sermon - Dr. Suess

John 5:1-18

“Oh, the Places Jesus Goes”

            Congratulations!  Today is your day.  These are the opening words of Dr. Sues’ book:  Oh, the Places You’ll Go!  I was given a special copy of this book when I graduated from high school from my aunt, uncle, and cousins.  Each one of them wrote me a note of encouragement for my future as I began my journey to college.  Oh, the places you will go, looking back, now 25 years later, these words ring true.  Oh, the places I have been. 

            Through the book, Dr. Sues shares that there are choices in this future journey that we are all taking.  There are places that we choose we just don’t want to go.  And we can choose to steer ourselves in a completely different way.  The book then hits on the reality of life, not everything will go our way.  We will hit times where we feel like we have been left behind or times when we just don’t know which direction to go.  The message continues that with perseverance we will succeed as long as we keep trying there will be places to go. 

            Congratulations!  Today is your day.  These are not the words Jesus speaks to the man at the pool, but they might as well have been.  He asks: Do you want to be made well?  And the man explains that he has waited and waited and waited to be made well, but others push ahead of him and there is no one will help him.  For thirty-eight years he has waited to be made well.  His only option in life is to wait, wait until a day and time come when indeed, he will be made well.  Not really much of a life is it?  The living conditions must have been horrid.  The scriptures share that there are all kinds of invalid people gathered here.  This place has a reputation for healing, when the waters are stirred, and the people enter the water, it was believed that they would be healed.  But from this man’s account, it sounds like it was extremely difficult to even get to the water. 

            Congratulations!  Today is your day.  Stand up, take your mat, and walk.  And the man has been made well.  Jesus does not pick him up and place him in the water, but speaks and the man stands up and walks away.  He does not even know Jesus’ name.  He just knows that someone has finally noticed him, someone has honored him as a person, someone has shown enough compassion to him and not pushed him away one more time.  He wants to be made well, and perhaps he felt something happening within his body as Jesus spoke, but he did not insist that he needed to be placed in the water, rather he just stood up and walked away. 

            Oh, the places Jesus goes.  Why does he choose to go to the places that he goes?  As he entered into Jerusalem, he could have gone to any number of places, but he chose to go to this place, a place of human suffering and desperation, yet a place with potential hope as people waited to be healed.  Perhaps that is why Jesus chose to go to this specific place, the underlying potential hope that each of the invalid person had within him or herself as they waited, waited for the opportunity to enter the waters of the pool.  They had not yet given up on life.  They still had enough within themselves to expect life to be different, to expect life to be better.  And so they waited.  And Jesus comes to them.  He comes to a suffering and miserable place and ignites the small spark of hope within one man who has waited thirty eight years to be given a different life.  Thirty eight years in those days was a complete life time.  Amazing that he even lived that long, but he did, and Jesus chose to go to that place, and offered him a fuller life. 

            Oh, the places Jesus goes.  And he goes on the Sabbath.  Once again, we have a healing story on the Sabbath and Jesus is getting the attention of his opponents.  And Jesus’ explanation for his actions on the Sabbath are this:  My Father is still working and I also am working. 

            In engaging scripture, we can always ask the question, what does this story share about who God is, who people are, and the relationship between the two?  This story shares that God is a God of love and compassion and desires to be present to people no matter what their life journey is.  God goes to the places of human suffering, of human desperation, and seeks to bring wholeness.  This passage shares that people often are out for their own best interest and leave the weakest behind.  This passage again illustrates that the religious leaders of the time desired obedience to the law over the gift of lives changed.  And this story shares that Jesus is willing to go to places others fear.  He is willing to go to places that are ritually unclean, that are most likely pretty smelly, and he goes to these places because God is alive in this world.  There are no religious leaders at the pool trying to help this man enter into the waters.  There is no one willing to help this man.  There is only God present in the life of Jesus. 

            Oh, the places Jesus goes.  How do we engage this day with the words:  Congratulations!  Today is your day!  As we first have to accept it as our own and then bring this message of God’s hope into the world?     

sermon - Full Armor of God

Joshua

Ephesians

“Embraced in God’s Love”

            In our house, it is always: Safety First.  My children know that they are not allowed to ride their bikes or scooters without the proper equipment, they must wear their helmet and they must have on sneakers.  No ands, ifs, or buts.  The rules are the rules because for us, it is always, Safety First.   In today’s world, our children are used to wearing a bike helmet, or shin guards, or shoulder pads when playing football, soccer or lacrosse.  Perhaps that would be a more suitable metaphor for us in today’s world.  The whole sports equipment of God.  Football, Hockey or Lacrosse probably work best for this metaphor, since those players tend to wear the most equipment. 

            Whether we are donning armor, or a bike helmet, or soccer shin guards, or football shoulder pads, or a mouth guard, as we put on these items, they embrace our body, they cover us, they protect us.  Sports equipment embraces our bodies in order to keep us safe.  Helmets protect us against concussions, mouth guards protect our teeth, and so on. 

            In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul is reaching out to a fledgling congregation of people that need encouragement.  They are living in challenging times and their faith is being challenged and questioned.  So, Paul uses an everyday image as a metaphor for the people:  Armor.  Now, when I think of armor, I immediately think of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and the medieval exhibit hall that is filled with armor including horses in armor.  For me, the image of armor is a bit outdated.  Just as the Ephesians were facing challenges by others, the church of today is also facing numerous challenges.  We too need the encouragement of Paul in order to stand strong as a people of faith in the diverse culture of our day.  And so it is, Paul desires this small group of people in Ephesus to know, that in challenging times, they too have the equipment of God to keep them safe.  The full armor of God, to me, embraces what our faith is all about.  As we think about who we are as a people of faith, do we think about the ways in which God is embracing us, protecting us, calling us to stand strong in challenging and questioning times? 

            Paul is giving them a step by step simplistic way of defining their faith and understanding who they are as a people of God.  First, they must define what the truth is for them.  It is the foundation, it is the building block of what they believe.  Do they believe in the God’s of the Roman Empire or do they believe in the one true God of the Jewish faith?  Do they accept the teachings Paul brought to them of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, or do they believe in other ideologies of their culture?  Whatever it is that we believe, we wrap that truth around our core, around our inner being.  What we name as Truth impacts how we live our lives.  If, for me, truth is: an important education and career, then that is how one seeks to equip themselves as they journey through life.     

            Naming one’s truth is the central meaning in the passage today from the book of Joshua.  Joshua is asking them to name their truth.  What is it that they believe?  Will they worship the God’s of their ancestors or will they move forward into the Promised Land believing in the one true God?  Joshua asks them to take a solemn vow:  Who on this day will you serve?  And he names for himself:  As for me and my family, we will serve the one true God.  The belt of truth.  Stand strong in what you believe and know that God wraps that truth around the core of your being. 

            Throughout our faith journey within the life of the church, we come to these moments where we need to come back to our foundations, to what we consider the truth, whether it be as individuals or as an entire congregation.  And we have sacraments and other rituals within our time of worship to name those truths: such as in baptism and communion, such as in ordination and installation of leadership, and in the litany of membership.  We engage in these lifelong patterns of faith, reminding ourselves and each other, that in God we have the belt of truth.   

            I spent several hours this past week at a meeting at the presbytery office where we were discerning what faith and discipleship means in today’s world and what resources the churches in our presbytery might need in equipping our congregations in faith formation and discipleship growth.  In a way, it is the same question Paul has before him as he reaches out to this fledgling congregation in Ephesus.  He wants them to be a people of faith, a people that believe in God and in Jesus and in salvation and righteousness, not because they are told to believe it, but because they truly do believe.  In order for one to begin a journey of faith formation, there must be a truth to build upon. 

            We can see on a daily basis on how people seek to name a truth, and then convince others to be a part of their truth.  Scientists gather data, politicians give speeches, the media present stories, and sometimes it is all just so cluttered we can throw up our hands and shout – I just don’t know who or what to believe. 

            At least in the church, we can begin through Paul’s metaphor: the belt of truth and then the breastplate of righteousness, or the shoulder pads of right living within the community.  If we believe a truth of being a people of God involves love for our neighbor, then as we adorn our shoulder pads, we should find ways in which we express love for our neighbor.  We live out the truths we have named.  As we grow in our faith formation, we can learn from our actions or from the actions of others.  If you see a person of faith always being compassionate and caring for others, you may begin to seek to model that behavior yourself.  Again, in the world in which we live, we have challenges with what right living within our faith community may be.  We have temptations all around, they may look different from the day and age of Paul, but they are still there.  And since God understands that they are there and that we stumble and struggle with them, we can stand strong because God places upon us the breastplate of righteousness.  We do not do this one on our own, we seek right living but we do not believe in works righteousness.  This was a hard one for me when I was younger, and probably the biggest area of growth in my own faith formation when I truly understand that it is God’s grace that places the shoulder pads upon each and everyone of us.