Disappointing Expectations

March 27, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, disappoint, disappointing, disappointment, entry, expectation, expectations, Jesus, Messiah, Methodist, misguided, Ohio, Palm, Street, Sunday, triumphal, United, worship

Disappointing Expectations

March 28, 2021*

(Palm Sunday)

By Pastor John Partridge

Mark 11:1-11

Have you ever been angry?

I’m certain that you have.

But have you ever been angry at another person, and later discovered that you were the one who was really at fault? That sounds confusing. But maybe this will help, there was a time when I received some good counseling for some anger issues with which I had been struggling. And one of the sources of my anger was the disappointment that I felt in the attitude and behavior of another person. But during that conversation, my counselor said something that has stuck with me for a long time. And that was basically that there are many things that we cannot control. We can’t control the attitude and the behavior of other people, and there are many other things in our lives that are similarly out of our control. But while we can’t control the actions of other people, or the actions of government officials, or which team is going to win the football game, or your bracket for the final-four in the March Madness basketball game, the things that we can control are our expectations.

When we expect a particular team to win, and they don’t, any anger that we feel is largely our own fault for the expectation that we set. When our children don’t behave the way that we expected them to, it’s okay to be disappointed, but our anger if often our fault for expecting more from them than was reasonable. We are guaranteed to be disappointed if we expect the impossible or expect someone to do what they never intended to do. You shouldn’t expect the basketball team to win a football game, or expect a pharmacist to solve your engineering problem, or expect your doctor to solve your accounting problem. When you expect the wrong things, you are certain to be disappointed.

And, in large measure, that is exactly what we are watching in the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Mark 11:1-11.

^11:1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ²saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”

⁴They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, ⁵some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” ⁶They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. ⁷When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. ⁹Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

“Hosanna!” [which means “Save us”]

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

¹⁰“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

¹¹Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

This is a wonderful story, and it is one of the most well-known stories in the New Testament as well as one of those that we read and repeat every year. But it is not just a story about Jesus being recognized as Israel’s Messiah and king, it is a story about misplaced expectations. The people shouting for Jesus to save them (remember that “Hosanna” means, “save us”) were expecting that the messiah would come as a conquering king. But scripture says that the messiah would be both a suffering servant and a conquering king. When Jesus did not immediately begin raising an army to oppose and overthrow the Roman garrison, he failed to meet the expectations of the people. And, as we mentioned earlier, when our expectations are too high, and people fail to meet them, we humans often direct our anger toward the other person rather than remembering our own failure to set reasonable expectations.

In this story, Jesus clearly demonstrates his power and authority as the messiah and redeemer of Israel, and he fulfills many of the Old Testament prophecies regarding God’s coming rescuer and king, but because he did not meet their expectations, the people were angry and easily persuaded by the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees to cast their vote to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.

But this also serves as a cautionary tale for us in the twenty-first century because the people of Jerusalem in the first century were not the only ones who have placed unreasonable, impossible, or just plain wrong expectations on the person, purpose, mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. Many of the people who reject religion, or who have left the church, have done so because their understanding of Christianity, and the person, purpose, mission, and ministry of Jesus Christ is filled with unreasonable, impossible, misguided, and wrong expectations. Yes, Jesus came to save the world, and yes, Jesus offers everyone the opportunity to follow him, be forgiven, and receive eternal life. But the first coming of Jesus did not make suffering, pain, and death go away. Christians do not live perfect lives free from pain, suffering, inconvenience, sickness, mental illness, and death. Violence, war, crime, and all sorts of evil did not end with the resurrection and neither did poverty and injustice. When we expect Jesus to do all these things, and expect Jesus to make our lives perfect, in this present age, then our expectations are not in alignment with the teachings of scripture, and we are certain to experience profound disappointment.

The people of Jerusalem failed to accept Jesus because they expected him to do things that he had not yet come to do, and the fault was not with Jesus but with their misplaced and misguided expectations. Today, we fail in the same way when we expect Jesus to heal the sick, clothe the naked, make our lives painless and perfect, and to eliminate evil and injustice from the world. Scripture says that Jesus will do those things, after the second coming and the judgement of the world. But until then, the mission to do all those things been given to us, the church.

Let us not allow the people around us to be disappointed in Jesus.

Whenever we witness injustice and evil, or find the sick, the naked, and the hungry among us, let us not be disappointed in Jesus, but instead put on our work gloves… and get to work.

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. If you have questions, you can ask them in our discussion forum on Facebook (search for Pastor John Online). These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Guilt 2.0

March 19, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon Christ, church, forgive, forgiveness, glory, gratitude, guilt, honor, Jeremiah, Jesus, King, law, love, manipulate, manipulation, Melchizedek, Messiah, Methodist, obediance, penalty, priest, prophet, punishment, religion, seeds, thanksgiving, United

Guilt 2.0

March 21, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 31:31-34 John 12:20-33 Hebrews 5:5-10

What is it that makes you feel guilty?

People blame the church, or religion in general, for making them feel guilty and accuse them of manipulating their emotions to benefit themselves. And, if we’re honest, that does occasionally happen just as, in any other field, human beings have been known to abuse their authority or take advantage of others. That doesn’t mean that anyone is clamoring to ban MBA’s, or schoolteachers, or accountants, or any other profession in which a few practitioners have been caught doing things that they shouldn’t. But, in any case, your church, or your religion, isn’t the cause of your guilt.

But if religion doesn’t cause guilt, who, or what, does?

We will get that… eventually. But first, let’s think about guilt more broadly. There are different kinds of guilt. The guilt I feel when I cheat on my diet by eating ice cream is not the same as being found criminally guilty of something that is against the law. And that king of guilt isn’t always the same as being in violation of the laws of God.

More confusing still is that the laws of God seem to be different between the Old Testament and the New Testament, so some of us could easily be confused as to what we are supposed be doing and not doing. And, in fact, many Christian denominations, and our own denomination, argue about some of those things. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

One of the things that we see repeated throughout the Old Testament was that the prophets of God pointed toward a day when God was going to fulfill his promises and change the way in which his people met with God, experienced God, and the very nature of the way in which God’s people experienced a relationship with God. One such glimpse into the future is found in Jeremiah 31:31-34 where we hear these words from God:

³¹“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
³²It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband tothem,”
declares the Lord.
³³“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
³⁴No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”

Through Jeremiah, God says that there is a day coming, a future day, when God is going to bring forth a new covenant that will be different from the covenant of Moses under which Israel lived. And the reason that God gives for issuing a new covenant, is that God’s people broke the first one and were unable to live according to it’s standards. In the first covenant, the commandments were written in stone, but the new covenant will be written on the hearts of the people. Also, God will no longer be exclusive to the people of Israel, instead God will be revealed to everyone. The rules, and the way in which the people of God lived under those rules, would change dramatically and they changed, of course, with the coming of Jesus, and through his life, death, and resurrection as we hear in John 12:20-33.

²⁰Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. ²¹They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” ²²Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

²³Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ²⁵Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

²⁷“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. ²⁸Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” ²⁹The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

³⁰Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. ³¹Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. ³²And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” ³³He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

It is significant that the people who had come to meet Jesus were Greeks. First, the Greeks would, obviously, been foreigners and were most likely Gentiles and not Jewish. But second, the Greeks, in general, were known to be process thinkers rather than people who would understand religion as a system of blind obedience. These two differences alone allow us to understand that Jesus’ instructions and explanations to them were likely different than those that he would normally have given to anyone who had been raised under Judaism or a system of Abrahamic, Mosaic, or rabbinic instruction. For this audience, Jesus explains that death is like the planting of seeds. If wheat falls on the ground, it dies. But if wheat is planted, it grows and reproduces itself and transforms a single seed into many. Jesus explains that, like those seeds, the people who live for themselves alone will live one lifetime that ends in death. But anyone who follows Jesus, and spends their life serving him, will grow into a life that lasts for eternity. Jesus says that this moment, the time leading to his crucifixion, was his purpose in coming to earth from the beginning. And he concludes by saying that his “lifting up,” his crucifixion and death, will be the moment in history that will attract all the people of the world, and of all time, to see him and worship him. For the Greeks, this teaching was not only something that they would hear and understand logically from Jesus the teacher, but a lesson that they would likely be able to hear, and to witness with their own eyes in the days ahead.

And, just as God promised in the days of Jeremiah, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus changed everything. The writer of Hebrews explains this covenantal change in Hebrews 5:5-10:

⁵In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him,

“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.”

⁶And he says in another place,

“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”

⁷During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered ⁹and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him ¹⁰and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus is different than kings and high priests that inherit their power from their earthly fathers. While kingships and the high priesthood generally passed from father to son, Joseph held no earthly authority and so Jesus could not inherit it from him, particularly since Joseph was not a descendant of the priestly clan of Levi. But neither did Jesus simply assume power or authority and claim the high priesthood for himself particularly. Instead, God confers the priesthood upon Jesus and declares him to be a priest of the order of Melchizedek rather than a priest of the order of Levi or Aaron.

Let’s unpack what it means for Jesus to be a priest of the order of Melchizedek. Because the Israelite priesthood was exclusive to the family of Levi, and the high priesthood to the descendants of Aaron, it was, as I mentioned before, an inherited title. But, since priests were from the tribe of Levi, and kings were the descendants of David, from the tribe of Judah, the high priest and the king could never be the same person. And that’s why Melchizedek is important. In the Old Testament, long before Moses or Jacob, or the twelve tribes of Israel, Abraham met, and gave honor and gifts to Melchizedek who was described as both priest and king. And, according to Hebrews 7:3, since there was no record of Melchizedek’s birth or death, the traditional teaching was that Melchizedek’s priesthood did not end with his death, but that he remains a priest forever.

Jesus was heard by God because of his reverent submission, Jesus learned obedience from his suffering, was made perfect, and became the source of eternal salvation and rescue for everyone who chooses to obey him (which, you will remember, is exactly what Jesus told the Greeks in John 12).

But so what does any of that have to do with guilt?

And the answer is… everything.

We read in Jeremiah, that with the arrival of God’s messiah, God would write his words upon the hearts of the people because God’s people had been unable to obey the laws of the first covenant that had been written in stone. Whenever people disobeyed the laws of the first covenant, they were found guilty and condemned because of their failure. But with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and with his appointment as our high priest and king forever, Jesus sacrificed his own life, once, and rescued us forever. The people of the first covenant obeyed in fear that they would break the law and be condemned for their guilt. That was, if you will, Guilt 1.0. But now, God has written his name upon the hearts of all humanity. We feel guilt when we do things that our hearts know is wrong. But, as the followers of Jesus, we do not obey in fear that we will be condemned, but in gratitude for our forgiveness. Our obedience and faithfulness grow out of our gratitude rather than out of fear. That sort of guilt is completely different, and we might call that Guilt 2.0. That sort of guilt, which is an awareness and a knowledge of forgiveness rather than a fear of failure, is fundamentally different.

I have often used the example of the time my brother and I drove from Akron to Pittsburgh to paint our grandmother’s garage. We didn’t spend an entire Saturday driving and painting in the heat of summer to earn the love of our grandmother. We did it because of the love that we already had, and the gratitude that we felt for all the things that she had already done for us. And that, I think, describes the difference between the covenant of the Old Testament and the new covenant of Jesus.

Instead of living in fear of condemnation, we are set free from condemnation, set free from fear, and set free from sin. As the followers of Jesus, rather than be manipulated by our fear, we obey the commands and the instructions of Jesus out of gratitude for our forgiveness, knowing that penalty for our imperfections and failures have already been paid.

We don’t obey so that God will love us.

We obey because we are grateful for the love and forgiveness that he has already given.

And that is Guilt 2.0.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/ADO8KTfgf2s

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Whiners Executed.

March 13, 2021March 13, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon Christ, church, commit, committment, complain, complaining, cross, crucifixion, dead, death, faith, freedom, gift, good, Good News, grace, hope, Jesus, John, kindness, Lent, life, love, Methodist, Partridge, Paul, poison, rescue, resurrection, save, sin, snakes, United, venom, whining

Whiners Executed

March 14, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Numbers 21:4-9 John 3:14-21 Ephesians 2:1-10

Throughout history, one of the things that human beings seem to be incredibly, repeatedly, and reliably, good at, is complaining. It isn’t difficult at all to imagine that the soldiers who crowded into the Trojan Horse were complaining about the cramped spaces and the smell of the guys next to them. We’ve read stories about how even as the troops sailed ever closer to the coast of France on D-day, they complained about the weather and their seasickness. Any student of history can tell you that no matter what nation you examine, no matter what system of government was in place, the people of every nation have always found reasons to complain about their leadership, and the same is true of virtually every church, every corporation, every union, and every employer… even when we are self-employed. In good circumstances and bad, in feast and in famine, in joy and sorrow, no matter where humanity finds itself, we always seem able to find something to complain about.

And the people whose lives are recorded in scripture were no different. But from them, we learn that we should be careful about what we complain about. In Numbers 21:4-9, we read the story of the people of Israel, recently freed from 400 years of slavery and bondage in Egypt and discover that the joy of receiving their freedom faded quickly from their memory.

⁴They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; ⁵they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

⁶Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. ⁷The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So, Moses prayed for the people.

⁸The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” ⁹So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

For four hundred years, the people of Israel had prayed that God would rescue them and bring them freedom. But when God answers their prayers, it doesn’t take much time at all before they begin to complain about the conditions of their freedom. Worse, they blame God, and Moses, for causing their suffering. As a result of their whining, God sends poisonous snakes to slither among the people, and many of those who are bitten, die.

The people cry out to Moses, repent of their sin, and in answer to his prayers for the people, God instructs Moses to construct bronze snake, and lift it up on a wooden pole. And anyone who had been bitten, and had faith in God, could look at the snake and would be saved from death.

The people had sinned when they blamed God for causing their problems by answering their prayers and they suffered and died, because of their sin, when they were bitten by the snakes that came among them. But God provided a way for the people to be saved if only they would have the faith to believe in the power of God and look up to the bronze figure as God had commanded. And that imagery is recalled in John 3:14-21 as John compares God’s rescue of Israel in the time of Moses, to God’s rescue of the world through the crucifixion of Jesus.

¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

In the time of Moses, anyone who believed that God could save them from the venom of poisonous snakes could look up to the bronze figure of a snake and be saved. And John says that now, anyone who believes that God can rescue them from sin and death can look up to Jesus on the cross and be saved. In both cases, God provided a way for his people to be saved, if only they had the faith to believe. Jesus did not come to earth to condemn us for our sin, but to save us from it. All that is needed is for us to believe in Jesus and in the power of his death and resurrection to rescue us. Anyone who believes in Jesus is not condemned but has been given the gift of life for all eternity.

The Apostle Paul explains it this way in Ephesians 2:1-10:

^2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ²in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Just in case we were tempted to think that we had anything at all to do with out rescue, Paul disabuses of that notion by bluntly saying, “you were dead.” Much like the people who had been bitten by snakes and already had a fatal dose of venom circulating through their bloodstream, we had already consumed a fatal dose of sin and were just waiting around to die. Because we lived the way that the culture of the world lives, and lived only to gratify our desires, we were deserving of, and already condemned to, death. But God chose to be merciful and demonstrate his great love for us through grace. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God opened a path for us to be rescued from death. Paul emphasizes that our rescue is a work of God’s grace, kindness, and love and the only part that we play in our rescue is in looking up to Jesus and placing our faith in him. Our rescue is God’s undeserved gift to us and not anything that we could ever earn through works of any kind. And, because our rescue is a work of God, because we are a new creation through the work of Jesus Christ, our life’s purpose is to do good for the people, and for the world, around us. God has rescued us so that we could do the work that he has planned, prepared, and intended for us to do.

Although human beings have always been extraordinarily good at complaining, and just as good at being selfish, committing sin, and offending God, we need not sit as people condemned and wait for our execution and death. Instead, we have been rescued by God’s grace, kindness, and love, and have been given a new life, a life whose purpose is to do good and to do the work of the kingdom of God.

During this season of Lent, let us stop complaining and look up to the cross. Remember God’s grace, mercy, kindness, and love, and recommit ourselves to doing good for the people, and for the world around us, so that everyone might hear the good news, be rescued, and receive God’s incredible gift… of life… and love.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/EmHE8dCyeEc

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Where is Your Center?

March 6, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon balance, center, centered, commandments, death, foolishness, frustrate, goals, God, gravity, intelligence, Jesus, Lent, Paul, philosophy, rejection, relationship, resurrection, safety, sign, stage, wisdom

Where is Your Center?

March 07, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 20:1-17 John 2:13-22 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Throughout our lives, there are many times when the center becomes important.

The most important actor is said to be center-stage. Children that want to feel important are trying to be the center of attention. When we ride a bicycle, design, or fly an airplane, the center of gravity is critical. In rocketry the relationship between the center of gravity and the center of pressure determines whether you fly or crash. If you are setting a project up on a lathe, you must carefully calculate where the center of the work-piece is or, wherever the chuck and the spindle are set will quickly become the center regardless of whether you intended it to be that way. If you are trying to walk across a balance beam, or a tightrope, or even just a log across a creek, keeping your center of gravity over the beam, rope, or log is the key to crossing successfully. In all these things, and in a great many others, it is the center that is important, and keeping the center in the right place is critical to arriving at your destination safely and achieving your goal. With that in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that scripture says the same thing. If we want to arrive at our destination safely, and achieve our goals, it is critical that we center our lives in the right place.

We begin this morning with what many people consider to be some of the simplest rules for life, the Nine or Ten Commandments (depending on how you count them) found in Exodus 20:1-17.

^20:1 And God spoke all these words:

²“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

³“You shall have no other gods before me.

⁴“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

⁷“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

⁸“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

¹²“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³“You shall not murder.

¹⁴“You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵“You shall not steal.

¹⁶“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

¹⁷“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Obviously, I could preach an entire series of sermons on these basic instructions, but this morning I want to focus on just two or three. Depending on you how you count them, “You shall have no other gods before me.” and “You shall not make for yourself an image…” is either one, or two, commandments but either way, the instruction is clear. Our relationship with God is important and God will not accept second place. And that relationship is also why God sets aside one day each week for us to rest, to remember, and to spend time together when he commands us to, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

God insists, even requires, that we keep him, and our relationship with him, at the center our lives.

And one of the best-known illustrations of the seriousness with which God takes our obedience to that commandment is found in John 2:13-22, where Jesus arrives in God’s temple in Jerusalem, and finds the Court of the Gentiles, the place of prayer for non-Jews, filled will merchants, bankers, and livestock.

¹³When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

Jesus came to Jerusalem to celebrate the freedom of the Jewish people and to give thanks to God for his strength, wisdom, and guidance in leading Moses and the people of Israel out of their captivity in Egypt and into the Promised Land. But in a place that had been deliberately set aside as a place for Gentiles to meet God, Jesus finds it filled with people who have put profit before prayer, wealth before worship, and greed before God. In this place that was supposed to be the center of praise, prayer, and worship, Jesus finds the leaders of the church breaking commandments 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, and, if we include the events of Easter, we can add commandments 6 and 9 as well.

Jesus is so offended by this violation of God’s house that he drives out the animals, scatters the money across the courtyard, and flips over the tables of the vendors and bankers. And, rather than dispute their wrongdoing or profess their innocence, the offenders ask Jesus what authority he has to rebuke them, and Jesus responds by offering his own death and resurrection as proof. But, of course, not even his disciples understood his meaning until after the events of Easter had unfolded. But, when they remembered what Jesus had done, and what he had said, “they believed the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

The mistake of the vendors, the bankers, and the church leaders was that they allowed something other than God to become the center. Certainly, in a temple that was dedicated to the worship of a Jewish God, the court of the Gentiles was used less frequently than any other. It was entirely possible that, particularly during a Jewish feast or festival such as Passover, that few, if any Gentiles would be using the space set aside for them. But God had deliberately created a place for them. And when the church decided to use that space, they moved God aside and placed practicality, profit, convenience, and greed in the center of their lives and in the center of their worship in his place.

It is that idea of centered-ness that helps us to understand some of the other difficult things that we find in scripture as well as in our spiritual lives. And this is the idea that allows us to understand what Paul is saying to the church in Corinth, and to us, in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 when he says:

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

²⁰Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²²Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

There have been times when I read this passage and puzzled a bit over what Paul meant by destroying the wisdom of the wise when much of scripture points toward, and sings the praises of, wisdom. Similarly, it is difficult to say bad things about intelligence, or intelligent people, so if I didn’t also know some particularly foolish intelligent people that would also be difficult. But Paul goes on to criticize the teachers of the law, philosophers, and preachers and it can be hard to make sense of what he’s getting at. But, if we look at this passage through the lens of centered-ness, it comes into better focus.

The message of the cross is foolishness to the people who are perishing. Or, put another way, the message of the cross doesn’t make sense to the people who have rejected Jesus. But while that rejection can come in many forms, and while some of those forms can occasionally be surprising to us, at their core, all of them have the same root cause, the removal, or the absence of God at the center. Those who seek wisdom without God in the center become foolish. Those who study to become learned and intelligent but who do not keep God at the center will be frustrated. The teachers of the law and scripture, who shift God away from the center and allow rules, or politics, or power, or anything else to take God’s place in the center has, ultimately, rejected God.

Without God at the center of our lives, our strength, our philosophy, our wisdom, our religiosity, all fail.

Not only are we commanded to keep God in the center, and not only is Jesus deadly serious about maintaining that centered-ness, but our very lives also depend upon it.

Allowing God to drift away from the center means that we have rejected him and allowed something other than God to take his place. And rejecting God… is death.

If you are trying to walk across a balance beam, or a tightrope, or even just a log across a creek, keeping your center of gravity over the beam, rope, or log is the key to crossing successfully. In all these things, and in a great many others, it is the center that is important, and keeping the center in the right place is critical to arriving at your destination safely and achieving your goal. If we want to arrive at our destination safely, and achieve our goals, it is critical that we center our lives in the right place.

As we continue our journey through Lent, I urge you to think about where your heart is and to reflect upon the condition of your inner being as you answer the question of the first four commandments:

Where is your center?

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/g88ngwoGI64

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Lawless Disciples

February 26, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon

Lawless Disciples

February 28, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Mark 8:31-38 Romans 4:13-25

What do you think of when you hear the word, “lawless”?

It doesn’t sound good. It’s a word often used to describe individuals who dangerously refuse to abide by the laws that protect our lives and property and it’s also commonly used to describe those parts of human exploration and expansion when settlers and explorers traveled far beyond the boundaries of their settlements and “civilization.” Once at sea, Captain Bligh and other unscrupulous, unkind, or evil ship captains were a law unto themselves and could do, and did, horrifying things to their crew with impunity. And although there were technically laws, as settlers in the United States expanded westward past the Appalachian Mountains, into the Louisiana purchase, and toward California and the west coast, they would often find themselves hundreds of miles from the nearest agents of law enforcement. Often the only law that they had was found at the end of a gun. And curiously, there is a similar conversation in the news today as the United States government, and Elon Musk of SpaceX are having a disagreement about what laws might apply, or not apply, to a new settlement on Mars. What laws apply in a place without laws or without law enforcement?

And, although it isn’t exactly the same, a similar discussion can be found in the pages of scripture as Jesus, the Disciples, and the writers of the New Testament discuss exactly what laws apply to them. We begin in Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 when Abram, having already followed God for many years, and had gone wherever God had told him to go, receives a promise from God.

^17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. ²Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

³Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ⁴“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. ⁵No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. ⁷I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

¹⁵God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. ¹⁶I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

God promises Abram that if he walks with God faithfully, and is blameless, then he will make a covenant with Abram and grow his family. It is worth noting that “blameless” is the word that was used to describe Noah and does not imply human perfection but simply living a godly life in contrast to the prevailing culture. And, in exchange, God promises to make an enduring contract with Abram, Sarai, and their descendants. As a reflection of that promise, God changes Abram’s name (Abram means “father”) to Abraham (which means “father of nations) and Sarai to Sarah. Both Sarai and Sarah can be translated as “princess” but the change to Sarah, in the original language, adds emphasis to being the mother of nations.

But then in Mark 8:31-38, as Jesus tries to tell his disciples that he will be rejected, killed, buried in, and rise from the dead, those same disciples break one of the rules that God had given to Abraham.

³¹He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³²He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

³⁴Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For whoever wants to save their lifewill lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? ³⁷Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ³⁸If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

The death of Jesus was not what Peter wanted or expected and he tried to tell Jesus that this was not the right way to become the king of Israel. But Jesus pushes back, rebukes Peter and says that anyone who wants to follow him must deny themselves to do it. What Jesus is saying is that to follow him, we must be like Abraham and Noah, we must live godly lives, and that means following God wherever God is going, and not going wherever we want to go, and hoping that God will follow us.

But with this connection to Abraham’s promise in mind, we also remember that Jesus, his disciples, and his followers, were often accused of breaking the laws of Moses. And, even more curious, was how that same discussion applied when people from other nations and cultures began to follow Jesus. How does the law of Moses apply to people who aren’t the descendants of Abraham, or citizens of Israel, or who aren’t even Jewish? At first, some people said that to become a follower of Jesus, it was first necessary to become Jewish, but Paul had met with the disciples in Jerusalem and they had agreed that being Jewish wasn’t necessary, that Gentiles could become Jesus’ followers, and that it wasn’t necessary for Gentiles to follow all the Jewish dietary restrictions and other purity codes spelled out in the law. So, if that was true, then what did it mean to be blameless or to live a godly life?

And that is exactly what Paul explains to the church in Rome as we read Romans 4:13-25:

¹³It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. ¹⁴For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, ¹⁵because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

¹⁶Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. ¹⁷As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

¹⁸Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ¹⁹Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. ²⁰Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. ²²This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” ²³The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, ²⁴but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ²⁵He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Paul’s point is that God’s promise to Abraham came long before the ten commandments or the law of Moses and as such, the covenant that God made with Abraham and his descendants had nothing to do with any kind of strict obedience to the law or to the many rules that the rabbis had developed from it. Instead, God’s contract with Abraham only had two rules, 1) follow God faithfully, and 2) live a godly life. For that reason, Paul says, the key for us Gentiles, is that the promise of God comes to us through faith and grace. We are a part of God’s promise to Abraham because we have the same faith in God that Abraham did and that is why, Paul says, that Abraham was able to become the father of many nations and not simply to the descendants of the one nation, Israel. Abraham had such faith that even though he was 99 years old, and his wife was twice the age of being tool old to have children, he never stopped trusting that God would keep his promise. Even though Abraham was not a perfect, and did not live a perfect life, God credited righteousness to Abraham’s account because of his faithfulness and, in the same way, those of us who believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus have righteousness credited to us even though we, like Abraham, are unable to live a perfect and sinless life. Jesus was crucified for our sins and for our imperfections and was raised from the dead so that we could be justified, rescued, and stand before God.

And so, while the laws of Moses to not apply to us, we are not “lawless disciples.” This is not the Wild West where there is no law, or where we take the law into our own hands. Instead, we answer to a higher, and an older law. We are the children of Abraham, adopted and grafted in through God’s promise of faith in, and through, his son Jesus Christ. We may not be perfect, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ we have received the grace of God… and are forgiven.

Let us commit ourselves to keeping our promise to God, just as Abraham did, by following Jesus faithfully and living a godly and obedient life.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/BjNsrjc2xVQ

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Sign of Rescue and Belonging

February 20, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon ark, baptism, Christ, Christ United Methodist, Christian, church, flood, follower, Gospel, Jesus, Methodist, Noah, ramp, rescue, runaway, sign, symbol, truck, United

Signs of Rescue and Belonging

February 21, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 9:8-17 Mark 1:9-15 1 Peter 3:18-22

Imagine that you are driving a fifty-three foot long, fully loaded, tractor trailer, weighing thirty-five thousand pounds empty, loaded with forty-five thousand pounds of cargo, for a total of eighty-thousand pounds. Now imagine that, as you are driving over the mountains of West Virginia, constantly shifting through ten to eighteen gears as you ascend and descend the various mountain ridges along the turnpike, that some critical component of your braking systems fail, and as you steadily gain speed going down one of the biggest and steepest grades on the highway, you now have no ability to slow down.

Quickly your speed passes the posted legal limit, and you move to the passing lane to avoid crushing a family in a minivan. You try downshifting but your speed is already too great and still your speed increases. First eighty, then ninety miles per hour, and now you are desperately flashing your lights, honking your horn, and shouting on your CB radio for other trucks to get out of your way as, despite attempting everything that you can think of, your speed continues to increase. You do everything that you can to keep your mind on the task at hand and not to think about how this will inevitably end.

Still your imagination easily pictures mangled cars and a long plummet down the side of forested mountain valley… and then you see it. A sign along the far side of the road announcing that only a mile away, is a runaway truck ramp. You see it in the distance and quickly shift your truck back into the right lane as you race towards it… and almost before you think about what will happen, you leave the highway, race up and impossibly steep slope and feel your truck sink into the loose sand as it tears away at the tires and undercarriage. Small plants, bushes, briars, and grass fly as you plow up the hillside but… finally… your slow… and come to a stop. Your truck is probably totaled, and it will almost certainly take several wreckers, and maybe a bulldozer and a crane to get your truck off the side of this mountain… but you are alive.

Your day might have ended very differently if it hadn’t been for that small sign at the side of the highway. That small sign gave you the warning that you needed to be. That small sign was the symbol of the rescue that waited silently at the side of the road. It saved your life.

It was the sign of your rescue.

For the rest of your life, whenever you see that sign, or one like it, you will remember. And you will give thanks, not just for the sign, but for your life that you live, and the rescue that it represents.

Sometimes signs are more than just symbols.

Keep that in mind as we read the conclusion of the story of Noah in Genesis 9:8-17 where it says…

⁸Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: ⁹“I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you ¹⁰and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. ¹¹I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

¹²And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

¹⁷So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

As God prepared to destroy a corrupt civilization, he warned the righteous and offered a way in which they might be rescued from the coming flood. Today, although we argue whether that flood was truly a global event, nearly every culture, on every continent, has tales about a flood that destroyed the world. But just as God provided a way for Noah and his family to survive, he also promised that there would never be another flood with the same destructive power. And you can be sure, that every time that Noah and his family saw the sign of God’s rainbow in the sky above them, it was more than just a symbol. They remembered their rescue… and gave thanks.

But years passed… first decades, then centuries, then millennia, and people forgot. They forgot the flood, they forgot the ark, they forgot the rescue, and they forgot the promise. Eventually, a rainbow was just a rainbow. And then, Jesus began his ministry by submitting to his baptism with John in the Jordan river. We read that story in Mark 1:9-15.

⁹At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

¹²At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, ¹³and he was in the wilderness forty days, being temptedby Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

⁴After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ¹⁵“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Jesus didn’t need repentance or forgiveness, but he submits to baptism as a sign of his ministry, and as a sign of God’s rescue, to the people of Israel and to the world. The baptism of Jesus is a sign to the world that God was keeping his promises and that, as he had done for Noah and for his family, God was making a way for us to be rescued from the judgement that was coming. The Apostle Peter describes it this way in 1 Peter 3:18-22:

¹⁸For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. ¹⁹After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— ²⁰to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, ²¹and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²²who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.

And so, the disciples themselves understood the connection between the sign of Noah’s rescue and the sign of our rescue with the arrival of the Good News of Jesus Christ and his baptism. Just as Noah and his family passed safely through the waters of the flood, God promises to bring us safely through our life in this strange, difficult, and sometimes hostile world in which we live. Just as the ark carried Noah through the flood to the dry land that eventually followed, the gospel message, and our rescue through our baptism into a new life as a part of God’s family is a sign and a symbol of God’s promise to carry us safely through to the other side through the power of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As God prepared to bring judgment upon a corrupt civilization in the time of Noah, he warned the righteous and offered a way in which they might be rescued from the coming flood. And now, as God prepares to bring final judgement upon all of humanity, he once again brings a warning to anyone who will listen and offers a way in which we might be rescued. We remember that long ago, when Noah and his family looked into the sky and saw the sign of the rainbow above them, it was more than just a symbol. They remembered their rescue… and gave thanks. Like them, as we remember our baptism, while it is a sign and a symbol, it is also so much more than that because we see that sign, and we remember our rescue… and give thanks.

As humanity hurtles down the side of the mountain toward certain doom, there is in baptism, a sign at the side of the road pointing toward one last chance to see tomorrow. It may not be the most impressive, amazing, or artistic sign, but it is a sign of rescue, a sign of belonging… and a sign of hope.

Let us remember our rescue and give thanks but let us also point as many others toward that sign as we possibly can so that they too can find Jesus, find rescue, find hope, and arrive, with us, on the shores of a new life on the other side.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/0nqL1PsPKp4

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Life is Not a Show

February 16, 2021February 16, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon actions, All the world's a stage, As You Like It, Ash Wednesday, Ashes, Christ, Christ United Methodist Church, church, consequenses, eternity, faithful, Jesus, life, Life is not a show, Methodist, obedient, reflect, reflection, relationship, repent, repentence, rescue, Shakespeare, show, United, Wednesday

Life is Not a Show

February 17, 2021*

(Ash Wednesday)

By Pastor John Partridge

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10

In William Shakespeare’s play “As You Like It,” the character, Jacques, declares that all the world is a stage. The first few lines of this soliloquy begin like this:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts…

But despite Shakespeare’s insistence that the world is just a stage, our life is not a show that is lived for the benefit of other people. In Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21, Jesus cautions us this way:

^6:1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

²“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ³But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

⁵“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

¹⁶“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus is clear that although we might, as Shakespeare suggested, live our lives on a stage viewed by others, the only spectator that matters is God. As we live our lives, we do not donate food to impress the people at the food pantry, or put money in the offering plate to impress people, or pray out loud so that people will think that we are religious, or holy, or somehow better than anyone else. This isn’t an act. Our lives are real, and our actions have eternal consequences. Our goal should never be to look good, or to impress people, or to inflate our own ego, but always, and only to do the will of God. Our goal is to be obedient and faithful and that’s all.

In Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, he amplifies this message of faithful living by saying this in 2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10:

^5:20 We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

^6:1 As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.²For he says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

³We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; ⁷in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; ⁸through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; ⁹known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; ¹⁰sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Paul says that no matter what happens, our one, singular goal, is to get our hearts right with God, and to return to a right relationship with God. That, my friends, is the entire reason that we set aside this season of Lent. It is a time for us to reflect upon our lives and our actions. It is a time for us to consider how we have been doing and consider the health of our relationship with God.

Have we been as obedient as we could have been?

Are we as faithful as we could be?

Are there ways in which we can do better?

Are we doing things that make it harder for others to believe that we are following Jesus?

Or that make it harder for them to believe in Jesus?

Let us consider where we have fallen short and where we can do better.

And let us commit ourselves to using this season of Lent, to draw closer to God, to live in such a way that we look more like Jesus, to be more obedient, and to be more faithful. Not so that we will look better to the people around us, but so that the people around us will see Jesus more clearly and be drawn closer to him because of the change that they see in us.

All the world may be a stage…

…but our lives are not an act.

Let us live lives that carry us into an eternity with God, and which draw as many others as possible along with us

_______

Old Testament Reading: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

²^:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is close at hand—
² a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come.

¹²“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

¹³Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
¹⁴Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.

¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.
¹⁶Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children,
those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.
¹⁷Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/ULPY2qwgoek

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Dimensional Rifts, and You

February 13, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon Captain Kirk, dimension, dimensional, Elijah, Elisha, Evil Kirk, God, James, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, Kirk, mount of transfiguration, Peter, rift, spirit, spiritual, Spock, Spock goatee, Star Trek, transfiguration

Dimensional Rifts and You*

February 14, 2021

by Pastor John Partridge

2 Kings 2:1-12 Mark 9:2-9 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

If you are a fan of Star Trek, science fiction, comic books, the Marvel moviemaking universe, or physics, you have almost certainly heard of dimensional rifts. For those of you who have not, the basic idea is that other universes exist, within the same space as our own, but slightly out of phase with ours in some way, or more to the point, in a slightly different dimension than our own. In comic books this is used to explain how Captain Marvel and Superman can both exist on a planet known as Earth but have never met one another or how Doctor Strange can magically travel from one place to another. In Star Trek, it provides an opportunity for the heroes to encounter strange new aliens, or the basis of cloaking technology, or for the famous episode in which a good Captain Kirk fights with an evil Captain Kirk as well as how we remember Mr. Spock with a goatee. In all these cases, a dimensional rift is place where, by accident or design, two different worlds that are ordinarily separated can meet, and even interact, with one another.

But since none of us are characters in comic books, television, or movies, what does any of that have to do with us? And the answer is that these examples from our imagination might aid our understanding of a few unusual moments that we encounter in scripture. Our first example of this for today if found in 2 Kings 2:1-12 where we read about the last day of the prophet Elijah’s life on earth.

^2:1 When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. ²Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”

But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, they went down to Bethel.

³The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”

“Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “so be quiet.”

⁴Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, Elisha; the Lord has sent me to Jericho.”

And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, they went to Jericho.

⁵The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”

“Yes, I know,” he replied, “so be quiet.”

⁶Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.”

And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, the two of them walked on.

⁷Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. ⁸Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

⁹When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”

“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.

¹⁰“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

¹¹As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. ¹²Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.

While the spiritual world is normally invisible to those of us in the physical world, there are moments, like this one, when a dimensional rift seems to open between them, and the spiritual world breaks out into ours. As Elisha cries out in amazement, a chariot, and horses of fire emerge into our physical world and separate Elijah and Elisha just as Elijah is carried into heaven by a tornado of swirling winds. And, just as suddenly as they appeared, the horses, the chariot, and the whirlwind, disappear back through the rift taking Elijah with them.

At least a part of the message for us is something that both Elijah and Elisha were well aware, that although it is most often unseen by us in the physical world, the spiritual world is just as real as ours and what happens in the spiritual world has an impact on the physical world as well as those of us who inhabit it. The message of scripture is that the spiritual world is connected to our world, and influences the events of our world, even if it only occasionally breaks through in such a way that it can be seen by us.

Perhaps the most well-known dimensional rift between the spiritual and physical worlds is recorded for us in Mark 9:2-9 where we read the story of Jesus’ transfiguration:

²After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. ³His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

⁵Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” ⁶(He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

⁷Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

⁸Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. ¹⁰They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

Because much like the angels, Jesus is himself a spiritual creature, during the time of his ministry on earth, he existed in both the spiritual and the physical worlds. Despite that dual existence, his spiritual presence was not visible to the physical world, until a rift between the two opened on the top of that mountain. At that moment, and in that place, both the physical and spiritual worlds existed, and were visible in the physical world, at the same time. Although Mark describes Jesus as being “transfigured” in the presence of Peter, James, and John, we might also think of this as a moment in which the Disciples were simply able to see Jesus as he really was, or how he would ordinarily appear to be in the spiritual world. And, because our two worlds collided in that moment, the disciples were also able to see Elijah and Moses, men who were long dead in the physical world, but whose lives had continued, uninterrupted, in the spiritual world.

But why does any of that matter to us?

It matters because it has implications for the people, and for the church, in the first, and in the twenty-first centuries. In 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Paul writes to the church to explain our role in sharing the gospel and explains how we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, can be the agents of the spiritual world in the creation of “dimensional rifts.” Paul says:

³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

While it may be helpful to think of the spiritual world as being in another dimension or on the “other side” of a dimensional rift the truth, Paul says, is that the “god of this age” that blinds unbelievers to the truth. And, while some have taught that the “god of this age” is Satan, Paul never describes the enemy of God in this way and likely would never have elevated one of God’s enemies to the status of a “god.” But what Paul has described as a god, are things like wealth, money, sex, power, selfishness, culture, princes, governments, and other things that can be worshiped in place of the one true God. Our own sin is what blinds us to the truth of the gospel and to the nearness of the spiritual world. But, as the followers of Jesus Christ, we have the power to be “dimensional rifts” between the spiritual and the physical worlds. We have the ability and the power to let light shine out of darkness, to let the light and truth of the spiritual world break out into the darkness of the physical world in which we live. As the followers of Jesus Christ, we can let his spiritual light shine in our hearts so that we can see the truth and so that God’s glory can be revealed to the people around us.

We are the “dimensional rifts.” We are called to be the sources of light and the sources of truth. We are the ones who can fight against the gods of this age, who can fight against the worship of self, money, power, pleasure, and everything else. We are the ones who can help our neighbors to see the light of the gospel by letting the light of Jesus shine in our hearts and break through into our spiritual dimension.

You may not be the captain of a starship and it may not be quite like what you might find in an episode of Star Trek, a movie from the Marvel Universe, or a Doctor Strange comic book. But you are called to be a dimensional rift, and let the light, love, and truth of the spiritual world fill your heart and break out into your neighborhood and your community so that the people around you can see and hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus.

Make it so.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/QhG52V8fQE0

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Strength for the Main Thing

February 6, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, body, Broadway, care, Christ, church, emotional, freedom, healing, hope, Isaiah, Jesus, John, mental, Methodist, mind, ministry, mission, Partridge, Paul, physical, rescue, self-care, soul, spirit, spiritual, strength, team, United, win

Strength for the Main Thing

February 07, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 40:21-31 Mark 1:29-39 1 Corinthians 9:16-23

In football, the “main thing” is moving the ball toward the goal line. But there are plans in place to keep the players healthy and rested. The team can’t move the ball if everyone is too tired to play. The same is true in the Indianapolis 500 the Daytona 500, 24 hours at Le Mans, or any other automobile race. There are plans in place for pit stops, fuel, water, Gatorade, tire changes, and in the case of Le Mans, even driver changes so that drivers can take a nap and be well (more) rested. But imagine what would happen without rest? If a football team played without rest, and the other team didn’t, it isn’t hard to imagine that the rested team would, at some point, gain a serious advantage over the team that didn’t. An auto race without pit stops for fuel would end quickly and a Le Mans race without sleep is, literally, and accident waiting to happen.

But what about our “main thing”?

Last week, we said that “keeping the main thing, the main thing means sharing Jesus’ message about rescuing the lost and the salvation of the living.” But what are our plans for moving the ball toward the goal line or finishing the race? How do we keep the players on the field, or the cars on the track, so that no one gets too tired to play, or runs out of fuel for the journey?

There are, at least, two answers.

In Isaiah 40:21-31, God’s prophet proclaims this news to God’s people, and it is advice that is often repeated at funerals and other times when we are feeling as if our feet are going out from underneath us or the wind has gone out of our sails. Isaiah said:

²¹Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
²²He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
²³He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
²⁴No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

²⁵“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
²⁶Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

[Note: “no one can fathom” has also been translated as “unsearchable” and can mean that God’s understanding is “beyond our imagination”]

²⁹He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
³¹but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

The first part of our answer, and the first part of our plan is that the source of our strength is not to be found within ourselves, but in God. God is the one who created us, who gives us breath, and strength for each day of our lives. God’s promise is to give us the strength that we need to do the work, and the mission, that he has given to us. But that still doesn’t make us superheroes. We still need food, and sleep, and rest. And Jesus, being fully human, had those same needs. And so, when we read the stories of the New Testament, like the one found in Mark 1:29-39, we see the plan that Jesus used to stay in the game, as he kept the main thing, the main thing.

²⁹As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. ³⁰Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. ³¹So he went to her, took her hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began to wait on them.

³²That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. ³³The whole town gathered at the door, ³⁴and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

³⁵Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. ³⁶Simon and his companions went to look for him, ³⁷and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”

³⁸Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” ³⁹So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

Jesus was working hard. He was doing his work. He was carrying out his mission and ministry. But he was tired physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And Jesus took steps to combat that fatigue. First, he had a place where he could be himself, relax, and get a good night’s sleep. But after he was physically rested, Jesus found a quiet place, alone, where he could pray and draw close to God. Much like we read in Isaiah, this is how Jesus, in addition to getting a good night’s rest, received the physical, spiritual, and mental strength that he needed to make it through the day. The recipe was to not only take care of his body, but to take care of his body, his mind, and his soul. How often do we complain that we are tired, despite having had a good night’s rest, because we have forgotten to take the time to care for our minds and our souls? If we want to keep the main thing, the main thing, and have the strength and stamina that we need to carry out our mission, we must remember to care for the whole person of our bodies, minds, and souls.

But while we are thinking about the strength that we need to do that “main thing,” let’s keep our focus on what we mean when we say, “the main thing.” In 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Paul says:

¹⁶For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! ¹⁷If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

¹⁹Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Paul says that he must do whatever God called him to do and do it to the absolute best of his ability even if that means that he surrenders his biblical right to get paid, or gives up his freedoms, or his belongings, his money, his personal comforts, or anything else. Paul says that he was willing to do whatever needed to be done, so every effort could be made to save as many people as possible. And, from Paul’s history, we know that meant that Paul worked as a tent maker while he was caring for a church rather than ask a struggling church for any kind of salary. It meant that Paul was willing to leave behind his wealth and his privileged lifestyle, to travel the world, to be arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and eventually executed all so that he could keep the main thing, the main thing, pursue his mission with all the strength that he had, and all the strength that God had given him, and preach the gospel to as many people as he possibly could.

And of those things flow downhill to us.

As individuals, and as the church, we have inherited the mission of Jesus Christ just as Paul did. Not all of us have been called into missionary service or to pastoral ministry, but all of us have been called to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, to rescue the lost, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, to speak for those who don’t have a voice in the halls of government, to stand up for the abused and the downtrodden, and all the other things that Jesus did, and commanded his followers to do. It is an enormous task. Doing all these things, and keeping the main thing, the main thing, is just as physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting today as it was for Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul. For us to do what we have been commanded to do, to do it well, and to keep on doing it, we need to care for ourselves. We need to take the time to rest, to get plenty of sleep, but also to regularly spend time in prayer, spend time studying scripture, and spend time drawing closer to God.

You wouldn’t send your football team onto the field without a plan to rotate players and give them rest. You wouldn’t send a racing team onto the track without a plan to stop for fuel, tire changes, and Gatorade. And you wouldn’t dream of asking a Le Mans racer to drive for 24 hours without rest. But trying to do what God has asked us to do, without taking the time to care for our team is just as foolish. We must all be diligent about eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, taking the time to study scripture, and spending time alone with God. Without these things, the players grow tired, become exhausted, and our team falls apart.

Our team must play to win, and each of you are an integral, and vital, part of that team.

Like Paul, we must do everything that we can to share the Good News and to rescue the lost.

But we cannot rely upon our own strength alone. We cannot do it without God’s strength.

Let us commit to taking care or ourselves, and caring for one another, in body, mind, and spirit. Let us plan to eat right, sleep well, study scripture, and spend time alone in prayer with God.

The lives of our families, neighbors and friends are hanging in the balance.

Don’t let them down.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/lLWTO0y2-d8

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Death by Distraction

January 29, 2021January 30, 2021 PastorPartridge Sermon Corona virus, coronavirus, covid-19, death, distract, distraction, exorcism, focus, followers of Jesus, Good News, idols, Jesus, Jesus Christ, life and death, masks, meat, mission, rescue, rights, salvation, spirit

Death by Distraction

January 31, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Mark 1:21-28 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

On several long car trips, I have seen signs along the highway that remind drivers to put their phones down and to avoid distracted driving. Not long ago, that wasn’t something that we even thought about. We didn’t have phones in the car, or computer screens for navigation, or many of the other things with which today’s driver can be distracted. We had a handful of radio buttons and maybe a box full of cassette tapes and the highway signs only reminded us to fasten our seat belts. But while our children, radios, and fast-food lunches always had the potential to draw our attention away from the highway, today’s abundance of electronic devices distract us in similar abundance and our distraction at seventy miles an hour in heavy traffic can become deadly in the blink of an eye. Our life, and the lives of those around us, depends upon us keeping our focus on the important things and not being distracted by the army of ephemera that nags at the edges of our consciousness.

But scripture tells us that our spiritual lives are much like that, and worse.

In Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Moses warns the people of Israel that they must listen to God and not be distracted.

¹⁵The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. ¹⁶For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

¹⁷The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. ¹⁸I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. ¹⁹I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. ²⁰But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

Moses warns the people that while it is critically important to listen to God’s prophets and to obey God’s commands and instructions, they must be careful not to be distracted by people who only pretend to speak for God. He says that there will inevitably be people who speak fake and false prophecy for their own benefit, or who attempt to speak for other gods to distract God’s people and shift their focus from where it should be. Just as it is when we are driving, God’s people are at risk any time that our attention turns away from the main thing.

In Mark 1:21-28, an evil spirit comes into the synagogue and is afraid of Jesus.

²¹They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. ²²The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. ²³Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, ²⁴“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

²⁵“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” ²⁶The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

²⁷The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” ²⁸News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

The impure spirit knows who Jesus is and is afraid of his power, but it also is trying to begin a discussion with him that is a distraction from Jesus’ main message. But Jesus knows the importance of keeping his focus on the main thing and does not allow the impure spirit to distract the people in the synagogue from the message that he is teaching. The spirit tries to steer the discussion in the synagogue to one about Jesus’ intensions toward the spirit world, but while Jesus’ presence and his message will ripple into their world, what happens to demons and impure spirits is not the focus of Jesus’ ministry. The message of Jesus isn’t about the destruction of evil spirits, but about the rescue of the lost and the salvation of the living.

But what application does that have for us today?

Of course keeping the main thing, the main thing means sharing Jesus’ message about rescuing the lost and the salvation of the living. That is, after all, the mission of the church and the mission of every follower of Jesus Christ. But keeping the main thing, the main thing can mean more than that as we see in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. In that place, there were people who had converted from Judaism, people who had been Christians for some time, and people who had only recently converted to Christianity from idol worship.

In Corinth, most of the meat that was available had been sacrificed to some idol at the pagan temples and then sold later in the meat market. Similarly, the traditional place to hold many weddings, celebrations, and other gatherings was at those same pagan temples. So, among the people of the church, there was a dispute. If Christians stayed away from the idols and pagan temples, they would miss the weddings of their friends, and be excluded from many celebrations and business opportunities. If they refused to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, they might rarely eat meat at all. And so, in the middle of this dispute, Paul writes these words to the church (1 Corinthians 8:1-13):

^8:1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. ²Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. ³But whoever loves God is known by God.

Paul recognizes that the more mature believers understand that the idols aren’t real. They know that our God is the only god that there is and that gods made of stone and metal had no real power. Whether they attended an event at the pagan temple or ate meat that had been sacrificed there made no difference. But many of the newer converts, who had grown up in that system, still believed that setting foot in a pagan temple, or even eating the meat that had been sacrificed there, gave power to those gods, and gave them power over you.

And what Paul says, is that “We possess all knowledge.” Yes, we know that these are false god. Yes, we know that attending your nephew’s wedding at the pagan temple makes no difference. We know that eating meat, or not eating meat, makes no difference. But, if we read the rest of this passage, Paul encourages them not to do these things anyway. Why? Because even though idols and false gods have no power, and even though believers in Jesus Christ had every right to attend social gathering and eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, exercising that right caused harm to fellow believers whose faith was not yet as mature as theirs. Attending those gatherings, and eating that meat, caused less mature believers to doubt their faith and possibly leave the church. Paul says that more important thing is not what knowledge we have, or what rights we have, but that we do not cause harm to our brothers and sisters in Christ. For Paul, it wasn’t an issue of knowledge or of rights, but of keeping the main thing, the main thing.

Even two millennia later, this idea flows into everything that we do. One of the foundational principles of the Methodist movement is “Do no harm” and it is often a check for us to keep the main thing, the main thing and to keep our focus where it belongs. Even though we have every right to hold in-person worship, we must consider what harm we might cause to fellow believers by exercising that right. Even though we may personally feel that we have every right not to wear a mask in public, do we cause harm to the people in the community, and to fellow believers, and to their faith, if we choose to exercise that right. Paul’s message to the church in Corinth, and to us, is just because we have the right to do something, doesn’t mean that we should exercise that right, or that exercising that right is a good thing.

The more important principle is to do no harm.

When we drive our automobiles down the highway, we understand that the full focus of our attention is required for the task at hand, and that our distraction can lead to our death, or to the death of others.

Moses warned that God’s people needed to test the people who claimed to be prophets and only listen to those that proved to be real because being distracted from God’s message could lead to death.

When Jesus preached in the synagogue, he did not allow the impure spirit to change the subject and distract him from the focus of his message. The main thing, had to remain the main thing and the most important message wasn’t about the future of the spirits, but about rescuing the lost and calling God’s people to repentance and obedience. Paul knew that throughout our daily lives we run the risk of distraction and death.

We must constantly struggle to keep the main thing the main thing. To keep our focus on the mission of the church, to rescue the lost, and to preach a message of salvation and the Good News of Jesus Christ. And in the process of doing that, we may occasionally need to set aside our rights, to surrender to God some of the things that we feel like we have earned for ourselves because the main thing isn’t about exercising our rights, or about doing things just because we can do them.

The main thing is to do no harm to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and to the community around us.

Because despite living in a country where we hold our rights to be incredibly important, sometimes our rights are a distraction from our main purpose, focus, and mission.

And distraction is death.

Let us keep our focus on rescuing the lost and sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

And let us continue our struggle to keep the main thing, the main thing.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/QV5D2PTS5Cw

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