Go Ahead, Decide!

Go Ahead, Decide!

2 Corinthians 9:5-15

So here we are, one Sunday before Consecration Sunday.  For the past few weeks we have heard several persons speak to us about the value of making a financial commitment to the work of God through St. Paul UMC.  Last Sunday and today you completed the Consecration Sunday Reservation Sunday cards indicating your plans to be present next Sunday morning for our Consecration Sunday and the luncheon following.  Tomorrow evening our Guest Leader, the Rev. Mike Bowers, and our Consecration Sunday Team will meet with the Church Council members for coffee and dessert plus a short talk by Mike Bowers.  All of this is designed to prepare us for the best commitment we can give of ourselves on Consecration Sunday.

We are being asked to commit ourselves to growing our giving one step higher than our giving for this year; to increase our giving level for the year 2012.  With the economy at a near standstill and the fact that we are headed toward Christmas, asking for an increase in giving is a tough sale indeed.

PAUL’S WISE COUNSEL: DECIDE NOW

Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian Christians in the first century may be wise counsel for us two thousand years later.  A collection in the churches of Asia Minor was started a year earlier.  This collection was to help the struggling Jerusalem church and her poor.  Paul will soon return to the Corinthian congregation on his way to Jerusalem.  He expects to receive the offering when he arrives and personally carry it to Jerusalem.

So Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians with these instructions.  Go ahead and arrange for this gift so that when I come it will be a voluntary gift given from a heart of joy and thankfulness and not a gift given from a heart of guilt and reluctance.

Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians to decide now so that when the time comes to make the offering there will be no need to wrestle with the question how much should I offer to God and to God’s work.  By deciding now, the question is already answered when the time comes to give.

 DECIDE NOW HOW TO LIVE IN THE FUTURE

I discovered this principle of deciding now for how we will live in the future a number of years ago.  It came through a story, a true story of an older gentleman who was walking to church one Sunday morning.  The day was  gloomy, cold and the rain was falling – one of those days you and I would have asked  ourselves whether we should bother getting out in the weather to go  to church.

As this gentleman made his way down the sidewalk toward the church, he noticed an automobile pulling up beside him.  The driver rolled down the window and asked where he was going.  When the gentleman replied that he was going to church, the driver asked if he would like a ride.  The man gladly welcomed the offer and climbed into the car.

After his rider was settled in the car the driver said, “What made you decide to walk to church this morning in weather like this?”  The gentleman, wet and cold from his walk in the nasty weather answered, “I didn’t decide this morning.  I decided a long time ago that on Sunday morning I would be in church.  So when I awoke this morning, my decision was already made.”

At the time when I came across this story Sherry and I were not making a pledge or commitment to God’s work.  Our giving was always determined by the weather – by the amount of funds we had left when Sunday morning came.  Needless to say because we didn’t decide beforehand we gave very little and we gave sporadically.

BEING AS FAITHFUL TO GOD AS TO THE BANK

To be perfectly honest with you, one eye-opener for us during this time was that we were more faithful to the bank than we were to God.

We held student loans, auto loans and other consumer loans that came due each month.  We intentionally set aside the funds necessary to make those commitments and we made them each month.  We never questioned making those payments because we had made that decision when we signed the loans.

We decided that we wanted to be as faithful to God as we were to the bank.  If we could make such a commitment and keep it with the bank, how much more should we do the same toward God?

Soon after, Sherry and I began committing ourselves each year to a certain amount to be given to God through the church.  And like the gentleman walking to church in the rain, we never had to make a decision about how much to give on Sunday morning again.  That decision was already made.

A GOOD WORD FOR THE PLEDGE

Paul offers us through his words to the Christians at Corinth a good word for making our commitment to God through the church.  When we make our pledge, our commitment next Sunday morning it is simply a practical means to help us be faithful to God – as faithful to God as we are to the bank.  And when the New Year comes with its not always sunny financial weather, we will be able to give joyfully and without hesitation because our decision will have already been made.

So next Sunday morning when you receive your commitment card I invite you to join all of those who have discovered the joy and freedom of deciding now how they will be faithful to God in the future.  If you have never made such a commitment, make one this year.  Decide prayerfully, specifically what you will give to God for God’s generous blessings in your life.  If you’ve made a commitment in the past, take some time to pray and ask God if perhaps you can take a step up this year.

GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS

Bottom line – when we keep our commitment to the bank in the end we will receive a letter stating we have completed our pledge to them.  They will congratulate us and thank us for our commitment.  We will carry within us a deep sense of accomplishment for making and keeping that pledge to the bank.

Unlike the bank, when we make and keep our commitment to God we won’t receive a form-letter in the mail.  But we will have the satisfaction of knowing that through our commitment the spiritual, social, physical and mental needs of others are being served; and we will look  forward to  that day when we stand before the One who created us and who has blessed our lives more than we deserve, who has walked with us through life and brought us to where we are today, and who did not withhold  his only Son but gave him for us all, and we will hear our living Lord say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  Amen?  Amen!

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For All the Saints

For All the Saints

1 John 3:1-3

On January 21, 2011 my mother joined that great cloud of witnesses who by faith lived their lives, served God and others, and died trusting that even in death God would be present to welcome them into life beyond this life.

Since then my brothers and I have been going through the necessary process of cleaning out her belongings.  There is something final about having to decide what to do with a loved one’s belongings, as final as death itself.  Like many of you, while cleaning out my mother’s house we found ourselves remembering, laughing, rejoicing even as tears fell from our eyes.  There is healing in the remembering.

One day I began to box up my mother’s cookbooks.  I counted forty-three cookbooks, not including the 13 Southern Living Christmas Cookbooks my mother had collected over the years.  She also had every Stroller Cookbook since the late 1950’s except for a few.  My mother loved to cook and would spend evenings looking through these cookbooks evaluating which recipes she could use and when.

In these cookbooks were handwritten notes tucked inside with my mother’s adjustments to those recipes.  These notes were witnesses to her craft of preparing the most delicious dishes for those who would taste the work of her hands.

Good food doesn’t happen by accident.  It takes the right ingredients and the right amount of these ingredients blended together in proper order to produce food people remember and talk about long after the meal is over.

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 On All Saints Sunday, we remember, reflect and rejoice in these saints who have gone before us because they have nourished and strengthened our lives like a well-prepared, life-giving meal.  We are who we are in part because of their loving care, wise counsel and guidance and their faithful companionship.  They are the saints of God.

WE ARE SAINTS BY THE GRACE OF GOD

Our Epistle reading from 1 John this morning reminds us that as we open our lives to the love of God in Jesus Christ, we are called children of God – saints.  Someone has rightly said, “God first calls us a saint, then proceeds to make us one.”  In baptism God chooses us, declares we belong to God and calls us saints.  And as we leave the waters of baptism God begins the life-long process of molding and making us who we are – saints.

There is a children’s song that begins with these words, “He’s still working on me to make me what I ought to be.”  A saint is a work in progress, a cooperative effort between God and man to become what we have been created to become – saints.

BEATITUDES: THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SAINTS

When we listen to the beatitudes of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount we find some of the characteristics of a saint.  We could say these characteristics are the ingredients to the recipe of a saint.

A saint is poor in spirit – humble, not arrogant or prideful.  A saint is sure of his or her own foibles and failures.  A saint reserves judgment because they know they, too are under the judgment of God.

A saint mourns and waits that day when they will be comforted.  Saints weep over the brokenness and suffering of the world.  They know the world is not as it should be and they work to make it better.

Saints carry with them a sense of meekness.  Sherman Meek, one of our members, reminds me often that the Meek will inherit the earth.  With humility and meekness the saints go about doing the will of God for themselves and others.

A saint hungers and thirsts for righteousness.  They read and study and allow the scriptures to nurture them inwardly so that their outer, daily lives are guided by righteousness.

Being merciful is a characteristic of a saint.  Saints know they have been accepted by the mercy of God and they in turn show mercy to those they meet in their daily encounters.  They do not judge and condemn but show mercy as mercy has been shown to them.

People identify the saints by their purity of heart.  Every thought and action is taken out of pure motives and pure desires.  Their heart is pure and unsoiled by selfishness and greed.

The saints are peacemakers.  They seek peaceful solutions rather than abrasive, dividing words and actions.  They look for and work for the day when the lion and the lamb will lie down together and peace will reign on earth as it is in heaven.  They are known by the peace they bring to every conflict and disagreement.

The saints of God are not always understood or joyfully welcomed.  They are often misunderstood and persecuted because of their willingness to follow Jesus and walk against the cultural, political and social pressures of the day.  They live in the truth and expectation of Jesus’ words, “great is their reward in heaven.”

THE SAINTS HELP US BECOME WHAT WE ARE: SAINTS

These saints we remember today, those who have gone before us have received their reward and now live in the presence of God.   Even so, the lives they lived before us, their faith, their hope, their  love are the ingredients  God  uses to nourish and sustain in our journey through this life.

And so nourished by their faith and strengthened by their lives we remember and give thanks to God and we join the hymnist and declare,

How happy are the saints above, who once went sorrowing here.

For now they taste unmingled love, and joy without a tear.

Amen? Amen!

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God, Caesar and Preschoolers

God, Caesar and Preschoolers

Mark 10:13-16,  Matthew 22:15-22

A young boy was visiting his grandmother one day.  After becoming bored he picked up her rather large Bible and began thumbing through it.  He was fascinated with some of the things his grandmother kept in her old Bible – Baptismal certificates, newspaper obituaries of family members and other such things.  Suddenly his eyes grew wide and his mouth opened.  His grandmother asked, “Jimmy, what did you find?”  Little Jimmy answered, “I think I found Adam’s underwear.”

Obviously he had been to Sunday school and possibly to a church preschool.

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 For over 40 years the St. Paul Preschool has been a trusted place for parents to bring their children.  St. Paul’s Preschool has a long-standing reputation in this community and in Spartanburg of providing an excellent preschool experience for children and parents alike.  We are proud of our preschool program and the staff who work here.

It’s not easy being a parent.  Those of you who are parents and those of you who have been parents know the truth of that statement.  Parents are always anxious over whether their child is safe, secure, happy and growing in appropriate ways. Hundreds of times each day parents wonder if their child is laughing or crying, participating with other children or playing alone, feeling secure or anxious.

Preschoolers are also anxious.  They are anxious especially in the first days and weeks of preschool when they are surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces in an unfamiliar place.  As time passes, they discover, or we hope they discover the preschool is a safe, caring, fun place to be.

I have to also say the staff, many who have worked here for a number of years, have their own anxieties.  They want to give the preschoolers the best learning and growing environment they are able to give.  They want to see the smiles blossom on little faces throughout the day.  They want parents to be pleased with the care their child is receiving.  They want to help each child grow as Jesus himself grew, physically, mentally, socially and spiritually or as the gospel writer said, “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”

The best environment for such well-balanced growth is when parents and staff work together to create an environment so that children are able become the young men and women God created them to become.

Even in the preschool years parents are already dreaming of their child’s future.  They may not be dreaming of the specific careers they may have in the future, except maybe  the Heisman Trophy, but parents are already dreaming of their child as successful, model citizens and if all children were like my child – my what a wonderful world it would be.  I can say that because my wife and I have raised, and are still raising two children of our own.

The truth is the world is not quite the wonderful place we thought it was in childhood.  Somewhere along the way we became adults, we grew up and our eyes were opened to the sometimes painful and unpleasant realities of the world in which we live.  And somewhere between the world as it is and the world as we believe it should be we had to choose how to negotiate those two realities.

JESUS, GOD AND CAESAR

Jesus came to teach us and to show us how to live in a world that is not as it should be.  In a world where politics and religion were in many cases one and the same Jesus provides a path for his followers to walk.

In our second reading from the gospels Jesus is confronted with a question – a question regarding politics, government and religious faith.

The question appears simple.  “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?”  To put this into terms we can understand today, the question is, “Should a Jew pay taxes to a Roman emperor?”

As simple as the question is, it is a trick.  If Jesus says they should not pay taxes to Caesar, he will be guilty of sedition, a crime punishable by death.  On the other hand if Jesus says they should pay the tax, he shows himself to be at odds with the populace for whom the tax was not only a burden but a symbol of Roman oppression.

Jesus’ answer seems simple.  After asking for a coin and asking whose head is on the coin, he says, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The Romans held that the emperor was a divine figure.  So the question is not so much about paying taxes as to whom will we give our allegiance?  We are to give to the state what belongs to the state.  We are to give to God what belongs to God.[i]

WHAT BELONGS TO GOD

 While teaching one day the people brought their children to Jesus to bless.  His disciples were indignant and spoke harshly to the parents.  Jesus quickly stopped them and said, “Do not hinder these little ones for such is the Kingdom of God.”

What was behind Jesus’ defense of these children is the belief that children ultimately belong to God.  They are God’s gift to us not to own or possess as our own, but to nurture, care for and guide so that they can become responsible citizens of heaven and earth.

I think the parent/preschool relationship is a microcosm of the God-parent relationship.  Parents bring their children to the preschool each morning and entrust them into the hands of our preschool staff.  These children do not belong to the staff or to the preschool for the day.  They are a given as a gift, a gift that needs loving care, genuine nurture, wise and helpful guidance.  For a short time each day the preschool staff is responsible for their well-being.  Even so, the preschool staff has no claim to the children.  The preschool staff members are stewards of the gift of each child that comes.

In the same way, we parents are given a wonderful gift in our children.  They come to us as a gift from God and they bring to us a tremendous responsibility for the primary care, the well-being and the guidance of these young lives.  Although we parents have the primary responsibility to raise and guide these young lives, ultimately they do not belong to us – they belong to God.  We are but stewards of the gift of each child we are given.

GIVING TO GOD THE  THINGS THAT BELONG TO GOD

So when Jesus says, “Give to God the things that belong to God,” among the many things to which he is referring, he is referring to children.  Whether we are parents or preschool staff or Sunday school teachers or children’s ministry leaders, or church members, we join together as a team to mold and shape these young lives into the likeness and character of Jesus Christ.  For in so doing, we offer to God the things that belong to God.  Amen?  Amen!

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[i]Davie F. Watson, Lectionary HomileticsVol. XXII, Number 6, pg. 18.

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Faith Models

Faith Models

Philippians 4:9

Emma Daniel Gray died on June 8, 2009.  She was 95 years old.  Most people had never heard of Emma Daniel Gray.  She wasn’t famous by any means, yet the Washington Post printed a rather big story about her soon after her death.

Emma Daniel Gray, for 24 years beginning in 1955, cleaned the office of the President of the United States.  She served six presidents until her retirement in 1979.  Every president from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter had his office cleaned daily by Emma Daniel Gray.

A little known fact about Ms. Gray’s daily routine is that when she dusted the President’s chair in the Oval Office she would pray over it – her cleaning supplies in one hand and the other on the chair.  She didn’t pray that the President would succeed or like many in our time, pray that the President would fail.  She prayed for the President of the United States to have God’s blessings, wisdom and safety.  Day after day she prayed for the good of her President whether Democrat or Republican.  Day after day she kept to her practice of praying for our nation’s top leader.

PAUL:  MODEL ME!

The Apostle Paul invites his readers to this kind of faithful persistence.  “Keep doing the same things” he wrote – in other words, be persistent.

Paul is not writing about being persistent in life, however.  He is writing about being persistent in faithfully living for God.  He even holds himself up as a model of faithful living as a follower of Jesus Christ.  He doesn’t simply say, “Keep doing the same things.”  He writes, “Keep doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.”  In other words, Paul is saying, “Follow me.”

WE ARE CHOSEN TO BE MODELS OF FAITH

Most people would be hesitant to say, “Follow me; do as I do” when it comes to the life of faith.  Most people don’t like to be role models do we really have a choice?

Around twenty years ago basketball great Charles Barkley denounced the pressure put upon himself and others about being models of behavior for society.  Barkley declared, “I’m not paid to be a role model.  I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court.”  You may remember Barkley’s remarks sparked a nation-wide debate about the responsibility athletes and other superstars have in shaping the character of younger, more … children and youth.

In a column written for Sports Illustrated, fellow hoopster Karl Malone responded to Barkley by writing, “Charles…I don’t think it’s your decision to make.  We don’t choose to be role models, we are chosen.  The only choice we have is whether to be a good role model or a bad one.”

Malone’s observation about professional athletes is equally true for every person who follows Jesus Christ.  We do not choose to be models of faithful living for other people.  We are chosen by God to follow Jesus Christ and because we are chosen to follow Jesus Christ, we are chosen to live before others and the world as models of the grace of God in Christ.  God has chosen us, you and me, to be the models, the examples of faithful living so that others can see in human form the life that God offers us.

Nowhere is this more obvious that when we baptism a young child as we did this morning.  Far from being a sweet service for parents and family, the Baptismal Covenant is a commitment made to God to live before this child as role models of faith.

The parents themselves vow to nurture the child in Christ’s holy church so that by the parent’s teaching and example the child will be guided to accept God’s grace for themselves, to profess their faith openly and to lead a Christian life.  It’s not up to the child, but first and foremost up to the parents to live and model faithful living for this child.

Then we, the church, the local congregation where this child will attend also vows to God to proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ before this child.  In addition, we vow to surround her with a community of love and forgiveness so that she may grow in her trust in God and be found faithful in her service to others.  But we don’t stop there.  We vow to pray for her so that she may be a true disciple who walks in the way that leads to life.

This little child will grow through her toddler years and into her childhood and youth years looking to you and me to provide the footprints in which she can walk and follow so that she too will become a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.    Together we model the life of faith, hope and love for Abigail Grace by following the example of Jesus himself.  Together we are the faith models she will need to become all God has created her to be.

MY FAITH MODELS

Personally, I do not know where I would be today or what I would be today had it not been for that small, faithful congregation called Green Street Methodist Church once located on the Union Mill village.  The people there were only partially educated, a few with college degrees.  They were hard-working people as was true of most people who lived and worked in the cotton mills.  They didn’t’ have much in terms of material wealth.  But they were people of faith who read and studied the scriptures listening for the spirit of God.  They were people who prayed for each other, comforted each other in times of sorrow and grief; who took responsibility for the spiritual well-being and growth of children and adults as well.  They were faithful to the vows they made at my baptism and I along with Sherry are partially who we are because of their guiding influence in our lives.

I could tell you of Tony Batezel, a Captain in the U.S. Air Force who led weekly Bible studies in our barracks and who mentored young servicemen in learning how to read and study the Bible; how to pray; how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ.  Or Betty Beckon, a missionary in Taiwan who raised ten children on the mission field and who mentored servicemen who were stationed in a foreign land.

These are some of the people who by their lives, their faith and their commitment to Jesus Christ helped to shape and mold my faith and love for God.  These are some of the people who by their lives said, “Keep doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.”  They, like the Apostle Paul accepted with gratitude God’s choosing to be not only a follower of Jesus Christ, but a model and guide of faith for others.

KEEP DOING WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN IN ME

The truth is, my friends, someone is watching you, observing the example you provide as to what it means to follow Jesus Christ.  Someone is looking to you for guidance as models for what it means to have faith and be people of faith.

Maybe something is rising up within you saying, “But I don’t want to be a role model.  I don’t want others looking to me as an example of faith.  Good friends, if you are not willing to say, “Follow me.  Keep doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me,” then maybe you need to take a long look within yourself, for to this you have been chosen.

It does take a village to raise a child.  And it takes a faithful congregation to make faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.  It takes ordinary people like you and me who can say by the lives we live and the faith that has become a part of us, “Follow me as I follow Jesus Christ.  Keep doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.”  Amen?  Amen!

The Ten Freedoms

The Ten Freedoms

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Our reading from the Old Testament this  morning is familiar to most if not all adults and most if not all children.  We know the reading as the giving of the Law by God to Moses for the ancient Israelite people.

For some time now the Ten Commandments have become a lightning rod on the American cultural landscape.  We have been divided as a nation into two opposing camps: those who want to see the Ten Commandments displayed in our schools, courthouses, in city halls and in other public places; and those who feel to do so would threaten the separation between the church and state.

It seems as if the battle lines were drawn by Judge Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who refused to remove the Ten Commandment monument from his courthouse.  As you know, Roy Moore was removed from his place on the Alabama Supreme Court because of his decision.

The controversy in Alabama became a national issue and gave rise to the plastic and metal wire lawn signs displaying the Ten Commandments still seen around our neighborhoods.  Of course if you drive by a lawn that has one of these signs you cannot read the Ten Commandments because the lettering is too small.  I suppose it doesn’t matter if you can read it or not.  What matters is that the Ten Commandment are being displayed in public.  If I may borrow Dick Derrick’s phrase “thinking out loud” it makes me wonder if we have turned the Ten Commandments into a lucky charm, subconsciously thinking that by displaying them evil will magically disappear from our communities and nation.  To be truthful with you, I have never known of a person’s life to be transformed simply by reading the Ten Commandments or by having them displayed in public.

It makes me think of Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland who came out in favor of posting the commandments in public places.  When asked in an interview on national TV by Stephen Colbert to name the Ten Commandments, Westmoreland looked surprise at the question.  After a moment of silence he said, “Don’t lie, and don’t steal.”  Finally he said, “I can’t think of any more.”[i]  Does it make sense to you to make a law enforcing the display of a set of religious rules if they are not important enough to memorize the rules yourself?

 

EXODUS 20 – GIVING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments they were given not as a list of rules to follow.  In Jewish tradition the first commandment is the beginning words, “I am the Lord your God who brought you God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,  out of the  house of slavery.”  The early church read the Decalogue differently including only the list of “thou shalt not’s” and “thou shalt’s”.  What was for the Jews the first commandment became for the church a prologue or introduction to the commandments.

The prologue to  the Ten Commandments provide us a way of  understanding the commandments so that they do not  become a magical list of do’s and don’ts that if kept will make God love us more than others.  The prologue offers us an understanding of the commandments that allows us to live as free people.

Indeed, the prologue declares, “I am the Lord, your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  The Israelites, once slaves in Egypt, are now a free people by the goodness and grace of God.  God had freed them from bondage and oppression.  Because God had freed them from their bondage and slavery, they are to live in gratitude and gratefulness to God by following the commandments.  The commandments are the divine guides for a life of freedom; they are the Ten Freedoms.

We Christians understand that even though we may not be slaves to a foreign power, we are slaves to something more oppressive.  We are slaves to sin.  The ancients called it original sin, the understanding that from birth we are prone to, drawn to sinful living.  Try as we may, we cannot free ourselves.  Yet like the ancient Hebrews, God has seen our bondage and God has come in Jesus Christ to free us from the enslavement to sin and death.  And so through Jesus Christ we are free to live as God created us to live, free to live free.  And like the ancient Hebrews we receive the commandments as the ways in which true freedom is lived out and maintained in human life.  They are not so much a list of do’s and don’t's but God’s gift of freedom – thus  the Ten Freedoms.

THE MAP OF THE LAND MINES

Once upon a time, a tribe of people lived between the jungle and the sea.  They were very happy, for the Great Power, which is what they called their deity, had given them fertile soil for growing wheat and the jungle for gathering bananas and the sea for abundant fishing.

One day a series of disasters began to mar their idyllic existence.  A young woman was walking in the field at sunset to meet her lover when an explosion suddenly rent the air, scattering her body over hundreds of yards.  Some days later, a child was playing near the jungle with a sling he had fashioned from a piece of animal hide.  As he reached for a nice, smooth stone for his sling as explosion ripped through his little body as if it were made of paper.  Another time, two men were pulling their nets at the mouth of the river where it joined the sea.  One stepped back upon a clump of saw grass and an explosion blew away half his body.

The Council of Elders met to consider the situation.  They realized that their village was mined with dangerous explosives, but they didn’t know what to do about it.  The people couldn’t simply remain at home; their livelihoods and happiness depended on the freedom to move about.  So they prayed to the Great Power for help.

Several days later, after more tragedies had occurred, a bell summoned all the people to their assembling place, and an elder stood to speak.  “Last night,” he said, “I had a dream.  In my dream, the Great Power swept me up and revealed to me where the land mines are hidden.  Here is a map of their locations.  If we learn to avoid the places marked with an X, we shall live happily ever after.”

A great shout went up from the people, and they lifted the elder and carried him about on their shoulders.  They made copies of the map, lest the original should ever be lost, and many of the people committed it to memory.  It was, they said, the greatest gift they had ever received, and it deserved to be honored not only in their lifetime but for all generations as well.

The people who followed the map lived safely and happily ever after.  But those who ignored it were destroyed, bringing sadness to the hearts of all their friends and loved ones.[ii]

I think you see the parallel.  As long as they followed the map they lived free, free from fear, free from the dangers hidden around them; free to live free.

***

In a few minutes we will come to join our Christian brothers and sisters across  the planet as we remember our  Lord through whose  death and resurrection we have been freed from the bondage and  fear of sin and death, freed to live  free.  Because of what God has done for  us in Jesus Christ, we are free, free to follow the map God has  given to us and through following the map of theTen Freedoms, we continue to live free.  Amen?  Amen!

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[i] Character of  Freedom, Lisa Kenkeremath, Lectionary Homiletics Vol XXII, Number 6, pg. 8,9.

[ii] To MyPeople with Love, John Killinger, Abingdon Press, 1988, pg. 17-19.

Called by God: When You Can’t do Anything Else

Called by God: When You Can’t Do Anything Else

Exodus 3:1-12; Matthew 4:11-18

I am curious this morning and I hope you will indulge me in a short survey.  I would like to know by a show of hands how many of you came with eager expectation over the topic for today – the call to ordained ministry.  A second question for those of you who raised your hands; how many of you are lying?

I am under no illusions that the call to ordained ministry is not the burning concern on most people’s minds and hearts.  And preaching a sermon on the call to ordained ministry is somewhat like placing a platter of steaks, fried chicken, pork chops and breaded fish on the table in front of a vegetarian.  I mean, it’s just not going to go anywhere!

Just mention the words ordained ministry and people begin to think within themselves that’s not for me, after all I’m too old.  I am retired.  I have a career to maintain and a family for which I am responsible.  I can’t go into the ordained ministry with such responsibilities.  How can I go back to school after being out for so many years?

Even those who are younger see no appeal compared to other careers.  Consider the initial salary levels and the handwriting is on the wall – who would want to work for this when I can have my weekends off and make so much more money?  And who would want to move every few years, uproot your family and start over again and again?  And if that is not enough, then you have to put up with those ornery church folks! (Present company excluded, of course) No wonder few people ever consider the ordained ministry as a career or as a possible occupation.

Each year at our Charge Conference our District Superintendent asks the question, “Who has been sent into ordained ministry from this congregation?”  Some congregations proudly answer with the names of several former members who have entered the ordained ministry from their church.  Other congregations sit and look down at the floor despising the very question because no one has entered the ordained ministry from among them.  It may be for those congregations a sign that they have not created a spiritually-charged environment for people to hear and respond to the call of God on their lives.

A number of years ago I was asked to participate in Career Day at Erskine College.  So on Career Day I  showed up at Erskine College and was assigned a table among other tables where people from various occupations was available to discuss with students the career possibilities  in their respective fields of work.  For three hours I stood and sometimes sat waiting on someone, anyone to come and talk to me about ordained ministry. No one came by.  Even when I stepped out and began conversations with some to the students, as soon as I said ordained ministry, they ran away like a gazelle being chased by a tiger.  No one was interested in ordained ministry.

As I reflected on that Career Day experience I realized there was one primary flaw in my showed up to represent the ordained ministry at a college Career Day.  We do not choose ordained ministry.  We are chosen by God for ordained ministry.

IF YOU CAN DO ANYTHING ELSE

 Soon after acknowledging God’s call to ordained ministry my pastor, Bill McNeill, invited me to a District Minister’s meeting one Monday morning.  The District Office was located here at St. Paul where our church offices are presently located.  The minister’s meeting was held in Poston Hall.

Following the meeting, Bill McNeill led me from Poston Hall to the District office area because he needed to speak to our superintendent, the Rev. Ted Walters.  While waiting on Ted, Bill introduced me to several of the ministers who were there to see Ted also.  One of the ministers I was introduced to that morning was Sam Poston who was serving in the Spartanburg District at the time.  When Bill introduced me to Sam as a possible ministerial candidate, Sam looked at me and said, “If you can do anything else, do it!”

At first I was surprised.  I expected Sam to tell me how good  it was  to have a new candidate to the ordained ministry and what a  grand experience  it was to be  called  by God to ordained ministry.  Instead Sam speared me with the words, “If you can do anything else, do it.”

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that Sam’s words were correct when it comes to the call to ordained ministry – if you can do anything else, do it.  By that I do not mean if you have no skills to do anything else then go into the ordained ministry; neither do I mean if you can’t get a job anywhere else then go into the ordained ministry.  But what I am saying is that if the call, the pull, the tug of God on your soul is so great that you will never be satisfied doing anything else, then and only then follow that calling.

MY PERSONAL JOURNEY INTO ORDAINED MINISTRY

My personal journey into ordained ministry began as an infant when, at my baptism my parents and the congregation of Green Street Methodist Church vowed to nurture me in the Christian faith and life.  Through family prayer and devotional time and through the educational ministries of the church I was guided as to how to listen to the voice of God at work in my life.  I would not be here today, I do not believe, had it not been for the spiritual foundation given to me by my parents and my church family in those early years of my life.

While serving in the U. S. Air Force there were many temptations to choose the wrong paths, and sometimes I did.  But deep within me the compass of being a follower of Jesus kept pointing me back to the Christian path.  While serving in Taiwan, a small island in the South China Sea, predominantly Buddhist, I met a number of Christian missionaries who build on the foundation already given to me by my parents and church family.

When I returned home from Taiwan and from the U. S. Air Force I sensed deep within myself a desire to serve God in some capacity.  At that time I was thinking as a missionary primarily because I had been influenced richly through the missionaries I had known.  I began to find ways to invest myself in the ministries of my local church.  I taught the youth Sunday school class and helped my brother who was the youth director at our home church at that time.  I led a Bible study at Spartanburg Methodist College for a while.  All the while I was searching to find what it was that God wanted me to do with my life.

In the spring of 1977 I was asked by my minister if I would meet with the Staff-Parish Relations Committee on Sunday afternoon.  The minister didn’t tell me why, just what time to be present.  At the appointed hour I was present and the chairperson said to me, “Frank, we think God has called you into the parish ministry.  We don’t know what you think, but we would like for you to pray and think about whether God has called you into the ministry.”  To be honest, I had never thought of ordained ministry to that point.  But they saw in me what I didn’t see in myself, so I began to explore that avenue of service to God.

A few months later while attending Spartanburg Technical College, I was sitting at my drafting table when in a moment of time a sense overcame me that I was in the wrong place.  That is the only way I can express it.  I felt in the deepest part of my being the course I was taking, the path I was traveling was the wrong path.  In that realization I knew with great clarity where I needed to be and what direction I needed to take.  Within two months I was starting Wofford College and had entered the process of candidacy for ordained ministry.

REFLECTIONS ON THE CALL TO ORDAINED MINISTRY

I think it is important to note no two people are called in the same way by God.  I share my story with you to highlight a few keys I believe are important for one who feels called into the parish ministry.

First, there were no voices, no crisis moments when I vowed to God if God would get me out of a particular situation I would go into the ministry.  There was an ongoing hunger within myself to know what God wanted to do with my life.  Through that longing to know what God wanted to do with my life, God was able to guide me to where I needed to be.

Second, the call of God is never an isolated call.  I needed the church family, particularly the SPRC to help me hear God’s call much like young Samuel needed Elisha to hear and discern God’s call on his life.  Indeed, one of the ways we hear God’s call is in the presence of the faith community.  Through the community of faith God’s call upon our lives is affirmed and confirmed.

Third, Sam Poston was right – if you can do anything else, do it.  But if you cannot do anything else, if you are not satisfied doing anything else, it is a good sign that God has called you to serve God and God’s people through ordained ministry.  I could not do anything else and be satisfied.

PARTING WORDS

Jesus said to his disciples in the Upper Room before his arrest, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”  Every baptized believer is called by God, chosen as a minister of the grace of God.  Each of us has differing gifts and skills for ministry.  As we discover the gifts God has given us, we discover where God has chosen to use us in the ministry and mission of the church.

There are those God chooses, calls to serve God’s mission through the ordained ministry.  If you can serve God in some other capacity, some other way, do it.  But if not, know this, the journey of ordained ministry is a richly rewarding, deeply satisfying, immensely fulfilling endeavor that at times you want to throw up your hands and just quit – but you know you can’t, and even if you could, you wouldn’t!  Glory be  to God!

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Even There!

Even There!

Psalm 139: 7-10

Zion Reflections

 First let me express to you our joy in being present with you for this year’s Homecoming.  Often times Sherry and I reflect on our 32 years of ministry and the congregations we have been privileged to serve.  Some of our fondest memories come from our times at Zion.  And whenever we return for whatever the reason we always feel at home in your presence.

I remember the first day we arrived here, an elderly gentleman stood out by the old tree beside the driveway and watched as our personal possessions were unloaded and moved into the parsonage.  I went out to introduce myself and met for the first time Caldwell McAteer.  He told me he always visited the pastor on the day they moved into the parsonage, and I was no exception.

I also remember the first Sunday at Zion.  It happened to be the Sunday the men were having breakfast in the building on the hill at the ball field.  I went that morning not knowing very many people.  I was talking to Steve McDonald when he said to me, “Have you met that man who just walked in?”  I looked and didn’t recognize him and replied, “No, I don’t believe I have.”  Steve then said, “Frank, you need to meet that man.  His name is Wink McAteer.”  It was my second encounter with a McAteer in a matter of a few days!  I made my way over to Wink and held out my hand while introducing myself.  Wink didn’t take my outstretched hand.  He looked me in the eye and said, “Let me tell you right now, if you see me doing this, you need to cut it off,” meaning it was time to stop preaching.  I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Wink, if I see you do this and you see me do this, you get up and leave!”  We became instant friends at that moment.

It’s hard to believe that since leaving Zion our daughter has finished high school, college and is now on her own in Charleston; our son Taylor has also finished high school and is beginning his college career at Wofford College.  I look around and see children who have now grown up in a short few years, some of whom I do not even recognize.  There are also faces I do not see, members and friends who are no longer with us.

While reflecting on what to say this morning it came to me in a profound way how time moves on.  As much as we would like to freeze time at one particular moment, we simply cannot.  Time moves on and so do we.  Yet amid the changes and transitions of life in the movement of time, God’s grace is always with us.

It was while I was here at Zion I discovered in a powerful way the richness of the 139^th Psalm.  Let me share with you the 7^th through the 10^th verses this morning.

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.

Did you hear those two words that form a profound affirmation in the midst of life’s difficulties and transitions?  Even there.  Even there – wherever we may be in life, even there God is with us.

This affirmation is reflected in many of the hymns we sing such as

O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to  come;

our shelter from the stormy blast and  our eternal home.

Or. . .

Be still my soul, the Lord is on yourside; Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide; In every change God faithful will remain.

 Probably the most familiar is found in the hymn Amazing Grace the third verse.

Though many dangers, toils and snares I have already come;

‘tis grace hath  brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

THROUGH MANY DANGERS, TOILS AND SNARES…

Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come.  We have come through many dangers, toils and snares, haven’t we?

Since being reappointed in 2002, the world has changed.  9/11 brought about some of that change.  But then, we have ridden the downslide of the economy.  There are probably few places in South Carolina that has not felt the devastation of the economic rift more than in Lancaster County.  Along with the struggling economy, the closing of Springs Industries added to the difficult times you have been facing here.

Because of the economic environment you as a congregation have had to struggle and work to maintain the level of ministry you have been engaged in through the years.  Sherry and I read the Zion Newsletter often and we know of the many ways you are working to fund the Thompson Family Life Center that was built when the economy was in much better shape.

As I look across the congregation I see the faces of those who are missing from us this morning.  People who would be here, who would be present each Sunday morning and involved in the ministries of the church and who would be supporting the work of God through Zion UMC today if only they were here.  But they have passed beyond their days here on earth and now live in the presence of God.

All of that being true, it doesn’t make it any easier for those of us who remain.  When we gather for Homecoming, we remember their presence among us; give thanks for their lives even as we still feel their absence.

We understand what John Newton meant when he wrote, “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come,” for we, too have come through many dangers, toils and snares, not just since our coming and leaving Zion, but through the many years prior.

 ‘TIS GRACE HATH BROUGHT ME SAFE THUS FAR…

Time moves on, and so does John Newton’s third verse.  Newton does not stop with the fact of reality, through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come.  He moves on

to the point he is making through this hymn, “’tis grace hath brought me safe thus far.”

Wherever you are today in your life, you are by God’s grace.  You’ve made it, not as you hoped or expected to be at this point in time in your life, but you are here!  You’ve made it, and you’ve made it by the grace of God!

You see, faith is not about getting somewhere you are not.  Faith is about knowing in the midst of life you are not alone.  Faith is living in the presence of God.  Faith is walking the path of life knowing you are accompanied by God.

Faith knows whether in life or in death, in success as well as in failure, in victory or in defeat, in good time and in bad times, in good news as well as in times of unwelcome news comes God is with you.  It knows the grace of God accompanying and surrounding us throughout our lives.  It knows as individuals and as a congregation that at all times and in every place we are in good hands because we are in God’s hands.  There is no safer place to be.  Or as John Newton put it, ‘tis grace hath brought me safe thus far.

While serving Trinity UMC in Anderson a member of our congregation, Bob Moorer, was having some health issues.  Tests were done.  More tests were done.  While in the hospital undergoing these tests, Bob had a stroke.

I would visit Bob every day in the hospital and would end my visit with a prayer.  As I had begun doing, stemming from my encounter with the 139^th Psalm, I ended each prayer with the words “We are in good hands because we are in God’s hands.  There is no safer place to be.”

One morning I walked into Bob’s room.  His wife was standing there along with his son.  Bob was in a wheelchair.  There were wheeling Bob out for more tests.  They were in a hurry, so I didn’t have time to speak to Bob, but as they pushed Bob passed me, Bob held out his hands in this manner.  And I knew that Bob knew he was in good hands regardless of the outcome.

Faith knows, believes, lives in the reality that God is with us wherever we are, in whatever situation we find ourselves, for it is grace that hath brought us safe thus far.

AND GRACE SHALL LEAD US HOME

I don’t have to tell you the ending of the third verse of Amazing Grace.   You know it already.  “And grace shall lead me home.”

Many of you know my mother died this past January.  Since then myself and my two brothers have been cleaning out her house.  Two weeks ago I was going through some papers she had put away I a plastic bag to preserve them.  One of the items in the plastic bag was a copy of the words spoken by my parent’s minister at my father’s funeral.

My father had been in Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte to remove an aneurysm.  Before the surgery the minister asked my father what he thought about his upcoming surgery, my father replied, “It will be alright.”

Two days later my father died.  At his funeral, the minister used those words to reflect on my father’s faith and to remind us of the grace of God in our midst.  These are the words the minister said,

Somewhere, some way this afternoon in a different, more personal relationship with his risen Lord “it is alright with ‘Goo.’”  We must believe “it will be alright” with the rest of us, too.

It will be alright.  That is a statement of faith.  That is a statement that declares in the face of the uncertainty to life all is well.  It is a statement that expresses the truth of human existence, that wherever we are, whatever the situation, whatever  is yet to come, we are in good hands because we are in God’s hands and because we are in God’s hands we know God’s grace will lead us home.

EVEN THERE!

Through many dangers, toils and snares we, you have already come.  ‘Tis grace hath brought us safe thus far, and grace shall lead us home.

Or as the Psalmist expressed it,

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.

 

Amen?  Amen!

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