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NRS Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness
against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and
curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the LORD your God,
obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of
days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your
ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
An old
man was standing on a crowded bus. A young man standing next to him asked,
"What time is it?" The old man said nothing. As the young man
walked away, the old man's friend asked, "Why were you so rude to the
young man?" The old man answered, "If I had given him the time
of day, he’d want to know where I am going. Then we might talk about our
interests. If we did that he might invite himself to my house for dinner. If he
came to my house, he would meet my lovely daughter. If he met her, they would
both fall in love and frankly, I don’t want my daughter marrying someone who
can’t afford a watch."
As I
originally intended this sermon to go based on the scripture was to focus on
the idea that everything happens for a reason. All the time the reason is that we make a decision that has
consequences and sometimes the consequences make us question why we ever made
that decision in the first place. But most folks would say that this
statement came from Calvin who clearly felt that everything happened as a
result of God. We Methodists take a dim view of such propensity to feel that
everything in life has a God plan associated with it. If that were true then
you could most certainly get drunk, drive your car and kill someone and claim
it wasn’t your fault, because frankly speaking, God made me do it. Preposterous
don’t you think that we would believe that to be true. But often I hear people
say to me, well it was God’s will or it was God’s plan. Now don’t think that I
believe that God has no plan for the world, God most certainly does. But God intended the world to be able to
think and direct itself in many ways. God chose to give us a mind and free
will and hoped that we would make decisions based on the will of God. And too
often we do not! And too often when we do not we blame it on God!
God desires of us to lead lives worthy of the
calling to which we have been called. Namely, that we love one another and find
ways to witness to the power of God throughout our daily lives. That means we
do things because it betters the world around us, not necessarily because it
betters our own world alone. God proclaims in this message that we choose life
so that we may live. God wants us to know that God alone has set life and death
in front of us so that we might enjoy life the way God intended it from the
beginning of creation.
Oftentimes
I think that Solomon had it right when he wrote the third chapter of
Ecclesiastes. He writes there that everything has a season which I think the
modern world has misinterpreted as everything happens for a reason. It does,
but oftentimes the reason is because we made a decision that had consequences.
But I do believe everything happens in a season.
In 1965
a group called the Byrd’s made this passage more recognizable with a song
called turn, turn, turn. It reminded us that for everything there is a season,
a time to live and a time to die, a time for war and a time for peace, it’s not
too late. For those of us that lived through that time period we remember the
war, the struggle in America as the peace movement took hold and how a new
ideal tried to take hold in its wake. I
believe that we are in the midst of one of those transitions in America again
and we certainly need to be in a transition in the church. I remember when
I was serving as a Chaplain at Southside Regional; the Chaplain Supervisor
would often say that for everything there is a season. She would remind us to
not get bogged down in life so much so that we focused on something beyond its
time. That has been true in my life as well. There have been seasons for war,
for peace, for love and unfortunately for hate. There have seasons of mourning
and seasons of joy and celebration. But each season must come to an end at some
point and a new season of life begins. That sounds so depressing I guess and
yet we live in a world of physical seasons. We are moving quickly towards
summer when folks take advantage of the warm weather to enjoy the gifts from
God of water and sand. We have fall and winter and spring as well with their
unique gifts and promises that they bring. Each of us has different seasons in
our lives to look forward to. With God as a part of our journey, we know that
no matter the season, there is always hope and joy.
This
morning I want you to observe the world around you as you sit here in this place.
Look around at the beauty of the sanctuary, at the pews and the carpet, at the
people who are here this morning and at the bulletin which changes weekly. All
of these things change over time. What we see here today may not be the image
of this place we will see in fifty years. Folks here this morning may be on
different adventures and journeys in the next ten years. Some will be with the
Saints singing in the heavenly choir. I want you to look beside you and in
front of you and embrace the people there. Let them know that they are loved in
Christian love as they travel their journeys wherever they may travel. And then
tell them that you have now stepped into a new journey from the one that you
were on when you got here.
As a church we need to embrace a new journey,
new beginnings and new ministries and mission. Paul tells us that
when we receive the power of the Holy Spirit within us we become a new
creation. That new creation reflects and imitates Christ. We cannot stay where
we are or resolve to look to the past and hope that the past will be again.
Water under the bridge never flows back upstream, but it does evaporate and
then fall to earth as nurturing rain to begin the cycle all over again. And so
it is with the church. We lament, I love that word. It really means to whine
and there is whole book about whining in the Bible called Lamentations or the
Book of Lamenting. But when we lament about how good the past is or try hard to
stay in it, we often leave out the most important part. When we were children
and had those great Sunday school teachers, it was because we had people
willing to volunteer. When we had churches full of people we also had
activities and ministries that welcomed and invited people in. When we were the
center of the community it was because we reached out to the community every
opportunity we had. You see the common denominator to why church used to be so
wonderful and full is that our parents and grandparents did not focus on their
desires, ok they did, but the primary focus was on God’s desires not their own.
Our future is to reclaim that new creation. As a church we need to get back in
touch with God through prayer and discipline, reading and focusing on what God
wants us to do as a church. As part of this new season I want to be open to the
Holy Spirit working in us and through us. The ways we have always done it no
longer work. Carey Nieuwhof reminds us
that “Churches that love their model more than the mission will die.” That
means we need to recognize that everything has a season and if we are not
careful, holding onto a season for too long we will die as the new season
overcomes us like a vine chokes out a rose bush.
My
thoughts as I am listening to the Holy Spirit speak through the people of God
here at Sydenstricker is that most of us are willing to hear that call. It
means finding ways that allow us to love one another or get out of the way
because our season has past and support those who season is yet to come. It
means loving one another without regard to self and focusing on building
relationships that share that love with one another. It means asking God the
question, what next, rather than holding on to what used to be.
The
Discipline, our book of Law for the United Methodist Church sums up our purpose
this way: “The church of Jesus Christ exists in and for the world…The function
of the local church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is to help people
accept and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and to live their daily
lives in light of their relationship with God.”[i] Our primary task then is
to work towards being disciples of Jesus Christ and making disciples for the
transformation of the world. Here at Sydenstricker that means that we need to focus
on a new season with new understandings, holding onto those things of value
with an openness to do whatever it takes to bring people into relationship with
one another and ultimately with God, nothing less, nothing else.
A new
season has dawned. It is more confusing, more challenging and yet more exciting
and potentially more rewarding than the past. But in order to get there we must
reach out and embrace it. We can become the church that is the center of our
community but it means that we have to open to God’s call on our lives and the
life of the church. We are entering into a new season. There is a season, turn,
turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
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