Do You Believe In the Message of Jesus?, by Rev Steven Mitchell, Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 11/18/2012

Do You Believe In the Message of Jesus?
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 11/18/2012
Based on Hebrews 10
 This coming Thursday most of us will be gathering with our families and friends to celebrate one of several feasts that we recognize in this country.  The feast of Thanksgiving!  For those who are helping in the preparations of this great day of feasting, there will be special attention given to creating the menu, the gathering of the ingredients, and of the presentation of home and table as we gather around the table.  For some, the feast will be extravagant, for others it will be simple; for some it will be a time of joyful gathering, for others a time of anxiety, but for all it will be a time of memories to be recalled and memories in the making.   This is a week of preparation and of anticipation. 
 Today as a faith community we are kicking off this week of celebrating Thanksgiving in several different ways.   It is fitting for us to recognize those many blessing that God has given us this year in a corporate celebration.  Today we are thanking God for many of the ways in which we recognize Gods promise to care for us.  One of those ways is going to be in our giving back to God by bringing offerings of gloves, scarves, rubber boots that will be given to those men who we call “day laborers”.  Most of these men are living in this country without the proper documentation which would allow them to secure jobs that would be steady.  In this small way we are helping God to care for a few people who are in a very vulnerable life existence.
 A second way that we will be giving thanksgiving is in the opportunity to give monetarily a portion of our income to this mission of God’s which we call Mountain View United.  Just as one prepares for a Thanksgiving Dinner, we have been spent six weeks preparing for this celebration, though recognizing the many ways we as individuals experience the promise of God’s love toward us.  We started our journey of preparation with the celebration of personal talents that we have and how when we share those talents, others are blessed.  We were reminded through one of our conference leaders, how our giving to the larger families of faith, the Presbyterian, Methodist, and UCC, we receive help in times of disaster such as what we experienced this summer with devastating forest fires and the Aurora theater shootings, or how we extend help to those who have been impacted by hurricane Sandy.  We recognized the care and love that God gives through the companionship of our pets, as we blessed our pets.  We reflected on the value of our gifts with the story of the widow whose offering of two copper coins showed her response to her faith and relationship to God.
 I have titled this morning’s reflection, “Do You Believe in the Message of Jesus”, because it reflects both, “why” we give money to Mountain View United and “where” this giving originates from.  In Hebrews, we are told that before Christ, it was the job of the priest to accept the “sin offering” from the giver, so that God would not remember what is being asked to be forgiven.  Hebrews then goes on to tell us that through the death, the offer of Jesus himself for sin, that a “sin offering” is no longer necessary. 
 The writer of Hebrews is telling us that there is a new game in town.  We no longer need to give with the mindset of “sin offering”; we no longer have to give to have our sins erased.  The other evening on T.V., the movie “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” was on.  Molly in her unbridled enthusiasm crashes the party of her neighbor Mrs. McGraw in order to meet those society members to which she so much wished to belong with.  In front of everyone she and her husband, as the story is told, gave to the churches building fund for children, gave $15,000 to the priest.  A side comment was made, “that should see them into heaven”, to which Molly responded, “it might grease the gates a little.”  That is a mindset that we need to give as a way of helping God forget those things that we think might keep us out of heaven.
 Hebrews tells us, “Where there is forgiveness [meaning Jesus’ offering] there is no longer any offering for sin.”  The game changer is that we no longer should give out of our sin, but that we should offer our gifts to God out of the recognition of the gift of life that comes through Christ.  We are also assured by God that it is through the Holy Spirit that ”God will put Gods law in our hearts and write them on our mind.”  That law is what Jesus confessed as the basic commandments, “That there is only one God, and to love God with all our mind, heart, and soul.  And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves.”
 This past summer, a group of members and friends of this church met for a weekend retreat where we restarted the conversations about the “vision” of this congregation.  It reads:”… Our Vision is to educate and support a spiritual, Christian, ecumenical body that reaches out {in hope}to the community and to those in need throughout the world.”  In our discussion we realized that we were missing the piece that reads in this morning’s scripture, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering…”   “Our hope”, hope is an emotion, it is the energy, the desire, that one needs to move forward through the unknown.  Hope is what the founding members had as it formed this faith community.  I think “hope” comes in many differing dreams that are in each of us, but ultimately I believe that the “hope” is that which we pray each week through the Lord’s Prayer, that of God’s kin-dom continues to be developed here on earth.
 Let me ask you, “What do you like about Mountain View?”   “What keeps you coming back?”  “What do you hope to see Mountain View as having become in 5 years?” 
As we bring our pledge cards up to the alter this morning, I would like you to think about all these “hopes” that have been expressed this morning and through this heart shaped piece of paper offer your commitment of “hope” to the possibilities through this ministry of Mountain View to extend the love and ministries on behave of God.  Let us pray: God like little children we toddle to you, offering you a tiny gift we have brought with your money – and expecting a perfect world in return.  Help us to grow up in the faith of the widow, who gave out of her lack, knowing that letting go of all she had would challenge you to rain down blessing on her in abundance. 
God, we tithe not just our money and goods to you today, but long to tithe the more intangible things we hold on to that you demand of us.
You demand that we give up our worry and anxiety.  Help us to release the fear we constantly live in.  You demand that we give up our anger and our prejudice, so that you can defuse it and beat the swords of our minds and actions into plowshares of peaceful living, reaching out in love and acceptance to all your children: of every color, sexual orientation, age, religion – the stranger in our land and the homeless person, even to the criminal, who deserves our love and compassion.  You demand that we give up our insecurities, so that we may become people of courage and confidence who don’t sell ourselves or others short.  Help us to see ourselves as you have made us, so that we are challenged to do great things for the good news of Jesus Christ – ordinary people made extraordinary by our faith and conviction.  Let us place all of these at your alter this morning, loving God.  Amen  Before the Amen by Molly Phinney Baskette pg 195
Prayer Dedication of our pledges:  Gracious God, You call us, your church, to share all that we have and all that we are with one another and the world.  We remember the story of the widow who gave two small coins and know that you are more concerned with how we give than how much.  Bless each pledge that together they may bring your kin-dom into being in the broken places here and beyond.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen  Before the Amen, by Sue Henley pg 196