Discipleship at Messiah

Because I live, you also will live.  -John 14:19b

             I remember the day, when in a class on Contemporary Issues in Religion, Dr. George Forell was discussing our present world and the way it is viewed by us.  He pointed out that we are so confident that we have changed the world and that things which once worried human kind are worries no longer.

            For instance, in 1600, we had things like the bubonic plague and other terrible diseases.  It was so bad that 100% of the people died.  By 1900, we had pretty much eliminated the plague and some of those other diseases, but we had smallpox and TB and other diseases—100% died.  But, for the most part, we have eliminated those terrible killers.  Now we have cancer and heart disease, aids—“sorry about that kid, 100% of the people still die.”

            In his own humorous way he was saying that some things don’t change—human beings have been dying since  Adam and Eve’s sin and they continue to die, no matter how many diseases we think we have conquered.

            Given this fact, it is ironic/tragic that we do everything possible to forget or avoid that.  The first article in the creed of a noted American journalist was, “Never to allow myself to think of death.”  To a great extent, that has become the creed of our age—death is something you don’t talk about.  We avoid it by using terms like “passed away”, “rest,” “slumber,” “left us,” etc.  Or we trivialize it, making it so cheap in movies and other media.

            However, we cannot escape that a fundamental question of life is how does death fit in?  It gnaws at us from the first realization that one day I will die.

            We see it expressed in art, literature,  in songs—such as “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”  That song is a haunting expression of the inevitability of death, life as an endless cycle.    It echoes in the repeated question “How will we ever learn?”  One preacher says, “What an abyss yawns in that question!”  How CAN we ever learn when life is broken off abruptly over and over again?

            The Bible asks the question in a much more direct manner–“If a man die shall he live again?” The ancient pagan says, “no.”  An inscription on a tomb reads, “I was not—I was born.  I was—now I am not.  If any man says other wise, he lies.  I shall not be.”  The more skeptical modern, trying to be honest says, “I don’t know.”  The romantic says, ” I hope.”

            It is in the face of all of this, the Church of Jesus Christ affirms—”I have a future…I believe in…life everlasting.

            WHY? One has broken the cycle!  “Death no longer has the last word”(Leslie Newbigin).  Jesus lives and was dead, behold, He is alive for evermore.  “Because I live,” He says, “you also will live.”

            Easter means I have a future—despite the fact that evil and death appear to win out—THEY DO NOT!  Jesus will not disappoint you!  My life will continue; in a much richer, fuller, more complete way.  But because He lives, I can live also.

            In John Masefield’s THE TRIAL OF JESUS there is a fictional conversation between Procula, wife of Pontius Pilate and Longinus, Centurion who commanded the soldiers at the crucifixion:

“Do you think he is dead?” she asks.
“No, lady, I don’t.”
“Then where is he?”
“Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.”

If you would like to know the living Jesus, click here to find out how.

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 “Listening To God”
“God…has spoken”  -Hebrews 1:2

 In the 18^th century, in the Church of England a man by the name of John Wesley “set out by the grace of God ‘to raise up a holy people.’” He believed that God had given us the tools to do that.  He called these tools “the means of grace.”  And first on that list was Bible reading.

Some years ago I saw a cartoon which showed a man standing in a shop.  The sign on the door said, “The Book Shop.”  The whole store was empty except for one book lying on the counter.  The title: “The Book.”  Wesley was called a man of “the book.”  And that book was the Bible.  He called it “the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both for faith and   practice.”

William Willimon defines the whole Methodist structure as being based on the place of the Bible in Christian experience.

What he [Wesley] did was to create structures to enable ordinary, everyday people like you and me to be people worthy to hear and embody scriptures.  John Wesley’s societies, class meetings, and conferences,…were his creative invention where ordinary, everyday people got to deal with the Bible, not as an intellectual problem but rather as a…challenge to transformation.”
…
The United Methodist Church was born out of this stunning vision, this creative collision between Wesley’s eighteenth-century England and the bible.

The primary action for the Christian life is listening to God.  We can only be and do what God expects after we have listened/heard God.  The Bible is the ordinary place for hearing God.

It is in this context that we join with thousands of Christians in an intentional effort to listen to God called “40 Days in the Word.”  Please join us.

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Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.  -Philippians 3:13-14 NRSV

Most of the time forgetting is mentioned in the Bible, it is a negative thing.  Most of the time, we are reminded of the importance of remembering.  When we come to the end of a year, we are often reminded to remember the past year—our experiences, especially God’s blessings.

There are a lot of good things to remember here at Messiah United Methodist.  There are successes to celebrate but what is most important is God’s presence.  We rejoice that God has been with us as He promised.

Remembering is important.  However our text talks about forgetting as an important spiritual action.  It reminds us that spiritual health, vitality is in moving forward, not finding our joy in the past.  The prize is still ahead of us.  We are never to pull up short of the goal—either the short term goals we may have or, more importantly, the goal God has for us of spiritual maturity and ministry, and ultimately heaven.

2012 is ahead of us.  There will no doubt be joys and sorrows.  Some of our church family will probably not make it to the end of 2012 and it is possible that Jesus will return.

Folks we need to keep pressing on.  We cannot rest on our past blessings.  God has so much more for you, for me, for Messiah United Methodist.

You can always start a new year—with God!

*This post is also in the Messiah Church, January newsletter.

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to make  ready for the Lord a people prepared  Luke 1:17d

  We are now 3 days into the Advent Season–the time of year on the church calendar during which we are to prepare for Christmas.  Normally the emphasis is on preparing ourselves so that we can properly appreciate and celebrate the great event which Christmas commemorates, the birth of Jesus.
            As important as  that is–there is another way to see this matter of preparation–a way which may be of even greater consequence to us this Christmas season.  It is that of preparing those around us to receive Jesus—“to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
            The other 3 gospels identify John as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3-4d:

A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and rough places a plain.

The image presented is that of the practice of sending a for-runner (pioneer) ahead of a king to herald his approach and to remove the obstacles in his path.  For John the Baptist however, the hills and the valleys, the wilderness are not the obstacles but the blindness and hardness of the human heart.  He is not to prepare the terrain but people.
          A moment of reflection will make clear how important preparation is.
          The thinking of the average person is so conditioned that an awareness of God’s presence and activity is almost entirely foreign.  Most people are so occupied with the ordinary pursuit of making a living, raising a family, having fun, or meeting problems they are conditioned to relate only to what they can see, hear, feel, smell, and touch.  Our materialistic pattern of life makes it next to impossible to see (experience) God.
            Somehow those people, whose point of reference or perspective is almost totally time, space and matter, must be led or prepared to conceive the spiritual dimension of life.  And it likely will be done only by those who have become aware of God’s presence in their own lives–who have experienced his love, his power, his direction.  In other words, those who call themselves Christians must prepare others to receive Jesus.
            Think back.  No doubt you know the person or persons who prepared you, who was a point of contact, who made the gospel more believable either by word or deed for you.  F.B. Meyer wrote, “It is doubtful whether Jesus ever comes into the heart of mature manhood without the previous work of a John the Baptist.”
            Who has God placed in your pathway that needs to be prepared to receive Jesus?

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be thankful.-Colossians 3:15

When most of America thinks of its blessings, the list will include: family, health, job, food, shelter, freedom and to some degree or another those extras such as nice homes with central air/heat, nice cars, opportunities to travel, etc.  If we are especially thoughtful about it we might include things like the beauty of nature, art, human achievement.  

          For some, however, it’s true, life is a mess.  For most in the world, what we give thanks for are not even things they can hope for.  Even though you might not fit that pattern, I want to ask you to try to answer that question.  For, when all is said and done, all of those things are very fragile, to some degree simply accidents of history.  Is there something more to Thanksgiving than that?

          The Bible says yes, emphatically yes.  In fact, a case might be made that gratitude, thankfulness may be the primary spiritual virtue/value.   Thanksgiving motivates worship, service, and evangelism.  Thanksgiving is the primary ingredient in worship,even the goal of evangelism (II Cor. 2:4 where the gospel is spread so that “thanksgiving might overflow” to the glory of God).  If that is true then there has to be some basis for gratitude that is not dependent on circumstances or the accidents of history.

          In other words if you were stripped of everything what would be left to be thankful for?

          One thing stands at the head of the list:  GOD’S ENDURING LOVE

In OT, when David brought the ark, symbolic of God’s presence, to Jerusalem and a pattern of worship established, a group was specifically designated by name to give thanks to the Lord.  The reason given was that “His love endures forever.”

       That phrase “his love endures forever” is repeated 41 times and almost always in the context of giving thanks to God.  It reaches its climax in that great Psalm 136.

       The inscription on many wedding rings, “love is eternal,” in many cases, is but a romantic notion or wishful thinking.  But with God it the most fundamental and dependable reality.  God’s love lasts forever.

Like the stars belong in the sky
    Like a fish belongs in the water
    Just like children you and I belong in the hands of the Father.
    This is where we belong

    Where you and I were meant to be all along
                made by the Father to live in his love
     It’s the purpose and plan
     For the heart of man. (Steven Curtis Chapman)

That love finds its expression in Jesus Christ.  Your life may be a shambles or incredibly difficult but there is something you can be thankful for—God’s love which never changes.

“Nothing you can do can make God love you any more or any less.” (Phillip Yancey)

Knowing that and giving thanks for it transforms every experience. 

Greg Anderson tells this story of a man whose wife had left him: 

He was completely depressed. He had lost faith in himself, in other people, in God—he found no joy in living.
          One rainy morning this man went to a small neighborhood restaurant for breakfast. Although several people were at the diner, no one was speaking to anyone else. Our miserable friend hunched over the counter, stirring his coffee with a spoon.
          In one of the small booths along the window was a young mother with a little girl. They had just been served their food when the little girl broke the sad silence by almost shouting, “Momma, why don’t we say our prayers here?”
          The waitress who had just served their breakfast turned around and said, “Sure, honey, we pray here. Will you say the prayer for us?” And she turned and looked at the rest of the people in the restaurant and said, “Bow your heads.”
          Surprisingly, one by one, the heads went down. The little girl then bowed her head, folded her hands, and said, “God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food. Amen.”
          That prayer changed the entire atmosphere. People began to talk with one another. The waitress said, “We should do that every morning.”
          “All of a sudden,” said our friend, “my whole frame of mind started to improve. From that little girl’s example, I started to thank God for all that I did have and stop majoring in all that I didn’t have. I started to choose happiness.”¹

Give thanks!

¹(Greg Anderson, LIVING LIFE ON PURPOSE in LEADERSHIP, Fall ’97, 81)

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Do not let your hearts be troubled. -John 14:1

There is a universal human reaction to impending crisis, uncertainty, trouble.  It seems almost as natural as breathing, but it is more dangerous than the most deadly disease.

Jesus instantly knew this insidious foe had invaded the ranks of the eleven.   It could rob them of any prospect of a happy life.   It threatened to incapacitate them, to reduce them to whimpering specimens of humanity.   If allowed to continue, it could destroy them, physically,  emotionally, and spiritually.

It takes as many forms as you can imagine. It attaches itself  to issues as simple as whether my hair is combed to is that pain in my stomach cancer, or what will happen to me when I die?

Some of us are almost better at it than any other human enterprise.  Daily we are bombarded with more food on which it feeds—more bad news about the economy: Italy’s economic crisis threatens US, jobs lost, causes of cancer, risks of  heart trouble, breakdown of families, troublesome news..

Some causes are not real but it was Keats who said, “Imaginary grievances have always been my torment more than real ones.”

What is this enemy?

It is worry.  Worry is a fear of the future.  It flourishes in a   world like this, among creatures like us.  It takes its toll—spend five minutes thinking about all the things that might go wrong today and see how it affects you, how you feel.

What does it mean to live in a world where things are always going wrong and when we are always going wrong?

If you were to identify five or six of best loved Bible passages of all time, John 14 would be one of them.  In it Jesus tells us how to avoid worry.

Don’t worry about how you will cope with life because  you have a helper, comforter, counselor, guide, advocate—the Holy Spirit.

Don’t worry about being alone.  Loneliness a major trait of our society and a major worry of humans.  It was Jean-Paul Sartre who  described hell as a place where one was “by himself.”

Jesus said  “We will make our home with you.”    “I am not deserting you.”

Don’t worry about your destiny because life has a happy ending for those who believe Jesus.  He is preparing a place for you—heaven.

One cardiologist, listed some complicate medical advice for avoiding stress:
rule # 1-“Don’t sweat the small stuff”
rule # 2-“Everything is small stuff”

Because the ending is happy we don’t need to worry.

“YOU BELIEVE IN GOD, ALSO BELIEVE IN ME!”

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One thing I know.  -John 9:25

There is a great story in the Bible about a blind man that Jesus heals.  When the religious leaders find out about it they refuse to believe it or give Jesus credit.  In what is, at times, an almost comical attempt to discredit Jesus they interrogate the man and his parents.

First they insist that the man was not really blind, then try to get the man to deny that Jesus has healed him.  But finally the man, wearied with their inquisition, states flatly, one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

          There is no answer to that.  A personal experience of God’s grace over rides all arguments to the contrary.  The man admits he doesn’t know a lot of theology but one thing I know…. It happened to me.  And this leads to personal faith in Jesus—Lord, I believe.

Have you been touched by God, by Jesus?  Then claim your experience of God’s grace and let nothing or no one shake it!

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If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples John 8:31-32f

             I remember a group of people demonstrating in protest of what they called mistreatment by the police.  They were saying (I don’t know if it’s true or not) that they were being treated differently than others because they were black.  I doubt there are many of us that don’t know the experience of being treated a certain way because of who we are—black,   white, rich, poor, male, female.  We call it discrimination.  It takes a horrible toll on human lives and spirits.
            It is wrong to limit someone’s access to a job because he is black.  It is wrong to grant special favors to a person because she is rich.  It is wrong to tell a person they can’t be a leader in the church because she is a woman.
            But, all that said—in the final analysis, who you are IS what matters.  I think there is something within us that knows that and that is the reason that we believe discrimination is so evil.  Because discrimination is based on differences that are not about who we are in the importance sense.
            Some of Jesus’ most angry and bitter confrontations were over this very issue and that is what our lesson is about today.  No one can ever read this with any sense of reality and think of Jesus as a mealy-mouthed, compromising, political type again.  His words nearly drip with acid as He speaks clear hard truths).
            What Jesus says here is that who you are determines your destiny.  It doesn’t matter if you are black or white, rich or poor, young or old, male or female, educated or uneducated, a Philadelphia Eagles or Washington Redskins fan.  BUT who you are is what matters and Jesus never put the issue in more stark terms: disciple/child of God or child of the devil.  It is the difference between those who will “never see death” and those who will “Die in…[their] sins.”
            The test of a person is her/his reaction to Jesus.  It is not mere emotional attraction, or inclination, or even admiration that is discipleship.  It is those who believe what He says and put their personal trust in Him to become a new person.  These keep his word (do what He asks),  know the truth, and are free (sons and daughters of God) and will not see death.

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