JOURNEY TO NAZARETH

Sermon Summary from Nov 29, “Journey to Nazareth”

When I grew up, Christmas was a big deal. The baby Jesus was a big deal.  Mary, not so much.  We were Protestants after all.  I didn’t know much about Mary. The Advent series is about the who of Mary and Joseph, the where of Nazareth and Bethlehem, and about what they can teach us about God, Jesus, Christmas and about ourselves.  Today we start “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.” (Luke 1:26)

Yet Sepphoris was an elegant, bustling, luxurious town of thirty thousand (yep, big) less than four miles away, the capital of Herod Antipas’ region.  Why not to the rich and famous?  Nazareth was a no-count Podunk of 300 (at most).  Josephus called Sepphoris the “Ornament of Galilee.”  Nazareth wasn’t on most maps. 

Most of the homes in Nazareth were caves carved out of the hillside.  More that likely, Mary laid her head down at night in a cave in a hillside.  A humble village.  Like all villages, it had a well from a spring that still flows today.  If you visit, you can drink from the spring that Mary and later Jesus would draw from.  In fact, some modern depictions have the “annunciation” taking place on the way to the well.

It was to Nazareth, not Sepphoris that the angel came.  And it was to Mary.  Continuing: “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.  And the virgin’s name was Mary.” (Lk 1:27)  Luke tells us that God sent his messenger not to a princess in Sepphoris but to a poor maiden in Nazareth.  Not to a woman but a girl, not to a palace but a Podunk, not to a city but a cave.  And yet the angel says, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.”  He continued, “And behold, you shall conceive… and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David…”

Here’s what we hear: Jesus, Son of God.  He will save us.  He will restore the throne of David, forever.  Here’s was Mary hears: “You shall conceive.”  How can this be?!?

And here’s the amazing thing, Mary never had a doubt.  “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord.  Let it be me according to your word.” 

So what do we learn, from Nazareth, from Mary?  The nature of God is to favor the lowly and the humble.  If we want to get our hearts in tune with God’s, that’s what we need to focus on this Advent.  Second, God chose Mary, not for the easy task, but for the difficult.  We are called to transform the world.  God chooses us for the difficult.  We need to be ready.  If we are to tune our hearts to God's this Advent, it is to favor the humble, the oppressed, the marginalized and be ready to say "yes" to the difficult. 

I often have played the clip of Charlie Brown and Linus and the Christmas tree for the children at Christmas focusing on Linus telling us "that's what Christmas was all about, Charlie Brown."  Yet, in watching one more time, Charlie catches the very Spirit of God by selecting the scrawny tree, overlooking the Sepphoris, ornamented tree and choosing instead the Podunk, Nazareth tree.  Let us not miss that either, for that too is what Christmas is all about.  Amen.

DAVID, KING(DOM) FOREVER

Sermon Summary from Nov 22, “David: King(dom) Forever”

We finish a four-part series on King David leading to Advent.  Today, Kingdom Forever.  The prophet Nathan (prophets speak for God) told David “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Samuel 7:16)

Later, Isaiah would point to a “shoot shall come out from the stump of Jessie (David’s Father)” (Isaiah 11:1).  Jewish scholars would see this as pointing toward the Messiah; and Christian Scholars would later see it as pointing to Jesus as the ideal King. Listen to Paul in one of his early sermons: “God made David their king.  In [God’s] testimony about him he said, “I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out my wishes.” Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. (Acts 13:22b-23)

Handel’s transcendent music “Messiah” in quoting “Revelation” has it right: “King of kings and Lord of lords; and he shall reign forever and ever.”  And we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

God has covenanted with us to be our God.  We are to be his people.  What does it mean to be a person after God’s own heart?  How do we become those who carry out his wishes? If we pray “Thy kingdom come…” how is it that we are to live? Here’s the real question: “What is required of us?”

Two hundred years after David, the prophet Micah (prophets speak for God) summarized all of the law in a single verse: “He has told you O mortal, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

To do justice (fairness): Jesus would teach us the Golden Rule, to do unto others as we would have them do to us.

To love kindness (or lovingkindness, a godly attribute of compassion, mercy and love): New Testament writers would tell us of the Royal Law, to love our neighbors as ourselves.

To walk humbly: To humbly submit to the king, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, to ask the question: “What would Jesus do?”

I met a young grad student, Cissy, who dared ask the questions (I don’t think I could have), who in doing so treated the homeless (sometimes drunk and dangerous) with lovingkindness, who asked the question in face of war, “What was Jesus do?” and acted.  She actually entered Iraq through Jordan, announced her presence in the hopes that bombing would not begin.  As it turns out, she returned before the hostilities.  I disagreed with Cissy, but I admired her.  I’m not sure I could ask the questions.  How about you?  What is required of you? How do you respond to the Golden Rule, Royal Law, the question “What would Jesus do?”  Amen.

FORGIVEN LIKE DAVID

Sermon Summary from November 15, “Forgiven Like David”

Our Bible is brutally honest and we find solace in that.  We find the “Ideal” King David is flawed like us.  We are grateful that God does not deal with us according to our sins but “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our sins from us.” (Ps 103:12)

David’s story (and ours): What happens to us when we have no more lands to conquer, no more mountains to climb?  We lose purpose, mission, we begin to feel sorry for our selves, we begin to say “I deserve it.”  When we do so, look out!

In the spring, when kings go out to battle, David stayed in Jerusalem feeling sorry for himself.  “It happened late one afternoon” (2 Samuel 11:2).  David saw Bathsheba from the roof of his house and said, “I want that (lust); I deserve that (pride); I deserve that more than her husband (envy)” 

We know the story.  David calls for her and “he lay with her.”  By the way, what woman can so “no” to a king?  It was R-A-P-E.  She becomes pregnant.  Now the cover up.  David schemes to bring her husband, Uriah, back from the field to the comfort of home.  But Uriah, one of the most noble and honorable figures in the Bible, will not sleep with his wife while his men are in battle, in tents.  Now David becomes incensed (anger), and tells his commander to put Uriah in the front of the battle and when the fighting becomes fierce to withdraw the army from him so that he is struck down and killed.  Murder!

The prophet Nathan confronts David with the story of the rich man and the poor man’s little ewe lamb. (You can read about it in 2 Samuel 12).  David is angry at the rich man.  Nathan says, “You are the man!”  God reminds David of all that he had done for him and says if that had been too little he would have even done more (I can see greed and gluttony seeping in here too). 

David confesses.  Nathan, speaking for God, says “the Lord has put away his sin.”  But the consequence of sin remains.  Uriah is dead.  The baby will die.  Not only that, David is exposed, a public disgrace and his example of rape and murder and disrespect will tragically play out in his family.

Yes, David confesses and is forgiven.  But to see the anguish and contrition, we need to go to Psalm 51 (your exercise).

Our lesson? We many not be murderers or rapists, but we experience the very same starting points as David (pride, envy, anger, greed, sloth, gluttony, lust).  We need to confess, repent, turn around when we experience these seemingly minor sins before we fall off the precipice, begin the slippery slide.  Amen.

FORMED LIKE DAVID

Sermon Summary from November 8, “Formed Like David”

There are parts of the Old Testament that I love.  Then there are those parts you can never tell at Children’s time.  There is incredible violence.  Even with our 20th and 21st century numbing, we don’t like to read it in our Holy Book.  It upsets our sensibilities.  We come to understand that life then was cheap.  We don’t like that.

We’re studying the life of David, chosen by God at the age of 10 or 12 to replace a failed King Saul.  Chosen so that God could form him for the task.  It will be twenty years before David sits on the throne.  In the meantime, he faces many trials.  He plays the harp for Saul and there are two instances where Saul wants to pin him to the wall with a spear.  That upsets our sensibilities too.  We had a book of Bible stories in our home when I grew up with a picture of Saul and his spear threatening David.  Abuse!  That’s not even the kind of book we can take to school for “show and tell” in this day and age.

How do you explain the violence in the Old Testament (or for the New Testament for that matter—how do you explain the slaughter of innocents?)?  One way we might explain it is that God worked with what he had.  Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.  By the time of Noah, God was sorry he had made us.  But since God is God he gave us another chance.  Then there are terrible stories in Judges, stories we don’t even tell in Adult Sunday School.

After the Judges, the people demand a King.  Saul fails by choosing military expediency over obedience to God.  In the battle for the throne, Saul tries over and over again to kill David.  But David says, “God forbid that I should put forth my hand against the Lord’s anointed.”  In two stories, David has Saul dead to rights but he chooses “good” in order to strive to influence Saul.  He chooses good over evil.

David, formed by God.  There seems to be a significant transition that takes place in Biblical ethics in the story of David and Saul: It moves from an “eye for and eye” to “overcome evil with good.”  He strives to apply the Golden Rule a thousand years before Jesus and Paul would teach these ethical principles.

Too often we find “an eye for an eye” more satisfying that loving our enemies, praying for those who persecute us, applying the Golden Rule.  We need to live each day, looking ahead to whom we will meet, what circumstance we might encounter and striving to overcome evil with good, applying the Golden Rule.

GOD LOOKS AT THE HEART

Sermon Summary from November 1, “Appearances” (1 Samuel 16)

Yesterday, I had an amazing conversation with a woman that had been homeless, a woman that I ordinarily would have shied away from. Why? Because of appearances. I came to find out that because of medical problems, now controlled with the right prescriptions, she had become homeless.  She was educated, a voracious reader, and worked as a computer technician.  He had no car by choice.  She had no television because it was a time sink.  She hadn’t been to church for 40 years until the United Methodist Church invited her in her homeless clothes to attend, and now she considers it her church and she never misses a Sunday.  Amazing conversation and I almost missed because of appearances that I shy away from.

But you know that we all seem to create appearances that define us and others shy away from.  Some wear big hats and buckles.  Others have tattoos.  Others have bikes and helmets.  High School kids gather in like kinds by appearances.  We’re in the process of selecting Presidential nominees and I’ll bet we’re doing it in part by appearances.  I wonder what kind of chance Abraham Lincoln would have with our current system?

Jesus is described in the Old Testament as a man of sorrows that others would hide their faces from.  He was born into poverty, a manual laborer, homeless during his ministry.  Would I have missed him?

Israel almost missed King David.  They had a King, Saul, right out of Hollywood central casting, the most handsome man in the land who stood head and shoulders above everyone else.  But Saul chose military expediency over God, and God rejected him.

God told Samuel (prophet and the final Judge of Israel) to go to home of Jesse and choose on of his sons.  Samuel thought surely God’s chosen was among Jesse’s older and more handsome sons; but Go told him “mortals judge by appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  “...At the heart.”  David, the youngest, 10 or 12 years old was selected by God.

That’s what we need to do, need to train ourselves to do.  But to get to the heart, we need to enter into conversation, even with those that may look difference than we do.  Here’s our challenge, to find a person (in a safe environment) that we may never ordinarily talk with and engage them in conversation, maybe in the checkout line, maybe in the aisle.  Step out of our comfort zone.  Find ways to look at the heart.  We will all be enriched by it.

A LIFE OF GENEROSITY

Sermon Summary from October 25, “A Life of Generosity”

There were times when Rosemary and I lived with no margin. We moved to Alexandria, VA, as new second lieutenants, high rent, low pay.  We made it through three weeks before we had to use silver dollars to buy the baby milk and charge our meals at the officers club.  Our move to Alabama and flight school a year later was very welcome .

We have a friend. a good man otherwise, who borrowed against the herd to buy expensive equipment then sold the herd to make the payments.  He went to jail!  It seems we can’t live without money and we can’t live with it.  We all have financial lives.  We live our financial lives each and every day.  No wonder the Bible and Jesus have much to say about it.  How is it that followers of Jesus should live their financial lives?

First, with an attitude of gratitude.  God created all of us and all that we have and give us dominion.  It is not ours.  We are stewards.  Be grateful.  Second, simplicity (I’m preaching to myself here).  Stuff costs money, requires maintenance, needs insurance, takes space, gets in the way, distracts us.  There are areas of our life that we should simplify because we should, and that leads to the next way of living: Live with margin.

John Wesley teaches us to “Make all you can so you can save all you can so you can give all you can.”  You cannot give, you cannot live a life of generosity without margin.

But why should we?  Because God is out to change the world!  We are called to be disciples so that we can transform the world.  What if every Christian tithed to a sound, efficient Christian charity?  What if?  We now give two to three percent.  We say let the government do it.  When was the last time the government ministered well?  When do they ever do anything with love? 

To change the world, we need to live a life of generosity, a transforming life of generosity.  And there are great charities in which are dollars are life changing and never go away: Habitat for Humanity returns payments to the fund for humanity to build more houses.  The money never goes away.  Micro-loans revolutionize lives and are used in perpetuity.  Safe water and throttling diseases like malaria are life changing.  Education, especially of girls in developing countries, may be the answer to peace.  God wants to change the world: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

The best advice?  See where God is working in the world and join in!

DIVINELY DESIGNED FOR SERVICE

Sermon Summary for October 18th (Mt 25:34-36; Gal 5:19-25)

We’re in a sermon series, “Foundations: Basic Practices of Following Jesus.” Today joining Jesus in ministry through a life of service.  We’re made that way: Divine Design. We’re on a life-long journey.  Journey would imply we don’t stay in the same place.  We start where we are, but we intentionally move, following Jesus in a life of worship, of hospitality, of opening ourselves to him, of obeying him, and joining in his ministry, a life of service.

Each of us are equipped with gifts.  Interesting thing about gifts—they are not for us.  They are for others.  They are of no value if we keep them to ourselves.  Spiritual gifts are for building up others, the body of Christ for service.  But for the body of Christ to be effective, it needs you, it needs your presence.  God is out to transform the world through the service of Jesus’ followers.  Your presence is required.

Last week Rosemary and I listened to an Andy Stanley sermon series “What Makes You Happy?”  The first was “No Thing.”  There is no thing that can make you happy.  Happiness always requires a “who or two.”  The second was “Sow Ing.”  We reap what we sow.  We need to sow with care to be happy.  The last was “Not Me.”  Selfishness, ego, narcissism can never make us happy.  He says, “You cannot acquire, consume or exercise your way to happiness.”  Happiness is about others.  That’s God’s divine design.

Andy cited medical surveys showing caring, teaching, protecting professions are the most satisfying, that volunteering reduces stress, depression, heart disease.  For teens there is less drug abuse, fewer unwanted pregnancies among volunteers even when the service was mandatory!  Why? We were designed that way.

In Galatians 5:19-25, Paul contrast the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit.  Works of the flesh are almost exclusively self-serving.  And when we strive to satisfy ourselves at the expense of others, we have a moral issue and we are being warned.

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  There is no law against such things.”  These are almost exclusively for others, and they result in mutual joy.  And there is no limit, there is no law.  You can love all you want, be kind all you want, be gentle all you want.  Just think if all the people exercised self-control for one month what a world it would be.  There is no law against them.

What makes us happy?  Offering ourselves to others.  Smiling more, scheduling time to be with others.  Finding ways to help.  Mel West has told us that our opportunity to serve come at the intersection of the lines where the need of others intersect our ability to meet those needs. 

How do we follow Jesus?  Join him in ministry? Live a life of service?  We simply ask in all circumstances, “What does love require of us?”  And then listen to the urging of the Spirit.  And love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control will be part of your life.  You were designed that way.  Amen.