Who Are You, Lord?

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, May 5, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Acts 9:1-20.

            Imagine that you’re Saul.  You’re an up-and-coming young Pharisee.  You’re well-educated and intelligent.  The higher-ups have their eye on you.  They’re grooming you for big things, maybe even a seat on the Sanhedrin, the ruling council.  Your future is looking bright.

            There’s this group of people you’re aware of.  They call themselves Christians.  You hate them.  It’s nothing personal, but you’re full of zeal for the Lord.  You want God’s rules to be followed, the way Moses and all the people who’ve come after him say they should be followed.  And for sure, you don’t want Jewish people to worship anyone but the one true God.

            And that’s the problem.  See, these “Christians” claim to be worshiping God, but in fact they worship this guy called “Jesus”.  They say this Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior.  Well, you know that’s a lot of nonsense.  That Jesus guy was a criminal.  After all, he was crucified, wasn’t he?  That’s something that only happens to the worst of the worst.  And besides, it was the Sanhedrin that turned Jesus over to the Roman government to be killed.  You know they would not have treated Jesus like a criminal if it was not true. 

            But these Christians just won’t go away.  They keep going all over the area, getting people stirred up, causing trouble.  So, you decide you’ve got to do something about it.  You go to the Jewish authorities and ask for permission to arrest these Christians.  And they give it to you.  So you go out and get to work, determined to capture all these Christians and send them back to Jerusalem to be prosecuted.

            So that’s what you’re doing one day--you’re going to Damascus to capture Christians.  And out of the blue, a light flashes from heaven.  You fall to the ground--in stunned amazement, in shock, in awe.  You hear a voice from heaven that says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

            You try to respond, but nothing comes out.  All kinds of thoughts are going through your mind.  “What’s going on?  Is that really the voice of the Lord?  What does He mean, why are you persecuting me?  I’m not persecuting the Lord.  I’m going after these blasphemers, these “Christians”, these people who are causing trouble.  I love the Lord.  I’m serving the Lord.  Why is the Lord saying I’m persecuting Him?”

You try to defend yourself.  You try to explain yourself.  But you cannot do it.  You stutter around, trying to say something.  And then, you say the only thing you can think of to say, “Who are you, Lord?”

            Think of how far Saul’s world had to have been turned upside down, for him to ask that question.  Because he thought he knew exactly who the Lord was.  In fact, he had no doubt about it.  Saul was absolutely certain that he knew everything he needed to know about the Lord.  He’d learned from the best rabbis around, and he was a good student.  Saul knew what God had told the prophets.  He knew all the rules and regulations that had been handed down by the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.  He knew what you were supposed to do to follow God and serve God.  He knew what you were not supposed to do, too.  Anything and everything there was to know about God, Saul knew it.

            And now in a flash--literally in a flash--Saul found out that everything he thought he knew was wrong.  Everything.  He thought he knew so much, and now he finds out he knows nothing.  Saul thought he had been serving God, and now he finds out he’s been persecuting God.  And he is completely and totally at a loss.  He suddenly realizes that he has absolutely no idea who God is or what God wants.  He has no idea who God is at all.

            Have you ever been in that situation?  Not that exact situation, probably, but have you ever been in a situation where you thought you knew how things were supposed to go, you thought you knew what was supposed to happen, you thought you knew what God wanted you to do, and all of a sudden you realized that none of it was right?  Have you ever been in a situation where you were convinced, that you were confident that you knew what God’s will was, and you tried to follow it, and then you found out that what you thought was God’s will was not God’s will at all?

            I think at least some of us probably have.  Because most of us here have had times when things went against us.  Times when we were in trouble through no fault of our own.  Times when things went against us and we did not understand why.  And we prayed, and we asked God for help, and--God did not help.  Or at least, we believed that God was not helping.  And it turned our world upside down.  We thought we knew who God was and what God wanted, and we found out that all the things we thought we knew were wrong.  And were completely and totally at a loss.  Maybe we even feel, as Saul did, that we have no idea who God even is any more.

            That’s the time when we find out about ourselves and about our faith.  When God turns out not to be who we thought God was--when God turns out not to be who we want God to be--what do we do?  How do we react?  Are we willing even to accept that God might not be who we thought God was?  Can we be open to learning who God really is, and learning how we can truly serve God and follow God?  Are we willing to ask, as Saul did, “Who are you, Lord?”  Or do we turn away from God, deciding that if God is not who we think God should be then God is not worth worshiping?

            Saul was willing to learn.  He asked the question, “Who are you, Lord?”  And when Jesus told him, he listened.  Jesus told Saul to go to Damascus, and there he’d be told what to do.  And he did it.  He had to be led by others, because he could not see, but he did it.  He went to Damascus and went on a holy fast, not eating or drinking for three days while he waited for the Lord to tell him what to do.  And of course, his eyes were eventually opened, he began to preach, and he went on to become one of the greatest evangelists and religious leaders in history.

            What would’ve happened if he had not?  Suppose Saul had said, “I don’t believe this.  I know who God is.  I know who that Jesus was.  This has to be a trick.  Maybe it’s even Satan.  I don’t know what it is, but I know it cannot be God, and I’m not listening.”  What would’ve happened then?  Would he have stayed blind?  Would the Lord have done something else, something more, to convince Saul?  Would the Lord have found someone else to take Saul’s place?  What would’ve happened?

            We’ll never know.  We’ll never know, if Saul had missed this chance, whether he’d have gotten another one.  Maybe he would’ve, but maybe not.  If Saul had said no, we might never have heard of him.  In fact, for all we know, maybe Saul was not the Lord’s first choice.  Maybe the Lord contacted some other people, and they said no, and Saul was the next one on the list.  Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing in the Bible that says that.  It’s just speculation on my part.  But it’s at least possible.

            We all have an idea of who God is.  None of our ideas is completely right, because God is greater and bigger and awesomer than anything we can even begin to imagine.  I mean, this is the God who can be everywhere and every time at once.  This is the God who knows everything that each person does, who knows every word each of us says, who knows every thought each of us thinks.  This is the God who knows what’s going to happen a hundred, a thousand, a million years in the future if the world is going to last that long.  None of us can understand that God.  It’s not possible for us, as mere human beings to do that.

            That means that, to one degree or another, each of us has some ideas about God that are wrong.  As we go through our lives, day after day, we often don’t notice that or think about it.  But then, something happens--sometimes very suddenly--and we realize it.  We realize that some of our ideas about God are wrong.  What do we do then?  Are we open to learning more about God?  Are we willing to say, as Saul did, “Who are you, Lord?”  And are we willing to listen and learn?

            As certain as Saul had been, when he found out he was wrong, he was open to learning.  He really did want to follow God and to serve God.  He had been trying to do that--he just was going about it in the wrong way.  And when he found that out, he was open to finding out what God wanted him to do and doing it the right way.  And God used Saul, later called Paul, to do some amazing, incredible things.

            I think everyone here wants to follow God and to serve God, too.  And we’ve been trying to do that.  And I’m not saying everything we do is wrong--we do a lot of things right.  But we don’t do everything right--after all, we’re not perfect people, and this is not a perfect church.  So the question is, are we open to finding out what God wants us to do and doing it the right way?  Because if we are, God will use us, and will use this church, to do some amazing, incredible things, too.

God-made

This is the message given at the Gettysburg United Methodist church Sunday evening, April 28, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 118:5-29.

             One of the traditional American values is self-reliance.  We’re told we need to do things for ourselves, to stand on our own two feet.  We need to take care of ourselves, look out for number one.  One of the heroes of American culture is the self-made man.

            And that’s fine, up to a point.  But only up to a point.  Because it’s really easy for that attitude of taking care of ourselves, standing on our own--it’s really easy for that to become prideful.  And from there, it’s a pretty short step to arrogance.  Because the truth is that there’s no such thing as a self-made man, or a self-made woman for that matter.  The truth is that any abilities we have, and any talents we have, come from God.  And as we try to develop those talents and abilities, we need to develop them the way God wants us to.  We need to develop them in a way that serves God and honors God.  Our goal should not be to be a self-made person.  Our goal should be to be a God-made person.

            It strikes me that the person who wrote Psalm 118 may have tried to be a self-made individual.  He was standing on his own two feet, doing things for himself.  And for a while, it probably worked out okay.  And then, he gets into trouble.  And what does he do?  Well, he does what so many of us do when we get into trouble.  He comes running back to God.

            It starts out, “When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord”.  No matter how good we think we are, no matter how self-reliant we try to be, that time is always going to come when we’re hard pressed.  That time when things start to fall apart, when everything is just too much for us to handle.  That time when those things we did that used to work so well won’t work any more.  That time when, by bad luck or circumstances or our own mistakes or some combination of all those things, everything collapses around us and we have nowhere else to turn.  And so, in desperation, we turn to God.

            But you know what’s so cool about this?  Even though, so many times, we wait until we’re desperate to turn to God, God never holds that against us.  God still is there for us.  God will still help us and guide us.  In fact, sometimes, God will just outright rescue us.  God will show us the way through the situation.  Not take us out of it, probably, but help us cope with and deal with it and get through it.

            That’s what God does for the author of the psalm.  Look at what he says:  “The Lord is with me.”  Not “The Lord saved me”.  Not “The Lord helped me escape.”  Just “The Lord is with me.”  And because the Lord is with him, he knows he does not have to be afraid.  He knows God will help him.  As long as God is with him, things are going to go the way they’re supposed to go.  As long as God is with him, things will work out.  He does not necessarily know how.  But he knows they will.  And that’s all he needs to know.

            And then, look at the next two verses.  “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans.  It is better to take refuge in the Lord that to trust in princes.”

            How would you know that?  How would you know that it’s better to trust God than humans or princes?  Well, the only way you’d really know that is if you’d tried it, right?  The author of this psalm had probably tried trusting humans.  He’d probably tried trusting princes.  And they’d all let him down.  The only one he could really trust was God.

            Have you ever done that?  Have you tried putting your trust in humans, or in princes, rather than in God?  I don’t know, but I know a lot of people do.  How many times, when there’s a problem--or at least when we think there’s a problem--do we look to humans rather than to God?  We look to the government, we look to corporations, we look to organizations.  We look to a doctor or a lawyer of a banker.  We look to our friends and our family.  We look everywhere but to God.

            It’s not necessarily wrong to look to some of those other people or organizations.  In fact, sometimes God chooses to work through people like that.  I’m not saying we should just sit back and do nothing.  But human beings are fallible.  Even if they’re doing their best, they’re going to let us down sometimes.  Anything created by human beings is imperfect.  The only one who is perfect is God.  And that’s who we should turn to:  God.

            And when the author of the psalm turns to God, what happens?  God does not let him down.  God helps him.  He says, I will not die, but live!  Everything was going against him, but when he turned to God, God gave him the confidence to know that he would not just survive what was going on, he would triumph over it.

            And then, here comes what I think is the key to the whole thing.  Once he gets that confidence, and when in fact he does triumph over his troubles, what does he do?  He feels gratitude to God.  He gives the credit to God and gives thanks to God.  He does not say “I did this.”  He says, “God did this.”  “The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!...I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation...The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes...The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine on us.”

            Now, maybe it seems obvious that in a situation like this we should give the credit to God.  After all, look what happened.  We were in trouble, we prayed to God, and God saw us through it and helped us triumph over it.  Of course we should thank God for that.

            And of course we should.  But it seems to me there are a lot of times we don’t.  There are times I don’t.  Have you ever done this?  You get into trouble, into a tight spot, and you see no way out of it.  And so you pray, and you pray, and you ask God to save you.  And God does.  And almost immediately you go, “Oh, well, that’s all right then.”   And you move on.

            Maybe you’ve never done that, I don’t know.  But I know I have.  Sometimes, later--maybe days later--I’ll realize that I forgot to thank God for what happened.  And then I do give thanks, and I feel kind of embarrassed that I did not thank God right away.  Sometimes I even ask God for forgiveness for not thanking Him right away.  But then, the next time, it seems like I do the same thing again.

            Why do I do that?  Well, I think it gets back to what we talked about at the start of this message.  I want to be self-reliant.  When I get out of trouble, I want to think it was me that got me out of it.  That I did not need any help from anybody.  I mean, I sure willing to ask for the help when I’m in trouble, but after I get out of it I want to pretend I did it all myself.  Me.  No one else.  I’m still trying to be that self-made man, rather than trying to be a God-made man.

            It’s arrogance, when you come right down to it.  It’s the sin of arrogance.  Thinking we don’t need God.  Thinking we can do it all ourselves.  Wanting to do it all ourselves.  Trying to convince ourselves that we’ve done it all ourselves.  Arrogance.

            The author of the psalm may have felt that in the beginning.  But not by the end.  By the end of the psalm, he is humbling himself before God.  In fact, by the end of the psalm, he says this:  “You are my God, and I will praise you; you are my God, and I will exalt you.  Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.”

            When we get into trouble, we can always turn to God.  God will always be there for us.  But the thing is, we don’t have to wait until we get into trouble to turn to God.  We can turn to God at any time.  We can turn to God all the time.  When things are good, when things are bad, when things are just going normally.  We don’t need to be self-reliant, self-made people who only turn to God when we get desperate.  We can be God-reliant, God-made people all the time.

            So let’s put aside our arrogance.  Let’s put aside our pride.  Let’s humble ourselves before God.  Let’s acknowledge that power and love of God.  Let’s praise God and exalt God.  Let’s give thanks to God.  Because God is, indeed, good, and God’s love truly does endure forever.

Stress Relief

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, April 28, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Acts 5:27-42.

            The first United Methodist appointment Wanda and I had was to the McCook Lake United Methodist church in North Sioux City, now known as the ARK United Methodist church.  Now, that church had quite a history.  It had started out as a small, mission church.  Then Gateway Computers came into North Sioux City.  The town boomed, and the church boomed right along with it.  They were averaging over two hundred people in worship on Sunday morning, and it looked like that would grow to more.  The church’s future looked incredibly bright.

            Then, Gateway ran into trouble.  And they pulled out of North Sioux City.  And the town faltered, and the church faltered right along with it.  The number of people in worship plummeted.  When Wanda and I got to North Sioux City this church, which had been averaging more than two hundred people in worship, was down to about twenty-five.  And when we got there, we were told that we had three years to get the church turned around or it would be closed.  In fact, at the first church meeting we had after we got there, we were told that we were going to have to leave our building in two months and find another place to worship.  That’s why the picture of the school is up there--that’s ultimately where we held worship services for most of the three years Wanda and I were there.

            So anyway, there we were.  Our first United Methodist appointment.  Not really knowing what we’re doing anyway, a couple of small town people now living in the suburb of what, for this area at least, is a fairly good-sized city, and told to find a way to get this church turned around in three years or it would be closed.  Without even having a building to have worship services in.  Talk about a stressful situation!

            Well, as you might guess, we prayed a lot.  And as I was praying one day, this thought struck me.  If God wants this church to be here, then it’ll be here no matter what I do, because I’m not stronger than God.  And if God does not want this church to be here, then it won’t be here no matter what I do, because I’m not stronger than God.  Now, that does not mean that I decided to sit back and do nothing.  What it means is that I decided to do my best to follow God and to serve God, and then I would see what God decided to do with that.  If God decided to bless it, the church would grow.  If not, then it would not.  It was not my job to determine the results.  It was God’s job to do that, and I would trust God to make the result come out the way it was supposed to.  All my job was, was simply to be faithful to God and to do the best I could.

            When I realized that, it took a lot of stress out of my life.  Wanda and I still worked hard.  But we knew that if we stayed faithful to God and did the best we could, the result did not matter.  In we stayed faithful to God, we would have succeeded, no matter what the actual result might be.

            We talked last we about how, after Jesus died, at first the disciples did not know what they were supposed to do.  But Jesus told them to go and spread the gospel, to make disciples of all nations.  And that’s what they started doing.

            The disciples had no guarantee of what was going to happen when they went out to spread Jesus’ message.  I’m sure they had hopes.  I’m sure they had dreams.  I’m sure they were hoping that they would make hundreds, thousands of converts.  They were probably dreaming of a day when everyone they talked to would believe in Jesus and be saved.

            But at the same time, they’d been with Jesus for three years.  They saw what happened when Jesus spread the gospel message.  There were some people who believed, but there were some people who did not.  There were people who rejected Jesus’ message immediately.  There were others who followed for a while, and then lost interest.  And of course, they saw what ultimately happened to Jesus--he was killed on a cross.  If that could happen to Jesus himself, the disciples surely knew that it might happen to them, too.  That’s a pretty stressful situation, too!

            The disciples did not know how things would go when they started to spread the gospel message.  But they realized that they did not need to know.  Jesus had told them to go and spread the gospel and make disciples of all nations.  So, they decided to do the best they could to do that.  They would do their best to follow God and to serve God, and then see what God would do with that.  If God decided to bless their work, then the gospel message would be spread.  If not, then it would not.  The disciples knew that it was not their job to determine the results.  It was God’s job to do that, and they trusted that God would make the result come out the way it was supposed to.  Their job was simply to be faithful to the task Jesus had given them and to do the best they could.  If they did that, they would have succeeded, no matter what the results might be.  And I suspect that knowing that took a lot of their stress away, too.

            Well, the result, at least at the time of our Bible reading for today, is that the disciples got hauled up before the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling authority.  The Sanhedrin basically said, hey, we told you to stop telling people about Jesus.  And yet, here you are, going around talking about nothing else.  What do you think you’re doing?

            And the disciples basically say, you can tell us whatever you want, but we have to do what God told us to do.  God told us to spread this message.  Yes, we know you might try to stop us, but we cannot control what you do.  We can only control what we do, and what we’re going to do is follow God.  So you do whatever you’re going to do.

            We tend to kind of gloss over that, but think of the faith that takes.  I mean, the Sanhedrin could’ve had them put in prison for life, and there would’ve been nothing they could’ve done about it.  And back then, prison was a really bad place to be.  Not that it’s a great place now, but prisons were awful back then.  Just the unsanitary conditions might kill you.  And yet, here the disciples are, standing up before the Sanhedrin and saying, do whatever you want.  We don’t care.  We’re going to follow God no matter what you do to us.  Again, they were going to be faithful to God and trust that God would make things come out the way they were supposed to.

            Well, when the disciples said that, the Pharisees were up in arms.  They were furious.  Some of them wanted to kill Peter and the others, despite the fact that they really did not have the power to impose the death penalty.  And then, a Pharisee named Gamaliel speaks.  And Gamaliel takes a similar attitude to what the one I took in North Sioux City.  He said to the others, look, if God is not behind what these guys are doing, we don’t have to do anything.  What they’re doing will fail, because they are not stronger than God.  But if God is behind what these guys are doing, then nothing we do is going to stop them, because guess what, guys.  We’re not stronger than God, either.  So you know what?  We don’t have to take on the stress of defending God.  God can defend Himself.  So let these people go and wait to see what God decides to do.

            It seems to me that’s a pretty good attitude to take toward all aspects of our lives.  In fact, it seems to me that it would make a lot of our lives a lot less stressful, too.  Whatever our situation, whether we’re at work, or at home, or wherever.  Do the best we can.  Do the best we can to love God, to serve God, and to be faithful to God.  And realize that if we do that, we’re not responsible for the result.  God is.  And we can trust God to make that result be the way it’s supposed to be.  That may not be the way we wanted it to be, but it will be the way it’s supposed to be.  It’s not our job to get a result.  It’s our job to be faithful to God and do the best we can to serve God and show love to God.  If we do that, then in God’s eyes, we’ll have succeeded, no matter what the result might be.

            It’s not always easy to give control of the results to God.  We tend to want to control the results ourselves.  And maybe sometimes we can.  But my experience has been that when I try too hard to control the results, what I end up doing is trying to force things to go my way, and trying to force people to do what I want them to do.  And that does not work very often.  And when you think about it, you can see why.  Even God does not force us to do things the way God wants us to.  If God does not force people to do things, why would I think I can do it and make it work?  But if we just do our best and leave the results to God, then we don’t feel a need to force anything.  We can relax, let go of the stress, and let God take care of things.

            God is always stronger than we are.  If God wants things to happen in a certain way, they will happen that way, no matter what you and I do.  If God does not want things to happen in a certain way, then they won’t happen that way, no matter what you and I do.  So let’s do the best we can to serve God, to follow God, and to love God.  And let’s trust God to take it from there.  It’ll take a lot of stress out of our lives.  And if we stay faithful to God, then in God’s eyes we will have succeeded, no matter what the results on earth might be.

An Eventful Couple of Weeks

It was quite a couple of weeks for me.  A little less than three weeks ago, on April 6, I was coming back from a meeting in Pierre when I got a call from the Armour nursing home telling me that Dad was not doing well.  They didn’t come right out and say, “You’d better come”, but that was the clear implication.  So, I got a few things put together at the office, let a few of the church leaders know that I wasn’t going to be in church the next day but would leave bulletins and a copy of the sermon for them, Wanda got us packed, and we went to Armour.

It was a long couple of days.  You could tell Dad wasn’t doing well, but he was still awake and conversant to a limited extent.  On Sunday, however, it became clear that his time was growing short.  On Monday, April 8, at about a quarter to one in the afternoon, Dad passed away.  He went quietly and peacefully, with no struggle, for which we are grateful.

We stayed until Tuesday morning, to be with Mom and make funeral arrangements.  We scheduled Dad’s funeral for Monday, April 15, because of the huge snowstorm that was predicted.  We then came back to Gettysburg to beat said snowstorm, and as you know, the snowstorm did not disappoint.  Still, by Friday it looked like things would get back to normal.

Then Friday night, I got sick.  Today they probably give it a bunch of scary initials like QRXV, but back in the day they just called it the stomach flu.  Saturday morning I was no better.  I thought about trying to tough it out, but the last time I had this, about three years ago, I toughed it out for three days and ended up in the hospital anyway.  So I decided that if that was the likely result, I might as well go now and get it over with, and I did.  And once again, we had to let some church leaders know I wasn’t going to be in church on Sunday.  I hated that, because it was Palm Sunday, but there wasn’t much I could do.

At the hospital they gave me some nausea medication and about four bags of fluid.  I felt better, and I got out late Sunday afternoon.  But while I was there, I learned that my mom had RSV, my brother in Virginia and his wife both had influenza, and my brother in Nebraska and his wife both had really bad colds.  Plus, Wanda was dealing with a change in her seizure medication, and had almost no energy.  So, we had to contact the funeral home and postpone the funeral.  We have rescheduled it, and it will now be on May 13 at 11:30.

So, is there something I should learn from all this?  I don’t know.  Some have said my illness was brought on by lack of rest, and I suspect that’s true.  Staying up with my dad all night Sunday night was probably not helpful.  I’m getting a little old to pull an all-nighter.  But at the same time, I don’t regret it, and even if I knew what was going to happen I’d do it again.  Sometimes the circumstances simply demand that you do what you have to do and you deal with the consequences later.

There is one thing I learned.  Well, I didn’t learn it so much as I was reminded of it.  We have some awesome people in this parish.  The people of our churches banded together and supported me.  And, they found ways to carry on without me.  A lot of people stepped up and did things and led services even though they were not necessarily comfortable doing that.  I am very grateful to them.

But it’s not just the people of our churches who have been awesome.  All the people in the communities I serve have been awesome.  That includes people who are not part of my churches.  It includes people I don’t even know very well.  We have been overwhelmed by cards and notes and kind words and memorials.  It has really been incredible.

You know, sometimes people will ask me something like, “How come you want to stay in those little towns?  Why don’t you try to move up to a bigger church in a bigger place?”  Well, this is why.  In towns like this, we really are a community.  In fact, we’re more than that, we’re a family.  And the people of Gettysburg, Onida, and Agar have welcomed Wanda and me and made us a part of the family.  We will forever be grateful for all the support you’ve given us, not in just the last couple of weeks, but in our nearly eight years here.

So, we have the funeral set now, I’m feeling better, Mom is better, my brothers and their wives are better, and while Wanda is still struggling we’re hopeful that she’s headed in the right direction, too.  I would appreciate it if you’d keep my mom in your prayers.  She’s doing about as well as can be expected, but as some of you know, it’s hard to lose someone who’s been a part of your life for so long.  She and Dad were married seventy-two years, and in a marriage like that, you really start to understand what the Bible means when it says, “The two become one.”  She feels like a part of her is gone now, and it’s hard.  So your prayers for here would be appreciated.

I hope you had a wonderful and blessed Easter.  Let’s move forward now and serve God together.

Belief Without Understanding

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 21, 2019.  The Bible verses used are John 20:1-18.

            On Friday, Jesus died.  There was no question about it.  Everyone saw him die.  They even stabbed his side with a spear to make sure.  Jesus had a good run—he’d healed people, he’d fed people, he’d attracted a following.  But it was all over now.  Jesus was dead.  Period.  It had been quite a run, but now it was over.  The end.

            Jesus had told the disciples what was going to happen next.  He told them he was going to overcome death and rise on the third day.  But they either did not understand what he meant or did not believe it.  I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that everyone who knew what had happened thought Jesus’ life was over when he died on the cross.

            Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb.  She’s going there to anoint Jesus’ body, as part of the Jewish burial ritual.  She sees the tomb empty, but does not know what’s happened.  She assumes someone has moved Jesus’ body.

            She goes back and tells Peter and John.  They go running out to the tomb.  Peter goes into the tomb first, and sure enough it’s empty.  He sees the strips of linen that had been wrapped around Jesus’ body and the cloth that had been wrapped around his head.  Then John goes in.  And then the Bible says this:  “He saw and believed.  (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead).”

            We’ll come back to that.  But then Peter and John leave.  And apparently, the way the story is written, they don’t say a word to Mary Magdalene.  They just walk away and leave Mary outside the tomb.  Crying.  Still thinking Jesus’ body has been moved someplace, and not having any idea where.

            Mary sees two angels.  They ask her why she’s crying, and again she tells them someone has taken Jesus’ body.  She sees Jesus himself, but of course does not recognize him.  She again wants to know where Jesus’ body was taken.  Then, Jesus says her name and she recognizes him.  That was probably the last thing Mary expected.  And of course, she’s overjoyed.  Jesus tells her to go and tell the others that he is ascending to God the Father, and of course she does that.

            I’ve said before that when we read about Biblical events, we need to try to imagine ourselves there.  Try to imagine ourselves as one of the people in the story.  Try to imagine what they were thinking or feeling.  I think when we do that here, what we realize is how important it is to believe even when we don’t understand.

            Look at John.  Remember what it said about John?  We’re told that he went into the tomb, and “he saw and believed”.  But then, in the next sentence, we’re told that neither he nor Peter understood from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

So John believed.  But what, exactly, did he believe?  He believed that the tomb was empty, but he could see that.  That did not take any belief--any fool could see the tomb was empty.  Did he believe Jesus had risen from the dead?  Maybe.  But even if he did, neither he nor Peter understood what that meant.  Again, they “did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”  They may have understood that this was a miracle, but what it meant--what it meant for them and for everyone else--they don’t appear to have had a clue.

            Mary Magdalene still thinks someone has moved the body.  Jesus rising from the dead does not even seem to have occurred to her.  She does not seem to even consider the possibility of it.  She knows Jesus is dead.  She just wants to know where the body is, so she can do what her faith requires her to do and so that she can mourn properly.

            And yet.  Through all this, Mary continues to refer to Jesus as “Lord”.  Not by name.  Not as just a man.  As “Lord”.  She tells Peter and John, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.”  She tells the angels “They have taken my Lord away.”  Even though Mary Magdalene believes Jesus is dead--actually more than believes, Mary knows it as a fact--despite that, she continues to refer to Jesus as “Lord.”  

Think about that.  “Lord”.  That’s not a title Mary would use for a man.  That’s a title Mary would only have used for the divine Son of God.  Somehow, in some way, even though she’s convinced Jesus is dead, she continues to believe in him as the Lord.  She probably would not have been able to explain that.  She might not have even understood it herself.  But somehow, in some way, even though she did not understand, she continued to believe.  And, of course, her belief is rewarded.  Jesus says her name, she turns and sees him, the last person she expected to see there, and she is overjoyed that Jesus is alive.

            Belief without understanding.  That’s one of the definitions of faith, really--when we continue to believe even when we don’t understand.  

As we look around us, we see a lot of things we don’t understand.  It seems like every week we hear about another natural disaster.  Blizzards. Floods.  Fires.  Earthquakes.  And we hear about unnatural disasters, too.  Terrorist attacks.  Serial killings.  And of course, there are the things that hit closer to home.  Cancer and other diseases.  Heart attacks.  Motor vehicle accidents.  And we could go on to name systemic problems like racism and injustice and oppression and religious persecution and all kinds of other things that are happening in the world.

            We don’t understand these things.  We don’t understand why they happen.  We don’t understand why God allows them to happen.  Some of them we can explain away by saying that God allows us to make choices and sometimes we make bad ones.  And of course, those bad choices we make affect a lot of people other than just ourselves.  And that explains some of the things that happen, but not all of them.  

            We say that God is good.  In fact, that’s one of the most basic articles of our faith as Christians--that God is good.  And yet, we struggle to understand why this good God would allow the world to be the way it is.  Even if we say that God did not cause it to be the way it is, we know God could do something about it.  God can do anything--that’s a basic part of being God.  But God clearly is not doing anything about it.  Well, that’s not true.  God does all sorts of things that we don’t see and maybe never will see.  But God is permitting things to be the way they are, at least for now.  This good God, this perfect God, is allowing the world to be anything but perfect.  This good God is allowing a lot of misery and sadness to go on in the world.  And we don’t understand why.

            But the question is not “Do we understand?”  Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to try.  It’s okay to ask questions and try to understand.  But the question is not “Do we understand?”  The question is “Do we believe?”  Are we able to believe, even though we don’t understand?  Are we able to believe, despite everything we see around us, that God is still good?  Are we able to believe, no matter how things look to us right now, that God has reasons for allowing things to be the way they are?  Are we able to believe, no matter what’s happening and no matter what does happen, that somehow God is going to make everything work out all right in the end?  And in fact, are we able to believe that not only is everything going to work out all right in the end, but that somehow, in some way that we don’t understand and never will understand while we’re on earth, all these things are part of God’s plan and that all these things are necessary to bring about the fulfillment of God’s plan?

            When you put it that way, it kind of seems like it’s asking a lot.  Believing those things when we don’t understand them is not easy.  But on the other hand, Jesus never promised that faith would be easy.  It was not easy for Peter and John.  It was not easy for Mary Magdalene.  Think of the position they were in at this point.  They believed Jesus was alive, but they did not understand any of it.  They did not understand what had happened.  They did not understand how it had happened.  They did not understand why it had happened--I mean, they knew it had to do with Jesus being the Son of God, but again, we’re told that they “did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”  They did not understand what it meant, for them or anyone else.  They did not understand what was going to happen next or how it was going to affect them.  They believed, but they did not understand anything about it at all.

            So that’s the challenge.  Can we believe, even though we don’t understand?  Can we continue to have faith in God, even though we don’t know why things are the way they are?  Can we continue to believe that God is good when it seems like so many things happening in the world are bad?  Can we continue to believe God loves us when it seems like our lives are being turned upside down, especially when it seems like they’re being turned upside down through no fault of our own?  Can we continue to believe?  Can we continue to have faith?

            Peter and John believed Jesus was alive, even though they did understand how or why.  Mary Magdalene believed Jesus was Lord, even though she did not understand how or why.  They believed, even though they did not understand.  And because they believed, Jesus was with them, even though when they were not aware of it.  And he made himself known to them, even when they did not expect it.  

Can we believe, even though we don’t understand?  If we can, if we keep believing, Jesus will be with us, even when we’re not aware of it.  And even though we don’t expect it, Jesus will make himself known to us, too.

A Sad Story

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 14, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Luke 19:28-44.

            We all have our favorite passages in the Bible.  But here’s something we don’t often think about.  What would you say is the saddest passage in the Bible?

            There are a lot of candidates.  Jesus’ crucifixion is an obvious one.  The divine Son of God being killed in an incredibly painful way, taking punishment he did not deserve.  Some of the stuff before that is pretty sad, too.  Judas betraying Jesus.  Peter three times denying that he even knew who Jesus was.  Lots of sad passages there.

            And there are lots of others.  Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed.  The flood, which wiped out nearly everything living thing on earth except what was saved in the ark.  Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden.  We could go on and on and on.  I mean, we think of the Bible as God’s gift to us, and it is, but when you think about it there are a lot of very sad passages in it.

            And you may be wondering at this point, what does this have to do with Palm Sunday?  Palm Sunday is a happy passage.  It’s the story of Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem to the cheering of the crowd.  People laying down their coats and their palm branches in front of him, making a sort of red carpet for Jesus to come in on.  Others waving palm branches, shouting “Hosanna!”.  Jesus is being hailed as a conquering hero, a king.  What could be sad about that?

            What’s sad about it, of course, is that ultimately none of it meant anything.  A lot of these same people would be in the crowd, less than a week later, that was shouting “Crucify him!”.  Think about that.  “Hosanna!” turned to “Crucify!” in less than a week.  How did that happen?

            One of the reasons it happened is because a lot of the people who were shouting “Hosanna!” really did not mean it.  They had not accepted Jesus as the king.  They were not really willing to follow him.  They may have thought they did.  They may have thought they were with Jesus all the way.  After all, that’s what Peter thought, until he got into trouble for being Jesus’ friend.  If even Peter could bail on Jesus when the going got tough, I guess it’s not surprising that others--the hangers on, the ones who had never been all that committed in the first place--I guess it’s not surprising that they would turn on Jesus, too.

            But that’s not what makes this passage sad.  It’s part of it, but it’s not all of it.  What makes this passage really sad is that Jesus knew all of this.  Jesus knew none of these shouts and cheers meant anything.  Jesus knew that a lot of these same people were going to turn on him.  And he knew what the consequence of that would be.  In other words, as Jesus was hearing all these praises from the crowd, he knew that in less than a week some of this same crowd would be demanding that he be put to death.  That means he knew that these cheers he was hearing were completely and totally meaningless.  What should have been Jesus’ triumphant moment was taken away from him.  It had no meaning at all.

            Have you ever had a time when someone was giving you all kinds of praise and you knew they did not mean a word of it?  Maybe they were trying to butter you up because they wanted something from you.  Maybe they were just trying to make themselves look good.  I don’t know why people do this, but you knew there are people who do.  They’ll give you all kinds of praise to your face, but you know they don’t mean any of it.  How’s that make you feel?

            It might make us mad, knowing that they were just trying to make themselves look good.  It might make us laugh, in a way, at the thought that they thought they were fooling you and getting away with something when you knew perfectly well what they were up to.  But I think mostly, it just makes us feel empty.  We know this is all meaningless, and yet we cannot stand up and say that.  So, we listen to all these empty words and phrases, knowing there’s no substance there, and we just feel--well, not much of anything, really.  We feel like all they’ve done is just waste our time.

            Jesus had to feel that, don’t you think?  After all, Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine.  That means he had all the same feelings and emotions that you and I have while we’re on earth.  You would think that, as he rode into town, hearing the cheers of the crowd, there had to be a great emptiness inside him.  You’d think there’d have been that sadness there.

            But here’s the incredible thing.  When you read the story, as Jesus entered Jerusalem that day, his thoughts do not seem to have been on himself at all.  What he might have felt did not matter.  Jesus’ thoughts were on God, and they were on humans.

            They were on God because Jesus knew that this praise he was getting really belonged to God.  God deserved the praise and the hosannas.  Even if they were insincere, God still deserved them.  And so Jesus refused to do anything to stop it.  In fact, he encouraged the crowd.  He said that if this crowd did not cheer like it was doing, the rocks themselves would cry out.  God deserved all this praise, and God’s creation was going to give it Him, one way or another.

            But the most remarkable thing is that Jesus’ thoughts were on people.  He felt sadness, yes.  But not for himself.  He was not sad that he’d been denied his day in the sun.  He was really not even sad about the fact that he was going to be killed.  He’d known for a long time that this was going to happen.  When he made the decision to go to Jerusalem for the Passover, he knew he was going to his death.  Not that he was happy about it, but this was the way things were supposed to go.  It was the way things had to go.

            Jesus was not sad that he was going to be crucified.  He was sad for the people who were going to crucify him.  Jesus was sad because he had come to earth to offer salvation and eternal life to the people of Jerusalem, and they were rejecting it.  He wanted so much to help them, to save them, and they refused.  They simply would not accept the salvation that he wanted to give them.  That’s what made him sad.  Jesus was not sad for himself.  He was sad for all the people who were going to reject him, and thereby reject their own salvation.

            Have you ever been rejected?  Sure you have.  Almost everyone has, at one time or another.  It hurts, right?  It hurts a lot.  There are few things in life that hurt more than being rejected.  And a lot of times, we react to that hurt in ways that are not helpful to ourselves or anyone else.

            Now think of how Jesus reacted to being rejected.  Think of the love for us that shows.  To know what Jesus knew, to be hurt as much as Jesus must have been hurt, and yet to react the way he did.  He was not angry with the people of Jerusalem.  He was sorry for them.  Jesus was sorry that they were going to miss out on what he had to offer them.  Jesus loved these people so much that, even though they were going to reject him and were going to kill him, and even though their cheers now were completely empty, his only sadness was that these people were going to miss out on salvation and eternal life.  He thought nothing about himself.  His only thoughts were about others, even others who did not care about him at all.  That’s an awesome thing.    That’s love.

            And that’s the love the Lord has for us, too.  Because all of us are sinners, too, just as much as any of those people in Jerusalem were.  We may not do the same things they did, but God does not weigh our sins on a scale and say this one is better than that one.  God looks at each one of us and sees the same thing:  a sinner.  And when we sin, by definition, we reject God, just like the people of Jerusalem did.

            And yet, the Lord does not get upset with us.  The Lord is not angry with us.  The Lord continues to love us.  His thoughts are only for us.  And he is sorry when we reject what Jesus offers--salvation and eternal life.

            But we have an advantage the people of Jerusalem did not have.  The people of Jerusalem thought that when Jesus was killed, the story was over.  Finished.  Done. 

You and I know that’s not true.  We know Jesus’ story does not end with his death.  In fact, Jesus’ death was just the beginning.  We know that Jesus was raised from the dead, conquering death not just himself but for all of us.  We know, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.

            So let’s use that advantage.  Let’s not reject Jesus.  Let’s not refuse the salvation and eternal life he offers.  Let’s make this sad story have a happy ending.  Let’s not just shout “Hosanna!”  Let’s live lives that show we truly believe that Jesus is the Lord.

It's Always Something

It’s finally warming up!  So, rather than having to deal with snowstorms, we have to deal with flooding.  As they say, it’s always something.

And you know, it seems like it is.  No matter how well things are going, no matter how happy we may be, it seems like there’s always something we have to deal with.  Something we wish we could ignore, something we wish would just go away.  But we can’t and it won’t, so we have to deal with it, whatever “it” happens to be.

Why is life like that?  I don’t know.  One reason, of course, is that life is full of human beings.  As you may have noticed, we human beings tend to be rather imperfect.  We make mistakes, we do things wrong, we mess up, sometimes intentionally but most of the time accidentally.  And because of that, there are always things--difficult things, unpleasant things, sometimes painful things--that we have to deal with.  That’s just the way it is.

I assume that in heaven, it won’t be that way.  Heaven is the home of the perfect, holy God.  I assume that when we’re in God’s presence, God takes care of those difficult, unpleasant, painful things.  It’s only here on earth that we have to deal with them.

I assume that, but I’m not sure.  After all, the book of Revelation tells us that, in heaven, we will continue to serve God in some way.  I think that service will be willing.  I think it will be joyful.  I think we will consider it an honor and a privilege to serve God in heaven.  Really, we should feel that way on earth, too.  But none of that guarantees that our service will be easy.  I don’t think it will be painful--I don’t think we’ll feel pain in heaven--but it still may not be easy.

And maybe, if we really think about it, we don’t want it to be.  There’s something in the human spirit that needs to feel a sense of accomplishment.  There’s something about us that needs to feel like we’ve achieved something.  If everything is easy, if we never have any difficulties to deal with or obstacles to overcome, we don’t get that sense of accomplishment and achievement.  And we feel like our lives are diminished in some way.

Now, again, that’s true of us while we’re on earth.  Will it be true of us when we’re in heaven?  I don’t know.  But I think it’s possible.

But even if it is, it’s not something to worry about.  Because whatever we need in heaven, God will give it to us.  If we need to feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement, God will give us that.  If not, then God won’t.  But whatever we need, God will give it to us.

And in a way, that’s true of our lives on earth, too.  No, God does not always make our lives easy.  There are people in the world who are being jailed or even killed for their religious faith.  But God does offer us salvation and eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  And when you think about it, that truly is all we need.