Step by Step

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, July 12, 2015.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 2:13-23.

            Last week, as we continue our sermon series on Mary, the mother of Jesus, we looked at the birth of Jesus.  We don’t know how long Mary and Joseph had to stay in Bethlehem after Jesus was born.  Long enough for the wise men to come, but we have no way of knowing how long that actually was.

            However long it was, though, I’m sure both Mary and Joseph reached a point where they just wanted to go home.  Get back to Nazareth, get started on their life together, start raising Jesus the way good Jewish parents should.  But, as we heard in our Bible reading for today, it was not that simple.

            An angel appears to Joseph.  The angel could’ve appeared to Mary, or to both of them, but the angel just appears to Joseph.  And the angel says that they cannot go home.  They’ve got to go to Egypt instead, because King Herod is out to kill Jesus.  They’ve got to stay in Egypt until Herod is dead, and of course they have no idea how long that will be.

            The Bible does not tell us how Mary and Joseph felt, but we can imagine it, right?  To have been through all this, to have gotten through the long trip and the difficult birth of Jesus, and then not be able to go home again?  And not only were they not able to go home, they had to go to a foreign country, a country where people spoke a different language and where people worshipped different gods.  It had to be so disappointing and discouraging for them.

            You know, when the angel Gabriel told Mary about giving birth to the savior, Gabriel somehow left out a whole bunch of stuff.  Not only did Gabriel leave out the part about having to travel eighty miles to Bethlehem for the birth, Gabriel somehow forgot to mention that when they left, it would be quite some time before they were able to come home again.

            I wonder if Mary kind of felt like she’d been tricked.  I mean, I can imagine her thinking, “So, Gabriel, when you told me about Jesus, you did not think all this stuff was important?  You did not think I’d be interested?  It did not cross your mind to tell me that I’d have to travel eighty miles while I was nine months pregnant?  It never occurred to you that it would be helpful for me to know that I would not be able to go home again afterward?  Somehow, that all just slipped your mind?”

            I mean, think of what Mary and Joseph are facing.  They’ve got to go to a foreign country.  We don’t know if they spoke the language there.  And they probably have very little but the clothes on their backs.  After all, they were planning to go back home to Nazareth when all this was over.  They probably left a lot of stuff behind.  They’re having to start from scratch, having to try to find a way to start life over again in Egypt. 

And, by the way, they have to do this with a baby, a baby who incidentally is supposed to grow up to be the savior of the world.  They’ve got to teach him about Jewish law and Jewish customs.  They’ve got to teach him about God.  And they’ve got to do that in a place where there’s no temple, no synagogue, no rabbis, no nothing.

Can you and I relate to any of this?  Well, not directly.  I mean, none of us was asked to be the parent to the savior of the world.  But I’ll bet there’s a way some of us can relate to it.

Have you ever been faced with a situation that was not really of your making, a situation that you did not ask to be in, but it just kind of got dropped on you?  And you figured, well, okay, I’ll take care of this and do my best, and then as you got into it you found out there was a bunch more stuff involved, stuff that the people who put you into that situation had to know about, but did not tell you?

I’ll give you an example from my life.  My first United Methodist appointment was in North Sioux City.  Now, I knew that this was a church that was struggling.  And I was told, before I went there, that the church building they had was far too big for their needs, that they could not afford it, and that they’d eventually need to move out.  But somehow, everybody forgot to mention to me that they’d need to move out one month after we got there.  That we had one month to try to find a place to have worship services and to try to figure out what we were going to do with all our stuff.

Now, I’m not at all comparing what I faced with what Mary and Joseph faced.  I’m just saying that a lot of us can think times where we got into a situation and found out that there were things about that situation that people just kind of conveniently forgot to tell us.  And when something like that happens, we feel a little bit betrayed, right?  We feel like, how come you could not just be honest with me?  Why could you not just tell me all the stuff I needed to know right away, instead of waiting until I was committed and could not turn back and then telling me all this stuff?  Were you afraid I would refuse to do it, and so you thought you had to trick me into it?

So, was God dishonest with Mary?  Did God trick Mary into this?  Did God betray Mary’s trust by not telling her everything she was going to have to face if she agreed to this?

Well, I can understand why someone might look at it that way.  But before we do, let’s think about it a little more.

Think again of that time when people conveniently forgot to tell you some things about a situation.  How’d it turn out?  Were you able to succeed anyway?  And even if you did not succeed, did you feel good that you at least tried?  Did you get some satisfaction out of doing the best you could to help, even if everything did not go the way you wanted it to?  Did you learn some things—and maybe even learn some things about yourself—that helped you later in life?  Were you glad for the experience, even if you might not have gotten into it in the first place if you’d known everything about it?

That’s how it was for me.  I might not have taken that first appointment if I’d known everything.  I might have been too scared of it, too intimidated by the situation.  Whether we succeeded depends on your definition of success, but we felt good about the things we did.  We got satisfaction about doing our best.  We learned some things about ministry and we learned some things about ourselves.  And we’re glad we had that experience.  It made us better able to serve you and to serve this parish.

And maybe that how it was with Mary.  Mary was not told everything she would’ve liked to know before she agreed to give birth to Jesus.  And maybe, if the angel Gabriel had been directed by God to tell Mary everything, to tell her about the trip to Bethlehem and the shepherds and the wise men, to tell her about how they were going to have to go to Egypt after the birth of Jesus, maybe she’d have said no.  But I think she’d have been sorry if she had.  The Bible does not give us even a hint that Mary ever regretted her decision to be the mother of the savior.  In fact, it tells us that she saw it as an incredible honor from God.

God never shows us the whole future.  In fact, sometimes God shows us very little of the future.  I’ve said that sometimes I wonder how my life would’ve turned out if I’d known what I was doing.  The fact is that it might’ve turned out a lot worse.  Because while there have been and still are many times when I don’t know what I’m doing, God always knows what I’m doing.  And God knows what you’re doing, too. 

Martin Luther King defined faith as being able to take the first step even when we don’t see the whole staircase.  We might like to see the whole staircase, but it seems to me there are reasons God does not show it to us.  It might be too long.  It might be really winding.  It might not have handrails.  If we saw the whole staircase, we might never have the courage to take the first step.

  God very rarely shows us the whole staircase.  God does not tell us everything that our future holds.  God asks us to take that first step, and to have enough faith in God to believe that God will guide us for the second step, and the third step, and the fourth step, and all the other steps after that.  And, step by step, God will guide us through life.

Mary took the first step when she agreed to do as the angel Gabriel said.  She did not see what the other steps were going to be.  She may have been scared.  She may have felt like God was not being fair to her.  But in the end, Mary did what she needed to do.  And as far as we can tell, Mary thought it was all worth it.

Mary trusted God every step of the way.  If we trust God, God will lead us, step by step by step.  And eventually, we’ll get where God wants us to go.  And we’ll find out that it’s all worth it.

A Strange Way

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, July 5, 2015.  The Bible verses are Luke 2:1-20.

            We’re in the second week of our sermon series on Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Today we’re looking at her trip to Bethlehem and the birth of the savior, Jesus Christ.

            It was about eighty miles from Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph lived, to Bethlehem.  A lot of times we picture Mary making the trip riding on a donkey, but the Bible does not saying anything about them having a donkey or anything else.  They might have, or they might not have.  Either way, they’d have had to take some supplies because, obviously, back then you did not get eighty miles in one day.  Given Mary’s condition, it could’ve taken several days for them to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  Then, they finally get to Bethlehem, and of course there’s no place for them to stay.  They have to stay out in the barn with the animals.

            Remember how last week we said that Mary’s faith was not a guarantee that everything would go smoothly?  Well, this would be an example of that.  Here’s Mary, nearly ready to give birth, and she has to make a long and difficult trip across the country, for no really good reason other than the fact that the emperor says so.

            We’re not told how Mary reacted to this, but I cannot imagine that she was particularly happy about it.  I’m not suggesting that she lost faith or lost her willingness to serve God or anything like that.  But she had to at least wonder about some things, don’t you think?  I can imagine her thinking, “Uh, Gabriel, could you come back here again?  A have a few questions for you.  I mean, if this is all planned by God, could God not have arranged for me to have this baby at home?  Where I could have my family and my friends around to help?  Was it really necessary for me to have to make this long trip and then have my child be born out in a barn with just Joseph and a bunch of smelly animals around?”

            Did you ever think about that?  Why was it necessary for Jesus to be born this way?  Why could he not have been born somewhere more comfortable, somewhere safer, somewhere better?

            Well, we’ll come back to that.  Because the next thing that happens in this story is that, while Jesus is still lying in the manger, a bunch of shepherds show up.  Did you ever think about that part from Mary’s perspective?  I mean, here Mary is, she’s just had a baby, I assume she’s probably pretty tired and just wants to rest, and all these strangers just come barging in. 

You know, we’re told that an angel told these shepherds to go to Bethlehem to see Jesus, but nothing says any angel told Mary and Joseph to expect them.  What do you suppose Mary thought about this?  We don’t how many shepherds there were, but here they come, wanting to see her baby.  And they probably smell about as bad as the animals, you know?  And she has no idea what they’re doing there.  What do they want with Jesus?  Do they want to hurt him?  Are they going to take him away?  What’s going on?

We’re not told what the shepherds did while they were there.  We’re told what they did afterward, and we’ll come back to that, too.  But Mary had no way to know what was going to happen.  All she knew is that they came, they saw, and they left.  And Mary and Joseph were finally alone with Jesus.  And the animals, of course.

So let’s go back to the question we asked earlier.  Why was it necessary for Jesus to be born this way?  Why could he not have been born somewhere more comfortable, somewhere safer, somewhere better?  And what’s the point of these strangers, these shepherds, intruding on the story?

Well, I don’t think God would’ve left something like the birth of the savior to chance.  There were reasons why Jesus had to be born in that way.  And I’m sure I don’t know all of them, but I think maybe I know at least one of them.

And it has to do with the shepherds, those improbable shepherds who without warning just drop in on Mary and Joseph, see Jesus, and then leave.  What does the Bible say about them?  It says “When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what they had seen, and all who heard it were amazed by what the shepherds said to them.”

The shepherds spread the word.  See, if Mary had given birth to Jesus in Nazareth, with her family and friends around, there would’ve been nothing remarkable about his birth.  He would’ve been just another baby, one of many who were born in Nazareth.  There’d have been no birth story for people to remember.

But why is that important?  Why do we need to know Jesus’ birth story?  Well, remember who Jesus was.  Jesus was the fully divine son of God, but Jesus was also fully human.  He was the word made flesh.  But without that birth story, the human side of Jesus could’ve been lost.  We would still know the divine Jesus, but we might not know the human Jesus.  We would not know the Jesus who did what we do, who experienced what we experience, who felt what we feel.  We would not know the Jesus who felt joy and sorrow and happiness and sadness.  We would not know the Jesus who experienced real pain in the process of crucifixion.  We would not know the Jesus who experienced real death, just as we will some day.  And we would not know the Jesus who triumphed over that real death, conquering death not just for himself but for us, too.

But when Jesus was born in this strange, unusual way, everyone knew about it.  The shepherds spread the word far and wide.  And I suspect they did not just talk about this for a few days.  They told and re-told and re-re-told this story for years.  After all, this was the most important thing that ever happened to those shepherds.  And everyone they heard was amazed by it.  And they told and re-told the story, too.  I would think that the story of Jesus birth spread to towns all over the country.  It was an incredibly memorable story.  It was so memorable that people still remembered it and told Luke about it when he went to write his gospel years after Jesus’ death.

So you may be thinking, well, this is all interesting, kind of anyway, but what’s the point?  What am I supposed to take away from all this?

Well, sometimes, we think—in fact, we’re convinced—that we’re doing what God wants us to do.  And sometimes, when that happens, it seems like God paves the way for us, everything just falls into place, and we feel like that proves we were right.

Sometimes that happens.  But not always.  Sometimes, we think—and in fact, we’re convinced—that we’re doing what God wants us to do, and it seems like nothing is going right.  It seems like not only is God not making it easy for us, it seems like God is going out of his way to make things harder for us?  Not only are things not falling into place, things we took for granted are suddenly falling out of place.  And we don’t understand it.  And we wonder what’s going on.  And maybe, we even start to wonder if we really got the message right, whether we really are doing what God wants us to do.

Well, those are legitimate questions to ask.  But we should not jump to conclusions about the answers.  Because sometimes, when we’re doing what God wants us to do, things don’t go the way we think they should go.  Sometimes, God takes us along what seems to us to be a really strange path.  And yet, that path still takes us where God wants us to go.  And in fact, that path has benefits we never would’ve thought of, and that path is better than if we’d just taken the easy, straight road that we thought God should have taken us on.

God has plans that we don’t know.  God has plans that we will never know.  God does not tell us we need to know everything.  God tells us to trust and to have faith.  If God has led us to start down a path, then all we need to do is stay on that path, no matter how many twists and turns it takes.  Because that’s the path that will get us where God wants us to go, and it will get us there in the way God wants us to get there.

I don’t doubt that Mary had questions.  I don’t doubt that Mary wondered why things were the way they were.  But I also have no doubt that, despite her questions, Mary continued to trust God.  Mary continued to have faith.  Nowhere in the Bible do we read even a hint that Mary may have had second thoughts about any of this.  Mary trusted God and had faith.  And things turned out, not the way Mary might have planned them, but the way God planned them.

            So if we’re doing what we think God wants us to do, and it seems like things are not going the way they should, let’s do what Mary did.  Trust God.  Have faith.  It’s okay to have questions and wonder about things, but continue to trust God.  Continue to have faith.  Things may not turn out the way we would’ve planned them.  But they will turn out the way God has planned them.

Overcoming Evil

If you pay any attention to the news at all, you heard about the shooting in a church in South Carolina a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, these things don’t seem to be particularly uncommon.  It seems like every few weeks, or at least every month, we hear about something like this. 

And each time it happens we hear the same reactions. The politicians all make the same speeches.  They say what a terrible thing it is, and they then use the occasion to push whatever their own pet political agenda is.  And then the other side, whichever side the other side is, responds with their same speeches, agreeing that it’s a terrible thing and trying to use it to push their own pet political agenda.  And they start arguing back and forth, and nothing much actually happens.  And a few weeks later, or a month later, or two months later, something else happens, and the cycle repeats itself.

I’ll tell you right now that I have no political agenda to push.  The reason why is that I have no idea what the solution is.  I don’t know what should be done.  And that’s what’s most frustrating about this.  We sit here, and we watch events unfold, and we feel powerless to do anything about it.  We can pray, and we should.  Some churches even held prayer vigils or similar events.  But we’ve done that before, when other things like this have happened, and again, it does not seem to have changed anything.

Does that mean that we should give up on prayer?  Of course not.  We should pray.  As the Apostle Paul says, we should pray without ceasing.  But the thing is that, while God has unlimited power, and can do anything God chooses to do, God usually chooses to work through us.  So, while we should pray, we should also do something.

But I just said we feel powerless to do anything.  I do, anyway.  How can we do something if there’s nothing we can do?

Well, here’s something to think about.  I read something that the shooter in this South Carolina incident said.  He said that, while he was in the church, everyone was so nice to him that he almost could not go through with the shooting.

Think about that.  He had been planning this for months, but the people in that church showed him so much love in just the hour or so that he was there that it almost negated all his months of planning.

Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  I’m not blaming anyone other than the shooter for his actions.  I’m certainly not blaming his victims.  But think about it.  What if more people had shown the shooter more love at other times?  What if he’d been shown more love in the days and weeks and months ahead of that night?  Maybe he wouldn’t have ever gone to that church.  Maybe he’d never have come up with this plan in the first place.  Maybe he’d never have had any desire to try to do something like this.

It’s speculation, of course.  But I think that’s the one thing we can do in the aftermath of this.  We can show more love.  Show more love to our families.  Show more love to our friends.  Show love to people we don’t even know.  Show love to the person we see on the street, or in the store, or in the clinic, or wherever you see people.  Not that we’ll save the whole world that way, but on the other hand, who knows what might happen?

If we show love to everyone we see, maybe it’ll catch on.  Maybe those people will show love to the people they see, and those people will show love to still more people, and on and on and on.  And maybe, somewhere along the line, that love will convince someone not to go through with something like this.  Maybe, eventually, that love will even change the world.

I don’t know. 

Maybe that seems far-fetched, and maybe it is.  But maybe not.  Here’s what the Apostle Paul had to say in Romans 12:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink…Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

“Overcome evil with good.”  I really think that’s the only way these kinds of things will be stopped—with goodness.  With love.  More laws aren’t going to stop it—he already broke all kinds of laws.  More speeches aren’t going to stop it.  More political arguments aren’t going to stop it.  The only thing I can see that will stop it is goodness and love.

            So let’s show as much love as we can to everyone we can.  Let’s show love to people we don’t even know.  Who knows?  Maybe, in a small way, we’ll contribute to something that will eventually change the world.

Follow Me

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 28, 2015.  The Bible verses used are Luke 1:26-38.

            You may remember that this past winter we had a tournament to choose the favorite person in the Bible of our parish.  The winner was Mary, the mother of Jesus.  So today we’re going to start a sermon series based on the life of Mary.  We start with the first time we meet Mary in the Bible, when she is visited by an angel.

            Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with this story.  It’s interesting, though, that as familiar as we are with it, the story only appears in the gospel of Luke.  Mark and John don’t deal with the birth of Jesus at all.  Matthew looks at it more from Joseph’s point of view, and goes on to tell us about how the family had to be on the run for a while because the government was out to kill Jesus.  It’s only in Luke that we read about Mary’s conversation with the angel Gabriel and how she learned that she was going to give birth to the savior of the world.

            We don’t really know how old Mary was when this happened.  Most people assume that she was pretty young, probably still a teenager, maybe still in her early teens.  The Bible does not actually say that—we assume it because the common practice at the time was that girls were married off at a pretty young age.  We assume, again because of common practices at the time, that Joseph was probably somewhat older, but we really don’t know that, either.  Again, the Bible does not tell us.

            We’re not told anything about Mary’s early life.  We don’t know if Mary had any brothers or sisters—it would be unusual if she did not, but the Bible does not tell us.  A lot of people seem to assume that Mary’s family was poor, but the Bible does not tell us that, either.  They most likely were not rich—that’s something that probably would’ve been mentioned, if it was so—but they may have been middle class.  We don’t know anything about what Mary’s family may have done for a living.  We know that Joseph was a carpenter.  Assuming he was a good one, he may have been able to provide fairly well for his family—we don’t know.

            Most likely, though, Mary was still living with her parents at the time the angel Gabriel came to see her.  And every time I read this story, I’m struck by how matter-of-factly Luke tells it.  Try to put yourself in Mary’s place.  You’re minding your own business, doing your daily work, and all of a sudden, there’s an angel right in front of you.  We don’t know how Gabriel made himself known to Mary, if there was some sort of heavenly fanfare, if Gabriel just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, if Gabriel was waiting for Mary as she was walking down a path, or what.  Apparently, though Mary recognized that this was, in fact, an angel she was seeing.

            And yet, Mary just seems to accept that.  I mean, it seems like you’d be pretty freaked out about this, does it not?  To just suddenly, with no warning, have this angel there talking to you?  But Mary does not seem to be.  We’re told that Mary was greatly troubled by Gabriel’s words, and we’ll come to that in a minute, but she does not seem to have been at all bothered by actually seeing Gabriel there.

            What does that tell us about Mary?  For one thing, it tells us that she must have been pretty brave, right?  To suddenly see an angel and not even flinch?  Mary is clearly someone who is not easily thrown off stride.  She’s pretty capable and pretty confident in her ability to handle stuff.

            The first words Gabriel says to her, the ones at which we’re told that Mary was greatly troubled, are “Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.”

            We’re not told what about that greeting troubled Mary, but we can guess.  She may have wondered why she would be “highly favored”, what she had ever done to deserve that kind of greeting.  I suspect, though, that Mary also knew that something more was coming here.  She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.  The angel Gabriel would not have just shown up to pass the time of day.  Gabriel must be giving her a message that God wants her to do something.  And of course, he was.

            Let’s just think about that for a minute.  For Mary, at least, the troubling thing about seeing an angel was not the presence of the angel itself.  The troubling thing was that the angel was going to want her to do something.

            And you know, that would probably be the most troubling thing for you and me, too.  I mean, yes, I probably would be kind of freaked out if I was sitting at home or in my office or something and an angel suddenly showed up.  But that would not be the scariest thing about it.  The scariest thing about it would be knowing that God wanted me to do something.  And I suspect that might be the scariest thing for you, too.

            But why should that be so scary?  If we trust God, why should we be so scared of doing something that God told us to do?

            Well, why was Mary scared of it?  We’re not told, but think about it.  Mary was young.  She was about to start a new life with Joseph.  She thought she knew how her life was going to go.  And now, Gabriel comes and he’s going to want her to do something.  What’s it going to be?  What’s it going to mean for me?  How hard will it be?  Is this going to mess everything up?  This whole life that I’m planning with Joseph—is it going to just be gone?  Is my whole world going to be turned upside down?

            I think that would be the scariest thing of all about having an angel show up.  And really, it’s the scariest thing about really living our faith as Christians.  It’s the scariest thing about turning our lives over to God.  If I do what God wants me to do, well, what’s it going to mean for me?  How hard will it be?  Will it mess up my whole life?  This life I have, which may not be perfect but is fairly good and is something I’m used to and am comfortable with—is it going to just be gone if I follow God?  Is my whole world going to be turned upside down?

            And all these were thoughts Mary may have had before she even knew what it was the angel wanted her to do.  They’re the thoughts we have before we even know what it is that God wants us to do.  They are troubling.  They are scary.  And if we let them, they can stop us from ever following God and doing what God wants us to do.

            They did not stop Mary.  The angel told her what was going to happen.  She was going to have a son, Jesus.  Jesus would be great and would be called the son of the Most High.  He would get the throne of David.  He would reign over the house of Jacob forever.

            And again, Mary accepts it.  Mary does not protest.  She does not say, “Who, me?  You must have the wrong Mary.  There’s another Mary a couple of houses down—that must be the one you want.”  She does not say, “What?  This is crazy.  I cannot do this.  I’m just a kid.  Find somebody else.”  The only thing she says is, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

            “How will this be.”  No protest, no complaint, not even the slightest hesitation.  Not a hint that she might not be willing to do what the angel said.  Just “How will this be.”

            That’s a pretty awesome faith.  That’s a faith that says, “If God wants me to do this, then I’m going to do it.  I’m not going to worry about what’s going to happen to me.  I’m not going to worry about how hard it’s going to be.  I’m not going to worry about what anybody else says or what anybody else thinks.  If God wants me to do it, then I’m going to do it.  Period.”

            That’s the kind of faith Mary had.  That’s the kind of faith you and I are supposed to have.  Do you have it?  Do I?

            Maybe you do.  Maybe I do.  I’m sure a lot of us have done things we were scared to do.  A lot of us have probably done things just because they were the right thing to do.

            The question is, how far are we willing to go in that direction?  Because it’s not enough to just do stuff like this once in a while.  God does not say “Follow me when it’s convenient for you.”  God does not say, “Follow me every once in a while, when you can get your courage up.”  God says, “Follow me all the time.  Follow me even when it’s hard.  Follow me even when it turns your whole world upside down.”  God says, “Follow me even when you don’t know where I’m leading you.”  God says, “I don’t want just part of your life.  I want all of your life.”

            Mary was willing to give God all of her life.  She was willing to follow God even though it was going to be hard.  She was willing to follow God even when it was going to turn her whole world upside down.  She was willing to follow God even when she did not know where God was going to lead her.  She was willing to give God all of her life.

            The result of that was not always smooth.  We’ll hear more about that in the future weeks of this sermon series, and you know some of it already.  God did not reward Mary with an easy, carefree life while she was on earth.  But Mary still did it, and she obviously decided that it was worth it.

            It’ll be worth it for us, too.  It won’t be easy.  We’ll want to resist.  We’ll be scared.  We won’t want to have our lives upset.  And again, I don’t want my life upset any more than you do.  But if we can have the faith Mary had, if we can follow God even when it’s hard and even when we don’t know where God’s leading—if we can give God all of our lives—it will be worth it.  God will be with us.  And we can be the people God wants us to be, just like Mary was.

An Inside Job

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 21, 2015.  The Bible Verses used are Mark 15:16-32.

            This is the last in our sermon series “The Paradoxical Commandments”, a series of ten statements written by Dr. Kent M. Keith and endorsed by Mother Teresa.

And if you look at these commandments, each one of them recognizes a harsh reality.  People can be illogical and unreasonable.  The good we do will be forgotten.  Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.  And on and on, through all of the commandments we’ve talked about and that are posted in the back of the church and were in the newsletter.  And the point is that, despite that harsh reality, we’re still called, as Christians, to love people and do all we can to help people.  By doing that, we’ll be showing God’s love to them.  And by doing that we may, over time, do whatever we can, whether it’s a little or a lot, to change the world.

If there was ever someone who understood all this, it was Jesus.  Jesus spent his entire time in ministry trying to help people.  He fed them, he healed them, and he loved them.  He gave them the chance for salvation and eternal life.  And what did he get for it?  Well, our Paradoxical Commandment for today says it pretty well.  “Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.  Give the world the best you have anyway.”

Jesus, of course, had a lot more happen to him than getting kicked in the teeth.  He got hung on a cross to die.  And before that happened he got whipped, and beaten, and spat on, and humiliated.  He had given the world the best he had.  And of course, it was the best the world would ever have.  And this was his reward.

And of course, Jesus knew this was going to happen.  He predicted his death several times to his disciples.  And yet, he did not let it stop him.  He could have—we’ve talked about that before.  Jesus could’ve soft-pedaled things.  He could’ve stopped speaking out so forcefully.  He could’ve compromised with the Pharisees.  Or, Jesus could’ve used his power to wipe them all out—we are talking about the divine Son of God, after all.  But if Jesus had done any of those things, he would’ve been giving the world less than his best.  And his best was what the world needed.  Giving the world his best, and God’s best, was why he had come to earth in the first place.

It’s why we’re on earth, too.  After all, we claim to be Christians.  We claim to be followers of Jesus.  If we’re really mean that, then we have to take it seriously.  Following Jesus means doing what Jesus did.  It means going where Jesus went.  And where Jesus went was to the cross to die.

That does not seem right, does it?  And maybe you think it makes me a hypocrite, because I talk all the time about how our faith should make us happier and how we should feel the joy of being God’s children.  And yet, now I’m saying our faith means we need to be willing to go to the cross to die.  How does that make sense?

The thing is that the joy we feel as Christians needs to not come from outside of us.  It does not come from other people.  It needs to not come from other people liking us or praising us or making us feel good.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  We all like to feel appreciated.  There’s nothing wrong about that.  But we can’t depend on that for our joy or our happiness.  If we do, we’re going to spend a lot of time being miserable.  Because there are going to be a lot of times when we do the right thing and people don’t appreciate it.  In fact, sometimes people are going to try to punish us for it.

Our happiness, our joy at being Christians, needs to come from inside of us.  Most of all, it needs to come from having God’s Spirit inside of us.  When we can feel God’s presence with us, when we can feel God leading us and guiding us, when we can feel that we are where God wants us to be and we are doing what God wants us to do, there’s a joy and a peace that comes from that.  It’s a joy and a peace that the world cannot take away.  It will stay with us no matter what other people may do to us.

That’s how Jesus did it.  That’s how Jesus was able to keep giving the world his best, despite all the things that happened to him.  Jesus had God’s Spirit inside of him.  He felt the presence of God the Father with him, leading him and guiding him and sustaining him.  He knew that he was where he was supposed to be and was doing what he was supposed to do.  And he felt the joy and the peace that comes from that.

Maybe you think, how could he feel peace and joy while he was suffering on a cross?  Well, don’t get me wrong here.  I don’t think Jesus was ready to start laughing and singing for joy at that point.  He was in terrible pain.  He was dying.  The pain and suffering Jesus felt was real, just as real as it is for any human being.

But I think there’s a sense in which Jesus still felt peace and yes, even joy.  Because he knew that he was obeying God.  He knew he was doing God’s will.  And when we know we are doing God’s will, then even hard things, even suffering, and yes, even death, can give us a sense of peace and even joy.

Look at the Christians in the Middle East who are being killed because of their faith.  How do you think they do it?  Why don’t they just renounce their faith and save their lives?  They do it because they feel God’s Spirit inside them.  They do it because they feel the presence of God leading them and guiding them and sustaining them.

Is it easy?  Of course not.  It was not easy for Jesus.  That’s why he prayed so hard in the Garden of Gethsemane.  That’s why he prayed that, if there was another way to do this, God would use that other way and Jesus would not have to go through it.  But when there was no other way, Jesus was able to go through with it, because of that presence of God, the presence of God’s Spirit inside him.

That’s what we need to have.  Because what our paradoxical commandment says is right.  There are going to be times when we give the world our best and we get kicked in the teeth for it.  It will happen.  In fact, I suspect a lot of us have already had it happen. 

And when that happens, it’s tempting to give up and quit.  But we need to keep giving the world our best anyway, because that’s what God wants us to do.  And we can, if we feel God’s presence and God’s Spirit inside us.

Now, understand that giving the world our best does not mean we’ll be perfect.  We won’t be.  We cannot be.  God does not expect perfection.  God just asks for our best, just like our paradoxical commandment says.

How do we do that?  How do we feel God’s presence and God’s Spirit inside of us?  We do it the way Jesus did it.  By praying.  Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer.  It was not just the Garden of Gethsemane.  We read all the time in the gospels about how Jesus would go off by himself and pray.  Jesus knew he needed to feel God’s presence.  He knew he needed God’s Spirit inside of him.  Because he knew that, he spent lots of time praying.  He spent lots of time making sure he stayed close to God.  He knew that was the only way he could do what he was supposed to do, and was the only way he could feel the peace and joy that comes from doing God’s will.

And there’s one other thing we need to do, or rather not do.  We need to not try to do it alone.  Even Jesus did not try to do this alone.  That’s one of the reasons Jesus called the disciples.  Jesus needed close friends to help him through the tough times.  There were a lot of times those close friends did not get it.  There were a lot of times those close friends had no clue who Jesus was or what he was going to do.  There were even times they argued with him.  But even so, Jesus knew they loved him.  He knew they would do what they could to help him.  And Jesus needed that.

And that’s one of the reasons the church is here.  Because no matter how strong our faith is, we’re not supposed to try to live our lives as Christians alone.  We need close friends to help us through the tough times.  There may be times when those close friends don’t get it.  There may be times when those close friends don’t have a clue.  There may even be times those close friends argue with us.  But even so, we know they love us and will do what they can to help us.  We need that.

That’s what the church is for—to be those close friends to help us through the tough times.  And we should not just do that for others who are in the church.  That’s part of it, but we also need to be there for people who are not part of a church.  Because those people need us in their lives, just like we need each other in our lives.  Jesus did not just tell us to love people inside the church.  Jesus told us to love everybody.  No exceptions.

            If we give the world the best we have, we may get kicked in the teeth.  But we need to give the world the best we have anyway.  That’s what God wants us to do.  And if we pray and stay close to God, and if we support each other and help each other and love each other, we can do it.  And then, we’ll be the people and the church that God wants us to be.

Doing Unto Others

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 14, 2015.  The Bible verses are Exodus 15:22--16:5.

           We’re all familiar with the Golden Rule, right?  Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  Treat people the way you’d like them to treat you.  Do everything you can to help people, just like you’d want them to do what they could to help you if you needed it.

            The thing about that is that, even if we follow that, there’s no guarantee the people we come into contact with will do the same.  In other words, the fact that we try to help others does not necessarily mean they’ll try to help us.  In fact, they may refuse our help and may even come to resent us trying to help them.

That brings us to our Paradoxical Commandment for today.  As many of you know, this is a sermon series we’ve been doing based on a series of ten statements written by Dr. Kent M. Keith and endorsed by Mother Teresa.  We’re on the ninth one today, and here it is:  “People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.  Help people anyway.”

If you’ve ever had that happen to you, understand that God knows exactly what it feels like.  There are all kinds of times in the Bible where God helps people only to have those people turn on God and actively fight against God.  An example of that is in our Bible reading for today.

Remember what the context of this is.  The people of Israel were in slavery in Egypt.  For a while it had not gone too badly, but their conditions got worse and worse.  If there was ever a people who really needed help, it was the people of Israel.

And God helped them.  In fact, God helped them in about the most awesome way possible.  God forced the Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, to set the people of Israel free.  And then, when the Pharaoh tried to take them back into slavery again, God led the people of Israel across the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army so that the people of Israel could be free.

And that was not all.  God not only rescued the people of Israel, God promised them that they would be given a good land to live in.  In fact, it was more than good, it was wonderful.  It was a land flowing with milk and honey.  God was going to lead them across the desert to this incredible land.  It was the most wonderful thing anyone could have imagined.

But it was not an easy trip.  They went three days without finding water.  So what did the people of Israel do?  Did they say, “We can trust God to provide water for us, God has brought us this far, God certainly won’t abandon us now”?  Nope.  Not even close.  Instead, they whined.  They griped.  They complained.  They criticized.  They grumbled.  You’d have thought they’d be grateful.  You’d have thought they’d trust God.  After all, God had always been there for them.  God had done so much for them already.  But no.  Instead, all they could do was find fault with God and blame God because they did not have water when they wanted it.

Have you ever had that happen?  Have you ever tried your best to do something for somebody, to try to help somebody, and instead of thanking you for it all they did was criticize what you’d done?

It’s not a good feeling, is it?  In fact, it stinks, right?  We wonder, what’s the point?  Why try to help someone?  No one ever appreciates it anyway.  Might as well just not even try.

But of course, that’s not how God responded.  God was not happy with the people, of course.  But God did not give up on them.  God did not abandon the people or turn away from them.  God continued to help them.  God gave them water.  Even though the people God was trying to help turned on God, even though they complained about God and blamed God for all their problems, God kept helping them.

And for a little while, the people of Israel were happy again.  But only for a little while.  Because pretty soon the people got hungry.  They wanted food and they did not have any.  What did they do this time?  Did they say, “We can trust God.  God provided water for us when we needed it.  God certainly will provide us with food, too”?  Again, not even close.  Once again, they whined and they griped and they complained and they criticized and they grumbled.  Once again, instead of being grateful for all God had done for them and trusting God to do it again, they blamed God for their troubles.

And once again, God responded.  God again did not give up on the people of Israel.  God still did not abandon them or turn away from them.  God continued to help them.  God gave them food, bread from heaven.  Once again, even though the people God was trying to help turned on God, even though they complained about God and blamed God for all their problems, God kept helping them.

And that’s what we’re supposed to do, too.  We’re not supposed to stop helping people when they don’t appreciate our help.  We’re not supposed to give up on people or abandon them or turn away from them even if they turn on us and seem to resent our attempts to help.

And that brings us back to the Golden Rule.  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Think about times you were in trouble.  Think about times when you needed help.  Have you ever had a time when you needed help, and somebody helped you, and you resented or even complained about their help?

I suspect you have.  I suspect most of us have.  Why do we do that?  Well, there might be a lot of reasons, but I think one of the big ones is pride.  And that pride shows up in a lot of ways.  Our pride keeps us from admitting that we’re in trouble in the first place.  Our pride keeps us from admitting we need help to get out of our trouble.  Our pride keeps us from accepting help when we need it.  Sometimes, our pride even leads us to resent the person who gives us the help and to get mad at them for having helped us.

I can think of times in the past when I’ve done that.  I probably still do it from time to time.  But when I look back at some of those times in the past, I realize how much I needed help, and how fortunate I was and still am that people cared about me enough and loved me enough to help me even when I did not want to admit I needed their help and did not want to accept it.

And so, that’s what I need to do for someone else.  It’s what we all need to do.  We need to be there for each other and help each other.  And we need to do that even if the pride of the person we’re trying to help keeps them from admitting they need our help and keeps them from acting grateful that we’ve helped them.

It’s not easy.  It goes against our instincts.  In fact, if you think about it, the whole Golden Rule thing goes against our instincts.  Oh, we like it all right in theory, but there a lot of times when we don’t want to live our lives that way.  We don’t want to treat people the way we want them to treat us.  We want to treat people the way they actually do treat us.  In other words, if you’ve been kind to me, I’ll be kind to you.  If you’ve been a jerk to me, well, then that gives me the right to be a jerk to you. 

That’s the human rule.  That’s the rule that says if you’re not going to be nice to me when I try to help you, then I’m not going to try to help you any more.  You can just dig yourself out of that hole you’re in, if you can.  Good luck.  That’s the human rule.  But it’s not the Golden Rule.

And it’s not God’s rule.  It may have been tempting.  When the people of Israel reacted the way they did, when they turned on God despite everything God had done for them, there might have been a part of God that wanted to punish them for that, that wanted to just leave them there in the desert to find their own food and water or die trying.  And it would’ve been, literally, die trying if God had done that.

But God did not do that.  God would never do that.  God would never have done that to the people of Israel, and God will never do it to you or to me.  God will never abandon us.  God will never turn away from us.  God will always be there for us, and God will always help us, even when we don’t recognize that it’s God and even when we don’t accept the help that’s offered.

            God will always be there for us.  So we need to be there for each other.  We need to be there for each other even when others don’t appreciate our being there or even get upset with us for being there.  As our Paradoxical Commandment says, “People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.  Help people anyway.”  Why?  Because that’s what God does for us.  And that’s what God wants us to do for each other.

The Gift

I was in Fargo last week, attending United Methodist Annual Conference.  Now that I’m back, I’ve had a few people ask me how I liked it.

           I’m never sure how to answer that.  I enjoy seeing people, some of whom I rarely if ever see otherwise.  And some of the teaching sessions were good.  And I understand the importance of the business that gets done.  But I really don’t enjoy annual conference very much.  It takes me away from Wanda, and it takes me away from doing work that I love.  I know we have to have it, and I know I have to go, but I’ve come to look at it more as a necessary evil than something I’m going to really enjoy.

                         

That’s a sharp contrast to my time as a lawyer.  I didn’t go to the bar conventions very much, but I was city attorney for Wessington Springs and I always went to the municipal league meetings.  I looked forward to those.  I really enjoyed them. 

As I look back on it, though, I didn’t enjoy the meetings for the meetings themselves.  I didn’t even enjoy them for the people.  I looked forward to the meetings because they got me away from my work for three days.  It was a chance to get away from a job I really didn’t like all that much.

 And as I thought about that, I suddenly realized, not for the first time by any means, how fortunate and blessed I am to have work that I love so much.  I don’t look forward to time away from my job.  I look at time away from my job as a nuisance.  I love what I do.  I don’t want to get away from it.  I want to be here to do it.  And I want to be with the people I do it with.  That includes Wanda, of course, but it also includes the people of all of our churches.  It includes people from other churches, or even from no church, as well. 

I do have to be away sometimes, but please don’t think I’m doing it because I want to get away.  I love everything I do (well, I don’t love filling out reports for the conference, but pretty much everything else).  I want nothing more out of life than to be able to do it with Wanda and with the other wonderful people of our parish for a long time to come.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 says, that to “eat and drink and find satisfaction in all our toil—that is the gift of God.”  I am completely feeling that gift.  I have been blessed by God in many ways, and while I’m sure I don’t appreciate that as much as I should, I do appreciate it.  May you feel that same gift and that same blessing.