Sermon - The Power at Work Within You July 29, 2018

The Power at Work Within You

(based on Ephesians 3:14-21)

          A number of years ago when I was the pastor of a small church in Leetsdale I organized a presbytery wide Youth Mission Trip to Alaska.  Being the pastor of a small church, we didn’t have the size of a youth group that could organize a trip by ourselves.  And I knew lots of other small churches in the same situation.  So, we thought that if we pooled our resources and asked all the kids from these small churches we could get a larger group together. 

It took a year to dream, research, get permission and organize.  However, at the end of the process we had 21 kids and adults signed up to go on our first trip to Alaska.  That first trip was probably the most exciting trip I’d ever taken.  In all, we took four YMA (Youth in Mission to Alaska) trips.  Today’s sermon is mostly about the second trip, which was just as exciting with 16 kids and adults.  In the months that ensued after the first trip and planning the second, I realized that this was a more manageable number.

During the second trip we spent a week on the only Indian Reservation in Alaska, which is on Annette Island in a town called Metlakatla.  We had 94 kids attend our Vacation Bible School program.  It was somewhat overwhelming to meet that many new kids in a week’s time, but nonetheless was a rewarding experience for all of us to get to know the young children and the teens on the island.

          The Metlakatla Presbyterian Church is one of the oldest Presbyterian Churches in all of Southeast Alaska and is a fine facility. It is a huge church campus, serves as the town center for recreation, education, and social gathering and therefore had much to offer the community including basketball courts, tennis courts, an entire Christian Education facility, a full, commercial kitchen, and a separate banquet hall.  But conditions on Annette Island are depressing at best.  We found out that there is an 85% unemployment rate, and that suicide is the number 1 cause of death.  The week prior to our arrival there had been two suicides in the church family alone. 

          Listening to the children’s stories about their lives and watching their interaction with one another made us wonder about the prospects they have and the future that they have to look forward to.           After leaving Annette Island, our group prayed nightly for the children of Metlakatla and for their island’s future.  We prayed for God’s blessings upon them, we prayed for the biblical stories to take root in their hearts, we prayed for them to have hope for the future, we prayed for them to learn personally of God’s great love, mercy, and grace.  It was an eye-opening experience for many of our youth to be faced with such depression and difficulties.

          Back home, most of the youth that had applied and gone on these YMA trips came from affluent families and communities, so it was truly a life-changing experience for many of them.

          Each person that applied and went on our YMA trips signed up for different reasons.  Each person was asked to think about their goals for the trip, what they wished God would show them or what their expectations were for the trip.  Each person was challenged to listen for God’s direction and insight for their own lives and through the trips duration and afterward to find ways that God had changed them because of the experience.

          These goals and expectations weren’t restricted to just the teens that went on the trip, but for the leaders as well.  For me, besides making a huge leap of faith the first year in order to organize and take a trip with a large group of teens and well-seasoned adults to a place I’d never been before, my goal was to become a better leader.  To learn more about my own leadership skills, especially under unknown circumstances.  It’s one thing to be a leader in areas of comfort, about things you know, but it’s quite a different thing to be a leader in an unknown setting, in less than perfect situations, with unknown variables.

          To be honest, after returning from the first year’s trip, I was disappointed in God’s lack of work in me.  I didn’t feel that God had really done anything to make me a better leader, in fact in many ways, I felt let down by God because there were many problems behind the scenes, particularly among the adult chaperones that I did not handle well.  And I ended up feeling that God had not listened to my own personal prayers at all.

          I actually left for the second year’s trip with some trepidation.  Yes, I’d been to Alaska before, but we were going some place different, with a different schedule, and a totally different group of people – this time, none of whom I knew personally.  My own personal prayer wasn’t to become a better leader, but rather just to come home safely and not let anything I couldn’t handle happen on the journey.

          As the trip commenced and the weeks wore on, I realized that my prayer from the previous year had actually been heard by God and that God’s power had already begun working within me and I didn’t even know it.

          For the trip, we put together a directed journal for each of us to use in our devotion time.  Each night as I wrote in my journal and looked back on the day, I saw God’s great handiwork in my life.  I looked back at the problems that occurred during the day, and they were numerous on this trip.  I looked back on my mounting anxiety in the beginning of the trip when the first problem occurred and I looked back later in the week, as new problems arose and my lack of anxiety.  I was handling problems left and right as if they were minor decisions that needed to be dealt with efficiently and with ease.

          At the end of the trip I looked back over the whole of what I had written and went through each day in my mind and found that God had done a remarkable thing in my life.  God had made me a better leader and I hadn’t even noticed.  And it wasn’t just about problem solving, it was about including people appropriately in decision making or making executive decisions appropriately.  It was about choosing the right option at the right time or even knowing what the appropriate options were.  All of these were things that I never felt that I was very good at.

I’m not sure that I would have noticed the changes in me as easily if I hadn’t been keeping a journal and hadn’t left this year’s goals and expectations open for God to fill in for me.  After all, it took me a year to see God’s work in my life.

          So we come to the passage in scripture that today’s message is drawn.  Paul wrote, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…”

          As a Christian, there is this power working within you.  There is this unbelievable power that you may not even be aware of.   There is this unsettling, immeasurable, more-often-than-not, untapped power currently working inside of you.  Can you feel it?  Do you know of it’s presence?  Do you know what it means for your life?

          God has given you the ability to accomplish unmatched and unbelievable things.  Maybe to the world’s standards they’re nothing, but on a personal level they may mean everything.

          I knew that God gave us blessings, I knew that God answered prayer, I knew that God walked beside me or even carried me when I had not the strength, but this verse and my recent experience gives me a whole new meaning for God’s work in my life.  But because I finally got it and started to see the power at work within me, I also started to see it in others.  It wasn’t just me that God was pouring out his power and working on, but it was others, too.  God was working on the inside of other people on the trip.  I saw the changes in them.  I saw God take some pretty immature Christians and made them strong in their beliefs and strong in their faith.  I saw God change attitudes.  I saw God create new beings out of a bunch of mismatched and bedraggled characters.

          God is also able to accomplish in you, because of the power at work within you, something beyond what we could ever imagine, something abundantly far more than we could ever ask or imagine.

          And what power is this?  It is the power of the Holy Spirit that is, right now, working in you in ways that you aren’t even aware of.

          How do you tap into that power and become aware of it?  That’s the real question.  Not, if it’s there or what it is?  But rather how do you access it?

          First, pray about it.  What is God doing with your life?  What new things are you learning about yourself?  What ways is God using you and blessing you?  Second, perhaps you should start keeping a journal.  I know that I’ve mentioned this from time to time.  And I also know that for those who have never done it, or only done it from time to time, it’s a daunting task.  What do you write about?  I guess when I first started keeping a journal, I thought that I needed to have everything spelled correctly, worded just right, it had to have a theme going, as if I was writing some kind of novel for publication.  But guess what?

          A journal is just for you.  You can write anything you want to write.  It’s not meant to be understood by anyone except you and God.  It can be a great tool in beginning an open channel to God.  Write down your biggest fears.  Write down your most important blessings.  Write down what horrible day you had.  Write down the dream you often wish for.  Write down your anguish over unanswered prayer.  Write down your anger at God.  Write down your biggest high for the day.  Write down your biggest low or disappointment.  Write down what a great job you think you did today on something.  Write down something that you did that wasn’t so great.  Write it all down.  Over time, you’ll be surprised at how easily it is to have that channel open to God and what power God is pouring out through you.

          When you look back at what you’ve written in a week, month, year, you’ll be surprised at how much God has truly blessed you and how much God has made significant changes in your life.

          Now to him, who is able to do far more than we could ever ask or think, to him who by the power at work within you is able to accomplish all things, to him be the glory and honor and praise.

AMEN.

Sermon for July 22 - Work and Rest

Work and Rest

(Based on Mark 6:30-56, but mostly just 30-34)

The Lectionary reading for today actually serves as both an introduction to the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and as a conclusion to the story that began in the first part of this chapter when Jesus sent out his disciples in pairs to do mission.  Now it was time for the disciples to return and report these ministry experiences to Jesus.

This missionary reporting was important so that the disciples might share their experiences with Jesus.  You can probably imagine their excitement at the retelling of their journey through the local towns -- the miracles, the people, and the hardships they encountered. 

However, in the process of reporting, Jesus apparently sees their fatigue, and knowing that they needed time away from ministry to decompress and to prepare for what would come next, he realizes that they also need some quiet time to get away from the pressing crowds, for it seems that the crowds had become so overwhelming them that they didn't even have time to eat!

So, Jesus leads them to cross the lake to a deserted place so that they might rest. 

"And they went away in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.  As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd…" (Mark 6:32-34)

Well, so much for that time of rest…so much for that quiet deserted place to recharge…so much for that day off. 

It happens…in fact, it happens a lot.

We can probably imagine the look on the disciples face when their hide-away suddenly becomes flooded with the next opportunity to provide ministry.  A great sigh, perhaps.  “Really?  Can’t we have just a few moments to recharge?” 

But then on the other hand, maybe they saw the same thing Jesus saw when he looked at the crowd:

"When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things."

Remember last week’s story about Herod and the beheading of John the Baptist.  N.T. Wright comments about this particular passage, he writes:

"Think back through the story Mark had told just told us.  Herod is off in his palace, probably far to the south of the Sea of Galilee carousing with his cronies, winking at pretty girls, beheading prophets.  His henchmen on the ground are grasping bullies.  Here are his people, desperate for leadership.  And here is a young prophet to whom they flock.  Is he the king-in-waiting?  That is the echo we must hear behind the story?" (Mark, pg. 78)

This moves Jesus to compassion.  Something must be done. Someone must lead.  Someone must show them the way, the new way to be GOD's true people.  This was his calling, of course, and so, the text tells us, even out of his own fatigue and even out of the fatigue of his ministry partners – the disciples, Jesus "began to teach them many things."

To be sure, there is weariness in ministry.  We know this is true, but weariness is no excuse to quit.  Of course, this is a very difficult statement to hear for those of us who have been “at it” for a long time; for those of us who have filled roles in the church as an elder, as a deacon, as a treasurer, as an usher, as a choir member.  It can sometimes be tiresome for all of us who seem to endlessly prepare lunches or dinners, dust pews and vacuum rugs, who take out the trash and tidy up the place, to replace lightbulbs or even help with Food Bank, or our Kid’s programs or whatever comes up on the calendar to create the next ministry opportunity.

Often, we must think to ourselves, “Well, we've done our part; we've served out time, now it's up to others to carry on the work.”  As our trailblazer, Jesus here models the determination to finish well the task before him.  He let nothing stand in his way, not even weariness.

But is there never a time to rest, his disciples might wonder, just like you and I might wonder?  Well, we’ll get to that in a moment.  First, there’s work to do….(hesitate) with this passage….

Somehow, we, too, must discover Jesus’ compassion for the crowds within our own hearts, but this is not as easy as it sounds.  In order to do that we need to think about our own motivation for ministry -- Just why do we minister? and What is the cause and design of our ministry actions?

We’ll need to admit – if we’re being honest - that much about ministry is ego driven.  On the surface it might seem self-less and caring about others, but on a deeper level it’s often self-serving and about building our own need to be needed, which (in essence) is about repairing our own broken self-worth.  To be sure, to some extent, this is unavoidable.  We are fallen people after all, with imperfect motives, possessing prideful incentives hidden even from our own hearts.

But, in Jesus’ continued compassionate response to the crowds we see the lesson of selflessness, which screams to us:

This story is not about us!  It’s not about our connivance, or our weariness, or our need.  Instead, it’s about our calling to this mission, to this ministry.  It’s GOD’s story, and how GOD is trying, through us, to reclaim the world and its wearied people from the battering and marring that mark daily life.  And to be a counterbalance to a culture that constantly says to us, “I want what I want when I want it and, literally, to hell with anything and anybody else.”

And as much as this ministry and our ministry actions aren’t supposed to be about us, they’re also not about the crowds, either.  As these people crowded the shore when Jesus got out of the boat, asking for healing and compassion, wanting to hear Jesus speak words of truth and a balm of perfect love, many of them will also be those who clamor and cry out weeks later for his crucifixion.

Again, this means, not only must our ministry actions not be about ourselves, but these actions must not be about the crowds either, finding what works to "bring them in."  For, the crowd is fickle, having itching ears, and they will stay as long as what we say agrees with their disposition.

Again, I’ll point out that this story is not about the crowds and how large the audience might have been.  No, this story is about GOD and his push to reclaim the world in the truly human person of a young Jewish prophet named Jesus.

So, ultimately, the goal here for us is to be found faithful to GOD and his calling on our lives, faithful to the very end.  

Does ministry get crazy busy?  Does it feel sometimes that the work will never end?  Yes.  And there will be times when we simply can’t rest, or rather that we can’t rest….just yet.

Sometimes you simply need to grab rest, the moment it presents itself.  If we continue to read in this passage.  Jesus feeds the crowd of 5,000 plus with five loaves of bread and two fish.  And when they had eaten, Jesus immediately tells his disciples to get in the boat and go on ahead of him while he dismissed the crowds. 

He knew how tired they were.  He knew that this was their one and only opportunity to get some rest and he tells them to immediately take it.

And when his work was over, Jesus too went up on the mountain to pray.  (Mark 6:45,46).

Episcopalian Bishop Michael Curry, the Bishop who gave the wedding homily at Harry and Megan’s royal wedding in England once gave a sermon with the mantra, “we need crazy Christians”.  His point was that Christians need to buck the trends of the world, and go against the grain—and when we do that it looks “crazy,” but it looks so much more like the life of Jesus.

A huge part of such craziness is do-ing stuff. Do-ing justice. Do-ing acts of love. Do-ing forgiveness.

But…if we’re going to buck the trends of the world, one such trend is bucking the idol of busy-ness.

We need to rest, too.

We have worth, but it doesn’t come from our seventy hour work-weeks, or our month straight with no days off.  Those things aren’t a badge of honor. They are marks of an imbalanced life, an imbalanced ministry, and an arid spiritual life.

When the opportunity presents itself, we need to get away from the grind of ministry, no matter our office in the church.  We need to steal away to Jesus and have some quiet time, alone, in a deserted place, to rest awhile. 

Curry says, “This isn’t laziness.  It’s not a perpetual state.  It’s temporary.  It’s for a while.  But, for that while, it’s about rest.  We cannot just minister to others day by day, month by month.  There are always going to be needs and sometimes we’ll need to have compassion and fill those needs, but we also need to rest.  If we don’t rest, we won’t be able to take care of others.  If we don’t slow down, we will be of no use to anyone, especially God.

Put down the iPhone.  Don’t update your status.  Set the away message on your voicemail and email, and don’t even think of checking on it.

For in so doing you’ll be embracing the spiritual practice of rest.  And, while the rest of the world may think you’re a little crazy…you’ll be crazy in all the right ways.”

AMEN

Herod - Sermon for July 15, 2018

Herod

(based on Mark 6:14-29)

          Today’s scripture reading from Mark requires a bit of a history lesson in order to fully appreciate the story.  The original listeners to this story would have understood it, as they weren’t far removed from its events.  But today, we have a more difficult time with it.  Let’s go over the characters in this reading because, as you’ll see, names and relationships get a little confusing.

          Let’s list the obvious and less confusing ones first.  Beginning in Mark 6:17 we have a flashback to help explain the rising popularity of Jesus.  And I don’t think it’s necessary to do any explaining of Jesus, at this point, other than to point out that he is now becoming known not only to the commoner and the religious rulers, but his reputation is beginning to get the attention of the aristocracy and government rulers. 

John the Baptist is in prison.  And we know John the Baptist.  He’s been around since Christ’s entrance onto the scene.  He is Elizabeth’s son, the child who leaped within her womb when cousin Mary came to visit at the beginning of her own pregnancy.  If you enjoy following genealogy, you’ll really love this whole story.  But here we know that Elizabeth, John’s mother and Mary, Jesus’ mother, were cousins and that makes the relationship of their children – cousins once removed.  So, Jesus and John are cousins once removed.  And John is that odd cousin no one likes to mention at family reunions.  He wears camel hair tunics, eats locusts and wild honey, and yells at people in the marketplace to repent and turn to the Lord.  Even so, this odd cousin of Jesus isn’t just a strange freak with little or no following.  John the Baptist has gathered quite a reputation for himself in his own right.  And he has even had the ear of the aristocracy. 

And thus, the reason for his imprisonment, because now we get to the more confusing characters: Herod, Herodias, Philip, and the daughter of Herodias.  How many of you have heard the name Herod before?

We’re familiar with the idea that many people, particularly during this time period, held the same name, right?  So, try to stay with me.  We first came into contact with the name Herod when Jesus was born?  King Herod was visited by the Magi and asked about the baby Jesus.  To set the record straight, this is not that Herod.  That Herod is known as Herod the Great, for he reigned as King of Israel for 33 years, and was this Herod’s father.  Herod the Great had 5 wives and, at least 7 sons through those wives.  Herod was extremely suspicious of being overthrown and had his eldest sons killed, afraid that they were plotting against him for the throne.  We see this suspicious nature of his even in scripture when he called for all the boy babies in Israel to be executed based on the information that had come from the wisemen from the East.  Before he could have his last three sons killed, he died.  Archelaus, or Herod the Ethnarch as he was called, was refused by Emperor Augustus to be given the title King, but reigned over Judea in his father’s place for 10 years.  This Herod was in power when Mary, Joseph and Jesus were about to return to Israel from Egypt.  Joseph was afraid that this Herod would be just like his father and therefore took Mary and Jesus and settled in the Galilee area in a town called Nazareth which was not under Judea’s rule.  You’ll hear him mentioned in that story from Matthew. 

Archelaus was such a repressive ruler, that messengers were sent to Emperor Augustus in Rome and warned that there would be a full-scale revolt from both the Samaritans and the Judeans if he were to remain in power.  So, Emperor Augustus deposed Herod the Ethnarch and named the next in line, Herod Antipas or Herod the Tetrarch.  (See how confusing it can be!)

Herodias is the second wife of Herod the Tetrarch.  She was the daughter of one of his older brothers.  But Herodias first married Herod the Tetrarch’s youngest brother Philip.  So the niece, Herodias, marries her uncle, Philip.  At some family gathering, Herod the Tetrarch likes what he sees in his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, and divorces his own wife and has Herodias divorce Philip who he then marries.  So, Herodias ditches the inferior uncle Philip for a more prosperous uncle Herod.  However, prior to divorcing Philip, she has a daughter by the name of Salome.

John the Baptist bursts onto the scene and says, “Herod, you are a bad boy marrying your brother’s wife who is also your own niece.  God is not happy with you.”  However, it’s not really Herod who is bothered by this, but rather it is Herodias and wants John killed.  In order to protect John from his wife’s anger, Herod has John imprisoned.  I suppose this way he could keep an eye on John and know who was going and coming, protecting him from anything that Herodias might think of doing.  Because even though John had told Herod that he was going against God’s wishes or desire, Herod still liked to listen to him.

          Now, here’s another confusing part to the story.  In some ancient Greek versions of Mark it reads "Herod's daughter Herodias", like we read from the New Revised Standard Version this morning, rather than the "daughter of Herodias".  To scholars using these ancient texts, both mother and daughter had the same name.  However, the Latin Vulgate Bible and the same exact story in Matthew translates the passage as "Herodias's daughter".  Historians like Josephus outside Biblical Scripture refer to Philip and Herodias’s daughter as Salome.  So, having cross-referenced all the available scholarship, we could say that this is a mis-interpretation of the ancient languages here in Mark.

          Now that you know who all these people are in this story and their entangled relationship with one another, let’s get down to the story itself.  It all centers around the actions, reactions, thoughts and desires of one particular character: Herod.

          Alexander Maclaren, Biblical scholar, in his commentary on Mark had this to say about Herod:

          “Herod alternated between lust and purity, between the foul kisses of the temptress at his side and the warnings of the prophet in his dungeon.  His mind and conscience approved the nobler voice, but he staggered along, with religion enough to spoil some of his sinful delights, but not enough to make him give them up.” (pg. 168).

          Having read that, I pondered what Maclaren was trying to say.  I think Herod stands in for all of us who wrestle with right and wrong choices.  He is the quintessential character with (as we’d put it) an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.  Each of them whispering in our ears telling us what we want versus what we should do.  In that sense, all of us are Herod.  We’ve all wrestled with those inner demons who want us to walk away from truth and right living.  To turn our backs on difficult choices, even if they are the right ones.  We’ve all wrestled with wanting something we simply can’t have or shouldn’t have because the consequences of our desires can be devastating. 

          Herod couldn’t give up Herodias even though he knew it was wrong to have her as his wife.  What is worse, he couldn’t even stand up to her requests.  As a result, John the Baptist is beheaded.

          Most of us would probably say; well, I’d never let my desires go that far.  I’d never let my need of (whatever) cause such a horrible outcome.  Are you sure of that?  If you give in a little, what’s just another tiny step.  How do you know when the line is crossed?  Will you recognize it before it happens?  Or only in hindsight when it’s too late?

          I can only speak for myself, but this became an emotionally charged realization when I stepped on the scale one day and registered the full extent of my weight problem.  It did not happen all at once because of some depressive issue, I did not have a catastrophic life event that caused me to gain an enormous amount of weight overnight, I did not have a medical problem that created weight gain as a side effect.

          No, it came bite by bite in indulgences.  Step by tiny step over the course of 30 years.  I knew with each extra bite, with each bag of potato chips, with every piece of cake or cookie, with every sip of my grande caramel macchiato. 

Just like Herod knew when John told him he was wrong, yet he couldn’t stop himself.  I knew it, too.  That morning on the scale, it all suddenly clicked for me and I knew that I had crossed the line.  At what moment did that line-crossing happen?  I have no idea.  Maybe the foundations for it were laid a long time ago.  But somewhere in the distant past – a line got crossed and I didn’t even know it happened until that morning when I stepped on the scale and the other voice I had refused to listen to, finally said “Enough”!

          What rights and wrongs are you dealing with today?  What demons are sitting on your shoulder and telling you that it’s okay, while the other voice says, “Stop”?

          May today’s story about Herod be a guiding influence for you today.