Revelation question

I received a question from one of my congregants that I thought worth posting here on the blog. 

The Lenten Bible Study, Following at a Distance teaches us of our call to follow Jesus closely, that Jesus is here with us as we travel through our lives and reminds us to reach out to our constant companion.  This class, coupled with our LT reading, particularly the Phil Maynard Membership to Discipleship book brings questions to mind with regard to the second coming of Christ as promised in the New Testament.  The concept of a second coming implies we should be Jesus' disciples on earth and the promise that Jesus will come again in glory to all who believe in him as affirmation of our discipleship(?).  Then, of course, there are the predictions in Revelations, which I don't understand...  The second coming seems irrelevant in light of our call to follow Jesus as disciples and recognize His constant presence.  Why do we, as Christians, need/long for a second coming?  Seems we have all we need in this life to prepare us for the promise of eternal life.

My response:

Great question!!!!

I wish more people dug this deep. So our role is the here and now, to be disciples, followers of Jesus Christ for the world. Our role is to witness to the power of God through our actions, words and deeds. Having said that, God’s plan is still in effect and working through the logistics so to speak. The early disciples thought that Jesus was coming in their lifetime. When it became apparent that was not the case, we began to have written records, ie the Gospel’s. John’s Revelation is the vision that God gave him of the events that would happen up and into the time of Jesus return. This Revelation adds on to the hundreds, if not thousands of prophecy that exists in the Old Testament. When will it happen? Only God knows the hour and day. For us, it is a promise that will eventually be fulfilled. In the greater scheme of things it is somewhat irrelevant. Our role does not change even if this event happens today. Go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching. The urgency of that task should always be paramount to everything else that we do. Eternal life is the promise fulfilled in the profession of faith and we then begin to be transformed into the creation God intended with Adam. Thanks for the question.

Heart of Jesus - A Miracle Heart

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 3/11/18

Click here for audio 

^NRS John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴ And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." ⁵ His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." ⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. ⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." ¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. ¹² After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.

Reverend Billy Graham is traveling on a plane from one place to another. There is a man who has had too much to drink. He is using abusive language, making a nuisance of himself and getting on everyone’s nerves. He suddenly spots Billy Graham and rushes up to his seat. As he puts his hand on Billy Graham’s shoulder, he loudly announces, Ladies and Gentlemen, Here is the man who changed my life. So often today, we travel about in the world around us calling ourselves transformed people and yet we do not look different. We act the same as the people around us. We blend in well with the culture and our lives reflect the anti-Christian values of our culture.

John brings us this gospel today to teach us how to be different. We must learn to live in the difference if we are to be a transformed people. He begins this scripture by telling us that on the third day there was a wedding. The Third Day! When I listen to the words of this scripture, I can visualize Jesus at this wedding. He is probably having a good time with friends and family with no regard at this moment to the request from his mother than is about to happen. So often when I read or hear scripture that talks about three days I think about the resurrection. Have you ever thought about the incredible miracle of the resurrection in terms of what it means to you and me? The resurrection story is where we live our lives every single day. Jesus and His mother and the disciples are all there at the wedding. This is a Jewish wedding. Jewish weddings last days. At the wedding, it is the host’s responsibility to assure that there is enough wine and food. However, the wine has run out. The host’s supply has all dried up. It would be a great embarrassment for the wine to run out before the wedding feast is over. In Jesus day, the host would often use the best wine first and allow the guests to feel good as the watered wine followed until at the end would be the cheapest or most watered down wine available.

Where are you today? Did you come here today in a life that is all dried out? Are you focused on living but find no refreshment there? We are a driven society. Everything about our lives today is driven. We are purpose driven, value driven and ethics driven, it is no surprise that we are all driven into desperation and exhaustion. We spend our lives focused on accomplishment and success and find neither. At the group study the other night I was reminded that God never said, we were going to be happy. However, I believe that God does not intend us to be miserable either. It is in the scripture; he is saving the best wine for last. What does that mean?

Where are you today? Are making a difference in someone’s life? Are you using up the good wine first only to cheat yourself and your neighbors of the good wine later? But I want to revisit the text for a moment. It tells us that there are six stone water jugs used for purification which means they were used for ritualistic cleansing and each one holding twenty to thirty gallons. These jugs would have been to cleanse the bodies of those who are attending this feast so that they could participate in the Holy parts of the service together. My friends, we are not talking about a little wine are we? These jugs would not be cleansed like those used as the normal containers of wine. Rather they might well be filled with grit and dirt from the cleaning of dust from feet, hands and bodies. Yet these are the very containers that Jesus uses to transform into wine. Not just any wine but we are told Jesus transforms them into the best wine. Each of these containers reminds us of our own lives. For those of us who attend church each Sunday and live in the world six days the number ought to be significant. Are we the dirty jugs that God wants to use for cleansing of the people of the world and ultimately for carrying the finest of wines for nourishment. Does it surprise you that God would bring the finest of wines in the commonest of containers? That they would normally have been used to cleanse, purify, and now will provide the essence of eternal life?

I once asked my mentor to tell me his secret to living a life obedient to God. He said to me, when you wake up in the morning look outside. What you will see is that the sun came up without you. It does not need me to rise each morning because God created it and everything around me. When I can truly appreciate that then I can learn to live within God’s world. I once worked at Philip Morris at it was not uncommon to see the General Manager of then the world’s largest cigarette manufacturing facility walking through the plant early in the morning. I used to be amazed that he would reach down and pick up a piece of trash as he made his rounds. Rarely did he stop and talk to people about numbers, about production levels or how the machines were running. It was months before I ever had the opportunity to have an audience with him and I boldly asked him of his behavior. His reply was simple. When you worry of the little things, the big things take care of themselves. When we focus on the way we live our lives, the transformation of our lives takes care of itself, without us needing of focus on it or try to control it. When we look at our lives, it is what others see that matters, not what we see. If the fruits of our spirit, kindness and patience, understanding and love are evident to others then it is highly likely that the inside of our hearts are pure and loving. But if the outside of our lives looks like, acts like and feels like the rest of the world, well then….

Each of us approaches life in the difference. Some choose to stay with the world and live out their lives in the culture, searching but never finding the answers to the questions that they seek. Some of us will take a journey that begins with our obedience to God setting apart the ways of the world in order to be transformed into something else indeed. We must learn to live lives of risky action of foolish obedience as Rev Trevor Hudson reminded us at Annual Conference a number of years ago. Those miracles do not happen out of the blue. God’s action comes in an environment prepared by the journey. If we prepare for the miracle of eternal life then we will experience it every single day of our lives.

The last area that I want to focus on is this verse where Jesus says to Mary, It is not my time yet. Jesus was working on a timetable just like you and I do. We spend our childhoods looking forward to the teenage years and independence. We spend our teen years looking forward to being adults and having lives of our own. We spend our young adult lives living to support the family and make sure the children attend the right activities. Then one day we realize our lives are almost over and for many, we realize missed opportunities and chances. In the difference, we submit our will to God and live the lives that God intended us to live.

Each of us must make a journey. A journey from willfulness to willingness! We need to learn to let go of the controlling aspect of our lives in order to being willing to let God be in charge. Mary is on this journey. She tries to take control, listen to her words. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴ And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." ⁵ His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."  Jesus tells her, why are you telling me what to do, my time has not yet come. She gets it. She responds to those around her, do whatever He tells you. Her desire was to take charge of the situation. How often are we the ones who step up in charge, ordering or coercing those around us in order to get the job done how we believe it ought to be done? However, she gets it. It is not up to her but rather it is up to God, when and where the wine will run out.

Jesus comes to us with a heart full of miracles. He brings to us an example of loving those who may not even love themselves but who desire something better, something bigger, something with hope. We come to this story seeking the best wine when our lives are filled with the watered down version all too often. The true miracle of this story is that Jesus will answer when we ask. That Jesus will respond to our need with love and transformational power. It is a difficult journey unless we submit to the miracle of Jesus who gave His life so that we may have life. Jesus is calling us to a life of miracles where we make a difference in the lives of others.

Did I make a difference in somebody's life?
What hurts did I heal?
What wrongs did I right?
Did I raise my voice in defense of the truth?
Did I lend my hand to the destitute?
When my race is run, when my song is sung
Will I have to wonder
Did I make a difference?
Did I make a difference?

Did I Make a Difference – Oak Ridge Boys, 2000

Parallel - Chapter Five

Click here for audio

Chapter 5

Miracles

           Miracles are at the center of the modern day focus on Jesus life. More than anything else, the non-believing population scrutinizes miracles stories as fables and myth. Are they? Maybe that is not the right question here. Maybe the right question is why the writers spent so much time including them in the story of Jesus. Of the stories in the Gospel accounts, the miracle stories are clearly a favorite subject matter. Matthew has 22 miracles, Mark 18 while Luke has 21. John on the other hand only has 7 miracle stories and John indicates that they are in the Gospel so that the reader would know that Jesus is God, a central point of John’s Gospel. I have included 16 miracles that move across the synoptic gospel accounts. Some of the more famous have been left out with the most likely reason being that they only exist in one of the Gospel accounts. However, there are some exceptions. The raising of Lazarus from the dead appears in both John (11:38-53) and Luke (7:12-17). What should be of note here is that Luke never identifies who the man is that is raised from the dead and the story is very different. Luke may have been trying to hide Lazarus identity. There are stories of that time that suggest that the Jewish leadership would have placed a bounty on Lazarus head in fear if what his resurrection might truly say about Jesus.

           Of the 16 miracles, please note that four of them also appear in John as part of his seven. They are the healing of the Paralytic (chapter 5: 8-9), the centurion (chapter 4: 46-54), the feeding of the five thousand (chapter 6: 1-15), and Jesus walking on water (chapter 6: 16-21).

           The three synoptic writers desire to make a statement about who Jesus is. In order to justify their position, it is important that Jesus show His divine nature. Power over nature, exorcism of demons and healing are all considered to be part of the power of God alone in Jesus day. Hence, the special emphasis of healing (8 of the 16), exorcism (4 of the 16) and power over nature (4 of the 16). Matthew clearly is focused on telling the story to the Jewish community and proclaiming Jesus as Messiah. In order to justify that position Jesus must have divine ability that cannot be attributed to medicine or known healing practices of the day. No-one was able to heal Lepers in Jesus day except Jesus. No-one could fix hemorrhage problems or birth defects. So Matthew focuses on those kind of healing to lift up. Matthew identifies Jesus miracles on Exorcism (3 of the 15), healing (8 of the 15) and power over nature (4 of the 15). Luke on the other hand is a doctor as we understand his background. We also know that he worked with Paul. His focus was on the Gentile world and proclaiming Jesus to be the Son of Man. Luke wants us to see the humanity in Jesus and wants the Gentile world to understand Jesus as fully human and fully God. Luke focuses then more on the healing miracles (7 of the 12), power over nature (2 of the 12) and exorcism (3 of the 12).

           Remember that Mark’s gospel is focused sharing that Jesus is God to the Roman world. So his focus is shared on the exorcism of demons (4 out of 16), healing (8 out of 16) and the power over nature (4 out of 16). It is important to Mark that the reader experience his viewpoint that Jesus is good over evil so much of healing narrative also shows issues with the Jewish leadership. Mark and Matthew have two feeding stories. Did both happen? Mark and Matthew felt compelled to include them both. Remember that Luke’s focus is on the healing much more than power over nature.

           The list of sixteen miracles that I have included share Jesus power over nature, His ability to exorcise evil spirits and His healing power. Several of them have a great powerful message of faith like the Centurion who asks for healing even though Jesus is not physically there. If we read the accounts, note the differences and ask yourself how the version fits in the greater story and the audience of the writer.

           Many of the commentaries that I use include a note that not a single healing was for the sole purpose of physical healing. In Jesus day, to be ill, often meant to be excluded from family and community. Healing by Jesus not only addressed the physical issue, but also restored people to community, family and God.

Heart of Jesus: A Forgiving Heart

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 3/11/18

Click here for audio

^NRS Colossians 2:13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

The writer of this scripture starts our understanding with the idea that we had already died. We are dead to our sins and lust of our flesh, which is a way of saying we had bought into the culture way of understanding our lives are determined by the amount of wealth and possession we have accumulated. When our lives worth is determined by those measures, then we truly have already died. Sound just a little dismal? That has been the cry of the prophet from the beginning of time. Deny God and die!

Adam had one rule to follow and all of paradise to enjoy as a consequence of following that one rule. Perfect love has no binds, no strings and offers a choice to love back or not, something we Wesleyan folk call free will. Free will means that we can choose to love one another and love God or simply love ourselves. I know people like that. I know people who measure their worth by the kind of car they have, the neighborhood they live in and the amount of money they have in the bank. Therefore, Adam having all of paradise to enjoy chose to disobey God’s one rule. Why? We could certainly argue that it was simply human nature that caused him to break the rule. My guess would be that it was for a simple moment of pleasure.

So what is the inherent nature of sin? It is really a simple concept. Sin is simply disobedience to God. There is no hierarchy, as we like to attach to it. To God, sin is sin. Disobedience can be as simple as desiring someone else’s sandwich to the point of figuring out how to take it from them or it could be as complicated as working through the murder of someone for your own personal gain. It could be allowing envy for what someone else has and your desire to obtain it at any cost to put in motion a plan to get it. Disobedience is as old as the fall for paradise when Adam put something in front of his relationship with God.  In Noah’s day, the whole world had simply forgotten God. How is that possible you ask? My dear friend Rabbi Bruce reminds us through the story of the worship and prayer in the woods. Once there was a people who worshipped God by preparing a celebration in the woods. They would enter the woods to a clearing, begin to prayer to God, tell the story of God and then worship God in that place. As time went on, people began to forget what the celebration was about and the story of God stopped being told, so they followed what they remembered. At first they simply came into the woods to the clearing, some remembered to pray but they could not remember what they were praying for. The worship stopped. More time went by and they would once a year come to the edge of the woods but they could not remember why they came or what they were supposed to do. All of this because they stopped telling the story. In Noah’s day, the stopped telling the story of God so they forgot God.

As the people we call the Jewish people today began to remember the story, they embellished the telling over and over again. In fact, they remembered the decree that God had laid down that in order to seek forgiveness, they must sacrifice. So they learned how to sacrifice birds and animals in lofty places, built temples for the sole purpose of sacrifice as they came for redemption from God. Then an interesting thing began to happen. They began to modify the rules of redemption so that human beings became center not God. They adapted the rules of living so that a person could achieve redemption without having to acknowledge or pray to God. So a person simply had to live out their lives in certain ways, dress in certain ways and eat in certain ways at certain times of the week, month and year to obtain this promise of paradise. At least that is what they thought. You see God had decreed 10 basic principles or rules known as the Mosaic Law to be followed. They believed that it had to be more complicated than that so the ten rules became a hundred, then a thousand and by the time Jesus arrived there were more than 4 thousand rules to be followed if you hoped for redemption and paradise. The main emphasis here though needs to be on the idea of sacrifice as a means to claim redemption for sin.

Into this world comes Jesus, God incarnate, God’s answer to the redemption issue and challenge. As you have heard me say on many occasions, this is the not the sole purpose for Jesus but it is one of the significant reasons for his life. Jesus begins a ministry of redemption, healing and restoration. He begins His teaching to let us know what it takes on our part to receive the wonderful gift that God has already made available for us. Jesus wants us to know that forgiveness is as simple as a prayer away for all of us.  So what does he say about sin and forgiveness?

In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us that if we forgive those who sin against us then God will forgive our sins. In Luke 17 Jesus tells us that if a person sins against us seven times in a day and asks for repentance all seven times we are to forgive them. In Matthew 18 when Peter asks Jesus how many times we must forgive, Jesus replies to him not seven times but seventy times seven times. The Psalmist in Psalm 103 reminds us that God forgives as far as the east to the west. Jesus came to share with us the desire by God to learn about love for one another and that we are to forgive one another. That does not mean that we can pick and choose what is forgivable and what is not, rather we are to forgive.

So why was Jesus death necessary in this forgiveness thing? God had determined that sin required sacrifice to be atoned. Repentance alone cannot do it. Our own desire to be a better person cannot do it. Nothing we can do allows us to make up the falling short of the glory of God that we all do. I have also often shared that sin is inherent to our natural makeup. We want to be in control, we desire to decide things for us and we do not want rules that are hard. We all share in those favorite words of a two-year, me, mine and no. Since that inherent nature is a part of who we are, we could argue that it is a part of creation. Only God can fix creation. So God sent us Jesus to do just that. Jesus death shows us how much God loves us. Jesus willingness to go to the cross for you and me shows us how much love God really has for us. Jesus becomes the sacrifice to fix the inherent nature so that we can share in relationship with God without fear of death. Jesus resurrection reminds us that we have the promise of paradise in front of us. Will we sin each and every day? Sure, we will. Can we ask for forgiveness seven times in a day and receive it? Luke 17 tells us so.

Here is the hard part my friends. Jesus came with a forgiving heart so that we could see what that looks like. Jesus showed us how to forgive, how to share healing and how to restore people in relationship. Can we do anything less? Our task in front of us is to learn how to forgive one another not once, not seven times but seventy times seven. Our task is to find a way to share God’s love with each other and to learn to accept that we all make mistakes and need to be forgiven from time to time. Must we forgive the serial killer who took a child? Yes! Must we forgive the young man who took lives in Florida? Yes! Must we forgive the terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers? Yes!

I want to share with you that we have a God with a forgiving heart and God expects us to learn how to use our own power of forgiveness in the world around us. Is it hard? You bet it is! Does forgiveness mean reconciliation? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. God does not expect us to stay in abusive situations nor does God expect one-sided relationships. But God does expect us to forgive. Let me share it another way. Floris Wuellner in her book, Forgiveness the Passionate Journey, reminds us that forgiveness is so that we may be healed, that we may shed the burden of pain and suffering brought on us by others so that we may be free to live our lives.

Jesus has a forgiving heart. Jesus constantly is forgiving us for our iniquities, our screw-ups, our failures and our humanly desires to be disobedient. We are forgiven people. Isn’t great to know that we have a God who loves us so much that when we make mistakes the slate can be wiped clean? What God asks in return is that we love God and love one another. That we share that heart of forgiveness with our fellow human beings. That we start to live and love like there is no tomorrow even when we know there is an eternity ahead of us. Forgiveness – a heart to be shared.

Heart of Jesus series: A compassionate Heart

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 3/4/18

Click here for audio

^NRS Matthew 8:1 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; ² and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean." ³ He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. ⁴ Then Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

Billy Graham sayings

“My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”

“Take one day at a time. Today, after all, is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”

“It is the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge and my job to love.”

“A real Christian is the one who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.”

“We are the Bibles the world is reading; we are the creeds the world is needing; we are the sermons the world is heeding.”

“ I have read the last chapter of the Bible and I know how it all turns out”

Max Lucado in his book, Just like Jesus, talks about the hands. If you look at your hands and then the hands of the person sitting next to you, you will see that they are unique. No two hands are the same, especially as age and experience shape them. You might be sitting next to a surgeon whose hands constantly receive cleaning and work to heal or maybe a classical pianist whose fingers can flow over the keys creating great music. On the other hand, you may be sitting next to a carpenter whose hands are gnarled from working with wood, nails and in all kinds of weather. As you look at those hands you can tell a little something about someone maybe, but in order to know the whole story you must learn the person first. Hands are part of the creation of God to allow us to do so much in our world. We start by squeezing fingers or anything that comes within our grasp, quickly growing to holding things like a bottle that brings us nourishment. Having observed your own hands, do you see the good in them? How about the bad? If you are like me these hands have prayed with many but they also have fought with many especially in my younger years. They have been bloodied and healed, bloodied again and healed and yet they have cared for the sick and the dying. But if you observed them you would not know that about them unless you got to know me in relationship.

We come to this story today about the Leper. Some refer to it as the miracle of the unknown leper because we know nothing about him and about who he becomes after this story. We don’t know if he followed Jesus after being healed or returned to his home and family. What we do know is that Jesus healed him by stretching out his hand and healing him. In Jesus day, to be a Leper meant that you were excluded from the world around you. You could no longer be part of the family or even come into the community in which you lived without some way of announcing your arrival so that everyone could get out of your way. Any kind of skin disease where blood we visible was a form of leprosy in Jesus day. True leprosy is a debilitating disease that leads to a horrible painful death. We can only imagine that a leper was a lonely person who felt the sting of being shunned by society. Whether rich or poor, all lepers found themselves excluded often to camps of others who were also excluded. The shame and agony of the disease compounded by not being able to be cared for or loved by the very ones who were needed the most. But Jesus reaches out His hand and heals him.

You may ponder what the gift that Moses commanded is. It comes from Leviticus, chapter 14 that says that a leper who is healed must go to the priest where he or she will be examined. If the disease is healed then two living birds are sacrificed in a ritual where cedar wood, crimson yarn and hyssop are used. These things are the gifts the healed leper would have had to take to the temple to the priest to be allowed back into relationship with community and family. Hyssop and vinegar would play a role in the crucifixion story of Jesus.

Jesus has a compassionate heart. I think of the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. For Jesus a man, to talk with a woman and for Him to be a Jew and talk with a Samaritan would have been unthinkable and yet He did. Not only did He talk with her, but He offered her salvation in the form of living water.  Jesus had compassion for the people who surrounded Him on the Mountainside when He preached His sermon on the mount. He had such compassion for them that we get the miracle story of the feeding of the five thousand. There are numerous healings throughout the Gospels as we hear over and over again that Jesus had compassion for them, many of them healed as He reached out His hands to them. Jesus touched the untouchables of His day. Jesus spent time in relationship with those who were more often shunned and excluded in His day.

As we come to this place in this moment of time, I wonder if the real question for us in who in need of a compassionate heart today? Maybe you and I are in need of a compassionate heart, that our hearts would be transformed into the kind of compassionate heart that Jesus had for those who are untouchable in our world. Who is it that is shunned by society in our world today? Maybe it is the homeless person lying in the street as people pass him or her by, on their way to someplace else, without even noticing him or her lying there. Maybe it is the person who is terminally ill or has a chronic illness that we refuse to go see because, well; it just gets us down when we go there. Maybe it is the recently divorced person who found him or herself on the losing side of choosing sides amongst his or her friends and now finds themselves alone in the moment when they need friends the most. Maybe it is your closets friend who did something wrong and now you feel ashamed to be associated with them so you don’t. Would Jesus have excluded any of these? I think that is a question we need to ask ourselves daily. If Jesus did not then should we?

So there should no big surprise when I say to you that the compassionate heart of Jesus is the kind of heart you and I need to strive to have. What does it mean to have a compassionate heart? It means that we place ourselves second in the world to those who cannot and have not. It means that we learn to take care of those who the world considers untouchable or undesirable. Like the homeless, the sick, the ill and those in prison or who find themselves without shoes or coats. But it goes even deeper than that if we really want a heart like Jesus. We need to find ways to share love with those we all too often hate. Those who ridicule our Christian values and ethics. Those who don’t agree with our view of certain issues. We need to find ways to share God’s love with people who we as of yet do not even know or those we do know and have nothing to do with. How do I know that is what we are supposed to do? Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 25.  ^NRS Matthew 25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸ And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹ And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' ⁴⁰ And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

Today we share in the knowledge that Jesus has a compassionate heart. He shares that compassion with us in our joys, our concerns, our struggles and our successes. So can’t we learn to do the same for our neighbors?

Heart of Jesus series: A Heart like God

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 2/25/18

Click here for audio

^NRS Ephesians 4:23  ²³ and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

^NRS Luke 16:13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." ¹⁴ The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. ¹⁵ So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God. ¹⁶ "The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force. ¹⁷ But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.

We begin today a seven part series on the Heart of Jesus. My hope is that this series will help us learn what drives Jesus as our Lord and Savior, what it is that God ultimately wants us to know and how we can begin to have that same heart in our own lives. The scripture today shares a reminder to us that we must become someone different than we are, that we need to realize that there is one driving force in the universe that is more important than anything else we understand. I read the other day that science and religion are finally coming toward a common understanding, releasing the harmful animosity that has longed plagued that relationship. That the cosmos was created in a single moment and that all life is connected across the creation and spectrum of the universe. Is it so hard to comprehend that we are all connected by this thread called creation? That we share in this life giving existence with all of creation, the birds of the air, the animals, the plants and the trees. That life force known by the American Indian as the spirit or Great Spirit flows through each of us every moment of our lives.

Luke’s Gospel proclaims that the law and the prophets were in effect until John came proclaiming the day of the Lord. From that moment on the Kingdom of God has been proclaimed. Jesus said to us that He came not to break the Law and the Prophets but came to fulfill it. So what does that mean? Jesus came into the world that we might understand what creation is supposed to look like, act like and live with interaction with the rest of creation. Jesus came to show us what the law looks like lived out in loving God and loving neighbor. God’s heart is so loving that God created us to be with one another. We subverted the idea of relationship and we keep on subverting it every day. But God did not intend it that way and Jesus came to replace the law and prophet understanding of His day with the original intent of creation. That is so important let me say it a different way. God intended Adam and Eve to not rule the world through dominance and control, but rather to steward creation with love, compassion and nurturing.

So what does Jesus heart look like? We get glimpses in the Gospels with His healings, His teachings and His example. He is constantly in prayer and connection with the world around Him. God is no further than the last second of breath that He inhaled and exhaled. That may seem difficult to understand so let me try and help us with this. Jesus spent His living moments in complete connection with God. He did that through prayer and keeping His senses open to that presence. We struggle today with that concept because we have placed Jesus in a historical box. We look at His picture and think He truly looked like that when we have no true idea of what He looked like. We paint mental images of Jesus, how He acted and how He loved based on printed words, paintings and stories. We focus on the Jesus that was rather than an ever present spirit that is with us in this moment. I often share that being called by God and we are all called by God is a tugging of the soul rather than a burning bush or neon light. If we desire to feel God, to share the heart of God, then we need to listen to the silence for the still small voice of God. My good friend Rick Griffith, whom I loved dearly as a brother and friend, used to constantly tell me to shut up, to listen and to enjoy the silence where God is speaking. He was known for his uncanny ability to know when you were having a bad day and he would call. He would often say, I felt tugged to call you today. How are things? I have felt that tugging often in my life but only when I push back the noise of the world and allow my senses to connect with the greater consciousness that is God. That may be tough to understand and I would love to spend more time explaining it so if you have an interest see me.

I believe that is what is meant by being renewed in the spirit that Paul talks about in Ephesians. We will clothe ourselves with a new mind. In the first century the mind and all that controlled the human existence was thought to originate not in the brain but in the heart. Maybe in the truth of things, they knew more than we understand now. Yes all thought, all motor skill function and all bodily control function from the brain. But the brain is most often led by emotion which I believe originates in that thing we call heart. Our capacity if you will to understand the world through our love for it and those in it. God’s heart is truly passionate and emotional. How do I know? Because Jesus showed us that heart each and every day of His physical life. I also believe that if we are open to the tugging we will experience Jesus every day of our lives.

I think this proclamation, I call it that because it is more than simply words on a page, about two masters is to get our attention and focus us on the truth of life itself. We cannot serve both a loving God and a love for materialism, possession and wealth. We can have both. Let me repeat that. God never said you have to be poor and impoverished to love God. It all depends on where your heart is. If your heart is that God is center and first in all that, you do, you will direct your life, your actions and deeds to the things that are important in creation. If your heart is on success, improving your looks for vanity reasons, buying the newest car or house so that others might see you differently than I would say God is not first and you are trying to serve two masters. We spend our whole lives moving toward a point in time. Whether we admit it or not, we focus on trying to get it all in before we reach that final breath moment. But in doing so, we often forget to stop and smell the roses as Mac Davis used to sing about so many years ago. Creation is all around us and it is the heart of creation that speaks to us in a sunrise or sunset, when we take the moment to enjoy the fluttering of the hummingbird and the song of the morning as birds, plants and the air take on the beginning of the day. It is interesting to watch the sunrise in a place where you can experience all the senses at once, the sounds, the view, the smells and the temperature change just at dawn to truly experience creation. If you have not done it in a while or maybe some of you have never done it, please take the time and let your heart feel like God’s heart for a moment embracing a new beginning in the dawn. Maybe in that moment you can realize the truth of not trying to serve two masters. Letting God tug at your heart is a great way to experience God in an intimate way. If we are to have a heart like Jesus then we must open ourselves to the possibility of loving creation around us.

So I have been talking about experiencing more than text book learning. I believe that the new clothing is about experiencing God in a way that emits more emotion than book knowledge. I truly believe that the new clothing we take on is in fact God surrounding us with love. My devotion time in the morning is so important to me that when I miss it my whole day seems unbalanced. Jesus has a heart like God. It is a heart that is in complete connection with all of creation. Jesus focused on making sure that everything He did was in keeping with that heart. If we desire to have the same heart, we need to allow God to transform us. Instead of spending all our waking moments in the noise of the world, both sound and visual noise, then we will miss God. Anatomy of Peace suggests that every time we are faced with a decision or choice, we can make the right one and have a heart of peace or the wrong one and have a heart of war. When we make the wrong decision, we immediately begin to justify why we made that decision and most often, we have allowed the people around us to become objects rather than people. If you find yourself thinking that you are better than, entitled to, worse than or I need to be seen as, then your heart is probably in a state of war. My hope is that Sydenstricker can become a place where our hearts are constantly striving to be at peace and we treat one another like people not objects. I believe that this lesson is that Jesus has a heart of peace and is in connection with you and me. I feel the tug, can you?