How Much?

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

1 John 3:14-18; Luke 16:19-31

August 28/29, 2012 • Portage First UMC

Leo Tolstoy once told the story of Pakhom, a farmer who inherited the land his father had worked on. And the land provided a good living, enough for Pakhom and his family. But times were changing, everyone said, and you needed more land to be a really successful farmer. So he saved and sacrificed and expanded his acreage, but that was not enough. One day, Pakhom heard about another region where land could be bought cheaper, so he moved his family there, got a larger farm, and yet still he wasn’t satisfied. Eventually, he heard of a king who would, in exchange for you giving him all your money, give you all the land you could walk around in a single day. Pakhom imagined how much land he could walk in a day, how much land he might be able to own, and so he took the king up on his offer. He sold everything he had, gave all his money to the king, and prepared to claim the largest piece of land ever.

On the appointed day, at sunrise, a stake was hammered into the ground at Pakhom’s starting point. The rule was this: he had to return to that stake by sundown, and all the land he had circled would be his at that moment. So he set out, eager and excited. He ran at full speed to begin with, trying to cover as much land as possible. At about midday, as things began to heat up, he started to circle back—walking much slower now—but then he saw some lush pastures he had to have, so he extended his path to include them. Then, as he once again began to head back, he saw a stream he wanted, so he extended his walk to include that as well. As the sun began to set, he realized he was going to have trouble making it back to the stake on time, so he began to run harder than he’d ever run, pushing himself when he was already exhausted. With only minutes to go, he saw the stake, and so he ran even harder, and just as he was within reach of the stake, he collapsed and died. Tolstoy’s short story is titled, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” And he ends the story by saying, “Six feet from head to heel” (Schnase, Five Practices for Fruitful Living, pgs. 122-123).

How much do we need? That’s the question that plagues us, that haunts us in every age. We live in the richest country on earth, we have more than most every generation before us, and yet we’re still discontent. Every election in the last many years has boiled down to economic questions, specifically one that was asked in a campaign over twenty years ago. It continues to be asked in various ways: are you better off now than you were four years ago? We watch our stocks, our investments, our bank accounts, and we constantly worry if we have enough. How much do we need? When you get to be my age, people start asking about your retirement funds—will you have enough to live comfortably in retirement? Are you planning wisely? How much do we need? Tolstoy’s story puts the question in stark terms: all we need, in the end, is enough land to be buried in.

And yet, we still worry about having enough. And because, in this land of plenty, we worry about that, we tend to become stingy, tight, less giving. In fact, we are one of the worst giving generations in American history. We have more than any other generation before us and yet we give less. We keep more for ourselves than ever before—and part of that is because we have also built up more debt than any generation before us. We’ve bought the lie that more is better, even when it comes to debt. All of this makes it difficult, then, for us to experience the truly fruitful and meaningful life, because the fifth of our five practices of fruitful living is “extravagant generosity.” We have trouble experiencing the grace of giving.

This evening/morning, we’re wrapping up this series on the five practices of fruitful living, and let me just remind you where we’ve been. We began with radical hospitality, which has to do with welcoming, and if we’re going to experience the fruitful or meaningful life, our first welcome has to be to welcome God into our lives, to allow God to work in and through our lives. From there, we move to passionate worship, where we respond to God in gratitude for what God has done and is doing. Then we dive into intentional faith development, growing our faith through study, particularly in small groups. And that leads us to risk-taking mission and service, not doing good things in order to earn anything from God, but to offer the grace we have found to others. And as we give of our lives in service, we should then find our hearts moved to give in another way, in extravagant generosity, in giving of the things we have back to God.

The reality is this: whatever we have doesn’t really belong to us anyway. What we have is a gift from God. It all belongs to him. That’s the Bible’s witness. Whatever we have earned or built up or received is a gift—even if we have earned it by our work. Who do you think gave you that skill, that ability? We don’t own what we have; we are stewards of what God has given us. We are managers, taking care of God’s resources as faithfully as we can (Schnase 125). In fact, the Bible’s perspective is that the only thing we really own is however much of God’s truth we can grab onto and make our own. That’s the only thing we’ll take with us when we leave this world (Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, pg. 380). That’s hard for us to get our minds around, and often we end up more like the rich man in a story Jesus once told.

The story is in Luke 16. It’s a parable Jesus tells to his disciples, but we know from earlier in the chapter there were Pharisees standing nearby, listening in. In fact, this parable may have been more directed at them, because, as Luke tells us, they loved money (16:14). There was a rich man, Jesus tells us, and in order for us to understand how rich he was, Jesus tells us he wore “purple and fine linen” every day (16:19). Purple was very expensive in those days; it was the clothing of kings, largely. And while this man undoubtedly had other clothing, he chose to wear purple every day so that people would know how wealthy he is. And, more than that, he wore “fine linen.” The word used there refers to the Egyptian cotton that was used in the first century to make the very best underwear. “This man not only had expensive outer robes, but in case anyone was interested, he also wore fine quality underwear” (Bailey 382). More than that, Jesus says, he “lived in luxury every day” (16:19). Some translations say he “feasted sumptuously,” but Jesus’ emphasis is on the “every day.” Seven days a week—which means he took no time for God. He didn’t observe the Sabbath. He was always having huge, rich feasts, again to show how wealthy he was and that he had no time for religious observance.

And yet, outside his door was a beggar named Lazarus. This is the only time Jesus gives any of the characters in his parables a name. Lazarus is a Hebrew name that means “the one whom God helps” (Bailey 383), and it’s obvious from the way Jesus sets this up that God will have to help Lazarus, because the rich man will not. The rich man is inside, having lavish feasts, while Lazarus lays outside, longing to get just a scrap from the table. Yet the scraps in those days went to the estate’s guard dogs (these were not pets), the same dogs that come and lick Lazarus’ open sores (Bailey 384). It’s a pitiful sight. How many times do you think the rich man walked right by or even stepped over Lazarus? Yet he had no time for him. He could not help him. His fortune was for himself, for making a name for himself, for entertaining and for buying fancy underwear. He had no time to give to anyone or anything beyond himself.

And so both men die, and the rich man ends up in Hades, while Lazarus ends up at “Abraham’s side.” Now, remember this is a parable, a story told to make a singular point, so we shouldn’t be too quick to draw conclusions about the afterlife based just on this parable. But, for the sake of the story, the rich man can see paradise and he can see Lazarus and he can talk to Abraham. Even in torment, it’s interesting that he still doesn’t talk to Lazarus, as if Lazarus is still not worth his time unless he can serve him in some way. In fact, that’s what he asks Abraham over and over again. Can’t Lazarus bring me some water to cool my tongue (16:24)? Can’t Lazarus go visit my family and warn them about this awful place (16:27-28, 30)? And each time, the rich man is refused by Abraham. There is a chasm, Abraham says, and even if Lazarus wanted to help you, he couldn’t cross the chasm from here to there. And as for those still in the land of the living, Abraham reminds him they have the writings of Moses and the prophets. There’s an ironic twist there, of course, because the rich man didn’t listen to Moses and the prophets. He was too busy having a good time instead of attending synagogue service. And he knows the same is true of his brothers, so he says, “If someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent” (16:30). Abraham disagrees. “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (16:31). And that was certainly true in the Gospels. Even when Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead in John 11, it didn’t convince the religious leaders that Jesus was anyone special; instead, it strengthened their resolve to get rid of Jesus (John 11:53). No, the parable says, those in this life must listen to the Scriptures and, more than that, they must obey the Scriptures. That is the path to salvation.

Now, as I said, we have to be careful not to draw too many firm and definite conclusions from this parable about the afterlife. It’s not as simple as “the wealthy are bound for hell and the poor are bound for heaven,” though some have made it out that way. But, rather, the focusing issue for this parable is set out by Abraham in verse 25: “Remember,” he tells the rich man, “that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things.” The key word there is “received,” and the emphasis is on where each man received what they got. Abraham says the rich man received good things from God (because in Hebrew understanding, wealth is always a blessing from God), and in turn, he had the opportunity to pass it along to help others, as represented by Lazarus at his gate. Instead, he chose to pass along “evil” things to Lazarus in the form of no help whatsoever. God gave you good things, rich man, so that you could bless others (Bailey 391). It’s a calling as old as the Scriptures, for when God established his relationship with Abraham back in Genesis, God told Abraham he was “blessed to be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-3). In another parable before this one, Jesus talked about a rich man who was blessed with a bountiful crop, and instead of sharing with others, he decided to tear down his barns and build bigger ones, keeping it all for himself. In the parable, he died that night, and the question was asked of him: “Who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:20). The question that runs through all of this is simply this: what will you do with what you have been given? Because what we do with what we have matters. Our attitude toward what we have shapes our heart and our lives and our eternity.

We’re called to have generous hearts. “Giving helps us become what God wants us to be” (Schnase 115). In fact, John, in writing to the early church, perhaps reflecting on this very parable, asks this question: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” (1 John 3:17). He compares our lives to that of Jesus, who gave everything (his very life) for our sake. Those who claim to follow in his footsteps should do no less, to be willing to give our all for the sake of others, to be extravagant in our giving. In fact, John says, the calling of the Christian is not just to say we care about those in need, but to actually care. “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Our words mean little if they are not backed up with or lived out in our actions. That is the path to the fruitful or meaningful life. Bishop Schnase comments, “No stories from Scripture tell of people living the God-related spiritual life while fostering a greedy, self-centered, self-serving attitude. Knowing God leads to generosity” (119).

Now, extravagant generosity is not the same as being wasteful with our resources. It’s an attitude of the heart, and it’s tough. So what are the obstacles? What are the things that keep us from developing generous hearts? First of all, we have to overcome the fear that often surrounds us anytime we talk about financial matters—specifically, the fear that we might have to give up something we think we love. We might have to part with some of our stuff. And yet, our stuff isn’t necessarily healthy for us. As we have become a wealthier people, depression rates as well as suicide rates have gone continually up. Depression rates alone have tripled over the last twenty years. At the same time, the felt need for security systems and stronger locks has risen. And also for storage units. Isn’t it rather crazy that we have to rent a place to store our stuff because we don’t have enough room in our homes for all of it? The fear we’re trying to combat is the fear of losing our stuff—but if we have a generous heart, that fear begins to decrease as we recognize it doesn’t really belong to us anyway.

The second obstacle to extravagant generosity is related: generally, we become less generous as we become more wealthy. We think it will happen the other way around, that when we finally get to a certain level, we’ll start giving. But research shows again and again that doesn’t happen. In fact, as I said earlier, in America, when we were earning less, we gave more proportionally. A study done a couple of years ago showed that, as a people, we now give less percentage-wise of our income to churches and nonprofits than people did during the Great Depression. In other words, when people had little, they gave more. That same study found that, in general, church giving to benevolence funds—the ways we help with human need—has dropped 47%, partly because we’ve had to devote more money to insurance and utility costs, coupled with the fact that we as a people aren’t giving as much. So there is less available to make a difference in the world. We’re better off than our parents and grandparents, generally, and yet the heart of extravagant generosity has eroded.

A third obstacle has to do with viewing money and wealth as spiritual topics. We tend to separate our “spiritual life” from our “financial life,” and the two rarely meet. Yet, Jesus, as we’ve seen, often talked about wealth as a matter of faith. In particular, he talked about greed a lot—and greed was not a good thing. What we do with what we have is a spiritual matter, because, as Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). What you value is shown by what you do with what you have (cf. Schnase 132-133).

So, because we’re always interested in “what’s in it for me,” let’s ask what benefit there is in giving extravagantly. Not because that’s why we should give, but sometimes to get over the obstacles, we need to be able to see the way such a practice will help us on the road to fruitful living. The first thing giving does for us is it changes us inside. Generosity is developed through giving, and not giving leads to greediness, selfishness, self-centeredness and self-absorption. Are those the things we want to characterize our lives? When we give, when we open our hands, we begin to break the hold money has over us. We begin to break the inner drive for getting more and more and more. We step away from the mad pace that is set by someone like Pakhom in Tolstoy’s story and begin to head in a more contented, peaceful direction. We don’t need more. And we can begin to see better the life God has for us.

Which leads us to the second thing giving does in and for us—it helps us mirror God’s image. All of us were created in God’s image; we’re told that from the very beginning of the Bible (cf. Genesis 1:27). But that image was marred pretty quickly. Do you remember what broke the image of God in us? It was wanting more than we had been given. The very first man and woman had everything they needed. God provided it all, and yet they wanted more than God had given them. We’re told Eve approached the one tree they were not to eat from and she “took” some fruit and ate it. It’s the first instance of taking rather than receiving in the Bible (Genesis 3:6). And the story continued from there. Their son Cain killed his brother Abel—took his life—because Cain thought Abel had more of a blessing than he did. Jacob took the blessing and the birthright from his brother Esau and created a break in the family that lasted for decades. And so on—you can follow that same story through the whole Bible. When we think it should be ours, when we take what is not ours, we mar the image of God in us. Giving begins to restore that image, begins to help us reflect more of God’s image into our world. Giving helps us “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

More than that, giving puts everything in perspective. It helps us maintain balance in our lives so we don’t get so focused on possessions to the harm of our soul. “Extravagant generosity is a means of putting God first, a method of declaring to God and to ourselves the rightful order of priorities” (Schnase 123). We believe this myth about money in our culture—that if I just had a little more, I’d be happy. And yet, when we get a little more, we want a little more, and then more—again, like Pakhom. We’re always trying to reach a receding goal. It’s said that if you want to know what’s important to a person, look at their checkbook—or today, we might say, look at their credit card statement. In the pursuit of happiness, over half of us spend more than we make, either dipping into savings (if we have any) or spending up to the limit on our credit cards. On average, we spend $1.33 for every dollar we earn—and that crosses all economic situations. I read a story this week of a doctor who took out a loan to buy a new car—not because his car was old (only three years) but because he looked around the parking lot at his office and saw he had the oldest car there. That bothered him. He had to keep up with everyone else. In what ways do we lose perspective when it comes to money? Do we, like the rich man in Jesus’ parable, try to impress others first? Extravagant generosity gives us perspective as to what is really important and it breaks the power of greed that threatens to invade our hearts.

So what does extravagant generosity look like? Part of the key is in the word “extravagant.” Extravagant means “from the heart, unexpectedly joyous, over-the-top, propelled by great passion” (Schnase 133). Christians who are extravagant in their giving want to make a true difference for Jesus in this world, which is why Bishop Schnase says, “Extravagant Generosity is giving to God as God has given to us” (133). Paul put it this way: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). The word translated “cheerful” really means “hilarious.” God loves a hilarious giver, one whose heart overflows because they are able to give and make a difference in the world. Extravagantly generous people work toward the Biblical model of the tithe—10% of our income goes to God first to support and grow the ministries of our church. That’s been a goal of this church since before I arrived, and in fact, you may not know that the church itself tithes—10% of our income goes to the Annual Conference, which enables ministries literally around the world. Another characteristic of extravagantly generous people is that they don’t wait to be asked. Instead, they are looking for needs and the opportunity to make a difference. It’s not a giving that is done reluctantly or begrudgingly, but joyfully. I like to think of it in terms of the way the kids got excited about their Bible school mission project this year. We presented the idea on Sunday evening, and challenged them to give enough money to provide one unit for clean water in Guatamala. That would have been $250, but they weren’t going to stop there. Every night, they came in with pennies and other coins, with smiles on their faces, and they couldn’t wait to put their money in the water bottles. It was, of course, partly because of the friendly competition we had set up, but it was also because they knew they were going to be helping kids who didn’t have clean water. That’s hilarious giving. That’s extravagant generosity.

Now, I recognize we can’t all start giving at 10%. Many of us are in far too much debt to be able to do that. A tithe might be a goal, but we’ll never get there if we don’t plan for it, if we don’t approach our giving deliberately. So what’s your plan? How are you going to move toward or beyond the 10%? How are we going to meet the needs that are right outside our door, the Lazaruses of our world? You know, when it comes to clean water, and you consider that those filters we purchased will last ten years and cost so little—you can’t help but realize it’s not a lack of resources that keeps much of the world drinking dirty and disease-ridden water. It’s a lack of willpower. Or the fact that we’ve been involved in Feed My Lambs for three years now and are still mainly based at one school, that we’ve gone across our community trying to find additional sponsors only to be rejected—it’s not a lack of resources, it’s a lack of willpower. It’s a lack of extravagance in our generosity. How much is enough? Do we want to be like the rich man who only thinks of himself every single day? Or do we want to be like Jesus, who gave everything he had in order to bring life?

Radical Hospitality. Passionate Worship. Intentional Faith Development. Risk-Taking Mission and Service. Extravagant Generosity. Together, these five practices will lead us to a fruitful life, a life with meaning and purpose, a life away from the normal selfishness of our world. And they are not optional, any of them. Taken together, planted in a Christian’s life, these practices, these habits will enable us to become more who Jesus calls us to be—people who love God, love others and offer Jesus to the world. Will you be that kind of person? Will you set your heart on living a fruitful life that makes a difference for this community and for our world? What’s your first step going to be? Let’s pray.

Love With Legs

The Sermon Study guide is here.

James 1:19-27; Matthew 20:20-28

July 21/22, 2012 • Portage First UMC

There are a lot of things I know. For instance, I know I should exercise regularly. I need to be out walking or doing something aerobic in order to have good cardiovascular health and to keep my weight under control. I know that. I’ve known that for some time. And in the spring, I was doing really well. Cathy and I would walk nearly every night. But then I left for the Middle East, and when I got home, it was really hot, and there are lots of things I need to be doing, and…and…and so I don’t. I know I should, but I don’t. I know I shouldn’t eat so many sweets, but I really love chocolate. And ice cream, I really love ice cream. And cookies, I really, really love cookies. And so, even though I know I shouldn’t, I get this craving somewhere in the evening for something sweet, and I go prowling in the kitchen. Where are the brownies? Do we have any cookies in the cabinet? I’m hungry, and I just need a little snack…and pretty soon, I’ve eaten more than I should. I know I shouldn’t go past the speed limit when I drive. I even have that handy thing on my car called “Cruise Control,” which allows me to set a speed on the interstate and stick with it. So, once I know what the speed limit is, I set the cruise for about 5 miles per hour beyond that. Because everyone knows they don’t arrest you for just 5 miles over. And besides, that little extra speed boost will get me to my destination much faster. And it’s okay, because there are still people going faster than me. And…and…and…I know I shouldn’t, but I do. There are a lot of things I know. And then there are other things I do.

The Apostle Paul once wrote this: “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18-19). I don’t think Paul was just talking about himself there; I think he was describing a universal condition. I know a lot of things—so why don’t I do them? Why don’t I live out what I say I believe?

This evening/morning, we’re continuing our series of sermons on the “Five Practices of Fruitful Living,” and so far we’ve talked about three practices that help us connect with God—radical hospitality (being open to God’s work in our lives), passionate worship (responding to God) and intentional faith development (learning to walk with God through small group studies). So far, everything we’ve talked about has been internal, stuff we do for our own growth. And that’s great, we need to grow our faith, but it’s also true that our faith is not just for personal betterment. On an afternoon walk one day, two of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, come to him. Actually, as Matthew tells it, they are hiding behind their mother, who has a request to make of Jesus. “Please let my boys sit on your right and your left when you become a king,” she says. The seats to the right and the left of the king were the places of honor, the places of power. And so, on one level, she’s affirming Jesus. “You’re going to become king,” she’s saying, “but when you do, I want to make sure my boys make out good.” It’s a selfish request hidden behind a compliment—and not hidden all that well! Well, naturally, it makes the other disciples angry; they’ve worked just as hard as James and John. And so Jesus pulls them all together (we’re not told where mom went), and tells them the real nature of greatness in his kingdom is servanthood. “Whoever wants to become great among you,” he tells them, “must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (20:26-28). Our modern translations tone it down by using the word “servant,” which somehow sounds nicer, but the word Jesus uses there is really “slave.” The nature of following Jesus involves being a slave—one who serves him and others not at our own leisure, but at his pleasure. We don’t really get a say in it, and the fourth of our five practices for fruitful living is service—mission and service.

Many of us, though, become content with the first three practices. We welcome God into our lives, we enjoy worship and we even get to the point where it’s important to us to study (or at least read) the Bible, to grow in our faith a bit. That, at least, was my story. I grew up in the church. My parents were and are life-long Methodists. I was baptized at the Sedalia church, which closed shortly thereafter, and we moved to the Rossville United Methodist Church, where we were in the building just about every time the doors were open. I was in Sunday School and worship every week, except for those two weeks in the summer when we went on vacation. My folks were very involved in the church, serving on a variety of committees and doing much more for the church and people in the community than I’m sure I was aware of. I gave my life to Jesus during a Vacation Bible School in fifth grade, and after that, I too became very interested in learning more about my faith and growing in it. And so it went, until I left for college where I got involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Through that great ministry, I went to a missions conference called Urbana ’87. That year, the conference was focused on inner-city ministry, and during one of the talks, I felt God tugging at my heart. How could I respond? What could I do? How could I serve? So when we got back to campus, our group began to make plans for a spring break project working in inner-city Chicago, through InterVarsity’s Chicago Urban Project. And when we went that week, Cathy and I both felt a tugging on our hearts to do more. So, rather than looking for summer jobs that year, we signed up and raised money to be able to spend two months in the city working among those who had great need.

That summer changed me in so many ways, mostly in giving me a larger view of my faith. It could never again be all about “me and Jesus,” not when there was such a large world of need around me, and not when Jesus has called us to walk in his footsteps, the steps of a slave. It’s that same calling that led me to places like Claremore, Oklahoma to help build a church for Native Americans; to Lynchburg, Virginia to work on Habitat for Humanity houses; to Sun Valley, Arizona to work among the children at a Native American school; and to Red Bird Mission, where I saw and experienced a level of poverty I hadn’t seen up close anywhere else. Now, I’m not trying to build myself up in any way. I have very limited skills. Basically, when it comes to building or any sort of home repair or anything like that, I have to have someone tell me what to do and point me in the right direction. Only occasionally do they trust me with power tools, though I got pretty good with a sledge hammer on one trip! But my point is this: if Jesus can use someone as unskilled and uncoordinated as me in his service to others, he can use anyone, which is why his call goes out to all of us: whoever wants to be first must be a slave. That’s the example he set: Jesus came to serve, not to be served.

Getting stuck on those first three practices is not just a twenty-first century problem, however. In the first century, it was easy for Christians, to simply enjoy worship, get a good feeling and walk away without doing anything about what they heard. That is one of the issues James is addressing in his little letter that’s tucked near the back of the New Testament. James, we think, was most likely the half-brother of Jesus, one of those who didn’t believe Jesus was the savior at first. I mean, come on, you sat around the dinner table with him, you played baseball with him, you saw him when he was sick, you were in gym class with him, and then he grows up and claims to be the Son of God, the savior of the world? That would be a bit much to take in. But James at some point came around and in fact became the leader of the church at Jerusalem until his death. He writes this letter to the churches scattered “among the nations” (1:1). It was a “circular letter,” to be read in worship in many different gatherings, and so it addresses problems that are common in many different settings. In other words, this wasn’t just a problem in Ephesus or Corinth or Jerusalem or any one city—the problems he’s addressing are universal, and, it seems, for all time as well.

In the passage we read this evening/morning, James has two issues he’s talking about, but they are interconnected. Matters of the “tongue” begin and end this passage, and I think we’ll see why in a few moments. But in the middle of this passage is the church’s struggle with hearing versus doing. James puts it this way: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (1:22). By “the word,” he’s referring to what was bring proclaimed in the worship gatherings, which in his day would have included the readings from the Old Testament as well as the message about Jesus (cf. Wright, The Early Christian Letters for Everyone, pg. 11); there was no New Testament in those days per se, but we understand that “the word” for us also includes that part of the Bible as well. But reading Scripture for those first-century believers was very important. They had come out of the synagogue tradition which had seven readings on a normal Sabbath, and in some places outside of Palestine there were more than seven (Osborne, “James,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 18, pg. 41). Reading Scripture was central to their life together. But it was like they heard it, they listened to it, they maybe even complimented the rabbi on the way out, and then they went on about their lives. There was no response to the word. There was no action based on what they had heard. James says they were deceiving themselves. But, then, that’s what we have to do when we hear what we know is truth and we don’t to do anything about it. Let’s think about it in terms of our health. Every year, our insurance company pays for Cathy and I to have bloodwork done for a “wellness check,” and we get this several-page report back that says this and that about our health and then gives recommendations if we want to be in better health. And I read it, and I acknowledge that much of what it says is true. If I did what it says, I would probably be in better health overall. But then, I tell myself, you know, I feel fine. There’s nothing really wrong. And I rationalize myself out of doing anything. You do the same thing when the doctor tells you to cut out the sweets, to start exercising, to lose weight. We all do. And we do it in our spiritual life, too. We hear Jesus say to become a slave. We hear that. You’ve heard me say that over and over again. I’ve heard me say it over and over again. And then we rationalize it. Not right now. Maybe later. That’s not my gift. James calls that what it is: self-deception. We talk ourselves out of service because it’s uncomfortable. It might call us to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone, to take a risk, which is, of course, why this fourth practice is actually called risk-taking mission and service. For most of us, any sort of serious service, becoming a slave as Jesus says, responding to the word, is a risk. It pushes us beyond what we’re comfortable with.

Do not merely listen to the word, James says. Do it. Live it. Act on what you’ve heard. James says to not do so is like looking in a mirror in the morning, and then walking away without remembering what you saw. Mirrors in the first century were not what we think of today. They were polished metal—copper or bronze for most people, silver if you were wealthy—and so they showed a rather poor reflection. So failing to respond would be like someone getting up in the morning, seeing their messy hair, and walking out the door without doing anything. They fail to respond to what they know. “The word is the mirror of the soul,” James is saying, and the contrast is not between two people who don’t understand what they see in that soul-mirror. The “hearer” understands perfectly what the mirror shows. They have studied the Scriptures. They know what it says, and yet they don’t respond. The “doer” has also studied, and yet they refuse to talk themselves out of responding (cf. Osborne 43). As William Barclay wrote a generation ago, It is possible “to identify Church attendance and Bible reading with Christianity, but this is to take ourselves less than half the way; the really important thing is to turn that to which we have listened into action…What is heard in the holy place must be lived in the market place—or this is no point in hearing at all” (The Letters of James and Peter, pg. 59). Listen to James again: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (2:22).

So what is it we’re supposed to do? James defines “pure religion” in verse 27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” When he writes this, James is really just summing up the teaching of all of Scripture, calling us to respond to what we hear in two ways. First, to “watch after” orphans and widows. We have to understand that, in the first century, orphans and widows were among the most vulnerable and impoverished of all people in society. Widows were left with no resources when their husband died. They had no male protector in a male-dominated society. They could not work. And even the inheritance went to the male children. If her paternal family was gone, she might literally have no one to care for her. Orphans were in the same category (Osborne 45). So who are the vulnerable today? Who are the “least of these” in our world? Pure and faultless religion is to “look after” them, which means caring for them, bringing them help and deliverance—watchful care (Osborne 45). Children in poverty, those who have no clean water, victims of abuse or the sex trade, elderly who are victimized by scam artists and even, sometimes, by their own family—we could go on and on, but James’ point is this: find those in need, find those who are vulnerable and care for them. He says that pure and undefiled religion isn’t about knowing the right theology or believing the right doctrines or knowing everything about the Bible. It’s not that those things are unimportant; it’s that they’re foundational, and they’re not where we’re meant to stop. Pure, full expression of our faith results in doing—caring for the least of these. Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

Too often, today, Christians get worked up about the wrong things. Perhaps you heard the news story a couple of weeks ago about the pastor in Florida who managed to get the film “The Blind Side” pulled from the shelves of a Christian bookstore chain because there are a few instances of bad language in the movie. Never mind the fact that the “bad language” is in the midst of a scene about the horrible situation the young man, Michael Oher, was rescued from, never mind that the whole story is about a Christian family seeking to live out their faith and care for one of the least of these—no, it was more concerning to this pastor that someone might hear a bad word. And I don’t know that pastor, but I want to ask: wouldn’t it be more in line with Jesus to respond to that movie and even that scene by going out to serve someone like Michael Oher? Wouldn’t Jesus want us to worry more about the kids who are still stuck in situations where gangs might take over, where they have nothing, no food, no resources, no hope? James calls us to stop worrying about little things and, instead, engage in risk-taking mission and service—live out our faith. Don’t just hear the word. Listen and then go do it, James says. Care for those in need.

Now, the second piece of James’ guidance is this: “keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (1:27), and this takes us back to the image he uses to frame the whole section. James keeps coming back to the issue of the tongue, or what we say, how we use our words. In verse 26, he says, “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.” Wow, that’s pretty pointed, isn’t it? A lot of times, we use that to say we shouldn’t use those bad words, or to warn our kids against swearing or taking God’s name in vain, but James has something much larger in view here. Our words are the way we represent ourselves; it’s often the first or even the only thing someone else knows about us. Our tongue can either build others up or tear others down, and it often gets us in the most trouble. In fact, in the very first part of this passage, James writes, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (1:19). Boy, do we have trouble with that in today’s world! We think, somehow, that by being angry and lashing out we can change someone else or change the world. How many of us have said something in anger and then later regretted it? Probably all of us! And now, we have these wonderful technological tools that allow us to do it instantly. We don’t have to weigh our words or even spell them right; we just get on Facebook or Twitter and lash out at whomever we want. We don’t have to look them in the eye, we don’t have to deal with our anger, we just spew anger and hate and meanness. I’m pretty sure that, if James were writing today, he’d have to include those venues along with the tongue, because the challenge of not being “polluted” by the world has to do with the things we say and the ways we react to others. Are we angry at the right things, the things that break God’s heart? Or do we just get angry when our feelings get hurt, when we don’t get our way, when it’s not all about me? Do we speak things that are not true? Do we do harm to others with our words or do we build them up? Later on in this letter, James will remind the church: “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be” (3:8-10). James says living out our faith has to do with what we do and with what we say, because in both instances we are representing Jesus to the world. In every situation, we are either hearers or doers. James calls us to be doers, who engage in risk-taking mission and service, seeking to change the world. Such action, one seminary professor said, is “love with legs” (qtd. in Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Living, pg. 106).

So where can you put “legs” to your love? Where can you be a doer of the word, engaging in risk-taking mission and service? There are nearly limitless opportunities, if we will open our eyes. In our own neighborhoods there are people who need a helping hand, a listening ear, a meal delivered, a kindness offered. The risk for us may be getting to know them well enough to put ourselves out there, to stop judging with our tongues and to start living our faith. You see, ultimately, “serving others does not merely involve helpful activities that make a difference; Christ-like service helps us become the persons God created us to be. It fulfills God’s hope and will for us” (Schnase 93). Beyond our own neighborhoods, there are many opportunities to step out and serve, far more than I could talk about here, so let me just mention a few that are of an immediate nature. Did you know that every Tuesday there are faithful folks who gather at the church to pray for you and for this community? Some of you have, undoubtedly, received cards from them as a reminder that you are being prayed for. Now, I hear some saying, “I don’t want to pray out loud.” Maybe that’s the risk God is asking you to take, to serve others by lifting them up to God in prayer. Be a doer of the word. Did you know there are women in this church who are making dresses out of pillowcases so that children in Haiti who have nothing might have a simple dress to wear? The risk for you might be giving up time on a Saturday to help, or learning a new skill, or risking looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. And yet that risk of embarrassment or whatever will make a world of difference for a child in need. Be a doer of the word. Did you know that in Appalachia there are as many as 56% of the population living in poverty? That compares to 15% poverty here in Porter County. Red Bird Mission has been there for decades trying to make a difference, to improve life, but it’s an uphill climb. Last year, the school nearly closed for lack of funds. So for the last four years, we’ve tried to make a difference by sending teams of people into that region to help improve the standard of living for a family or two. Chris Adkins is leading a team this fall—do you want to be a doer of the word, caring for widows and orphans, for the least of these? The risk for you might be going to a place and a situation where you’re not at all comfortable, where the traditions and even somewhat the language is different. Be a doer of the word. Last week, our children raised over $500 to give clean water to villages in Guatemala. Now, Keith Brutout has invited us to come along next year to see the difference our giving has made. Would you be interested in going to serve for a week in Guatemala? You see, the challenge is as we do the word, God steps it up. It becomes riskier, more challenging, which is why it’s easier for us just to hear and not do. But mere hearing is not our calling. Doing is.

I love the story from the late Richard Halverson, one-time chaplain of the United States Senate, but before that he had been a pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Halverson once told about arriving in D.C. one night about dusk, and as they approached Reagan National Airport, Halverson looked out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of his church. But it was dark, and difficult to see, and despite pressing his face against the glass, he couldn’t see Fourth Presbyterian Church. He was able to make out a few things: the White House, the Potomac River and Georgetown, the distant Capitol dome, and as he saw each of those places, he thought of the folks who worked in each of them. He thought about how they were living out their faith in a sometimes difficult setting, and that’s when it hit him. “Of course!” he said. The passenger in the seat next to him gave him a strange look. “There is is!” he said. “Fourth Presbyterian Church.” What Halverson realized, again, that the church wasn’t a building. The church was spread all throughout Washington, thousands of points of light shining in the darkness (Colson & Vaughn, Being the Body, pgs. 307-308). The same is true of this church. All throughout Portage and Northwest Indiana and other places, there you are—Portage First, taking risks, serving others, being doers of the word. And God calls us to engage even deeper. Be people who regularly practice risk-taking mission and service. Be engaged in doing the word, in living out risk-taking mission and service. “Be people who do the word, not merely people who hear it and deceive themselves…Such a person is blessed in their doing” (Wright, The Kingdom New Testament, pg. 464). Let’s pray.

Further Along

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 15:1-17; Acts 2:42-47

July 14/15, 2012 • Portage First UMC

On one of our first days in the Holy Land, I thought I knew where we were going next, but the bus pulled over to the side of the road before we got there. There was a small parking lot there, but it certainly wasn’t a normal stop on the itinerary. There were no peddlers or souvenir stands outside! So we got off the bus and passed through a ramshackle gate to a wide spot on a dirt path. Across the small stream there were some cattle grazing, and it looked like they wondered why we were there as much as we did. Our guide gathered us under the shade of a tree and told us we were standing on a first-century road, actually more of a path, that follows along a valley with a stream running beside it. Most likely it have been a well-traveled path in the first century, and so we can say with almost absolute certainty that Jesus and his disciples would have walked on this road. It would have been the quickest way to travel between the place Jesus grew up (and where his family still lived, Nazareth) and the place he chose as a home for the years of his ministry (Capernaum). There were, undoubtedly, many paths he could have chosen to walk, but if he was going to get to where he needed to be, this was the path he needed to walk. He would have to make an intentional choice if he was going to end up safely in the right place.

As we walked along that ancient path, I began to think about all the times we choose paths to walk—maybe not a literal path, although we do have to make those choices, of course. But I was thinking more about the paths we choose to walk in our lives, the times when we face a moral or a spiritual crossroads. Which path will we take? Which direction will we go?  We make intentional choices that lead us on a career path. We make intentional choices that lead us on a family path. For that matter, we make intentional choices when we go to the grocery store—this brand or that brand? And yet, when it comes to our spiritual life, to our faith, we often leave it up to chance. For most of us, there is very little intentionality on our part when it comes to developing our faith. We might get involved in a short-term study group, and then when that’s over, we don’t do anything else. Maybe in a couple of years, we sign up for a retreat, or we listen to a podcast once in a while. We tend to approach our faith in “fits and starts,” a little here, a little there, with little to no intentionality or plan for growing, for making progress along the journey of faith. Why is that? We manage to plan for everything else in our lives. We go to the gym, take our children to school, get them to soccer practice or dance class. We plan for our meals, and we manage to get to work on time (cf. Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Living, pg. 69). What is it about growing our faith that we assume it will just happen, almost by accident? If we’re serious about our faith, intentionality is critical to getting to where we want to go.

We’re continuing our series of sermons this evening/morning on the five practices of fruitful living, and so far we’ve talked about radical hospitality in terms of being open to God, and passionate worship in terms of responding to God. Those two practices or movements in our lives are absolutely essential, but to move us along the path God has for us we need an additional practice. If we’re going to become more the person God has made us to be, we will want to engage in intentional faith development. As you hopefully can see by now, being intentional means approaching our faith with a plan in mind, a destination in sight. The word “intentional” originally means “aim at, to stretch for.” It’s the sort of image Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Philippians: “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Do you hear the intentionality in that? Paul wasn’t content to just sit around and hope he would grow in his faith. He knew it took work, straining, stretching—intentionality. In just a couple of weeks, we’re going to be again marveling at the skills and abilities of the Olympic athletes as we cheer the best of them on to win at the games in London. But not a single one of those young athletes would be there if they just sat around and hoped they would make it. None of them would have gotten there if they just went to a practice every once in a while, or when they felt like it. No, for them to become the best of the best, it took intentionality, hard work, striving, and showing up even when they didn’t feel like it. If winning a gold medal is that important, how much more important is the goal of eternal life, or as Paul talks about it, “the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”? Faith development should not be incidental or accidental in our lives. It must be intentional.

On the last night he was with his disciples, Jesus wanted to help them know how to move further along in their faith. He knew he was headed toward arrest in the garden that night, and so after supper, as they walked along the Kidron Valley toward the Garden of Gethsemane, he shared the most important things he could with these closest of friends. I mean, when you know you have limited time, when you know the end is near, you don’t waste time talking about unimportant things. And so, as they walked, Jesus shared his heart. It’s possible that, as these words from John 15 were spoken, they very well could have been in sight of the Temple, and on the front of that magnificent building was a large, golden vine, the national symbol of Israel (Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 150). The Old Testament had often talked about Israel as a vine, and not always in complementary terms. The psalms called Israel a vine brought out of Egypt and planted by God in this promised land (Psalm 80:8-9), but Isaiah saw them as a vine that bore bad fruit, sour grapes (Isaiah 5). Jeremiah described them as “sour grapes” (Jeremiah 31:29). And so Jesus, perhaps pointing toward that national symbol, tells the disciples he has come to change that, to make everything right between humanity and God. “I am the true vine” (15:1), he says, which means that anything else we might want to attach to or to connect with is, by default, false. All the things we’re tempted to be attached to—our jobs, our money, our possessions, even our traditions or our religion—those things are false. They won’t nourish us. Only Jesus is true. Only he is “the way, the truth and the life,” as he told them before they left the Upper Room (John 14:6). Only he can feed our souls because he is the true vine.

Jesus continues to build that image by calling those who follow him, his disciples and all who follow in their footsteps (like us) as “branches” (15:5). When you’re talking about a grapevine, the branches are the place where the fruit grows. The branches produce what the gardener is looking for—in the case of a vineyard, grapes. But the branches can’t do that on their own. A branch, by its very nature, is only useful when it’s connected to the vine. In fact, in the first century, grapevine branches were considered useless; you couldn’t even use the wood they produced for the burning of the sacrifice (Card, The Parable of Joy, pg. 186). The only thing, according to the law, that branch wood was good for was producing grapes; their sole purpose was bearing fruit. Now, do you think it’s any accident Jesus chooses this image when he’s talking about his followers? Our only purpose, our sole goal, Jesus says, is to produce fruit for him. Any other purpose is too small a calling. But we still can’t produce fruit on our own: “Apart from me you can do nothing,” Jesus says (15:5). On our own energy, we’ll produce nothing. Connected to Jesus, however, we will “bear much fruit” (15:5).

But let’s take a moment here and ask the perhaps obvious question: what fruit? What does Jesus mean by “fruit”? What is it that we, as his followers, are supposed to be producing? The imagery of fruit is used a lot throughout the Gospels and the New Testament. John the Baptist is one of the first to use it when he tells those who come to receive baptism that they should “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). In other words, he tells them if they are going to say they want forgiveness from their sin, they need to choose to live in such a way that shows they have been forgiven. Forgiven people, for instance, forgive others. Live your life, John says, in such a way that shows you have been changed. Near the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, who has said earlier that his followers would be recognized by the fruit of their lives (cf. Matthew 7:20), says we show our faith by doing radical things, things that take us beyond our own basic selfishness: feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and those in prison, clothing the naked, inviting in the stranger, caring for those in need (Matthew 25:31-46). The “fruit” of our lives, then, is seen in the way we care for and interact with others. Later on in the New Testament, Paul tells us that the way we know the Spirit of God is living in us is when we see certain things growing in our lives: “The fruit of the Spirit,” he writes, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Ultimately, you can say it’s all summed up in what Jesus called the greatest command: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). The “fruit” we are most called to produce is love: loving God, loving others, and offering Jesus. That’s why we emphasize those three things so much in this church— these commands are the essence of the way Jesus calls us to live, the fruit he most desires to see produced in our lives.

So how do we produce that fruit? Because, as I said, we can’t do it on our own. We can’t just will ourselves to love those around us. Look around this room tonight/today. Undoubtedly, there are some gathered here whom you struggle to love, and no amount of decision or willpower on your part will help you love them any better. It gets even worse when you get outside these walls. There are people at our jobs, at our schools, in our city, maybe even in our families who are difficult to show love toward. We can’t produce that fruit on our own. So how does it happen? Is Jesus asking the impossible? Absolutely not, because he has also given us the way to be able to produce that fruit: stay connected to him, because, going back to the vine imagery, love is the “sap” that flows through him and into us. Love is what he gives us so that we can show it to others, and we get that “sap” into us, he says, he doing what he commands us to do, living as he calls us to live. That’s the connection we need. “If you keep my commands,” Jesus says, “you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (15:10).

So staying connected to Jesus is more than just showing up at worship once in a while or even every week. It’s more than having warm, fuzzy feelings and singing a song about Jesus. Staying connected to Jesus is far more than having your name on a church membership roll or serving on a church committee. Staying connected, Jesus says, is knowing and keeping his commands. Staying connected is living out the life he intends for us to live—intentionally. That takes a plan, and we can’t know what he commands, really, unless we study the Scriptures, the word he has left behind. We can’t consistently and intentionally grow in our faith without studying his teachings. We can’t “remain in his love” unless we engage in intentional faith development.

Now, here’s something else I want you to notice about this passage: Jesus is speaking this not to one disciple, but to all of them, all eleven of them at this point. He’s calling them to be a community that, together, stays connected to the vine. A solitary branch, hanging out all by itself, might produce a little bit of fruit, but together, the branches produce “much fruit” (15:5). Jesus consistently modeled and called us to community, not solitary faith. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, recognized that. You’ve heard me say before how Wesley organized the early Methodists into small groups, places where the Scriptures could be read and studied and each member could be held accountable for living out what they had learned. Wesley believed in this sort of small group faith development so deeply that he once wrote, “Christianity is essentially a social religion; and…to turn it into a solitary one is to destroy it” (qtd. in Schnase 72). By “social religion” he didn’t mean “social club.” Far from it. He meant that Christianity by its very nature is what we would today call community-centered. We need each other. Together, as the branches on the vine, we will grow. And, as with any living organism, if we’re not growing, we’re dying. It’s just that stark of a choice.

For the last several years, it has been a stated and ongoing goal that every person who considers Portage First or PF Hope their church home would be involved in a small group somewhere, and not just for the short term. We long to see groups that grow together in love so deeply that they hold each other accountable and encourage one another and learn together things they would never have learned alone. And there are a wide variety of small group opportunities, from long-term commitment classes like Disciple, to weekly study groups like Brown Bag, to monthly service and fellowship groups like United Methodist Women and United Methodist Men. The model for small groups really comes from the end of Acts 2, where we’re told that those first believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). Now, there’s a whole sermon just in that verse, but very quickly, let me suggest that small groups that engage in intentional faith development are made up for four things: study of the Scriptures (what Acts calls “the apostles’ teaching”), fellowship (or just enjoying each other’s company), table fellowship (“breaking of the bread,” or food, something we Methodists almost always get right!), and prayer for one another, sharing each other’s concerns. There are many other things that can be a part of a small group, but these four, taken directly from the Scriptures, are ones that specifically help us to grow our faith and produce “much fruit.” And so we’ve tried to continue to build up and lift up small group ministries, but over the last year, we began to realize we didn’t have a clear path for people to follow that would lead a person from starting a relationship with Jesus to a place where they would feel that they could lead others into that kind of a relationship. So I tasked Jeff King last fall with developing that sort of a ministry, and he’s been working on a program called “The Journey.” I’d like to ask Jeff to come up for a few moments as we talk about what “The Journey” is all about.

Interview: Jeff King & “The Journey”

So Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. But there’s one other piece to this drama, and Jesus puts it this way: “My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (15:1-2). Many of you may know that when I arrived seven years ago, Pastor Mary had just planted a grapevine in the back yard of the parsonage. And so I inherited a very tiny vineyard. I was told that it would take three years for the vine to get to the point where it would produce grapes, so I waited patiently for three years. And…no grapes. So I did some research on the internet about growing grapes, and I learned you have to cut them back every so often, otherwise the vine’s energy only goes into growing wood and leaves—not grapes. So I cut the vine back and waited through the next year. And the next. And then I cut it back some more, and still I only got wood and leaves. Once, I found what appeared to be a very tiny grape, but it quickly withered and disappeared. Year after year, I kept looking for grapes and got nothing, and so last fall, I tore the whole thing out. No more vines, no more leaves, no more branches. It’s all gone. And why did I do that? Because the vine was using resources and not doing what it was really made to do. It failed to produce fruit and was doing damage to my fence instead. And I thought of that when I read that verse. God the Father, Jesus says, is constantly watching the vineyard, the church, the Body of Christ, seeking to do two things: remove the dead, unproducing branches and pruning those that are producing so that they can produce even more.

The word translated “cut off” literally means to “lift up or take away” (15:2). That sounds harsh, but in horticultural terms, getting rid of the dead wood, the wood that just does not produce, is a kindness to the rest of the vine. Dead wood can contain disease or decay. Dead wood can do harm to or even kill the rest of the vine. To “take away” the dead wood is, in the long run, a healthy act for the rest of the vine. The second term, “prune,” is a word that means “to cleanse or to purify.” Again, this has to do with the health of the overall plant. For the vine to grow and produce, excess wood and leaves need to be trimmed, cut back (Tenney 151). Now, of course, Jesus isn’t talking about vines here, really. He’s talking about God’s action in our lives. He’s reminding us that if we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, if we’re not producing the fruit we talked about a little bit ago, we can find ourselves cut off from the vine. But he’s also reminding us that, even if we are producing fruit, we might find ourselves going through times that are meant to purify us, make us better disciples. There might be tough times God allows into our lives that help us to become stronger, more loving, more who he wants us to be. Jesus’ point is this: “Fruitfulness is normal for believers. An absolutely fruitless life is…evidence that one is not a believer. Jesus left no place among his followers for fruitless disciples” (Tenney 152).

So the question is this: are you further along in your walk with Jesus than you were a year ago? Is there greater evidence of love, joy, peace, patience and all the rest in your life today than there was a month ago? Are you better able and willing to love God, love others and offer Jesus today than you were last week? Because that’s what he has called us to: intentional faith development, something that happens best in small groups as we sharpen each other and challenge each other. So if you haven’t been involved in a small group, what’s holding you back? What keeps you from connecting with other and growing your faith? Here’s the challenge: find a place where you can grow your faith and produce greater fruit. It might be in a Sunday School class, or a weekday small group, or a Disciple group, or the next Alpha course. It might be gathering a few friends together over lunch once a week, or getting together with someone over breakfast. Find a small group that will help intentionally move you further along in your faith. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and we’re all in the fruit-producing business. What’s your plan to be further along in your faith next year than you are today?

Holy Moments

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 4:19-24; Exodus 8:1-15

July 7/8, 2012 • Portage First UMC

In a garden, in the middle of the bustling city of Jerusalem, in between an alley and a city bus station, groups like ours gathered under the shade of the tall trees. Quietly, we sang, we prayed, we listened to the reading of the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and we shared in the bread and the wine of communion. Outdoors, in the middle of the city, near an empty tomb, with a group of twenty-six tourists from America…is that passionate worship?

In another location in the same city, below the current street level, we sat around a stone called the Lithostratus—a word that literally means “stone pavement.” Once, a Roman fortress stood right by that place, and it was somewhere along this ancient Roman street that Jesus was beaten and mocked, just outside the Antonia Fortress, where Pilate stayed when he was in town. We talked about the excavation, and the meaning of this place, and then we sat in silence for many minutes. Silence and personal reflection, underneath the city…is that passionate worship?

Out in the desert, near the place where Jesus would have been baptized by John the Baptist, we gathered along the shores of the Jordan River, literally with the country of Jordan only a few feet away on the other side of the river. Many in our group had asked to have a reaffirmation of their baptismal vows at this place, and as each one stepped into the water to be immersed, there were tears and laughter, applause and smiles…is that passionate worship?

In Bethlehem, we stood in a hot, humid line to be able to touch the spot where, tradition holds, Jesus was born, but we had ended up in the Church of the Nativity on a day when many others also wanted to be in that same spot, and though we were out of the sun, we were inside a building that held the heat very well. On top of that, the line was stopped a couple of times by processions, a line of worshippers with incense and candles, making their way to the altar of the church. Processions and incense, touching a silver star that marks the place of Jesus’ birth…is that passionate worship?

Underneath the traditional rock of Calvary there is a small cave, not visited as often as the chapel on the top. Few know the cave is there, but it can, sometimes, give you an uninterrupted chance to touch the mountain where Jesus was crucified. It can be a place of quiet prayer, or it can be a place of loud tour guides and picture-happy tourists. Pastor Chris Nunley told me that, the last time he had been in that cave, he was struck by that contrast as, in the midst of those tour guides, he spied a woman laying prostrate on the ground, weeping as she thought about and prayed about what Jesus had done for her in that place. Tears and desperation…is that passionate worship?

Well, as you can tell, during our journey in the Holy Land last month, we experienced different forms of worship in many different settings. We smelled incense, sat in ornate churches and simple chapels, used candles, processions, even singing on a tour bus. Different forms, different settings—about the only thing we didn’t do was sit in a pew and have a formal order of worship. So which of these are passionate worship? Well, they all are because worship is not defined by the style or the setting or the liturgy. Worship is a matter of the heart finding its way into holy moments with God. And that we did, in more ways than I can count, during our pilgrimage through the places Jesus walked.

This evening/morning, we are continuing our series of sermons for the month of July on the “Five Practices of Fruitful Living.” We’ve talked these five practices as our church’s values for a number of years now, and we’ve tended to think about them and talk about them in terms of how they define us as a church, as a group. But these same five practices can also enable us to grow more deeply in our own faith and our relationship with Jesus. Last week, Pastor Deb got us started thinking about radical hospitality not just as reaching out to others and making them feel welcome (which is certainly a huge part of who we must be as a church) but also of being open to God, of accepting the truth that we are accepted, that God wants to live and work in our lives. So radical hospitality is our first practice—making room for God and making room for others. Once we’ve allowed God to be active in our lives, our response to that action, that movement is to worship. Passionate worship is our chance to love God with our whole hearts, souls, minds, and strength (cf. Mark 12:30). Passionate worship is an act of gratitude for all God has done for us. It’s meant to connect us to God in every area of life (cf. Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Living, pg. 45).

Jesus once talked with a woman about worship. In fact, there by a water well, Jesus shared what has been called “the most important teaching on worship in the entire New Testament” (Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, pg. 210). Yet, the conversation didn’t start out focusing on worship. Jesus met this woman while waiting on his disciples to come back from town. Actually, many commentators think Jesus took this journey through Samaria just to meet this woman. Normally, a good Jew didn’t walk through Samaria; you would walk around it so you wouldn’t have to interact with these half-breeds, these unclean low-class people. But Jesus, the text says, is sitting on the well, on top of the stone that kept the well clean, so when this woman comes to get water, if she’s going to be successful, she’s going to have to get him to move (Bailey 201-202). When she approaches, he engages her, challenges her, provokes her to the point where, when he begins to probe her personal life, to ask questions about her moral choices, she does what we would do: she changes the subject. What’s the best way to get away from talking about the morality of your choices in life? Start talking about religion (cf. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 45). Start a religious argument. And that’s just what she does in the passage we read this evening/morning.

Specifically, she brings up an ages-old question: what’s the right place to worship? The bitter division between Jews and Samaritans went back centuries, to the time even when the Jewish nation was divided in two after Solomon was king. Solomon’s descendants ruled in the south, and another kingdom was set up in the north. The traditional place of worship, the Temple, was in the south, so to keep the northerners from going south to worship, the northern king set up two other altars at which, he said, worship could be done. When we were in Israel, we saw the remains of one of those altars, in the area of Dan, in the far northern part of the country. After the northern kingdom was destroyed and the survivors began to intermarry, they still chose their own place of worship. In Jesus’ day, there were two competing altars: the Temple in Jerusalem (Mount Zion) and the altar in Samaria (Mount Gerazim). So this woman asks Jesus: which one is right? Where should we worship? And Jesus tells her she’s missed the point. Worship isn’t about a place; worship is about our attitude, our heart. Worship is about how we approach God.

That’s even indicated in the word Jesus uses. The word translated as “worship” means “to bow down,” to show reverence, respect, to bow in honor of someone or something. The same word was used of a dog licking its master’s hand—think about that one for a moment! Worship, then, means to “give worth to, to place something over us.” That’s the image Jesus has in mind here, and behind that image is what the Jewish people had understood about worship for centuries. Way back in Exodus, when the Hebrew people were in slavery in Egypt, the call went out from God for the people to come to the wilderness to worship him. That’s the request Moses makes over and over again to the Pharaoh when he asks for the slaves to be set free. “Let my people go,” God said, “that they may worship me” (8:1). Now the word there is actually a word that means “serve.” “Let my people go that they may serve me” is actually one way this verse is translated in some Bibles. In the Hebrew understanding, there’s a connection between service and worship. Worship is service; service is worship. The two are intertwined. When we serve others, we are worshipping God. When we worship, we’re orienting our lives toward serving God, doing what God asks us to do. Worship is service. Worship is reverence. Worship is not dependent on a place, then. That’s what Jesus says. Nor is worship dependent on a certain order or style or location. “Holy buildings, and holy mountains, are at best signposts to the real thing. If they become substitutes for it, you’re in trouble. That way lies idolatry, the worship of something that isn’t God as if it were” (Wright 46). True worship is a matter of the heart. “The true worshipers,” Jesus says, “will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (4:23-24).

If we want to discover the fruitful life, we must learn the practice of holy moments. We must find a place for worship in our lives because there are significant and important things that happen in the life of a Christian when we worship. First of all, worship enables us to “orient” ourselves toward God (Schnase 47). Jesus is trying to help the woman see that. She’s taking the topic of worship and wanting to debate about it. She’s getting caught up in peripherals, unimportant matters. Jesus takes this moment and orients her back toward what is important, what is vital: worship turns us toward God the Father, not toward a specific mountain or building. So we do that in our corporate worship times in a couple of ways. We always have something that calls us to worship; it may be a portion of Scripture or it may be an opening song, or it may be simply someone saying, “It’s time to worship.” A call to worship takes us out of our daily lives and turns us toward something new. And, of course, the times for prayer in our worship are also holy moments when we turn our thoughts, our being toward God. I was reminded, as we sat beneath the city streets of Jerusalem in silence, of what a great need we have for silence in our times of worship. We talk too much, especially when we pray. Jesus warned us against that. He told us, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (Matthew 6:22). He also said lengthy prayers by the teachers of the law were made for show, and that such folks would be “punished most severely” (Mark 12:38-40). Don’t be like them, Jesus said. God doesn’t hear us better if we use more words. Silence and prayers orient us toward God and prepare us for worship.

Second, worship opens us up to the spiritual part of life. During the week, we often get distracted, too focused on our to-do list, our finances, our errands, our jobs, our daily living. It’s easy to forget that there is more to life. We miss so much. Think about it this way: when we were in the middle east, we did not speak the native language, or languages. By not knowing Hebrew, or Arabic, we missed out on some of what was said. There were some places we couldn’t communicate because we didn’t know the language. If we were going to fully engage in the culture and fully interact with the people there, we would have needed to take a class or do something to learn the language. In the same way, engaging in the spiritual world is like learning a new language, and we need particular acts of worship to open us toward that new way of thinking and being (cf. Schnase 48). So we have practices like baptism and communion, sacraments which are things we do that represent things happening inside of us. There’s nothing magical that happens to the water or to the bread and juice; they are symbols, part of a new language that helps us, in some mysterious way, to connect to God and to what God is doing in our lives. It’s not the sort of thing you do in your daily life. It’s different Music, too, opens us up in ways that the spoken word cannot. Music connects to us on a deeper level, and I know you remember the songs a lot longer than you remember the sermon! So we sing and we have other types of music that get in our head and often come back to us during the week. I know I’ll wake up a lot of mornings with a song in my head, and that calls me to worship, to prayer, to connect with God. Worship opens us up to a deeper life.

Third, in worship we learn to listen for God with greater intentionality. Bishop Robert Schnase calls worship “a regular appointment with the sacred” (Schnase 49). We could choose, Bishop Schnase says, to spend our Saturdays/Sundays in any number of ways. Many people take this day to work, or to sleep in, or to play sports, or to shop, or to do any number of things. And yet, we choose to come to this place at this time because our relationship with God is important. And just as in any relationship, communication is vital, so in worship, we seek to better be able to hear from God. For Protestants, the primary way that happens in worship is through the Scriptures, both when we hear the Word of God read and when we hear it interpreted. Being people of the book goes back to the very roots of our faith. The Jews were always people of the book. Jesus would have had his early life centered on reading and hearing the Scriptures. We know in his adult life it was his custom to attend worship at the synagogue, where the reading of the word was and is absolutely central. And here in John 4, when he engages the woman at the well, in many ways he’s using images found in the Scriptures to speak with her, guide her, challenge her. In worship, we learn to listen to God through the Scriptures and we find the places where our lives need to grow, to change, to become more like Jesus.

Fourth, worship brings us back to ourselves (Schnase 49-51). Worship reminds us who we are and gives us a vision of who we can be. In the midst of our hurried and harried world, worship grounds us, roots us. I remember, very early in my ministry, visiting a lady in the nursing home, bringing her communion. She didn’t remember much of anything, to be honest. She certainly didn’t know me, because I was new on the staff of the church, working primarily with youth. So I went, and I found her room, and she didn’t seem to be paying any attention during our visit. So, being an impatient person, I decided to just do the communion and get it over with. I asked her if it would be okay to have communion, and she nodded, so I opened up my Book of Worship and began to read the words of the liturgy. At one point, I glanced up at her, and she was reciting the liturgy along with me, every word. We sang a hymn, and she knew every word. And when the time came to receive the bread and the juice, she had a smile on her face that could only be described as radiant. Worship reminded her who she was, even in the midst of a terrible disease that had robbed her of herself. Worship grounds us. It brings us back to ourselves, and allows us a chance to respond to what God is doing in our lives and saying to us. And so we respond in a couple of ways. Sometimes we respond by giving of what we have through the offering. We give back to God a portion of what God has given us. And we respond by acting on something we’ve heard in the sermon. We go to live it out. This Samaritan woman, after her encounter with Jesus, runs back to her village and invites others to come see him. “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did,” she cries out. “Could this be the Messiah?” (4:29). Worship brings us back to ourselves, grounds us, and calls us to be more who God meant us to be.

So that’s a picture of what worship does in and for us, but what do we mean by “passionate” worship? Passionate is sometimes interpreted as having goosebumps, all the warm feelings that go along with being emotionally affected. But that’s not passion. That might be the dinner you had the night before. To be passionate about something means you’ve put your whole self into it. Jesus described it as loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength (Mark 12:30). Being passionate means we enter worship with everything we have; we don’t leave anything sitting out in the hallway. We come with eagerness, anticipation, expectation and a yearning for God (Schanse 51). Does that describe you? Or do you come with dread, feelings of obligation, and a sense that you’d rather be most anywhere else? Passionate worship is something we look forward to, something we want to do, a place we want to be. I saw this happen in, of all places, the Cairo airport in the middle of the night. Egypt is a country that is 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. And so we learned, by observation, some things about Islam, and our guide filled in some of our gaps. One thing he told is that the first call to prayer for every faithful Muslim happens at 3:15 a.m. Now, I don’t know about you, but most days at 3:15 a.m., I’m sound asleep. Not so at the Cairo airport. We were about an hour from boarding our plane then, sort of sitting there in a dazed state, half-awake, when a man got up and stood in the corner (presumably facing Mecca) and began a chant, a call to prayer. It was 3:15 a.m. Soon, other men joined him in lines and for the next fifteen minutes, these devout Muslim men prayed as they had been taught. There were other men in the terminal that didn’t join in, but these few were passionate about what they believed. Now, I’m not suggesting we have to pray at 3:15 a.m. in order to be considered passionate. But what did strike me as I sat there and watched is that these men didn’t care whether there were other people around. They were going to be faithful. They were determined to be passionate. And I wondered how many times we are afraid or ashamed of being passionate worshippers. We don’t want people to think we’re crazy, and so we hold back or we hide. Passionate worship is about heart, soul, mind and strength being given over to God, not just in this time of corporate worship, but in every moment of every day.

So how do we live out passionate worship? The first and most obvious answer is that we join together in corporate worship every week. These moments we spend together are holy moments, connecting us with God. It’s something we need every week. It’s something we need for the sake of our soul which gets so beat up the other six days of the week. Bishop Schnase says this: “The path to fruitful living, to discovering the riches of the spiritual life, involves practicing worship seriously and with committed consistency, rather than attending worship haphazardly, infrequently, and without enough consistency to feel at home and confident about worshipping God” (Schnase 52). Now, your pastors are aware that, since Easter, our consistency as a congregation has been off. We’re not attending worship with the same regularity we did just a few months ago, and we’ve been puzzling over that one. What is it that keeps people from worship? When does worship become a lower priority? If you have an answer for your family or for yourself, I’d invite you to e-mail or Facebook private message me or Pastor Deb because we’d like to be able to help if we can. Worship is crucial for our souls, and the first way we express that is in corporate worship.

We also express and experience passionate worship in our daily personal devotions and prayers. It’s countercultural, really, to give up time to read the Bible and pray, and yet I know when I do it, when I set that time aside each day, my spirit is more connected to God and I’m generally better at dealing with the issues that come my way. But it’s not easy. With our family’s schedule, time is at a premium, and so most mornings it’s the first thing I do. I get up, go out to the living room where I have my devotional books and I read and pray there before anyone else is up. For others, that time might be best found at lunch or before bed. It’s really depends on your temperament, but the critical thing is that you find time to connect with God each day. Remember passionate worship is all about giving everything we have and all we are to God—heart, soul, mind and strength. Our own time of personal worship sets the stage, reminds us who we are and connects us to God on a regular basis. Martin Luther and John Wesley, both great men of God, found that they needed that time every morning if they were going to be able to do what they needed to do effectively each day. Jesus himself, the Son of God, often retreated early in the mornings to pray, to spend time in worship of his heavenly Father. If the Son of God, who only had about three years to accomplish what he came to do, needed to do that and found time to do that, don’t you think you can, too?

If this is not something that’s been part of your life, don’t think you have to find three hours every day. Why not start by simply finding a few minutes, maybe over your breakfast coffee. Rather than reading the newspaper or Facebook, spend some time reading a few verses in the Bible and thinking and praying over what those words mean for your day. What should you read? Well, you could start with the Scriptures we print each week in the bulletin or on the YouVersion app on your smartphone (and yes, those will start showing up again tomorrow). Or pick up an Upper Room that our United Methodist Women graciously provide for our congregation and read that day’s devotion. You can also subscribe to those and have each day’s devotion sent to your e-mail inbox for free. Or you can make the commitment to sign up for Disciple Bible Study this fall; those sign-up sheets are at the Connection Center this morning, and the classes will be starting August 19. Part of the discipline of Disciple is daily reading and prayer. You can see myself or Mike King for more information about that. Or you can pick a Gospel—I always suggest people start with book of Mark—and read a few verses or a chapter each day. If you want to read it devotionally, get a book like Michael Card’s The Gospel of Passion, to read along with the Gospel. Couple that reading with prayer, with a favorite song of praise. There are untold numbers of ways to worship personally, and you’ll find that practice, then, prepares you more for Saturdays/Sundays.

Here’s the thing: there are no experts in the field of worship, only learners (Schnase 60). But worship is the one thing we do here on earth that we know we will do in heaven. Why do we resist giving our whole selves? I challenge you in this way: become a passionate worshipper by beginning to practice personal worship at least three days a week, and make a commitment to be here in worship every week unless you’re sick or out of town. We have four opportunities over the weekend for you to worship. Now, we’re halfway through this year, so I want to challenge you to deepen your passion for worship in these two ways for the rest of this calendar year, for the next six months. Personal worship at least three days a week and participation in corporate worship every week unless you’re sick or out of town. And then let’s see what God might do in each of our lives and in the life of this church. What fruit might God bring out of the soil of those holy moments? Let’s be passionate worshippers, people who know it’s not about the place, and it’s not about me, but it’s all about Jesus, the one whom we worship. Let’s pray.