The Neglected Relationship

Genesis 1:24-31; Romans 8:18-23

August 24, 2014 (Outdoor Worship) • Portage First UMC

Anyone here know what is meant by a “Friday afternoon car”? I had not heard that phrase until this week, but it apparently is a phrase that originated in England and refers to a car that is poorly put together, a lemon, we might say. It’s called a “Friday afternoon car” because it’s built on the day and during the time of day when everyone is in a hurry to go home. The weekend beckons and the workers just want to get done so they can leave. Now, obviously, this was in the days before our “round the clock” production schedules, but the idea has remained. Sometimes we do things quickly at the end of our work week because we just want to get done and move on.

Which, when I turn to Genesis, makes me stop a moment and think. God spent a week, we’re told, putting creation together. And think about the way Genesis 1 tells it poetically. On Sunday, God created light and dark. On Monday, God created earth and sky, land and sea. On Tuesday, God created vegetation and enabled it to bear fruit, to multiply. On Wednesday, God created stars and the moon. On Thursday, God created animals in the waters and in the air. And on Friday morning, God created livestock and bugs and snakes and reptiles and lions and tigers and bears…oh my! And God saw that it was good. Creation was good. Then, on Friday afternoon, just before he was about to knock off work for the week, God finally got around to creating men and women. Friday afternoon, God made the one creature that is said to be “in his own image,” and thankfully, God is a more dedicated worker than we might be at times, because what Genesis says is that God did his best work on Friday afternoon. He didn’t make a “Friday afternoon car” when he created humanity. He saved his very best for the end of the week. And when it was all done, God declared that, with the addition of his Friday afternoon special, creation was “very good.” And then God took Saturday off.

But not before he gave men and women alike a commission, a charge if you will, a command and a place in creation. God says to the man and the woman, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” By the way, we have done quite well at that one. We have been fruitful and increased in number quite well. The late singer Rich Mullins used to call that verse the “most fun” command in the Bible. But then God goes on: “Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (1:28). And, in the understanding of that simple word “rule” we find our last two ingredients for the making of a Christian.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been mixing together eight ingredients that are essential for being a follower of Jesus in this strange new world we call the twenty-first century. The first week, we mixed in nonconformity and balance, then the second week we added in Christlikeness and maturity. Last Sunday, our recipe called for dependence and trust, and it’s especially appropriate that we end our series in this beautiful outdoor setting as we mix in creation care and simplicity. I hope, as we’ve gone along, you’ve seen how each of these “sets” of ingredients really complement each other, and that is certainly true with these last two. The commitment for the Christian to creation care is rooted deeply in Scripture, and yet the commitment to being good stewards of God’s creation is something that is often missing among believers in Jesus today. Why is that? And how can we get beyond that?

Well, first of all, let me say this is not going to be a debate or a monologue about global warming or climate change or whatever label you want to put on it. Well-meaning and firm believers in Jesus feel strongly about the evidence on both sides of that debate. But our commitment to creation care is not rooted in scientific evidence, strong or weak as it may be. Our commitment to creation care is rooted in our faith, and more importantly, in the Scriptures we hold as our guide or rule for life. And notice I’ve said “creation care” and not “environmentalism.” One of the problems with the modern day environmental movement is its tendency to exalt creation to a near-godlike status. We do not worship nature (Stott, The Radical Disciple, pg. 52). We worship the one who made nature, who made the world and all that is in it. But we have to avoid the opposite extreme as well. We can’t be counted among those who exploit nature for their own ends, as if the word “rule” means “tear it up.” Even some well-meaning Christians tend to think this way. Their reasoning goes like this: it’s all going to burn up anyway, so why not use whatever we can and get what we can out of it until Jesus destroys it? When we behave that way toward this world God made, we are acting as if we are God or even as if we know better than God. Want to know a truth that is little spoken of in church circles? The Bible doesn’t say creation or the earth will be destroyed, even at the end of time. Those who hold to such an idea are usually basing it on a few images from the book of Revelation that are taken out of context. No, the Bible talks consistently about the renewal of creation, about the remaking of creation. In the end, God plans to redeem the creation, not destroy it. Jesus himself talked about the “renewal” of all things (cf. Matthew 19:28). Not some things. Not the renewal of humans only, but the renewal of all things. Creation will be renewed, not destroyed.

In our reading from Romans this morning, we heard elements of that. Paul talks about creation “groaning” in the midst of childbirth (8:22). He talks about creation waiting in “eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” (8:19). Creation is waiting to be made new, to have the “new thing” God promises to come to pass. Now, I don’t know what all that will look like, but the image of childbirth tells me there will be continuity with the old, but there will also be something new. I remember waiting both times for our kids to be born. We had seen those ultrasound images on the screen that were supposed to be our children (I understand the images today are much clearer than they were nineteen years ago), and we tried to imagine what our children would look like, what they would be like. And then came the big day. We went to the hospital and we waited. And waited. In eager expectation we waited for this new life to be born. If you’ve had children, do you remember that anticipation? That’s the way Paul describes creation waiting for God to bring to new life what he has promised from the beginning. “On tiptoe with expectation” is the way one writer translates it, and I think that’s a very appropriate image (Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part One, pg. 150; Harrison, “Romans,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 10, pg. 94). God is bringing to life something new.

So our responsibility in creation care, then, is to cooperate with God. He calls us to “rule” creation, but the way that is demonstrated in Genesis 2 is by God placing Adam in the garden and telling him to work it and take care of it. Now, could God have done that himself? Certainly he could. He’s God; he can do anything he wants. But what he wants most is a partnership with us, his creation. He invites us to cooperate with him in caring for and being stewards of his creation. All of creation. That’s what is meant by “rule over.” Certainly we are to conserve the environment, but we are also to develop creation’s resources for the common good. Notice I said “develop,” not exploit. There’s a huge difference between the two. And as we are caring for creation, we are worshipping because we do it out of love for the creator (Stott 53). It’s been said that human beings have three fundamental relationships. The first is to God, because, as Genesis says, we were made in God’s own image. The second is to each other. We were plural from the beginning, and we are called throughout the Bible to community. And the third, and most neglected, relationship we were made for is to the earth and the creatures God set us over (Stott 49-50). An effective witness as a Christian and as a church in this twenty-first century means we will need to recover that most neglected relationship and develop a concern, even a passion, for creation care.

Very often, we settle into this idea that we own it all. It’s ours. It’s mine. But we forget that God is the owner; we are only stewards. And I say “only,” but that mandate from Genesis has a huge responsibility attached to it. We’re to care for what belongs to God (all of creation) until Jesus returns. Jesus once told a parable about a landowner who went away for some time and, before he left, he entrusted three of his servants with his possessions. He gave different amounts to each one, and then he left. Two of the servants took care of what he gave them and even increased what he had left behind. The third buried it in the ground so that he didn’t have to think about it, and only dug it up when the landowner returned. The landowner in the parable only has kind words for the two who cared for his resources and the words he has for the one who buried what he was given…well, let’s just say, they’re not so kind. And while we usually hear that parable in terms of money, it’s really a story that applies to anything God (the landowner) owns. And he owns it all. We are stewards. We are entrusted to care for what God has created. We are called to creation care.

Living that out, then, leads us to the practice of our final ingredient, which is simplicity. Sometimes when we think of having a “simple lifestyle,” maybe we think of the Amish or other similar groups where modern conveniences are rejected. I grew up in a community where there are a significant number of German Baptist families around, and as part of their religious practice they did not have televisions in their homes or radios in their cars. As a kid, I couldn’t imagine much worse than not having a television! But living a simple lifestyle is not just about things, although such a commitment will challenge our materialistic world. It is a reality that we have too much stuff. We have ruined our lives by trying to keep up with everyone else. The average American family today carries credit card debt of over $15,000. Many of those families are making minimum payments and will never, ever pay that debt off. Today, American consumer debt stands at $11.4 trillion. Folks, that’s sinful. We turn wants into needs and then we rent storage facilities to store things we’ll never use again but can’t bear to put in the rummage sale. And all the while the call of the Bible is this: “to remember that we are stewards and not proprietors of any land or property that we may have, to use them in the service of others, and to seek justice with the poor who are exploited and powerless to defend themselves” (Stott 71). Or, as the cliche says, we live simply so others can simply live.

There are serious questions we have to ask ourselves. There are serious questions I ask myself all the time. Can I justify that meal out if it means I won’t have money to give to feed a child here in Portage on weekends? Does it mean anything to me that 10,000 people die of starvation every day? (And, yes, I know this is a terrible thing to bring up on the day we’re about to stuff ourselves with picnic food!) How do I respond to the fact that, today, 4,000 children will die in the world because of preventable water-related diseases? Does it mean anything to me that a billion people in the world do not have clean water to drink or that women and children in Africa spend 40 billion hours every year walking to get water? For $25, one person can be given clean water for the rest of their life. Twenty-five dollars. That’s less than I usually spend on one Sunday meal for our family. Do I already have enough? Do I really need to buy that new, shiny thing? I ask myself these questions all the time, and I wish I could stand here and tell you I always make the right choice. But I don’t. Materialism is rooted deeply in our culture and, therefore, in our lifestyles and hearts. It’s so deeply rooted we usually don’t even notice when we worship at its altar.

Practices of simplicity begin to root out that deep grip materialism has on us. And it’s easy to want to have clear guidelines as to what a simple lifestyle looks like. But it isn’t that simple (pardon the pun), and I don’t intend to lay down rules or even guidelines this morning. It’s more a matter of an inward attitude that begins to shape our outward actions, a new lifestyle that matches our new life in Christ (cf. Stott 80). That’s what the Shakers were getting at in that old familiar song:

Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free,

Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be

And when we find ourselves in the place just right

Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

The inward attitude comes as we recognize what we can live without. That happens in a couple of ways. One is by asking straightforward questions. Is this a necessity or a luxury? Is this a hobby or an empty status symbol? Is this extravagance a special celebration or a normal routine? It’s about recognizing waste and opposing extravagance as a regular lifestyle (cf. Stott 76). But it’s also about recognizing when things have become an addiction. Richard Foster tells a story about a young man he knew who started every morning by reading the newspaper. Then one morning, he came out and found that the delivery person had missed him. He panicked, until he noticed a newspaper laying in his neighbor’s yard. He began looking around, plotting how he could get that newspaper without anyone seeing him. And then it hit him: he was addicted. He ran inside and called the newspaper to cancel his subscription. When asked why, he said, “Because I’m addicted” (Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pg. 91). I’m willing to bet the customer service person hadn’t heard that one before! Now, that’s a silly example, perhaps, but what is it you get nervous if you have to go without? Your phone? Texting? Internet? Coffee? Other beverages? Yes, I know now I’m meddling, but developing an attitude of simplicity will meddle with us, with our lives. And it will leave us uncomfortable for a while.

The inward attitude is demonstrated with outward actions. And here is where both simplicity and creation care come together. Again, I’m not trying to lay down rules but rather give us some things to think about from a Biblical worldview. The first thing, then, is to buy things for their usefulness rather than their status (Foster 90). In other words, when we set out to buy something, we want to ask, “How will this impact our world?” And not just “world” in the sense of environment, but how will it impact your world? We all know by now that the so-called “timesaving” devices don’t actually save time for us. We can easily become enslaved to our devices, addicted to our gadgets. The same principle can be applied when we go to look for a car, or a house, or clothes. Are we buying this because it’s what we need or are we trying to impress someone else? Ralph Waldo Beeson was a benefactor to Asbury Seminary while I was a student there, and when he was asked how he had earned so much money to give away—not only to Asbury but also to another university—he said he always tried to live simply. If he had one pair of blue pants, he didn’t buy another one. There was a story, and it may or may not be true, that someone once bought him three pairs of jeans and he made them take two pairs back. We can all live simpler when we stop trying to impress or keep up with other people.

The second practice is to get in the habit of giving stuff away (Foster 91). Chances are all of us have stuff stored or pushed to the back of the closet or in the corner of the basement, things that we either no longer need or maybe never needed. We also have things that someone else could benefit from, things that we don’t use. Jesus seemed to somehow manage by owning very little; in fact, when he died, it appears the only thing he owned was the tunic he was wearing. Of course, we have a great place for you to give stuff to, and that’s our rummage sale. The next sale is coming up in October, but you can drop stuff off at any time at the back of the church. And the rummage sale is not just about other people getting more stuff. It’s a way to provide items to people in the community for very little cost, but the money that is raised is given away to other organizations to help other people in need. Our de-accumulation can actually make a difference in the lives of others in many different ways, and it keeps those items out of landfills, so it’s also a way of being kind to the environment. Items that the rummage sale doesn’t deal with, like electronics, can be taken to Goodwill where they are recycled.

One more practice I want to mention, and that’s to develop a deeper appreciation for creation (Foster 93). We live in one of the most beautiful areas in the midwest, right here on the shores of Lake Michigan. Cathy and I love to take a walk out on the beach at Portage Lakefront, and though we take our phones, we don’t walk with them in front of our faces. I was at a local business the other day and a woman nearly ran into me crossing the parking lot because she wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. She was reading a book or something on an iPad. Put the gadgets away and soak in creation. Take a walk on the trails or on our prayer path, and do it without music. Take the ear pods out and listen to the birds. Watch for deer and other wildlife. Pray a psalm like Psalm 8 that celebrate’s God’s goodness in creation. Enjoy God’s good gift. And we can also develop a deeper appreciation for creation by recycling. When we recycle, we’re constantly thinking about our stuff’s impact on the creation. If you live in Portage, the city has made it easy (and other cities have as well) by providing the big green toters and we don’t even have to separate the items. They even pick it up at our house. Recycling won’t save the earth, but it does demonstrate our belief that God is the owner and we are only stewards. We are responsible for caring for what God owns.

If you listen carefully, if you listen with your heart, you can hear creation groaning, longing for redemption, longing for renewal, waiting for, as Paul said, the sons and daughters of God to be revealed (8:19). As we learn to live in simplicity and practice creation care, the sons and daughters of God are revealed just a bit more than before, and creation becomes just a bit more the way God intended it to be. We are stewards. So what one thing will you do this week to practice simplicity and creation care? What first step will you take to add these ingredients to your Christian life?

So…nonconformity, balance, Christlikeness, maturity, dependence, trust, creation care and simplicity. Our recipe is complete. How’s the cooking going in your life? Do you need some help mixing the ingredients? Let’s go to the one who calls us to this recipe to begin with, as we pray.

Control Issues

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Matthew 6:9-13; Psalm 23

August 17, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO: Home Improvement, “Too Many Cooks”

Sometimes not everything goes as planned in the kitchen. You can have all the right ingredients, the right recipe, but if you don’t prepare it right, everything can still go wrong. There are reality shows that make kitchen disasters a weekly occurrence, but all of us have probably had one or two in our own kitchens. Some little thing goes wrong and suddenly it's take-out night. And what is true in the physical kitchen can also be true here in our little Christian kitchen, where we’ve been working on a recipe for the last few weeks. We’ve called this series “Ingredients for a Christian,” and over the last couple of weeks we’ve explored half of the necessary ingredients. The first week we mixed in nonconformity and balance, and then last week we added Christlikeness and maturity. This morning we want to add two more ingredients to our mixture, ingredients that really are complementary. And the clip from Home Improvement demonstrates the first one very well, because while Al thought he could do it all by himself, he really needed Tim’s help and should have heeded Tim’s advice. Our fifth ingredient for a Christian is dependence.

That’s not a word that sits comfortably with most of us. We are a nation founded on a “Declaration of Independence,” and we like to think of ourselves as self-made, independent, strong people. When we think of dependence, we think of infants, who are completely dependent on their parents for everything, or we think of others who have been made dependent by life’s circumstances. We sometimes call those situations “tragic,” and we even hear some of our elderly relatives or friends say things like, “I don’t want to be a bother to anyone. I don’t want to be a burden to my family.” Or, I’ve had people tell me, “I don’t want to burden you with my problems.” I remember that feeling very well after I had my heart surgery several years ago. For the first couple of days, I didn’t feel much like moving, but then as I began to feel more like myself, I wanted to prove that I was doing great, that I wasn’t dependent on anyone else. So as soon as the nurse told me I needed to get up and walk, I did. I took off down that hallway like I always do, in a hurry, until the nurse caught up with me and told me that first, I shouldn’t be walking without someone else, and second, I needed to slow down. I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, and I needed to depend on the help of others for a while yet. Dependence is not a comfortable feeling to most of us, maybe all of us. We don’t want to be dependent on anyone.

And yet, the Bible says we were made to be dependent. First of all, we were made to be dependent on each other. None of us is whole; none of us are able to do everything. As much as we want to appear competent in every area of life, we are not. “We are all designed to be a burden to others” (Stott, The Radical Disciple, pg. 110). We’re made to be in community, sharing one another’s burdens, being a “bother” to each other. Paul put it this way: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). When we say we don’t want to be a “burden” to someone else, we are actually standing in the way of them being able to do what Jesus told them and us to do. Do you want to stand in Jesus’ way? We’re called to community, to being dependent on one another. But, more than that, we’re called to dependence on God, and that may be the more difficult one to swallow.

Much of our world believes today they can live without God. And even many of us in the church, while we may give lip service to following Jesus, live as if we don’t need God. We pray and read Scripture and show up in church just when it suits us or when we really, really need something. On the other days, we live independently of God and of our faith. That’s really the meaning of the word “sin.” It’s to seek to live independently of God (Stott 100), to try to go our own way because when we go our own way, we’ll miss the mark. Every time. The bottom line is this: we have control issues. We want to be in charge, we want to control things (even in the church), we want to show our fierce independence. And yet, that is not the way Jesus lived and it is not the way he showed us to live. He even tells us that in the prayer we repeat here every week, the one we call “The Lord’s Prayer” even though it’s really our prayer. It’s the prayer he gave us, his disciples, as a model, or a framework (Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part One, pg. 58). It’s not a magic prayer; we don’t get what we want just by reciting it or any other prayer over and over again. In fact, Jesus specifically warns against doing that. He says that long-winded prayers don’t get God’s attention any better than any other prayers because God already knows what you need (6:5-8). That ought to shorten our prayers because it’s not about wearing God down (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 63). Rather, prayer is mean to shape us, to make us more dependent on God. And so this model prayer is meant to show us the way to pray and more than that, it’s meant to show us the way of dependence on God.

The prayer can be broken down into two parts. The first part focuses on God’s glory, God’s greatness. God’s name is “hallowed” or holy, God’s kingdom is what we desire, God’s will is what we want to happen. That covers verses 9 and 10, and that’s important in setting up the second half of the prayer. If God is not great, then we’re right to ignore him and go our own way. If God is not any better than us, not any more powerful than the average human, then we shouldn’t make ourselves dependent on him. But if God is who we proclaim him to be in the first part of the prayer, then why do we ignore his greatness and try to go our own way? Why do we try to do it all on our own?

So the second half is all about our dependence. Verses 11-13 focus on three ways we should be dependent on God, but it’s not meant to be an exhaustive list, just a representative one. The first prayer is for “daily bread,” and I don’t know that there is anything more basic to human living than bread. Bread somehow represents so many things that are good about life, and it’s something that is universal to the human family. I’ve eaten all kinds of different bread around the world, and while every culture makes it differently, it’s still bread, and it’s still basic to human life. But do we genuinely see that bread, our food, our sustenance, as coming from God’s hand or from ours? When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” do we really mean it? Do we depend on God that deeply? I know I often don’t. It’s more than just bowing our heads at mealtime and thanking God for our food. That’s important, but it ought to also lead us to an awareness that, while we have more than enough, there are so many people in the world who do not have basic needs like bread and clean water. While we overeat, there are many in the world who will go bed this night with empty bellies. And some of them are right in our own community, which is why I’m so proud that this church stepped up several years ago and led the way in trying to make sure every child in Portage is fed on the weekends. The Feed My Lambs backpack program is making a real difference in the lives of many children, but there are still more who need that act of kindness. It only costs $200 for the whole school year to feed a child. We can say whatever we want about parents who don’t provide that food for their children; that’s really irrelevant. Punishing the kids will not change the parents’ behavior. If it is within our means to do something about it, are we really going to let kids go hungry in our own community? Gratitude for our daily bread, realizing we are dependent upon God for the basics of life like bread, will move us to make a difference, because we are God’s hands and feet in this world.

Then the prayer moves to another level of dependence when Jesus prays about forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the unique contributions of the Judeo-Christian faith to the world, because in many of the world’s religions, actions have eternal and unbreakable consequences. In other words, in many world systems, there is no such thing as forgiveness. You are held in place by fear that a single actin might, in fact, ruin your chances for whatever afterlife is promised. But at the heart of our faith is the belief that, even though human actions matter deeply, forgiveness is not only possible but, because of Jesus, it can be a reality (Wright 59). And the fact that this request is included in Jesus’ model prayer tells us he knew we wouldn’t have to ask for forgiveness once or twice but regularly. Needing forgiveness is not a rarity! And here our control issues come into play again, because we don’t want to be perceived as “weak” by being the first one to ask for forgiveness. We wait for “the other person” to do so, and at the same time, they are waiting for us. And we certainly don’t want to admit to God that we have done wrong, that we have sinned. It never seems to occur to us that God already knows! Somehow we think he wasn’t looking when we messed up, when we went our own way. Yet, we know that ultimately only God can forgive us, and that we are dependent on him for the freedom that comes when we have been forgiven.

It hardly seems possible that it’s been eight years since the horrific shooting at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and yet I don’t know of a better demonstration of both the cost and the importance of forgiveness than the way the Amish community there responded after five young girls were killed in the schoolhouse there. Ultimately, the shooter killed himself as well, and yet by that evening, the Amish community was extending grace and forgiveness to his widow. They set up a charitable fund for the shooter’s family and about thirty Amish attended his funeral. They also allowed the widow to attend a funeral of one of the victims, which is nearly unheard of in this closed community. The nation was shocked by the shooting and almost as shocked by the forgiveness offered by the Amish. Yet when pushed about it, the Amish leadership reminded those who asked that it was not their place to hate or to judge. No matter what someone has done, they said, it is only God’s place to judge. It is our place to forgive and move ahead with life. That’s hard for us to understand. That’s hard to me to understand. I’m fairly certain I would not be able to respond with that kind of love and grace if something like that happened to one of my kids, certainly not that quickly. And yet, that’s how Jesus calls us to respond, no matter what the offense. In fact, in this same chapter of Matthew we find these words from Jesus: “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (6:14-15). As the Amish remind us, only God ultimately can judge, so why do we hold onto grudges and unforgiveness so strongly? It’s because forgiveness demonstrates our dependence, our lack of control. We want to be forgiven, but we don’t want that other person to be forgiven. Yet if we’re going to be fully Christian, that is the path we must walk. As Pastor John Stott reminds us, “The path to humility often leads through humiliation” (Stott 105). It leads us places where we don’t want to go but where we must walk.

That leads us to the third area of dependence. Jesus says we should pray to not be led into temptation and to be delivered from the evil one (6:13). It doesn’t take much looking around to realize that evil is all around us, in ways both subtle and obvious. If we’re going to escape the grasp of that temptation, we need to rely on God for grace, for strength, for eyes to see what is really going on. Only God can ultimately deliver us from evil, whether that is a sinful situation or even an evil disease that threatens our life. I’ve stood by many hospital beds and even deathbeds and prayed for God’s grace to come and to be evident. We always ask for healing, but more than that, we acknowledge that we are dependent on God and God alone in the face of evil. That’s one of the things I learned during my heart surgery recovery. Doctors could only do so much. I was utterly and completely dependent on God for my healing. And while I don’t wish to go back to that time, there are times I wish I could return to that sense of dependence, because it’s so easy to slip back into the mode where we think we are in control. God’s grace is the only thing that will ultimately deliver us from evil, so we pray for grace to surround us in life and even in death.

So we are dependent people—upon others and ultimately on God—but to be fully so we need the next ingredient in our recipe, and that is trust. Trust is hard for us to give to another person, even if we know we’re dependent. Especially for folks who have been hurt in the past, or even in the present, trust is a hard thing to grant, and if we have trouble trusting someone we can see, how hard is it to trust someone—God—whom we can’t see? Four years ago, just about this time, Christopher and I had just returned from a trip to the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany, and as a part of that trip, we also got to go to Italy. We spent three days in Rome and visited somewhere I had always wanted to go, the Coliseum. So I was like a kid in a candy factory, looking at everything, from every angle, as Christopher dutifully followed along behind. And then I realized our time had probably elapsed, so I told him we should go back to the meeting place. So we did, only our group was gone. They had given up waiting on us! I was then in a bit of panic and I remembered we had radios that our guide would talk to us through. So I turned it on, put the earpiece in—and heard only static. Not knowing what else to do, we began trying to make our way to the exit, and all the movies about people lost and trapped in foreign lands started going through my head. Then, we picked up a hint of a voice; it was Daniella’s voice, our guide. I couldn't see her anywhere, but she was looking for us! We kept walking, a bit faster, and we heard a bit more. Finally, we could hear her clearly and she told us which way to go. I was never more relieved to see anyone in my life! But had I not turned on the radio, had I not been listening, I would never have known which way to go. We trusted Daniella to get us out safely and we listened to her voice guiding us to the right path.

To the prophet Isaiah, God promises, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21). The question is whether we will “tune in” to the voice and trust what we hear. David, the shepherd boy, had to learn that. One of the most beloved of his songs is Psalm 23, and it is a psalm, a song, of trust. While we usually have this picture of shepherds sitting peacefully along a green hillside with the sheep gazing quietly beside them, that’s far from what it was like. The sheep were often threatened by wild animals, and it was the shepherd’s job to protect them. So the threat extended to the shepherd as well. It was a dangerous job in a dangerous place.

John Goldingay tells about going to a wooded retreat center, where, as they began their first session, the director warned them of the dangers that surrounded them. They were told that, if they met a bear on the grounds, they should not run because the bears could outrun them. And he said if they stayed on the path they would probably not get bitten by a rattlesnake. But, thankfully, the director shared, there had not been an cougar sightings recently. Goldingay said he decided the same thing most of us would decide: it’s better to stay inside the retreat center (Goldingay, Psalms for Everyone, Part 1, pgs. 74-75)! Those kinds of dangers were normal for the shepherds in David’s day. Wild animals looking for a sheep dinner. Valleys that often would flood quickly. Limited resources. Hot, barren landscape. And yet, David says, he “lacks nothing.” Or, as in the language many of us know by heart, he “shall not want.” From David’s vantage point, God has provided everything he needs. How many of us would say that, honestly? We tend to turn “wants” into “needs” and are rarely satisfied with what we have. But David trusts that what he has is all that he needs. I lack nothing.

His statement of trust goes on as he pictures God the shepherd bringing him, the sheep, to a place of quiet waters, a place of safety and sustenance. And God leads him along right paths for God’s name’s sake. That’s a curious statement, isn’t it, until we remember how important names are in the Bible. Names aren’t just for identification; they tell you something about the person. Knowing a person’s name puts you in relationship with them. And knowing God’s name means we are close to him and we know something about him. We know he is the provider, the one we can trust, and so he leads us places where we can demonstrate that trust, where we can again experience his faithfulness. That’s not just on paths of ease. David says he sometimes walks through the darkest valley, or the “valley of the shadow of death.” That’s a real place in the desert of Judea. Along the old road between Jerusalem and Jericho is a valley that is situated in such a way that the sun never shines down to the bottom. It’s always dark there. And while I’m certain David knew of that valley, I think he’s also referring to those difficult times, those times of loss and sickness and death and hopelessness and depression. We’ve heard a lot about that this week, with the death of Robin Williams, an apparent suicide that came out of deep depression. And we’re surprised that a man who made us all laugh could walk in such dark places, but it should remind us that no one is immune. What we see on the outside is very often a mask, covering pain that no one has seen. David knew loss and grief and pain. He knew the darkest valley that he spoke of, and yet he sings of trusting God even in those moments. “I will fear no evil,” he says, “for you are with me.” Even when the enemies threaten, you are right beside me, giving me a blessing that overflows, reminding me that the worst thing is never the last thing. David reminds us we can trust God. When everything else falls apart, we can trust God.

I will never forget the first time Christopher fell and cut his head open so badly that he needed a few stitches. He was less than a year old, and there is no way you can explain to him what’s about to happen. We scooped him up and took him to the urgent care, where they asked me to hold him down while they worked on him. They wrapped him in a blanket and proceeded to stitch up the wound as he cried and screamed. I’ll never forget his eyes looking at me as if to say, “Why are you doing this to me,” but I just held onto him and continued to comfort him, saying quiet words. I couldn’t stop the tears, and I couldn’t stop the pain, but I could be there with him, holding onto him, helping him to trust me even when it seemed like the end of the world to him. God promises the same thing. For reasons we don’t understand, he doesn’t always calm the storms in our lives. He doesn’t just take away the pain. To do so would be to deny our human freedom and turn us into robots. But he holds us. He wraps us up and says, “You can trust me to get you through this. Even in the darkest valley, the most difficult time, you can trust me. I am with you.” And supremely, he came in Jesus to remind us that he is Emmanuel, God with us, God present with us, God living among us and walking with us. Jesus reminded us again that we can trust the Father.

And then there’s this last image at the end of the psalm that I just love. As a shepherd, David undoubtedly experienced times where he sensed something following him or the flock of sheep he was caring for. Certainly on the battlefield, when he was older, he knew that feeling as well, as an enemy might be following him to attack. But when we place our trust in God, we find we are followed by something else. “Surely,” David says, “your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life” (23:6). Everything God gives us is good; that’s what David is celebrating. That’s why we can trust him. But if we want to embrace his goodness and love, we’re going to have to open our hands. Our control issues usually cause us to clinch our fists toward anything we either don’t understand or can’t control, and that includes spiritual things because we can’t do either when it comes to God and his kingdom. We can’t fully understand who God is, and we certainly can’t control God, try as we might. The only way for us to be able to allow him to work in our lives is to acknowledge our dependence and open our hands in trust, believing he will pour out his goodness and love through our lives. And I’m not saying that’s easy. I’m a first-born type A personality. I have control issues and it’s not easy for me to trust. So one of the first things I do every morning is to pray a prayer of trust before I even get out of bed. I entrust my family and my day to God, and ask him to work through me. That’s one way I can begin to open my hands to receive what God has for me, to welcome his goodness and love into my life.

So in what ways do you need to open your hands and release your grip over people or situations that you feel you need to control? Maybe it’s something at work, or with your family, or in your relationships, or even here at church. As long as we attempt to control it, we’re basically saying we aren’t dependent on God and we don’t trust him to do what is right. Can we open our hands, release our grip, and trust God in life and in death and in life beyond death? Can we trust him now and every day after this?

This week, I happened across a story about an organization called ABSF, the American Blind Skiing Foundation. Snow skiing. That’s something I’m not really comfortable trying and I can see, but this is for people who cannot see the slopes and do not know where they are going. ABSF pairs them up with a sighted person, who teaches them the basic fundamentals of skiing, everything from putting on the skis to navigating the chairlift to actually going down the hill. And when they get to the point where they are ready to try the downhill, the sighted skier goes right beside the blind skier, giving audible commands as to which direction to go. That’s an image of dependence and trust! The blind skier is utterly dependent on and must have utter trust in his or her guide to be able to make it safely to the bottom of the hill. They have to do what the guide says, without question. And that’s an image of the spiritual life. Remember those words from Isaiah? “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21). Can you open your hands and trust his voice to lead you through whatever this life may bring? Let’s pray.

Molded

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Romans 8:28-30; Colossians 1:24-29; Matthew 5:43-48

August 10, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO: Julie & Julia

You know what I love about food? Eating it! I didn’t become a Methodist pastor by mistake. I became a Methodist pastor for the potlucks and the church dinners, because we always have the best cooks, am I right? But she is right in the video: it is comforting to know that no matter what else might be going wrong, you can mix this ingredient with that ingredient and get a desired result. Finding and using the right ingredients always results in the dish you want to make. And what is true in the kitchen is also true in the spiritual life, so last week we began looking at eight ingredients for the making of a Christian, eight essential things that have to happen if we are going to live faithfully in this “brave new world” called the twenty-first century. Last week we began with nonconformity and balance, mixing them together here in our Christian kitchen. And this week we are going to focus on two additional ingredients: Christlikeness and maturity.

The movie that clip comes from is called Julie and Julia, and it’s the true story of a young woman named Julie Powell who came to a point where she was finding very little satisfaction in her work or her life. Then she discovered a mentor in the famous cook Julia Child. Powell decides she’s going to cook every recipe in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it. She came to the conclusion, as many have, that if you want to be like someone, you have to walk in their footsteps. You have to do the things they did, even if that means cooking all the way through a cookbook. It’s an interesting notion, and was a year-long experiment for Powell because if you want to become like the master of anything, you have to spend time with that master, even if that time is only through their writings.

That’s not a new idea. It was said in the ancient times that the students of any teacher, especially religious teachers, were supposed to follow so closely to the teacher, or rabbi, that they would be covered by the dust he kicked up as he walked. Students, or disciples, were to be always walking in the dust of their rabbi. And the reason for that is obvious: they didn’t want to miss anything the rabbi might say or do. They had left homes and jobs and everything else in order to study with this teacher, so they had to stay close if they were going to catch everything he said and watch everything he did. Because the goal of a disciple or a student is to become like the teacher. The goal of a disciple is to model the life of his or her rabbi. And so it’s no surprise that, in the New Testament, one of the defining characteristics for a Christian is Christlikeness. In fact, the word “Christian” is actually only used three times in the New Testament. The word more often used to describe the kind of people we strive to be is “follower” or “disciple”—in fact, the word “disciple” is used over 250 times in the New Testament. The Scriptures do not call us to adhere to a religion but rather to become like Jesus, to be Christlike, and so the third ingredient for a Christian is Christlikeness (cf. Stott, The Radical Disciple, pgs. 13-14; Vander Laan, In the Dust of the Rabbi, pgs. 11, 17).

We heard a fairly well-known passage from the letter to the Romans this morning, one that is often taken out of context and twisted to say that if you become a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, everything will be just great and will always work out. Come to Jesus, some say, and he will solve all your problems and get you out of every difficult situation. And I do believe that, as we often say around here, “the worst thing is never the last thing,” but at the same time, I don’t believe the Bible promises a life of bliss and ease just because you follow Jesus. In fact, some of God’s most faithful disciples, both in the days of the Bible and throughout history since, have found that life is often very, very hard. Mother Teresa once put it this way: “I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.” Ever feel like that? So why, then, does Paul say what he does to the Romans: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (8:28)? What is Paul really saying there?

Let’s be clear: Paul says God will work all things for good for those who are called. “Call” here is a technical term that describes people who have responded to the good news, someone who has come to faith in Jesus, someone whose heart has been filled with the love of Jesus (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans: Part One, pgs. 156-157). The Bible says all are called to faith; 1 Timothy says, “God…wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (2:3-4). However, not everyone responds. So this promise is to those who are “called,” those who respond by faith to the Gospel. Those people have a purpose, Paul says. In fact, if you have come to faith, God has already decided what your future should be. He has, Paul says, “predestined” you. Not “predestined” in terms of planning every little detail of your life. But God has “predestined” you “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (8:29). If you have responded to the call of Jesus, if you have become a disciple by placing your trust in him, then God wants to mold you into a different image: one that looks like Jesus. Not physically, of course, but spiritually, morally, ethically. He wants to restore in you what he intended from the beginning. Do you remember the story from Genesis 1? God created humanity in his own image (Genesis 1:26) and then we messed that up by going our own way. Jesus has come to set all that right, to press the “reset button,” and when we become his disciples, his followers, we are to be molded back into that image of righteousness, holiness, love, kindness and all the rest. We are to be made like Jesus: Christlike.

If you’re a parent, or a grandparent, you get this. You’ve already had a glimpse into the heart of God, and you know it’s not a mistake that God is often called “Father,” because as parents, we want our children to pick up the best of our character. We want them to hold to our morality, our faith, our practices—at least the good ones! Last weekend, we had a baby staying at our house, and I was reminded again how early that imitation begins. You make a face and they try to match it. You make a sound they sometimes imitate it. You smile, they smile, and so on. And that doesn’t stop when our babies become teenagers—or even adults. You’re never not a parent, and you never stop wanting the best for your kids. Even as Christopher heads off to college this fall, we find ourselves still trying to pour the very best into him, until he says, “Mom, Dad, I got this.” But we never quit hoping the best for our kids. Of course, what happens often instead? We see the worst of our habits magnified in our kids, right? They seem to more easily pick up our bad habits. The word that slipped out at the wrong moment is the one they choose to repeat at the most inopportune time. That temper seems to show up in them just like it does in us. And on it goes.

The good news is that, unlike us, Jesus doesn’t have “bad habits” that he hopes we won’t see. Jesus’ way was the way of love, the way of reconciliation, the way of peace. And when we allow ourselves to be “conformed” to his image (instead of to the world’s image, as we talked about last week), we will find more and more of those “good,” Christlike ways being formed in our lives. However, and here’s the point Paul wants to make: it’s not always going to be easy. Jesus himself said it would look like this: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Taking up a cross is not putting a pretty necklace around your neck. Taking up a cross is not enduring a pesky summer cold. Taking up a cross is not even about caring for an elderly relative. Taking up a cross, in Jesus’ world, meant one thing: death. A violent, ugly death. And more than that, it meant that you were no longer a citizen of the empire, you were condemned of a crime, and you were basically no longer a person. Taking up a cross meant there was no hope for you. That does not sound like an easy, blissful life, which is why we know that the way many often interpret Paul here can’t be right. If we’re going to be made like Jesus, conformed or molded to his image, it’s not going to be a simple, easy, straight path. It’s going to be tough. Being a disciple is going to ask difficult things of us. It’s going to require us to give up our own priorities and allow his dreams and aspirations to become our own. Becoming Christlike is not easy, but it’s good. As God shapes and molds us, we are made good. Of this I am sure: there is nothing difficult in our lives that God won’t ultimately use for something good. We may not be made wealthy or fully healthy or extremely wise, but we will be made like Jesus. And that’s the hope and confidence that caused Paul to say, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11). Christlikeness is essential to the making of a Christian, so let’s pause and ask: are you more like Jesus than you were, say, a year ago? Are you more loving, more kind, more forgiving than you were last week? And if not, can we really say that we are becoming more like Jesus?

Christlikeness, then, leads us to the fourth ingredient, which is “maturity.” Pastor John Stott, when he traveled, would always ask people how they would summarize the state of the Christian church today, and while he received a variety of answers, his most frequent observations led him to three words: “growth without depth” (Stott 38). In many parts of the world today, the church is growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, America is one of the few places in the world where the church isn’t growing overall. Methodism in Africa is exploding. More people today worship God in China than in all of the churches of Western Europe put together. And, of course, there are large churches here in this country, though overall the percentage of Christians in our culture remains stable or even declines from year to year. But we look at places where numerical growth is happening and we think, “Look, that’s great, that’s God’s blessing.” We equate numerical growth with spiritual depth. But is that true? Willow Creek Community Church, the pioneer of the “seeker-sensitive model” and one of the largest churches in America (not to mention right in our backyard), released a self-study a few years ago where they found that the faith of the folks in their church was, in short, “a mile wide and an inch deep.” The essence of what they learned was this: simply showing up for church events does not deepen your faith. Even simply showing up for worship doesn’t do that. Nor does becoming a leader in the church. In fact, I still remember one of my seminary professors telling us that when you become a pastor, or really any other leader in the church, you cut your chances of going to heaven in half! Now, he was obviously exaggerating—I hope!—but the point is this: simply being in the building does not equate spiritual growth. Simply having been a Christian for a long time is not the same as being mature. So what does a mature disciple look like, and how do we get there?

Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, uses a startling and somewhat frightening word to describe our goal. At the end of chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says this: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48). Perfect? Great, last week we were told we had to be holy because God is holy, and now this week we have to be perfect, too? I’m almost afraid to see what next week holds! But wait a minute! “Perfect” here doesn’t mean “making no mistakes.” It doesn’t refer to straight “A+’s” like we’ve become accustomed to thinking of it. The word for “perfect” is used throughout the New Testament as a contrast to immature, childish, childlike, infant. It never refers to perfect behavior. It really means “fully mature.” That’s the way it is translated in Colossians 1:28, where Paul says that Jesus “is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” In the Sermon on the Mount, back in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a sense of what it means to “be perfect” in the verses just before this, which are all about whom we love and whom we hate.

Jesus has spent this first part of his Sermon on the Mount contrasting what these people have always heard with what is really true, and in this last little section, he reminds them that they have grown up knowing and hearing that you’re supposed to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Well, that makes sense to us, too, doesn’t it? That’s also what we’ve grown up knowing. And those in Jesus’ time believed that was part of sacred Scripture. Except it wasn’t. And isn’t. Well, part of it is. The “love your neighbor” thing goes back to Leviticus, to the writings of Moses, where God tells the people, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18). But the “hate your enemy” part was added somewhere along the way. Someone, somewhere decided that such a statement was the logical outcome of the first statement. I mean, if you love your neighbors, you must hate your enemies. The problem is, in of Jesus’ time, that had been raised to a legal requirement. You had to hate your enemies if you were going to really be one of God’s people. But Jesus reminds the people that it’s not a Biblical requirement. Quite the opposite. “I tell you, love your enemies,” Jesus says, “and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (5:44-45). In other words, being God’s people is not just a matter of loving those who are like you or those who like you. The true test is whether or not we can love those who are not like us or who don’t like us, who may even hate us, who speak evil against and about us. That, Jesus says, is what it means to be mature, to be “perfect.”

After all, loving the enemy is what Jesus did. We were his enemies. We rebelled against him. We nailed him to the cross. When all he did was speak of love, kindness, hope, salvation and forgiveness, we killed him. And those who did that thought they were doing God’s will. They thought Jesus was a liar, a cheat, a blasphemer, and by getting rid of him, they were doing God a favor. And those same people heard Jesus, on the cross, in excruciating pain, say these words: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Jesus reminds us that those who need forgiveness the most deserve it the least (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 59). Now it may be easy for us to look at “those people” and say, “Yes, they are the ones who nailed Jesus to the cross.” But, theologically, Biblically, it was our sin that put him there, our refusal to live in the way he calls us to. When he was filming the movie The Passion of the Christ, director Mel Gibson wanted to portray that in a very personal way. The arm you see holding the hammer that puts the first nail in Jesus’ wrist is Gibson’s arm. He wanted to remember that it was his sin that put Jesus there. And it’s ours as well. We, along with those who were actually there that day, are the ones Jesus was forgiving. And he calls us to love those who hate us, to the love the enemy, to grow up and become mature.

Now, sometimes we want to know exactly what Christian maturity looks like. It’s actually something that’s hard to define. Paul calls it being “in Christ,” when we are personally connected to Jesus. John Wesley called it “Christian perfection,” following the language of Matthew 5, and he described it as having our heart set fully on loving God and loving others. But, just like with our kids, it’s hard to nail down exactly when it happens. You know, we’ve watched our kids grow up day by day and somewhere along the way they stopped being kids and became youth and then young adults and then…they become adults. Christopher came across a recording the other day of Rachel, made when she was quite young, and it’s funny to hear her voice as it was then, because it changed bit by bit without us realizing it as she matured. I’ve tried to think back as to when I felt like an adult, and I think it on my thirtieth birthday. Up to that point, I still felt like a teenager (maybe) playing in the adult world. But the day I turned thirty we moved into the Brushwood parsonage, and I was suddenly a real grown-up pastor, all on my own. Up to that point, I had been in school, and then I had been a junior associate pastor at High Street. Now, I had to do this thing on my own—and I had to preach every Sunday! I asked you on Facebook this week when you felt grown up, and while some of you said you haven’t grown up yet, several others of you responded with moments like having your first child and knowing you were responsible for another life, or when you got your driver’s license. For others, it was the death of a parent or both of your parents, or when you found yourself caring for parents or other relatives who were seriously ill. Some said they had to grow up fast when they joined the military, or when you made your first mortgage payment, or started making your own decisions. One person said it was when they saw their father’s face staring back in the mirror, and I remember the moment when I said something my Dad always used to say (and something I swore I would never say!) and it kind of stopped me in my tracks. Lots of different moments and experiences, but I found it interesting that no one said, “When I turned age such-and-such.” Christopher, of course, is eighteen, and we’ve told him when he is paying his own bills we’ll call him an adult; several of you said similar things. It’s not really about the age; it’s about certain responsibilities or life changes. For most of us, there comes a moment.

So we may be able to identify a time when we “feel” grown up, but for our faith, it’s a hard target to pin down. What we can identify instead are things that help us, practices that lead us to mature Christian faith. If our goal is to become like Christ, then the main thing we need to do to become mature in our faith is to get a clear vision of who Jesus is (Stott 42). A lot of times we think we know who he is and what he’s like, but honestly most of our ideas are often taken from movies, storybooks or our own assumptions of what he ought to be like. If we’re really going to know who Jesus is, we have to engage in a disciplined study of Scripture, in the book that gives us Jesus’ very own words and life and guidance. It’s not enough to know about the Bible, nor is it enough to rely solely on what you hear on Sunday mornings. Jerome, one of the early church fathers, put it quite bluntly: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ” (qtd. in Stott 45). In our world today, only half of U.S. adults can name one of the four Gospels and fewer than half can identify Genesis as the Bible's first book. And those are just trivial examples. If we want to know Christ, if we want to become mature, we need to engage in disciplined study of the Bible.

And we try to provide opportunities for that here, through groups like Disciple. But I know that some folks either feel like they’re not ready for Disciple or can’t make the long-term commitment that Disciple requires. Maybe a good starting place for you would be Alpha, a group that looks at critical questions in the faith and encourages you to ask hard questions. That will start September 3 and is a ten week commitment. Or maybe you’re ready for something a bit deeper, so you might want to check out the Journey 101 classes, which begins with “Knowing God.” That small group is six weeks long and will start this Wednesday; there’s still room for you. What I love the most about small groups like that is the way you get to meet and interact with others in the church that you might not meet any other way. The Bible talks about iron sharpening iron, and when you rub up against each other, you help each other grow and come to know Jesus better. You get a clearer vision. And then, along that same line, there’s something new we’re going to try this fall, and it’s called “Triads.” As the name implies, these are going to be groups of three Christians who come together for spiritual growth, mutual accountability and to learn to love Jesus better. These sorts of groups are very much part of our Methodist DNA; in John Wesley’s day, such groups were called “select societies,” and they consisted of Christians who were not afraid to ask each other hard questions. That’s similar to what our triads are going to do, and if you might be interested in learning more about that, or becoming part of it, you can talk to me after worship today. Growing in maturity means we have to be intentional in our study of Scripture so that we can get a better vision of what Jesus is like.

But, folks, it’s not enough to just cloister and study. If that’s all we ever do, we’ll become what some have called “Fat Christians,” full of information but benefiting no one. Jesus calls us to also know him by serving him in our world. Now, there are lots of ways to do that, but for the sake of time this morning, I want to highlight just a couple of opportunities that are available right now or very soon. You’ve been hearing (I hope) about our prison ministry team that is now running an Alpha course at Westville Correctional Facility. They’ve been going every Wednesday evening for about a month now, and…well, let me just let Steve Massow tell you about his call to this ministry and a bit about what they do.

VIDEO: Steve Massow, Prison Ministry

Jesus called us to care for prisoners. The author of Hebrews said to remember those in prison as if you were there with them (13:3). Can you catch a glimpse of Jesus in prison? Then there’s one other area I want to highlight quickly and that’s a ministry that maybe a lot of you don’t even know happens. We launched Congregational Care last year as a sort of replacement for Stephen Ministry, our caregiving ministry, and we have currently twenty-seven CCMs (or Congregational Care Ministers) serving in four different areas. Some of them are involved in prayer ministry. Others show up to see you when you’re in the hospital. Still others come alongside you when your family is going through grief, and they provide materials to help with that grief. And another group is faithfully visiting with our older adults and shut-ins. It is tremendous ministry that makes a huge difference one life at a time. And the reports I’m hearing back from our CCMs is that they are every bit as blessed if not more so than the people they care for. Do you believe you could see Jesus by serving in a caring capacity? The next training event for CCM will be in late September; be prayerful in signing up, taking the training and making a difference in the lives of those who are going through difficult times.

Because as we intentionally study Scripture, we can’t help but hear Jesus calling us beyond ourselves. And as we study and serve, we get a clearer vision of who Jesus is and we find ourselves becoming more like him. Christlikeness and maturity are absolute essential ingredients for being a follower of Jesus in the twenty-first century. I’ve watched my folks re-learn that in their current season of life. They retired somewhat early—maybe not chronologically, but certainly in terms of their health and ability. They are in their seventies (don’t tell Mom I told you that!), but still have much to give. Dad has had a bout with cancer and yet many days I say he can run circles around me. But rather than retire and sit on their porch sipping iced tea every day, they have found places to serve. They have always had a strong faith, so when they retired they chose to see it as a “refocusing” time rather than a “quitting” time. Mom volunteers with kids and Dad works with Habitat for Humanity and both of them are involved in a Bible study at their church, because their vision of Jesus calls them to continue to study and continue to serve, to make a difference. I want to be like them when I grow up. And more than that, I want to be like the Christ they love and serve, allowing God to work for the good in my life and molding me into a “perfect” follower. What about you? How will you open yourself to being molded by Jesus today and in the days to come? Let’s pray.

Against the Stream

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

1 Peter 1:13-16; Leviticus 18:1-5

August 3, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO: Cliff & Theo Cooking (Cosby Show)

That show is thirty years old and it still makes me laugh. And I’m not sure if there really was a point in that scene or not, but perhaps it’s to remind us that when you’re in the kitchen, when you’re making something, technique is important. What you do and how you do it matters. How you shape a meal makes a difference as to whether it will be edible or not. A couple of weeks ago, during our “Weird Animals” Vacation Bible School, one of the closing skits had Mr. Kirk talking about mixing up a cake, but rather than using flour, eggs, sugar and such—the correct ingredients—he used salsa, Kool-Aid and a Kit-Kat. Needless to say, no one was interested in trying the cake he was making! (You can watch the video on our Facebook page, by the way.) What I found terribly funny were the comments by the kids. Some of them were very concerned that he really didn’t know what he was doing, and some of them wanted to tell him he had to follow the recipe. Which was, of course, the point! When we’re making something, whether that’s something we eat or something we build or even something we plan, it’s important to follow the recipe, the instructions, and especially to make sure you get the right ingredients together. Otherwise, you might end up with a disaster! No one ate Mr. Kirk’s cake that night—not even Mr. Kirk!

After eighty-eight years of living, British pastor John Stott sat down for the last time to think about what he had learned after a lifetime of walking with Jesus. Specifically, he wanted to figure out what the ingredients were for learning to faithfully follow Jesus. What he came up with were eight ingredients we need if we’re going to be able to live faithfully in this “brave new world” called the twenty-first century. In fact, he says such ingredients, when mixed into our lives, will cause us to be “radical” Christians—not “radical in the sense of “crazy.” In fact, the word “radical” actually means to return to the root, to the beginning, to the essentials (Stott, The Radical Disciple, pg. 15). One of the parables Jesus told was about seeds that were scattered on all kinds of soil, and for the seed that landed on rocky soil and did not grow, Jesus said the problem was that the seed had no root. It wasn’t radical (Luke 8:13). We need roots. We need to be radical in today’s world. So for the next four weeks, we’re going to take Stott’s list of ingredients and consider two of them each week, then we’ll mix them together in our Christian kitchen here, and see what we come up with.

So, let’s see here…the recipe says the first ingredient is “noncomformity.” Noncomformity…that’s a strange word, and not one people use a lot today. Today, we’re encouraged to “just get along,” because our world is defined by pluralism. I was in seminary twenty-five years ago when I first heard that word, because I grew up in a little community where, at least as far as we knew, everyone pretty much thought and acted and voted the same. Oh, sure, every once in a while there was someone who was a little different, but they either got in line or didn’t last long around our school and our town. In seminary, my philosophy professor had us buy and read his book entitled “The Problem of Pluralism,” and it was then I learned of the mindset that says every viewpoint is equally valid, every thought is worth equal respect. And the “problem,” of course, is that pluralism can’t sustain itself. Two opposing viewpoints can’t both be valid, can’t both be true, can they? If I say the carpet is blue and you believe it’s yellow, we can’t both be right, but pluralism says we are both right, and I shouldn’t try to convince you that I’m right. Even though the carpet is blue.

We also live in a world that values materialism. That’s not just about acquiring things, though that tends to be end result, because if this world, the material world, is all you value, then why not just buy more and more and more stuff? Eat, drink, be merry and buy things—because tomorrow you might die, so grab all the gusto you can. That’s the motto of our world, isn’t it? Then there’s relativism—the idea that there are no absolutes especially when it comes to morality. If it feels good, do it. It’s relativism that allows parents to research and carry out a plan of letting their child die in a hot car, or for politicians to sell their vote to the highest bidder no matter what they believe or even what’s right. And finally there’s narcissism, a word which comes from the Greek god Narcissus who fell in love with his own image. We are a culture obsessed with how we look and how we appear, far and above what kind of people we are becoming. It’s all about “me” and “my happiness.” So the words “for better or worse” go out the door if “you” can’t make “me” happy. There are probably other “isms” we could add to the list, but those four give a good sketch of the selfish and self-centered world we live in (Stott 19-25). It’s easy to become just like that world. If we want to conform, fit in and “go with the flow,” we have to subscribe to these “isms.” And many, many people do. But God’s people have always been called to be different.

From the very beginning, that was true. In the Old Testament, we find the story of God’s people caught in slavery in Egypt, and God called a man named Moses, a Hebrew raised among the royalty in Egypt, to rescue them from slavery, to bring them to a promised land. It was a trip that should have taken a few weeks but ended up taking forty years. And why did it take forty years? Because it took that long for God to shape those “stubborn and rebellious” people into his people. Getting the Hebrews out of Egypt was the easy part; getting Egypt out of the Hebrews was the nearly impossible part. So when you read that story, you encounter a lot of passages where God is instructing the people on how they are to live. One such passage is in Leviticus 18, where God specifically tells them they are not to conform to the world around them: “You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord” (18:3-5). In many ways, there in the desert, the Hebrews were people caught in the middle. Literally, they were between Egypt, the land they had left, and Canaan, the land they were going to (Osborne, “1 Peter,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 18, pg. 162). And they had a choice to make: what kind of people were they going to be? Or, maybe more to the point, whose people were they going to be?

The word used most often in the Bible to describe God’s desire for his people is “holy.” That’s a word, honestly, we don’t hear much anymore, even in the church. And yet, the call throughout the story of the Exodus and on into the New Testament is for God’s people to be holy. In fact, we heard that call in Peter’s letter this morning: “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1:14-16). The word “holy” simply means “set apart” or, more basically, “different.” In the Bible, the Temple is said to be “holy” because it’s different from any other building. The Sabbath, the day of rest, is declared “holy” because it’s supposed to be different from any other day. And the Christian is “holy” because he or she is called to be different than other people (cf. Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter, pg. 188; Wright, The Early Christian Letters for Everyone, pg. 54). We’re not called to just blend in to the world around us; in fact, did you hear Peter say, “do not conform”? Paul said much the same thing in his letter to the Romans: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). I love the way Eugene Peterson translated that verse in The Message: “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking” (pg. 2054). Our call as Christians is to nonconformity. In a world that has lost its way, we point to the Way.

So to the world that says every viewpoint is valid, we dare to say Jesus is the unique Son of God, the one who is the way, truth and life (cf. John 14:6). To a world that says “the one with the most toys wins,” we develop a life of simplicity, generosity and contentment, a life Paul described as “being content with whatever we have” (cf. Philippians 4:11). To a world that says morality is relative, that you can live however you want, we choose to live in obedience to God’s standards. After all, if you want to live in a kingdom, you have to live like the king. Who is your king? How does he want you to live? And to a world that is stuck on itself, where “me” is king, we live out agape love, a self-sacrificing love that loves others as an act of loving God. Nonconformity sets us against our culture, and we may find ourselves swimming against the stream that seems overwhelming. But I like the way Malcolm Muggeridge put it: “Only dead fish swim with the current.” Our call is to swim upstream, and to call others to follow us. The first ingredient we want to pour into our recipe for a Christian is nonconformity.

But that ingredient must be coupled with our second one, which is balance. We might describe balance this way: “Remember who you are.” Or “remember whose you are.” Peter has called us to that remembrance, and he said we should “set our hope” not on this world, not on the things we own, not even on our own worth and value. “Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming” (1:13). Think about who Peter was writing these words to. At the beginning of this chapter, he says he’s writing to “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces” (1:1). Exiles—people without a home. They had once had a home, but because of religious persecution or economic situations, they had been scattered and were far from home. Whatever hope they had, whatever wealth they may have accumulated, whatever friends they might have had, or family, or security—all of that is gone. As we’ve been hearing about the conflict in Israel these past couple of weeks, my mind constantly goes back to the people I’ve met there on various trips, and I wonder if they are okay, or if they have become exiles of sorts. Even if the ones I know are okay, you know there are exiles who have lost homes and loved ones in the fighting that seems to have no just end to it. We often hear about “refugees” around the world which is just another word for “exile.” Wars and ethnic conflicts and economic situations often uproot whole groups of people. We have been pretty fortunate in this country—but there are many in our nation who are not. We just do a better job of hiding those who have been uprooted. We call them “homeless” rather than “exiles,” but the truth remains that on any given night, over 600,000 people are homeless, and 35% of those live in “situations unsuited for human habitation.” The single largest contributing factor to homelessness in our country is not the loss of a job; it is domestic violence. They are exiles—people who have lost home, who have lost hope.

And there are spiritual exiles as well, people who have been rejected, who have been shunned for their belief in Christ. Just recently in the news there was the story of the woman who was arrested in Sudan because she was a Christian. She was condemned to death because of her faith and only rescued because of an international outcry. And while that experience is not likely to happen to any of us, there are times when we feel left out, hopeless, exiled because of our faith. It may be as simple as being made fun of for your faith or as serious as being passed over or even losing a job because of that same faith. Exiles. And to us, Peter says, “Remember who you are; remember whose you are. Set your hope on Jesus, not on the things of this world.”

The term “balance” comes into play to describe the way we stand against the stream, the way we live out our faith. Nonconformity does not give us permission to be obnoxious about our faith. Holiness does not give us the right to be “holier-than-thou.” If we’re exiles because of rude religious behavior, then we probably deserve to be exiles. Balance calls us to remember who we are and to give a faithful witness to the Jesus in whom we hope. Later on in his letter, Peter says to the exiles, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (3:15). That’s balance. That’s standing out without being obnoxious. I’ve shared several times in my Disciple classes about Brother Jed. Every spring, Brother Jed would come to campus at Ball State, and he would take his place at the main intersection on campus and yell at people. He would tell young women they were going to hell because their skirts were too short. He would yell at young men that they worshipped the devil because their hair was too long. No one could quite measure up to whatever idea of holiness Brother Jed had. Sometimes people would try to debate him, to get him to see the error of his ways, but the unfortunate thing was they would often end up yelling at him just like he was yelling at them! “Do this,” Peter says, “with gentleness and respect.” Or what about those who protest at abortion clinics, then throw bombs or threaten the life of the doctors who work there? It sounds like the ones who claim to be Christian have forgotten who they are. They have gotten out of balance. And, of course, we know of the antics of Westboro Baptist Church, who protest military funerals and even protested the Indy 500 this year. They hold up signs that claim to present the truth as they understand it, but they do it in a downgrading and ugly way. Something is out of balance. I prefer to think of Jesus, kneeling on the ground, scribbling with his finger in the dirt, surrounded by religious leaders and kneeling by a naked woman caught in the act of adultery. “Whoever is without sin,” Jesus said, “cast the first stone.” And when they all left—the oldest first!—he asked the woman, “Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” When she said that no one had, Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin” (cf. John 8:1-11). That’s a life in balance, moving against the stream.

This past week, I read the autobiography of Brennan Manning, a man who is most known for his book The Ragamuffin Gospel. Manning was once a Catholic priest, who had a profound and deep encounter with Jesus while kneeling at the foot of the cross, an experience so powerful he says he literally lost track of three hours while he was kneeling there. But Manning struggled all of his life with the demon of alcoholism. There were times when it consumed his life, when it threatened his ministry, and, after leaving the active priesthood to get married, when it even tore apart his marriage. And yet, in the midst of that struggle, Manning encountered the grace and love of God in a way that he could not deny. He became known for saying, “God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.” Throughout his life, he sought to point people to the cross, the only hope of healing for this world, and he sought to live in a way that swam against the stream of the world: the way of love. Like us, he did not always succeed, but his hope was always in Jesus and not in his own work. He sought a life of balance, even when everything seemed to be out of balance.

Manning, and others like him, know that ‘being a Christian is not just about believing or thinking but about doing. Until our behavior reflects God’s own character, we are not fully Christian” (Osborne 162). Our calling is to strive for a life in balance (remembering whose we are) coupled with a life of nonconformity (holiness). And what a great place we have to begin, a place where those ingredients mix together so well: the communion table. You know, we call it “holy” communion not because the bread and the juice are somehow mystical or changed or because they dropped down out of heaven. We call it “holy” communion because this thing we do is different. We call it “holy” communion because of what it does to us. It sets us apart from the world. It sends us swimming upstream. I mean, this is a strange thing we do here. Try going over to Meijer and putting up a table in the aisle where you offer bread and grape juice to people passing by. They would, of course, mistake you for a sampling table until you tell them, “This is the body of Christ…this is the blood of Christ.” Say what? It’s a strange, awkward and counter-cultural thing we do here at this table. Or, let me put it another way: it’s weird. There’s no where else in the world that you do this thing. To simply come to the table is an act of nonconformity. But it’s also true that in this bread and in this cup we find a reminder of who we are. This act brings balance to our lives.

When I was a freshman at Ball State, I spent the first several weeks visiting local churches, trying to find a place to worship regularly while away from home. And in every church I visited during those first few weeks it was communion Sunday. Every week, no matter where I chose to attend, I was served the bread and the juice—or the wine, in one case, which was quite a surprise to this life-long Methodist boy! And after several weeks of this, I remember sort of laughing to myself and saying, “Are you trying to tell me something, God?” And yes, God was trying to tell me something: “Remember who you are. On this campus, your first time really away from home, you are not called to be just like everyone else. This bread and this cup reminds you who you are and whose you are.” I think it took me some time to realize that, but now every time we approach the communion table, I remember. I remember who I am: I am a follower of Jesus, called to a life of nonconformity and a life of balance. As you come to the table this morning, may this be a place where those ingredients are mixed together in your life as you begin to swim against the stream.

Let’s prepare our hearts for this strange celebration we call “holy” communion.