Grace to Lead Me Home

Sermon as preached at Evington 9/16/12 and Lambs 9/23/12


Scripture: 1 Peter 4:1-11

The hymn Amazing Grace will forever be tied to service in my mind. This may seem pretty odd, since the hymn’s lyrics are much more about conversion than they are service; they are much more focused on oneself, rather than others. Still, I will always treasure this hymn as a hymn of service, because of one of my own experiences in service.  In 2006, a year after hurricane Katrina had devastated the gulf coast of America, the church I grew up in sent a team of members down to Gulfport, Mississippi to help with recovery and rebuilding efforts, and I was fortunate enough to be on that team. When we got there, even a year later the area was still in shambles. There were beautiful antebellum stairways that lead to nowhere, McDonald’s and Gas station signs, but no building, and even a small fishing boat that had washed up about three blocks inland. Our church had the pleasure of helping our a man named Leo. Leo had lost just about everything in the storm, and teams had been helping him throughout the year fix his house. Our main task was fixing the walls and cleaning debris from the yard. Due to the damage to his house, Leo had been living in a small FEMA trailer for over a year, he did plumbing work whenever he could get a job, but most people in the area were like him and plumbing was the least of their worries. One day during the middle of the week, Leo and his brother wanted to show us their gratitude for the work that we were doing. Although they did not have much, they cooked us a wonderful Cajun feast including jambalaya, shrimp Gumbo, and Crawdads. While we were eating and resting in the shade, Leo and his brother began to sing, and what did they sing? Amazing Grace. The sound bellowed from  the depths of their souls, while both they and all who heard fought back the tears. Here were two men, completely devastated by one of the worst hurricanes in US history, they had lost almost all they had possessed, but here they were singing from their souls about the Amazing Grace of God. At that moment I felt as though those words were just as much coming from my soul as it was there. I was no longer just a Christian trying to do something nice for someone else, but I myself was one was with Leo and his brother. The Amazing Grace was not just the grace that they received by having Christians come and help them, but it was also the grace that all of us there received, being forever transformed in our lives. In that moment I realized that service was also a very personal endeavor.

            So this may not be what many of you expected to hear from me when talking about service. After all in the prior sermon series I have taken many practices that are very personal to us and told you that the focus needed to be on others. When talking about prayer I talked about how we need to pray with and for each other. When talking about worship, I talked about how it was important that all members of the body be present. Even when talking about giving last week, I talked about how it is not about us but about God. Now, I’m talking about service, something that is so obviously not about us, and I’m making it personal?! You must think that I am doing this just to mess with your minds, but I assure you I’m not. My goal is to present these topics in ways that we may not have thought about them before.

            And that is why I really like this scripture passage from 1 Peter for talking about service, because it too is not your typical passage about service. In fact, Peter’s discourse on service is not until very late in this passage. This passage actually starts off with Peter talking about us and our own actions. As was the case when we discussed James and prayer, Peter here is making a differentiation between what is of this world, and what is of God. He says, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin),²so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God.³You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.” Peter is telling his fellow Christians that if we want to be followers of Christ, then we need to actually follow Christ. We need to act with the same intentions of Christ instead of acting as the Gentiles do in the world. He lists for us a laundry list of some of the crude actions that many Gentiles are participating in, including lawlessness, drunkenness, and giving in to our passions, and tells us that if we want to be true followers of Christ then we need to lead this type of living behind.

            So how does this help shape the way in which we view service. How do our personal morals have anything to do with helping our fellow neighbor? If we view this part of Peter’s message simply as a list of rules for our lives, as a checklist of things to avoid, then we are severely missing the point of Peter’s message, and the link to service will in fact make no sense. We need to look at what Peter is really saying in this passage. Peter’s first two verses gives us all the clues we need to understand what is at the heart of his message. Let’s look at it one more time, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin),²so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God.”  For Peter, the crux of this passage focuses on becoming more like Christ. It focuses on making our will become more in tune with the will of God.

            As Methodists, this is something that is part of our theological heritage. Pastor’s that are about to be ordained are asked many historic questions that Wesley himself used to ask, including, “Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after it?” These tough question may be asked only to the ordained pastors, but they apply equally to all United Methodists. “Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after it?” Our response to all of these questions should be a simple yes.

            Yet this task seems impossible, how are we supposed to become perfect? So let’s be clear, Christian perfection does not mean that you become flawless, it does not mean that you yourself become God; no perfection, perfection in love means that our will is aligned with the will of God. We may still fail, and we will, but it means that every action we take we take because we are trying to follow God, every decision we make, we make using that cliché line of What would Jesus do? Being perfected in love means that we have strived throughout our lives to follow habits that produce love so that when a challenge is presented before us our initial reaction is to respond in love and not hate. Christian perfection for sure is a lofty ideal, but it is one that is possible, and more so is one that we should be striving towards.

            Are we there yet?  I can’t answer for you, but I know that I certainly am not, but as both Wesley and Peter in our passage for today instruct, we should be striving towards it.  That is why we put off the things of the world, not simply because it is a checklist of moral laws to follow, but so that we may grow closer to God in our journey of faith, and likewise this is one of the reasons why service is so important. If we are striving to continuously live more like Christ, then how should we treat the others around us? Well, Peter tells us, “The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.⁸Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.⁹Be hospitable to one another without complaining.¹⁰Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.¹¹Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever.” Constantly love one another, be hospitable without complaining, serve one another; this is how we can become more like Christ. Service is one of the primary ways in which we can become more like Christ. Through serving others, not only do we spread the love of Christ to someone in need, but we ourselves grow closer to Christ in our journey of faith. Service is an incredible means of grace.

            But do not misunderstand me, good works do not save you. This is not what we believe. We are saved through the grace of God. The wonderful grace that was given to us before we took our first breath, the grace that was given to us on the cross. The grace that lead us to Christ before we even knew who Christ was. The grace that turned us from our bondage to sin and death and made us washed new by the waters of our baptism. And it is that amazing grace that continues to transform our lives to be faithful disciples of Christ. It is only through this grace that we are saved, but it is also through this grace that we are able to become more like Christ.

            I turn once again to that wonderful hymn, Amazing Grace, and in particular to the third verse, which says, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” This is a beautiful line that talks about the way in which God’s grace has already worked in our lives, carrying us through dark and difficult times. It is also a line of hope; a hope in the time in which we are able to rest with God in the fellowship of the angels and the saints. Yet when many people hear this line they forget about the here and the now. They think, God has carried me through the tough times of my life, and now that I have been saved  I can just sit and wait until God takes me home. But notice that the hymn does not say God will take me home, or God will carry me home, God will pick me up in his limousine and escort me home; no the line says God will lead me home. This indicates that between the time in which we accepted Christ into our lives and the time in which we are laid to rest, there is still a journey that we must undertake. A journey towards perfection, a journey towards become closer with God. This journey is only done through the grace of God, and we are called to respond accordingly to God’s grace. As Peter tells us, “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.¹¹Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. Like good stewards of the grace of God; there is that word again steward. This time we are stewards of God’s grace. How do we best take care of the grace of God that we have been given? Serve one another with whatever gift each of you have received, speak as one speaking the very words of God, serve with the strength that God supplies, so that through it all God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Service is so important to us as Christians because through it we are able to be stewards of the Amazing grace God has given us. Through service we can continue to walk onward towards perfection through the grace of God. The grace we receive and the grace of God that we show others through service truly is an Amazing Grace, and it is a grace that leads us home.

You Reap What You Sow

Sermon as Preached 9/9 at Evington UMC and 9/16 at Lambs UMC

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

A little over a year ago I was not in a very good place weight wise, Not to say that I am now, but I was very unhealthy, so much so that when I went to the doctors for a physical, he told me that my weight was becoming a problem. From then on I tried to lose weight, but I had a very difficult time putting the energy that I should into my health. I tried to make little concessions such as switching from regular soda to diet soda, or switching from 80% lean beef to 90% lean beef. I told myself that I didn’t have time for exercise, and I continued to live my life in very much the same way that I had, with now a few minor concessions. The changes in my diet were indeed important changes to make, but they were very small steps compared to what I needed to be doing. Yet every week I would still get on the scale expecting the pounds to have just dropped off, and was stunned and saddened when I realized I had lost very little weight if any weight at all! I then made the decision to put more effort into my health. I continued to use those helpful concessions that I had already made, but I also made my diet more drastic. I started to not only watch what I ate, but how much I ate, and became very deliberate about eating only the amount that I needed. I also forced myself to go to the gym three times a week. I increased my daily water intake. In essence I became much more serious about taking care of my body, and I had put much more effort into my overall health. And after putting this effort in, when I got on the scale each week, to my amazement weight had dropped off. Even in times where weight had remained steady, I could actually see improvement in my muscles, which told me that I had lost fat and gained weight. In fact, after making the decision to put an emphasis on my health, I have lost over 40 pounds in a little over a year.

            I tell this story not as a personal testimony for weight loss; no this is not a Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers commercial, but I tell this story because it teaches us a crucial lesson for our topic for today. With this type of story, one would expect that the sermon today would be on taking care of our bodies, but if you have been paying attention to our sermon series, then you know that today’s topic is about gifts and giving. You may be wondering now, how does this relate to giving? Let’s look at our scripture for today, and maybe we can start to see how.

            In this passage from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, Paul is talking about giving. More accurately, Paul is encouraging the church in Corinth to consider giving to a new collection that Paul is taking up, one that would allow the Corinthians to join in with other Christian churches around the world (or the world as they knew it) to help spread the Gospel and to also mend fences between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. Paul knows that this will be an unfavorable request, especially since Paul had a bit of a falling out with the Corinthians between his first and second letter. For this reason Paul does not try to pull any rank or prestige, he doesn’t remind the Corinthians that he helped to form and sustain them so now they need to give, because in the eyes of Paul, giving that is forced or coerced is not true giving. Instead, Paul takes time in this passage to the Corinthians to explain why we give.

            He starts his explanation by saying, “⁶The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” You reap what you sow. This is Paul’s advice for the church about giving. You reap what you sow. We have heard this phrase we know what it means. The more you put into something the more you get out. Literally the phrase is saying the more seeds you plant, the more you will have when harvest time comes around. And this is Paul’s advice to the Corinthians about how and why they should give. At first this may seem like strange advice, but when we really think about Paul’s advice in this passage, we quickly see that it is very sound advice.

            How many times have we put very little into the church, maybe given whatever was in our pockets that day, maybe seeing in our wallet a five and one and we pull out the one and put it in the plate, and then later we hear about the how the church is not participating in a project that we think would be a great way to spread the Gospel, or we do not help someone who may be in need of help, and we ask why isn’t the church doing more. So often we have a completely forget that as a church, we reap what we sow.

            I believe that this is because there is a complete disconnect between our giving and seeing the fruits of our giving. How often do we give money to the offering simply because we see it as some sort of membership due that we are required to pay? When we do happen to think about what our money is going towards, we only tend to see our offering as paying for the pastor’s salary and the maintenance and upkeep of the church. While our offering does goes towards maintenance and salary, we forget about how our offering is used by God to change this church, the community, and the world. Sometimes we need to be reminded how our offering to God is being used to spread the Gospel and build up the Kingdom of God.  Through your offering this year our church has been able to bring in wonderful speakers and musical guests who have inspired us through their gifts for ministry. Our offering has been used to help countless families and people in our communities who are down on their luck, and needed our help. Our offerings have helped places like Heart Havens serve members of our community with disabilities, and places like DAWN provide food to our community. Our offerings have help to educate kids in Brazil and give them a safe after school place that keeps them off the street and teaches them about the love of Jesus Christ. Our offerings have helped to establish new churches in Virginia, across the US, and overseas, including Cambodia which is now seeing a great boom in Methodist churches. Our offerings have helped to provide scholarship to future pastors both in America as well as in Africa where we support Africa University which serves students from over 21 different countries. All of this is made possible through our offering to God. Paul is telling us if we want to continue to serve the Lord in these great ways, in fact if we want to spread the Gospel even further, we must sow more seeds because we can only reap what we sow.

            Paul tells us something else that is very important though. Paul says, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.⁸And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” In this passage Paul is telling us two crucial things about giving. First, he is telling us that giving must be voluntary. We should only give because we are happy to give, not because we are forced to give or coerced to give. So often offerings feel like a burden, like something we have to do, we rarely give with a joyful heart, we are so rarely “cheerful givers” as Paul calls it. This is why Paul is reminding us we reap what we sow. It’s not to make us feel guilty about our giving tendency, it is not to try and coerce us into giving; Paul tells us that we reap what we sow, so that we may once again experience the joy in giving. He reminds us about all the ways in which are giving impacts the church and the world around us. He reminds us that what we give really does matter, that it really does help the Kingdom of God. Not only this, but Paul is giving us hope and faith that through a little bit more sowing, through the grace of God, we can help change the world!

            Even after hearing this, it is still difficult to give cheerfully. We take this you reap what you sow to heart in our own personal lives, and we see all the hard work that we put into to earn our money, and then are broken hearted when we feel like we should give some of it away instead of seeing how we could reap what we sow in our own lives. But Paul warns us against this type of thinking, that is why he says, “⁸And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” This is the second great lesson that Paul is teaching us, and that is that all we have is only possible because God provided it for us. Did we work hard to earn it ourselves? Of course we did, but everything that we have, that we are able to do, all the doors that have been opened for us, is only possible through our Lord Jesus Christ. After all it is God who created us and this world in the first place. Paul reminds us that what God has given us is sufficient, and the excess that we earn we earn so that we share it. That God may work through us to provide sufficiency to a fellow brother or sister of God’s creation. You see our founder of Methodism John Wesley had a popular phrase that has been used through the centuries that goes like this, “Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Now this phrase has been often used as a sort of motto for the Protestant work ethic, that we should work hard and earn all we can and that we should save it. This leads to a looking  out for numero uno mentality, but this leaves off the last part of his quote, which is the most important. The reason that we earn all we can, and the reason that we save all we can, is so that we are able to support ourselves and then give all that we can to help others. Wesley’s motto is not an example of financial  stinginess, but is really an example of great giving.

            This sort of giving, and this joy in giving can only really take place when we realize that what we are giving, is only possible because of what God has given to us. When we started this Stewardship sermon series, I talked about how the word stewardship was unfamiliar to us. That often when we heard the word stewardship, all we thought about was the church asking us for money, but what does stewardship really mean? Well in the medieval times, people operated under the feudal system, which means that there were different lords of area who owned the landed and usually a castle. The lord controlled that land and all of his servants usually worked and lived on his land. Usually the lord would have a servant called the steward. The steward was a person that the lord trusted, because the steward’s responsibility was to take care of the household and it’s management. In essence, the lord was the owner, and the steward was the manager. The steward did not own any of the things that he had control over, but did often have the privilege of its use and benefits.

            When we talk about stewardship in the church, we are talking about very similar things. We have one Lord, who has given us everything; not for us own, but to use and take advantage of. With that, we also have the responsibility of taking care of all of what the Lord owns. When we are able to view what we have less as our own ownership, and more as God’s gift given for us to use, then it becomes easier to give with a cheerful heart. We want to give to God’s church, we want to help those in need, because by doing so, we are able to show our thanks to God who has given us so much.  When we remember that everything belongs to God, then we want to sow more seeds because what we reap is one of the greatest thanks that we could ever give to God. But like my weight loss story suggests, minor concessions only produce minor results. To truly see this church, this community, and this world transformed, we have to become committed to our sowing.

One For All, and All For One

Sermon as preached at Lambs UMC 9/9/11

Scripture: Hebrews 10: 19-25, 32-35

 

As I was driving to Lambs one day, I passed the Baptist church there on Gladys road and the church sign caught my interest. The sign had a simple but challenging message saying, “You could worship God at home on Sunday mornings, but do you?” When I read that sign I chuckled. It was a very clever sign trying to get people to come to Sunday worship. The jist of the message was you could have a personal relationship with Jesus at home, but we know that you are lazy or easily distracted, so you might as well come to church Sunday morning to guarantee that you actually worship. While I do applaud the church for trying to stress the importance of worship, I am afraid that the sign is playing into a dangerous way of thinking about worship that has become so popular of the past few decades. The potential danger of this sign is that it may lead us to think that worship is about us. Sure worship can and should be a deep and meaningful time in which we are connected more to Christ and that the word of God speaks to our hearts, but is worship really about us? And if we do believe that worship is about us, then who are we really worshiping?

            This question leads us to another question, which is the topic of this week’s sermon. That question is, why do we come to worship, or maybe the question is why should we come to worship? Why is our presence in worship so important to the church, that it is one of the things that we agree to when we enter the United Methodist Church? Through looking at the our passage from Hebrews, we may find some of the answers to these questions.

            In our passage today, the author of the letter has noticed that many people have stopped gathering together for worship. There may be many different reasons for this, some of them may have started to believe that all that mattered was their own personal piety, their own personal relationship with Jesus, others may have been facing much physical or social persecution for attending worship and were too afraid or found it too painful to worship. Whatever the reason may have been, this passage encourages them to worship publicly and explains why their attendance in worship was important.

            So why is our attendance in worship so important? Our passage gives us two reasons. The first may be the easiest explanation of them all, and it is simply because we can! Christ died on the cross for our sins, Christ rose from the dead conquering death and giving eternal life to us a undeserving, sinful and broken people. We have experienced that amazing grace of God, we have seen how the Holy Spirit has worked through our lives and through the lives of other believers, we read scriptures such as Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, and after seeing all of these works of God in the world why wouldn’t we want to worship. If you want to worship at home, that’s wonderful as well, but why not also celebrates that joy and grace with others who have experienced the same love and grace?

            Hebrews tells us more than just worshiping because we are excited, but it also shows us that through Christ there is also more freedom in worship. Our passage says, “¹⁹Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,²⁰by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God,²²let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” These four verses are packed with some wonderfully deep theological statements, so much so that a sermon series or Bible study could probably be done on these verses alone. Unfortunately we don’t have the time to dive too deep into these verses, but let me pull some crucial elements out for you. Much of the talk in this passage is in reference to traditional Jewish temple customs. If you remember from the Old Testament, the Israelites were told to build a tent, and in that tent is where they would encounter God, except only a select few could enter the tent. Later, the tent was replaced by the Temple. The Temple has specific dimensions for how it should be built and how it should be laid out, including a veiled or curtained area, which was considered to be where God dwelt. Only the priest could go behind the curtain and this was only to give sacrifices to God. People would bring their sacrifices to the temple for the atonement of their sin, and the priest would offer it up in the presence of God. 

            This passage compares the death of Jesus to the sacrifices that were once made by Jews to God  behind that curtain, and it is a quite fitting comparison. After all, the Jewish people recognized their own sin and so the custom was to try and atone for their sins through offering one of their prized animals to be sacrificed. Now different animals were sacrificed from poultry to lamb, usually according to the person’s wealth, but these sacrifices were not easy to make; for most Jews these animals played a crucial role in their livelihood. This was a great sign of their repentance and dedication to God. As I mentioned, the priest would then take the sacrifice behind the curtain and offer it up in the presence of God. But then there is Jesus. Jesus who sacrificed himself for our sins, Jesus put himself on that altar, and became the lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb that died for all of our sins. This sacrifice however was not hidden behind a curtain in Temple in the presence God, but was up on hill for all to see. Through the incarnation of Christ God was able to dwell amongst humans, as a human, and with his death we were able to see a new sacrifice, one for all to see, where all were able to dwell in the presence of God, and of course where all were able to receive pardon and forgiveness for their sins. As the gospels also tell us, with the sacrifice of Jesus, the Temple curtain was torn in two, symbolizing that God is now always present with us.

            The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus changed everything. Now we can enter in the presence of God with confidence because Jesus tore open the curtain so that all may be in the midst of God. We are able to come to worship now and be in the living presence of God! We no longer have to give our burnt sacrifices on the altar, but not we are able to come to the altar and partake of the flesh and blood of the one who was sacrificed for our behalf! We come to worship because there is freedom in worship to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ.

            Some may argue however, doesn’t the ripping of the curtain mean that we can experience God outside of the church? The only response to that is yes, we believe that God always present taand there are multiple ways to experience the grace of God, but if anything that reminds us that worship is not about us, it is about coming together to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ. Our passage does give us more practical advice for why our presence in worship is important, and that is each other. The passage says, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.²⁴And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Once again the scripture reminds us that worship is about more than just us, but that our presence in worship helps to build each other up. In worship we are able to each other to keep strong in their faith, we can help others experience the joy that we have found in Christ. As the scripture says, “But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,³³sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.³⁴For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting.³⁵Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.” We have all experienced difficulties sometime in our lives. It could have been the death of a loved one, a divorce, the loss of a job, a serious injury, whatever it may have been, in that time we needed God in our lives. If you are like me, then in those times, the place and the time that I would see God the most was when I was gathered with other Christians. When my difficulties were lifted up for prayer, when people would stop and ask me how I was  doing, when I would receive emails, calls, cards all just reminding me that people were thinking about me, I could see God in that moment. And now the author of Hebrews is reminding us that although we may not be going through those difficult times anymore, that there are those around us who are. When we gather together for worship it is also a time for us to reach out and comfort those who are struggling, it is our chance to praise God for the people who may at the time see no reason for praise. How is this done? I already mentioned through our prayers, through praying for and with one another, but it is also done in ways we may not even realize. I was talking to someone a few months back and they were telling me an experience that they had at a funeral. They did not know the person that well and was there more as a support for their friends and family. They said that at one point in the service the congregation stood to sing a hymn, I can’t tell you which one, but it was a beautiful hymn one that expressed both the sorrow of death but also the hope that we have through our faith. This person said that they looked at the family and that the family was too distraught to sing, tears and sobbing had stopped them from joining in and singing, and this person at that moment realized that they did play a crucial part in that funeral. Although they did not know the person who passed away that well, and although they had not even said much to the family to console them, they realized that they had the opportunity to sing for the family. They were able to sing this song of sorrow and hope, they were able to stand strong and profess our faith as Christians, they were able to sing, for those who could not sing.  Through worship we can comfort and serve those who are going through difficult times that at one time or another we went through as well. Sometimes we don’t recognize the import role that we play, even if it singing on behalf of those who are unable to sing.

            Our presence is important for worship because we are as Paul puts in many times, all members of Christ body. We all have our own special gifts that we bring to worship. Sometimes we feel that we may not be bringing much do the body, we don’t view ourselves as the heart, or arms or mouth of the body, sometimes we see ourselves as some insignificant body part, like the little toe, but have you tried to stand with a broken toe. Have you ever tried to grasp something with a broken pinky? Even our eyelashes, help to protect damage to our eyes. All of our presence in worship is important to worship because only as a full functioning body can we worship Christ to the best of our abilities. It is like the Three Musketeers saying goes, One for all, and All for one. Except in the church that one is not ourselves, but Christ, the one and only son of God. He is the one who died and rose for all of us, and we all worship together for the glory of the one. One for all, and All for One. 

Musings: Days at the Park

Looking back at my childhood, one of the fondest memories I have is the many trips that my family used to take to Maymont Park down in Richmond, VA. I loved that park. We would have picnics in the huge open fields, and then throw a ball or frisbee with one another. I loved the "army tree"which was the tree that my sister and I used to climb in all the time. We called it the army tree because the bark was a two toned giving it the appearance of Army cammofluage. The limbs of the tree were just right for someone of my age to climb in, yet high enough for my older sister to really explore in. I remember the Japaneese garden, and hopping across the the pond on stepping stones that seemed like leaps and bounds apart, but now as an adult I realize were very close together. I loved exploring the bamboo forests, and going off the trail, and finding my way back. Maybe most of all, I loved the animals. I loved that for 25 cents you could get a handful of feed to feed the goats and horses and pigs and all the other farm animals. Yet there there was more than farm animals, and of course as a little boy I was facinated by the bobcat; the way it was so ferocious looking yet still resembled my own cat. I remember always searching for the three legged fox.

As I said my time at the park with my family is still one of the fondest memories that I have of my childhood, but what I didn't know until I was much older was why we went to Maymont Park so frequently. We went to the park so often for the simple reason that the park was free. I did not know it at the time but when I was very little my family struggled financially. My father worked his hands to the bone trying to provide for my family, and my mother worked just as hard taking care of two children, and watching other children on the side. It wasn't until later when my dad work his way up in his job and my mom became a teacher that I began to live the life of financial stability that I remember growing up. These trips to the park were my parents way of entertaining us kids with the funds that they had, and also their way of hiding our finacial struggles from us. Like  I said, I did not even know until later about our situation. The amazing thing is that it is because of that struggle that I am able to have these fond memories. It is because we needed a free alternative for entertainment that we went to the park. If we had more money we may have gone to more movies, or had a nicer tv to watch, or maybe even done more bowling or skating etc... but we because we didn't I was able to  explore the world (well just the park) as a little boy, and bond closer to my family.

At one of my churches we recently started a Bible study on the book of James, and as we looked at the first chapter it was this story that came to mind. James tells us to consider it pure joy when we face trials, because the testing of our faith produces perseverance. At times it is hard for us to understand how the trials in our lives can be joys, especially when we are smack dab in the middle of those tough times. I can not even imagine how difficult it must have been for my parents to see everything that they would have loved to provide for me and my sister but couldn't because they had to focus on providing us the basics. Out of it did come  great joy though, because out of it came my ability to bond with my family.  James reminds us that every good and perfect gift is from above. In our darkness let us remember the wonderful gifts that God is giving us, sometime even working through our difficulties to bring us great joy. Later in my childhood we did many other exciting things, we went to Florida and the Bahamas and other vacations of the sort, but as I look back at my childhood none of these compare to my days at the park, and for that praise be to God. 

A Church that Prays Together, Stays Together

Sermon as Preached 8/26/12 at Evington United Methodist Church

Scripture James 5:13-20


This week we begin a five week sermon series on what it means to be a Christian steward. For many this word is unfamiliar to us, we never really use the term steward outside of church, and in many churches, the word is still even rarely used. Others of us have preconceived notions about what this word means. Some may hear it and think about being stewards of God’s creation, talking about our need to take care of the environment. More commonly however, when most church folks hear the word stewardship, especially when it comes from the pulpit, they think about money, and how the church is trying to ask them for more. While our offering is part of what makes us faithful stewards in the church, if this is all we think about when we think about stewardship, we are falling far short of the mark. So what is expected of us, as members of Christ’s church, in order for us to be faithful stewards?  Our United Methodist liturgy may be a helpful guide for a better understanding of our responsibilities. You can find on page 48 of your hymnals, that when entering into the United Methodist church, we are asked by the pastor, “Will you be loyal to the United Methodist Church, and uphold it by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness? These five areas: prayer, presence, gifts, service, and witness, are a wonderful and concise guideline for us to follow in order to be better stewards. These guidelines are not just randomly made up, but have been inspired through the reading of scripture. Therefore in the next few weeks we will see what the Bible has to say about each one these areas of stewardship, as well as see how they can transform our lives and the life of the church.

            That brings us to our first topic, and that is prayer. Prayer is something that most of us are accustomed to; we pray before we eat, be pray before we go to bed, I know that I will usually say a little prayer before I go on long trips, and of course we say prayer in worship. Prayer is a vital part of everyday life that guides us and shapes us, so much so that our new Bishop Cho, has made prayer one of the priorities of pastors and church members alike.

            Bishop Cho grew up in South Korea, and was planning to be a lawyer, until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had numerous medical treatments trying to heal him of the disease.  During this time he grew in his spiritual journey and felt a call to ministry. He came to America, and was appointed as a minister to a church in Mclean, VA. He was an extremely successful pastor at that church, helping it to grow exponentially, however he tells the story of one member who in middle of this success caused Bishop Cho to seriously reflect on himself and his ministry. The member came up to him and asked him the blunt question of, “How long and fervently do you pray? Because of this simple question, Bishop Cho really had to step back and think about the importance of prayer, and realized that he and the church needed to do more. He created prayer groups that would meet in the mornings and the church grew even larger, to become the largest in the Virginia Conference. Now as a new Bishop, Cho is encouraging all of us to keep a commitment to prayer, and has challenged both pastors and laity to participate in an hour of praying every day for the first 100 days of his term. 1 hour a day! That seems so difficult to us, but if we think about how much time we spend doing other things, then we see that we actually do have the time for it. In fact, say you sleep 8 hours a day, that means that if you pray for 4 minutes every hour you are awake, you will have prayed for more than an hour! This challenge is one that I have taken on and I encourage all of you to attempt as well.

             All of this encourages a personal prayer life, which is important for our own spiritual growth and well being, but how does prayer help us to be better stewards, why is prayer a requirement of being a United Methodist member? How does prayer become more than just a personal devotional, and become something that can transform the entire church? Let us turn to our scripture lesson today, because James shows us the importance of prayer within the life of the church. James starts our passage for today by talking to the church and telling them to pray. Now some translations such as the NIV says if you are having trouble, you should pray, and if you are feeling good, you should sing praises. This may make us think that James is talking about a personal prayer life, but this is not the case. In the Greek, the you is actually a plural you. I like to think of James as almost a good ol’ country boy because what he is really saying is, are any of ya’ll having trouble, ya’ll should pray, and are any of ya’ll feeling good, then ya’ll should sing praises. You see James’ message of prayer is centered first and foremost around the community of the church. We see so many different types of prayers, all done in the company of the people of the church. We see prayers for those who are suffering, we see prayers of joy and celebration, we see prayers of healing, we see prayers of confession, we see prayers of dependence of God, and we even see that prayer can lead to evangelism; and all of this is done together as one body, the body of Christ.

            Why does James spend so much time talking about prayer within the church, and more importantly why does he find it so important that he ends his whole letter with communal prayer? Well to answer this question we need to do a bit of a recap (Don’t worry, there will still be plenty to talk about during our Bible study, consider this a little appetizer.) Much of the book of James is moral advice and sometimes moral condemnation, however it is a little different than what we are often used to. The focus of the book is not primarily on the self, but more on the community of believers. The moral advice is therefore less about personal morals, we do not see much talk about sexual immorality or personal welfare, that we have come to expect from many of the books of the Bible, but rather the James focuses more on communal morals and communal ethics. For instance he talks about how we should speak to one another, he talks about our service as Christians, and he warns against judging others. Throughout the book he makes a distinction between the world and the church. He asks are we friends of the world or are we friends of God? In other words, do our actions reflect that we are children of God, or do we act like, and participate in the same sins as the rest of the world? All of this shows that what is most important to James, is the unity, health, and vitality of the community of believers; church.

            And so with that in mind, he closes his whole book with a passage on prayer. That should tell us something. It shows us that James thinks that the best way to live as a unified, healthy, and vital church is through prayer, and lots of it. You may have heard of the old saying, “The family that plays together stays together.” Well James seems to be a believer of, “The church that prays together stays together.” This still leaves us wondering how communal prayer works, and why it is so important for the church. As I mentioned earlier, we are so used to prayer being a personal thing, in fact to be honest for much of my life I struggled to pray in public because prayer had been so personal for me. Prayer is a personal thing, but in personal prayer in is all about a one on one connection between you and God, it is a time for you to tell God your deepest thoughts, and to see how God guides your life. Personal prayer is often the time when we can truly express how we feel, our pain and our joys, all of the things that we keep bottled down deep inside of us. When we pray publicly we can’t do that, When we pray together as a church that changes everything! Or does it?

            Let’s read the beginning of this passage again, It says, “Are any among you suffering? They should pray, are any cheerful, They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick, you should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them.” James seems to indicate that corporate, communal prayer is actually not that different after all! James is suggesting a radical prayer for a church, a prayer that allows us to express our deepest pains and our greatest joys publicly. It’s  prayer that allows the church to hear our cries and to weep with us, a prayer that allows our fellow Christians to rejoice with us in times of joy, a prayer that allows us to be vulnerable around each other and still feel safe, knowing that they praying these things with us. James is showing us that this radical power of prayer, really does have the ability to unite us as one people, God’s people.

            This prayer also keeps us accountable to being God’s people. As I mentioned earlier, one of James’ concerns in this book is that we are too influenced by the sins of this world and not influenced by the grace and love of God. Fellowship is capable outside of the church; close friends may even share in each other’s joys and pains, but prayer, as James shows us, keeps us following God’s will and not our own will. This is best understood in his example of prayer for healing. James understands that weakness, that hurt, that pain, and that illness is all things that most people try to avoid. We often go to lengths so that we do not come in contact with people going through these situations. In the time of James the ill were sequestered, especially lepers, who were sent off to live by themselves or with other lepers. Those who were in power stepped on the backs of the weak to keep their position. We see this in the parable of the Good Samaritan with the priest and Levite walking on the other side of the road, but James shows us that this is the way of the world, not of God, and that as Christians we are to be there for the sick and the weak. That is why he tells us to call the elders of the church together and pray over the sick, which is not metaphorical, but he means to physically be there praying over the ill. This is the way of God, to be responsive to all of those who are in need, to be present with them, to feel their pain, to cry their tears, and to shout and laugh with their joy, and all of this can be done through the wonderful power of prayer.

            The beauty of prayer however, is that we are connected to each other not by our own power or will, but that we are connected to each other through God. That when we celebrate the joys in someone else’s life through prayer, we not only celebrate with them, but we celebrate with God. When we take on the hurt and pain of others through prayer, we do not take on that burden alone, but that we share in our pain with the one who suffered and died on our behalf. When we pray for the healing of another, we know that it all lies in God’s hands and that burden is taken from our backs. Finally when we pray for the soul of another, we know that we cannot save another’s soul, but that God has that power, and that God is present with us. Through prayer we are united to each other and to Christ, bound together in the embrace our savior’s arms, and in  the hearts of each other. A church that prays together, stays together.