Unexpected Gifts

Exodus 16:2-15 Year A September 21,2014 Unexpected Gifts Isreal – the people who complain What is the favorite pastime of God’s people. They love to complain. Now before you start thinking that pastor is about to start talking about somebody in the congregation. I am not about to go there – not yet at least. I am not talking about you – I am sticking with scripture – so I am just unpacking the scripture. We are talking about the people of Israel. That is what Israel means – one who wrestles with God. One who has a God given right to complain to God and to expect an answer. God says in this scripture passage, as he has said many time before. I have heard the complaints of my people and I am compelled to give them an answer. I may not be the answer that they are looking for – but it is an answer. So there is nothing wrong with complaining. It is a part of our condition –it is who we are and it is what we do. The man unsatisfied with his service John Yates, the Rector of the Falls Church in Virginia, tells the story of a young man writing at a post office desk who was approached by an older fellow with a post card in his hand. The old man said, “Young man, could you please address this post card for me?” The young man gladly did so, then agreed to write a short message when asked and to sign the card for the man. Finally the younger man asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” The old man looked at the post card, thought about it for a moment, and said, “Yes, at the end put, ‘P.S. Please excuse the sloppy handwriting.’” Complaining takes no special skill. Anybody can do it. But maintaining our joy come what may takes grace, strength, and humility. It is going to require a spiritual DNA change. Let us make the decision today to seek those virtues and be people of holy expectation and contagious delight. Cheese with your whine There is nothing wrong with complaining – but as the people of God – we have been told that we can do better. The next time someone complains to you – you should ask them what kind of cheese they want with their whine. Some people will get that, and others it may take awhile. People on the way I thought it was a good idea for us to take some time to think about the exodus story. Because it is a story of God’s people who are on the move. And what is one of the surest signs that God is about to do a new thing – people start to complain. In order for us to get from Egypt to the promiseland – God has to take us into the wilderness. In order for us to get from where we were – to where we are supposed to be – we have to go through transition. None of us take transition very well – so what do we do – we complain. The good news for those who complain- is that time and time again God has a way of saying I have heard your cry. And I will make things better. Manna – what is it? The bible says that God gave the Isrealites Quail and manna. Our traditional interpretation of manna is bread. But the Hebrew word for bread means doesn’t just mean baked bread, it means anything that is edible. Manna could have been anything. As a matter of fact, that is what manna means what is this? What is this that comes down from heaven each and every day? What is this that we are only to take as much as we need and leave the rest for others? What is this to comes in a double portion when we are supposed to take a rest day? What is this that spoils when misused? Not your every day bread, but bread from heaven – The grace, peace and love of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our manna and he provides for all of our needs. Bread from heaven In my first appointment – the lay leader and I would visit the sick and shut in and serve communion once a month. One of the ladies that we would visit – was not only blind, but she was also hard of hearing. And she had not been to church in about five years. Since I was not her old pastor – Julius Trimble – it took her a couple of months to realize that I was her pastor. After the second time we came to visit – everytime we would come – she would start singing bread of heaven - . I had never heard the song before – but to hear her sing it gave the song such meaning. Bread of heaven – feed me til I want no more. Jesus Christ is the only thing that can feed all of our wants and needs. Jesus us the only thing that can satisfy us to the point that we don’t need to complain in order to be fed. We can be grateful for who Christ is and What Christ has done to save our lives. God’s gave the people quail and manna – they had both a protein and a carbohydrate – that should have been enough to keep them full – but they continued to complain. Don’t store up manna All God was trying to do was to get them to trust him. To understand that the Lord provides. He told them not to store up any extra for tomorrow – but to collect the bread from heaven anew and afresh day by day. And thousands of years later we still don’t get it- we still like to hoard and save things that we cant keep until tomorrow. We especially like to hoard money, property, youth, possessions, health, relationships. All things that we have to be reminded that do not belong to us in order to keep and hold onto. The harder you hold onto those things – the more devastated you are when you lose them. Some things you have to ask for every day And yet we are reminded that there are certain things in life that cannot be stored, for that matter you have to gather those things day by day – moment by Moment. Some of those things are: your blessings, your strength, your faith, your gratitude, your joy. All things that you cant store up for tomorrow. Each and every morning, you have to gather those things from heaven. And God gives you just enough to make it through the day. Tomorrow you have to ask for more. But Christ wants us to understand that when you have enough of those things in your life- then you start to see that there is no need to complain. God sees your need, whatever your attitude and your mindset. You can complain, or you can pray – either way- every day there is bread from heaven to feed you until you want no more. A season of new beginnings We are going to hang out in Exodus for a few Sundays – because I think that the Isrealites – those who wrestle with God have some important lessons for us for the future. As we celebrate a season of new beginnings – I think that it is important for us to realize that God is taking us to a new place in our individual lives, and in our communal lives. I think that there are several important lessons for today – first that in order for us to make it to a better day – we have to go through the wilderness. If it wasn’t an uncomfortable place to be – it would be called to wilderness. But even in our discomfort, God is with us. God is listening to our cries, God is providing for our needs. God is going to give us unexpected gifts from heaven – and that gift is going to be so strange, do different, that the only thing we will know how to say is what is this? But the only way we will truly understand what it is if we trust God, learn to be patient, count our blessings, and most importantly be willing to become a new person, in a new place, doing a new thing. When you are traveling with God – every day is a new beginning. Our call to discipleship is for everyone today – I am going to invite everyone to be a part of our celebration of new beginnings. Extra illustrations Add Air or Put on the Spare! (08.24.05--Under Pressure!--Exodus 16:2) When we are under pressure, we can either seek to manage the pressure or let the pressure manage us. Easier said than done? Yes, but like most things in life, there is a way if we really have our eyes and hearts open to finding it. The other day I had a flat tire on the Corvair. It was one of those slow flats that you look at every day as you get into the car in the morning and say, “I think that it is a little low. I’ve got to put some air in that tire soon.” After weeks of looking and not doing, I pulled out of the garage one morning and, after a few miles on the road, I began to feel the car handling poorly. There was a sway and unsteadiness about it. I knew that it could only be one thing--the tire that was going flat, not having convinced me of its plight in the garage, it was now speaking to me on the highway. It was time to either add air or put on the spare. I could have avoided the inconvenience of changing a tire if I had simply reached for the air compressor days ago and filled that tire to pressure. Not having done so, I was left with the lesser of the two choices, changing a dirty tire on a busy highway. Instead of handling the pressure, it had handled me. “There are two ways of handling pressure.” According to Jay Kesler. “One is illustrated by a bathysphere. Bathyspheres compensate (for pressure) with plate steel several inches thick, which keeps the water out but also makes them heavy and hard to maneuver. (When) you look through the tiny, thick plate-glass windows, however, what do you see? Fish! These fish cope with extreme pressure in an entirely different way. They don’t build thick skins; they remain supple and free. They compensate for the outside pressure through equal and opposite pressure inside themselves. “Christians, likewise, don’t have to be hard and thick-skinned--as long as they appropriate God’s power within to equal the pressure without.” (Jay Kesler.) Add air or put on the spare. The Bible tells us to manage our pressure by not giving into the temptation to let things go until they are unmanageable. When we fill ourselves up with God’s Word every day, pray and give thanks to our Creator God who is above all stress and pressure in this life, we manage the pressures of the day by equalizing them on the inside with His Holy Spirit. There is no need to wait for our lives to deflate under the pressures of the day as long as we keep filling ourselves up with the equalizing pressure of God’s love. Add air or put on the spare. The choice is up to us. AMEN. What kind of cheese do you want with your whine?

We are in this thing together

Matthew 18:15-20 We are in this thing together 13th Sunday after Pentecost Year A Disharmony in Worship There was a church where the pastor and the minister of music were not getting along. As time went by, this began to spill over into the worship service. The first week the pastor preached on commitment and how we all should dedicate ourselves to the service of God. The music director led the song, "I Shall Not Be Moved." The second week the pastor preached on tithing and how we all should gladly give to the work of the Lord. The director led the song, "Jesus Paid it All." The third week the pastor preached on gossiping and how we should all watch our tongues. The music director led the song, "I Love to Tell the Story." With all this going on, the pastor became very disgusted over the situation and the following Sunday told the congregation that he was considering resigning. The musician led the song, "Oh Why Not Tonight?" As it came to pass, the pastor did indeed resign. The next week he informed the church that it was Jesus who led him there and it was Jesus who was taking him away. The music leader led the song, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Of course I can be grateful that I have a wonderful relationship with both of our music directors. And they always try to match the songs with the message of the sermon. But I think that every now and then, that it is important for us to think about who we are in life. To take account of who we are as a community. And to check our thoughts and actions up against the bible. A church is a community of people. What makes us different from others, is that we order ourselves, not according to what people think. But what Jesus thinks. Yes we have the book of discipline, that tells us what it means to be a united Methodist church. But we don’t gather every Sunday to read and review what the book of discipline says, we gather to see what the bible says. Today I want us to look at the gospel of matthew, and what Jesus says about what it means to be the church. Some people question chapter 18, because they wonder, how can Jesus talk about the church, when the church was not fully formed. And we have to remember that the church was formed according to Jesus word, not the other way around. We are the church because Jesus calls us the church. In his words he gave us special powers as the church to do the work of God on earth. And that special power is the power to forgive and to reconcile. Every community has things some type of conflict going on. We would not be a community if we didn’t. I am sure that there are some rumblings going on now, as quiet as it is kept. But the problem is that those rumblings can be a result of unresolved issues. And those unresolved issues start to fester into wounds. And what do we tend to do when we are wounded. We blame, we point fingers. Instead of dealing with people, we avoid them. Nothing get done, because we have decided that we don’t want to work with that person. I guess I have been on roll in using C.S. Lewis as an example. He was an interesting person. He didn’t not become a committed Christian until his wife died. And in dealing with that grief, he also struggled with God, and what it means to live a godly life. He came out with a good inner understanding of what it meant to be human and Christian at the same time. Are You Willing to Live in Hell? In his book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis, the great Christian apologist, draws a stark picture of hell. Hell is like a great, vast city, Lewis says, a city inhabited only at its outer edges, with rows and rows of empty houses in the middle. These houses in the middle are empty because everyone who once lived there has quarreled with the neighbors and moved. Then, they quarreled with the new neighbors and moved again, leaving the streets and the houses of their old neighborhoods empty and barren. That, Lewis says, is how hell has gotten so large. It is empty at its center and inhabited only at the outer edges, because everyone chose distance instead of honest confrontation when it came to dealing with their relationships. “Look, she’s the one who said that about me. Let her come and apologize!” “We may go to the same church, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got to share a pew with that so-and-so!” “It’ll be a cold day in July before I accept his apology.” That’s all well and good, I suppose... if you don’t mind living in hell. Are we really so willing to give up our relationships with others – relationships that have come about and been forged by our desire to follow Jesus? Nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, in the New Testament gospels will you find Jesus saying that the first order of things is always to be right. But he does have a great deal to say about forgiveness, about relationship, about reconciliation, about service and humility and vulnerability. He makes it sounds like family, doesn’t he? Randy L. Hyde, Two or Three That is the problem with this model of reconciliation in the church. Jesus says that if we have a problem with someone, that first we should go directly to them, not to our friends and supporters, but to them and to correct the issue. If that does not work, then bring two or three other church members with us and discuss the issue. If that does not work, then band them from the community. We never get to the third step, because people would rather walk away, then experience forgiveness. They would rather stand in the periphery than reconcile. We lose our power as a special community, because we lose our people. The blessing of God are in our ability to forgive one another. In order to have a relationship with anyone, you have to be able to forgive. We have to be able to reconcile with one another and to move forward. The secret to being a church, a special community is that we are a forgiven people who have worked to forgive others. Any relationship requires a time of understanding and forgiveness. We have to pray for those who have walked away, and work with those who are still with us. A congregation is not to be like the secular world. Instead of suing or chastising, the faithful are to give the offender a chance. Yes, they are to be confronted, but not humiliated in public. Rather than be judged or prosecuted they are to be given a chance to repent. The church is to avoid embarrassment and help people feel less ashamed. This requires great sensitivity. The way of the church is through reconciliation. For to be redeemed means to help a person return to wholeness and to be at peace with one’s self and one’s neighbors. Therefore, the church is to make every effort to give those who stray an opportunity to right their wrongs. Yes, we have standards. Yes, there are things that people do to one another that are harmful. Yes, even some behavior can damage the life of the church. Nevertheless, the church is being faithful when its people make every effort to offer love, forgiveness and support. In Matthew, Jesus describes a process that is different from the tradition of the times. Instead of casting stones, rushing the accused off to a local authority and making a person’s shameful act front page news, the faith community makes an intentional effort to give the offender a chance to turn their life around. Keith Wagner, Living Without Shame When Bill Clinton met Nelson Mandela for the first time, he had a question on his mind: "When you were released from prison, Mr. Mandela," the former President said, "I woke my daughter at three o'clock in the morning. I wanted her to see this historic event." Then President Clinton zeroed in on his question: "As you marched from the cellblock across the yard to the gate of the prison, the camera focused in on your face. I have never seen such anger, and even hatred, in any man as was expressed on your face at that time. That's not the Nelson Mandela I know today," said Clinton. "What was that about?" Mandela answered, "I'm surprised that you saw that, and I regret that the cameras caught my anger. As I walked across the courtyard that day I thought to myself, ‘They've taken everything from you that matters. Your cause is dead. Your family is gone. Your friends have been killed. Now they're releasing you, but there's nothing left for you out there.' And I hated them for what they had taken from me. Then, I sensed an inner voice saying to me, ‘Nelson! For twenty-seven years you were their prisoner, but you were always a free man! Don't allow them to make you into a free man, only to turn you into their prisoner!'" You can never be free to be a whole person if you are unable to forgive. Our prayer for those who are not here, for those who are on the sidelines, those who are not ready for reconciliation, for those who are blaming others, for those who cannot accept forgiveness, is that they will be free to become whole and complete persons. And we cant be whole unless we are forgiven and reconciled. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Salvation is dependent upon our relationships, with ourselves, one another and God. The relationships that we form on earth, will last in heaven. What we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what we free on earth will be free on heaven. Is it worth taking any burden with us when we go to heaven. We Must Be Saved by Hope Reinhold Niebuhr, in The Irony of American History, writes, "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime: therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness." Jerry L. Schmalenberger, When Christians Quarrel, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Whenever we come together, even if it is only two of us, Jesus comes with us. When we agree in integrity as a community, God agrees with us. Let us remember to be the church at all times, to love one another, God is present in our love. Let us pray…. Children’s Sermon…… On Picking Your Battles by King Duncan Passage: Matthew 18:15-20 • Lectionary: Proper 18 Item 2 of 22 | Back to Results Object: a smoke detector with battery (might want to test it beforehand) Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you have seen one of these around your house? Can you tell me what it is? That's right, it's a smoke detector. A smoke detector can sense if there is smoke in the air. Usually, if there is smoke in the air then that means there is a fire nearby. And a fire can be a very dangerous thing. So we keep smoke detectors around the house to let us know if there is a fire starting somewhere. If smoke gets around a smoke detector, it makes a loud noise. You might want to cover your ears for this, okay? (Wait until the children and congregation have covered their ears, then push the little test button on the front of the detector to set off the alarm) Wow, that's loud! That noise lets us know that there is smoke in the air, so we need to check and make sure nothing is on fire. The smoke detector is there to protect us, to let us know about a fire early enough that we can stop it. Don't you wish we had something like a trouble detector in church? Just like a smoke detector warns us that there might be a fire starting, a trouble detector would let us know if problems were about to start in church. Sometimes, people in church hurt one another's feelings, or say bad things about each other. Sometimes, people in church argue with one another or get mad at each other. That's how trouble starts in the church. And God doesn't want that kind of trouble in the church. God wants us to love each other, to treat each other with kindness. God wants us to listen to one another and to work together. The best way to keep trouble from starting in the church is for us to love one another, and to talk about our problems with each other. Then we won't need a trouble detector in our church, because we'll be doing what God wants us to do. Collected Sermons, King Duncan, Dynamic Preaching, 2005, 0-000-0000-20 Extra sermon illustration…….. Corporate Effects of Sin A man is on a boat. He is not alone, but acts as if he were. One night, without warning, he suddenly begins to cut a hole under his seat. The other people on the boat shout and shriek at him: "What on earth are you doing? Have you gone mad? Do you want to sink us all? Are you trying to destroy us?" Calmly, the man answers: "I don't understand what you want. What I'm doing is none of your business. I paid my way. I'm not cutting under your seat. Leave me alone!" What the fanatic (and the egotist) will not accept, but what you and I cannot forget, is that all of us are in the same boat. Elie Wiesel, Parade Magazine.