Our series this year during Lent is “From Hurt to Healing” and will address both the hurts that we have in our lives and the hurts that we have caused in others’ lives. The worship service & sermons will follow the topics listed below. In addition to our worship services, there will also be a Bible study to follow this theme. Listed below are the themes & topics we will be covering in each session. We will be using the DVD series Nooma for our sessions together which will cover passages from Scripture and the theme for the week. You are welcome to attend the sessions that you are able and do not have to commit to the entire series. I would ask that you prayerfully consider attending these sessions both for yourself and for the church. This will be a powerful series for those who are willing to engage and allow God to transform our hearts. I look forward to being on this journey with you. Please look closely at the dates for these sessions, due to some previously scheduled meetings there are some dates when the group will not meet.
Wednesday, March 4, 10:00 am Tuesday, March 10, 6:30 pm
Rain—“Things don’t always work out the way we want them to, or the way we think they will. Sometimes we don’t even see it coming. We get hit with some form of pain out of nowhere leaving us feeling desperate and helpless. That’s the way life is. Still, it makes us wonder how God can let these things happen to us. How God can just stand by and watch us suffer. Where is God when it really hurts? Maybe God is actually closer than we think. Maybe it’s when we’re in these situations, where everything seems to be falling apart, that God gets and opportunity to remind us of how much he really loves us.”
Lump—“A lot of us have done things in our lives that we’re ashamed of. Some are small thins, and some of us have really big and devastating things. Some of us even have things that people close to us don’t know about. Personal junk that we keep to ourselves so we don’t have to deal with it. Because we don’t know how to deal with it, do we? We’re afraid that if we try it’s just going to make everything worse. But no matter how big our junk is, no matter how much we’ve done has impacted the way other people feel about us or how we feel about ourselves, it hasn’t changed how God feels about us. God loves us, he always has and always will, and there’s nothing we can do to change that.”
Tuesday, March 17, 6:30 pm Wednesday, March 18, 10:00 am
Store—“We all get angry about things from time to time—some of us more often than others. For some of us, it feels like we’re constantly on the brink of losing it, where it doesn’t take much to get angry about anything. And this kind of anger can be seen everywhere we go—at work, in traffic, at the store, at home. But what is really at its root? Anger is often looked at as a bad thing, but are there things actually worth getting angry about? Maybe if we had a better understanding of our anger and where it comes from, we could learn how to channel it toward something constructive—something that’s bigger than ourselves.”
Tuesday, March 24, 6:30 pm Wednesday, March 25, 10:00 am
Matthew—“Suffering the loss of someone we love can be the most difficult thing in life to deal with. One moment we have them and the next they’re gone. What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to feel? The truth is, there’s no certain way we’re ‘supposed’ to feel. Whatever we’re feeling, it’s okay. And if we don’t feel anything at all, that’s okay too. It’s okay to have no answers and no explanations. Because sometimes all the reasoning and comforting words in the world just aren’t what we need. What might help us, however is to understand how Jesus dealt with this kind of loss.”
Tuesday, March 31, 6:30 pm Wednesday, April 1, 10:00 am
Luggage—“Maybe a friend turned their back on you. Maybe someone you loved betrayed you. We all have wounds and we end up carrying around these things that people have done to us for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. It isn’t always easy to forgive these people and after awhile these hurts can get really heavy. So the only way to feel better seems to be somehow getting back at the people that hurt us, to get revenge. But does revenge ever truly satisfy? Maybe forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else to get them off the hook. Maybe forgiveness is about you. God didn’t create you to carry these wounds around, God created you to be free.”
Tuesday, April 7, 6:30 pm Wednesday, April 8, 10:00 amOpen—“Many of us have experienced situations where we’ve prayed and it felt like God wasn’t listening. And yet other times we’ve prayed or known someone that prayed and the situation changed. Does God answer prayer? Sometimes, but not all the time? Or does God always answer prayer and it’s just that sometimes God says no? Some of us are angry with God for not answering the prayers we’ve prayed for years. Why did he answer their prayer, but not ours? What if there’s more to prayer than just God listening and answering? Maybe if we understood how Jesus prayed, our concepts and expectations would change.”
Tuesday, April 14, 6:30 pm Wednesday, April 15, 10:00 am
Today—“How much time and energy do we spend wishing things were how they used to be? We often think about times in our past when things were different and want our lives to be like that again. Some of us have even come to believe that our best days may actually be behind us. But if we’re in some way hung up on the past, what does that mean for our lives now? How are we and those around us affected if we’re not fully present? If we’re longing for the way things used to be, what does that really say about our understanding and appreciation of our lives today? Maybe we need to learn to embrace our past for what it is, in order to live our lives to the fullest, right here, right now.”
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
From Hurt to Healing
From Hurt to Healing
On Wednesday, we will begin our Lenten journey with Jesus…Our theme for Lent this year will be “From Hurt to Healing.” I was sharing recently about this series with a friend of mine when she stopped me and said, “Wait a minute…You’re not Catholic…You do Lent?” She then spent a good 15 minutes trying to convince me that Lent was something that only Roman Catholics practice. Now, some of you may be thinking yourselves… “Yeah, we do Lent too?” Yes, Lent is a part of the Christian journey and no one denomination holds control over this practice. Now, one of the reasons that many people think that only the Roman Catholic Church practices Lent is because there are many rituals & symbols…And one of the things that our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers do very well is remember the rituals & symbols of the Church. This is something that we can certainly learn from and help us in our practice and understanding of faith…
So, what is Lent? Lent is the season in the church preparing for Easter. It is the 40 day season beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter. These 40 days do not count Sundays, as Sundays are recognized as “mini-Easters” or reminders of the hope that we know that we have through Jesus’ death & resurrection. Ash Wednesday & Easter Sunday bookend this season nicely as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday that we are indeed mortal beings and we were formed from dust and to dust we will return—ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Easter brings us through that journey as we remember and celebrate that Jesus has been raised from the dead and therefore, Jesus defeated death. What happens throughout these 40 days is joining Jesus on that journey.
Jesus’ journey ultimately culminates as Jesus is nailed to the cross and crucified and then Jesus does what no one thought was possible, Jesus rises from the dead—Jesus has been resurrected…But we can’t jump too far ahead here…because we need to make the journey before we can jump to the end. Just as Jesus’ journey ultimately takes him to resurrection, our journey this Lent will take us from hurt to healing.
I want to share a little bit about this series and how it came to be. Honestly, God and I have been arguing about this series for a couple years now. It’s been ruminating and forming for couple years as I’ve experienced the life of the Sheridan-Norway United Methodist Churches. I’ve spent a lot of time in churches and if there’s nothing else that churches share in common it’s that they are full of hurting people. The congregations of Sheridan & Norway are not different. As I’ve been here, I’ve heard some of these stories from you in private conversations and visits. And there are some of these stories that even those that you have known for years don’t even know. That’s what this series is about. Making that journey through our hurts to healing. For some these hurts are huge and will take more than 40 days to work through…There may be some of you who have experienced hurts that some can’t even begin to imagine…Some of you may have been abused, raped, attacked, been through tragic accidents, or some other deep hurt. These hurts are significant and not something to be dismissed or for you to be made to feel you just need to get over…Hopefully this journey will give you some of the tools that you need to confront these hurts and make the journey to healing…Now that is also not to say that those who may not have experienced hurts like that have not experienced hurts or pain. Each person’s hurts no matter what has happened are significant to each person and something to be addressed in order to make the journey to healing.
This series will address not only those of us who have been hurt or who have hurts, which will be most people, but also those who have hurt others. For those of us who have become offenders and have hurt other people…Because the truth is, we’re both people…victims & offenders…We’ll wrestle with those questions and struggles of what it means to be a victim & offender…
Our journey from Hurt to Healing will take us through a variety of emotions and ways to deal with them. We’ll begin by exploring shame and what it means to be ashamed; next we’ll explore guilt and the difference between guilt & shame and how to deal with both emotions; the third week of Lent we’ll work through anger—and try and understand the difference between guilt anger & shame anger; the 4th week of Lent, we’ll look at some responses to these emotions as we work through resistance & repentance; the 5th week of Lent, we’ll explore forgiveness—both being able to forgive and to ask forgiveness; the last week of Lent, we’ll look at justice & justification by faith which will ultimately lead us into healing & wholeness on Easter morning. Each of these topics are issues & questions & lessons that Jesus wrestled with & shared about during his life and we will make this journey with Jesus in mind.
For each week, there will be a time in our worship service together for physical acts to work through these emotions and hurts…sometimes it will be something that requires much action and others that requires some deep thinking. I would encourage you to engage in this during Lent. Be open to hearing from God as well as working through the hurts you have.
I said that this was has been a series that I’ve been arguing with God about for 2 years…I’ve heard God calling about this and I’ve ignored it…Until the call became so loud that I just couldn’t ignore it anymore. Why did I ignore it? Well, because I can’t ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do myself and I haven’t been willing to go on this journey. In preparation for this series, I’ve already begun the journey from hurt to healing and I’ve been taking an inventory of sorts of those things that have caused me pain and taking a look at how those hurts affect the way that I act and react. I fully understand that this is a journey that will be very difficult for some. It will take energy and focus and admitting some things that may be very difficult to admit. I understand completely. If you need to process through anything as we go along, I am happy to work with you on that…Or you may want to find a friend to talk through things with. However you choose to take this journey, know that you are not alone with it. There are others in the congregation who are journeying, I am journeying, and of course we join Jesus on this journey.
Whenever you go on a journey or a trip, you have to prepare by packing and getting directions and of course ultimately knowing where it is that you’re going! Well, that’s been all mapped out for us and the packing will be done next week. Next week, we will pack our suitcase of the burdens that will keep us from going on this journey. You may want to bring in an object or you may want to write some things down. Whatever it is that keeps you from going on this journey with Jesus…Maybe you’ve found something that helps with the hurts that you have—maybe you’ve turned to alcohol in order to mask the pain…Maybe you escape from the world through TV…Maybe you put on a happy face when you leave the house, but at home you are anything but happy…Whatever it is that keeps you from going on this journey, bring next week and we’ll place it in our suitcase in order to go on this journey.
Why is this series so important? Everyone has hurts that they have experienced—some that seem more difficult to others, but all are important because they are our hurts. Those hurts and that pain affects how we live our lives and how we treat others. For example: If you have constantly been left by people that you love, it may create a fear of abandonment in you and you no longer get close to anyone because they’re just going to leave anyway…Or someone with red hair may have done something to you and you are rude to all people with red hair…Sometimes our hurts so affect the way that we act that we become just like the person or people that hurt us.
Jesus died for both the victim & the offender….that’s part of the foolishness of the cross that Paul talks about in his letters. When Jesus was on the cross, he forgave the soldiers who put him there, because they didn’t know what they were doing…he forgave Peter who denied him 3 times…Jesus suffered and died and was ultimately resurrected. Jesus has taken this journey from hurt to healing…
Maybe this morning, you’re feeling like the leper from our Gospel lesson…Wanting to be made clean, to be made whole. The leper risked much by going to Jesus…The leper knew that he was declared unclean by the law…he was damaged goods…he was outside of all of society…and he cried out to Jesus, begging to be made clean…That’s where our journey begins—kneeling and begging Jesus to be made whole and to be healed…This was a huge risk for the leper because he knew just where he stood in society and he was not allowed to approach someone like Jesus—a rabbi? The Messiah? And yet at great risk to himself and to Jesus, he came…He came begging to be made whole…
And Jesus took great risk as well because as the leper begs him to be made whole, Jesus touches this leper’s hands…Jesus becomes unclean in order to make this leper whole…That’s what Jesus does for us as well—He is willing to become unclean for to make us whole…Jesus is willing and ready and able to take on our burdens and our hurts in order for us to be made whole. Are we willing to risk sharing those with Jesus? That’s a decision that each of us will have to make…I can tell you for me that some days are easier than others. There are times when I’m like the leper and I throw everything aside and I come to Jesus on my knees, begging to made whole…And then there are times when I want to come to Jesus for nothing more than a handshake and an acknowledgement…But Jesus wants us to come with reckless abandonment…to die to ourselves and the pains that we have and be raised with Christ and to be healed.
The leper poses a question to Jesus—do you choose to heal me? And Jesus answers, I do choose! That’s the answer that Jesus gives us as well…I do choose to make this journey with you, I do choose to make you whole, I do choose you! Jesus chose us, why don’t we put our full trust in Jesus?
So, this Lent let us journey with one another, with our friends & family, and with Jesus…Because Jesus chooses to make us whole…
On Wednesday, we will begin our Lenten journey with Jesus…Our theme for Lent this year will be “From Hurt to Healing.” I was sharing recently about this series with a friend of mine when she stopped me and said, “Wait a minute…You’re not Catholic…You do Lent?” She then spent a good 15 minutes trying to convince me that Lent was something that only Roman Catholics practice. Now, some of you may be thinking yourselves… “Yeah, we do Lent too?” Yes, Lent is a part of the Christian journey and no one denomination holds control over this practice. Now, one of the reasons that many people think that only the Roman Catholic Church practices Lent is because there are many rituals & symbols…And one of the things that our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers do very well is remember the rituals & symbols of the Church. This is something that we can certainly learn from and help us in our practice and understanding of faith…
So, what is Lent? Lent is the season in the church preparing for Easter. It is the 40 day season beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter. These 40 days do not count Sundays, as Sundays are recognized as “mini-Easters” or reminders of the hope that we know that we have through Jesus’ death & resurrection. Ash Wednesday & Easter Sunday bookend this season nicely as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday that we are indeed mortal beings and we were formed from dust and to dust we will return—ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Easter brings us through that journey as we remember and celebrate that Jesus has been raised from the dead and therefore, Jesus defeated death. What happens throughout these 40 days is joining Jesus on that journey.
Jesus’ journey ultimately culminates as Jesus is nailed to the cross and crucified and then Jesus does what no one thought was possible, Jesus rises from the dead—Jesus has been resurrected…But we can’t jump too far ahead here…because we need to make the journey before we can jump to the end. Just as Jesus’ journey ultimately takes him to resurrection, our journey this Lent will take us from hurt to healing.
I want to share a little bit about this series and how it came to be. Honestly, God and I have been arguing about this series for a couple years now. It’s been ruminating and forming for couple years as I’ve experienced the life of the Sheridan-Norway United Methodist Churches. I’ve spent a lot of time in churches and if there’s nothing else that churches share in common it’s that they are full of hurting people. The congregations of Sheridan & Norway are not different. As I’ve been here, I’ve heard some of these stories from you in private conversations and visits. And there are some of these stories that even those that you have known for years don’t even know. That’s what this series is about. Making that journey through our hurts to healing. For some these hurts are huge and will take more than 40 days to work through…There may be some of you who have experienced hurts that some can’t even begin to imagine…Some of you may have been abused, raped, attacked, been through tragic accidents, or some other deep hurt. These hurts are significant and not something to be dismissed or for you to be made to feel you just need to get over…Hopefully this journey will give you some of the tools that you need to confront these hurts and make the journey to healing…Now that is also not to say that those who may not have experienced hurts like that have not experienced hurts or pain. Each person’s hurts no matter what has happened are significant to each person and something to be addressed in order to make the journey to healing.
This series will address not only those of us who have been hurt or who have hurts, which will be most people, but also those who have hurt others. For those of us who have become offenders and have hurt other people…Because the truth is, we’re both people…victims & offenders…We’ll wrestle with those questions and struggles of what it means to be a victim & offender…
Our journey from Hurt to Healing will take us through a variety of emotions and ways to deal with them. We’ll begin by exploring shame and what it means to be ashamed; next we’ll explore guilt and the difference between guilt & shame and how to deal with both emotions; the third week of Lent we’ll work through anger—and try and understand the difference between guilt anger & shame anger; the 4th week of Lent, we’ll look at some responses to these emotions as we work through resistance & repentance; the 5th week of Lent, we’ll explore forgiveness—both being able to forgive and to ask forgiveness; the last week of Lent, we’ll look at justice & justification by faith which will ultimately lead us into healing & wholeness on Easter morning. Each of these topics are issues & questions & lessons that Jesus wrestled with & shared about during his life and we will make this journey with Jesus in mind.
For each week, there will be a time in our worship service together for physical acts to work through these emotions and hurts…sometimes it will be something that requires much action and others that requires some deep thinking. I would encourage you to engage in this during Lent. Be open to hearing from God as well as working through the hurts you have.
I said that this was has been a series that I’ve been arguing with God about for 2 years…I’ve heard God calling about this and I’ve ignored it…Until the call became so loud that I just couldn’t ignore it anymore. Why did I ignore it? Well, because I can’t ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do myself and I haven’t been willing to go on this journey. In preparation for this series, I’ve already begun the journey from hurt to healing and I’ve been taking an inventory of sorts of those things that have caused me pain and taking a look at how those hurts affect the way that I act and react. I fully understand that this is a journey that will be very difficult for some. It will take energy and focus and admitting some things that may be very difficult to admit. I understand completely. If you need to process through anything as we go along, I am happy to work with you on that…Or you may want to find a friend to talk through things with. However you choose to take this journey, know that you are not alone with it. There are others in the congregation who are journeying, I am journeying, and of course we join Jesus on this journey.
Whenever you go on a journey or a trip, you have to prepare by packing and getting directions and of course ultimately knowing where it is that you’re going! Well, that’s been all mapped out for us and the packing will be done next week. Next week, we will pack our suitcase of the burdens that will keep us from going on this journey. You may want to bring in an object or you may want to write some things down. Whatever it is that keeps you from going on this journey with Jesus…Maybe you’ve found something that helps with the hurts that you have—maybe you’ve turned to alcohol in order to mask the pain…Maybe you escape from the world through TV…Maybe you put on a happy face when you leave the house, but at home you are anything but happy…Whatever it is that keeps you from going on this journey, bring next week and we’ll place it in our suitcase in order to go on this journey.
Why is this series so important? Everyone has hurts that they have experienced—some that seem more difficult to others, but all are important because they are our hurts. Those hurts and that pain affects how we live our lives and how we treat others. For example: If you have constantly been left by people that you love, it may create a fear of abandonment in you and you no longer get close to anyone because they’re just going to leave anyway…Or someone with red hair may have done something to you and you are rude to all people with red hair…Sometimes our hurts so affect the way that we act that we become just like the person or people that hurt us.
Jesus died for both the victim & the offender….that’s part of the foolishness of the cross that Paul talks about in his letters. When Jesus was on the cross, he forgave the soldiers who put him there, because they didn’t know what they were doing…he forgave Peter who denied him 3 times…Jesus suffered and died and was ultimately resurrected. Jesus has taken this journey from hurt to healing…
Maybe this morning, you’re feeling like the leper from our Gospel lesson…Wanting to be made clean, to be made whole. The leper risked much by going to Jesus…The leper knew that he was declared unclean by the law…he was damaged goods…he was outside of all of society…and he cried out to Jesus, begging to be made clean…That’s where our journey begins—kneeling and begging Jesus to be made whole and to be healed…This was a huge risk for the leper because he knew just where he stood in society and he was not allowed to approach someone like Jesus—a rabbi? The Messiah? And yet at great risk to himself and to Jesus, he came…He came begging to be made whole…
And Jesus took great risk as well because as the leper begs him to be made whole, Jesus touches this leper’s hands…Jesus becomes unclean in order to make this leper whole…That’s what Jesus does for us as well—He is willing to become unclean for to make us whole…Jesus is willing and ready and able to take on our burdens and our hurts in order for us to be made whole. Are we willing to risk sharing those with Jesus? That’s a decision that each of us will have to make…I can tell you for me that some days are easier than others. There are times when I’m like the leper and I throw everything aside and I come to Jesus on my knees, begging to made whole…And then there are times when I want to come to Jesus for nothing more than a handshake and an acknowledgement…But Jesus wants us to come with reckless abandonment…to die to ourselves and the pains that we have and be raised with Christ and to be healed.
The leper poses a question to Jesus—do you choose to heal me? And Jesus answers, I do choose! That’s the answer that Jesus gives us as well…I do choose to make this journey with you, I do choose to make you whole, I do choose you! Jesus chose us, why don’t we put our full trust in Jesus?
So, this Lent let us journey with one another, with our friends & family, and with Jesus…Because Jesus chooses to make us whole…
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
What's Love Got to Do With it?
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
For some, Valentine’s Day is a special day to celebrate with someone that they love—a spouse, a significant other, a good friend…For some it’s a painful reminder of love lost or maybe even love never found…and for others still, it’s just another day and has little meaning at all. And in this congregation this morning, there are people who feel all those things…But regardless about how anyone feels about Valentine’s Day and what it has become.
Did you know that the holiday was originally a Catholic Feast for a saint? St. Valentine’s Day…In Christian history, there were several Valentines who were martyred—who were killed for professing their faith in Jesus Christ. Up until about 1970, the Roman Catholic Church celebrated numerous Valentine’s Days. Now, St. Valentine’s Day represents 3 Valentines who were martyred. Not much is known for sure about Valentine, as legends have crept into the facts of history, but here is what is most commonly believed about St. Valentine. St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer. Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine". But that part has been believed to have been added later as Valentine’s Day began to be associated with romantic love.
So, Saint Valentine’s Day was recognizing a Christian who had died for his faith. Someone who had accepted the love of God so much that he was willing to give his life…That’s not something that you’ll read on any Valentine’s Day card today!
Now regardless about how you feel about Valentine’s Day, it is impossible to escape the message of romantic love that wafts through the air with the smell of roses and chocolate or in the cardboard hearts and greeting cards in every store…But since romantic love was not the original intention of St. Valentine’s Day, but rather celebration of someone’s love for God…Let’s focus on that for a few moments…
Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth—the 13th chapter is one that is known by most people. Many people don’t know that it comes from Scripture when they quote it…It’s beautiful poetry and has profound meaning to it and it is used in most weddings. Verses 4-8 are the ones that are used most often, but as with all of Scripture, it’s important to read the context around it to completely understand the passage.
Paul begins by writing, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Paul is responding to something specific in the church at Corinth—perhaps there was an argument of some kind—there was something going on in the church that was causing a division. If all the people in the church at Corinth are shouting at one another and arguing at one another without any love in their speech, it must be quite a noisy place…a lot of gongs and cymbals! Have you known any gongs or cymbals throughout your life? It’s hard to miss them sometimes! I knew someone who would point out all of your faults and flaws to you without regard for feelings or with a hope for growth and change, and without a hope that there would be equality in the sharing, that you would be able to share with her where her growing edges were, but just because she wanted you to feel badly about yourself so that she could feel better about herself…There have been times in our lives that we have all been noisy gongs or clanging cymbals.
Paul continues by saying that he can have anything and everything in the world—he can understand the mysterious powers of faith or have all of the knowledge in the world, but without love, he is nothing…And he can give away everything he has and even offers himself for martyrdom, but does not have love, he gains nothing. Love is a pretty powerful thing! Love is deep to Paul and all consuming…Not romantic love, but the agape love—the love that is all consuming, is a holy love…The love that God loves with. And Paul goes on to describe that love in verses 4-8…
Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or rude, love does not insist on its own way, love is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoings, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends….That’s the kind of love that we all should strive for…That love that encompasses all things…The love that is so beyond anything that we can begin to comprehend…the love that God loves us with…Can you honestly say that you have lived up to this love? I can’t…Because as much as I love someone when they have done something that I knew was wrong, it’s a good feeling to say, “I told you so!” Or sometimes we are able to be the nastiest to the people that we love the most—we can take out our frustrations of the long work day or of something someone said to us…It’s easy to then be irritable or rude to the ones we love the most. And who doesn’t want their way most of the time? Who here is willing to say, “That makes me uncomfortable, but I know that it’s for the best.” As long as that is done in love and not seeking accolades for attention, that’s what love is. Everything else…is a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.
Paul continues in this part of his letter to talk about the things that will end…but that love will continue on. Because right now we can only see a small part of the picture…But when completion happens—when the New Heavens & the New Earth are re-created, we’ll see the whole picture and we’ll understand…It’s like when you get to the end of something and suddenly everything before it makes sense. You come to the end of something and you go, “Oh! That’s why this, this and this happened…Now I get it!” Even though we only see through a mirror dimly, we like to think that we see everything and we know everything…You think you know, but you have no idea…There is always more to the story than we can even begin to see and understand…
But what we do know is that although we don’t know it all…We are fully known…Even though we don’t even know our full potential and full beauty…God does and we are fully known by God’s love…We are being perfected in God’s love…We have been justified by God’s love…We are being sanctified by God’s love…We are known by God’s love. That’s all we need to know…But we also need to remember that just as we are fully known, all people are fully known…Regardless of what we think of them, they are surrounded by God’s love as well…For now we see in a mirror dimly…
Our Gospel passage for this morning is Jesus’ first miracle from the Gospel of John…Don’t think that it’s an accident that it was at a wedding! But, if you read also…Jesus wanted nothing to do with the miracle that was going to follow…When his mother came up to him, she said “They are out of wine.” And Jesus says, “So? What does that have to do with me? My time has not yet come.” And Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus told them…Jesus doesn’t go to the host of the party and ask what kind of wine they’d like the best or even if they want more wine…Jesus just turns the water into wine…And he does it because he wants the celebration to continue…The celebration of love…Yes, it’s the romantic love between the couple, but it’s also the love of all of those who have gathered together to share in this occasion…the friends and family who may not have seen each other for years…The enemies who put things aside for the celebration of the day…The love that is shown throughout the celebration…
This morning, as part of our worship service together we will have a time for those couples here who would like to reaffirm their marriage covenant. For those who want to recommit their lives to loving one another…If you and your significant other would like to do that this morning and did not sign up ahead of time, you are still welcome, all couples, please come forward during the offering for instructions and directions. And for those who would like to reaffirm their marriage covenant, but their spouses have died…For those of you who want to honor and remember your spouse, please come forward following the reaffirmation of vows for a lighting of candles and prayer.
These are acts that we do as a community of believers because we share in the same love from God and we share together all pieces of our lives. God does indeed love you…Let us love and show that same love to others…
For some, Valentine’s Day is a special day to celebrate with someone that they love—a spouse, a significant other, a good friend…For some it’s a painful reminder of love lost or maybe even love never found…and for others still, it’s just another day and has little meaning at all. And in this congregation this morning, there are people who feel all those things…But regardless about how anyone feels about Valentine’s Day and what it has become.
Did you know that the holiday was originally a Catholic Feast for a saint? St. Valentine’s Day…In Christian history, there were several Valentines who were martyred—who were killed for professing their faith in Jesus Christ. Up until about 1970, the Roman Catholic Church celebrated numerous Valentine’s Days. Now, St. Valentine’s Day represents 3 Valentines who were martyred. Not much is known for sure about Valentine, as legends have crept into the facts of history, but here is what is most commonly believed about St. Valentine. St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer. Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine". But that part has been believed to have been added later as Valentine’s Day began to be associated with romantic love.
So, Saint Valentine’s Day was recognizing a Christian who had died for his faith. Someone who had accepted the love of God so much that he was willing to give his life…That’s not something that you’ll read on any Valentine’s Day card today!
Now regardless about how you feel about Valentine’s Day, it is impossible to escape the message of romantic love that wafts through the air with the smell of roses and chocolate or in the cardboard hearts and greeting cards in every store…But since romantic love was not the original intention of St. Valentine’s Day, but rather celebration of someone’s love for God…Let’s focus on that for a few moments…
Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth—the 13th chapter is one that is known by most people. Many people don’t know that it comes from Scripture when they quote it…It’s beautiful poetry and has profound meaning to it and it is used in most weddings. Verses 4-8 are the ones that are used most often, but as with all of Scripture, it’s important to read the context around it to completely understand the passage.
Paul begins by writing, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Paul is responding to something specific in the church at Corinth—perhaps there was an argument of some kind—there was something going on in the church that was causing a division. If all the people in the church at Corinth are shouting at one another and arguing at one another without any love in their speech, it must be quite a noisy place…a lot of gongs and cymbals! Have you known any gongs or cymbals throughout your life? It’s hard to miss them sometimes! I knew someone who would point out all of your faults and flaws to you without regard for feelings or with a hope for growth and change, and without a hope that there would be equality in the sharing, that you would be able to share with her where her growing edges were, but just because she wanted you to feel badly about yourself so that she could feel better about herself…There have been times in our lives that we have all been noisy gongs or clanging cymbals.
Paul continues by saying that he can have anything and everything in the world—he can understand the mysterious powers of faith or have all of the knowledge in the world, but without love, he is nothing…And he can give away everything he has and even offers himself for martyrdom, but does not have love, he gains nothing. Love is a pretty powerful thing! Love is deep to Paul and all consuming…Not romantic love, but the agape love—the love that is all consuming, is a holy love…The love that God loves with. And Paul goes on to describe that love in verses 4-8…
Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or rude, love does not insist on its own way, love is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoings, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends….That’s the kind of love that we all should strive for…That love that encompasses all things…The love that is so beyond anything that we can begin to comprehend…the love that God loves us with…Can you honestly say that you have lived up to this love? I can’t…Because as much as I love someone when they have done something that I knew was wrong, it’s a good feeling to say, “I told you so!” Or sometimes we are able to be the nastiest to the people that we love the most—we can take out our frustrations of the long work day or of something someone said to us…It’s easy to then be irritable or rude to the ones we love the most. And who doesn’t want their way most of the time? Who here is willing to say, “That makes me uncomfortable, but I know that it’s for the best.” As long as that is done in love and not seeking accolades for attention, that’s what love is. Everything else…is a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.
Paul continues in this part of his letter to talk about the things that will end…but that love will continue on. Because right now we can only see a small part of the picture…But when completion happens—when the New Heavens & the New Earth are re-created, we’ll see the whole picture and we’ll understand…It’s like when you get to the end of something and suddenly everything before it makes sense. You come to the end of something and you go, “Oh! That’s why this, this and this happened…Now I get it!” Even though we only see through a mirror dimly, we like to think that we see everything and we know everything…You think you know, but you have no idea…There is always more to the story than we can even begin to see and understand…
But what we do know is that although we don’t know it all…We are fully known…Even though we don’t even know our full potential and full beauty…God does and we are fully known by God’s love…We are being perfected in God’s love…We have been justified by God’s love…We are being sanctified by God’s love…We are known by God’s love. That’s all we need to know…But we also need to remember that just as we are fully known, all people are fully known…Regardless of what we think of them, they are surrounded by God’s love as well…For now we see in a mirror dimly…
Our Gospel passage for this morning is Jesus’ first miracle from the Gospel of John…Don’t think that it’s an accident that it was at a wedding! But, if you read also…Jesus wanted nothing to do with the miracle that was going to follow…When his mother came up to him, she said “They are out of wine.” And Jesus says, “So? What does that have to do with me? My time has not yet come.” And Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus told them…Jesus doesn’t go to the host of the party and ask what kind of wine they’d like the best or even if they want more wine…Jesus just turns the water into wine…And he does it because he wants the celebration to continue…The celebration of love…Yes, it’s the romantic love between the couple, but it’s also the love of all of those who have gathered together to share in this occasion…the friends and family who may not have seen each other for years…The enemies who put things aside for the celebration of the day…The love that is shown throughout the celebration…
This morning, as part of our worship service together we will have a time for those couples here who would like to reaffirm their marriage covenant. For those who want to recommit their lives to loving one another…If you and your significant other would like to do that this morning and did not sign up ahead of time, you are still welcome, all couples, please come forward during the offering for instructions and directions. And for those who would like to reaffirm their marriage covenant, but their spouses have died…For those of you who want to honor and remember your spouse, please come forward following the reaffirmation of vows for a lighting of candles and prayer.
These are acts that we do as a community of believers because we share in the same love from God and we share together all pieces of our lives. God does indeed love you…Let us love and show that same love to others…
Sunday, January 25, 2009
God is With You
God is With You
For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the blessing that has closed our services together for the past couple of years. God created you, God loves you, God is with you and God blesses you. Next week, we’ll be blessed to have Rev. John & Barbara Meyers with us to explore our faith visually. Our first week, we looked at the beginning—God created you and we saw creation from the beginning and creation within the waters of our baptism when we became a new creation and were commissioned into the ministry of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Last week, we explored God loves you and heard the story of Jonah and how God loves us right where we are, but loves us enough not to leave us there. This week we look at God is with you.
Now this one seems, just like some of the others, seems to be pretty self explanatory…God is with you. God is with you always…There are times when it just doesn’t seem like God is there…Like God is around…Like is with us. The movie A Walk to Remember is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks about the relationship between Jamie & Landon—Jamie is the daughter of the preacher in town & Landon is the bad boy who Jamie sees something good in. After a rocky start, the two begin dating and fall in love, and is not without bumps in the road. Jamie has leukemia and gets very sick, but her faith never shakes. Landon’s faith was minimal before, but questions God as Jamie helps him to understand the faith that she has in God and helps him come to know the God that she loves so much. This scene comes at the beginning of Jamie & Landon’s relationship where they both realize that they are in love…(Clip)…Love is like the wind—I can’t see it, but I know it’s always there…That’s what God is like—we may not be able to recognize God’s presence, but God is always there…
In the passage from 1 Samuel, we get the call story of Samuel—Samuel is the son of Hannah & Elkanah…Samuel was so prayed for by Hannah as she didn’t have children. She prayed to God for a child and then became pregnant with Samuel. In thanks, once Samuel was weaned, he was sent to the temple and given back to God in service…Samuel studies and learns under Eli, whose eyesight is going bad and he’s just getting older…So, as a young boy—probably between 10-13 at this point, Samuel is laying in bed, when he hears a voice. “Samuel, Samuel” and of course the only logical explanation is that Eli needs him, so Samuel rushes to Eli and discovers that Eli is still sleeping and didn’t call for him…So he goes back to bed and a second time he hears his name called and he goes to Eli and discovers that Eli didn’t call for him so he goes back to bed…And a third time, Samuel hears his name being called and rushes again to Eli, but this time Eli tells him that the next time he hears his name, he should say, “Speak for your servant is listening” because God is speaking to him…
Can you imagine how scared Samuel must have been? The passage tells us that Samuel had never heard the word of the Lord and did not know the Lord…And yet, here God is speaking to Samuel…For those who know God, to hear God speaking is quite frightening! Maybe you’ve had an experience like Samuel where you’ve heard the voice of God or felt the presence of God so strongly that you were convinced that it had to be something else—the person in the next room calling or some other logical explanation. Sometimes the only logical explanation is that God is speaking…And maybe you haven’t had an experience like Samuel where you’ve heard the voice of God, but you have felt God’s presence strongly or you could tell that there was something different about a particular circumstance…maybe the hairs on the back of your neck stood up or you got the chills for no apparent reason. God is with you…
Now the 4th time came around and Samuel heard the voice calling his name again. And here’s the choice that Samuel had to make—he had to decide whether he would listen to Eli and say, “Speak for your servant is listening” or he could roll over and put a pillow over his head and pretend like he couldn’t hear…Both are honest reactions and I think a lot of people would be content with rolling over and putting a pillow over their head and pretending like they can’t hear or can’t feel the presence of God. Maybe you’ve done it yourself…I can tell you for sure that I have! There are times when I haven’t wanted to hear or feel God…There are times when I’ve been angry with God and didn’t want to feel God anywhere near me…There have been times that I’ve been ashamed in front of God and although I knew God had forgiven me, I was embarrassed and like Adam & Eve, I hid from God…There have been times when I am so convinced that I am right about something that even God can’t convince me otherwise or that I am so focused on something that even God can’t draw me out…And I roll over and put the pillow over my head and pretend like I can’t hear or feel God…Have you felt that way before?
Well Samuel has that same choice…roll over or listen…and Samuel chooses to listen. He chooses to listen to this God that he doesn’t even really know, but has just heard calling him by name…And he hears his name a 4th time, “Samuel, Samuel…” and he says, “Speak for your servant is listening.” Can you put yourself in the emotions of that room? Maybe it feels like a time in your life or maybe you can imagine the fear that Samuel must be feeling…Are his hands shaking? Is his breathing faster? Is he lying down afraid to move, or sitting straight up trying to take everything in? How would you feel?
We don’t get any of what Samuel’s emotions must have been in that moment, just what we imagine or put in from our own experiences…but we get the message of God to Samuel…And it’s not a happy message, but it’s a message against Eli and it’s a message that God really isn’t happy…If Samuel was okay with hearing God’s voice, I can’t imagine he’s very okay with hearing a negative message about his teacher & mentor. Well, he’s so not okay with it that he doesn’t want to tell Eli about it…Now, Eli knows what happened because he was partly involved the night before…Eli knows that Samuel heard from God and that God had a message from Samuel and the next morning, Samuel doesn’t want to tell him what God had spoken.
Sometimes it’s like that for us too…maybe God has spoken something so powerful or frightening that we just can’t tell anyone…We’ve had an experience with God that others just won’t understand and so we don’t tell anyone…Maybe we think others will think we’re crazy or we’re not even sure if we should believe it ourselves…So we keep it to ourselves and don’t share…Samuel would have been content to do it that way, but Eli convinces him to tell everything that God said…
It can’t be easy for Eli to hear the message that Samuel has—that Eli hadn’t been doing what God wanted and God wasn’t happy with Eli…It had to be painful for Eli to hear that…Eli who had been listening and serving God for his entire life—sometimes faithfully and sometimes not, was just told by this young boy—a child that God told him that Eli wasn’t doing his job…It must have been very painful for Eli to hear this and recognize his own shortcomings…To see where he had fallen short…And just like Samuel, Eli had a choice in what to do as well…He could pretend like Samuel couldn’t possibly have heard that kind of a message or tell Samuel that he was crazy or even told Samuel that he was wrong or that he was listening to something other than God…I’ve been in that position too—Where I’ve been Eli and have been held accountable and I didn’t want to hear it…and I’ve been Samuel having to tell an Eli that they’re not doing what God called them to do and to be and things have to change…It’s not an easy position for either to be in…And Eli has a choice—he can lash out at Samuel and tell him he’s wrong and go about doing things the way that he’s always done them…or he can listen to Samuel and what God has to say and pass the mantle…If you were Eli, what would you do? What have you done?
Eli says to Samuel, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.” And we don’t hear from Eli much after that…But we know that Samuel listened to everything God said after that…
Now we have much to learn and experience through this story of Eli & Samuel…Much that we can incorporate into our own lives and our own faith development as much as we can point out where we have been like Eli or Samuel…And although we have much to learn, there may be some of you who have been stuck thinking, “I want an experience like Samuel had.” I want to hear God’s voice…I want to feel God’s presence…I want that! How do I get that?
Well, there are no magic words to say or a particular place to be in…There’s nothing that you can set up to make sure that this is the time that you hear God’s voice…But you can set up the space to hear…You can silence yourself enough to hear God’s voice…Because God’s voice isn’t always audible or able to be heard above all of the noise of our lives and all of the noise of our minds…Sometimes we just don’t want to heard God, because we’re afraid of what God might say to us…I heard a song lyric recently that said, “ I don’t want to be the girl that has to fill the silence…The quiet scares me cuz it screams the truth.” How quiet are you making your life in order to hear God? In the morning, before I have my cup of coffee, I have my morning devotions. There are times when it comes quite easily and I can hear and feel God strongly…and there are times when I really don’t want to, but I pretend like I do because I feel like I should…I come away those times and think, “Well, God just wasn’t talking this morning.” But the truth is, God was talking, I just didn’t want to listen…God is with you…God is with you always…Are you listening for God? Are you looking for God’s presence? If you look, you’ll hear and you’ll see…God is with you always…Sometimes the message that God has for us is not easy or one that we necessarily want to hear…Sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes it’s painful, but it’s always told and shared in love…God’s love which is perfect and can see beyond our own understanding and our own comprehension. God is speaking—are you listening? God is with you—are you looking? Don’t be afraid of what you might see or what you might hear…God is with you…God created you…God loves you…God is with you…God blesses you…
For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the blessing that has closed our services together for the past couple of years. God created you, God loves you, God is with you and God blesses you. Next week, we’ll be blessed to have Rev. John & Barbara Meyers with us to explore our faith visually. Our first week, we looked at the beginning—God created you and we saw creation from the beginning and creation within the waters of our baptism when we became a new creation and were commissioned into the ministry of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Last week, we explored God loves you and heard the story of Jonah and how God loves us right where we are, but loves us enough not to leave us there. This week we look at God is with you.
Now this one seems, just like some of the others, seems to be pretty self explanatory…God is with you. God is with you always…There are times when it just doesn’t seem like God is there…Like God is around…Like is with us. The movie A Walk to Remember is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks about the relationship between Jamie & Landon—Jamie is the daughter of the preacher in town & Landon is the bad boy who Jamie sees something good in. After a rocky start, the two begin dating and fall in love, and is not without bumps in the road. Jamie has leukemia and gets very sick, but her faith never shakes. Landon’s faith was minimal before, but questions God as Jamie helps him to understand the faith that she has in God and helps him come to know the God that she loves so much. This scene comes at the beginning of Jamie & Landon’s relationship where they both realize that they are in love…(Clip)…Love is like the wind—I can’t see it, but I know it’s always there…That’s what God is like—we may not be able to recognize God’s presence, but God is always there…
In the passage from 1 Samuel, we get the call story of Samuel—Samuel is the son of Hannah & Elkanah…Samuel was so prayed for by Hannah as she didn’t have children. She prayed to God for a child and then became pregnant with Samuel. In thanks, once Samuel was weaned, he was sent to the temple and given back to God in service…Samuel studies and learns under Eli, whose eyesight is going bad and he’s just getting older…So, as a young boy—probably between 10-13 at this point, Samuel is laying in bed, when he hears a voice. “Samuel, Samuel” and of course the only logical explanation is that Eli needs him, so Samuel rushes to Eli and discovers that Eli is still sleeping and didn’t call for him…So he goes back to bed and a second time he hears his name called and he goes to Eli and discovers that Eli didn’t call for him so he goes back to bed…And a third time, Samuel hears his name being called and rushes again to Eli, but this time Eli tells him that the next time he hears his name, he should say, “Speak for your servant is listening” because God is speaking to him…
Can you imagine how scared Samuel must have been? The passage tells us that Samuel had never heard the word of the Lord and did not know the Lord…And yet, here God is speaking to Samuel…For those who know God, to hear God speaking is quite frightening! Maybe you’ve had an experience like Samuel where you’ve heard the voice of God or felt the presence of God so strongly that you were convinced that it had to be something else—the person in the next room calling or some other logical explanation. Sometimes the only logical explanation is that God is speaking…And maybe you haven’t had an experience like Samuel where you’ve heard the voice of God, but you have felt God’s presence strongly or you could tell that there was something different about a particular circumstance…maybe the hairs on the back of your neck stood up or you got the chills for no apparent reason. God is with you…
Now the 4th time came around and Samuel heard the voice calling his name again. And here’s the choice that Samuel had to make—he had to decide whether he would listen to Eli and say, “Speak for your servant is listening” or he could roll over and put a pillow over his head and pretend like he couldn’t hear…Both are honest reactions and I think a lot of people would be content with rolling over and putting a pillow over their head and pretending like they can’t hear or can’t feel the presence of God. Maybe you’ve done it yourself…I can tell you for sure that I have! There are times when I haven’t wanted to hear or feel God…There are times when I’ve been angry with God and didn’t want to feel God anywhere near me…There have been times that I’ve been ashamed in front of God and although I knew God had forgiven me, I was embarrassed and like Adam & Eve, I hid from God…There have been times when I am so convinced that I am right about something that even God can’t convince me otherwise or that I am so focused on something that even God can’t draw me out…And I roll over and put the pillow over my head and pretend like I can’t hear or feel God…Have you felt that way before?
Well Samuel has that same choice…roll over or listen…and Samuel chooses to listen. He chooses to listen to this God that he doesn’t even really know, but has just heard calling him by name…And he hears his name a 4th time, “Samuel, Samuel…” and he says, “Speak for your servant is listening.” Can you put yourself in the emotions of that room? Maybe it feels like a time in your life or maybe you can imagine the fear that Samuel must be feeling…Are his hands shaking? Is his breathing faster? Is he lying down afraid to move, or sitting straight up trying to take everything in? How would you feel?
We don’t get any of what Samuel’s emotions must have been in that moment, just what we imagine or put in from our own experiences…but we get the message of God to Samuel…And it’s not a happy message, but it’s a message against Eli and it’s a message that God really isn’t happy…If Samuel was okay with hearing God’s voice, I can’t imagine he’s very okay with hearing a negative message about his teacher & mentor. Well, he’s so not okay with it that he doesn’t want to tell Eli about it…Now, Eli knows what happened because he was partly involved the night before…Eli knows that Samuel heard from God and that God had a message from Samuel and the next morning, Samuel doesn’t want to tell him what God had spoken.
Sometimes it’s like that for us too…maybe God has spoken something so powerful or frightening that we just can’t tell anyone…We’ve had an experience with God that others just won’t understand and so we don’t tell anyone…Maybe we think others will think we’re crazy or we’re not even sure if we should believe it ourselves…So we keep it to ourselves and don’t share…Samuel would have been content to do it that way, but Eli convinces him to tell everything that God said…
It can’t be easy for Eli to hear the message that Samuel has—that Eli hadn’t been doing what God wanted and God wasn’t happy with Eli…It had to be painful for Eli to hear that…Eli who had been listening and serving God for his entire life—sometimes faithfully and sometimes not, was just told by this young boy—a child that God told him that Eli wasn’t doing his job…It must have been very painful for Eli to hear this and recognize his own shortcomings…To see where he had fallen short…And just like Samuel, Eli had a choice in what to do as well…He could pretend like Samuel couldn’t possibly have heard that kind of a message or tell Samuel that he was crazy or even told Samuel that he was wrong or that he was listening to something other than God…I’ve been in that position too—Where I’ve been Eli and have been held accountable and I didn’t want to hear it…and I’ve been Samuel having to tell an Eli that they’re not doing what God called them to do and to be and things have to change…It’s not an easy position for either to be in…And Eli has a choice—he can lash out at Samuel and tell him he’s wrong and go about doing things the way that he’s always done them…or he can listen to Samuel and what God has to say and pass the mantle…If you were Eli, what would you do? What have you done?
Eli says to Samuel, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.” And we don’t hear from Eli much after that…But we know that Samuel listened to everything God said after that…
Now we have much to learn and experience through this story of Eli & Samuel…Much that we can incorporate into our own lives and our own faith development as much as we can point out where we have been like Eli or Samuel…And although we have much to learn, there may be some of you who have been stuck thinking, “I want an experience like Samuel had.” I want to hear God’s voice…I want to feel God’s presence…I want that! How do I get that?
Well, there are no magic words to say or a particular place to be in…There’s nothing that you can set up to make sure that this is the time that you hear God’s voice…But you can set up the space to hear…You can silence yourself enough to hear God’s voice…Because God’s voice isn’t always audible or able to be heard above all of the noise of our lives and all of the noise of our minds…Sometimes we just don’t want to heard God, because we’re afraid of what God might say to us…I heard a song lyric recently that said, “ I don’t want to be the girl that has to fill the silence…The quiet scares me cuz it screams the truth.” How quiet are you making your life in order to hear God? In the morning, before I have my cup of coffee, I have my morning devotions. There are times when it comes quite easily and I can hear and feel God strongly…and there are times when I really don’t want to, but I pretend like I do because I feel like I should…I come away those times and think, “Well, God just wasn’t talking this morning.” But the truth is, God was talking, I just didn’t want to listen…God is with you…God is with you always…Are you listening for God? Are you looking for God’s presence? If you look, you’ll hear and you’ll see…God is with you always…Sometimes the message that God has for us is not easy or one that we necessarily want to hear…Sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes it’s painful, but it’s always told and shared in love…God’s love which is perfect and can see beyond our own understanding and our own comprehension. God is speaking—are you listening? God is with you—are you looking? Don’t be afraid of what you might see or what you might hear…God is with you…God created you…God loves you…God is with you…God blesses you…
Sunday, January 18, 2009
United Methodist Women
Due to the weather, United Methodist Women was cancelled last Thursday. The meeting will be this Thursday at 12:30 pm at Sheridan UMC.
God Loves You
God Loves You
For the next few weeks we’ll be exploring together the blessing that has closed our service for the last couple years together…The blessing: God created you, God loves you, God is with you, God blesses you. Last week, we explored together the first part: God created you and saw the connection of Jesus’ baptism to God’s creation and making us a new creation to fulfill our mission as Christians—to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Now, within in creation, we saw the love that God had for creation…that God created the world out of love, God redeemed the world out of love, and God sustains the world out of love…
Now, I have to confess that this part of the blessing brings about a story…When I first started using this blessing with a group of seminary students, I had done the blessing first and as our time together progressed, we decided to bless one another. One of the women there was so concerned about getting the wording just right. I wrote it on the white board for her and she was practicing all day on how to say it. When it came to be her turn to use the blessing balm, she got visibly nervous and kept looking at the white board… “God…” she began and took a deep breath… I told her that it was okay if she didn’t get it in the same order; whatever came out of her mouth was the blessing. She nodded and looked like she started to feel comfortable. “Okay…Created, loves, with, bless…I got this.” She turned to the person next to her once again and took the blessing balm still repeating created, loves, with, bless…and then she started the blessing… “God loves you…NO!” Well…Yes, God indeed does love you.
Throughout Scripture we have stories of this love that God has…We saw it through creation, in the waters of baptism, and of course the story of Jesus is full of love. In our Gospel lesson this morning we have the story of Jesus calling his first disciples…The men that Jesus called were not men of high stature at all…they were fishermen—men who had to work hard in order to survive. These weren’t people who had the freedom to leave work for a few years to follow Jesus…They were men who took great risk to do this…And they weren’t men who were close to being kings or other royalty…Jesus’ first disciples were ordinary people—people who made mistakes…people who had families…people who questioned who Jesus was…Ordinary people…Out of love, Jesus called them to be his disciples and told them that he would make them fishers of people. That’s a pretty amazing love…the love that chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. That’s the love of God. God loves you.
Now, this is the same God throughout all of Scripture…God is the same yesterday, today, and forever…So, this is the same God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many times people will say that it seems like there is a different God in the Old Testament because God is always so angry…But there are many stories of the love of God throughout the Old Testament and just as many stories of human beings denying and rejecting that love. The parable of Jonah is one of those stories. The parable of Jonah is an incredibly beautiful love story…Many people may have heard of this story…Jonah was a prophet. Now, a prophet was someone who shared a message from God. These were people who were deeply connected to God and shared messages that were really controversial—they were messages of God’s displeasure in their rejection of God…they were challenging messages encouraging God’s people to follow God once again. They were messages that were not well received at all…Mostly because they were often telling people what they were doing wrong and how they weren’t following what God had intended. Many people didn’t want to hear that kind of a message and honestly, not much has changed because most people today don’t want to hear that message either! Prophets were often killed for sharing this message—John the Baptist was a prophet who literally lost his head…most other prophets often met a violent death because people were so opposed to hearing their messages of truth. So, Jonah was one of these prophets and he often went from town to town sharing these messages from God. Then, God tells Jonah that Jonah needs to go to Nineveh because Nineveh was a wicked city…Now if you’ve seen the Veggie tales version of the Jonah story, you would have seen Nineveh as the city that slaps people with fishes. Well, in reality Nineveh was much worse that a city that slapped people with fish…Nineveh was a city full of violent people, it was unwelcoming and not a place that anyone would willingly go…. At the entrance to the city you would find stakes with the heads of the unwelcomed people lining the entrance…So it may make a little bit more sense as to why Jonah was not interested in going to Nineveh to tell them that God was displeased with their behavior. If Nineveh took the heads of people who were just visiting, what would they do to someone who told them they were wicked?? So Jonah goes the opposite direction of Nineveh and goes out to sea where it is the furthest he can get and once out in the sea, it is made clear that God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh…The boat is rocky and the storm is fierce and as Jonah is tossed overboard, he finds his way to the belly of a great fish. When Jonah emerges, he finds himself on dry land ready to go to Nineveh. Sometimes it takes us to be alone and only able to rely on God to realize that we really do need to do what God has called us to do…Jonah is still not excited about this mission, but he figures that he’ll preach this message of repentance and share God’s message with the people and then they still won’t repent, so he’ll get to watch God destroy the city. And that fuels Jonah—so he goes to Nineveh and tells the people of Nineveh that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown. Well, something clicks with the people of Nineveh—through Jonah’s message…the grace of God…Something clicks and the people of Nineveh believed God, began to fast and repent. They turned around and went a new direction from what they were doing. And God was true to God’s word too…God saw what they had done and that they had turned around and so God decided not to destroy the city. See because God loved the city of Nineveh before this…God loved the city of Nineveh so much that God was so hurt by what they were doing—their evil and wicked ways…That God wasn’t going to leave them in their wickedness…So God sent Jonah to remind them of who God is. See that’s what God does…God loves us right where we are in the middle of all of our brokenness and giftedness…God loves us in spite of and because of our brokenness…But God loves us too much to leave us there. Just like the city of Nineveh—God wasn’t going to leave them in their wicked ways, but show them there was a better way through Jonah. And it happened! And God stayed true to God’s word…the city repented and God didn’t destroy it.
That’s where our passage ends for this morning, but that’s not the end of the story for Jonah…Because you see, Jonah believed in the love of God and the grace and forgiveness of God. He was constantly preaching it to different places…And he certainly believed in God’s mighty power and forgiveness and grace and love…But he thought that Nineveh was much past that. So, after proclaiming this message, Jonah saw what happened to Nineveh—that they repented and God didn’t destroy the city, so what did he do? Did he celebrate with the people and join in their repentance or share in the good news that they had been redeemed? Actually no…Jonah gets mad at God…Jonah gets angry with God for being faithful. So Jonah tells God, “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Jonah is mad because God stayed faithful! Jonah is mad because God did exactly what God promised and Jonah is mad! So Jonah goes east of the city and says it would be better for him to die than to do something like this again…Did you hear that? Jonah would rather die than to see God’s love in action—to see people repent and believe and live their lives differently because of God’s love! So, he goes and starts to do just that. And God provides a bush to Jonah to give him shade and ease his discomfort and Jonah is so happy about that—he’s thrilled about the bush and the shade and is resigning himself that maybe this way of life he’s choosing won’t be so bad. Well, the bush withers because of a worm and the wind blows hot and the sun beats hard…And Jonah has more compassion for the bush that withered than for all of Nineveh. And God says, to Jonah—“You are concerned for this bush, that you had nothing to do with—you didn’t create it or sustain it…It was there a day for you and in a night it was gone…Don’t you then see why I am so concerned about Nineveh? That in this great city there are more than 120 thousand people who didn’t understand what they were doing and needed to be shown my love.” God is telling Jonah that even in their wickedness & brokenness God loved Nineveh and wanted them so much to understand that and turn around and believe that. And they did! And Jonah doesn’t want to accept that…Jonah doesn’t want to accept that God loves Nineveh as much as God loves Jonah.
I think that we can behave like Jonah sometimes…Oh we believe that God loves us—I mean we don’t do anything really wrong for the most part right? So of course God loves us more than God loves those wicked and evil people? Well, actually…God loves everyone—that doesn’t mean that God loves what people are doing and their actions, but God loves everyone and loves us all in the middle of our weakness and our brokenness and our hurting and God loves us enough not to leave us there…All of the world. All of creation…No matter how many times we break God’s heart by what we do, God still loves us. And there are times when we want others to love God the exact same way that we do using the exact same experiences and the exact same words…and sometimes that just isn’t possible. People experience God differently and that’s okay. It’s okay that you had an amazingly powerful experience of God’s love and you want to share it with others, but they will experience that same love on their own in their own time and in their own ways. When we try and force someone to have the exact same experiences that we do, it’s sometimes more harmful. In this clip from the movie Dan in Real Life. Dan & his family are on vacation at a cabin and & his daughter Cara’s boyfriend has taken a bus and snuck up to the cabin in order to spend time together. When Dan finds them together, he sends the boy right back where he came from leaving his daughter with a broken heart…(Clip)…God’s ability to love far surpasses our own…God loves you with as much passion as Cara running after the car…With as much protection as Dan doing what he thought was best for his daughter…With as much wisdom as Will sharing philosophies on love…with as much gentleness as Marie softly correcting Dan’s way of thinking…God’s love encompasses all of that and more!
And guess what—there’s nothing that you can do to repay that love. You can love back and you can worship and you can turn your life around and do what God has called you to do. That’s very important and that’s what we do in response to God’s love and grace for us. Because we have been offered the gift of salvation, we respond to all of God’s people to meet their needs…But we don’t do it to pay God back for what God has done or to earn salvation or earn more love from God. There’s nothing that we can do that Jesus hasn’t already done for us. So, we don’t do good works to earn God’s favor and God’s grace…We do good works because God has already loved us. God loves what we can be and what we are. God loves who we were and who we will become…God loves you.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement spent some time in America and his mission was to come to America and share the message of the Gospel and see how God’s grace moved and worked. He was different from Jonah in that he really wanted to see this change happen. Well, John Wesley was a brilliant and faithful, but complicated man and through a series of circumstances John Wesley made some mistakes and was issued a warrant for his arrest…So, John Wesley fled America returned to England where he felt defeated—he didn’t do what he had set out to do at all and in fact may have done more harm than good…John continued to remain faithful to his vows as an Anglican priest, but he was really just going through the motions…He believed in God’s love and forgiveness, but he was struggling to believe in it for himself. Until one day he went to a worship service where he heard God’s message of love proclaimed in a way that he finally heard it for himself. And at Aldersgate, John Wesley said that his heart was strangely warmed as he realized that Jesus died for me…Yes, even for me. That’s the love of God…To realize that God loved the whole world so much that God sent Jesus Christ…And that you as an individual of sacred worth are who God had in mind in doing that…God loves you.
It is overwhelming to think of God’s love because quite honestly it is way too big for us to even imagine…God loves you. Don’t worry about figuring out all of the intricacies of God’s love—don’t worry about figuring out how you repay God for God’s love…Don’t worry about doing everything perfect so you can keep God’s love…Just stay in love with God. And let God love you…and that love will change you because that’s who God is…God loves us right where we are and God loves us enough not to leave us there. God loves you.
For the next few weeks we’ll be exploring together the blessing that has closed our service for the last couple years together…The blessing: God created you, God loves you, God is with you, God blesses you. Last week, we explored together the first part: God created you and saw the connection of Jesus’ baptism to God’s creation and making us a new creation to fulfill our mission as Christians—to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Now, within in creation, we saw the love that God had for creation…that God created the world out of love, God redeemed the world out of love, and God sustains the world out of love…
Now, I have to confess that this part of the blessing brings about a story…When I first started using this blessing with a group of seminary students, I had done the blessing first and as our time together progressed, we decided to bless one another. One of the women there was so concerned about getting the wording just right. I wrote it on the white board for her and she was practicing all day on how to say it. When it came to be her turn to use the blessing balm, she got visibly nervous and kept looking at the white board… “God…” she began and took a deep breath… I told her that it was okay if she didn’t get it in the same order; whatever came out of her mouth was the blessing. She nodded and looked like she started to feel comfortable. “Okay…Created, loves, with, bless…I got this.” She turned to the person next to her once again and took the blessing balm still repeating created, loves, with, bless…and then she started the blessing… “God loves you…NO!” Well…Yes, God indeed does love you.
Throughout Scripture we have stories of this love that God has…We saw it through creation, in the waters of baptism, and of course the story of Jesus is full of love. In our Gospel lesson this morning we have the story of Jesus calling his first disciples…The men that Jesus called were not men of high stature at all…they were fishermen—men who had to work hard in order to survive. These weren’t people who had the freedom to leave work for a few years to follow Jesus…They were men who took great risk to do this…And they weren’t men who were close to being kings or other royalty…Jesus’ first disciples were ordinary people—people who made mistakes…people who had families…people who questioned who Jesus was…Ordinary people…Out of love, Jesus called them to be his disciples and told them that he would make them fishers of people. That’s a pretty amazing love…the love that chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. That’s the love of God. God loves you.
Now, this is the same God throughout all of Scripture…God is the same yesterday, today, and forever…So, this is the same God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many times people will say that it seems like there is a different God in the Old Testament because God is always so angry…But there are many stories of the love of God throughout the Old Testament and just as many stories of human beings denying and rejecting that love. The parable of Jonah is one of those stories. The parable of Jonah is an incredibly beautiful love story…Many people may have heard of this story…Jonah was a prophet. Now, a prophet was someone who shared a message from God. These were people who were deeply connected to God and shared messages that were really controversial—they were messages of God’s displeasure in their rejection of God…they were challenging messages encouraging God’s people to follow God once again. They were messages that were not well received at all…Mostly because they were often telling people what they were doing wrong and how they weren’t following what God had intended. Many people didn’t want to hear that kind of a message and honestly, not much has changed because most people today don’t want to hear that message either! Prophets were often killed for sharing this message—John the Baptist was a prophet who literally lost his head…most other prophets often met a violent death because people were so opposed to hearing their messages of truth. So, Jonah was one of these prophets and he often went from town to town sharing these messages from God. Then, God tells Jonah that Jonah needs to go to Nineveh because Nineveh was a wicked city…Now if you’ve seen the Veggie tales version of the Jonah story, you would have seen Nineveh as the city that slaps people with fishes. Well, in reality Nineveh was much worse that a city that slapped people with fish…Nineveh was a city full of violent people, it was unwelcoming and not a place that anyone would willingly go…. At the entrance to the city you would find stakes with the heads of the unwelcomed people lining the entrance…So it may make a little bit more sense as to why Jonah was not interested in going to Nineveh to tell them that God was displeased with their behavior. If Nineveh took the heads of people who were just visiting, what would they do to someone who told them they were wicked?? So Jonah goes the opposite direction of Nineveh and goes out to sea where it is the furthest he can get and once out in the sea, it is made clear that God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh…The boat is rocky and the storm is fierce and as Jonah is tossed overboard, he finds his way to the belly of a great fish. When Jonah emerges, he finds himself on dry land ready to go to Nineveh. Sometimes it takes us to be alone and only able to rely on God to realize that we really do need to do what God has called us to do…Jonah is still not excited about this mission, but he figures that he’ll preach this message of repentance and share God’s message with the people and then they still won’t repent, so he’ll get to watch God destroy the city. And that fuels Jonah—so he goes to Nineveh and tells the people of Nineveh that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown. Well, something clicks with the people of Nineveh—through Jonah’s message…the grace of God…Something clicks and the people of Nineveh believed God, began to fast and repent. They turned around and went a new direction from what they were doing. And God was true to God’s word too…God saw what they had done and that they had turned around and so God decided not to destroy the city. See because God loved the city of Nineveh before this…God loved the city of Nineveh so much that God was so hurt by what they were doing—their evil and wicked ways…That God wasn’t going to leave them in their wickedness…So God sent Jonah to remind them of who God is. See that’s what God does…God loves us right where we are in the middle of all of our brokenness and giftedness…God loves us in spite of and because of our brokenness…But God loves us too much to leave us there. Just like the city of Nineveh—God wasn’t going to leave them in their wicked ways, but show them there was a better way through Jonah. And it happened! And God stayed true to God’s word…the city repented and God didn’t destroy it.
That’s where our passage ends for this morning, but that’s not the end of the story for Jonah…Because you see, Jonah believed in the love of God and the grace and forgiveness of God. He was constantly preaching it to different places…And he certainly believed in God’s mighty power and forgiveness and grace and love…But he thought that Nineveh was much past that. So, after proclaiming this message, Jonah saw what happened to Nineveh—that they repented and God didn’t destroy the city, so what did he do? Did he celebrate with the people and join in their repentance or share in the good news that they had been redeemed? Actually no…Jonah gets mad at God…Jonah gets angry with God for being faithful. So Jonah tells God, “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Jonah is mad because God stayed faithful! Jonah is mad because God did exactly what God promised and Jonah is mad! So Jonah goes east of the city and says it would be better for him to die than to do something like this again…Did you hear that? Jonah would rather die than to see God’s love in action—to see people repent and believe and live their lives differently because of God’s love! So, he goes and starts to do just that. And God provides a bush to Jonah to give him shade and ease his discomfort and Jonah is so happy about that—he’s thrilled about the bush and the shade and is resigning himself that maybe this way of life he’s choosing won’t be so bad. Well, the bush withers because of a worm and the wind blows hot and the sun beats hard…And Jonah has more compassion for the bush that withered than for all of Nineveh. And God says, to Jonah—“You are concerned for this bush, that you had nothing to do with—you didn’t create it or sustain it…It was there a day for you and in a night it was gone…Don’t you then see why I am so concerned about Nineveh? That in this great city there are more than 120 thousand people who didn’t understand what they were doing and needed to be shown my love.” God is telling Jonah that even in their wickedness & brokenness God loved Nineveh and wanted them so much to understand that and turn around and believe that. And they did! And Jonah doesn’t want to accept that…Jonah doesn’t want to accept that God loves Nineveh as much as God loves Jonah.
I think that we can behave like Jonah sometimes…Oh we believe that God loves us—I mean we don’t do anything really wrong for the most part right? So of course God loves us more than God loves those wicked and evil people? Well, actually…God loves everyone—that doesn’t mean that God loves what people are doing and their actions, but God loves everyone and loves us all in the middle of our weakness and our brokenness and our hurting and God loves us enough not to leave us there…All of the world. All of creation…No matter how many times we break God’s heart by what we do, God still loves us. And there are times when we want others to love God the exact same way that we do using the exact same experiences and the exact same words…and sometimes that just isn’t possible. People experience God differently and that’s okay. It’s okay that you had an amazingly powerful experience of God’s love and you want to share it with others, but they will experience that same love on their own in their own time and in their own ways. When we try and force someone to have the exact same experiences that we do, it’s sometimes more harmful. In this clip from the movie Dan in Real Life. Dan & his family are on vacation at a cabin and & his daughter Cara’s boyfriend has taken a bus and snuck up to the cabin in order to spend time together. When Dan finds them together, he sends the boy right back where he came from leaving his daughter with a broken heart…(Clip)…God’s ability to love far surpasses our own…God loves you with as much passion as Cara running after the car…With as much protection as Dan doing what he thought was best for his daughter…With as much wisdom as Will sharing philosophies on love…with as much gentleness as Marie softly correcting Dan’s way of thinking…God’s love encompasses all of that and more!
And guess what—there’s nothing that you can do to repay that love. You can love back and you can worship and you can turn your life around and do what God has called you to do. That’s very important and that’s what we do in response to God’s love and grace for us. Because we have been offered the gift of salvation, we respond to all of God’s people to meet their needs…But we don’t do it to pay God back for what God has done or to earn salvation or earn more love from God. There’s nothing that we can do that Jesus hasn’t already done for us. So, we don’t do good works to earn God’s favor and God’s grace…We do good works because God has already loved us. God loves what we can be and what we are. God loves who we were and who we will become…God loves you.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement spent some time in America and his mission was to come to America and share the message of the Gospel and see how God’s grace moved and worked. He was different from Jonah in that he really wanted to see this change happen. Well, John Wesley was a brilliant and faithful, but complicated man and through a series of circumstances John Wesley made some mistakes and was issued a warrant for his arrest…So, John Wesley fled America returned to England where he felt defeated—he didn’t do what he had set out to do at all and in fact may have done more harm than good…John continued to remain faithful to his vows as an Anglican priest, but he was really just going through the motions…He believed in God’s love and forgiveness, but he was struggling to believe in it for himself. Until one day he went to a worship service where he heard God’s message of love proclaimed in a way that he finally heard it for himself. And at Aldersgate, John Wesley said that his heart was strangely warmed as he realized that Jesus died for me…Yes, even for me. That’s the love of God…To realize that God loved the whole world so much that God sent Jesus Christ…And that you as an individual of sacred worth are who God had in mind in doing that…God loves you.
It is overwhelming to think of God’s love because quite honestly it is way too big for us to even imagine…God loves you. Don’t worry about figuring out all of the intricacies of God’s love—don’t worry about figuring out how you repay God for God’s love…Don’t worry about doing everything perfect so you can keep God’s love…Just stay in love with God. And let God love you…and that love will change you because that’s who God is…God loves us right where we are and God loves us enough not to leave us there. God loves you.
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