​The House that God Builds
Psalm 127
May 27, 2018

    David wanted to be the one to build God’s house but God told him that it would be his son, Solomon who would actually build it.  Solomon was only 12, when he became king so David decided to do what he could to set him up for success.  He gathered the best materials and gave detailed instructions about how they should be used.  He recruited the best, most skillful artisans to do the work, and he made alliances with neighboring nations so that more materials would be available if needed.  Then he told Solomon to be bold and to act so the temple of God could be completed.  Solomon acted. He built the temple according to the instructions David prepared, according to the instructions David received from God.  It was the most beautiful temple, befitting the God of the universe.  It was a wonderful place to house the seat of God.
    But within one generation, the nation that built the temple was divided into the two nations of Israel and Judah.  Two hundred years later the ten tribes of Israel were carried into exile.  Within another one hundred fifty years Judah was in exile and the once beautiful temple stood in ruins.  So what happened?  
    Solomon started out doing well, but somewhere along the way he lost his focus on the real advice that David had given him.  He married many foreign wives and invited them to bring their foreign gods and traditions when they came to Jerusalem.  No doubt, Solomon adopted some of these gods and traditions for his own.  Solomon, and all of Israel had forsaken God.  They had forgotten what David said in Psalm 127, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.  Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.” 
    Solomon failed to remember, or perhaps he didn’t know that God’s house is not in any building—something that we need to remember as well—but it is in the hearts of all who love God and desire to follow God’s ways.  In other words, we can build our lives on the best alliances, the most prestigious jobs, and the best pay, but if God is not in our hearts, we will fail.   We can change our attitudes so we are most tolerant people that anyone can be; if God is not in our hearts we will fail.  We can study to become the most knowledgeable people in the world, but if God is not in our hearts we will fail.  If we want to succeed in life, we need to invite God into our hearts.
    While we know that God will make Godself known in Gods own ways, we can invite God into our hearts by being in the places where God has routinely been present.  God often speaks through Bible Study and through prayer and fasting.  God often speaks to us when we meet with other Christians, or when we receive communion or remember our baptism, or when we serve others by feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned and the sick. God often speaks to us through these and other means of grace.    
    But as important as these things are, none is a guarantee that God will be present in our hearts. John Wesley in his—I believe autobiographical--sermon “The Almost Christian” said that people who diligently practiced the means of grace and did so sincerely were only “almost Christians”  He said our motivation—what is in our hearts is most important.  Wesley said there were three things:  Love for God, Love for neighbor, and faith in Christ.  About faith, he said this:  “But here let no man deceive his own soul. “It is diligently to be noted, the faith which bringeth not forth repentance, and love, and all good works, is not that right living faith, but a dead and devilish one.”” 
    I believe this is important because as we look at our church and nation today I feel that sometimes we have forgotten that a city that God builds is made up of houses that God builds.  As we look at ourselves we need to ask some questions like:  Have we as a church kept our focus on God? Do we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength? Do we love our neighbor as we love ourselves?  Even more, do we love as God loves?    Do we have faith in Christ that calls us to repentance as a people, as a church, and as a nation?  A faith that calls us to say, “Have thine own way, Lord.  Have thine own way.  Thou are the Potter, we are the clay.” And that says, “Lord, not our will but thy will be done.”  
     We are only a little older than Israel was when it was destroyed.  If we are to survive, we need to take to heart this psalm, especially the part that says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”  We need to pray, Lord, come into our hearts and build your kingdom here.  In Jesus’s name we pray.  Amen.

​Faithfulness
Psalm 105:1-15
May 6, 2018
    Imagine the scene as the parade comes into view.  There’s David at the lead, dancing for all he’s worth.  This isn’t the graceful choreographed liturgical dance that some of us are used to seeing in church.  David is dancing, jumping, gyrating without abandon.  David’s dancing is unbecoming of a king and is embarrassing to his wife Michal.  She scolds him for his immodesty and his only response is that he was dancing to glorify God and if necessary he would make an even bigger fool of himself if it honored God.  After David come the singers and the musicians.  Then come the Levites carrying the Ark of the Covenant and the priests. Finally we can see all of the leaders of Israel singing the song that David wrote for this occasion.
    The Ark of the Covenant, the seat of God is being returned to its rightful place in the center of Jewish life.  While Moses was with God on Mount Sinai, God gave him instructions for building the Ark and the Tabernacle that housed it.  After the Ark was built, it was where Moses went to meet with God face to face.  It was the seat of God and God’s presence in the form of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night filled the tabernacle.  When the cloud lifted and moved, Israel followed.  When the cloud stopped, Israel stopped.  Israel followed the Ark, they followed God through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.  When they entered the Promised Land and faced the impenetrable defenses of Jericho, they followed God’s leading by following the Ark around the city every day for six days. Then on the seventh the followed the Ark seven times around the city.  When they shouted, the walls of the fortress fell and Israel walked right in.
    Israel followed the Ark as God led them into their home.  But then something changed.  In Judges we hear several times that, “everyone did what was right in their own mind.”  They forgot about the Ark.  They forgot about God.  They began to view the Ark of God as a talisman, a good luck charm and they only brought it out when they needed help in battle. Then it went back to its place at Shiloh to await the next time it was needed.  Eventually, Israel treated God as a good luck charm one too many times and they lost the Ark to the Philistines in battle.  When they eventually got it back, things had changed.  Israel put the Ark, they put God in storage. 
    I think that we do the same thing sometimes.  We put God in storage and treat God as a charm to be brought out when we need God’s presence.  Let me give a couple examples.  We put God in storage when we decide what we should do and then ask for God’s blessing on our decision.     We keep God in storage when we decide and don’t even ask for blessing; asking instead for forgiveness and deliverance. We keep God in storage when we try to use the Bible to justify our beliefs instead allowing the Bible to shape our beliefs, our beliefs about giving, our beliefs about helping, our beliefs about witnessing, our beliefs about who is worthy of God’s love.  We keep God in storage when we read the Bible to justify our preconceived beliefs rather than letting God’s word shape what we believe.
    But today was the day that, under David’s leadership, God was returning to lead Israel from God’s rightful place in the center of Jewish life.  David taught the people a song to sing as they celebrated.  Psalm 105 is very close to what 1 Chronicles tells us they sang.  Read the Psalm and hear the song.  David’s song was about the history of Israel.  He sang about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses—the heroes of Israel.  But the song was not about them.  David knew that as heroic as they were, they all had fatal human flaws that disqualified them as leaders.  He knew that he, too had flaws.  His song was not about humans, it was about God.  The song Israel sang was about how God was faithful throughout their history because he knew that God was the reason for all of God’s blessings.
    Look back on your life—Can you see God’s work in your life?  I am convinced that I am only here by God’s grace and God’s work.  To me that means that God has work for me here!  I pray every day for God to show me the work God has for me and for God to work through me for God’s glory.  Can you see God in your history?  What is the work God has for you today?    Now, think about what your life would be like if you let God lead you
.  What would your life be like:  If you prayed for guidance before making even the simplest decision; if you listened for God to speak to you through prayer and scripture; If you let the Word of God shape your belief instead of letting your beliefs shape your understanding of God’s Word.  What would your life be like if you followed God?  What would our church be like?  What would our nation be like?
     It is not an easy thing to turn our lives over to God.  We have been taught to be independent; to think for ourselves.  We may find it hard to trust God because we have been hurt so often when we trusted others, even those who say they love us.  But here’s the good news:  As we hear David’s song of praise for God’s great works, as we hear of the love God has for us—so great that God gave Christ to die for us—as we look at our own history we can know as we say in our communion liturgy, “When we were unfaithful, God remained faithful.”  Thank God for God’s faithfulness!  Amen. 

​Speak, So I Can Speak
1Samuel 3
April 7, 2018

Samuel was still a youth when he first heard God calling him.  The message he heard was shocking.  It was scary.  It prophesied the demise of his mentor, his father figure.  It was not the type of message that any of us would want to deliver.  But Samuel was faithful to God’s call and delivered the message.  From then on he was known throughout Israel as a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.  We want to be like that.  God has called us to speak His word.  Whether we preach to thousands or dozens, whether we teach in a classroom or speak through music, or witness to our family or to people on the street, we know that God has called us to speak His word.  We want to answer His call and we want do it faithfully and  completely.  We want to be known as trustworthy prophets of the Lord.  
So how do we do this?  How do we answer God’s call to speak His word?  I think we can learn from Samuel’s response.  Samuel recognized God’s voice.  He was in the right place.  He responded to God’s call and invited Him to speak, and finally, he spoke the entire word that he was given.  We answer God’s call in the same way; by recognizing His voice, by being in the right place, by responding and inviting God to speak, and finally by speaking the entire word we are given.
We begin to answer God’s call when we recognize His voice.  But what does God’s voice sound like?  To Samuel, we know that it was a voice of authority.  In other places we read that God’s voice was like thunder, and in still others, we hear that it is a still small voice that we must be quiet to hear.  How do we recognize His voice?  Technology is little help.  An internet search on the term recognizing God’s voice, yields over 79 million responses, with many of them contradicting each other.  We are fortunate since we have the Bible, God’s Word to help us, but even there we need to be careful.  There are over 500 English language translations of the Bible, some good and some not.  And we have all heard examples of people using the words of the Bible to support some very unbiblical points of view.  Even the devil was able to quote the Bible while he tempted Jesus.  But still, God’s voice speaks to us through the words and stories of the Bible.  We must read it critically and studiously.  We must struggle with the text listening carefully for the authentic voice of God.  We need to remember that Samuel did not recognize God’s voice when he first heard it.  He had to ask Eli for help in discerning who it was that was calling.  We too can rely on the insight of faithful elders and mentors to help us to recognize God’s voice.  But there is one more thing.  Research in Canada and China has shown that a baby recognizes its mother’s voice even before it is born.  Jesus said, “the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:4b.    The more time we spend with God, through prayer, Bible study, and other disciplines, the better we will be able to recognize His voice and begin to answer His call.
We also answer God’s call by being in the right place.  Samuel was sleeping in front of the Ark of God when hear heard God calling.  The Ark was where God spoke to Moses face to face so it was a good place to be to hear the Word of God.  But the Ark was not the only place that God spoke.  God spoke to Moses first in a burning bush.  He spoke to Elijah on Mt. Horeb.  He spoke to Jonah while he was in the belly of the fish, about as far from the Ark as you could get.  While their physical locations were diverse, they had something in common.  They all needed to hear God, and their hearts were in the right place to listen and to hear what God had to say.  We need to have our hearts in the right place if we are to hear, and to speak God’s word.  We need to humble ourselves and put aside our desires in favor of the work of God.  We need to be committed to doing God’s will.  Here again, Christian disciplines, or means of grace, prayer, Bible study, fasting,  partaking in the ordinances or sacraments, helping others, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and other acts of mercy,  help to prepare our hearts, help to put them in the right place, help to put us in the right place to hear God’s voice.  When we are in the right place we can hear and answer when God speaks.
We answer His call by responding and inviting Him to speak.  Our words here are simple, “Speak, Lord for your servant hears.”  But if we want to answer His call, we need to say them.  God is patient.  He will not force Himself on us, but He will wait patiently until we are ready to listen.  Neither are these words to be said lightly, because they come at a cost.  They may cost you time.  After Samuel responded to God, the Bible says he lay until morning.  It does not say that he slept.  I imagine that he lay awake pondering the message he just heard and wondering how he would tell it to his mentor.  They may cost you family.  Abraham responded to God’s call and he was told to leave his family and home and go to a place where God would tell him.  It may cost your prejudice.  Jonah answered God’s call, reluctantly, and was sent to preach to a people he deemed unworthy.  It may cost you parts of your belief system.  Peter, James, and John saw Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets on the Mount of Transfiguration.  But instead of listening to them, they were told, “This is my son.  Listen to Him.”  When we respond to God’s call, it will cost us.  We will be asked to put away our old lives and live new lives submitted to Him.  But we answer God’s call by responding and listening to Him.
Once we have responded and God has spoken to us, we answer God’s call by speaking the entire message we hear.  There are many reasons not to do this.  We may be afraid of offending others who are important to us, as Samuel was.  We may be afraid that the people will not listen to us because of our youth or inexperience, as Jeremiah was.  Or we may be reluctant to speak because we are afraid that the people will listen to us as Jonah was.  There are many reasons we may be reluctant to speak the whole message God has given us, but there are good reasons that we should.  When we speak God’s word, we reflect our character.  If we are going to be true to ourselves, we must speak the message we’ve been given by God.  Second, when we speak God’s word, we receive the blessing of being a faithful prophet of the Lord, and we become a blessing to others.  It is sometimes risky to speak God’s word.  But it is worth the risk.  The Apostle Paul took the risk and proclaimed the good news to the Gentiles.  He suffered arrest, death threats, and imprisonment, but we received the blessing of the Gospel for all people.  Martin Luther took the risk and spoke against corruption and false belief in his church.  He suffered excommunication and death threats, but the world was blessed with the Gospel translated into languages that the common people could understand.  John Wesley took the risk when he spoke about personal holiness and spoke against injustices of his day.  As a result he was barred from preaching in many churches, including the one his father had pastored, but he took his message to the street corners and mines and England and America were blessed with the Gospel and with social change.  Martin Luther King took the risk and spoke against injustice in our time.  He paid with his life, but the world was blessed with a greater desire to overcome the social problems of today.  But we don’t have to stop with the heroes of our faith, all of us know someone, a parent, a friend, a teacher, a preacher who has blessed us by speaking the whole word of God.  
Will you answer God’s call?  Will you recognize His voice?  Will you take the time to put your heart in the right place?  Will you invite God to speak?  And Will you speak his whole word?  When you do, God will bless you by making you a faithful prophet of the Lord, and you will be a blessing to others.  So my final question is, will you take the risk?  Who will you bless? 

Let us pray:  Father God, Give us the strength and wisdom to answer your call.  Amen

​HELP! 
Deuteronomy 22:1-6 March 18, 2018
    Barbara and I said goodbye to a good friend this week.  Even though Tom was an instant friend to everyone he met, he took a little getting used to. Tom didn’t always follow the rules, or even know there were rules, like the time he brought his chickens to Vacation Bible School so the children could meet them.  Tom sometimes got his Bible stories a little wrong.  He had no need for theological training.  But Tom knew what it meant to live like Jesus.  Tom knew what it meant to love his neighbor.  He was the “Eggman” because part of his ministry was to share eggs with his brothers and sisters in Christ. Visitors to his church were welcomed with a carton of eggs.  Often he had eggs for his friends at just the perfect time. He would often say, “God told me to give you these eggs.” And quite often it was at the time his friend needed them most.  Tom not only gave eggs to his friends, he once gave money from his wife’s life insurance after her passing to a friend so he could buy a new truck when the old truck broke down.  Tom’s real ministry was helping others and he was good at it.
    Today’s text talks about helping our neighbors.  There are a lot of scriptures that could be interpreted a few ways, but verse three of this passage is pretty clear.  We have to help our neighbor.  The Bible says it in the negative, “You may not withhold your help.”  But the point is clear.  We have no choice. We MUST help our neighbor in need.    
    If you look at our world today, you might wonder if anyone has read this text lately.  We not only withhold our help, we rejoice when bad things happen to those we dislike.  We even have a word for it.  The German word, Schadenfreude means to take joy in the misfortune of another.  In many of our interactions, we not only don’t help; we do everything we can to obstruct others trying to help.  Think about it.  When was the last time you heard about someone refusing to help someone they don’t get along with?  We don’t hear about that because it is so common.  But when someone goes out of their way to help—a police officer giving his shoes to a homeless person or a child using their hard earned money to help someone who has suffered loss—that is so rare that it is newsworthy.  
    Our text today is saying that for our society to work, we need to help each other.  So what does it mean to help our neighbor?
    First, it means that we are to take care of our neighbor as we want to be taken care of.  The text talks about this in terms of safeguarding and restoring our neighbor’s ox, or sheep, or donkey. Today we might talk about a lost wallet, or incorrect change, or a wayward cell phone. We are supposed to return whatever our neighbor lost.  If we don’t know who the thing belongs to we are to take care of the item until the owner comes to take it back.  We are to safeguard and restore our neighbor’s physical things, but what about safeguarding our neighbor’s spirit?  When we see our neighbor losing their faith shouldn’t we be there for them and try to share our faith until theirs becomes strong?  What about when they lose their hope?  We can remind them that with God there is always hope.  When they have lost their ability to love, we need to share with them the love God has given.
    Next, it means that we are supposed to ease our neighbor’s burden.  Again the Bible talks in terms of livestock.  Today, there are so many other ways to ease our neighbor’s burden:  We can feed the hungry. We can clothe the naked. We can advocate for those with no voice. We can help to seek justice when there is no justice.  We can work to restore relationships.
    But we should also ease our neighbor’s spiritual burdens: We need to pray with and for those who don’t know God’s peace.  When our neighbor doubts God’s love, we need to be God’s hands and feet showing them that God loves them. When our neighbor struggles with their belief, we need to point out to them that God is still with us. When our neighbor is brought down by the stresses of the world, we need to lift them up by helping to relieve their stress.
    Finally we need to take a global view of helping others.  The Bible says we are to care even for the bird sitting on her nest. Jesus tells us that God’s eye is on the sparrow. If God’s eye is on the sparrow ours should be as well.  Many times we try to get out of this responsibility to help by defining our neighbor narrowly.  We think maybe we only need to help those who think like us, or those who look like us, or those who worship like us.  But we need to hear what Jesus says in answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”  In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus says that my neighbor is anyone who is in need; even—or maybe especially—my enemy.
    God tells us to help our neighbor by taking care of them as we would like others to take care of us.  Even more, God shows us how to love and care for others but giving us His Son, Jesus to be our model.  I think the words of a song we sang at our friend Tom’s funeral sum it up:
"Live Like That"
Sometimes I think
What will people say of me
When I'm only just a memory
When I'm home where my soul belongs
Was I love
When no one else would show up
Was I Jesus to the least of us
Was my worship more than just a song
I want to live like that
And give it all I have
So that everything I say and do
Points to You 
God expects us to love others not only as we love ourselves, but as God loves us.  Amen.

​SSSNAKES
Numbers 21:4-9  March 4, 2018

    The Israelites were tired.  They had wandered for almost forty years and they could see the end of their journey, but there were still a lot of obstacles before they got there.  Some of them had mutinied against Moses and tried to convince the people to return to Egypt.  They had run out of water at Meribah causing Moses to lose his temper and disobey God’s instructions.  Now as they prepared to pass through Edom, the land of Israel’s brother, their cousins refused to allow safe passage and mobilized their army to fight if Israel tried to enter their land.  Going around Edom instead of through it added months, maybe years, to their journey.  They were so close to the end of their wandering, but still so far away.
    So they did what came naturally to them.  They grumbled.  They continued to question Moses’s leadership and they even began to doubt God’s power to take care of them.  They grumbled against both Moses and God, not realizing that it was only because of the grace of God and the intercession of Moses that they had survived throughout their desert journey.  They grumbled against everything.  They grumbled about the long journey.  They grumbled about the Manna God provided.  They grumbled about their lack of water. Once again as they had often done before they convinced themselves that things were better in the slavery of Egypt rather than in the freedom of their journey to the Promised Land.
    God responded to their grumbling by sending fiery serpents-- the word used is seraphim the same word we use for angels-- to bite and kill the Israelites.  Again, as they had done so often, Israel repented of their grumbling and turned to Moses for the solution.
    As I reflect on this story, I realize that we are not much different from the Israelites.  We grumble.  Most recently, many of us grumbled about our loss of power as we forgot that in many parts of the world electrical power is only available for a few hours a day if at all.  We grumble about the economy even though we are all rich by the standards of the rest of the world.  We grumble about the direction our nation is headed.  We openly grumble about our governmental leadership.  We grumble about the future of the church, we grumble about our church leadership.  We grumble because our long held beliefs are being challenged.   We want to go back to a place and time where we were comfortable in our beliefs and we avoid going forward into the place God has prepared for us.
    We grumble just like Israel did, so where are the snakes?  We might believe that they are not there, but our grumbling is just as deadly as Israel’s and for the same reason.  When we grumble, our dissatisfaction has a deadly effect on the world.  When we complain about what we don’t have we betray our trust in God to provide.  When we complain about the future, we deny that God is with us now and forever.  When we complain about our leadership we tear our community apart.  When we turn to go back to our old ways we refuse to trust that God is in control and we fail to do God’s will. All of these complaints bring with them the threat of the deadly poison that comes from the snakes. Remember the serpent in Genesis?  He did his evil work not by fighting against God, but by making Adam and Eve doubt God’s power and love.  Lack of faith is the source of all the snakes in our lives.
    When Israel came to their senses and chose to trust Moses and trust God, God told Moses to make a bronze model of the serpents and place it on a pole so that whoever was bitten could look at the serpent and live.  I can hear you asking, “What about the commandment not to make a graven image?”  Don’t confuse this with a graven image.  There are two reasons it is not.  First, God commanded Moses to make it (this is a whole other sermon about when God tells us to do something that appears to go against God’s commandments). Second, the serpent was not created to be worshipped.  In fact, later in Israel’s history, King Hezekiah destroyed the serpent because some people were worshipping it instead of God.  The purpose of the bronze serpent was to make the Israelites look up and remember the power of God who was with them and provided for them throughout their journey.  When they looked at the serpent, the people were forced to look beyond their problems and see the bigger picture of God’s love and provision.
    In chapter three of John’s gospel Jesus says that like Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness, Jesus must be raised up (on the cross) so that all who look on him will not perish.  So there is the solution to our grumbling:  Look to Jesus and remember the love that God has for us.  God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to be our savior.  We don’t need to grumble against others or against God.  We don’t need to fear our future because we can say in faith, “God’s got this!  I can trust God!”  Amen 

​Making Things Right
Numbers 5:1-10 February 25, 2018
    When we read the Bible where we start often determines where we end up.  For instance, if we read with the belief that God is an angry God, especially in the Old Testament, we will find an angry God.  When I read the Bible, I read from the perspective of God’s great love.  The lens through which I interpret scripture includes such scriptures as: 1 John 4:8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” ; John 3:16-17, “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”; 2 Peter 3:9, “ The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. “; and especially Matthew 22:37-39  ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.””  This is particularly important to know when reading this week’s text because the text could lead to an interpretation of exclusion.  By reading through the lens of God’s love, I believe the text tells another story as well.
    In the first part of this text, God told Moses to put people with the skin disease Leprosy, with bodily discharges, and those who had had contact with dead bodies outside the camp.  There was a practical health related reason for this.  These people could be contagious.  If they remained inside the camp, they could infect the whole camp.  But there was another, spiritual, reason.  God intended to live among the Israelites and nothing unclean was allowed to live where God lived.  Only the most holy people were allowed to enter into the presence of God.  
    This could be interpreted as a reason to exclude certain people who we call sinners from the church, or from the community of believers.  But by that standard, we should all be excluded from the church since none of us is perfect.  Not one of us is worthy to enter into God’s presence.  We may not have visible discharges or diseases, but what about our spiritual discharges?  Have you read posts on social media lately?  On social media we tend to hide behind our anonymity and we speak our hearts. Unfortunately, when we do reveal what it in our hearts, we find that we are far from healthy in our relationships with each other.  I pray for the day that we can treat each other with true respect both in person and in their absence.  When we are judged by the standard of our hearts, all of us should be outside the camp.
    This is true except for one thing.  As Christians we have not only found, but we have received the cure for our disease.  Jesus is the cure.  He is both our sacrificial lamb who paid the price for our disobedience and our scapegoat who removes our sins as far as the east is from the west.  Even though we belong outside God’s Kingdom, by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have been invited back in.
    So why do we treat each other so poorly?  Why do we still sin against each other once we have been saved?  The answer is that we are healed by Christ, but we are still being rehabilitated by God.  Once we accept God’s gift of justifying grace offered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we continue to walk in God’s sanctifying grace and with the help of the Holy Spirit we continue to grow more in love with God and to grow more into the people that God has always intended for us to be.  When we become Christians saved by grace, we are not perfect people, but every day we walk with God, we are becoming perfect with the help of God.  Christ is the cure for our sin; the Holy Spirit is our rehabilitation, our “spiritual therapy.”
    The prescription God gives us for a healthy society is love.  Christ tells us to love God and to love each other.  These two laws are like two sides of the same coin.  We can’t do one without doing the other as well.  When we are saved by Christ, we begin to learn what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and we discover that one aspect of loving God is loving our neighbor.  And when we love our neighbor the way God loves our neighbor, we learn how to love God with more strength.  
    After all, as a people who have received the cure for our disease of sin, why would we not want to share that same cure with others?  Loving God and loving each other is the first step in making disciples. Loving our neighbor means building relationships, strengthening relationships, and restoring broken relationships.  Once again, God gives us instructions.  When we wrong another we need to confess our guilt and ask forgiveness and make things more than right by adding to the restitution we pay.  This is easy when the loss suffered by our neighbor is physical, but how do we make restitution for spiritual wrongs?  I’m not sure I know the answer to that except to say that we need to continue to share our love with the same extravagance that God loves us.  When we love them, we build our relationship with our neighbors and we help them restore their relationship with God.  To love like God loves, we put their actions and their beliefs aside, we ignore differences in theology, and we just love.
    That’s the whole solution:  Love God by accepting God’s grace and love our neighbors.  When we do this we spread the Gospel through our words and our actions.  Our need now is not changed laws or changed procedures even though they might help in the short term.  The only way we can change our society is to change hearts.  And only God can change people’s hearts.  Amen.

​At One
Leviticus 16:20-34
February 18 2018

    We’re mourning again for the loss of our children in a shooting.  Isn’t it interesting how we each mourn differently?    Some of weep silently or at most we reach out and try to help the healing by sharing their “Thoughts and prayers.”  Others lash out in anger and demand that someone in authority do something about the ease with which the attacker obtained the weapons they used.  Still others express their anger and frustration by lamenting how our society has become so coarsened that we have lost respect for human life.
    Regardless of how we mourn, on what we blame the tragedy, our cry is the same, “I am hurt and angry; I am sad and confused because this evil that has happened seems to be increasing in frequency and I can’t do anything about it.”  We are saying, “Somebody do something to stop this evil before it happens again.”
    We each provide our own solution.  Each solution is partially right and each is fully inadequate to stop the evil.  Thoughts and prayers sound good and may be a comfort to those who are suffering, but thoughts are empty without action and prayers, while the most powerful of any of our acts are powerless unless they are accompanied by repentance and a sincere desire to do things God’s way.  Controlling guns also sounds good.  Guns are far too numerous and too easy to obtain.  The availability of guns makes it too easy for an act of anger to get out of control and increases the likelihood of people being injured or killed.  But if the existing laws against violence, starting with, “Do not kill,” were not enough to stop this evil, what makes us think that a new law will be more effective?  It’s the same with the idea of changing our society to be able to identify and remove those who threaten us.  It sounds good, but in practice, it falls apart when we consider how different we are today compared to even twenty years ago.
    Each of our solutions may bring some partial relief, but they won’t really change things because they only address the symptoms and not the disease.  Each of these solutions is like going to the doctor with pneumonia and the doctor gives you cough medicine for the cough and Tylenol for the fever.  You may feel better, but if you don’t cure the pneumonia, you are likely to die anyway.
    So, what is this disease and how do we treat it?  Ever since Adam and Eve chose their own will over God’s will, we have all been infected with the deadly disease called sin.      We often look at sin as a moral failing that we can cure by ourselves, but the truth is sin is more deadly than that.  Sin is a disease that infects us all.  John Wesley said it this way, "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." 
    The problem with the disease of sin is that we have been infected for so long and so deeply that we have no resistance to it. It has become so natural that we often don’t admit, or realize that we are infected.  Again, John Wesley said, 
“So long as a man born blind continues so, he is scarce sensible of his want: Much less, could we suppose a place where all were born without sight, would they be sensible of the want of it. In like manner, so long as men remain in their natural blindness of understanding, they are not sensible of their spiritual wants, and of this in particular.”   
    This disease of sin infects every person on earth. Since nations are made up of persons, it infects nations to the same degree and with the same effect as it does each of us.  Because of our disease, when evil happens we look for someone to blame.  We choose a scapegoat:  We blame the guns, we blame the newcomers to society, we blame the outcasts of society, we blame the people who missed the clues, we blame the perpetrator.  But we don’t blame ourselves.    We give the exact same response Adam and Eve gave to God when they sinned.  “The woman gave it to me.”  “The serpent made me do it.”  
    In today’s text, God gives Israel the prescription, to cure their sin.  Once a year, the people gathered for the Day of Atonement to receive the cure that would make them again AT ONE with God.  The priest took two goats.  One of the goats was sacrificed.  Through this sacrifice the punishment for the sins of the people was satisfied by the death of the goat.  The other goat, the scapegoat, received was banished.  The priests laid their hands on its head and confessed the sins of the people, symbolically placing the nation’s sin on the goat.  Then the scapegoat was taken into the wilderness and set loose in a place where the sins of the people were removed far from the people.
    The problem was that the life of even two goats could not permanently remove the sins of the people.  This ritual had to be repeated annually as the people continued to sin.  In our case, the scapegoats we choose can’t lead us to atonement.  In fact as we choose to place the blame for our sin on others, we tear ourselves apart as a nation and as a people of God as we exclude our scapegoats from our presence.
    But God, in God’s grace has provided the once and for all.  When Jesus, who was without sin, died on the cross; he did it as the sacrifice for our sin.  We regularly say, “Jesus died for my sin.  He took the punishment that I deserved. Jesus is our sacrificial lamb.”  And we praise God.  But Jesus did more than that.  When he cried from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?!” he experienced the separation from God that we deserved.  Jesus took all our sins onto his head and removed them from us as far as the east is from the west so that we could be worthy to enter into the presence of God.  Jesus is not only the sacrificial lamb.  He is the scapegoat that removes the sins of the world once and for all.  Jesus is the answer.  He is the cure to our disease.  He is the way; the gate through which we enter the kingdom of God.  Again, quoting John Wesley, 
“In Adam ye all died: In the second Adam, in Christ, ye all are made alive. "You that were dead in sins hath he quickened:" He hath already given you a principle of life, even faith in him who loved you and gave himself for you! Now, "go on from faith to faith," until your whole sickness be healed; and all that "mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus!"” 
    As your mind becomes the same as that which is in Jesus Christ, may your heart be full of the love and forgiveness that comes from God. And may God makes us one with God, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.  Amen

​Invested
Exodus 36:1-7, 38:22-31  February 11, 2018

    As Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land, it seemed that he had a problem.  Moses was doing all the work.  The rest of Israel was along for the ride, soaking up the blessings that God had for them—and complaining when they didn’t think God had provided enough—and ignoring the fact that it was only God’s goodness that kept them alive.  Moses struggled with getting Israel to respond to God’s outpouring of love and grace with a heartfelt love for God.  He struggled with how to get Israel invested in worshipping God.  He struggled with how to make Israel realize that they were God’s chosen people.  
    God explained to Moses that the way to do that was to ask Israel to contribute to the building of the Tabernacle.  That along with the work of the Holy Spirit would make them invested in their worship of God.
    We have a similar problem today.  We have changed from being a contributing society to being a consumer society.  People have become observers and customers, rather than participants and investors.  Let me give you some examples of the difference: Investors participate in the activities of the church and contribute to the church’s success; consumers observe what is going on in church to see if the church’s programs are designed for them.  Investors know they are a part of something bigger; that the church is there for more than a weekly show. Consumers are there for the feeling they get as the church feeds them.  Investors know they are co-owners of the church and that the success of the church depends on their participation.  Consumers are customers of the church and are just as happy going to a different church if their needs are not met.  Investors are committed for the long haul. They will stay with the church as it goes through its natural cycle of good times and hard times.  Consumers come and go as the times change.
    There are several reasons for this change.  Some of them are the result of changes in society and I believe others are due to changes in the church.  
We are a more mobile society.  For many people it is no longer possible to attend the church where we grew up, the church where our traditions and our families reside.  As we move to new churches, we are reluctant to get involved since we know that we will be moving soon.  Mobility means that the loyalty to any one place is weakened and we become satisfied to simply observe.  
Today we have many options for church. Within a five mile radius of Andrew Chapel there are at least 18 other churches.  Each one has a different personality and a different set of activities and beliefs.  If we are not fulfilled or loved at one, we move to another at will.
We have many competing interests.  Church is no longer the center of our community.  For many it is not even the center of our Sabbath.  Worship now competes with sports, leisure time, recovery from an extended work week, and many other activities. Attendance at church is no longer a social priority.
But the church is also responsible.  Many churches have focused on numerical growth over spiritual growth.  They are oriented on the attractiveness of their facilities and the impact of the “show” of their worship instead of focusing on building relationships with each other and with God.  We have turned inward to provide for the comfort—both physical and theological—of our current attendees rather than reaching out to invite new brothers and sisters in Christ and to minister to the least of God’s children.  People feel free to move from church to church for a better “show”. Some even become disillusioned about the role of the church and leave altogether to look for their life’s purpose elsewhere.
    It’s important to remember that each new person who comes to this church comes as a consumer.  They are here to see if Andrew Chapel fits their needs for worship and community.  That is natural and is not necessarily a bad thing.  Our job as the Andrew Chapel Church Family is to help our guests move from being consumers to being investors.   To do that we need to do a few things consistently:
    We need to stay invested in God by teaching, preaching, and modeling the whole truth of the Gospel.  This means that we need to proclaim both the justice of God and the Grace of God.  God’s justice as revealed in the Old and New Testaments gives us the standard for our behavior and shows us how far short we are when we are measured by that standard.  But if all we do is proclaim God’s Justice we proclaim a gospel of despair since whatever we do we cannot measure up.  On the other hand, God’s grace reminds us that, “God loves us and there’s nothing we can do about it.” And it reminds us that God’s desire is for all people to be saved.  God’s grace gives us the good news; but if all we proclaim is Grace, we cheapen the grace to a point that it is meaningless.  Only by preaching justice along with grace does grace become a true Gospel.
    We need to stay invested in the world by looking into our community and doing our best to bring healing and comfort to those in need.  We need to identify and address incidents and systems of social injustice to help our communities become truly good places to live.  This is how we let the light of Christ shine into the world through us.
    We need to remain more invested in people than we are in facilities and traditions.  Each person in our church comes with needs that only God can address.  We need be a place where people can come to God with those needs without fear of judgement from others.  We need to show God’s love to all who enter our doors, as we remember that judgement and justice belong to God alone.
    Finally, we need to provide a place where people can participate with a purpose.  All people want to feel that they are making a difference in the world.  We need to invite people, both church attendees and non-attendees to help us as we work to nurture each other and as we take the Gospel to the world.
     We all have to choose whether we will be merely involved or whether we will invest in God’s Kingdom.  As you consider the question, remember John’s Gospel 3:16 (NRSV), “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  God is invested in loving us.  Thank God!  Amen.
    

​Teamwork
Exodus 17:8-16 and 18:12-23
February 4, 2018

    Sunday’s Super bowl was advertised as a battle of quarterbacks. Two great quarterbacks will lead their teams to try to outsmart and outplay the other.  We pay most attention to the quarterbacks because, they have an important job.  They need to see the field, they need to read the defense and eventually they need to throw or hand the ball to the player who can make the most yards.  If the quarterback doesn’t do his job well, the team may fall apart.  But why do we focus on the quarterbacks?  After all the two centers also have an important job.  They need to read the defense.  They need to throw or hand the ball—through their legs to the quarterback all the while knowing that as soon as they move, the defender on the other side is going to hit them as hard as he can to try to disrupt the play.  If the centers have a bad day, well you get the idea.  The team that wins tonight will be the one whose players work together the best.  That’s teamwork, and teamwork is the key to success in sports. 
    Teamwork is important to our own success as well.  Try to think of a time that you did something without any help.  It’s about impossible.  Even if you did most of the work on your own, someone else often created the resources you used.  Others produced the raw materials.  You may have cooked the best chicken dinner ever, but did you grow the ingredients?  Did you raise the chickens?  Most likely someone else did.  Your job, whatever it is, relies on others to help you get to work, and to provide for your workspace.  Eventually your work needs to be coordinated with others to be useful.  Parents especially understand this as they work together to do their best to raise their children.  
    The children’s song, “I am the Church” describes teamwork as well.  “I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together, all who follow Jesus All around the world, yes we’re the church together.”  We are called the Body of Christ for a reason. 
    Moses started out knowing that he couldn’t lead the Israelites out of Egypt by himself.  But as he grew in faith, he took on a God and me against the world attitude.   By the time Israel got to the wilderness, Moses believed that the responsibility for saving the Israelites was his alone.  He met with God alone, he prayed alone, he judged alone and it all wore him out.  When the Israelites met the Amalekites in battle, Moses prayed while Joshua and the warriors fought.  Moses was the first prayer warrior.  His prayers encouraged Israel.  When they saw Moses’s hands aloft in prayer, Israel prevailed, when they saw him fading, they faded as well.  Soon, he and his companions realized that he needed help.  Aaron and Hur saved the day by holding Moses’s hands up while Israel fought.  Later, when Moses’s father-in-law Jethro came and saw how Moses judged Israel and how it wore him out (and frustrated Israel) Jethro showed him a better way.  It seemed to Jethro that Moses believed that he was the only one who sought God continually. He was the only one who could judge Israel.  It also seemed the rest of Israel was happy to let him judge because that meant they could go about their own lives and only consider God when God directly impacted their lives.
    Jethro explained to Moses that that was not the way God intended.  He explained that God set the standard for Israel. Moses as the leader was responsible for teaching Israel the rule of life that pleased God.  Then Moses was to empower other Godly judges to judge Israel as they went about their lives.  That brought about quicker justice and left Moses to decide only the most important matters.
    Today we have many people who have that God and me against the world attitude.  Don’t get me wrong.  God is the most important member on our team or any team and God has the power to work however God pleases.  But God does not choose to use us as individuals.  God empowers us and chooses us to work as a team.  We are the body—not the bodies—of Christ.  God has given each of us gifts to use along with the gifts of others to lead the world to the Kingdom of God.  God has empowered us, and has called each of us, to work as a team.  We are all called to work together for God’s glory.  Each of us is critical to the success of the Missio Dei, the mission of God.  God calls us all to be actively involved in this body.  Unlike the teams in the Super bowl there are no bench sitters on God’s team.
    God calls us all to work for God’s kingdom because there is so much work to do.  God has called each of us at Andrew Chapel.  Just think about all of the people involved in our worship service this morning, there are communion stewards, altar guild, musicians, liturgists, acolytes, ushers, greeters, pastor, prayer warriors, someone to make bulletins, and worshippers all work together to worship God.  But our worship extends beyond an hour on Sunday: We are to glorify God in all we do.    We need people to help our members grow: teachers, care circles, prayer warriors, fellowship event coordinators.  These are all part of the church’s mission.    We need people to share the Gospel with those who haven’t heard it:  evangelists, encouragers, people to witness through their daily lives, prayer warriors, mission volunteers to make the Gospel real and practical to those we witness to.    
    We are blessed that we have many of these people in our church.  But some are like Moses, they have been doing their best for so long that they are worn out.  They need the rest of us to help.  God’s plan requires all of us to be part of God’s team, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.(Ephesians 2:8-10, NRSV)” God has made you and me to work together to make disciples of all nations.  Are you ready to be a part of God’s team?  Amen

Be Not Afraid
Genesis 46:1-7 January 28, 2018

    Jacob seems an unlikely choice to be the father of God’s Chosen People.  He doesn’t fit the mold of what we normally think of as a hero.  Jacob lived a roller coaster life.  He was his mother’s favorite, preferring to stay home with her unlike his brother Esau.  His name meant “Grabber” as he first stole his brother’s birthright and then his blessing.  Because of that he ended up running for his life to live with his uncle Laban in the old country.  On the way he had a beautiful dream and encountered the Living God.  When he got to Uncle Laban’s he worked for seven years for the privilege of marrying the love of his life, only to find out that he had actually married her older sister.  Then Jacob worked for seven more years and finally married the woman he loved, but things went downhill from there.  His uncle changed his wages ten times trying to get the upper hand.  Finally things got so bad that Jacob and his new family, two wives, two concubines, eleven sons and a daughter had to run away for fear of their lives.  They ran back to Isaac’s home and back to brother Esau.  Fortunately things between Jacob and Esau had healed by then and they looked like they might work out.  God even changed Jacob’s name to Israel, “He struggled with God and prevailed”.  This name was a harbinger of the rest of his life.  Not long after Israel returned to Canaan his daughter was raped and his two sons got revenge by killing all the males in the village where the rapist lived.  Then his oldest son dishonored him by sleeping with one of his concubines.  Then, the worst of all Jacob learned that his favorite son, Joseph was apparently killed by wild animals.  From then on, Jacob lived his life in fear that his youngest and new favorite son, Joseph’s brother, Benjamin, would die early as well.   Jacob, Israel, truly did struggle with trusting God, but somehow he is a hero of the Old Testament.
    When I think about it, Jacob’s life is not so much different than ours.  We also live rollercoaster lives.  Sometimes we feel so close to God that we think we can’t get any closer, at other times, we think God has forgotten us. Many of us live our lives in fear of what might happen next.  
    There is a lot to fear.  There are hundreds of wars and conflicts, including the threat of nuclear war that could destroy the world.  Climate change, extinction, and other environmental problems threaten our world as well.  Then there are financial fears: national and personal debt and unemployment.  We also worry about our health and our ability to access and pay for health care.  There is no shortage of reasons to be fearful.
    There is much to fear and there is no shortage of people willing to use that fear to shape our attitudes.  Politicians regularly play on our fears, either telling us that people will die if we don’t do what they say or trying to convince us that those who are challenging our status quo are out to get us.  Advertisers seem to make their entire livelihood out of playing on our fears.  Next time you watch or hear a commercial, listen for this message, “You need what I’m selling or you will not be safe or acceptable to others.” Or you may hear, “If you don’t get what I’m selling someone else will take advantage of you.”  One of those messages is going to be there.  The media seems intent on only telling us about the things that are crises, or if a story is not a crisis, they make it one.  Think of all the dire reports we get over a snowstorm prediction.  Unfortunately, churches also use fear to shape our belief in God.  We all know that sin is what separates us from God and so we should avoid and fear sin, but too many churches use that fear to make us conform to their teaching and belief rather than helping us know that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have a way to overcome death and separation from God.        
    But let’s go back to the story of Jacob.  He wasn’t a good hero, but Jews and Christians count his story as part of our heritage; something to be joyful over rather than something to fear.  Why Is that?  It is because the stories of Jacob and the rest of the stories in our Bible are not stories to glorify heroes.  The stories in the Bible are there to glorify God. God is the hero of all of our scriptures.  While Jacob was living his roller coaster life, God was preparing the way.  While Jacob lived and worked for his swindling uncle for twenty-one years it was God who was watching over Jacob.  It was God who gave Jacob his family and it was God who blessed Jacob.  Each time Laban changed Jacob’s wages, God changed the circumstances to bless Jacob.  When Jacob was mourning the loss of his favorite son Joseph, God was using Joseph to prepare the situation in Egypt to ensure that the young nation of Israel would survive its first years.  When the time was right, it was God who brought Jacob and Joseph back together and gave Jacob the command to not be afraid and the promise that Joseph himself would close Jacob’s eyes in death and return him to the Promised Land.
    We can celebrate over this story of God’s greatness and we can celebrate even more over the fact that when the time was right it was God who sent his son into the world to restore the loving relationship God wanted for us since the beginning of time.  God sent Jesus to live as an example for us.  God sent Jesus to restore our relationship by living in perfect obedience to God, even up to the point of death.  Even, or maybe especially when Jesus’s way of life threatened the status quo of humanity so much that he was threatened with death, he went to the cross instead of choosing escape.  Christ died for our sins because we, humanity chose to put him to death instead of stop sinning.  
    The truth is that we do live in a world of fear.  But because of the work of Christ we can live without fear because when we live as children of God, we know that God is working in all things for good for we who love the Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.