Category Archives: Faith

Children of the Promise – Sermon on Romans 9:1-8

Bruce and I traveled to Boone, Iowa this week, to ride the scenic railway. We splurged an extra five bucks to ride in the two-level, air-conditioned first class car, and it was worth five dollars to sit above the trees we passed, as we looked out over the Des Moines River valley. The Iowa Railroad Historical Society only owns about 12 miles of track, so we had a 10-minute layover at the end of the line, while the engine disengaged from one end of the train, passed us on a siding, and re-engaged at the other end of the train to take us back to the station. During this break, we were encouraged to change sides and reposition the seats so we could see what we’d missed during the first half of the ride. As we headed back over the Des Moines River, I was suddenly reminded of this passage from Romans we are about to read. One side of the train faced a beautiful river valley, with lush cornfields tucked between high hills covered in dark green forests. The other side of the train faced piles of dead trees that had been uprooted during the spring floods, and other evidence of the devastation those floods had caused. One side of the train looked out on a fruitful valley teeming with life. The other looked out on destruction and death. What you saw depended, in large part, on which side of the train you found yourself.

Last week, we heard one of the most beautiful and uplifting passages in all of scripture, Paul’s declaration that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Today, we look out the other side of the train. Hear the Word of the Lord, as given to the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, chapter nine, the first eight verses.

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— ²I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³For could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. ⁴They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; ⁵to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

⁶It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, ⁷and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” ⁸This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.

This is the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

The letter to the Romans has often been used to promote the erroneous idea that Paul thought God had rejected the Jews, because they had rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Nothing could have been further from Paul’s intention. Paul’s lament here in chapter nine opens a new train of thought that will continue through chapter 11, and Paul’s focus turns from the inclusion of Gentiles in the family of God to the more troubling question, “What will God do with the Jews, his chosen people, who have rejected his promised Messiah, Jesus?” These three chapters really serve to clarify that the promises of God to all God’s people will be kept. God is faithful. One commentator[1] says the key to this passage is in verse six: God’s word has not failed.

This isn’t about tearing the promise away from one ethnic group and handing it over to another. It isn’t about paying the Jews back for killing Jesus – remember that in every single gospel account of Christ’s crucifixion, it is the Romans, not the Jews, who killed Jesus. “Just because you have been included in God’s family as children of the promise,” Paul tells his Gentile readers in Rome, “don’t look down on your Jewish cousins.” God will be faithful to honor his promises to the people he set apart. God’s Word is sure, even for those who don’t want to hear it. But the fact that his own people have chosen not to hear the good news is very troubling to Paul.

Paul expresses his deep anguish by repeating himself in stronger and stronger language. Since Paul was well trained in scripture, it’s not surprising that his lament follows the poetic structure of many psalms crying out to the Lord. That Hebrew poetic structure, called parallelism, repeats an idea to give it emphasis. Just look at the first two verses: “I am telling the truth, I am not lying, my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit.” Paul isn’t defending his own integrity by affirming his honesty three times; he’s “swearing on a stack of Bibles” to make a point. Piling “great sorrow” on top of “unceasing anguish” adds to the poetic despair Paul feels for the people of Israel, his own flesh and blood.

Anglican theologian N. T. Wright explains Paul’s grief like this: “He was like someone driving in convoy who takes a particular turn in the road and then watches in horror as most of the other cars take the other fork. They think he’s wrong; he thinks they’re wrong. What is worse, he really does believe that the road he has taken is the only road to the fulfillment of God’s great promises. What will happen to them? Why did they go that way, ignoring the signs that made him take the other fork?”[2]

To put it another way, Paul has been desperately trying to get his own people, the descendants of Abraham, to stop looking at the dead debris left behind on the riverbank after the floods have receded, and turn to see the broad vista of a fruitful valley that beckons from the window on the other side of the train. But they won’t stop looking at the dead trees piled in the dry mud. And it grieves Paul’s heart.

It grieves Paul’s heart because he knows that they got it wrong. They thought God’s promise was for a people, a select ethnic group, but God’s promise was for the whole world, to be fulfilled through the nation of Israel in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul weeps over this mistake, and would go so far as to give up his own salvation, if it would make any difference at all.

The point is not that the Jews should be rejected because they rejected Jesus. The point is this: “Who means so much to you that you’d be willing to give up your own salvation so they could come to know Christ?” In other words, whose distance from God breaks our hearts, and what are we willing to do about it? Is your heart burdened for someone, maybe in your family or your circle of friends, who needs Jesus? Does it bother you enough that you would, like Paul, offer yourself in their place?

And if they are worth that kind of sacrifice, aren’t they at least worth telling about Jesus? If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking, “But I don’t know how to do that. I’m not comfortable talking about faith with people. I don’t want to offend them.” Would you rather see them spend eternity separated from the God who loved them enough to send his own Son to die for them?

To be a good witness, you don’t have to sit people down with a Four Spiritual Laws booklet and force them to pray the sinner’s prayer. You only need to invite them, just as you would invite them to dinner, to join you in following Christ with all the rest of us.

Remember a few weeks ago, when we heard the Great Commission? Jesus commands us, as his disciples, to make disciples. “Go, baptize, teach,” Jesus says. Making disciples is a process that involves reaching out to others, including them in the fellowship of believers we call the church, and then spending the rest of our lives on earth together, learning how to be more and more like Jesus. It isn’t the same thing as mentoring. You aren’t sharing your own wisdom and expertise with someone who knows less than you do about following Jesus. It’s walking together, encouraging one another as we seek to follow our Lord. It doesn’t take a theological degree or years of Bible study to make disciples – the original twelve had no theological training at all – it just takes the deep desire to follow and obey Jesus, and the willingness to help someone else do the same.

This week we will have an opportunity to share God’s love at the Brown County Fair, through our Diaper Depot and Feeding Station. If you haven’t already signed up to serve as a host, welcoming parents and making sure the station stays well stocked and inviting, there is room for you to put your name on the sign up sheet in the narthex. We particularly need hosts to help on Friday, since it’s “Kid’s Day” at the Fair. Or maybe you’d like to help with Vacation Bible School next week, introducing children to Bible stories, or helping them with craft projects or music. Chris B. would love to talk with you if you can be a disciple by making disciples. There are other ways you can follow Jesus by inviting others to follow Jesus. Pray for God to point you toward a person who needs to draw closer to Christ, and invite that person for coffee or a walk. Be present. Ask God to let your mundane conversations become holy ones, as you seek to share Christ’s love with others. Paul writes, “it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise [who] are counted as descendants.” We are those children of the promise. Let’s help others turn from looking at death and destruction, so they can see what lies on the other side of the train, and become children of the promise, too. Amen.

[1] Kyle D. Fedler, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 3, 306.

[2] NT Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part 2, 3.

Nothing Between – Sermon on Romans 8:26-39

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July 27, 2014

Today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans begins in the middle of a thought that began in last week’s reading. Like a good teacher, Paul has been circling back around his main point, adding layers of understanding with each repetition. Now we find ourselves at the conclusion of chapter eight, a chapter so chock full of meaning, it takes three Sundays to get through it all. Here we are, on the third of those Sundays, about to read the climax of this chapter, which is itself the climax of the whole letter. When we left off last week, we were groaning with all creation in anticipation of “the glory about to be revealed to us” as joint-heirs with Christ. It’s a glory that far outshines any memory of suffering, a glory that completely overwhelms our brokenness. Hear the word of the Lord, as given to the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, chapter eight, beginning at verse 26.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There are at least three sermons in this passage. First, we could focus on the kind of prayer that surpasses human language, and the way this prayer connects us to God in life-changing ways. As “God, who searches the heart” looks into our souls, we could consider what God might find there, and how to recognize that probing, and respond to it from our inmost being. The groaning of creation, combined with our own and the Spirit’s groaning, is more than the groaning of grief, as we so often think of it. This is the groaning of expectation, of anticipation for all things to be restored to rightness in the fulfilled Kingdom of God. That could be a good sermon, and maybe I’ll preach it some day.

We could also spend a good deal of time considering the middle of this passage, that begins with the much-loved and often quoted verse 28:
“All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

The problem with this lovely verse is that translators can’t seem to agree on the best way to interpret Paul’s Greek, and the various versions have led to some questionable explanations. We often quote this verse when we run up against the unpleasant in our lives. Bad stuff happens, and we try to brush it off with, “Oh well, all things work together for good, …” as if God had made bad things happen to us just so he could make something good out of the mess. It has also been offered as a trite phrase meant to comfort those who are in the midst of suffering, but this use sometimes backfires when the person hearing it thinks we are saying, “If you really loved God, if you were really called according to his purpose, you wouldn’t be having this trouble.” But Paul isn’t talking about a transaction here. Grace is a free gift. Paul doesn’t say, “IF you love God and are called.” He says, “those who love God and are called.” This verse introduces a growing awareness that our ultimate goal is to be glorified with Christ. The good that God is working in us is aimed toward this goal of glorification. It’s less about making silk purses out of sows’ ears, or shaming us into loving God more, than it is about progressing from infant believer to a fully formed disciple of Jesus. That could also be a good sermon, and maybe I’ll preach it some day.

Of course, we could also argue about that testy word “predestination” until the cows come home, without coming to any satisfactory understanding of what Paul had in mind when he used it. The word translated here as “predestined” only occurs four times in the New Testament: Acts 4:28, 1 Corinthians 2:7, Ephesians 1: 5 & 11, and here in Romans. In Acts and 1 Corinthians, the word refers to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the foundation for God’s plan of salvation. In Ephesians and here in Romans, Paul is referring to the inclusion of Gentiles in that plan, reminding his Jewish readers that God had in mind all along to offer salvation to the whole world.

We could talk about how, over the course of Christian history, this word was applied more specifically to an individual’s “predestination” and how Calvin developed an intricate doctrine of predestination that became an important element in Reformed theology. As Methodists, we might do well to review John Wesley’s sermons on this topic. In Sermon #58, he preached,

“What is it, then, that we learn from this whole account? It is this, and no more: — (1) God knows all believers;; (2) wills that they should be saved from sin;; (3) to that end, justifies them, (4) sanctifies and (5) takes them to glory.
O that men would praise the Lord for this his goodness;; and that they would be content with this plain account of it, and not endeavour to wade into those mysteries which are too deep for angels to fathom!”

So maybe today is not the day to tackle the doctrine of predestination. That might make for good discussion in a small group study sometime.

What does that leave us? Paul comes to his main point through four rhetorical questions:
Who can be against us, if God is for us?
Who can bring any charge against God’s elect?
Who can condemn us if Christ died for us, rose again, and stands on our behalf before God?
Who can separate us from the love of God?

And the answer is always the same. No one can come between God and us.
Nothing can separate us from God’s love. No one can be against us if God is for us. God will give us everything, since he already gave his only Son for our sakes.
No one will bring any charge against God’s elect, because God himself justifies us. He finds us “in the right,” and if the supreme judge of all the universe finds us in the right, no one can appeal or argue that finding.
No one can condemn us, because Christ has already died and been raised to a place at the right hand of God where he intercedes, along with the Spirit who groans on our behalf. Condemnation has been condemned.

No one can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Even when it seems God has abandoned you, Paul writes, you cannot escape his love. Paul quotes Psalm 44, a psalm of lament, to make his point. At a time when Israel felt that God had turned away forever, even then, God’s love for his people could not be destroyed. And now, even more than then, we have evidence of God’s deep love for us in the person of his own Son, Jesus. No, Paul says, we aren’t forsaken. In fact, we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

What does “more than conquerors” mean here? What are we conquering, exactly? Through Christ Jesus, we can claim complete victory over the suffering caused by our sin. And what is the source of this victory? God’s great love for us, shown in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing.

Paul’s final answer to the question, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” is one of the most beautiful assurances we can find in scripture. “I am convinced,” Paul writes, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s a pretty exhaustive list, but what if Paul were writing this promise today? What would make the list of things that cannot separate us from God’s love?

During our meeting this week, I asked the Church Council to take a moment to think of the things that break our hearts. We listed children who are vulnerable, families who are displaced by war or natural disaster, the violence and unrest throughout the world, but particularly in the Middle East and Ukraine. We listed places and people who might be feeling separated from God’s love right now. But Paul says, “Nothing can separate us.” Nothing can come between us and the God who loves us. Nothing.

Shel Silverstein once wrote a children’s poem called “Whatif,” that lists all the things a young child might fear, such as failure, disappointment, embarrassment, rejection, even death. “What if, what if, what if?” the poem asks. Adults often play the “What if” game, too. What if I had done this differently, or said that, or made a different decision? What if things go wrong and I can’t fix them? What if?

Paul says, “Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Stop “what if”-ing, and rest in this assurance: We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Rob Bell, former pastor of the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, put out a series of discussion starter videos several years ago. In one of these “Nooma” videos, he makes this profound claim: “There is nothing you can do to make God love you less.” And there is nothing you can do to make God love you more. No matter what we do to try to make God stop loving us, it won’t work. He will not love us any less than he ever did. And no matter how hard we try to make God love us more, it won’t work, because he already loves us beyond anything we can imagine. He cannot love you less, and he cannot love you more.

Know that God loves you no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, no matter who, no matter why, no matter how.

So, live like God loves you. Live like a conquering hero, because that’s who you are. We are all completely victorious over sin and death, through the one who loved us, who loves us now, and will always love us. Live into the assurance that you are God’s own beloved child, and share that good news with the people you see every day who are hurting, disappointed, worried, convinced that they have no worth in the world. Remind them, as you remind yourself, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

A Prayer Before Reading Scripture

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Lord, we don’t ask much, just enough.
This text we are about to read is so rich, so full, it’s a feast of words.
We can’t consume it all –
if we tried, it would go straight to our hips as fat stored for a leaner time.
So give us just enough, Lord.
Help us to hear your Word with hungry ears,
and nourish us with what you want us to gain from it now,
so that when we return to these words again and again,
our spirits may be satisfied, as with the richest of foods.
We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus, Amen.

The Spirit Is Life – Sermon on Romans 8:1-11 July 13, 2014

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When I was growing up in southeast Kansas, I was certain that our state was at the center of the United States. Whenever I looked at a map, there it was, right in the middle. Then I moved to Missouri. It’s right next door to Kansas, so I didn’t move very far. As I taught fourth grade music classes, I ran up against something called Missouri State History month every year, and that meant setting aside the music curriculum for a few weeks, while students learned “The Missouri Waltz,” “Fifty Nifty United States,” and a poem that begins like this…

“I’m from Missouri, the Show Me State,
Right in the middle of the forty-eight…”

Now, which is it? Is Kansas in the middle, or Missouri? Well, the answer kind of depends on where you come from. As we move deeper into Paul’s letter to the Romans, we find ourselves approaching the very center of his theology, the heart of his argument. In this case, it doesn’t matter where you come from. What matters is where Paul is leading us, as his careful writing brings us to the main point he wants to make.

Here’s what we know so far, from the first seven chapters:
God’s righteousness has been revealed in the midst of human sin. Whether Jew or Gentile doesn’t matter: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:23). Paul’s point is that righteousness does not come through the Hebrew Law, but through faith alone. Even Abraham came to God’s righteousness by faith (4:3). In fact, the Law does not have the power to make us righteous, because its purpose was always to show us our sin. Sin has been our problem ever since Adam, and we are all condemned to death because of it. But there is hope. In chapter six, Paul says we are buried with Christ in the waters of baptism, and we are raised to new life in Christ. Last week’s reading told of a battle between the law of God and the law of sin. As human beings, we are bound by the law of sin, and we cannot obey God’s law even when we want to. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul writes. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin (Romans 7:22-23). ”

This brings us to chapter eight, which opens with the strong word, “Therefore.” Paul has reached the point in his letter where we find the real meat of his message. Because of everything that has gone before, we are about to learn what Paul thinks is most important as we move forward into our life as Christians. Hear the Word of the Lord, as given to the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Rome.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. – Romans 8:1-11

In mathematics, there are a couple of little symbols that Paul could have easily borrowed for this passage. They both consist of three dots, in the form of a triangle. The triangle with a broad base at the bottom and the small tip at the top stands for the word “therefore.” If you flip it upside down, the same triangle of three dots means “because.” As Paul sets out his central idea, and then explains how he has come to this conclusion, his explanation is filled with ‘becauses’ to support his ‘therefore.’ And what is the central idea? It’s the heart of the gospel message: you are not condemned if you are in Christ Jesus.

Paul has spent seven chapters explaining why we should be condemned, under the Law. Sin condemns us. We aren’t just talking about our little individual sins, the ones we ask forgiveness for before we fall asleep at night, if we remember. Paul means Sin with a capital S. The Law was given to God’s people because of Sin, but the Law could never save us from Sin. In fact, Paul tells us, the Law condemns us to death by making us aware of our sinfulness.

Yet Paul writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It’s as if we have been found guilty in a court of law, and we know that the punishment for our crime is the death penalty, but when the judge pronounces our sentence, we hear, “You are free to go.”

It’s more than a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. It’s more than having all the charges dropped, or having our sentence commuted to time served plus parole. We are not condemned, after all. We have been found to be in the right, instead. How can this be?

Paul says, it is because we are in Christ Jesus. So, what does it mean to be in Christ? It means that the law of sin and death no longer rules us, but the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set us free. How did this happen? Through the Cross of Jesus Christ, Paul tells us. God has condemned the sin that condemns us. Paul has been making this point in nearly every chapter. God sent his own Son – which means God came in person (he didn’t send a substitute) – “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (v. 3) to deal with sin once and for all by condemning sin in the flesh.

Flesh is a word we need to understand clearly, for all this to make sense. The contrast Paul gives us here is not between body and spirit, but between flesh and Spirit. Paul is not talking about our bodies, but what we choose to do with them. The Common English Bible translates the word for ‘flesh’ as ‘selfishness,’ and this might be a better way to think of it – when we are focused on ourselves, our attention turns away from God, where it should be. We become our own idols. We serve our own desires, and this is sin, which leads to death. Listen to verses 4 – 8 from the CEB, and see if this helps Paul’s argument become clearer.

Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness. People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit.The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn’t submit to God’s Law, because it can’t. People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.

People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God, Paul writes, and if that were the end of the message, we would be doomed. “But that’s not you!” he goes on. Thanks be to God, that’s not who you are!

You are in Christ, because Christ’s spirit lives in you. Christ’s spirit lives in you because you are in Christ. Back in chapter 4, Paul reminds us that Abraham had faith, and God credited it to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6, Rom 4:3). That word righteousness is a big word. It means acceptable to God, found to be ‘in the right.’ It’s the very opposite of ‘condemned.’ Being in Christ Jesus is more than agreeing with ideas about Jesus, it’s more than being loyal to Christ or even trying our best to follow Jesus. Being in Christ is a new way of being, an entirely new system of living that is centered on Christ and surrounded by Christ. Instead of self-focused lives doomed to death, we have been changed, and are continually being changed, into what theologian Karl Barth calls, the “impossible possibility.” Barth writes, “The negation of sin is not a possibility among other possibilities, but the possibility beyond all other possibilities … and we possess [this], the impossible possibility of walking after the Spirit.” (Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 282) Eugene Peterson puts it this way in The Message: “It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!” (v 11).

Therefore, you are no longer condemned. You are in Christ. You are changed.

On Thursday, I attended a district gathering, led by our District Superintendent. As he spoke, he reminded us of our purpose as Christ’s church. Everything we do, he said, needs to be grounded in this goal: that lives will be changed. That’s what Paul is writing about here. Being in Christ means being changed, being transformed into a “little Christ,” to borrow a term from C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, 171). When we wipe off a table after a Wednesday night meal, or hand out a bulletin on Sunday, or pick up a bit of trash that blew into our parking lot, we do it so that lives will be changed. When we move our youth ministry into the main building of our church campus, we do it so that lives will be changed. When we serve a meal at the Salvation Army in Mankato, we do it so that lives will be changed. When we set up a place for parents to change a baby’s diaper at the County Fair, we do it so that lives will be changed. And as we do these things, with this goal in mind, we bear witness to the Spirit that is alive in us, the very Spirit of Christ Jesus.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free.”

If you haven’t stepped into that freedom yet, I invite you to do so today. If you are still struggling under the weight of your own sin, know that Christ died so that your sins could be wiped out – not just forgiven, but completely destroyed. It’s time to step out of the old life and into the new one, a life of joy and peace. Then you can join us in saying to others who long for something more, “Welcome to First United Methodist Church of New Ulm, home of the uncondemned, home of those who are in Christ, because Christ is in us. Welcome to First United Methodist Church of New Ulm, where lives are changed.” Amen.

Traveling with Flat Jesus – Part 2

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JULY 10, 2014
While we were on our way to Chicago, a couple of First UMC kids were on their way to Wisconsin Dells for a little family fun time – and of course, Flat Jesus went along, because he is with us always! (And apparently, Flat Jesus knows all the words to all the songs in “Frozen” to sing along in the back seat…)

Meanwhile, we headed north, toward Green Bay, WI. No matter which NFL team has your allegiance, Flat Jesus cares about each one of us, so stopping by Lambeau Field should not be taken as an endorsement of the Green Bay Packers over any other team. (One of my friends asked if Flat Jesus could curse the field as he once cursed a fig tree in Matthew 21:18-22. I had to remind my friend that Jesus said we should love our enemies – Matthew 5:43-45 – and Jesus is always with each of us, even Green Bay fans.)

From Green Bay, we drove north to Two Rivers, WI, which is right up the road from Manitowoc (pronounced MAN-uh-twok), home of the Maritime Museum. We toured a WWII submarine there, and Flat Jesus really got interested in the model boats and the fishing nets on display. I guess he kinda misses his time with Peter, Andrew, James, and John, as they fished together on the Sea of Galilee.

While we were in Two Rivers, we stayed at a place that has its own miniature golf course! Flat Jesus liked the lighthouse a lot – it reminds us that he is the Light of the world, and that he told us we should let our light shine before others, so they can know how much God loves them. This was one of those places where a stranger came up to help us take the picture, and we got to tell the story of Flat Jesus to our new friend and his kids. Sharing the story of Flat Jesus was a lot of fun. Our new friend said, “That is so cool!” I hope he remembers that Jesus is with him always, too!

We also stopped at the Wood Type Museum,

and Flat Jesus was glad to see his friend, Flat Gutenberg. Johann Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press, so Bibles could be printed for everyone to read.

After we walked on the shore of Lake Michigan (the water was cold, but we did get our feet wet! You can’t see Flat Jesus in this picture, but he was definitely with us) we drove to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and stayed for a few days with family who live there.

Flat Jesus had fun walking on the water (again!) and diving off the swimming platform. He even went sailing with Bruce one afternoon. As we left Crystal Falls, it was raining, but Flat Jesus stayed with us.

Be sure to send me your Flat Jesus pictures as he travels with you this summer. Whether we see him or not, whether it’s raining or sunny, Jesus is with us always.

Here’s one last picture of Flat Jesus, back home at First UMC – come see him this Sunday! Worship is at 9:30 am. See you then! – Pastor Jo Anne

Traveling with Flat Jesus – Part 1

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Note: this post comes from the webpage for First United Methodist Church of New Ulm, MN, under “From the Pastor’s Desk.”

JULY 9, 2014

You know the children’s book, Flat Stanley? Well, this is the same idea. Only this time, instead of mailing a picture to different places, the children of First UMC each received a picture of “Flat Jesus” to take with them through the summer. They were invited to color in the picture, maybe even cut it out, and take the picture wherever they might go. Heading to Grandma’s house? Bring Flat Jesus along! Going to summer camp, or on vacation with the family? Flat Jesus is there! Children were encouraged to have someone take a picture of Flat Jesus at each location, and send me the photos by e-mail or Facebook.

It might be difficult to see in the photos, but across the bottom of each Flat Jesus are the words, “I am with you always!” from the Great Commission (Matthew 28:20). The whole idea was to remember that Jesus goes with us wherever we go, and will always be with us, no matter what. Isn’t that a great promise?

Since teaching by example is something Jesus did, and I want to be like Jesus, I decided to kick off the summer with my own Flat Jesus itinerary. I headed off to Chicago to be ordained to Word and Sacrament in the Evangelical Covenant Church (how I ended up in a Methodist church is a different story for another day!) and took Flat Jesus with me for the journey. After ordination, my husband and I took a few days of vacation before returning to New Ulm.

We learned along the way that total strangers really like helping to take pictures of Flat Jesus, once they hear the story. It was a great way to meet people, and to share the Good News of Jesus with people we might not otherwise have talked to. Here’s where we went, and what we did, remembering that Jesus is always with us, no matter what.

When we got to the hotel in Chicago, the first thing we did was check into our room…

Then we took a walk to find something to eat. There was a Mexican restaurant nearby that had a great chips and salsa bar – we chose a few different kinds of salsa, and Flat Jesus liked them all!

After supper, Flat Jesus sang really loud during the worship service!

The next day was full of meetings, and Flat Jesus thought those pictures would be pretty boring for you, so I won’t post them here. But he was there, believe me! When the delegates voted to approve the 83 ordination candidates, he was very happy!

On Friday, Flat Jesus stayed with us as we took my mom and my sister to eat real Chicago pizza at Lou Malnati’s. On Saturday, he had to check out the ordination stoles during a break in the rehearsal for the ordination service. Then he graciously posed with Donn Engebretson and me – Donn was the Vice President of the Evangelical Covenant Church the year I served on the worship planning team for our midwinter conference, and it was a blessing to learn that he would be the one laying hands on me during ordination. This is all I have time to post right now – I’ll let you see where we went after Chicago tomorrow! Peace, Pastor Jo Anne

Flat Jesus checks out the stoles, which were each made by my friend, Vicki Twigg.
83 stoles – that’s a lot of sewing!

Making Disciples – Sermon on Matthew 28:16-20 (Trinity 2014)

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When I was very young, I held a black-and-white view of truth. Right and Wrong formed two sides of the coin I called Truth. As I grew older, I discovered that many questions do not have simple answers. Shades of gray appear between the rigid extremes of black and white. So I decided that Right and Wrong might be neighboring sides on a many-faceted sphere – a Disco Ball of Truth (hey, it was the 1980s).

But that view didn’t hold up, either. Eventually, I began to realize that God’s truth often holds in tension two or more realities that seem to oppose one another. We call this “paradox.” The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant. Christ died to conquer death. God is One, and God is Three Persons, each distinct, yet all three are One. It’s a paradox, a mystery. And we celebrate that mystery today, on Trinity Sunday.

Trinity Sunday is an unusual day in the church year, in that it is named after a doctrine instead of an event. It was a doctrine that took some hard work to hammer out, because the early church fathers had difficulty finding words to express this mystery of the faith. While we may find it difficult to understand the mystery of the Trinity, we certainly have no trouble at all experiencing it. It’s a relationship, and as much as the word “relationship” has been overused to talk about romance, there really is no better word to describe God in Three Persons. We worship and serve a relational God, a God who desires to be in loving relationship with each of us, just as Father and Son and Holy Spirit are in loving relationship with one another.

It would be easy to get stuck on Trinity Sunday trying to explain this unexplainable aspect of God’s identity, if we focused only on the one verse in the Gospel that hints at a doctrine of the Trinity. But, to be honest, at the time Matthew wrote his story, that doctrine had not yet really taken shape. And the mention of three persons in today’s passage is really only a small part of a much bigger idea. Hear Matthew’s version of the final words of Jesus to his disciples, as we find them in chapter 28, verses 16-20. Hear the Word of the Lord.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

Eleven disciples went to Galilee. Judas had not yet been replaced, and his absence was a reminder to all of them of their own betrayal, their own failure to stand by Jesus during his trial and crucifixion. They went to Galilee. This is where the ministry had begun. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, he calls it “Galilee of the Gentiles” and this is significant, as Jesus gives his final instructions to share the good news of God’s saving grace with all people. But it’s the second verse of this passage that catches my attention: They worshiped him, but some doubted.

The Greek grammar here is not very clear. We could translate this phrase in several ways, and they would all be as valid as the NRSV. It could mean, “all worshiped, but some of them also doubted,” or “some worshiped while others doubted” or “they all worshiped, and they all doubted, too.”

Doesn’t that sound like us sometimes? Don’t we come to church so we can reinforce our faith by worshiping, because doubt seems to creep into our minds so often? Maybe doubt seems too strong a word. In fact, the term here is used only one other place in the New Testament, in the story of Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14:31) – he was fine as long as his eyes were fixed on Jesus, but when he looked down, he started to sink – because he doubted.

The word used here is not an expression of disbelieving, so much as being undecided, or uncertain. The disciples were sure that Jesus was God, worthy of worship, but they weren’t sure what this was supposed to mean, or what to do with this new awareness. Isn’t that what our doubt looks like, too? We believe that Jesus is the Son of God, sure, but we get stuck wondering what to do or which way to go as we try to live out our faith. We come to church to worship the God who created us, who saves us, who stays with us, and at the same time, we flounder in uncertainty. Like the disciples, we worship and we doubt.

But notice what Jesus does. He comes to the disciples, where they are, in their worship and their uncertainty. And he offers them something completely unexpected. He doesn’t say, “Oh ye of little faith.” He doesn’t reprimand them or tell them to go get their doubts figured out and come back later. He sends them, with four absolute statements, and a charge so powerful we now call it the Great Commission.

Let’s look at those four absolute – or “all” – statements, as Richard Beaton calls them, for a moment. The first establishes Jesus as the one who holds “all authority in heaven and earth,” restoring the unity of heaven and earth that was present at Creation. The second is a reminder of the promise to Abraham that all nations will be blessed through his offspring: “Go make disciples of all nations,” Jesus says. Then Jesus adds, “teach them to obey all the things I taught you,” and finally he promises to remain with his followers through all time. Christ answers our uncertainty with these certainties: All authority, among all people, with all Christ’s teaching, for all time. Christ answers our indecision with a command and a direction.

The primary task Jesus sets before his disciples – and that includes us – is disciple making. Remember in the Creation story how God said, “be fruitful and multiply?” This is the same command, only now Jesus is not talking about physical reproduction, but spiritual multiplication. All the other commands he gives in the Great Commission feed into this one thing we are to do: make disciples of Jesus Christ. Make disciples of all people, he says, by going everywhere, baptizing everyone, and teaching everything I taught you.

As a follower of Jesus, wavering between worship and indecision, my first reaction to this command is to play the theme music from “Mission Impossible” in my head while I ask, “How, Lord?!” But the answer is right there in the mission. The formula for making disciples is short and simple: go, baptize, teach. Let’s break it down a little bit.

Go to all people. When I was growing up, we recited the King James Version of the Great Commission every week in the Girls’ Auxiliary of the Women’s Missionary Union of First Southern Baptist Church. The goal was clear – we were all being called to go to Africa or South America as missionaries. Almost all of us failed at that. There may have been one or two of us who made it to Mexico for a week or two of “missions” but most of us never went to a foreign country to share the gospel. While I am certain that Jesus fully intends for some of us to go far away to introduce good news to people who have never heard it, I also am convinced that we have a mission field right here at our own doorstep. There are people in our own back yard who have never heard the good news that Jesus loves them.

According to the Mission Insite demographic study provided to us through the Minnesota Annual Conference (your apportionment dollars at work), 85% of the people living within a five-mile radius of this building do not consider it important to attend religious services. More than half of the people who live here in New Ulm do not consider themselves spiritual persons, and only about 18% think that faith is an important part of their lives. We who value our faith and participation in church are obviously in the minority. We don’t have to travel very far to make new disciples. We only need to step outside the door.

Go baptize people, Jesus says. Now, he isn’t encouraging us to see how many people we can arbitrarily get wet. There is no magic in the words, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and the ritual of baptism itself has no saving power. When Jesus says, “baptize them in the power of this three-fold Name,” he is offering baptism as a symbol of that enfolding love we experience as members of the Body of Christ. Jesus is asking us to include, to embrace, to accept all people and welcome them into the family of God. He isn’t just talking about the people whose skin color is different from ours, he’s talking about the people whose habits and education and lifestyles are drastically different from ours. He’s talking about the poor and powerless, the sick and the hungry. Baptism is a symbol of being included, of being made a part of the whole. Just as in the sacrament of Communion we who are many partake of the one loaf, so in Baptism we who are many become one in Christ – just like the Trinity we invoke as we pour water, we are invited into the mystery of being made one, though we are many.

Go baptize people and teach them all the things I commanded you, Jesus says. This is the true meaning of the word ‘disciple’ – it means student, or intern. Just as those early disciples learned to do the things Jesus did by walking with him day after day, so we are invited into that life-changing, day-by-day walk with Jesus, doing the things Jesus did.

Theologian Dallas Willard writes, “a disciple of Jesus is not necessarily one devoted to doing specifically religious things as that is usually understood. … I am learning from Jesus how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life. Note, please, I am not learning from him how to lead his life. His life on earth was a transcendently wonderful one. But it has now been led. Neither I nor anyone else, even himself, will ever lead it again. … I need to be able to lead my life as he would lead it if he were I. … My discipleship to Jesus is … not a matter of what I do, but of how I do it. And it covers everything, “religious” or not.”

When Jesus sent out the 70 (or72) disciples ahead of him (Luke 10:1-12), their job was to heal the sick, and proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand. They did the things they had seen Jesus do, except for one thing. Jesus was the only one who taught the people, as he followed his followers to the places they went. Jesus was the great Teacher, the Rabbi. Now, at the end of Mathew’s gospel, he sends his disciples, his interns, out to teach as well as heal and proclaim the Kingdom of God. There are no half-measures in being a Jesus Intern. Teach them to do all the things I commanded you, he says.

And what are those commands?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Be a servant if you would be great. Suffer the little children to come unto me. Take care of the widows and fatherless. Spread my love around to people you don’t think deserve it, just as I have lavished my love on you, who do not deserve it. On this Father’s Day, this Trinity Sunday, let’s look at what it might mean to go, to enfold, and to teach, as we make disciples here in New Ulm.

Dr. Kara Powell has written a book called Sticky Faith, offering an approach to youth ministry that strives to keep kids connected to their faith during their teens and early twenties, when they are most likely to question, to express doubts and uncertainties about faith and the church. This approach works to connect young people with a web of at least five adults who are deeply involved in each young person’s life. That’s hard to do when youth ministry is assigned to a small handful of adults, and youth ministry activities happen away from the rest of the church. This summer, we hope to change the pattern of “out of sight, out of mind” that sometimes gets associated with our young people. This summer, we are moving youth ministry back into this building. Over the next few months, we will re-purpose the two rooms in the basement nearest the ramp door on Broadway, and turn them into a youth ministry center. This week, many of our young people gathered for a planning and brainstorming session, and they have some great ideas for making those two rooms into a welcoming spot for teenagers and young adults, a place where we can begin to enfold them into the life of the whole church.

This move will mean that the Youth Coordinator’s office space will move downstairs, freeing up a room just off the narthex for a main-level nursery. Having a nursery that is visible from the sanctuary offers a welcome to families with young children who worship with us, creating another way we can enfold new disciples into the family of God. When we look like kids matter to us, as they did to Jesus, we will be one step closer to making disciples, and being disciples.

So, then, what do we do with the house now known as the SRC? God has dropped an opportunity into our laps that I want to share with you today, and I ask you to pray diligently with me about this possibility.

Over the past few months, the pastors in our local Ministerial Association have been talking with County Social Services about needs in our community. One need that often flies under our radar is that of homeless families. We don’t think of homelessness as being a problem here, because it doesn’t look like the homelessness we see when we go prepare meals at the Simpson Shelter in Minneapolis, or take Food for Friends to Mankato. But it’s real, and it affects school age children in our community. There currently is no homeless shelter or transitional housing of any kind in our entire county. This means that, if a family becomes homeless, they must go to 30 to 75 miles away to find shelter. For school age children, this means pulling them out of school – which in some cases, is the one place they find safety and stability – and starting over in a new place in the middle of the school year. It means losing all the social connections they have built with friends and family. This can be devastating to a young child’s development. Last year, there were 16 documented homeless children at the elementary school. We have about that many kids on an average Wednesday night here at First. Think about that.

Homelessness seems like a problem that is too big for a church of our size to tackle. We don’t have the resources to run a homeless shelter, we don’t have the staff to administer such a program. But we have a house that will soon be vacant, and we have a desire to follow Christ wherever he may lead us, as we go, baptize, and teach to make disciples.

A couple of weeks ago, the director of an organization approached the ministerial association with a proposed joint project. If they could provide the counseling and case management piece of a program to help homeless single mothers get on their feet, while their kids get to stay in local schools, could we come up with a place to do that ministry together, as an ecumenical venture?

We have a house that will soon be vacant, but it needs a lot of work. We don’t have the resources to renovate it on our own.

“But there might be grant money available from United Way,” one pastor said, “and I sit on their board.”

“And there might be some resources from Lutheran Social Services,” another pastor said, “and I know who to call.”

“And we might be able to get some advice from other ecumenical groups who have done something similar,” said another pastor. “Let me do some research.”

“There is a property manager in town who might be able to help us get families settled in affordable longer-term housing, once we get them into the program,” another pastor said.

Suddenly, we had a draft of a mission statement, and some goals to help us narrow the purpose of this project. It’s still in the very formative stages, but the Trustees and the Church Council voted this last week to continue the conversation, and explore how we might use our soon-to-be-vacant house to provide ministry in cooperation with other churches here in our own backyard.

Right now, this is what the project would look like, should we decide to participate in it:

The Getting Families on their Feet Project would provide transitional housing and services for single-mother families, leading them to self- sufficiency.

Goals would be to:

-Allow children of displaced single mothers to remain with their families while staying in local schools, avoiding disruption of academic and social connections
-Provide counseling resources to single moms as they strive toward self-sufficiency
-Provide safe short-term (4-6 weeks) placement in temporary shelter/housing to establish participation in the program
-Provide safe longer-term (2-6 months) placement in transitional housing while support, counseling, and job placement continue
-Assist single-mother families in establishing self-sufficiency while allowing children to remain connected to school, friends, and family

We would start very small, maybe only a couple of families at first, to work out the bugs of the process. I emphasize that we would be working with single-mother families of school age children only. Certainly there are others who could benefit from such a project, but we want to keep it manageable, and we want to focus on helping children, who are the most vulnerable members of our community. Please pray about this, and talk to me if you have questions. The conversation will be continuing, and we have much to discern if we are to participate in such a bold venture.

Jesus claims all authority, then gives it to us, his interns, to go to all people, enfold all of them, teach all of them, making all people “Jesus Interns.” It seems like a Mission Impossible, but this mission, should you choose to accept it, carries with it a huge promise. “Look,” Jesus says, “I am with you through all time, even until eternity has reached its completion.” We do not have to do this on our own. In fact, we’d better not try to. The Holy Spirit continues Christ’s work in us and through us, until eternity is complete. Christ is with us. Amen.

Being One – Sermon on John 17:1-11

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Have you ever been frustrated that God was not answering your prayers? You prayed earnestly, in Jesus’ name, honestly seeking the Lord’s will to be done in a particular matter, and all you got back from God was … silence. No clear answer came to you, no sign indicated that God had even heard your prayer. For some people, unanswered prayer is a deal breaker. They decide to stop believing in a God who won’t answer their questions. Yet, scripture teaches us to be persistent in prayer, to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), assured that God will answer – even if it isn’t the answer we want to hear.

The apostle Paul describes his own frustration with unanswered prayer in his second letter to the church at Corinth, as he tells of a “thorn in the flesh” he had been given to teach him humility: “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me,” Paul writes (2 Cor 12:8). When he finally got an answer, it wasn’t the one he’d been hoping to hear. Paul continues, “but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

So, we are in good company when we pray and pray for something, and it seems no one is listening, or we pray persistently for God to act, and it looks like nothing happens. In fact, Jesus himself is still waiting for God to answer a prayer he prayed nearly 2000 years ago, as he gathered with his disciples in an upper room, just before he was betrayed by one of them. Hear the Word of the Lord, from the Gospel according to John, chapter 17, verses 1-11.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

The setting of this prayer is the upper room, on the night before Christ’s arrest and crucifixion. Jesus has been pouring out his heart to his friends, encouraging them to carry on his work after he is gone. “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me,” he tells them (John 14:1). “Abide in me, as I abide in you.” (John 15:4). He warns them that they will suffer after he is gone, but he also gives them a promise: “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33). And then, with his friends gathered around him, he prays for them. It’s pretty clear that Jesus chooses his words for their benefit – after all, he knew that God the Father didn’t need to have eternal life explained. But the disciples did.

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Jesus does not describe “eternal life” in terms of time, but in terms of relationship. Eternal life is to know God, and to know Christ. And in knowing Christ, we experience his glory. In knowing Christ, we belong to God. Jesus goes on to affirm that we who believe in him belong to God, as he asks for God’s glory to shine through his followers.

“I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.”

Then Jesus goes on to ask protection for his disciples who will remain in the world after he returns to his place at the right hand of the Father:

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

Notice that Jesus has already stated that those who believe in him are one with him and with the Father. Here, he is asking for something else. He is asking God to protect those who believe so that they may be one with each other, as Father and Son are one.

He was not asking for unanimity, but unity. Austrailan theologian Andrew Prior writes, “Unity is not about agreement. Too often agreement is about the patron calling the shots. Was not the Nicene Creed hastened to a “unity” because of Constantine’s political needs and some not too subtle threats? Unity where agreement is paramount will forever be at risk of scapegoating. Just get rid of the difficult ones, the odd ones out, and we will have agreement.
“Unity is about loving each other as Christ has loved us. (John 13:34-35) The love of Christ does not kill the ones who disagree; it dies for the ones who disagree!”

This past week, I represented you at the Minnesota Annual Conference Session, where we heard reports of good things happening in the United Methodist Church, but we also heard disagreement on issues that are becoming more and more controversial, and threaten the unity of the Body of Christ. I want to address those issues today, but first, let me give you the good news we heard:

• Love Offering: As of Friday morning, $81,759 had been collected for this year’s Love Offering, and 80% of that will go to Feed My Starving Children to help pay for meals packed through our “Million Meals Marathon.”

• Million Meals Marathon meal packing: Minnesota United Methodists have collectively packed 2,091,077 meals to date through our “Million Meals Marathon.” That’s enough to feed 5,728 children once a day for a year.

• Imagine No Malaria: We have raised $2.7 million to date for Imagine No Malaria. That amount translates to 270,000 lives saved through the purchase of specially treated mosquito nets. The Minnesota Conference has raised more than any other annual conference to date and far exceeded its initial $1.8 million goal. But we have not yet reached the goal we set for First UMC, so be watching for events that are planned for the summer months to help us do that – then I can award the chair of our MOE committee with this lovely “pat on the back” that was distributed at Annual Conference.

• Adam Hamilton teaching sessions: Rev. Adam Hamilton, founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas—which has grown to become the largest United Methodist Church in the country – offered three teaching sessions. He encouraged us to “do whatever it takes” to welcome, inspire, and teach those who are hungry for God, and to articulate and share our “God stories” with others.

Legislation: Members of annual conference debated and approved legislation related to homosexuality, reducing our carbon footprint, boycotting SodaStream, and justice in our civil courts.

You can learn more about each of these pieces of legislation on the Minnesota Conference website, but I want to address the items related to human sexuality this morning. I think it is important that you understand exactly what was approved by the conference session, and I think it is important for you to know where I stand on this issue as your pastor, but more importantly, as a follower of Jesus Christ.

General Conference petitions on homosexuality: Members approved eight General Conference petitions related to homosexuality. Seven of them, which were discussed together, call on the legislative body for the global United Methodist Church to remove all “discriminatory language about homosexuality” from The Book of Discipline, specifically as it relates to clergy. The other one calls for a change that would allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages and for such ceremonies to be performed within United Methodist churches when authorized by vote of the annual conference where the clergy person is appointed or the church is located—or by a two-thirds vote of the church conference where the clergy person is appointed.

What the Conference approved was a set of petitions to bring before the General Conference in 2016. The next steps, according to Bishop Ough, will be for a General Conference committee on Book of Discipline language regarding homosexuality to consider the petitions, and determine if and how they may come before the General Conference. My guess is that there will be other legislation submitted for consideration on this topic, and the Minnesota Conference petitions may be considered as part of a larger group of petitions. The debate surrounding United Methodist policy, as spelled out in the Book of Discipline, has become heated and increasingly divisive in recent months, and there are at least two groups who are actively working to break ties with the United Methodist Church over this issue. One group threatens to leave unless we affirm same-gender marriage, and another threatens to leave if we do. In the middle of this struggle, with emotions high on both sides of the argument, it can be difficult to hear Christ’s prayer for unity. It is hard to imagine how we could ever be one, as the Father and Son are one.

At one point in the debate on Friday, Bishop Ough was asked to state his personal opinion on same-gender marriage. He declined, saying, “I am not going to interrupt your debate with my personal views.” I think he did the right thing. A Methodist understanding of the episcopacy does not vest the bishop with responsibility to tell us what we should think on controversial matters. We each need to prayerfully discern what scripture teaches us, and then determine how best to order our own lives so that we can live faithfully into our calling as children of God.

One problem we run into when we read the Gospels to learn how Jesus would have us respond to same-gender marriage, is that Jesus never directly addressed the issue of homosexuality. While he often attacked the way Levitical law was interpreted and practiced, those attacks were most often directed at Sabbath observance and treatment of the poor, the sick, widows, and children. Jesus did address issues of sexual immorality, and those issues became even more prominent in the early church, as Christianity spread into parts of the world where pagan practice covered a broad spectrum of understandings about appropriate sexual behavior. But even when Jesus did speak to issues of sexuality, it was to offer grace and forgiveness.

So here we stand, well into the 21^st century, aware that the church has too often allowed the culture around us to dictate our response to questions of morality, and also aware that the church has just as often drawn the net too tightly, refusing grace to those who need it most.

Jesus was well aware of the influence of the world on his followers, and his prayer addresses the tension of being “in the world but not of the world.” Throughout John’s Gospel, kosmos refers to a world that is hostile toward God. A few verses beyond those we heard earlier, Jesus prays, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world” (14-16).

As I listened to the debate at Annual Conference, I struggled with the deep pain I heard in voices on both sides of the issue. I also struggled to understand how Christ’s own body, the church, could have allowed our focus to move from developing spiritually mature disciples of Jesus, toward a preoccupation with human sexual identity. I remembered Jesus telling a bunch of Sadducees, “You still don’t get it.” “In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven” (Matt 22:30; Mark 12:25).

I must remain a pastor in good standing with the Evangelical Covenant Church, in order for the Methodist Church to recognize my credentials, and allow me to remain your pastor. That means I cannot perform same-gender marriages, nor can I allow such ceremonies to occur in any church I pastor. So far, both denominations I serve use nearly identical language to address this issue. Even if legislation changes the Book of Discipline to allow same-gender marriage, it will only be at the discretion of congregational charge conferences, and it will require a 2/3 vote. This will place the burden of decision on each congregation. We must be prepared to thoughtfully, prayerfully discern how we will decide on this matter, should the General Conference approve such legislation.

You need to know that I cannot perform a same-gender wedding., but I can, and do, deeply love people of every possible sexual orientation. If you want to grab a cup of coffee with me some time, I’d be happy to talk with you about my views on helping people of every sexual orientation to find fulfillment as children of God. I long for the day when each of us can say that our primary identity is not based on our human sexual desires, but on our spiritual status as redeemed participants in the Body of Christ. I believe that every time we choose to label ourselves in any way other than “God’s beloved child” we fall short of the Kingdom of God.

Christ’s prayer for unity has only one goal: that the world would know God has sent Jesus into the world. This has little to do with denominational polity, sexuality, or crafting some kind of compromise to keep us all together. It is about sharing this one message: Jesus is the Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. This must be our focus, as followers of Jesus.

We read earlier today, in 1 Peter 5:8, “Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” I am convinced that Satan would like nothing better than for us to be distracted by debates over what the Book of Discipline says about homosexuality. Satan would like nothing better than for all our energy to be spent arguing with one another, so that we have no energy left to share the good news that Jesus is Lord, that he died for all, and that grace abounds for those who will claim it.

I, for one, do not intend to let Satan get his way on this one. I think there is much to be gained by discussing how we, as a church, want to live out our calling to offer hope and healing to a broken world. Part of that discussion needs to include how we minister to people whose primary identity has not yet become “faithful follower of Jesus Christ” – whatever their primary identity currently happens to be. Let us do that with grace and love for one another, so that the witness we bear points others to Jesus, and Jesus alone. Only then can Jesus finally expect an answer to his prayer that we might be one, even as he and the Father are one. Only then can the Kingdom of God become fully real. Only then can we gather around this Table, offer one another Bread and Cup, and rejoice as we hear once again the reminder that, because we who are many partake of the One Loaf, we have been made one in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Confirmed! – Sermon on John 14:1-14

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What troubles your heart these days?

There’s plenty of stuff to trouble us: wars popping up all over the globe, crime rising here at home, the economy, politics … and on a more personal level, trouble can haunt us in our families: our marriages, our children’s lives, our parents’ lives, our own health – there’s plenty of trouble to go around.

I grew up in a fundamentalist church. We were convinced we had the Right Answers to all the Big Questions, and most of the little ones. We knew without a doubt that once you were saved, you were always saved. But if you weren’t saved the way we were saved, you probably weren’t really saved. We practiced “closed communion” for church members only. This meant observing the Lord’s Supper on Sunday nights, when visitors were less likely to show up. We had the Rapture and the Second Coming all figured out. Ours was a very exclusive community of faith, and we were proud of it. We knew who was In and who was Out. We did not let the things of this world trouble us. Or at least, we wouldn’t admit it if they did.

We were nothing at all like the community of faith gathered around the table in the Upper Room on the night Jesus was betrayed.

We had answers.

The disciples had questions.

We were full of assurance.

The disciples were full of fear.

We allowed only bona fide church members to receive Communion.

Jesus offered bread and cup to all his followers, even Judas, and said, “Take and eat. Take and drink.”

We were certain: we knew who was In and who was Out.

The disciples were confused: they had thought Jesus would become the King Forever. Here he was talking about dying. And it sounded like he meant “soon.”

As those confused and fearful disciples gathered around the Table, Jesus talked openly with them. He knew it would be his last chance to help them understand what was about to happen, and what they would need to know after he was no longer with them. But his words were not comforting to the disciples. They were troubling words. So Jesus gathered his friends closer, and said, …

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.And you know the way to the place where I am going.”Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. John 14:1-14

It may seem strange to hear these words in the middle of the season of Eastertide. We should be celebrating the risen Lord, not going back to the gloom and doom of Holy Week, right? And many of us may associate this particular passage more with the sadness of funerals than with the joy of confirming young people in their faith. In fact, many of us heard these very words read on Thursday, as we gathered here to remember our friend Joleen, sorrowing in our loss while rejoicing in the hope of resurrection.

But Jesus wasn’t only teaching his disciples how to deal with his impending death, nor was he only concerned with a far-distant heavenly future. Jesus was preparing his disciples for carrying on the ministry he had begun. The Kingdom of God had broken into the world, and it would be up to Christ’s followers to continue the work of bringing it to full reality.

So here we are, a couple thousand years later, about to confirm these young people as Christ-followers, welcoming them as full members in the Body of Christ we call the church. What better words can we hear than the ones Jesus spoke to his close friends that night?

These words are rich, and they give us many ideas to ponder. Let’s focus on just two: the verse that gets quoted the most, and one that often gets overlooked.

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This year, Pastor Ric Jacobsen from Oakwood UMC and I combined our confirmation classes and taught them together as one group. We encouraged the students to be thoughtful and honest as they answered the questions of the Baptismal Covenant, in preparation for today. As we talked together about faith, we pondered Creation, and the Sin that quickly followed. We discussed what it means to Renounce evil, to Repent of our sins, to Ask Forgiveness, to Confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, to Discern God’s will, and to lead a Holy Life. We talked about Grace, that love we don’t deserve, and we took a closer look at John Wesley’s understanding of prevenient grace, the grace God offered us before we even knew we needed it. We recognized justifying grace as the work Christ did for us on the cross, and we began a journey toward sanctifying grace as we practiced the disciplines of Bible study, prayer, worship, and service. For the confirmation students, the question “who are we following?” never even came up. We all knew from the beginning that the faith we were exploring was Christian faith.

Those early disciples didn’t have it so easy. They were still caught up in the history of Judaism, thousands of years of interwoven spiritual and physical DNA. Like my fundamentalist childhood church, they thought they had it all figured out. They knew how the story was supposed to end. And they knew it wasn’t supposed to end like this, with the Messiah preparing them for his own death. The question they were all asking themselves, but no one wanted to say out loud was this: Did we make a mistake? Did we follow the wrong guy?

So when Jesus promises to come get them later, and tells them that they know the way to where he is going, our good friend Thomas blurts out, “You’ve got to be kidding! We don’t even know where you are going! How can we possibly know the way?”

Can’t you just see Jesus, shaking his head? “Thomas, Thomas, look me in the eye and listen to me. I AM the Way. I am the Truth, remember? The Word was made flesh – that’s me, buddy. I am the Life. You don’t need to look for another Messiah. You got it right the first time. I am the only way you can get to the Father. Believe me.”

At that moment, Thomas might not have known how the story was going to end, but he must have recognized that Jesus wasn’t declaring a threat – “Believe in me and me only, or else!” – but was offering a promise. And that promise was not only for the future, it was a promise to be with the disciples in the here and now, as they figured out how to carry forward the ministry Christ had begun. Thomas must have been paying attention, for we know that a week after the resurrection, he declared, “My Lord and my God.”

And that is what these confirmands are about to do. Over the past few months, they have each explored what it means to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They have followed John Wesley’s four-part path to discernment, examining the Word of God in scripture, exploring the traditions of the faith as it has been handed down through generations of believers, using their gifts of intellect and reason to think through the questions that only faith can answer, and finally seeking a true experience of faith, as they reach the point when they can say with full assurance, “Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and I want to commit my life to following him as my Lord and Savior.”

As Samantha wrote in her confirmation paper:
“God has a plan for everyone and I’m ready to commit to his plan for me. … There will always be times when I make mistakes because living a Holy Life isn’t just about being perfect and not making any mistakes but I will continue to do the best I can. John Wesley believed that each of us were given the grace of God to move on toward Christian perfection.”

Each of these students recognizes that accepting Christ as Savior is not the end, but the beginning of a life where Jesus is Lord. Hunter wrote, “I am ready to publicly say I am a Christian. I am on the journey. Christ helps me go on the right path.” And Kyle added, “I will always continue my journey toward Jesus Christ because there is always room to grown further in my faith.”

Kyle also expanded on that Wesleyan idea of experience as a way to know God’s will for the whole Body of Christ. He wrote, “Experience means to live together in a Christian community that helps each other, like guides for life in Christ.” And Christina explains the idea of church even further: “Church is not a specific “place.” Church is where you talk about God and the Bible and everything that happened within the Bible [with other people]. You need to have people to bounce your ideas off of, and a church is a group of people, not an actual building.”

Each of these confirmation students have found Jesus to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. They are ready to latch onto the promise Jesus offers, to be present with them through the Holy Spirit, as they grow deeper in faith, stronger in their love for God and neighbor, and more and more like Jesus. They are ready to become, as Peter wrote, “living stones, a royal priesthood,God’s own people,” in order that they may join us in proclaiming the mighty acts of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

^“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy,” Peter quotes the prophet Hosea (1 Peter 2:10). As full members of the body of Christ, these confirmands are ready to participate in the life of the church with their presence, their prayers, their spiritual gifts, their service, and their witness. Which brings us to that other verse, the one that we often skip over on our way to asking for the things we want “in Jesus’ name.”

Jesus tells his friends, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

As we welcome these young people into faith, we need to remember with them that becoming a member of Christ’s church gives us a lot of power. Christ expects great things of us, and has given us the Holy Spirit to accomplish that work. Just as Jesus healed the sick, cared for the poor, and preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God, so we are to continue that ministry, until all the world has been introduced to God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ. We are to bind up the broken-hearted, feed the hungry, and share God’s love. Accepting Jesus as Savior is only the beginning of eternal life. Living into the grace we have received, we grow into a more and more holy life.

“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people,” Peter writes. “Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” But it doesn’t stop there. We have been given a purpose, a reason to keep moving forward on our journey toward Christ-likeness. Why are we here, in this place at this time, as Christ’s church? “in order that we may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Thanks be to God.

Finding the Gate – Sermon on John 10:1-10

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The man who had been born blind walked a few paces behind Jesus. He was still getting used to being able to see – and there was so much to see! He’d spent his whole life depending on smell and touch and hearing just to know what was within reach, but now, he could see far down the road and up into the heavens, and it was almost too much for him. As he heard a familiar sound, his head snapped around to find its source – Oh! That loud music came from that tiny thing? That’s a bird? Putting together what things looked like with their familiar sounds or textures was exhausting, and exhilarating at the same time.

The whole world seemed new. He wanted to laugh out loud, but thought better of it. Those Pharisees were still pretty angry. He knew he should have been upset that they had thrown him out of the synagogue, but all he could do was grin as he looked around,

and looked …

…and looked,

feasting his new eyes on everything in sight. He could see! For the first time in his life, he was physically able to see. He brushed a piece of dried mud from the side of his face. Must have missed that bit when he had obediently gone to wash the mud from his eyes in the pool of Siloam. It had been such a simple thing to do, but what a ruckus it had caused.

Even his parents had been brought in, to confirm that he had, in fact, been born without sight. The religious leaders didn’t know what to do with him, and they certainly didn’t know what to do with the man who had made him see. The man who had been blind was glad that his healer had come looking for him, after all that ugliness at the synagogue. He wanted to say “Thank you for giving me my sight,” but what he actually said was, “Lord, I believe.” Now he knew that seeing was believing, but even more, that believing was seeing. As he followed Jesus, he could hear the Pharisees arguing again. “You don’t think we’re blind to the truth, do you?” they asked Jesus. Jesus answered them with a riddle. “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” They looked confused, but Jesus kept feeding them riddles. The man who could now see smiled as he listened. He knew what the Pharisees did not. He knew this was the Lord, the Chosen One, the Messiah. Jesus continued …

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:1-10)

Today is the fourth Sunday of the season of Easter, the Sunday we call “Good Shepherd” Sunday. The gospel focus for this particular Sunday is always the tenth chapter of John, but each year, the lectionary cycle gives us a different part of this chapter to consider. This year, we get to look at Jesus as the gate for the sheep, offering the only way in and out of the sheepfold.

But to understand the images Jesus uses in these first ten verses, we need remember how they fit into the larger story. That’s why it’s important to remember that Jesus didn’t just start talking about sheep out of the blue one day. His words about sheep and shepherds were directed toward his close followers and his critics, the religious leaders of the day. Jesus told these riddles about sheep and shepherds and thieves and strangers to explain how giving sight to a man, who had never before seen anything in his entire life, showed the huge difference between true believers and false prophets. To make his point, Jesus drew on one of the most common images in scripture: sheep following their shepherd.

Sheep are mentioned more than 200 times in the Bible, more than any other animal. Sheep were important as sources of wool, milk, and meat, and throughout the Bible, sheep served as symbols for God’s people. God is portrayed as the shepherd of his chosen flock in the prophetic words of Isaiah and Ezekiel, and most famously in the 23^rd Psalm, which we read earlier in the service. Why sheep? Well, they do share certain characteristics with people, especially people who claim to be set apart, belonging to one Good Shepherd.

Sheep are followers. They will follow another sheep, even to slaughter, or over a cliff. Lambs are conditioned from birth to follow older sheep. Following isn’t something sheep have to think about, it’s an instinct. They can be trained to follow a distinctive call, or a unique melody played on a pipe. A sheep can learn to recognize its own name and come when it is called. Sheep will follow a shepherd they know well, but they are more inclined to follow other sheep.
Sheep remember faces. They recognize faces of other sheep, and even of humans who work with them regularly. Sheep remember who treats them well, and even more, they remember who handles them harshly. Sheep will allow a gentle shepherd to come close, but they will balk and run from a person who has handled them roughly in the past.
Sheep find safety in numbers. Since predators attack the outliers, sheep stick closely together. When grazing, sheep will keep at least 4-5 other sheep in view. They are very social animals, and the instinct to flock is strong.
Sheep rarely walk in a straight line. By tracking first to one side and then to the other, they can always see what’s behind them. They can spot danger from up to 1500 yards away, but they have trouble finding a half-open gate without help.
Sheep are surprisingly dirty animals. Lambs may look cute and fluffy on greeting cards, but the reality of adult sheep is that all kinds of mud and yuck get stuck in their wool, clumping together in nasty lumps. Good shepherds know the value of Woolite just before shearing time.

It’s not a very flattering picture, when you think about the people of God being compared to sheep. But there it is. We tend to follow each other more instinctively than we follow our Good Shepherd, even when we’ve been trained to recognize our own name and God’s distinctive call to us. We tend to remember old hurts and grudges, and we run away from potential encounters with those who have hurt us in the past. We tend to stick together with the same 4-5 people we know best, keeping them in our sights and huddling together when we sense an attack coming our way. We spend a lot of time looking behind us, making it hard to walk a straight line. And we can spot a distant threat more easily than an open gate in front of us. Finally, we attract dirt, and we let it clump up and cling to us. Isaiah was right when he wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way,and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). And yet, God claims us as his own. He knows each of us by name, and calls us into abundant life, leading us to safe pasture and sweet water.

But if we look closely at what Jesus is saying, we see that his riddles aren’t really about sheep. Jesus is talking about recognizing the shepherd. Remember that he just gave sight to a man who had never seen, and yet that man recognized him as God’s Messiah while the Pharisees, who should have recognized the One they’d been waiting for, were blind to God’s power working among them. Now, Jesus explains his miracle by comparing these respected religious leaders to thieves and bandits who only want to steal and destroy. By refusing to accept Jesus as God’s own Son, the Messiah for whom they claim to hope, the Pharisees threaten God’s people, stealing their hope, destroying their trust in God alone, who is the Good Shepherd.

And Jesus says he is the Gate, the way to safety and green pasture. The Pharisees who deny Jesus as the way are no better than thieves trying to climb over the wall of a sheepfold, instead of entering through the gate.

Isn’t it ironic that those who hear about sheep recognizing their shepherd’s voice are the same ones who don’t recognize what Jesus is saying to them? Keep in mind that Jesus is not only talking to Pharisees, but to his own disciples. He’s talking to us. We have just as difficult a time as they did, when it comes to hearing Jesus clearly, and following where he leads us.

But he keeps calling us.

Modern day shepherds in the Middle East can be heard leading their sheep with a distinctive call. In his book, Shepherd Poems, Kenneth Bailey writes that a shepherd today could “lead over 200 sheep through a valley by walking slowly in front of them giving his ten second call roughly every 40 seconds.” (Kenneth Bailey, Shepherd Poems, 9.) That’s a lot of consistent, repetitive calling. Jesus keeps calling us, repeatedly, consistently, reminding us of where he is, and where he wants us to go. It is our awareness of that repetitive, consistent call that teaches us to recognize and follow our shepherd’s voice. We can only become aware of that gentle call by listening for it.

But it seems there are so many other sounds and noises clamoring for our attention, so many other voices calling out to us, claiming to offer us the things we need. Advertisers tell us that if we will only buy this car, or those clothes, or that food, or these things, we will have abundant life. And no matter how many cars or clothes or things we buy, no matter how much or what kind of food we eat, we are not satisfied. Because we listened to the wrong voice.

Shepherds start teaching lambs their own names as soon as they are born. God has called each of us by name. He has claimed us as his own. So how do we learn to hear Christ’s voice, to recognize that we are being called by name? It seems so hard to hear, just as it did for those Pharisees who didn’t recognize how God was working in their very midst.

So Jesus gives us another “figure of speech” – another riddle. He calls himself the gate. And to be sure we hear him this time, he says it twice: “I am the gate for the sheep. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” Then he says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

How do we enter into abundant life? This is where being a sheep pays off.

We enter through the true gate, following the true shepherd’s voice, not that of thieves or strangers. We learn to recognize our shepherd’s distinctive call by hearing it, repeatedly and frequently.

In the Carnegie Hall gift shop, you can buy a T-shirt with a slogan that’s based on an old joke. It seems a musician from out of town arrived in New York with little more than his instrument and the clothes on his back. Determined to save every penny he could, he decided he couldn’t afford a taxi, but he also didn’t know how to get where he needed to go. So he flagged down a cab to ask directions. When the cabbie asked, “where to?” the musician said, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The cabbie took one look at the musician’s instrument and replied, “Practice, practice.”

That’s how we learn to recognize our shepherd’s voice. We practice listening for it. We include time for silent listening in our personal devotion time, seeking to hear God’s voice while ignoring the many other voices that compete for our attention. We practice listening together, as a community of faith, for what God is calling us to be and do.

Like good sheep, we value our place in the flock, sticking together, supporting each other in our journey toward Christ-likeness. It’s possible to be a believer in isolation, but to be a true follower of Jesus requires participating in this thing we call “church,” being an active member of the body of Christ. We don’t stray from the flock, putting ourselves at risk. We stick together.

When we get dirty – as all sheep do – we turn toward our shepherd to wash us clean. Through Christ’s sacrifice of himself for our sins, we are cleansed of all unrighteousness, all our filth is washed away. We have only to accept his grace to enter into the abundant life he came to give us.

But we cannot completely experience that abundant life until we share it. As sheep who know our shepherd’s voice, we also lead other sheep through the gate that stands open before us. By joining in Christ’s mission to bring abundant life to all of God’s children, we experience that life even more fully. This means engaging with those around us, to discover what is robbing them of life, and standing with them against those forces. It means realizing that abundant life is not some after-death future promise, but available right now to every one who will enter by the true gate, and it’s up to us to extend the invitation to any who have not yet heard it. It means realizing that abundant life starts when we repent of our sins, but it continues as we live into the grace that we have received, by sharing that grace. It means knowing that church is not a place we go to hear about abundant life, but the body of Christ that is sent out to heal a broken world, offering abundance to all we encounter.

Abundant life isn’t the goal. It is the result of following Jesus, who made the blind to see, the lame to walk, who fed the hungry and comforted those in sorrow, who offered his own life and then conquered death once and for all, so that we, his own dear sheep, could live with him in peace and safety.

Here is the gate. Will you go in? Christ is the gate. Will you show him to someone else? He came to give life in abundance. It’s more than you or I can keep to ourselves. Who do you know that needs more life? Christ is calling you by name, to enter the gate, and to lead another sheep into a life of abundance. Amen.

A pastor sings

If we are made in God’s image and God sings, then we should be singing, too.

Category Archives: Faith

Children of the Promise – Sermon on Romans 9:1-8

Nothing Between – Sermon on Romans 8:26-39

A Prayer Before Reading Scripture

The Spirit Is Life – Sermon on Romans 8:1-11 July 13, 2014

Traveling with Flat Jesus – Part 2

Traveling with Flat Jesus – Part 1

Making Disciples – Sermon on Matthew 28:16-20 (Trinity 2014)

Being One – Sermon on John 17:1-11

Confirmed! – Sermon on John 14:1-14

Finding the Gate – Sermon on John 10:1-10

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