Becoming the People of God 3: The Goal

October 30, 2011

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

J.W. McNeill

The first week of this series we contrasted these two statements.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism	Our Affirmation of Faith
A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.	We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new.…

The second week we contrasted these two statements:

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism	Our Affirmation of Faith
God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.	We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God’s presence, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen.

In today’s Scripture lesson, St. Paul writes to the people of God in Thessalonica:  

As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead  a life worthy of God, who calls you into God’s own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12)

What is a life worthy of God?

To live a life worthy of God is to seek God’s call on our lives and then to live out that calling. This flows from the two pieces of our affirmation that we have already considered:

Week 1: God has created us.

That is, in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God’s purpose was to

reconcile and make new: Jesus Christ has come for the transformation of us and our relationships. Not to judge and condemn us, but to renew us into a different way of life based on justice, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

           

God is not at a distance simply watching over. God is continually, always and everywhere creating and refreshing not only the world around us, but us. Refreshing us to be God’s people, student followers of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Week 2: God has called us to be the Church.

We have been created and called out to a particular way of life that reveals God’s love and grace in our lives.

That particular way is summarized in our Affirmation as we talked about last week:

We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God’s presence, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen. This is energizing and engaging! Not wimpy.

Called to be the Church:

Celebrate God’s presence:

·         That is, we worship. This is our central activity. This centers us and orients us to God. Because it is celebration, we are called to adopt the positive attitude that God is at work. We are not called to be whiners!

Love and serve others:

·         To love others means that we will want their good and work for their good, even if it costs us something.

·         We are intentionally living so as to be making real that kin(g)dom/dream/feast of God among us and pouring out into our neighborhood and our world.

Seek justice and resist evil:

·         Social holiness as well as personal. It means working to rid the world of social evil as well as personal evil. To be a part of seeing that the strong and powerful do not dominate the weak and powerless. To see that we ourselves do not become harbors, sheltering destructive forces in our own hearts.

Proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen

·         There is some clarity about who we have been called to follow. Jesus is our model. His teaching and his life are the central images to which we look as we understand how we are to live. As we said last time, Jesus is the Word made flesh – God living among us.

To live such a life:

            Celebrating God’s presence.

            Loving and serving others.

            Seeking justice and resisting evil.

            Proclaiming Jesus, crucified and risen

That is a life worthy of the love and creative being and energy God has lavished upon us and poured into us.

Last week I read a passage from C.S. Lewis’ book The Silver Chair, one of the Chronicles of Narnia.  You may remember that in that book Aslan, the great lion instructs Jill with four signs. He tells her that she must remember those signs to complete her mission. Those were four very specific and tricky signs to complete a unique mission give specifically to her.

I tell you this morning, however that these four activities are what we need to remember and keep clear about as we live the lives God has called us to.

Aslan told Jill:

But, first, remember, remember, remember the Signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing tum your mind from following the Signs.

And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the Signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there.

That is why it is so important to know them by heart.

And so I encourage you to memorize at least this section of our Affirmation of Faith and to repeat it to yourself again and again so that you are always in touch with the broad outline of our call to become the people of God.

To live life worthy of God that St. Paul talks about is to seek God’s call on our lives and then to live out that calling.

This week is the midpoint in the series and this contrast is perhaps the central contrast and the central focus as we consider what it means to become the people of God in this day.

This morning we are looking at this fundamental contrast:

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism	Our Affirmation of Faith
The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.	We believe in God...who works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust in God.

Why is this contrast fundamental?

I suggest three reasons.

Because

1.      The MTD statement is so basically pervasive and at odds with how we are called to order our lives as Christians.

2.      This contrast highlights our affirmation tenet about trusting in God is the first task of faith.

3.      This tenet of our affirmation makes clear that we believe that we are not the only people in whom God is at work. This third point is important to recognize so that we do not succumb to arrogance as the people of God.

Let’s look at the first point:

1.      The MTD statement is so basically pervasive and at odds with how we are called to order our lives as Christians.

How is at odds?

First this statement of what is most important is egoistic. It is saying that the most important thing is how things are with me. It is about the BIG SELF. And it says that I should feel good about myself being in the first instance having my most important goal as being happy.

To be fair, this may just be a matter of confused thinking. There is a sense in which we might think that happiness is our goal because we are happy when we achieve our goal. If I have a goal of helping someone out of a distressing situation, then I will be happy when I have achieved that goal. However, let’s be clear that my happiness was not the goal of my action, it was the byproduct of achieving the goal.

Indeed, Jesus was quite clear about how at odds egoism – the desire for our own satisfaction – is from the way of life to which he directs:

If we try to secure our lives we will lose our lives. But if we give up our lives for Jesus’ sake, we will secure them.

To give up our lives is to put Jesus’ way before following our own desires for our own happiness on our own terms.  Jesus assures us that fulfilling the goals Jesus sets before us will secure our lives – will satisfy us. Will make us happy. Not in an egoistic sense, but because we will have fulfilled our goal to be worthy of God.

God is at work within us to transform us into folks who will be satisfied with nothing less than becoming the people of God.

Where this third tenet of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism goes wrong is when it identifies my happiness with my comfort and convenience.

This is a difficult point. In the culture and the world in which we live, it is very hard to escape the notion that my activities ought to be directed most importantly toward me and my family’s comfort and convenience. That is what almost all advertising is directing us toward.

That is what our consumer culture exists to encourage. That is the Spirit of the Age. That is the chief competitor to God’s call on our lives.

Have a look at this brief video. 

I daresay that keeping ourselves active in the consumer culture and preparing our children to achieve in the consumer culture is the dominant obstacle not only to our fully becoming the people of God, but to our even fully desiring to become the people of God.

How do we begin to make inroads so that we are not overwhelmed by this seduction?

This is the second point:

2.      We trust in God. We trust in God. We trust in God.

Becoming the people of God means that we need not worry. We need not be anxious. We need not let fear overwhelm us. We are on a mission. There will be difficulties. There will be opposition. There will be discomfort. There will be setbacks. There will be times of uncertainty. But we trust God that God is with us. It’s about being God’s people, not about trying to work out our best interest with respect to our comfort and convenience.

And if we as the people of God are doing this together we will have companions on the mission so that we can encourage each other, support each other, comfort each other, and celebrate together those times when we see how God has been clearly at work as we live out our call, and find the patience together when we just don’t see how we will manage to make it through. That is why it is important to be connected in personal ways. Small groups for study and for service and mutual support. Until we catch on to those, we are not going to be at full strength.

Some of you may be skeptical about what I’ve said this morning. You might be thinking, I could never do this. This isn’t me. Precisely!

It’s not just that we trust in God in some abstract way, we trust that God is at work in us by the Spirit. Our job is to open ourselves to the activity of the Holy Spirit to work within us. We let the Spirit begin to take over and as we keep in mind an intention to follow God’s call on our lives.

Trust in God is not an abstract belief or theory about God, it’s about trusting that God is at work in us as we:

            Celebrate God’s presence

            Love and serve others

            Seek justice and resist evil

            Proclaim Jesus crucified and risen.

Which leads us to the third important point:

3.      This tenet of our affirmation makes clear that we believe that we are not the only people in whom God is at work. This third point is important to recognize so that we do not succumb to arrogance as the people of God.

The Affirmation states that we believe that God is at work in us and in others by the Spirit.

To become the people of God is not to reach some position from which it is up to us to condemn or to bully or judge others. It is in reality a vantage point from which to notice and appreciate all the ways that God is at work in folks who are also loving and serving others, seeking justice and resisting evil.

Of course, being the church connects us to the way of Jesus Christ in a particular way and that makes a difference. And there are plenty of folks who will be helped by finding a place with us becoming the people of God along with us. Plenty of folks will be helped by getting to know Jesus. Our proclamation is an invitation for those others whom God is also calling. We are not called to arrogantly assume that everyone is meant to join us on the journey to which we have been called.

So our contrast today highlights three central points that can help us on our way to becoming the people of God:

1.      We need to be aware of a pervasive egoism/selfishness that is a dangerous and seductive basis of our consumer culture.

2.      We trust in God. We trust that God is at work in us, so that we can together open ourselves ever wider to the Holy Spirit’s work within us and among us.

3.      We are not the only people in whom God is at work. God is not bound by those whom God has called and part of our joy is to notice that God’s spirit is already at work even before we arrive.

St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica:

When you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.  (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

He had proclaimed to them Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. They had received that message and opened themselves to that word, that spirit, to work in them to become the people of God. They began to trust that God and live as God’s people.

            They began to celebrate God’s presence.

            They loved and served others.

            They sought justice and resisted evil.

            They proclaimed Jesus, crucified and risen, who Paul had proclaimed to them.

Imagine that!

More next week. Stay tuned.

A short video that takes this further: Are You a Trader?

Becoming the People of God 2: Called to Be the Church

Becoming the People of God 2: Called to Be the Church

October 23, 2011

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

J.W. McNeill

Last week, today and the next three Sundays we are examining five contrasting statements. One each week. Trying to understand how these pairs of statements differ will help us be clearer about the nature of God, who God has created us to become, and what difference that is to make in our lives. These will be simply provocative sketches, not full answers. I hope that you will give further thought to the topics we will consider and I invite you to ask questions and probe further as the weeks go on.

           

As I said last week: Some of you feel like theological sermons go over your head. But even so, your job is to reach up and try to catch it. You might not catch every all of it, but if you try, you are likely to catch at least some of it. So I again invite you to reach up this morning instead of giving up.

Again, as I said last week: If we do not intentionally try to understand who God is and how God is calling us, we will either head off in a direction away from God – or simply wander around in a fog of confusion being drawn this way and that by whatever calls loudest to us on any particular day. The people of God are NOT to wander around in a fog. We don’t have to. We can exercise our minds and understand. Theology is simply our faith seeking understanding.

If you have been coming to Fairport UMC for some time, you know that we usually use the Affirmation of Faith which was written for the United Church of Canada. It directs and instructs us in our journey together. Week by week it reminds us of the faith we share.

There is a scene near the beginning of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia story, The Silver Chair. Aslan, the great lion,  who is the figure of Christ in the Narnia series, is giving instructions for a task that will belong to Jill Pole, who is about to be blown into Narnia.  In order to help her fulfill her quest, Aslan tells her four signs that she must remember.

"I will tell you, Child," said the Lion. "These are the Signs by which I will guide you in your quest. First; as soon as the Boy Eustace sets foot in Narnia, he will meet an old and dear friend.

Then Aslan goes on to tell her three more signs.

After he had finished telling her the signs Jill said,

"Thank you very much. I see."

"Child," said Asian, in a gentler voice than he had yet used, "perhaps you do not see quite as well as you think. But the first step is to remember. Repeat to me, in order, the four Signs."

Jill tried, and didn't get them quite right. So the Lion corrected her and made her repeat them again and again till she could say them perfectly. He was very patient over this.

And as Aslan prepares to use his breath to blow her into Narnia he tells her,

"Stand still. In a moment I will blow. But, first, remember, remember, remember the Signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing tum your mind from following the Signs.

And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the Signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there.

That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the Signs and believe the Signs. Nothing else matters.

And now, Daughter of Eve, farewell.

The affirmation we say together week by week contains the basic signs by which we become the people of God. We do not become God’s people by accident. We become God’s people as we remember and attend to God’s call on our lives. Our affirmation of faith is one of the Signs that instruct us on our mission.

We are looking at it more closely and seeing how it contrasts with an alternative set of beliefs that have come to be known as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD).  This set of beliefs was constructed by researchers after a very large study examining what adolescents believed. They were able to piece together that the youth they interviewed had a fairly consistent theology that stretched across Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and other faith traditions. They also determined that they got this theology from their churches and their parents. The problem for the Church is that this theology is decidedly NOT Christian.

The Scripture texts for this series of sermons are the assigned readings from St. Paul’s letters to the Christians in Thessalonica.

Paul goes there because there is a particular message that needs to be transmitted. The Gospel – the Good News – calls us to a particular message, a particular way of life that we don’t get to know unless we particularly pay attention to it. As St. Paul says to the Thessalonians from our reading this morning:

As we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. (1 Thessalonians 2:4)

Paul has visited them and instructed them and now writes to them to keep them on track. He knows that they need to be taught, reminded, and corrected and guided to remain on the path to which God has called them.

We also need to be taught, reminded, and corrected so that we do not forget or become confused about how God continues to call us to become disciples/student followers of Jesus Christ.

Last week we contrasted the first tenet with the statement about creation from our Affirmation of Faith.

 A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

True in some sense. But we affirm something much more robust, engaging, and energizing:

 We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new.…

That is, in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God’s purpose was to

reconcile and make new: Transformation of us and our relationships.

Not to judge and condemn us, but to renew us into a different way of life based on justice, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

           

God is not at a distance simply watching over. God is continually, always and everywhere creating and refreshing not only the world around us, but us. Refreshing us to be God’s people, student followers of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

This morning we contrast the second precept of MTD:

·         God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

A word about this: Here again, it’s hard to just dismiss this as ridiculous.  It has some truth to it as far as it goes. It is certainly a better rule of thumb than say, "Don't get mad. Get even!" 

In fact, congenial life together could not exist without at least some semblance of the kind of fair cooperation that this precept envisions. We have various “social levers” to bring this about.  Advice columns, etiquette, laws, court system, prisons that attempt to keep this minimal standard as a lowest common denominator. People don’t always behave this way, but it is a pretty uncontroversial standard.

We criticize people who don’t at least make an effort to be good, nice and fair. Or feel apologetic when they fail.

But again, this is a fairly minimal standard.

Now contrast this with how we affirm God calls us:

We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God’s presence, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen. This is energizing and engaging! Not wimpy.

Called to be the Church:

·         Called out assembly of God. We have been intentionally gathered by God. We are called to be God’s people, to be a sign, a living message showing God’s love and grace. We are not nobodies, we are chosen and blessed to be about God’s business in this world.

·         This is true both for the international totality of the called out and the individual local gatherings here and elsewhere of those who are becoming God’s people.

·         So this is important stuff.

Celebrate God’s presence:

·         We worship. This is our central activity. This centers us and orients us to God.

·         Refer back to last week. This is a miracle feast world

·         We are living  in a world that calls us to celebration because we come more and more to appreciate that God’s goodness is all around us.

·         This is a matter of faith and confidence that God is at work in the world. We are called to adopt the positive attitude that God is at work. See through what troubles us with hope.

Love and serve others:

·         To love and serve others is in stark contrast with “be good and nice and fair.”

·         It means proactive attention to others. It means putting ourselves out for others. It means sometimes inconveniencing ourselves for the sake of others.

·         To love others means that we will want their good and work for their good, even if it costs us something.

·         Now, how we balance this with also needing to responsibly care for ourselves and those we have a particular responsibility for (like our own family) requires wisdom and counsel. It’s not always obvious, but to live as Christ has called us – to live as the people of God – goes far beyond simple good, nice and fair.

·         We are intentionally living so as to be creating that kin(g)dom of God among us and pouring out into our neighborhood and our world.

Seek justice and resist evil:

·         This is another case of God calling us to be proactive: Sticking our nose in

·         Understanding that there is a problem that the strong may be dominating the weak and God’s people are about seeing that doesn’t happen. Whether through our own action, or working for social and political structures to keep those who are being treated unfairly will receive justice.

·         Social holiness as well as personal. It means working to rid the world of social evil as well as personal evil.

·         It may not always be easy to identify social justice and social evil, but we are called as the church to try to understand and act so as to seek justice and resist evil.

Proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen

·         There is some clarity about who we have been called to follow. Jesus is our model. His teaching and his life are the central images to which we look as we understand how we are to live. As we said last time, Jesus is the Word made flesh – God living among us.

·         Realistic about what can happen when we seek justice and resist evil. We do not ignore the fact that when God came to live among us, we turned against God and crucified Jesus.

·         But at the same time we are confident about how the story turns out. We know that God’s grace and God’s power were and are finally victorious. We can live out our call with courage.

If we are to become the people of God we have to take notice and remember the signs of the people of God. It is one thing to hear them in church. It is another thing in the stresses and strains of our daily lives. As Aslan told Jill, we must keep our calling to live as God’s people before our hearts and minds in every moment, so that our calling to be the Church will not be in vain.

St. Paul says:

You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain (1 Thessalonians 2:1).

Gospel means a particular way of living. The people of Thessalonica caught on. Or were caught up. But in any case, they opened themselves up to become the people of God. The call of God on their lives was not in vain.

Imagine that!

More next week. Stay tuned!

Becoming the People of God Part One: Creation

Becoming the People of God 1: Creation

October 16, 2011

1 Thessalonians 1:1-9

J.W. McNeill

Today and the next four Sundays we will be examining five contrasting statements. One each week. Trying to understand how these pairs of statements differ will help us be clearer about the nature of God, who God has created us to become, and what difference that is to make in our lives. These will be simply provocative sketches, not full answers. I hope that you will give further thought to the topics we will consider and I invite you to ask questions and probe further as the weeks go on.

           

Why this is important: I am aware that there are those of you who particularly appreciate sermons that are more theological and philosophical. I also know that there are those of you who sometimes feel that some of these theological sermons are difficult to understand. You might even feel like they go over your head. But think of it this way. If you are an infielder on a baseball team and the ball is hit toward you and it’s going over your head, your job is not to watch it sail into the outfield. Your job is to reach up and try to catch it. You might not catch every one, but if you try, you are likely to catch some. So I invite you to reach up this morning instead of giving up. We’re all supposed to be working at this here.

The danger is this: if we do not make an effort to understand what we believe, our minds, our thoughts, our beliefs will be shaped for us by the loudest voices that surround us. It is clearly true that the loudest voices around us are not coming to us with messages of the love of Jesus Christ.

If we do not intentionally try to understand who God is and how God is calling us, we will either head off in a direction away from God – or simply wander around in a fog of confusion being drawn this way and that by whatever calls loudest to us on any particular day. The people of God are NOT to wander around in a fog. We don’t have to. We can exercise our minds and understand. Theology is simply faith seeking understanding.

One of the reasons that nearly every week we say together an affirmation of faith is to help keep ourselves clearer and by repetition to ingrain some basic truths about God and about ourselves so that we have some confidence that we are keeping the story straight.

Creeds/Affirmations of Faith do not attempt to try to give us a complete set of teachings. Instead they lay out some basic propositions which form a set of beliefs that have wide agreement. One of the interesting things about creeds in the history of the Christian tradition is that they tend to be written against particular false beliefs that the church wants to take special care to guard against.

One of the ways to understand more deeply what a creed is trying to say is to examine what it was written to guard against.

If you have been coming to Fairport UMC for some time, you know that we usually use the Affirmation of Faith which was written for the United Church of Canada in the mid 1960s. We began using it more regularly after a very intentional group process some years ago that revealed that it spoke to many of us at a deep level.

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at it more closely and see how it contrasts with an alternative set of beliefs that have come to be known as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD).  Some of you might remember that I referred to this set of beliefs in a message last spring.

To review: MTD had five precepts:

• A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

• God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

• The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

• God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.

• Good people go to heaven when they die.

We will take each of these in turn, starting with the first one this morning.

Just a note on where these come from. A couple of sociologists of religion did a nationwide study of the faith of adolescents. After thousands of surveys and 250 in depth interviews, the researchers were able to piece together that the youth they interviewed had a fairly consistent theology that stretched across Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and other faith traditions. They also determined that they got this theology from their churches and their parents. The problem for the Church is that this theology is decidedly NOT Christian.

This will become clearer as we contrast it with our affirmation of faith.

One more thing and then we will get into the meat of this. Our Scripture texts for this series will be the assigned Sunday readings from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Scholars believe that this letter is the earliest piece of writing in what we now know as the New Testament. Each week’s theme will be tied to our reading from this letter of St. Paul. Lispers beware.

St. Paul writes to the congregation in Thessalonika and opens with a very robust expression of gratitude and appreciation of them. He writes:  you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Notice this: they became imitators of the Lord (Jesus) in joy despite persecution. How were they able to do that? How were they able to become people of God with enthusiasm and joy despite the threat of persecution? Because they were clear about who they were to be and what they were to do and they intentionally set about doing despite the fact that it would have been easy to be something else. It was not convenient. It was not easy. It was not what was going on in the culture around them, but it was who they had been called to be. They set their minds and hearts on becoming the people of God and so became the bearers of a message of hope in a world that needed hope. Messengers of peace in a world of violence, messengers of justice in a world of oppression.

Now we might not face persecution, but we are called to have that same kind of clarity and dedication to live with joy and enthusiasm the life to which Christ has called us. To imitate Christ – to be as Christ to one another and the world.

On what basis can we do that? The answer is that at least one element is clarity about who we are.

Who are we imitating?  Who do we want to be? What do we want to be when we grow up? A clear intentionality is needed.

First Premise of MTD

• A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

True in some sense. One can imagine a statement that is less true. For example:

           

I don’t want to be hard on atheists, but this MTD statement carries us a long way from atheism. Compared to this statement of atheism, MTD sounds reasonable.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism does acknowledge a God who created and orders and got things going. But “watches over?” That indicates an element of distance. According to MTD, God is not too involved in life on earth. (This is the Deism part.) Not too big a role for God.

But it also has an implication from our side of things:  God does not need to have too big a role in our lives. Safe and respectful distance. “OK God, if you don’t get too close to me, I won’t get too close to you. Deal?”  Background God. Stepped back. Maybe once was involved. Creation, Biblical days, long ago. But not much now. We’ve taken over. Technology.

So now let’s contrast this with what our affirmation of faith says:

We believe in God – WE believe this. Others may not. [More on this later. Do we have to coerce or force of manipulate others to believe this?? NO!]

This statement of affirmation orients us to the world, orients our lives, gives us a particular reference point to how we approach the world. It’s all a miracle. It’s all a wonder of God. The psalmist says it so well as we read a couple of Sundays ago here: The heavens are telling the glory of God.

And notice: Not a God. But the God – the God of whom the Bible speaks. The God who Of Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Miriam and Moses. The God who calls forth a people to be a sign and a witness to that God’s steadfast love and mercy. A testimony to that God’s commitment to lifting up the oppressed. Not a God. The God.

Our affirmation goes on to say that God HAS created and IS Creating – all existence depends in each moment on God. God is continually bringing the universe into existence. There is simply no existence apart from God. God’s being undergirds ALL being. All of creation can be thought of as being suspended from God’s being. If God were to let go, all would be nothing.

Our affirmation goes on to say that this creator God has come in Jesus – Not at a distance, but come to us as one of us. Mystery how this happened – simply means there is no physics explanation for it that we are aware of – but we affirm that is what happened. We cannot view God as apart from us. God has had a part of us.

And that God who has come among us, gotten close to us, is the Word made flesh: became an articulate message among us to reveal not just God’s love for us, but also the way we are to live with each other so that God’s way might become real – the Kingdom (kindom) God’s way for us to take root and grow – as it did among the Christians of Thessalonika.

That is, in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God’s purpose was to

reconcile and make new: Transformation of us and our relationships.

Not to judge and condemn us, but to renew us into a different way of life based on justice, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

And this way of life preserves us, as Paul says, from wrath: that is, from violence, condemnation, and death. Imitating Jesus – the Message, Sign, Word of God made flesh forms us into God’s people.

           

God is not at a distance. God is continually, always and everywhere creating and refreshing not only the world around us, but us. Refreshed to be God’s people, student followers of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Imagine that!

More next week. Stay tuned!

October 9, 2011 - Pray About Everything - UMW Sunday Message

Pray about Everything

Philippians 4: 1-9

Ginny Spring - UMW Sunday

[Note that we do not clean up formatting when we post our sermons. They are pasted in simply as they appear for the most part.]

Paul wrote to his followers in Philippi: Do not worry about anything; let your requests be made known to God in everything by prayer.

  In other words: Do not worry about anything; pray about everything!

            Words that are easy to say.  Much harder to carry out.

Let’s consider what we, as individuals, worry about.  What keeps you awake at night?

 There are a wealth of problems that come to my mind:

a test at school;                       a health concern;        a broken family relationship; 

a bullying situation;                  a job loss                    a child’s recalcitrant behavior

 a domestic violence situation            

How do we react to worries…..?   

Whether we are a young adult, teen, or older person, do we

     : keep our anxieties within ourselves: always in our thoughts;

              letting them hang like a gray cloud in our day; letting them erode our spirits and                          perhaps eventually affect our bodies?

    : talk about them to others

             : not expecting a solution; just wanting to unload; or

              : in hopes of finding a way to resolve the situation?

      Psychologists tell us that one of the more healthy approaches is

                        to simply spell out what is disturbing us.   

By clarifying what it is, we may already be relieving some stress.

By writing down our concern,  perhaps we will see what it is that we should be doing differently; or we may realize that we have little control over the situation.

And then there is Paul’s approach: pray about everything…offer it to the Lord in supplication.  If you are at all inclined to talk about your worries to a friend, a teammate, or a relative, Paul is suggesting that we talk about them with the God Who loves us!

           

        God Who has always loved each one of us is often hungry to be more involved in our lives.  We give thanks for the start of a new day and thanks at mealtime.  On Sunday each week we gather in shared worship and praise.   Here is an opportunity to engage Him more fully in our lives.         

By telling God  how helpless we find ourselves,  we are in conversation with God.

                        We are NOT praying for divine intercession…

            :expecting God to intervene and rescue us from our troubles;

            :expecting  God to take away the problem.

           

We  are praying : to ask for the grace to adjust our attitude;

                              : to ask for the grace to accept what we cannot change;

                              : to acknowledge that we cannot do this alone and need His                                                      inspiration and support.

Our Affirmation of Faith states:  “We are not alone…God is with us.”

Young Pastor Emily reminded us: “God doesn’t need my words, to know my heart.”       

Would just sitting still and  being silent open our hearts to the Holy Spirit and help us feel God’s Presence? 

Paul’s letter to the followers of Jesus in Philippi from which we read a passage today was written about  thirty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  You may already know that Philippi was a city on the northeast coast of modern day Greece.   Paul urges these early believers to help each other on their spiritual journey.

Two spiritual leaders shared the desire to spread the good news of Christ’s way of living,  but perhaps they were at odds about some detail.

If there were indeed such a difference of opinion, their falling-out might be affecting the unity of the Christian community at Philippi.  Paul wrote to all of his followers there and urged them not to be worried by such divisions, but instead, help the two members reconcile their differences.  Their names were Euodia and Syntynche.

This week I went online and was able to find a u-tube clip of these same women.   It was   a conversation they shared years later in their lives.  Let’s listen in….

SYNTCHE:  Euodia, it is so relaxing to sit with you here outdoors in the    afternoon.   I always look forward to chatting with you.

EUODIA:  Yes, we’ve been friends for years , ever since our children were youngsters.  Now they all have their own growing families.

SYNTYCHE:  Of course, there was that stretch of time when we weren’t even talking to one another.

          I remember being very upset with you then but to tell you the truth, I      can’t even recall what the reason was!!

EUODIA:  It’s ironic, isn’t it?   Here we are such close friends but years ago we    did have our differences.   What I recall is your  propensity to worry about         change.

SYNTYCHE:  Change?

EUODIA:  Things were looking  promising for our faith community .  Clement and         the others were working  hard teaching what “following Jesus” actually         meant. 

          Most of us enjoyed welcoming other people to hear Clement          preach and    to our prayer services.   You, on the other hand, became more and more reluctant to open your heart to people from different backgrounds.

SYNTYCHE:  I probably didn’t feel comfortable with them.

EUODIA: That could well have been true, Syntiche.   Eventually your attitude      made many of us feel uncomfortable.   I wondered how you were going to   understand people of different lifestyles if you did not even want to         spend time with them!  Let alone,  worship with them!

SYNTYCHE:   Then when Paul wrote from prison in Rome, he reminded us to      focus on the things that were good and righteous in other people.

           All other people.  (Turning to look at her friend) You really helped me     work through that, Euodia.

EUODIA:  (smiling broadly)         And do you remember our friend, Margaret?

                    She insisted:

          :  If we could find only the good in those whom we consider different,

                   we would be unstoppable Christ followers!

                   Your attitude changed completely. 

                   After that, you kept in mind that God loves every one of us.

                   But then you were exasperated with me when I refused to be                             baptized.

SYNTYCHE:  That’s right… you felt it would be enough for a person to say in                public that she believed that Jesus was the Son of God.  Everyone else        believed we should be immersed in the river, as Jesus was with John the           Baptizer.

EUODIA:   I was afraid of the water!  I had never gone in such deep water,         whether it was a lake or a river!  I did not think that God would want me        to do such a thing!

SYNTYCHE:  You really became quite outspoken and defiant, Euodia.

EUODIA:  Yes, and there were a lot of other people that agreed with me.

                   It became quite a group.

         

SYNTYCHE:  But we prayed about that together.  We talked about your anxiety.

          We asked God to give you the courage to get over your fear,

          to let the rest of us help you.  We were right there beside you. 

EUODIA:   Paul had urged us to not worry about anything, but instead pray        about everything.   (Laughing together)  Well, we sure did that!

Of course, we have no idea of their actual difference of opinion, but

through all the centuries, there have been divergent views about aspects of the direction of the church.  What held true then, as it does now, is that we as followers of Christ are called to open discussion and respectful hearing of views that differ from our own.  The

lesson for us is that they turned to prayer.

If  reconciliation is true of church community, it is also true of families…and other social groups that we are take part in. 

Rather than division, Paul urges us to focus on the things that are decent, admirable and worthy of praise in people.  Paul was interested in attracting followers to Jesus’ way.  He wanted the congregation to be filled with joy and to be known for their joy in the Lord.

            Just as in the first century, we as present-day Christians should

            keep in mind how our behaviors and words impress or do not impress

            people of other faiths and people who have no religious affiliation.                          They know we are Christians. 

We need to be sure to share our joy!

Let’s let others know the empowerment and inspiration found in prayer.

Let’s avail ourselves more frequently of the transforming power of prayer.

Our mission statement reads that we are called to nurture people in their spiritual journey.  This may happen:

            : by becoming aware that someone else is anxious or hurting;

            : by being ready to take the time to listen to their concerns;

            : by being willing to take the time to walk with them during the rough                                spots of their life.

If you are sharing in confidence a deep concern with another person, may I suggest two methods of prayer that might be helpful.

a) The 1-2-3 plan.  This is not a get-rich plan; it is a spiritually enriching plan. This is when you propose that, no matter where you are in your day, both of you will pray

                        :for one purpose, for two minutes, at three o’clock each day.

                                                One/two/three. 

If three o’clock is not a realistic timeframe, make it a one/two/ten plan.   Whatever hour is realistic for you and this relative, friend or co-worker.

The important thing here is that the other person knows that someone is praying with them.

          By stopping your routine; freeing your mind of distractions, being focused in prayer about the concern, you are enriching your own spiritual life.

         

   Perhaps those few minutes would serve as a freeing time to lift the burden and feel His Presence.

b)  Secondly, if one of you prefers a formal prayer, may I propose reciting  the Serenity Prayer together:

 Lord, grant me: the courage to change those things that can be changed;

                          : the grace to accept those things that cannot be changed; and

                          : the wisdom to know the difference.

In closing, let’s try doing what Paul urged the early Christians to do:

            : engage God in all aspects of  our lives:  pray about everything

                        letting the Spirit of God uplift us;

            : help those around us deal with the struggles of their journey;

            : bring more joy to our own lives and to the lives of others by giving the gift of prayer.