“A Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him he was moved with compassion.”
· Review from last week: “Why Bad Things Happen to Smart People”
◦ Direction, not intention, determines destination.
◦ Arrival at our desired destination requires us to align our direction with our intention.
◦ We must connect the dots of each decision we make along our path in order to reach our intended goal – the picture we have of how we want our lives to look
◦ Failure to connect the dots causes people to end up making decisions that lead to bad (and unintended) outcomes.
· The name “Samaritan” doesn't pack the same punch for us today as it did in Jesus' day. Instead of “Samaritan” you might try inserting “Al Qaeda” or “Hitler”; perhaps pimp or child molester or rapist. That deep-in-the-belly repulsion we feel is similar to what the lawyer who tested Jesus would be feeling at the mention of the Samaritan.
· This lawyer knows Jewish law inside and out, backwards and forwards, and every which way from Sunday, the way the late Senator Byrd knew the constitution of the United States.
· This Lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The lawyer already knows the answer Jesus is supposed to give; he's an expert in the law. You might even say that the Law is the lawyer's gospel. He may even figure that he knows the law better than Jesus does.
· What the lawyer doesn't bargain for is that the “teacher” is about to teach him something he doesn't know — the difference between the Law as gospel and the Gospel as law. The distinction is huge! It's one thing to recite the laws; it's a whole different country to live the Law. Anybody here ever exceeded the speed limit?
· We may know Christians who can recite Bible passages chapter and verse and think they know more about God and Jesus than we do – that they are better Christians than we are. Again, it's one thing to recite the words but it's a whole other story to live the Word.
· The lawyer seeks “to justify himself” (10:29) and asks, “And just who exactly is my neighbor?” And that's when he leaves the gospel in the ditch for his first love, the Law. As that happens, he gets lost.
·
· It is very easy to get lost along the way to our intended destinations.
Our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness sometimes sends us off in wrong directions, which as we know explains why bad things happen to smart people.
· Andy Stanley (The Principle of the Path) writes that what so often trips up us smart people is that we are on a happiness quest not a truth quest. The happiness quest trumps the truth quest and before we know it, we're the ones in the ditch on the side of a dangerous road.
· Look at Lindsay Lohan. Is this a woman who pursues her own happiness over facing her own truth? Did you see the shock on her face when she heard “90 days in jail” and her name in the same sentence? Did you see the expletive sketched on her fingernails? Did you hear her defiance outside the courtroom? “I am NOT going to jail!” She's the talk of the town — but not the way she had dreamed of when she started out.
· The truth is, she already is imprisoned! She can't admit it; perhaps drugs and alcohol help her keep the truth from herself. She fell off the path to stardom a long time ago and hasn't been able to find her way back — and she won't, until she can speak of the real reasons she's where she is today. She needs a good Samaritan to help her out of the ditch she's in and show her the way out of the dangerous place.
· Being deep-in-the-belly honest with ourselves is tremendously difficult. We want to have “lawful” reasons for making the choices we make; it's too hard sometimes to admit the real reasons behind what we do. Selfishness is not a Christian value. So we set out in defense of our personal happiness on what Stanley calls a “Justification Safari.”
· Basically, after we have decided to do something that we think will aid in our happiness, we have to set our brains to the task of justifying why it's OK to step off our intended path.
· For example, It's like trading in one SUV for a newer, flashier, more expensive model and justifying the higher car payment (that's not, by the way, on our path to financial security) by telling ourselves (and others) that we made the trade for better gas mileage. We can trade in one SUV for another for a number of reasons, but good gas mileage isn't one of them.
· And so it goes with the priest and the Levite. Each refused to help a fellow Jew; Luke doesn't tell us why each holy man “passed by on the other side” of the road, but we can make an educated guess that as soon as they did so, their justification safaris began. They told themselves, “Coming into contact with blood (or a dead body) would make me ritually unclean for my work in the temple”; but the real reason they avoided the man is, ”it's too dangerous to stop here and help that man because I could end up in the ditch myself.” “It will make me late for my appointment.” Etc.
· Because they are unwilling to pause in a dangerous place to help their brother, the two holy men show that they are more concerned with themselves than with the needs of their neighbor. Like the lawyer, they wanted a choice about which neighbors they had to love.
· The Samaritan, however, is willing to pause in a dangerous place to show mercy and compassion — to love his neighbor first -- before considering his own comfort, his own happiness. He sees the truth in the situation.
· When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity and common sense point in another, that's when smart people end up in really bad situations and start doing really stupid things.
· People have a hard time leveling with themselves, whether we are talking SUVs or the gospel.
· As long as we are lying to ourselves about why we are making the choices we make, it will be impossible for us to get to where we want to be. To find the path to where we want to go, we must break the cycle of self-deception. Pretending that our choices are prudent and lead to our intentions gets us sooner or later stuck in a dangerous place. That dangerous place is away from the God who gifted us for the journey and sent us his son to lead us in the Way.
· If you're pausing in a dangerous place right now, be honest about the situation. What's the real reason behind the choices you're making? Without this kind of brutal honesty with ourselves, we surely will make unwise choices.
· Like Lindsay, What we won't know will hurt us. Truth sets us free; lies hold us captive; each is a path. Which choice will we make? Which path shall we take?
· Being honest can be painful; we can feel beaten and bloodied and left for dead as we go through the cleansing process. But it's worth it, because
◦ When we learn to tell ourselves the truth, we will know exactly where we are and understand then how to get to where we need to be. We give up the justification safaris in exchange for the God quests. For one thing I know:
◦ There is a savior who is willing to pause in our dangerous places and lift us out of the ditches we have gotten ourselves into.
◦ There is a savior who, at the cost of his own life's blood, brings us to the inn where our wounds are dressed and we are fed, clothed and cared for until our savior returns to settle our account.
◦ There is a savior who does more than pay our bills, he forgives us our sin and heals our transgressions.
◦ Yet what does this Savior require of us? Simply this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
· The parable of the Good Samaritan is a story for travelers on the path — a scriptural GPS (global positioning system) if you will – “guiding us in the only direction God desires: the way of love and compassion for ALL (emphasis mine) others”#.
· This is his promise; this is his power; this is his path; and this is our hope. “Do this, and you will live” (10:28).
July 11, 2010
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
July 15, 2010
July 06, 2010
THE PATH II: Why Bad Things Happen to Smart People
2 Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
“But his servants approached him and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?
How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean?'”
*Let's begin by recapping a few items from last week's message:
Jesus had turned his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51)
Christians are most faithful when we turn our faces to Jesus and make Jesus the path in which we walk so that we can reach our rightful destination
The principle of the path is this: Direction, not intention, leads to Destination.
*Said another way, the actions we take and the decisions we make in our lives do not necessarily lead us to the destinations we intend for our lives. Consider this example:
The last thing they heard was the piercing whistle of an oncoming train. Moments later, dozens of mostly Latin American immigrants who crossed the tracks instead of using an underground passageway to reach a beach party in this seaside resort were dead or injured, their body parts strewn among the rails. Spain's deadliest train accident since 2003 took place during a nationwide ritual on one of the longest days of the year called Noche de San Juan, or the night of St. John, when the blazing Spanish sun sets at 9:30 p.m1.
The young people on their way to this beach party to celebrate the summer solstice had every intention of going out and having an awesome night; it was never their intention to be killed and maimed. The underground passageway was the correct path to take, yet it was clogged up with people and seemed to be taking too long to get through it to the beach. So they changed direction which led to a deadly destination. Direction, not intention, leads to destination.
Andy Stanley writes in his book, “Generally speaking, we don't abandon the clearly marked paths because we are looking for trouble. There's always something about the alternate routes that is powerfully appealing.”2
The healing of the Aramean General, Naaman, tells us something of the consequences of a decision to leave the clearly marked path, namely, the instructions of Israel's great prophet, Elisha. Fortunately for Naaman, his servants are able to talk some sense into him and get him back on the path to a cure for his leprosy. If he had continued in the direction he chose, Naaman would never have found the healing he needed — his intended destination... See if you can pick out the places where and why Naaman left the Path:
VV 10-11 Elisha sent a messenger to him saying “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean. But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, 'I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy.'”
Naaman left the path when he got angry, insulted by what he perceived as disrespectful treatment from Elisha.
Naaman expected that because he was a very important person, “a mighty warrior,” (v 1) that Elisha would make a big flashy show out of healing him.
Anger and Arrogance set Naaman on a different path, one that would not lead him to his intended destination, the healing of his leprosy.
V 12 I picture Naaman walking heatedly in circles, his armor clanking and protesting as loud as the man himself. He was shouting at no one in particular, while all his men watched. “'Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than ALL the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?' He turned away in rage.”
VV 13-14 Naaman gets going in the right direction; he gets back on the path with some wise guidance from his servants. He had come a long way; brought expensive gifts, and frightened the King of Israel to reach his intended destination. There had been a lot of fanfare, a big show, but none of that got Naaman to where he wanted to be. Yet, Naaman's men knew the Principle of the Path (this is not something Andy Stanley made up). “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean?'”
If we make ourselves our own destination, if we make decisions that lead us in directions that do not lead to the destinations we desire, all we end up doing is wandering around in a circle of life marred with regret, illness, and despair. Is that where we want to go, how we want to live? Of course not, yet the misdirected decisions we make reveal why bad things happen to smart people.
I do not believe God intends for bad things to happen to us, but when they do, God is always certain to lead us back in the right direction, if only we learn to discern his plan and agree to the adventure. God created for great things, yet “we all have a propensity for choosing paths that do not lead in the direction we want to go”3 and then we wonder where we wandered, how we got lost.
There are three points to remember about being lost: 1. We never get lost on purpose; 2. We never know exactly when it happens; and 3. The road we are on always determines where we end up.
You see, direction decides everything. The decisions we make are not isolated events — each one is a step in a certain direction; these steps when we take the time to connect them determine our destination.
Imagine you are looking in the rear view mirror of your car. What do you see behind you? Where you've been, of course Now, think about where you are in your life today and try to pick out the decisions you made — the steps you took -- that determined the direction(s) you have traveled along your life's journey, the ones that got you to where you are today.
If you were to plot them on a graph and then connected the dots, would the connected dots reveal the pictured destination at which you intended to arrive? We rarely end up in places different from the direction we have taken.
If you keep changing your major in college, it takes longer to get your degree doesn't it?You have to take more courses in the new field. If we keep changing courses in life, we postpone the arrival at our destination. When we get lost in life, we can't retrace our steps and start again without losing precious time. Connect the dots!
When we choose to connect the dots, when we turn our faces to Jesus and walk with him on his path, we could very well experience what the seventy disciples found when they went out among the people where Jesus sent them. Luke 10:17 captures the moment: “The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”
The demons people face today work to lead us in wrong directions. A walk with Jesus can either cast them out or help us to live with the consequences of our actions. Jesus heals every situation; all we have to do is turn our faces directly on him.
Jesus connects the dots in our lives; he leads us to fulfill God's plan for us. He is the one sure way to the destiny for which we are created, to have our “names written in heaven” (LK 10:20b). Amen.
Questions: Are there disconnects in your life?
Are there discrepancies between what you desire in your heart and what you are doing with your life?
Is there an alignment between your intentions and your direction?
July 4, 2010
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
“But his servants approached him and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?
How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean?'”
*Let's begin by recapping a few items from last week's message:
Jesus had turned his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51)
Christians are most faithful when we turn our faces to Jesus and make Jesus the path in which we walk so that we can reach our rightful destination
The principle of the path is this: Direction, not intention, leads to Destination.
*Said another way, the actions we take and the decisions we make in our lives do not necessarily lead us to the destinations we intend for our lives. Consider this example:
The last thing they heard was the piercing whistle of an oncoming train. Moments later, dozens of mostly Latin American immigrants who crossed the tracks instead of using an underground passageway to reach a beach party in this seaside resort were dead or injured, their body parts strewn among the rails. Spain's deadliest train accident since 2003 took place during a nationwide ritual on one of the longest days of the year called Noche de San Juan, or the night of St. John, when the blazing Spanish sun sets at 9:30 p.m1.
The young people on their way to this beach party to celebrate the summer solstice had every intention of going out and having an awesome night; it was never their intention to be killed and maimed. The underground passageway was the correct path to take, yet it was clogged up with people and seemed to be taking too long to get through it to the beach. So they changed direction which led to a deadly destination. Direction, not intention, leads to destination.
Andy Stanley writes in his book, “Generally speaking, we don't abandon the clearly marked paths because we are looking for trouble. There's always something about the alternate routes that is powerfully appealing.”2
The healing of the Aramean General, Naaman, tells us something of the consequences of a decision to leave the clearly marked path, namely, the instructions of Israel's great prophet, Elisha. Fortunately for Naaman, his servants are able to talk some sense into him and get him back on the path to a cure for his leprosy. If he had continued in the direction he chose, Naaman would never have found the healing he needed — his intended destination... See if you can pick out the places where and why Naaman left the Path:
VV 10-11 Elisha sent a messenger to him saying “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean. But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, 'I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy.'”
Naaman left the path when he got angry, insulted by what he perceived as disrespectful treatment from Elisha.
Naaman expected that because he was a very important person, “a mighty warrior,” (v 1) that Elisha would make a big flashy show out of healing him.
Anger and Arrogance set Naaman on a different path, one that would not lead him to his intended destination, the healing of his leprosy.
V 12 I picture Naaman walking heatedly in circles, his armor clanking and protesting as loud as the man himself. He was shouting at no one in particular, while all his men watched. “'Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than ALL the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?' He turned away in rage.”
VV 13-14 Naaman gets going in the right direction; he gets back on the path with some wise guidance from his servants. He had come a long way; brought expensive gifts, and frightened the King of Israel to reach his intended destination. There had been a lot of fanfare, a big show, but none of that got Naaman to where he wanted to be. Yet, Naaman's men knew the Principle of the Path (this is not something Andy Stanley made up). “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean?'”
If we make ourselves our own destination, if we make decisions that lead us in directions that do not lead to the destinations we desire, all we end up doing is wandering around in a circle of life marred with regret, illness, and despair. Is that where we want to go, how we want to live? Of course not, yet the misdirected decisions we make reveal why bad things happen to smart people.
I do not believe God intends for bad things to happen to us, but when they do, God is always certain to lead us back in the right direction, if only we learn to discern his plan and agree to the adventure. God created for great things, yet “we all have a propensity for choosing paths that do not lead in the direction we want to go”3 and then we wonder where we wandered, how we got lost.
There are three points to remember about being lost: 1. We never get lost on purpose; 2. We never know exactly when it happens; and 3. The road we are on always determines where we end up.
You see, direction decides everything. The decisions we make are not isolated events — each one is a step in a certain direction; these steps when we take the time to connect them determine our destination.
Imagine you are looking in the rear view mirror of your car. What do you see behind you? Where you've been, of course Now, think about where you are in your life today and try to pick out the decisions you made — the steps you took -- that determined the direction(s) you have traveled along your life's journey, the ones that got you to where you are today.
If you were to plot them on a graph and then connected the dots, would the connected dots reveal the pictured destination at which you intended to arrive? We rarely end up in places different from the direction we have taken.
If you keep changing your major in college, it takes longer to get your degree doesn't it?You have to take more courses in the new field. If we keep changing courses in life, we postpone the arrival at our destination. When we get lost in life, we can't retrace our steps and start again without losing precious time. Connect the dots!
When we choose to connect the dots, when we turn our faces to Jesus and walk with him on his path, we could very well experience what the seventy disciples found when they went out among the people where Jesus sent them. Luke 10:17 captures the moment: “The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”
The demons people face today work to lead us in wrong directions. A walk with Jesus can either cast them out or help us to live with the consequences of our actions. Jesus heals every situation; all we have to do is turn our faces directly on him.
Jesus connects the dots in our lives; he leads us to fulfill God's plan for us. He is the one sure way to the destiny for which we are created, to have our “names written in heaven” (LK 10:20b). Amen.
Questions: Are there disconnects in your life?
Are there discrepancies between what you desire in your heart and what you are doing with your life?
Is there an alignment between your intentions and your direction?
July 4, 2010
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
The Path, Part I
Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51
One third of Luke's gospel takes place while Jesus is traveling, and the first step of his journey begins with verse 9:51, when “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The road Jesus traveled was not planned out ahead of time. He didn't get a Trip Tick from AAA. He didn't use a GPS; he didn't even have a map; but then, he didn't need one.
It's not the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other road Jesus takes to Jerusalem that we contemplate today but the firm focus he follows that brings him to arrive “successfully” at his destination, Jerusalem, and to reach his ultimate destiny, the cross.
Jesus wants us to reach our own destinies as well. We do not have to go to the cross, because Jesus in his great love for us has covered that path for us. Something else is necessary. Today, through the urging of the Holy Spirit, my prayer is that as Christians and as Congregation, we can “set our faces,” not just on Jerusalem, but expressly on Jesus.
To “set one's face” means to focus intensely on a purpose, a goal, an achievement, an accomplishment, an intentional destination, and nothing can persuade you to veer off course, nothing can make you change your focus or make you turn your face away from your destination.
I invite you to contemplate your own paths as we spend our summer Sunday mornings exploring what author and pastor Andy Stanley defines as the Principle of the Path, which states simply, “Direction, not intention, determines destination.”1
I was talking about the Principle of the Path with Frank Thomas earlier this week. He looked it over (it's posted on my door) and then looked back at me and said, “To put it another way, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.'” Yeah; something like that!
The Path, you might have guessed, is more than a physical, geographical route. The path is our intention; that is, we set out intending to arrive at certain destinations: successful, wealthy, well educated, happy, Christ-like. However, sometimes we get distracted and make decisions that seem like
they shouldn't affect our intended destination, yet we so often find ourselves in places very different from where we intended to be.
And that's how the principle of intention works. “What's true geographically is equally true relationally, financially, physically, and academically.”2 It takes deep determination, as Luke would say, to “set our faces” and arrive where we said we were going to arrive – happily married, financially stable, physically fit, or academically accomplished.
In Luke's gospel, Christ is a walking, talking example of how to keep moving in the right direction despite the distractions that always seem to crop up.
When the Samaritans would not receive Jesus, the disciples wanted to incinerate the townspeople, but Jesus rebuked them. Why? Because such action would not get him to the Cross. Instead the moved on to the next village.
On the road, one man said, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus replied in such a way that the man needed to think about the hardship and homelessness the new disciple would encounter if he truly followed him.
Another man wanted to follow Jesus, but he was distracted, “First let me go and bury my father.” This man wanted to go in another direction first, before he followed Jesus; I wonder if the man wanted Jesus to wait for him while he took care of his father's remains. “Let the dead bury their dead.” If you're going with me, you have to go now — the direction is NOW.
Still another said, “I will follow you Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus' answer is the same. The direction is now, not later, not after certain things happen.
There are so many temptations, so many distractions, in our personal lives that if we are not disciplined and focused, we end up traveling in a direction that does not lead to the destination we desire. When we go back, look back, put our hand to a different plow, the path we end up taking probably looks something like Interstate 710 in Los Angeles, which I think must be an example of California's “You can't get thyuh from hyuh.”
The same dangers arise in our Congregational life. I truly believe that if we do not set our faces on Jesus, our wonderful church will be plow-pressed to reach its God-given destiny. When we go downstairs into the fellowship hall for our annual meeting, we will have tremendous opportunities to set our faces on Jesus. What we must be mindful of deciding on directions that will not lead us to our hoped-for destination.
This church, like all true churches, belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and not to us, and so FPFC's destination must be Jesus. Annual Meeting is the place to make a conscious choice to set our faces on the people and places that need Jesus as much as we do. “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery” Paul writes to the Galatians but his words are so appropriate for us as well. We have to watch out for yokes that want to enslave us:
Zero percent financing and no money down...
but he's rich...
She makes me feel like I used to feel...
That's how business is done here...
No payments for 12 months...
Yokes like these turn us in directions that we shouldn't be going, unless of course our intended destination is bankruptcy, divorce court or prison, to name a few. If we want to go with Christ, as Christian and as Congregation, we have to keep going in the same direction Jesus is going.
Plowing through life in directions that do not lead to the destination that Jesus bought for us with his own blood – everlasting life with God in the new Jerusalem — sets us up into works of the flesh instead of life in the Spirit. Paul writes that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit are opposed to each other “to prevent you from doing what you want” (Gal 5:18).
Doing what we want in the moment (the desires of the flesh) may feel good at the time, yet almost always leads us in a direction (behavior) that is not going to get us where we desire to go. And then we are shocked, dismayed or bewildered about what happened – it's kind of like seeing a moose at Long Sands: that's not supposed to happen!
If we want to be Christian, and Congregation, we've got to stay on the right path. We have to keep our faces “set on” on Jesus. We have to be careful about our choices and decisions. We have to choose the right path. “Simply put, you and I will win or lose in life by the paths we choose.”3
So, let's ask ourselves, Am I winning or losing in life by the paths I have chosen?
Then during the week, let's contemplate our answers to questions such as:
If I think I may be losing in life, how can I change the paths I have chosen?
Does my intention for my life line up with my current direction? [Can I get thyuh from hyuh?]
Is the path I'm on likely to take me where I want to go? Where Jesus wants me to go?
Next week, we apply the Principle of the Path to our daily lives and explore the puzzling phenomenon of why bad things happen to smart people.
We will look at what is causing the “disconnect” in our lives, in our relationships, and in our faith.
We will even discover ways to connect the dots between the choices we make and the outcomes we experience.
The principle of the path may not be as quantum as the theory of relativity, but it sure is a powerful way to put Christ's energy in our motion to get each of us – and our church -- going in his direction. This is how we get from where we are now to where we want to be: We set our faces, and our hearts, on the path to salvation. Amen.
First Parish Federated Church, South Berwick. June 27, 2010. The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor.
“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51
One third of Luke's gospel takes place while Jesus is traveling, and the first step of his journey begins with verse 9:51, when “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The road Jesus traveled was not planned out ahead of time. He didn't get a Trip Tick from AAA. He didn't use a GPS; he didn't even have a map; but then, he didn't need one.
It's not the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other road Jesus takes to Jerusalem that we contemplate today but the firm focus he follows that brings him to arrive “successfully” at his destination, Jerusalem, and to reach his ultimate destiny, the cross.
Jesus wants us to reach our own destinies as well. We do not have to go to the cross, because Jesus in his great love for us has covered that path for us. Something else is necessary. Today, through the urging of the Holy Spirit, my prayer is that as Christians and as Congregation, we can “set our faces,” not just on Jerusalem, but expressly on Jesus.
To “set one's face” means to focus intensely on a purpose, a goal, an achievement, an accomplishment, an intentional destination, and nothing can persuade you to veer off course, nothing can make you change your focus or make you turn your face away from your destination.
I invite you to contemplate your own paths as we spend our summer Sunday mornings exploring what author and pastor Andy Stanley defines as the Principle of the Path, which states simply, “Direction, not intention, determines destination.”1
I was talking about the Principle of the Path with Frank Thomas earlier this week. He looked it over (it's posted on my door) and then looked back at me and said, “To put it another way, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.'” Yeah; something like that!
The Path, you might have guessed, is more than a physical, geographical route. The path is our intention; that is, we set out intending to arrive at certain destinations: successful, wealthy, well educated, happy, Christ-like. However, sometimes we get distracted and make decisions that seem like
they shouldn't affect our intended destination, yet we so often find ourselves in places very different from where we intended to be.
And that's how the principle of intention works. “What's true geographically is equally true relationally, financially, physically, and academically.”2 It takes deep determination, as Luke would say, to “set our faces” and arrive where we said we were going to arrive – happily married, financially stable, physically fit, or academically accomplished.
In Luke's gospel, Christ is a walking, talking example of how to keep moving in the right direction despite the distractions that always seem to crop up.
When the Samaritans would not receive Jesus, the disciples wanted to incinerate the townspeople, but Jesus rebuked them. Why? Because such action would not get him to the Cross. Instead the moved on to the next village.
On the road, one man said, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus replied in such a way that the man needed to think about the hardship and homelessness the new disciple would encounter if he truly followed him.
Another man wanted to follow Jesus, but he was distracted, “First let me go and bury my father.” This man wanted to go in another direction first, before he followed Jesus; I wonder if the man wanted Jesus to wait for him while he took care of his father's remains. “Let the dead bury their dead.” If you're going with me, you have to go now — the direction is NOW.
Still another said, “I will follow you Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus' answer is the same. The direction is now, not later, not after certain things happen.
There are so many temptations, so many distractions, in our personal lives that if we are not disciplined and focused, we end up traveling in a direction that does not lead to the destination we desire. When we go back, look back, put our hand to a different plow, the path we end up taking probably looks something like Interstate 710 in Los Angeles, which I think must be an example of California's “You can't get thyuh from hyuh.”
The same dangers arise in our Congregational life. I truly believe that if we do not set our faces on Jesus, our wonderful church will be plow-pressed to reach its God-given destiny. When we go downstairs into the fellowship hall for our annual meeting, we will have tremendous opportunities to set our faces on Jesus. What we must be mindful of deciding on directions that will not lead us to our hoped-for destination.
This church, like all true churches, belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and not to us, and so FPFC's destination must be Jesus. Annual Meeting is the place to make a conscious choice to set our faces on the people and places that need Jesus as much as we do. “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery” Paul writes to the Galatians but his words are so appropriate for us as well. We have to watch out for yokes that want to enslave us:
Zero percent financing and no money down...
but he's rich...
She makes me feel like I used to feel...
That's how business is done here...
No payments for 12 months...
Yokes like these turn us in directions that we shouldn't be going, unless of course our intended destination is bankruptcy, divorce court or prison, to name a few. If we want to go with Christ, as Christian and as Congregation, we have to keep going in the same direction Jesus is going.
Plowing through life in directions that do not lead to the destination that Jesus bought for us with his own blood – everlasting life with God in the new Jerusalem — sets us up into works of the flesh instead of life in the Spirit. Paul writes that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit are opposed to each other “to prevent you from doing what you want” (Gal 5:18).
Doing what we want in the moment (the desires of the flesh) may feel good at the time, yet almost always leads us in a direction (behavior) that is not going to get us where we desire to go. And then we are shocked, dismayed or bewildered about what happened – it's kind of like seeing a moose at Long Sands: that's not supposed to happen!
If we want to be Christian, and Congregation, we've got to stay on the right path. We have to keep our faces “set on” on Jesus. We have to be careful about our choices and decisions. We have to choose the right path. “Simply put, you and I will win or lose in life by the paths we choose.”3
So, let's ask ourselves, Am I winning or losing in life by the paths I have chosen?
Then during the week, let's contemplate our answers to questions such as:
If I think I may be losing in life, how can I change the paths I have chosen?
Does my intention for my life line up with my current direction? [Can I get thyuh from hyuh?]
Is the path I'm on likely to take me where I want to go? Where Jesus wants me to go?
Next week, we apply the Principle of the Path to our daily lives and explore the puzzling phenomenon of why bad things happen to smart people.
We will look at what is causing the “disconnect” in our lives, in our relationships, and in our faith.
We will even discover ways to connect the dots between the choices we make and the outcomes we experience.
The principle of the path may not be as quantum as the theory of relativity, but it sure is a powerful way to put Christ's energy in our motion to get each of us – and our church -- going in his direction. This is how we get from where we are now to where we want to be: We set our faces, and our hearts, on the path to salvation. Amen.
First Parish Federated Church, South Berwick. June 27, 2010. The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor.
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