The Radiance of God

February 27, 2022 Transfiguration Sunday The Radiance of God Year C 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Opening Song Welcome - A Mountaintop Experience Call to Worship One: Something drew us together this morning All: Something we can’t name but which we experience in worship One: Some holy mystery we call God All: Some sacred calling we hear in the life of Jesus One: Some indescribable hope we feel when we gather in the Spirit All: May our experience of the Divine transform our doubts and fears and prepare us to love the world. (Rev. Dr. David Bahr) Opening Prayer Mighty God, in the long winter slog it’s easy for us to drift along. Short days, still getting dark so early, seem to dampen any enthusiasm for discipleship for so many of us. Wake us up! Help us rejoice today as we recall the brilliance of Moses’ face on Mt. Sinai, and the dazzling wonder of Jesus on the mountaintop. Renew in us the eager anticipation of disciples, eager to celebrate having seen Moses, Elijah and the metamorphosis of their teacher, Jesus. Shine in us! AMEN (Center for Faith and Giving) Stewardship Moment One: The needs of our world are too numerous to name. Shelter, food, clean air and water… Our gifts touch these needs, but the biggest gift we can give is to love the world so much that we give of ourselves. Nothing will transform need more than sacrificial love. So as you place money in the offering (plate, basket, etc.) today, don’t let your giving be done. Start planning to go deeper. May God now bless our hopes and dreams. (Rev. Dr. David Bahr) Prayer of Thanksgiving Giving thanks to you, God of all Creation, we ask you to receive these signs of our love. Accept these gifts, knowing we offer them as symbols of the life you give us. Help us utilize this money, and each of our lives, to show your GLORY to a hurting world. In Jesus’ name we pray, AMEN (Center for Faith and Giving) Scripture 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Common English Bible 12 So, since we have such a hope, we act with great confidence. 13 We aren’t like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the Israelites couldn’t watch the end of what was fading away. 14 But their minds were closed. Right up to the present day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. The veil is not removed because it is taken away by Christ. 15 Even today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But whenever someone turns back to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom. 18 All of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 4 This is why we don’t get discouraged, given that we received this ministry in the same way that we received God’s mercy. 2 Instead, we reject secrecy and shameful actions. We don’t use deception, and we don’t tamper with God’s word. Instead, we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God by the public announcement of the truth. Sermon The Radiance of God Sermon Opener - Face to Face - 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 The 2010 drama film “The Social Network” portrayed many interesting features of Mark Zuckerberg’s development of his online creation. But they missed a big one: the name he chose for his baby --“Facebook.” Let’s face it: humans are obsessed with the unique, defining nature of our faces. The arrangement of our eyes, nose, mouth, chin, cheeks, forehead, never ceases to amaze and fascinate us. More than 5000 distinguishable facial expressions have been identified, and that is probably just a start on the human face. The 18th century German satirist Georg Lichtenberg called the human face “the most entertaining surface on earth.” How could we possibly resist pursuing and endlessly perusing an online site called “Facebook?” We recognize friends — and enemies — by their face. Bank robbers wear masks to hide their faces, knowing full well that, no matter how clear the pictures of their bodies might be, without a full view of their face, they cannot be accurately identified. When the Protestant Reformers came across images of the saints and the Virgin Mary, they defaced them on paintings and had their faces gouged out of carvings and sculptures. Babies look at faces — learning how to put the pieces together and how to recognize and trust the familiar, and reject and be fearful of the unfamiliar. It is in our human DNA to look into the face of others for critical, life-preserving, information. “We find ourselves in the faces of others” says Siri Hustvedt in her novel The Summer Without Men (2011). We become human through our relationships with others. In short, long before “virtual life,” human beings were walking, talking “Facebooks.” Our language reflects this fixation. We speak of taking things at “face value,” or of doing an “about face,” or of “facing off” against opponents. We “face the music,” make “face time,” and when dishonored we “lose face.” “Face cards” carry the most value and to stand “face-to-face” with another signifies being in the most valued of positions. One of the most advanced new computer identification techniques is the science of “facial recognition” — computer programs that can scan and identify individual faces without any other physical information. In the “transfiguration” scene described in this week’s gospel text (Luke 9:28ff), Jesus’ face shines… So you can imagine how much of a problem wearing a mask has been for so many people. This is not a political statement about mask wearing, but for many it stands in the way of being able to relate to people. If you cant see their face you cant relate to them, for many reasons. We are all looking for those little cues about their reactions. With a mask on your cant read lips, but you also can’t see a person’s genuine smile. Often you can’t hear them but you also cant relate to them. Now I am going to ask you to hold that thought. That gives us a modern example of Paul’s message in Corinthians. When Paul talks about a veil that stands in the way – he is talking about our relationship with God. Paul has a tendency to use certain concepts all throughout his writings. He likes to talk about our relationship with God in cosmetic terms. Earlier, I think even in 1 Corinthians he talks about our relationship with God being like looking into a very dull mirror. We could bearly see an image, but when we looked in the mirror we could see just a little bit that there was an image there. The closer we got to God and the more our relationship improved, then the image in the mirror Got clearer. But the image was not ours, it was Gods. Now in order to understand Paul’s reference to a veil in this passage, we have to go back to the book of Exodus. Moses had a special relationship with God, and would talk to God often. He would especially go to God when his community had a problem. God would always tell Moses to hide himself so that he would be protected. On earth, God was an actual presence – a gaseous prescence that would burn you if you got too close too it. You did not touch the ark of the coveneant from fear of death. I think God revealed himself to only two living people. Moses and Elijah. And both times God told them that they could not look at God’s face and live, they had to hide and look at God’s shadow – just a glimpse of God. Only Jesus Christ has a face to face relationship with God. So back to our story within a story – Moses is concerned that people have gotten out of hand, so he goes to God and gets the ten commandments. Obviously, deep in conversation, they are not paying attention to the present moment. When Moses returns to the people, his face is burned. The people are fascinated to look at his face, but it is also kinda scary. So in order to protect the people – Moses wears a veil in public. For Paul, this is kinda of a funny image- Moses walking around in public with this veil on, glowing because he had gotten too close to God. For us, who have been and continue to wear mask for the last two years – it is not so strange. As a matter of fact, Paul kinda switches the image up a little bit. Paul says it is not Moses that wears the veil, it is the people. Remember Paul liked to use cosmetic terms to talk about our relationship with God. So Paul says that the veil in not on the person telling us about God, the veil is on our hearts. We don’t listen to God today, not so much because of the masks – but because we are just closed minded and hearted people that don’t like to listen to things we don’t want to hear. We get far away from God, and God’s ways because like the people in Moses times, we just shut down. We don’t listen to what Jesus would want us to do – because it would seriously disrupt our lives. Transfiguration Sunday – is our call during the Lenten season to get closer to God. We all know that effect of mask on our relationships – and I guess I can say that in a sermon now that the mask mandate has been lifted. But we are being challenged to think about the veils that we wear in our hearts. What is standing in the way of us listening to God. More importantly, what stands in the way of us reflecting God’s glory in everything that you do. Life got in the way of one young lady seeing the glory of God in life. Her aunt had died, and she insisted on having a small funeral for her aunt. Afterall she was older, and she had no family or kids of her own. The niece just knew that her aunt would not want a big fuss. So it was just the niece, the minister, the funeral director and all of the graves at her funeral. The next Sunday, her church was filled to standing room only. The minister just assumed that there was a family reunion in town, until it came time for joys and concerns. Aunt Mae’s best friend stood up to talk about the relationship with her childhood friend. Mae and her husband had a restaurant just across the street from the college. The college kids went to the restaurant – but they bought their problems with them. Whenever aunt Mae could tell that ta child was suffering, from a test they had flunked, from a lost love, a unexpected pregnancy, whatever, aunt Mae was there. When she suspected something was wrong with a young adult, she would tell her husband to take of the restaurant while she took the college student to the back table to talk, and to pray. She woiuld listen to them, but she also made sure that their problem was handled, she would send them to a professional to get the help they needed. There were thousands of kids who would not have graduated college without her. Her best friend went on and on about the Christian witness of Mae. The church was full of many of those kids who returned to honor her for her ministry to them. They were truly grateful when they thought of her. They were all smiling. They went out into the cemetary to pray and sing over her grave. Even her niece who had stayed in town after the funeral was there with them – smiling and crying over the life and ministry of Aunt Mae. Her life was truly a reflection of God’s glory on earth. Her niece was able to remove the veil on her heart, and to let the love of God in. In our lives how do we reflect the love of God in our lives, when people see us, do they see the glory of God in the world? How do we remove our veil, but keep our mask on? In Corona virus terms life is about people being able to see our smile underneath the mask. A Kind of Glow Most of us, at some time another, have had transforming experiences, times when we recognize clearly that our lives are about to be, or have been, forever changed, times when we absolutely glow. How else would you explain people's uncanny ability to ask the right question at the right time, if we didn't emit some kind of glow: Are you in love? Are you expecting? Did you get a raise? Did you finally break par? Have you ever watched a child open a card and find $5.00, Have you ever watched a senior open an acceptance letter from their first pick school, Have you ever watched a teenager open the door after their first goodnight kiss, Have you ever watched a golfer after they search around the green only to find the ball in the hole, Have you ever watched a mother or a grandmother when they hold a new baby, Have you ever watched a dad when he walks his daughter down the aisle? No words are needed, the look says it all, the glow speaks volumes......joy, disappointment, awe, disbelief, completeness, loneliness...every word is written on the face. This morning's texts are woven in such a way that we are given a glimpse as to what it means to have a life forever changed by the knowledge and presence of God. Author unknown Prosopagnosia Our ability to recognize faces is partly the responsibility of the temporal lobe of the brain. Certain neurons in the temporal lobe respond to particular features of a face. Some people who suffer damage to the temporal lobe lose their ability to recognize and identify familiar faces. This disorder is called prosopagnosia. Not being able to recognize people isn’t just a neurological problem. For every person with prosopagnosia there are thousands who don’t take the time to see what the faces of others may reveal. Like James and John and Peter we are weighted down with our concerns. ”But since they stayed awake” James and John and Peter witnessed an amazing event. This Lenten season instead of giving something up perhaps we should commit to doing more. Perhaps we should commit to staying awake to see the holy moments and transfigurations that happen very near us. This Lenten season let us strive to recognize better the face of Jesus. Brent Porterfield What is it that lights you up and helps you to reflect the light of God in our body, your face and your smile? What is it that gets you to take off the veil in your heart and experience life to its fullest? What is it that makes you glow? People tell me that I glow when I wear purple. But I also glow in being with God’s people and recognizing God’s glory burning brightly in the world. Some scholars say that eventually Moses face healed from his encounter with getting too close to God. They say that he still wore the veil in public, but this time no so much to hide the glow, but to hide the fact that he had lost his glow. That is why Paul encourages us to take the veil off, and to let the glow shine for all of the world to see. There is a story of a trio of gold miners who worked a claim in the Montana territory. One of them found an unusual looking stone one day. Breaking it open, the prospected was thrilled to discover gold! He called his partners over and they joined him in digging. In no time at all they had discovered a whole new vein. Overcome with joy they began dancing and shouting, slapping each other on the back and crying out, we found it, we are rich. Then a more sober thought occurred to them, they had best keep this secret so there would be a stampede of other prospectors. On their next trip into town to buy supplies, not a one of them breathed a word to anyone about their miraculous find. Yet they discovered upon packing up to leave, that hundreds of men, pickaxes in hand, were lined up to follow them. When they asked who squealed, the reply came back, no one, we could read it on your faces. When you have a genuine encounter with God – what can people read on your face? Perhaps our theme for this lent – is find your smile. – and loving it enough to keep it! I can guarantee that means that you have found the key to your relationship with God. Happy Transfiguration Sunday! Let us pray…… Prayer We picture the mountain top experience of the disciples, Peter, James and John, chosen to go up to the mountain top with Jesus, to receive a new vision. But it wasn’t what was expected. They were awed and frightened. They didn’t know what to do. One wanted to build special festival booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus, where people could come to receive healing and blessing. It would have been so easy to stay up on the mountain and never again to descend to the hungering valley below. But Jesus has work for us to do. We are called to receive the blessing, not for ourselves alone, but to give it to others; to offer healing, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, hope and peace. These are difficult things to do in the face of the anger and hostilities that seem to abound in the world. We are not alone. God is with us. Just as we have asked for God’s healing mercies in the prayers we have offered for others, so we are recipients of God’s love and strength. Feel the power of God’s love flooding over you, coursing through your veins, encompassing your spirit! Let God’s strength and hope abide in you. Then be prepared to go and bring that blessing to others, in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN. (Nancy C. Townley Lord’s Prayer Song - Be Thou My Vision UMH 451 Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook May God now send us back down the mountain of our worship. We have been changed. We can’t be silent anymore. We have seen the Light of the World. Go and share the radiance of love! (Rev. Dr. David Bahr) Community Time Benediction Open your ears to God’s Chosen Son Open your minds to understanding. Open your hearts to transfiguration. And may the grace of our God the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer be with you now and always. Amen. (Rev. Terri McDowell Ott) Children’s Time Additional Illustrations Even the Darkness Can Dazzle To lead our exodus, Jesus had to die like we do: alone, with no particular glory. Otherwise he would have been an anomaly instead of a messiah, and it would have been hard for us to see what he had in common with the rest of us. As it was, he died very much like those who died on either side of him, one of them begging to be saved from what was coming, the other asking to be remembered when Jesus got where he was going. Jesus could not do anything for the one who wanted to be spared, but he did a great favor for the other. He told him that the darkness was a dazzling one, with paradise in it for both of them. I think it was something he learned on the mountain, when light burst through all his seams and showed him what he was made of. It was something he never forgot. If we have been allowed to intrude on that moment, it is because someone thought we might need a dose of glory too, to get us through the night. Some people are lucky enough to witness it for themselves, although like Peter, James and John, very few of them will talk about it later. What the rest of us have are stories like this one, and the chance to decide for ourselves whether we will believe what they tell us. It is a lot to believe: that God’s lit-up life includes death, that there is no way around it but only through, that even the darkness can dazzle. Barbara Brown Taylor, "Dazzling Darkness," article in the Christian Century, February 4-11, 1998, page 1-5 You Can't Stay on the Mountain Top A little boy was out in his front yard, throwing a ball up in the air. An elderly passerby asked the boy what he was doing. He replied, “I am playing a game of catch with God. I throw the ball up in the air and he throws it back.” I am in no position to comment on God’s ability to play ball, but I do know that whatever goes up must come down. There may be exceptions, such as Charlie Brown’s kite! But as a rule, whatever goes up must come down. The process is so predictable that you could refer to it as a scientific law. The same process applies to our religious lives. It is a good thing to “go up” to a great experience with God, but we will become greatly disillusioned if we do not remember that eventually we have to “come down” again. John Thomas Randolph, The Best Gift, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Gladdening the Valleys Below God never meant us to live on the mountaintop. I wish the gospel story told you the next Biblical story after the Transfiguration. This next Biblical story is never included in the lectionary series, and I feel badly about that. Because the next story is the key to the transfiguration story. The disciples and Jesus came off the mountain, and they came right down to the bottom of the valley. They came off the mountain and they came down into the valley and they found a boy who was having epileptic seizures. The mother and father were enormously upset and worried about the desperately sick boy, and the little boy fell into a fire and burned himself. In other words, the disciples came down off that mountaintop right into the problems of real life. Home from a mountaintop vacation and into the real world at home. And the disciples discovered that God is also down in the valley and does not live only or even primarily on the mountaintop. I like the quotation by Henry Drummond, the Scottish theologian when he said, “God does not make the mountains in order to be inhabited. God does not make the mountaintops for us to live on the mountaintops. It is not God’s desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings below. But we don’t live there. We don’t tarry there. The streams begin in the uplands, but these streams descend quickly to gladden the valleys below.” The streams start in the mountaintops, but they come down to gladden the valleys below. You and I experience the valleys of life. You and I both know what happens the next day coming down from the mountain. It is the real world and the real life. After Sundays of life, there are always Mondays. You know, the tough ones of life. God is with us there. Edward F. Markquart, Mountains, Valleys, and Plains _______________________________ It Will Be Better Higher Up The American evangelist Dwight L. Moody told the story about a Christian woman who was always bright, cheerful and optimistic, even though she was confined to her room because of her illness. She lived in an attic apartment on the fifth floor of an old, rundown building. A friend decided to visit her one day and brought along another woman – a person of great wealth. Since there was no elevator, the two ladies began the long climb upward. When they reached the second floor, the well-to-do woman commented, "What a dark and filthy place!" Her friend replied, "It’s better higher up." When they arrived at the third landing, the remark was made: "Things look even worse here." Again the reply: "It’s better higher up." Finally they reached the attic level, where they found the bedridden saint of God. A smile on her face radiated the joy that filled her heart. Although the room was clean and flowers were on the windowsill, the wealthy visitor could not contain herself about the stark surroundings and blurted out: "It must be very difficult for you to be here like this!" Without a moment’s hesitation the shut-in responded: "It will be better higher up." She was not looking at temporal things. With the eyes of faith fixed on the eternal, she had found the secret of true satisfaction and contentment. She had been transformed because of what she knew was yet to come… Joel Leyrer Well, You Can't Just Sit There There is a true story of a 33-year-old truck driver by the name of Larry Walters who was sitting in his lawn chair in his backyard one day wishing he could fly. For as long as he could remember he had wanted to fly but he had never had the time nor money nor opportunity to be a pilot. Hang gliding was out because there was no good place for gliding near his home. So he spent a lot of summer afternoons sitting in his backyard in his ordinary old aluminum chair - the kind with the webbing and the rivets, the kind most of us have. One day Larry hooked 45 helium-filled surplus weather balloons to his chair, put a CB radio in his lap, tied a paper bag full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to his leg, and slung a BB-gun over his shoulder to pop the balloons when he wanted to come down. He lifted off in his lawn chair expecting to climb a couple of hundred feet over his neighborhood. But instead he shot up 11,000 feet right through the approach corridor to the Los Angeles International Airport. When asked by the press why he did it, Larry answered: "Well, you can't just sit there." When asked if he was scared, he answered, "Yes...wonderfully so." Peter, James, and John might answer the same. Were you scared? "Yes...wonderfully so." Adapted from Robert Fulgum, "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." It's A Lot More Fun If You Open Your Eyes What do you think about roller coasters? When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of them. We didn’t live too far from Great America, which was the big amusement park in our area. So we would go down there about every summer, but I would never go on a roller coaster with my brother or sister. They would always say, "Come on, you have to try it to see if you like it," but I was happy riding the bumper cars and the merry-go-round. The psychologists call that having a type B personality. Type A personalities are those folks who love roller coasters. That’s what my sister Susan is like. She’s a definite type A. Type B personalities like me tend to shy away from anything too exciting. But then my senior year in high school came. I was on the student council, and the student council always went to Great America at the end of the year. I hadn’t been there in quite a few years, and so I was looking forward to it. But still I had never ridden on a roller coaster, and for some reason I admitted that to my friends. They couldn’t believe it. "You’ve never ridden on a roller coaster? Well, you’re going to ride on one now." So I did, and I really did enjoy it. I was excited and terrified at the same time. After that first ride, my friend sitting next to me had one piece of advice. He said, "You know, it’s even more fun if you open your eyes." You’ve probably heard it said before, "If you don’t keep your eyes open, you’re bound to miss something." That was me on the roller coaster. It’s a good encouragement that we all need to hear once in a while: Open your eyes. That’s the encouragement that our God is giving us this morning. He says to the disciples of Jesus – you and me – Open your eyes and look at the glory of Jesus. Peter Prange Fog-Clearing Moments Most of us have had fog-clearing moments. A recent Gallop Poll reported that eighty-five percent of the people interviewed said that they had had a “mystical” experience with God. This is a high percentage! But, when you think about it, there have been those moments in life when we experienced God’s presence and purpose in ways that are deep, profound, and real. So great is that certainty that we would stake our lives upon its reality. Perhaps we cannot explain it, but it is real beyond the shadow of a doubt. Joe Pennel Jr., From Anticipation to Transfiguration, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. p. 122 _________________ A visitor to Albert Schweitzer’s mission station in equatorial Africa saw a battered old piano. Extreme heat and humidity had almost destroyed it. The ivories on the keyboard were fastened with screws. A dozen or more strings were missing. It was capable of clattering only music marred with tinniness of tone and horribly out of tune. That is until Albert Schweitzer sat down to play. He was not only a skilled physician, but a renowned master of Bach’s music. Only he could bring alive in even a pitifully ravaged instrument the glorious chords of Bach’s great music. As only God’s infinite grace can restore the worst of us to usefulness, even beauty! He shares his glory. And, once redeemed and continually blest, we with whom God shares his glory become agents by whom that glory is further spread. This is how the Christian mission operates. So the Apostle Paul could insist, "What we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake." Christians do not proclaim their own brightness. They only let it shine for the sake of others. As servants. Often it’s a costly servanthood. Always it’s sacrificial. "Nurse, bring me a candle." "A candle?" she said. "Why do you want a candle?" "Because," he answered grimly, "I’m afraid to go home in the dark." Sometimes the experiences of life are dark circumstances involving us in difficult trial. Saint Paul was sure, however, that God says, "Let light shine out of darkness." This is God’s eternal promise. This is the Epiphany given through Christ. Nothing I can think of describes the Epiphany experience better than an Englishman’s account of a day in Switzerland. He wrote: "I recall we set out upon a day’s excursion, when on holiday, to reach, by tunnel railway, the Junchfrau-Joch. For a large part of the journey we travelled in darkness, through the tunnelled mountain railway, and at times we wondered about the wisdom of our journey. We rumbled through the darkness, stopping twice to look through observation windows, built into the side of the mountain. It gave us a respite, and also enabled us to adjust our breathing to the rarer heights. Then we stopped at the summit. Going out into the fresh mountain air, we held our breath, the view was awe inspiring, from the Black Forests of Germany to the Bernese Oberland, and down to the Italian Alps. The higher we climbed the better the view. The sun and snow nearly blinded our eyes, but the sheer loveliness of the view was breathtaking." Awe, wonder, glory! These are still God’s gifts to believing hearts. CSS Publishing Co., Inc., Splendor Of God's Glory, by William F. Dunkle a little girl, who was afraid to go to sleep in the dark, wanted her mother to stay with her. Her mother told her God would be with her, so she did not need to be afraid. "Yes, I know, Mama," the girl said, "but I want someone with a face." The message of our text, the message of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany is just that. The gift of Christ to us is Emmanuel -- "God with us." Jesus is "God with a face," a face turned toward us in love and good will. Recall the remarkable answer Christ gave when Philip requested, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus responded, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:8, 9). In essence he was saying, "If you want to see God, look at my face. All that you ever need to know about God, and all of life, you will find in me." Look again, Philip, look again! A pastor friend was greeting his congregation at the close of a morning service. One young woman, after shaking his hand, drew closer and said softly, "Please keep telling us how very much we mean to God; it has changed my life!" Yes, and it will keep changing the lives of any who will believe it, so we keep on sharing. Without question, it is the most important news our world has ever heard! This is the message brought to us by the "face that launched a thousand lives." It is ours to hear, to believe, and to share with any who will lend a listening ear.

From Self Confidence to God Confidence - (repreach)

From Self confidence to God Confidence Psalm 126 Philippians 3:4-14 Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C (repreached from 3/21/10 Max Lucado is a pastor and has written many many books on the Christian faith and what it means to believe. He tells the story of taking his daughter Jenna to the park when she was a little girl of about two years old. While she was playing with the other children, and there were other parents around – he decides to go across the street to the dairy queen and get her an ice cream cone. He returns to the park to give her the cone, only to discover that not only has she been playing in the sand – she has decided to eat the sand. He can’t very well give her an ice cream cone – when she has sand in her mouth. In telling the story – Lucado asks himself – did I love her any less with dirt in her mouth? Was she any less my daughter because she had dirt in her mouth? No – was I going to let her continue to play with dirt in her mouth(especially while holding an ice cream cone) no. He took her to the water fountain and washed her mouth out. Lucado compaired this to the way God thinks about us sometimes. He catches us all of the time with dirt in our mouths, God loves us, god cares for us, and yet God feels the need to clean out the dirt in our lives – because there is something much better in store for us. Most of the time if left alone to our own devices, we want to play in the sand and eat it- and yet god wants us to see that there is a bigger life, a greater relationship that we can have with ourselves and with God – if we stop depending on our own devices and seek to learn the ways of God. I tell you that story because Paul can relate to it very well. It proves the point that he is trying to make in Philippians when he says that his life is dirt. All of the things that used to matter in the world, no longer matter because his whole perspective in life has changed. Now that is really strange – because Paul was not a bad person. And he did not have a bad life. And there was nothing in his life that he had any real reason to be ashamed of. He came from a good family. When many other jewish families were giving up their faith for new beliefs. Pauls family were true Hebrews among Hebrews. He grew up to be a teacher and defender of the faith. He fervently persecuted Christians who were trying to ruin his faith. He was very well respected. And when others may have been thrown in jail because there were not citizens, even though he was jewish, he was still a roman citizen, he had all of the rights and priveledges that would have been given to the best of people. There were people who were trying to put Paul down and say that he was not a true leader, and yet Paul wanted them to know that there were at least 7 things in his life that he could point to and say that he was indeed a good and respected person. Good and respected if his life were about him. The thing is – he realized that his life was not about him. His life was about jesus Christ. And even though those things mattered in the eyes of humanity – they were nothing in the eyes of God. Whatever gains I had, these have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Rubbish – how do you come to call everything that you have accomplished in life a rubbish? As I pondered that question I remembered a time in my own life – when I was living with my boyfriend. And on this night our argument was not any more significant than they were on other day. We fought all of the time about any thing. But for some reason, on this night I remember he made a fist, and I remember in the moment between his fist hitting my face and my head hitting the wall – I remember taking everything inside of myself that valued, all of my self esteem, all of my pride, all of the things that I loved about myself – and hiding them onto the white wall. So that when he hit me – he wouldn’t hurt anything. In the days to come, there were many people who asked why I had a black eye – and I always responded the same – I walked into a wall – I am just clumsy that way. It is nothing serious. Until one day – my manager at work asked me how long I intended to lie to myself. And I had to face the fact that I needed to make up a tale, so that I did not have to deal with the seriousness of what was really going on. But it was that tale that kept my life in place- and allowed me to continuing to live in the midst of a bad situation. Dirt in the mouth, while God was trying to show me that there was a better way. Sometimes it is easier for us to hold onto the tales – then it is for us to let the truth in and deal with it. But I don’t want to get caught up in the intensity of the story – that is not my point in telling it. That was a long time ago, and my life has gone on since then, and I have had many experiences in life that supercede that one. That wasn’t the incident that finally got me to leave the relationship, it was the incident that turned my life around to listen more intently to God. But it is an illustration of the intensity of what Paul is saying when he is using the word rubbish in regards to his old life. I few days after that incident I remember saying – I wonder how I am going to get all of that junk off of the wall – all of the things that I admired about myself – now that they were totally worthless. They didn’t mean anything to me anymore – because now I had a new reality, on which none of that stuff applied. The greek word that Paul uses for rubbish is skybala. Skybala means junk, trash – but it also means human waste or excrement. That is a pretty strong word when you are talking about your life’s accomplishments. And yet his new life in Christ – was so much more important than the person that he used to be. He was able to taste the ice cream cone that God was offering. And was glad that he did. Are we able to do the same? Lent is our reminder to put old ways behind and to study more intently to see God’s new ways for us. And there are always new ways. There are always thought patterns and beliefs that no longer serve their purpose, there are resentment and fears that is time to give up, there are ways that we have been coping that need to be put away. There are allegiances to people that are no longer helpful. There is an old understanding of our relationship with god that we are being called to give up – in order to be open to what is happening in our lives today – which is leading us to a new understanding and a new relationship. There is dirt, a lot of dirt that we can stop eating. The good news for us is that junk can be recycled. Even excrement is used are fertilizer. The old ways of thinking make us who we are today- they are the pathway for the new. They inform our lives and give us a chance to truly understand Christ salvation for us. The story of our salvation is always part of the bigger story of salvation of the world. Our story is important because it is a part of God’s story. It shows us that God is always working to make us better people. There is always room for us to grown to mature, to make sense of why things happen to us. And to know that in the end – it always a story of God’s love. When we are able to put aside our own accomplishments and our own self confidence – we are free to take on God confidence. We don’t know what god’s final vision of the world will be – most of the time we have no idea of what God’s final vision for our own lives is. But we can give up the past in order to prepare ourselves for the future. Paul ends his pep talk by saying – beloved I do not consider that I have made it my own. But this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead- I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. It is time for us all to leave the past behind and press on to the destiny of Christ – let us pray…..

Can a Christian Lose their Christianityness?

February 6, 2011
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Matthew 5:13-20
5th Sunday After Epiphany
Year A

"Why Are We Here?"
Once upon a time, (which means this is a fairy tale, a made up story from long ago, containing great truth) –
Once upon a time, there lived a rich man who had three daughters. He was a little insecure and needed some reassurance one day so he called each of his daughters into his counting house (where he counted all of his money, of course,) and asked each
one of them, “Dearest daughter, how much do you love me.”
The first to visit his counting chamber was his oldest daughter and she replied, “O Father, I love you more than all the gold in the world.” The father knew that there was a great deal of gold in the world so he was happy with this answer and he gave her some gold coins to spend as she wished.
The second daughter came in and was asked the same question. She replied, “O dearest most loving and special Father, the
best father ever, I love you more than all of the silver in the world.” And the father was pleased with this answer. He gave her some silver coins so she could order some new dresses which she had been wanting.
The third daughter came in and when she was asked the question she paused and then replied, “Father, I love you more than fresh meat loves salt.”
The father exploded in a rage and ordered that the daughter be thrown out of the great house and not allowed to return.
The servants threw her out of the house with nothing but the clothes on her back and she was left to wander in the woods. She decided to disguise herself so she made clothing out of the rushes she found in the nearby swamp. She knocked on the back door or a large mansion, owned by one of her father’s friends, and asked the servant who answered the door for a job so that she could eat. She would not tell them her name so they called her “Cap O’Rushes” because of her clothing. She was given a job washing
the pots and pans and keeping the house clean. She worked very hard and everyone liked her work, but she seldom spoke.
One day the servants were all abuzz because a great party was to be given. There was food to prepare, room to clean, silver to polish and lots of other things to do. Cap O’Rushes discovered that her own father was invited. She convinced the cook to let her prepare the meal for her own father, though of course they did not know he was her father.
She prepared all of his favourite dishes, but did not use any salt at all. (Remember, this was back when people used a lot of salt and well before blood pressure had been invented.) When the food was brought to him and he began to eat he was most unhappy with the meal and the host ordered the cook be brought to apologize to his guest. The cook brought Cap O’Rushes and explained that she had cooked the meal for this particular guest.
“What is the meaning of this”, he
demanded. “You have embarrassed me. He says his food is bland and tasteless. Why have you done this to me and to him?”
She turned to her father and said simply, “I love you as much as fresh meat loves salt”. He father recognized her and wept in sorrow as he asked for her forgiveness. His other daughters had been nothing but a trial to him and were always wanting more and more fine clothes and jewellery and he realized that this daughter had really loved him a great deal.

I think that story is a good demonstration summary of the entire gospel of Jesus Christ. The heart of the gospel is God’s love for us. God loves us more than fresh meat loves salt. The challenge for us in our loves is always how we demonstrate our love for God.

In the gospel lesson for today – Matthew 5 – Jesus has just went up on the mountain to talk with all of the people below who are following him and listening them. This is a mixed crowd, some are his committed disciples, some are his fair weather disciples, and some are just interested parties. But the point that Jesus us trying to make to all is what it means to be a righteous person. He is telling what it means and the gifts that God will give to those who are faithful.
In verses 13-20 which we read for today he is continuing that conversation, and speaking more about the character of a Christian.

It was said that in WWII that in some cities, people were asked to make black curtains to put on their windows, so that when the enemy planes flew overhead, they would not be able to distinguish towns and cities to drop bombs on them. Washington DC was of course very vulnerable to attack, so workers got to work making black curtains for the white house. One of the workers commented however, that it did not make sense to try and camouflage the white house. The white house was such an icon for America, it was so clear to everyone in the world where the white house was, it was such a distinctive house, and was so well advertised, that if someone was looking for it, they would have no problem finding it. There was just no way to hide its identity.
Jesus has the same message for us as Christians. Christianity should be so much a part of who we are, following God should be so much a part of our character, that there was no mistaking who we are. You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.
Salt, light, water, fire, are all key ingrediants for our lives. Today, we are told that we are to cut down on our salt intake, but salt is still an important part of our lives. What are some uses of salt ?........

Salt has the properties of flavor, of preserving, of healing, of preventing germs, of cleansing, and many other things.

In Jesus’ day salt was also used in cooking. Every house or neighborhood would have had a stove in front of it. The fuel for these stoves would have been animal manure. In order for the manure to burn, they would add salt to it and make it into patties. Once all of the salt burned from the patties, they were no good. The Hebrew word for earth is the same word for an earthen stove. We are the salt used to burn the manure of life.

In other words, we have a mission and a purpose as the people of god. As the church we are the body of Christ for the world. Our challenge is to not just be Christ, but to be Christ crucified and resurrected.
We have also been looking at the lessons of Paul for us as the church, and the challenges to be the body of Christ in the world. Paul talks about what stands in the way of us living our our mission in the world, but also the hope we have for overcoming those challenges. And the gifts that God has given us in spite of our humanness to be rightuose in an unright world.
The Greeks loved knowledge, and the Corinthians were no different. They were willing to learn everything, and to talk about what they knew and what they learned. They even formed secret society of special knowledge, that you had to be intiated to be able to know. They even began to think that in order to have a relationship with God, you had to know God.

Not atheist believe that there is no God, there is only human knowledge, and that you can get to the kingdom of God, to a live of happiness by learning and knowing. That is not the same as someone who says that they are agnostic. An agnostic person says that there might be a god, but we will never know through human knowledge. It is impossible to know God, so it is impossible to know if there is a God. That is sort of what Paul is saying, but not quite. Paul is telling us that as Christians, it is impossible to know god. God is a mystery. But if you are faithful, and you love God, then God reveals to you all that you need to know. And all that you need to know is that God loves you.

A preacher took a questionnaire that he received in the mail - how elgible are you to go to heaven? When he scored his answers, the scale put him on the category of being too close to call. I think that decribes the average Christian today. We have one foot in the world and one foot in the bible. We try to do right, and yet there is this question in the back of our heads. How much can sin and still be called righteous? How many times can do wrong, and still be forgiven. How much can I get away with doing and still call myself a Christian.
Interestingly enough the answer is in Matthew. How many times can be forgiven? Jesus says 70X7. And yet also wants us to know that it not the point of how much we can get away with. We can get away with as much as we want, God is always going to love us.
But when we start to love God – our focus changes, from how much we can sin, to how much we can do right. From how much God has done for me, to how much I can do for God. From how many times can I be forgiven, to how many times do I have to remember that I am sanctified and freed from sin.
Righteousness if a choice that I make in how I live my life. I have complete control over it, and can seek to know as much as I can about living a righteous life. But salvation is a gift from God. Paul says that God doesn’t waste God’s time in giving that gift to those who don’t seek it.
The other gift that we are given as the body of Christ, is the mind of Christ. None of us within ourselves is strong enough, or worthy enough, or smart enough to hold the mind of Christ alone. But as a collective body of faithful people, trusting in as Paul says, Christ crucified, we together hold the gift of Christ’s holy spirit to guide our every move. And it is not about is, it is about the power of God that works through us to fulfill god’s mission and purpose.
How much can we sin and still be Christian. Jesus says that unless you surpass the righteousness of he scribes and Pharisees you cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
I am switching scriptures a little, this is the last sentence of Matthew and it will be my last point. The scribes were professionals, usually priest who had been given the task of putting God’s word into writing. The Pharisee were committed lay people, who committed every part of their lives to God and doing what God said was right. Jesus was saying that they were pretty good people, they were faithful and righteous. Jesus set the bar pretty high for us. They were the best of the best, and we are being called to be even better. They were extraordinary, but we are called to be even more. As Christians we are to give the world an unheard of amount of generosity, love, and understanding. Such as the world has never seen. Your are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. The good news is that we don’t have to do anything or know anything. All we have to do is to love God.
Ann Landers printed a story a few years ago from a lady who had attempted suicide. She lay unconscious for three days before the police found her and took her to the hospital. But they went above and beyond the call of duty by calling her every day and once she returned home they would visit her and bring her cards and flowers on a regular basis. They went out of their way to show kindness and love.
We are not all called to be police, or nurses, or firemen. We are not all called to have to faith of the scribes or Pharisees. But Jesus point is that whomever we are, and whatever we are doing, we are called to show compassion and to go out of our way to express it. That is what being a Christian is all about. God loves you, how to you show the love of God in your life? Let us pray…..

From Self Confidence to God Confidence

From Self confidence to God Confidence Psalm 126 Philippians 3:4-14 Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C March 22, 2010 Max Lucado is a pastor and has written many many books on the Christian faith and what it means to believe. He tells the story of taking his daughter Jenna to the park when she was a little girl of about two years old. While she was playing with the other children, and there were other parents around – he decides to go across the street to the dairy queen and get her an ice cream cone. He returns to the park to give her the cone, only to discover that not only has she been playing in the sand – she has decided to eat the sand. He can’t very well give her an ice cream cone – when she has sand in her mouth. In telling the story – Lucado asks himself – did I love her any less with dirt in her mouth? Was she any less my daughter because she had dirt in her mouth? No – was I going to let her continue to play with dirt in her mouth(especially while holding an ice cream cone) no. He took her to the water fountain and washed her mouth out. Lucado compaired this to the way God thinks about us sometimes. He catches us all of the time with dirt in our mouths, God loves us, god cares for us, and yet God feels the need to clean out the dirt in our lives – because there is something much better in store for us. Most of the time if left alone to our own devices, we want to play in the sand and eat it- and yet god wants us to see that there is a bigger life, a greater relationship that we can have with ourselves and with God – if we stop depending on our own devices and seek to learn the ways of God. I tell you that story because Paul can relate to it very well. It proves the point that he is trying to make in Philippians when he says that his life is dirt. All of the things that used to matter in the world, no longer matter because his whole perspective in life has changed. Now that is really strange – because Paul was not a bad person. And he did not have a bad life. And there was nothing in his life that he had any real reason to be ashamed of. He came from a good family. When many other jewish families were giving up their faith for new beliefs. Pauls family were true Hebrews among Hebrews. He grew up to be a teacher and defender of the faith. He fervently persecuted Christians who were trying to ruin his faith. He was very well respected. And when others may have been thrown in jail because there were not citizens, even though he was jewish, he was still a roman citizen, he had all of the rights and priveledges that would have been given to the best of people. There were people who were trying to put Paul down and say that he was not a true leader, and yet Paul wanted them to know that there were at least 7 things in his life that he could point to and say that he was indeed a good and respected person. Good and respected if his life were about him. The thing is – he realized that his life was not about him. His life was about jesus Christ. And even though those things mattered in the eyes of humanity – they were nothing in the eyes of God. Whatever gains I had, these have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Rubbish – how do you come to call everything that you have accomplished in life a rubbish? As I pondered that question I remembered a time in my own life – when I was living with my boyfriend. And on this night our argument was not any more significant than they were on other day. We fought all of the time about any thing. But for some reason, on this night I remember he made a fist, and I remember in the moment between his fist hitting my face and my head hitting the wall – I remember taking everything inside of myself that valued, all of my self esteem, all of my pride, all of the things that I loved about myself – and hiding them onto the white wall. So that when he hit me – he wouldn’t hurt anything. In the days to come, there were many people who asked why I had a black eye – and I always responded the same – I walked into a wall – I am just clumsy that way. It is nothing serious. Until one day – my manager at work asked me how long I intended to lie to myself. And I had to face the fact that I needed to make up a tale, so that I did not have to deal with the seriousness of what was really going on. But it was that tale that kept my life in place- and allowed me to continuing to live in the midst of a bad situation. Dirt in the mouth, while God was trying to show me that there was a better way. Sometimes it is easier for us to hold onto the tales – then it is for us to let the truth in and deal with it. But I don’t want to get caught up in the intensity of the story – that is not my point in telling it. That was a long time ago, and my life has gone on since then, and I have had many experiences in life that supercede that one. That wasn’t the incident that finally got me to leave the relationship, it was the incident that turned my life around to listen more intently to God. But it is an illustration of the intensity of what Paul is saying when he is using the word rubbish in regards to his old life. I few days after that incident I remember saying – I wonder how I am going to get all of that junk off of the wall – all of the things that I admired about myself – now that they were totally worthless. They didn’t mean anything to me anymore – because now I had a new reality, on which none of that stuff applied. The greek word that Paul uses for rubbish is skybala. Skybala means junk, trash – but it also means human waste or excrement. That is a pretty strong word when you are talking about your life’s accomplishments. And yet his new life in Christ – was so much more important than the person that he used to be. He was able to taste the ice cream cone that God was offering. And was glad that he did. Are we able to do the same? Lent is our reminder to put old ways behind and to study more intently to see God’s new ways for us. And there are always new ways. There are always thought patterns and beliefs that no longer serve their purpose, there are resentment and fears that is time to give up, there are ways that we have been coping that need to be put away. There are allegiances to people that are no longer helpful. There is an old understanding of our relationship with god that we are being called to give up – in order to be open to what is happening in our lives today – which is leading us to a new understanding and a new relationship. There is dirt, a lot of dirt that we can stop eating. The good news for us is that junk can be recycled. Even excrement is used are fertilizer. The old ways of thinking make us who we are today- they are the pathway for the new. They inform our lives and give us a chance to truly understand Christ salvation for us. The story of our salvation is always part of the bigger story of salvation of the world. Our story is important because it is a part of God’s story. It shows us that God is always working to make us better people. There is always room for us to grown to mature, to make sense of why things happen to us. And to know that in the end – it always a story of God’s love. When we are able to put aside our own accomplishments and our own self confidence – we are free to take on God confidence. We don’t know what god’s final vision of the world will be – most of the time we have no idea of what God’s final vision for our own lives is. But we can give up the past in order to prepare ourselves for the future. Paul ends his pep talk by saying – beloved I do not consider that I have made it my own. But this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead- I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. It is time for us all to leave the past behind and press on to the destiny of Christ – let us pray…..