Straight from the Heart

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  October 30, 2022. The Bible verses used are Matthew 18:21-35.

            How do we react when someone hurts us?

            I’m sure it varies, depending on who hurt us and how badly.  It also can depend, sometimes, on whether we think they did it intentionally or not.  But under any circumstances, none of us ever likes being hurt.  And sometimes, the closer we are to the person who hurt us, the harder it is to deal with.  We resent it.  And when we think the person who hurt us did it intentionally, it can feel like a betrayal.  That makes it even harder to deal with.  We can start to feel very resentful toward people who we feel have hurt us.

            I would guess that most of us, if we’re honest about it, can think of times we’ve been hurt.  And I would also guess that most of us, if we’re honest about it, still feel some resentment toward the person who hurt us.  It may be something recent, or it may be something in the distant past.  It may be something we think about a lot, or it may be something we’ve tried to push out of our minds and get past.  But whatever it is, it’s still there.  That hurt, and that resentment, are still part of us.  And they keep us from getting close to God and from loving our neighbor.

            Those are all very human feelings.  It’s natural for us to feel that way.  And I’m sure when we feel that way, God understands.  But at the same time, it’s not what God wants for us.  Living our lives with a feeling of resentment does not help anyone, including ourselves.  In fact, it hurts us.  We carry that resentment inside, and it can tear us up.  And again, that resentment can keep us from being close to God.  And it can keep us from loving our neighbor the way God told us to.

            How do we deal with that?  Well, the opposite of feeling hurt and resentment is to grant forgiveness.  That’s what Jesus was talking about in our Bible reading today.

            Peter asks Jesus a question about forgiveness.  And they way Peter asks the question shows that he either did not really understand the whole concept of forgiveness or he just was looking for a loophole.  Because what does he ask?  “Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me?  Up to seven times?”

            When we ask the question that way, what are we doing?  We’re trying to put conditions on our forgiveness.  We’re saying, well, okay, I’ll forgive you this time, but I’m keeping track.  I’m keeping score.  You’d better not do anything to me again, because next time I may not forgive you.

            A forgiveness that keeps score is not really forgiveness.  We may think it is, but it’s not.  If we’re keeping score, we really have not forgiven anyone.  We may be moving on, but we have not given up our feelings of resentment.  They’re still there.  And they keep us from restoring our relationship with the person who has hurt us.  We cannot really love someone when we still feel resentment toward them.  And we cannot truly feel love for God when we still feel resentment toward some of the people God created.

            The thing is, though, that this is hard.  Truly forgiving someone, with no strings attached, is a hard thing to do.  And the more we’ve been hurt, the harder it is.  Sometimes, at heart, we really don’t want to forgive someone.  We feel like they don’t deserve our forgiveness.  And, sometimes, we don’t want to give up that resentment.  We want to feel it.  We want someone to know how badly they’ve hurt us.  And we want to make them hurt just as badly.

            We know, of course, that that’s not what Jesus wants us to do.  Jesus wants us to forgive totally and completely, with no strings attached.  And of course, that’s what Jesus was able to do.  When he was hanging on the cross, dying, he was able to pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  We know that Jesus wants us to be able to forgive that way, too.

            In our reading for today, Jesus goes on to tell Peter a story to show just how important this whole forgiveness thing is.  He tells about a man who owed a huge debt and had it forgiven, but who then went on to refuse to forgive a small debt that someone owed him.  The man who refused to forgive was thrown in prison.  And Jesus concludes with, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

            Jesus is telling Peter that forgiveness, if it really is forgiveness, has to be total and complete.  We cannot hold anything back.  We cannot forgive and still hang on to our feelings of resentment.  We cannot forgive and still want someone to hurt.  It’s only forgiveness if we completely let go of our resentment.  It’s only forgiveness if we forgive from the heart.

            Jesus told Peter that the stakes are pretty high, too.  He told Peter that if we don’t forgive people, God is not going to forgive us.  This is not the only time Jesus said that, either.  In Mark eleven, Jesus says, “when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”  In Matthew six, Jesus says, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  In fact, what do we pray every week in the Lord’s Prayer?  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Jesus seems pretty clear on this point.  If we want God to forgive us, we need to be able to forgive others.

            And we hear that, and we know it, and we agree with it…and yet, it’s still hard.  Even if we really want to forgive, it’s still hard.  Even if we really want our relationship with someone to be restored, even if we really want to give up the resentment and the hurt, it’s still hard.  It’s really hard to forgive someone totally and completely, holding nothing back.

            It’s hard because, when we talk about forgiving from the heart, we’re talking about emotions.  And there’s only a limited extent to which emotions are under our control.  We have some control over them, but not complete control.  We can choose how we’re going to react to the things we feel.  We can choose not to dwell on the things we feel.  And both of those things have some influence over what we feel.  But still, we cannot make ourselves feel something just by deciding we’re going to, and we cannot make ourselves stop feeling something just by deciding we’re not going to.  We may know we need to give up resentment, we may try to make ourselves do it, but sometimes we just cannot, no matter how hard we try.

            Jesus said that we need to forgive from our hearts.  So to me, what that comes down to, again, is asking God’s Spirit to come into our hearts.  I know I talked about that a lot, but I truly believe that’s the only way we can do this.  If we cannot do this ourselves—and I don’t think we can—then the only way we can do it is for God to help us do it.  

And the only way God will help us do this is if we honestly and sincerely ask God to come into our hearts, into our souls, into our minds, and into our lives.  God could force us to forgive, but God does not do that.  If God forced us to forgive, the forgiveness would not come from the heart.  It would be like when you got into a fight with your brother and Mom broke it up and said, “Now, say you’re sorry.”  We might have said it, but we did not feel it, and we did not mean it.  A forced apology is no apology at all.  

Again, the only way we can truly forgive, the only way we can give up resentment, is for God’s Spirit to come into our hearts.  And if you’re like me, you’re going to have to ask God to do this more than once.  In fact, you’re going to have to ask God to do it a lot more than once.  You’re going to have to repeatedly ask God to put God’s Spirit into my heart and help me be more forgiving to others.

Now, don’t take that the wrong way.  I’m not saying that I’m constantly being hurt by people.  Everyone here treats us very well.  Sometimes I get hurt by stupid little things that should not hurt me at all.  Sometimes I’m struggling to forgive people for things that really were no big deal in the first place.  But I suspect I’m not the only one who has that happen.  Whether it’s a big thing, a little thing, or really nothing, we still need to forgive it if we’re going to give up our resentment.  Sometimes forgiveness is not something we do to help someone else.  Sometimes forgiveness is something we do to help ourselves.

We cannot totally control our emotions.  But if we ask God’s Spirit to come into our hearts, God will help us control them.  Then, we’ll be able to forgive totally and completely, from the heart.  We’ll be able to give up that resentment that’s tearing us up.  And we’ll be able to love God and love our neighbors the way Jesus told us to.

 

Acknowledging Jesus

The message given in the Sunday morning worship services in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  October 30, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 11:53--12:12.

            Most of us know about Jesus’ battles with the Pharisees.  All the arguments He got into with them, all the times they tried to trick Him or trap Him into saying something that would get Him into trouble.  But I don’t know if we think often enough about the courage it took for Jesus to say the things about the Pharisees that He said.

            The Pharisees were the top dogs in the Jewish leadership.  Yes, there were other groups, the Sadducees and the Essenes and so forth.  And there was a Roman government that had ultimate say-so.  But the Pharisees were the biggest, most prominent group, and the Roman government really did not care what the Jews did, as long as they paid their taxes and did not cause any trouble.  So for all practical purposes, the Pharisees were in control.

            And when I say “in control”, I mean that.  The Pharisees pretty much were the law.  They could not give someone the death penalty, but other than that they could do pretty much what they wanted.  And that’s the group Jesus was taking on when He criticized the Pharisees.

            Jesus knew that, of course.  I don’t know that He was concerned about His own safety–after all, Jesus knew how things were ultimately going to go.  But Jesus was concerned about His disciples.  And in the passage we read today, Jesus is trying both to warn the disciples about what was going to happen and to give them courage to face it.

            Jesus tells them, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.  What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

            Jesus is telling His disciples, look, you cannot be a secret follower of Mine.  You cannot hide who you are.  You cannot hide what you believe.  At some point, everyone is going to know you are My followers.  It’s going to be obvious.  If you are truly following Me, your words, your actions, everything about you is going to show that.  Everyone is going to know who you are and what you believe.

            That had to be a scary thought for the disciples.  And Jesus knew it would be.  So here’s what Jesus tells them next, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.”  

            Now, we hear that, and we probably know where Jesus is going with it.  But if you were James, or John, or Andrew, or one of the other disciples who was right there, that’s not exactly a comforting thought, is it?  Don’t be afraid of the Pharisees, because all they can do is kill you?  That’s supposed to make us feel better?

            But of course, Jesus goes on to explain it.  He says, “I will show you whom you should fear:  Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell.”  

            In other words, Jesus is saying, keep your priorities in order.  Yes, the Pharisees could end your life on earth, but your faith in Jesus–or your lack of faith in Jesus–determines where you will spend eternity.  That decides whether you go to heaven or hell.  Your life on earth is going to end sometime anyway.  Your eternal life is what you need to be concerned about.

            And the way to keep that eternal life is to stay faithful to Jesus.  He tells them that even sparrows are remembered by God, and people are worth a lot more than sparrows.  And then, Jesus says this:  “Whoever acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God.  But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God.”

            Jesus knew His disciples were going to be in danger.  And He knew that the danger was only going to get worse.  Jesus knew it would take courage for His disciples to stay faithful to Him.  And so He wanted to make clear to the disciples just what the stakes were.  Yes, they could deny Him on earth.  Or, they could just keep their faith in Him to themselves, and not say anything about it to anyone.  And that would make things a lot easier for them while they were on earth.  But the cost would be high.  The cost would be their eternal life.  Because if they did not let people know they were followers of Jesus–if they refused to acknowledge their faith in Him while they were on earth–it would cost them salvation and eternal life.  But if they stayed strong, if they were willing to risk the wrath of the Pharisees, if they were able to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Savior, the divine Son of God, no matter what the potential cost was on earth, they would receive salvation and eternal life.

            Now, Jesus was saying this to a certain group of people, the disciples, at a certain place at a certain time.  But the fact that it’s in the Bible tells me that there’s a lesson you and I are supposed to know here.  I assume that same standard applies to us.  If you and I acknowledge Jesus as the Savior before others, Jesus will acknowledge us before the angels of God.  If you and I disown Jesus before others, we will be disowned before the angels of God.  So that brings up the key question–do you acknowledge Jesus as the Savior before others.

            That “before others” is the tricky part.  It’s one thing to say I acknowledge Jesus as the Savior when I’m alone.  It’s another thing to acknowledge Jesus as the Savior when I’m around other believers.  But it’s another thing entirely to acknowledge Jesus as the Savior when I’m around people who may not believe in Jesus as the Savior.  And it’s still another thing to acknowledge Jesus as the Savior when I’m around people who I know do not believe in Jesus as the Savior.

            Now, maybe you do all of those things.  I don’t know what you do, and it’s not my job to judge you or point fingers.  But I know I don’t do it nearly as often as I should.  And I even have an advantage over a lot of people, because I’ve been here long enough that just about everyone in the parish knows I’m a Christian pastor.  They assume I believe in Jesus as the Savior.  But of course, I go to lots of other places where people don’t know me.  And when I’m in those places, nobody’s going to know I believe in Jesus as the Savior unless I say something about it.

            And of course, it’s tempting to fall back on the old statement that “I don’t need to tell people about my faith.  I show it by the way I live my life.”  But is that really true?  Can someone tell I believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior by the way I live my life?  How?  Because I do good things sometimes?  There are lots of people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior who do good things.  Does the way I live my life show that I believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior?  Or does it just show that, sometimes, I can be a nice guy?

            It’s not easy to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Savior before others.  We get scared.  We feel like people might think we’re odd or strange.  People might not like us.  We might make pests of ourselves.  We might even turn people off, get known as that religious nut that people steer clear of because they don’t want to hear it anymore.

            But here’s the thing.  We don’t have to do this by ourselves.  We have the power of the Holy Spirit with us, just like the disciples did.  Listen to what Jesus said to the disciples.  “Do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what to say.”

            The Holy Spirit will tell us what to say.  But first, you and I need to decide to say something.  We need to have the courage to actively acknowledge Jesus as the Savior.

            I admit I have failed at this many times.  And I continue to fail at it.  Maybe you don’t, I don’t know.  But for those like me who do, here’s a couple of things that might help.

            The first is what Jesus told the disciples.  Our eternal life depends on this.  Yes, we get salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ and in no other way.  But if we have faith in Jesus, that faith needs to be shown by doing what Jesus told us to do.  And Jesus told us to go and make disciples.  That means you and I need to acknowledge Jesus as the Savior to those people who do not believe in Him.  Again, if we do not acknowledge Jesus as the Savior “before others”--and it was Jesus who threw that “before others” in there–if we don’t acknowledge Jesus as the Savior before others, Jesus will not acknowledge us.

            But that’s a negative way of looking at it.  Don’t get me wrong–it’s still true, and it’s still important for us to know.  But there’s a more positive way of looking at it that might help, too.

            Again, salvation and eternal life depend on faith in Jesus Christ.  Acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Savior before others may lead those others to believe in Him.  You and I, by having the courage to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Savior to people who do not believe, just might lead someone else to salvation and eternal life.

            That would be an awesome thing, right?  To have a role in helping someone have salvation and eternal life?  That would be the greatest thing we could ever do for someone.  It would be an incredible thing to do.

            So let’s all work on this.  The Holy Spirit will tell us what to say.  But we need to decide to that we’re going to say something.  We need to have the courage to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Savior, even with people who don’t believe.  It will be scary, sometimes.  We won’t always succeed.  But actually, we will, because in Jesus’ eyes, our success is not dependent on what other people choose to do.  In Jesus’ eyes, we succeed by being faithful to Him.  And if we acknowledge Jesus as the Savior, we will be faithful to Jesus, whether we convince anyone or not.

            So let’s be faithful to Jesus.  The Holy Spirit will be with us.  And we will be acknowledged before the angels of God.  And when you think about it, it doesn’t get any better than that.

 

The Transformer

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on October 23, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 9:28-36.

            I want each one of us to think of someone we’ve known for a long time.  Maybe they’re in our family, maybe they’re good friends, maybe they’re people we work with.  But whoever they are, we’ve known them for a long time.  We’ve spent a lot of time with them.  

When we do that, when we spend a lot of time with someone and we do that over a long period of time, we start to feel like we know pretty much everything there is to know about that person.  We know what they like and what they don’t like.  We know how they feel about things and how they’re going to react in certain situations.  Sometimes, we even know what they’re thinking, and we know what they’re going to say before they even say it.

Got a person like that in mind?  Okay, now imagine if that person said something totally unexpected.  Imagine if they did something that seemed totally out of character.  How would we react?  We’d be shocked, right?  We would not know what to say.  We would not know what to do.  Here’s this person we thought we knew so well, and they do something so completely out of left field that we feel like we don’t really know them at all.

That’s pretty much how Peter, James, and John felt in our Bible reading tonight.  Remember, they’d been traveling with Jesus for a while at this point.  We don’t really know how long, but it was long enough that they were considered Jesus’ disciples at this point.  They’d heard Jesus speak.  They’d heard him tell parables.  They’d seen him do miracles.  They thought they had a pretty good idea who Jesus was.  In fact, we’re told that just eight days earlier, Jesus had asked them who they thought he was, and Peter had answered, “God’s Messiah”.

And then, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up onto a mountain.  They start praying.  And Jesus transforms.  We’re told the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.  Think how bright that is.  That’s a blinding light.  Peter, James, and John would not even have been able to look directly at Jesus.

Think of how unsettling that would be.  You know, we say that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.  The disciples knew the human Jesus, and they thought they knew the divine Jesus, but now they really saw the divine Jesus in all his glory.  This guy they thought they knew so well, and now suddenly he’s completely different.  

The three of them were stunned.  Peter starts babbling.  We’re not told that James or John said anything.  Probably they were in shock.  All of them were in shock.  Here was this guy they’d been traveling with, this guy they’d been following, this guy they’d been encouraging others to follow, too.  They thought they knew him so well, and now, suddenly, they felt like they did not know Jesus at all.

Have you ever felt like that?  I think most of us do, at some point in our lives.  We’re going along, living from one day to the next.  Things are going okay--not great, maybe, but not terrible.  We go to church fairly regularly.  We pray sometimes.  Life seems to be going on more or less as it should.  

We’re in kind of a routine.  We figure we know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.  We think we know God, and we think we know what God has planned for our lives.

And then, something happens, and it all transforms.  It can happen in all kinds of ways.  It can happen in good ways:  falling in love, having a baby, getting a new job opportunity.  It can happen in bad ways:  losing a job, having a healthy problem, having a relationship fall apart.  

Either way, it’s really unsettling.  Even when the transformation happens in a good way, it’s still really unsettling.  We thought we knew God, and we thought we knew what God had planned for us, and now, suddenly, everything is completely different.  We thought we knew God so well, and now, suddenly, we feel like we don’t know God at all.

Sometimes, when something like this happens, we don’t know what to make of it.  Peter, James, and John did not know what to make of it.  They kept it to themselves, not telling anyone else.  We’re not told why.  Maybe they did not understand it.  Maybe they thought no one would believe them.  Maybe they did not quite believe it themselves.  Maybe they were not sure what believing it even meant.  Now that they’d seen Jesus in his glory, were they supposed to do something?  If so, what were they supposed to do?

And sometimes, when we feel God wanting to transform our lives, we keep it to ourselves, too.  We don’t tell anyone else.  Maybe we don’t quite understand what God is trying to do.  Maybe we think no one will believe it.  Maybe we don’t quite believe it ourselves.  Maybe we don’t know what we’re supposed to do if we do believe it.

Peter, James, and John came down from the mountain with Jesus.  We’re not told what they did.  Except for one thing.  They kept following Jesus.  Even though they did not really understand, even though they were not quite sure what had actually happened, they kept following Jesus.  They went where Jesus wanted them to go.  They did what Jesus wanted them to do.  And they never forgot what they had seen.  And at some point, at least one of them told it to Luke, so he could record it in the gospel he wrote some thirty years later.

And that’s what we’re supposed to do, too.  Keep following Jesus.  Even if we don’t really understand, even if we’re not quite sure what’s happening, we need to keep following Jesus.  We need to go where Jesus wants us to go.  We need to do what Jesus wants us to do.  And we need to never forget the transformation that’s taken place in our lives.

Transformation is one of the things our faith is all about.  When Jesus was transformed on the mountain, he revealed to Peter, James, and John, who he really was.  When God transforms our lives, God reveals to us who we really are, too.

You see, it does not require a whole lot of faith for us to just keep living our lives the same way we’ve been living them.  It does not require a lot of faith to have tomorrow be pretty much like today.  But a change of life requires faith.

And that’s true whether the change is a good change or a bad change.  It takes faith to leave a comfortable job and take a new one.  It takes faith to let someone know you’ve fallen in love.  It certainly takes faith to have a baby.

And when the change is a bad change, when we do lose a job, or have a health problem, or have a relationship fall apart, that takes faith, too.  It takes faith to believe that God is still there.  It takes faith to believe that God is with us in the bad times just as much as in the good times.  It takes faith to keep trusting God when all the things we counted on, all the people we trusted, all the things we thought were fixed in our lives, are suddenly not there for us any more.  It takes faith to keep believing that God is still in control when it feels like we’ve lost all control ourselves.

When God transforms our lives, we find out whether the faith we claim to have is real.  When God transforms our lives, we find out whether our faith is strong enough to deal with that transformation, no matter what it is.

Because transformation is really what faith in Jesus Christ is all about.  If we say we believe in Jesus Christ, but nothing about us changes–if we say we believe in Jesus Christ and are still the exact same people we were before we believed in Jesus Christ, then Christian faith has really pretty much been lost on us.  We have not truly repented of our sins.  We’re no closer to God, we’re no closer to each other, we’re no closer to being the people God wants us to be, than we were before.

Jesus did not come to tell us to just keep doing what we’ve been doing.  The fully human yet fully divine Jesus lived and died so that our sins could be forgiven.  But our sins can only be forgiven if we repent, if we ask God for forgiveness and resolve to change our lives.

God wants to transform our lives.  Let’s open ourselves up to that transformation.  We may not understand it.  We may not know what we’re supposed to do.  But let’s keep following Jesus anyway.  Let’s go where Jesus wants us to go and do what Jesus wants us to do.  If we truly do our best to do that, our lives will be transformed in ways we will never expect.  And we’ll come to know God in a way we never have before.

 

The One Thing Needed

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 23, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 10:38-42.

            Mary and Martha.  It’s a story some of us have heard many times before.  Martha is running around, doing this, doing that.  Taking care of all sorts of things that need to be done.  Mary is just sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to what He says.  Martha gets upset and tells Jesus to tell Mary to get off her rear end and do something to help.  Jesus, probably very much to the surprise of Martha, not only does not criticize Mary, he praises Mary.  And, by implication, criticizes Martha.  He says Mary has made the better choice.  In fact, Mary has made the best choice she could possibly have made.

            How many of us, when we hear that story, feel kind of sorry for Martha?  In fact, how many of us really kind of feel like Martha got a raw deal from Jesus?  

I mean, here’s Martha.  She’s working hard.  We’re not told exactly what she was doing, but we are told that she was working on “all the preparations that had to be made.”  So we can guess what she might have been doing.  Preparing food.  Cleaning the house.  Washing clothes.  Setting the table.  Making sure everyone had a place to sit.  The things you do when company is coming.  Especially when the company is someone as special and important as Jesus.

It’s a lot of work.  And of course, it was even more work back then, when everything was done by hand and you had to haul water in and all that.  And it’s not like Martha was going overboard to impress Jesus or something.  This was all work that needed to be done.

And so, Jesus comes.  And apparently, Martha’s not ready.  Maybe Jesus came earlier than she expected.  Maybe things took longer than Martha thought they would.  But Jesus comes, and Martha still has work to do.  And probably, Martha is a little embarrassed about the fact that she’s not ready.

And she looks over, and there’s her sister Mary, just sitting there, visiting with Jesus.  We don’t know what they were talking about.  Maybe Jesus was saying some really profound things.  Or maybe they were just chatting about the weather or something.  We have no idea what they were saying.  But Martha cannot believe her sister is just sitting there, yakking away, when there’s all this work to be done.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re working as hard as you can, and then you look over and see someone–maybe a co-worker, maybe just a friend or relative, but someone who certainly could help you, and maybe even should be helping you–and they’re just sitting there visiting, or fiddling around on their phone, or watching TV or something?  How does that make you feel?  You’re probably kind of upset.  You probably feel just Martha did with Mary.  How can you just sit there doing nothing when there’s all this work to be done?

So why would Jesus respond the way he did?  Why would Jesus not just refuse to make Mary get up and help, but actually praise Mary for not helping?

Well, let’s look at it another way.  Last year, there was a survey taken of what people felt was most important to have a fulfilling, satisfying life.  The number one thing was having good friends.  Number two was having a job or career you enjoy.  Number three was being in a committed romantic relationship, followed by having children, being married, earning a lot of money, and having a lot of money.

Now, I’m not saying any of those things is unimportant.  But I hope it occurred to you what was left out of that.  God.  A relationship with God was not, by most people, considered one of the most important things necessary for living a fulfilling, satisfying life.

We look for satisfaction, we look for happiness, in so many places.  There are so many things that seem so important to us.  And some of those things do make us happy, for a while.  But they fade.  The happiness, the good feelings, they fade.  

The things people listed are good things.  It’s good to have friends–you’ve heard me say many times that life is too hard for us to go through alone, and God does not want us to try.  I can tell you from personal experience that having a career you enjoy is a wonderful thing.  We all want someone to love and a family.  And while I don’t know that having “a lot” of money is important, we all want to have enough that we can pay our bills and live comfortably, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s not that any of that is bad.  It’s that none of it is enough.  You can have good friends, a wonderful job, a loving spouse and family, and plenty of money, and it still won’t be enough.  The only thing that makes it enough is having God in your life.  The only thing that makes it enough is having a relationship with Jesus Christ and knowing that Jesus is, in fact, the Savior.

            And so, we get back to Martha.  Again, I’m not saying Martha was doing anything wrong.  Jesus did not say she was doing anything wrong.  Martha was not sinning by doing the things she was doing.

            But the way it looks to me, Martha was trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction in the work she was doing.  Having a clean house, cooking wonderful meals, having a table that looked right, making sure the clothes were washed–all that was important to her.  She was trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction in her life from doing those things.

            And none of it was bad.  But none of it was enough.  And Martha could tell, somehow, that it was not enough.  And so, she wanted Jesus to get Mary to help.  She thought that if Mary did her part, the house would finally be clean enough, the food would be good enough, the table would look perfect, the clothes would be sparkling white, and she would finally find her fulfillment from the work she was doing.

            But Mary was not going to do her part.  It’s not necessarily that Mary thought those things were unimportant.  It’s just that none of those things would be enough unless she had a relationship with Jesus Christ.  And so, when Jesus was there, right in front of her, she was going to take advantage of that.  

            And that’s why Jesus approved of what Mary did.  It’s not that Jesus wanted Mary to get out of her work.  But there would be plenty of time to get the work done later.  I’ve always said that work is the most patient thing in the world–it always just sits there and waits for you to get to it.  The work would be there later–but Jesus might not be.  And the chance to have that relationship with Jesus might not be.  And so, when Mary had the chance to improve her relationship with Jesus Christ, she was going to grab that chance.  She knew that was that relationship was and always would be the most important thing in her life.  As Jesus himself said, “Few things are needed–indeed, only one.”  And Jesus wanted Mary to have that one thing that’s needed.

            Jesus wanted Martha to have it, too.  You know, we’re not told what Martha did after this conversation with Jesus.  The story is dropped there.  Luke moves on to the next topic, Jesus teaching the disciples to pray.

            What do you think Martha did?  Did she go on with her work?  Was she now upset with Jesus, just as she’d been upset with Mary?  After all, there were lots of people–and in fact there still are lots of people–who are upset with Jesus when Jesus does not do what they want Him to do or when Jesus does not tell them what they want to hear.  Maybe Martha was one of those people.

            But I hope–and I suspect Jesus hoped–that Martha stopped her work.  That she sat down, maybe next to Mary, and talked with Jesus.  That she listened to Jesus’ words, that she asked Him questions.  That she learned from Him.  That she strengthened her relationship with Him.  That she had that one thing that’s needed, just like Mary did.

            And I hope that’s what you and I will do, too.  I’m not saying your work is unimportant.  Jesus did not say Martha’s work was unimportant.  But nothing in your life, and nothing in my life, will be really satisfying if we don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.  We’ll always be trying to do more, trying to work harder, trying to make everything perfect, thinking that if we do that, somehow we’ll finally be happy.  But it won’t work.  Not if we don’t first get a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.

            “Few things are needed–indeed, only one.”  This week, and every week, let’s work on that one thing that’s needed.  Let’s improve our relationship with Jesus Christ.  If we do that, I think we’ll find that everything else will fall into place.  And we’ll have that fulfilling, satisfying life that we all want.

 

Who Do We Say He Is?

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  October 16, 2022.  The Bible verses are Matthew 16:13-20.

            One of the things that can be frustrating when we read the words of Jesus is the number of times that he seems to be almost deliberately mysterious about what he means.  Jesus would use parables.  He would use figures of speech.  He would make analogies.  Sometimes you’d like to be able to go to Jesus and say, “Would you just come out and say what you mean?”  

In fact, at one point, the disciples kind of did that.  In John Sixteen, when Jesus is making what has been called his Farewell Address to the disciples, right before he goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane to be arrested, the disciples say, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.”  You can just hear the relief in their voices, that finally, after all this time, Jesus is just coming out and saying what he has to say.

            And yet, for all the figures of speech and parables and all the other things Jesus used, he could cut right to the heart of the matter when he wanted to.  That’s clear from our reading for today.  Jesus first asks his disciples who the public is saying he is.  And they tell him, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, some say one of the other prophets.

            And then Jesus asks the big question.  “What about you?...Who do you say I am?”

            That’s the big question.  It was the big question for the disciples.  It’s the big question for us.  Who do we say Jesus is?

            Now, we’d like to think, in a Christian church, that we would all say what Peter said.  Jesus is the Messiah.  The Savior.  The divine Son of the living God.  The one who can give us salvation and eternal life.

            And maybe all of us here today would say that.  Maybe everyone watching the livestream would say that, too.  I hope so.  But maybe not.  

            A recent survey of people who claim to be born again Christians--now again, these are not just people who claim a vague, general belief in God, these are people who claim to be born again Christians--a recent survey said that nearly seventy percent of those people say that belief in Jesus is not the only way to heaven.  They said that belief in Muhammed or in Buddha is just as valid a belief, and just as able to get you to heaven, as belief in Jesus Christ.

Well, if you believe that, then you don’t agree with Peter.  You don’t actually believe that Jesus is the Savior.  You don’t believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  Not because I say so, but because Jesus said so.  Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  Jesus did not say “I am one of several ways.”  Jesus said “I am the way.”  Jesus did not say, “I am one of several truths.”  Jesus said, “I am the truth.”  Jesus did not say there are lots of people who can lead you to God the Father.  Jesus said, “No one can come to the Father except through Me.”

            People say, well, that sounds awfully exclusionary.  You’re saying that people who don’t believe in Jesus as the Savior don’t go to heaven.  Well, again, I’m not saying anything.  Jesus is the one who said that.  What I say makes no difference to anything.  I have no ability to get someone into heaven or to keep them out.  And I’m very glad of that, by the way.  All I’m doing is repeating what Jesus said.  People can believe it or not believe it.  It’s their choice.  But anyone who does not believe it does so at their peril.  And anyone who does not believe it does not agree with Peter about who Jesus is.

            Another recent survey said that slightly more than half of American Christians say that we get into heaven by our good deeds.  And again, if you believe that, you don’t agree with Peter.  You don’t actually believe that Jesus is the Savior.  Because if we could get into heaven by our good deeds, we would not need a Savior, right?  We could earn our way into heaven.  All we’d need to do is be good enough, do enough good things, and we’ll get to heaven.  We don’t need Jesus for it.  We can do it ourselves.

            People say, well, are you saying bad people can go to heaven?  Yes.  Yes I am.  In fact, those are the only people who can go to heaven.  Because, compared to God, there are no “good people”.  Jesus said that, too.  In Mark, Chapter Ten, someone referred to Jesus as “Good teacher” and Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good?  No one is good except God alone.”  

Only God is good.  Jesus said that even he is not good--unless you accept the fact that He is the divine Son of God.  So unless you know someone who’s as good as God--and I certainly don’t--there are no “good people” in heaven.  There are only bad people--sinners, who are saved by their belief in the divine Son of God as the Savior.

And again, none of this is true because I say it.  I’m just repeating what Jesus said.  And again, people can believe it or not believe it.  It’s their choice.  But again, anyone who does not believe it does so at their peril.  And anyone who does not believe it does not really agree with Peter about who Jesus is.

            So, I ask the question again.  Who do we say Jesus is?  Do we agree with Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, the divine Son of the living God?  Or do we believe Jesus is something or someone else?  Do we believe Jesus is who He said He is?  Or do we make Jesus whatever we want Him to be?

            It is tempting to make Jesus whatever we want Him to be.  Because if belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven, that means there are people I know, people I care about, who will not go to heaven.  That may be true for you, too.  I don’t like to think about that.  I don’t want those people to not go to heaven.  But if we believe what Jesus said, then unless those people change their minds and come to faith, that’s the way it’s going to be.  

            But the story does not end there.  Because after Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Jesus says that Peter is the rock on which He will build His church, “and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

            Jesus did not say this because Peter was so smart, or so holy, or had such a great personality, or because of any of the things humans tend to think of as important.  Jesus said this because Peter had shown his faith in Jesus.  It was Peter’s faith that made him the strong rock on which Jesus could build His church.  It was Peter’s faith that would help make that church so strong that the gates of Hades would not overcome it.

            And that’s what our faith can do.  Our faith in Jesus can make us a strong rock as well.  You and I can be a rock Jesus can build on, just like Peter was.

            We hear that, and we think, well, but Peter was one of the greatest heroes of the Bible.  I could never be Peter.  My faith could never be that strong.

            But it can be.  Who was Peter?  He was an ordinary fisherman when he met Jesus.  He made all kinds of mistakes.  

In fact, the next thing that happens after the Bible verses we read tonight is that Peter starts arguing with Jesus and Jesus calls him Satan.  When Jesus was arrested, Peter three times denied knowing that he’d ever been with Jesus.  After Jesus was killed, Peter was so confused and scared that he decided to go fishing.

Jesus knew who Peter was, of course.  He knew Peter was far from a perfect person.  And yet, because Peter knew who Jesus was, Peter became the rock on which Jesus built his church. 

Jesus could deal with Peter’s failings because He knew Peter’s faith.  Jesus can deal with our failings because Jesus knows our faith.  It’s like a saying I read on facebook:  “When God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity.”  That’s funny, but it’s also true.  The Lord knows everything about us, the good and the bad.  And yet the Lord still calls you and me to serve Him, just as the Lord called Peter.  The Lord calls us, not because we’re so smart or so holy or have such great personalities, but because of our faith.

That faith can make you and me a rock Jesus can build on, just as Peter was a rock Jesus could build on.  But it all comes back to the question.  Who do we say Jesus is?  Do we say, as Peter said, that He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God?  Or do we say he’s something else, something a little more comfortable, something a little less exclusionary?  Do we say that Jesus is a Savior, but not the Savior?  Do we say that Jesus is one of many ways to heaven?  Or do we believe what Jesus said, that He is the way to eternal life, and that no one can come to the Father except through Him?  Will we be the solid rock Jesus can build on?  Or will we be, as the old hymn says, sinking sand, something that nothing solid could ever be built on?

Who do we say He is?  Our eternal life, and the eternal life of others, may depend on our answer.

 

The Difference It Makes

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church October 9, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 17:11-19.

Do you feel joy?  Would you like to?

I assume we’d all like to.  Joy is defined as a feeling of great happiness, and who would not want that?  I cannot imagine being in a situation where I’d say, “Nah, I don’t want joy.  I don’t want happiness.  And especially not great happiness.  I’d rather just feel mediocre.”

We all want to feel joy.  But the thing is that joy is just that, a feeling.  Joy is an emotion.  It's a wonderful emotion.  It's one that we all need to feel sometimes.  But the problem with emotions is that they change.  Emotions are momentary.  They are never permanent.  No matter how intense a feeling of joy is, there's going to come a time when that emotion fades.  So while it's great to feel joy, what we really want is not just a momentary feeling of joy.  What we really want is a feeling that we are one with God.  What we really want is a feeling that God is with us and that we are with God, and that there's no separation, no distance between us and God.  Because that’s a feeling that will give us more than joy.  That will give us a feeling of peace and contentment and love.

So let’s look at our Bible reading for tonight.  Ten people are suffering from leprosy, and Jesus heals them. 

Now, understand that leprosy is a very serious illness.  It’s an infectious disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms and legs.  It's not necessarily fatal, but what it would do is put you in a position where you could not do any physical work.  And because everything people did back then involved physical work of some kind, and since there were no welfare or disability payments at that time, if you could not work you either begged or died.  So, even though the disease itself was not fatal, it pretty much amounted to the same thing.  It was not a highly contagious disease, but people were scared to death of getting it because of what it would do to them. Because of that, people would have nothing to do with people who had leprosy.

So these ten people with leprosy approach Jesus, but they keep their distance.  They did not know how Jesus would react to them.  They also did not know how those with Jesus would react to them, either.  Still, they call out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  Jesus responds, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

 We’re not told what the ten people expected Jesus to do, but I’d guess that this was not it.  I'd guess that they might have expected Jesus to lay hands on them, the way he did with other people.  And even if they thought Jesus would not touch them, because of the leprosy, they certainly hoped he would call on God or something.  But Jesus did not do any of that.  In fact, as far as they could tell, Jesus did not do anything.  He just said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

They must have really been disappointed.  After all, Jesus was probably their last hope.  No doctor had been able to cure them.  No priest had been able to help them.  They were probably thinking, “Show ourselves to the priests?  The priests are the ones who declared us unclean in the first place.  They won’t even let us into the temple, because they’re afraid we’ll ruin it for everyone.  Show ourselves to the priests?  The priests won’t even talk to us.”

Still, they went off to show themselves to the priests.  Maybe they had faith in Jesus and believed that something was going to happen.  Maybe they just figured they had nothing to lose.  Whatever they thought, they did it.  And on the way to show themselves to the priests, they were healed.  We don't know how that happened.  We don't know how far they'd gone when it happened.  But at some point, on their way to the priests, they were healed.

And one of them came back to Jesus.  We’re told nothing about the one who came back, other than that he was a foreigner, a Samaritan.  He praised God with a loud voice and threw himself at Jesus’ feet, thanking Jesus for healing him.  Jesus tells him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

We don’t know what happened to the other nine.  We’re told all ten were healed.  There's nothing in the Bible that says they paid any penalty for not coming back to thank Jesus.  Nothing says they got their leprosy back or anything.  Maybe the other nine went to the priests, were pronounced clean, and then went on to live their lives the way they wanted to.  We don't know.

So maybe you’re thinking, “Well, so what?  I mean, good for the one.  He did the right thing.  But what did it get him, really?  Did he get a gold star in heaven or something?  After all, the nine who did not thank God were healed just the same as he was.  Seems like they all got the same thing, the thing they wanted.  What difference did it really make that he thanked God?  It seems like this story says it does not matter whether we thank God or not.”

 Well, yes and no.  It’s true that all ten of them were healed from their leprosy.  In that sense, the same thing happened to each of them.  There was no physical difference at all.

There was no physical difference, and yet there was all the difference in the world.  Because when the Bible talks about what happened to the other nine, the scripture first says they were “cleansed”, and then that they were “healed”.  Jesus says the other nine were “cleansed”, too.  At the end of the verses, though, Jesus says to the one who came back, “Your faith has ‘made you well.’”

Your faith has ‘made you well.’  See, it’s one thing to have a physical healing.  That’s important, of course.  Anyone who’s suffering from a serious illness, or who ever has, or who has a loved one who is or has, knows how important physical healing is.  Almost every Sunday there are people for whom we ask God to bring about physical healing, and it’s important that we ask God to do that.

Still, it’s one thing to be healed physically.  It’s another thing to truly be made well.  To be well means to be healed in body, in mind, in soul, in spirit, all of it.  It means that things are pleasing, that they’re good.  It means that everything is in a proper and satisfactory situation.  In short, to be made well means that things are as they should be in every way.

That’s what Jesus was saying to the one who came back to say thank you.  When that one person came back to say thank you to Jesus, he showed that he had faith in Jesus as his Savior.  Jesus told him that because of his faith, he was not only physically healed, he was well.  He was well in every way:  physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  Everything about him was right.  He was who he was supposed to be, he was where he was supposed to be, and he was doing what he was supposed to do.

When the nine had their pain go away, when they were healed, I'm sure they felt joy.  It may have been the greatest joy they'd ever felt in their lives.  But eventually, that joy went away.  Eventually, the joy faded, and they had to figure out a new way to go on with their lives, to deal with whatever the rest of their life was going to hold for them.  And we have no idea what that was.  Would people have welcomed them back into society?  Would people still have held them at arm’s length, not trusting that they were really healed?  Would they have been able to find jobs?  Did they even know how to do anything, beyond just manual labor?  Once their joy faded, life might have been pretty tough for the nine.  Yeah, they were healed, and that was good, but life might still have been a really hard thing for them.

Now think about the one.  I'm sure the one who thanked Jesus felt joy, too.  But he felt more than joy.  And after the joy faded, he was still happy.  Because, when he felt thankfulness in his heart, he had been made well.  God was with him, and he was with God.  He was one with God.  His life might not have been all that great, either, but he did not have to worry about what the rest of life was going to hold for him.  He knew that, whatever it held, God would be with him.  He knew that, whatever life held for him, it would be all right.  He knew that because he had not just had his physical problem taken away.  He had been made well, in every possible way.

Have you ever felt that way?  Have you ever felt, even if just for a little while, that everything was right, that you were who God wanted you to be, that you were exactly where God wanted you to be, and that you were doing exactly what God wanted you to do?  It’s a pretty incredible feeling.  In fact, it’s pretty much the greatest feeling in the world.  To know, in that moment, that you are who God wants you to be, that you are exactly where God wants you to be, and to know you are doing exactly what God wants you to do.  There’s really nothing like it.

That’s what the one person who’d had leprosy felt when he came back and thanked Jesus.  And he did not just feel it for that moment, he felt it for the rest of his life.  He had been made well.  And we can be made well, too, if we truly live our lives giving thanks to God.

It's a great thing to have moments of joy in our lives.  I hope we all do, and I hope we have a lot of them.  But when we live our lives with the awareness of what God has done for us, and truly being thankful for it, we get something even better than joy.  We get a feeling of peace and contentment and love.  When we get that feeling, we know that we have been made well.  We know that, no matter what life holds for us, it will be all right.  Because we are one with the all-loving, all-caring God.