Prayerful Communication

1Kings 3: 5-12
Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

Many of us pray for what we feel we are missing in our lives. We pray for good health, lots of wealth and good fortune, and we pray quickly for others to receive what they need as well. Sometimes our prayers stem from our neediness or our greediness, and other times they well up from deep inside of us like wordless groans full of pain and anguish and despair. There are no words really, at times like this, there is just those feelings that so overwhelm us that our thoughts swirl with no sense and our voice is lost.

In those times, I believe, is when the Holy Spirit takes over our prayers. God doesn’t need perfect word choices or good English to understand what we desire most in our hearts. God doesn’t even need words to know what we want to pray for, what we desperately wish we could voice, but sometimes find ourselves without proper articulation.

What God does need is for us to keep the ways of communication open between us and Jesus. The best way to do that is through prayer. We need to speak to God and God wants to speak to us. It’s weird if you think about it, that God wants to speak to any of us. What is so interesting about you or me when compared to all that God knows, has done, and seen? It is very hard to imagine that anything we could say would be scintillating to God. It is also hard to imagine that God doesn’t already know exactly what we need or want and how we are going to phrase our request, so what’s the point in praying if God already knows?

This kind of reasoning is the rationale behind why some of us do not pray very often. When we do take the time to squeak out a prayer it is short, to the point, and it becomes the very thing we fear it is – boring to us and boring to God. God doesn’t want Reader’s Digest prayers from us. Of course God knows what we need and want, the reason for prayer is so much bigger than requests or asking for favors. Prayer opens up our lives.

This is what Solomon teaches us in the 1Kings passage we read today. Although God had created Solomon and was a blessed man, he still managed to surprise God when he asked not for money or power, but instead he asked for divine wisdom to rule God’s people. God not only heard and answered Solomon’s prayerful request, God also gave Solomon the things he did not ask for because that is what happens when we start to pray and communicate more with God. We find blessings begin to surround us everywhere we go because our spiritual eyes are opened.

Prayer creates a mystery, a living link between God and the person praying. They are linked by the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. Just as the Spirit offers up wordless groans when we have lost the words we need in the depths of our emotions, Jesus offers up those perfect words and a pure heart so that when God hears the prayer through Jesus, we are not left as audacious sinners begging for crumbs from the master’s table, we are elevated up into the realms of heaven and are able to stand with our head high. The prayers we pray in Jesus’ name become a conversation with God instead of a servant begging its master for favors.

Do you see the distinction? This is what Jesus did for us. This is the reason we come to worship and why we pray. How could we not pray after such a gift has bestowed upon us? We are able to have a conversation with God. God listens to us, God hears us and God responds to us. It’s glorious!  We matter to God. If you do not matter to any other person in this world, you matter to God. You have worth and value in God’s eyes. That is worth praying just to say thank you.

There are many kinds of prayers. I love the Psalms because they are basically prayers that were sung by various people. Many of them were attributed to David, Solomon’s father. You’ll find as you read the Psalms that each one offers up things to God that many of us have forgotten how to offer to anyone, let alone to God. There is vulnerability, anger, despair, happiness and frustration in many of these Psalms. The people who wrote them weren’t afraid to give God all of their ugly feelings; they never curbed their tongue so as not to yell at God when they were angry with what God had done to them. But they also gave to God the flip side; they shared their joy and happiness with God.

It’s sad that often we forget to pray when we are happy. When we are content and moving along well in life, God seems to take a step down the ladder of importance. However, the moment we are in trouble, our thoughts find God like a beacon. Perhaps that is the human condition, to be concerned with God and the afterlife when we face our own mortality and frailty, when we face how helpless we really are in the world. When we are happy we feel in control of our surroundings and if we are in control then we do not need any help from God.

The point of prayer is not just about getting help. As I said, prayer opens up the mystery of the divine into our very ordinary and un-divine lives. When we pray in Jesus’ name, many of us do it out of habit perhaps not even knowing why anyone does it to begin with. We pray in Jesus’ name because there is power in that name. If we prayed in our own name, it would be just us against all the world’s ills. But we pray in Jesus’ name because Jesus is God made flesh, Jesus is the divine entering into the ordinary and making it extraordinary. We pray to remember that it is by God’s grace that we have anything at all. We pray because it pleases God and it pleases our own soul.

Prayer is communication with God. Therefore prayer is the meeting of the divine soul with the human soul. It’s a brief moment where we are no longer stuck here in the muck and mire of sinfulness, but we get to experience the beauty of salvation because we are with God. And when you look at prayer like that, the more often we pray the better chance we have of staying away from those things that tempt us. Instead, we could say with confidence that sin has died inside of us and that the Spirit is strong within us.

Open yourself up to the mystery of your faith by praying to God in Jesus’ name. Every day, every moment that you can, open yourself to God’s love through Jesus Christ. The prayer does not even have to be in words that anyone else would understand because God understands even our wordless thoughts. Through prayer we become closer to God and God’s love begins to shine within us like a priceless diamond in the sun. Every single one of us needs the gift that Jesus gave by dying for our sins so that when we pray we may do so with confidence and clarity, knowing that God hears our words. Enjoy that gift, embrace it and use it often.

Amen.

A Different Kind of God

Zechariah  9: 9-12
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30           

In the scripture today, Jesus tells us that his yoke fits well when we put it on and what he means is that instead of filling up our lives being busy all the time and trying to create our self-worth from how many things we accomplish in a day and how many people are our friends and how many likes we get on Facebook – Jesus tells us that the yoke he will give to us is made specifically for us and it will bring MEANING to our lives instead of just busyness. Because that is what we all want. We want to mean something. We want to leave a mark on the world and know that when we’re long gone, those who loved us still remember us.

Jesus brings meaning and purpose to our lives. Rather than filling up on useless endeavors that mean nothing in the long run, we need to fill our lives with the words of Jesus Christ, fill our lives with the voice of the Holy Spirit, and we need to fill up on the love God the Father has for all of His children. This is where meaning and purpose truly exist for us.

Every time you choose to do something good for your community; every time you forgive someone for something they did to you; every time you show compassion while everyone else is showing anger – you proclaim your witness to the love of God born out through the birth and death of Jesus Christ and continued through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Your life and your decisions may very well be the only Gospel some people ever read.

Think about that for a moment. When you proclaim yourself a Christian, you label yourself and YOU decide what people will think about a Christian by the way you treat them and by what you say to them. There are so many people who have never or barely ever cracked open a bible. YOU are the only living witness to the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

John, tried to show God to the people by being very ascetic and Jesus tried to show them God by being very friendly. Both were shot down by the people that thought they knew the Old Testament and knew God, but they were embraced by the people who didn’t know much about the OT, although they desperately wanted to know God. In today’s world, you can bet the same holds true.

We, in these churches like to think we know Jesus and know the ways of the Holy Spirit and that we know the love of God the Father. And we do to a certain extent just like the scribes and Pharisees did. However, you can bet that if Jesus came back today, that he would deliberately be the opposite of everything we’ve ever imagined him to be. Jesus was always breaking our preconceived ideas of what God is all about; as well as our ideas of what a Savior is supposed to be.

Back in the Pharisees time they were looking for a warrior on a horse that would lead a great army and cut down the Roman Empire. What do we expect Jesus to be now? The great humanitarian? Or is Jesus the emo kid with the black hair and spikes in his chin and piercings everywhere? Is Jesus the dirty, homeless man we passed by without a thought? Is Jesus the illegal immigrant just trying to save his family from a life as awful as the one he lived? Is Jesus the lesbian woman with cancer trying to get her lifelong partner death benefits when she dies? Is Jesus the black teenager trying to escape from the gangs he grew up in and was told he could never escape from by everyone in his life? Is Jesus the young woman dressed provocatively because she bases her self-worth on how many glances she receives because no one ever bothered to love the real person she is inside?

Jesus comes to us in many forms and in many ways. He rarely is what we expect him to be because we are limited by our own biases and preconceived ideas the way the Pharisees were when they encountered Jesus and John. Where are we blinded? It’s important for us to recognize our own failings and lack of imagination because it helps us grow into better people that accept the failings in others.

It’s easy to judge. We see in this passage that the scribes and Pharisees had judgment down to a T – and let’s be honest – so do we. However, we’re not called to be super critical and passive aggressive to our fellow human beings. We’re called to share the Gospel and that doesn’t always mean quoting scriptures at people. It’s about how you live your life. It’s about the words you choose to say that can wound or heal a person. It’s about taking a moment to help instead of hurt. It’s about offering real advice that is meant to help a person instead of using it as a way to put them down.

Every choice we make in both word and deed tells the world the kind of person we are and since we have proclaimed ourselves Christians – then we better recognize who Christ is so that we can follow his example. We cannot lie, hurt others, deliberately gossip, deliberately put them down, deliberately refuse to forgive mistakes, deliberately cause pain and think that non-Christians will want anything to do with Jesus Christ. They will run from God because we have shown them that God is a hypocrite that says “love and forgiveness and mercy” but then shows hatred, judgment, and pain when a person falls short of perfection.

Perhaps we need to take time to get to know Jesus all over again. Crack open that Bible and before you begin to read, ask God to show you where you have lacked imagination and forgiveness and acceptance. Ask God to show you more about who God is and what Jesus Christ is doing in this world today and then begin to read. Read with an open mind and heart. It’s what we need to do when we meet people as well. We need to listen with an open mind and heart. We need to find the beauty in each person because there is something beautiful and pure and good in everyone we encounter. They are God-made therefore they cannot help but have beauty inside of them.

When we start looking for the goodness in people, the flaws start to disappear. Stop criticizing and start loving – that is what Jesus calls us to do!

Amen. 

God is Enough

Genesis 22: 1-14
Matthew 10: 40-42

God asks a lot from the people that dare to believe in something greater than themselves. Many nonbelievers think being a Christian is all about love and forgiveness. They aren’t wrong, but it’s not the whole picture to what it means to be a faithful, active disciple of Jesus Christ. Throughout the last 3.5 years I have made it a point over and over again to remind all of you that we are a called people. That Jesus expects us to continue to follow him whether we are 8 years old or 80.

Helen Smith used to ask me all the time, “I don’t know why I’m still here. What is the point of my existing in this place, living out my life in a chair?” And I reminded her of the many people who stopped by to see her smile and grab a piece of candy she kept out for them. I reminded her of her roommate, who for the longest time was comatose and so whenever she spoke, Helen wrote down what she said and read it to her family when they’d come visiting every week. And then, when the lady came out of her comatose state, they became good friends that talked late into the night. Helen brought people hope until the day she died. Helen was a faithful disciple.

It wasn’t an easy choice that Helen made. She had her bad days. She had her doubting days. And then I’d come to visit and I’d remind her of these things and she’d say, “I guess you’re right. I never thought of it that way.” She’d remind ME of my reason for being a pastor – to help people see things in a new way. It’s a circle of trust and faith and doubt and pain and back to love and forgiveness and trust and faith. It’s a circle that we need others to help us with because being a Christian is about being in community with one another. You cannot be a Christian by sitting home alone.

Abraham and Sarah’s story is one of my favorites in the bible. It’s actually the first sermon I ever preached to all of you, my candidating sermon. The idea of this older couple, in the twilight of their lives, daring to believe such an audacious claim made by a God that doesn’t fulfill the promise made to them for another 20 years just astounds me. Their faith is a miracle. Their lives are a testament to what it means to follow wherever God would lead, no matter how crazy it seems to everyone else and sometimes to ourselves as well!

Then they have this beautiful, miraculous child and God isn’t done testing their faith. Hadn’t they been through enough with Hagar and with 20 years of waiting, and Sarah’s bitterness and Abraham’s foolishness? But no, God wasn’t done teaching them. He calls out to Abraham and tells him he must sacrifice his child, his precious Isaac that he’s waited 90 years to receive.

He didn’t tell Sarah what God had called him to do, you can bet on that! He didn’t even tell Isaac for when Isaac asks where the sacrifice is Abraham merely replies, “God will provide” to him. Abraham tells Isaac to lay down upon the altar and because he loves his father, he obeys. Abraham ties him down the way he would an animal and raises the knife high above his son’s heart.

What thoughts were racing through his mind? Were tears running down his face? Was the knife slick with his sweat as his arm trembled from the regret and pain he was feeling? Could he look upon his son’s face as he went to plunge the knife into his heart or did he look away, unable to bear seeing the life seep from his son’s eyes?

We know the ending of this story is a happy one. Abraham and Isaac had no idea. All we know is that Abraham’s faith is so radical and intense that he’s willing to let go of the one blessing he’s waited his whole life to receive. Are we that faithful to God?

I want you to think of your greatest blessing. Is it your child? Is it your family? Is it your career? Is it your ability to provide a roof over your head when you grew up dirt poor? Is it the respect of the community after a life of disrespect from your peers? Is it your ability to read and write and educate yourself when no one thought you’d amount to anything? Picture your blessing in your mind. And now picture being asked to let it go; to destroy it in the most horrific and intimate of ways.

Could you do it? Could you let go of your greatest blessing because God has asked you to?

Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son? Well, this is the same God that sacrificed his own Son, Jesus for all of us. Is that why God did it? Was it a tit for tat sort of thing? Is God sadistic and cruel and vengeful? No.

God asked Abraham to remember that Isaac is a blessing provided by God. God was asking Abraham if now that he had received the ultimate gift from God, would he continue to follow and be faithful to what God has called him to do? God was asking if Isaac was gone, would Abraham also be gone or was Abraham’s faith and belief in God so strong that nothing could break the bond between God and him?

The point of being a disciple of Jesus Christ is NOT the blessings we receive. It’s not just about the love and forgiveness and good things. God calls us to be faithful based on the one blessing that God gave the world – the blessing of His Son who died to bring us into an eternal relationship with the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit. And that’s what we ask ourselves today: If God asked us to give up our greatest gift, the best blessing we ever received in our lives – would we, could we obey?

God doesn’t actually ask us to give up what we’ve been given, but God does ask us to love God more than we love everything and everyone else in our lives. The only way to love God more is to be willing to let go of what keeps us from God. If you love your spouse more than God – then your spouse is your god. If you love your child more than you love God – then your child is your god. If you love your career or your car or your friends or alcohol, gambling, and drugs more than you do God – then they are your god. Whatever you don’t think you can’t live without and refuse to part with – that is a barrier between you and your Father in heaven.

It doesn’t mean you have to give it up forever, it’s about being willing to sacrifice the temporary for the eternal. It means giving your blessings into GOD’S hands to keep rather than trying to hold on to them yourself. What God has given, God will protect. We need to let go of our possessive hold and instead trust that Jesus has a purpose and plan for every one of us. Even the bad things have a purpose because from ashes of our old life and ways, gives birth the beautiful gifts of tomorrow.

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means trusting that God is all the blessing we need in our lives, and everyone/everything else is icing on the cake. And we all know cake is sweet enough, which means God is enough without the extra blessings. When we understand and act like God is all we need – we are free of worry and guilt and fear as we try to hold and protect what God has blessed us with. We are free to give those blessings back to God for God to protect and hold onto. We are free to just be disciples of Jesus and we will be happier for it.

Amen. 

A Disciple's Cross

Genesis 21: 1-14
Matthew 10: 24-39

The passage we read today leaves us asking several questions because of the nature of what Jesus was telling the disciples. It doesn’t sound like the Jesus we have come to expect and that is what we will be looking at this morning.

What does it mean to be like Jesus? These words were directed at Jesus’ twelve disciples and now they are directed at us. A disciple is another word for a person who is willing to learn. A disciple is willing to ask the hard questions and to look inside as well as outside of oneself to become more like their teacher. Our teacher is Jesus and so first we must ask ourselves, what does it mean to be more like Jesus Christ?

Jesus normally appears to be a harmless man who is gentle and kind, but in today’s passage, Jesus blows this idea clear out of the water when he says, “I have come not to bring peace.. but a sword”. Why would Jesus say something so surprising? Apparently, there is peace and then there is true peace that God would like to give to us. Perhaps Jesus is telling us that the demands of being his disciple can sometimes feel like a sword that cuts through lesser loyalties and makes quick work of our flabby, commonsense morality that we have adopted to fit better into society.

Because let’s face it, if Jesus was truly the person we always try to portray him to be: kind, gentle, without a divisive bone in his body who merely wants to bring humanity closer to God then how did Jesus manage to always get into so much trouble during his three years of ministry? What made people call him such names like the prince of demons? Why would following Jesus wreck families as he implies in verse 36? And how, if Jesus was always kind and gentle and nonthreatening did he manage to get himself crucified?

We like to blame society for all of this. We like to think that the people back then were uneducated and ignorant and we would never have done anything like they had. WE would have seen that Jesus was God’s Son. WE would have known that Jesus came to save us. WE are nothing like THEM! But we are. We are exactly like them. Jesus is the one that is different. Jesus is the unexpected; he is the surprise ingredient that changes everything. Jesus was concerned about furthering God’s kingdom on earth and kingdom work, it turns out, is more controversial and subversive than the more conventional kindness we tend to associate with Jesus.

And if Jesus is controversial and offensive, how much more so will we as his students be? We are told to be more like Jesus and in doing so that means following in Jesus’s footsteps. Jesus was concerned about making God’s kingdom more visible to the world. As his disciples, our duty is to make the world see God more clearly and more often. True discipleship is the art of seeking the kingdom with a single-minded determination and letting the chips fall where they may. It means sometimes we WILL cause offense and we WILL say things that have people backing away from us. It means that sometimes we WILL suffer for the sake of the Kingdom just like Jesus did.

If we as a church and as Christians manage to walk through life without offending anyone or rubbing anyone the wrong way with our beliefs then we need to ask ourselves if we are truly following Jesus or are we following our own desires and that of the world? Jesus was not always peaceful and calming to the society. He got angry and he said things that made people upset and he even wielded a whip to get his point across to those that had corrupted the ways of God. Where should we be wielding a whip in today’s world?

The other question we have to ask ourselves about today’s text is what Jesus has against families? In the passage today, Jesus seems to want families to be against each other which seems at odds with Jesus’ own relationship to his Father in heaven! Well, the first people to read the book of Matthew were faced with enormous pressure to reject Jesus Christ as their savior. Perhaps these words were meant for them to bring them some comfort when their families turned their backs on them for their beliefs.

However, Jesus has more to say on families in other parts of the New Testament that are not favorable either! Jesus is not thinking about family values, but rather kingdom values and they are not always the same. There are many stories where Jesus is depicted as being in conflict with his own family such as when he tells the people around him that they are his mother and brother and sister when his family wants to speak with him.

Jesus insists that those that follow him put the Kingdom and kingdom values first above everything else. He is more concerned with the righteousness of God than keeping the peace between man and wife and parent and child. Transferring our loyalty only to God and God’s kingdom is going to cause friction between those we call our family and ourselves.

It’s not easy hearing criticism from your family about following God, but anyone who is a true disciple will hear these words from the ones that swear to know and love you the best. I didn’t realize the depth of truth in this passage until I became a pastor and my family suddenly realized my time was no longer theirs to command. I cannot even tell you how often I have had one of my sisters get angry with me and then mock my calling to make me feel bad that I’m not doing what they want me to do.

It’s not easy following Jesus and it’s not always easy to put aside our family loyalty and love to take up the cross that Jesus has asked us to carry. It requires sacrifice and it requires determination and it requires a willingness to be hurt and sometimes even abused by the ones that swear to love us unconditionally. The truth is that Jesus loves us more than anyone else ever will and our loyalty belongs to Him. We follow Jesus even to the places that we do not want to go and even when it might hurt to do so.

But in the doing we recognize that the one we call our Father in Heaven is helping us to become better people, and is trying to make the world a more peaceful place. When we keep our hearts focused on the ultimate outcome, we’re better able to accept the pain and heartache that the present offers us when being a disciple of Jesus gets tough. Because the truth is it will be tough sometimes, but Jesus promises that it will all be worth it. And a true disciple believes their teacher and through the doing of what our teacher says, we learn Jesus has spoken truthfully. When we stop trying to be what society tells us we should be and start being the person Jesus has called us to be – we have more peace and happiness and a lot less worry and doubt.

Take up your cross, the unique cross that Jesus has called you to and keep in mind that although the going will get rough at times, if you live true to your calling as Christ’s disciple – God’s Kingdom will be made visible to every person you come in contact with. You will be the instrument God uses to bring peace and hope and love into the darkest and most bitter parts of the world, and that is worth the sacrifices we make to have it happen!

Amen. 

Understanding the Unexplainable

Genesis 1: 1-2:4a

Matthew 28: 16-20

The words in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so much a part of Christian services that we don’t realize how strange and precious they are or maybe even fully understand their significance. Today is Trinity Sunday, where we celebrate the declaration that only Christians can make –we believe in a God that is three persons and yet still one God. What a strange and bold statement we make every week!

This passage we read today in Matthew, the one we call the Great Commission is where we read for the first time about our Trinitarian God. Jesus tells us, “Go therefore making disciples of all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Up until this point, we knew that Jesus was God’s son and we knew that when Jesus went up to heaven he was going to send the disciples an Advocate he called the Holy Spirit. It is here, at this moment that we are given a true glimpse into the essence of the one we call Lord.

To baptize a person in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could only mean that these are three separate names of the One God and we know that God is one because we’re told back in the days of Moses while receiving the Ten Commandments that there is one God and we are to worship only that one God. But even while we have grown up knowing there are three parts to our one God, it is hard to understand when we really try to think about it and very confusing to explain to a nonbeliever. This is something that is truly about faith because the essence of God is unexplainable. I had a professor once tell me that we make the statement and then we don’t try to explain it because we don’t even fully understand it.

But of course, throughout history people have tried because to nonbelievers the idea that we say such a strange thing makes them think we’re crazy and so we try to rationalize our faith. However, faith is not rational and God is never going to be fully explainable because we’re just not up to God’s speed! However, there’s an old Abbot and Costello sketch that tries to explain the Trinity that I’ll share with you.

Costello goes up to Abbot and says, “Bud, you’re a very smart man and you know many things. I bet you know a lot about religion.” Abbot: Well, yes Lou, I do. What would you like to know about religion? Costello: Last weekend I went to the park and there was a church group having a picnic and they had a big sign the said “Holy Trinity Church”. Well, Bud, I’ve driven around town and I have seen churches named St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Joseph, St. Thomas, but I never heard of this St. Trinity. Who is this St. Trinity? Abbott: Trinity is not a saint, Lou. Trinity is one of the ways that all Christians have come to understand God as revealed by Jesus Christ when he came to earth to live among us. The Trinity is God, One God – Three Persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Costello: That sure sounds like three gods to me. Abbott: No, Lou, one God, three persons – It’s a mystery Lou. Costello: Well, Bud, come to think of it, this is a very big world and universe and there are lots of people for God to watch. So probably the Father works the day shift, the Son the night shift and the Holy Spirit the graveyard shift.

Abbott: No, Lou. No shifts. God’s working all of the time. Costello: O.K. so if God’s working all the time, it’s still a very big world, so maybe God divides it up in thirds – a third for the Father, a third for the Son and a third for the Holy Spirit. Abbott: No, Lou, no thirds, no divisions, God is undivided. Lou scratches his head for a minute and then says to Costello: Well, Bud, let me ask it to you this way. I think God must be a baseball fan – after all the first words of the bible say “In the Big Inning”. Abbott: No, Lou, it’s “In the beginning” not “In the big inning”. Costello: Any way, Bud, you know how I like baseball. So let’s say that God’s team was playing a baseball game and God’s team was up to bat. The Father hits a single – Who’s on first? Abbott: God. Costello: Then the Son comes up and hits a single. The Father goes to second base and the Son goes to first base. Who’s on first?

Abbott: God. Costello: I thought God was on second base. Abbott: That’s right. Costello: O.K. – then the Holy Spirit comes up and lays down a perfect bunt. The Father goes to third base, the Son goes to second base and the Holy Spirit beats out the throw – Safe at first. Who’s on first? Abbott: God. Costello: I thought God was on second and third. Abbott: That’s right Lou. God’s on second and third. God is on first too. God is on all the bases. Costello: I don’t get it, Bud. Well, Bud can’t explain it and Lou can’t get it. And I can’t explain the mystery of the Trinity and we can’t get it. It is beyond our human comprehension to grasp the concept of the Trinity – three persons in one God, each fully God.

Abbot trying to explain the Trinity to Costello is a perfect example of the Great Commission and the Trinity if you think about it. Whenever you play a sport, the only thing you are concerned about is winning. If God has created a baseball field for us and God is on all three bases as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who does that leave on Home Plate for the swing? It leaves us. God is trusting on us to bring everyone home. This is why Jesus sent out the disciples, why Jesus continues to send us out.

We’re a called people and God has asked us to share God’s love with everyone we meet. That means understanding a little bit better the nature of our God and that means trying to understand the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is pure love and unity, and we are made in God’s image. It means while there are different parts to each of us that we show the world, we’re still just one person and yet we’re also a part of a whole community. We are called to work together, to love one another, to help each other, and to seek to know God by being more like Jesus every single day. We become more like Jesus by listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice and remembering the sacrifice of the Father in giving us His Son, a part of God’s self that lived and died and was raised from the dead for our salvation.

When we understand the true depth of God’s sacrifice for us, then we can share the Gospel with others with humility and awe which holds great power for someone that has never heard of our Lord and Savior. The point about the Trinity is not that we have the perfect illustration, the point is that we learn about relationships, covenants, love and sacrifice by recognizing God has three distinct parts while still maintaining God’s oneness. We understand that Jesus is God and that means God died for us. We recognize that the Holy Spirit which we claim is in our hearts means that God is in our hearts. God, the unknowable and almighty is inside of your heart and will always be a part of you.

It’s a miracle we carry inside of us. And once we recognize that, how could we not behave and think differently? How can we not have joy and peace? God is truly with us and will always be with us because God loved us enough to make us a part of God. We are blessed beyond measure.

Amen. 

Jesus Christ's Representatives

Acts 1: 6-14
1 Peter 4: 12-14, 5: 6-11

When Jesus is lifted up into the heavens, the disciples find themselves gazing upward in amazement and trepidation. The one they have devoted their lives to; the one who had promised them great and amazing things would begin to happen had just left them. Jesus had left them to fend for themselves. They had to have felt hurt and lost and a little bit terrified. And so they stood there, gazing up into the afternoon sky and found themselves wondering, “What’s next?”

Well, two angels appear and tell the men to stop looking upward and start looking around instead. There are things to be done whether Jesus is here in the flesh or in the Spirit. Jesus had prepared them for this moment and it was no longer necessary for him to be there for the disciples to do great things in Jesus’ name. The training wheels were off and now it’s time for them to try this on their own.

If we wait until we feel ready and in control of everything, we would never get started on things, would we? Jesus understood that. When it comes to change, when it comes to doing something different and great, we never feel ready. We get comfortable where we are at and even if we’re miserable, we don’t want to change our circumstances because at least where we are at is something we can handle. The disciples may have had some scary days in the last 3 years, especially in the last 40 days, but they knew they could handle it because Jesus was always there to help them through it and to teach them how to overcome it.

But now Jesus was gone. Jesus had been lifted up into the heavens and they were standing there all alone and now they knew for sure, Jesus wasn’t coming back like he had before. He wouldn’t suddenly arise from the dead in three days. Yes, he had promised he would come back eventually, but he’d never given them a timetable or told them that it would be in their lifetime. They were on their own and they probably felt very alone.

Just like we are on our own and sometimes we feel very alone as well. But we’re not. Jesus may have been lifted up into the heavens, but he promised something amazing. He would send us the Holy Spirit to guide us, to teach us, and to protect us in His place. Jesus knew that we are always going to fall short of perfection; he knew that sometimes we would feel lost and that we would need some guidance. And next week, we will celebrate Pentecost where the Holy Spirit is given to every person that proclaims themselves to be a Christian.

The disciples didn’t really know what that meant, however. They had to stop looking up at the heavens and start looking around at what was going on in the world. They needed to reorient themselves. This reminds me of new Christians. The fire and zeal they feel when they first start to learn about Jesus Christ and the miracles he performed and the greatness of his actions. The idea that God had come to earth and became a human being, to suffer and die for us so that we could always be with God. It’s so amazing that new Christians become overwhelmed. Their heads are in the clouds and they walk around with these new ideals and ideas in their heads and Jesus Christ in their eyes.

New Christians often try to do everything at once. “I will never swear again!” they proclaim. “I will give 10% of my income to the poor and the church!” they continue. “I will never again say a bad word against Sam in cubicle 12 or my Aunt Tracy again!” they exclaim. “Every time I have a bad thought I am going to pray to God to remove those thoughts from my head!” they promise fervently. “I will not gossip, covet, lie, or disrespect anyone ever again because Jesus loves me and I love Jesus! I will honor Jesus by being a better person!”

Sometimes I feel cynical. I hear new Christians say things like this and I remember back when I did the same thing. How I would promise never to use curse words again. How I would promise not to gossip or to think bad thoughts and how I was going to pray and read my bible every single day without fail because Jesus Christ died for me. I mean, it’s the least I can do, right? Somewhere along the way, we forget that zeal and passion for Jesus and we fall into an acceptance of our imperfections.

Maybe we get tired of feeling like a failure, and so we tell ourselves that new Christians still have their heads in the clouds and don’t understand reality yet. They don’t understand that they will curse when they stub their toe on the coffee table, and they will sometimes overdrink at the office party and talk bad about Sam in cubicle 12. They don’t understand reality, we tell ourselves. It’s how we justify our lack of passion.

But what if the new Christians have it right, but are just going about it in the wrong way? The disciples had to have been feeling the same way. They probably told themselves that without Jesus as their moral compass they needed to be better people. They needed to pray more and study the scriptures. They needed to not gossip or swear or lie. The disciples were now representatives of Jesus Christ for the world. They did need to be better than their fellow citizens.

Which means as Jesus’ disciples, WE need to be better than our fellow citizens. New Christians may think they will never lie or gossip again, but we know better. However, that doesn’t mean we aren’t able to stop ourselves from using lies to make our life easier and we can certainly prevent ourselves from opening our mouths to talk about others behind their back. If it is not something we would say to their face or discuss with them, then it is probably not something we should be talking about with anyone. New Christians think they can keep up this level of intensity all the time, but it’s a gradual process.

It’s kind of like exercising. When New Years rolls around, everyone wants to lose weight and they go out and buy new clothes and equipment and gym memberships. The first few days they’re working out constantly and barely eating anything. Their intensity level burns them out quickly and before long they’re sneaking into the fast food drive through for a burger and shake! Well, new Christians do the same thing with their intensity and then they become like us. Burned out on hopes and slightly cynical.

We need to start gradually. We need to acknowledge sometimes we will fail. The disciples didn’t get it right all at once either. We’re human and fallible. We’re going to make mistakes, but by the grace of God and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can be better people than we were the day before. We can be a good example for the rest of the world. We can be accurate and good representatives of Jesus Christ. Because I think we forget that whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we think we are important or not, we ARE ALL representatives of Jesus when we proclaim ourselves to be Christians.

That means to someone who has never heard of Jesus, the way you act and behave says to them that is the way Jesus would act and behave. I don’t know about you, but that suddenly makes me a little more aware of all the things I do wrong in a day. It suddenly makes me wonder how many falsehoods about Jesus I am showing the world through my actions and my words and my thoughts.

Which means we need to start doing something about it. Just like the disciples. They had their heads in the clouds with Jesus when the angels came and said it’s time to look around and see what you can do here on earth. What can we do here on earth? How about an extra prayer today? How about a deliberately kind thought about someone you normally harbor anger against? How about actually saying something nice to Sam in cubicle 12 and calling up Aunt Tracy to talk? How about not taking the easy way out by lying or not spreading the gossip you heard about your neighbor? How about saying thank you to God for what you have in your life now instead of coveting what you don’t have?

Start out slow. Start with one extra kindness and good deed, thought and prayer a day. Work your way up until it feels natural and you’re doing it all the time. We’re not always going to be perfect, but we are always Jesus’ disciples and therefore we are always his representatives. We are the example others look at to figure out if they want Jesus in their life. The best way to spread the Good News and to spread Christianity and to get people into the church is to be a living example of Jesus Christ.

That kind of passion and love and sincerity cannot be faked or rushed, however. But we can do it. The disciples did it, and we can as well for we ARE Christ’s disciples. Each and every one of us makes an impact on this world whether we realize it or not. And we’re not alone in what we’re trying to accomplish. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit as our guide and we have each other in this church to lean on. We can be a better church and a better people and a better example of Christ by working together.

Amen. 

Welcoming God

Genesis 22: 1-14
Matthew 10: 40-42

Welcoming God

When you picture a welcoming home, there are certain things you expect for it to be considered a comforting and warm place. For some of us, it may be a fireplace in the living room, or a bunch of knick-knacks everywhere, or perhaps you find open spaces welcoming, and for others it is blankets on the chairs and lots of cushy pillows everywhere. When we think of welcoming people, most of us have the same kind of idea about what makes a person welcoming.

Most of us would agree when I say that people we find welcoming are those that smile when they open the door, they ask you to come in and sit down, they seem glad to see you and then you proceed to have a nice conversation. Perhaps they will ask you if you would like something to drink or eat while you talk. They may show you where the bathroom is or they will tell you to make yourself at home. These are all things that are done to make a person feel comfortable in another person’s home.

In the UCC, we have this idea called extravagant welcome. We feel that Jesus did not turn anyone away, and therefore neither do we. We understand that Jesus was all about welcoming people into his fold, there was never a person he refused to help or accept. Even as he hung suspended by his wrists he cried out for God to forgive his tormenters, “for they know not what they do.” 

The UCC believes that those who welcome others into the church, are giving thanks for what God has done for us. God welcomes, and also feeds the hungry, forgives sins, stands with those who are poor and oppressed, comforts the suffering, and becomes a home for those who wander. In gratitude, faithful Christians welcome strangers. A surprise in the Bible is the way you welcome a stranger expresses how you embrace the very presence of God as we see in Matthew 10.

Perhaps you are wondering why there is a story of Abraham offering up his son Isaac paired with this story of welcome in the book of Matthew. The reason is that faith and hospitality go hand in hand. Our faith comes from Jesus and the way we welcome God into our lives and the way we welcome strangers are linked together. Abraham is called the Father of our Faith because this man believed so strongly in God that he was willing to give up his only son because God had told him to. Let’s look back at Abraham’s story.

Abraham and Sarah were a wealthy, older couple living in what we would call a city today. One day, Abraham hears a voice calling to him and when he responds he finds out that it is God talking to him. God tells him to leave his nice home and friends that he has gathered around him in the last seventy years, and goes into the wilderness. God had a great new place – a new home for Abraham and if he listened, he would give him descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky. He tells his wife and they agree to head to this new place God has called them too. God has issued an extravagant invitation, and Abraham and Sarah have accepted this invitation on faith alone. Faith in God helps him welcome God’s call.

But everywhere they went and everything they did, Sarah was still barren. How can they have descendants as numerous as the sand at the shore if she could not have even one child? Sarah is afraid that they will get to this new place and she will not feel welcome at all, she’s going to be miserable and uncomfortable in this new home because she believed God’s promise and now she feels as if she has been duped.

So Sarah comes up with a plan and has her servant Hagar sleep with Abraham and she becomes pregnant. What Sarah did not realize is how hard it would be to watch her husband exclaim over the growth of the baby in Hagar’s belly or how Hagar would now be treated in some ways as well as Sarah despite her being a servant. I’m sure Sarah probably thought she would adopt the baby and call it hers, but that isn’t what happens. Instead, Sarah’s jealousy over the very plan she devised becomes too much for her to ignore so she threatens Hagar who runs away.

Sarah created an unwelcoming home because she lost faith in God’s promise. She tried to create her own happy ending by twisting God’s promise into something it was never supposed to be and made everyone around her suffer as a result. Thirteen years pass by and a couple men come to visit Abraham and Sarah sat in her tent and fumed because it turned out these men were angels sent to give Abraham a message.

The message was the same one they had been hearing for the last 20 years with no fruit to bear and so Sarah finds herself laughing bitterly in the tent when she hears them speaking. But the angels call her on it and she is left to think about where her lack of faith has gotten her. Sarah no longer felt welcome in her own home because of the things she had done due to her lack of faith in God. Her husband had a son by Hagar and Hagar was contemptuous of Sarah for her barrenness. Her husband was frustrated with Sarah’s lack of faith and she herself felt empty inside. Her disbelief in God’s promise created an unwelcome, unloving and inhospitable atmosphere for them all.

When Sarah does become pregnant and gives birth to Isaac, both Abraham and Sarah are very protective of him. After all they had gone through, after all they had given up and experienced, they wanted nothing to hurt or harm this precious boy. So when God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the amount of faith it took to go so far as to have the knife held over the boy’s heart – it took more faith than most of us have.

But you see, Abraham never lost faith in God like Sarah did. He believed in what God told him and was rewarded. There he was, his hand holding a knife over the heart of his beloved son and he hears God’s voice calling to him and he replies, “Here I am”. As he has always done, Abraham welcomes the voice of God, he welcomes the messages God gives and he believes and has faith in them. Abraham’s faith in God helps him to welcome, listen, and obey God’s hard requests.

Now Matthew 10 tells us that all who welcome us welcomes Jesus and therefore welcomes God. Those who give welcome to the sick, the poor, the hungry and all those in need will never lose their reward in heaven. As we have seen through Abraham and Sarah’s story, faith in God and our willingness to welcome God’s word and God’s people are linked together. There have been times in your life where you felt unwelcome and unloved. You may have felt like a burden upon those around you. But here in this church and in our denomination, we have made a promise to not do that to anyone who needs us because we know intimately the pain of being unwelcome.

It’s a relief to know that no matter what you wear, how you talk or what you do in your personal life, here in this church you will always be accepted as one of God’s children.

Amen.