sermon: Got Water?

Romans 8:31

Got Water?

            Today is our last Sunday for the sermon series on Got God?  Through the summer, we have been exploring ways in which people in our scriptures have encountered God and the ways God has encountered people.  We call our scriptures the Living Word of God for a reason, we have this amazing history spanning over 4,000 years of how God has been at work and we are called into the story to understand that God is still at work in the world today, in each and every one of our lives. 

            This past week, I was at the Church Growth and Evangelism Conference and a major theme of the conference worship was Baptism.  We were reminded that in our own baptism, we are participating in the journey of being God’s people.  I loved this one image that was shared:  that as worshiping communities gather together, they are, in themselves, the baptism font.  We, each and everyone of us, here in this place, are a part of the Baptismal sacrament.  We, each and everyone of us here, are asked to respond to the vows of baptism.  We are the fount to provide the living water of God’s love to the world around us. 

            Got God?  Got Water?  Got the Living Water of God’s love?  Today, we receive Abby into the life of the church.  We have made a statement of faith to raise and nurture her in the Christian faith.  Our scriptures are rich in water imagery, and as God’s people encounter various forms of water their lives move into transition, change, they are called to be transformed.  Some fight it, some complain about it, some resist, but together, the people move forward, listening to God and the people God has called to be present with them. 

            A few weeks ago, I shared about the I Am statements of Jesus from the Gospel of John.  We focused on Jesus being the Bread of Life.  As he encounters the Samaritan Woman at the well, he proclaims that he is the Living Water.  Who ever comes to him will never thirst.  And yet, we thirst.  There is such a thirst in our world today.  We thirst to know God, we thirst to believe that God is truly still present with us, we thirst to find God in our lives.  And yet, Jesus proclaims, I am the Living Waters, all who come to me will not be thirsty. 

            We thirst because people disappoint us, we thirst because we hurt, and grieve, and suffer.  We thirst because we don’t understand this world we live in.  We thirst because we know there is injustice, oppression, and wrong.  We thirst because we desire peace, and unity, and understanding.  And Jesus tells us to come.  Come to me, I am the Living Water. 

            This past week I heard story after story of congregations thirsting, thirsting for survival, thirsting for solutions to their decline, thirsting for children and families to come to them, thirsting for hope, thirsting that the Holy Spirit would pour out upon them and heal them of all their hurts.  This past week I also heard story after story of the Living Water.  Of how congregations are taking risks, engaging courage, stepping out of their comfort zones to come to the well and drink. 

I could have picked a variety of passages today about water, but instead, I chose this passage from Romans 8.  Paul writes: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Do we believe this?  Do we believe that nothing in this world can separate from the love of God?  And yet, we thirst.  We thirst because we let things get in our way.  So often, we thirst because we let our fears shadow our faith.  Our God is present right here with us, and yet, we thirst. 

As we move into the season of fall, I want to encourage more people to consider participating in small group Bible Studies.  There is a new curriculum available called:  Engage.  We used it a little bit with the Sunday morning Study, but it has a greater depth that I would like to have us explore as a congregation.  Today, each of you has a notecard in your bulletin.  And I have set up the Well as a symbolic reminder that we must come to God to receive the Living Water.  I invite each and everyone of you, to write on one side of the card – what makes you thirst.  It could be anything, what weighs down your heart, your spirit, your connection to God.  It could be war, illness, stress, grief, depression, addiction.  And on the other side, I invite you to write down the day or days and time that would work for you to be in a Bible Study or faith conversation group. 

Got Water?  The Living Water comes to us through community, it comes to us through study, it comes to us through growing together as God’s people.  Remember, we are called to be the baptismal fount, we are called to be the Living water for the world around us.  If the fount is empty, if the fount is dry, if the fount thirsts, our abundant God will provide.  Come, come to the well, come to the Living Water of God, come and drink, for nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God made known in Jesus Christ.  Amen.   

Got Zeal? Sermon

Acts 9

“Got Zeal?”

                        Shortly after the time of Jesus, a man named Saul “Got God.”  Saul was a Pharisee and he understood the scriptures and he understood the law.  He knew God, he loved God, and he was going to do anything and everything he could to stop this movement of people that were proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah.  Saul was zealous, he was passionate, he was committed to his religion and his tradition.  He was so strong in his beliefs, he did not question at all that his understanding of God could be anything but the right understanding.  Besides, there was too much conflict in the land already.  There was pressure from the Romans and now, this movement of people were creating more problems. 

            Saul did not need to question his understanding of God, it had been passed along to him for generations.  It was tried and true.  He understood God through his history, through his scriptures, through his tradition, and through the law.  Without a doubt, Saul was a man of God, a man with a passion to his understanding of God, and a man that would go to any extremes to make sure others also stayed firm to the religious institution.  Saul had God and he had Zeal. 

            All we have to do today is turn on the news and we can see how history repeats itself over and over and over again.  What is happening in Iraq, and what is happening in other parts of the world reflects what happens when people – shall we say – Got God.  When people have such a firm understanding of who God is and there is no room for allowing others to understand God in any other way but the way they want us to.  Does God, in any faith tradition, call us to kill innocent children?   Does God, in any faith tradition, call us to force people to convert to the religious structure of a particular people?  I am pretty sure, those of us sitting here would, without a doubt cry out, “No!”  But what is happening in Iraq is no different than what happened back in the day and age of Saul. 

Saul had zeal and there was conflict and there was change and life was not feeling so secure and so something had to be done.  And so the early Christians had to be the ones to blame and they had to be the ones stopped.  Iraq is also under a lot of stress, a lot of change, a lot of instability and so people dig in deep to their convictions and attack “the other.”  It does not make it right, but history will continue to repeat itself over and over again as long as we continue to live in a world where there is instability and deep zeal for understanding God in a way that is not open to how others might also understand God.  We, as a people, also need to know and understand the difference between zealous groups and the mainstream people within a faith tradition.  Unfortunately, hate begets hate and people latch onto these small extremist groups and stereotype the greater faith group based on the actions of these extremists.  We saw this after 9-11, local Muslim business owners had their property vandalized and in some cases destroyed as people re-acted to the tragedy right here in our own country. 

Saul was an extremist, he had such zeal that he led him to extremes such as the stoning of Stephen.  He would do what it took, including murder, to stop these followers of Jesus.  And then something happened.  Was it the power of prayer of the early Christians crying out to God to stop the persecution?  Was it God intervening?  Or did Saul have some sort of seizure?  Whatever it was, Saul’s life was drastically changed on the road to Damascus.  He was knocked down, he heard the voice of Jesus, and he was struck blind.  Through this experience Saul went from a great enemy to one of the greatest missionaries for the movement of bringing the teachings of Jesus to the greater world. 

For Saul, who became Paul, this conversion story was the foundation of his entire life from this point on.  It’s no wonder that he was knocked down to the ground, can you imagine, everything that you believe in, everything that you know and understand about God, suddenly being redefined?  I think it would knock us down.  I think it would take us a little while to get our bearings and refocus ourselves.  The key word here is redefined.  Paul’s roots, his history, his scriptures are still important.  His knowledge is instrumental in how he moves forward.  God does not erase everything Paul knew about God, but rather calls him forward to take his history and allow it to unfold into a new future. 

This is what peacemaking groups are trying to do all around the world as people fight each other over one way of life against another.  Embrace your history but seek to find a way to not dig in your heals to stay the same but rather find ways to grow into a healthier and more vital future. 

Tomorrow morning, I leave to attend a conference about church growth and creating new worshipping communities.  There is a change going on in our culture and people are no longer connecting to traditional churches.  Our denomination is seeking new ways to continue to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people, to continue to share the love of God with the greater world but to do so in a new and refreshing way.  It does not want to throw out our past, but rather embrace our history, our calling to be reformed and always reforming, and continue to find a way to share the scriptures with God’s people. 

I know the question is asked – why are we declining when other churches are thriving.  Many of you have shared with me about churches that your children or grandchildren attend in other places that have young adults and families.  But it means allowing space for change.  Allowing space to not throw it all away, but to open ourselves to knowing and loving God in such a way that we want to make sure that we share that love with the next generation.  Not share our understanding of who God is, but creating fertile soil for the next generation to connect to God in their own way.  That is my hope of this sermon series, to illustrate that throughout the scriptures, each person that has been a leader of the faith has come to God in different ways.  Our scriptures are a story of change, a story of God’s love, a story of people learning about faith, learning about God, and growing into a people of God.  Always changing, always growing, never stagnant, but vital, viable, and open to learning and exploring the faith journey in new and exciting ways.  

sermon: Who do they say I Am?

Matthew 16

“Who do they say I Am?

Today we enter into our fourth week of exploring how various people in the Bible encounter and understand God and their role within God’s calling for their lives.  Abraham was blessed to be a blessing, Shiphrah and Puah took a stand of courage in the face of oppression which opened the way for baby Moses to survive and become a great leader, and King David heard the voice of God through the prophet Nathaniel and expressed his faith through his creative writings of the Psalms. 

For those of us within the Christian faith, asking did Jesus have God might be a strange question to ask.  Of course he did.  But not everyone in his day and age understood this and his identity is still challenged and argued everyday in our modern world.  Who was Jesus?  In today’s passage, Jesus is asking his disciples that very question.  His disciples were out and about and heard the gossip on the street, what were people saying about him?  What was the gossip, what were the rumors?  Now it is interesting – according to Matthew, Jesus first asks who do people say the Son of Man is?   And then he asks his disciples directly – who do you say I am?  I’ve always thought he was asking the same question, I’ve always thought he was asking them what are others saying about Jesus, but maybe not everyone was understanding that the Son of Man and Jesus are the one and the same. 

I could probably do a sermon series on just all the various names for Jesus.  Last week he was the son of David, sometimes he is the Son of God, and today perhaps he is referring to himself as the Son of Man.  Confusing right? 

The word on the street is that the Son of Man is:  John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.  It does not seem that the greater community is identifying Jesus as the Son of Man.  Jesus then redirects his question at his closest followers – who do you say I am?  And Simon Peter responds:  The Messiah, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus affirms his answers.  The Messiah, the anointed one, Emmanuel, God with us.  The opening statement of the Gospel of Matthew identifies who the Gospel writers wants the reader to know and understand who Jesus is.  Who do they say I am?  Matthew clearly states – Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  As the gospel unfolds, the writer is seeking to illustrate to others his claim.  He is saying:  here is my proof, this is why I am proclaiming Jesus is the Messiah, here are the examples. 

In the Tuesday morning Bible Study, we discussed this passage and asked ourselves, who do we say Jesus is?   There are various videos on Youtube where people have interviewed people out on the street and asked them this question.  What if we walked over to the flea market after church today and asked people, who do they say Jesus is?  What kind of response do you think we would get?  The responses in the video were varied, including people just walking away.  Some said, a good teacher, a prophet, a moral leader, a radical, a fictional character, a exaggerated story, an important person in history and a few even said, my Lord and Savior. 

So who do you say Jesus is?   Our conversation was varied, and included: healer, teacher, prophet, the closest person to the divine, spiritual, he understood God, and then we get to the ever so hard question of the Trinity.  Is Jesus God?  If he is God why do we call him the son of God?  How is he God and human?  As Presbyterians, we do believe in the Trinity, that God’s very self is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Personally, I am alright with not understanding this divine mystery with complete clarity.  I am comfortable with being present to the stories as a person of faith.  Others need to have a complete understanding of theology and doctrine, and there are a multitude of books on the topic. 

I lean towards the teachings of who Jesus proclaims he is.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus shares various ways for us to understand who he is.  Who do you say I am?  Well, I will tell you who I am:  I am the bread of life.  I am the vine.  I am the gate.  I am the light.  I am the Good Shepherd.  I am the Resurrection and the Life.  I am the way, the truth, and the life.  These are known as the seven I am statements of Jesus and each of them gives us a glimpse of who Jesus is connection to the divine and also for how we can engage Jesus in our daily lives. 

In the Tuesday morning group, I then asked the question, Who does our church say Jesus is?  Each of us, as individuals come to understand Jesus in our own way, but as a whole, as a congregation, as our message to the community in which we reside, what is our message of who Jesus is?  Remember, the Gospel writer of Matthew states clearly who he is proclaiming Jesus to be.  Jesus – the Messiah.  Are we clearly proclaiming who we believe Jesus is?  If our key understanding of who Jesus is – is the Messiah – how do we communicate that?  If it is healer – how do we communicate that?  If it is teacher – how do we communicate that?  If it is a peacemaker – how do we communicate that? 

I believe we proclaim Jesus as his teaching from the end of the gospel of Matthew when Jesus says – when you do this to the least of these, you have done this to me.  When have we seen Jesus hungry?  When we feed those at our doors?  Who is Jesus?  Is Jesus the people that come to the food pantry, to the bag lunch program, the Faith Kitchen, and the community breakfast?  When you do this to the least of these, you have done this to me.  This is at least where our ministry is, it might not be how we understand who Jesus is, but it should challenge us to begin that conversation. 

As our ministries feed the greater community, our God reaches out and connect with us through the spiritual food of communion.  Who do we say Jesus is?  On communion Sundays, I understand Jesus as the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry.  As a people of faith, our God seeks to continue to call us into God’s work in this world.  In and through communion, we remain connected to the faith story of our scriptures, understanding that this is not a story of the past, but a story of our present and a story for the future.  We break bread and share the cup as a way to proclaim that we are participants in God’s work here in the world, and that Jesus calls us to follow as well as to proclaim the Good News of who he is in our lives.  Amen.