Children of an Annoying God

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Pouting girl with the title "Children of an Annoying God."

Children of an Annoying God

July 27, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Hosea 1:2-10              Luke 11:1-13              Colossians 2:6-19

Any of you that have siblings will know that they are often uniquely equipped to annoy you. In part, this is true because they have spent so much time in the same room, or at least in the same house with you, but also because, having spent many years in the same household together, they know more about you, and the family stories, and your personal history, than almost anyone else. Next in line, in their ability to push your buttons, get on your nerves, and be annoying when they want to do so, are your closest friends. Those friends from high school or college with whom you spent hours, every day, for four years, in class, out of class, in the weight room, on the practice field, in the library, and elsewhere… together. They too, know so much about you, that when they want to yank on your chain and annoy you, they know things about you that few other people know and can say words that can get under your skin but mean little or nothing to other people in the room. For these same reasons, these are the people who can often speak wisdom and advice into your life when you aren’t willing to listen to anyone else simply because you have shared so much of your lives with one another.

This is what we find God doing, and teaching, in all three of our scriptures this morning. We begin by reading the words of the prophet Hosea, where we find God deliberately taunting and annoying the nation of Israel by reminding them of their failures and shortcomings, and pointing out how those failures have damaged their relationship with the God that they claim to worship. Reading from Hosea 1:2-10, we hear this:

2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

4 Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword, or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”

8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’

First, God asks Hosea, a highly visible public figure, to marry a woman, Gomer, who is known to be an unfaithful cheater. Some translations label her as a prostitute, but ‘repeat offender” or “serial cheater” is probably more accurate. In any case, the reason is that the relationship between Hosea and Gomer is meant to be a model for Israel’s relationship with God, as repeat offenders who are serial cheaters with other gods. Next, through the names of Hosea’s children, God reminds Israel that their king is only on the throne because he murdered the son of the previous king, and through the next two children, reminds them that God will no longer show his love to Israel and that they have been so unfaithful that they can no longer call themselves God’s people.

Imagine, seeing Hosea, a public figure, especially in Jerusalem and the halls of power, every day for years, and every time you heard the gossip about his cheating wife, you were reminded of Israel’s infidelity with God. Or that every time you heard the names of Hosea’s children, just speaking, or hearing their names reminded everyone of Israel’s failures to obey God. Whenever we read this story, there can be no doubt that when it comes to annoying his people to make a point, God plays a long game over years and even decades and plays on an entirely different level than our friends and siblings.

In our next scripture, Jesus teaches that sometimes it is good to be annoying. And we hear that story in Luke 11:1-13 as the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray.

11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”

5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

9 “So, I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks fora fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

While we are all familiar with the prayer that Jesus teaches, what we don’t often discuss is how Jesus teaches his disciples to use it. Jesus teaches them a prayer but immediately tells them that they should never be afraid to be a bother, but to annoy God freely and deliberately with their prayers. The examples that Jesus gives are annoying a friend who has already gone to bed until he answers the door and gives you some bread and how a parent, even an evil parent, knows how to give good gifts to his or her children. If God is good, how much more will God do for us than we would do for our friends or for our children? Jesus encourages us to annoy God and to pound on the gates of heaven with our prayers and not to be shy in asking for fear that we might be a bother to God. At the same time, as we read Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, he hear as he encourages the church to be so confident in what they have, and the gifts that God has given to them, that they, and we, do not wander from what Jesus has taught just because the people and the culture might annoy us. In Colossians 2:6-19, Paul says:

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forcesof this world rather than on Christ.

9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Paul says that once we choose to follow Jesus, we should be confident in living our lives the way that he taught us to live. We should not be persuaded by weak philosophy, corrupt traditions, or the vaguely spiritual culture around us that encourages a vague faith in nature, or the universe, or some other impersonal god. Instead, we must remember that Jesus is the God who came to earth, was born and lived as one of us, and who now lives and rules over all creation. When we chose to follow Jesus, we were set apart from the rest of the world and, through our baptism, are buried and raised to a new life of faith. Because of that we should not allow others to judge us for living differently than the people around us if our conscience guides us to eat differently, live differently, or worship differently than they do. Paul warns, and this is just as applicable today as it has ever been, that many of the people around us have become “disconnected from the head” which he means disconnected from God, but would likely not be wrong to also think of as being disconnected from their brains. Instead, we are to live, together, as one body, supporting and encouraging one another, and working together with God as the head.

In the end, we must remember that we worship a God who freely annoys his people and his church to remind them, to remind us, of who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to act. But we are also taught that we should not worry about being a bother to God, but to pray unceasingly, to annoy God by pounding on the gates of heaven until he answers our prayers. And all of this is because God is a loving father who seeks to do what is best for us, and desires to give us gifts that will allow us to do his work, to be a blessing to the people around us, and to change the world.

We worship an annoying God who encourages us to annoy him in return, and to have the courage to ignore others who would try to annoy us away from God’s teaching. May our persistence in living like Jesus annoy the people around us into seeing God and hearing his call.

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

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Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

July 20, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Amos 8:1-12               Luke 10:38-42                        Colossians 1:15-28

Every language has its own quirks, and English is known to go through the pockets of other languages to collect those quirks. But one thing that is common to every language is words and phrases that originate from agriculture. Sometimes these phrases, known as idioms, are difficult to translate because they can be borrowed from their original contexts and used in other places in ways that have other meanings. For example, saying that your mortgage or your car loan is “underwater” had nothing to do with being underwater, but means that your home or car is currently less valuable than the amount that you owe on the loan. Similarly, we understand that when Jesus says that the fields are “ripe for harvest,” he means that the people are ready to hear the gospel message. But, in English, the phrase saying that people are “ripe for the picking” often means that those people are gullible and ready to be hoodwinked and defrauded in some way. However, if the people at the orchard say that the apples are “ripe for the picking” it means something entirely different and completely what you would expect it to mean.

Can you see why these things can be difficult for translators?

But it is this kind of phrase that we encounter as we read the first of our scriptures for today and as we read, we will need to think a little bit about what it is that God, and Amos, and the bible translators intend for us to understand. And so, we rejoin the story of Israel, recorded in the book of Amos, as God describes his people as a basket of fruit in Amos 8:1-12 where we hear this:

8:1 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

3 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!”

4 Hear this, you who trample the needy
    and do away with the poor of the land,

5 saying,

“When will the New Moon be over
    that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
    that we may market wheat?”—
skimping on the measure,
    boosting the price
    and cheating with dishonest scales,
6 buying the poor with silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
    selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

8 “Will not the land tremble for this,
    and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
    it will be stirred up and then sink
    like the river of Egypt.

9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning
    and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
    and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
    and the end of it like a bitter day.

11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
    “when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
    but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
    and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.

God points Amos to a basket of fruit and compares it to the nation of Israel saying that Israel is “ripe for the picking” or that the “time is ripe.” But what God means is that just as the orchard manager waits until the fruit is ripe before going out to pick it from the trees, God has waited until this time to bring his judgment upon his people. Israel has trampled the needy and chased the poor from their land. They have defrauded their customers in the marketplace and used their profits to defraud the poor even further. God declares that he will never forget the harm that has been done to the poor and intends to turn Israel’s greed into sadness, bitterness, and death. Just as the wealthy have tormented the poor and the needy, God intends to make even the wealthy and powerful suffer in many of the same ways that they have made others suffer.

But even if we make better choices than the leaders of ancient Israel, and even if we do a respectable job following Jesus and doing the things that he has taught us to do, we still must recognize that not all choices are equal. As we read in Luke 10:38-42, we see that some choices are better than others.

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I want to be sure that everyone understands that no one made a bad choice, and no one did anything wrong. Martha saw Jesus and a house full of guests and shifted into her role playing the part of a good host. But Martha expected that her sister Mary, who also lived in their home, would also focus on the tasks and preparations of hosting. But Mary did something different. Rather than do the work of preparing for, and serving guests, Mary stopped what she was doing and listened to what Jesus was teaching. Meanwhile, Martha was upset that Mary did not comply with her expectations and complained to Jesus that Mary should be helping her to prepare food and serve their guests. But Jesus says that while both choices were good, Mary’s choice was better. Jesus doesn’t suggest that Martha was wrong in choosing to function as host, simply that Mary’s choice to take a break from legitimate work and responsibility was the better of the two options. As such, this story of Mary and Martha’s interactions with Jesus reminds us all that while it’s often acceptable for us to focus on what we think needs to be done, or the things that our culture tells us we should be focusing on, sometimes it is the better choice to temporarily ignore our responsibilities so that we can focus on something even better.

And that brings us, once again, to Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae where Paul reminds us that sometimes the best choices may take us to unlikely, and even uncomfortable destinations where we may have experiences that appear to be bad, and even disastrous. Reading from Colossians 1:15-28, we hear this:

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of[g] your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

28 He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.

Paul begins this passage by declaring that Jesus is the image of God, the firstborn of all creation, the creator of all that exists, and the power that holds the universe together. If you hear modern folks say things like, “The disciples didn’t think that Jesus was God,” or “The New Testament doesn’t claim that Jesus is God,” this is just one of many passages that you can go to that unequivocally makes that claim.

But having made that point, Paul reminds the church that it was Jesus that, through his life, death, and resurrection, made it possible for us to have a relationship with God. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are brought back into a relationship, reconciled, with God after being alienated from him because of our sin. But Paul also notes that because of the choice that he made to follow Jesus, he is has suffered for the sake of the church so that he could make God known to the Gentiles (and that’s us), by telling them about Jesus. Paul has made the better choice, but that choice has not always been pleasant. He could have gone back to his life of studying the Torah and enjoying the wealth and privilege of his family, but instead chose to follow Jesus, and share the message of the Gospel with the Gentiles. But even though that choice often led Paul to be afflicted, whipped, beaten, and imprisoned, Paul knows that he is doing the work that God has called him to do and is changing the world, one life at a time as he points people to reconciliation with God and a new life in Jesus Christ.

More importantly, Paul says that this is not his calling alone, but the calling of the whole church. It is the whole church who is called to proclaim, admonish, and teach so that we may present everyone around us to God as mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

At one time the ancient leaders of Israel chose to abuse the poor and focus on their greed, and those choices led God to bring about punishment that caused them to suffer in the same way that they had made others suffer. But even when we make good choices, like Martha did, we may still have the option, such as that we saw in Mary, of making an even better choice to listen to Jesus and learn from him. But like Paul, and like the church in Colossae, we may also choose to obey the call of Jesus so that we may proclaim, admonish, and teach the people around us so that on the day of judgment we do not arrive at the throne of grace alone but instead, surrounded by all those to whom we have witnessed and who we present to God as mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

I pray that each of us will make the better choice, and that God will be at work in us so that we may have the faith, commitment, and courage to pursue God’s mission, vision, and purpose for our lives.

*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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Curses, Love, and Fruit

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Curses, Love, and Fruit

July 13, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Amos 7:7-17               Luke 10:25-37                        Colossians 1:1-14

In the Gorge Metropark in Summit County, there is a hiking trail on which, midway through your hike, the trail diverges in two directions and, at the point where the two trails split, there is a sign that, at one time, simply pointed in each direction with the labels, Easy” and “Hard.” Such a sign was brutal in its honesty and efficiency. But while both paths eventually returned you to the trailhead and the parking lot, the harder of the two paths will take you past some incredible scenery and through house-sized (and larger) boulders that were scooped up in Canada during the last glacial period and deposited here as the glaciers melted.

Life is often like that. We often have choices to make that will cause our path in life to diverge and while some of those paths are easy, others are extraordinarily hard. At the same time the scenery, and often the destination of the two paths, can be vastly different. For example, choosing to quit your job so that you can go back to school or learn a trade so that you can get a job that pays better can be a lifechanging decision. Likewise, choosing to join the military so that you can escape from a neighborhood that is likely to pull you into a gang and trap you in poverty is a choice that can take you in a direction that is almost unimaginable to the friends that you leave behind. In contrast, Patti and I have met people in prison who, if you met them on the street, would seem no different that many of the people you know from church and around town, except for one bad choice that resulted in their incarceration. Some choices, good and bad, forever change the scenery and the destination of our lives.

And that is exactly what we find in our first scripture today. God’s prophets, specifically the prophet Amos, had warned Israel to follow the commands of God but, despite those warnings, Israel and her leaders had chosen another path. And so, as we join the story, we hear God explaining to Amos that Israel was about to be measured and tested according to God’s standards. We begin reading from Amos 7:7-17 where we hear this:

7 This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed
    and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;
    with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”

10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. 11 For this is what Amos is saying:

“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
    and Israel will surely go into exile,
    away from their native land.’”

12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say,

“‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
    and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’

17 “Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

“‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,
    and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be measured and divided up,
    and you yourself will die in a pagan country.
And Israel will surely go into exile,
    away from their native land.’”

As God speaks to the prophet Amos, he explains that after all the instructions and commands of God, after all the teaching and preaching, it is time for Israel to be measured the way that a builder measures his work during the construction of a building. God intends to measure his people and his nation and assess the results of all the teaching just as a builder uses a plumb line to measure the straightness of a wall. Worse, God already knows the results and, just as a builder will tear down a wall that isn’t straight, God intends to tear down his own nation and start over.

It is too late for warnings.

Bishop Hopkins once asked the East Ohio Conference, “Are we an institution? Or are we a movement?” As a church, our history, and our calling, is to be a movement, but it is all too easy to drift into institutionalism where all we want to do is to preserve the bureaucracies that we have built and forget that the entire purpose of the church’s existence is to reach the lost. In the story of Amos, we discover that this exact thing has happened to Israel. There has been lots of worship, there has been lots of teaching, and many priests have expended themselves in preserving the institution of the church, but the end result has been a people that follow the king and the church but do not follow God, act in the way that God has called his people to act, or love in the way that God has called his people to love.

It isn’t a surprise that the priests shout and tell Amos to shut up and go home because no one wants to hear the prophecies that he has brought. But that rejection of Amos and the message that he has brought, just results in God bringing a curse against Amaziah the priest and all of Israel that will take many of them into captivity in Babylon, or worse.

But if it is so easy, and common, for the church and its leadership to fall into the trap of preserving the institution, then what does it look like to understand and implement God’s message correctly? And for that, we only have to turn to Luke 10:25-37 where we hear one of Israel’s resident theologians ask Jesus that exact question.

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

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

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

When Jesus tells the religious scholar to love his neighbor, his immediate question is to wonder who it is that he should treat as a neighbor. What he is really asking is, what does real love look like? And the story that Jesus tells in reply is that our calling is to love, even the people who are foreign enemies of our people, or even more simply… everyone you can imagine is your neighbor. And that even includes the people that you were absolutely certain were not your neighbor.

But if that is what love really looks like, then what does it look like when the church gets it right? And for that, we find a fitting example in the church in Colossae, when Paul writes to compliment them in Colossians 1:1-14, where he says:

1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sistersin Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on ourbehalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified youto share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Paul tells the people in the church of Colossae that others are talking about them and about their ministry, and that some of those kind words have even reached him where he is imprisoned in Rome. But what is it that people are talking about, and that Paul has heard, that allows him to know that the church has a strong faith? Quite simply, what Paul has heard, is that the church has love for all of God’s people. Moreover, because of what he has heard, he and his companions never stop praying for the church in Colossae and its people, and they encourage them to continue doing more of the things that they have already been doing.

It is notable at this point to highlight one more thing. Paul says that the people of the church can avoid the trap of preserving the institution and forgetting their kingdom mission. But, to do that, we must instead live a life that is worthy of God and bear fruit by doing good work. No, that’s wrong. Paul doesn’t say that we should just do good work.  He says that we should bear fruit by doing every good work.

As individuals and as the church, we have choices to make, and the best choices do not always take us down easy paths.

Bear fruit by doing every good work. That means, don’t just love some people, love all people. Don’t just love a little, love in abundance. Don’t just love ordinarily, love extravagantly.

Because the difference between preserving the institution and advancing the missional movement is found in who we love, and how much we love them. As Paul knew, in the end, the way that we bear fruit for the kingdom of God is to love all the people around us, and by doing every good 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.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Assumptions of the Powerful

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Assumptions of the Powerful

July 06, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

2 Kings 5:1-14                       Luke 10:1-11, 16-20             

For anyone who has taken the Bridges Out of Poverty class, or who has done any reading about poverty, or the disparities of wealth, one of the things that we discover, is that people from different socio-economic classes simply think differently and operate throughout their lives with a different set of assumptions. These disparities are not new to our generation or even new to modernity, but have existed throughout recorded history, and since the beginning of what we might think of as wealth and power. We often see these differences as we read the stories of history, and we see them in scripture as well as in writings from the period such as the books of Josephus and other first century writers.

Our first scripture for today is found in 2 Kings 5:1-14, much earlier than the first century, somewhere between 500 to 600 years before the birth of Jesus. There, we hear the story of how Naaman, a wealthy and powerful leader of the nation of Aram, a major military and economic power, contracts an incurable disease and travels to Israel in search of healing at the hands of the prophet of Israel’s God. But, even before Naaman and the prophet Elisha can meet, we witness the confusion caused by the assumptions made from his position of wealth and power.

5:1 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. 6 The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be cleansed.”

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So, he turned and went off in a rage.

13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

I want to remind you that Naaman is the second most powerful person in one of the most powerful, wealthy, and influential nations in the entire region. He is a person of great power, intellect, wealth, and influence. He is so important, that when he is discovered to have an incurable disease that would normally cause him to be cast out of society and become an unclean  pariah, the king of Aram helps him to hide his disease and sends him to Israel, along with 75 pounds of silver (roughly $325,000 US), 1,860 ounces of gold (about $6.2 million), and ten complete sets of clothing, which we will assume are the finest silks or embroidered outfits that would be worn by the king or others in the halls of power in Aram. Historically, we know that some of those sorts of outfits would take a skilled artisan a year, or several years, to make and so, each was worth several years salary of a skilled laborer and thus both rare and highly prized.

Additionally, the king of Aram sends along a letter of introduction to the king of Israel but, this is where the assumptions become apparent. First, it is assumed by the wealthy and powerful that miracles from the prophet of God can be bought. Second, it is assumed that the agent that can command such a miracle is the king of Israel. Despite the power of Naaman and Aram’s king, they do not, in any way, understand how the God of Israel works. Despite being told, by an Israeli servant that they must meet the prophet in Samaria, Naaman travels instead to the capitol of Israel, which would have been in Samaria, and not to Jerusalem, which was capitol of Judah. But even so, the King of Aram says nothing about meeting the prophet of God in Israel and the underlying assumption, as it is understood by both the reader of scripture and by Joram, the king of Israel, is that Israel’s king would be able to order Naaman’s healing in exchange for the payment that had been sent.

Even when that assumption is corrected, still Naaman travels to see Elisha with his entire entourage of horses and chariots assuming that he would need to impress the prophet with his wealth and power. Further, he gets angry when he doesn’t even get to meet Elisha face-to-face and finds that what is required of him is not something difficult, expensive, or otherwise impressive.  Instead, what God demands of Naaman is not wealth, power, or influence, but instead is simply obedience and humility.

We see this same upheaval of our own assumptions about wealth and power in Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, where we find Jesus sending out seventy-two of his followers to preach the message of the gospel.

10:1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

As he sent out seventy itinerant missionaries to the villages and communities ahead of him, Jesus’ instructions are to leave behind everything that might possibly be of assistance to them so that whatever work they did, whatever results that they had, would belong to God and only to God. Further, by requiring these disciples to travel without a change of clothes, or a warm jacket, or money, or water, or even shoes, Jesus forces them to rely upon God for the things that they needed, not only to accomplish the mission and ministry to which they had been sent, but for their very survival.

In addition, Jesus instructs them to stay in one place and eat only what is offered there rather than moving from house to house so that they can get a more generous meal every day. Rather than trying to live better, their goal was to be humble and trust in God’s provision.

As citizens of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations that has ever existed, even the average among us is influenced by the culture in which we live. And as such, as we are immersed in it, we absorb the assumptions and attitudes that are common to wealth and power. When the king of Aram sent Naaman to be healed, he assumed that the miraculous would be governed by the wealthy and powerful of Israel. Both the king and Naaman assumed that miracles could be bought for the right price. And not only did Naaman assume that he could impress the Elisha, the prophet of God, by his display of strength, his ego was wounded and he was angry that by refusing to meet face-to-face, Elisha did not treat him with the deference that he felt that he deserved, and he was confused that accomplishing Elisha’s instructions would not require wealth, power, strength, or great intellect.  

As Jesus sent out his disciple-missionaries into the communities ahead of him, he forced his followers to set aside their own assumptions and the things upon which they were often dependent. They took nothing with them upon which they could rely. No money, no extra clothing, no food, no water, and no weapons. They took only faithfulness, trust, obedience, and the humility to rest in God’s ability to enable, empower, and accomplish their mission.

Two thousand years later, scripture speaks to us just as it did to the citizens of Israel and the great empires of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Rome and message remains just as clear as it has throughout the ages. When we seek to do the work of the church and the kingdom of God, the things that we need to accomplish the mission set before us is not more money, more power, more influence, more strength, more talent, more equipment, more people, or more of anything else. Those are the assumptions of the wealthy and the powerful. Instead, we must set aside the assumptions of our culture and rely instead upon obedience, faithfulness, trust, and the humility to fully rely upon God.

The recipe is easy.

As Naaman and the disciples of Jesus discovered, it can sometimes be a struggle for us to get past our assumptions long enough to do the things that God asks. But when we do, we can witness the miraculous power of our God as work.

May we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, and as the church, have the humility to trust.

.

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Into the Unknown

PastorPartridge Sermon

Into the Unknown

June 29, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14                Luke 9:51-62              Galatians 5:1, 13-25

There is an experience of launching into the unknown that happens to members of our military that tests their confidence, training, and the trust that they have in their superiors, their support team, the U.S. military, and the United States of America all at the same time. It happens in a variety of ways to varying degrees, but one of the most extreme experiences that I have read about happened, and may still happen, in the Jungle Survival training course that was once conducted in the jungles of Panama. There, they learned how to evade pursuers, what plants and animals can be safely eaten, how to navigate, build traps, build a fire without matches, and all sorts of other similarly useful things. But for the final exam, the soldiers were taken out to a random location and parachuted or dropped by helicopter into the jungle with instructions to return to a specified location within three to five days. They had little or no food, only a canteen of water, a knife, and their wits. Their first task, of course, besides avoiding poisonous snakes and dangerous animals, was to figure out where they were and how to navigate to their assigned pickup location.

I witnessed a similar, but less extreme example in the early 1990’s while on an exercise in the California Desert on the Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Corps base. One morning we awakened to find that we had new neighbors. We learned that it was an airborne infantry unit from Alaska. The day before, they had been on a bivouac, camping in the snow, at below freezing temperatures, when they were abruptly marched to the airfield, flown to California, and dropped into new positions in the desert where the temperature hit 110 to 120 degrees (F) during the day.

Such journeys into the unknown are uncommon in civilian life except for those times when a friend or family member surprises you with and urges you to get in the car with no idea where you are going.

In the end, whenever we set out into the unknown, we need to trust our equipment, our training, our companions, and our support teams. But it is that kind of trust that we often see when we read the stories of scripture and when we choose to follow God for ourselves. We begin this morning by reading from 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14, as we hear the story of how the baton is passed from the prophet Elijah to his trainee Elisha:

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. 2 Elijah 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.

6 Then 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.

7 Fifty 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. 8 Elijah 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.

9 When 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.”

11 As 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. 12 Elisha 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.

13 Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.

Elisha and, in the passage we skipped over, several companies of prophets from different cities, all knew that God was going to take Elijah from the earth on that day. But no one knew exactly when, or where, or how, they only knew that Elijah was following a calling of God, first to Bethel and then across the Jordan River. Along the way, Elisha asks for a double portion of the Spirit of God that lived in Elijah. And Elijah answers that such a gift was not his to give but could only be given by God. As such, he sets a condition and says that if God allows Elisha to see what happens when Elijah is taken up, then that is a sign that God has granted his request. And so it happens that Elisha does see the chariots and horsemen of God and he does inherit a double portion of God’s Spirit, whatever that means exactly because I have no idea how such a thing could be measured, and Elisha returns to Israel from across the Jordan. But, once again, Elisha is following God into the unknown and has no idea where God will lead him or what God has in store for him in the future.

Elisha knew what it meant to follow his master, and what it means to follow God into the unknown but, in Luke 9:51-62, Jesus meets several people who say that they want to follow him, but their lives and their actions showed that they didn’t really understand what it meant to follow Jesus into the unknown.

51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village.

57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Because Jesus knew the hearts of the people around him, he understood that the first man, despite is assurances that he would follow Jesus anywhere, only meant that he would follow Jesus if it wasn’t too inconvenient. The second man was willing to follow Jesus but Jesus wasn’t a priority and so he could only when he wasn’t busy with other things. And still another prioritized his family over following Jesus. And so, Jesus tells his followers that following means keeping our eyes forward toward the mission to which God is calling us and not looking backward toward whatever family, business, or even church stuff that we have left behind us. A farmer that looks back while plowing will wander from his path and make crooked rows. The only way to move toward the goal in a straight line is to keep looking forward.

But living our lives isn’t like plowing a field. It’s easy to say that we must keep looking forward and stop looking backward, but what does that look like in real life? I get it that we can’t keep wishing we had done things differently, or that we can’t keep doing things the same way that our parents did them, or how our church used to do things. I get it that we need to keep look forward and keep our eyes on the mission that God has given to us today, but how should we live our lives? What things can help us to make decisions in our everyday world? And in Galatians 5:1, 13-25, we find some good advice from Paul, when he says:

5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateveryou want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Paul reminds us that Jesus has set us free from sin and if we want to keep our freedom, then there are some things that we should do, and some things that we should not be doing. Paul says that keeping true to the commands of God is not complicated, but it means that we must love the people around us as much as we love ourselves. At the same time, we cannot be fighting amongst ourselves and destroying the kingdom of God from the inside. We can’t be immoral or impure or allow anything to become more important than God (because that’s what idols are). We can’t live lives filled with disruptive passions like rage, jealousy, selfishness, envy, division, class warfare, polarization, segregation, and other things that divide people instead of uniting them.

What we should be doing is living lives filled with love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We may never be asked to jump out of an airplane and find our way through the jungle but, if we want to follow Jesus into the unknown, we must keep in step with the Spirit and walk like Jesus.

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Focus

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Focus

July 2025

by John Partridge

I was forgotten at Annual Conference… again.

It wasn’t the first time.

What happened was that despite a lot of talk about accessibility, our conference staff has, more than once, forgotten that wheelchairs and walkers aren’t the only disability. As a result, while significant efforts are usually made to ensure that the facilities that we use have ramps, elevators, and golf carts to shuttle delegates to and fro, the facilities that are used do not have assistive listening devices or, if they do, no one knows how to use them. The result was that I heard only a handful of words during the entirety of the half-day clergy session on Wednesday. The regular session on Thursday, likewise, did not have any assistive listening systems, but the sound system was significantly better. This was especially surprising since the Thursday venue was held in the indoor track facility at the College of Wooster. The improved sound quality, combined with my use of a voice transcription app on my cell phone, enabled me to keep up reasonably well (though still imperfectly) with the business of our conference.

I don’t mean to beat up on our conference staff. I know many of them personally, they’re great people and they aren’t mean, or particularly forgetful. I know that my exclusion wasn’t deliberate. But neither was my experience at Annual Conference unique. It happens at churches, lecture halls, and businesses everywhere. And, as I think about such things, the problem is one of focus.

It happens to all of us.

We’re busy.

And, because we’re busy, we focus on what’s in front of us. We focus on work. We focus on our families. We focus on our hobbies. We focus on the causes that we support. We focus on the things that are important to us. And all that focus causes us to miss what is going on outside of our focus. Our architecture reminds us that handicap accessibility was not in focus for previous generations. People unable to climb stairs simply could not go to church, or to the post office, or many other places. But now that we are doing better at remembering to include accessibility in our planning, we still have a way to go. It is easy to remember to include wheelchair ramps, elevators, and golf carts into our planning when, every week, we go to church alongside folks that need those things. But disabilities like hearing and vision are less noticeable and so churches with braille or large print bulletins, assistive listening systems, or sign language interpreters are far less common because they are easier to overlook.

These disabilities remain outside of our focus.

But that means something for our ministry to the world and I’m not talking about disabilities (although that’s a part of it). It is common for us to “stay in our lane,” pay attention to the things that are inside of our focus and ignore most of the things outside of it. Unintentionally and without any malice, we neglect to include people with disabilities, but the middle class finds it easy to ignore both the poor and the rich. We notice what is happening locally, but it’s easy for us to ignore hunger, violence, and natural disasters that are hundreds, or thousands, of miles away. We notice what happens to people to look like us, think like us, act like us, and vote like us, but it’s easy to ignore the people that don’t.

But that is not the call of Jesus.

The message of the gospel is to include the excluded and to invite the outsiders to come in and join our family. My experience this week was inconvenient, but it is a reminder of how easy it is to focus too narrowly on the things in front of us. If we are to do the work of the church, the work that Jesus has called us to do, we need to consciously widen our focus. We need to pay attention to the needs of the people around us, to notice the people who don’t look like us or think like us and worry about the problems of people who live far away.

Yes, there are pressing matters in front of us and focus is important, but the call of Jesus, the message of the gospel, and the work of the church requires us to step back from time to time and make sure that we haven’t narrowed our focus and forgotten the people that Jesus wants us to include, invite, and welcome.

Focus is important.

Where is yours?

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Made Known

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Made Known

(Seventh Sunday after Easter)

June 08, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 17:20-26                        Acts 16:16-34             Revelation 22:12-17, 20-21

What do you do if you know something that is incredibly important, but few, if anyone else, knows about it?

Let’s use some well-used movie plots as examples. What do you do if you are an astronomer that discovers that there is an imminent alien invasion or a giant asteroid that will soon destroy much of our planet? Or a volcanologist that sees that there will soon be a major eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano? Or a scientist that discovers a cure for a new disease that is killing millions of people around the world? In the movies, these scientists are often shunned, disregarded, or otherwise ignored but what they all try to do is to tell the world what they have found, to warn people of the coming destruction, or to give them hope by telling them that a cure is available.

It seems obvious that if you have information that can save the lives of millions of people, you cannot, and should not, keep it to yourself. The struggle in the movies is that there is always some kind of reason that no one wants to believe the scientists. Either they have been discredited, have proposed and supported crazy ideas, become something of a hermit, been fired, or divorced, had a substance abuse problem, or something else, but even when no one wants to believe them, the scientists in the movies do what we would hope that they would, and keep on banging on doors and persist in finding ways to get the word out. And that is exactly what we find in our scriptures for today. The only difference in these messages is in the language that is used. Rather than saying that they want to “tell the world,” or that they want to “get the word out,” scripture uses the phrase, “Make known,” as in, “Our news is so important that we must make it known” or, “This important news must be made known.” We find this language as we hear Jesus pray for his followers, including us, and he describes to his father what he has done in John 17:20-26 where Jesus says:

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – 23 I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made youknown to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Jesus prays that those who believe in him might be one with God just as Jesus is in God and God is in Jesus. In other words, he prays that we might have the same sort of relationship with God that he has. But the reason for Jesus’ desire to have oneness with God is so that the world might see us, see our behavior, and see our relationship with God and with one another, and by seeing these things, they might come to believe in God. Jesus says that the world will know that God has sent him and that God has loved us because of what the world sees in us. Jesus says that the whole point of being sent to earth by God was so that God would be made known to those who believed in him, and that they, in turn, would make God known to the entire world.

Luke provides an unusual and unexpected way that God was made known in Acts 16:16-34 where he tells us of a time when Paul and Silas were arrested and thrown into prison. Luke says:

16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment, the spirit left her.

19 When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

The owners of the slave girl charge Paul and his companions with “advocating customs” that were unlawful to Romans and, while it is technically possible to construe that to be true, that isn’t at all why they were angry. The owners of the slave girl made a lot of money from her fortunetelling, and they were really peeved that Paul had cast out the demon that had made it all possible. In any case, it was the imprisonment of Paul and Silas that made it possible for God to be made known and not the slave girl who was telling everyone within earshot.

When the jailer discovered that the prison doors were open, he knew that his life was over. Under Roman law, the penalty for allowing prisoners to escape was death and so the jailer calculated that suicide was a better option than being tortured to death. But, before he can stab himself, fall on his sword, cut his wrists, or whatever he had planned to do, Paul shouts that no one has escaped and that everyone is right where they should be. The jailer quickly realizes that something miraculous has happened. Not only has his physical life been saved, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is not normal for a prison with open doors to retain its prisoners. No one was missing. Not one person ran out the door, and into the streets and escaped into the countryside in the dark of night. And so, the jailer understood that the god that Paul and Silas worshipped was real, chose to follow Jesus, and he, and his entire household, were baptized. Because of the imprisonment of Paul and Silas, and because of their behavior, their actions, and their witness, God was made known.

And to emphasize the importance of making God known, and to explain one last time why we need to do so, John shares the words of Jesus in Revelation 22:12-17, 20-21 where he says:

12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. 14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give youthis testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

 17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

Jesus says that he will soon return to the earth and will give gifts to those who have followed him, rewarding each person for the things that they have done. Those who have chosen to follow Jesus will be invited into God’s city. But Jesus warns that not everyone will get in and those who do not get in, will not share in God’s blessings or in the wonders of his home. But Jesus repeats his invitation to follow him and to join God’s family. Jesus says that both the Spirit and the bride, and we know that the bride is the church, call the world to come and be a part of God’s family. The Spirit of God and the church must invite all the world to come so that all who are thirsty may share the free gift of the water of life.

Jesus says that the whole point of his mission on earth was to make God known.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left that work to those that followed him and we see those examples in the book of Acts and beyond in the lives of Paul, the disciples, and others. As it has been since Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the mission of the Spirit of God and of the church is to make God known to the world so that all who are thirsty can share the gift of the water of life.

When Jesus returns, only those who follow him will be rewarded and our rewards will be given according to what we have done.

May each of us go out from this place, and busy ourselves by making God known to everyone around us and inviting them to come and share the water of life.

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

How Are You Finishing?

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How Are You Finishing?

June 2025

by John Partridge

At least twice (and probably more like ten times) in the last few weeks I have been asked about my retirement. Most notably, when I had my annual consultation with our district superintendent, Rev. Edgar Brady, we discussed my plans, whether I wanted to continue for another year at Christ Church, and my thoughts about my eventual retirement. I assured him, as I have for the last six years, that Patti and I are happy at Christ Church and, if Christ Church is happy for us to stay, then we are in no hurry to retire. After that, we spent some time discussing how long it might be until we decided to make such a change. I had a few thoughts on that subject, but no specific plans, and he noted that he was turning seventy and thought that he still had a few good years left, especially since he will begin a new pastoral appointment in July.

The second most notable instance was during my semi-annual meeting with our financial advisor. In the middle of our discussion, I mentioned something general about retirement, possibly as we discussed our search for a house in which to live. It was at that point that he looked at me and pointedly asked, “Why haven’t you retired yet?” My answer was the same as the one I gave to Edgar, “I’m not finished yet.”

But these questions got me to thinking. I’m not ready to retire because I have some things that I’d like to do first. I want to finish my doctoral thesis, we need to find a house that we like that will accommodate all the stuff we want to do at home for the next couple of decades, and I have a few more things that I’d like to accomplish at Christ Church. But those things led me down a train of thought that eventually led me to think more generally about how we are finishing. Regardless of age, when we transition from one thing to another, we finish the first thing before we can get started on the next one. We wind down our projects, we wrap up details, and we prepare for the next chapter. Our inability to do these things is one reason that being suddenly laid off or fired can be so painful, and the same is true for divorce, or the death of a family member.

And that train of thought started me thinking about how all of us are managing our transition from this life to the next. We know that it is coming, though for some of us that transition will be sooner than for others. But how are we preparing for it? If we were planning a camping trip, as our scouts are preparing for summer camp, we would have a list of things that need to be done. Food must be purchased, tents mended, fees collected, service hours recorded, wood collected, physical forms signed by family doctors and turned in, rank advancement done, clothing packed, practice swimming for the camp swim test, and so on.

But as we consider our eventual transition from this life into the next, even if that day is quite far off, we should consider how we are preparing for it. One day we will stand before the throne of God on the day of judgement, and we might imagine being asked “What have you done with my son, Jesus?” How will we answer? How have we prepared? What have we done? With what things have we filled our lives?

I have things that I want to do before I retire, and more things that I want to do afterwards. And just as our scouts are preparing for summer camp, all of us have some time to prepare for our eventual transition from this life into the next. It is my hope that when that day comes, we will be able to say, as Paul did, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Likewise, we hope that upon our arrival, we might hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! (Matthew 25:21)

But until that day comes, we should consider how we spend our time, and with what things we fill our lives.

How are you finishing?

The Future and Fear

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The Future and Fear

(Sixth Sunday after Easter)

June 01, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 14:23-29                        Acts 16:9-15               Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5

Where is your “safe place?”

Many creatures, including humans, have a safe place to which they retreat when they are frightened or stressed. Our cats can usually be found in predictable places, our dogs vary a little but, depending on the dog, it might be in their crate, or under the bed, under our feet in the living room, or on the sofa pressed as close to Patti’s lap as possible. Horses will often head for the barn, birds will huddle in their nests, rabbits in their underground warrens. For us humans, our safe place is usually somewhere at home, but it might also be in a boat out on the water, hiking in the woods, somewhere out on the golf course, or somewhere else. For each if us it’s the place where we retreat from the world, put our problems and fears behind us, and where we can just be comfortable being ourselves.

The trouble is that our safe places of retreat from the world do not protect us from our fears of the future. When we retreat to our bedroom, close the door, and hide under the covers of our bed, we still cannot shut out our fears of homelessness, financial ruin, sickness, violence, and other concerns. But what if there was such a place where our fears could be erased? What if there was a way to put our concerns and fears aside and know that our future was going to be okay after all?

The good news for today, and always, is that scripture tells us that there is such a place, and there is a way to know the future. We begin this morning reading the words of Jesus found in John 14:23-29 where John tells us this:

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe.

Jesus begins by describing an “if-then” transaction, if you love me, then you will obey my teaching. But, if you love me and obey me, then God will love you, his spirit will enter into you and make his home with you. And the gift that we receive when the Holy Spirit comes to live in us is a gift of peace, and a heart free from worry, concern, and fear. My friends, we worship a God who goes before us and prepares a way for us. An example of how God goes before us can be found in Acts 16:9-15 in which God calls Paul and his companions to travel to Macedonia. Paul doesn’t know how he will get there, who he will meet, how he will find them, where he will stay, what he will eat, or anything else that we would normally worry about, and yet, God has it all covered.

9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that districtof Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

  13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

In this example, Paul’s primary concern is obedience to God, but we remember the message that we just read in John where Jesus says, if they obey by teaching, then God will love them, and the Holy Spirit will go with them. Paul receives a call from God and sets out to obey. I am certain that he still had questions about where he was going but he goes anyway. They eventually arrive, spend a few days in the district of Macedonia and then find their way to river to pray on the Sabbath. Because it was the practice of the Jews to bathe, if possible, in living water, or moving water, as a means of purification, it was common for the followers of God in distant places to gather by rivers and other streams of water. And so, on the Sabbath, Paul and his companions find their way to the river to worship and pray, and to seek out any others in that place who might also share their faith in God. And so it is that they meet Lydia, a businesswoman, and as they share the gospel message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Lydia believes, and she, and her entire household, are baptized. And, having done so, Lydia invites Paul, and his companions, to stay in her home and to eat her food while they are in Macedonia.

Paul heard God’s call and was obedient even though he had no idea what he would do, where he would live, or much of anything else. But even before God called him, God was already preparing a way for Paul and his companions and, by the time Paul arrived, there was a heart that was open to hear, a place to stay, and food to eat. The example of scripture tells us that we can trust God if only we have the faith to be obedient to his calling on our lives. But what about the future? What can we know about our eternal destination? In the end, God isn’t just calling us to ministry in Macedonia, but to a lifetime of faithfulness. Jesus promises us a life of peace without fear, but death, and what lies beyond the veil of death is a source of fear for many people and our worry about what comes next can destroy our peace. So, what can we know about what awaits us on the distant shore of eternal life? In Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5, John was able to see our future home and he described his experience this way:

10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

Every city that has been built with walls for protection has included gates that could be closed to prevent the enemies of the people from entering. It was common, even normal, for the gates to be closed after dark when the guards were unable to see well enough to defend them properly. But John says that the gates of the new Jerusalem will never be shut because the light of God’s glory illuminates the city so well that it is always in daylight. Moreover, it is always safe in God’s city, no enemy, no impurity, no shame, deceit, or anything else will never enter it so that all who dwell within its walls will always live in peace and safety.

But John also tells us that the source of the river of life, which we heard about last week when Jesus said that all who are thirsty will drink the water of life. The source of life, John says, flows out from the throne of God and, as the river flows through the center of the street, the food from the tree of life grows abundantly, the leaves of the trees are able to heal the nations so that all may live together in peace, all curses are removed, and God’s people will be purified, forgiven, fed, healed, and blessed so that they can live without fear in safety and freedom for all time as they serve God.

Jesus said, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.” And, anyone who is obedient, will be blessed by God, in both this life and in the next. God will dwell within us, prepare a way for us in this life, and prepare a home without fear for us in the next. We need not have any fear for our future; we only need to listen for God’s voice and obey his call on our lives.

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Final Instructions: Unexpected Love

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Final Instructions: Unexpected Love

(Fifth Sunday after Easter)

May 25, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 13:31-35                        Acts 11:1-18               Revelation 21:1-6

As a child, when our family traveled together, there were six of us. And, since my brothers were five, ten and twelve years older than I am, the spread between our ages meant that we often had vastly different abilities and interests. As such, it was common for us to arrive at one of our destinations, agree to a meeting later in the day, and split up to take part in various activities at the amusement park, campground, or wherever we were visiting. Our youth groups have done the same thing, we would arrive at a place, meet in a huddle, agree to meet later, and then set out in pairs or groups to enjoy Cedar Point or some other activity.

More seriously, you can imagine some of the meetings that happened before the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, during which many leaders met together to discuss last minute plans and, with the technology available in 1943, they would not meet or communicate again until well after they had landed and moved inland into France. In their last minutes together, whether they were parents, youth leaders, or generals and admirals overseeing the invasion, those leaders had to communicate their final instructions and ensure that everyone in the group understood what needed to happen until the time that they could meet again. It is that sort of picture that I keep in mind whenever we read the stories of Jesus’ last encounters with his disciples before and after his crucifixion. One of these is found in our first scripture for today in John 13:31-35. Moments after Judas leaves the room on his way to betray Jesus to the Jewish authorities, we hear this:

31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

As soon as Judas leaves, Jesus tells his disciples that no matter what things might look like, he is about to be glorified and because of him, God will be glorified. Next, Jesus emphasizes that he will not be with them much longer, and that they will no longer be able to follow him. And, with that in mind, Jesus wants to emphasize a final instruction, even saying that he is commanding them to do it.

What is Jesus’ vitally important final command?

To love one another.

Jesus says that just as I have loved you, so must you love each other. Just as I have been compassionate, so must you be compassionate. Just as I have shown empathy, so must you show empathy. Just as I have brought you comfort, so must you comfort one another. Just as I have been generous, so must you be generous. In every way that I have shown you love, you should pattern your lives after that example and love one another.

And the disciples, at least some of them, get it. They understand and apply what Jesus has taught them. So much so, that when Peter meets with Gentiles, eats with them, witnesses to them, tells them about Jesus, and baptizes them, the Jewish believers get in his face and criticize him for spending time with those people. We hear that story in Acts 11:1-18 where it says:

11:1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance, I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized withwater, but you will be baptized withthe Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

In the end, what was it that Peter did that the other Jewish believers had a tough time accepting? In the end, what Peter did was to take Jesus at this word, obey his command, and love the people that accepted him. Peter was given a vision from God that he should witness to the Gentiles, although he resisted, he eventually obeyed God, went to their home from Joppa, shared the story of the gospel with them, and witnessed the Holy Spirit come upon them just it had on the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

And finally, we come to a message of the future that we hear from John’s vision in Revelation 21:1-6 where he proclaims:

21:1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning, and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Here, Jesus says that he is, already, in the process of making everything new. As of now, God has made his home among this people. The spirit of God no longer lives in the temple in Jerusalem or in the Ark of the Covenant, or up in heaven, or someplace far away. God has sent his spirit to take up residence inside of each one of his followers. We don’t have to go anywhere to have access to God because he is always right where we are. But Jesus also says that because he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, and the end, he offers the gift of life to anyone that is thirsty. That means that there is no exclusion, that anyone who desires God, thirsts for holiness, or searches for God will be given access and welcomed into God’s family. In a world that emphasizes division between people of different races, or nationality, that draws borders with bold lines, and that makes lists of needed qualifications to be the “right kind” of people, Jesus simply says, “If you are thirsty, I will give you the water of life.”

The barriers that had divided the people were torn down.

The division between men and women in ministry and culture were being torn down.

The rich were shocked that Jesus would preach to the poor.

The Jews were shocked that Jesus included the Gentiles.

The powerful were shocked that Jesus loved the powerless.

Free people were surprised that Jesus included slaves.

But Jesus’ final instruction was not to build walls, it was to love one another in all the ways that he has loved us. The only measure by which we test anyone is whether or not they believe.

Jesus simply says, “If you are thirsty, I will give you the water of life.”

Set aside the world of the first century and its divisions between Jews and Greeks, slaves and free. Today, right now, in our present reality, imagine for a moment what that command means to the barriers that are being built between people by our culture, our governments, and our churches, and imagine with me how Jesus calls us to obey his command to love one another and how our obedience should tear down the walls that divide us.

May we, like Jesus, be so loving, that we can say to the people around us, “If you are thirsty, I will give you the water of life.”

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™