Victorious Living through Christ:
“A Greater GPS in Life” part 3
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/30/2011
This last week I was in New York City attending a workshop on “Finding the Preachers Inner Voice”. For those of you who are not familiar with NYC, the city in general is very easy to navigate around. Once you understand how the city is laid out, you can pretty much get around and not use a lot of brain power trying to figure out directions. Needless to say, there is a world of difference between NYC and Rock Springs; especially when it comes to navigating around town.
The majority of NYC is platted in a grid, running North to South and East to West, with most of the streets being named in numbers. For instance, my hotel address was 59 W. 35th St. It was between 5th and 6th Avenue. Have I already confused you? Once you learn that 5th Avenue is the dividing line between East and West, you are on your way to easily getting around town. You also have to know that Avenues run north to south and Streets run east to west. With this amount of information, you will be able to navigate.
Growing up in Kansas, where almost all the cities were laid out in a grid, it is pretty easy for me to understand the system that NYC has. Growing up in Kansas, I was also privileged to have full view of the sun, so I could always look up to the sky, knowing what time of day it was and know which direction was east, west, north, and south. I also grew up learning that each block has its own “100” series of numbers; meaning the dividing line would start out with 0-99, the next block would then be 100-199, and so on.
In NYC there are very, very tall buildings, which block out the direct view of the sun, so understanding the numbering system is very important, since you can’t just look up and use the sun to figure out if you need to go to the left or right, or up the street or down the street. Another thing I learned as a child in Kansas, is that blocks are generally even in length. In NYC, they have long blocks and short blocks! When walking north and south on the Avenues, you are walking the short blocks. When walking the streets, which are east to west, you are walking the long blocks. This being another thing different than what I grew up learning. Finally, the other interesting thing in NYC is that each block doesn’t necessarily hold to the numbering system that I understood. I discovered that both on the Avenues as well as on the Streets that you might have two or three blocks with the same “100s”.
For example, using the corner of 5th Avenue and W. 35th Street and I want to walk south on 5th Ave to an address of in the 1300 block, and I was in the 1500 block, you would assume that I would be walking only two blocks south. Not true, I actually would have walked 6 blocks south, for the “100” block ran for three of their blocks before changing. Now luckily these were the short blocks. But if I were needing to get to an address that was on an Avenue, I could not use my understanding of distance based on the length of a Street, because Streets are longer in distance.
Okay, once I have all this new information stored in my and I have tested it by walking a number of miles on the sidewalks, able to judge my estimated time of arrival, not only by foot, but had gain sufficient knowledge to be able to judge timing by using taxis as well, I then decide to rely on my newly adjusted internal GPS and get onto the subway system. From my hotel, I decided I wanted to go to the north end of the theater district, and walk back to the center of the Times Square area. I get off at 53rd Street, walk in the correct direction to Broadway (an exception to the numbering system of Avenue/Street) and then on Broadway down toward 42nd Street, allowing me to view many of the theaters that not only lined Broadway but also those off Broadway. After lunch I took the subway back to the 34th Street station, which was just three building from my hotel.
Well, when I got up to the street level, I discovered that I wasn’t on 6th Avenue but rather on 7th Avenue. I walked to the opposite end of the block realizing that I was now at 8th Avenue. Not sure by this point which way was east so I could get to 35th Street, I did the cardinal seen for men, I asked a woman for directions. I followed her direction for one block and realized she sent me in the wrong direction. But, I had gained enough wrong information to correct my internal GPS and headed back to my hotel without incident or needless walking.
This morning’s Gospel on the Beatitudes is a bit like my experience in New York City. I was raised with a set of foundations designed to help me navigate in my environment, and based on those foundations, should I find myself lost in a wilderness area, I could use to help me become un-lost. We call those foundations, “Conventional Wisdom”. Be when I found myself in New York City, I easily became confused and going in the wrong direction because my conventional wisdom wasn’t large enough to help me find my way. I was needing a greater GPS than what I was operating with.
So, what does conventional wisdom give us to help deal with life experiences? Conventional wisdom tells us that the wise person, will be happiest when they have amassed great wealth, for you can buy anything with want with enough money. A wise person should possess power, for then they will be in control of their environment and they will not get pushed around. A wise person will have independence and should be clever enough to get what they want out of life, even at the cost of others.
This is the conventional wisdom we are being bombarded with on every level, every day of our life. T.V. ads tell us, that we will be happier if only we own this type of cell phone, to be able to receive information at 4 g. We will be more comfortable if we only live in a Mac Mansion, where we have more bathrooms than we do bedrooms. Reality shows like Donald Trump, tell us that stepping on people to climb the corporate latter is not only acceptable but desirable.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul states, “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise… For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught this same lesson. The word “blessed” translate into “bringing happiness”. Hear how Eugene Peterson helps in translating this challenge to conventional wisdom. Matthew 5:
3"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
6"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
7"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
8"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
The next step toward a Victorious Life in Christ, is to turn our will and our lives over to the Care and understanding of God! When we turn our lives over to God, we are allowing for a greater GPS to become internalized. With the wisdom found in turning over our will to God, even though it goes against the conventional wisdom of the world, we will become blessed, we will be “happy”. For we only find closeness to God when we are in need, we only recognize that we are in need, when we have become empty; empty of what the world teaches will make us happy. The truth is, we are always looking for something, to fill the void in our internal life. We can either continue the chase by listening to the GPS that is standardized by the foolishness of the world, or we can look to a greater being, to the one who has greater wisdom than ourselves, the one who can provide a greater happiness if we chose, but it means giving up what we’ve been taught and listening to God’s teachings and letting go of the old and letting God become our guide, our map quest, our ultimate GPS. Amen.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Victorious Living through Christ pt 2 "What Are You Looking For?", First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Victorious Living through Christ, part 2
“What Are You Looking For?”
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/16/2011
This morning’s Gospel reading tells us how Jesus begins gathering his disciples. It all seems very innocent with John the Baptist declaring every time he sees Jesus, to be the “Lamb of God”, suddenly two of his own disciples leave him to go and follow Jesus. I wonder what John was feeling when Andrew and the other unnamed disciple left him to follow this Jesus.
How would you feel if this happened to you? Lets say for example, two families, we will call them the Smith’s and the Jones, had found their way through the front doors here at First Congregational. As a congregation, we receive them in, we extend our emotional support to them, we spend time teaching them the lessons of scripture, since neither of these families have ever been to a church before, we baptize them, invite them to become members of our faith community; in essence they have become a part of us.
Then one Sunday morning I announce from the pulpit that a new church has been started down town and that the minister there seemed to be doing a good job in preaching the “Good News”. A few weeks pass by and there is a community gathering of praise being held in this church. The guest speaker just happens to be the new minister of this new church, named The Church of What’s Happening Now. I introduce the new minister as a person who is one who “understands” the word of God and that this new church specializes in healing ministry. After the service is over, the Smith’s and the Jones become acquainted with the new minister. The next week we don’t see the Smith’s or Jones in church. It isn’t long before we find out that these two families, who had been so warmly nurtured by us, have left First Congregational and are now attending the services of the newly formed Church of What’s Happening Now.
Our first response might be one of anger, not toward the new minister, but rather of the Smith’s and Jones for leaving us for that new church and following that new minister. And these thoughts would be logical from the stand point of the amount of time and emotional energy that we as a congregation invested into them. Our negative thoughts would stem from a sense of betrayal and of rejection; rejection because we had opened ourselves up to them, making ourselves vulnerable. It brings up questions like, “what’s wrong with us”, or possibly “why aren’t we good enough for them” and maybe even deeper questions might be asked such as: “aren’t we preaching the gospel here?”
I think this particular segment of the Gospel that is being shared with us today, is probably one of the most important that we will ever find in scripture. It is important because it asks a question that not only sets the stage for Jesus’ ministry, but is the basic question that all of humanity continues to ask itself, day in and day out. After John the baptizer has pointed out the man who was walking by as being “the Lamb of God”, Andrew and another disciple of John’s start following Jesus. Jesus stops, turns around and asks the question of all questions, “What are you looking for?”
When we personalize this question to be “What am I looking for”, we begin to ask one of life’s most challenging question, which seems to have plagued human kind since its origins. Andrew and the other disciple didn’t leave John for Jesus because John was not preaching “truth”, but rather because they saw that in Jesus, they would find more than what they already were experiencing. Andrew is like most of us, we are looking for something that will bring more meaning into our lives!
Last Sunday, I presented the first of a number of steps that we need to recognize and then work through in order to experience the most out of ourselves and life, which God would wish for us. That first step was to: recognize that we are powerless of the sin within our lives, and that through that sin, our lives are unmanageable. The second step that I would suggest in our journey to seeking a Victorious life through Christ is, to come to believe in the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans by saying, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it, “But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”
After we admit that we are by nature filled with sin, the next step then, is to seek out that which is pure love. A love that is more radical than that which we have most likely experienced. The Greeks have three differing words for love: Eros, Phileo, and Agape. Eros is the lowest form of love, as it deals with the physical. It is the physical passion that comes when two people are attracted to each other. Phileo love is what we normally think of the words "brotherly love". Phileo love is about feelings, and is what friendships are built upon. Agape love is about how we act toward others, it is also the type of love that we attribute to the actions of Jesus and of God.
Agape love is the type of love that is “unconditional” as opposed to conditional love. Conditional meaning that there is some condition that must be met in order for something to happen. If we are talking about love, then it means that there is some sort of action that must be taken in order to receive that love which is given conditionally. A large number of the people have been raised with some degree of “conditional love”, which affects how they will react to both receiving love and acceptance, or in how they give love and acceptance.
The love that Paul is sharing in today’s text is about God’s “unconditional love” for us. “…when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” In the 1990 American thriller film, Flat liners, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt as medical students using physical science in an attempt to find out if there's anything out there beyond death by conducting clandestine experiments with near-death experiences, a common experience occurred with all five medical students. They all encountered a person whom they had done something bad to as a child, and all of the victims were still living, except for the beautiful Julia Roberts experience. She was experiencing an encounter with her father who had committed suicide when she was a child. Ultimately the story line presented its self as the reason for these events were due to the fact that each of these medical students was holding onto the “action” or the “guilt” of their action toward the person they encountered.
This is the thought that I want to leave you with this morning. It is the burdens that we carry around with us, that keep us from fully accepting the loving forgiveness that comes through Christ. These things have already been forgiven, but even once we ask for forgiveness we often do not turn loose of that action. We walk around carrying it and eventually, it bogs us down. This is where the second step comes into play, we must come to believe in the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done. Until we turn loose of all those hurts, of all those lost dreams, of all the wrong things that we have done toward others, then we really are not trusting, not believing in the forgiveness that God has already given us. If God has forgiven us of our offenses, then who are we to tell God that we want to carrying them around with us?
This believing in the love of God in a personal way leads us to the word we speak so freely, the word being “grace.” What is Grace? Without over simplifying it too much, it is “forgiveness of our sinful nature, by God.” Coming to believe in the love that God has toward us starts as we accept God’s forgiveness of our less than perfect lives, and the believing is demonstrated by our willingness to let go of that which we have been forgiven. “What are you looking for?” Jesus has responded with, “Come and you will see!” Amen
“What Are You Looking For?”
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/16/2011
This morning’s Gospel reading tells us how Jesus begins gathering his disciples. It all seems very innocent with John the Baptist declaring every time he sees Jesus, to be the “Lamb of God”, suddenly two of his own disciples leave him to go and follow Jesus. I wonder what John was feeling when Andrew and the other unnamed disciple left him to follow this Jesus.
How would you feel if this happened to you? Lets say for example, two families, we will call them the Smith’s and the Jones, had found their way through the front doors here at First Congregational. As a congregation, we receive them in, we extend our emotional support to them, we spend time teaching them the lessons of scripture, since neither of these families have ever been to a church before, we baptize them, invite them to become members of our faith community; in essence they have become a part of us.
Then one Sunday morning I announce from the pulpit that a new church has been started down town and that the minister there seemed to be doing a good job in preaching the “Good News”. A few weeks pass by and there is a community gathering of praise being held in this church. The guest speaker just happens to be the new minister of this new church, named The Church of What’s Happening Now. I introduce the new minister as a person who is one who “understands” the word of God and that this new church specializes in healing ministry. After the service is over, the Smith’s and the Jones become acquainted with the new minister. The next week we don’t see the Smith’s or Jones in church. It isn’t long before we find out that these two families, who had been so warmly nurtured by us, have left First Congregational and are now attending the services of the newly formed Church of What’s Happening Now.
Our first response might be one of anger, not toward the new minister, but rather of the Smith’s and Jones for leaving us for that new church and following that new minister. And these thoughts would be logical from the stand point of the amount of time and emotional energy that we as a congregation invested into them. Our negative thoughts would stem from a sense of betrayal and of rejection; rejection because we had opened ourselves up to them, making ourselves vulnerable. It brings up questions like, “what’s wrong with us”, or possibly “why aren’t we good enough for them” and maybe even deeper questions might be asked such as: “aren’t we preaching the gospel here?”
I think this particular segment of the Gospel that is being shared with us today, is probably one of the most important that we will ever find in scripture. It is important because it asks a question that not only sets the stage for Jesus’ ministry, but is the basic question that all of humanity continues to ask itself, day in and day out. After John the baptizer has pointed out the man who was walking by as being “the Lamb of God”, Andrew and another disciple of John’s start following Jesus. Jesus stops, turns around and asks the question of all questions, “What are you looking for?”
When we personalize this question to be “What am I looking for”, we begin to ask one of life’s most challenging question, which seems to have plagued human kind since its origins. Andrew and the other disciple didn’t leave John for Jesus because John was not preaching “truth”, but rather because they saw that in Jesus, they would find more than what they already were experiencing. Andrew is like most of us, we are looking for something that will bring more meaning into our lives!
Last Sunday, I presented the first of a number of steps that we need to recognize and then work through in order to experience the most out of ourselves and life, which God would wish for us. That first step was to: recognize that we are powerless of the sin within our lives, and that through that sin, our lives are unmanageable. The second step that I would suggest in our journey to seeking a Victorious life through Christ is, to come to believe in the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans by saying, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it, “But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”
After we admit that we are by nature filled with sin, the next step then, is to seek out that which is pure love. A love that is more radical than that which we have most likely experienced. The Greeks have three differing words for love: Eros, Phileo, and Agape. Eros is the lowest form of love, as it deals with the physical. It is the physical passion that comes when two people are attracted to each other. Phileo love is what we normally think of the words "brotherly love". Phileo love is about feelings, and is what friendships are built upon. Agape love is about how we act toward others, it is also the type of love that we attribute to the actions of Jesus and of God.
Agape love is the type of love that is “unconditional” as opposed to conditional love. Conditional meaning that there is some condition that must be met in order for something to happen. If we are talking about love, then it means that there is some sort of action that must be taken in order to receive that love which is given conditionally. A large number of the people have been raised with some degree of “conditional love”, which affects how they will react to both receiving love and acceptance, or in how they give love and acceptance.
The love that Paul is sharing in today’s text is about God’s “unconditional love” for us. “…when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” In the 1990 American thriller film, Flat liners, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt as medical students using physical science in an attempt to find out if there's anything out there beyond death by conducting clandestine experiments with near-death experiences, a common experience occurred with all five medical students. They all encountered a person whom they had done something bad to as a child, and all of the victims were still living, except for the beautiful Julia Roberts experience. She was experiencing an encounter with her father who had committed suicide when she was a child. Ultimately the story line presented its self as the reason for these events were due to the fact that each of these medical students was holding onto the “action” or the “guilt” of their action toward the person they encountered.
This is the thought that I want to leave you with this morning. It is the burdens that we carry around with us, that keep us from fully accepting the loving forgiveness that comes through Christ. These things have already been forgiven, but even once we ask for forgiveness we often do not turn loose of that action. We walk around carrying it and eventually, it bogs us down. This is where the second step comes into play, we must come to believe in the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done. Until we turn loose of all those hurts, of all those lost dreams, of all the wrong things that we have done toward others, then we really are not trusting, not believing in the forgiveness that God has already given us. If God has forgiven us of our offenses, then who are we to tell God that we want to carrying them around with us?
This believing in the love of God in a personal way leads us to the word we speak so freely, the word being “grace.” What is Grace? Without over simplifying it too much, it is “forgiveness of our sinful nature, by God.” Coming to believe in the love that God has toward us starts as we accept God’s forgiveness of our less than perfect lives, and the believing is demonstrated by our willingness to let go of that which we have been forgiven. “What are you looking for?” Jesus has responded with, “Come and you will see!” Amen
Victorious Living through Christ, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Victorious Living through Christ:
Preface to this series
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/09/2011
I would like to say at the onset of today’s message that we are going to start a series of messages dealing with our personal growth that comes through Jesus Christ. There are many avenues that one can take in an attempt to grow as a person – mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. But, I think that when we choose to take the path that deals with Christ at the starting point and leads to God as the ending point, we have taken the most complete path possible for total personal growth. For what goes on within us “spiritual” affects every other aspect of our lives. It affects our energy, which affects our willingness or ability to be physically active; it affects our mental abilities, which will guide how we process information, as well as our outlook and attitude toward various things, to name just a few examples.
I hold a strong conviction that we all need to grow within our lives. As we grow from infancy to maturity, we need to work intentionally on our psyche and spiritual maturity. Over the next number of weeks we are going to examine specific steps that can lead us to living a more holistic life; emotionally and spiritually, based on the “twelve step program.” You might be thinking, “I’m not an alcoholic, why would I need to use the twelve steps program?” First off, the “twelve step” program is a “spiritually” based program, this is the reason that so many people over the decades have found recovery from their addictions, and as a “spiritually based” program, we within the church can benefit by studying and working it.
Mainline Denominational churches over the past several decades have been losing not only numbers in membership, but more alarmingly, have found it harder and harder to create a vision of what it’s purpose should be. There is a correlation with the decrease in church attendance with that of the individual Christian not nurturing their personal Spiritual and emotional growth.
“I can do it Myself” part 1
Based on Matthew 3: 13-17 and Romans 7:7-25
Children are a great source of information that as adults, we can learn from, if we take the time to observe and then think upon the lessons that they so unselfishly offer to us. This is one reason why Jack Linkletter’s “Kid’s say the darn-dest things” was such a popular segment of his T.V. program. Children are so full of energy and physical activity; you can almost see them wiggling inside their own skin! More times than not, when a child decides that they want to do something, they just do it, not thinking through how that might affect the world around them. As a parent, this becomes the challenge of how do you let your child grow, experience the things that they wish to do, and yet keep them safe in the process and more importantly, not crush that natural will of “self?”
We don’t have a lot of information about Jesus when he was a child, so it is very difficult for us to know what he was like as a child. Was Jesus a typical boy, getting into fights, throwing stones at birds, playing soldier, those things that we tend to associate in general behavior of little boys; or was he more of the sensitive type, interested in reading, music, overly obedient and polite?
We do have one story that does give us just a little insight about Jesus as a child. It was when his family had gone to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and as they were journeying home, couldn’t find Jesus. In a panic they retraced their 3 days of journey back to Jerusalem and finally found Jesus sitting with the elders at the temple discussing theology. On the surface of the story, we tend to think highly toward the actions of Jesus, and less favorably about the reaction of his parents as they scolded him for not being with them. Yet, the story implies that Jesus is still under parental care of Joseph and Mary, and that Jesus didn’t tell his parents of his intensions, or possibly, he asked if he could stay and being told no, directly disobeyed. We don’t know what actually happened behind the scenes, but the fact is, Jesus’ actions, created a huge distress to his parents.
Paul gives us a clue as well into human nature when he writes as a confession, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do: No, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep doing.” We too often think of the disciples as well as the Apostle Paul and others that are mentioned within scripture as being “saints”, which generally translates into an image of a person who never did anything wrong. We know that isn’t true, but from a subliminal thought process, this often is the case. Of course we all know what the true definition of a saint is, “A person who we no longer have to put up with.”
The church has done this with Jesus. We read story after story with the lens of two thousand years of theology and we don’t always detect the “humanist” of Christ and that there were things he said and did that really are not consistent with Christian-Judeo Theology, making Jesus not human. Yet, Jesus himself understood the need to go through the ritual of being baptized, even to the protest of his cousin John. If Jesus was God, and never knew sin, then why would the king of kings need to go through baptism? The reason is, by going through baptism, you are surrendering yourself to a higher power, and this is why we look to baptism as a sacrament.
As Christians, we tend to think that once we have been baptized, especially if we do this as a teenager or an adult, that we will magically become Christ like and that we will not have struggles with those things that we perceive as “negative behavior” or feelings that we previously recognized as the reason to be baptized. Then comes the reality that we still have the old behavior, that old nature within us and we can become dis-allusioned about the saving grace that comes from God.
Again, if we look at the stories about Christ, we can gain insight that after Jesus was baptized, he was confronted with his demons, while he was out in the wilderness for forty days. He had to deal with those things within his grasp that could have turned his mission into self gain and not a greater good. We see time and time again, where Jesus went off into solitude, so he could reconnect with the power that was greater than his; to re-align himself with God.
Paul, who was the early churches most aggressive evangelist, points out in his letter to the Romans, that as Christians, we still fall short of what God desires for us, which is the reason why we need to be in constant prayer with God. The truth that comes from what Paul is sharing, is this, “We all struggle with sin issues – whether we are Christian or not. We all are plagued with not living in harmony with God’s desires for us. Paul asks, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks are to God … Through Jesus Christ our lord.”
Paul is telling us there is hope and there is a rescue from sin, it is Christ. What we, especially as Christians need to do, is to go back to our first love. Christ! To be able to do this, we first need to admit that we are truly powerless over sin in our life and that our spiritual lives are unmanageable. This is the starting point for us to become healed children of God and live what we call a victorious life.
The first step is confession. One of the acts that the Roman Catholic church encourages is going to the confessional each week. We as protestants tend to resist this action, out of a theology of what we call “Priesthood of believers”, which means that we as individuals can go to God directly and plead our case and not needing to go to a Priest to intercede for us before God. Yet, there is truly a healing value by using a third person in the act of confession.
In AA meetings, the very first step to recovery is to stand up before everyone and admit to all that you are an alcoholic. The success of this first step only comes by admitting this condition before another person. The sin issue that plagues our life is no different than that of a drug addition, healing and growth only starts with admitting that issue, not just between you and God, but by including another person. Many Christians use their pastor as this third person, but it doesn’t have to be; this person could be your best friend, a parent, even your hair dresser. The difference for the Christian is when doing this in prayer, admitting we are powerless over that thing which controls us, that is when Christ is able to enter in and start working in the healing that is promised to come to us, through the holy spirit. “Hi, everybody, my name is Steven and I’m a sinner.” Amen.
Preface to this series
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/09/2011
I would like to say at the onset of today’s message that we are going to start a series of messages dealing with our personal growth that comes through Jesus Christ. There are many avenues that one can take in an attempt to grow as a person – mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. But, I think that when we choose to take the path that deals with Christ at the starting point and leads to God as the ending point, we have taken the most complete path possible for total personal growth. For what goes on within us “spiritual” affects every other aspect of our lives. It affects our energy, which affects our willingness or ability to be physically active; it affects our mental abilities, which will guide how we process information, as well as our outlook and attitude toward various things, to name just a few examples.
I hold a strong conviction that we all need to grow within our lives. As we grow from infancy to maturity, we need to work intentionally on our psyche and spiritual maturity. Over the next number of weeks we are going to examine specific steps that can lead us to living a more holistic life; emotionally and spiritually, based on the “twelve step program.” You might be thinking, “I’m not an alcoholic, why would I need to use the twelve steps program?” First off, the “twelve step” program is a “spiritually” based program, this is the reason that so many people over the decades have found recovery from their addictions, and as a “spiritually based” program, we within the church can benefit by studying and working it.
Mainline Denominational churches over the past several decades have been losing not only numbers in membership, but more alarmingly, have found it harder and harder to create a vision of what it’s purpose should be. There is a correlation with the decrease in church attendance with that of the individual Christian not nurturing their personal Spiritual and emotional growth.
“I can do it Myself” part 1
Based on Matthew 3: 13-17 and Romans 7:7-25
Children are a great source of information that as adults, we can learn from, if we take the time to observe and then think upon the lessons that they so unselfishly offer to us. This is one reason why Jack Linkletter’s “Kid’s say the darn-dest things” was such a popular segment of his T.V. program. Children are so full of energy and physical activity; you can almost see them wiggling inside their own skin! More times than not, when a child decides that they want to do something, they just do it, not thinking through how that might affect the world around them. As a parent, this becomes the challenge of how do you let your child grow, experience the things that they wish to do, and yet keep them safe in the process and more importantly, not crush that natural will of “self?”
We don’t have a lot of information about Jesus when he was a child, so it is very difficult for us to know what he was like as a child. Was Jesus a typical boy, getting into fights, throwing stones at birds, playing soldier, those things that we tend to associate in general behavior of little boys; or was he more of the sensitive type, interested in reading, music, overly obedient and polite?
We do have one story that does give us just a little insight about Jesus as a child. It was when his family had gone to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and as they were journeying home, couldn’t find Jesus. In a panic they retraced their 3 days of journey back to Jerusalem and finally found Jesus sitting with the elders at the temple discussing theology. On the surface of the story, we tend to think highly toward the actions of Jesus, and less favorably about the reaction of his parents as they scolded him for not being with them. Yet, the story implies that Jesus is still under parental care of Joseph and Mary, and that Jesus didn’t tell his parents of his intensions, or possibly, he asked if he could stay and being told no, directly disobeyed. We don’t know what actually happened behind the scenes, but the fact is, Jesus’ actions, created a huge distress to his parents.
Paul gives us a clue as well into human nature when he writes as a confession, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do: No, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep doing.” We too often think of the disciples as well as the Apostle Paul and others that are mentioned within scripture as being “saints”, which generally translates into an image of a person who never did anything wrong. We know that isn’t true, but from a subliminal thought process, this often is the case. Of course we all know what the true definition of a saint is, “A person who we no longer have to put up with.”
The church has done this with Jesus. We read story after story with the lens of two thousand years of theology and we don’t always detect the “humanist” of Christ and that there were things he said and did that really are not consistent with Christian-Judeo Theology, making Jesus not human. Yet, Jesus himself understood the need to go through the ritual of being baptized, even to the protest of his cousin John. If Jesus was God, and never knew sin, then why would the king of kings need to go through baptism? The reason is, by going through baptism, you are surrendering yourself to a higher power, and this is why we look to baptism as a sacrament.
As Christians, we tend to think that once we have been baptized, especially if we do this as a teenager or an adult, that we will magically become Christ like and that we will not have struggles with those things that we perceive as “negative behavior” or feelings that we previously recognized as the reason to be baptized. Then comes the reality that we still have the old behavior, that old nature within us and we can become dis-allusioned about the saving grace that comes from God.
Again, if we look at the stories about Christ, we can gain insight that after Jesus was baptized, he was confronted with his demons, while he was out in the wilderness for forty days. He had to deal with those things within his grasp that could have turned his mission into self gain and not a greater good. We see time and time again, where Jesus went off into solitude, so he could reconnect with the power that was greater than his; to re-align himself with God.
Paul, who was the early churches most aggressive evangelist, points out in his letter to the Romans, that as Christians, we still fall short of what God desires for us, which is the reason why we need to be in constant prayer with God. The truth that comes from what Paul is sharing, is this, “We all struggle with sin issues – whether we are Christian or not. We all are plagued with not living in harmony with God’s desires for us. Paul asks, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks are to God … Through Jesus Christ our lord.”
Paul is telling us there is hope and there is a rescue from sin, it is Christ. What we, especially as Christians need to do, is to go back to our first love. Christ! To be able to do this, we first need to admit that we are truly powerless over sin in our life and that our spiritual lives are unmanageable. This is the starting point for us to become healed children of God and live what we call a victorious life.
The first step is confession. One of the acts that the Roman Catholic church encourages is going to the confessional each week. We as protestants tend to resist this action, out of a theology of what we call “Priesthood of believers”, which means that we as individuals can go to God directly and plead our case and not needing to go to a Priest to intercede for us before God. Yet, there is truly a healing value by using a third person in the act of confession.
In AA meetings, the very first step to recovery is to stand up before everyone and admit to all that you are an alcoholic. The success of this first step only comes by admitting this condition before another person. The sin issue that plagues our life is no different than that of a drug addition, healing and growth only starts with admitting that issue, not just between you and God, but by including another person. Many Christians use their pastor as this third person, but it doesn’t have to be; this person could be your best friend, a parent, even your hair dresser. The difference for the Christian is when doing this in prayer, admitting we are powerless over that thing which controls us, that is when Christ is able to enter in and start working in the healing that is promised to come to us, through the holy spirit. “Hi, everybody, my name is Steven and I’m a sinner.” Amen.
Monday, January 3, 2011
The Word With Us, Frist Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY Jan 2,2011
The Word with Us!
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/02/2011
Based on John 1:1-18 & Ephesians 3:1-12
This morning’s Gospel reading happens to be one of the traditional nine lessons that are read at any “Lessons and Carols” candle light service. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Out of the four Gospels only two, Matthew and Luke give a birth narrative; of Joseph and Mary being told that they were to become a part of the greatest event this world has ever known, the birth of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark forgoes the birth story and start’s with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The Gospel of John actually starts not with the story of Jesus once he was born or start of his ministry, but actually goes to the beginning of time and talks about the existence of Christ prior to his appearance here in this world.
There is a childhood saying that we all grow up learning, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me!” Of course, we parrot this as a kind of shield, hoping to stop “those words” before they are spoken. Words are in fact very powerful. They have the ability to build up or to destroy, whether they were intended to do so or not. Every child that is born, is born with unlimited potential. This potential is either encouraged and re-enforced or crushed and restricted by the words that are spoken each day to that child.
John shares with us in the opening lines of his Gospel, that the word is truly powerful. The word is an instrument of God, the word in and of itself has no power to do anything until it is spoken. It is in the “speaking” of the word, that God does any creating. John does this interplay with Christ, God, and the Word. All three seem to be a part of each other, yet nothing happens until the Word is spoken. “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”
So, John establishes that Christ is a part of God and was present in the beginning just as God was present. It is then through the word of God, that of God speaking that brings “life”, and that life ultimately becomes the “light” of all people. Now John throws a new twist into the story by saying, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh (meaning sexual intercourse) or of the will of humanity, but of God.” It is within this statement that we then find our own reality within the working of God.
What I understand this passage to say to me is this: when we allow God to be born in our heart, we to begin a journey in our life as a part of God incarnate. This is consistent with the teaching of Jesus when he consistently refers to God not only as his Father but also as our Father, or through the parable where he speaks about how the head of the house doesn’t confide with the servant, but rather with other members of the household, and there are the reference where Jesus calls us as his brothers and sisters. It is within the “Word” that we too become the “light” to all people. The “Word” was active through Christ and the “Word” is now active through us! “The Word, then, isn’t an intellectualized, conceptual God but an enfleshed, living, breathing God who shares our sorrows and joys, our sufferings and struggles and hope.”UCC sermon seed 1/02/2011
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he states that he is a prisoner of Christ. This is a significant statement to those who first heard these words, as Paul was stating, even though he was in jail, he wasn’t held captive by Rome, but rather his heart was being held captive by the words, the teachings, by the resurrection of Christ. Paul also states that his ministry is because of this “light”; this mystery of God goes beyond the original understanding that God was god of only the Hebrews, but rather, this “light” is for the gentile world as well.
The reason for Paul constantly landing into prison was because of his devotion, his commitment to God. Do we carry within our hearts this same sense of “imprisonment” as Paul did? What does this ultimately mean to us, this being imprisoned by the Word of God? It means that, “Submission to God’s gift of light carries the obligation to accept and proclaim the inclusion of all people” William Self, Feasting on the word, pg 211
I am always talking about the importance of “the mission of the church”, about the need to have a vision of what this mission is, for without it, then the church will eventually wither and die. “When the church catches the vision and commitment about being a “prisoner” of Christ, its mission is defined, and all that is done is measured by this. This revealed truth is held in stewardship William Self, Feasting on the word, pg 211 What we have: money, charity, grace and mercy, is then in abundance and not seen as something to monopolize and withhold and dispense sparingly.
This means that we will not be able to turn our backs upon “social justice” and “peace” issues. Over the years my focus and involvement on social justice issues has changed widely. Back in Kittitas, I served more on local boards that dealt with issues that directly affected the local population. While living in Seattle, my attention and energies seemed to focus more in public relation type organizations that would address issues that were focused on the GLBT community. Since I have been here in Rock Springs, I see my efforts working at state levels as well as local. This coming Saturday, Jan 8th, a workshop on “The Churches response to Immigration”, will take place in Cheyenne.
Immigration is a core value to us all. As individual’s, we will approach the topic with either a fear based perspective coming from scarcity and monopoly, or we will approach it from an understanding of abundance and sharing, which comes out of an understanding of God’s abundance of grace and giving to us.
I find for myself much in the same state of mind as the Apostle Paul, of being a prisoner to God and of Christ’s teachings. I cannot come to the communion table this morning and not recognize the abundance of which God gives daily in my life. My ability to be sustained in my ministry, whether it was as a lay person or through my vocation, comes because of the vision that I have, my personal mission of what God’s Word is; it is through my submission (this being imprisoned) to God’s gift of light that obligates me to share on many differing levels with all of God’s children.
As we come before God this morning at his table of abundant love and grace, I challenge you to examine your hearts and see where you stand with God. Is God, just an intellectual concept, something that is “outside” of where you live, or is God a spoken word within you, one that is enfleshed, living, and breathing, who shares your sorrows and joys, your sufferings and struggles and hope.
I have shared with many of you about the change in spirit, in this room, that I have felt within the first few months of my coming. It wasn’t long after that, we reached what I call critical mass, which gave us a sense that things were turning around as a congregation. What I am speaking about today, that of allowing “the Word of God” to be spoken within your hearts, will be another turning point for this church. As more people start to experience this depth of imprisonment that Paul speaks about, then this church will begin to capture its own vision of mission, and there will be a new song being sung in the life of this churches life! Amen
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/02/2011
Based on John 1:1-18 & Ephesians 3:1-12
This morning’s Gospel reading happens to be one of the traditional nine lessons that are read at any “Lessons and Carols” candle light service. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Out of the four Gospels only two, Matthew and Luke give a birth narrative; of Joseph and Mary being told that they were to become a part of the greatest event this world has ever known, the birth of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark forgoes the birth story and start’s with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The Gospel of John actually starts not with the story of Jesus once he was born or start of his ministry, but actually goes to the beginning of time and talks about the existence of Christ prior to his appearance here in this world.
There is a childhood saying that we all grow up learning, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me!” Of course, we parrot this as a kind of shield, hoping to stop “those words” before they are spoken. Words are in fact very powerful. They have the ability to build up or to destroy, whether they were intended to do so or not. Every child that is born, is born with unlimited potential. This potential is either encouraged and re-enforced or crushed and restricted by the words that are spoken each day to that child.
John shares with us in the opening lines of his Gospel, that the word is truly powerful. The word is an instrument of God, the word in and of itself has no power to do anything until it is spoken. It is in the “speaking” of the word, that God does any creating. John does this interplay with Christ, God, and the Word. All three seem to be a part of each other, yet nothing happens until the Word is spoken. “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”
So, John establishes that Christ is a part of God and was present in the beginning just as God was present. It is then through the word of God, that of God speaking that brings “life”, and that life ultimately becomes the “light” of all people. Now John throws a new twist into the story by saying, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh (meaning sexual intercourse) or of the will of humanity, but of God.” It is within this statement that we then find our own reality within the working of God.
What I understand this passage to say to me is this: when we allow God to be born in our heart, we to begin a journey in our life as a part of God incarnate. This is consistent with the teaching of Jesus when he consistently refers to God not only as his Father but also as our Father, or through the parable where he speaks about how the head of the house doesn’t confide with the servant, but rather with other members of the household, and there are the reference where Jesus calls us as his brothers and sisters. It is within the “Word” that we too become the “light” to all people. The “Word” was active through Christ and the “Word” is now active through us! “The Word, then, isn’t an intellectualized, conceptual God but an enfleshed, living, breathing God who shares our sorrows and joys, our sufferings and struggles and hope.”UCC sermon seed 1/02/2011
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he states that he is a prisoner of Christ. This is a significant statement to those who first heard these words, as Paul was stating, even though he was in jail, he wasn’t held captive by Rome, but rather his heart was being held captive by the words, the teachings, by the resurrection of Christ. Paul also states that his ministry is because of this “light”; this mystery of God goes beyond the original understanding that God was god of only the Hebrews, but rather, this “light” is for the gentile world as well.
The reason for Paul constantly landing into prison was because of his devotion, his commitment to God. Do we carry within our hearts this same sense of “imprisonment” as Paul did? What does this ultimately mean to us, this being imprisoned by the Word of God? It means that, “Submission to God’s gift of light carries the obligation to accept and proclaim the inclusion of all people” William Self, Feasting on the word, pg 211
I am always talking about the importance of “the mission of the church”, about the need to have a vision of what this mission is, for without it, then the church will eventually wither and die. “When the church catches the vision and commitment about being a “prisoner” of Christ, its mission is defined, and all that is done is measured by this. This revealed truth is held in stewardship William Self, Feasting on the word, pg 211 What we have: money, charity, grace and mercy, is then in abundance and not seen as something to monopolize and withhold and dispense sparingly.
This means that we will not be able to turn our backs upon “social justice” and “peace” issues. Over the years my focus and involvement on social justice issues has changed widely. Back in Kittitas, I served more on local boards that dealt with issues that directly affected the local population. While living in Seattle, my attention and energies seemed to focus more in public relation type organizations that would address issues that were focused on the GLBT community. Since I have been here in Rock Springs, I see my efforts working at state levels as well as local. This coming Saturday, Jan 8th, a workshop on “The Churches response to Immigration”, will take place in Cheyenne.
Immigration is a core value to us all. As individual’s, we will approach the topic with either a fear based perspective coming from scarcity and monopoly, or we will approach it from an understanding of abundance and sharing, which comes out of an understanding of God’s abundance of grace and giving to us.
I find for myself much in the same state of mind as the Apostle Paul, of being a prisoner to God and of Christ’s teachings. I cannot come to the communion table this morning and not recognize the abundance of which God gives daily in my life. My ability to be sustained in my ministry, whether it was as a lay person or through my vocation, comes because of the vision that I have, my personal mission of what God’s Word is; it is through my submission (this being imprisoned) to God’s gift of light that obligates me to share on many differing levels with all of God’s children.
As we come before God this morning at his table of abundant love and grace, I challenge you to examine your hearts and see where you stand with God. Is God, just an intellectual concept, something that is “outside” of where you live, or is God a spoken word within you, one that is enfleshed, living, and breathing, who shares your sorrows and joys, your sufferings and struggles and hope.
I have shared with many of you about the change in spirit, in this room, that I have felt within the first few months of my coming. It wasn’t long after that, we reached what I call critical mass, which gave us a sense that things were turning around as a congregation. What I am speaking about today, that of allowing “the Word of God” to be spoken within your hearts, will be another turning point for this church. As more people start to experience this depth of imprisonment that Paul speaks about, then this church will begin to capture its own vision of mission, and there will be a new song being sung in the life of this churches life! Amen
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Trouble with Christ, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/26/2010
The Trouble with Christ
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/26/2010
Based on Matthew 2:1-12
When you stop to think about the four differing seasons that we live our lives by, Christmas has to be one of the most amazing times of our year! It comes in the dead of winter. In many parts of the world, the temperatures are below freezing and snow often accompanies these low temperatures. Just a few days ago, the shortest day of the year occurred. When you look out the window, it can easily become depressing, knowing that you might be getting up in the dark, going to work in the dark and at the end of the day, coming home in the dark.
This particular year, the snow that fell this last week, was a wet snow, and if that isn’t enough, the following day, we had freezing rain, making driving on certain streets rather dangerous. There have been multiple times this past week that I was very thankful that the signal lights at many of the intersections that I found myself starting to slide through, when trying to brake, changed to green giving me the right of way, helping reduce the chances of my meeting another car in a rather unpleasant manor.
Yet, with all this bleak winter weather, there is in general an excitement that comes as well. We many times tend to bemoan this time of the year along with our heightened sense of expectation. The majority of us tend to feel that this particular time of the year focuses too much on consumerism. For those of us who are at least a thousand years old, remember when stores didn’t display their Christmas merchandise, and decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. These days, it isn’t uncommon to see Christmas displays being put up before the arrival of Halloween.
Now we celebrate the day after Thanksgiving by paying homage to a thing called, “Black Friday” and for those of us who are not into the huge crowds at Herberger’s and Wal-Mart, there is a growing tend to go on-line and do our Christmas shopping on the following Monday, allowing us to have those same savings but not the stress of fighting over merchandise in a crowded store. It is true, for many Americans, Christmas has become a very stressful holiday, with expectations that seem to go beyond the limits of sanity. There is a culture that has developed, especially for people who have no exposure to a church that understands Christmas solely as a time of the year where consumerism runs out of control.
The flip side to the out-of-control commercialism that plagues us during this time of the year, is that of time intentionally set aside to be with family and friends. About 10 days ago, Paul and I made a fast trip to Western Kansas in order to spend a couple of days with two daughters, five of my grandchildren and my mother. As a bonus, my sister and her partner drove across the state to join us for our last night in Garden City,KS. Even though the trip was long and the time spent visiting was too short, I had a sense of satisfaction of being able to physically connect with part of my family.
Once we arrived home, to Rock Springs, the marathon of Christmas week started with the Christmas Pageant that the children presented last Sunday. Then two nights ago, we gathered for a candle light service on Christmas Eve, where as extended families, we listened to familiar scriptures speaking about Jesus’ birth, and sang carols that herald that event some two thousand years ago; afterward, going home or to someone else’s home to continue celebrating familiar family traditions. Yesterday, being Christmas, was again filled with continued celebration.
And here we are today, the day after Christmas, with all the presents unwrapped, looking forward to eating leftovers, and having homes that are once again quiet as friends and family have left to return to their own homes. What a letdown. After all the anticipation of the last four weeks of Advent, buying and wrapping gifts, baking and cooking; all the planning for what has happened over the last couple of days, we are left with nothing to look forward to. That can be truly depressing.
Do you know what would have been more depressing? If I had followed the lectionary which talks about the disaster that happened to many people in Bethlehem, after Herod discovered that the “new king” of the Jews had been born. So I thought I would just touch a little bit on the alternative lection text, which we will revisit more fully in two weeks.
Today we listened to the story of three amigos who traveled from their home land after seeing a star in the heavens, which to them symbolized a sign of someone great coming into this world. When they neared Jerusalem, the star had stopped shining, so they began inquiring around the city hoping to find where this new king was at. I suspect they assumed that Herod had become a new father or possibly a grandfather of this new king. Yet, they discovered that their quest for this new king wasn’t over yet. They then are asked by Herod to go on and find this new king of the Jews so he too could go pay homage to. Scripture says that after they left Herod, the star once again appeared to them and leads them into Bethlehem, where they finally found Mary and baby Jesus.
What I would like to point out are three aspects of this text. The first aspect is the star and what does it signify. Without getting caught up in what might have caused this light that guided these men to Jesus, I think the importance of this star is to look at what its function was about. The star is a vehicle in which Christ is revealed. It was a signal to these men that we now call the “Wise men”, that something important had taken place. It was through their observing eyes that they were directed to where Jesus was living. Once they had discovered the location of Jesus, the star disappeared, never to be seen by them again.
I think (metaphorically speaking) each one of us has the opportunity to see this same star that the wise men saw. All we have to do is be open to seeing it. In the same respect, we can be like Herod and totally miss the star that can lead us to Christ. This star comes differently to each one of us. It will come to us in the form that will speak most intimately to us. For me this star came while I was thirty thousand feet above the earth, flying back from a conference I had attended in New Jersey. It came at a critical point in my faith development. I think the only reason why I was open to seeing that star, was because I was searching for some truth in my life.
The next piece of this story that I would like to touch upon, comes with the differing behaviors between the wise men and that of Herod. The wise men, were guys who were looking at life beyond themselves, which allowed them to recognize the star. Once they found Jesus, the very first thing they did upon entering the house, was to bow down before Jesus and paid homage to him.
Herod on the other hand, was not searching the heavens thereby missing the signaling of the birth of Christ. This is a very poetic way of saying that Herod was so full of himself that he didn’t have the desire to know what was going on beyond his own life. When he discovered that a new king of the Jews had been born, he became fearful of losing what he possessed. This can be each of us. If we think of our “egos” as Herod, we often do not wish to give something or someone else first position within our life, but would rather keep control of what we think we possess. Instead of us humbling ourselves, this letting go of our own personal interests, and allowing God’s spirit to enter into our hearts, we truly act out the same way as Herod did. We try to destroy that which we perceive to be more powerful than we.
So the day after Christmas can be either a letdown for us in a spiritual sense or it can be the beginning of a journey. We can recognize the star that comes to us in the night as either promise of hope, joy, and peace, or we can see this star as a threat. If we celebrate Christmas with the spirit of consumerism, then today is truly anticlimactic. If however we celebrate Christmas as not being a “season”, but rather as part of a life style, then we are at the threshold of a great adventure. Amen.
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/26/2010
Based on Matthew 2:1-12
When you stop to think about the four differing seasons that we live our lives by, Christmas has to be one of the most amazing times of our year! It comes in the dead of winter. In many parts of the world, the temperatures are below freezing and snow often accompanies these low temperatures. Just a few days ago, the shortest day of the year occurred. When you look out the window, it can easily become depressing, knowing that you might be getting up in the dark, going to work in the dark and at the end of the day, coming home in the dark.
This particular year, the snow that fell this last week, was a wet snow, and if that isn’t enough, the following day, we had freezing rain, making driving on certain streets rather dangerous. There have been multiple times this past week that I was very thankful that the signal lights at many of the intersections that I found myself starting to slide through, when trying to brake, changed to green giving me the right of way, helping reduce the chances of my meeting another car in a rather unpleasant manor.
Yet, with all this bleak winter weather, there is in general an excitement that comes as well. We many times tend to bemoan this time of the year along with our heightened sense of expectation. The majority of us tend to feel that this particular time of the year focuses too much on consumerism. For those of us who are at least a thousand years old, remember when stores didn’t display their Christmas merchandise, and decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. These days, it isn’t uncommon to see Christmas displays being put up before the arrival of Halloween.
Now we celebrate the day after Thanksgiving by paying homage to a thing called, “Black Friday” and for those of us who are not into the huge crowds at Herberger’s and Wal-Mart, there is a growing tend to go on-line and do our Christmas shopping on the following Monday, allowing us to have those same savings but not the stress of fighting over merchandise in a crowded store. It is true, for many Americans, Christmas has become a very stressful holiday, with expectations that seem to go beyond the limits of sanity. There is a culture that has developed, especially for people who have no exposure to a church that understands Christmas solely as a time of the year where consumerism runs out of control.
The flip side to the out-of-control commercialism that plagues us during this time of the year, is that of time intentionally set aside to be with family and friends. About 10 days ago, Paul and I made a fast trip to Western Kansas in order to spend a couple of days with two daughters, five of my grandchildren and my mother. As a bonus, my sister and her partner drove across the state to join us for our last night in Garden City,KS. Even though the trip was long and the time spent visiting was too short, I had a sense of satisfaction of being able to physically connect with part of my family.
Once we arrived home, to Rock Springs, the marathon of Christmas week started with the Christmas Pageant that the children presented last Sunday. Then two nights ago, we gathered for a candle light service on Christmas Eve, where as extended families, we listened to familiar scriptures speaking about Jesus’ birth, and sang carols that herald that event some two thousand years ago; afterward, going home or to someone else’s home to continue celebrating familiar family traditions. Yesterday, being Christmas, was again filled with continued celebration.
And here we are today, the day after Christmas, with all the presents unwrapped, looking forward to eating leftovers, and having homes that are once again quiet as friends and family have left to return to their own homes. What a letdown. After all the anticipation of the last four weeks of Advent, buying and wrapping gifts, baking and cooking; all the planning for what has happened over the last couple of days, we are left with nothing to look forward to. That can be truly depressing.
Do you know what would have been more depressing? If I had followed the lectionary which talks about the disaster that happened to many people in Bethlehem, after Herod discovered that the “new king” of the Jews had been born. So I thought I would just touch a little bit on the alternative lection text, which we will revisit more fully in two weeks.
Today we listened to the story of three amigos who traveled from their home land after seeing a star in the heavens, which to them symbolized a sign of someone great coming into this world. When they neared Jerusalem, the star had stopped shining, so they began inquiring around the city hoping to find where this new king was at. I suspect they assumed that Herod had become a new father or possibly a grandfather of this new king. Yet, they discovered that their quest for this new king wasn’t over yet. They then are asked by Herod to go on and find this new king of the Jews so he too could go pay homage to. Scripture says that after they left Herod, the star once again appeared to them and leads them into Bethlehem, where they finally found Mary and baby Jesus.
What I would like to point out are three aspects of this text. The first aspect is the star and what does it signify. Without getting caught up in what might have caused this light that guided these men to Jesus, I think the importance of this star is to look at what its function was about. The star is a vehicle in which Christ is revealed. It was a signal to these men that we now call the “Wise men”, that something important had taken place. It was through their observing eyes that they were directed to where Jesus was living. Once they had discovered the location of Jesus, the star disappeared, never to be seen by them again.
I think (metaphorically speaking) each one of us has the opportunity to see this same star that the wise men saw. All we have to do is be open to seeing it. In the same respect, we can be like Herod and totally miss the star that can lead us to Christ. This star comes differently to each one of us. It will come to us in the form that will speak most intimately to us. For me this star came while I was thirty thousand feet above the earth, flying back from a conference I had attended in New Jersey. It came at a critical point in my faith development. I think the only reason why I was open to seeing that star, was because I was searching for some truth in my life.
The next piece of this story that I would like to touch upon, comes with the differing behaviors between the wise men and that of Herod. The wise men, were guys who were looking at life beyond themselves, which allowed them to recognize the star. Once they found Jesus, the very first thing they did upon entering the house, was to bow down before Jesus and paid homage to him.
Herod on the other hand, was not searching the heavens thereby missing the signaling of the birth of Christ. This is a very poetic way of saying that Herod was so full of himself that he didn’t have the desire to know what was going on beyond his own life. When he discovered that a new king of the Jews had been born, he became fearful of losing what he possessed. This can be each of us. If we think of our “egos” as Herod, we often do not wish to give something or someone else first position within our life, but would rather keep control of what we think we possess. Instead of us humbling ourselves, this letting go of our own personal interests, and allowing God’s spirit to enter into our hearts, we truly act out the same way as Herod did. We try to destroy that which we perceive to be more powerful than we.
So the day after Christmas can be either a letdown for us in a spiritual sense or it can be the beginning of a journey. We can recognize the star that comes to us in the night as either promise of hope, joy, and peace, or we can see this star as a threat. If we celebrate Christmas with the spirit of consumerism, then today is truly anticlimactic. If however we celebrate Christmas as not being a “season”, but rather as part of a life style, then we are at the threshold of a great adventure. Amen.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Do You See What I See?, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY. 12/12/2010
Do You See What I See?
By Rev. Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/12/2010
Based on Matthew 11:2-11
I would like to start this morning’s reflective thought by having you join in with me in singing just a couple of verses of the very simple Christmas song, “Do You Hear What I Hear.” I will start the song and I would like you to sing the echoes or responses to the question that the song asks. For example when I sing “Do you see what I see”, you in turn sing back the echo, “Do you hear what I hear.” Of course you are invited to sing the rest of the verse with me, if you wish to.
Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see (Do you see what I see?)
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see (Do you see what I see?)
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite
Said the little lamb to the Sheppard boy
Do you hear what I hear (Do you hear what I hear?)
Ringing through the sky Sheppard boy
Do you hear what I hear (Do you hear what I hear?)
A song, a song
High above the tree
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea
Do You Hear What I Hear?" was written in October 1962 with lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne Baker, as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[ Regney was inspired to write the lyrics "Said the night wind to the little lamb, 'Do you see what I see?' “and "Pray for peace, people everywhere," after watching babies being pushed in strollers on the sidewalks of New York City.[1] Baker stated in an interview years later that neither could personally perform the entire song at the time they wrote it because of the emotions surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis.[1] "Our little song broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time." [1] Wikipedia
The season of Advent is not only a time of expectancy, where we are in waiting for the time of the coming of the Messiah, but it is also involves a sense of “awareness”. An awareness of what “is”, or another way to say it is, “being in the present!” John the Baptizer was a man who was looking for the coming of the Messiah. He was aware that he was a person called to “prepare the way” for the coming king. John had the awareness that God was sending this king soon; in fact, the king was already alive on earth, waiting for the appointed time to make his appearance and begin his reign. John was aware of this from the time he was in his mother’s womb, as Luke tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel, that when Mary (then three months pregnant) entered into the house of her cousin Elizabeth (who was six months pregnant), the fetus, John, leaped with joy sensing the presence of Christ in the room.
John was such a man of God, seeing his role in life to preach the news that God would soon be on the scene. Living in the dessert, he delivered a message of repentance (what we might call today: hell, fire, and damned nation style of preaching) and baptized those who believed in John’s warnings of the pending vengeance of the Lord. For John, understood God’s coming to set up his kingdom, as involving the killing of the unjust and wicked and allowing only the repentant in God to live within this earthly kingdom. It was a ridding of illegitimate political powers such as Roman, who was oppressive and curial to Israel. John recognized Jesus as this person sent of God, to be the chosen instrument at the time of Jesus’ baptism.
John, even though he was a very popular prophet among the people, was not so popular with the ruling class. In fact, he had been thrown into jail for accusing Herod the Tetrarch of an adulterous marriage with his brother’s wife, Herodias. While in jail, John hears about the work that Jesus is doing, but is confused by the reports about Jesus. It seems that Jesus wasn’t quite living up to John’s expectations as to what the Son of God was supposed to be doing.
This is where we pick up in this morning’s lection reading. John is so confused, being so sure that Jesus was the Messiah that he’d been preparing the way for, yet Jesus wasn’t doing the things that John had thought God should be doing, so he send’s two of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Is he the one, or does John still need to be looking for the ‘chosen’ one of God?”
In the early church, there was an anticipation of the return of Christ, to come and set up his earthly kingdom. A part of this vision of God’s return is similar to that of John the Baptizer. When Christ returns to this earth, it is God who will have the last say in all of the evil that humanity has been doing. In the book of Revelation, it is stated that Christ will come back in battle armor, with a sword that will kill all who deny the “goodness” of God. There is this sense of “vindication” that will come with the second coming of Christ. There are many today, who hold this same view of the return of Christ, that God will get His day, so to speak.
When I was growing up, and my brother, sister, and I seemed to be doing things that either were in direct disobedience to our mothers will, or whether we were just so unruly that she had had enough, in desperation would cry out to us, “You kids just wait until your father gets home! He’ll take care of you.” The message being, once dad got home, we three would receive our deserved punishment, the retribution that would be well deserved. Now I don’t know if what we received once dad did get home was “true” justice for what we had been doing to provoke such a pronouncement of doom by our mother, but what I do know is, in her mind, she was being wronged and that she would be “justified” and more importantly, she would be “vindicated” when dad got home.
I think this is what many Christians are truly holding in their hearts, when they are looking to a second coming of Christ, as a warrior! They are looking for some sort of vindication for all of the “injustices” that they feel have been perpetrated toward them. “You just wait, Mr. Hitler, you’ll get yours when Christ comes back!” “You just wait, those communist countries, they will get a new understanding of what’s what, once Jesus, comes back and teaches them a lesson about what real human rights are about!” What we are saying in those types of words and thoughts, is that we want to have our idea’s of justice “vindicated”, our sense of honor to be restored. It is truly, “an eye for an eye” mentality.
When John’s disciples went to Jesus and asked him if he was the Messiah, so that they could go back and tell John, “yes, Jesus is the one he had been waiting for”, or “no, he isn’t the one.” John was in need of having his perception of what God on earth was supposed to be like justified. He was in need of knowing that his actions as a prophet were going to be vindicated and that being thrown into jail for pointing out wrong was really worth it all. Don’t we all get that feeling at times, this need to be vindicated for the wrongs that we have endured? And of course the greatest vindication of our lives comes by God’s hand.
Yet Jesus gave John’s disciples this answer: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ‘Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves most blessed!’" I am sure that this is not what John wanted to hear. John was being challenged to re-evaluate his expectations of what God was going to do here on earth.
As I think about all of the various ideas of the seconded coming of Christ, I have to look at what we are being told by Matthew, in this particular explanation of what Jesus is about. If Jesus was saying that God’s Kingdom has already come, and then shows by action that the kingdom is being formed through his ministry of healing, restoration, and of reconciliation, then why would I expect Jesus to so radically change in his second coming?
Why would I believe that Christ is going to come back to earth with a sword in hand and legions of angels to do battle against evil, when Christ did none of this during his first time on earth? I think Christians who see a Christ as a warrior, ready to do battle, are people looking to be vindicated, just like what my mother was looking for, when “dad” got home.
What if Christ’s second coming is through the actions of the church? What if God’s kin-dom is being build, each time we take on the system of greed and self-interest that we humans too often place upon one another? I would suggest that Christ’s kin-dom comes through our stopping exclusionary behavior, whether it be in sexual orientation, mental illness or other physical handicaps, or through physical territorial boundaries, those we call aliens to our culture? I suggest that when we learn to honor and respect other’s for whom they are, this is the way in which Christ is re-entering into our world.
Christ is most definitely coming again, but is it in the way in which we think? Are we like John the baptizer, looking for one type of God, who will vindicate our actions and our perceptions, not realizing that God’s way of vindication isn’t through violence, but through reconciliation?
“Said the Sheppard boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace people everywhere
Listen to what I say
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light”
Do you see what I see? Amen
By Rev. Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/12/2010
Based on Matthew 11:2-11
I would like to start this morning’s reflective thought by having you join in with me in singing just a couple of verses of the very simple Christmas song, “Do You Hear What I Hear.” I will start the song and I would like you to sing the echoes or responses to the question that the song asks. For example when I sing “Do you see what I see”, you in turn sing back the echo, “Do you hear what I hear.” Of course you are invited to sing the rest of the verse with me, if you wish to.
Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see (Do you see what I see?)
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see (Do you see what I see?)
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite
Said the little lamb to the Sheppard boy
Do you hear what I hear (Do you hear what I hear?)
Ringing through the sky Sheppard boy
Do you hear what I hear (Do you hear what I hear?)
A song, a song
High above the tree
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea
Do You Hear What I Hear?" was written in October 1962 with lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne Baker, as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[ Regney was inspired to write the lyrics "Said the night wind to the little lamb, 'Do you see what I see?' “and "Pray for peace, people everywhere," after watching babies being pushed in strollers on the sidewalks of New York City.[1] Baker stated in an interview years later that neither could personally perform the entire song at the time they wrote it because of the emotions surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis.[1] "Our little song broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time." [1] Wikipedia
The season of Advent is not only a time of expectancy, where we are in waiting for the time of the coming of the Messiah, but it is also involves a sense of “awareness”. An awareness of what “is”, or another way to say it is, “being in the present!” John the Baptizer was a man who was looking for the coming of the Messiah. He was aware that he was a person called to “prepare the way” for the coming king. John had the awareness that God was sending this king soon; in fact, the king was already alive on earth, waiting for the appointed time to make his appearance and begin his reign. John was aware of this from the time he was in his mother’s womb, as Luke tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel, that when Mary (then three months pregnant) entered into the house of her cousin Elizabeth (who was six months pregnant), the fetus, John, leaped with joy sensing the presence of Christ in the room.
John was such a man of God, seeing his role in life to preach the news that God would soon be on the scene. Living in the dessert, he delivered a message of repentance (what we might call today: hell, fire, and damned nation style of preaching) and baptized those who believed in John’s warnings of the pending vengeance of the Lord. For John, understood God’s coming to set up his kingdom, as involving the killing of the unjust and wicked and allowing only the repentant in God to live within this earthly kingdom. It was a ridding of illegitimate political powers such as Roman, who was oppressive and curial to Israel. John recognized Jesus as this person sent of God, to be the chosen instrument at the time of Jesus’ baptism.
John, even though he was a very popular prophet among the people, was not so popular with the ruling class. In fact, he had been thrown into jail for accusing Herod the Tetrarch of an adulterous marriage with his brother’s wife, Herodias. While in jail, John hears about the work that Jesus is doing, but is confused by the reports about Jesus. It seems that Jesus wasn’t quite living up to John’s expectations as to what the Son of God was supposed to be doing.
This is where we pick up in this morning’s lection reading. John is so confused, being so sure that Jesus was the Messiah that he’d been preparing the way for, yet Jesus wasn’t doing the things that John had thought God should be doing, so he send’s two of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Is he the one, or does John still need to be looking for the ‘chosen’ one of God?”
In the early church, there was an anticipation of the return of Christ, to come and set up his earthly kingdom. A part of this vision of God’s return is similar to that of John the Baptizer. When Christ returns to this earth, it is God who will have the last say in all of the evil that humanity has been doing. In the book of Revelation, it is stated that Christ will come back in battle armor, with a sword that will kill all who deny the “goodness” of God. There is this sense of “vindication” that will come with the second coming of Christ. There are many today, who hold this same view of the return of Christ, that God will get His day, so to speak.
When I was growing up, and my brother, sister, and I seemed to be doing things that either were in direct disobedience to our mothers will, or whether we were just so unruly that she had had enough, in desperation would cry out to us, “You kids just wait until your father gets home! He’ll take care of you.” The message being, once dad got home, we three would receive our deserved punishment, the retribution that would be well deserved. Now I don’t know if what we received once dad did get home was “true” justice for what we had been doing to provoke such a pronouncement of doom by our mother, but what I do know is, in her mind, she was being wronged and that she would be “justified” and more importantly, she would be “vindicated” when dad got home.
I think this is what many Christians are truly holding in their hearts, when they are looking to a second coming of Christ, as a warrior! They are looking for some sort of vindication for all of the “injustices” that they feel have been perpetrated toward them. “You just wait, Mr. Hitler, you’ll get yours when Christ comes back!” “You just wait, those communist countries, they will get a new understanding of what’s what, once Jesus, comes back and teaches them a lesson about what real human rights are about!” What we are saying in those types of words and thoughts, is that we want to have our idea’s of justice “vindicated”, our sense of honor to be restored. It is truly, “an eye for an eye” mentality.
When John’s disciples went to Jesus and asked him if he was the Messiah, so that they could go back and tell John, “yes, Jesus is the one he had been waiting for”, or “no, he isn’t the one.” John was in need of having his perception of what God on earth was supposed to be like justified. He was in need of knowing that his actions as a prophet were going to be vindicated and that being thrown into jail for pointing out wrong was really worth it all. Don’t we all get that feeling at times, this need to be vindicated for the wrongs that we have endured? And of course the greatest vindication of our lives comes by God’s hand.
Yet Jesus gave John’s disciples this answer: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ‘Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves most blessed!’" I am sure that this is not what John wanted to hear. John was being challenged to re-evaluate his expectations of what God was going to do here on earth.
As I think about all of the various ideas of the seconded coming of Christ, I have to look at what we are being told by Matthew, in this particular explanation of what Jesus is about. If Jesus was saying that God’s Kingdom has already come, and then shows by action that the kingdom is being formed through his ministry of healing, restoration, and of reconciliation, then why would I expect Jesus to so radically change in his second coming?
Why would I believe that Christ is going to come back to earth with a sword in hand and legions of angels to do battle against evil, when Christ did none of this during his first time on earth? I think Christians who see a Christ as a warrior, ready to do battle, are people looking to be vindicated, just like what my mother was looking for, when “dad” got home.
What if Christ’s second coming is through the actions of the church? What if God’s kin-dom is being build, each time we take on the system of greed and self-interest that we humans too often place upon one another? I would suggest that Christ’s kin-dom comes through our stopping exclusionary behavior, whether it be in sexual orientation, mental illness or other physical handicaps, or through physical territorial boundaries, those we call aliens to our culture? I suggest that when we learn to honor and respect other’s for whom they are, this is the way in which Christ is re-entering into our world.
Christ is most definitely coming again, but is it in the way in which we think? Are we like John the baptizer, looking for one type of God, who will vindicate our actions and our perceptions, not realizing that God’s way of vindication isn’t through violence, but through reconciliation?
“Said the Sheppard boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace people everywhere
Listen to what I say
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light”
Do you see what I see? Amen
The Fruit of Jesse, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/05/2010
The Fruit of Jesse’s Root
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12-5-2010
Based on Isaiah 11:1-10 & Matthew 3:1-12
As I first read this morning’s lection reading, the first images that came to my mind were that of the Star Trek series. Between 1966 and 2005, there has been a total of five differing Television series of Star Trek. The first known as: The Original and concluding with Star Trek: Enterprise. Four out of the five series in general depicted the “Federation”, a collection of life forms who have banned together, as the good guys who were about the business of: Exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations in an expanding vast universe. The mandate was, never interfere in the culture of a newly discovered civilization when possible.
This sounds all good and well, yet in any good story line you have to have an adversary in order to have a good plot. Generally in most of the series, the Federation were the good guys and other civilizations were the adversaries. With one exception, in the second Television series of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the adversary generally was nature, or the struggle to survive and live in harmony with the elements of the universe in general, which was a major shift from the first series as well as those that followed after the Next Generation, where there was always a bad guy or a bad civilization. It was the general idea of good versus evil, with the “evil” being cultures that existed differently from that of the “Federation”.
In the series, The Next Generation, I see the story line, tended to mimic the concept that Isaiah used as the ending of this week’s reading, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.” It is a concept that states implicitly that there is no longer “us” against “them”, but rather a statement of a world that is “All inclusive”, of a world living in harmony.
Yet this vision doesn’t come out of life that continues doing what it has been doing. Isaiah starts off with the image of a stump. This means that a tree has had to be cut down, for there to be a stump. In fact, in the previous chapter, Isaiah speaks where God has cut down the whole forest. The message that we are reading today is, that in order for there to be this time of peace and harmony, there has to first be a complete change from what the normal order of things has been, in other words, there must be a “new” normal.
Matthew, in his story of John the Baptist, says it in this way, as the Pharisees and Sadducees were coming down to be baptized: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” The basic message is: it doesn’t matter who you say you are, it is in the actions that tell what is in your heart. You might say you are a Christian, a follower of the teachings of Jesus, but if there is darkness in your heart, your actions will betray you. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been raised in this church and that your parents were members, but if all you do is just sit in the pew on Sunday, occupying space, maybe give a tithe to the offering, this does not make you a follower of the Messiah; what makes you a follower of Christ is the fruit in your life. You know what happens to fruit that just sits around, it eventually draws nats and spoils.
Yesterday, a group of folks gathered to discuss what it means to be a member of this church. At the very onset one of the basic statements about what membership looked like was in ones behavior. It was determined that there should be expected from each member to be “gentle in word” and “respectful” of one another. In other words, we as members should be expected to be nice to one another and not be viscous in our language or actions, especially during periods when we do not see eye to eye with one another. At the close of our four hour workshop, I found it interesting that several folks were wondering “why” if we call ourselves Christians, “we would have to put in writing such a statement;” shouldn’t we just assume that as Christians we would treat each other with respect and be gentle with each other’s hearts, and let me say, this is an issue with many churches, not just First Congregational UCC. The answer comes with John’s accusations to the religious leaders that the fruit of their actions were not consistent with a repentant heart. They were fruit from a system that had spoiled on the tree.
Isaiah gives us an idea of what the fruit of Jesse’s root is going to look like. The first fruit that comes is the “spirit of wisdom and understanding. In the Message, it translates as, the spirit of direction and builds strength.
The second type of fruit is the spirit of counsel and might, and the third fruit that is identified is the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. These of course are attributes that over 2,000 years we have assigned to Jesus of Nazareth, but as his disciples, these are also attributes that we through the gift of the Holy Spirits guidance should be striving for ourselves.
John was telling the religious that they were in need of repentance. The fact is, “Even now, each one of us stands in need of repentance, of conversion, not just once in our lives, but every day of our lives. When I can sit in a family’s home and have the patriarch of that family, choking back the tears as he shares his discovery that change for the church first comes with the change in his own heart that is a confession of “repentance”. Of course, we don't experience conversion or repentance in order to make God love us. No, we turn toward God and away from everything that keeps us from God, so that we can come closer to experiencing the breadth and height and depth of God's love for us, of God's amazing grace at work in our lives.
I wish I could say I came up with this, but image the credit card commercial as a way of saying it, in this way: our possessions, our toys, our stuff – worth a lot; our careers, our schedules, our agendas – really important; our power and place and security – very valuable; pushing all those things aside and making a way through the wilderness, a straight, clear path for God to come into our lives – priceless. Rev Kate Huey, UCC Resource
As we focus this Advent season on the birth of Jesus, we come today to the Table of Christ, which tells us the story of the salvation that comes through a repentant heart. It is the fruit of Jesse’s root that has yet to be completed. We are still waiting for the Lion to lay down with the lamb. We are waiting for the birth of the New Jerusalem, the kin-dom of God here in this creation. Only when we let our ego’s, our greed, and self-interests, be chopped down with the ax of the Holy Spirit, we are then able to let the new branch that God has promised start to grow out of our stump. It starts here, today, at this table, if you let it. Let this be the day that you open the gate of your heart to God’s spirit and through you, the fruit of Jesse’s root will grow and be nurtured! Amen
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12-5-2010
Based on Isaiah 11:1-10 & Matthew 3:1-12
As I first read this morning’s lection reading, the first images that came to my mind were that of the Star Trek series. Between 1966 and 2005, there has been a total of five differing Television series of Star Trek. The first known as: The Original and concluding with Star Trek: Enterprise. Four out of the five series in general depicted the “Federation”, a collection of life forms who have banned together, as the good guys who were about the business of: Exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations in an expanding vast universe. The mandate was, never interfere in the culture of a newly discovered civilization when possible.
This sounds all good and well, yet in any good story line you have to have an adversary in order to have a good plot. Generally in most of the series, the Federation were the good guys and other civilizations were the adversaries. With one exception, in the second Television series of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the adversary generally was nature, or the struggle to survive and live in harmony with the elements of the universe in general, which was a major shift from the first series as well as those that followed after the Next Generation, where there was always a bad guy or a bad civilization. It was the general idea of good versus evil, with the “evil” being cultures that existed differently from that of the “Federation”.
In the series, The Next Generation, I see the story line, tended to mimic the concept that Isaiah used as the ending of this week’s reading, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.” It is a concept that states implicitly that there is no longer “us” against “them”, but rather a statement of a world that is “All inclusive”, of a world living in harmony.
Yet this vision doesn’t come out of life that continues doing what it has been doing. Isaiah starts off with the image of a stump. This means that a tree has had to be cut down, for there to be a stump. In fact, in the previous chapter, Isaiah speaks where God has cut down the whole forest. The message that we are reading today is, that in order for there to be this time of peace and harmony, there has to first be a complete change from what the normal order of things has been, in other words, there must be a “new” normal.
Matthew, in his story of John the Baptist, says it in this way, as the Pharisees and Sadducees were coming down to be baptized: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” The basic message is: it doesn’t matter who you say you are, it is in the actions that tell what is in your heart. You might say you are a Christian, a follower of the teachings of Jesus, but if there is darkness in your heart, your actions will betray you. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been raised in this church and that your parents were members, but if all you do is just sit in the pew on Sunday, occupying space, maybe give a tithe to the offering, this does not make you a follower of the Messiah; what makes you a follower of Christ is the fruit in your life. You know what happens to fruit that just sits around, it eventually draws nats and spoils.
Yesterday, a group of folks gathered to discuss what it means to be a member of this church. At the very onset one of the basic statements about what membership looked like was in ones behavior. It was determined that there should be expected from each member to be “gentle in word” and “respectful” of one another. In other words, we as members should be expected to be nice to one another and not be viscous in our language or actions, especially during periods when we do not see eye to eye with one another. At the close of our four hour workshop, I found it interesting that several folks were wondering “why” if we call ourselves Christians, “we would have to put in writing such a statement;” shouldn’t we just assume that as Christians we would treat each other with respect and be gentle with each other’s hearts, and let me say, this is an issue with many churches, not just First Congregational UCC. The answer comes with John’s accusations to the religious leaders that the fruit of their actions were not consistent with a repentant heart. They were fruit from a system that had spoiled on the tree.
Isaiah gives us an idea of what the fruit of Jesse’s root is going to look like. The first fruit that comes is the “spirit of wisdom and understanding. In the Message, it translates as, the spirit of direction and builds strength.
The second type of fruit is the spirit of counsel and might, and the third fruit that is identified is the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. These of course are attributes that over 2,000 years we have assigned to Jesus of Nazareth, but as his disciples, these are also attributes that we through the gift of the Holy Spirits guidance should be striving for ourselves.
John was telling the religious that they were in need of repentance. The fact is, “Even now, each one of us stands in need of repentance, of conversion, not just once in our lives, but every day of our lives. When I can sit in a family’s home and have the patriarch of that family, choking back the tears as he shares his discovery that change for the church first comes with the change in his own heart that is a confession of “repentance”. Of course, we don't experience conversion or repentance in order to make God love us. No, we turn toward God and away from everything that keeps us from God, so that we can come closer to experiencing the breadth and height and depth of God's love for us, of God's amazing grace at work in our lives.
I wish I could say I came up with this, but image the credit card commercial as a way of saying it, in this way: our possessions, our toys, our stuff – worth a lot; our careers, our schedules, our agendas – really important; our power and place and security – very valuable; pushing all those things aside and making a way through the wilderness, a straight, clear path for God to come into our lives – priceless. Rev Kate Huey, UCC Resource
As we focus this Advent season on the birth of Jesus, we come today to the Table of Christ, which tells us the story of the salvation that comes through a repentant heart. It is the fruit of Jesse’s root that has yet to be completed. We are still waiting for the Lion to lay down with the lamb. We are waiting for the birth of the New Jerusalem, the kin-dom of God here in this creation. Only when we let our ego’s, our greed, and self-interests, be chopped down with the ax of the Holy Spirit, we are then able to let the new branch that God has promised start to grow out of our stump. It starts here, today, at this table, if you let it. Let this be the day that you open the gate of your heart to God’s spirit and through you, the fruit of Jesse’s root will grow and be nurtured! Amen
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