Sermon from Galatians 5:13-26 for April 22

So…

Some of us have been having a rousing discussion about the Ten Commandments. Well maybe it wasn’t rousing exactly but it was serious enough I guess.

Did you know it used to be the practice of some churches to read the Ten Suggestions before worship so as to put people “in mind” as they said of their sins, so that when it came time to give thanks, they actually had a pretty good idea of what they had to be thankful about!

Yes, we can and should be thankful for our children and for running water, and for sunshine for all those good things.

But some worship leaders thought we should perhaps be thankful for some big ticket items too, like forgiveness, justification, and perhaps salvation, not just whatever we are having for dinner. So, what is it you are most thankful for?

The conversations about the law and it’s use in Christian life also resulted in some folks admitting that they are really not sure that the younger generation really doesn’t understand how sinful they are. And they certainly don’t understand how awful they should feel about themselves.

Now this just might be me having grown up in the 1960’s, but it seems like this has always been a generational thing. Because I remember adults in the 60’s be-moaning the “free love” movement of their children as a sign of the end of times.

And I remember conversations with my father about how his parents’ generation was scandalized by guys and girls dancing together, going to movies, two-piece bathing suits, and girls in pants.

Strangely, it is now those very “free love” children from the 1960’s who are amazed at how awful their children are, and don’t even talk about those grandchildren! It seems we are very much at our core deeply moved by the “law”.

So what is the role of the law in the Christian community?

If we are free from the weight of the law in Christ, unhitched as it were from the “yoke that leads to death”, no longer connected to this idea of works righteousness, that somehow we can be good enough to please God just because of how almost saintly we are; how are we to act, live, function now if not as law keepers.

I mean, if there is no speed limit for Christians, what is to keep us from speeding? How fast can we drive, because, best I can tell, there is a speed limit and people drive whatever speed they want anyway.

What is there to keep us from being bad, even as follower of Christ, if the law isn’t in force and being strictly enforced.

Some people believe that the only way to be sure you are in the right on your salvation tally, is to keep on keeping the law.

The beauty of that is that it also gives you a good way to be sure you are a Pharisee. Because if you can see you are keeping the law and all its nuances, and your neighbor, or children, or spouse isn’t, you can be holier than Thou sanctimonious.

There is the story of the very self-righteous old lady who used to spend her time pointing out how she wasn’t at all like her neighbors who were a bunch of sinners. She was always careful not to gossip though, because that is a sin. She always couched her information sharing as a prayer concern, for her poor misled neighbors.

She, it seems, in particular picked on one guy who was out too late at the local bar.

Finally, one day he had had enough, and so he started parking his pickup truck outside her house every night.

And you were there some amazing prayer requests that next week, if you know what I mean. (People thought he was in sleeping with…)

The Apostle Paul sees the problem and decides to help the Galatians understand. He says, “My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love.”

In other words, just because you been set free from the law doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. Nope. You have instead been invited by the love of God shown to us in Jesus, to be a lover! To love others just as God has loved you.

You are invited to instead of living a life in fear of the law, and its consequences, to live a life of joy as you celebrate your freedom to love others in Christ.

Breaking the law leads to death. Paul has made this clear so many times in his writing. All the law does is make it clear how incredibly guilty we are as sinners. We can’t escape condemnation by our works because we cannot and never could keep the law.

We are amazingly selfish, self-centered, worried about us and ours, and never ever completely concerned about what God is concerned about .

We fail. We fall short. We even, as Jesus makes clear in the gospels, fail not only the letter of the law, do not murder, do not commit adultery, but also fail the spirit of the law when we call our brothers and sisters idiots, and lust after each other in books, on the internet, TV and movies, and in person!

Nike says in its commercials “just do it”!

Our motto should be “we can’t”! We can’t keep the law! Instead we are judged by it. And to make it all as hollow as possible, we then decide we should judge each other just to make it worse.

But love, Paul argues, changes the equation, because we can love each other, because God has first loved us. We can’t keep the law, but we can love each other.

So the question we should all be asking is, how?

What could we do as individuals and as a community that would be loving. Take a look around you. What I am asking you to do is not easy, I get that. But you and I need to love these people and the world God has set us in!

Jesus, as an act of love, took off his robe, put on an apron and washed his disciple’s feet. Then he took up bread and the cup and said, this is my life given for yours.

We can do this! We can love one another!

So, what shall we do first?

Amen.

Sermon from 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 for April 15

So…

If you are alive, say “amen”!

Some of you people are dead it seems. Just saying!

Because if you are alive in Christ, as last Sunday’s sermon and teaching suggested, you should know it, and be doing all kinds of things an alive person in Christ does!

You do know what alive people do, right? I mean, alive in Christ. They are out in the world, loving each other, and going and making disciples. You are doing that, right?

I mean you are doing that at home, and at work, and with family and friends. And then with your leftover energy at church.

You got that. The places God’s people are living out their empower by resurrection life is not primary in church; it is primarily at home, at work, at play, with family and friends, inviting everyone you meet to become alive through a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

I had this really bizarre idea once. I wanted to list all the places where everyone who is a regular participant in our worship services worked, played, the groups they were in, whether it be a brass quintet or Kiwanis or Little League or a hiking club and then draw a web of all the places where we as the followers of Christ have a place at the table – a place where we could offer upt this alive life to others.

And then I wanted to see if we could figure out if there were places where we should be, where someone from our church family should be present so they could spread resurrection power, like the Rotary Club or the Minisink Swimmers or whatever. And then if no one was there we would pray and find someone and send them!

And then, and this would be the hardest part of all, we would figure out how to gage whether our “alive’ presence was making a difference, and if not, what we needed to do to expand our abilities, gifts, training, commitment so that we as God’s people in all these places could do Jesus proud!

Years ago, Brian got onto one of the basketball teams at the old Otisville School. Each year, a few new kids would be added to each team, and the kids would learn to play by being with some older players.

It’s not a model we use a lot, but it can be remarkably successful, as to an age locked program.

Anyway, he gets on a team with some older boys who have played together for a few years and though they aren’t tall or big, they are doing really well, and so as they go along, even with these new boys, they are winning games.

Now the deal was that every kid on the team got playing time. You can’t develop talent and skills if you don’t play. So even though the team was winning, they were really good about making sure that even little dorks with glasses and no skills like Brian got on the court and played.

And they made it to the semi-final game against a much bigger stronger team, and they played their hearts out – and won! It was amazing. But right after the game, coaches Dave and John Bendlin came to Sue and I really upset and very apologetic.

In the heat of the game they had looked to see if they had played everyone – but they had missed Brian. They were very upset, more I think than Sue or I, because remember Brian was small and unskilled and this was a big game.

So they said that they were going to make it right and in the championship game, against an even bigger and better team than the one that night, Brian was going to play the whole first half.

They were going to do what was right. They were going make a difference. They were going to lose spectacularly.

You and I are filled with the spirit and told to go and make a difference, make disciples in fact, using the skills and talents, “gifts” God has given us, to build his kingdom, even if that means not winning the championship, because we in life and death belong to God.

I have always and forever admired their insane commitment to doing the right thing. And they paid for it - by winning that championship game.

We are all delightfully, wonderfully, and fearfully made. God has filled us with his spirit, and Paul reminds us, God has gifted us to do his work in this world.

Some of us called to speak foreign languages, and others of us explain them. Some are called to preach or to teach or to administer, others to offer wisdom, some of us are full of faith, and some have the power to bring healing to others in times of fear and stress and pain a river of water to a parched desert, others sense God’s presence and can remind us to listen and to watch. Some are gifted to encourage others, others to get up in front and say, “Let’s do this”, some are called to help in the background.

But what none of us are called to is sit and do nothing. We are to love each other as hard as that may be sometimes, and we are to go and make and baptize and teach and to use our gifts to God’s glory.

And if you are not doing that, you are not really yet fully alive.

Not sure about your spiritual gifts? Time to start asking others what they see in you!

Not out there making a difference? Then it is time to look around, grab a new friend and get to work.

The kingdom of God is alive. Are you?

Amen.

Sermon from Romans 8:1-11 for April 8, 2018

So…

How alive do you feel?

Some days a bit more, other days a bit less?

Paul seems to think as he writes here to the Romans, that is the community of people who had become followers of the way of Jesus who lived in Rome, that if you belonged to Jesus, you should be more alive than all the folks around you.

So, I want you to turn to someone in a nearby pew and ask them, “Are you more alive than the other people you know?”

One of the consistent criticisms of the church is that we are dead!

That we, as a community of faith, are simply a place where crotchety, old, hypocrites gather to rehearse dead old hymns, dead old ideas, and dead old practices!

And while it would be easy to simply dismiss these criticisms as just a bunch of sour lemons, we would do so at our own peril. These criticisms are an outsider’s view of us, and as such, give us about as honest an appraisal of the church as we are likely to get.

They have seen and/or experienced the church and been hurt by it, left out by it, or been abandoned by it, or have never, ever  been touched by God’s love through any community of faith.

It is not an insider’s view, the view we often take when trying to shape the church. Nor is it the view of those individuals whose interactions with the church have been remarkable, nourishing, and very much alive.

Rather, it is the generic view of folks outside the church who have never had a life changing encounter with the people of God!

And whose fault is that? The correct answer is – ours!

The easy defense would be that they have never come to worship, or have never been part of a small group, or have never been to a church event. But of course, that has everything all backwards and upside down.

The great commandment and the great commission were not given to the world – hey you folks out there, Jesus says you must love each other and become disciples.

No - the great commandment was given to us, the followers of Jesus to love each other and go into all the world and make disciples.

This is really scary stuff! Love, Go, Make!

Because, um; when was the last time you loved some of the goofballs around here!

Some of these people are really hard to love – I’m just saying. They have issues. And love is hard, because loving other people requires you to be self-sacrificial in helping them become holy and whole.

Let me make this as clear as I can: We are to love each other! Oh (insert expletive)! It is not a suggestion! It is not just an opportunity! It is a command! A command given to all of Jesus disciples: you and I; we are to love each other.

And… love is hard, because loving each other requires us to be self-sacrificial in helping others become holy and whole.

And that is only the great commandment. It gets worse!

Because the great commission says, we are to go and make.

I don’t know if you see the problem here, but somehow, someway, we always get this backwards!

They are not supposed to come, we are supposed to go. Go and make disciples. Figure out how to share our life in Jesus with them. Not get them to come here -  but get up out of our comfortability and take our aliveness to communities that need life.

All those folks untouched by the good news of the gospel are not just supposed to wader in, show up here for their introduction to the faith. No. They are to experience the faith out in the world in such a remarkable fashion that they then start looking for more and decide that here is a place more can be found.

A friend last Sunday watched the live presentation of Jesus Christ Superstar, and wondered, if a person decided that they wanted to know about where that story came from and what it meant, where would they think to start looking?

Would any of them think, “…well I could go to a church and ask”? I seems to me that is unlikely!

But they might think, “…you know, Kim and Paul often have little conversations about their faith and about Jesus, I wonder if I could ask them what they thought about the show”?

Out in the world, loving, going, making!

A church I recently read about raised enough money to pay off all the medical bills of everyone in their impoverished community that was facing bankruptcy. Imagine the community conversations about that?

Another opened a second church meeting space next door to a coffeeshop in the center of town. It turns out a lot of church people stop by the coffeeshop and then wander in to the church space and so do a lot of regular town folk. All kinds of conversations start their, including about how to help their neighbors.

If our call is to love and to go and to make, what could we do that would wake up our community to the amazing presence of a loving and caring group of followers of Jesus, right here, right now, who aren’t old, stogy, hypocrites who only sing old hymns, have tired ideas, and do nothing new that interfaces with the world as it really is.

According to Paul, the Holy Spirit makes us alive, alive enough to live out God’s call in our community to the glory of God. Don’t be afraid, we can do this!

For he is risen. He is risen indeed.

Amen.

Easter Sunday Traditional Service

Sermon from Matthew 28:1-10 for Easter Sunday

So…

It had been so overwhelming. Never could we have imagined that when we entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passover Feast that things would go as they did.

After all, we had been here before, we had come to other Passovers meals. We had experienced so much over the three years, it was hard to see how this would be different and yet it was, so, so different.

From the assignment to go get the donkey and the colt, to the cleansing of the Temple, to the daily teaching times, and the freaky cursing of the fig tree.

We should have known that after the raising of Lazarus that the final confrontation was coming. But Jesus had raised the child and healed so many others without so much as a murmur.

He had told us he would die. He had told us that he would suffer. But who wants to hear that – that the Master you love will leave you and that his leaving will be catastrophic.

We had gone into the city and secured an upper meeting room, and even made sure that the Seder feast would be ready, yet somehow, we had forgotten and not arranged for someone to wash our feet. It is a servant’s job and none of us were servants. Boy did we get schooled about that, when the Master took up the task.

It was just like him, to remind us by his actions, that we were not royalty, but rather servants of the most high God, and all servants to one another. What did he say? “You are to love one another!”

And then during the meal, a festive occasion of remembering God’s provision for the people of God in the passing over of the angel of death above the houses with their doorposts and lintels painted in the blood of the lamb, that he was the lamb of God, given for us and all who believed.

“This bread is my body, broken for you, take and eat and do this in remembrance of me. Take this cup, filled with my blood, the blood of the New Covenant, and drink for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Oh my!

And one of you will betray me. And Peter, you will deny me. And then we went to the garden. It all happened so fast, the soldiers, the crowd, Judas, and Jesus taken away, tried, convicted, sentenced, and crucified. It was overwhelming, surreal, and we all felt like we were drowning without a way to swim to shore.

And then he died, and it was as if time stood still.

And then, who knows why, those silly women decided to go to the tomb! Silly I say, yet faithful and believing in ways we couldn’t. They wanted to re-anoint the body they said. But that is not the truth as far as I am concerned.

They went because they believed.

They went because they listened.

They went because they were sure that if Jesus said it, it would be true.

Three days: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! And as soon as the sun rose and the Sabbath was complete they went, with burial spices they believed they wouldn’t need.

If only I had that kind of faith, but I don’t and I didn’t.

If I had, it would have made me proud. I would have known he was coming back.

But for the women, it just was part of their humble devotion.

And once again, he bids me to learn.

He is not dead. He is risen. We have seen him, touched him, eaten with him! He is different, yet so much the same. His smile just as bold and as broad. His laughter so rich and so full.

Yet he is so beyond the limitations of this life. He has already died. Now he is alive forevermore. And the challenges of this life are behind me.

Now he invites us to follow in a brave new way, and he tells us we don’t need to worry for soon the Spirit is coming to fill us with understanding and power.

And we his faithful ones will bring glory and honor to his name.

So, all you who listen do as we do, and go into all the world and bring them the good news! For he is risen. He is risen indeed!  Amen.

Easter Sunrise

Sermon from Matthew 28:1-10 for Easter Sunday

So…

I am glad you have come to honor Jesus or Master! And I am glad you have all brought your burial spices.

So before we enter the place of the tombs, now that it is light, I want you to be aware that though Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus did a good job of the ritual washing of Jesus as best they could - considering he had bled before he died from his many wounds - they could not have placed around him enough spices to deal with the smell of decay.

So today, in addition to all the wonderful spices and fragrances you have brought, we will add the Frankincense and Myrrh that his mother Mary  has brought, and the wonderful bit of perfume Mary Madeline has secured for this moment.

Together, we will head into the area of the tombs, and hopefully we will be able to find the one in which they have placed Jesus.

Rumor has it that it is guarded by the Temple police, so we will see what happens.  I am not sure why they would turn us away, but so be it.

So, let’s go. It’s over here just a few more steps.

Um. Well that’s strange. The tomb, well, it seems that it is open!

And what is that they are saying? That it is empty, and that the Temple police have fled?!

Because, according to some, an angel appeared and when they looked into the tomb, the angel said that Jesus was no longer dead, but alive.

That can’t be of course. We saw him die. I mean really! We saw his injuries. We even saw the soldier’s spear rammed into his side. He was dead!

But according to the angel, God has raised him. He who is powerful, even more powerful than the power of death, has raised his Messiah, his son, our Jesus!

It is a miracle! It is the miracle we have hoped and prayed for even as we couldn’t believe it could ever be true.

He is alive! Hallelujah.

And now we must go and tell the story everywhere and to everyone.

Oh, and take those burial spices with you. Ha ha, it seems we won’t need them. Oh this is crazy!

Keep them near to you so you can smell the sweet good news. He is risen indeed!

Amen.