christians did not believe that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.  I’ve known pastors who don’t believe it.

            Now, a part of this may be well-intentioned.  I mean, I know people who don’t believe Jesus Christ is the Savior.  I suspect you do, too.  And the thing is, some of them are what we would call “good people”.  I don’t want to believe they won’t be in heaven.  I want there to be some loophole, some way that they can get to heaven without believing in Jesus Christ.

            The problem with that is that Jesus does not give us that loophole.  Jesus did not say, “No one comes to the Father except through Me, unless you’re a really good person, then you can get in anyway.”  He did not say, “I am the way, but if you’re a really good person there are other ways.”  Jesus said belief in Him is the only way to heaven.  Period.  End of sentence.  End of paragraph.

            It’s a hard teaching.  A lot of people don’t want to accept it.  A lot of people don’t accept it.  But the thing about God’s truth is that it remains true whether we accept it or not.  Our opinions about it really don’t matter.  I can wish that the sun rose in the west, but it’s going to keep rising in the east.  I can wish that people did not have to age, but we’re all going to keep aging.  And I can wish that people I know who don’t believe in Jesus would go to heaven, but they’re not going to.  Not because I say so, but because Jesus himself said so.

            It’s a hard teaching.  But it was a hard teaching in Jesus’ time, too.  In fact, some of Jesus’ disciples said those exact words, in verse sixty of our Bible reading for today.  The main disciples, the twelve, did not say it, but other people who were also following Jesus did.  

And many of them left Jesus because of it, just as many people do not believe today because of it.  But those who left Jesus ran into the problem Peter pointed out.  “To whom shall we go?”  

There are places to go, of course.  We can always find places to go.  We can go to other faiths, faiths that don’t sound so “exclusive”.  We can do what the nearly seventy percent did in the poll I cited earlier–continue to claim to be Christians, but come up with our own form of Christianity, a Christianity that adds in some loopholes and exceptions that Jesus did not grant.  Or, we can go nowhere.  We can believe in nothing in particular, or have just some sort of generalized belief in God that does not particularly impact our lives in any meaningful way.

            There are lots of places to go.  But Peter also pointed out the problem with all of those places.  He said of Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.”  

            Those words of eternal life cannot come from any other place.  They cannot come from any other place.  They cannot come from any other religion.  They cannot come from any other prophet or so-called prophet.  They cannot come from a politician.  They cannot come from a celebrity.  They cannot come from within ourselves.  The words of eternal life can only come from Jesus Christ.  No other words, no matter how good they may sound, can bring eternal life.  Only the words of Jesus Christ.  Only faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            But if this is such a “hard teaching”, why was it so easy for Peter and the rest of the twelve?  Well, of course, we don’t know if it was easy.  Maybe some of them struggled with it themselves.  One of the twelve, Judas, obviously struggled with it.  But whether it was easy for them or not, they were able to accept it.  Why?  Because, again quoting Peter, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

            That’s what it really comes down to.  Do we believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God?  Because if we do, then we have no choice but accept the things he said as true.  We have no choice but to accept those “hard teachings”, whether we like them or not.  The Holy One of God would not lie to us.  The Holy One of God would not make things up.  The Holy One of God would not make claims about himself that were not true.  Jesus said that belief in Him is the only way to salvation and eternal life.  So the question is whether we, like Peter, believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

            We don’t have to, of course.  As our reading for today says, many of the people who heard Jesus say these things turned away.  When that happened, Jesus turned to Peter and asked him, and the rest of the twelve, whether they were going to leave, too.  

            I wonder if He thought they might.  Maybe not–after all, He was Jesus, the Holy One of God.  He may have known they would not leave.  But even if He did, it was still their choice.  They could have left, if they’d chosen to.  But they stayed.

            And it’s our choice, too.  We can choose to leave.  We can choose to not accept Jesus’ hard teachings.  We can do what so many people do.  We can do what so many people who call themselves Christians do.  We can be “tolerant” and “inclusive”.  We can say that faith in Jesus is just one of many ways to heaven.  We can say that all religions have truth in them, and that one is just as valid as another.  We can say that–but if we do, we’re not saying what Jesus said.  And, whether we realize it or not, we are turning away from Jesus.  We are no longer following Him.  We no longer believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

            Maybe that sounds judgmental.  Maybe it is judgmental.  But here’s the thing:  it’s not my judgment.  My judgment does not matter.  But as I said earlier, the words of the Lord remain true no matter what I think about them.  And these are the words of the Lord.  The Lord is the one who makes that judgment, and the Lord’s judgment is the only one that matters.

            So, two things.  One, we need to make up our own minds about this.  Are we going to go along with the Twelve, with the ones who stayed with Jesus, with the ones who believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God?  Or, are we going to along with the other disciples, the ones who found this to be a “hard teaching” and could not accept it?  I hope, and pray, that we will all go along with the Twelve.  But it’s a choice each of us has to make.

            If we do go along with the Twelve, then here’s the second thing.  Think about those people you know who don’t believe in Jesus as the Savior.  Is there something you could do to lead them to believe?  Is there something you could do that might move them a little closer to believing?

            Maybe not.  I mean, lots of people heard the words of Jesus Himself and turned away.  If even Jesus could not lead everyone to believe, you and I cannot expect to do it.  Again, each person has to make their own choice.

            But is there a way we can try?  Is there something we could do, something we could say, any possible thing that might lead them to accept this “hard teaching” and stay with Jesus?  

            If there is, we need to try it.  Even if it’s a longshot, we need to try it.  Because, again, Jesus said belief in Him is the only way to eternal life.  If we want those people we know to be in heaven, we need to do whatever we can to bring them to that belief.

            Jesus has the words of eternal life.  He is, indeed the Holy One of God.  If we believe that, we need to do whatever we can to lead others to believe it, too.  Because, when it comes to salvation, there is nowhere else to go.

 

August 27

Hal Janvrin (1892)

Peanuts Lowrey (1917)

Joe Cunningham (1931)

Jim King (1932)

Ernie Broglio (1935)

Joe McCabe (1938)

Ed Herrmann (1946)

Buddy Bell (1951)

Mike Maddux (1961)

Brian McRae (1967)

Jim Thome (1970)

Jose Vidro (1974)

Jordy Mercer (1986)

A. J. Achter (1988)

Catcher Joseph Robert McCabe played for the Twins in 1964.  He was born in Indianapolis, went to high school in Lebanon, Indiana, and attended Purdue University.  He was signed as a free agent by the then Washington franchise in 1960.  He did not hit with power, even in the minors, but was up and down as far as batting average; for example, he hit .309 in 1962 in AAA Vancouver, but .216 in 1963 for AAA Dallas-Ft. Worth.  Despite that, McCabe began 1964 with Minnesota backing up Earl Battey.  He appeared in fourteen games, starting three of them.  He went 3-for-19 with two RBIs.  Sent to AA Charlotte for the remainder of the season, McCabe was traded to the new Washington franchise after the season for Ken Retzer.  He appeared in fourteen more games for the Senators in 1965 with similar results, although he did hit a home run.  His playing career ended after the 1965 season.  He then became an airline pilot and according to wikipedia is the only person to have both played in the major leagues and have piloted large commercial airlines for major carriers.  He was inducted into the Purdue Intercollegiate Hall of Fame in September of 2016.  At last report, Joe McCabe was living in Indianapolis.

First baseman/designated hitter James Howard Thome played for the Twins from 2010-2011.  He was born in Peoria, Illinois, went to high school in Bartonville, Illinois, and was drafted by Cleveland in the thirteenth round in 1989.  He did little in rookie ball that year (when he played shortstop), but then was shifted to third base and came on strong:  he hit .340 with 16 homers in a 1990 season split between rookie and Class A and batted .319 (although with only seven homers) in a 1991 campaign split between AA and AAA.  He made his big league debut as a September call-up in 1991 at age 21 and was in the majors for about two months in 1992.  In 1993 he hit .332 with 25 homers and an OPS of 1.026 at AAA Charlotte.  That was enough for him to leave the minors behind for good, but the Indians apparently still did not realize what they had, as Thome shared third base in 1994 with Alvaro Espinoza and Rene Gonzales.  He hit 20 home runs in 321 at-bats that season, the first of twelve consecutive years and sixteen of seventeen in which he hit at least twenty home runs.  He also had nine consecutive years and twelve out of thirteen in which he hit over thirty homers, and four consecutive years and five out of six in which he hit over forty home runs.  He became the regular third baseman for the Indians in 1995 and 1996, moving to first in 1997.  He remained a regular with Cleveland through 2002, making the all-star team three times, getting MVP consideration five times, and finishing in the top seven in MVP voting three times.  He became a free agent after that season and signed with Philadelphia for 2003.   He was with the Phillies for three seasons, getting MVP consideration in two of them and making another all-star team.  He was injured much of 2005 and was traded to the White Sox after the season.  Thome became a full-time DH in 2006 and continued to hit, making another all-star team and again receiving MVP consideration.  He started to slip in 2008, and in August of 2009 to the Dodgers.  A free agent after that season, he signed with Minnesota, where he was a part-time DH and pinch hitter.  He hit his six hundredth home run in 2011, and was a productive player for the Twins when healthy, hitting .266/.387/.562 in 482 at-bats.  He was traded to Cleveland on in late August of 2011 for a player to be named later.  A free agent after the season, he signed with Philadelphia.  Used mostly as a pinch-hitter there, he was still productive in limited playing time.  He was traded to Baltimore in late June, was used as a DH, and again was productive in limited playing time.  A free agent after the season, he did not sign with anyone.  He became a special assistant to the general manager for the White Sox in July of 2013 and is also an analyst for MLB Network.  His career numbers are .276/.402/.554, for an OPS of .956.  He hit 612 home runs.  He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018.  He also has a statue outside the Cleveland Indians stadium and has been inducted into the Philadelphia Phillies Wall of Fame.  That the Twins, for whom he played less than two full seasons, held a night in his honor shows the high regard in which he is held.  We can safely say that Gentleman Jim had a Hall of Fame playing career and, from all reports, is a Hall of Fame person.

Right-handed reliever Adam Joseph Achter appeared in eighteen games for the Twins from 2014-2015.  He was born in Toledo, went to high school in Oregon, Ohio, attended Michigan State, and was drafted by the Twins in the forty-sixth round in 2010.  He was a starter in Beloit in 2011 but has been a reliever the rest of his career.  The move seemed to help him quite a bit--he was a pretty average starter, but has excelled as a reliever at every stop along the way.  He was promoted to Fort Myers at mid-season of 2012, started 2013 in New Britain, went to Rochester later that season, and got a September call-up in 2014.  He spent most of 2015 in Rochester, but was with the Twins for a couple of weeks in August and again got a September call-up.  The Twins waived him after the 2015 season, he was chosen by Philadelphia in November, was waived a month later, and was chosen by the Angels.  He was back-and-forth between AAA and the majors a few times in 2016, but did okay with the Angels when given the chance.  A free agent after the season, he signed with Detroit but did poorly in AA and was released in June.  He finished the season pitching for Somerset in the Atlantic League and then his playing career came to an end.  As a Twin, he was 1-1, 5.18, 1.44 WHIP in 24.1 innings (18 games).  He always pitched well in AAA, but was not able to translate that into major league success.  A. J. Achter was an assistant baseball coach for Eastern Michigan University from 2018-2021.  At last report, he was a patient care account manager for Stryker in the Detroit area.

Being Ananias

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on August 21, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Acts 9:1-20.

            The conversion of Saul is one of the most awesome stories in the Bible.  Saul of Tarses was one of the most prominent persecutors of Christians ever.  He was good at it.  I mean, really good.  And he enjoyed it.  He loved it.  He thought his purpose in life was to persecute Christians.  He was so dedicated to persecuting Christians that he actually went to the high priest to get permission to go to Damascus and arrest any Christians he could find and take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

            On the way, of course, Saul met Jesus.  He was blinded by the light of the Lord.  Eventually Saul’s sight was restored, he was baptized, and he immediately began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God.

            It’s a remarkable story.  But you know who gets overlooked in this story?  Ananias.  The man who restored Saul’s sight.  Did you even know his name, before we read the story tonight?  Maybe you did, I don’t know.  In all honesty, I’m not sure I’d have remembered his name.  But he plays a pivotal role in the story of Saul’s conversion.

            The only place the name Ananias appears in the Bible is in the book of acts.  Oddly enough, Acts also references two other Ananiases.  One is in Acts Five, where an Ananias and his wife Sapphira lie to Peter about the sale price of some land and are struck down.  The other is in Acts Twenty-three and Twenty-four, where Ananias is the name of the high priest.  But the Ananias we’re talking about tonight is in the Bible only in Acts Nine.  Well, Paul references him in Acts Twenty-two, when he’s re-telling the story of his conversion.  But our Ananias is in the Bible for only one thing:  restoring sight to Saul.

            We don’t know much about Ananias.  He obviously lived in Damascus.  He was a disciple of Jesus Christ.  In Acts Twenty-two, Paul tells us that Ananias was “a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there.”  

But that’s really all we’re told about him.  We assume he did not hold any religious office.  If he had been a priest or part of the ruling council or something, we presumably would’ve been told that.

As it seems like happens so often in these Bible stories, Ananias is having just an ordinary day.  He’s doing whatever he did all day–we’re not told what Ananias did for a living, but presumably whatever it was, he was doing it.  And all of a sudden, he had a vision.  The Lord was speaking to him.

Think about what that would be like.  You’re going about your day.  You’re doing the things you do.  And all of a sudden you get this vision, and the Lord is speaking to you.  To you.

How would you react?  Would you freak out?  Would you think you were hallucinating?  I mean, even if you could accept that it really was the Lord, it would still be quite a deal, right?  Would you be scared?  Would you wonder, why me?  I mean, really think about it.  What would it be like, to all of a sudden, out of the blue, have this vision of the Lord, speaking to you?

Well, the way this is written, Ananias pretty much took it in stride.  He has no doubt that this is the Lord speaking to him, and he does not hesitate.  Ananias simply answers, “Yes, Lord.”

The Lord tells him to go where Saul is and restore his sight.  And that’s where Ananias objects.  We don’t know what was behind his objection–whether he was scared, whether he simply could not believe God was telling him to go help this man who had been persecuting Christians, or what.  But Ananias objects.  He says, hey, God, I heard about this guy.  I know who he is.  He’s the sworn enemy of Christians.  You really want me to go to him?  You really want me to help him?

And of course, God says yes.  I want you to go to him and help him.  God says, “This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.”

            We’re not told what Ananias thought about that.  I would have to think he wondered about it, at least a little.  But regardless, he did what the Lord told him to do.  He went to Saul, restored his sight–with the Lord’s power, of course–and Saul began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God.

            So why am I going through all this?  Why am I talking so much about Ananias, this guy who most people don’t even remember?  This guy who did this one thing, and then was never heard from again?

            Well, I think a lot of us are kind of like Ananias, in a some ways.  We’re followers of the Lord, or at least we try to be.  I don’t know if any of us would call ourselves “devout”, but we would say we’re doing the best we can.  

            And for the most part, we do it quietly.  Maybe people know we’re Christians–I certainly hope they do–but we don’t make a big deal of our faith.  We just do what we do, trying to do what’s right.

            And we wonder, sometimes, if what we do makes any difference.  We wonder if anybody notices what we do, and if they did notice whether anyone would care.  Not that we’re doing it for applause or anything.  It’s just that, well, we’d like to know that somehow, what we do matters.  We’d like to know that, in some way, something is made better because of us.  

            We’d like to know that, but most of the time, we don’t.  And so, all we can do is just keep going.  Just keep going, just keep trying, just keep doing our best.  And trust that, somehow, in some way, God is going to use what we do for something, even if we don’t know when or how.

            We’re not told this, but I suspect that’s how Ananias felt, sometimes.  He was trying his best to follow God, to observe the law, to do what he was supposed to do.  And he wondered if anyone noticed or cared.  He wondered if his life was making any difference at all.

And then, all of a sudden, his chance came.  He got a vision from the Lord, and he was told this one thing to do.  It was not a hard thing, although it may have been a little scary because of who Saul was.  All he did was place his hands on Saul and say a few words.  But what he did was an important part of the conversion of Saul.  It was one of the things that led to Saul eventually becoming known as Paul, the first and maybe still the greatest Christian evangelist ever.  This little thing that Ananias did played a part in changing the world.

            We don’t know what happened to Ananias after that.  We never hear from him again.  Did he know that what he’d done would be remembered forever?  Probably not.  He probably just went back to whatever his job was and kept living the life he’d been living.  Maybe, years later, if he lived long enough, he heard about what Saul, now known as Paul, was doing, and was pleased that he’d had some small part in his conversion.  Or maybe not.  But the chances are that Ananias’ life did not particularly change because of this.

            And so we think, well, this is all well and good, but how does it apply to me?  I have not gotten a vision from the Lord.  I’m not likely to ever get a vision from the Lord.  I mean, good for Ananias and all, but what’s it got to do with my life?

            And we’re probably right.  We probably will never get a vision from the Lord.  I mean, you never know–Ananias probably never thought he’d get a vision from the Lord, either, until it happened.  So it’s always possible.

            But even if we don’t, this should still give us confidence that we make a difference.  Because after all, what did Ananias do?  Hardly anything.  Put his hands on someone.  Say a few words.  Anybody could’ve done that.  And yet, look at the difference that this little thing made in the history of the world.

            Anybody could’ve done what Ananias did–but he actually did it.  And that’s the point.  The things we do might seem like little things.  We might think, well, anybody could do what I do.  And that may be true.  Anybody could–but somebody actually has to.  Somebody has to be the one who actually does it.  And it’s up to each of us to be that somebody.  That somebody who does the little things.  The somebody who does things that anybody could do, but that somebody has to be the one who actually does them.  You and I need to be that somebody.

            The little things we do, do make a difference.  We may never see the difference.  We may never know that they made any difference at all.  But they do.  And sometimes, those little things we do make all the difference in the world.

            So keep going.  Keep doing the best you can.  Stay faithful to God.  Serve God.  Show love to God.  Show love to others.  Do the little things that need to be done.  They do make a difference.  And who knows?  If God so wills, they may change the world.

 

Heaven

The message given in the Sunday morning service in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, August 21, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Revelation 4:1-11.

            A belief in heaven is one of the most basic Christian beliefs.  We believe that, if we have faith in Jesus Christ, we will have salvation and eternal life.  And of course, we believe that eternal life will be in heaven with the Lord.

            But while a belief in heaven is one of the most basic Christian beliefs, it is also one of the most mysterious Christian beliefs.  What, exactly, is heaven?  Where, exactly, is heaven?  What does heaven look like?  What do we look like when we’re there?  What, if anything, will we do there?  We want to be able to picture heaven, somehow, but it’s really hard to do.

            The classic cartoons, of course, have us sitting on clouds, wearing wings.  That’s probably not how it works.  Some people believe we’ll see our loved ones in heaven when we die, and that’s certainly possible, at least if they, too, believe in Jesus as the Savior.  Some people believe we’ll see our pets, too–dogs, cats, horses, etc., and I cannot say that’s wrong.  Some people think of heaven as going home, going to the place where we belong, and I cannot say that’s wrong, either.

            Some people believe that heaven is a place of eternal rest, where we won’t really have to do anything.  Some people believe that, in heaven, we’ll be able to do the things we enjoy doing, the things we love to do.  And again, I cannot say any of that is wrong, too.

            But there is one thing I’m pretty sure we’ll do when we get to heaven.  We will worship God.  We will bow down before God and give Him our complete and total worship and praise.  In fact, I think we’ll be totally awestruck when we are in the presence of God.  And that brings me to our Bible reading for today.

            We’re told that there are four living creatures around the throne of God.  Leave aside their appearance–while it’s interesting, it’s not what I want to talk about today.  Also leave aside what it is they represent.  They’re obviously exalted, special beings, but the point for today is not who they are but what they do.  We’re told that “day and night, they never stop saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”  We’re also told that they “give glory, honor, and thanks to him who lives on the throne and who lives for ever and ever.”

            And then we’re told about the twenty-four elders.  Again, they’re obviously special, exalted beings, but who they are and what they represent is not the point for today.  The point for today is that whenever the four living creatures do what they do, the twenty-four elders lay their crowns before the throne.  And they say, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive all glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

            These creatures are given a special position in heaven.  They are the beings in closest proximity to God.  And we’re told that what they do, constantly, day and night, is give glory and honor and praise and thanks to God.  If that’s what they do, then how much more will we, we common, ordinary, weak, fallen, broken human beings, want to constantly give glory and honor and praise and thanks to God?

            And maybe you think, well, gee, that sounds pretty boring.  All we’re going to do in heaven is give glory and honor and praise and thanks to God?  That’s it?  We’re not going to get to have any fun?  We’re not going to be able to rest and relax?  We’re not going to be able to visit with our loved ones?  All we’re going to do, all day and all night, is give glory and honor and praise and thanks to God?

            Well, I don’t know that it’s the only thing we’ll do.  There are Bible verses that indicate that we do things to serve God in heaven, too.  I think that’s quite likely, that God will have things for us to do that serve Him while we’re in heaven.

            And maybe you still think, you mean, that’s it?  We praise God and we serve God in heaven, and that’s all.  Again, don’t we get to have any fun?  Don’t we get to rest and relax?  Don’t we get to do things we enjoy doing?  We’re going to serve God and we’re going to praise God, and that’s it?  That does not sound much like heaven to me.  It sounds boring, if you want to know the truth.

            But it won’t be.  It won’t be boring at all.  You see, no one’s going to force us to do these things.  God’s not going to say, “Serve Me and worship Me and give Me glory and honor and praise and thanks or else I’ll kick you out of heaven and send you to hell.”  That’s not how this works at all.  God never forced us to do these things on earth.  Why would He force us to do these things in heaven?  No, the reason we’ll constantly do these things in heaven is because they’re all we’ll want to do.  

            You see, on earth, we really cannot fully understand everything that God is.  Our words fail us.  Our minds fail us.  Our imaginations fail us.  God is completely beyond our comprehension.

            Think about all the things we say about God.  God is almighty.  God is all-powerful.  God is all-seeing.  God is all-knowing.  God is all-wise.  God is everywhere at once.  God is in the past, present, and future at once.  God is in heaven and on earth at once.  And yet, for all these things that God is, God is also all-loving.  God is all-caring.  God is all-compassionate.  God is all-gracious.  God is all-merciful.  God is all-forgiving.  But yet, God is also the one who will execute judgment, on us and on all the world.  And that’s just the beginning.  We could go on and on and on about all the things God is, and we still could never get it all said.

            And so, as human beings, we tend to minimize God.  We tend to bring God down to our level.  That’s not a bad thing, necessarily.  There’s an extent to which we have to do that if we’re going to relate to God at all.  And God does want us to be able to relate to Him, because God does love us.  And so, when we think of God as our friend, our guide, our companion, those are not bad things.  They’re necessary things, so that we can have the relationship with God that God wants us to have.

            But at the same time, if we over-emphasize those aspects of God, we lose some of those other things we’ve talked about.  We forget about the majesty and power of God.  We forget about the sheer awesomeness of God.  And that can lead us to start questioning God, to start doubting God, to start thinking we have the right to tell God what to do, rather than respecting the wisdom of God.

            But in heaven, we won’t have that problem.  We will be in the actual presence of God.  All of those aspects of God, the sheer grandeur and majesty and magnificence of God, will be right there in front of us.  The glory of God will hit us right between the eyes.

            And when we see that, and feel that, I think the only thing we’ll think about, the only thing that will enter our minds, is how fortunate we are, how blessed we are, how just plain lucky we are that God allows us into His holy presence.  We will feel so unworthy, and yet so happy, that God has just let us be around Him, has just allowed us to be there with Him and feel the incredible love God has for us.

            And feeling that, the only thing we’ll want to do is express our gratitude and thanks to God.  Thankful that we can be in heaven.  Thankful that we can feel that total love, that total joy, that total peace.  Thankful that, as far above and beyond us as God is, God still loves us so much that He has allowed us into His holy presence to feel that incredible love.  And we’ll be eager to serve God, not because God is forcing us to, but because we’re so grateful to God that we’ll want to do something to express our thanks to God in some sort of tangible way.

            I don’t know all the details of what heaven is like.  I don’t know where it is, or if it’s even in a physical place as we know that term.  I don’t know what it looks like.  I don’t know what we’ll look like.  There are all kinds of things about heaven that I don’t know.

            But I know that we’ll be in the awesome presence of our awesome God.  And I know that we will feel incredibly good, incredibly grateful, and incredibly loved, when we are in that awesome presence.  And feeling that, we will automatically give God thanks and praise and glory and honor.  Not because we have to.  But because there is nothing else we will want to do.

 

Chance Encounter

The message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church Sunday night. August 14, 2022.  The Bible verses used are John 4:1-26.

            The story we read tonight is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.  I mean, I suppose I have a lot of favorite stories in the Bible, but this is one of them.  And one of the things I love about it is the sheer randomness of it.

            Now, when I say randomness, I cannot say whether it was random from Jesus’ point of view.  It’s entirely possible that Jesus had this all planned out from the beginning.  Jesus may have known that there was this woman in Samaria who always went to this same well at the same time.  He may have deliberately timed his trip to Samaria so that he would get to the well just before the woman got there, so he could meet and talk to her.  I mean, after all, he’s Jesus.  He told Nathanael that he saw him while he was still sitting under a fig tree, before they’d ever met.  So Jesus can do stuff like this if he wants to.

            But that’s not the way John presents the story to us.  The way John presents the story, this was just a chance encounter.  It’s sort of like one of Wanda’s Hallmark Channel movies, where two people meet by accident and the meeting changes their lives forever.  Except that here, this chance meeting did not just a life.  It led to people receiving eternal life.

            And certainly, from the point of view of the Samaritan woman, it was a chance encounter.  She had no idea that she’d be meeting the Messiah, the Savior, on that day.  She probably did not expect to meet anyone.  For her, this was just another day.  A day like any other day.  She needed water, this was where the well was, so she went to get water.  Just like she probably did every day at about this time.

            She sees a man sitting there.  She can tell it’s not a Samaritan.  It’s a Jewish man.  As our reading says, Jews did not associate with Samaritans and vice versa.  I’m sure she was quite ready for this man to ignore her, and she was prepared to ignore him as well.  But then, amazingly enough, he speaks to her.  He asks her for a drink of water.  

She could not believe it.  Why is this man, this stranger, this Jewish stranger, talking to her?  She asks him that.  And just to make sure he understands the situation, she goes out of her way to point out why he should not be speaking to her.  She says, “You are a Jew.  I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?”  Like, maybe this guy does not see very well or is just kind of stupid or something.  Maybe he does not realize I’m a Samaritan.  I’d better spell it out for him, so he does not get us both into trouble.

            And Jesus answers, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

            Do you think the Samaritan woman knew what that meant?  I doubt it.  But here’s the surprising thing.  She does not cut him off.  She does not walk away.  Even though she’s not supposed to be talking to a Jewish man, there’s something about this Jewish man that makes her stay and have a conversation with him.  She may not have understood what Jesus meant, but she knew he meant something, and it was something important.  She knew there was something different, something special, about this Jewish man.  And so she asks him, where are you going to get this living water from?  Are you greater than our great father, the Jacob of the Bible?

            And Jesus answers, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

            Do you think the Samaritan woman knew what that meant?  It seems obvious to me that she did not.  She’s still thinking of regular water, water to drink.  She thinks, man, I don’t know what that living water is, but I sure wish I had some.  To never be thirsty again?  To never have to come back to this stupid well a draw water every single day, the way I do now?  Boy, sign me up for that!  So, she asks Jesus for some living water.

            And Jesus says, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

            Now, really try to put yourself in this woman’s place here.  You’re talking to this strange Jewish man.  You can tell there’s something different about him, but you really don’t know what.  You don’t understand all this living water stuff, and for all you know it might not even exist.  It might just be a line this Jewish man is giving you.  He might just be trying to make fun of you.  But now, it’s starting to get personal.  He’s asking about your husband, and you don’t have one.

            But then you think, well, he does not know me.  He probably just assumed a woman my age would be married.  So you say, “I have no husband.”

            And Jesus says, “You are right when you say you have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

            Okay, that’s pretty freaky, right?  I mean, here’s this guy you’ve never met, and he knows all this stuff about you.  How’d he do that?  I mean, it’s not like he could’ve looked up your facebook profile.  Has he been to town and heard gossip?  Are people really talking about me all over town?  Doesn’t seem likely.  But how could he know all this?

            And she realizes there’s only one way.  He must be a prophet.  And so she asks him a question.

            Have you ever thought about what question you’d ask a prophet, if you could?  We could probably think of all kinds of questions.  After all, a prophet knows the will of God.  We’d all like to know the will of God, right?  And probably this woman would have, too. She probably had a lot of questions, too.  But she knows she probably does not have a lot of time, so she asks one question, a theological question about the proper place to worship God.  

            And Jesus answers, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  And then, when the woman says someday the Messiah will come and explain it all, Jesus answers, “I am he.”

            That’s the end of the conversation, as far as we know from the Bible.  But then, what does this woman do?  She goes back to town, tells people what happened, a lot of them come out to see Jesus, and we’re told that many of them came to be believers.  Any number of lives were changed, just because of this one chance encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman.  This chance encounter that happened on what, up until the moment she met Jesus, seemed like just another ordinary day.

            So what’s the point?  Well, tomorrow morning, you’re going to get up.  You’re going to go to work, you’re going to go to school, you’re going to do whatever it is you do.  Maybe you have something special planned for tomorrow, but most of us probably don’t.  For most of us, tomorrow is going to be just another ordinary day.

            And maybe it will be.  But maybe it won’t.  Maybe something special is going to happen tomorrow.  Maybe something life-changing is going to happen tomorrow.  Maybe you’re going to meet Jesus tomorrow.  

            And maybe Jesus is going to come at a time and in way you don’t expect him, just as he did for the Samaritan woman.  You probably won’t meet Him at a well.  But maybe you’ll see Him at the convenience store.  Maybe you’ll see Him at the mini-mall.  Maybe you’ll see Him at the ball game.  You could be minding your own business, just doing what you do every day, and all of a sudden, there He is.  

You may not recognize Him.  You may have no idea that He’s Jesus.  It may appear to be just a chance encounter with some random stranger.  You may wonder why He’s even talking to you.  You may wish He’d just mind His own business and quit bothering you.  You may even be tempted to ignore Him.

Don’t ignore Him.  See Him.  Talk to Him.  Hear what He has to say to you.  Trust it.  Believe it.  And tell others about it, so they can come and believe.

Does that sound far-fetched?  Well, maybe it is.  But it would’ve sounded far-fetched to the Samaritan woman, too.  She’d have thought there was no way she would ever meet the Messiah, the Savior.  And she’d have kept thinking that, right up until the moment it happened.

I’m not saying you will meet Jesus tomorrow.  But you could.  So pay attention.  There’s always the chance that something could happen on your ordinary Monday that will change your life.  And it might change a lot of other people’s lives, too.

 

Endurance and Hope

The message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday morning, August 14, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Romans 15:4-13/

            Hope.  The expectation and desire that something will happen.  But not just anything.  Something good.  Something we really want.  Hope is a belief that things are going to get better.  No matter how things may look now, even when it seems like things have hit rock bottom, hope is a belief that somehow, in some way, things will get better again.

            We hope for many things throughout our lives.  When we’re little kids, we hope we’ll get the toy or game we want.  As we get older, we hope we’ll have friends who care about us.  We hope we’ll succeed in our chosen profession.  We hope we’ll fall in love and have someone to share our life with.  As we get still older, we hope we’ll stay healthy and be able to continue to have satisfying lives and be able to make a contribution to society.

            Hope is very important to our Christian faith as well.  In fact, in First Corinthians we read that hope is one of the three most important things, along with faith and love, that God has given us.  We sometimes refer to God as a God of hope.  Hope is very important to us in our lives and in our faith.

            But the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, does not refer to God as a God of hope.  Hope is involved with God, certainly.  But listen to how Paul describes God.  He describes God as a God of endurance and encouragement.

            Endurance and encouragement.  That’s how we get hope, according to Paul.  He tells us that everything that was written in the past, all the words of the prophets, all the words of the law, everything that appears in the scriptures, was written to teach us.  And it was written to teach us endurance.

            Do you ever think of the Bible that way?  Do you ever think of God’s Word as having been written to teach us endurance?  That’s what Paul says.

            But when you think about it, it does kind of make sense.  Because endurance is one of the things that helps us keep our faith.  We could not have faith if it was not for endurance.

            Because the truth is that life throws a lot of hard things at us.  You don’t need me to tell you that.  Everyone here has experienced plenty of hard things.  Things that discourage us.  Things that knock us down.  And it can happen in all kinds of ways.  It can be material setbacks.  It can be health setbacks.  It can be things that damage our reputation.  It can be things that cause us to lose friends and feel alone.  Sometimes it might be our own fault, but sometimes it’s not.  You know, they say everything happens for a reason, and maybe that’s so, but there are plenty of things that happen that I’ll be darned if I can figure out what the reason might be.  And I suspect that’s true for you sometimes, too.

            And when those things happen, we make a decision.  We either continue to believe, we continue to have faith, or we don’t.  And that’s why the Bible was written to teach us endurance.  It was written to give us examples to follow.  It was written to give us guidelines and rules to live by.  And it was written to show us and tell us that, no matter how bad things get, God will always be there.  And God will, eventually, make things get better.  If we did not have those examples, if we did not have those guidelines, if we did not have those rules, if all we had to rely on was ourselves and our own ability to hang on to faith, we’d never make it.  It’s those examples and guidelines and rules that were set down in the Bible that give us the ability to hold on through those tough times.  The Bible was, indeed, written to teach us endurance.

            Paul says it's the encouragement that those passages provide that gives us that hope.  Think about all the people, all the great heroes in the Bible, who had times when things went against them.  Joseph--the Old Testament Joseph--was sold into slavery in a foreign country.  Job loses everything for no apparent reason.  Daniel was thrown into a den of lions just for worshiping God.  Jesus himself was killed even though he had done nothing wrong.  

But God never left them.  God stayed with them, and God saw them through their bad times.  Joseph eventually became the number two man to the great Pharaoh and saved his people from starvation.  Job kept his faith and got everything back and more besides.  Daniel not only survived the lions’ den but was able to bring many people to faith.  And of course, Jesus rose again, conquering death itself.  All those people, and many others, endured.  They kept their faith no matter how bad things got.  Their endurance teaches us to endure.  Their endurance encourages us to stay strong in our faith in bad times, too.  And that encouragement gives us hope, again, that things are going to get better if we just stay faithful to God.

But is that all we get?  Just this vague hope that somehow, sometime, in some way, things are going to get better if we just stay faithful to God?

No.  We get more than that.  Because remember what we said hope is at the start of this message.  Hope is not just some vague wish.  It’s an expectation.  It’s confidence.  It’s trust.  We trust that our faith in God will be rewarded.  We are confident of that.  We expect that.  We don’t just wish that things will get better.  We know things will get better.  We know that because we know we can trust God.

Now, as we’ve said before, that does not mean we’ll get everything we want.  Things will get better, but maybe not in the way we wanted or expected.  In fact, it’s my experience that God quite often acts in ways that never even would have occurred to us.  But of course, God’s ways are always better than our ways.  And sometimes I think that God enjoys surprising us, making things work out for the best, but in a totally different way than we ever would have thought of.

And as we’ve also said before, we don’t know when things are going to happen.  That’s another way endurance comes into this.  We’d love it if God worked on our time schedule, but of course God never does.  But again, God’s time is always better than our timing.  And again, I think God enjoys surprising us, making things happen at a time we were not expecting.

But what we get from this endurance and encouragement is more than just hope.  If, because of that endurance and encouragement, we really do trust God, what happens?  Paul says it this way:  “The God of hope [will] fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

What an awesome thing!  If you and I trust God, if we truly trust God, we will be filled with joy and peace.  If you and I trust God, if we truly trust God, we will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not always easy to have that much trust in God.  But again, that’s why the Bible was written.  We have all these examples of people who held onto their trust in God, even when it was not easy.  All these examples of people who endured in the faith, and whose endurance was ultimately rewarded.  We’re shown that endurance to encourage us in our faith.

But we have other examples, too.  I suspect we all know people who had or have a strong faith, who held onto that faith no matter how many times life knocked them down.  Their endurance is an example to us as well.  And that endurance can encourage us in our faith.

But we also have the example of our own lives.  As I said earlier, I know that everyone here has gone through some hard things in your lives.  Think about the times that those things happened, and yet you remained strong in your faith.  Think about the times you endured, despite everything.

What happened as a result?  How did things work out?  In some cases, of course, things have not worked out yet.  You’re still waiting to see how things are going to work out.  But the things that have worked out, what happened?  Do you feel like it was worth it?  Do you feel like your endurance was rewarded?

I suspect the answer is yes, or you would not be here.  And the result of that endurance can give you encouragement that it will happen again.  Whatever it is that you’re still waiting to see how it works out, be encouraged.  Know that God has been there for you before.  And let that knowledge encourage you to know that God is there for you now, too, and will see you through whatever you’re going through.

The endurance taught in the Scriptures, in the lives of people we know, and in our own lives gives us encouragement.  That encouragement gives us hope.  May that hope fill us with the joy and peace that comes from trusting God.