Responding With Love

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 6, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 5:38-48.

            I think that if I could remove one passage from the Bible, just take it out and not have to deal with it, this might be the one.  

            Jesus tells us to do several things here.  And they are things that I do not want to do.  Some of them really do not make a lot of sense to me.  Others of them go against everything we’re taught by society.  

And that was true in Jesus’ time, too, by the way.  The things Jesus said to do in this passage would not have made any more sense to them than they do to us.  They went against was society taught in Jesus’ time, too.  When you come right down to it, the things Jesus told us to do in this passage are probably the hardest things Jesus ever told us to do.

            But the thing is, we cannot remove this passage from the Bible, not if we want to be true to God’s word.  We cannot just take it out or pretend it’s not there.  So, we have to deal with it.

            Let’s look at what they are.  “Do not resist an evil person.”  “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”  “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.”  “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”  “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”  “Love your enemies and pray for those persecute you.”  

            Do you do those things?  Have you ever done those things?  Some of us have probably done some of them, sometimes.  But I don’t know if any of us has done all of them, all the time.  If you have, I salute you.  You’re a lot better than I am.

            We hear these things, and we wonder.  Did Jesus really mean them literally?  “Do not resist an evil person?”  If we don’t resist evil people, won’t evil win?  “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also?”  Does that not allow people to get away with physically abusing others?  “Give to the one who asks you?”  Does that not allow people to take advantage of us?  Are we not enabling people when we do these things?  “Love your enemies?”  I mean, I get not hating them and maybe even not fighting them, but loving them?  What would that even mean?

            Did Jesus really mean these things literally?  Well, I don’t know.  I cannot read the mind of Jesus.  But I can look at what Jesus did.  Jesus did not resist evil people.  He knew Judas was going to betray him--and he did not stop him.  He knew he would be arrested when he went to the Garden of Gethsemane--and he still went there.  He knew the authorities would kill him--and he let them.  Jesus did not resist, even when it mean his own death.

            While Jesus was being held, he was beaten.  We’re told that the guards slapped him and beat him, all the time mocking him by saying “Prophesy!  Who hit you?”  Jesus did not fight back.  Yes, he was bound, but he was also Jesus.  No ropes could bind Jesus if he chose not to be bound.  But he did not fight back.  He literally turned the other cheek.

            Jesus loved even his enemies.  He prayed for those who persecuted him.  Even as he was dying on the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

            When I look at how Jesus lived his life, I can only come to one conclusion:  Jesus meant it.  Jesus meant what he said.  And he lived what he said.  Do I like that conclusion?  No, not really.  But if I take this question seriously and look at it honestly, that’s the only conclusion I can reach.

            So, where does that leave us?  Are we to do nothing in the face of evil?  Are we to allow people to physically abuse us and do nothing?  Are we to let people have anything of ours they want?  How are we supposed to apply Jesus’ words in our lives?

            Well, I don’t know.  But I’ll tell you what I think.  You might disagree, and you might well be right.  I could be making excuses for myself with some of this.  But here’s what I think.

            Jesus did live these things out.  But he lived them out for specific reasons.  He lived them out in ways that would ultimately bring honor and glory to God the Father.  Yes, Jesus still allowed Judas to betray him, and yes, he allowed the authorities to arrest him and to kill him.  But we read about other times, earlier than that, where crowds tried to seize Jesus, and Jesus got away from them.  He may not have fought back, but he did not allow himself to be beaten or killed in those situations.   He was waiting until the time was right, the time God the Father wanted things to happen.

            And yes, Jesus allowed the guards to beat him.   But he did not allow himself to be beaten up by random people on the street.  You know, there were thugs and robbers and thieves in Jesus’ time, just like there are today.  Jesus did not let those people beat him up.  Again, Jesus let this happen with the guards because the time was right.  This was the time God the Father wanted these things to happen.

            Jesus knew all of these things had to happen.  They had to happen because Jesus had come here, specifically, to die so that our sins could be forgiven.  He was not going to run away from that.  He knew that, but allowing these things to happen, he was serving God.

            So, again, where does that leave us?  Does it allow us to ignore these things Jesus said?  Because, after all, my death is not going to cause anyone’s sins to be forgiven.  My death is not going to lead to salvation and eternal life for anyone.  So, do I have an excuse to do what I want to do--just ignore this part of the Bible?  

            Well, no, I don’t think so.   Jesus would not have said these things, and Matthew would not have recorded them, if we were not supposed to listen to them.  But what do we do with them?

            Remember last week, what we said about the law?  Jesus believed in the law.  But Jesus said we should go beyond just what the law required.  Jesus said we should apply the law with love--love of God and love of others.

            I think that’s what Jesus is getting at here.  Jesus reminds people that the law allows for revenge--eye for eye and tooth for tooth.  But Jesus tells us to go beyond that.  Don’t focus on revenge.  Focus on love.  

            Jesus says that in a different way later in the passage.  He says, look, everyone loves people who love them.  Everyone’s friendly to people who are friendly to them.  That’s no big deal.  If you do that, you’re no different from anyone else.

            Jesus tells us, if we really want to follow him, we have to be different.  We cannot just follow the law.  We cannot just do what everyone else does.  We need to go beyond that.  We need to focus on love.

            What does that mean for our lives?  Well, think about it.  Think about a time someone has treated you badly.  Think about a time someone has cheated you, or betrayed you.  I suspect almost all of us have had that happen.  Maybe you’ve even had someone physically assault you.  Think about those times.  How did you respond?

            And when I ask “how did you respond”, I’m not necessarily asking what actions did you take.  That’s part of it, but the more important question is this:  what was in your heart?  The actions you took were just the result of what was in your heart.  When you were cheated, when you were betrayed, if you were physically attacked, how did you respond in your heart?  Did you respond with a desire for revenge--an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?  Or did you respond with love?

            And responding with love does not necessarily mean you did nothing about it.  That’s not what I’m saying.  But again, whatever you did do about it, what was in your heart?  Why did you respond the way you did?  What were you feeling when you responded the way you did?  What did you want to have happen when you responded the way you did?  What was in your heart?

            These are not easy questions.  They’re not supposed to be.  I told you--I wish I could take this part out of the Bible and not have to deal with it.  But we cannot do that and still honestly call ourselves Christians.  We have to deal with these things, whether we like it or not.

            Jesus said these things.  Jesus meant them.  Jesus lived them.  If we want to call ourselves followers of Jesus, we need to live them, too.  That means responding with love in all situations.  Even when we’ve been cheated.  Even when we’ve been taken advantage of.  Even when we’ve been attacked.  Even when we’ve been betrayed.

            Jesus knew this would not be easy for us.  At the end of this passage, Jesus says, “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Jesus did not say that as a law.  He was not saying, if you’re not perfect, God will send you to hell.  Jesus was saying, that’s your goal.  That’s what I want all of you to aspire to.  That’s what you need to try to do.  Always.  Under all circumstances.  Even when people treat you like dirt.  Go beyond what the law requires.  Show love, just as Jesus showed love and just as God the Father shows love.  Respond with love, always.

            We’ll fail sometimes.  We’ll fail lots of times.  But that’s not an excuse.  When we fail, we need to ask God for forgiveness and try again.  And again.  And again and again.  Never give up.  Keep trying to respond with love, always.  

            Jesus said these things.  Jesus meant them.  Jesus lived them.  If we want to call ourselves followers of Jesus, we need to live them, too.

 

Finding a Way to Forgive

The message given at the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 18:21-35.

            A lot of us have said the Lord’s Prayer so many times that we sometimes say it without really thinking about it.  I have to admit that I’m guilty of that sometimes.  And, to be honest, it happens the most when I pray it during a church service.  Not always, but sometimes.  I start thinking about what comes next in the service, what’s the next thing I have to say, what’s the next thing I have to do, and all the time I’m thinking that the words just kind of come out automatically, without my really thinking about them.  Maybe you’ve had that happen to you, too.

            But it’s too bad, because the words of the Lord’s Prayer are important.  And they’re not always easy for us to follow.  That’s especially true of the sentence we’re going to talk about tonight.  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

            Let’s get one thing out of the way early.  Some church traditions, as we do, say “trespasses”.  Others say “debts”.  Others says “sins”.  It really does not matter.  United Methodists say “trespasses” because trespasses is an old English word, used in the King James Bible, and United Methodism started in England.  But I think we all know that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer we’re not asking God to forgive us for going on someone’s property without permission.  It’s not that kind of trespasses.  And I also think we know we’re not asking God to forgive us for owing money.  It’s not that kind of debts.  We’re asking God to forgive our sins.

            But asking God to forgive our sins is the easy part of this sentence.  That’s not to say it’s always easy.  Sometimes we don’t really feel like talking to God about our sins.  Sometimes we don’t even feel like admitting them even to ourselves.  Sometimes we want to pretend that our sins are not really sins, that we really did not do anything wrong.  Sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to justify our actions, or our inactions, and try to convince ourselves that everything we do or don’t do is okay.  And believe me, I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

            But even so, we know we’re sinners.  No matter how much we may try to push that thought away, we still know.  And we know we need to go to God and ask for forgiveness.  It’s not always easy to do, but we know we need to do it, and I think most of us probably do it.

            But there’s that second part of the sentence.  This is the part we tend to gloss over.  This is the part we tend to hurry right on past.  We ask God to forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us.

            That’s the tricky bit.  That’s the part we don’t like to have to deal with very much.  It’s one thing to ask God to forgive us.  It’s another thing entirely for us to forgive other people.

            But the thing is, the way Jesus puts it, the one is dependent on the other.  The extent to which we are forgiven depends on the extent to which we forgive.  Tonight we read Matthew’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer.  As you heard, right after teaching the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasizes this point about forgiveness.  He says, “For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive you.”

            That’s the point of what we read from Matthew 18 today, too.  Jesus tells the story of a servant who owed his master a bunch of money and was forgiven for it.  That same servant then went out, found someone who owed him a piddly amount and refused to forgive.  When the master found out about it, he revoked the forgiveness he had given the servant.  Jesus said that’s how it’s going to work for us, too.  He said if we don’t forgive others, we are not going to be forgiven.

            But then, Jesus said one more thing.  He said that the forgiveness you and I give someone must come “from your heart”.  In other words, it’s not enough for us to just say we forgive someone.  We need to feel it.  Our forgiveness needs to be completely and totally heart-felt if it’s going to count.

            And that’s really hard.  Because sometimes we’re not ready to forgive someone.  And sometimes we just plain don’t feel like it.  We feel like someone does not deserve our forgiveness.  We feel like they have not asked for forgiveness and probably could not care less whether we forgive them or not.  And sometimes, what someone did to us really hurt.  It was more than just the ordinary mistake or doing something wrong, it was a betrayal.  And when we feel someone has betrayed us, when we put our trust in someone and they let us down and hurt us, it’s really hard for us to forgive them.

            But here’s the thing.  Jesus knows how hard this is.  Jesus knows that because he did it himself.  Think about what happened to Jesus.  He was criticized and made fun of.  He was talked about behind his back.  He was lied about.  He was arrested on trumped up charges, charges that had no basis in reality.  And he was sentenced to death, even though Roman law did not allow him to be put to death for what he was charged with.

            And all the while, the common people, people like you and me, were cheering all of this.  When Pilate brought Jesus out before the crowd, and gave the people the chance to ask for Jesus’ release, they refused.  Not only did they refuse to ask for Jesus to be released, they demanded that Jesus be killed.  Those shouts of “Crucify!  Crucify!” would still have been ringing in Jesus’ ears when he was taken to the cross.

Can you imagine, if you were Jesus, what that would feel like?  To have all these people, these people you came to earth to save.  These people you literally love more than life itself.  These people who just a few days ago had been cheering you on as you rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  Now, even though you’ve done nothing but love them and try to help them and try to save them, they’re demanding your death.  Can you imagine what that would be like?  Can  you imagine how Jesus must have felt?

 We say that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.  Because he was fully human, it seems like there must have been a part of Jesus that wanted to strike back at these people somehow.  He must’ve been tempted to bring down lightning bolts from heaven on them.  At the least, he must’ve wanted to tell them off, tell them what hypocrites they were.

So, if you’re struggling with forgiving someone, whether it’s for something that happened recently or something that happened a long time ago, know that Jesus understands what you’re going through.  Jesus knows what it’s like.  Jesus knows it’s hard.  Jesus has been there.

            But Jesus found a way to forgive them.  And that’s what we need to do, too.  No matter how hard it is to forgive, no matter how much we may not even want to forgive, we still need to try to find a way to do it.  The extent to which we are forgiven depends on the extent to which we’re willing to forgive.  That’s the rule.

            But as I was thinking about this, I remembered something we’ve said in other contexts about God’s rules.  We’ve said that God does not give us rules so that God can send us to hell if we break them.  God gives us rules because God knows we’ll be happier, we’ll do better, we’ll live better lives, if we just do things the way God tells us to.  And that includes forgiveness.  Jesus did not tell us this so that God would have an excuse to send us to hell if we don’t forgive people.  Jesus told us this because God knows that you and I need to offer people forgiveness.

            Sometimes in life, people do really hurt us.  And when they do, it is really hard to forgive.  And as I said, Jesus understands that.  But when we don’t forgive, we never get past the hurt.  The hurt stays in our hearts.  We re-live it, over and over again.  That hurt takes away our happiness.  It takes away our joy in living.  It takes away from our self-confidence.  That hurt even gets in the way of our ability to serve God.  The only way we can ever get rid of that hurt, the only way we can ever truly heal, is to find a way to forgive.

            It’s not easy.  I don’t have a magic formula to tell you how to do it.  I do think it involves prayer.  I think it involves asking God to help us be able to forgive.  I think it involves asking God to help us let go of the past and move forward in our lives.

            Again, that’s not a magic formula.  It’s not like saying one quick prayer is going to enable us to forgive.  It takes time.  It takes effort.  But I do believe that if we keep trying, and keep praying, eventually God will answer our prayer and will help us forgive.

            So the next time you say the Lord’s Prayer, think about those words.  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Take a moment and ask God to help you forgive anyone you need to forgive, whether you want to or not.  When we pray this way, God will answer our prayer and get rid of our hurt.

Lost in Translation

A couple of weeks ago, Wanda and I were in the car and she decided she wanted to call a friend of hers, who works in the convenience store in Blunt.  We didn’t know the number, so we called directory assistance.  

We did not get a real person, of course.  We got some sort of automated answering machine.  It asked “What city and state?”  I responded “Blunt, South Dakota.”  It then asked, “What listing, please?”  I responded, “Medicine Creek convenience store.”

The machine said, “That’s ServiceMaster of Sioux Falls, right?”

I was amazed.  I couldn’t even get upset.  I eventually got to talk to a human being and got the right number, but still this was incredible.  I don’t know how anyone, even a machine, gets “ServiceMaster of Sioux Falls” out of “Medicine Creek convenience store”.

Do you ever feel like your prayers work like that?  You pray for something, and you think it’s clear what you’ve asked God to do.  And then God does something that has nothing to do with what you asked for.  It may not even be in the same zip code as what you asked for.  And you think, “God, how in the world did you get that out of what I prayed for? 

It can be frustrating.  We make a request to God that we see as perfectly reasonable and appropriate.  A request that would really help.  A request that we think would be best not just for us, but for everyone.  We cannot see a downside to it.  And then God does something completely different, and we cannot understand it.  We cannot imagine what God might be up to.

And that’s when we find out.  That’s when we find out how much faith and trust we really have in God.  When we make what seems to us a request that should meet with God’s approval, a request that we think would benefit so many people, and God goes in a completely different direction.  That’s when we find out if we really trust God enough to go with God in that different direction, or if we’re going to stay where we are and get upset with God for not doing things our way.

You know what the answer should be.  It’s not always easy, of course.  We get disappointed.  We get discouraged.  We get confused.  We don’t understand what God is doing.  We know that we should trust God, but--we’re just not sure we can.  

I’m reminded of a scene from Doctor Who.  The Doctor says to his friend, “Amy, I need you to trust me.”  Amy says, “But you don’t always explain things to me.”  And the Doctor responds, “If I could explain everything to you, I wouldn’t need you to trust me.”

God cannot always explain everything to us.  We probably wouldn’t understand the explanation if God did.  And so, we need to trust God, even when we’re confused, and even when we don’t understand.

I hope you can do that.  I hope I can, too.  Even when God does not do what we asked, even when what God does seems to have no relationship to what we asked, I hope you can trust God.  I hope I can, too.

 

Fulfillment of the Law

This is the message given on Sunday, August 30, 2020 in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 5:17-22.

            Every society has to have some sort of laws.  They may be written down in to books, or they may be just an understanding among people.  They may be made by a group or they may be made by one person.  But for a society to function, there has to be some sort of rules.  There has to be some understanding of what’s allowed and what’s not.

            In the United States, we’ve always prided ourselves on being a society of law and not of men.  What we mean by that, of course, is that we believe the law should apply equally to everyone.  You’ll hear people use the phrase, “No one is above the law.”  It does not always work that way in practice, of course--you can think of examples, and so can I--but the theory, at least, is that the rules of society apply to everybody, no matter who you are.

            The reason human societies have these laws, as you probably know, is because of sin.  If we all just did the right thing all the time, if we all acted as God wants us to act, there’d be no need for laws.  I suspect that’s how it is in heaven.  There’d be no need for law in heaven, because in heaven our sins will have been washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ.  We’ll be the people we’re supposed to be, holy and spotless, made perfect by God’s love.  No law will be required to make us that way--we just will be that way by our faith in Jesus as the Savior and by God’s love and grace and mercy.

            The society of Jesus’ time was a human society, too, and so that human society had a lot of laws.  There were the laws enforced by the Roman government.  But there were also the Jewish religious laws, enforced by the religious leaders of the day.  There were a lot of those laws.  It started from the Ten Commandments, which were simple enough, but then there were all the laws of Moses, and then there were all the decisions of the judges, and then all the interpretations by the Rabbis, and so by the time Jesus came to earth there was a lot of law.  Not as much as we have in America today, probably, but still, it was a lot.

            And people believed in strict adherence to the law.  The Pharisees especially prided themselves on that.  And this was no small thing, because after all, these were God’s laws.  The Pharisees believed the way to get to heaven was to follow the law.  If you followed the law perfectly, God would be pleased and you’d go to heaven.  Following the law was, for them, a matter of eternal life and death.

            That’s why the Pharisees were so upset when Jesus did things like breaking the Sabbath law, healing people on the Sabbath.  They did not care so much about Jesus himself.  But Jesus was a very influential person.  If people saw Jesus breaking the religious laws, they might think they could break them, too.  The religious laws, which originated from God through Moses and then through all the judges and Rabbis and teachers, could be lost.

            And sometimes we look at Jesus that way, too.  We read about Jesus breaking the Sabbath law, and we think Jesus did not believe in the religious laws.  We say things like, “Well, when Jesus came, he freed us from the requirements of the religious laws.”  I think I’ve probably said that myself at some point.

            But if we say that, what do we do with our passage for today?  Listen again to what Jesus said about the law:

 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.  Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Yes, Jesus did break the religious laws on occasion.  But he did not say the religious laws were no longer valid.  He did not say we could ignore them and break them with no consequences.  Jesus said the religious laws were tremendously important.  After all, those religious laws came from God.  Jesus would never have told us that we could just ignore God’s law.

But here’s the thing.  Let’s take the Ten Commandments for example.  Now, the Ten Commandments are wonderful.  They’re awesome.  You’ll never hear me say anything against the Ten Commandments.  One of the things I always do with my confirmation students is have them read the Ten Commandments.  But then I ask them a question.  I ask them “What is the thing Jesus talked about the most that is not included in the Ten Commandments?”

Anyone know what it is?

It’s love.  Love is not mentioned anywhere in the Ten Commandments.  They say we should not have any other gods, but they don’t say we should love God.  They say we should honor our parents, but they don’t say we should love them.  They say we should not speak falsely against our neighbor, but they don’t say we should love our neighbor.  Love is simply absent from the Ten Commandments.

Now, the Ten Commandments are still tremendously important.  Again, they came from God.  But what Jesus knew is that it’s possible to follow all the Ten Commandments, to follow all the Mosaic laws, and to follow all the rules and regulations, and yet not feel love.  Not love for God, not love for our neighbor, not love for anyone.  

And yet, what did Jesus tell us was the greatest commandment?  That we love the Lord our God.  And what did Jesus say was just like it?  That we love our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus was not saying God’s law was unimportant.  Again, he said it was very important.  But what Jesus said is that following the letter of the law is not enough.  We need to do more than that.

In fact, that’s what Jesus goes on to say in our reading for today.  In fact, he uses an example from the Ten Commandments:  you shall nor murder.  Jesus does not say that’s wrong.  It’s right.  We’re not supposed to commit murder.  But Jesus says it’s not enough to just avoid murder.  We need to go beyond that.

He talks about how we treat brothers and sisters, and as you probably know he’s not talking about that in the sense of blood relation.  He’s talking about our fellow believers, male or female.  He says we should not even be angry with each other.  We should not call each other names--“Raca” was a term of contempt in Aramaic.  And if we call each other fools, we are in danger of the fire of hell.

            That’s a tough standard.  But that’s how Jesus says we should look at all of the religious laws.  It’s not enough to just follow the letter of the law, even when it’s God’s law.  We need to apply those laws with love.  

            That’s why Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath day.  It’s not that Jesus thought the Sabbath law was unimportant.  He thought it was very important.  Jesus did not say we can do anything we want on the Sabbath.  He did not say go fishing or go golfing or watch a ball game on the Sabbath because the Sabbath does not matter.  But what he did say is that when you have a chance to help someone and show God’s love to someone, don’t let the fact that it’s the Sabbath day keep you from helping them and showing God’s love to them. 

            Jesus said to apply the Sabbath law with love.  That’s what Jesus said about all of God’s laws--apply them with love.  Don’t just put God ahead of other gods--love God.  Don’t just honor our parents--love them.  Don’t just avoid killing each other or lying about each other--love each other.  Love is the fulfillment of the law.  Love of God and love of each other.

            That’s our goal.  To honor God’s law, to follow God’s law, and to apply God’s law with love.  Will we always do that perfectly?  No, probably not.  I know I won’t.  That’s where repentance and forgiveness come into it.  When we fail, we need to ask for God’s forgiveness and then do whatever we can to change, so we can avoid failing the next time.  But we also should not use that as an excuse.  We should be grateful that God gives us another chance, but we need to do our best to take advantage of that chance.  God knows we are not perfect, but God expects us to do our best.  We should not take God’s forgiveness for granted.

            Jesus did not tell us we could ignore God’s law.  In fact, he said we should follow God’s law.  But he also said we should do more than just follow the letter of the law.  We should apply God’s law with love--love of God and love of each other.  That way, we will not just be following the law.  We will be following the Holy Spirit that gave us the law.

 

Manna, Man!

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on August 23, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Exodus 16:1-20 and Matthew 6:25-34.

The Lord’s Prayer starts by acknowledging who God is.  We then pray for God’s kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done, hopefully while recognizing that we have a responsibility to do our part to bring God’s kingdom and God’s will closer to our world on Earth. Then comes the next sentence of the prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread”.

            We’ve talked about how both Matthew and Luke have a version of the Lord’s Prayer, and how the two versions are different.  This sentence, however, appears in both Matthew’s version of the prayer and Luke’s version.  This was clearly something that stuck with the people who heard Jesus give this prayer.  “Give us this day our daily bread”.

            When the people of Jesus’ time heard this, they would’ve instantly thought of the story from Exodus we read today.  The people of Israel were out in the wilderness.  God, through Moses, had led them out of slavery in Egypt.  But now, they’re out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat.  And they’re not very happy about it.  They accuse Moses, and of course by implication accuse God, of having led them out into the wilderness to starve.  They say they’d have been better off to stay in slavery, because at least there they had enough to eat.

            So, God gives them something to eat.  Manna.  Moses refers to manna as “the bread the Lord has given you to eat”.  But, he tells them, they can only gather as much as they need for today.  Don’t try to save any of it for tomorrow.  That won’t work.  God is only giving you enough for today.

            Now of course, people being people, somebody had to test that, right?  Sure enough, some people tried to save some manna for the next day, and sure enough it was no good.  Surprise, God, speaking through Moses, told the truth.  Who’d have thought?  God only gave them enough for today.  They’d have to learn to take it one day at a time.  God would give them enough for tomorrow when tomorrow got there, and not before.

            That’s the story people would’ve thought of when Jesus said this line of the Lord’s Prayer.  And it goes along perfectly with what Jesus said in our reading from Matthew today.  Jesus tells us, don’t worry about whether you’ll have enough to eat or enough to drink or enough clothes to wear.  God knows we need those things.  Jesus says, what you should be trying to get is not food or drink or clothes, but God’s kingdom.  Jesus says that if we get that, everything else will fall into place.

            That probably accounts for the order in which we say these things in the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus tells us to first acknowledge who God is, then pray for God’s kingdom to come.  Only then are we supposed to ask for anything for ourselves.  And when we do, we’re supposed only ask for enough for today, and not worry about tomorrow.

            In fact, it seems to me that the order in which Jesus put things in this prayer is a tremendous example to us about keeping our priorities straight.  Jesus tells us that we need to keep our focus first and foremost on God.  Not on ourselves, and not on the things of this earth.  On God.  

Jesus acknowledges that our earthly needs are important, too.  It’s just that Jesus says they get a lower priority.  Our first priority should be serving God’s kingdom and doing our part to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.  In fact, if you think about it, probably the only reason we pray for our daily bread is that without it, we would not have the strength to do our part to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.  We need food and drink to survive.  But we’re not supposed to pray for those things for ourselves.  We’re supposed to pray for them so we can have the strength we need to serve God.

Which is also probably one of the reasons Jesus told us to pray for bread.  Bread, after all, is one of the staple foods of life.  There’s nothing fancy about bread.  I mean, nowadays there can be.  People bake all kinds of fancy breads now.  But in Jesus’ time, bread was pretty simple.  It was pretty basic.  That’s what Jesus told us to pray for:  just our basic needs.  Just pray for what we need, not what we might like to have.

            That’s not always the easiest thing to do.  There are a lot of times when we’re like those people of Israel who tried to save the manna for tomorrow.  We don’t really want just our daily bread.  We want enough for tomorrow and next week and next month.  

We’re like the people of Israel in another way, too.  Remember, in the book of Numbers, how the people complain about having nothing to eat but manna every day?  They go to Moses and say, “All we ever get to eat around here is manna.  Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner, manna for supper.  Manna for a midnight snack.  Manna, manna, manna.  Man, oh man, am I tired of manna!  I’d rather eat a banana with my nana in Montana while wearing a bandana than eat any more of this stupid manna!”

And that’s true of us, too.  We don’t want to just have our basic needs met.  We don’t want just enough to get by.  We want a lot of other stuff, too.  We want to have a nice house and a nice car and a nice home entertainment system and enough money to do some traveling and to have some more nice stuff, too.

Now, before we go any farther, please understand that I am not pointing a finger here.  Everything I just said applies to me just as much as it applies to anyone else.  And I’m not saying we cannot be Christians and have some nice stuff.  I think we can.

But it gets back, again, to priorities.  And it also gets back to what we should be praying for.  Our first priority, in our prayers and in our lives, needs to be God’s kingdom.  Our first priority, in our prayers and in our lives, needs to be serving God.  Our first priority, again in both our prayers and our lives, needs to be to do our part to bring about God’s kingdom on Earth.

And our prayers, in terms of what we’re asking God to give us, is enough to give us the strength to do that.  If God chooses to bless us with other things, that’s up to God.  But God does not owe it to us to give us anything else, and Jesus did not tell us to pray for anything else.  Jesus told us to pray the basic things we need to get us through the day.  No more and no less.

What Jesus is telling us to do, basically, is take one day at a time.  And you know, think of how much less stress and worry there’d be in our lives if we did that.  Think how much easier our lives would be if we just asked God to give us enough to get us through today, and trusted that God would give us enough to get through tomorrow when tomorrow got here.

And then, think about how much less stress and worry there’d be in our lives if we carried that principle into other areas besides food.  I suspect a lot of us have “to-do” lists.  I know I do.  And that’s okay.  For me, it’s the only way I can keep from forgetting things, and sometimes I still forget things anyway.

But you know, sometimes, when we look at that “to-do” list, it’s kind of scary.  We look at all the things we have to do for a week, or for a couple of weeks, and then we look at the amount of time we have to do them in, and we think, “How am I ever going to get all this done?”  Have you ever done that?  Happens to me all the time.

But what if we applied the “daily bread” principle to that?  What if we prayed, “God, give me enough time and energy today to do the things I need to do today.  And I’ll trust you that, when tomorrow comes, you’ll give enough time and energy to do the things I need to do tomorrow.”

How much less would we worry if we did that?  How much less stress would we have in our lives?  How much better off would we be, how much happier would we be, how much more able to serve God would we be, if we just trusted God to give us the time and energy to get done all the things we need to do?

God, through Moses, told the people God would give them enough for today.  Jesus told us to pray that God give us enough for today so we have the strength to serve God’s kingdom.  And Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow, because as long as we serve God’s kingdom, God will take care of tomorrow.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”  Acknowledge who God is, do our part to bring about God’s kingdom on earth, and ask for God to give us the basic things we need for today.  No more and no less.  If we pray this way, we can be pretty confident that God will answer our prayer.

 

Dealing With It

I got to see my Mom last Friday!  It wasn’t a visit like the old days, of course.  We had to be outdoors.  We had to be six feet apart.  We had to wear masks.  We could not make any physical contact.  And it could only be for a half hour.  But it was a lot better than the visits we’ve had, where we had to try to visit through a window which was open maybe an inch. 

It was the first time I’d seen my Mom in person, rather than through the window, in about six months.  It was really good to see her, even for a short time.  For ninety-five, she’s doing very well.  She has a few problems, but who doesn’t at ninety-five?  She doesn’t have nearly as many problems as a lot of people her age, for which we are grateful.

The restrictions on visits are frustrating.  I’m not going to get into the merits of wearing masks or social distancing or any of that stuff--what you think is what you think, and I don’t suppose I could change your mind even if I wanted to.  I certainly understand the need to protect a vulnerable population, such as you have in a nursing home.  

But even if you believe the rules are necessary, they’re still frustrating.  I want to give my Mom a hug.  I want to see her whole face, not just the part that’s visible outside the mask.  I want to visit her as long as I want, not just for a half hour.  But that’s not the way it is.  I can like that, or I can not like it, but I have to deal with it, because I can’t do anything about it.

A lot of life is like that--we have things we don’t like, but we have to deal with them, because we can’t do anything about them.  That’s especially been true in the age of COVID.  A lot of people have been praying for God to put an end to this pandemic.  But so far, it has not happened.  We don’t know why not, but it hasn’t.  And so, we have to keep dealing with the pandemic and with all the problems and disruptions it causes.

But you know, that happened in the Bible all the time.  Not a pandemic, specifically, but things happened that people did not like.  And they prayed to God to change them.  And--things did not change.  For example, the Apostle Paul wrote about praying for God to remove an ailment he had, what he called a thorn in his side.  And God did not do it.  So Paul just had to deal with it.

How do you react when you ask God to do something, and God does not do it?  Do you keep praying, hoping God will change His mind?  There’s nothing wrong with that, up to a point.  God may be testing us, making us prove to ourselves that what we’re asking really is what we want.  God may be waiting for the right time to act.  Just because God does not do what we ask right away does not necessarily mean that God is not going to do what we ask.

But at some point, we need to recognize that God has heard our prayer, God has considered our request, and God has said no.  How do we react then?  Do we get upset with God?  Do we doubt God?  Do we give up on God?  Or do we trust that God must have a good reason for saying no, even if we don’t understand what it is?  Can we have faith that God knows better than we do, that God’s plan is better than our plan, and continue to trust God even when what God is doing seems wrong to us?

That’s when we see how real our faith is.  That’s when we see how much we trust God.  When we think that what we’ve asked for is the best, not just for ourselves but for everyone, and God says no, our reaction to that is the test of how we truly feel about God.

It’s fine to keep praying.  But when God says no, may we have the faith to trust that God’s ways are better than our ways.  May we continue to trust God.

 

The Choice

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, August 23, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 5:10-16.

            I like compliments.  Maybe you do, too.  I like to hear people say good things about me.  I like it when someone says I’ve preached a good sermon, or written a good song.  I like it when someone thanks me for something I’ve done.  Those things make me feel good.  They make me feel like I’m doing things right.

            I don’t like criticism.  I don’t know very many people who do.  I don’t like it when people tell me I’m making mistakes, that I’m messing up.  I tend to automatically get defensive.  I resist criticism.  Maybe you do, too.

            Now, there are times when the criticism is entirely justified.  And sometimes, after I calm down a little and drop my defensiveness, I can see that.  In fact, I can think of times in my life that I’m very fortunate that someone cared enough about me to criticize me.  There are times when people said things to me that I did not want to hear, and things they probably did not want to say.  But they were things they knew I needed to hear, and they loved me enough to say them anyway.

            But you know, it’s one thing to get criticism that we know is legitimate and justified.  But have you ever been criticized that you knew was not justified?  Have you had a time when you knew you had absolutely done the right thing, and yet people criticized you for it anyway?  Or, have you had a time when people just made up stuff about you, stuff that had not the slightest resemblance to the truth, and criticized you for that?

            I suspect some of us have.  If it’s you, how did that make you feel?

            Probably not very good.  It probably made you mad.  You were probably hurt.  And the hardest thing of all was that some people you knew believed the criticism.  In fact, maybe some people you thought were your friends, people who you thought knew you and cared about you, believed the unfair, unjust, untrue criticism of you.  That goes beyond feeling hurt.  That’s a betrayal.  And a betrayal is one of the worst hurts of all.

            And yet, here’s Jesus.  He’s giving what we commonly call the beatitudes.  And as some of you know, Jesus is stating that lots of groups of people are blessed.  He’s saying things like “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are the merciful” and “Blessed are the peacemakers”.  And we read all that, and we nod our heads in agreement.  Probably his original audience did, too.  After all, all that makes good sense.

            But then, Jesus says, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.”

            Now, I’ve been insulted plenty of times in my life.  After all, I used to be a lawyer.  And probably you’ve been insulted plenty of times in your life, too.  You get used to it after a while.  But I don’t think I’ve ever felt blessed by those insults.  And I have certainly never rejoiced about them.  But that’s what Jesus tells us to do.

            But of course, Jesus does not tell us to feel that way about just any insults.  Jesus says we should feel blessed when people insult us because of him.  We should rejoice when people insult us because of our faith in Jesus as the Savior.

            And that makes it make a little more sense, I guess.  But still.  We’re trying to bring people to Jesus, right?  We’re trying to spread the word about Jesus, so people can believe and have salvation and eternal life.  Why should we rejoice when our efforts meet with criticism and insults?

            Well, let’s look at the life of Jesus.  He was trying to bring people to God.  He was trying to spread the word.  He wanted people to believe and have salvation and eternal life.  And yet, what happened to him?  He was insulted.  He was persecuted.  His enemies made up all kinds of stories about him.  They were so desperate to find a way to bring him down, to stop him, that if they could not do it with the truth they would do it with lies.  In their minds, the end justified the means.  Whatever they had to do was okay, as long as it would stop Jesus.

            How did Jesus react to all that?  Did he get mad?  Did he fire back at his accusers?  No.  He really did not do anything.  He pretty much ignored his accusers.  He just kept doing what he did.  He just kept speaking the truth.

            I don’t know if the Bible tells us of a time when Jesus actually rejoiced when these things happened to him.  But I think he may have found satisfaction from it, in a way.  Jesus knew that what he was doing and what he was saying was going to upset people.  Jesus knew there were people who did not want to accept him, who did not want to hear the truth.  And so, when those people attacked him, and insulted him, and persecuted him, I suspect Jesus took that as a sign that he was doing things right.  He was doing what God the Father wanted him to do and saying what God the Father wanted him to say.  And that had to make Jesus feel good, to know that despite everything, he was following God the Father.

            You know, we think of Jesus sometimes as being kind and loving and peaceful.  And of course, Jesus was all of those things.  But Jesus was more than that.  Jesus had courage.  Jesus wanted peace, but not peace at any price.  Remember, Jesus is the one who said “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

            It’s not that Jesus wanted trouble.  But again, he knew that there were people who would not want to hear what he had to say, and who would do anything to silence him.  And so, he had to make a choice.  He could back off, back down, keep quiet, get along, and go along.  Or, he could stand up for God, stand up for the truth, and deal with the consequences that he knew would follow.

            And of course, the second of those is what he did.  Jesus stood up for God.  He stood up for the truth.  And he dealt with the consequences.  And in the end, I suspect that he did rejoice, knowing that he had stayed faithful to God the Father and had done what he had been sent to earth to do.

            And that is what Jesus tells us to do.  We are supposed to be kind and loving and peaceful, too.  God wants us to be all of those things.  But God wants us to be more than that.  God does not want us to settle for peace at any price.  God wants us to have courage, the courage to speak the truth.  God wants us to speak the truth about Him, and the truth about Jesus Christ.  

            And in our society today, that’s going to cause trouble, just as it did in Jesus’ society in Jesus’ day.  If we speak God’s truth, there will be people who do not want to hear what we have to say.  There will be people who will want to silence us.

            Sometimes we think, in our small towns here in central South Dakota, that we’re isolated from that.  We think, well, standing up for God is not going to get me into trouble here.  Not in our little town.

            But it will.  Or at least, it can.  Not to the extent that it can other places, probably.  At least, not yet.  But even here, there are people who do not want to hear God’s truth.  And some of them will do what they can to silence us.  They probably won’t try to do us any physical harm.  But they may shun us.  They may mock us.  They may talk about us behind our backs.  We can lose friends by standing up for God’s truth.

            And when that happens, we’re going to have to make a choice.  We can back off.  We can back down.  We can keep quiet, get along, go along.  Or, we can stand up for God, stand up for the truth, and deal with the consequences that will follow from that. 

            That’s our choice.  You and I can be that salt of the earth Jesus talked about.  We can be that light of the world.  Or, we can lose our saltiness, and be good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot.  We can put our light under a bowl, where no one can see it.  

It’s the choice each of us has to make.  And I know some of us already have.  If you have not, at some point you will.  And if you have, at some point you’ll have to make it again.  Because every survey shows that in this country, people are less and less interested in hearing God’s truth.  In all kinds of ways, large and small, you and I, as Christians, are told that we should keep our faith to ourselves.  Even here, in small town South Dakota.

So, that’s our choice.  Keep quiet, go along, and get along.  Or stand up for God’s truth.  And rejoice at the criticism and the insults.  Because we know we are staying faithful to God, and that we will get our reward in heaven.

We know what choice Jesus told us to make.  We know what choice God wants us to make.  The question is, will we make that choice?