Thursday, August 30, 2007

Guess What You've Got!

"Guess What You've Got!"

I was speaking recently with a man of American Indian extraction
who referred to "the elders." As I understand it the elders are the ones
who have been given leadership in the tribe.
Moses sent 70 elders out who were given a portion of God's
spirit and who with this spirit, helped Moses lead the people of Israel -
and for that he needed lots of help.
Moses sent out 70. 72 went out! Eldad and Medad took it upon
themselves to go out as well, and they prophesied like the others, much to
the consternation of many of them.
I think that whole part of the history of Israel explains why the
Gospel writer has Jesus sending out exactly 72 elders to do his work.
We should not think of elders as being older - only wiser - more
endowed with the Spirit of Christ than others - specially gifted - specially
called.
You are gifted with what happens to you while you are here in this
little church. . One man described what we do here this way: "On
Sunday morning, I walk into a world that is the way God meant it to
be. People are considerate of one another. Strangers are welcomed.
We pray for justice and peace. Our sins are forgiven. We all face
in one direction, and we worship the same God. When it's over, I
get in my car to drive home feeling so full of love it's unbelievable,
but by the time I've gone twenty minutes down the road it has
already begun to wear off. By Monday morning it's all gone and
I've got another whole week to wait until Sunday rolls around again."
What the man was missing was HIS mission to take what he found
at church with him as he goes back into the world of which he is a part.
Jesus tells all of us, his disciples - "What you have heard and seen
in me, do." Lawyers "practice" law. Christians should "practice" their
Christianity - for they - YOU - are called to practice what the preacher
preaches. (So is he!)
Even scarier we are called to "preach the Gospel to every
creature." "Gospel" we know means "good news." But what IS the good
news and how do we go about preaching it?
When I was a teenager and a new Christian, the church sent us
out two by two. I've had the experience of ringing doorbells praying that
nobody would answer! It was scary. It was scary because within myself
I knew that we were speaking church language to people who spoke the
world's language. "This will be easier" I thought, "when I figure out
how to communicate the church's gospel in the world's words - how
to make salvation make sense to the person who doesn't even know
he has any need of it!"
There are several Old and New Testament ideas of what salvation
is. And in all the generations since then, there have been many concepts
of "salvation" considered and proposed for our adopting.
What we know for sure is that Jesus' being here changed
everything - before, we were bound. Now we are free. But how was this
accomplished.
Did God demand a sacrifice for our sin, and Jesus made Himself
that Sacrifice? How good is a God who demands such? How good is
THAT explanation of salvation? Not good at all, according to author,
theologian and singer, Dr. Grace Brame who will be coming to speak to
us in March. In THIS view of salvation, she says, it is as if God says: "I
will send myself to earth in or der to pay myself back for the sins
committed against me. I will offer my human body to be destroyed
by the evil and greed of those thirsting for power over people, not
power for people. By bearing the cost of human death, I will redeem,
pay back, all those who receive me and believe' in my name. That
means that I, incarnate, will pay the required price I have set. I
must receive this sacrifice as payment before I will forgive and
before I will give life eternally."
How convoluted is that - there are convolutions on the
convolutions. According to Jesus, salvation was very individual and
personal. It varied from person to person. To the rich young ruler who
kept all the commandments, Jesus said there was one more thing he needed
to do - Jesus knew that the young ruler didn't have his riches, his riches
had him - and so what He had to do for his salvation was give his riches
away.
That's not what you have to do necessarily - it's whatever blocks
you from becoming the person God intended you to be - His Person.
"Salvation," as one Presbyterian minister put it, "is synonymous with
health and wholeness and personhood. To be saved means to
accept the forgiveness of God, to strive to be a loving, benevolent,
redemptive and forgiving person, and to live relatively free from
wanton sin, futility, hatred, resentment, and other infirmities that
inhibit wholeness."
Jesus, you see brings us life - Eternal Life now - not later on. Yes
later on as well, but more importantly NOW when it can made a delightful
difference in your daily life - giving you understanding and purpose,
excitement and joy. It begins with understanding that Jesus IS your
savior - as Dr. Brame says: "That He lived and taught and died as
God's love incarnate. He freed and frees us from our prisons of
attitudes and habits, healed and heals our hearts , minds, and bodies;
and he opens the door to the kingdom here on earth and beyond."
I am so fortunate that two of my friends, among a whole bevy of
others are now writing about the meaning of salvation. In addition to Dr.
Brame, Dr. John Killinger who has graced our pulpit in the past, has just
written a book, The Changing Shape of Our Salvation." In it, he
quotes another pastor as saying that "Salvation is something that
"enfolds" everyone from birth but needs to be realized before it
can become truly active in the person's life."
That's why WE'RE here, that's whey YOU'RE here. Dr. Killinger
quotes a United Methodist minister as saying that "Salvation is not a
Christian matter alone." Therefore, he believes, whatever we say
about salvation must be couched in language that would be acceptable in
other religions as well. "For me," he says, "Salvation means finding
oneself and a higher power, whether we call the higher power the
Creator, the Ground of Being, or whatever, and making peace with
both. It means accepting our imperfections and those of others,
and knowing that we are all created in love by a supreme being
who cherishes everyone...it means having a compassionate view of
all creation, and wanting to relieve the suffering of others. It means
that we are to be healers instead of destroyers." It means uniting
everything and not trying to set up divisions." This definition does
not rule out Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, or even non-religious persons.
This means that God is enfolding ALL of his people in Salvation.
Our job is to help them "realize" their salvation.
As one Southern Baptist person put it, "Salvation is the glue
that hold life together. It is a relationship with God that provides
meaning, opens the door to loving contact with others, and points
the way to moral stability. It is never a program or a formula to
remember and recite. Instead it is the force that holds all the
confluences of life together. (Did I say SOUTHERN Baptist? -
Good for him! - good for them)
One of my former parishioners, a Southern Baptist said "There
are Southern Baptists and there are Southern Baptists" She
definitely was one of the enlightened and joyous ones, that made everyone
appreciate the faith to which she subscribed. GUESS WHAT YOU'VE
GOT! - a calling!
When we think about our calling, and /or hear the Scripture of the
morning (from the 10th chapter of the Gospel of Luke) many of us get
clutched because we think it means we have to preach to, at, or in front of
people. Preaching the gospel for you should not be about talking, but
about being - about being the kind of person in whom others see the
Christ at work - incarnated - living - welcoming, healing - helping.
Bill Gates, who is devoting more and more of his time to helping
people around the world, in speaking to a Harvard graduating class, told
them that thirty years from now when they reflect back on what they have
done with their talent and energy, they would judge themselves on how
well they treated people a world away with whom they have nothing in
common but their humanity. He hoped that they would judge themselves
on how well they addressed the world's deepest inequities. It's important!
Hugh Downs said "To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like
saing your end of the boat is sinking.
Pam Kidd, a writer of devotionals in the Guideposts magazine
was asked by a misisonary there to write a story about the orphans and
street children of Harare, Zimbabwe. She went there and decided to focus
on a woman whom the chidlren called the bread and tea lady - she gave
them breakfast every morning. As Sue watched her at work, she took
God to task: "Lord, Is this some kind of cruel joke: Wy aren't you
helping this lady? Why don't you send someone?" There was
silence. Then she heard: "I did. I sent you." She heard her call. She
answered and made a difference, due to her concern for the children.
What I have come to see about the Christ over the years, is that
He is concerned about EVERYONE and wanting each and everyone to
respond God's spirit, knowing and accepting God's love and going forth
to express it in every way possible. As my friend John puts it, we go
forth "not to count converts like scalps hanging from our belts or to
pride ourselves in our dominance on the mission fields, but to help
people everywhere and in every culture to find the switches that
turn on the best that is inside the, saving the world from the
selfishness and prejudices and divisions that now cripple and destroy
it, and turning our planet into a holiday scene of bright lights going
on in everybody with everybody coming out into the streets to dance
and sing and celebrate love.
So here we are and here we go. We're here where the world is as
God is intended to me, and we go forth as elders in Christ's name to carry
what is here to what is there.
One who is not where our church is any longer lamented his
geographical plight. "I am so tired of being where my church is
not."
Our task is to take whatever our church is - and it IS very special - to
where it is not - individually - each of us a church in our own way.
I am a little church (no great cathedral)
Far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-I do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
I am not sorry when sun and rain make april.
My life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
My prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and I wake to a perfect patience of mountains
I am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest:
i am not sorry when silence becomes signing
Winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
Standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness
poem and punctuation e.e. cummings

Sermon Notes(Not edited nor proofed)The Rev. Dr. Garth R. Thompson Pastor, M.B. Community ChurchA sermon is a simple truth told by someone whobelieves it to people he knows and loves (Phillips Brooks)July 8, 2007 10:30 a, m. Luke 10:1--11, 16-20

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heartsbe acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

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