Woman at the Well

March 19, 2017 The Woman at the Well John 4:5-42 Lent 3 During this season of protest, there have been many ways to get the message to our leaders that our people matter. Just a few weeks ago, there was the day without women, where women did not have to show up to work, in order to show how important we are to the world. Can you imagine what would have happened to the world if all of the women really did take a day off? The world would have truly been in a flux. We all know that it is women who run and rule the world. It is women who not only take care of themselves, but they take care of everybody else. They say that if you want to educate a family, then it is important to educate the mother, for she will always pass it on to those who she is in charge of. Jesus must have realized that centuries ago, because his primary ministry was to women. In many acts, he intentionally addressed the condition of the women in the situation. Our scripture for today is a prime example of that. This scripture has been speaking to me for some months now, and I don’t know that I have preached a lot of sermons on it. – the woman at the well. In the community organizing class, it is not surprising that since the professor is a women, that she would be drawn to this story in her teaching. And lately, in my car I have been listening to a cd of Mahalia Jackson’s gospel songs, and she too has been speaking to me about the woman at the well. This is a long scripture, which is why we only had one lesson for today. As lent goes on, the scriptures will get longer and longer. Because it is so long, and it is also a pretty deep text, there are a lot of lessons that we can get out of this one text. But I am only going to focus on a few of them for this morning. We all know this very popular story in the bible. Jesus is doing his ministry in the north – Galilee, but he decides that in order to be effective that he must go to Jerusalem. And on that journey he encounters all sorts of people, and teaches all sorts of lessons. On his three day journey, he has decided to take the short route through the Samaritan land, knowing full well that any respectful jew would have doubled the journey, just to avoid having to deal with the Samaritans. Any jew knows that the primary part of your religion is purity. Keeping yourself pure and following the rules. You don’t talk to strangers, you don’t mix with other cultures. You keep yourself a jew at all cost. The Samaritans are distant relatives who mixed with other people. They desecrated the jewish identity, and themselves, and you just don’t deal with them. Of course in this story, not only does Jesus deal with them, but he also talks to one who he knows he has no business talking to – a woman. A woman who is a Samaritan, but who apparently is not living a holy life. Why else would she be at the well getting water at noon day, by herself separate from all of the other women. Jesus has been travelling all day, and now he was all by himself. Maybe he was thirsty – that is why he asked her for a drink of water- it was ask or die. So he asked – a conversations ensues, Jesus tell her about herself, and she runs back an tells all of her friends and neighbors. That one encounter made a difference not only in her life, but in the lives of the entire community. As our professor teaches us about community organizing she teaches us about this story because the woman at the well had followers – people who were going to listen to her and anything that she said. In order to get to them, Jesus had to first get to her. If you give me a drink of water, I will give you living water, where you will never thirst again. I have enough not just for you, but for your family. Go and get your husband. I was rereading the text, to figure out how Jesus would have known about her life. Jesus tells her that not only does she have one husband, but she has five husbands, and the one she is with now is not her husband. That is alittle personal, how did he know all of that? Some commentators says that when Jesus tells her that she has five husbands, that he is not talking about her specifically – but about the Samaritan people. When the jews were invaded by foreigners, they were always told to love their oppressor, but to never take on their culture- always remain a jew. The Samaritans did the exact opposite – they married them, they adopted their gods and their culture, they didn’t give up being jews, they just compromised their identity. So some say that when Jesus tells her she has five husbands, that is symbolic for the five cultures that the Samaritans intermarried with. And the one who she has now that is not her own – are the Romans – whom they had not yet intermarried with, but they are still a little too comfortable with. So was Jesus talking about her people, or was Jesus really getting up into her personal business? We don’t know for sure. But what we do know is that any encounter we have with Christ is always an encounter with our deep innermost self. We cant hide ourselves and our actions from God. If we did it, if we think it , if we know it – God is going to bring it up and talk about it. When we come into the presence of God, we have no control over what God is going to notice in our lives. After her encounter, the woman runs and tells her friends, I met a man who told me everything that I had done. He knew all about me, without me telling him a thing. Anytime we have an encounter with Christ – we are going to be forced to take a deep look at ourselves. The conversation is going to start in shame for our sinfulness. When Peter met Jesus he told Jesus to get away from him, because he was a sinner. When the cock crowed three times, no one had to tell Paul that he had betrayed Jesus, he realized for himself. When Jesus started talking with the woman at the well – she too knew her sins far better than Jesus, and she started thinking about her life, what got her in trouble, and what she needed to do to get out of trouble. We are all sinners, and we all have our shame, this Lenten season, there is something about ourselves that we need to work on. Christ knows what that is, and Christ shines a light on it, so that we can do better. It is no accident that the woman has this encounter at the well. It is no accident that this is a conversation about the difference between regular water and living water. Jesus is in the hot sun, thirsty for regular water, but he offers her living water in return – water that will make her never thirst again. Perhaps it was her thirst for love and acceptance that would have drove her to be with man after man. Usually it is our own inner thirst that drives us to a life of sin. There is nothing wrong with being thirsty – that is how we are made, it is usually what we do to quench that thirst that gets us into trouble. What Quenches Spiritual Thirst In his book Sahara Unveiled, William Langewiesche tells the story of an Algerian named Lag Lag and a companion whose truck broke down while crossing the desert: They nearly died of thirst during the three weeks they waited before being rescued. As their bodies dehydrated, they became willing to drink anything in hopes of quenching their terrible thirst. The sun forced them into the shade under the truck, where they dug a shallow trench. Day after day they lay there. They had food, but did not eat, fearing it would magnify their thirst. Dehydration, not starvation, kills wanderers in the desert, and thirst is the most terrible of all human sufferings. Physiologists…use Greek-based words to describe stages of human thirst. For example, the Sahara is dipsogenic, meaning "thirst provoking." In Lag Lag's case, they might say he progressed from eudipsia, "ordinary thirst," through bouts of hyperdipsia, meaning "temporary intense thirst," to polydipsia, "sustained excessive thirst." Polydipsia means the kind of thirst that drives one to drink anything. There are specialized terms for such behavior, including uriposia, the drinking of urine, and hemoposia, the drinking of blood. For word enthusiasts, this is heady stuff. Nevertheless, the lexicon has not kept up with technology. I have tried, and cannot coin a suitable word for the drinking of rusty radiator water. Radiator water is what Lag Lag and his assistant started into when good drinking water was gone. In order to survive, they were willing to drink, in effect, poison. Many people do something similar in the spiritual realm. They depend on things like money, sex, and power to quench spiritual thirst. Unfortunately, such "thirst quenchers" are in reality spiritual poison, a dangerous substitute for the "living water" Jesus promised. William Langewiesche, Sahara Unveiled (Vintage, 1997); submitted by Jeff Ingram We all know the feeling of longing, but how can we tell the difference between being thirsty, being hungry and having an unhealthy craving for something? They feel the same, they are controlled by the same part of the brain. We get the same message. They say that a lot of time that you feel hungry, that you are really thirsty. Water quenches all thirst. So if you are getting that nudge in your spirit, first you should always drink a glass of water, if you are satisfied your were thirsty, but if your stomach is still growling that means that it needs some food. If you are truly hungry, anything that you eat will satisfy you, and you will be okay. But if it is a craving, then you will still hunger for a certain type of food. That is the point where we get in trouble. Because craving is not about our body, it is about our spirit. And no matter how hard we try to satisfy that craving, it keeps coming back and it starts to control our lives, our thoughts and our actions. The only thing that is going to satisfy us is the living water that Jesus promised. Water that if we take it, we will never thirst again. I don’t know about you, but this Lenten season, I could use some of that living water. As I speak to God, God is revealing all sorts of things about my soul. About those weaknesses and wounds that keep me stuck and about the strength that I need to move forward. About how to satisfy my hunger and thirst with the simple things in life first, and to look at those cravings, and to think what is it really that I am asking for. What is it really that I need to do. And how can I trust Jesus in this process. The disciples had left Jesus in the hot sun by this well by himself because they were worried about him. They didn’t think he could make it anyfurther in this journey. When they come back they bring him some food and he doesn’t want it, he tells him that he doesn’t need it – he has food that they don’t know about. That food is knowledge and understanding of his own soul. He recognizes the voice of his own soul, and its call out to God for fulfillment. He knew the difference between the body being thirsty and hungry, and the soul craving something more from God. His spiritual thirst in this story was to make a difference in this woman’s life. His hunger was to connect to her in a way that would not only change her, but those around her. That food that the disciples didn’t know about was the satisfaction of doing God’s will, even in a vulnerable situation. Jesus was sent into this world with a mission to show God’s love to the world. He knows all of the struggles of this world, of being a person, of learning to control our hunger and thirst instead of allowing them to control us. The Lenten story is about how Jesus felt the temptations that we feel everyday, but how to rise above them. Every encounter with Christ is an encounter with the things that get to us. Every encounter with Christ makes a stronger person, better able to deal with life. Every encounter with Christ is an opportunity to change the world- by first learning to change ourselves. I love this story because it is a story of a woman who made a difference in the world. She wanted everybody to know the good news of transformation. We don’t have to stand here any longer we can be better than we ever dreamed we could be – just by having an encounter with Christ! We are so afraid of evangelism, we are so afraid to share our faith with others- but this story is a perfect example of just how easy it is to bring others to Jesus. It has been said that evangelism is just the story of one beggar, telling another beggar where to go and get bread. Or in this case it is one sinner, telling another sinner where to get a tall refreshing glass of water – in a living encounter with Christ! Let us pray…. A Day without Women Invite someone to do the right thing What is evangelism? Stand up for what you believe in Leads to extraordinary transformation radical newness and radical inclusiveness Not just a one on one, but a ministry to an entire people A New Creation Once there was a man on a train going across the desert in Arizona. He was the only person in the car who had not pulled down the window shades to keep out the glare of the hot sun on the parched earth. In contrast to the other passengers, he kept looking out his window, and seemed actually to enjoy the dismal scene. After a while the curious man seated across the aisle, asked, "Sir, what do you see in that wasteland that makes you smile?" "Oh," he replied," I'm in the irrigation business, and I was thinking if we could only get water to this land that the desert would become a garden." That's what Jesus is teaching His disciples. He wants us to see the world's people as He sees them. Every one of them is precious in His sight. By divine grace, they can become a new creation, made beautiful in holiness. Robert E. Coleman, Evangelism: Behold the Harvest! An Unexpected Evangelist This wonderful man was not well educated and his manner was somewhat rough and crude. He became a Christian and took the Lord's requirement seriously. He kept pestering his pastor to put him to work. Finally, the minister handed him a list of ten names with this explanation: "These are all members of the church, but they seldom attend. Some of them are prominent people in the community. Contact them about being more faithful. Here is some church stationary to write letters. Get them back in church." The man accepted the challenge with rugged determination and enthusiasm. About three weeks later a letter from a prominent physician whose name had been on the list arrived at the church office. Inside was a large check and a brief note: "Dear Pastor, Enclosed is my check for $1,000 to help make up for my missing church so much, but be assured that I will be present this Lord's Day and each Lord's Day following. I will not by choice miss services again. Sincerely... P.S. Would you please tell your secretary that there is only one `T' in dirty and no `C' in Skunk." Ah, those unexpected evangelists. To this day, that nameless Samaritan woman, the first unexpected evangelist, is revered in many cultures. In southern Mexico, La Samaritana is remembered on the fourth Friday in Lent, when specially-flavored water is given to commemorate her gift of water to Jesus. The Orthodox know her as St. Photini, or Svetlana in Russian. Her name means "equal to the apostles," and she is honored as apostle and martyr on the Feast of the Samaritan Woman. Can you do what she did? Invite friends and neighbors? Of course, you can. David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc. Some Things Must Be Shared A Mercedes-Benz TV commercial shows one of their cars colliding with a concrete wall during a safety test. Someone then asks a Mercedes engineer why their company does not enforce their patent on their car's energy-absorbing car body. The Mercedes' design has been copied by almost every other car maker in the world in spite of the fact that they have an exclusive patent. The engineer replies in a clipped German accent, "Because in life, some things are just too important not to share." Wow! What a great statement. Some things are just too important not to share. As Christians we believe that the good news of Jesus Christ is one of those things that is too important not to share. No, that is an understatement. We believe that Jesus Christ MUST be shared with our friends, our neighbors, the world. The work of sharing the news of Jesus Christ we call evangelism. The Christian faith has been advanced through the ages by people who were willing to take upon themselves the responsibility of being evangelists - those who spread the good news of Christ. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com A Drink of Water to a Thirsty Soul For those conducting Communion this Sunday this illustration offers some strong tie-ins for a conclusion: Have you heard the legend of the Fisher King? When the Fisher King was a boy, he was sent out to spend the night alone in the forest, as a test of his courage to be king. During the night, he had a vision of the Holy Grail—the cup used by our Lord at the last supper. He saw it surrounded by great flames of fire, and he immediately became excited by the prospect of the wealth and glory that would be his by possessing such a great prize. Greedily, he reached into the flames to grab it, but the flames were too hot, and he was severely wounded. As the years went by, the Fisher King became more despondent and alone, and his wound grew deeper. One day, feeling sad and depressed and in pain, he went for a walk in the forest and came upon a court jester. "Are you all right?" the jester asked. "Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?" "Well, I am very thirsty," the Fisher King replied. The jester took an old dilapidated cup from his bag, filled it with water from a nearby stream, and gave it to the Fisher King. As he drank, he suddenly felt his wound healing for the first time. And incredibly, the old cup he was drinking from had turned into the Holy Grail. "What wonderful magic do you possess?" the Fisher King asked the jester. The jester just shrugged and said, "I know no magic. I only gave a drink of water to a thirsty soul." James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True, Dimensions, p.105-106 ______________________ We All Have Skepticism We all have skepticism in us. Think about these phrases: “Open wide now, this isn’t going to hurt a bit.” “It is easy to assemble. Just follow the directions.” “Please, daddy, I’ll walk him. I’ll feed him. I’ll do everything.” “Hi. I’m from the IRS and I’m here to help you.” “Mother is only staying for two weeks. You’ll hardly know she is in the house.” People may come to Jesus with some of that same skepticism. That’s OK, as long as we are willing to listen. Because gradually people realize that when Jesus opens His mouth, the only thing that comes out is the truth. George Clark, A Step of Faith Why Always the Bible? The author Hans-Ruedi Weber relates a story which is often told in East Africa. A simple woman always walked around with her bulky Bible. She never was parted from it. So the villagers began to tease her: "Why always the Bible?" they asked. "There are so many other books you could read." Yet the woman kept on living with her Bible, neither disturbed nor angered by all the teasing. But finally one day, she knelt down in the midst of those who laughed at her. She held up the Bible, high above her head, and said with a great smile: "Yes, of course there are many books which I could read. Yet there is only one book which reads me." I thought of this story as I read of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. How improbable a meeting it must have seemed to Jesus’ disciples. Jews were contemptuous of Samaritans. Rabbis avoided speaking to women in public. But with his customary disdain for the national and sexual chauvinism of his day, Jesus spoke to this woman, and he graced her. Robert Bachelder, Between Dying And Birth, CSS Publishing. Pointing to Christ The highly esteemed theologian Karl Barth had a painting of the crucifixion on the wall of his study that was painted by the artist Matthias Grunewald. In the painting there is an image of John the Baptist. The artist portrayed John the Baptist pointing his finger to the cross of Jesus in the center of the painting. It’s said that when Barth would talk with a visitor about his work, he would direct them to John the Baptist in the painting, and he would say, “I want to be that finger.” Barth wanted to point people to Christ. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Authentic Evangelism "Authentic evangelism," writes George G. Hunter, "flows from a mindset that acknowledges the ultimate value of people - forgotten people, lost people, wandering people, up-and-outers, down-and outers - all people. The highest value is to love them, serve them, and reach them." "Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city." The woman would be back. The woman who shied away from people because she wanted to avoid their scorn was energized to tell others, the very people who had hurt her, that she had found the Messiah. George G. Hunter, quoted by King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com SERMON ILLUSTRATION CHILDREN’S SERMON…… "Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.' " Theme: Prayer; spirit. Visual Aid: A small potted cactus. (An unusual pot will elicit more interest from the children.) As the children gather on the steps they see I am holding a small cactus planted in a pot shaped like a cat. "What did I bring with me this morning?" I ask them. "A plant in a cat!" some of them respond. "Yes, a cactus in a cat," I tell them. "What does this cactus need to live in this pot?" "Sunshine!" says one little boy. "Yes, it needs sunshine. What else does it need?" "Water," replies a little girl. "Yes, it needs water. And there is something else it needs." I start to tilt the pot to the side as I speak. "What are its roots in? What is holding it in the pot?" "Dirt!" most of them say triumphantly. "That's right, dirt. The cactus gets food from the dirt. "Well, what I have to say to you this morning may be one of the most important things I ever tell you. But, it's a little hard to understand. That's why I brought this plant along, to help me explain it to you. Like the cactus, all of you need sunshine, water, and food to live, though you don't eat dirt -- at least not usually!" "You need all of these things for your physical health and to give you the energy to use your mind. But your spirit needs something too. Perhaps this will be easier to understand if you think of your spirit as a plant inside you -- probably not a prickly one like this cactus; you wouldn't want to be all prickly inside!" Several children shake their heads in agreement, grinning. "Now this spirit, this plant inside you needs a special kind of 'water' to live -- it's something Jesus called 'living water.' It isn't like the water from the rain, or the water several blocks from here that flows in the Missouri River. It isn't like the water you get out of a faucet. You can't see it, or touch it, or taste it, but you can feel it, at times of great joy or sadness, and at very quiet times. It is the feeling that brings tears, which you could think of as 'rain,' and laughter, which you could think of as the rainbow that follows the rain. It is spirit 'stuff' and it comes to us from God, through God's son, Jesus. And the only way to get it is to ask. That means it is important to take time to pray, quiet time, to talk with God and listen to God so that we can receive this 'water' for our spirits. "Tonight when you go to bed, before you go to sleep, you might whisper a prayer, asking God for this invisible 'living water' of the spirit. You might think of your spirit as a little plant inside you that is thirsty, and ask God to give it a drink." CSS Publishing Company, Inc, Cows In Church, by B. Kathleen Fannin

Children of Abraham

March 12, 2017 We are children of Abraham Genesis 12:1-4 Lent 2 Imagine that you are going on a long journey – we are all going on a long journey, - we are going to divide up into groups, some of us are going to the artic, some of us are going to antartic, some are going to climb mount Everest. All of these are pretty long trips. We all need to get together and plan our journey together. What do we need to know before embarking on a journey? What do we need to take with us and what needs to stay behind? What is the one thing that we need from home on such a long journey to comfort us? What problems might we encounter on the journey? How are we going to get there, what is the cheapest way to get everyone to their destination? Lent is supposed to be a journey – a long journey from to faith for us. But nevertheless we all go on a journey in order to get to easter. Lent is our time to take some time to plan how we are going to get there. I think that is why we are going to continue to look at the book of Geneses today. The first 11 chapters of the book talk about the creations story and the first family of Adam and Eve. Chapter 12 is the story of another first family – Abram and Serai. Most important it is a story about a long journey that they must take. God comes to Abram and encourages him to leave home. Most people today never go any further than 50 miles away from the place that they were born. So the fact that God was able to get a 75 year old man and his 65 year old wife to just pull up and leave is a big deal. They did not go by themselves, Abram’s dad also went along, and his nephew. But what was it that made a 75 year old man just pick up and leave everything that he knew, all of his family, the life that he led and just walk away and start wandering around in the desert. It was his faith, his willingness to trust God even in the midst of the unknown . It was a faith that was so strong that we now call him the father of 3 faiths. Today more than 60% of the people in the world are either jewish, Christian, or muslim. And we are all called children of Abraham. The scripture from romans points out that we are not genetically related to Abraham, but we all inherited his faith, and more importantly, we all inherited the promises of God that God made to Abraham for following him. For being willing to take a long journey. I am reminded of the journey that many of our forefathers made. One of the best books that I ever read was the warmth of other suns – by Isabel Wilkerson. She follows the journey’s of four individuals who were born in the south, and traveled north, west, east to a new life. The title of her book comes from a poem from Richard Wright – I have been looking for the longer poem, but this stanza says- I was leaving the south to fling myself into the unknown… I was taking a part of the south to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and perhaps to bloom. I am reminded of the story that my cousin just told me last week of my uncle, her father. Who grew up on a farm, my grandmother rented a house on that farm. When he grew up, and more than likely all throughout his teenage years, he worked on that farm. My grandmother was a maid, so she was never home with them. But as he grew up, he became a sharecropper, and worked from sun up to sun down on that farm for little of nothing. He married early in life, and the owners of the farm wanted his wife to work as a maid, and my uncle insisted that we was more than willing to work as hard as he could for them, but his wife never would have to work. And as they began to have children they wanted a better life for them. So when the opportunity presented itself to move to Illinois and work in the factory he took it. As a matter of fact, not only did he leave, but all of his brothers, male cousins, and other male relatives all relocated to Peoria, IL. My other uncle retired from caterpillar as a very rich man. What was it that made them all leave their mother, their life, - Langston Hughes says it in a poem one way ticket – I pick up my life And take it with me And I put it down in Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Scranton, Any place that is North and East— And not Dixie. I pick up my life And take it on the train To Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake, Any place that is North and West— And not South. I am fed up With Jim Crow laws, People who are cruel And afraid, Who lynch and run, Who are scared of me And me of them. I pick up my life And take it away On a one-way ticket— Gone up North, Gone out West, Gone! They wanted a better life for their children! They did not want their children to suffer the way that they did. My mother is 20 years younger than her brothers. But when she became an adult, she followed them- for many of the same reasons. We all heard the Ben Carson quote this week where he said that slaves were immigrants. I was going to try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there is no saving him. As he talked about slaves coming here on slave ships as immigrants so that their children could have a better life. But that is just stupid and wrong. I was going to say that maybe he got his timetable wrong. The great migration was the story of former slaves wanting a better life. I even have an article from the 1917 Englewood Methodist Church newsletter entitled the negroes - which talks about all of the black people coming to the south side from the south. I am still looking for the article from 1920 entitlted “The Negroes are coming” at least they talked about how they needed to welcome them and be open and understanding. My point for this morning is that long journey into the unknown are not strange, not even for us. As I do my family history, I have relatives that remind me that my family history does not begin and end in Arkansas. That before they came to Arkansas, they came from somewhere on the east coast – when the crops started to fail in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia – many farmers and their slaves moved to the delta states where the soil was better. And they came to the coastal states because they came off of boats from parts of Africa. Not that far from where Abraham would have wandered. So we are a long, long long way from home – in a new land, doing things in a new way – still practicing the same faith that Abraham practiced, still worshipping the same God, most importantly still keeping the same promises. The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, those who curse you I will curse; all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.”[a] That is seven promises that we live in when we have the faith of Abraham. The Promises of God Are True Tom Long says that while he was at Princeton, he went to a nearby Presbyterian church that prides itself on being an academic, intellectual church. Early on, he said, he went to a family night supper and sat down next to a man, introduced himself, told him he was new, and said, "Have you been here long?" "Oh yes," the man said. "In fact I was here before this became such a scholarly church. Why I’m probably the only non-intellectual left. I haven't understood a sermon in over 25 years." "Then why do you keep coming," Tom asked? "Because every Monday night a group of us get in the church van and drive over to the youth correctional center. Sometimes we play basketball, or play games. Usually we share a Bible story. But mostly we just get to know these kids and listen to them. "I started going because Christians are supposed to do those kind of things. But now I could never stop. Sharing the love of God at that youth center has changed my life." And then he said this profound statement. "You cannot prove the promises of God in advance, but if you live them, they’re true, every one." During this Lenten season how are you living the promises of God? Where is it that God is calling you to go? Our ancestors came from a very long way for us to get where we are – but we still have a long way to go – especially in our hearts and souls. The genesis story says that when Abram set out – that not only was he75 years old – but he had not children. His wife was barren. So when God said come follow me – he had nothing to lose – but he had nothing to gain. When God started making these promises to him about becoming a great nation it meant nothing to him personally because he did not have any children of his own. His future was barren, he was not even thinking about the next generation and his legacy because there was no way that he was ever going to have a future. But this is how amazing God is – he created a future. In the beginning God created adam out of nothing – but he created Abraham’s future out of barreness. Suddenly no hope – became hopefulness! No future became a bountiful future; everyday routine because a lifechanging adventure. Imagine looking at your life one day and seeing absolutely nothing and the next day looking at the same place and seeing a gold mine. The journey that we have to go on now – is a spiritual journey. A journey within our hearts and souls. It is up to us to take those 7 promises and to create a future of hope and fulfillment for those who are yet to come. A story from Yugoslavia tells of four angels who witnessed creation. The first angel observed God’s handiwork in awe and said: “Lord, your creation is beautiful! How did you do it?” That’s the worldview of a scientist. The second angel observed in awe and said: “Lord, your creation is beautiful! Why did you do it?” That’s the worldview of a philosopher. The third angel observed in awe and said: “Lord, your creation is beautiful! Can I have it?” That’s the worldview of a materialist. Finally, the fourth angel observed in awe and said: “Lord, your creation is beautiful! Can I help?” That’s the worldview of God’s faithful. (8) That is the kind of obedience that God honors. God told Abram to leave his home and God made Abram a promise and an assignment—that he would be blessed and that he would be a blessing. May we be blessed and may we be a blessing to others as well. Amen. Other illustrations… Lane Alderman, Asking All the Right Questions “I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown . . . I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom” ― Richard Wright “One-Way Ticket” by Langston Hughes I pick up my life And take it with me And I put it down in Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Scranton, Any place that is North and East— And not Dixie. I pick up my life And take it on the train To Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake, Any place that is North and West— And not South. I am fed up With Jim Crow laws, People who are cruel And afraid, Who lynch and run, Who are scared of me And me of them. I pick up my life And take it away On a one-Gone up North, Gone out West, Gone! “It poured rain the day I left. But I was filled with excitement, a strange sense of taking wing. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew what I needed. I needed a new land, a new race, a new language; and although I couldn’t have put it into words then, I needed a new mystery.” (John Fowles, The Magus, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 965, pg. 150) Children’s sermon… Object: A cap Boys and girls, How many of you like to wear caps? Some people do and some people don't. I read somewhere that if your feet are cold, you should put something on your head. That didn't make sense to me until someone explained that your body works extra hard to keep your brain warm. It will even let your feet freeze in order to keep your brain warm. That is why a cap is so important on a cold day. But why does the body work so hard to keep the brain warm? Your brain is the most important part of your body, isn't it? What do you do with your brain? That's right, you think. That is also where you see and hear and feel. Your eyes let in light, but it is your brain that turns that light into a picture. Your brain is by far the most important part of your body. Your brain is where you dream. It is where you dream at night--some of those dreams can be scary, can't they? And it is where you day dream during the day. Do you ever dream of what you will be some day? Do you dream of being an astronaut or a policeman or a teacher or a mommy or a daddy. Dreams are important. Dreams help us have a road map of where our lives will some day lead. Some of those dreams come from God. In fact God has a dream for your life. Did you know that? God has a dream for you--a dream in which you will grow up to be the kind of loving, honest, courageous person that He has created you to be. He dreams that you will be like His Son, Jesus. Gee, we have dreams and God has dreams. Wouldn't it be great if the dreams were the same? Then someday we could be all God means for us to be. Dynamic Preaching, Collected Sermons, by King Duncan

Coming Upon Lent

March 5, 2017 First Sunday of Lent Year B Coming Upon Lent Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Easter comes a little late this year. But no matter how late Easter is, lent always comes upon my unexpected. I am never to start lent, and every year I am faced with that proverbial question, what am I doing for lent. What am I going to give up for lent. I was surprised that the host of Windy City Live were having this conversation on Ash Wednesday- about what to give up for lent. Each of them named a bad habit they were going to give up.they decided that whomever did the forbidden activity for the next 40 days had to put money in the jar. They even argued about how much money was appropriate. So apparently it has become a social statement to give something up for lent. But what struck me was that even though they were talking about it, they were all totally ignorant about the meaning and point on lent. Life is not so simple. Not one of them even made a promise to change their behavior. They all admitted that they would probably fail, so the charity that was going to get the money was going to do well. Because all they had to do was to put money in the jar. No reflection, no self discipline, and more importantly, no relationship to God. God doesn’t want our money, or our guilt. And giving up something for lent is symbolic. God wants our hearts. When Easter comes we should be changed, transformed but more importantly much closer to God. I was going to give up sugar for lent, but after watching that episode on Windy City Live – I decided that rather than worrying about a symbolic act – to open my heart and to invite the spirit to come and live with me for 40 days. To work with me, challenge me but to stay close enough for us to be friends in the days to come. So I thought that this morning I would have us look at the scripture from Genesis this morning. On the first Sunday of Lent I usually focus on the gospel of Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days as an example. But I thought that Genesis has a deeper message on who we are as people, why we have those bad habits, and important lessons about what lent is all about. If you are going to give up something for lent – have the power to give it up. Genesis teaches us about an important concept to prevent us from having to keep money jars around all month- it teaches us about temptation. Of course what tempts us is very different. But with the things that tempt us, we know that there is always a chance that we will give in, or else it would be a temptation. But our faith teaches us that we always have the power to overcome. Genesis starts with the story of God creating Adam, and teaching him to care for the rest of creation. God instructions were to Adam not Eve, It was Adam who passed the information onto Eve. I make that distinction because in our popular telling of the story – we blame Eve and think of Adam as just going along. But I digress. My point is that the story starts with Adam having a direct relationship with God, he was so close to God that they could have a conversation about life. About his purpose, and even about the consequences of his actions. He tells him that he is to till the land, that he is to enjoy the fruits of his labor, he is free to do whatever he pleases. God puts one boundary on that freedom – don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or you will die. God wants us to be free, to be happy, to enjoy life. But in order to do that, God knows that in order to have true freedom, there has to be some boundaries around that freedom. There has to be some context around our freedom in order for it to have meaning. We have been hosting a class from Garrett at our church this semester, and one of the things that professor taught us was that the word religio – the word that religion comes from means to fence in. Religion fences in our freedom so that we can enjoy use it and enjoy it. It helps us to be in control of our lives, instead of our lives being in control of us. God put Adam in control of the land and creation. The first words of our text says that God took the human and settled him in the garden of eden to farm and to take care of it. God continues to order his creation. The text shows that God took man, God commanded, God said. God knew what God was doing and God did it. We know how the story goes, one day a serpent comes and talks with the woman and questions everything that God has done and said. Did God really say that? Did God really mean that? The serpent goes as far as to take the boundaries off of God’s freedom. You wont die! As a matter of fact, says that serpent, God knows that if you eat of the tree of knowledge that you will be just like God, knowing good from evil. And that has been our problem every since the beginning – once the boundaries have been broken down in our lives, we want what God has. We want to be God in our lives and in the lives of all of creation. There is an ancient story about the time God was confronted by a man who argued, “ It is easy for you God. You tell us we must do this and we cant do that. “What do you know of the struggles of people like me? You are God. It is easy for you. But God argued, insisting that being God was no picnic either. You only have to look after your own little self, said God. I have to look after the entire world, and it is not easy. As a matter of fact, just to show you, I’ll change places with you for 24 hours. You will see then. So God gave the man one day to see what a hard job it is to run the world. Twenty four hours later, God returned and said, You see? It wasn’t as easy as you thought. Then God prepared to be God once more. But the man wouldn’t give God back his power. He found he liked playing God. That is why the world is as it is today, so the legend goes. You will notice in this story the serpent did not have any power in this story. All he did was question God and that was enough to get Eve going. To tearing down those boundaries and wanting to be free from what God had taught her. God has already given them control of the land and creation, but she wanted to be in control of God’s commandments – do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. She didn’t eat the fruit because it tasted good- but because it would make her equal to God – or so she thought. Usually when we give in to temptation and do those forbidden things, we are not happier. We are more miserable. Eve and Adam did not die immediately, but life was a lot harder for them. There is a reason that God has put a fence around our freedom. It is not freedom that makes us happy, it is freedom in the context of boundaries. It is freedom that can be channeled, guided, informed, and used that makes us happy. And if we continue to look at the text. Eve and Adam did not die. As a matter of fact life went on for them. They even gained the knowledge of good and evil, but once they attained the knowledge, they were forced to use it. They put on fig leaves and were put out of the garden of eden forever to live their lives with the knowledge that they had been given. I believe that this is a story of life as it is, and not as it should be. In other words – Idont think that this is a story of what would have happen if Eve and Adam had lived in the garden forever. God knew that they would fail, God knew that they would not remain innocent forever, God knew that they would sin and have to live with the consequences of their decisions. No matter how familiar the story – there is always something that we can learn that will help us in our lives today. The lesson that I learned this lent season from the story of Adam and Eve is that alongside the tree of knowledge was also –planted right to it the tree of life. God did not forbid them from eating the fruit of the tree of life. The tree of knowledge God said brought death, but the tree of life bought life, strength, common sense, joy, fulfillment, true understanding. Everything that you needed in order to live the life God intended. God always gives us a choice, and life is about the choices that we make. If we decide to do wrong, we can also decide to do right. When we are faced with temptation we also have the tools we need to resist our temptation. We don’t need to put out money jars for lent- because if we can decide to do wrong, we have the power to decide to do right. As a matter of fact, the prophetic story was about man and woman making the wrong decision, the gospel story was about Jesus in the face of temptation having the power to so no. to resist temptation. To keep the boundaries of his faith, his connection to God, his focus on life – not death. That is our task this Lenten season, not to worry about giving something up. But to repair the fences in our faith that life has torn down. To look at our relationship with God and to shut down all those extraneous voices and to listen only to God. Let us turn now to the deeper meaning of this passage. At that level it is of course no longer speaking of something that happened long ago, but addressing life in the present. It shows us “man” confronted with a choice: “You may freely eat...”, “You shall not eat...” “Man” can either work for God and find happiness and freedom in serving him, or he can go his own way thinking he knows all there is to know, and live with the inevitable consequences. This is the most fundamental choice that any of us is ever called upon to face, the choice between God and ourselves, between real freedom and the illusion of it, between Paradise and Hell, between life and death. It is our choice and our choice only. God cannot interfere, otherwise it is not a genuine choice. But how anxious he is that we make the right choice, how devastated when we make the wrong one! There is an ancient legend of the cypress Tree of Life. It tells that when Adam was dying, he sent Seth to the Garden of Eden to fetch him some Oil of Mercy. Seth could not release the oil, no matter how much Seth begged, but the guardian angel gave Seth instead a sprig, or seed, from the Tree of Life, which he as told to plant upon his father’s grave. When Adam died, Seth did as the angel had said. From that seed grew a tree which, years later, gave Moses the wood for his wonder-working rod. Later the tree was cut down and cast away. As a rejected tree, it was picked up and used . . . to fashion the cross on which Jesus was crucified. It was truly the Tree of Life. He is truly the way, and the truth, and the life. There is something so very curious about the man from Galilee. He has captivated the imaginations of people throughout twenty centuries. He transcends time and place, culture and custom, race and language. Something there is in Him that always speaks clearly to us. We see it throughout the gospels, everywhere He went, in everything He said and did. Son of God and Son of Man, we know He became one of us. While He is the answer to all our struggles, we see Him struggling with the things He faced. And, as He finds the way for Himself He finds the way for us as well… Temptation: Just Don’t Look A pastor once told his congregation, "I learned a great lesson from a dog." He said, "His master used to put a bit of meat or a biscuit or some kind of food on the ground, and he'd say to the dog, 'Don't eat that,' and the dog would run over and eat it, so he'd hit the dog. And he put another piece of meat on the ground. He'd say, 'Don't eat that.' The dog would go over and eat it, and he hit him again. Well, after awhile, the dog got the message: eat meat, get hit. So the dog decided he wouldn't eat the meat." But the man telling the story related how that the dog never looked at the meat. The dog evidently felt that if he looked at the meat, the temptation to disobey would be too great, and so he looked steadfastly into his master's face and never took his eyes off him, and thus the temptation never caused a problem. John Macarthur, How to Overcome Temptation An overzealous preacher felt it was his calling to aggressively "make" people become Christians as they would ride on the city bus system. One day a man who was obviously intoxicated stumbled onto the bus that the preacher was on. The preacher sprang into action and shook his Bible in the face of the inebriated man and yelled, "Did you know you're headed for Hell?" And the drunk replied, "Oh, no, I'm on the wrong bus again!" Even worse, many of us are unwilling to take responsibility for our transgressions. And since we refuse to take responsibility, we make the same mistakes time and time again. We are like Adam blaming Eve for their transgression, and Eve blaming the serpent. Two men were watching a western on television. As the hero rode on horseback toward the edge of a cliff, one man said, “I bet you $50 he goes over the cliff.” “You’re on,” said the other man. The hero rode on straight over the cliff. Being a sportsman, the second handed over the money. The first man looked at it and said, “I feel guilty about winning this. I’ve seen this film before.” “So have I,” said his friend, “but I didn’t think that cowboy would be stupid enough to make the same mistake again.” The first step in dealing with sin is to take responsibility for it. Quit doing the same stupid thing over and over again. The lines have at last met. If when we try to restate the meaning of this story in modern terms, everything is not as neat and tidy as we would like, that is because of the story form. It is removing to the past and concentrating on an uncomplicated pastoral stage what is in fact the root cause of this whole complicated universe’s present misery. That root cause is the strange mixture of ability and arrogance, of success and failure, of hope and remorse, of knowledge and guilt which is human sin. It has set an unbridgeable gulf between the human race and its Father in heaven—a gulf at any rate unbridgeable from its side.