Today's Sermon - Finish the Race - 10/27/19

Finish the Race

Nearly an hour after the medalists had taken their victory lap on Sunday, October 1, in the year 2000, three lonely marathoners made their way into the Olympic Stadium – but drawing even more cheers than the winners.

First came Jose Alejandro Semprun of Venezuela, carefully plodding his way into the stadium more than 20 minutes after the previous marathoner.  He circled the track, finishing 79th and coming within two seconds of finishing in three hours.

Semprun, who was 27 years old at the time, approached the finish line as the time clock ticked away those crucial seconds toward that all important 3 hour mark, the crowd tried to will him to go just a tiny bit faster, but he just couldn't do it.  The clock read 3:00.02 at the end of his race.

Then came Rithya To of Cambodia, who smiled and raised his arms to the adoring crowd as he slowly covered the final 20 yards.  Then the 32-year-old To, the flagbearer for Cambodia began grimacing.  He collapsed to the track a few steps after finishing in 3:03.56.  Rithya To stayed on the ground for several minutes, and then was removed on a stretcher.

Finally, more than five minutes later, the last runner entered the stadium.  Elias Rodriguez of Micronesia was in 81st place, but he accomplished what 19 other men in the marathon could not -- he finished.

Rodriguez crossed the line in 3:09.14, more than 59 minutes behind the winner.  After he crossed the finish line the workers quickly gathered the orange cones on the track and set the stage for the closing ceremony to begin.

These three men were in intense pain, they had no chance of winning a medal or even a place in the record book having finished the race after the 3 hour mark, yet they finished the race anyway.  Why?  Why didn't they just quit?

I think the answer to that lies in a response by a runner from a previous event: It was 7 p.m. on October 20th, 32 years before the event in Sydney, in 1968.  Only a few spectators remained in the Mexico City Olympic Stadium.  The winner of the 26-mile marathon had crossed the finish line more than an hour ago, and now, the last of the marathon runners were across the finish line and leaving the track.

And as the last few spectators began to leave, those sitting by the entrance suddenly heard the sound of sirens.  One last runner appeared at the entrance.  The man, whose leg was bloody and bandaged, was wearing the colors of Tanzania.

The Tanzanian runner, experiencing intense pain, hobbled around the 400-meter track in the stadium, and the few remaining spectators rose and applauded him as though he was the winner.

After crossing the finish-line he slowly walked off the field without turning to the cheering spectators.  In view of his injury, and having no chance of winning any medal, a curious spectator asked him why he did not quit the race.

The Tanzanian runner replied, "My country did not send me 7000 miles to simply start a race, but sent me 7000 miles to finish it."

In his letter to Timothy, Paul says, "I have finished the race."  Note what Paul does NOT say.  Paul does not say, "I have won the race."  That is not what he says.  He says, "I have finished the race."  Paul does not think of this life as a sprint, as a 100-meter dash, where speed and victory are the only things that count; rather, he thinks of this life in Christ as a marathon.  In a marathon it is endurance and perseverance that counts.  One of my favorite verses in Romans 5:3, “Not only that, but we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…”

          In a different letter to the Corinthian Church, Paul wrote about this marathon he was living.  It was not a short sprint, done in just a short time period, but rather it was about a long-suffering marathon.  He wrote in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27 that, “five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move.  I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers.  I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

In spite of all of this, he endured and kept true to his faith; he kept preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, regardless of anything that might distract him or lead him off of the pathway.  At the end of his second letter to Timothy Paul mentions specific people and again more events that tried and tested his commitment to God, but he did not give up. 

What you see and what you focus on will certainly determine how you feel about what you get.  It is the "cup is half empty" versus the "cup is half full" principle.  Focusing on the bad things in life and on all the disappointments that come with it can cause you to lose sight of the finish line, the race itself, and of God's faithfulness to you in it.  But focusing on the blessings of this life, of the good and wonderful things that are abundant to us each and every day, we are reminded of God's faithfulness in the past and have increasing hope for the future.

As Paul writes to Timothy, he took a moment to reflect and look back.  And in doing so, he realized that God had met all of his needs, exactly when he needed them.

Paul recalls a particular incident in his letter to Timothy.  Paul found himself standing alone before Nero's hostile court.  No other believers had appeared to support him.  While some may have been involved in ministry far from Rome, others had simply feared the persecution that made any identification with Christ risky.  At any rate, Paul had experienced abandonment from his fellow Christians and workers in ministry.  But rather than dwell on their faithlessness, Paul realized that if Jesus could say, "Father, forgive them," while dying on the cross, Paul could say, "May their desertion not be held against them."

Looking back at that time of loneliness, Paul realized he had not been forsaken.  God had been faithful.  The Lord had stood beside him as he faced Nero.  In that moment God gave him strength, sustaining him in every way.  Paul had not only stood, but he had also spoken.  And to Nero and the entire court, Paul proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ regardless of what sentence that might bring upon him.  And being faithful to God, Paul was miraculously granted a pardon from a death sentence; which was, at the time, the penalty for publicly proclaiming and believing in Christ.

Having been faithful in the past, Paul could then look to the faithfulness of God in the future, as well.  Paul knew that what he had endured during this earthly race would be acknowledged and rewarded.

Having fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith, Paul could look forward to God’s faithfulness and receive his reward.

Each of us are on different paths in this race.  Each of us have encountered and endured a variety of incidents that have tried our faith, that have made us look at the cup as half-full or half-empty.  But, what we learn from those trials and sufferings is that we can not give up.  We must be like those marathon runners; we must be like Paul.

We were not sent here to start a race, but we were sent here by God to complete one.  So my friends, continue on your run…focus on the blessings of God, the miraculous that happen every day, fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN.

Today's Sermon - Equipping the Saints - 10/20/19

Spoiler Alert:

There are several references to Downton Abbey's new movie.  If you haven't seen it and don't want to hear how it ends, you might want to see the movie first before reading today's sermon.

Equipping the Saints

(basd on Jeremiah 31:24-37, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5)

Have you ever been consumed by a dream of something you’d love to have or accomplish or realize in your life, motivated by an impulse so strong that it might seem crazy to those around you, perhaps a little bit crazy even to yourself?  For some people, that dream may be of offering a better life for our children than we had ourselves, so we work two jobs, sometimes at night or on weekends, pouring our hearts into that future for our children to give them that dream.  For others, that empowering vision may be of taking a trip to distant and exotic places, to see the immense diversity of God’s creation, so we scrimp and save in order to travel.  For some it could even be owning their own home.  For one woman I met years ago, through a mission project our teens got involved with, that dream seemed just that – a dream.  But obtaining a home after years of apartment dwelling with four children, owning her own home was the experience she thought she would never have.  Thanks to hard work and a new vision of her future, an organization called “Habitat for Humanity” helped her reach her dream and through them, we had a small hand in making that happen for her.

          What existed once only as thought, she couldn’t begin to express all that it meant to her.  Which is true for all of our dreams, once realized.  We can’t even begin to put into words the great satisfaction, the empowering sense of accomplishment, pride and joy that having a dream realized gives us.  But it could have only remained a dream if she hadn’t made it her destiny.

          The distinction between dream and destiny is not a matter of truth or fiction, but rather one of perception.  It is one thing to talk about the future, and another actually to invest in that future; just as it is one thing to have a covenant with God inscribed on stone, and another to have that covenant written on the heart.  When it is inscribed on a stone, the covenant is outside our lives.  It is external.  It might be something to achieve, but it is not necessarily something to realize within ourselves.  When that covenant is written on our hearts however, it no longer is something external, but now it is internal.  It is part and parcel to who we are.  It is the future dream hoped for and actualized – then and only then does it become destiny. 

          Jeremiah was a prophet active in Jerusalem in the years before the city’s fall in 587-586 BC.  He was a prophet especially “tuned in” to God’s perception of how far God’s people were from the people God wanted them to be.

          Over a period of years, Jeremiah tried to persuade a succession of kings that God wanted obedience and not political solutions to Judah’s problems.  Beginning with King Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, Jeremiah tried to convince these kings that what was happening around them in the political world was less important than what was happening at home and that God wanted them to obey God’s laws and God’s requirements for living.  God wanted them to look inward and not outward.  Looking outward was a trap.  God wanted Israel to see the things they had done to themselves to bring them to their own destruction.  But the kings would not listen and they tried to find political solutions to Israel’s problems and this only created more problems.  Jeremiah’s warnings fell on deaf ears.  In 587-586 BC. Babylon took advantage of Jerusalem’s inner weakness and made a final conquest of Judah.  The city of Jerusalem was sacked, the temple was razed, and most of the people of Judah were carried off into exile.

          Jeremiah’s special prophetic anguish came from knowing that God’s covenant with God’s people was not wrong.  What was wrong, was the way God’s people had tried (or more accurately, not tried) to keep that covenant.  Jeremiah had a vision of a time when God’s covenant would not be subject to human error: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” 

God will go directly to the hearts of God’s people, who then will know God as their God.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah to buy a piece of land.  So, Jeremiah bought a field in his home town, an investment in a time yet to be realized.  He took a dream and made it his destiny.  Jeremiah knew what the future would hold and invested in that future as proof that God would call the people back from their exile and renew the covenant that God had with them.

The distinction between dream and destiny is not a matter of truth or fiction, but rather one of perception.  It is one thing to talk about the future, and another to actually invest in a future; just as it is one thing to have a covenant inscribed on stone, and another to have that covenant written on the heart.

          Several years ago there was a series on PBS called Downton Abbey, which just recently added a full-length feature film about the same characters and storyline.  How many of you watched the series on TV and have seen the movie?

          For those of you who have, this will be a bit of a recap; for those of you who haven’t, this will be a brief summary.  But, if you have only seen the series, but not the movie yet, the rest of today’s message does have a bit of a spoiler in it.  So, just a warning.

          Downton Abbey is a fictional story set in Yorkshire County centering around the lives of the Crawley family and their hired domestics during the declining aristocracy in England from 1912 through 1926.  As the new century brings with it turmoil in the world, new industrial innovations, and a growing middle class, the great houses of England are in decline.  Economics bring their privileged status into question and many of these once great houses cannot survive.  Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey finds himself in much the same situation.  His eldest daughter Lady Mary, as well as the rest of his daughters, buck conventional traditions and find ways of making their way in this new world that is changing rapidly around them.  The series concentrates the storyline about their way of life and all the drama of living in such a world. 

          The movie furthers the storyline, but it also presents several scenes where I believe there are some messages (100 years later), particularly for the church about the changing world we find ourselves in, as well.  Truthfully, it isn’t much different than the message that Jeremiah has for us, nor the message that Paul gave to Timothy in his letter to the young leader.

          I’m going to ignore the one great divide between the rich and the poor, which unfortunately is definitely an enormous part of Downton Abbey’s storyline, but in making some comparisons between Downton, our scripture texts and the message it has for us, I’d prefer to concentrate on other aspects of the story.

Historically, Downton Abbey was the center of life for the community.  The family of Downton held festivals and parades, held fundraisers and did charitable work for the community.  Every person in the community looked to Downton Abbey and the family living at Downton Abbey as their benefactor through work that they provided them or through the lifting of their spirits by holding community-wide festivals, providing money for the hospital, leading various social groups.  As the grand houses of England slowly disappear, leaving their own communities without such centers, the question at Downton Abbey is, how will they survive?

In the series, Lady Mary finds various ways of diversifying their resources and coming up with new methods of earning money.  But the questions remain; will that be enough? will they survive?

In the movie, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Lord Grantham’s mother, tells Lady Mary, her granddaughter, in a heartfelt scene towards the end of the move, that she is the future of Downton Abbey.  That Lady Mary and her generations will find a way to make Downton Abbey the center of the community it once was, that Lady Mary has the spirit and the ability to make Downton Abbey viable, and that the memory of the Dowager Countess will go on through the leadership of her granddaughter.

The church, here in the US, is seeing the very same situation occur.  We were once the center of our community, but we aren’t any more.  We struggle financially to make it work, when we didn’t used to have that same struggle.  We’ve had to downsize the need for staff, as the “family” has dwindled.

But the Dowager had a message for her granddaughter much the same as Jeremiah’s message to the exiles in Babylon and Paul’s message in Timothy.   Do not make the dream an external part of yourself, it must be internal.  For Downton Abbey, that meant that the granddaughter had to look inward to find the skills and the leadership her grandmother saw in her and to live into that destiny, to embrace it, and bring Downton Abbey back to its grandeur once again; probably in a completely different way, because the old ways no longer work.

Dowager Grantham tells her granddaughter Lady Mary that Downton Abbey is her destiny.  Jeremiah tells the exiles to invest in their future, to write that future on their hearts.  Paul tells Timothy to equip the saints.

So, today, I tell you; this church and its community are our responsibility.  We must be at the center of it.  And we will hand it down to the next generation, but only if we have faith in a future and invest in that future.

Amen.

Today's Sermon - Lessons from our Ancestors - 10/6/19

Lessons from our Ancestors

(based on 2 Timothy 1:1-14)

          Before I even begin with today’s message that comes to us from Timothy, I’d be a bit remiss if I didn’t at least address the passage from Psalm 137.  Sometimes, there are scriptures that you just wish weren’t there.  Or you wish that the writer had stopped while he was ahead.  This psalm is one of those. 

I love how it begins.  It begins as a psalm of lament, a psalm of sadness and yearning, a psalm of remembrance and struggle.  The people of Israel were exiled from their land and sent to a new home in Babylon.  There in Babylon, their captors prodded and joked with their new toys requiring them to dance their jigs, sing their songs, play their instruments.  But they lament their situation and can’t imagine singing of joy and love and peace and prosperity in a foreign land at their tormentor’s request.  In tears, they remember Zion.

But, since the writer of the Psalms is a human and has human emotions that span the full breadth of emotion, the psalm turns from mourning into a song of hellfire and brimstone, requesting recompense and judgment upon Jerusalem’s captors.  The writer hopes for the worst things to happen to their devastators and prays with joy and gladness if one day, Babylon is repaid their due and have their own children captured and bashed against the rocks.

Yes, I know that the writer of this Psalm is sad and angry and yes, I know that the worst in us comes out when we are full of emotion, but I just wish it wasn’t written down in scripture.  Why?  Because, then it can sometimes be used as justification for all kinds of horrible things that we do to one another.

Having said all that, there is a lesson in this about what we hand down to our children.  Will we hand down to them the anger of our past or the hope of a better future through the inspiration of what we learned?  It’s important to notice that the church in Ephesus, where Timothy is now the leader and preacher, already has a long history of faithful servants.  Paul reminds Timothy that his faith was handed down to him from his grandmother, Lois and his mother, Eunice – at least three generations already in this new Christian Church movement in Ephesus.  Paul instructs Timothy that he has been entrusted with the Good News and to guard the good teachings he has learned.

What lessons have you been entrusted with from your mother, your father, your grandmother, or grandfather?  What lessons, people older and wiser than you, have you learned to be truthful and accurate?  What will you hand down to your children and grandchildren to entrust to future generations?

These walls resound with the lessons of our ancestors.  These classrooms and fellowship halls echo the Good News they tried to teach us.  Have you brought them forward into your own life?  Have you written them upon your heart?  Are you willing to share and to teach those of us who come after you?

Just over 10 years ago, a CMU professor by the name of Randy Pausch learned that he was dying of pancreatic cancer and gave his last lecture.  The script of that lecture became a New York Times Best Seller called, The Last Lecture, and has sold over 5 million copies in the US alone.  It has also been translated into 48 other languages.

In that lecture he offers some advice he learned along the way to hand down to his children.  I think they would have been quite similar to some of the things Scripture, in its entirety, hands down to us, as well.

Here are some of them.

Have fun.  Regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in; they may be dire, they may not be what you’d hoped for, they may be “for the moment” a difficult time.  Regardless – have fun!  It is what brings joy back to life, it is what brings happiness and smiles to a heart that might be heavy.  Dance the jig, sing the songs for a time of remembrance.

Help others.  We don’t go through this life alone.  We live in community, connected to one another.  Help those who are less fortunate. Help those who need someone kind to speak words of comfort.  Help those who have inner potential that has not yet been noticed.  Help those who have been mistreated, bullied, disliked or hated by others.

Never lose the childlike wonder.  Scripture often tells us to be like children.  Look at the world around you with new eyes, as if they’d never seen such perfectly shaped clouds before, raindrops that fall from the sky, lightning that flashes, thunder that roars, leaves that change color, flowers that bloom.  See God again and again anew for the first time in all the things around you.

Show gratitude.  Always say thank you and please.  Always find the split second it takes to smile and nod appreciation, if nothing more, for a door held open.  The gratitude you give comes back full measure, multiplied, overflowing.  Like the miracle of the fish and loaves.  At the end of the day, you’d be amazed how your small offers of gratitude led to others’ gratitude which can spread like a tsunami of joy.

Be good at something.  Find your purpose in life and go after it.  Find what brings you joy, what fulfills your life, what ignites your spirit and soul.  Chase after that and be good at it.  God created you for a purpose, seek it out, look for it diligently, find it.  And when you do, let nothing in this life redirect you, distract you, or lead you somewhere else.  And be good at it. 

Never give up.  There are many stories in our scriptures about the relentless actions of people who did not give up.  The man at the pool who waited for years to be the first one in to receive a healing.  The persistent neighbor who kept knocking on the door to ask for bread.  The friends who lowered a man down through a roof in order to bring him to Christ.  Zacchaeus who climbed a tree in order to listen to and see Jesus.  God always finds a way when there seems to be no way.

Find the best in everyone.  Have faith in others.  Randy Pausch says to be patient with others.  That inside everyone is wonderful, life-affirming, beautiful person.  Sometimes they’ve not learned how to show it, or even know of its existence in themselves.  But be patient.  Eventually, it comes out.  Afterall, isn’t God patient with us?  Doesn’t God hope for and want the best in us to shine forth, too?  So, find what others may have missed because you might just be the ambassador of hope to the person who needs it.

Apologize when you screw up.  Forgiveness is a two-way street.  Don’t hesitate to say, “I’m sorry.”  Then don’t just say the words, but do whatever you need to do to make it right.

Focus on others rather than on yourself.  We have enough “me” people in the world.  It’s time that we started thinking in terms of “us” and “you”.  Refer to the earlier lesson about not getting through this life alone. And we were created to be in community, not a stand-alone island.

The last two – stop making excuses.  They are only self-delusions.  They are also what is keeping you from finding your purpose in life – being who God created you to be.

And the last one – do the right thing.  We find lots of opportunities in this life to make a choice.  To do good or to do harm.  To bless or to curse.  To love or to hate.  To be joyful or to be angry.  In all that you do, make the better choice and do the right thing.

Friends, this building, these walls have born witness to the silent and spoken aspirations of our ancestors.  They have stood silent absorbing the thoughts and prayers we’ve sent to God in our worship.  As we come to the Lord’s table today, we are reminded of the great cloud of witnesses that walked these aisles, sat in these very pews, ate this bread, drank this cup.  They, like Timothy, were entrusted with the Good News in Jesus Christ and tried to do their best.  May we try to do ours, as well.

Today's Sermon - On Guard - 9/29/19

On Guard

(1 Timothy 6:6-21)

In his letters to Timothy, the apostle Paul, an aging missionary, felt that he needed to give Timothy a little advice.  In these letters, Paul offers advice on a lot of subjects that deal with church business as well as personal growth.  

We often get advice from people we know and love.  They offer it usually because they’ve been there, they’ve done that.  They know the perils that might happen if we go our own way.  They know the joy that could be experienced if we’d just pay attention.  Sometimes we listen to that advice and are rewarded for not making some of the same mistakes they did, sometimes we don’t – often to our own detriment.  

Well, in today’s verses, Paul addresses the subject of contentment, where it is found and where it is not found.  How to be on guard against the things that do not benefit us and how to be in pursuit of things that bring joy and fulfillment.  In the midst of a society that was driven by wealth and greed, Paul's advice to Timothy was to learn the lesson of true contentment.  He begins with a reminder that we do not bring anything into the world, and we will not take anything from it.  So, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, be joyful.  If we have the necessities of life, like food and water, clothing and shelter, we ought to rejoice.

But his advice turns to a warning in verses 9 and 10.  He warns that those who are in the pursuit of “stuff” will fail to find contentment in the simple pleasures of life.  They will be trapped by senseless and harmful desires.  Consider for a moment how much time and energy is spent on things that don't last.  How truly senseless a number of our pursuits become when we view them in the context of God's universe and God's time.  One of our greatest sins has to be the sin of wasting time.  We focus on the unimportant, we major on the minors.  We toil and labor and sweat and strain over things that have no eternal value.

Paul's warning is to be on guard against those things that do not provide contentment in life.  We might think that the pursuit of money and “stuff” for us to have and enjoy might bring about that contentment, but the opposite is true.  Paul writes in verse 10, "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from the faith".  We often talk of going from rags to riches, but to those who make money their God, just the opposite is true.  They exchange the riches of glory for mere earthbound rags.

To young Timothy, Paul writes, "You, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness" (v. 11).  Pursue the things that last.  How do we do it?  How can we discover contentment, and keep our wealth in perspective?  Because I’m not saying that money and riches, in and of themselves are bad.  But we need to be on guard against making them something that they were never intended to be and to put them into proper perspective. 

First, be more concerned with people than with things.

Go back and read the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  While you do that underline every single verse that describes Jesus' love for things.  Every time his wealth is mentioned, highlight it.  Each time his love for fine clothing is discussed, circle it.  Actually, you don't really need to that, because there is nothing to underline, highlight or circle.  Instead, Jesus invested his life in the lives of others.  You won't read about Jesus' bank account, or his home, or his clothing.  You will instead read all about people whose lives became intertwined with his; people like Bartimaeus, or Zacchaeus, or Mary, or Martha, or Lazarus, or Peter, or John, or countless others who didn’t even have names but we know their stories because we’re told about how Jesus came, became part of their story and changed their lives.  Like the man sitting by the pool waiting to be healed, or the ten lepers that were sent away clean, or the hemorrhaging woman who touched his garment, or the man born blind who could now see, or the man with evil spirits inside him, or the centurion whose daughter was ill.  Jesus was concerned first and foremost with people.

Where do you invest your life?  Examine the created order of life; the waning of day into night, the turning of the seasons, the ebb and flow of water, all plants, animals, fish, birds.  God placed them all carefully on our planet and chose humanity to have dominion over all of it.  If God placed people above all things, and if Christ valued people more than life itself, doesn't it make sense that people should be important to us too?

Second, focus on the eternal and be on guard against the pursuit of the temporal things of life.  Sometimes we fail to see the big picture.  We forget that there is more to life than just today’s existence.  Whenever we fail to consider the eternal, the matters of the heart and the well-being of our souls, our priorities get out of balance.  We focus on this temporary life and forget that we need to spend time preparing for all of eternity.

Every day we spend some time in front of the mirror.  We comb hair, check clothing, brush teeth to a pearly white.  We fuss over makeup, nail color, and neckties.  We spend a lot of time on these earthly bodies.  Which is fine, as they are the temple in which our spirits reside.  But sometimes we do that at the expense of our inner spiritual bodies, which will last forever.  We should take as much time, if not more on grooming those bodies for health.  We tend to focus on the physical and the temporary rather than the eternal.

Notice the language of Paul's warning to be on guard.  Flee from the senseless and harmful desires that keep your focus on the mortal.  Instead, pursue (run after) the eternal.  Every now and then my mom calls me or texts me because she’ll be watching some car auction show on tv.  And she’ll call in amazement because a 1934 Packard just sold for over 4 million dollars or even more ridiculous, a 1962 Ferrari sold for 48 million dollars.  People spend millions of dollars to own a piece of Camelot.  But in the end it's all just stuff—temporary, can't-take-it-with-you stuff.  

Why not make investments that last forever?  Spend time with an aging adult who might be feeling lonely or neglected.  Spend time with a child, reading them a story.  Get involved in a local mission.  You don’t have to go a world away to be a missionary.  You can do it right here at home.  There are plenty of agencies and activities that need your help.  Give away a few of your things so that another person in need might have the necessities of life and can rejoice.  Be mindful of your quiet time with God.  Spend time in prayer.  Be attentive to the agency of your heart, mind and spirit that you are pursuing after the right things.   Be on guard against the temporal and focus on the eternal, each day, every day.

Third, filter the voices in your life.  We set priorities by listening to the right voices in our lives.  It's like tuning a radio as you search for a clear station.  There are many voices in our world.  Every one of them wants your attention, each wants to control you, or at least a small part of you.  Some are good and positive, others are full of static, some speak about things you don't even want to hear.  Yet, you must decide which voice will control your life.  Ask some questions about the things you hear: Does it proclaim truth and the things of God?  Does it speak well of every person?  Is it fair and honest?  Will I be a better person for listening, or will what is said begin to erode my character?

          A lot of the voices out there will tell you to be selfish.  To look out for number one, to make more, have more, possess more.  Be on guard against those voices.  Instead, pursue the voice of God, which is quite different.  It says, feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick, serve humanity.  Until we learn true contentment with the blessings of Christ in our lives, we will keep searching and desiring more, never quenching our thirst.  Decide whose voice will get your attention: The world's or the Savior of the world.

Today's Sermon - Intimacy of Prayer - 9/22/19

This morning's sermon is not one of my best, in my opinion.  It is a strange combination of trying to use the Old and New Testament writings to create what I had in my head a month ago, which just wouldn't come out this week.  But, here it is nonetheless.  Blessings to you all!

Intimacy of Prayer

(based on Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, 1 Timothy 2:1-7)

Last week we spent some time on Lament and what a lament is.  In our Old Testament reading this week Jeremiah continues lamenting his purpose in life as a prophet to the Lord.  “My joy is gone”, he says.  What’s kind of funny about this statement is that Jeremiah has never struck me as someone exhibiting the slightest amount of joyfulness.  In any case, whatever joy he had has flown away and it has been replaced by grief.

More lamenting, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”   Regardless of how dire Jeremiah sounds, we might want to take a note from his comments here.  We often want quick turnarounds, in a season.  But Jeremiah told the people of Israel that they would have to wait on the Lord’s time.  If you recall, they needed to wait for more than 70 years for a turnaround to even begin to happen.

Jeremiah’s grief is to be pondered.  He not only grieves, he yearns to grieve even more.  Jeremiah wants to weep.  “Oh, that my head were a spring of water, my eyes a fountain of tears.”  Again, Jeremiah’s words are strange.  Who wants more sorrow?  And yet, it is only in prayer that we can be that honest and intimate with God.  In praying and opening to God, we’d be more in sync with God if we were to fully comprehend the sorrow God feels over the people of the world.  Robert Pierce, founder of World Vision, once said, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break God’s heart.”

This concern and lamenting for the people we know and love, like Jeremiah did for the people of Israel, like Robert Pierce did when he founded World Vision, for the situations we hear about around the world can lead to real and intimate prayer time with God.

According to the Internet, as of July 2019 the population of the world stood at more than 7.7 Billion people.  That's a lot of people.  I don’t think most of us can even imagine that many people, but that's our world today.  People who live in tiny villages in the jungles of the Amazon to bustling cities that barely have a green tree growing in the concrete jungle of their metroplexes.  And yet, according to God's own Word, all – each and every one of them – were created in God’s image and are precious in God’s sight.  And Timothy urges us to pray for them all.  But how do we pray for 7.7 billion people?  Timothy especially calls on us to pray for those in leadership positions.  All those 7.7 billion people are under the authority of their governments; kings, queens, prime ministers, presidents, dictators, tribal leaders, courts, republics, democracies, militants, empires, and regimes.  Timothy urges us to pray for all of them. 

Afterall, God thinks global thoughts.  God thinks about everyone, because God created all of them and loves all of them.  It is only right for us, then, to pray for them, as well as praying for ourselves.  But in my prayer time with God, I don’t think it’s possible for me to pray for 7.7 billion people without being overly simplistic and not terribly genuine.  Sort of like saying, “Dear Lord, right now I pray for Aunt Betty and her health issues, for Mike and his problems at work, for Esther and her upcoming surgery, for my neighbors who just learned that their son has cancer, for John and the death of his wife, and everyone else.”  That last tag line just seems ingenuine.

So, I think I prefer a modern writing and translation of scripture by the late Eugene Peterson called, The Message.  He translates verse 1 this way: "The first thing I want you to do is pray.  Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know".  It’s a little bit different than praying for everyone, because that’s just impossible to pray for 7.7 billion people. 

However, in writing to Timothy, Paul affirms the importance of prayer and the need for prayer on behalf of all people.  We need to pray for all the people we know, but in so doing we pray for the world, because we are connected with one another and you know people I don’t know and I know people you don’t know.  We are then, each of us, praying for a larger and larger circle of friends and family and others.  It is through that intimacy and our united prayers that we can touch all the corners of the world with prayer.

Our prayers cannot be just for the people we know and love, however.  Most of us are good about praying for people we love, people we know, people with whom we work.  But our prayers must go beyond our comfort zone to include others, too.  It’s in the intimate inclusion of those who are different from us, who think differently than we do and who might not be our friends or loved ones that we are deeply moved and changed.

Alan Paton, in his novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, describes the pain and inner turmoil of a black priest named Kumalo. Kumalo's son, who has moved away to Johannesburg, is convicted of murdering a white man, who happens to be the son of Kumalo's neighbor.  The last scene of the book describes Kumalo during the early morning hours on the day that his son is to be executed.  He has taken some tea and maize cakes and has climbed to the top of a familiar mountain where he spends those restless moments in prayer.  As the dawn approaches he prays with even greater fervor, not for the release of his son, but for his forgiveness.  And then in that poignant moment, he prays for others, the family of the slain white man, the judge who has pronounced the verdict, the people of Johannesburg, some who had led his son to ruin, and others who have befriended and helped Kumalo in his search for his son.  It is a soul-searching, gut-wrenching prayer.  It is an inclusive prayer.  Inclusive prayers are not always easy, but they are what God desires.

It is through prayer that we are changed.  That’s the intimacy of it.  It is in being in a relationship with someone else that we are changed.  It is in being in relationship with God, that we are changed by God to be more than we ever thought we could be.  It is in being in relationship with others, that we are changed by them to become better people.  That’s the intimacy of relationships.   And we cannot be in an intimate relationship with another person if we have sinned against them and not asked for forgiveness.  We cannot be in relationship with another and continue to sin against them.  Our sins against one another pull us in the wrong direction.  They lead us away from God; they erect a barrier that divides us from God.  And yet God desires that we be brought or brought back into the fellowship of the kingdom of God.  God desires that those who stand on the outside be brought to the inside.

Mother Teresa said, “I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that He will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do.  I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength.  I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”

My God lead you to a time of lamenting over the situations in your life, the people you love, those around you, and the stories you hear in the news around the world.  But then let the Lord guide you in that intimate time together not just to lament and grieve, but into strength, joy, and action to change the world around you and in so doing we can change the whole world.

Today's Sermon - Lament - 9/15/19

Lament

(based on Psalm 51)

Bible scholars tend to identify the psalms by type or category, but they debate the exact classifications, with some naming more categories than others. Generally, there is agreement on a system that includes at least these five types: psalms of lament, royal psalms, thanksgiving psalms, wisdom psalms, and then a mix of smaller genres such as historical and prophetic psalms.

Lament is a major theme in the Bible and particularly in the book of Psalms. To lament is to express deep sorrow, grief, or regret. The psalms of lament are beautiful poems or hymns expressing human struggles. The psalms of lament comprise the largest category of psalms, making up about one third of the entire book of Psalms. These psalms are prayers that lay out a troubling situation to the Lord and make a request for His help.

          There are two types of lament psalms: community and individual. Community psalms of lament deal with situations of national crisis—they describe problems faced by all the people of God. Psalm 12 is an example of a community lament, expressing sadness over widespread sin: “Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore; / those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. / Everyone lies to their neighbor; / they flatter with their lips / but harbor deception in their hearts” (Psalm 12:1–2).

Individual laments address various isolated troubles—problems faced by one member of the people of God. An example of an individual psalm of lament is today’s Psalm 51, as David lays out his need before God: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”  We’ll come back to the rest of this Psalm in a minute.

There are forty-two individual psalms of lament and sixteen community or national psalms of lament.

The psalms of lament are poetic hymns meant to be sung to God. They deal with issues that were and still are central to the life of faith for individual believers and the whole community of faith. The lament psalms express intense emotions, real human struggles, and the anguish of heart experienced by the people of Israel as they lived out their faith individually and corporately.

The men and women of the Old Testament were as real as we are today. They danced and sang, rejoiced and laughed, argued and confessed, lamented and mourned. They expressed emotions to God in prayer just as we do today. When we encounter difficult struggles and need God’s rescue, salvation, and help, the psalms of lament are a good place to turn.

This is one of the few psalms where we are given the historical background from which it arose.  The inscription reads, "A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba."  That identifies clearly for us the incident out of which this psalm arose.

It was the time when David became involved in the double sin of adultery and murder while he was king.  He had walked with God for many years.  He was widely known as the Sweet Singer of Israel, a man after God’s own heart; as King, he had gained a reputation as a prophet, a man who understood the deep things of God; and he had established himself not just as king, but also as the spiritual leader of his people.  Then suddenly, toward the end of his reign, he was plunged into this terrible double sin.

I’m sure you remember the account, but in case you don’t, this is what happened.  He was on his palace roof one day when the army had gone out to battle and he saw a beautiful woman by the name of Bathsheba, bathing herself.  His passion was aroused within him and he sent over messengers and ordered her to be brought to him.  He entered into an adulterous relationship with her for she was a married woman, but then again so was David, a married man.  But, back in those days, only a woman could be adulterous; men were pretty much allowed to do anything.  Accept, of course, do what David did, in the end. 

Bathsheba’s husband, a soldier in David's army, was away fighting for his king.  Later, when David learned that she was expecting a child, he panicked and tried to cover it all up.  He ordered the husband home from battle and sent him down to his home, hoping that he would sleep with his wife and the child would then be accepted as his own.  But Uriah was a soldier, committed to battle, and though he came home at the king's orders, he would not go down to his own house but slept with the soldiers at the palace and returned to the battle the next day.

David knew that ultimately his sin would be found out so he took another, next, step.  And this is always what sin does -- it leads us on --deeper and deeper, farther than we had ever intended to go.  Before the king knew it, he found himself forced into a desperate attempt to cover up his evil.  He ordered Uriah, the husband, to be put in the forefront of the battle where he would most certainly be killed.  When news of Uriah's death reached the king, he felt he had safely covered his sin.  For a year he tried to live with a bad conscience.  But, as the story records, God sent a prophet to David.  God loved this king, loved him too well to let him go on covering up and thus damaging himself and his entire kingdom by this hidden sin.  So God sent the prophet Nathan to David.

Because David was king, Nathan knew he would have to approach him subtly, for his own life could have been in danger if he had blatantly accused the king.  So, Nathan told him a story.  He said that while he was abroad in the kingdom a certain incident occurred which he felt should be brought to the king for judgment.  There was a certain rich man who owned a flock of sheep and a traveler came by to whom he wanted to show hospitality.  But instead of taking one of his own sheep and offering it for food, he went to his poor neighbor who only owned one little ewe lamb and took that lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.  When David heard this, he was indignant and cried out, "Such a man ought to be made to restore four-fold what he has taken and then be killed himself," (2 Samuel 12:5-6).

In a most dramatic moment, the prophet Nathan pointed a long bony finger at the king and said, "You are the man!" (2 Samuel 12:7). David knew then that he had been found out and that he could might have been able to cover his sin from others, but he could never do that with God.  He fell on his face before God and out of that experience of confession comes this beautiful fifty-first Psalm, which traces for us the proper way to handle a bad conscience when you have sinned before God.

This hymn or song or psalm of lament, a song of great suffering and loss, opens with a prayer for forgiveness.

Have mercy on me, O God,

  according to thy steadfast love;

  according to thy abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

  and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalms 51:1-2a)

In writing and singing this very personal psalm of lament, David greatly grieves the loss of his innocence and the consequences yet to come of the results of his sin.  He understands that sin is like a crime.  If a criminal is going to be delivered from the effects of his crime, he or she needs mercy from God.  Sin is an illegal act, a violation of justice, an act of lawlessness, of rebellion and therefore requires consequences.  Those consequences, because a violation of the law always results in consequences, are yet unknown to David.  But David also asks God to be merciful.

Second, he says, "Blot out my transgressions," and thereby he reveals that he understands sin is like a debt.  It is something owed, an account that has accumulated and needs to be erased.  When quills or fountain pens were popular, people would have a sheet of paper on their desk called a blotter.  This sheet of paper was the first sheet the fountain pen would touch before any writing occurred on the official document so as to release the pen of its first rush of ink.  Over time, the blotter would be filled with heavy blobs of ink and you would not have been able to see anything that had been previously written underneath.

Third, he cries, "Wash me thoroughly, and cleanse me."  David understands that sin is like an ugly stain.  Here, it is a stain upon David’s own soul.  Even though the act fades into the past, the stain remains a stigma upon David’s own heart.  So, he cries out and asks God to wash it away, make him clean again.

A psalm of lament begins in sorrow.  An acknowledgment of loss and suffering.  In this psalm, it includes an act of confession and a request for forgiveness.  But a psalm of lament usually ends in joy, knowing what God will do.  In Psalm 51:10, David returns to his initial request.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Put a new and right spirit within me.”

My prayer for us today is that as we, individually and corporately, acknowledge our own sin before God, may God be merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  May God cleanse our hearts and put a new and right spirit within us.