Random thoughts

Over the last four weeks I have spent a great deal of time focusing on the new church I have been assigned to. We are exploring systems. In any setting there are three systems at work, technical, family and admin. Technical systems can create great havoc if you are unable to gather information, get reports, get connected, etc. There is work to do at Sydenstricker but there is also a group of people eager to do that work. Family systems outline how people interact with one another. In small rural churches there is almost always a matriarch or patriarch that calls the shots. Years ago I used to go into companies with the intent on bringing change. I would sit in meetings and pay attention to who answered the questions of who people looked at before answering. That person was the true power of the organization. I quickly needed them to become my friend if I hoped to bring change. The same is true in mid size and large churches. Someone is ultimately the person for groups of people and the sooner they are identified, the sooner your life gets at least more focused. Likewise each organization established protocols, procedures, styles of leadership and ways of getting things done. Learning how all that works can lead to smooth transistions or rocky lives. So that has been my focus for the last four weeks. We are on the way to a great journey with God's help if we can make sure the systems function effectively and efficiently.

Answering the call to discipleship is central I believe to being the church God is calling us to be. Being part of the body of Christ, becoming more like Jesus and joining Jesus where He is already working are tenets of that. Phil Maynard in his works, including From Membership to Discipleship and Shift has given us great guidance on how to implement Discipleship within the church. What truly would happen if we began to act like Christ and to share in compassion, healing, feeding and teaching like Christ? I believe that the church would become the church we are designed to be. I have seen it work.

Your unique swing

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC July 23rd and 24th 

Sermon not recorded 

^NRS 2 Timothy 2:1 You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; ² and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. ³ Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴ No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier's aim is to please the enlisting officer. ⁵ And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. ⁶ It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. ⁷ Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

Some years back I enjoyed reading and then watching a movie about a round of Golf that occurred around the early 1930’s. It was between some of the greatest golfers alive at that time in a setting on the coast of South Carolina. Of course, it was a fictional account by the author. The movie is called “Bagger Vance” and it is about a great game played between opposites but equals in the world of Golf. And among them is a wounded warrior who must play to their level one more time. The cast of characters included Bobby Jones who really lived and some would say was the greatest golfer that every lived and a gentleman in every sense of the word. And then there is Walter Hagen, also a real life person who was a brash hard living person that will always be remembered for his drinking, womanizing and style of golf. Interesting enough, it was Walter Hagen that many consider to be the father of modern day professional golf. So we have this golf championship that has at its heart the two greatest golfers of the day who are opposites in life, one living what a Christian lifestyle and one living a worldly lifestyle. Into this world comes Captain Junah, a local favorite who is a hero from WWI, a great golfer before the war and now living in obscurity, hiding because of his wounds. Why you might ask would I bring you this story on a Sunday morning sermon. Well, maybe just maybe because like the parables of Jesus, we can see our own stories in it and learn important truths. You see, Junah is broken. He is broken because what he understood of life had been taken away from him on the battlefields of Europe. There he saw things that young men and women shouldn’t have to see and it changed him. It wounded him. Henri Nouwen suggests that all the people called by God are wounded healers. Wounded by life in one way or another, some suffering superficial wounds that they just need to get over, while others are hurting from deep deep wounds and tremendous emotional scars. And each of us comes to this game facing obstacles that life has placed there for us. Have you ever had events transpire that sucked the very essence of life right out of you and you began to question everything that you believed in and thought to be true? There is a question that hangs in the air throughout the movie that is important for you and me today. Is it simply a game between three men or something much more than that? Is life a game where we learn the skills to play and spend our lives acting out roles that we believe we must in order to fit in the world? Or is it more than that, a field where each of us has the opportunity to make a difference fulfilling our purpose in the world that God has given us. Into this world of golf comes this mystical character, Will Smith as Bagger Vance. Bagger appears one evening as Junah is practicing, not to well I might add. He begins to work on Junah’s mind. You see Junah has the ability to play golf at the same level as these two greats. But just as Bobby Jones style is different than Hagen’s, so too is Junah’s. In the world today there is book after book telling golfers how to hold the club, how to swing. Make your swing like Palmer or Nicklaus or Hogan or Woods. Buy these clubs because Mickelson or Woods wins with them. We are bombarded by the marketing hype to become just like someone else. Is it any different in life? There are more books about how to live your life, how to fix what ails you and how to be successful than all other book types combined. Become like Brittany Spears or Brad Pitt or countless others that bombard our consciousness every day. But what Bagger Vance says to Junah is earth shattering. Junah, he says, each of us has our own unique perfect swing that we have been given in order to play the field the way we are supposed to play it. No one else is quite like us. I am reminded that Paul tells us that we are all one body but of many parts and one without the other cannot work. But we cannot all be the head or the arms of the legs. We each must fulfill the role we uniquely are given in life. And there will be those days when we lose our swing, when we get lost, when we have our lives sucked out of us by people or events. So Junah begins to believe again and the game takes off. He begins to play to the level of the two greats beside him and then he begins to think that he knows more than Bagger and life begins to plummet again. You see in golf just as in life, there is a higher consciousness that we are called to align ourselves with or we will fail. Fact is, we cannot understand our own natures, our own desires and our own passions and realize that when out of sync with the one who created us, we are in chaos and out of control. Truth is we each have a special purpose that is uniquely suited for us. It doesn’t look like your neighbors or the latest ad on TV, but is ours and ours alone.

Paul is trying to tell us this in the scripture today. That soldiers don’t concern themselves with the big picture, only what their superior is telling them to do. Too much information boggles the brain and makes one ineffective. Likewise the athlete does not question why the race follows a certain path; they accept that it does as they train to compete with their desire to win. When we allow the Holy Spirit to come into us, transforming us into the unique person God would have us be, it is then that our own special swing begins to work. But one day when things are going well, we begin to believe we control life and no longer need to ask God for guidance. And we find that our wonderful swing has put the ball deep in the woods. You know the place. That place where all of our deepest fears come rushing to the surface to remind us how little and inadequate and worthless we are. That place where our tormentors want us to be so that they can control our actions and ultimately our lives. You know what an abused person looks like? An abused person is a person whose life is controlled by the abuser through guilt and bullying to the point that there self esteem and sense of worth is so low that only the bullies seems to have the key to how to live. So they spend their lives living someone else’s idea of life. Abused people are sitting beside us, looking just like us; in fact we may see one in the mirror in the morning. Wake up! That is what the world wants of us. But when we find the ball in the woods, God is whispering to us to decide. We have been given the tools to guide the ball through the trees and out into the playing field again, but you must have faith and decide to trust when it seems that everything you know is wrong and working against you.

During the time of my transition from public life to becoming a full time clergy, I had the opportunity to share a weekend with some of my best friends. One of them is no longer with us but his memory stays close. Each morning we arose, ate breakfast (yes, even men can handle the cooking of eggs and bacon without destroying the kitchen), and then hiked up to the outlook to view the morning from the mountains perspective. During that time I was able to reflect on the past time of trial and then begin to reflect on the future not only for my own life but for the life of the churches I would serve. It was a time of transition for all of us as we looked to an uncertain future beset by obstacles, both financial and resource. What I also saw were endless possibilities where the future can hold bright promise if we find what God intends for us as individuals and collectively as a church. Each of us to achieve these goals must focus on our own individual gifts as well as the collective gifts of those around us. Rob Bell reminds us that in the Hebrew, the name for God is so sacred that it is seldom mentioned or spoken. We refer to God as Yahweh, an English definition of the word in old Hebrew that sounds like “Yod Hay Vo Hay”. Is it possible that the name of God is so difficult to say because it is beyond our understanding? Or is it possible that the name of God is so wonderful that we just need to breathe in order to hear it. I have shared with you before that the first thing a child must do in order to live is breathe. And the final thing that our bodies do when we die is to expel the air we have in our lungs. Does that mean then that God breathes life into us at birth and we die when that breath of life can no longer be sustained? Or does it mean that we need God to come in us when we are born in order to live and when we can no longer say the name of God we die? I wonder what this says to us about our need for God. That without God in our life, we are simply walking dead.

For each of us, one day the ultimate test will come. In golf, unlike most other sports, golfers call penalties against themselves. When the ball moves it is a stroke. Now no one else may have seen it move, but you did. It sort of like if you’re driving at midnight and the light is red and no one else is around, do you wait for it to change to green or run it. And so it happens to Junah. No-one else sees it move, but he does. When it happens in the movie, the young man watching says to Junah, but no one would know. And Junah’s reply, “You and I would and that is all that matters.” And it is at this moment that the mystical figure says it is time to go. Why? Because he has taught what needed to be taught. That the special authentic swing is all about knowing and trusting and believing in yourself and in the God that created you. To do the right thing all the time, not because someone else might be looking, but because it is the right thing to do! So you have to ask yourself, with the championship of your life on the line, when the ball moved and no-one saw it, would you do the right thing?

Three Simple Rules

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC July 16th and 17th

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Micah 6:6-8 "With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  ⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"  ⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Galatians 5:14-15  For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  ¹⁵ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Last Sunday I reminded us that we are Methodist’s. What that means ranges from how we relate to God to how we relate to the world. It does not mean that we are better than any other denomination in the world. It does not mean that we need to think our doctrines, polity and theology are any less than anyone in the world. I know a man who often tells me that because he has not been immersed that his salvation is at stake. And I often tell him that the only thing at stake is the sanity of the person who keeps telling him that. God don’t make mistakes and God certainly did not make a mistake when you were created, claimed or redeemed. This morning I want us to again shout the mantra, We are Methodists. And to do so should bring pride or shame. It just depends on whether or not you are living up to that standard.

Remember when you were in Kindergarten or the First Grade? Remember the basic rules? They were share with others, play fair, don’t hit people, clean up your own mess, say you are sorry when you hurt someone, take a nap every afternoon, hold hands and stick together when you go out into the world and  live your life enjoying the wonder of the world. What happened? Did somehow we forget all these things when we began the second grade? Bishop Reuben Job wrote a little book some years back called, Three Simple Rules. In it he tried to summarize what Jesus taught us so many years ago. And what John Wesley was so passionate about all his life. So I have to ask the question this morning, when we are out in the world, do others see God in us? Do we this morning look around at each other and see our transformations to become more Christ-like? If not, why not? We profess to be Christian’s right? We with a smile on our face tell others how we go to church on Sunday and how wonderful it is. So do they believe that we are somehow different than they are if they are not professing Christians? Truth is, we live in a world today that is too fast, too complicated and turbulent, and it strives to divide us as it forces us to blend in.

The first rule is “Do no harm.” Now that seems simple enough to me. I remember that old saying, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Remember the toothpaste? Words do hurt don’t they? And sometimes we say those words without thinking about the harm they may cause. Sometimes words are spoken and the effects of them last lifetimes. I know families that don’t speak together anymore because words were said that divided them. So what does no harm really mean? Simply, it means when we enter the playground, you know, work and such, it’s just the toys that got more expensive; we must work hard not to hurt anyone. Imagine with me for a moment that every thing you say and everything you do not once causes another to be harmed. In the Old Testament there was a man called, Jabez. His name literally meant causing others pain. And so he prayed for God to assure he did not. And God answered his prayer. So each day we wake up, we pray that God will work within us so that we do not hate, do not gossip, do not bad mouth others, and do not do anything that causes another human being to be hurt. Sounds like a tough job to me.

The second thing we must do is to “do good.” Hmmm! That sounds easier than the first one Pastor Don. I think I will try that one first. Well, what does it mean to do good? What if tomorrow morning you woke up, went to work and there on your doorstep is a homeless person. Would you pass him or her by as you go into your air conditioned office? Or would you offer to feed them, clothe them and bring them out of the weather. Hmmmm! Doing good suddenly doesn’t sound so simple anymore. What if I told you that our Discipline, the book that defines us and drives us, says that we must use every opportunity to be merciful and kind? Sounds a bit life our Galatians scripture doesn’t it? Proverbs 25: 21 tells us that if our enemies are hungry, give them bread and if they are thirsty give them water to drink. But Pastor Don, these are our enemies. We don’t like them and they don’t like us! REALLY? HMMMM! This doing good stuff is tougher than I thought. And Jesus said to us in Luke, one of the passages we just heard, to love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us. Is it getter a little hotter in here or is it just me?

I love Micah 6: 6-8. It should be our mantra each and every day of our lives. The final simple rule is to “love God.” Micah puts it best when he says do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God? There are ways to work at this. Daily bible reading, constant prayer and sharing in fellowship with one another are ways we work at our relationship with God. Never heard that before? Stick around a while. You’ll hear it a lot from me. There was a time when I was in management in an industrial setting. When I left there a young man paid me a great compliment. He said, you know, I did not always agree with the things you did. But you never surprised me and when you fired me, I knew it was coming. That caught you by surprise didn’t it? Our love for God should not surprise us or God. It should and needs to be the same kind of love that God gives to us. When we are having a great day, thank God! When we are having a bad day, thank God too! We should thank God that our day is not worse than it is. Or better yet, thank God because no matter how bad our day is, it doesn’t end on a cross bleeding and suffocating to death. Hmmmm! That puts it better perspective don’t you think.

Truth is that we have to work at this some. So what does the world look like if you had never had the opportunity to view it from the perspective of an outsider? I used to spend a lot of time in airports, sometimes waiting for flights for hours. It was an incredible experience in which I had the opportunity to view humanity. All walks of life, people from different states, different countries and different walks of life. On any given day you could see every hair style, every clothing style and hear every language, even some that dialects that are English and yet not understandable by the average person. On any given day you would have the opportunity to see the best and the worst of humanity. I have seen people shoved, fist fights in airplanes, sickness and hatefulness. But I have also seen the young man who reached out the older gentleman to help him up the stairs, the older woman who befriended a young person down on their luck, people stepping up and stepping out of their comfort zones to assist others in some of the most difficult of circumstances. See, what I am suggesting is that national origin, culture and language have nothing to do with the concept of being who you can be. Even someone who was born on the other side of the tracks and lived their life in the squalor of a lower social class can be the one person who steps up and lifts a person out of a burning car or assists an elderly lady across the street. Have you seen the commercial where one person helps another and that leads to the person who watched this event helping another and so on and so on? It is a great reminder that sometimes we affect the lives of people we never meet and never see by the actions that they see in us on any given day. Kind of incredible to believe that you could befriend a person in Springfield Virginia and the results of that action cause a person in Bangkok Thailand to befriend a person! It happens every single day in places all across the world. And it can happen here and now with you.

Part of our heritage is that we reach out to people. As Methodist people, we are known throughout the world as the people who bring hospitals into communities, help those down on their luck pick up the pieces and put their lives back together again. We do it through our hands on ministries that touch people’s lives. We do it through our contributions to World Services, to missionaries and to firemen and EMT departments across America. You have probably been wondering why I have a Bear up here with me today. A friend of mine serves a church with a powerful ministry. They buy Bears like this little fellow and then put a sign on him that says he is a ‘prayer bear.” And then they do the unthinkable, they give them away. They take them to hospitals, to nursing homes and to people that are ill. They give them to police departments who put them in police cars to be used with children who may need something to hug onto one night because mommy and daddy hurt each other or are injured in a car accident. And they make blankets for police cars and ambulances to wrap up a little child. There are hundreds of ways to spread the love of God.

One day a policeman pulled a woman over. When he got to the window, she asked him what the problem is. He asked for her driver’s license and registration. She promptly gave them to him. He said to her, “Ma’am, I thought maybe your car was stolen.” “Well how can that be”, she asked. “Well he said”, with a slight hesitation. You just cut off a driver back there at the turn, stuck your finger at another driver as you passed him, and ran a stop sign. I noticed your bumper stick that says, ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ and ‘I’m a Christian who believes in Life.’ So I figured the real owner of this car would not do all those things, so it must be stolen.” Hmmmmm! 

We are Methodist

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC on July 9th and 10th

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^NRS  Luke 6:27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

^NRS  Galatians 5:14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." ¹⁵ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Some years back a movie was written about a terrible event in the life of a college campus and a town. So much so that it took hope away. It threatened to strike at the very fiber of their being. It affected how they felt about themselves. And into that situation came a man who was determined to pull them up out of their desperation and hopelessness. And they began that with a definitive response to who they were. You may have heard of them. Their defining cry was “We are Marshall” and they energized themselves around that focus as they pulled themselves out of the dark despair. They have emerged a successful football program, a larger college and a town that rewrote who they were to the world. Today I want to talk about who we are. We too have a rallying cry, “We are Methodist.” Can you say that? [WE are {pause} Methodist] But what does that mean? So often we have as many interpretations of what it means to be a Methodist as we do people who are Methodists. Today I want to talk about one aspect of being Methodist. There are five things that make us unique as a denomination, not better than anyone else mind you, but different. We share some of these things with other denominations but all five make us who we are and if we understand that it allows us to focus on our work and not get hung up. If you know who you are and what you stand on foundationally, then you can focus on the work at hand. Today I want to talk about what it means to be Methodist and then next week about three simple rules that should be at the center of our lives.

           

There are five things that make us uniquely United Methodist. While we share individually some of these things with other denominations, all five of them together make us uniquely who we are. I often have this discussion with other United Methodist ministers as we explore Wesleyan concepts. This is to say, we explore what John Wesley wrote about being a Methodist or more importantly, what it means to be a Christian. There is no particular order in priority.

1.    Baptism – We believe that baptism is a sacrament. In other words, God is the principle actor and what happens is a mystery to us. In baptism we are cleansed of the taint of original sin, welcomed into the Kingdom of God and participate as community in the sacrament. Since God is the principle actor, when it happens and how it happens is not as important as that it happens. Baptism is a gift of God where God does all that needs to be done. Since God doesn’t make mistakes, if you were baptized as an infant through sprinkling or pouring or immersion, it never will need to be redone. What is given by holy ordinance of God is sacred and holy. We believe that we are welcomed into the Kingdom of God through baptism. But it is not salvation! We will focus on that in a moment.

2.    Communion – We believe communion to be a sacrament. God is the principal actor and we acknowledge the mystery of Holy Communion. We believe Christ to be present in the communion with us, the bread is still bread and the juice is still juice but through the mystery of God there is a presence. We are not people who believe that through the blessing the bread and the juice is anything other than bread and juice and we also are not people who believe that the service is simply a remembrance service. We understand Christ to be present with us each time we share this Holy Covenant of God given to us by Jesus in the Upper Room. But we also acknowledge the connection to Passover. Communion is the continuation of a long story that begins with the blessing of Abraham and is fulfilled in the Passover in Egypt. God proclaimed the gift of grace in the blood of the unblemished lamb and that night the Angel of Death passed over and gave them life. We remember the events of the Upper Room, the cross and resurrection. And we look forward to the promise of the Feast on the Mountain of God given in the prophecy of Isaiah.

3.    Connection – We are a connected church. We are connected to other UMC churches in this region through the Alexandria District Conference, to other UMC churches in Virginia through the Virginia Annual Conference and to UMC churches throughout the world through the General Conference. Our denomination determines the business of church through conferencing where members of laity and clergy come together in a democratic type process. Pastors are members of the Annual Conference, not the local church and serve at the appointment of the Bishop. The local church is governed by the Charge Conference and operated day by day through the Council with all other Committee’s holding allegiance to the Charge Conference through Council. This connection allows us to be stronger, to support one another and to grow in ways independent churches cannot. We combine our resources, our knowledge, our spirit and our faith to be the church God called us to be.

4.    Free Will – When God created Adam, God created him perfect. When God created Eve, God created her perfect. Perfect love is not full of strings that bind us to one another against our will. Perfect love is given with the hope that love will be given back. In order to assure that perfect love can be accomplished, one must have the right to choose. We believe that we have free will, that God gives us choice to decide whether to return God’s love or not. Our lives are not predetermined but God sees all possibilities of every choice. Free Will is the greatest expression of true love.

5.    Grace – The biggest element of the five is that we believe that we are saved by Grace alone. That we have Free Will to accept that grace but without the grace of God we would all be condemned. Our inherent nature is to be sinful, to be disobedient to the will of the one who created us. If not for the grace and mercy of God we would be subject to death, spiritual death, the true separation from God. But God is a God of second chances. God provides us that opportunity to live into that relationship with God through grace.                        We believe that there are three points in life’s journey when we experience Grace. Prevenient Grace is the offer of God from the moment we are conceived until the day we die. God constantly desires a loving relationship with us. God woos and courts us into that relationship from the moment that we are born. Justifying Grace is that moment when we finally accept the offer of God’s love. It is the moment when we understand what God is offering and we open our hearts to the gift and promise. We are justified in that grace by our faith in Christ. It is in that moment that we are reborn anew into the creation God intended from the beginning of the world. From that moment on we are working towards Sanctification. Sanctifying Grace is that path to perfection that all Christians strive towards, a path of perfect relationship with God where we submit ourselves to the will of God.

In addition there is the Quadrilateral that we use as a tool to determine our response to life’s challenges with Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason.  These things are the foundation of our Wesleyan theological understanding. It is what makes us Methodist among the denominations of the world. We share any number of these with other denominations but all of them together make us unique. It does not make us better, just Methodist. As we come to understand each aspect of our faith journey better, we become better followers of Jesus. As we explore and grow in our understanding we become closer to God and one another. Jesus said to us, Love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul and then love your neighbor in the same way. When we commit to that in our lives, we are changed forever. We become the people that the light of God shines through to those who live in the darkness.

I heard a story about a man who went to heaven. A man dies and goes to heaven.  Of course, St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates.  St. Peter says, “Here’s how it works.  You need 100 points to make it into heaven.  You tell me all the good things you’ve done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item, depending on how good it was.  When you reach 100 points, you get in.”  “Okay,” the man says, “I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her, not even in my heart.”  “That’s wonderful,” says St. Peter, “that’s worth three points!”   “Three points?” he says. “Well, I attended church all my life and supported its ministry with my tithe and service.”  “Terrific!” says St. Peter.  “That’s certainly worth a point.”  “One point?!”  “I started a soup kitchen in my city and worked in a shelter for homeless veterans.”  “Fantastic, that’s good for two more points,” he says.  “Two points!?!!” Exasperated, the man cries.  “At this rate the only way I’ll get into heaven is by the grace of God.”  “Bingo, 100 points! Good and faithful servant, come on in!” 

We are Methodist!

Random Thoughts

Well it has been an interesting three weeks as of today. The welcome here at Sydenstricker has been overwhelming. But it has been a busy time with unpacking, meeting people and attending all committee's for the first time to get to know everyone. So many people, so many names, my little brain is in overload. I have been continually asked what is the answer to church growth. I think the most important answer is love. If we love each other and begin to become family then we can become the church God has called us to be. I don't believe there is any magic formula that the Disciples in the first century had we don't except that we have forgotten how to love God without reservation and how to love our neighbors in the same way.

I apologize that I have not posted in a couple of weeks. I will be catching up this morning. Let me know how you are doing wherever you are in the world. Just say hi or God loves you to let me know you follow my sermons. Take care and God bless.

Freedom is never free

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC - First sermon at a new appointment

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^NRS1 Corinthians 7 ²² For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. ²³ You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. ²⁴ In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.

Good morning and welcome. Bonnie and I are excited to be here with you this morning. As we moved here we remarked on how this is another significant event in our Christian journey. In life, there are events that change the way we view the world, change the environment in which we live and change the way we view ourselves.  These events are sometimes so earth shattering, that we literally remember where we were and what we were doing.  The birth of a child, the news of the passing of a loved one, the assassination of a president, the collapse of a building on the family farm, the death of John Lennon, the destruction of the World Trade Center. These events can shape how we move forward in the future, and how we each remember the past. These events become permanent markers for us as we move through life reminding us at times where we were, what we were doing and what was going on in the world. But these events also remind us that independence comes with a terrible cost to those who walk this earth. What is the price of freedom, my friends?

In a movie that was on the screen some years back, we see the hero of the movie, William Wallace facing his death at the hand of those serving the ruthless King. At issue is the freedom of Scotland. Given the choice of recanting his disloyalty to the King or suffering a horrible death, he chooses to shout the word Freedom as his answer. What is it that makes a person face death and horrible adversity just to secure freedom for those he represents? For those of you that have served our country and faced war, it is knowing that what we have is precious and special. Freedom to live as we desire, worship are we desire and speak as we desire.

I want to read for you a piece of historical record that I thought would be relevant on this day. It was delivered from the President to Congress. “I address you the members of this new congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the union. I use the word “unprecedented” because no previous time had American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today. In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is the freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world. This is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”

So can any of you guess when this was given? Sadly, it was given to the 77^th Congress by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on January 6, 1941. We can only imagine that as he sat there, he could not have foreseen the destruction that would occur on December 7^th of that year. Nor could he foresee the world that we face each and every day of our lives today. And it is sad that he gave this speech in 1941 and that the world today is not any different than the world he knew. If anything we face increased terrorism, increased fear of economic and physical harm, and increased persecution for being Christian.

What is the price of freedom?

From the beginning of time man has shouted, imagined, dreamed and fought over their understanding of this word.  But it is much more than just a word.  The mere mention of the word can evoke raw emotion from those who hear it, often causing tears to form, and joy or sorrow to surface.  We all seek it, whether we are talking about our way of life, our right to speak, work and even our right to pray without restraint. Webster, sorry I know that dates me, defines freedom as the liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another: independence.

What is the price of freedom?

Our own American heritage is full of stories of how a diverse people banded together to fight for relief from oppression, religious persecution and slavery. They fought economic and physical hardships in an effort to be free. They gave their blood, their lands and their families in order to gain independence and be free.

What is the price of freedom?

What is the price of freedom we often hear asked? And in this new generation, as graphic depictions of war are shown, we see with our own eyes what the cost is. As a child of the 60’s, I used to see the nightly news and hear body counts and I did not understand. Today our men and women rarely talk about places like Normandy, Anzio, Pork Chop, Tet, Fallujah and Kabul except in quiet whispers among the knowing, those who were there. These are not exotic cities or places in the world but reminders of lost friends, brothers and now sisters. As I talk to men and women who have stood on the desert during Desert Storm and now Iraq and Afghanistan who have seen their friends and family knocked down by the onslaught of war, I hear them ask, what is the price of freedom?

Some years ago I teamed during a Christian weekend as a Spiritual Director. During one of our special moments, an older man came to me burdened with incredible guilt that he had carried with him for many years. He came there in front of me and began to sob. He shared that he needed forgiveness for a sin he had carried for most of his life. As he stood there, tears streaming down his face, he told me about a beach in a place called Normandy. He shared how he could still feel the biting of the sand as the bullets flew and his buddies died. And then he asked forgiveness for using their bodies to move up the beach, feeling and still hearing the thuds and feeling the bullets hit their bodies. In that moment we prayed not for forgiveness but for understanding and for peace and as the Holy Spirit came into him I knew that he truly understood the price of freedom. So often those that have returned from wars across the globe continually ask the question on holidays such as this, why me lord, what is it that caused you to let me survive when others did not. Why did I survive when others perished?

What is the price of freedom they ask?

Galatians tells us in the fifth chapter, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. …⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” The two scriptures today remind us that we are to remember what the price is that sets us free and what freedom really means. Freedom does not automatically give one an easy button that means that they will not experience sorrow or tears. It does not mean that our lives suddenly become easy journeys. What it means is that the price has been paid, that we who will experience physical death and we all will, will not experience spiritual death, but have everlasting life. We no longer need to be justified by someone else’s rules or by someone else’s social norms to understand who we are. We can continue to allow ourselves to be held in the grip of the world or release ourselves into the embrace of God who loves us.

I would like you to close your eyes as I share with you another story.  A man and his son are on a hill top close to their home watching events unfold in the city below.  On a far hill a crowd has gathered.  The weather had started out as beautiful day but now there are signs of an impending storm.  The son looks up at his father and asks, “Daddy, what is happening?”  We hear the father tell his son that he does not know, but everything will be ok.  As they look across to the other hill, a man on a cross suddenly cries out, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” And then shortly after that the man says, “It is finished.” Suddenly he is speared by a roman guard and his blood begins to flow. Clouds rapidly begin to grow in the background and thunder rumbles.  Can you see it? Suddenly clouds fill the sky, thunder splits the air as lighting strikes the ground.  People cry out in fright and begin to run in all directions. The ground shakes beneath their feet and the temple and the city below is torn in two. As the father and son stand in awe and fright and the world shakes about them, in that moment of time, our sins are forever washed away.

What is the price of freedom we ask?

And in the quiet of the hour, when no other words are spoken, with our hands in prayer asking what is the price of freedom, he says to me and to you, it is the price of one life, my friends, on a cross on a hill, a death like none other in this lifetime or forever, a man who was sinless, guiltless and could have chosen freedom just by speaking the words, but chose to remain there, punished, brutally beaten, hung to die of strangulation on a cross made for the worst of criminals in the Roman system. My friends and neighbors, this is the price of freedom. For the scripture says that there is no greater love than for a man to give his own life, that others may live. We paraphrase, we quote it, and for many of those whose names we celebrate this independence day, we live it. When next you are asked what the price of freedom is, you know the answer. As disciples we are pledged to tell the story of grace and love which hung on a cross two thousand years ago. A story of redemption, a story of restoration, and a story of relationships healed as we are forever forgiven. Christ came not to be only remembered as a teacher, he came not to be only remembered as a healer, he came to be remembered as the man who died and three days later was resurrected. The true story of Independence Day is that two thousand years ago, he lived the words he spoke. Two thousand years ago he answered the question for all time, what is the price of freedom. It is the price of one man, sinless and pure, on a cross. As his blood flows down the cross, our freedom is bought and paid for forever.