Where You Go

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Ruth 1:1-18; Ephesians 6:1-4; John 19:25-27

August 4/5, 2012 • Portage First UMC

We have a framed picture hanging downstairs in our house, right next to the kids’ rooms, which was given to us many years ago. It’s a prayer, one I have to often resort to, which says, “Lord, give me the patience to endure my blessings!” Don’t we sometimes feel that way about our families? The one set of relationships we’re born into is often the most difficult to navigate through, which is why, I would imagine, George Burns once said, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” And George Bernard Shaw put it this way: “When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.” Most of the time, most of us love our families, but then there are those moments that creep up on us, that get under our skin and stay there. Home may be the place, as Robert Frost said, where they have to take you in, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. How do you practice love toward those who are biologically related to you?

This evening/morning, we’re beginning a new series for the month of August, asking that question about all sorts of relationships. Our English language is rather limited, with just one word to describe all sorts of different feelings and emotions and behaviors. In the Greek language, which the New Testament was written in, there are four words for “love,” each one describing a different experience. So using those four words, for the next four weeks, we’re going to be looking at different ways we’re called to love others. Next week, we’ll talk about the love we share with friends, and the following week we’ll focus on the relationship between husbands and wives. Then, the final week, we’ll talk about the all-encompassing, no-strings-attached sort of love God has for every one of us. But this morning, we’re going to begin at a very basic level, at the most basic building block of our society. The word is “storge” and it refers to family love. And, though the word storge is not found in the New Testament, love of family is depicted all throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Family is where we learn first what love is, and one of the most prominent places we see that in the Scriptures is in a story about a woman named Ruth.

Ruth was not a Hebrew. She was from the country of Moab. Moab was just over on the other side of the Dead Sea (cf. Goldingay, Joshua, Judges & Ruth for Everyone, pg. 164), south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In fact, when we were at the Dead Sea in June, our guide pointed out the “mountains of Moab.” We could see them clearly, so Israel and Moab were close neighbors…geographically. However, as with a lot of close neighbors, they didn’t always get along. Now, it’s not clear in Ruth’s time what relations were like between Moab and Israel, especially since Israel at this time wasn’t really a unified country. They were ruled by judges, really more “heroes” who came to the people’s rescue when trouble came on the land. It was in that time that a famine hit. Famines aren’t all that uncommon in the land; it is a desert, after all. There are often long times without rainfall. But this famine was bad enough that a man from Bethlehem, Elimelek, decided he wasn’t going to be able to provide for his family, and since conditions seemed to be better in Moab, he moved his family there.

Though it may have been meant to be a temporary move, it seems to have become rather permanent when Elimelek unexpectedly died. You remember how we talked about widows a couple of weeks ago, how they had no one to support them and were often impoverished. Thankfully, Naomi, Elimelek’s widow, had two sons who would take care of her, and one of the signs that the family settled down to stay in Moab is that the sons marry Moabite women. They settle down into happy family life, presumably with at least a comfortable income, and then tragedy strikes again. Both sons die; we’re not told how or even if they died at the same time or some time apart. All we’re told is that, once again, Naomi is at a crossroads, and this time she has no one to support her. Not only that, but she now has two daughters-in-law to take care of. No income, no heirs, no job—the only occupation left open to most women in those days was prostitution, and Naomi can’t bring herself to do that. Nor does she want to beg. Aside from living in abject poverty, her only other option is to return home (cf. Driesbach, “Commentary on Ruth,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 514), to Israel, to Bethlehem, and hope that there would still be family there who would take her in and care for her.

So Naomi, Orpah and Ruth start out on the road back toward Bethlehem, and along the way Naomi must have realized what she’s doing. She’s taking Moabite women back to Israel. To her, they’ve become family, but to those who haven’t known her now for ten years, they’re women from another culture, unclean, worshipping strange gods, perhaps. How will they be accepted? And will her family take them in as well? It’s going to be enough to try to feed Naomi, an extra mouth. Will her family accept three extra women? There was no benefit in these young women returning to Israel with Naomi (Dreisbach 517), so perhaps feeling some apprehension, or even some guilt that they are stuck tagging along with her, she tells them to go back to their mother’s house. “May the Lord show you kindness,” she tells them, “as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband” (1:8-9). When both of them insist on continuing with Naomi (which would have been the expected response in a culture that valued “haggling” over every arrangement), Naomi insists they go back to Moab. She points out that she is too old to have other sons, and even if she would, it would be wrong to ask these women to wait for them to grow up. Go home, she tells them. So Orpah does. But Ruth doesn’t. We’re told Ruth “clung” to Naomi. She “stayed close to” Naomi; she “joined” Naomi in whatever future awaited her. In fact, Ruth goes so far as to, in essence, renounce her other family and her past; she tells Naomi, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried” (1:16-17). She gives up her gods, her land, her right to be buried in her homeland and becomes Naomi’s family. You have to wonder—why?

Bible scholars have pondered that question, and speculated about it. Some suggest Ruth had no family to return to, or that her home life had been terrible or hard. Perhaps Naomi’s life was better than what she might go back to, though that’s hard to imagine. There are all sorts of thoughts, but perhaps it’s as simple as this: in whatever time she had been part of Naomi’s life, the two had become true family. Ruth saw something in Naomi that she wanted in her life. Perhaps it was Naomi’s faith, though that seems a bit shaken at this point, and besides that, in those days, faith was more a matter of cultural identity than personal choice. You typically didn’t choose your gods; in many ways, they “chose” you by where you lived. So perhaps faith plays into it, but for Ruth there seems to be something more going on here. Whatever was going through Ruth’s head, we do know this: at this moment, Ruth shows the meaning of the word “commitment,” of what “storge” or family love looks like. She is willing to give up everything else in order to be family for Naomi. While Orpah’s decision to return may seem to be the “smart one” (at least from Naomi’s viewpoint), it’s Ruth we remember because of her dogged determination to live out “storge,” family love (cf. Driesbach 518).

The word that echoes throughout the story of Ruth (and if you don’t know the whole story, I’d encourage you to read it this week) is “commitment.” Family love is first and foremost about commitment—radical commitment like Ruth demonstrates. Commitment that says you’ll do whatever it takes to uphold and care for your family members. The “sane” thing would have been for Ruth to return home, at least in the way we usually think. But Ruth is committed to Naomi and to her welfare. Since Naomi had lost all of her children, Ruth takes on the role that her children would have otherwise fulfilled, even to the point of gathering food for them when they get to Israel. In fact, at the end of the story, Naomi is told that Ruth “is better to you than seven sons” (4:15). “Storge” love says we do whatever it takes to care for and to uphold those whom God has put in our families.

We see that same spirit in the brief reading we had from the Gospel this morning. It’s actually a passage we looked at during the “Seven Last Words” series last Lent, where Jesus, from the cross, entrusts the care of his mother to the beloved disciple. Jesus, in the midst of his pain and agony, wants to make sure his mother is taken care of, and even though the beloved disciple may not have been a blood relative, he “took her into his home” from that moment on (19:27). He showed a “storge” commitment to Jesus’ mother. He cared for her and upheld her, and he would make that commitment no matter what else was to come.

Now, sometimes that gets interpreted this way: that Christian people should be doormats. No one may say it quite that way, but that’s often the way some see it. I knew a woman whose brother was constantly spending everything he got on alcohol and other things, so that when his bills came, he had nothing left to pay them. He came to her and asked for money, which she refused to give to him. His response? “I thought you were a Christian, and Christians were supposed to help those in need.” Well, she went through a time of guilt for refusing him—so does this sort of commitment and loyalty mean we’re supposed to be taken advantage of? Because we all, most likely, have those people in our families who would and could try to do that, to take advantage of our compassion and desire to help. But commitment is not a matter of being run over. It’s a matter of doing what is right for the one we love. Paul gives us a picture of that in his letter to the Ephesians.

In a couple of weeks, we’re going to look more at the passage that comes right before this one, because it deals directly with husbands and wives. It’s the famous “wives, submit to your husbands” passage, so you’ll want to be sure to be here for that one! But let me set up today’s instruction by reminding us of Ephesians 5:21, the verse that introduces all of these family directions. In that verse, Paul writes these words: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This was a radical teaching for families and individuals in the culture of Paul’s day. “Submit to one another” means that no one is over another. No one is the sole head. Rather, there is a mutual care and love and commitment you didn’t find in other places in the Roman world, though it does certainly reflect the sort of care we saw in the Ruth story. But, you see, the world Paul lived in was very hierarchical. The father called the shots, always. When it came to children, fathers held life and death power over each one. He could sell them as slaves, send them to work in the fields (even in chains), and even inflict the death penalty. When a child was born, he or she was placed at the father’s feet, and if the father picked up the child, that meant the child could live. If he walked away, the child was left out to die. And if they were left out, they might be picked up, most likely by people who would care for them until they could be sold to the slave trade or the brothels. Now, remember, this was Roman custom, not Hebrew, but that is the culture Paul is writing to when he gives these instructions for “storge,” family love, to the Ephesians. He’s writing to a world in which a son never came of age until his father died. Until that moment, the son was completely and always under the power of his father (Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians, pgs. 175-176).

To that world, Paul and the Christian Gospel say this: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (6:1). Paul links that to what he calls the “first commandment with a promise”—commandment meaning the Ten Commandments. “Honor your father and mother,” Moses told the people, “so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 5:16). So, obeying your parents is the way you honor them. Now, “obey” means to “listen to, consider, or submit to.” I think the way we live that out changes as we grow, but we never outgrow the command to honor our parents. When we are children, the road to honor involves doing what we are told, and as we grow it changes more into listening, considering what our parents say, seeking their wisdom when we have choices to make. You know, it’s the old adage that most of us didn’t realize how smart our parents were until we got in our twenties, or especially when we started having kids of our own. Suddenly, our parents got real smart real quick, right? “Storge” love between children and parents involves honor—showing our parents that they have worth to us, much as Ruth did when she went with Naomi, took Naomi as her mother and showed her honor, value, worth. We “obey” when we consider, when we listen, when we value our parents.

But’s not the only side of Paul’s instruction. He goes on in verse 4: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Now, again, this is addressed to fathers in Paul’s word because of the absolute control they held over the welfare and well being of their children. In today’s world, I believe Paul would address this directly to both parents, though it is still true that fathers need greater encouragement than mothers to be involved in their children’s life and to dispense kindness to their children. So what is Paul saying? He tells the Colossians almost the same thing. To them, he writes, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21). Have you known children who were discouraged, who had their spirits broken, by the treatment they received from their parents? I knew a girl who loved to smile, and when she was in the youth choir at the church she could barely sing sometimes because she was smiling so much. Now, I’d love to have a youth choir full of smiling people, but her father was from a very old school, and one day he told her, “Why do you smile so much up there? You need to stop smiling when you’re in front of the church.” And you know what? She did. And pretty soon, the joy of singing was gone from her life. It became a chore to be endured. Now, that’s pretty mild, I’ll admit. There are lot worse things that parents do to their children to break their spirits, up to and including actual abuse. Physical abuse is horrible and should never be permitted, but verbal, emotional or spiritual abuse is nearly as bad and leaves scars that run much deeper. How many broken spirits have there been because of the harsh or disapproving words of a parent? How many children have quit trying because the words and actions of their parents told them they would never be good enough? Remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about the power of the tongue—how it can tear down or build up (cf. James 3:8-10). Parents, let me challenge you: examine your words toward your children (whether they live at home or are on their own) this week. Which goal have your words accomplished? “Fathers, do not exasperate your children…children, obey your parents in the Lord…” And all of this takes place in the context of mutual submission, each of us looking out for the best for the other. When that becomes the setting for our family life, we begin to get a glimpse of true “storge” love.

But there’s one more essential piece here. Instead of “exasperating” your children, he instructs parents to “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (6:4). By training, Paul means the cultivation of mind and morals—in other words, helping their minds grow and giving them a set of morals, a sense of right and wrong. And by instruction, he means setting boundaries. When he says “instruction of the Lord,” of course, he’s talking about giving them faith, passing along belief in Jesus. We live in times where it’s fashionable or politically correct to “let the child choose.” In other words, we don’t want to tell them what is right and wrong; we think they should discover it on their own without any interference on our part. And that’s become true even when it comes to faith. We don’t want to “push them away” by “forcing them to come to church,” and so we just don’t. And instead, they walk away from the faith because they’ve never been given any instruction, any training. Paul would find the mindset we have today absolutely unbelievable. He would have grown up in a home where religious instruction was assumed. Parents—mothers in the early years and fathers later on—knew they were responsible for carrying on the traditions, the faith. Certainly, there comes a time when a child chooses to follow Jesus for themselves or not, but that time is not when they are young. To not bring them up in the faith, to not surround them with instruction in the Lord is to abdicate our responsibility as parents, and I believe we will be held accountable for that one day. There is a scene in the film Courageous that speaks to this. Let’s take a listen.

VIDEO CLIP: Courageous, “Better Father”

Now, I know there are some difficult situations. For one, divorces in which one parent has faith and the other doesn’t, or where they attend different churches makes faith instruction difficult. However, I want to say to you parents that you are only responsible for what you are able to do. So be faithful in bringing your children up in the Lord as much as you can. Live your faith in front of them, lead them in faith when you can, and pray like crazy. 

And then there are situations where abuse has happened, and that’s a shadow that follows us through our adult lives. How do we honor a parent who has abused us, whatever form that abuse took? Well, that’s a whole sermon by itself, but let me just say this very briefly: you find what you can honor in them and do that. It may be no more than a thankfulness that they gave you life. Or perhaps you can find good qualities you can affirm. Perhaps, as I know of in one situation, God stepped in and drove that person to their knees; it’s not that God caused the abuse, but in the midst of it, this person found a hopeful and healing presence through faith in Jesus Christ. Abuse situations need care, and often counseling, so that we can find ways to honor our parents, so that we can, even in the midst of pain and struggle, continue to live out “storge” love. I don’t know your situation, but God does, and I believe in a God who brings good out of everything, even when we can’t see it.

Find ways to encourage, not to tear down, and to do this well, you’ll need to know each other, to be able to speak their language. My children both came from Cathy and I, and yet they are very different. To encourage Rachel in the way I might encourage Christopher won’t work. I need to know them well enough to be able to speak their language. Same with our spouses, which we’ll talk about more in a couple of weeks. But here’s the deal: in what way can you encourage your family this week? Do the dishes. Take out the trash without being asked. Do someone else’s chores this week. Leave a note on their pillow or, if they are going somewhere, in their suitcase. Send a text when it’s not expected. And come to church as a family. Talk about what you learn, how God spoke to you during the service. It doesn’t matter how young they are; I guarantee they’re listening. And over everything else, make sure your family knows you have Ruth’s kind of commitment to them: “Where you go, I will go.” No matter what else happens, we are going to be together, and in the midst of a world that says otherwise, we are going to make it. Where you go, I will go.

I want to close by sharing with you one of my very best dad moments ever. Rachel was not born yet, and Christopher was somewhere between 2 and 3. He and I were in the kitchen at our house and making something—probably brownies that he had requested—and somehow the conversation got onto what he wanted to be when he grew up. So I was listing off several things that little boys typically want to be. “Do you want to be a fireman? A policeman? A doctor?” No, no, no. Everything was no. So I played along, and I asked, “Well, then, what do you want to be?” “I want to be just like you, Dad,” Christopher said. And do you know, at that moment, he could have asked me for anything and I would have done it or bought it. Thankfully, he was only 3 and didn’t know that. But that gave me hope. The only way we really know what kind of parents we have been is when we look at our children’s lives and see the good parts of ourselves reflected in them. When we see our faith shining through them, we can can give thanks for the “storge” love that brings us through it all. Where you go, I will go. Let’s pray for our families, shall we?

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?