Half-Hearted Disaster

November 12, 2017November 12, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon devotion, faith, love, wedding

“Half-Hearted Disaster”

November 12, 2017

By John Partridge*

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 Matthew 25:1-13

There’s a tall tale about a soldier who wanted to stop the fighting during the American Civil War, and as he thought about how he could go out onto the battlefield and address both sides, he dressed in a Confederate jacket and Union Blue pants and boots. But as he went out onto the battlefield, rather than finding welcome, he discovered that he was being shot at from both sides and quickly had to choose which side he wanted to run toward to find safety.

In a similar, but much more serious bit of history, we remember when Emperor Nero began a focused persecution of Christians in Rome and many of them were hunted like animals. During that time, some people, after their arrest, were given the opportunity to recant their faith in Jesus, swear allegiance to the Emperor, and save their lives. Some did, others refused and were burned at the stake or worse. But history records that in some circles, the church felt that there had been a benefit to their persecution. Despite the fear and the terror, the some people believed that the church was stronger in the end because the people whose faith was half-hearted had all left, and those that remained behind were, in their assessment, true believers. Today we acknowledge that some people with real faith in Jesus did what they felt they needed to do to save their lives and the lives of their family, but it remains an interesting perspective and this might be something we want to keep in mind as we read our scripture this morning. We begin in Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 as we hear Israel’s leader, Joshua, address the people and ask them which god they really want to follow.

^24:1 Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

²Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. ³But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants.

¹⁴“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! ¹⁷It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. ¹⁸And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

¹⁹Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. ²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

²¹But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

²²Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

²³“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

²⁴And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

²⁵On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws.

Joshua tells the people that they are not able to follow God because our God is a holy and jealous god. If the people were to forsake God and serve foreign gods then the God of Israel would bring disaster and would bring an end to them. Choosing to follow the God of Israel was not something to be taken lightly. One of the most powerful things is what Joshua says next: “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” The point that Joshua makes is that the true heart of the people is what is important. God wants to know, where your heart is and God insists that if you choose to follow him, that you follow him whole-heartedly. Joshua warned that following God but keeping an alternative in reserve, “just in case,” was a recipe for disaster. Not only would God not accept such half-hearted devotion, God would bring disaster upon those who did so.

And, just in case you were thinking that the God of the Old Testament seems harsher than the God that we see in the New Testament, Jesus doesn’t cut us any slack either. In Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus tells us this story:

^25:1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ²Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ⁵The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

⁶“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹“‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

¹²“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

¹³“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

This story takes a little background to understand completely, but even if you don’t know the background, you should still understand the core of the story. In the time of Jesus, much like we learned in the Christmas story of Mary and Joseph, young men would be betrothed, or contractually pledged, to be married to a young woman. After the betrothal, the young man would generally return home with his father, continue to learn a trade, and at the same time begin building an addition on his father’s house where he would eventually bring his bride and start his own family. And so, for a year or more, the bridegroom would be working, earning money, and building their future home. When it was all finished, and the wedding feast prepared, only then would the bridegroom go back to the town where the bride was waiting for him. The bride, and her friends had no idea what month, or what day, and certainly not what hour that the bridegroom would return. Except that, one of the groom’s friends or some family member might run ahead and shout a warning that he was coming.

And so, although they had months, perhaps even years, to prepare and to plan, five of the bride’s friends just grabbed a handy lamp from a tabletop at home and ran out into the night to await the arrival of the bridegroom. The other five, had planned more carefully. They had thought about the coming of the bridegroom, and they had prepared for the eventuality that he might come in the middle of the night, that he might be delayed, or that the trip to the wedding feast might be longer than they expected, and so they had prepared in advance. These wise young women were fully devoted to their friend the bride, and they did everything in their power to make sure that they didn’t miss her special day.

And Jesus says that those who were not prepared were locked out.

The warning in both stories is the same. Half-hearted devotion, or half-hearted faith, half-hearted preparedness, or however you choose to name it, is an open invitation to disaster.

Our God is a holy God; he is a jealous God. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, or serve money, or power, or your own selfish desires, or in any other way serve God half-heartedly, it will be a half-hearted disaster. God will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, even after he has been good to you. We all need to look in the mirror from time to time and ask ourselves if we are giving all of ourselves to God or whether we are holding back something… “just in case.”

May we, just as the people of Israel did, rededicate our lives to God and give him…

…our whole heart.

_________
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^U You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Forever Love

November 5, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon death, faith, heaven, life

“Forever Love”

November 05, 2017

(All Saints Sunday)

By John Partridge*

Revelation 7:9-1 1 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12

Being the first Sunday of November, today we celebrate All Saints Day and remember all of our friends and family that we have been lost to us. Already we have named some of them and lit candles in their memory, but each one of us could easily name other friends and other family members that we remember, and think of, daily. But although they are lost to us, we still remember and we still love.

This is not the kind of love that Meatloaf sang about in the 80’s when he wrote Paradise by the Dashboard Light where in one verse he swears that he would love his girl until the end of time, and in the next is praying for the end of time so that he can end his time with her. When we think about genuine love, about love that lasts, or when we think about “forever love” what we are thinking about is more like the Forever Love that Gary Barlow wrote about when he sang,

Now I’m deep inside love and still breathing
She is holding my heart in her hand
I’m the closest I’ve been to believing
This could be love forever

Or maybe it’s like the Forever Love that Reba McEntire sang about when she said,

The first time I laid my eyes on you I knew

We’d spend this life side by side

I still feel the same though you’re so far away

I swear that you’ll always be my

Forever love

But I think even that falls short. Because in the end, since our marriage vows are “to love and to cherish until death do us part” we are reminded that human love may only last as long as our lives on earth. But there is yet another kind of love that loves more deeply, and that does last forever.

This is the kind of love that Christian artist Francesca Battistelli sings about in yet another song called Forever Love where she sings about God.

You are my forever love

From the bottom of my heart I’ll sing to You
From the depths of who I am I love You
With everything inside I’ll run to You
‘Cause all that I’ve become I owe to You

Whenever we use the word ‘forever’ we remember that this life is not permanent, but we should also remember that this life is not all that there is. In the revelation of the Apostle John, he visited the throne room of God and offers us this description (Revelation 7:9-17):

^9:1After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”

¹¹All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²saying:

“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!”

¹³Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

¹⁴I answered, “Sir, you know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.¹⁵Therefore,

“they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶‘Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them,’
nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷For the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd;
‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’
‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”

In this case, “forever” really means forever and “never” really means never. Those who are in the presence of God will never hunger or thirst, they won’t suffer as much as a hard sweat in the hot sun, and God himself will wipe away all of their tears. Forever.

Although he doesn’t use the word “forever,” in Matthew 5:1-12 that is exactly what Jesus means as he speaks about the future.

^5:1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ²and he began to teach them.

He said:

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
⁵Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
⁷Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Rejoice and be glad, because the reward for the people who have suffered for their faith, and for those who have lived a life of faith, will given to them in heaven and that, as we know, is a reward that will last forever.

But what does that mean for those of us who have lost our loved ones and who remain on this earth?

In 1 John 3:1-3, we hear these words:

^3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ²Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

We are already the children of God. We have already begun to live a life that will last forever but the day is coming for us when we will become much more than we already are. This transformation has already happened for those who have gone ahead of us to eternity, they have already been given their new, perfect, and eternal bodies and they can already see Jesus in all of his glory but we know that, sooner or later, our day is coming. But because we know what we know, we have no need to fear that day because rather than something terrible, we know that despite whatever pain we may face at the end our life on this earth, the transition, at the other side, will be wonderful beyond imagining.

But as we wait for that day and as we live out our lives, we are called to dedicate our lives to Jesus Christ, to live our lives as Christ himself modelled for us during his life on earth, to seek peace, pursue justice, and to pour out mercy, compassion, and love into the people and the world around us. And as we do so, we are called to purify ourselves and live lives that honor God.

Although we mourn as we remember those whom we have lost, we rejoice in knowing that they are, today, perfect, holy, and unimaginably blessed in every way as they live in the presence of God. But at the same time, we also remember our calling to be worthy of the gift that awaits us. Let us honor God, and honor those that we have lost, by rededicating our lives to God, to his kingdom, to purity, and to all that is good.

_________
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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

How Will You Be Remembered?

October 30, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon David, faith, future, heart, past, peace

“How Will You Be Remembered?”

October 29, 2017

By John Partridge*

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 Matthew 22:34-46

The story is told that while Calvin Coolidge was sometimes referred to by his opponents as the “Do nothing” president, he was still popular with many Americans. When a reporter once asked how both of these things could be true, he responded by saying simply, “America wanted nothing done… so I done it.” Calvin Coolidge was okay with being known as the “do nothing” president because, in his view, that is what he was elected to do.

But here’s a different thought. How many of you have ever been to a funeral or visited a cemetery?

In both cases, we encounter the names of the deceased but when we do, that information is almost always associated with two additional pieces of information, the date of that person’s birth, and the date of their death. Quite often there is also a dash or some other typographical marking that stands between these two dates. As we walk through a cemetery, we generally find that we don’t know any, or at least few, of the people who have been buried there. All that we know of them are those bits of information on their tombstone.

But what about that dash?

For those of us who are strangers, it conveys no additional information. We don’t know what they did, who they were, what they were like, or who their friends were. But to their friends and to their relatives, and perhaps to a few genealogists of historians, that dash means something else entirely. For the people who knew them, or to those who studied them, that dash is a remembrance, it gives us a snippet of time in which we remember. We remember who they were, how they lived, what they meant to us, and how they made us feel.

Poet Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

And as we bring in new members this week and as we prepare to celebrate All Saints Day next week that brings us to a question that all of us need to consider: How will you be remembered? What is it that you want people to remember about you when the time comes to carve that dash in your tombstone? This is important because choosing how we want to be remembered will have an enormous impact on how we choose to live our lives, it will have a significant effect on decisions that we make every single day, and it will change how we treat the people around us.

We begin this morning in Deuteronomy 34:1-12 where we meet Moses at the very end of his life and as we witness his death and burial, and as we watch Joshua assume leadership over the nation of Israel.

^34:1 Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, ²all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, ³the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. ⁴Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

⁵And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said.⁶He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. ⁷Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. ⁸The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

⁹Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁰Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, ¹¹who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. ¹²For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

On the surface this is a story about the death of Moses and Joshua’s succession to the leadership of Israel, but a significant part of this passage is about Moses’ dash and describes for us what the people of Israel remembered about Moses after his death. They remembered that Moses was a “servant of the Lord.” We are told that he remained intellectually and physically vital in his old age because “his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.” Moses was a man “whom the Lord knew face to face,” who did “signs and wonders” as an agent of God in Egypt, and who was responsible for the freedom of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. Moses was remembered for being the only person, ever, to display the kind of power that he did, or perform the awesome deeds that he did, or have the kind of relationship with God that he did, and he did it all in front of an entire nation.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 we see something similar. In this case it isn’t about death, but as Paul reminds the church about his visit with them, he doesn’t talk about fundraising, or politics, or disagreements that they had, he focuses on the dash, on the things that he wants them to remember about him, about his ministry, and about themselves.
^2:1 You know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not without results.²We had previously suffered and been treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in the face of strong opposition. ³For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. ⁴On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. ⁵You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. ⁶We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. ⁷Instead, we were like young children among you.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, ⁸so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.

Paul says that he and his companions had been treated outrageously and their ministry faced strong opposition. But even so, their motives were pure, they didn’t use flattery to manipulate people, they weren’t greedy, their ministry wasn’t about ego or power, but instead they were innocent like children. They cared for the church, they loved the people, and they shared not only the gospel of Jesus Christ, but they shared their lives together.

Paul wants the people to remember the importance of the gospel message, but he also wants them to remember that the message was delivered with compassion, tenderness, integrity, love, and lives shared with one another. The facts were important, the gospel message was important, but so was the dash; the way that they remembered the delivery of that message and how they felt were also vitally important.

And finally, in Matthew 22:34-46, we encounter a story where the religious leaders of Jesus’ time once again sought to embarrass, discredit, and humiliate him. But once again, their attempt doesn’t quite turn out the way that they expected.

³⁴Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.³⁵One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment.³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

⁴¹While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ⁴²“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

⁴³He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

⁴⁴“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’

⁴⁵If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

In the time of Jesus, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were dueling political parties and each held power in a different way. The Sadducees believed only in the oldest books of scripture and had power sharing agreements with the Roman government. The Pharisees believed in the whole of scripture, as well as the importance of the writings of learned Rabbis and scholars. These two groups often opposed one another both publically and privately. In our story, the Sadducees try to make Jesus look foolish, and when they fail the Pharisees, being competitive, decide that they should take a swing at it. If they succeed where their opposition had failed, they would look good to the people and shame their opponents at the same time.

But when they try, they fail as miserably as the Sadducees had. Without hesitation, Jesus handles their hardest question without getting tangled in any of the potential political or religious arguments that might have been attached to it. Jesus demonstrates clear and precise thinking, cuts to the heart of the question and provides a direct, solid, theologically correct, and definitive answer. But, having answered their question, Jesus has a question of his own, regarding the identity of the Messiah. Everyone knew that the father was always superior to his sons, and a king was always superior to his heirs, and so when Jesus asked how the Messiah could be both the son and heir of the great King David, and, at the same time worshipped and called Lord by that same King David… the Pharisees are stumped. They have no idea. In all their theological training, and all of their scholarly study, none of them had understood that the messiah would be both the son of man and the son of God. They totally missed the idea that the messiah was to be not only a human savior, but also divine, God in human flesh.

And so this also adds to the dash of Jesus. The Pharisees and the Sadducees no longer dare to ask Jesus questions or to try to trick him into looking foolish because every time they try, Jesus answers their most difficult questions and instead embarrassed them in front of the people they were trying to impress. Jesus, even among his opponents, becomes known as quick witted, intelligent, theologically learned, politically astute, wily, and both street smart and book smart. To his friends and followers, Jesus is remembered as someone who makes them feel safe, protected, and loved, but to his opponents he is feared and respected for his intellect and his ability to make them look, and feel, foolish.

Calvin Coolidge was known as the “do nothing president” but also as a skillful and honest public servant. Moses is remembered as the rescuer of Israel, the most powerful prophet ever, and the man who had the closest relationship with God. Paul wanted the church to remember that he was honest, that he loved them, cared for them, and taught them the truth of the gospel message. Jesus, even among his enemies is remembered as smart, thoughtful, theologically intelligent, and a force to be reckoned with.

For those of us who know and love Jesus, there is little doubt about the importance of the dash between his birth and his death.

But what about you?

The choices that you make today, the choices that you make this week, and the way that you treat the people around you, shapes your dash.

The message that you carry with you, either a message of hope or a message of despair, is up to you.

You can carry with you the compassion, mercy and love of Jesus Christ and the good news of his life, death, resurrection, and rescue of the entire world, or you can allow the people around you to stumble under the guilt, fear, and other burdens that they carry.

What choices will you make? How will you live your life? How will the people around you feel when you are with them?

How will you be remembered?

_________
Did you enjoy reading this?
Click here if you would like to subscribe to these messages.

Click here to subscribe to Pastor John’s blog, Crossfusion.

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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

This is Proof

October 1, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon church, faith, money, proof

“This is Proof”

October 01, 2017

By John Partridge*

Exodus 17:1-7 Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21:23-32

Have you ever know someone who was a big talker but not much of a do-er?

In Texas they joke about people who are “All hat, and no cattle.” They talk big, they wear cowboy boots and wear a big hat, but they couldn’t tell a dairy cow from a beef cow if their life depended on it. We respect people more, and their message is more effective, if they believe in what they are doing and prove it by investing their time, and their money, in their projects.

Although I’ve talked about him before, Elon Musk, the founder of Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, believed that a private company could build rockets, and launch satellites into orbit cheaper and more efficiently than the federal government and the existing system of government contractors. So strongly did he believe in this idea, that he invested more than half of the fortune he had made as an executive at PayPal when it was sold to EBay, over $100 million of his own money, and started SpaceX to prove it.

In an entirely different vein, I once watched a documentary about monks (I don’t recall if they were Catholic or Orthodox) who so firmly believed in alleviating the suffering of the desperately poor, that they didn’t just operate a mission to support such a neighborhood, they rented apartments in the same buildings as the poor did, and lived among them in the same crime stricken, gang plagued neighborhood. It’s one thing to ‘helicopter’ in help, and it’s something else entirely to prove it by becoming one with those who suffer.

These are the kinds of stories that I want you to have in mind as we begin our scripture reading from Exodus 17:1-7 where we find the people of Israel, still complaining, this time about water…

^17:1The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ²So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

³But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

⁴Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

⁵The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. ⁶I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. ⁷And he called the place Massah [which means quarrelling] and Meribah [which means testing] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Here we see two entirely different responses to the same experience. The people see the desert and they feel their thirst and they respond with frustration and fear. But Moses sees the world differently. He sees the same desert and he feels the same thirst, but his response is a quiet confidence that God sees, that God knows what they need, and that God intends to handle it. Moreover, when God’s solution of going out in front a thousands of people and smacking a rock with a stick, sounds almost totally ridiculous, Moses doesn’t hesitate. Instead of seeing the world and responding to it, out of fear and frustration, Moses sees the world through a lens of faith in the God that has already done so much. Even when God tells Moses that the solution to their problem is to collect the leaders of the nation, and go out and smack a rock with a stick, Moses answers not only with the faith and confidence that God will do it, he backs it up with action. Moses goes out, gathers up the leaders of Israel, and smacks a rock with a stick. And, in the middle of the desert, water comes flooding out of the rock so that all of the people, and their livestock, have enough to drink.

Moses had enough faith to risk looking ridiculous and smacks a rock with a stick in front of the leaders of Israel and thousands of people.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, he outlines ways that the church, and its people, can live out, and demonstrate their faith. (Philippians 2:1-13)

^2:1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

First of all, Paul asks the church to be of the same mindset as Jesus Christ. Jesus was the Son of God, a member of the Trinity, and was a witness to the creation of the world, and yet, when God commanded him to give up his royal status, to clothe himself in frail and mortal humanity, Jesus responded out of humility and obedience. Jesus valued faithfulness and obedience as being greater considerations than position and power. Paul encourages the people to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” which means to treat Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us, with trust, faith, and with deep and abiding respect. Paul says that God works in you so that he can accomplish his goals.

And finally we come to Matthew 21:23-32 where Jesus exposes a key failing of the Pharisees.

²³Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

²⁴Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. ²⁵John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

²⁷So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

²⁸“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

²⁹“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

³⁰“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

³¹“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

The first part of this story illustrates the thinking of the Pharisees. They did not have the courage of their convictions. Their primary concern was not to get the question right, but to make sure that they didn’t look bad. They weren’t looking for spiritual answers; they were looking for political advantage. And once everyone sees them waffling, Jesus hits them with the parable in the second half of this story. Jesus compares the Pharisees with the son who said that he would obey, but who stayed home and didn’t do anything. Even worse, he compares tax collectors and prostitutes to the son who at first appeared to be disobedient, but later repented and did what his father had asked. That’s really where we feel the twist of the knife in the story. The Pharisees were the church leaders. They were the political leaders. They were the guys who led the people and told them what to do and how to live. They were the ones who had a strict moral code with hundred of rules to insure that they appeared to be godly. And they were the ones who held themselves up as examples of godliness that others should follow. And yet, Jesus smears them by saying that they are not righteous, that they are not doing what God has asked them to do, and that they did not repent and change their ways when John the Baptist showed them how disobedient they really were. Even worse, Jesus tells them that tax collectors and prostitutes, people who were some of the worse scum that the Pharisees could imagine, were entering the kingdom of God ahead of these men who believed themselves to be super saints, models of perfections, and paragons of virtue.

But this is a hard story for all of us. In Christianity, particularly in Protestant Christianity, we often say that we are saved by faith and not by works. And that’s true… but. Just as we saw last year when we studied the book of James, this parable of Jesus reminds us of an uncomfortable truth, and that is that genuine faith will be reflected in our actions and in our obedience to God. It was, after all the son who said “no” to his father, who turned out to be the faithful one. Although we are saved by faith, our salvation is revealed through our actions and through our obedience to God.

A Christian simply cannot be “all hat and no cattle.”

We, like Elon Musk, must put our money where our mouth is. We must, like those monks living in the inner city, live lives that reflect our true beliefs. We may not sell our homes and move into the inner city, but the way that we spend our money, the way that we spend our time, that way that we use our talents and abilities, and the way that we live, every day, should be a visible demonstration of our obedience to God.

Our actions are the proof of our salvation.

_________
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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Unmet Expectations

September 24, 2017September 24, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon complain, faith, money, thanks, waiting

“Unmet Expectations”

September 24, 2017

By John Partridge*

Exodus 16:1-15 Philippians 1:21-30 Matthew 20:1-16

Have you ever made a choice and been disappointed with the way that things turned out?

Sure you have.

We’ve all bought something that turned out to be much less than was advertised, or that broke when it was almost new. I have a belt clip that holds my cell phone. After almost a year of good service, it broke. The good news is that it was still under warranty and the company gave me a new one. And that one broke only a week after I got it.

The Cleveland Browns seem to have a real knack for disappointing draft picks. The Canton Repository recently ran an article whose title included the phrase “Seven straight years of broken first rounds” and if you enter “Browns” and “Draft Picks” in your internet search engine, you will find lists with titles like “12 worst first round draft picks” and “Brown’s long, sad history of failed draft picks.” As we have all experienced, sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way that we expected and sometimes our choices don’t lead us to the future that we thought they would, or our progress in that direction seems to be much slower than we expected it to be.

That is exactly where we find the people of Israel in the story of the Exodus as we rejoin them in Exodus 16:1-15. Israel has escaped captivity, fled across the desert, been pursued by the Egyptian army, crossed the Red Sea on dry land, and watched some of Egypt’s most elite soldiers drown as God returned the sea to its place. But then, boredom strikes. The journey to the Promised Land was not a short one and to many people it was taking too long. They were too hot. They didn’t have as much food as they thought they would have. Things weren’t going the way they expected, as fast as they had expected them to go. And so, as people will do, they began to complain…

The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. ²In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. ⁵On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

⁶So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, ⁷and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” ⁸Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”

⁹Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”

¹⁰While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, ¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹³That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

In that passage, we hear the word “grumble,” “grumbled,” or “grumbling” at least seven times. Since a Jewish month is either 29 or 30 days, depending on exactly when they started, we know that the people of Israel were traveling for between a month, to a month and a half. And after all of that travelling, they found themselves in a desert. Undoubtedly, people who were accustomed to herding sheep and goats for a living would be distressed at living in the wilderness and having a hard time finding food for their flocks. Likewise, people who were accustomed to being fed by the Egyptians were painfully unfamiliar with having to forage for food and they probably didn’t care much for living in tents, if there were any, and sleeping out under the stars for more than a month. But if you remember, the important point that we heard after the events at the Red Sea was that the people of Israel “put their trust in God.”

Clearly, the people of Israel have some unmet expectations. Life isn’t turning out the way they thought it would.

But all of this impatience and complaining doesn’t look like trust.

And we see something very similar in a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 20:1-16.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ²He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

⁷“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

⁸“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

It is helpful for us, some two thousand years later, to understand that a denarius was the accepted rate of pay for approximately one day’s worth of work. Naturally, an employer could pay more or less than that based on his or her generosity or upon the skill and experience of the employee. Today, our minimum wage is a bit over $8 per hour so for a full day of ten to twelve hours someone would make in the neighborhood of $100. With that in mind, let’s think about the story. The employer has a need for short-term employees to bring in his harvest and so, probably at dawn, he goes to the public square where people who want to work gather and where employees and employers often meet. There, he hires everyone that he can find and agrees to pay them $100 for the day. He does the same at 9 o’clock, again at noon, again at three, and still again, even at five when the day was nearly over. As the sun begins to set everyone lines up behind the paymaster and expects to be paid but the land owner has them line up in reverse order of the way that they were hired to that the guys who only worked a few hours are at the head of the line. These men, despite being hired at the end of the work day, are paid $100 and the guys that worked since sunrise begin to expect that they are going to be paid very well since they worked ten times as much, but when their turn comes they get… $100.

And again the word that we hear is “grumble”.

Clearly, they have unmet expectations.

Life didn’t turn out the way that they expected. And they are angry.

But the owner explains that he paid them exactly the wage that they all agreed upon. They worked for a day and got paid a day’s wages. The landowner explains that if he chooses to be generous to the people who worked for less than a day, he has done nothing wrong and has still kept his word to the people who worked all day.

And so, before we finish, let’s take a look at Philippians 1:21-30, where Paul says…

²¹For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. ²²If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! ²³I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; ²⁴but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. ²⁵Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, ²⁶so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.

²⁷Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel ²⁸without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. ²⁹For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, ³⁰since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

What Paul is saying, is that as long as we live, we do so because God has a purpose for us and work for us to do. But in all things, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to behave in a way that is worthy of the Gospel that we have been given. We must strive to stay together, to stand together, and work together, without being frightened of those who oppose the mission of Jesus Christ and the work that we are doing on his behalf. But along the way, Paul warns us that we are likely to suffer for the cause of Jesus Christ. We are not immune from struggle and pain simply because we have chosen to follow Jesus.

Even though we follow Jesus, life might not turn out like we expect it to. Life might be harder than we thought it would be. We might have more pain, and more suffering, and more discomfort than we thought we would have.

We will most likely have some unmet expectations.

But impatience and complaining doesn’t look like trust.

And crowds of people grumbling about their God’s generosity don’t either.

Paul said, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

Even if life doesn’t turn out like we thought it would…

Even if we have unmet expectations…

God still expects us to act as if we are grateful for the things that he has done for us.

God has given us everything that he promised that he would. And even if we sometimes feel like we have the luck of a Cleveland Browns draft pick…

We are called to behave like people who are worthy of the gifts that we have been given.

_________
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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Pay What You Owe!

September 17, 2017September 17, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon debt, faith, forgiveness, justice, money, politics, truth

Pay What You Owe!

September 17, 2017

By John Partridge*

Exodus 14:19-31 Romans 14:1-12 Matthew 18:21-35

How many of you have ever seen the 1976 movie, “Rocky” starring Sylvester Stallone?

We might be missing some of our younger friends, but I would think that by now, most of us have seen it, if not in movie theaters, then on television or on Netflix, or video, or something.

In any case, at the beginning of the movie, we learn that Rocky is a down on his luck, amateur boxer and to emphasize just how far down he is, we see that he makes extra money as a collection agent for a local loan shark. The trouble is, he is too nice and gets in trouble for not breaking someone’s thumbs as he was told to do. That is typical of how loan sharks have appeared in movies and television for years. When you fall behind in your payments to a loan shark, some big thug pays you a visit and reminds you, often violently and painfully, that you are expected to pay what you owe.

And if you think about it, that’s something of a common theme in our lives. We get letters from the bank, and the utility company, and the department store, and the credit card company, the Internal Revenue Service, and all sorts of other places every month that urgently remind us, just as forcefully and only slightly less threateningly, that we are expected to pay what we owe.

When people do things for us, whether they loan us money, or mow our grass, shovel our snow, they expect to be paid in return. We expect the same when we work for others. Not many of us would show up at work if our boss told us that there was no money to pay us. But that brings us back to the story of the people of Israel in the land of Egypt. Today we rejoin their story after they have fled their captivity, but now, having been pursued by the chariots of the army of Egypt, find themselves trapped between the swords and spears of the Egyptians, and the Red Sea. (Exodus 14:19-31)

¹⁹Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, ²⁰coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

²¹Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, ²²and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

²³The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. ²⁴During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. ²⁵He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”

²⁶Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.”²⁷Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. ²⁸The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

²⁹But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ³⁰That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. ³¹And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

All along, the god of Abraham has been a god of miracles. He introduced himself to Moses by appearing in a burning bush, gave Moses a staff that turned into a snake so that he could re-introduce himself to the Pharaoh as a person of power, then brought about ten plagues to afflict Egypt until Pharaoh finally consented to allow the Israelites to leave, and finally leads and protects the Israelites with a pillar of cloud and fire. And now, when it seems that hope is lost and the Egyptian army will either kill them or return them to their captivity, God creates a dry pathway through the sea through which the Israelites cross safely and in which every single Egyptian soldier dies.

God has done all these things, and yet he still promises more. God still intends to keep his promises and lead Israel into the Promised Land where Israel can become a great nation and rule over themselves. And in exchange for all of these miracles and the display of all of this power, what is it that God wants in return? What will be required when God asks Israel to pay what they owe?

Nothing.

God’s generosity toward Israel is a gift and comes not from a desire to be repaid, but from the love that he has toward his people and the honor that God has in keeping the promises that he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The only thing that God gets in return for his generosity… is trust.

“And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”

But God does want something in return for his goodness. In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus explains.

²¹Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²²Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

²³“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold [ten thousand talents – about 20 years’ wages for a laborers wages] was brought to him. ²⁵Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³²“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The story of the Exodus told us that the people of Israel put their trust in God, and Jesus is clear that a part of trusting God is forgiving others in the same measure that we have been forgiven by God. The debt that God has paid on our behalf is astronomically more than we could ever repay and while God does not send thugs to threaten us to pay what we owe, he does insist that our forgiveness flow down to the people we live with and work with every day. So important is this principle, that Jesus warns us that failing to forgive others and treating them harshly, will cause God to judge us with the same measure and lack of forgiveness with which we treat others.

Finally we come to Romans 14:1-12, where we find Paul’s explanation of how we are to honor God.

^14:1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. ²One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. ⁴Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

⁵One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.⁶Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.⁹For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

¹⁰You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. ¹¹It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

¹²So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

We are called to accept those people whose faith is not as strong as ours or whose understanding of scripture, at least in non-essential theology, leads them to a somewhat different interpretation than ours. In Paul’s time, particularly because most meat was sold by butchers who cut, and resold, meat that had been sacrificed to idols, some Christians felt that it was a sin to eat meat. Others felt that since idols weren’t real, that the meat was not “tainted” in any way and was acceptable to eat. Paul’s advice was that these two groups should respect one another and not treat one another with contempt. This idea of contempt and respect is important and it comes up again later in this same passage.

Paul also addresses the issue of which day should be a holy day because believers had come to worship on different days. Just as Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, and a few others worship on Saturday, while most Protestant churches worship on Sunday, and Catholic churches often have worship on both days. Paul points out that what is important is that both groups are, in their own way, attempting to honor God. In fact, the same thing applies to the people that were arguing over meat, each group was, in their own way, doing their best to honor God in the way that they understood scripture.

And this is where Paul returns to that idea of contempt and respect, but here he asks why people judge one another. This is a little puzzling because only last week we heard Paul say that we should take someone aside if we see them falling in to sin, but here he tells us that we should not judge a brother or sister in Christ. How can we understand how these two ideas are not in conflict? If we look closely, Paul associates judgement with contempt and he is also careful to note that these arguments were over what he calls “disputable matters.” In that regard, it is important for us to distinguish between judgement and discernment, and also between sin, and disputable matters. Paul wants to be sure that the followers of Jesus do not fall into sin and that we do the things that God has called us to do and avoid those things that God has called sin. At the same time, Paul understands that not every dispute is critically important theologically. We are called to be discerning over which disagreements are simply disagreements, and which are clear matters of God’s instruction. In Paul’s time, some believers thought that eating meat was a sin and others didn’t, while some believed that worshiping on one particular day of the week was critical, while others didn’t. Today we have similar disagreements between fellow believers. Methodists believe that everyone should be invited to share at the communion table, while Catholics do not. We believe that it is possible to turn you back on God and lose your salvation while our Baptist friends do not. We believe that each individual has the free will to choose whether they will follow Jesus or not, and our Calvinist friends would describe that choice as predestined by God. The followers of Jesus Christ have many theological disagreements over things that Paul might describe as “disputable matters” or that John Wesley might have described as “non-essentials,” but although we disagree, we are not to judge one another in such a way that we treat one another with contempt.

In the end, Paul reminds us that each of us will eventually stand before God and give an account of our lives. And although we may disagree on how it is to be done, we must all do the best that we can to bring honor to God and to follow his commands. We must all do the best that we can to treat one another with respect even when we disagree about what things are, and are not, important. And all of these things are important because God has done so much for us that we can never hope to repay our debt.

God is not a loan shark that will send Rocky Balboa or some other thug to insist that you should “Pay what you owe.”

But what God wants in return is for us to forgive others and show mercy in the same measure that God has forgiven us and has been merciful toward us.

What God wants is for us to trust him enough to live as if scripture matters.

_________
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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Whose “Side” Are You On?

September 12, 2017September 12, 2017 PastorPartridge Blogs church, faith, God, politics, sides, truth, vision

Two Sides I read an article that included a statement that struck me as wrong, but which, the more I thought about it, bothered me even more. The article was yet another story about the current clash of political ideas and in the story, one group (the name of the group is unimportant) claimed that they would win because, “God is on our side.” It would be easy to point out how some of the group’s actions have been hurtful in ways that clearly do not reflect anything like godliness, but the more I thought about it, this is true of every single political and religious group on the planet.

We can never claim that God is on our side.

Why?

Because God doesn’t take sides.

We are either on God’s side, or we are not.

God is the creator, ruler, and final judge of all that is. There is nothing we can do to persuade God to join our cause regardless of its goodness. God does not stand with or against Republicans or Democrats. God does not join forces with churches, or synagogues, or mosques. God does not play favorites with social movements.

God is so much bigger than humanity, or anything that humanity perceives, that God’s very existence defines good and evil. When we stand with God we join the forces of good and when our positions oppose God’s will we have, by definition, become agents of evil.

There are only two sides.

As followers of God and followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to abandon the idea that God will take our “side” or join our cause, and realize instead that we must join God’s side. The positions of the Republican party sometimes align with God’s will and sometimes their positions stand against God’s will. The same is true of the Democrat party, and the Libertarian party, and the Socialist party. The same is true of the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church, and the Catholic Church, a well as the Mormons, those of the Jewish faith, Muslims, and even ISIS. The same is true of those advocating for, and against, LBGT rights, environmentalists, and every other group that encourage us to join their cause by claiming that God is on their side.

He isn’t.

God isn’t a “joiner.” God doesn’t join our “sides.”

We either stand for good or we stand for evil.

We are either on God’s side, or we are not.

Our affiliation with a political party, or a social movement, or even a particular denomination or religion does not define us as godly. We are only godly, we are only good, when we do the will of God. Political parties, and social movements, and even churches and religions are only on God’s side when they do the will of God. If we truly want to be on God’s side, we can stand with those groups when they are godly.

But we must stand against them when they are not.

Long ago, as the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, they had to make a choice. They had to choose whether they were going to follow God or the gods of Egypt that they had left behind. Joshua pressed them for an answer saying, “choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

In our modern world far removed from the children of Israel, and in a time when our political, social, and religious worlds are so polarized, perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider what Joshua might ask us today. Would his words to us sound like this?

Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of the political parties, or the gods of the social movements, or the gods disguised as religion. But as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

There are only two sides.

We either stand for good or we stand for evil.

We are either on God’s side, or we are not.

Whose side are you on?

_________

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Unexpected Acts of Love

September 10, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon faith, love, repentance, restoration, truth

“Unexpected Acts of Love”

September 10, 2017

By John Partridge*

Exodus 12:1-14 Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20

How many of you own jewelry of one kind or another?

Most of us do.

Some of it is elaborate, ornate, and expensive, while some of the things that we use to adorn ourselves are simple, plastic, and cheap. I have a cross that’s made of wood and bit of yarn. I’ve seen others that came out of a vending machine at the grocery store for a quarter. But regardless of their cost, many of the things that we wear include symbols that have meaning. And one of the odd things about the stories of the Bible are the times in which things that are ordinarily gruesome, terrible, and frightening are redeemed and transformed into symbols of something else entirely. The cross is the most well-known example. With few, if any, exceptions the cross is among the most painful, gruesome, and horrific ways of dying. Merely the threat of crucifixion was enough to bring about the stubborn obedience of entire nations to Roman rule and law. The cross was, absolutely, a clear and profoundly terrifying symbol of pain, suffering, and terror. Few of us would wear a necklace with an electric chair, or a guillotine, or a gallows around our necks. But the death of Jesus Christ transforms the meaning of the cross into a symbol of faith, hope, and love.

Somehow, in the wisdom of God, this symbol of horror becomes instead a symbol of something else entirely, and this one act of suffering and death is revealed to be a completely unexpected act of love.

As we continue reading the story of Moses and the people of Israel in Exodus 12:1-14, we see another well-known example of this.

^12:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ²“This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. ⁴If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. ⁵The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.⁶Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.⁷Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. ⁸That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. ⁹Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. ¹⁰Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. ¹¹This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

¹²“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

¹⁴“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

Darkness, frogs, lice, locusts, blood, and even death are sent to plague Egypt and while all of these things are terrible, they become for the nation of Israel, symbols of hope and signs that remind us, even today, of God’s faithfulness. And in this passage we see the slaughter of year-old lambs and goats and their blood being painted on the doorframes of houses. In any other context, painting houses with blood would be offensive, threatening, disgusting, and terrible. Today, the perpetrators would likely be charged with a hate crime, but in this particular case, the blood of these slain animals becomes a mark of the faith of God’s people and a symbol of God’s love that endures for thousands of years.

More than that, the plagues of Egypt themselves, including the death of every firstborn, while haunting and terrible, are not signs of God’s hatred of Egypt or a suggestion that God is somehow evil, but instead are symbols of God’s love even for Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. Over and over again, God demonstrates his power and authority, granting second chance after second chance, in an attempt to bring about their repentance. God could have just as easily started with the destruction of Egypt but, in his mercy, provides advance warnings through Moses, and repeated non-lethal demonstrations of his sovereignty so that even the Egyptians might accept him and be saved.

And even though we might struggle with elements that seem to be negative and difficult, we see something similar as we read Matthew 18:15-20.

¹⁵“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.¹⁶But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’¹⁷If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

¹⁸“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

¹⁹“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

None of us like conflict and confrontation, and what Jesus tells us to do is exactly that. When we see a follower of Jesus Christ that is falling into sin, we are called to go to them and point out their error. The intent of this confrontation is not to be angry, or vindictive, or to gloat over their sin, but to call them to repentance in a way that is loving so that they can be restored to the body of Christ. The first effort is totally private and done in such a way that, should they see their error, no one else would need to know. You saw it, pointed it out to them, and if they recognize it, repent, and change, then it’s all over and done. The second attempt is nearly as private, but lets the fallen person know that others in the community are aware of what they have done, and they are given a second chance to repent and stop doing whatever it is that they have done. And still there is a third chance given where the sin is made known to the entire community of faith and still there is time to repent and to be restored. But should that fail, then the fallen can be expelled from the church. All along, the goal is never about confrontation, or humiliation, or ruining reputations, but the goal is always to be caring and loving, and to bring about repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration.

Paul sums up the commands of God in a wonderful way in Romans 13:8-14 where he says…

⁸Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

¹¹And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. ¹²The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. ¹⁴Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Paul’s summary of the law of God is one of the simplest to remember in all of scripture. “Whoever loves, has fulfilled the law.” Boom. That’s it. Every commandment of God can be summarized with this one simple statement because “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Although they are important, there’s no need for us to get all wrapped up in trying to remember rules and laws because, in the end, all of them are accomplished if we love one another and seek the best interests of others.

What is unexpected, when we look at the examples that we read earlier, is how often the loving thing, done in the best interests of others, can sometimes appear to be quite the opposite. Our children thought that we were terrible parents when we said ‘No” to their requests for candy before dinner or caffeinated soda before bed. Our teens were furious with us when we grounded them for breaking the rules or refused to allow them to go out with their friends the night before a big test. Darkness, lice, locusts, boils, and death certainly don’t seem to be the acts of a loving God, and yet, all of these were an attempt to draw people, both Israelite and Egyptian, into the kingdom of God. Confrontation, accusation, humiliation, and even excommunication do not seem like loving acts, but the goal, in every case, is to bring about restoration and reconciliation.

To a toddler, a swat across the hands does not seem to be a loving act, but to the adult who stopped curious fingers from touching a hot stove, that mild act of violence was understood to be a loving rescue.

Sometimes love is unexpectedly painful.

Jesus sought to do what was best for all of us at the expense of his own comfort and even at the expense of his life.

And our calling is to pursue what is in the best interests of others even when it might seem, on the surface, to be something less than loving.

“Whoever loves, has fulfilled the law.”

We may find that love is expressed in some unexpected ways.

But love must always come first.

_________
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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

When Legal is Wrong

August 27, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon disobedience, evil, faith, God, good, obedience, politics

“When Legal is Wrong”

August 27, 2017

By John Partridge*

Exodus 1:8 – 2:10 Romans 12:1-8 Matthew 16:13-20

Have you ever watched your local, state, or federal government, your employer, or some big business, do something that just didn’t seem right? Of course they assured the public that everything they were doing was perfectly legal, but regardless of its legality, it just smelled bad and people grumbled because what they were doing seemed wrong.

Just because something is legal, doesn’t mean that it’s right. It is fairly common for us to open the newspaper or turn on the news and find a story about a district court, or appellate court, or even the Supreme Court overturning a law because it is unconstitutional. But sometimes, even laws that are constitutional are still wrong. In 1793, the federal government passed the Fugitive Slave Act as an enforcement tool of Article 4 Section 2 of the United States Constitution which required the return of runaway slaves.

Did you hear that?

The US Constitution required that fugitive slaves, even if they were found in free states, be returned to their masters. The thing is, a great many people in northern states completely ignored this provision as well as the requirements of the Fugitive Slave Act. Some state and local governments passed laws that prohibited their law enforcement agencies from enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. However, by the mid 1800’s this defiance of the law on the part of many in the north caused so many slaves in border states to attempt escape, that the entire institution of slavery was close to collapse and southern slave holding states were angered at their northern neighbors’ failure to uphold the law.

And so, the southern states went to Congress and attempted to fix their problem. In their eyes, the problem was that the northern states were acting in defiance of the United States Constitution and if their compliance could not be enforced, then secession would become a serious possibility. As such, a new Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850 that would penalize government or law enforcement officials who refused to arrest runaway slaves, even those who were accused, without proof of being runaway slaves. Further, any person who aided a runaway slave “by providing food or shelter was subject to six months’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.”[1] And, although a $1,000 fine doesn’t sound too bad, if we adjust for inflation, this becomes almost $30,000 in 2017 dollars. Accused slaves had no right to speak for themselves in court, no proof or documentation was required, and only the word of the accuser was needed to take someone into slavery. In fact, in this way, a great many free blacks were taken illegally into slavery simply by a slave holder, or fugitive slave hunter, claiming that they belonged to them.

But still, many people, even at the risk of losing their homes, their businesses, and all that they owned, refused to comply with the law. It was not only the Underground Railroad, but many people who harbored, protected, and transported fugitive slaves, as well as free blacks, in defiance of the law because they knew that the law was unjust and wrong.

We have similar discussions today about a number of subjects, but this is the core of the story that we hear in Exodus 1:8 – 2:10. We rejoin the story of the people of Israel several generations after Joseph has died, and now, no one remembers, or cares, who he was or what he did for Egypt.

⁸Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. ⁹“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. ¹⁰Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

¹¹So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. ¹²But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites ¹³and worked them ruthlessly.¹⁴They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

¹⁵The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ¹⁶“When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” ¹⁷The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. ¹⁸Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

¹⁹The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

²⁰So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. ²¹And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

²²Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

^2:1 Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, ²and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. ³But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. ⁶She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

⁷Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

⁸“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother.⁹Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. ¹⁰When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

The Egyptians are worried that there are now so many of them, the Israelites might rise up and attack. And so, the solution that the Pharaoh decided upon was to kill every Israelite male child at the moment of his birth. But since there wasn’t a soldier in the household of every pregnant woman, they instead commanded the midwives to do their dirty work for them.

And here is the heart of the story for today. The midwives are faced with this moral and ethical dilemma: Do you obey the law, murder an innocent newborn, or disobey the law, and risk imprisonment, beating, and death? The midwives knew that the law was unjust and wrong, and they knew that obeying the law would be immoral, unethical, and evil. Despite the risk of significant physical and emotional harm to themselves, they lied, and disobeyed the law in order to honor God.

Moses’ mother was forced to make the same moral judgement because although the midwives could lie and refuse to murder newborn baby boys, eventually those baby boys would be discovered by, or be reported to, soldiers who had no moral or ethical problems with obeying the commands of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Moses’ mother hid him for three months, but at that point it became too difficult to keep his existence a secret. Babies make noises, and they create smells, and other evidence that people will eventually notice. And so, Moses’ mother made a deliberate choice to disobey the law and trust God rather than take the risk of him being discovered and murdered by an Egyptian soldier. Instead of keeping him at home, she built Moses a basket made of papyrus reeds that was waterproof enough to act like a boat (interestingly, in ancient times, it was common for boats to be built with bundles of papyrus reeds tied together and we also find that the original language for “basket” might also be translated as “ark”). For her, risking that Moses might be carried out to sea, or drown, or eaten by wild animals, was better than the almost certain death that he faced if she kept him at home.

But all of that brings us to Romans 12:1-8, where the Apostle Paul describes what living the life of a follower of God looks like.

^12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ²Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Paul says that we should live as if we were daily sacrificing ourselves to God. Paul understood that most of us will, thankfully, never be called upon to die for the sake of God, so instead of giving our lives in one dramatic moment, we called instead to give and to live each moment that we have as a gift to God. Instead of living our lives in the way that others in our culture do, instead of living in order to gratify our desires, we are called to be transformed by studying and learning about God, and becoming the kind of people that God wants us to be.

In the end, the message for today leaves us with two difficult lessons. First, although it might be unlikely, it is possible, that we might one day be faced with the choice of obeying the law and thereby doing something that we feel is morally and ethically wrong, or disobeying that law and facing whatever consequences might befall us because of that choice. The midwives fully understood that they might be imprisoned or killed because of the choice that they made and our disobedience will likewise force us to risk whatever punishment there is for breaking that particular law. We don’t have the time to discuss the specifics of the various people in our modern times that have done so, but the seriousness of this matter adds compellingly to Paul’s encouragement for us to be in regular study because when it happens to you, you had better be very sure of what it is that God wants.

The second lesson is even harder than the first. Whether or not we are not asked to disobey the law in some dramatic fashion, every morning we are called to sacrifice that day to God. We are called to live that day in a way that honors God. The old saying, “What would Jesus do?” is just a start. Every day we should live as Jesus would ask us to live. At the end of every day we should ask ourselves if we have represented God, as ambassadors of his kingdom, in ways that would please God.

This is what it means when we say that we are called to be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is what it means for us to worship God daily.

Are you prepared to do the will of God… every day?

_________
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[1] Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850

^U You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Hatred, Faith, Restoration

August 20, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon faith, Jesus Christ, mercy, rescue, restoration

“Hatred, Faith, Restoration”

August 20, 2017

By John Partridge*

Genesis 45:1-15 Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15:21-28

Have you ever broken anything that was valuable to you but were later able to fix it so that you were able to enjoy it for years to come?

I suppose that if there is any advantage to breaking things, it is in the accomplishment and gratitude we feel when they are repaired and restored to us.

I have to tell you that I was disappointed.

After beginning the story of Joseph and his captivity in Egypt, I was looking forward to working through that story with you over the span of several weeks but, unfortunately, as we follow the lectionary, they have instead chosen to skip to the end of the story. This is still a great story, but the shift, I think, has been so abrupt, that I need to fill you in on what we missed so that you can more easily make sense of what is happening in today’s story.

Last week, we heard the story about how Joseph was sold into slavery because of the jealousy and hatred of his older brothers. The only brother that we didn’t hear about was his one younger brother, Benjamin, who was almost certainly too young at that time to leave home, and was, therefore, the only innocent sibling. After Joseph was sold into slavery, a number of horrible as well as truly wonderful things happened to him, but each one demonstrated that God was truly with him and in the end Joseph was able to interpret the dreams of the Pharaoh of Egypt. These dreams told of a great famine. First there would be seven years of bountiful harvests, and then there would come seven more years of drought and famine. Because even Pharaoh recognized that Joseph’s ability to interpret these dreams was supernatural, Joseph was elevated to a position of power second only to the Pharaoh himself so that he could oversee the preparations for the famine that was to come. It was Joseph who was in charge of building great storehouses for the harvests of Egypt so that there would be food to eat during seven years of famine. And, when the famine came, it was Joseph who was in charge of making sure that the food was distributed fairly, and that some could be sold to people who were not from Egypt. In this capacity, Joseph sits on a throne and, meets his own brothers who have come to beg for food to feed their families back home. But since Joseph now speaks Egyptian, and by all appearances looks to be an Egyptian, including being clean shaven rather than bearded, his brothers have no idea who he is.

Joseph actually set them up to appear to be thieves in order to make them return a second time with his brother Benjamin. This caused them great fear because after losing his son Joseph, their father never allowed Benjamin to go anywhere. And so, we rejoin the story in Genesis 45:1-15 where Joseph finally breaks down and reveals his true identity.
^45:1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. ²And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

³Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!⁵And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ⁶For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. ⁷But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

⁸“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. ⁹Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. ¹⁰You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. ¹¹I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’

¹²“You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. ¹³Tell my father about all the honor accorded me in Egypt and about everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.”

¹⁴Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. ¹⁵And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.

Imagine how his brothers felt. For decades Joseph’s brothers lived with the guilt and shame of what they had done. For decades they kept this great secret from their father. For decades they lie awake at night imagining the horrors of what might have happened to their brother, imagining how he had suffered, and imagining how he had likely died. And then, on this day, far from home and surrounded by armed Egyptian soldiers, they meet Joseph and discover that he is the second most powerful man in the world and can end their lives, or worse, with just a few words.

They were so afraid that they were unable to even speak.

And yet, instead of terror, revenge, or murder, what Joseph has in mind is thanksgiving, reunion, restoration, and reconciliation. Joseph’s faith has brought him to understand that God was in control all along. Through their hatred, betrayal, and deception, God had brought Joseph to Egypt, and even through his misfortune and suffering, God had brought Joseph to a place where he could save the lives of the people of Egypt, as well as those of his entire family.

And then we read this story of faith in Matthew 15:21-28.

²¹Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²²A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

²³Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

²⁴He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

²⁵The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

²⁶He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

²⁷“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

²⁸Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

There are several things that we need to remember in order to better understand this story. First, Jesus is not in Israel any longer but in what had been, at various times, Syria and Phoenicia, and is therefore known as Syro-Phoenicia. You may remember that the region of Galilee is in the far north of Israel, and as you keep going north you come to Tyre and then to Sidon. If you kept going, the next large city is that of Beirut, so in modern terms, Jesus is now in Lebanon. Second, Jesus has often made it clear that his mission and ministry during his time on earth was to seek and to save the lost children of Israel. While he did, occasionally, reach out to Gentiles, the focus of his mission was always to the Jews. And so, as this woman comes asking Jesus to heal her daughter, the disciples urge him to send her away because she is neither Jewish nor even a citizen of Israel. Even so, she persists in calling out to Jesus for help and so Jesus points out that you wouldn’t allow your own children to go hungry because you threw their food to the dogs. [It is important to note here, that in Greek, there is a derogatory word for dogs that was used to insult people, and this is not that word. This word is a friendlier term that we can understand, not as an insult, but simply as a comparison between children and pets and is not likely to have been intended, or received as an insult.] But the woman rises to Jesus’ challenge and defends herself by arguing that Jesus’ power is so great, that what she wants is no more than crumbs from the table that the children would never miss. Her understanding allows Jesus to heal her daughter and also to compliment her for her great faith.

As we remember these things, what we note is that although his mission is to the Jews, Jesus still cares for people who are not. We also note that faith in the power of God and of Jesus is not limited to the disciples or to the Jews and it is this faith that opened the door to the healing of the woman’s daughter. With this understanding, we can see that instead of being reluctant to heal an outsider or a foreigner, Jesus welcomes the opportunity to reveal God’s grace and mercy to everyone who is willing and able to have faith in him.

In Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32, Paul explains it this way as he speaks about the “lost-ness” of the Jews:

^11:1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ²God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew.

²⁹for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. ³⁰Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, ³¹so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. ³²For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Paul reminds us that at one time, all of us were lost, all of us were disobedient to God and, when we came to faith in Jesus Christ, all of us received mercy and were rescued from our disobedience from its consequences. Without our disobedience, Paul argues, we would never have needed the mercy of God and the rescue of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who brings rescue, restoration, and reconciliation. It is through Jesus that we receive God’s mercy, are rescued from sin and death, and are restored to the family of God.

It was Joseph’s faith that allowed him to have perspective on the suffering of his life. Rather than being angry and vengeful toward his brothers, Joseph understood that their betrayal, and his many years of slavery and suffering, was used by God to rescue all of them. Joseph’s faith allowed him to forgive his brothers and bring about the rescue of the future nation of Israel, the reunion of his family, and the restoration and reconciliation between him and those who had betrayed him. Without their betrayal, which was redeemed and used by God, their entire family might easily have starved, or been enslaved and absorbed into the nation of Egypt.

Although the Syro-Phoenician woman who pestered Jesus until he heard her cry was neither a Jew nor an Israelite, her faith allowed her to receive God’s mercy and allowed her daughter to be healed by Jesus.

And Paul explains that although the Jews failure to believe in Jesus has separated them from God, they have not been rejected by God. They have instead been called by God to accept Jesus, to come to faith in him just as the Syro-Phoenician woman did, so that they can receive God’s mercy, forgiveness, rescue, reconciliation, and restoration.

And so, we should remember two things: First, that although we all suffer, we may not immediately understand our suffering, but it is entirely possible that, like Joseph, God is using our suffering to take us to a place where we can be a blessing to others, or even to change the world. Second, as we go out into the world and as we meet people who do not know Jesus, what we offer them is the opportunity to open the door of faith so that the understanding of God, along with his mercy, forgiveness, rescue, reconciliation, and restoration, can flow freely into their lives.

Faith is the key that opens our lives to healing, hope, and reconciliation.

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^* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646. These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org. To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.