Song of Solomon 2:8-13; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”
We like to keep ourselves looking good on the outside, don’t we? We put a lot of effort into it. Yet, today’s word of scripture is about improving how we look on the inside. We are warned by James to avoid being “Like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like” (1:23-24).
The Pharisees were big on looking good, that is, clean, on the outside. they believed that their religious rituals led to their personal perfection, which made them better than everybody else. It was as if being perfect in God’s law made them as perfect as God.
The Pharisees tried so very hard to protect themselves from defilement that they must have met themselves coming and going from one dirty washroom to the next. The problem was that the ways they went about being pure were contaminated with self-designed rules and regulations.
In the midst of all that ceremonial washing, When did they have time for God?
It is so easy to be distracted from God when higher honor is given to human traditions and religious rituals. In their efforts to prove themselves pure, the Pharisees actually poisoned others around them by spreading their own impurity upon the innocent and vulnerable.
James speaks to this truth: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (1:27). The Pharisees would never be in the same room with widows and orphans and the vulnerable for fear of being defiled by them. Every time they chose to wash their own feet instead of the feet of the marginalized of society, they defiled themselves. They defeated themselves.
Never one to miss a teachable moment, Jesus answered the Pharisees’ defilement challenge by naming true defilement. “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile…For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come” (Mark 7:15, 21a).
God did not design us to be hopelessly impure. Neither are we designed for perfection. Who wants a world filled with perfect people? God does not care if our hands and faces are dirty. What God cares about is the condition of our hearts. The one thing, above all else, that our God desires, is our hearts, clean and pure, ready to receive and then to share God’s abundant and perfect love for all people. So, how is it possible to share this good news.
We easily understand physical contamination, defilement, impurity in scientific, biological terms. Germs are bad; disinfectant is good. No one would prepare dinner in the bathroom, even though statistics show that the bathroom is often the cleanest room in the house. There is just a huge “ick factor” in the very idea. We all have standards of physical purity.
What, then, are the standards of spiritual purity? What if we felt as much of the “ick factor” about dishing out wounding remarks as we do about the proper ways to prepare our food? “Jesus is proposing that we intentionally build a culture that worries about whether our behavior is feeding grudges or a spiral of violence in the same way—but with considerably more intensity—that most of us were brought up to worry about food practices feeding bacteria” (Dylan’s Lectionary Blog: Proper 17, Year B).
Let’s take this even a step further. Most of us consider that if one impure thing touches a pure thing, then the whole thing is rendered impure. By the way, the five-second rule is really bad for you. I heard it on The Doctors. Let that assumption about purity carry over into how we treat people. Don’t we get caught, like the Pharisees did, in judging others as “less than?”
We are not called to live in such a way. I share with you these words written by Sarah Dylan who has such a brilliant insight to Jesus and his teachings that I dare not paraphrase and risk losing the clarity and truth of which she speaks.
It is possible to live in such a way, to display in our relationships a quality and consistency of love, that something the world writes off as irredeemable is transformed into something bearing witness to God’s power to redeem. If it’s what goes in that makes someone impure, then people need to guard carefully against coming into contact with the wrong sort of person, lest they come into contact with the wrong sort of things. But if what flows out of people in loving relationship with one another radiates purity, then we are freed to live making decisions based on love and not in fear. That I s an incredibly radical, liberating transformative insight—one I’m always trying to take in more deeply.
And there’s one further insight from Jesus’ view of purity that might be more radical still. If purity is something radiated out by how we are in relationships, then we actually NEED other people for a life of holiness. For example, If true purity is about exercising forgiveness, then we NEED to take the risk of staying in relationship with people the world thinks are hopeless to experience God’s holiness. If true purity involves exercising compassion, then suffering in the world isn’t proof that God doesn’t care, but is an opportunity to experience and proclaim just how much and in what ways God does care. If true purity is about relationship, then the challenges facing us as a church of flawed and bickering people are an opportunity to understand God’s grace more deeply and proclaim it more powerfully by insisting that reconciliation be the first, middle and final word. ..That’s Jesus’ teaching in this Sunday’s gospel; that’s the example we have in Jesus’ manner of life, which posed a profound challenge to his Pharisaic brothers much as it challenges the church today.
When we look in the mirror, I pray we do not walk away unaffected by what we see. I pray that we see the full potential of whom God creates us to be. I pray that we become carriers of contagious purity from this moment out, visiting one another with the only goal of how to build up one another in love.
In our God is the strength and power we need to meet every challenge that life presents us. Avoid the “ick factor.” Every time we look in the mirror, let’s strive to spend the rest of the day being as good-looking on the inside as we are on the outside, for God created us beautiful. Amen.
August 30, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
August 31, 2009
Suiting Up For Christ
Joshua 24:14-28; John 6:60-71; Ephesians 6:10-20
In Matthew 16, there is a simple exchange between Jesus and Peter, which ends with Jesus asking, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter answering, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Yet, at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, in the hands of the ancient church fathers, Peter’s answer is slightly adapted to help us understand who Jesus is and his position in the Trinity.
Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am?” And his disciples answered, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, or others say of the old prophets.”
Jesus asked, "But who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."
And to that answer, Jesus said, "Huh?"
So now that we understand how the three members of the Trinity relate to each other, let’s look at today’s three passages of scripture and examine how they relate to each other. I will focus on these three things: choices, witnessing, and faith.
The tribes make their emphatic choice to worship and serve Yahweh, even though Joshua defiantly goads their proclamation over and over again. “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God” (v 19). In the repartee, what happens? The people become louder and more emphatic in their witness to the covenant with Yahweh, “YES! WE WILL SERVE THE LORD! Then they confidently departed each tribe to their own land.
The crowds of disciples who have followed Jesus from the feeding of five thousand on the mount, across the sea of Galilee and then back again, the ones who begged Jesus to “give them this bread always” have been brought to the peak of faithfulness only to fall off the edge, trading faith’s fervor for great grumbling. “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (v 60). They had a choice to make.
Most chose to leave; they departed, each back to their own land, their regular life. Only the twelve remained with the Holy One of God—and one of them would deny him three times, another would betray him with a kiss into the “sworded” (and sordid) hands of Roman soldiers.
· The fledgling churches to which Paul wrote were persecuted
relentlessly. They lived in the midst of people who hated them and a government that hunted them. They were shunned for
choosing to follow that radical blasphemer, Jesus Christ; for their rejection of the letter of the law for the spirit of the law; for their strange (cannibalistic!) practices and offensive teachings. They must have been afraid at times, insecure and vulnerable at times, so Paul reminds them that the strength of the Lord God is with them at all times. Easier said than done, many would say, but Paul knows what he is talking about.
We do not need complicated dogma when we are in crisis; Paul tells us simply, with imagery we can understand, what we need to do: “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (vv 10-11).
I wanted to talk to you this morning about the shield and the helmet and breastplate, etc, probably because that would have been easier to do. However, I feel that God wants me to share with you instead how the armor of God makes us strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. How it makes us able to stand in the face of what would destroy us and brings us triumphantly through to the other side.
In June, in one day, I received two envelopes in the mail, and the contents of each caught me with my armor down. One letter was from the IRS and the other was from the Pheasant Hill Property Board. One said that I still owed them several hundred dollars after the several thousand I already paid them; the other said the condo owners were each being assessed $4000--$1000 each year for this year and the next three years and the first $500 was due July 1, just a few weeks away.
I didn’t have on my armor, I hadn’t suited up for Christ before I opened my mail, so I was not prepared to fight the good fight, physical, spiritual or otherwise. I began to cry and pace around my house. I was ready to give up. I began to succumb; I began repeating words I seemed to be hearing in my head, “You can’t do this; just give up. It’s impossible! Give up, give up, give up.” Over and over again, I heard the words—and I hated them but I was almost ready to believe them.
Then I heard a new voice, some new words, “He’s trying to trick you.” And I stopped in my tracks. Something came over me—was it the armor of God, the spirit of truth, the light of Jesus, the word of God, shining in my present darkness? Just when I was about to succumb to the wiles of evil, God spoke a stronger word to me. “Don’t believe it.” The Lord became strong in me.
I stood up straight, stretched out my arms toward the ceiling, the bad-news papers still clenched in my fist, and out loud I proclaimed (I even think I was gritting my teeth), “OK, God, then you do this!” And a sense of calm came over me. I stopped crying; I put the papers down; and I took a nap. Fighting the devil wears you out, you know!
You see, what I realized was that voice in my head, the one that was so cunning and devious, was trying to get me to believe that I was lost and alone, weak and vulnerable. I believe that voice, that deceitful cunning, is what Paul is warning all believers about when he speaks of the wiles of the devil. Only the whole armor of God can protect us when it comes to spiritual warfare.
All those bills have been paid now, God provided for me and God will provide for you, too. God provides because God loves. When clothed in the armor of God, no devil shall be able to prevail against us. Neither shall it overcome Christ’s church. True light will shine blindingly bright in this present darkness.
This is the good news today, God provides and God prevails. Why? Because the Lord our God is a jealous God and he never lets go of those who belong to him. God is so possessive of us that he sent his only son not because Jesus art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation,” but because he loves us beyond this world into the next.
So when Jesus asks you, “Do you also wish to go away?” give him not long laundry list of excuses, simply confess, as Peter did, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” The only answer left then is to follow him when we hear him call our names. Amen.
August 23, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of south Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
In Matthew 16, there is a simple exchange between Jesus and Peter, which ends with Jesus asking, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter answering, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Yet, at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, in the hands of the ancient church fathers, Peter’s answer is slightly adapted to help us understand who Jesus is and his position in the Trinity.
Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am?” And his disciples answered, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, or others say of the old prophets.”
Jesus asked, "But who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."
And to that answer, Jesus said, "Huh?"
So now that we understand how the three members of the Trinity relate to each other, let’s look at today’s three passages of scripture and examine how they relate to each other. I will focus on these three things: choices, witnessing, and faith.
The tribes make their emphatic choice to worship and serve Yahweh, even though Joshua defiantly goads their proclamation over and over again. “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God” (v 19). In the repartee, what happens? The people become louder and more emphatic in their witness to the covenant with Yahweh, “YES! WE WILL SERVE THE LORD! Then they confidently departed each tribe to their own land.
The crowds of disciples who have followed Jesus from the feeding of five thousand on the mount, across the sea of Galilee and then back again, the ones who begged Jesus to “give them this bread always” have been brought to the peak of faithfulness only to fall off the edge, trading faith’s fervor for great grumbling. “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (v 60). They had a choice to make.
Most chose to leave; they departed, each back to their own land, their regular life. Only the twelve remained with the Holy One of God—and one of them would deny him three times, another would betray him with a kiss into the “sworded” (and sordid) hands of Roman soldiers.
· The fledgling churches to which Paul wrote were persecuted
relentlessly. They lived in the midst of people who hated them and a government that hunted them. They were shunned for
choosing to follow that radical blasphemer, Jesus Christ; for their rejection of the letter of the law for the spirit of the law; for their strange (cannibalistic!) practices and offensive teachings. They must have been afraid at times, insecure and vulnerable at times, so Paul reminds them that the strength of the Lord God is with them at all times. Easier said than done, many would say, but Paul knows what he is talking about.
We do not need complicated dogma when we are in crisis; Paul tells us simply, with imagery we can understand, what we need to do: “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (vv 10-11).
I wanted to talk to you this morning about the shield and the helmet and breastplate, etc, probably because that would have been easier to do. However, I feel that God wants me to share with you instead how the armor of God makes us strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. How it makes us able to stand in the face of what would destroy us and brings us triumphantly through to the other side.
In June, in one day, I received two envelopes in the mail, and the contents of each caught me with my armor down. One letter was from the IRS and the other was from the Pheasant Hill Property Board. One said that I still owed them several hundred dollars after the several thousand I already paid them; the other said the condo owners were each being assessed $4000--$1000 each year for this year and the next three years and the first $500 was due July 1, just a few weeks away.
I didn’t have on my armor, I hadn’t suited up for Christ before I opened my mail, so I was not prepared to fight the good fight, physical, spiritual or otherwise. I began to cry and pace around my house. I was ready to give up. I began to succumb; I began repeating words I seemed to be hearing in my head, “You can’t do this; just give up. It’s impossible! Give up, give up, give up.” Over and over again, I heard the words—and I hated them but I was almost ready to believe them.
Then I heard a new voice, some new words, “He’s trying to trick you.” And I stopped in my tracks. Something came over me—was it the armor of God, the spirit of truth, the light of Jesus, the word of God, shining in my present darkness? Just when I was about to succumb to the wiles of evil, God spoke a stronger word to me. “Don’t believe it.” The Lord became strong in me.
I stood up straight, stretched out my arms toward the ceiling, the bad-news papers still clenched in my fist, and out loud I proclaimed (I even think I was gritting my teeth), “OK, God, then you do this!” And a sense of calm came over me. I stopped crying; I put the papers down; and I took a nap. Fighting the devil wears you out, you know!
You see, what I realized was that voice in my head, the one that was so cunning and devious, was trying to get me to believe that I was lost and alone, weak and vulnerable. I believe that voice, that deceitful cunning, is what Paul is warning all believers about when he speaks of the wiles of the devil. Only the whole armor of God can protect us when it comes to spiritual warfare.
All those bills have been paid now, God provided for me and God will provide for you, too. God provides because God loves. When clothed in the armor of God, no devil shall be able to prevail against us. Neither shall it overcome Christ’s church. True light will shine blindingly bright in this present darkness.
This is the good news today, God provides and God prevails. Why? Because the Lord our God is a jealous God and he never lets go of those who belong to him. God is so possessive of us that he sent his only son not because Jesus art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation,” but because he loves us beyond this world into the next.
So when Jesus asks you, “Do you also wish to go away?” give him not long laundry list of excuses, simply confess, as Peter did, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” The only answer left then is to follow him when we hear him call our names. Amen.
August 23, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of south Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
August 11, 2009
DRAWN BY GOD
I Kings 19:4-8; John 6:35, 41-51
No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me;
and I will raise that person up on the last day.
I want to tell you a story of a real man named Sadhu Sundar Singh, who was born in India in 1889. At the age of 15, he converted to Christianity after having a vision of Jesus. His father threw him a farewell party and then kicked him out of the family. It was Sundar's life work to travel around distributing gospels to people. He came upon some non-Christians on the train and offered a man a copy of John's gospel. The man took it, tore it into pieces in anger and threw the pieces out of the window. That seemed the end. But it so happened, in the provident of God, there was a man anxiously seeking the truth walking along the train tracks that very day, and he picked up as he walked along, a little bit of paper. In his own language it read, “The Bread of Life.” He did not know what it meant so he began to ask of his friends.
One of them said, “I can tell you; it is out of the Christian Book. You must not read it or you will be defiled.“ The man thought for a moment and said, “I want to read a copy of the book that contains that beautiful phrase!” and he bought a copy of the New Testament. He was shown where the sentence occurred—our Lord's words “I am the Bread of Life”; and as he studied the Gospel, the light flooded into his heart. He came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he became a preacher of the gospel. That little bit of paper through God's Spirit was indeed the Bread of Life to him, satisfying his deepest need (Adapted from Stephen Olford. Basics for Believers, 2003, pp 112-13).
Sundar Singh, it seems to me, was drawn by God for a very special purpose in spreading Truth. A holy encounter with God, God's angels, or Jesus himself happens over and over again in the bible and behind all the action is God drawing his people closer to him all the time.
Elijah was drawn by God to eat the bread of life even as the hunted prophet prayed for his own death. Under the shady, shaggy broom tree he fell asleep and either had a dream or awoke to the touch of an angel instructing him to, “Get up and eat.” His daily bread is provided near his head. He eats and falls back to sleep. Once more the words, “Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you.” Elijah does as he is told. We don't know if Elijah is still worried that Jezebel was in pursuit of his life or not. What we do know is that after the meal of bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water, he got up and went in the strength of that food for forty days and nights Horeb, the mount of God.
Long before Jesus, you see, God was in the business of providing bread for the journey and food for the soul. God could draw the hearts of even those who though they were once zealous for the Lord but later, at the end of the day, would rather die than face another day. God, our Father and Creator, draws his children closer through life-giving bread—quite unlike Sundar's father who sent the boy packing when he gave his life to the Lord.
Food has always been a big draw for people. In ancient times just about every decision, every business transaction, and every religious ritual was centered around food. How many stories in the bible can you name that have food as one of its central characters? You can only get as far as Chapter 3 in Genesis before food—a certain fruit—leads the world's first eviction notice. Food is intended to be for our good, yet when we look around today, many people in our country have turned our daily bread for sustenance into an hourly bread, an addiction. Obesity is epidemic among children and adults alike. The weight-loss industry is a $40 billion business in this country.
In 2004, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranked obesity as the number one health threat facing America. Obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually1 and costs nearly $122.9 billion.2
These statistics lead me to ask, What is it that we are so hungry for? What do we hear ourselves and others saying? “I'm so hungry; I can't seem to get enough to eat.”
It's pretty common knowledge that many people are overweight because they eat the wrong foods—and lots of it. Others eat to swallow their pain; some find their weight as a way to protect themselves from anyone or anything that might get too close to them.
We're a hungry people; we stay hungry because we do not feast on the right food. Yes, we need to make deposits in our bodies of the seven food groups for our physical health, but I think that we are still starving and foraging for food because we do not eat the Bread of Life.
I was thinking about the food chart and I began to convert it into a spiritual food chart. Try to imagine with me as I describe this spiritual food pyramid.
At the base of the pyramid are three blocks. One is “bread of life”; the next is “living water”; and the third is “new birth.” In the second tier there are two blocks. One is filled with “The Word” and the other is filled with “Prayer.” At the top of the pyramid is “Worship.” As with the food pyramid, I have assigned suggested servings of each block in the spiritual pyramid.
Worship=1 large serving on Sundays; mini servings on weekdays in the midst of other moments or specially set aside. (Psalm 100:4; Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.)
The Word: I recommend at least two servings per day, one in the morning and one in the evening so as to begin and end the day with God filling your soul. (Matthew 4:4—a man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.)
Prayer = all day long—at least once before every meal and at bedtime, and any time in between (I Thessalonians 5:17).
Born Anew= first thing every morning. (John 3) Remember that Jesus taught Nicodemus that if he wanted see the kingdom of God he would have to be born from above.
Living Water=8 times a day. (John 4) Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that if she knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to her, 'Give me a drink,' she would have asked him and he would have given her living water.)
Bread of Life=all day long; repeat as often as necessary. “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” (John 6:50).
Unlike the temporary bread and water, when we eat a balanced spiritual food diet, we cannot overeat. We will grow, that is true, not around our middles but in the middle of our being—the heart and soul of who God creates and calls us to be.
Many things in our world draw us in, but they are not always the right things or good things. It is a test of will for humanity has a tendency to resist the holy things. But it's all very logical, you know. If we want to have a healthy body, we have to feed it the good things, the right things so that it can function well and allow us the strength and freedom to be all that we can be.
So if we extend the metaphor, if we want to have a healthy spirit, we must also feed our spirits with the right and good things. Jesus is the one thing, the holy thing that can fill all our spiritual needs. He is the bread of life that God provides for the whole of our lives, both on temporal and eternal.
The Good News today my friends is that God provides the true Bread of Life—all that we need to survive and thrive in today's famished world. In II Peter 3 Peter writes, the Lord does not want any of us to perish...EVER.
We have been given this Bread of Life so that we may have eternal life, drawn by God's love for us through those beautiful gates we are supposed to enter with thanksgiving. When we eat of this bread we will be spiritually filled up. Gone is the desire to eat more manna that still leaves us hungering for who knows what, and come to us is the Way to take a 40-day journey through any wilderness to the mount of God. We will survive it because God is drawing us closer with each new day—it matters not how many Jezebels seek our demise; it's like the wind and the waves, no matter how wild a ride it gets to be, cast your Jesus bread upon the waters and just see what happens.
The journey will not be too much for us when we eat the True bread of Life that God has sent directly from heaven to feed us. Forget about eating pounds of fruitless fear; stop drinking gallons of worry, anger, vengeance or apathy. We must get up and eat this Bread of Life, otherwise the journey will be too much for us. And do not worry about having enough for the journey. We've already seen what Jesus can do with five loaves and two fishes.
Eat well of the Lord today and every day, my friends, for God is drawing us nearer by the hour. Amen.
August 9, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise
I Kings 19:4-8; John 6:35, 41-51
No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me;
and I will raise that person up on the last day.
I want to tell you a story of a real man named Sadhu Sundar Singh, who was born in India in 1889. At the age of 15, he converted to Christianity after having a vision of Jesus. His father threw him a farewell party and then kicked him out of the family. It was Sundar's life work to travel around distributing gospels to people. He came upon some non-Christians on the train and offered a man a copy of John's gospel. The man took it, tore it into pieces in anger and threw the pieces out of the window. That seemed the end. But it so happened, in the provident of God, there was a man anxiously seeking the truth walking along the train tracks that very day, and he picked up as he walked along, a little bit of paper. In his own language it read, “The Bread of Life.” He did not know what it meant so he began to ask of his friends.
One of them said, “I can tell you; it is out of the Christian Book. You must not read it or you will be defiled.“ The man thought for a moment and said, “I want to read a copy of the book that contains that beautiful phrase!” and he bought a copy of the New Testament. He was shown where the sentence occurred—our Lord's words “I am the Bread of Life”; and as he studied the Gospel, the light flooded into his heart. He came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he became a preacher of the gospel. That little bit of paper through God's Spirit was indeed the Bread of Life to him, satisfying his deepest need (Adapted from Stephen Olford. Basics for Believers, 2003, pp 112-13).
Sundar Singh, it seems to me, was drawn by God for a very special purpose in spreading Truth. A holy encounter with God, God's angels, or Jesus himself happens over and over again in the bible and behind all the action is God drawing his people closer to him all the time.
Elijah was drawn by God to eat the bread of life even as the hunted prophet prayed for his own death. Under the shady, shaggy broom tree he fell asleep and either had a dream or awoke to the touch of an angel instructing him to, “Get up and eat.” His daily bread is provided near his head. He eats and falls back to sleep. Once more the words, “Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you.” Elijah does as he is told. We don't know if Elijah is still worried that Jezebel was in pursuit of his life or not. What we do know is that after the meal of bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water, he got up and went in the strength of that food for forty days and nights Horeb, the mount of God.
Long before Jesus, you see, God was in the business of providing bread for the journey and food for the soul. God could draw the hearts of even those who though they were once zealous for the Lord but later, at the end of the day, would rather die than face another day. God, our Father and Creator, draws his children closer through life-giving bread—quite unlike Sundar's father who sent the boy packing when he gave his life to the Lord.
Food has always been a big draw for people. In ancient times just about every decision, every business transaction, and every religious ritual was centered around food. How many stories in the bible can you name that have food as one of its central characters? You can only get as far as Chapter 3 in Genesis before food—a certain fruit—leads the world's first eviction notice. Food is intended to be for our good, yet when we look around today, many people in our country have turned our daily bread for sustenance into an hourly bread, an addiction. Obesity is epidemic among children and adults alike. The weight-loss industry is a $40 billion business in this country.
In 2004, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranked obesity as the number one health threat facing America. Obesity currently results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually1 and costs nearly $122.9 billion.2
These statistics lead me to ask, What is it that we are so hungry for? What do we hear ourselves and others saying? “I'm so hungry; I can't seem to get enough to eat.”
It's pretty common knowledge that many people are overweight because they eat the wrong foods—and lots of it. Others eat to swallow their pain; some find their weight as a way to protect themselves from anyone or anything that might get too close to them.
We're a hungry people; we stay hungry because we do not feast on the right food. Yes, we need to make deposits in our bodies of the seven food groups for our physical health, but I think that we are still starving and foraging for food because we do not eat the Bread of Life.
I was thinking about the food chart and I began to convert it into a spiritual food chart. Try to imagine with me as I describe this spiritual food pyramid.
At the base of the pyramid are three blocks. One is “bread of life”; the next is “living water”; and the third is “new birth.” In the second tier there are two blocks. One is filled with “The Word” and the other is filled with “Prayer.” At the top of the pyramid is “Worship.” As with the food pyramid, I have assigned suggested servings of each block in the spiritual pyramid.
Worship=1 large serving on Sundays; mini servings on weekdays in the midst of other moments or specially set aside. (Psalm 100:4; Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.)
The Word: I recommend at least two servings per day, one in the morning and one in the evening so as to begin and end the day with God filling your soul. (Matthew 4:4—a man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.)
Prayer = all day long—at least once before every meal and at bedtime, and any time in between (I Thessalonians 5:17).
Born Anew= first thing every morning. (John 3) Remember that Jesus taught Nicodemus that if he wanted see the kingdom of God he would have to be born from above.
Living Water=8 times a day. (John 4) Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that if she knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to her, 'Give me a drink,' she would have asked him and he would have given her living water.)
Bread of Life=all day long; repeat as often as necessary. “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” (John 6:50).
Unlike the temporary bread and water, when we eat a balanced spiritual food diet, we cannot overeat. We will grow, that is true, not around our middles but in the middle of our being—the heart and soul of who God creates and calls us to be.
Many things in our world draw us in, but they are not always the right things or good things. It is a test of will for humanity has a tendency to resist the holy things. But it's all very logical, you know. If we want to have a healthy body, we have to feed it the good things, the right things so that it can function well and allow us the strength and freedom to be all that we can be.
So if we extend the metaphor, if we want to have a healthy spirit, we must also feed our spirits with the right and good things. Jesus is the one thing, the holy thing that can fill all our spiritual needs. He is the bread of life that God provides for the whole of our lives, both on temporal and eternal.
The Good News today my friends is that God provides the true Bread of Life—all that we need to survive and thrive in today's famished world. In II Peter 3 Peter writes, the Lord does not want any of us to perish...EVER.
We have been given this Bread of Life so that we may have eternal life, drawn by God's love for us through those beautiful gates we are supposed to enter with thanksgiving. When we eat of this bread we will be spiritually filled up. Gone is the desire to eat more manna that still leaves us hungering for who knows what, and come to us is the Way to take a 40-day journey through any wilderness to the mount of God. We will survive it because God is drawing us closer with each new day—it matters not how many Jezebels seek our demise; it's like the wind and the waves, no matter how wild a ride it gets to be, cast your Jesus bread upon the waters and just see what happens.
The journey will not be too much for us when we eat the True bread of Life that God has sent directly from heaven to feed us. Forget about eating pounds of fruitless fear; stop drinking gallons of worry, anger, vengeance or apathy. We must get up and eat this Bread of Life, otherwise the journey will be too much for us. And do not worry about having enough for the journey. We've already seen what Jesus can do with five loaves and two fishes.
Eat well of the Lord today and every day, my friends, for God is drawing us nearer by the hour. Amen.
August 9, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise
August 07, 2009
MANNA ON THEIR MINDS
Exodus 16:2-4; 9-15; John 6:24-35
“I am the bread of life.”
Humanity hungers for many things—food, shelter and clothing, of course. Yet, we have other hungers as well; we have emotional, intellectual, cultural, visceral needs all blistering for a salve.
Money will not soothe the burn. In an economy as wounded as ours is, something richer is needed. We have been taught where sustenance is to be found, yet it is often the last pantry we search for that seemingly elusive spiritual satisfaction.
There is a spiritual famine in our land, even right in our own community. People today are starving for God. How is it that they have not recognized the Bread of Life moving among them? Why is it so many remain as wilderness people—wandering and wondering—with only the next crop of manna on their minds?
People walk up and down the sidewalks on either side of our sanctuary every Sunday (I can see them when the windows are open in the summer.) Even though I am speaking with you, my mind wanders out there. I shoot off a little prayer for them—and even the dogs they might be walking with—praying that some day they may walk in here rather than right past here. I want them to have what we have. I hunger for them to feast with us upon the Bread of Life.
Jesus said to the crowds, “You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
That’s how it is with miracles, you know. We often miss them in their ordinariness.
Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a sermon titled, “Bread of Angels” on these two passages from Exodus and John. She, too, cautions folks about missing the point of manna and miracles. Listen to her words:
If your manna has to drop straight out of heaven looking like a perfect loaf of butter-crust bread, then chances are you are going to go hungry a lot.
When you do not get the miracle you are praying for, you are going to think that God is ignoring you or punishing you or—worse yet—that God is not there. You are going to start comparing yourself to other people and wondering why they seem to have more to eat than you do, and you may start complaining to heaven about that.
Meanwhile, you are going to miss a lot of other things God is doing for you because they are too ordinary…If on the other hand you are willing to look at everything that comes to you as coming to you from God, then there will be no end to the manna in your life…Nothing will be too ordinary or too transitory to remind you of God.
Take something as ordinary and transitory as a yard sale. FPFC has the yard sale of yard sales.
Yesterday, all over the Ouellette’s lawn you could see customers on their cell phones. “You should get down here!” They were saying. “It’s unbelievable!”
While I was there for several hours on Friday and Saturday, what I witnessed among people in our church was nothing short of miraculous.
Perhaps it seemed like we were raising money to benefit our ministries here at the church, but I also know that we were releasing miracles to benefit anyone who crossed our path. What I saw was people doing the work of God by believing in the one whom God sent.
I saw such faith as I witnessed the camaraderie of your working side by side, emptying the barn stocking the tables, laying out the furniture. We were red-faced and back bent; we were sweating yet smiling; we were determined and delighted and depleted. We are exhausted yet we are replete. How good this feels!
I could feel how much you love each other, and it doesn’t get much better than that for any pastor who leads a congregation.
I witnessed as you worked at the grill, under the canopies—sorting, folding, lugging, selling, assisting customers with their purchases—making their eyes light up with the price of a bargain, and sharing invitations to join with us at church.
You could ask any of the workers yesterday to testify to the encounters they shared with people and you would understand that miracles happen, even at yard sales.
You see, the Good News today is that God is always sending us something to eat.
Day by day, God is made known to us in the simple things that sustain our lives—some bread, some love, some breath, some wine—all those absolutely essential things that are here today and gone tomorrow. (BBT, p 11.)
On the surface it appeared as if we were “doing it for the church” or “to meet our budget.”
Yet, very truly I tell you, we were able to work so very diligently and devotionally for God because we are growing in our belief in the one whom God sent: Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life—and we want to work for this Bread always.
Because of our hunger for the Lord, it matters a little less what the difficult economy is doing. It matters more that people are being fed by the one who supports, sustains and satisfies spiritual life.
The world hungers for this food—always. Serve the people the same bread we taste today: the Bread of Life, sent by the one who created it all. Amen.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. Bread of Angels, p 10.
FIRST PARISH FEDERATED CHURCH OF S BERWICK, ME
August 2, 2009
Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
Exodus 16:2-4; 9-15; John 6:24-35
“I am the bread of life.”
Humanity hungers for many things—food, shelter and clothing, of course. Yet, we have other hungers as well; we have emotional, intellectual, cultural, visceral needs all blistering for a salve.
Money will not soothe the burn. In an economy as wounded as ours is, something richer is needed. We have been taught where sustenance is to be found, yet it is often the last pantry we search for that seemingly elusive spiritual satisfaction.
There is a spiritual famine in our land, even right in our own community. People today are starving for God. How is it that they have not recognized the Bread of Life moving among them? Why is it so many remain as wilderness people—wandering and wondering—with only the next crop of manna on their minds?
People walk up and down the sidewalks on either side of our sanctuary every Sunday (I can see them when the windows are open in the summer.) Even though I am speaking with you, my mind wanders out there. I shoot off a little prayer for them—and even the dogs they might be walking with—praying that some day they may walk in here rather than right past here. I want them to have what we have. I hunger for them to feast with us upon the Bread of Life.
Jesus said to the crowds, “You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
That’s how it is with miracles, you know. We often miss them in their ordinariness.
Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a sermon titled, “Bread of Angels” on these two passages from Exodus and John. She, too, cautions folks about missing the point of manna and miracles. Listen to her words:
If your manna has to drop straight out of heaven looking like a perfect loaf of butter-crust bread, then chances are you are going to go hungry a lot.
When you do not get the miracle you are praying for, you are going to think that God is ignoring you or punishing you or—worse yet—that God is not there. You are going to start comparing yourself to other people and wondering why they seem to have more to eat than you do, and you may start complaining to heaven about that.
Meanwhile, you are going to miss a lot of other things God is doing for you because they are too ordinary…If on the other hand you are willing to look at everything that comes to you as coming to you from God, then there will be no end to the manna in your life…Nothing will be too ordinary or too transitory to remind you of God.
Take something as ordinary and transitory as a yard sale. FPFC has the yard sale of yard sales.
Yesterday, all over the Ouellette’s lawn you could see customers on their cell phones. “You should get down here!” They were saying. “It’s unbelievable!”
While I was there for several hours on Friday and Saturday, what I witnessed among people in our church was nothing short of miraculous.
Perhaps it seemed like we were raising money to benefit our ministries here at the church, but I also know that we were releasing miracles to benefit anyone who crossed our path. What I saw was people doing the work of God by believing in the one whom God sent.
I saw such faith as I witnessed the camaraderie of your working side by side, emptying the barn stocking the tables, laying out the furniture. We were red-faced and back bent; we were sweating yet smiling; we were determined and delighted and depleted. We are exhausted yet we are replete. How good this feels!
I could feel how much you love each other, and it doesn’t get much better than that for any pastor who leads a congregation.
I witnessed as you worked at the grill, under the canopies—sorting, folding, lugging, selling, assisting customers with their purchases—making their eyes light up with the price of a bargain, and sharing invitations to join with us at church.
You could ask any of the workers yesterday to testify to the encounters they shared with people and you would understand that miracles happen, even at yard sales.
You see, the Good News today is that God is always sending us something to eat.
Day by day, God is made known to us in the simple things that sustain our lives—some bread, some love, some breath, some wine—all those absolutely essential things that are here today and gone tomorrow. (BBT, p 11.)
On the surface it appeared as if we were “doing it for the church” or “to meet our budget.”
Yet, very truly I tell you, we were able to work so very diligently and devotionally for God because we are growing in our belief in the one whom God sent: Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life—and we want to work for this Bread always.
Because of our hunger for the Lord, it matters a little less what the difficult economy is doing. It matters more that people are being fed by the one who supports, sustains and satisfies spiritual life.
The world hungers for this food—always. Serve the people the same bread we taste today: the Bread of Life, sent by the one who created it all. Amen.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. Bread of Angels, p 10.
FIRST PARISH FEDERATED CHURCH OF S BERWICK, ME
August 2, 2009
Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
July 06, 2009
A Tale of Two Kings
II Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Mark 6:1-13
“He ordered them to take nothing for their journey…”
On July 4, 1776, King George III of Great Britain made an entry in his daily journal: “Nothing of importance happened today.”
What people of the king’s time thought of him sometimes mattered which side of the “pond” they were on. The patriots in the Revolutionary War would make effigies of him and burn them. They would throw rocks at pictures of the monarch and burn down the houses of known loyalists in the colonies. To all those people in the colonies, he was not a hero, but an evil tyrant.
The Loyalists in the Revolutionary War loved the King. They would hang pictures of him on their walls and would salute the flag of Great Britain every day. They would hold tea parties for King George III. For most Loyalists, he was a hero, almost a god.
So which kind of king was he? An evil tyrant or an idolized hero? I think he was probably both, depending upon which side of the “pond” one swam in. Most of us have had the experience of perceiving someone one way and then hearing someone else describe that same person as the exact opposite. Who is right? Is anybody wrong? Humanity is complex; we can be both depending on which side of the relationship we’re on.
Two of today’s lessons focus on kings. As I studied the passages this week, I began to sense similarities and differences, so I lined up qualities of King David in one column and Jesus in another, each as inferred or stated in just the scripture we read today.
First, I wrote down general knowledge or background information that we know about them.
They were both related (remember the lineage chart at the beginning of Matthew); they were 30 years old at the beginning their official work; they were both identified as shepherds—David of sheep and Jesus of people; and they were both kings. Yet, the kind of kings they were, were quite different, depending on which side of the Galilean Lake one lived.
Let’s look at the two passages again for noting dissimilarities. What do you see in David’s story that is oppositional to what happens in the story about Jesus?
In David’s story, the 12 tribes come to David at Mount Hebron, the fourth holiest place in Judea (Abraham Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, etc all buried in a cave there), and proclaim, “Look, we are your bone and flesh” (v 1b). David’s reputation of being a great warrior was known far and wide. His flesh and bone wanted to be in covenant with him.
In Jesus’ story, Jesus returned to Nazareth, where he grew up and where a lot of his relatives still lived, and they said, “Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas (Jude) and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?”
His flesh and bone rejected this hometown boy; he was no hero to them. Instead, they thought he was either crazy or arrogant or both and they took offense at him (v 3c).
The tribes made a covenant with David. “So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.
When Nazareth rejected Jesus, he was heard to say, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house” (v 4).
David built a city for himself and named it, “City of David.”
Jesus, on the other hand, was chased out of more cities and towns than one could count; people were always plotting against him, trying to kill him, to get rid of him. His rejection in his own hometown made it impossible for him to reach and teach the people about the kingdom of God coming near. He was too familiar to them.
What he was teaching and claiming just didn’t jive with how they remembered the carpenter’s son. Mark writes that, “He could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them” (v 5).
Finally, in verse 5:10, these words are written, “And David became greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.”
When Jesus went to the cross, he was heard to say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And when Jesus was hung on that tree to die, they hung a sign over his head. Do you remember what it said? “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
The scribes and the Pharisees despised Jesus, Jesus was too radical; he was disloyal; he would not answer to any earthly king, let alone the keepers of the law.
And the people felt betrayed: He was not the military Messiah they were expecting to conquer the world and set it at their feet. I wouldn’t doubt it if somebody went home that Friday night and said to their family, “Nothing of importance happened today.”
There’s one more important difference between King David and King Jesus. David became greater because the “Lord was with him.” Jesus on the other hand, is the Lord. And that’s the good news today, friends: Jesus is the living Lord who reigns in heaven and walks with us everyday.
Is it not good to know not only that the republic for which our flag stands survives 233 years after our declaration of independence from Ol’ King George, and also that our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ, stands and reigns to this day, 2000 years later.
He is alive and because he is alive we can worship him and put our trust in him, but he needs to see that we’re alive with our faith and our loyalty and commitment to the very mission for which he came to earth, for which he sent out the twelve disciples two by two: to save all people from their sins that they may one day live with him in paradise.
The mission may be filled with discomfort and rejection, but we need to take nothing for the journey—no bread, no bag, no money in our belts—except the staff of faith for protection and direction, and a tunic of hope for endurance and assurance. Let’s take this journey, friends; let’s live for the Lord, and let something of great importance happen today, Confess that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, forever and ever, Hallelujah! Amen.
“He ordered them to take nothing for their journey…”
On July 4, 1776, King George III of Great Britain made an entry in his daily journal: “Nothing of importance happened today.”
What people of the king’s time thought of him sometimes mattered which side of the “pond” they were on. The patriots in the Revolutionary War would make effigies of him and burn them. They would throw rocks at pictures of the monarch and burn down the houses of known loyalists in the colonies. To all those people in the colonies, he was not a hero, but an evil tyrant.
The Loyalists in the Revolutionary War loved the King. They would hang pictures of him on their walls and would salute the flag of Great Britain every day. They would hold tea parties for King George III. For most Loyalists, he was a hero, almost a god.
So which kind of king was he? An evil tyrant or an idolized hero? I think he was probably both, depending upon which side of the “pond” one swam in. Most of us have had the experience of perceiving someone one way and then hearing someone else describe that same person as the exact opposite. Who is right? Is anybody wrong? Humanity is complex; we can be both depending on which side of the relationship we’re on.
Two of today’s lessons focus on kings. As I studied the passages this week, I began to sense similarities and differences, so I lined up qualities of King David in one column and Jesus in another, each as inferred or stated in just the scripture we read today.
First, I wrote down general knowledge or background information that we know about them.
They were both related (remember the lineage chart at the beginning of Matthew); they were 30 years old at the beginning their official work; they were both identified as shepherds—David of sheep and Jesus of people; and they were both kings. Yet, the kind of kings they were, were quite different, depending on which side of the Galilean Lake one lived.
Let’s look at the two passages again for noting dissimilarities. What do you see in David’s story that is oppositional to what happens in the story about Jesus?
In David’s story, the 12 tribes come to David at Mount Hebron, the fourth holiest place in Judea (Abraham Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, etc all buried in a cave there), and proclaim, “Look, we are your bone and flesh” (v 1b). David’s reputation of being a great warrior was known far and wide. His flesh and bone wanted to be in covenant with him.
In Jesus’ story, Jesus returned to Nazareth, where he grew up and where a lot of his relatives still lived, and they said, “Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas (Jude) and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?”
His flesh and bone rejected this hometown boy; he was no hero to them. Instead, they thought he was either crazy or arrogant or both and they took offense at him (v 3c).
The tribes made a covenant with David. “So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.
When Nazareth rejected Jesus, he was heard to say, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house” (v 4).
David built a city for himself and named it, “City of David.”
Jesus, on the other hand, was chased out of more cities and towns than one could count; people were always plotting against him, trying to kill him, to get rid of him. His rejection in his own hometown made it impossible for him to reach and teach the people about the kingdom of God coming near. He was too familiar to them.
What he was teaching and claiming just didn’t jive with how they remembered the carpenter’s son. Mark writes that, “He could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them” (v 5).
Finally, in verse 5:10, these words are written, “And David became greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.”
When Jesus went to the cross, he was heard to say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And when Jesus was hung on that tree to die, they hung a sign over his head. Do you remember what it said? “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
The scribes and the Pharisees despised Jesus, Jesus was too radical; he was disloyal; he would not answer to any earthly king, let alone the keepers of the law.
And the people felt betrayed: He was not the military Messiah they were expecting to conquer the world and set it at their feet. I wouldn’t doubt it if somebody went home that Friday night and said to their family, “Nothing of importance happened today.”
There’s one more important difference between King David and King Jesus. David became greater because the “Lord was with him.” Jesus on the other hand, is the Lord. And that’s the good news today, friends: Jesus is the living Lord who reigns in heaven and walks with us everyday.
Is it not good to know not only that the republic for which our flag stands survives 233 years after our declaration of independence from Ol’ King George, and also that our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ, stands and reigns to this day, 2000 years later.
He is alive and because he is alive we can worship him and put our trust in him, but he needs to see that we’re alive with our faith and our loyalty and commitment to the very mission for which he came to earth, for which he sent out the twelve disciples two by two: to save all people from their sins that they may one day live with him in paradise.
The mission may be filled with discomfort and rejection, but we need to take nothing for the journey—no bread, no bag, no money in our belts—except the staff of faith for protection and direction, and a tunic of hope for endurance and assurance. Let’s take this journey, friends; let’s live for the Lord, and let something of great importance happen today, Confess that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, forever and ever, Hallelujah! Amen.
June 30, 2009
OVERCOME WITH AMAZEMENT
Mark 5:21-43; 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
“Then, one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw Jesus, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”
“She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Jesus preached the shortest sermon of his life when he said to Jairus, “Do not fear; only believe.” Five words, two commands, one broken-hearted father. Can you imagine how he must have been feeling that day? There he was, a ruler of the synagogue—a position in his day that carried a lot of prestige and power.
Jairus’ responsibilities involved being the administrative head of the synagogue. He was the president of the board of elders and responsible for the good management of the synagogue. Not only that, he was responsible for the conduct of services—he did not usually take part in them, however; but he was the one who assigned the ritual duties and made sure that, in our terms, the bulletin was followed exactly as written—nothing changed, nothing omitted.
Jairus was a man of great importance in his synagogue, but “something happened to him when his daughter fell ill” (Barclay, p 126). No longer would he view Jesus as an outsider, a dangerous insurgent who confronted and threatened the Jewish hierarchy. None of that “rebellion” mattered any more because his beloved child was “at the point of death” (Mk 5:23a).
Jairus, the dignified ruler of the synagogue, feeling powerless and caring nothing for his personal dignity and pride, completely overcome with grief, dropped all his prejudices about this wandering rabbi and fell at Jesus’ feet, weeping, begging him to heal his 12-year-old daughter: “Come and lay your hands upon her, so that she may be made well, and live” (Mk 5:23b).
Now let’s turn for a moment to the unnamed woman, because that’s how Mark tells the story of these healings, right? Her story interrupts Jairus’ story.
This woman is outcast in her society. Her family, friends, those who knew her were bound by Jewish law to take a wide berth around her. She was unclean! Banished! Nobody else even sees her; it’s like she is invisible, and she is sick unto death. She, like Jairus, believed that Jesus had healing powers that could change her life.
Where did this woman get the strength to make her way to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, then to push her way through the “great crowd gathered around him” (Mk 521b)? Imagine the press of the flesh! It was a lot like trying to make your way through the crowds at the Strawberry Festival!
She had to break through all kinds of human barriers and laws that were in place to keep certain people out, people who were undesirable, leprous, possessed, different—and nothing sent people running like a dead body or a bleeding woman.
She was weak but she had faith, and in her weakened condition she encouraged herself toward Jesus. He was the only hope she had left, “for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well’” (Mk 528).
Jairus, his unnamed daughter and the bleeding woman fared far better than what happened to a 16-year-old boy in Connecticut a few days ago. He was the subject of an exorcism at the Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Connecticut. This "healing" is supposed to chase out the gay demon that purportedly possesses the boy. The exorcism was filmed and posted on line by the church!
The video, which is very disturbing, shows the 16-year-old lying on the floor, his body convulsing, while members of the small Connecticut church stand over him, yelling, screaming, at the tops of their voices for the demon to come out of him. Apostle and Prophetess of the church, Patricia McKinney, said, “We don’t hate homosexuals. I just don’t like their lifestyle.” She also defended the action by saying that the youth is 18. The boy confirmed he is 16, but otherwise declined to comment, citing the advice of his pastor [emphasis mine] (Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 3:57 PM on 25th June 2009). Well, somebody’s not exactly speaking the truth.
The point is that what happened in the MGM church in Bridgeport, CT, was not anything like how Jesus healed people. There was abuse disguised as love in that church’s dealing with the boy. But with Jesus miracles, not exorcisms, are the path to healing and new life; Jesus uses Kingdom ways to release us from our dis-ease.
When the woman simply reached and barely touched Jesus’ cloak, the Lord felt it. Even in the midst trying to move through the crowd, he was “Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’” Mk 5:30).
Jesus knows a “faith touch” when he feels it. He is not an impersonal healer; he’s not into screaming at demons, either. Jesus wanted to know the identity of who touched his clothes and received power from him, not because he was angry but because Jesus is a personal healer. He knows the whole truth about each of us; and he responds in Kingdom ways to our deepest needs and hurts. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mk 5:34).
When Jairus fell begging at Jesus’ feet, Jesus immediately picked him up and set out with Jairus to heal the daughter. Imagine Jairus’ anguish when Jesus stopped to find out who touched his clothes. Even the disciples were incredulous about Jesus’ question. Can’t you just hear them now, “Are you kidding me? Look at all these people…you want to know which one of them touched you!?” But Jesus does not operate within the human barrier of time.
The woman came forward “in fear and trembling” (5:33) and told him the whole truth about her life. As Jesus was blessing the woman into a new, a “clean” life, he overheard the news from Jairus’ messsengers that it was too late; no one could save his daughter now: she was dead. Yet, Jesus softly spoke to the now small-and-broken father who no longer resembled a ruler of anything, “Do not fear; only believe” (Mk 5:36b).
Jesus is our healer, too. He is the one who is always there for us when we are feeling ostracized or outcast, isolated and ashamed, sick and sorrow-filled. Jesus iis the one who is always there for us when we feel broken and defeated. All he asks of us is to tell the whole truth about our lives. We put into words that have sound the truth we know hides way and deep inside. Is there something that you need to tell Jesus today? Is there something that is dying inside of you that needs a resurrection? Are you afraid? Do you need a faith touch? Ask for his help, seek his healing power; knock at the door of new life and it shall be opened to you.
Barbara Brown Taylor, voted one of the twelve best preachers in America, says of this passage that “Mark addressed all of us who suffer from the human condition, who are up against things we cannot control” (“One Step at a Time” from The Preaching Life).
Each and every one of us as individuals and as a community have been in situations that seemed impossible to heal. Are you in one right now? Is there a place where you have little or no control and you are frightened of the possibilities? Are you even confused about what being healed by Jesus means? One theologian (John Pilch) tells us that “Healing is the restoration of meaning to people’s lives, no matter what their physical condition might be” (SAMUEL @ www.ucc.org. Reaching out in faith involves incredible risk. Are you willing to take the risk to receive healing and new life from Christ?
Imagine yourself as the father of the 12-year-old girl. Do you not feel winded by the long run to the sea—your lungs burn and your muscles cramp, and yet you push yourself to go faster because you are on a life-and-death errand. Aren’t you afraid that something might happen to her while you are away from home? Isn’t your heart already breaking because you feel so helpless to do anything to save your child’s life? Do you feel like a “bad father” and are you filled with regret over the things you did not do…or did do that you shouldn’t have? Will you risk it all—your job, your reputation, your personal pride, your own life even—to turn your life over to Jesus?
Imagine yourself as the woman who has been ostracized for 12 years with no one coming near her, disdaining her. And you’re so very, very tired. Your disease has taken everything you’ve got—your health, your money, your relationships—to get to this point of desperation. The only thing that has not been stolen from you is your faith. Will you risk it to reach out and simply touch the hem of the master’s cloak?
Imagine you are the sick child. You do not know what is wrong with you; you don’t understand why you’re hurting so bad, you’re burning up with fever, and you’re scared because this time Mom and Dad cannot fix it. You’re suddenly faced with the realization that death make take you away from all you know and all whom you love. You are overwhelmed by the darkness all around you. Will you risk your life to be touched by Jesus and hear him say, “Talitha koum!”? I should think that it would have been better for that 16-year-old boy to hear, “Son, get up!” rather than “Get out of his belly, you gay demon!”
The good news today is that Jesus’ power to heal our lives can cross any and all human barriers we put in his way. We can trust Jesus with the whole truth of our lives, and he WILL make us well one way or another. Remember the words of the Lord for your own healing today:
“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
“Son, do not fear; only believe.”
“Little girl, get up!” (Little boy, get up!”)
Tell Jesus the whole truth; run to the Lord with every concern; be touched by Christ. In his words and in his touch we can seek—and find—the freedom of new life that comes from the healing power of a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ. And if these words don’t convince you of what Jesus can do in your life, how about these, Run; Reach; Rise and do everything in his name and as your heart warms with a growing faith, you will not only be made well, you will also be overcome by amazement because with your new way of life, you will see how the Kingdom of God has come near to you. Amen.
June 28, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, Maine
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
“Then, one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw Jesus, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”
“She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Jesus preached the shortest sermon of his life when he said to Jairus, “Do not fear; only believe.” Five words, two commands, one broken-hearted father. Can you imagine how he must have been feeling that day? There he was, a ruler of the synagogue—a position in his day that carried a lot of prestige and power.
Jairus’ responsibilities involved being the administrative head of the synagogue. He was the president of the board of elders and responsible for the good management of the synagogue. Not only that, he was responsible for the conduct of services—he did not usually take part in them, however; but he was the one who assigned the ritual duties and made sure that, in our terms, the bulletin was followed exactly as written—nothing changed, nothing omitted.
Jairus was a man of great importance in his synagogue, but “something happened to him when his daughter fell ill” (Barclay, p 126). No longer would he view Jesus as an outsider, a dangerous insurgent who confronted and threatened the Jewish hierarchy. None of that “rebellion” mattered any more because his beloved child was “at the point of death” (Mk 5:23a).
Jairus, the dignified ruler of the synagogue, feeling powerless and caring nothing for his personal dignity and pride, completely overcome with grief, dropped all his prejudices about this wandering rabbi and fell at Jesus’ feet, weeping, begging him to heal his 12-year-old daughter: “Come and lay your hands upon her, so that she may be made well, and live” (Mk 5:23b).
Now let’s turn for a moment to the unnamed woman, because that’s how Mark tells the story of these healings, right? Her story interrupts Jairus’ story.
This woman is outcast in her society. Her family, friends, those who knew her were bound by Jewish law to take a wide berth around her. She was unclean! Banished! Nobody else even sees her; it’s like she is invisible, and she is sick unto death. She, like Jairus, believed that Jesus had healing powers that could change her life.
Where did this woman get the strength to make her way to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, then to push her way through the “great crowd gathered around him” (Mk 521b)? Imagine the press of the flesh! It was a lot like trying to make your way through the crowds at the Strawberry Festival!
She had to break through all kinds of human barriers and laws that were in place to keep certain people out, people who were undesirable, leprous, possessed, different—and nothing sent people running like a dead body or a bleeding woman.
She was weak but she had faith, and in her weakened condition she encouraged herself toward Jesus. He was the only hope she had left, “for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well’” (Mk 528).
Jairus, his unnamed daughter and the bleeding woman fared far better than what happened to a 16-year-old boy in Connecticut a few days ago. He was the subject of an exorcism at the Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Connecticut. This "healing" is supposed to chase out the gay demon that purportedly possesses the boy. The exorcism was filmed and posted on line by the church!
The video, which is very disturbing, shows the 16-year-old lying on the floor, his body convulsing, while members of the small Connecticut church stand over him, yelling, screaming, at the tops of their voices for the demon to come out of him. Apostle and Prophetess of the church, Patricia McKinney, said, “We don’t hate homosexuals. I just don’t like their lifestyle.” She also defended the action by saying that the youth is 18. The boy confirmed he is 16, but otherwise declined to comment, citing the advice of his pastor [emphasis mine] (Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 3:57 PM on 25th June 2009). Well, somebody’s not exactly speaking the truth.
The point is that what happened in the MGM church in Bridgeport, CT, was not anything like how Jesus healed people. There was abuse disguised as love in that church’s dealing with the boy. But with Jesus miracles, not exorcisms, are the path to healing and new life; Jesus uses Kingdom ways to release us from our dis-ease.
When the woman simply reached and barely touched Jesus’ cloak, the Lord felt it. Even in the midst trying to move through the crowd, he was “Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’” Mk 5:30).
Jesus knows a “faith touch” when he feels it. He is not an impersonal healer; he’s not into screaming at demons, either. Jesus wanted to know the identity of who touched his clothes and received power from him, not because he was angry but because Jesus is a personal healer. He knows the whole truth about each of us; and he responds in Kingdom ways to our deepest needs and hurts. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mk 5:34).
When Jairus fell begging at Jesus’ feet, Jesus immediately picked him up and set out with Jairus to heal the daughter. Imagine Jairus’ anguish when Jesus stopped to find out who touched his clothes. Even the disciples were incredulous about Jesus’ question. Can’t you just hear them now, “Are you kidding me? Look at all these people…you want to know which one of them touched you!?” But Jesus does not operate within the human barrier of time.
The woman came forward “in fear and trembling” (5:33) and told him the whole truth about her life. As Jesus was blessing the woman into a new, a “clean” life, he overheard the news from Jairus’ messsengers that it was too late; no one could save his daughter now: she was dead. Yet, Jesus softly spoke to the now small-and-broken father who no longer resembled a ruler of anything, “Do not fear; only believe” (Mk 5:36b).
Jesus is our healer, too. He is the one who is always there for us when we are feeling ostracized or outcast, isolated and ashamed, sick and sorrow-filled. Jesus iis the one who is always there for us when we feel broken and defeated. All he asks of us is to tell the whole truth about our lives. We put into words that have sound the truth we know hides way and deep inside. Is there something that you need to tell Jesus today? Is there something that is dying inside of you that needs a resurrection? Are you afraid? Do you need a faith touch? Ask for his help, seek his healing power; knock at the door of new life and it shall be opened to you.
Barbara Brown Taylor, voted one of the twelve best preachers in America, says of this passage that “Mark addressed all of us who suffer from the human condition, who are up against things we cannot control” (“One Step at a Time” from The Preaching Life).
Each and every one of us as individuals and as a community have been in situations that seemed impossible to heal. Are you in one right now? Is there a place where you have little or no control and you are frightened of the possibilities? Are you even confused about what being healed by Jesus means? One theologian (John Pilch) tells us that “Healing is the restoration of meaning to people’s lives, no matter what their physical condition might be” (SAMUEL @ www.ucc.org. Reaching out in faith involves incredible risk. Are you willing to take the risk to receive healing and new life from Christ?
Imagine yourself as the father of the 12-year-old girl. Do you not feel winded by the long run to the sea—your lungs burn and your muscles cramp, and yet you push yourself to go faster because you are on a life-and-death errand. Aren’t you afraid that something might happen to her while you are away from home? Isn’t your heart already breaking because you feel so helpless to do anything to save your child’s life? Do you feel like a “bad father” and are you filled with regret over the things you did not do…or did do that you shouldn’t have? Will you risk it all—your job, your reputation, your personal pride, your own life even—to turn your life over to Jesus?
Imagine yourself as the woman who has been ostracized for 12 years with no one coming near her, disdaining her. And you’re so very, very tired. Your disease has taken everything you’ve got—your health, your money, your relationships—to get to this point of desperation. The only thing that has not been stolen from you is your faith. Will you risk it to reach out and simply touch the hem of the master’s cloak?
Imagine you are the sick child. You do not know what is wrong with you; you don’t understand why you’re hurting so bad, you’re burning up with fever, and you’re scared because this time Mom and Dad cannot fix it. You’re suddenly faced with the realization that death make take you away from all you know and all whom you love. You are overwhelmed by the darkness all around you. Will you risk your life to be touched by Jesus and hear him say, “Talitha koum!”? I should think that it would have been better for that 16-year-old boy to hear, “Son, get up!” rather than “Get out of his belly, you gay demon!”
The good news today is that Jesus’ power to heal our lives can cross any and all human barriers we put in his way. We can trust Jesus with the whole truth of our lives, and he WILL make us well one way or another. Remember the words of the Lord for your own healing today:
“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
“Son, do not fear; only believe.”
“Little girl, get up!” (Little boy, get up!”)
Tell Jesus the whole truth; run to the Lord with every concern; be touched by Christ. In his words and in his touch we can seek—and find—the freedom of new life that comes from the healing power of a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ. And if these words don’t convince you of what Jesus can do in your life, how about these, Run; Reach; Rise and do everything in his name and as your heart warms with a growing faith, you will not only be made well, you will also be overcome by amazement because with your new way of life, you will see how the Kingdom of God has come near to you. Amen.
June 28, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, Maine
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
June 22, 2009
Inside and Out: How to be a More Beautiful Person
I Samuel 15:34-16:13; Mark 4:26-34; II Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
GOOD NEWS: God knows who we truly are because he looks inside our hearts and not on our outward appearance.
MESSAGE: Grow in your relationship with God, through his son, Jesus Christ, and you will become a more beautiful person inside and out.
She sang, “I Dreamed a Dream,” and a frizzy-haired 47-year-old Scottish woman, named Susan Boyle, knocked the world off its axis. With over 11m hits on YouTube, this plain-faced, , bushy-eye-browed woman is living proof that the old adage is true, you cannot judge a book by its cover.
For the three judges and millions of witnesses, the heavenly sound that came out of Susan's mouth could only have come from the heart and soul of an angel. No one on either side of the Atlantic Ocean would ever have imagined the beautiful voice tucked away inside this odd-mannered woman. Today, she is living proof of “Fronti nulla fides,” which translates, “never have faith in the front” (Juvenal, Satires II, 8). And what we have learned about Susan since that night is that regardless of the strength and beauty of her voice, she is just as vulnerable to exhaustion, mood swings and fear as the rest of us.
The Good News for us is that God looks upon our hearts and not on our outward appearances when he considers who we really are. God never judges us by our packaging. God never keeps faith in the front we present to the world. No amount of beauty or brawn can hide our true hearts from God. We may be able to fool others about who we are, but we will never fool the Lord.
So, instead of trying to be perfect on the outside, why not explore how to be beautiful on the inside? Each scripture today can speak in its own way to this idea. The more we allow God to grow in our hearts, the more we walk by faith and not by sight, the more beautiful we will become on the inside; and a beautiful person on the inside radiates beauty on the outside.
Among many truths, one message today's scriptures reveal is this one: As we grow in our relationship with God, through faith in his son, Jesus Christ, we will become more beautiful, inside and out.
The anointing of the young and ruddy shepherd boy, David, as future King of Israel, demonstrates not only that God knows what is in our hearts, but also that God chooses us for the strength of our inner beauty and not for the attractiveness of our outer appearances.
Of the eight sons of Jesse, David was the least likely candidate to be king. Even Samuel the prophet, who was sent to do the anointing, was dumbfounded as son after handsome son was rejected by God. Samuel's problem was that he used human standards to judge who should be king.
The prophet is admonished by God for his supposition: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look upon the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7).
(1)
In I Samuel 17, David's heart is proved when he faces the giant Philistine, Goliath, with only a slingshot, five smooth stones and a heart beating with the unwavering belief that there is a living God in Israel. David's relationship with the living God empowered him to defeat the Philistines on his own. No king's armor or warrior's bravery were needed. Time after time, David showed courage and steadfast love for the Lord.
We also know that there were times when temptation overruled his heart, and David grieved God with his sin. Still, the scripture says that God loved David...David was a man after God's own heart (I Samuel 13:13-14).
We might think that God loved David so much because he was courageous and confident and strong...but those are human ways of judging others. No, God loved David because of his truthful and trusting heart. When David was confronted with his sin, he was broken by it. He fell on his face and asked the Lord's forgiveness. True repentance makes us beautiful in the sight of the Lord. In Psalm 51, David writes,
(6) Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
(17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
What else makes us beautiful in the sight of the Lord? Let's look at the parable of the Mustard Seed.
In a world that confuses size with power and price, the parable of the mustard seed (“the smallest of all seeds”--at least at that time) presents a contradiction. The mustard tree grows very large, so large birds can make their nests in its branches. How can something so large come from a seed so small? And why does the mustard seed have anything to do with having a beautiful heart?
I see this parable as an experiment in encouragement. It is a parable about trust. William Barclay wrote, “Never be daunted by small beginnings” (Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, p 110). This parable once again shows us that human criteria do not apply in the kingdom of God; God looks at the heart of the matter.
In this story, Jesus is teaching that size or relative power at the beginning of the journey does not indicate the final result. “God's mysterious power as shown by the seed's growth cycle can be compared to how the gospel works in the hearts of believers” (Life Application Bible Commentary; Mark, p 115).
No matter how small we deem the seed of faith in our hearts, God can and will make it grow, if we are but willing to build the right relationship. The right relationship is with God's son, Jesus Christ. Understanding God's truth is linked to one's relationship with Jesus. If we keep Jesus at a distance, we can only observe his love from a distance. If we get close to Jesus, we understand his love from within. Jesus' love within us makes us beautiful, inside and out.
(2)
When I read Paul's words in his letter to the Corinthians, I am captured by the beauty of his joy. He embodies the beauty and love that comes from deep relationship with Jesus Christ. He is a walking witness to the incredible change that God can effect when the Lord lives in our hearts—Paul was transformed from persecutor to peacemaker, all from a close encounter with the risen Lord on a dusty road, traveling to Damascus.
From Paul we learn that one who walks by sight sees only the visible...and what is visible is temporary. The one who walks by faith will see beyond the visible to what is invisible, permanent and eternal (Preaching Through the Christian YearB, p 309).
What are we talking about here? We are talking about looking at the world the way God looks upon the world, by examining the hearts of his people. We are talking about the Christian's dual existence: the one we live in a mortal body on earth and the one we live in Christ, through the eyes of faith and a heart filled with love.
Walking by faith and not by sight is the culmination of believing that what is visible to the mortal mind is transient and what is invisible is eternal. “The life of faith by definition transcends bodily existence as it draws its sustaining power from the risen Lord whom we know but cannot see, except with the eyes of faith” (PTTCYB, p 310). A life walked in faith makes us beautiful, inside and out.
We have examined at least three qualities that when allowed and encouraged to grow within our hearts make us beautiful, inside and out. We tend to think that we are stuck with the heart we are born with, that if it is selfish and weak from the start it will be selfish and weak at the end. If our hearts are trepidatious and vulnerable through most of our lives, we think we are too late to make an exchange for courage and strength.
This is how mortals think; it is not how God looks on us. God looks beyond the visible, beyond appearances, and sees the eternal good, the inextinguishable light that can shine from our hearts.
God gives all the growth, all the beauty the world has ever heard or seen, whether it is an angelic voice from a woman named Susan or the new eyes of faith from a man named Paul, who was blinded by the beautiful light of Jesus Christ.
And what have we learned about being beautiful? We have learned that God looks inside our hearts to judge us and not upon our outward appearances; we have learned that we are to trust in small beginnings, for in God's hands they shall bring inspirational results; and we have learned that to walk by faith and not by sight reveals the promised hope that lies beyond this world; the invisible eternal, heaven's home, the kingdom of God.
David was small, young and ruddy looking, yet God could see the light in his heart and that light shone on his face, in his eyes, throughout his life.
Mustard trees were considered a nuisance, yet they demonstrate the promise that large, heavenly benefits can come from small, earthly beginnings.
Faith gives us vision beyond the visible to the invisible, beyond what is temporary to what is eternal.
The ways of God are loving and beautiful; Jesus came to earth to teach us about God, and how to be loving and beautiful, too.
Go ahead and dream the dream; the more we allow God to grow in our hearts through developing a deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, the more beautiful we become, inside and out. Amen.
June 14, 2009
First Parish Federated Church, South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
GOOD NEWS: God knows who we truly are because he looks inside our hearts and not on our outward appearance.
MESSAGE: Grow in your relationship with God, through his son, Jesus Christ, and you will become a more beautiful person inside and out.
She sang, “I Dreamed a Dream,” and a frizzy-haired 47-year-old Scottish woman, named Susan Boyle, knocked the world off its axis. With over 11m hits on YouTube, this plain-faced, , bushy-eye-browed woman is living proof that the old adage is true, you cannot judge a book by its cover.
For the three judges and millions of witnesses, the heavenly sound that came out of Susan's mouth could only have come from the heart and soul of an angel. No one on either side of the Atlantic Ocean would ever have imagined the beautiful voice tucked away inside this odd-mannered woman. Today, she is living proof of “Fronti nulla fides,” which translates, “never have faith in the front” (Juvenal, Satires II, 8). And what we have learned about Susan since that night is that regardless of the strength and beauty of her voice, she is just as vulnerable to exhaustion, mood swings and fear as the rest of us.
The Good News for us is that God looks upon our hearts and not on our outward appearances when he considers who we really are. God never judges us by our packaging. God never keeps faith in the front we present to the world. No amount of beauty or brawn can hide our true hearts from God. We may be able to fool others about who we are, but we will never fool the Lord.
So, instead of trying to be perfect on the outside, why not explore how to be beautiful on the inside? Each scripture today can speak in its own way to this idea. The more we allow God to grow in our hearts, the more we walk by faith and not by sight, the more beautiful we will become on the inside; and a beautiful person on the inside radiates beauty on the outside.
Among many truths, one message today's scriptures reveal is this one: As we grow in our relationship with God, through faith in his son, Jesus Christ, we will become more beautiful, inside and out.
The anointing of the young and ruddy shepherd boy, David, as future King of Israel, demonstrates not only that God knows what is in our hearts, but also that God chooses us for the strength of our inner beauty and not for the attractiveness of our outer appearances.
Of the eight sons of Jesse, David was the least likely candidate to be king. Even Samuel the prophet, who was sent to do the anointing, was dumbfounded as son after handsome son was rejected by God. Samuel's problem was that he used human standards to judge who should be king.
The prophet is admonished by God for his supposition: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look upon the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7).
(1)
In I Samuel 17, David's heart is proved when he faces the giant Philistine, Goliath, with only a slingshot, five smooth stones and a heart beating with the unwavering belief that there is a living God in Israel. David's relationship with the living God empowered him to defeat the Philistines on his own. No king's armor or warrior's bravery were needed. Time after time, David showed courage and steadfast love for the Lord.
We also know that there were times when temptation overruled his heart, and David grieved God with his sin. Still, the scripture says that God loved David...David was a man after God's own heart (I Samuel 13:13-14).
We might think that God loved David so much because he was courageous and confident and strong...but those are human ways of judging others. No, God loved David because of his truthful and trusting heart. When David was confronted with his sin, he was broken by it. He fell on his face and asked the Lord's forgiveness. True repentance makes us beautiful in the sight of the Lord. In Psalm 51, David writes,
(6) Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
(17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
What else makes us beautiful in the sight of the Lord? Let's look at the parable of the Mustard Seed.
In a world that confuses size with power and price, the parable of the mustard seed (“the smallest of all seeds”--at least at that time) presents a contradiction. The mustard tree grows very large, so large birds can make their nests in its branches. How can something so large come from a seed so small? And why does the mustard seed have anything to do with having a beautiful heart?
I see this parable as an experiment in encouragement. It is a parable about trust. William Barclay wrote, “Never be daunted by small beginnings” (Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, p 110). This parable once again shows us that human criteria do not apply in the kingdom of God; God looks at the heart of the matter.
In this story, Jesus is teaching that size or relative power at the beginning of the journey does not indicate the final result. “God's mysterious power as shown by the seed's growth cycle can be compared to how the gospel works in the hearts of believers” (Life Application Bible Commentary; Mark, p 115).
No matter how small we deem the seed of faith in our hearts, God can and will make it grow, if we are but willing to build the right relationship. The right relationship is with God's son, Jesus Christ. Understanding God's truth is linked to one's relationship with Jesus. If we keep Jesus at a distance, we can only observe his love from a distance. If we get close to Jesus, we understand his love from within. Jesus' love within us makes us beautiful, inside and out.
(2)
When I read Paul's words in his letter to the Corinthians, I am captured by the beauty of his joy. He embodies the beauty and love that comes from deep relationship with Jesus Christ. He is a walking witness to the incredible change that God can effect when the Lord lives in our hearts—Paul was transformed from persecutor to peacemaker, all from a close encounter with the risen Lord on a dusty road, traveling to Damascus.
From Paul we learn that one who walks by sight sees only the visible...and what is visible is temporary. The one who walks by faith will see beyond the visible to what is invisible, permanent and eternal (Preaching Through the Christian YearB, p 309).
What are we talking about here? We are talking about looking at the world the way God looks upon the world, by examining the hearts of his people. We are talking about the Christian's dual existence: the one we live in a mortal body on earth and the one we live in Christ, through the eyes of faith and a heart filled with love.
Walking by faith and not by sight is the culmination of believing that what is visible to the mortal mind is transient and what is invisible is eternal. “The life of faith by definition transcends bodily existence as it draws its sustaining power from the risen Lord whom we know but cannot see, except with the eyes of faith” (PTTCYB, p 310). A life walked in faith makes us beautiful, inside and out.
We have examined at least three qualities that when allowed and encouraged to grow within our hearts make us beautiful, inside and out. We tend to think that we are stuck with the heart we are born with, that if it is selfish and weak from the start it will be selfish and weak at the end. If our hearts are trepidatious and vulnerable through most of our lives, we think we are too late to make an exchange for courage and strength.
This is how mortals think; it is not how God looks on us. God looks beyond the visible, beyond appearances, and sees the eternal good, the inextinguishable light that can shine from our hearts.
God gives all the growth, all the beauty the world has ever heard or seen, whether it is an angelic voice from a woman named Susan or the new eyes of faith from a man named Paul, who was blinded by the beautiful light of Jesus Christ.
And what have we learned about being beautiful? We have learned that God looks inside our hearts to judge us and not upon our outward appearances; we have learned that we are to trust in small beginnings, for in God's hands they shall bring inspirational results; and we have learned that to walk by faith and not by sight reveals the promised hope that lies beyond this world; the invisible eternal, heaven's home, the kingdom of God.
David was small, young and ruddy looking, yet God could see the light in his heart and that light shone on his face, in his eyes, throughout his life.
Mustard trees were considered a nuisance, yet they demonstrate the promise that large, heavenly benefits can come from small, earthly beginnings.
Faith gives us vision beyond the visible to the invisible, beyond what is temporary to what is eternal.
The ways of God are loving and beautiful; Jesus came to earth to teach us about God, and how to be loving and beautiful, too.
Go ahead and dream the dream; the more we allow God to grow in our hearts through developing a deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, the more beautiful we become, inside and out. Amen.
June 14, 2009
First Parish Federated Church, South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
May 25, 2009
A NEW PLOT IN LIFE
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Good News: Every one of us is important to Jesus.
There is a story quoted in baseball circles about Earl Weaver (when he was manager of the Baltimore Orioles) and his experience with a born-again outfielder named Pat Kelly. As the story goes, Kelly is said to have told Weaver he had learned to walk with God, to which Weaver is reported to have replied, “I’d rather have you walk with the bases loaded.” The Christian walk is incomprehensible to those who are not motivated by Christ.
Trouble in the Bible
For the apostles, the bases might have been loaded, yet there was still an empty spot on the roster—they had eleven men instead of 12, the number Jesus had originally chosen. They figured they needed to get their numbers back up to twelve. Twelve is an important number in the Bible: 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples of Jesus, and the 12 thrones in heaven. Eleven would never work.
Yet, 120 people were smooshed into this “upper room.” How were they to choose one person from that number to replace Judas? Who was qualified? Who would do it? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I would want to be known as the one who replaced the guy who betrayed the Savior of the world to the Romans. We all know what happened to him in the place affectionately known as “Murder Meadow.”
Time between Jesus’ ascension and Pentecost was 10 days. Two hundred forty hours of living like sardines and watching each other grow old called for a desperate act—the formation of a church nominating committee and a church election. . It seemed a good idea to hold a committee meeting, as any church would do, while they awaited further instruction from Jesus. They had not heard the prophecy that “God so loved the world that he didn’t send a committee.”
Trouble in the World
We often have a difficult time dealing with waiting. When we don’t see something happening, we assume nothing is happening. Perhaps we even feel that Jesus is ignoring us or has forgotten us, that we are not important to him. This concept is one idea we must never believe. Each one of us is as important to Jesus as if we were the only person on earth.
Jesus is at work in our lives all the time, but silence and/or perceived inaction makes us very antsy. If the wait becomes unbearable, we may wander into the territory of thinking He is telling us one thing because that is what we want to or expect to hear, Sometimes we choose to hear the safe thing, which soothes our nerves but does little to witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
A middle-aged farmer who had been desiring for years to be an evangelist was out working in the field one day when he decided to rest under a tree. As he looked into the sky he saw that the clouds seemed to form into the letters P and C. Immediately he jumped up, sold his farm, and went out to P-reach C-hrist, which he felt was God’s leading. Unfortunately, he was a horrible preacher. After one of his sermons, a neighbor came forward and whispered in his ear, “are you sure God wasn’t just trying to tell you to P-lant C-orn?
Jesus had the farmer right where he wanted him, planting corn. Yet, the farmer seemed to think that planting corn was not important enough so he sold the field of purpose for a field of dreams. He did not know how important he already was to Jesus. He did not recognize that he already had all the gifts he needed to serve Jesus. He was a planter and a harvester for the Lord, not a preacher. No one job in the kingdom is more important than another. No one job in the church is more important than another, but all jobs, gifts, pursuits in a church are to witness to the Resurrection.
If churches today used this criterion for planning its future, what are we doing today as a church today that we might keep doing and what might we eliminate from our pursuits? Each one of us is important to Jesus and each one of us has an important role to pursue in his church.
God’s Grace in the Bible
The gifts to be an apostle were already gathered in that upper room. Peter listed the requirements: (1) The new apostle must believe in the resurrection, for the resurrection is the one thing that defines Christianity from all other religions. (2) The new apostle must know Jesus as a result of living with Jesus. (3) The new apostle, in traveling all the days with Jesus and the other eleven, must be able to work with the remaining apostles.
By these requirements, two names came to mind: Joseph/Barsabas/Justus and Matthias. Matthias was chosen, but I want you to notice HOW he was chosen. Matthias met the proper requirements of an apostle, but requirements were not enough. Something more was needed. In fact, two more steps were necessary before Matthias would be confirmed to his new position.
The next steps in the process included (1) Prayer. “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of the two YOU have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place” (Acts 1:25); and (2) casting lots to determine which man would become number 12. Matthias, of course, “won.”
Very, very little is known of Matthias, and even less exists to testify to his work. His physical gospel has been lost, but we do have a few of his quotations preserved in the works of Clement of Alexandria.
“We must combat our flesh, set no value upon it, and concede to it nothing that can flatter it, but rather increase the growth of our soul by faith and knowledge.”
Is Matthias not testifying to the supreme importance of the Christian’s heart and soul? A place was chosen for Matthias, but what about Barsabas?
Was Barsabas left out? How do you suppose he felt? Maybe he knew the disappointment that so many of us experience when we are turned down for the prized position we’ve worked so hard to get. In an age of terrifying unemployment rates, how does one keep going after being rejected time after time? Many are driven to near hopelessness, while others have the faith to keep going, keep searching.
God’s Grace in the World
Each one of us is important to Jesus, and each one of us has an important role to pursue in Jesus’ church, and so we must be ready for a new plot in life. This new plot is of Christ’s own choosing. We make ourselves ready for the journey by preparing our hearts and souls through faith and knowledge of our Lord and Savior.
None of us knows enough about Jesus, yet he knows everything about us. Why does he bother to know everything about us? The answer is so simple, because each of us is important to him—he wants to know everything about us; and because he knows everything about us—he knows our hearts—he will choose the best P-lot in life for us, Whether that plot includes preaching Christ or planting corn, He has a place for us.
If we are uncertain about which direction to go, we can pray as the apostles prayed: “Lord, you know my heart. Show me the path you have chosen for me to take in this ministry.”
That’s a scary prayer for many folks, and fear is a reason we miss out on so much of life that God wants to show us. We want to be careful what we pray for because we just might get it! What if we get a sign to go somewhere or do something we don’t feel we are ready for? Then what are we supposed to do?
Two words: GET READY! You see, the thing about Barsabas is that even though he was not chosen this time to fill the twelfth spot, he was READY to do so. He knew that Jesus had a role for him to play in his resurrection witnessing. He knew he was just as important to Jesus as any of the other 120 folks in the upper room; he knew he was just as important as any of the eleven, and he knew he was just as important as Matthias. He may not have been given the title of “apostle,” yet, He kept himself ready to serve the resurrected Lord. We can take from the experience of being “not chosen this time” that we must always keep ourselves ready to do what Jesus needs us to do.
Friends, we do not get our importance from fancy titles; we are already important. Our titles may inform others of what role we play in the church, but they do not confer any special powers or privileges. They do not give us worth; we are already worthy.
· We do not need to be called a missionary in order to witness and show hospitality to strangers.
· We do not have to be a trustee to care for the facility.
· We do not need to be a choir member to sing a new song.
· We do not need to be a preacher to tell somebody about how good the Lord is, and that the He loves us for all time.
· We do not have to be an usher to welcome somebody into the house of God.
· You do not have to be on the Christian Ed Committee to teach someone about Jesus and his love for us.
· You do not have to be a deacon to show compassion and loving concern to others.
Rather than seeking a title or special position, I think it is better for us to understand ourselves as Jesus does: a person so important to him that he would go to the cross, die and be resurrected for us, even if we were the only person on earth.
When we leave here today, we can go out and walk with the bases loaded, or we can go out and walk with Jesus. The difference in the walks is mighty. With the first you score five runs, maybe slap a few hands as you round the bases and stamp your foot on home plate. With the second, you’re found ready and willing to hit it out of the park. People are instantly on their feet—are they cheering for you? Oh, no! They’re praising the Lord because you have testified to his power at work in you. That power is offered to all who are ready to step up to bat.
Those who step up to bat are given titles, but they do not mean very much in the world today. They offer no privilege, no power, no entitlement. Yet, in the church, in our faith, they mean the world to us:
· Jesus has titled us “Witness”: And you shall be my witnesses… (Luke 24:48)
· Jesus has titled us “Friend”: And I have called you friends… (John 15:15)
· And God has titled us “Beloved”: “You are my Beloved…” (Luke 3:21-22)
Beloved, let us love one another; let us discover how important we are to Jesus and express it to others, that they, too, may be given a new plot in life, a life built on Jesus Christ, for this is the true calling and purpose of the Church. Amen.
May 24, 2009
The First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Good News: Every one of us is important to Jesus.
There is a story quoted in baseball circles about Earl Weaver (when he was manager of the Baltimore Orioles) and his experience with a born-again outfielder named Pat Kelly. As the story goes, Kelly is said to have told Weaver he had learned to walk with God, to which Weaver is reported to have replied, “I’d rather have you walk with the bases loaded.” The Christian walk is incomprehensible to those who are not motivated by Christ.
Trouble in the Bible
For the apostles, the bases might have been loaded, yet there was still an empty spot on the roster—they had eleven men instead of 12, the number Jesus had originally chosen. They figured they needed to get their numbers back up to twelve. Twelve is an important number in the Bible: 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples of Jesus, and the 12 thrones in heaven. Eleven would never work.
Yet, 120 people were smooshed into this “upper room.” How were they to choose one person from that number to replace Judas? Who was qualified? Who would do it? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I would want to be known as the one who replaced the guy who betrayed the Savior of the world to the Romans. We all know what happened to him in the place affectionately known as “Murder Meadow.”
Time between Jesus’ ascension and Pentecost was 10 days. Two hundred forty hours of living like sardines and watching each other grow old called for a desperate act—the formation of a church nominating committee and a church election. . It seemed a good idea to hold a committee meeting, as any church would do, while they awaited further instruction from Jesus. They had not heard the prophecy that “God so loved the world that he didn’t send a committee.”
Trouble in the World
We often have a difficult time dealing with waiting. When we don’t see something happening, we assume nothing is happening. Perhaps we even feel that Jesus is ignoring us or has forgotten us, that we are not important to him. This concept is one idea we must never believe. Each one of us is as important to Jesus as if we were the only person on earth.
Jesus is at work in our lives all the time, but silence and/or perceived inaction makes us very antsy. If the wait becomes unbearable, we may wander into the territory of thinking He is telling us one thing because that is what we want to or expect to hear, Sometimes we choose to hear the safe thing, which soothes our nerves but does little to witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
A middle-aged farmer who had been desiring for years to be an evangelist was out working in the field one day when he decided to rest under a tree. As he looked into the sky he saw that the clouds seemed to form into the letters P and C. Immediately he jumped up, sold his farm, and went out to P-reach C-hrist, which he felt was God’s leading. Unfortunately, he was a horrible preacher. After one of his sermons, a neighbor came forward and whispered in his ear, “are you sure God wasn’t just trying to tell you to P-lant C-orn?
Jesus had the farmer right where he wanted him, planting corn. Yet, the farmer seemed to think that planting corn was not important enough so he sold the field of purpose for a field of dreams. He did not know how important he already was to Jesus. He did not recognize that he already had all the gifts he needed to serve Jesus. He was a planter and a harvester for the Lord, not a preacher. No one job in the kingdom is more important than another. No one job in the church is more important than another, but all jobs, gifts, pursuits in a church are to witness to the Resurrection.
If churches today used this criterion for planning its future, what are we doing today as a church today that we might keep doing and what might we eliminate from our pursuits? Each one of us is important to Jesus and each one of us has an important role to pursue in his church.
God’s Grace in the Bible
The gifts to be an apostle were already gathered in that upper room. Peter listed the requirements: (1) The new apostle must believe in the resurrection, for the resurrection is the one thing that defines Christianity from all other religions. (2) The new apostle must know Jesus as a result of living with Jesus. (3) The new apostle, in traveling all the days with Jesus and the other eleven, must be able to work with the remaining apostles.
By these requirements, two names came to mind: Joseph/Barsabas/Justus and Matthias. Matthias was chosen, but I want you to notice HOW he was chosen. Matthias met the proper requirements of an apostle, but requirements were not enough. Something more was needed. In fact, two more steps were necessary before Matthias would be confirmed to his new position.
The next steps in the process included (1) Prayer. “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of the two YOU have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place” (Acts 1:25); and (2) casting lots to determine which man would become number 12. Matthias, of course, “won.”
Very, very little is known of Matthias, and even less exists to testify to his work. His physical gospel has been lost, but we do have a few of his quotations preserved in the works of Clement of Alexandria.
“We must combat our flesh, set no value upon it, and concede to it nothing that can flatter it, but rather increase the growth of our soul by faith and knowledge.”
Is Matthias not testifying to the supreme importance of the Christian’s heart and soul? A place was chosen for Matthias, but what about Barsabas?
Was Barsabas left out? How do you suppose he felt? Maybe he knew the disappointment that so many of us experience when we are turned down for the prized position we’ve worked so hard to get. In an age of terrifying unemployment rates, how does one keep going after being rejected time after time? Many are driven to near hopelessness, while others have the faith to keep going, keep searching.
God’s Grace in the World
Each one of us is important to Jesus, and each one of us has an important role to pursue in Jesus’ church, and so we must be ready for a new plot in life. This new plot is of Christ’s own choosing. We make ourselves ready for the journey by preparing our hearts and souls through faith and knowledge of our Lord and Savior.
None of us knows enough about Jesus, yet he knows everything about us. Why does he bother to know everything about us? The answer is so simple, because each of us is important to him—he wants to know everything about us; and because he knows everything about us—he knows our hearts—he will choose the best P-lot in life for us, Whether that plot includes preaching Christ or planting corn, He has a place for us.
If we are uncertain about which direction to go, we can pray as the apostles prayed: “Lord, you know my heart. Show me the path you have chosen for me to take in this ministry.”
That’s a scary prayer for many folks, and fear is a reason we miss out on so much of life that God wants to show us. We want to be careful what we pray for because we just might get it! What if we get a sign to go somewhere or do something we don’t feel we are ready for? Then what are we supposed to do?
Two words: GET READY! You see, the thing about Barsabas is that even though he was not chosen this time to fill the twelfth spot, he was READY to do so. He knew that Jesus had a role for him to play in his resurrection witnessing. He knew he was just as important to Jesus as any of the other 120 folks in the upper room; he knew he was just as important as any of the eleven, and he knew he was just as important as Matthias. He may not have been given the title of “apostle,” yet, He kept himself ready to serve the resurrected Lord. We can take from the experience of being “not chosen this time” that we must always keep ourselves ready to do what Jesus needs us to do.
Friends, we do not get our importance from fancy titles; we are already important. Our titles may inform others of what role we play in the church, but they do not confer any special powers or privileges. They do not give us worth; we are already worthy.
· We do not need to be called a missionary in order to witness and show hospitality to strangers.
· We do not have to be a trustee to care for the facility.
· We do not need to be a choir member to sing a new song.
· We do not need to be a preacher to tell somebody about how good the Lord is, and that the He loves us for all time.
· We do not have to be an usher to welcome somebody into the house of God.
· You do not have to be on the Christian Ed Committee to teach someone about Jesus and his love for us.
· You do not have to be a deacon to show compassion and loving concern to others.
Rather than seeking a title or special position, I think it is better for us to understand ourselves as Jesus does: a person so important to him that he would go to the cross, die and be resurrected for us, even if we were the only person on earth.
When we leave here today, we can go out and walk with the bases loaded, or we can go out and walk with Jesus. The difference in the walks is mighty. With the first you score five runs, maybe slap a few hands as you round the bases and stamp your foot on home plate. With the second, you’re found ready and willing to hit it out of the park. People are instantly on their feet—are they cheering for you? Oh, no! They’re praising the Lord because you have testified to his power at work in you. That power is offered to all who are ready to step up to bat.
Those who step up to bat are given titles, but they do not mean very much in the world today. They offer no privilege, no power, no entitlement. Yet, in the church, in our faith, they mean the world to us:
· Jesus has titled us “Witness”: And you shall be my witnesses… (Luke 24:48)
· Jesus has titled us “Friend”: And I have called you friends… (John 15:15)
· And God has titled us “Beloved”: “You are my Beloved…” (Luke 3:21-22)
Beloved, let us love one another; let us discover how important we are to Jesus and express it to others, that they, too, may be given a new plot in life, a life built on Jesus Christ, for this is the true calling and purpose of the Church. Amen.
May 24, 2009
The First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise
May 17, 2009
PARDON THE GLORIOUS INTERRUPTION
Acts 10; particularly verses 44-48
Today’s Good News: God shows no partiality in pouring out the Holy Spirit on people so that all may be saved.
If ever there was a case of a “God-incidence,” the meeting of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 is one of the very best. The whole new world of Christianity was about to be gloriously interrupted and notoriously tipped on its head. Demographically and geographically, the boundaries of Judea would soon be reached. The good news of Jesus Christ seemed to be headed for the proverbial end of the road. Think about it; if God had not had bigger plans for the Judeo-Christian world, you and I might not be gathered here together right now.
Everyone—Jews and Gentiles—in biblical days believed the message of Jesus Christ was given to the Jews only. God eliminated this belief through bringing together two men of faith: Cornelius, a Gentile from Caesarea; and Peter, a Jewish man and apostle of Jesus Christ. God brought these men together for the purpose of revealing that the good news of Jesus Christ is meant for all people; that no one who believes in God and does what is right shall be denied salvation.
The only complication was that each man was shocked by the vision he was given and wanted to resist it in the worst way. Cornelius stared in terror at the angel of the Lord who told him to send for Peter in Joppa. Peter characteristically, impulsively protested when he was told to eat of the animals, even those that Jewish law proclaimed unclean. “By no means, Lord!”
Terror and fear, confusion and resistance. Peter and Cornelius were “greatly puzzled” (10:17) by their double vision. Certainly they had never even heard of each other, let alone met, yet God called them together for the purpose of bringing Jews and Gentiles together as one in Jesus Christ. Each chose to obey the word of the Lord they had received even though it called for them to take great risks for the faith.
I think we can certainly identify with Cornelius and Peter. They were not just being called to step outside their religious boxes, they were called, in the words of Anne Robertson (formerly pastor of St John’s Methodist Church in Dover, NH), to “Blow the lid of the God-Box” they lived in.
Robertson writes, “When we become closed to aspects of God that we don’t understand or to experiences of God that aren’t our own, we create the fiction that we know all there is to know of God and God’s ways. Our limited experience and expression then become the standard by which all others are measured and the truth by which all others are judged” (Robertson, Blowing the Lid off the God-Box, p x).
It is very difficult to step outside the comfort zones of our religious boxes, let alone blow the lids off them! We tend to be gut reactors to God’s call Just like Peter, we can say far too quickly, “By no means, Lord!” Yet, no matter who we are or where we are on our life’s journey, God created us good, for his purpose and for his pleasure.
We may at times find this trusting God in all things difficult. The tension we feel can only be relieved through prayer, study, meditation, and obedience; yet, it is so much easier to go with what we know rather than with what can make us grow.
The tension we feel is real, as real as the tension Peter spoke of when he entered Cornelius’ house. “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection” (Acts 10:28-29).
Peter’s entourage experienced a similar sense of tension as they witnessed Cornelius’ household receiving the Holy Spirit. Luke writes in Acts 10:45. “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles.”
Empowered by the Holy Spirit all the people in this story were able to see their way through what at first they believed was “unlawful” to do. Yet, they overcame a common, pedantic belief by risking it all for a most uncommon teaching: God shows no partiality in pouring out the Holy Spirit on all people so that all people may be saved.
A message for us today is to challenge ourselves to take risks for God. Cornelius through answered prayer and Peter through divine vision show us that not only is obedience in the face of fear possible, it is to be preferred; it is to be entered into with haste and without objection.
The same powerful Holy Spirit that was poured out on Cornelius and his household is poured on us as well. Imagine what wonders we would behold if we could really let go and let God’s Holy Spirit send us beyond the limits of our known comfort zones.
We could blow the lid off our God Boxes and speak to the world about the mighty God we serve, the gracious God who loves all without partiality, the merciful God who died once that all who believe in him and do what is right might live forever—talk about speaking in tongues!
In the middle of Peter’s preaching he sees and hears that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Gentiles; they’re talking in tongues and praising the Lord. You can just hear him thinking, “Enough with the preaching! The water’s merely a formality; bring on the Spirit! It’s happening to them just as it happened to us on the day of Pentecost! Good Lord, what a ride!”
Peter’s sermon was gloriously interrupted by the outpouring of the Spirit upon people he never would have believed could receive it from God. Such good news is this for us today! Christianity has spread to all nationalities, all races, all places since that day at Captain Cornelius’ house. His gift is our gift. How shall we praise the Lord for his gift of the Spirit? How shall we celebrate the good news that God shows no partiality?
We must do as Peter did. He went to places God sent him without objection. Faith is a journey God invites to take; faith is not pretty scenery God invites us to sit back and watch. Each one of us is called, by name, to join the journey.
If we struggle with a serious illness, would it not be better to share the journey with the healing power of the Holy Spirit? If we fear the darkness because we have lost our way, would it not be better to share the journey with the divine light of the Holy Spirit to guide our way? If we wrestle with doubt, or grief, or depression or fatigue, would it not be better to have the immutable strength and perseverance of the Holy Spirit working for us?
The Holy Spirit is for all people. What good news! Speak of it; give the gift a voice. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Live and empowered life for the news is good my friends: from now on there is neither Greek nor Jew; slave nor free, male or female, for we are one in Christ Jesus who is Lord of all (Galatians 3:28). This Word is not sort of true; it is not partially true; it is fully true, and upon its truth we are saved. Amen.
May 17, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
Acts 10; particularly verses 44-48
Today’s Good News: God shows no partiality in pouring out the Holy Spirit on people so that all may be saved.
If ever there was a case of a “God-incidence,” the meeting of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 is one of the very best. The whole new world of Christianity was about to be gloriously interrupted and notoriously tipped on its head. Demographically and geographically, the boundaries of Judea would soon be reached. The good news of Jesus Christ seemed to be headed for the proverbial end of the road. Think about it; if God had not had bigger plans for the Judeo-Christian world, you and I might not be gathered here together right now.
Everyone—Jews and Gentiles—in biblical days believed the message of Jesus Christ was given to the Jews only. God eliminated this belief through bringing together two men of faith: Cornelius, a Gentile from Caesarea; and Peter, a Jewish man and apostle of Jesus Christ. God brought these men together for the purpose of revealing that the good news of Jesus Christ is meant for all people; that no one who believes in God and does what is right shall be denied salvation.
The only complication was that each man was shocked by the vision he was given and wanted to resist it in the worst way. Cornelius stared in terror at the angel of the Lord who told him to send for Peter in Joppa. Peter characteristically, impulsively protested when he was told to eat of the animals, even those that Jewish law proclaimed unclean. “By no means, Lord!”
Terror and fear, confusion and resistance. Peter and Cornelius were “greatly puzzled” (10:17) by their double vision. Certainly they had never even heard of each other, let alone met, yet God called them together for the purpose of bringing Jews and Gentiles together as one in Jesus Christ. Each chose to obey the word of the Lord they had received even though it called for them to take great risks for the faith.
I think we can certainly identify with Cornelius and Peter. They were not just being called to step outside their religious boxes, they were called, in the words of Anne Robertson (formerly pastor of St John’s Methodist Church in Dover, NH), to “Blow the lid of the God-Box” they lived in.
Robertson writes, “When we become closed to aspects of God that we don’t understand or to experiences of God that aren’t our own, we create the fiction that we know all there is to know of God and God’s ways. Our limited experience and expression then become the standard by which all others are measured and the truth by which all others are judged” (Robertson, Blowing the Lid off the God-Box, p x).
It is very difficult to step outside the comfort zones of our religious boxes, let alone blow the lids off them! We tend to be gut reactors to God’s call Just like Peter, we can say far too quickly, “By no means, Lord!” Yet, no matter who we are or where we are on our life’s journey, God created us good, for his purpose and for his pleasure.
We may at times find this trusting God in all things difficult. The tension we feel can only be relieved through prayer, study, meditation, and obedience; yet, it is so much easier to go with what we know rather than with what can make us grow.
The tension we feel is real, as real as the tension Peter spoke of when he entered Cornelius’ house. “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection” (Acts 10:28-29).
Peter’s entourage experienced a similar sense of tension as they witnessed Cornelius’ household receiving the Holy Spirit. Luke writes in Acts 10:45. “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles.”
Empowered by the Holy Spirit all the people in this story were able to see their way through what at first they believed was “unlawful” to do. Yet, they overcame a common, pedantic belief by risking it all for a most uncommon teaching: God shows no partiality in pouring out the Holy Spirit on all people so that all people may be saved.
A message for us today is to challenge ourselves to take risks for God. Cornelius through answered prayer and Peter through divine vision show us that not only is obedience in the face of fear possible, it is to be preferred; it is to be entered into with haste and without objection.
The same powerful Holy Spirit that was poured out on Cornelius and his household is poured on us as well. Imagine what wonders we would behold if we could really let go and let God’s Holy Spirit send us beyond the limits of our known comfort zones.
We could blow the lid off our God Boxes and speak to the world about the mighty God we serve, the gracious God who loves all without partiality, the merciful God who died once that all who believe in him and do what is right might live forever—talk about speaking in tongues!
In the middle of Peter’s preaching he sees and hears that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Gentiles; they’re talking in tongues and praising the Lord. You can just hear him thinking, “Enough with the preaching! The water’s merely a formality; bring on the Spirit! It’s happening to them just as it happened to us on the day of Pentecost! Good Lord, what a ride!”
Peter’s sermon was gloriously interrupted by the outpouring of the Spirit upon people he never would have believed could receive it from God. Such good news is this for us today! Christianity has spread to all nationalities, all races, all places since that day at Captain Cornelius’ house. His gift is our gift. How shall we praise the Lord for his gift of the Spirit? How shall we celebrate the good news that God shows no partiality?
We must do as Peter did. He went to places God sent him without objection. Faith is a journey God invites to take; faith is not pretty scenery God invites us to sit back and watch. Each one of us is called, by name, to join the journey.
If we struggle with a serious illness, would it not be better to share the journey with the healing power of the Holy Spirit? If we fear the darkness because we have lost our way, would it not be better to share the journey with the divine light of the Holy Spirit to guide our way? If we wrestle with doubt, or grief, or depression or fatigue, would it not be better to have the immutable strength and perseverance of the Holy Spirit working for us?
The Holy Spirit is for all people. What good news! Speak of it; give the gift a voice. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Live and empowered life for the news is good my friends: from now on there is neither Greek nor Jew; slave nor free, male or female, for we are one in Christ Jesus who is Lord of all (Galatians 3:28). This Word is not sort of true; it is not partially true; it is fully true, and upon its truth we are saved. Amen.
May 17, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
May 11, 2009
Put Your Life on the Vine
PUT YOUR LIFE ON THE VINE
John 15:1-8; I John 4:7-21
“I am the true vine.”
One day, Jesus decided that he needed a new robe, so he went to the shop of Finkelstein the Tailor. A few days later, when the robe was ready, Jesus tried it on and it was a perfect fit. He asked the tailor how much he owed. Finkelstein brushed him off, “No! No! No! for the Son of God? There's no charge! However, may I ask a small favor of you?”
“Anything!” Jesus responded. “Just ask!”
“Whenever you give a sermon, perhaps you could just mention that your nice new robe was made by Finkelstein the tailor?”
Jesus readily agreed and as promised, extolled the virtues of his Finkelstein robe whenever he spoke to the masses. A few months later, Jesus happened to walk past Finkelstein's shop and noted a huge line of people waiting to order Finkelstein robes. He made his way through the crowd to speak to the tailor, and as soon as Finkelstein spotted Jesus, he shouted, “Jesus! Jesus! Look what you've done for my business! Would you consider a partnership?”
“Certainly,” replied Jesus. “Jesus & Finkelstein, it is!”
“Oh, no, no,” said Finkelstein. “Finkelstein and Jesus. After all, I am the craftsman.”
The two of them debated for quite some time. Their discussion was long and spirited, but ultimately fruitful, and they finally came up with a mutually acceptable compromise. A few days later, the new sign went up over the shop. Can you guess what it read?
Before I tell you the answer, let's take a closer look at this morning's text that also teaches about being in a kind of partnership with Jesus. The word John uses is not partnership, however; the word he uses is abiding…
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
We live in a time and culture where there is much suffering, much uncertainty. Anxiety, a sense of helplessness and all kinds of troubles are around every corner. We don’t know when or if the struggling will end and it's all very unsettling, discouraging, frightening. Whether examining these troubles at home or in the church, the outlook seems quite bleak.
Some churches will say that we are suffering God's judgment and punishment. Some populations say there is no God or that God has forsaken us. Others do not make any connection at all between God and what's happening in our world.
But what about this approach: cannot our understanding of these difficult times we are living in be seen as a way of God's pruning us for greater fruitfulness? I think we can, for Jesus' teaching in John 15 reaches across the centuries. Let's look at then:
During the final Passover meal that they would share, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the difficult days after Jesus has been crucified, resurrected and ascended into heaven. The eleven who remain will encounter great anxiety, sorrow, anger, betrayal, persecution, poverty, and eventually martyrdom.
The disciples are struggling to understand why and how God uses suffering to bring about greater fruitfulness. It just doesn't seem to make any sense. To help them understand how their relationships with one another, with him and with God work, Jesus uses the very familiar grapevine to explain.
Archaeological evidence from Egyptian tombs shows that grapes were being cultivated 2500 years before Christ. Grapes are the most widely grown fruit in the world. The grapevine is part of Israel's national emblem. Grapes are a big deal. But, why so much talk of grapes on the eve of Crucifixion?
The quality of the vine is only as good as the rooted stock. Individual branches are grafted onto a healthy productive stock. New plants are pruned for three to five years to “train” them before they are allowed to produce a crop. It takes a lot of feeding, watering, and pruning, pruning, pruning to yield the best grapes.
Did you know that good roots can produce fruit for as many as 100 years? That, for their size, vines are very productive, yielding as much as eighty pounds of grapes in a single season? That, disease and lack of productivity can spread from dead branches that have not been removed from the vine?
It takes an immense amount of pruning and caring to develop a fruitful vineyard. Equally so, it takes an immense amount of care and pruning to develop a faithful disciple who will yield much fruit for the Lord.
We are facing difficult days in our lives: we are anxious about our jobs, our mortgages, our expenses, our debts, our health, our wealth, and perhaps even our ability to put one foot in front of the other. Add to that, most recently, a pandemic, and it seems we are bombarded with stress and distress from every direction.
Besides our personal lives, we have been through some difficult times in this church—as is fairly common in churches—with great anxiety, sorrow, anger, betrayal, and what hardly needs mentioning, a lack of funds, low attendance and less than abundant fruitfulness. Could these difficulties and sufferings be the pruning process of the great vinedresser? Are we being pruned for greater fruitfulness? I believe that is exactly what's been happening here.
Just as Jesus was preparing his disciples that the time of suffering that they were about to experience was part of a God's bigger plan for an abundant harvest of love. We, too, can learn from Jesus, the true vine, that our suffering will lead to a greater abundance than we can even imagine.
With the hope Jesus shares in this gospel, growing, committed Christians can find strength for the troubled times by abiding in Christ, remaining true to his word, by literally putting our lives, grafting ourselves, on the vine. God is dressing us for mighty works in his name.
God is glorified when we abide in Jesus and bear fruit for him. Jesus' word makes it possible to understand spiritually what's going on in our lives and helps us to endure all things with grace.
Friends, there will always be seasons of trouble, but Jesus promises to those who abide in him that even though they suffer they will one day thrive if they continue living in him, spreading his love, teaching his word, and never, ever giving up.
.
Have you figured out the name of the shop that Finkelstein and Jesus finally agreed upon? Are you ready? Don't prune the messenger now. Here goes: Lord & Taylor.
See, we can survive bad jokes on our own. For the real hard stuff of life, the only way for us as Christians and as a Church to survive the pain of pruning is by abiding in Jesus.
What does it mean to abide in Christ? Each of these activities begins at some point, but the long-term branch-to-vine practice is called abiding. Abiding in Christ means[1]:
· Believing that he is God’s Son (I John 4:15)
· Receiving him as Savior and Lord (John 1:12)
· Doing what God asks us to do (I John 3:24)
· Continuing to believe the gospel (I John 2:24)
· Relating in love to the community of believers, Christ’s body (John 15:12).
Abiding with Jesus, we will come through difficult times with a greater faith, a deepening spirituality, and a growing congregation.
Abiding in Christ, we know that God promises us times of great fruitfulness. When we put our lives on the vine, our ultimate demonstration of great faithfulness, we are met with the ultimate demonstration of God's great love: salvation through his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Apart from him, we can do nothing. Amen.
May 10, 2009/First Parish Federated Church/S Berwick, ME; Rev Donna Lee Muise, pastor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Life Application Bible Commentary: JOHN, p 308.
John 15:1-8; I John 4:7-21
“I am the true vine.”
One day, Jesus decided that he needed a new robe, so he went to the shop of Finkelstein the Tailor. A few days later, when the robe was ready, Jesus tried it on and it was a perfect fit. He asked the tailor how much he owed. Finkelstein brushed him off, “No! No! No! for the Son of God? There's no charge! However, may I ask a small favor of you?”
“Anything!” Jesus responded. “Just ask!”
“Whenever you give a sermon, perhaps you could just mention that your nice new robe was made by Finkelstein the tailor?”
Jesus readily agreed and as promised, extolled the virtues of his Finkelstein robe whenever he spoke to the masses. A few months later, Jesus happened to walk past Finkelstein's shop and noted a huge line of people waiting to order Finkelstein robes. He made his way through the crowd to speak to the tailor, and as soon as Finkelstein spotted Jesus, he shouted, “Jesus! Jesus! Look what you've done for my business! Would you consider a partnership?”
“Certainly,” replied Jesus. “Jesus & Finkelstein, it is!”
“Oh, no, no,” said Finkelstein. “Finkelstein and Jesus. After all, I am the craftsman.”
The two of them debated for quite some time. Their discussion was long and spirited, but ultimately fruitful, and they finally came up with a mutually acceptable compromise. A few days later, the new sign went up over the shop. Can you guess what it read?
Before I tell you the answer, let's take a closer look at this morning's text that also teaches about being in a kind of partnership with Jesus. The word John uses is not partnership, however; the word he uses is abiding…
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
We live in a time and culture where there is much suffering, much uncertainty. Anxiety, a sense of helplessness and all kinds of troubles are around every corner. We don’t know when or if the struggling will end and it's all very unsettling, discouraging, frightening. Whether examining these troubles at home or in the church, the outlook seems quite bleak.
Some churches will say that we are suffering God's judgment and punishment. Some populations say there is no God or that God has forsaken us. Others do not make any connection at all between God and what's happening in our world.
But what about this approach: cannot our understanding of these difficult times we are living in be seen as a way of God's pruning us for greater fruitfulness? I think we can, for Jesus' teaching in John 15 reaches across the centuries. Let's look at then:
During the final Passover meal that they would share, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the difficult days after Jesus has been crucified, resurrected and ascended into heaven. The eleven who remain will encounter great anxiety, sorrow, anger, betrayal, persecution, poverty, and eventually martyrdom.
The disciples are struggling to understand why and how God uses suffering to bring about greater fruitfulness. It just doesn't seem to make any sense. To help them understand how their relationships with one another, with him and with God work, Jesus uses the very familiar grapevine to explain.
Archaeological evidence from Egyptian tombs shows that grapes were being cultivated 2500 years before Christ. Grapes are the most widely grown fruit in the world. The grapevine is part of Israel's national emblem. Grapes are a big deal. But, why so much talk of grapes on the eve of Crucifixion?
The quality of the vine is only as good as the rooted stock. Individual branches are grafted onto a healthy productive stock. New plants are pruned for three to five years to “train” them before they are allowed to produce a crop. It takes a lot of feeding, watering, and pruning, pruning, pruning to yield the best grapes.
Did you know that good roots can produce fruit for as many as 100 years? That, for their size, vines are very productive, yielding as much as eighty pounds of grapes in a single season? That, disease and lack of productivity can spread from dead branches that have not been removed from the vine?
It takes an immense amount of pruning and caring to develop a fruitful vineyard. Equally so, it takes an immense amount of care and pruning to develop a faithful disciple who will yield much fruit for the Lord.
We are facing difficult days in our lives: we are anxious about our jobs, our mortgages, our expenses, our debts, our health, our wealth, and perhaps even our ability to put one foot in front of the other. Add to that, most recently, a pandemic, and it seems we are bombarded with stress and distress from every direction.
Besides our personal lives, we have been through some difficult times in this church—as is fairly common in churches—with great anxiety, sorrow, anger, betrayal, and what hardly needs mentioning, a lack of funds, low attendance and less than abundant fruitfulness. Could these difficulties and sufferings be the pruning process of the great vinedresser? Are we being pruned for greater fruitfulness? I believe that is exactly what's been happening here.
Just as Jesus was preparing his disciples that the time of suffering that they were about to experience was part of a God's bigger plan for an abundant harvest of love. We, too, can learn from Jesus, the true vine, that our suffering will lead to a greater abundance than we can even imagine.
With the hope Jesus shares in this gospel, growing, committed Christians can find strength for the troubled times by abiding in Christ, remaining true to his word, by literally putting our lives, grafting ourselves, on the vine. God is dressing us for mighty works in his name.
God is glorified when we abide in Jesus and bear fruit for him. Jesus' word makes it possible to understand spiritually what's going on in our lives and helps us to endure all things with grace.
Friends, there will always be seasons of trouble, but Jesus promises to those who abide in him that even though they suffer they will one day thrive if they continue living in him, spreading his love, teaching his word, and never, ever giving up.
.
Have you figured out the name of the shop that Finkelstein and Jesus finally agreed upon? Are you ready? Don't prune the messenger now. Here goes: Lord & Taylor.
See, we can survive bad jokes on our own. For the real hard stuff of life, the only way for us as Christians and as a Church to survive the pain of pruning is by abiding in Jesus.
What does it mean to abide in Christ? Each of these activities begins at some point, but the long-term branch-to-vine practice is called abiding. Abiding in Christ means[1]:
· Believing that he is God’s Son (I John 4:15)
· Receiving him as Savior and Lord (John 1:12)
· Doing what God asks us to do (I John 3:24)
· Continuing to believe the gospel (I John 2:24)
· Relating in love to the community of believers, Christ’s body (John 15:12).
Abiding with Jesus, we will come through difficult times with a greater faith, a deepening spirituality, and a growing congregation.
Abiding in Christ, we know that God promises us times of great fruitfulness. When we put our lives on the vine, our ultimate demonstration of great faithfulness, we are met with the ultimate demonstration of God's great love: salvation through his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Apart from him, we can do nothing. Amen.
May 10, 2009/First Parish Federated Church/S Berwick, ME; Rev Donna Lee Muise, pastor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Life Application Bible Commentary: JOHN, p 308.
April 04, 2009
Untie the Donkey
UNTIE THE DONKEY
Mark 11:1-11
....Go into the village ahead of you...and you will find tied there
a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.
The most important week of the Christian year is upon us. Today we start the journey toward Easter. We line the aisles of our church as the Jews lined the road to Jerusalem, all of us waving leafy palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!” It's a wonderful day.
But we know something today that the Jews of Jesus' day did not: this one day of triumph will morph into three days and nights of sorrow. Even as we celebrate this morning, we know that the shadow of the cross looms large behind the Temple; that the air of Jerusalem will be saturated with the breath of betrayal; and that Jesus was fully aware that he was riding into the majesty of “royal” suffering and death.
Knowing what we know, we still wave the palm branches and sing, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who cometh to bring us salvation!” Why? It is the gift of faithful paradox.
The paradox of our faith is as I have shared with you each year. In order to understand Easter, we must go through Good Friday. Jumping from Jesus' riding on, riding on in majesty one Sunday to Jesus' rising victoriously from the dead on the next Sunday, is a lie. This is the reason I so strongly urge each of you to attend the services on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. It's not a burden; it is fulfillment.
Like it or not, scripture is full of truth; it doesn't leave out the hard and depressing and even the frightening stuff in between the triumphs of God. It's the stuff in the middle—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Silent Saturday—that makes this entire week one complete faith story.
In order to experience the magnificent highs of Easter, we must expose ourselves to the desperate lows of Good Friday. In order to complete our participation in the frenzy of the “cheering, chanting, dizzy crowd,” we must gather quietly with Jesus in the upper room, communing for the very last time with our most intimate friends, knowing that our betrayer is among them. We must be humble enough to have the Lord wash our feet clean, wipe our tears away, and forgive us our sins against him.
I ask you today, are you ready to ride the beast of burden called Holy Week, or will you get to the empty tomb by some other way?
Jesus is asking us today through the living word of scripture to be his witnesses to the paradoxes of the faith: to spread our cloaks before him and then rip his robes from him; to raise our voices, singing hosannas in his name, and then to raise our fists against him and demand his condemnation—Crucify Him; to weep beneath his cross and rejoice in front of his empty tomb. To walk with him on the road to Emmaus and to take his message to all the world.
In all the world, Christians are known for living irrationally: “We love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We forgive, as we have been forgiven. We renounce violence as a means of defending or securing or saving ourselves or those we love. We live out the ministry of reconciliation: NO MATTER WHAT.
Our faith makes little sense to the outside world—it may not even make sense to us, yet still we press on. We might be reluctant reconcilers, yet still we press on. At times we feel faint and exhausted and powerless; we are sick and grief-stricken; we are weary and weak, yet still we press on, remembering the words of Isaiah, “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but (sing with me) those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength...(Isa 40:28-31).
The Lord will help us in His way; we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, but there is one thing we are having some trouble doing. We have some trouble trusting Jesus to know what he is doing with us. We trust more what he was doing with the disciples in his day than we trust what he is intending to do for us, and that's where the donkey comes in.
The disciples followed Jesus' instructions to the letter back “in the day.” Jesus said, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immedi-ately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately'” (Mk 11:2-3).
The disciples were successful. They untied the donkey and began to bring it back to Jesus. When they were asked what they thought they were doing, the two simply said, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately,” and the owners let the disciples take the colt.
What about us? We believe we are loved. We believe we are forgiven. We believe that God sent Jesus to save us from sin and death. We believe the promise of the gospel and we sing the songs of faith, so why are we so reluctant to do what he asks? Why do we hesitate to go into the village ahead of us and untie the donkey?
Everybody's got a donkey, my friends. It's extremely valuable;it's irreplaceable. It's the gift each of us is given—the purpose for which we are created. The Lord needs us every bit as much on this Palm Sunday as he did on the first Palm Sunday so very long ago.
But we have so many other “lords” pulling us in a hundred directions. We are so “dizzy” that might have trouble finding our way to the church, why would we ever want to walk over to Dover, untie a slow and smelly donkey and drag it back to town?
Because it is what the Lord has asked of us. The Lord needs us to do his work. And in the midst of all this, I am suggesting that the first work we can do is to agree to untie the donkey, liberate ourselves (and our church) to be the disciples—to be the Church—that Jesus needs to reach his beloved brothers and sisters: all of us caught in a world at war physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially.
Do not let your hearts be troubled! There is freedom for all of us, but first we have to untie that donkey.
Last November, I left my donkey tied in the distance, and I share it with you as intimate friends who are about to share the last supper with Jesus. (Tell story.)
When I say, “Untie your donkey, untie your colt”; I mean untie your life, untie your faith:let it ride on, ride on in majesty. Leaving your colt tied at the door is like leaving your heart there, too. Leaving the donkey tied up means that it will never be more than a beast of burden. Untying the donkey, untying our lives, means that we are free to be carriers of Christ, servants of grace, bringers of peace, vessels of hope, and children of God.
As we contemplate the week ahead—the bread and the wine, the cross and the grave—let us deeply consider Christ's claim upon our lives. Where are we all tied up in knots? What will untangle us so that we may be free to go not only into the next village but to the ends of the earth to bring the good news that Jesus lives? And because Jesus lives, we can face not only tomorrow, but every tomorrow no matter what it brings. We can face anything, for we are never alone—not in the Garden of Gethsemane, not on the cross at Calvary, and not in the tomb of Aremathea. We have our Savior and we have each other. Into our hands has been placed to power to untie the donkey and set people free for the love of Jesus Christ. In the midst of faith's new dimensions, my friends, ride on, ride on! I'm behind you all the way! Amen.
April 5, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise
Mark 11:1-11
....Go into the village ahead of you...and you will find tied there
a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.
The most important week of the Christian year is upon us. Today we start the journey toward Easter. We line the aisles of our church as the Jews lined the road to Jerusalem, all of us waving leafy palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!” It's a wonderful day.
But we know something today that the Jews of Jesus' day did not: this one day of triumph will morph into three days and nights of sorrow. Even as we celebrate this morning, we know that the shadow of the cross looms large behind the Temple; that the air of Jerusalem will be saturated with the breath of betrayal; and that Jesus was fully aware that he was riding into the majesty of “royal” suffering and death.
Knowing what we know, we still wave the palm branches and sing, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who cometh to bring us salvation!” Why? It is the gift of faithful paradox.
The paradox of our faith is as I have shared with you each year. In order to understand Easter, we must go through Good Friday. Jumping from Jesus' riding on, riding on in majesty one Sunday to Jesus' rising victoriously from the dead on the next Sunday, is a lie. This is the reason I so strongly urge each of you to attend the services on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. It's not a burden; it is fulfillment.
Like it or not, scripture is full of truth; it doesn't leave out the hard and depressing and even the frightening stuff in between the triumphs of God. It's the stuff in the middle—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Silent Saturday—that makes this entire week one complete faith story.
In order to experience the magnificent highs of Easter, we must expose ourselves to the desperate lows of Good Friday. In order to complete our participation in the frenzy of the “cheering, chanting, dizzy crowd,” we must gather quietly with Jesus in the upper room, communing for the very last time with our most intimate friends, knowing that our betrayer is among them. We must be humble enough to have the Lord wash our feet clean, wipe our tears away, and forgive us our sins against him.
I ask you today, are you ready to ride the beast of burden called Holy Week, or will you get to the empty tomb by some other way?
Jesus is asking us today through the living word of scripture to be his witnesses to the paradoxes of the faith: to spread our cloaks before him and then rip his robes from him; to raise our voices, singing hosannas in his name, and then to raise our fists against him and demand his condemnation—Crucify Him; to weep beneath his cross and rejoice in front of his empty tomb. To walk with him on the road to Emmaus and to take his message to all the world.
In all the world, Christians are known for living irrationally: “We love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We forgive, as we have been forgiven. We renounce violence as a means of defending or securing or saving ourselves or those we love. We live out the ministry of reconciliation: NO MATTER WHAT.
Our faith makes little sense to the outside world—it may not even make sense to us, yet still we press on. We might be reluctant reconcilers, yet still we press on. At times we feel faint and exhausted and powerless; we are sick and grief-stricken; we are weary and weak, yet still we press on, remembering the words of Isaiah, “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but (sing with me) those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength...(Isa 40:28-31).
The Lord will help us in His way; we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, but there is one thing we are having some trouble doing. We have some trouble trusting Jesus to know what he is doing with us. We trust more what he was doing with the disciples in his day than we trust what he is intending to do for us, and that's where the donkey comes in.
The disciples followed Jesus' instructions to the letter back “in the day.” Jesus said, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immedi-ately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately'” (Mk 11:2-3).
The disciples were successful. They untied the donkey and began to bring it back to Jesus. When they were asked what they thought they were doing, the two simply said, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately,” and the owners let the disciples take the colt.
What about us? We believe we are loved. We believe we are forgiven. We believe that God sent Jesus to save us from sin and death. We believe the promise of the gospel and we sing the songs of faith, so why are we so reluctant to do what he asks? Why do we hesitate to go into the village ahead of us and untie the donkey?
Everybody's got a donkey, my friends. It's extremely valuable;it's irreplaceable. It's the gift each of us is given—the purpose for which we are created. The Lord needs us every bit as much on this Palm Sunday as he did on the first Palm Sunday so very long ago.
But we have so many other “lords” pulling us in a hundred directions. We are so “dizzy” that might have trouble finding our way to the church, why would we ever want to walk over to Dover, untie a slow and smelly donkey and drag it back to town?
Because it is what the Lord has asked of us. The Lord needs us to do his work. And in the midst of all this, I am suggesting that the first work we can do is to agree to untie the donkey, liberate ourselves (and our church) to be the disciples—to be the Church—that Jesus needs to reach his beloved brothers and sisters: all of us caught in a world at war physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially.
Do not let your hearts be troubled! There is freedom for all of us, but first we have to untie that donkey.
Last November, I left my donkey tied in the distance, and I share it with you as intimate friends who are about to share the last supper with Jesus. (Tell story.)
When I say, “Untie your donkey, untie your colt”; I mean untie your life, untie your faith:let it ride on, ride on in majesty. Leaving your colt tied at the door is like leaving your heart there, too. Leaving the donkey tied up means that it will never be more than a beast of burden. Untying the donkey, untying our lives, means that we are free to be carriers of Christ, servants of grace, bringers of peace, vessels of hope, and children of God.
As we contemplate the week ahead—the bread and the wine, the cross and the grave—let us deeply consider Christ's claim upon our lives. Where are we all tied up in knots? What will untangle us so that we may be free to go not only into the next village but to the ends of the earth to bring the good news that Jesus lives? And because Jesus lives, we can face not only tomorrow, but every tomorrow no matter what it brings. We can face anything, for we are never alone—not in the Garden of Gethsemane, not on the cross at Calvary, and not in the tomb of Aremathea. We have our Savior and we have each other. Into our hands has been placed to power to untie the donkey and set people free for the love of Jesus Christ. In the midst of faith's new dimensions, my friends, ride on, ride on! I'm behind you all the way! Amen.
April 5, 2009
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise
March 15, 2009
Temple Upside Down
TEMPLE UPSIDEDOWN
John 2:13-22; I Corinthians 1:18-25
The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
Today, I want to look at the "unexpressed text" in our passage from John—a familiar passage to many, especially since it covers an event that is recorded in all four gospels. This story is always taught in Sunday School, probably because it is very dramatic. It also challenges our stereotypical characterization of Jesus as always being kind, good, and soft-spoken; and it involves a lot of yelling and running, as well as imperfect people running afoul of the perfect Christ.
Bear with me as we go deeper into the text, to what I see as an underlying human condition that leads people astray, a condition that we can learn to counteract through a proper perspective of God’s divine authority and Christ’s sacrifice for our sin.
There are three features of John’s report of the cleansing of the Temple that do not all appear in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These features are the presence of oxen and sheep inside the Temple precinct; the making of a whip; and the prophetic words of Jesus in v 19.
There are no Jewish historical texts that mention animals in the Temple. Knowing what we know about animals and the call of nature, the reason they were not allowed within the Temple is more than obvious.
No weapons were allowed inside the Temple, so the best guestimate is that Jesus grabbed the bulrushes (used for bedding for the animals who were not supposed to be there) and made a whip out of those. Today’s crime scene investigators might call the bulrushes a "weapon of opportunity."
It also appears as if Jesus drove out the merchants as if they were animals. However, none can imagine that Jesus would resort to violence in order to make a point. He preferred preaching parables to wielding weapons.
The third unique feature of John’s record is verse 19: "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews pounce on his words at that moment and also bring it up at his trial, distorting the meaning into little more than sorcery.
How had the sacred Temple at Passover time deteriorated from a holy house of prayer, reverence and worship into a bellowing barnyard of cheating, money changing, out-right thievery? Enter the human condition of slowly, unnoticeably, imperceptibly forgetting our good intentions. What starts out as a righteous reason for a noble action can deteriorate over time into a pointless practice or, as in the case of the Temple merchants, an occasion for what might be called "sanctioned sin."
How did the chosen people of God corrode into the self-chosen people of God? The same way any of us does, by forgetting our purpose, our call, our reason for being; by losing sight of our right-side-up selves that God created us to be; by living as though we grant God his power and his wisdom.
When we forget whose we are, major correction is necessary. We need to be turned upside down, perhaps (figuratively or literally) dropped on our heads so that we start using our hearts for God.
If any believer allows the safety of human intellect to inform the ways our "business" of faith is conducted, then believers have forgotten who is in charge.
It is time to remember well the words of Paul in I Corinthians: "The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength" (v 25).
Look at the merchants in the Temple: the services they provided could very well have started out as a helpful means of providing a convenient way for the pilgrims to enter the Temple. The services of the Merchants provided the faithful the necessary elements to fulfill their holy obligations. The best animals for their sacrifices and the right coinage for their Temple taxes were made easily available, what could be so bad about that?
Somewhere along the line, perhaps through the passage of time, the merchants’ motivations oozed into desires for personal gain under the guise of business transactions, and it was in this meandering metamorphosis that sin silently replaced sanctuary.
"Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!" Jesus was angry, incensed. Nothing less than turning the temple upside down would achieve total cleansing. This was not an occasion for a parable.
John does not relate this event as a reason to kill the Church, nor is it an attack upon all our rites, customs and designated holy places, but upon our tendency to elevate these things to positions of higher holiness than we ascribe to God.
We tend to give these places and customs the worship and devotion that belongs to God, and God alone.
When we love things that cannot love us back, we misplace our love. When we present Christ-like attitudes to achieve personal gain, we abuse our Lord. When we define God within our own terms, we confine our hope to the weakened structures of a fallen world. Salvation means little more than satisfying human ideology.
Through God’s gift of Jesus Christ to the world, we have been given the presence of the highest love, the model of the deepest commitment, and the grace of the finest forgiveness.
Turning the temple upside down is the best way to turn Christians right side up for the journey with Christ to the cross on Calvary hill and the salvation joy of resurrection morning—proving Jesus’ words to be true: the temple destroyed and rebuilt in three days. Amen.
3/15/2009//1st Parish Fed Church, S Berwick, ME/Rev DL Muise
John 2:13-22; I Corinthians 1:18-25
The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
Today, I want to look at the "unexpressed text" in our passage from John—a familiar passage to many, especially since it covers an event that is recorded in all four gospels. This story is always taught in Sunday School, probably because it is very dramatic. It also challenges our stereotypical characterization of Jesus as always being kind, good, and soft-spoken; and it involves a lot of yelling and running, as well as imperfect people running afoul of the perfect Christ.
Bear with me as we go deeper into the text, to what I see as an underlying human condition that leads people astray, a condition that we can learn to counteract through a proper perspective of God’s divine authority and Christ’s sacrifice for our sin.
There are three features of John’s report of the cleansing of the Temple that do not all appear in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These features are the presence of oxen and sheep inside the Temple precinct; the making of a whip; and the prophetic words of Jesus in v 19.
There are no Jewish historical texts that mention animals in the Temple. Knowing what we know about animals and the call of nature, the reason they were not allowed within the Temple is more than obvious.
No weapons were allowed inside the Temple, so the best guestimate is that Jesus grabbed the bulrushes (used for bedding for the animals who were not supposed to be there) and made a whip out of those. Today’s crime scene investigators might call the bulrushes a "weapon of opportunity."
It also appears as if Jesus drove out the merchants as if they were animals. However, none can imagine that Jesus would resort to violence in order to make a point. He preferred preaching parables to wielding weapons.
The third unique feature of John’s record is verse 19: "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews pounce on his words at that moment and also bring it up at his trial, distorting the meaning into little more than sorcery.
How had the sacred Temple at Passover time deteriorated from a holy house of prayer, reverence and worship into a bellowing barnyard of cheating, money changing, out-right thievery? Enter the human condition of slowly, unnoticeably, imperceptibly forgetting our good intentions. What starts out as a righteous reason for a noble action can deteriorate over time into a pointless practice or, as in the case of the Temple merchants, an occasion for what might be called "sanctioned sin."
How did the chosen people of God corrode into the self-chosen people of God? The same way any of us does, by forgetting our purpose, our call, our reason for being; by losing sight of our right-side-up selves that God created us to be; by living as though we grant God his power and his wisdom.
When we forget whose we are, major correction is necessary. We need to be turned upside down, perhaps (figuratively or literally) dropped on our heads so that we start using our hearts for God.
If any believer allows the safety of human intellect to inform the ways our "business" of faith is conducted, then believers have forgotten who is in charge.
It is time to remember well the words of Paul in I Corinthians: "The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength" (v 25).
Look at the merchants in the Temple: the services they provided could very well have started out as a helpful means of providing a convenient way for the pilgrims to enter the Temple. The services of the Merchants provided the faithful the necessary elements to fulfill their holy obligations. The best animals for their sacrifices and the right coinage for their Temple taxes were made easily available, what could be so bad about that?
Somewhere along the line, perhaps through the passage of time, the merchants’ motivations oozed into desires for personal gain under the guise of business transactions, and it was in this meandering metamorphosis that sin silently replaced sanctuary.
"Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!" Jesus was angry, incensed. Nothing less than turning the temple upside down would achieve total cleansing. This was not an occasion for a parable.
John does not relate this event as a reason to kill the Church, nor is it an attack upon all our rites, customs and designated holy places, but upon our tendency to elevate these things to positions of higher holiness than we ascribe to God.
We tend to give these places and customs the worship and devotion that belongs to God, and God alone.
When we love things that cannot love us back, we misplace our love. When we present Christ-like attitudes to achieve personal gain, we abuse our Lord. When we define God within our own terms, we confine our hope to the weakened structures of a fallen world. Salvation means little more than satisfying human ideology.
Through God’s gift of Jesus Christ to the world, we have been given the presence of the highest love, the model of the deepest commitment, and the grace of the finest forgiveness.
Turning the temple upside down is the best way to turn Christians right side up for the journey with Christ to the cross on Calvary hill and the salvation joy of resurrection morning—proving Jesus’ words to be true: the temple destroyed and rebuilt in three days. Amen.
3/15/2009//1st Parish Fed Church, S Berwick, ME/Rev DL Muise
March 01, 2009
Spirits in Prison
SPIRITS IN PRISON
Mark 1: 9-12; 1 Peter 3:18-22
At once, the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan.
Let’s get right to it: Christ requires, not simply desires, disciples who are willing to confront, not simply face, the wilderness.
The wilderness can make or break a Christian for any number of reasons—Mark mentions a few trappings in verse 12: he was in the wilderness 40 DAYS; he was being tempted by SATAN; and he was with the WILD BEASTS and ANGELS attended him.
FORTY DAYS in bible language means an extraordinary long time. What can we take from a very long time outside of our safety or comfort zones? Perseverance? Trust? Patience? The art of Solitude? Yes, these, but something more.
TEMPTED BY SATAN: Why was Jesus DRIVEN, even THROWN, into the Wilderness just after that beautiful moment at the Jordan? To teach us how to respond, with scripture, when tempted? To encourage us to not fear the wilderness journey of discipleship? To face our own temptations and wild beasts? Yes, these, but also something more.
WILD BEASTS in Jesus’ day constituted boars, jackals, wolves, foxes, leopards and hyenas. Angels are the messengers of God. What a juxtaposition of forces—wild beasts and angels—all around Jesus. One group could tear him apart and the other could put him back together again. How should we understand the presence of each?
To remind us of the hostile nature of the wilderness? To accentuate Jesus’ vulnerability as a human? To impress upon us his ability to deal with both the beast and the angel? Yes, these, and also something more.
What is the something more we are to learn today? Let’s look at 1 Peter 3:18. "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God."
Every move he made, every word he spoke, every prayer he prayed, Jesus did all of it in accordance with his mission to bring each person back into relationship with God.
There are no forgotten children of God: no one too sick, too bad, too dirty, too haughty, too ignorant, too intelligent, too beast-like, to be reached, to be healed, to be made whole, to be suffered for, to die for, to rise for. Yes, Jesus did all of these for us, and even more.
"He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. [And] In that state, he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison…"
The wilderness season of Lent is an appropriate time to examine how our spirits are imprisoned.
We live as free individuals. We make our own choices and decisions about everything, yet when it comes to our faith, many of us own imprisoned spirits.
We settle for something less than angels but more than wild beasts. We are willing to endure ten days, but not a full forty. We stop short of the full commitment; we stop short of the cross, and that is why our spirits remain in prison.
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I am saying to each of us that the unexamined faith is hardly worth having.
When Socrates spoke of the unexamined life, he was on trial for heresy. He was encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves.
The sentence was death but Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death.But Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his "examined life" there was no point in living.
So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death. "The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living" by Karl W. Palachuk
Our challenge as we begin this Lenten journey is to free our spirits—not for our own gain, of course, but for God’s glory.
The something more that we can receive through our walk with Jesus Christ is a strength like no other—the strength of the Spirit to not only throw us into the wildernesses of our lives but also to bring us out victorious. Let’s get right to it:
Jesus defeated Satan.
He faced the wild beasts.
He endured the entire journey
He emerged to fulfill his mission.
He was obedient unto God, even to the point of death.
He sits at the right hand of God—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
When Christians in obedience to Christ gather in churches as one body, they have the strength of wild beasts and angels; they have the fortitude to not merely to persevere but to PREVAIL.
Know this, the Church, any church, our church, cannot prevail without the loving commitment to go to the cross with Christ. On the other side of the cross is resurrection, reconciliation, redemption…and an invitation to the greatest banquet our hearts will ever feed upon.
At Christ’s table, the gates of heaven open wide: the imprisoned spirits are set free…free, for what? To pledge with a clear conscience our faith in God who will find us in any wilderness, from the deep woods of Oregon in THE SHACK to the shores of coastal Maine.
The Lord knows where we are. Shall we keep our spirits in prison, or shall we go out to meet him and receive something so much more? Amen.
March 1, 2009
First Parish Federated Church, S Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
Mark 1: 9-12; 1 Peter 3:18-22
At once, the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan.
Let’s get right to it: Christ requires, not simply desires, disciples who are willing to confront, not simply face, the wilderness.
The wilderness can make or break a Christian for any number of reasons—Mark mentions a few trappings in verse 12: he was in the wilderness 40 DAYS; he was being tempted by SATAN; and he was with the WILD BEASTS and ANGELS attended him.
FORTY DAYS in bible language means an extraordinary long time. What can we take from a very long time outside of our safety or comfort zones? Perseverance? Trust? Patience? The art of Solitude? Yes, these, but something more.
TEMPTED BY SATAN: Why was Jesus DRIVEN, even THROWN, into the Wilderness just after that beautiful moment at the Jordan? To teach us how to respond, with scripture, when tempted? To encourage us to not fear the wilderness journey of discipleship? To face our own temptations and wild beasts? Yes, these, but also something more.
WILD BEASTS in Jesus’ day constituted boars, jackals, wolves, foxes, leopards and hyenas. Angels are the messengers of God. What a juxtaposition of forces—wild beasts and angels—all around Jesus. One group could tear him apart and the other could put him back together again. How should we understand the presence of each?
To remind us of the hostile nature of the wilderness? To accentuate Jesus’ vulnerability as a human? To impress upon us his ability to deal with both the beast and the angel? Yes, these, and also something more.
What is the something more we are to learn today? Let’s look at 1 Peter 3:18. "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God."
Every move he made, every word he spoke, every prayer he prayed, Jesus did all of it in accordance with his mission to bring each person back into relationship with God.
There are no forgotten children of God: no one too sick, too bad, too dirty, too haughty, too ignorant, too intelligent, too beast-like, to be reached, to be healed, to be made whole, to be suffered for, to die for, to rise for. Yes, Jesus did all of these for us, and even more.
"He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. [And] In that state, he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison…"
The wilderness season of Lent is an appropriate time to examine how our spirits are imprisoned.
We live as free individuals. We make our own choices and decisions about everything, yet when it comes to our faith, many of us own imprisoned spirits.
We settle for something less than angels but more than wild beasts. We are willing to endure ten days, but not a full forty. We stop short of the full commitment; we stop short of the cross, and that is why our spirits remain in prison.
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I am saying to each of us that the unexamined faith is hardly worth having.
When Socrates spoke of the unexamined life, he was on trial for heresy. He was encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves.
The sentence was death but Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death.But Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his "examined life" there was no point in living.
So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death. "The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living" by Karl W. Palachuk
Our challenge as we begin this Lenten journey is to free our spirits—not for our own gain, of course, but for God’s glory.
The something more that we can receive through our walk with Jesus Christ is a strength like no other—the strength of the Spirit to not only throw us into the wildernesses of our lives but also to bring us out victorious. Let’s get right to it:
Jesus defeated Satan.
He faced the wild beasts.
He endured the entire journey
He emerged to fulfill his mission.
He was obedient unto God, even to the point of death.
He sits at the right hand of God—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
When Christians in obedience to Christ gather in churches as one body, they have the strength of wild beasts and angels; they have the fortitude to not merely to persevere but to PREVAIL.
Know this, the Church, any church, our church, cannot prevail without the loving commitment to go to the cross with Christ. On the other side of the cross is resurrection, reconciliation, redemption…and an invitation to the greatest banquet our hearts will ever feed upon.
At Christ’s table, the gates of heaven open wide: the imprisoned spirits are set free…free, for what? To pledge with a clear conscience our faith in God who will find us in any wilderness, from the deep woods of Oregon in THE SHACK to the shores of coastal Maine.
The Lord knows where we are. Shall we keep our spirits in prison, or shall we go out to meet him and receive something so much more? Amen.
March 1, 2009
First Parish Federated Church, S Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
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