November 25, 2018 The Call to Compassion

You may be familiar with the TED talks, which have become very popular in recent years.  TED talks are 18-minute speeches based on what are considered to be ideas worth spreading.  In 2008 Karen Armstrong, who in my opinion is one of the great religion scholars in the world today, won the TED prize.  Upon winning the prize Armstrong chose to focus her work on compassion.  She began what is known as The Charter for Compassion, which is a brief, 312-word pledge that asks people to place compassion at the center of their lives.  It recognizes compassion as the central component in faith and among several other areas of commitment it asks that religious people work to bring an end to the use of religion as an excuse for violence.  I think it is a very worthy cause, and our world is certainly much in need of compassion.

      

This morning, our message comes from one of the most well-known parables of Jesus, the parable of the Good Samaritan.  As we focus on the Good Samaritan this morning, we are talking about compassion, with a message titled The Call to Compassion.  The text is Luke 10:25-37, and I invite you to follow along as I read that passage.

²⁵ And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

 ²⁶ And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” 

²⁷ And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 

²⁸ And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰ Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.

³¹ And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 

³² Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

³³ But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,

³⁴ and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

³⁵ On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ 

³⁶ Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 

³⁷ And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

This parable is very much in keeping with I Corinthians 13, the passage we completed two weeks ago.  I Corinthians 13 focused upon love, and in particular focused upon the idea of making love visible.  Making love visible is a good definition of compassion.  We might even say that compassion is the hands and the feet of love.  We can find many other Scriptural references to the ways in which compassion makes love visible.  One such example comes from the book of James, which tells us in 2:14-18 ¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

For my points this morning, I am going to consider each of the characters in this parable, beginning with –

1.  The lawyer.

      

I should say at the outset that when Luke tells us that a lawyer stood up to test Jesus(verse 25), he is not speaking of a lawyer as we know attorneys.  The lawyer to which Luke referred was an expert in the religious law – the law of Moses – not civic law.  Lawyers of this type were often called upon or looked to in order to receive an interpretation of the law, or to give an opinion about the application of religious law. As an expert in the religious law, this lawyer put himself in the position of a guardian of orthodoxy, as Luke tells us that he was asking his question not to gain information, but to test Jesus(verse 25).  This was certainly not the only time that Jesus was confronted by the officially or self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy. We read of other times in the gospels when Jesus was confronted by those who sought to discredit him because they disapproved of the content of his teaching or because they were jealous of the large crowds that followed him.  After asking his question of Jesus –what must I do to inherit eternal life?– Jesus immediately turned the question around on the lawyer by confronting him with a question, “what is written in the Law,” he replied.  “How do you read it?”  (verse 26).

      

I love the response of Jesus. I love that he turns the question around on the lawyer.  Jesus certainly knew the lawyer was not asking an informational question.  Jesus knew the lawyer had appointed himself as a guardian of orthodoxy and was seeking to discredit him.  Don’t you just love it when someone appoints themselves the guardians of orthodoxy?  Don’t you just love it when someone decides they are the person to judge the righteousness, or lack thereof, of others?  I am asked a lot of questions, many of which are informational, but I am sometimes asked questions to see if I will give the “approved” answer of those who have anointed themselves as the guardians and protectors of orthodoxy (I am not asked those kinds of questions by anyone in our church, I should add).  I do not mind answering questions, but when I sense that someone is asking me a question to see if I will give the “right” answer I tend to be less willing to give an answer, not because I am afraid to say what I think, but because I do not want to play the game of theological “gotcha” with those guardians of orthodoxy.

      

When Jesus turns the lawyer’s question around on him, he does so in a very interesting way.  The lawyer, who sought to discredit Jesus, instead finds himself discredited, because he is forced to defend himself as to why he would not love his neighbor.  Jesus had the lawyer quote the great commandment – love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all you  mind, and love your neighbor as yourself(verse 27), which then put him on the defensive, as he obviously was not interested in loving his neighbor, as he asked and who is my neighbor? (verse 29). It was a typical legal maneuver, trying to bog Jesus down with a discussion over the legal definition of terms. Reading the exchange, it is impossible to miss the haughtiness in the lawyer’s words – oh yeah?  And just who is my neighbor? The question is dripping with pride and arrogance and lays bare the lawyer’s contempt for others rather than what should have been his compassion.  He did, after all, just a few moments before quote the great commandment, and here he was, now seeking to shrink the circle of concern.  The lawyer was, obviously, seeking to evade his responsibility to be compassionate towards others.  There were certain people he did not want anything to do with, so he tried to hide behind an evasive legal tactic.  The lawyer knew that when Jesus used the word neighborhe was not simply talking about the people that live next door or down the street; he was talking about everyone, including those that the lawyer did not want anything to do with.

      

In my series of messages on I Corinthians 13 I spoke about the desire of some to focus more on right belief than upon the importance of actions.  Right belief, without right action, is not very impressive, and only makes for a cold, uncaring religion.  This lawyer was an example of both.  He focused more on right belief than upon right actions and in doing so, he represented an expression of religion that was cold and uncaring.  There remains quite a bit of this type of religion today. We have all witnessed those who can line up with all the “correct” theology and yet are cold and uncaring. They can line up perfectly with every point of every creed, and yet they demonstrate not an iota of compassion towards others.  People in our society have seen enough of this expression of religion, and they have turned their backs on it.  The spirit of this lawyer is alive and well today, sadly, and it is well past time for this expression of religion to go away.

2.  The priest and the Levite.

      

I’m going to put the priest and Levite together because they both represent the religious leadership and religious establishment.

      

I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, so I will consider the possibility that there are reasons why the priest and the Levite did not stop to help the man.  Perhaps they were worried that those who robbed the man were still around and were lying in wait for another victim, so they decided it was best to keep moving. Or, perhaps the man only appeared to be beaten and was in league with others who would rob and beat anyone who stopped.  Those are possibilities, but I don’t believe they fit the context.  The reality is, the priest and the Levite were representatives of the religious establishment, and as such, they actually could claim religious reasons to avoid demonstrating compassion.  To touch someone who was bleeding, they could claim, would make them unclean.  Better to remain ritually clean, in their minds, than to be compassionate towards someone who was in such great need of help.  It is a sad commentary upon any religious point of view that allows one to fulfill a religious command while at the same time avoid the call to compassion. This is an expression of legalism. Legalism is the fulfilling of a religious law or command while at the same time missing the spirit of the law or command.  While it might have been technically true that the priest and Levite were to remain ritually clean, to avoid one of the most fundamental callings of religion – compassion – in order to do so is a fundamental misunderstanding of religion.

      

The priest and Levite are ones who would be seen as representatives of God.  This priest and the Levite, failing to demonstrate compassion, made poor representatives of God, however.  How can one claim to represent God if one does not participate in one of the most foundational expressions of God, which is compassion?  No, the priest and the Levite were not representatives of God. Instead, they were examples of what God was not – cold, uncaring, arrogant, and self-righteous.  The priest and the Levite represent that element of religion that exudes self-righteousness, and sometimes insufferably so, and that self-righteousness refuses to see the call to compassion.  By using the priest and Levite in his parable, Jesus was directly challenging the lack of compassion in much of the religion of his day, and calling upon his followers to do better.

3. The Samaritan.

      

The Samaritans were a group of people in the gospels who were despised, as there was a long history of enmity between the Jewish people and the Samaritans.  Time doesn’t permit me to go through the history of that enmity, but trust me that it was so, which makes it interesting that Jesus picked a Samaritan as the hero of the parable.  Jesus, on more than one occasion, went out of his way to lift up the Samaritans, much to the chagrin of many of his detractors.  There was the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4.  In the story of the healing of ten lepers we find that the only one who returned to thank Jesus was a Samaritan (Luke 17:11-19). That Jesus would choose a Samaritan as the hero of his story would most certainly have been a shock to his listeners.  It was his way, however, of reminding his audience that they were not the only ones who were good and righteous.  In fact, it was Jesus’ way of reminding his audience – primarily the lawyer – that the compassion of God was not limited to certain groups of people and so their compassion should not have limits either.

     

The Samaritan does a rather amazing act, as he tends to the man’s wounds, lifts him up onto his animal, and takes him to an inn where he took further care of him.  Then he does another remarkable act, as he pays the innkeeper and offers a promise to reimburse the innkeeper for any further expenses incurred in caring for the wounded man.  Isn’t that remarkable?  He establishes an open-ended account, with no idea of how much further expense he might incur, and he promises to pay whatever the costs of additional care might be. I can’t help but wonder if the innkeeper was familiar with the Samaritan and knew him to be a man of his word, a man who could be trusted to come back and pay the bill he had promised to pay. Either way, it was quite a commitment for the Samaritan to make.

      

Jesus said the Samaritan did this because he had compassion upon the wounded man.  What’s interesting about that phrase is this – did you know, at the time of the writing of the gospels, that there was no word in the Greek language for compassion?  I find that fascinating.  The Greek language is very exact and very precise, sometimes using multiple versions of the same word in order to more exactly convey the meaning of a particular word.  Love, for instance, had four different words in the Greek language, which helped to more precisely define the type of love that was being expressed.  That the Greeks had no way of expressing linguistically the concept of compassion, then, I find to be rather amazing.  The writers of the gospels actually had to make up a new word for what Jesus was seeking to communicate with the actions of the Samaritan.  The word used by Luke for compassion means to suffer with.  To suffer with means that we are called to step into the problems and difficulties of others.  Now, right there, I think, presents a bit of a problem.  We expend a lot of energy minimizing suffering in life, so why would we want to enter into the suffering of someone else, when we are doing all we can to avoid suffering?  Why? Because it is the way of Jesus, to put it quite simply.

      

I think we often think of compassion as an emotion, such as empathy or sympathy.  But compassion, in the Biblical sense, is something far deeper than empathy or sympathy.  Compassion, the way Jesus defines it, is putting love into action by stepping directly into the lives of others and to work on their behalf to bring a positive change to those lives.  This is what the Samaritan did for the man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead along the road.  When the Samaritan saw this injured man, he demonstrated compassion; that is, he did something about his condition.  Compassion is love with hands and feet.  Compassion is taking love out of the theoretical realm and putting it into the practical reality of everyday life.  Compassion is not just saying words of concern, but putting those words into action. We often use the word moved.  We might say I was moved by that song orI was moved by those words.  Movedis a great word to use, because it is an action word.  Moved is a verb.  It means we are touched deeply by the condition of another person and we are literally movedinto action. Compassion begins in the heart, where we are movedby the plight of another, but it is not true compassion if it remains only in the heart.  Compassion must movefrom the heart to the hands and feet, making a difference to another person.

      

It would be far easier, I suppose, to protect ourselves from the suffering in the world.  It would be easier to guard our hearts, but entering into the suffering of others is what brings the hope of healing to our suffering world.  Compassion takes the risk of being involved in the lives of others, of walking with them through their pain and struggles, and doing so means we make ourselves vulnerable to their pain.  How much easier life would be to withdraw into the safety and seclusion of our own lives, but how much poorer is the world when we do so?  It is complicated to help others.  For the Samaritan, it cost him time and it cost him money. It can be very time consuming to help others and it can be very expensive.

      

It’s a hard world in which we live.  It’s a tough world, and it seems to be getting tougher.  It takes a lot just to take care of our families and ourselves. Who has the time, energy, and resources to worry about others?  Sometimes we don’t believe we do, but that is the calling of Jesus.  The compassion of Jesus would not leave people to their difficulties and troubles.  This is what Jesus did for us – he became one of us to walk with us through our struggles, and our pain, and our difficulties.

4.  The wounded man.

      

Here’s what I find really interesting about the wounded man – he is the only one in the story who is not identified by any class or group of which he is a part.  He is not identified by race, ethnicity, nationality, religious role, religion or in any other manner.  All the other characters have some kind of identification – a lawyer, a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan.  But the wounded man is simply identified by his need.  He was beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the side of the road.  This is where the man becomes the archetype for so many others, as the wounded man represents all the people throughout the world who await some expression of compassion. They are the nameless, faceless, mass of humanity, left alone in their suffering and with the hope that someone, anyone, will come along and offer assistance.  They are the nameless and faceless who risk their lives to cross land and sea to find a better life.  They are the nameless and faceless who starve and are ignored by the rest of the world. They are the nameless and faceless who die of diseases that require only very basic medicine, and yet they do not receive that medicine.  They are the nameless and faceless who are the victims of warfare than destroys homes, livelihoods, and innocent lives.

      

Back in the early 80s, when I was in seminary, I had a class project in which to participate.  The project was called The Plunge.  The Plunge required us to spend a weekend living on the streets of downtown Louisville.  Our professor dropped us off downtown, each of us with one dollar and one piece of identification, and we would be picked up on Sunday afternoon.  My dollar did not last very long, as I quickly grew hungry and went to a White Castle to buy a meager dinner.  After dinner, my thoughts turned to shelter for the night, which was a very big concern to me.  The thought of sleeping out on the street, and the potential dangers of that situation, were of great concern.  At that time, the Galt House was building a new section of the hotel and I made my way into the foundation of that building, where I found a pile of plywood. I can’t say it made the most comfortable bed, but that plywood at least gave me a dry place to sleep.  The next morning, as I began to think about where I might find something to eat, I met two young men who were about my age (I was 25 at the time).  They had been living on the streets for a while and knew where to find food, and they took me to a shelter where we had lunch, and another shelter later that day for dinner.  I will say, all these years later, that those meals were some of the best I have ever eaten. God bless the people who served those meals, because when you are hungry and have no idea where to go to find a meal, being fed at a shelter is a true blessing.  With the help of those two young men I managed to get through the weekend, and I was very grateful God sent them my way.  On Sunday afternoon, as we gathered for a meal on the campus of the seminary, I felt a great deal of relief to be back to my life, even if it was a rather meager life as a student with very little money.  Several days later, I was driving through downtown Louisville, on Main Street, and as I passed through an intersection I saw those two young men sitting on the sidewalk.  I was a bit startled to see them sitting there, and I was also startled by how quickly I decided to keep driving.  All these years later, I still see them in my mind, sitting there on that sidewalk, two young men who had compassion on me and helped me in my time of need, and yet I drove by them only days later, without stopping.  The priest and the Levite are easy to criticize because they saw the man and his terrible condition and yet walked by.  To walk on by seems very cold and callous on their part, but I drove by two people who had taken it upon themselves to help me.

      

Our world is not going to improve on its own.  The suffering of people will not go away without action.  Their suffering will not go away as long as we pass them by. It is compassion that will heal our world, compassion that requires us to stop what we are doing, to allow our lives to be interrupted, and to enter into the suffering of others.  No, it is not easy to do so, and it will not be easy, but it is our calling nevertheless.  The world is waiting.

November 18, 2018 The Gift of the Church

Every year, at the end of our stewardship campaign, I offer a message with the theme of stewardship.  This church continues because of the sacrificial and generous gifts that it receives, and while many of those gifts are financial, they are not just financial.  There are gifts of time and talents, and this church could not continue without all the gifts that are so generously offered by so many.  I would like this morning, however, to focus on the truth that the church is such a gift to all of us, and I mean this church as well as the church universal. 

      

In this week’s Scripture text we will read of a critical moment in the life of the early church.  The apostles were suffering persecution because of their faith.  They were taken before the Sanhedrin – the same Sanhedrin that had condemned Jesus to death – and they were flogged and warned that they were not to speak or preach any longer about Jesus.  

     

Follow along with me as I read our text, which comes from Acts 5:33-42.

33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 

34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 

35 Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 

36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 

37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 

38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.

39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.

42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.

I want to first say that the apostles were threatened not by the general public as much as they were the power structures of their day.  The apostles, like Jesus, were loved and followed by a great many people, but they were perceived as a threat by those in power. People in power do not like competition, and like Jesus before them, the apostles were a threat to those in power because they were winning the hearts and minds of the people.  This has been a tragic reality throughout human history, and it remains a tragic reality.  I cannot read this passage, for instance, without thinking about the Sunday in August when the Khai Khat family joined us for worship, and their pastor came with them.  I asked the pastor to share a message with us and I was so moved by what he said that day. If you were not able to be with us that Sunday, the pastor spoke of his experience in Myanmar, where he felt God’s call upon his life to preach, which he did, but the local authorities did not like him preaching, so they arrested him, put him in prison, and ordered him to stop preaching.  Upon his release the pastor resumed preaching and was once again arrested.  The pastor was arrested and imprisoned three times, but the arrests and imprisonments and threats of further arrests and imprisonments did not deter him in the slightest.  His experience was very much like that of the apostles, who were also arrested – and also threatened with death – and told to stop preaching.  The Khai family’s pastor was continuing a long tradition of faith that does not diminish or stop even in the face of persecution

      

What did the apostles do in response to the Sanhedrin? The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.  Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah(verses 41 and 42). Imagine if they had done what they were told.  Imagine if they stopped doing the work to which they had been called.  Imagine if they suddenly became silent about their message.  If they had, what would have become of the church?  I don’t believe the church would have come to an end, because Jesus said the gates of hell will not overcome it(Matthew 16:18), but it makes for an interesting consideration to think of how history would be had the church never existed.

      

In 1946 the movie It’s A Wonderful Lifewas released.  The movie, which stars Jimmy Stewart, has become an undeniable holiday classic.  You know the storyline, I’m sure.  Jimmy Stewart plays the character George Bailey, a banker whose life has not fulfilled many of his dreams, and on Christmas Eve, because of a lost deposit, he is facing arrest and prison time.  George drives to the edge of town, intending to jump from a bridge, wishing he had never been born.  His guardian angel, Clarence, intervenes, and shows him how differently the town of Bedford Falls would have been without George.  That theme is one that is worth considering not only for the life of an individual, but also for the church as well.  Think for a moment about what life would be like if our church never existed. Think for a moment about how our community might be different.  Think for a moment how history and the world would be different if the church universal had never existed.  It’s an unfathomable idea to imagine, and it helps us to understand what a gift the church has been.  

      

Listen to a few portions of our church’s history – 

the Restoration Movement on the western frontier was planted in Shelbyville in 1830 when, according to the minutes of the Long Run Association, 20 members of the Shelbyville Baptist Church left by consent.  That same year that exact number of persons became charter members of a new reform church in Shelbyville called “The Church of Disciples of Jesus Christ.”  The congregation later took the name “First Christian Church.”  The congregation became a part of the denomination known as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

      

Although they first met in homes, the congregation began to grow rapidly.

      

The first church building constructed by the congregation in 1832 faced Fourth Street.

     

 In 1864 the church had outgrown its building space.  The dedicatory sermon for the new church building was preached on April 25, 1865.

      

With the coming of the Great Depression in 1929, First Christian Church came upon some difficult times.  The building fell into some disrepair.  The rook leaked, the furnace needed repair, the walls cracked, the bell tower began to lean dangerously.  The church, like the rest of the nation, was in debt.  Yet the congregation continued to grow in the face of hard times.

      

On August 7, 1969 First Christian Church caught fire and burned to the ground.  The sanctuary was rebuilt and dedicated in 1971.

      

The congregation moved into its new facilities on July 15, 2001.

      

Obviously, our church has a long history in the Shelbyville community, and as we draw close to our 200^thanniversary, it is worth taking a few moments of time to consider the impact our congregation has made upon our community and upon our own lives, and the impact of the church as a whole as well.  When we think about an individual church – either this one or another – our thoughts most likely turn first to the impact that congregation has had upon our own lives.  Think of the friends you have.  Some of my closest friends are those I have made in church.  You wouldn’t know the names of Steve Dalton, Kurt Lohr, Doug Beck, and Al Flasko, but they were four of my closest friends growing up, friends I made at church.  Other congregations to which I’ve belonged have provided other friends for a lifetime.  How many of you have made close friends in this congregation?  In another congregation?  How many of you have had church friends in this congregation or another congregation praying for you when you really needed prayer?  Think about all the other significant events that take place in church? How many of you were married in this church?  In another church?  How many of you have had a family funeral in this church?  In another church?  How many of you had someone from church come to see you in the hospital or visit with you in a funeral home?  How many of you were baptized in this church?  In another church?  How many of you had a child dedicated in this church or another church?  How many of you can still see those events in your mind as you think about them?  How many of you had a Sunday School teacher, a deacon, an elder, a minister, or someone from this or another congregation who made a difference in your life?  How many of you can still those folks in your mind, and how many of you can feel that lump in your throat as you think about such special people that are no longer with us?  I can think of so many friends, so many weddings, so many baptisms, so many baby dedications, so many funerals I have seen or in which I have been a participant.  There are so many amazing memories I have from church and cannot imagine what my life would be like without the influence of the church.  We don’t always know the impact our church has, just as we don’t always know the impact our lives have had.  And we probably won’t ever know the full extent, at least not in this life. But one day we will know.  One day we’ll know of all the ways in which our lives mattered and made a difference and all the ways in which our church mattered and made a difference.  To know of the difference our church and our lives make is one of the gifts of eternity.

      

Skeptics often attempt to rewrite history when it comes to the impact of the church.  Amazingly, some skeptics of faith will attempt to convince us that the church really has not been influential throughout history and that it has not really accomplished much.  Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.  How many people would have been left destitute if not for the immense resources churches have provided to feed the hungry, to clothe people, to bring shelter; how many people left sick if not for the hospitals founded by churches, how many patients left untreated if not for the countless volunteers who traveled to all corners of the globe to care for others, and who continue traveling to so many countries, even when they are threatened by war or illness? How many orphans would be left unloved if not for the countless families who embraced those precious children in the name of Christ?  Think of how many people have been educated because of the church.  Most universities were founded by churches, church groups, or denominations.  Sunday Schools were established by the church to provide education before there was much of a public education system in our country.  In areas around the world where disasters have taken place, the church is often the first or among the first on the scene.  They were there in the flooding along the east coast and they are there in California, and they will be there in all the other disasters yet to come.

      

In our own community, we partner with other churches and other ministries to make a difference.  There is Operation Care, Arriba Ninos, Awake Ministries, Mission Behind Bars and Beyond, Kentucky Refugee Ministry, Habitat for Humanity, Mission Behind Bars and Beyond, the hundreds fed each week by the Serenity Center, the men who are aided in their recovery through the Open Door of Hope Men’s Shelter, the women who find protection and help through the ministry to women, the children who have beds because of A Place to Sleep, and many others.  Shelbyville is a great place to live and a great community but below the surface of what we see as we live and work and move around town are so many needs and so many challenges that face us and without the presence of the church entering into those needs and challenges Shelbyville would be a very different place.

      

I believe we sometimes take for granted that the continued ministry of a church will always take place, but that is not a guarantee.  I have no doubt that the church as a whole will continue until the end of time, but we’ve all seen the churches that have closed their doors.  Sometimes it’s the small country churches that close as people migrate into the larger surrounding town and their larger churches.  But it’s also the larger churches as well.  Drive through Louisville or other cities and you will find many large church buildings that sit almost empty because the community changed around them and the churches did not adapt.  They did not reach out to their new neighbors and by the time they realized how much had changed in their neighborhood it was too late, and those churches reached a point of decline that was irreversible. (I must also add that, while we hear of churches that are closing their doors, many new churches are also being established.  In fact, there are more churches in the United States than at any time in our history). 

      

The first church, besides my home church, where I preached was West Middletown Christian Church in West Middletown, Pennsylvania.  The name of the town is a bit deceiving because it’s not large enough to have an East, let alone a West.  In fact, it’s not even a town, but more of a village stretched along highway 27, which begins just a few blocks from the Ohio River in my hometown and continues into Pennsylvania, to West Middletown and on to Pittsburgh and beyond.  For two summers – the summers of 1976 and 1977 – I served as a substitute minister for that small congregation.  I was only a year and then two years out of high school, with almost no idea of what I was doing.  I think a really good crowd in that church was 20 or so people, but the average was probably about a dozen.  Sometimes, when I’m home visiting my mom, I drive by that church and I’m always grateful to know that it is still there, and still open.  With so few members I had anticipated it would close many years ago. I don’t know how many people now attend, and by all appearances it’s probably not prospering to any great extent, but it’s still going, and I’m grateful it is, and I hope it continues on, but there is never a guarantee.  A church can seem large, prosperous, and invincible, but that can change.  A generation ago, who could have believed that Sears would by a dying company?  At one time you could order anything from the Sears catalogue, even a house!  When I was a kid, I loved to look through the Sears Wish Book when it came in the mail. Sears was the Amazon of its day. Speaking of Amazon, a company that now seems so invincible, founder Jeff Bezos shocked many people just days ago when he told employees of Amazon that he knew that one day that huge company would fail and pass away.  History reveals countless examples of institutions that seemed too large too fail, and yet failure came.  We can easily take for granted what we have as a church.  While Jesus said that the gates of hell will not overcomethe church (Matthew 16:18), he was talking of the church universal, not individual churches.  It is only a guarantee that the church at large will continue, not that individual congregations will always survive.  

      

Our church has served the Shelbyville community for almost 200 years, and it has been a gift to each of us in the years we have been privileged to be a part of the congregation. May we thank God for the great gift of his church!

November 11, 2018 I Corinthians 13, A Guide for Life: The Final Words - Faith, Hope, and Love

This morning we conclude our series of messages from I Corinthians 13, and I will read the text from the King James Version. At the beginning of this series I said that at some point I would use the KJV, so I do want to turn to that translation this week. After several weeks of using modern translations, the King James Version will most likely sound very different to your ears.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but for a number of weeks there has been a collection of balloons at the roof in the back corner of the sanctuary. They got loose during a birthday party a while back and there were a bunch of them floating at the ceiling, and then for most of this series there were just three, so I have been thinking of them in relation to the last verse in this passage – these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. I find it very interesting that now there is just one, so there floats our love balloon I guess we could say.

Follow along with me as I read, for the final time in this series, I Corinthians 13:1-13, this time from the King James Version –

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

I hope you will take the time to reread this passage in several different translations. Doing so, I find, is very helpful in gaining a greater understanding of and insight into what Paul has to say.

I will focus on the final verse of the passage, where Paul concludes with a nice three-point outline – faith, hope, and love, as he writes and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. What I really find interesting is that after twelve verses of expounding upon love, Paul suddenly reminds us of faith and hope as well. For twelve verses he doesn’t mention faith and hope at all, at least not specifically (although I think we can say they are always implied), and then suddenly puts them into the mix with love. He does so, I believe, because all three words – faith, hope, and love – are inextricably bound together. It is as though he is reminding us that the three exist together and cannot be separated. Where you have any one of the three, you find them all. Where you find faith, you also find hope and love. Where you find hope, you also find faith and love. Where you find love, you also find faith and hope.

So let’s take a look at each of these three, beginning with faith.

Faith.

I think it is important to distinguish between faith and belief. That might sound like a strange statement, because too many people put faith and belief together, as though they are the same, as though they are synonyms or two sides of the same coin, but I do not see them as the same. (I want to add, at this point, that after both services I was offered very good explanations for the difference between faith and belief. After the first service someone told me that belief is believing in what God has done in the past, while faith is believing he will do the same in the future. After the second service someone told me that belief was believing a chair would hold me, while faith was sitting in it. I like both of those definitions very much). Belief, for many, is defined as the acceptance of, and adherence to, a list of statements, such as doctrines. I will say that I believe in certain things, but to me, faith is separate from any list of beliefs I might have. Belief is what I think and the doctrines to which I hold, but faith has to do with the more practical ways in which we live. I have, for instance, a particular belief about what the book of Revelation means and how it should be interpreted, and I think that it is helpful and good to have those particular beliefs, but it is my faith to which I hold in times of loss and to which I turn to be sustained in times of difficulty. When I have experienced times of great difficulty and trials, for instance, I never said, I am so grateful for my belief about the differences between pre-millennialism and post-millennialism. I never said, I am so grateful for my belief about how I interpret the passage about the seven churches mentioned by John in the book of Revelation. I never said, I am so grateful for my belief about how to interpret the number of the beast, because that is what is getting me through this time of difficulty. No, what I held to was my faith that God was with me no matter what I was experiencing, and knowing that whether or not I came through the difficulty unscathed or if I came through it with many scars I knew and trusted that God was with me and would never leave me. I can believe certain things, and I think it is important to believe them, but faith is when my beliefs are put to work in the real world of everyday life.

What sometimes happens with beliefs, unfortunately, is this – people are told they must adhere to a list of beliefs and their personal theology must line up with an official theology and they are told that is what matters most and they must accept those in order to be considered a Christian or to be considered acceptable as a person. When I was in college I visited a church that had two identical banners, one hanging on the right side of the stage and one on the left. The banners contained a list of ten precepts, or beliefs, and stated that one must adhere to those ten precepts in order to be a Christian. I read down the list and started checking them off in my mind. Number one? Check. Number two? Check. Number three? Check. On down the line I went, and I was doing really well, checking off every one of them, until I came to number ten, and I simply could not agree with number ten. I guess I could have looked at in this way – nine out of ten is pretty good. Nine out of ten would be a 90% score on a test and in my mind a 90% would be a good grade. But here is the problem with that list – it presented those ten beliefs as requirements, meaning you could not get nine out of ten and be okay; you had to line up perfectly with all ten, and number ten, to me, was a deal breaker because it was a very peripheral belief and to make it absolutely essential was wrong and a violation of the personal integrity of each individual to make their own decisions about what they will believe. To say that all ten of those doctrines were essential was to impose a system of belief upon people that was not at all representative of the true nature of faith, and it was something that I simply could not accept.

To draw people into a relationship with God we do it by the presentation of faith, not by requiring them to sign on to a list of beliefs or doctrines that we decide are the ones most necessary. I understand that in these uncertain times some people want theology presented to them in very stark, black and white, specific ways, but I do not believe that leads to a healthy personal faith and I believe that each person must struggle and contend with faith in a personal way and come to their own conclusions about what beliefs they will accept and what beliefs will be important to them. At some point, we do indeed need to disciple people in their faith and help them with their questions and we need to give them a Biblical and theological foundation, but what people most need to hear is that when life is tough, as it so often is, is that God will be there for them. You can put that in the form of a doctrinal belief, I guess, but it is an expression of faith to actually live that truth when difficulty comes. People need to hear that when they feel they have nowhere else to turn there is a place to turn, and that is God. People need to hear that when they feel rejected by others they are accepted by God. People need to hear that when they feel no one loves them or cares for them that God loves them and cares for them. That is faith, and faith isn’t something that is simply an agreement with a theological statement someone presents to you. Faith is rather, a way of life. Faith is a way of living out the truths we have accepted about God.

And, as it is my faith, no one can ever take it from me; it is God’s gift to me and mine to accept or reject. When I was in seminary my classes sometimes had visitors who was there to record the words of the professors in the hope of finding evidence that they should be removed from the classroom and fired from their positions because they were not “properly” presenting faith. It was a time when some wanted to impose a particular system of beliefs upon others. One day, one of those visitors asked me if the professor had ever said anything that was a threat to my faith or if he had sought to take away my faith. I thought then, as I do now, that the question was absurdly silly. No one can take my faith away from me. My faith can either be embraced or rejected, but only by me. It can never be taken, as though it were a simple object that could be stolen away by a thief.

Hope.

Is it possible to be hopeful today? Is it just me, or does it seem that there is a conspiracy against hope pretty much every day? It’s just that there is so much wrong in our world that it would be understandable to say I’ve given up on hope. But here’s what I think about hope in today’s difficult, contentious world – hope is a shaking of the fist in the face of all that which says it is foolish to have hope. Hope is actually an act of rebellion in our world, it is an act of defiance against all the pessimism and doubt that surrounds us. Hope is an act of rebellion and an act of defiance against all of the troubles and all of the difficulties and all of the cynicism of this world. Hope is a refusal to be worn down and defeated by all those challenges that seem to make hope impossible. Hope says I’m not giving into cynicism. I’m not going to be pulled down by the contentious spirit that has overtaken our world. I’m not going to stop believing not only that things can be better, but I will believe that things will be better. I will believe that when the Lord’s Prayer asks us to pray for God’s kingdom to come that it will indeed come, and when it comes it will wash away the hatred and the hopelessness and the violence and all the things that run counter to God’s kingdom. When God’s kingdom comes, we will see violence and hatred and hunger and all those things which weigh us down pass away.

Some might say that hope is wishful thinking, simply holding to some kind of unrealistic desire of what might be. No, hope is attached to something very real. Wishful thinking would be similar to what I said yesterday to Tanya. We both walk early each morning, but on weekdays we do not walk together because of our different schedules (she is out earlier than I am). On Saturdays we walk together and before we went out to walk yesterday, I said maybe if I go outside in shorts and a T-Shirt and believe it will be warm, it will be warm, instead of 24 degrees. I could hope and believe all I wanted but it was still going to be cold, because my hope was not tied to anything real that could make it possible, therefore it was nothing more than wishful thinking. When Jesus told the synagogue official that his daughter was not dead but simply asleep, and those who were gathered laughed at him, they did so because they could not dare to hope that something so amazing could be true (Mark 5:21-43), but it was true because it was tied to the reality of Jesus. When Jesus walked to the tomb of Lazarus and commanded that the stone would be rolled away, Lazarus’ sister Martha could not begin to hope that her brother was moments from resurrection (John 11:38-44), but it was true because it was tied to the reality of Jesus. When Jesus looked upon the crowds with compassion as they followed him and commanded his disciples to give them something to eat, neither the crowd nor the disciples could begin to hope that so many people would be provided food in such a miraculous manner (Matthew 14:13-21), but it was true because it was tied to the reality of Jesus, and on and on we could go about the examples of hope that we find in Scripture.

Love.

After all I’ve said about love over the past weeks, what is left to say? How about this – we need a lot more love in our world!

As I said last week, the love of God has always been my theme, and always will be. I have encountered plenty of people over the years who have told me that if you talk too much about love and grace, as I have done, you are condoning anything and everything. I don’t believe that to be true. There are many things about our society that concern me greatly and of which I do not approve. But I must proclaim my belief that the gospel is above all a gift of grace, something totally and completely undeserved, but given to us anyway. By emphasizing the gift of grace, I don’t believe I am at all condoning or sanctioning sin and rebellion against God; I am simply agreeing with Jesus when he said God did not send the son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him (John 3:17). There is a great danger in wanting to play the card of judgment, rather than that of love, as judgment is a two-edged sword. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 7:1-2 not to judge because when we do, we bring judgment upon ourselves as well. We may want to call down fire from heaven at times upon this world, but that fire may fall upon us as well.

Luke’s gospel tells us the story of the woman who approached Jesus in the crowd, seeking to be healed (Luke 8:43-48). She had suffered for twelve years with a hemorrhage, and she believed that if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak she would be healed. Now there’s hope! There are many fascinating elements in that passage, one of which is that Jesus was not at all judgmental toward this woman. Do you ever wonder why people who are suffering are often judged for their circumstances? There is a reason, I believe. It is a way of excusing one’s self from an obligation to help those who are suffering and in need. If one can find a way to blame people for their circumstances, then it is possible to excuse one’s self from helping them. After natural disasters I am always waiting and ready to cringe, because so often there is someone from the religious community who will step forward and blame the victims, saying it is God’s judgment upon them. Saying such a thing, judging people in such a way, becomes, then, a very convenient way to be removed from the calling to help people. Notice also that when the woman came before Jesus she was trembling with fear, Mark says in verse 33. Perhaps she was trembling because she thought he’s a religious person, and those religious people can be tough. But Jesus isn’t tough with her, he isn’t judgmental, and he isn’t critical; he gives her hope and healing. Jesus didn’t scold here, and he didn’t say, why didn’t you come to me sooner? Why did you wait until you ran through all your money and tried every other solution first? Why am I always the last resort for people? Why can’t I be the first resort for a change? Jesus said none of those things, because he loved the woman.

And so, in closing this series of messages I will say that love is the foundation of everything about our faith. It is the foundation of everything we do as a church. It is the foundation of the entirety of Scripture. It is the foundation of God’s work in this world. It is love that makes faith and hope possible. So let us go forth in faith, hope, and, above all, love! 

November 4, 2018 I Corinthians 13, A Guide for Life: When It All Passes Away

Though I don’t remember who it was, or the circumstances in which it was said, someone once told me, you know Dave, you have basically one sermon.  Every sermon you preach follows the same theme.  I don’t know if they meant that as a criticism or as a compliment, but either way I would say it’s basically true.  All of what I have attempted to say over the years, at times in very muddled and stumbling ways, has been about the love of God.  That’s pretty much my one theme.  I decided long ago if I was going to have one basic theme in my sermons that ought to be it –the love of God.  That doesn’t mean I consciously ignore other themes, but everything comes back to the love of God as primary because that is the great theme of Scripture and of our faith.  And I know it sounds overly simplistic to say that everything ought to come back to the love of God, but the truth is, it is easy to get sidetracked into other matters, and that often happens in churches.  So if I have one theme in my messages, if we have one approach in all of our ministries, and if we have one theme in our worship services, let’s have it be the theme of the love of God, because that’s what it ought to be, and everything else we do and say should be a way to help us to better understand and to live that one basic truth.

Continuing with our series of messages from I Corinthians 13, that is the theme – the love of God.  Paul has a lot of underlying themes in this passage, but love and the love of God is the overriding theme.  This morning I am going to read from a rather new translation that you probably have never heard of, and it is called The Passion Translation.  Like The Message, it translates the words of this passage into language that sounds very different from what we are accustomed to hearing, but it is a very good translation, I believe.

I Corinthians 13:1-13 (The Passion Translation)

1 If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing.

3 And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.

4 Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance.

5 Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense.

6 Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.

7 Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.

8 Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten.

9 Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial, 

10 but when love’s perfection arrives, the partial will fade away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke about childish matters, for I saw things like a child and reasoned like a child. But the day came when I matured, and I set aside my childish ways.

12 For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we will see face-to-face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood.

13 Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love—yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.

I like that version, and I hope that you do too.

This morning, I want to use verse 10 as a touchstone for what I will say.  Verse ten says that when love’s perfection arrives, the partial will fade away.  I like that verse – when love’s perfection arrives, the partial will fade away.  What that means, I believe, is that we are living with a lot of the partial in this life.  We are living in a kind of shadow world, a shadow world that is a very, very dim version of the reality that God intended for creation.  This world is not yet where God wants or intends for it to be.  What we see is just a little bit, just a portion, of what God desires.  When we experience the greatest joys and beauties in life, we are experiencing moments that give us an inkling, a glimpse, into what will one day be.  You know what kind of experiences I mean.  I’m speaking of those transcendent moments in life, when we feel lifted above and beyond the cares and the struggles in life, the moments when we feel the fullness of love and blessing in our lives, and the moment when the powerful movement of God washes over us.  Those moments can be few and far between, and too fleeting when they come, but they are powerful moments, and they are moments that put us in touch with a greater experience of God and the presence and the love of God.

I also like the final sentence in this passage, and I want to read it again and offer a few thoughts about that verse before moving on.  The last sentence of that passage says, so above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.  That’s an interesting way to portray love, isn’t it, as though it is somewhat elusive, something that must be pursued and in some ways, certainly, it is.  Love does not always come naturally to us, because at times, self-interest takes over, so pursuing love has to be a very conscious effort, and a conscious effort that is ever on our mind. In my younger years I used to run a lot.  Now I walk mostly, with just a bit of running, because running for so many years did a bit of damage to my joints.  My joints ache, I have a torn meniscus in my right knee, my other knee often hurts, my feet hurt, but the good news is that it’s not from age; it’s just the wear and tear of all those years of running (at least that’s what I tell myself).  One of the things I did to keep me motivated to run each day was to run in races – 5K and 10K races.  Those races were great motivation to run every day because I didn’t want to be unprepared for a race.  And what I liked about running in those races, aside from keeping in shape, was that they had a very simple goal – get to the finish line as quickly as possible.  I do so much better when I have a very clearly stated goal, such as getting across the finish line as quickly as possible.

To expand on the analogy of running, here are a couple of things to remember.  The first is a question – what is the prize for which you are running in life?  Running can mean you are running from something as well as to something, but there is a difference in those two perspectives.  Running from something, it seems to me, is more fear based, but running to something is the pursuing of something good, and hopeful, and this passage is very much one of hope.  We can run from our problems and worries or we can run to the goal of a life that is rooted in love and not fear.  The prize to which we are running, then, ought to be that of love.  Second, running reminds me of the importance and the need for being with others.  I often ran with a friend, and it was very helpful for me to do so.  When I did not feel very motivated, my friend helped to motivate me.  My friend pushed me and challenged me when I needed to be pushed and challenged, so I don’t know how well I would have done if I had been entirely on my own.  We do better when we are with others, don’t we?  That’s why I believe attending worship is so helpful and so important, because when we gather here together we find strength, comfort, and encouragement as one body.

This passage is also, I would say, a passage of prophecy, specifically, a prophecy of hope.  I don’t imagine many people think of this passage as a prophecy, but it is.  It is a prophecy because it gives us that glimpse into what life will be like when the will of God comes completely into being.  We’re certainly not there yet, are we?  It is easy to be impatient waiting for that to come, and odds are we will not see it come in its completion, but one day it will come to pass.  Paul is writing about the reality that all the things that are antithetical to love will one day pass away, and while we are living in times of difficulty and times of challenge, these words are a promise – they are a promise that things will one day be different. 

So now I want to turn our attention to what fades away, or passes away.  What fades away, what passes away, are the things that keep us from experiencing love in its fullest capacity.  So let’s think for the rest of our time this morning about what will pass away.  Some things need to pass away.  Some things are way overdue in their need to pass away.  The good new is – the days are numbered for those things that must pass away!  Here are some of the things that need to pass away, and one day will pass away.

Fear, worry, and anxiety will pass away. 

The call to worship for this morning (Matthew 6:25-34, from The Message – If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.  Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.  If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.  Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes) is about worry and anxiety, but in a different translation than we are used to hearing, and it’s a passage from which I have preached on more than one occasion.  I understand that fear, worry, and anxiety will never completely fade from our lives, but they do not have to hold us captive.  It’s amazing how some things, at the time, can seem so huge and so ominous.  Years ago, when I was an associate minister, I was asked to lead a youth church softball league.  I was the new guy in town so I imagine I was an easy mark to draft for such a task.  A group of about a half dozen people came to see me one day and asked if I would take on the task and I agreed, even though I knew nothing about organizing or running a softball league.  The final words of the group, as they left my office, were, if you need any help, any help at all, don’t hesitate to let us know.  That was the last I ever saw any of those people.  I never saw them or heard from them again.  I’m certain they changed their phone numbers and their addresses.  In fact, I think they all went into the witness protection plan!  I was in the church office the evening before the first game, trying to complete the schedule and other matters, and I was so stressed out that I thought my head was going to explode.  The next day, at the first game, everything was a mess.  The schedule had conflicts, there were many matters I did not have covered, people were upset, and I was ready to leave town.  In retrospect, what is interesting is that I had forgotten all about the stress and anxiety of that moment until a few days ago, as I was working on this message.  What seemed like such a huge deal at the time, it turns out, really did not matter, certainly not in the grand scheme of things.  Why did I worry so much about something so inconsequential in life?  I like to turn things around, from bad to good, so I believe we can learn from such moments, so here is what I believe we can learn from those moments of stress and anxiety.  Those moments can help to prepare us for the much greater difficulties of life, those things that really do matter and that inevitably come our way.  Those moments helped me when I was faced with much great difficulties, especially early in ministry, when I needed to learn how to deal with crisis situations, such as the time I was called to the scene of an accident where a young boy had been hit by a car.  I arrived at the scene to find a very difficult situation.  His injuries were very serious, his grandfather was on the ground crying and begging God to save him, and I was asked to go and tell his mother what had happened, and then to take her to the hospital.  Thankfully, he recovered and did very well, but I don’t know how I would have handled that situation if not for what I had learned from other moments of stress and anxiety.  Such moments also prepared me for the times sitting at the bedsides of people as they departed from this world, to hold their hand and think about how much we would miss them, but to hold to the hope that we would once again be together, as Paul says in verse 12, one day we will see face to face.

Hatred will pass away.  

Hatred is all around us and has been with us from the beginning.  It’s relatively easy for humanity to make progress scientifically and technologically.  We are constantly making better cell phones, faster and faster computers, and making advancements in so many other ways, but when it comes to learning how to love and rejecting hate, we have as far to go as ever.  The knowledge of humanity grows but the nature of humanity continues to struggle with the scourge of hatred.

When I was young, our family farm had a large field that stretched from the front of our house to the road.  In the spring it was a carpet of dandelions.  I don’t know how many seeds there are in a single dandelion, but I know that one dandelion will produce scores of dandelions.  In fact, one dandelion can produce enough dandelions to cover a field of several acres because those seeds produce many more dandelions that in turn produce many more.  That is a good example of how hatred – or love – can grow.  One action, one word, however small they may seem to be, is a seed that is planted in the soil of the human heart.  That action, that word, will in turn, plant other seeds of either love or hatred.  Verse 8 says love never stops loving.  No matter what. Love never stops loving when harsh and ugly and dehumanizing words are hurled at others simply because they are different in some way from the one with hatred in their heart.  Love never stops loving, even when hatred bursts into a grocery store or a school or a place of worship and takes lives. Love never stops loving even when the bomb of a terrorist takes lives.  In verse 7 Paul writes that love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.  We all need a safe shelter from the hatred in this world, and what a beautiful hope that one day we will indeed find it.  We used to think of churches as safe places.  We worship in sanctuaries, a word that means a safe place and a place of shelter, but that is no longer true, sadly.  Schools used to be places of safety but no longer are.  In spite of this tragic reality we must continue to believe and to proclaim and to work for the truth that love will win over hatred and that hatred will one day pass away.

Disease, suffering, and even death will one day pass away.

I am now early in my 10^th year here at First Christian, and I don’t believe I have ever seen a time when as many people from our congregation have struggled with health challenges and with difficult medical diagnoses.  Not a week that goes by that I don’t get at least one phone call from someone with a really big challenge.  Increasingly, it seems to be every day that I receive a phone call about those challenges, and sometimes several calls in a single day.  They are calls in which people share the challenges they face and ask for prayers.  It seems that for every two or three steps of forward progress made by medical science, disease takes four or five steps forward.  But we must remember that the promise of God is that disease will one day pass away and we will be free of the suffering that has so long plagued us.

And we look around the world and there is so much suffering.  So much.  Even in our own small community.  We serve lunch at God’s Kitchen, for those who need a daily meal.  Next week we will travel to the Diersen Center, to lead worship and to visit with the residents there.  When we visit with the women there we listen to them talk about their children from whom they are separated, and it is so heartbreaking.  Every week we have volunteers at the Serenity Center helping to pass out food to literally hundreds of people.  And beyond all this there is so much suffering that we don’t see, but the promise of Scripture is that one day all of this will be overcome, and all of this will pass away. 

And there is that great challenge, finally, that life is so temporary and will one day end.  On Friday evening I attended a gathering with Tanya and her coworkers.  Every fall they have a bonfire and time of fellowship and I go with her and I enjoy getting to know her coworkers.  In past years, when the company was smaller, I knew all of her coworkers but this year there were a lot of new people there and most of them I didn’t know.  About halfway through the evening, a disturbing realization hit me.  It was mind blowing to me and it was this – I was the oldest person there.  Tanya likes to hire young people and her office is populated mostly with people in their 20s and 30s, but it was still a jolt to be in the unfamiliar position of being the oldest person in attendance at a gathering.  I was tempted to ask the few people there who looked to be similar in age to me how old are you?  Please tell me you are older than me!  I couldn’t help but wonder, how did I so suddenly and so swiftly arrive at this point in life?  Where did the time go?  It seemed such a short time ago that I was one of those young people and most everyone was older than me, and now there I was, the oldest person present.  Life is so brief.  Life passes by so quickly.  Our sojourn in this life is but a moment. 

Early in my previous ministry one of the members of the church told me, you know Dave, if you stay here very long you are going to have a lot of difficult funerals to do.  And he was right.  It was a small congregation and a small community, and I got to know those people like family and they became an important part of my life and I did indeed, over the course of my more than eighteen years of ministry there, have many, many difficult funerals, including the person who said those words to me.  I’ve spent a lot of time with people as they take their last breath, and it becomes overwhelming.  I’ve officiated at hundreds of funerals, and I have many more to go, and that is overwhelming when I think about it.  Please understand that I don’t mean to be morbid, because that is not my intent.  It’s hard for me to imagine, though, if this were all there is.  I would be so discouraged and so in despair if I thought that life was passing by so quickly and that at the end of life there was nothing else.  Can you imagine, if we had nothing but several decades and then nothingness?  But I know there is more, and you do too.  The great, prophetic words of Scripture promise us that there is more.  While anxiety, worry, fear, hatred, disease, and struggle will all pass away, so will death.  As Christ was triumphant over death some day we will be as well.  In the passing away comes something new.  As the book or Revelation promises us God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Revelation 21:4).  While so much passes away, the great gift of life continues.  The gift of life, created in love and empowered in love, continues because of love, the great love of God!