A Vision from the Mountaintop

Sermon given at Grace UMC 6/28/15

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Scripture Reading

^NRS  Deuteronomy 34:1 Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the LORD showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, ² all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, ³ the Negeb, and the Plain-- that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees-- as far as Zoar. ⁴ The LORD said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants'; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there." ⁵ Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the LORD's command. ⁶ He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day. ⁷ Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated. ⁸ The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.

I read a story recently about a little league coach who reminisced about his childhood years playing baseball in little league. He remember back how during his first year, his coach had called together the entire baseball team for a picnic, and he asked the team, "Who here wants to eventually play major league baseball." Every single hand went up, as every child there dreamed about playing in a major league stadium and hitting the game winning hit. That boy grew up to become a little league coach himself, and the week before opening day his first year of coaching he did the same thing. He had a team picnic, and he asked the team, "Who here wants to grow up and play in the major leagues?" Not one hand went up on a team of twelve kids. He said he could see in their eyes that not one kid on his team believed that he had what it took to become a major league baseball player.

Bonnie and I have returned from Annual Conference this year ready to begin a new year here at Grace. Today we start our fifth year and there is much to tell and much to look forward to. We are standing on the mountaintop looking out into the Promised Land. But we cannot do it alone. We need to be a family of folks with a shared vision of what the future holds. Our focus this year will be to continue the vision I have had for this church the last four years, making members disciples. What is interesting to me and affirming is that it is also the conference vision for this year. What does it mean to be a disciple? It means following Jesus in His teaching, His example and His love. I also learned at Annual Conference that my gift is the gift of irritation. My purpose is to provoke you into being better, being more intentional and being faithful to following Christ and Changing Lives for Christ.

David Welch tells the story of Walt Disney. Walt Disney was a dreamer. His crowning vision was EPCOT; Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. He envisioned the perfect city of 20,000 using all of the most modern advances technology. One problem, Walt Disney died before his dream was ever realized. His dream was so big and complex and outside the box that no one else in the Disney Company ever caught the dream and had no idea what to do after Walt was gone. What Walt Disney intended as a living breathing perfect city turned out only to be an entertainment center. Disney’s world would only become a place to visit rather than the community he envisioned to live in.

Jesus also left a blueprint for His church that is just as vast, as marvelous, and as innovative. His vision was to have an expanding community organism that would permeate and transform the whole world. The problem is that as time went on His followers lost His vision. They could not wrap their minds around such a magnificent plan. Rather than a community of loving, passionate follower of Christ dedicated to demonstrating the power of the Christ-transformed life in a dark world, they began to do what they knew best, build buildings and run organizations and develop entertainment centers that would hopefully draw the crowds to hear the story but miss the transforming power of Christ. We are the descendants of that vision and though the vision still exists in our lifetime, we also are more apt to focus on the building, the structures and the organization. We want certain kinds of music or certain kinds of worship or to join the many services into one service; those are the answers you tell me every single day. I read the other day that Christianity is still growing, especially among those who are oppressed and struggling. It is growing not because of worship style or music or even buildings. It is growing because people have begun to embrace a sense of community.

We have spent this week teaching our young people about being a good neighbor. That the message of the Good Samaritan is not a nice story about a nice man, rather it is a proclamation of how we are to act in the world around us. We are to be Good neighbors to all the people of the world, not just those who look like, sound like and act like us. The children get this maybe even better than the adults do. We are to be the vision of Christ, loving each other in a transforming way to change the world.

But the real question is how do we move beyond the barriers? We have barriers whether we realize them or not. Barriers we have erected because of culture, language, prejudice, and our own human existence. Barriers that Jesus wanted us to remove so that we could fully embrace the loving relationship that God. But how do we get there? How do we do what we have been unable to do in over two thousand years? How can we accomplish what our own human existence fights against, leaving our desire to be first and becoming a place of equality? There is only one way to do what we should all desire to do. We desire to become disciples of Jesus learning what He desires for us to learn and doing what He desires us to do. The truth is that we have an almost insurmountable mountain to climb. The biggest obstacle in the way is not society, the courts or even a disagreement on what a particular flag really means. It is our inherent desire to be first, to do what we want when we want and how we want. It is our desire to achieve the things of materialism even if it means climbing over the bodies of those around us.

We can only achieve this great change in our world through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do it alone and when we finally realize that we are on the way to achieving the kind of world that Jesus wants us to enjoy and embrace. It is a world where love is the central element of human relationship. Where we find ways to overcome our diversity as difference and use that diversity as gain. We become a family making life together, facing the future together and living in a harmony together that can only come when we place Jesus first, others second and ourselves last. We cannot achieve this success when we have determined that rules for the common good don’t apply to us because we perceive ourselves as special, more important than other members of our family. This only works when we work hard at focusing on the common goal of one people under God, indivisible with liberty for all. That is the mantra of our country and yet we somehow find ourselves too often divided into ideas about what liberty really means. Jesus tells us that liberty is the right to live without fear, without hunger, without discomfort and to share in the abundance that God has given us. Not everyone will share our dream; some of you may even leave here to find a place where you can enjoy your own ego centered focus. But mind what you hear this morning. That is not the dream of Jesus.

We are climbing a mountain. Some days the sky is clear and we can see the peak, the goal and the climbing is easy. There is excitement and energy to achieve the goal. But some days the clouds come and obscure the peak. Those are the days when our journey gets difficult as depression and fatigue set in. But the goal is unchanged. So those days are the days when we need to support each other with greater care and compassion. The ropes we tie around one another are not ropes of bondage but are the safety line of strength that comes when people surround each other with love to lift each up in the tough times. We are climbing that mountain and so far the road has been easy. But the tough times are ahead of us. The reward is a church that is the center of its community, focused on being the source of strength for the community that it serves. The reward is a life filled with joy and love that is shared with those who also share this vision of Jesus.    

So where are we going and how do we get there? Let me answer the last question first. We only can get there through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be a church fully embracing individual and corporate prayer. Don and I felt your prayers this last week at Annual Conference. But when we begin to prayer together as a church asking God in we can become the church God intended. Bishop Cho has a prayer that I suggest we all incorporate. It is a simple prayer. It is, "Your will be done, nothing less, nothing more, nothing else." Let us do it together. Your will be done, nothing less, nothing more, nothing else. If we pray this with the intention of not only asking God for direction but opening ourselves to hearing, God will do great things with us. If we invite the Holy Spirit in we can become Disciples in the image of the original Disciples, performing miracles, bringing others to God and changing the world. Without the Holy Spirit we are nothing. Which probably explains the mess we are currently in in the world around us.

In the current newsletter I tell a story of a ship’s captain who was floundering because the wind that moves him had stopped. Nothing is more serious to a sailor than the loss of wind. Without it we cannot move, we are caught in a place of inaction and despair can set in because we have no control over the moment. Knowing that a man of God was below deck, the captain went down and talked with him. He asked the preacher to pray for wind. Sometime later the preacher came up on deck and was surprised. He sought out the captain and told him, you ask for God’s help and yet the sails are not unfurled, open to the wind that will come. You pray and yet you don’t believe that God can provide defeating the very power you seek. We are a church with the sails that are not yet unfurled open to the wind that will come. 

We must become the church where people can find the answers to the struggles of their lives. We must become the church where people can feel welcomed with no regard to their culture, their language, their lifestyle or their journey. We must become the church that finds ways to make poverty less, make hunger less, make oppression less and make community more. We must become the church that spends as much time outside its doors as inside, maybe even more time out than in. We must become the church that finds ways to teach people new skills, assisting people to find financial security not through entitlements but through reliance on proven financial tools. We must become the church that people come to not out of a sense of loyalty but out of desire to be a part of a family making a difference in the world. We must become a church that focuses on being Disciples individually and corporately through the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit. We cannot feel the wind of the Spirit if we keep the sails furled against the mast. We must become a church that focuses on the common good for all, compromising to bring out the best God has to offer through the gifts and talents God has given us.

Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness for forty years. His role was to bring them to place where they could find relationship with God, learn to be obedient to God and to become the instruments of God to change the world. Moses did what he had to do always listening to the will of God, nothing less, nothing more, nothing else. God allowed Moses to see the land of promise from the mountain, but Moses would not lead them there. His work was done. Martin Luther King in his famous speech brought a prophetic message telling us that his dream would be realized even though he would not get to the mountaintop with us. Like Moses, King never saw his dream realized. But God is fruitful.   

Sir Frances Drake: "Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love."