faith

As IF

PastorPartridge Sermon , , , , , , , ,

“As IF”

February 05, 2017

By John Partridge*

 

Isaiah 58:1-12                              Matthew 5:13-20                      1 Corinthians 2:1-12

 Are you familiar with sarcasm?

By definition, sarcasm is a form of humor or wit that relies upon the use of irony or satire.  The Merriam Webster online dictionary uses this sentence from the weekly column “It Beats Working” in the Charleston Post and Courier as an example: “The best part of being single,” Bryce Donovan jokes, “is being able to choose any woman I want to shoot me down.”   In the 1970’s we often heard sarcasm expressed using the phrase “Yeah, right” and during the 1980’s we would end a sentence with the word “not” to express a form of sarcasm, as in “I am the smartest kid in school… not.”  And then in 1995, the movie “Clueless” with Alicia Silverstone popularized the expression “As if” to do much the same thing.  The Urban Dictionary uses this example: “If a guy tells me he knows I’m in love with him (but I think he’s a total loser), then I say to him “AS IF!””

Curiously, as modern as these sentiments are, we find a very similar message this morning in today’s scripture passage from Isaiah 58:1-12 where we hear God use words that sound very much like sarcasm…

58:1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

As we listen to these words, we realize that this is God’s criticism of his own followers.  God says that people come to the temple every day and genuinely seem to desire the ways of God.  They ask for justice, and they seem eager for God to be close to them.  They fast, and they humble themselves before God, but they wonder why God doesn’t notice them.

But God did notice.

God noticed all those things, but he also noticed that on the same day that these people fasted before God, they also abused their employees.  When they are done acting penitent before God they yell and scream and get into fistfights with one another.  And God says that he simply doesn’t work this way.  You can’t behave that way and expect God to bless you for being faithful.  Instead, God says that the kind of faithfulness that God chooses to bless is the kind that fights against injustice, that frees people from slavery and abuse, that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and welcomes the stranger.  When we do that, is when we will experience healing and feel God’s protection.  God’s blessing doesn’t come when our faith is only words.  Blessing comes when we act to bring about God’s kingdom on earth and when we do the things that God has commanded us to do.  We will be blessed, and the church rebuilt and restored to its former glory, when we fight against oppression, stop pointing fingers at one another and stop talking smack about each other.  We will be blessed when we spend our time, our strength, and our energy caring for the hungry, marginalized, outcasts, vagrants, refugees, the oppressed, and the abused.

And just in case we go off on some mistaken assumption that this is limited to some sort of an Old Testament thing, we find almost exactly the same idea in Matthew 5:13-20 where we hear Jesus say…

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

What Jesus is saying, is that each one of us has been put on earth in order to accomplish some purpose.  Salt is supposed to be salty.  When it is, it does what it’s supposed to do, but when salt loses its saltiness, it becomes nothing better than just a bunch of rocks.  Salt that isn’t salty might be good for gravel in your driveway, but not for much else.  Likewise, and I realize that this sounds redundant, lights are made to shed light.  No one lights a lamp and then hides it.  If they did, then why bother lighting the lamp, or turning on the light, in the first place?  Lights are only useful when they do what they were intended to do, to drive back the darkness and to provide illumination.

Jesus gives these two incredibly obvious illustrations to make his larger point about the people who were listening to him, and that includes each one of us.  Jesus says that you are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  You have been created and put on earth for a purpose intended by God.  God intends for you, for us, to obey his commands, to do the things that Jesus taught, and to teach others so that God’s kingdom can grow and continue on into the future.  Jesus says when his people fail to do these things it’s like salt losing its saltiness, or a light being hidden under a bowl.  It’s ridiculous, it’s silly, and it transforms something valuable, into something useless.

And finally, in 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, Paul explains our work, mission, and purpose this way…

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

Just as we mentioned a few weeks ago, Paul again reminds us that the power of the message of Jesus Christ isn’t anything that depends on us.  It isn’t our strength, or our eloquence in using big words or flowery phrases, it isn’t our courage, or much of anything else that we can take credit for.  Paul says that he came in weakness and fear and trembling but was successful, not because of anything that he did, but because of the power of God.  We can never know the thoughts, fears, motivations, or much of anything else about the people we meet and the people we talk to, but God does and it is God’s Spirit that is at work whenever we have those spiritual conversations about the person and message of Jesus.

Jesus says that you are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  You have been created and put on earth for a purpose intended by God.  God intends for you, for us, to obey his commands, to do the things that Jesus taught, and to teach others so that God’s kingdom can grow and continue on into the future.

What we cannot do is to be un-salty salt, or hidden lights, or people who appear to act as if they want God, but who never do the things that God has asks us to do.

We have been created by God and deliberately placed on earth for a purpose.

Let’s get busy.

 We have work to do.

 

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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.

 

Eulogy and Obituary for Lann L. Ford

PastorPartridge Eulogy , , ,

Eulogy for Lann N. Ford

December 29, 2016

by Rev. John Partridge

 

With my arrival here at Trinity Church five years ago, I came into the middle of everyone’s lives and clearly the middle of Lann and Larry’s difficult story.  When I arrived, Lann had already been fighting for several years, had already retired, and was already staying mostly at home.  Everyone knows that part of the story so there isn’t any need for me to say much more except that even at that late date, there were things that I learned from Lann Ford.  But before we talk about that, let’s go back to the beginning.

Lann N. Huntsman was born November 5th, 1955 as the fifth child (there would eventually be eight) and second daughter of Robert and Dorothy Huntsman.  From the beginning, it was obvious that Lann was her own person.  She had a plan, and she didn’t care if other people, even her parents had different expectations.  She was a good student, but more than that, she had a plan.  She didn’t just go to school, she wanted to get an education and there were certain pieces, certain bits of education that she wanted, and she made sure that she got them.  She was in speech, and in plays, and she deliberately designed and used her high school career to prepare her for college and the things that she wanted out of life in general.  She knew that she wanted to go to college, even though no one else in her family had gone and even though college education wasn’t something that her parents thought was important for girls.  It didn’t matter.  She pushed and she pushed and she went anyway.  More than that, she worked to earn her own money to pay for it.

Lann knew that she wanted to be an elementary school special education teacher but when Bard was ready to start school, he wasn’t too sure what he wanted to do or what he would be good at.  But at registration, Lann knew exactly what he should do, and she took him by the hand and got him signed up.  Not only that, she got him a job to help pay for it, and Bard told me that Lann basically got him through his first two years of school at Kent Stark.  The two of them always scheduled their classes so that they could have time to eat lunch together every day.  Lann excelled in education, both as a student and as a teacher, and on the day that she graduated, she was the first in her family to earn a college degree.

After graduation, Lann worked in Massillon, and at Reedurban, and several others before landing at St. Joan of Arc, although even then, technically, she worked for Perry Local Schools.  Lann Ford was a teacher through and through.  She was selfless.  Her students were “her” kids, she loved her kids, she was their teacher, their friend, and their greatest advocate.

I mentioned earlier that Lann disagreed with her parents on the subject of education, but despite their disagreement, she loved her family and she was still daddy’s little girl.  She knew how to use tools, but not on a car.  She never touched a car.   There was always dad or a brother to do that for her, and she was fine with that even though all of the cars that she drove were always beaters.  Lann never owned a nice car until Larry bought one for her.

This reminds me, Larry and Lann met because Lann was dating Larry’s friend Paul Vaccani.  But they broke up, and when they did, Larry was waiting and stepped right in.  It must have gone well, because they were married in 1980 outside of the North Canton Civic Center.  It had rained all day and stopped just in time for the wedding.  Next door, there was a girls’ softball game being played, but the coaches stopped the game during the ceremony so that they wouldn’t be too disruptive.  In 1983 Dara arrived and then Dustin in 1986.  As much as Lann loved her students, she loved her family more.  She was very family oriented and attended everything that her kids were in, she never missed a game or an event even when she had to get there in a wheelchair.  And Lann was a great supporter and fan of her husband too.  When Larry was awarded Teacher of the Year at Claymont, nearly all of Larry’s acceptance speech was about how Lann was responsible and why she was the reason that he was good at what he did.

I asked the family to tell me about vacations that they took together and no one could really pinpoint any one big trip or talk about an annual camping trip or anything.  They remembered that Lann really loved Utah, and she loved to plan parties, but nothing else really stood out.  Even so, vacations were about family.  Since Larry and Lann were both teachers they had the summer off, but the impression that I got was that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, ‘ya know?  Dara and Dustin were just as busy and as driven as Lann and they had plans for the summer, and so Larry and Lann would spend the summer doing whatever their kids were doing.  Lann just loved being around family.

Of course, not going away on a big vacation trip meant that the summer often turned into a “stay-cation.”  Especially since Lann loved keep busy, there was always something to do in the house, to the house, or around the house.  One summer they tore up all the carpet, sanded, and refinished the hardwood floors underneath… in the whole house.  Another summer they sided the garage, and so on.

As we met together, there were things that I heard from her family that I had heard many times before from many other people, and things that I had learned for myself.  Lann Ford was a ball of energy and was always cheerful.  She never seemed to have a bad day.  Whenever she met someone, it was as if she had always known them.  She liked to talk, genuinely cared about people, and never held a grudge.  She was always happy and always thought of herself as a dancer.  She danced on her toes from the time she was a little girl and she loved gymnastics.

Lann was first diagnosed with Multi-System Atrophy in 2004 and took disability retirement in 2007 but through it all, she always handled her disability with calm, humility, and grace. When I first met her, Lann was already in a wheelchair, had difficulty speaking and was already transitioning to using her spelling board.  It was hard for us to communicate and between her soft voice and my hearing loss, it was impossible without another person to listen and repeat what she had said.  But even then, she just smiled and did the best that she could.  Lann Ford had every reason to be frustrated and angry from time to time.  Everyone would have understood if she occasionally yelled at God and lashed out at people… but she never did.

I’m not sure that I would be able to do what she did if I was confronted with the sort of challenges that she faced.  But that was the strength of her character.  This was the woman who, even in high school, knew what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go, and what she needed to be doing to get there.  This was the woman who determined to go to college even though no one from her family had done it before, even though her parents didn’t think that it was important, and even though she had to find ways to pay for it herself.  This was the woman who came to every event that her children participated in, was her husband’s greatest supporter, encourager, and cheerleader, and who challenged her employers, or administrators, or the system if she needed to so that she could advocate for her students.  Lann Ford must be one of the strongest women that I have ever known.  From the very beginning, she was determined to live life on her terms and she refused to allow her disability to change that.  Lann refused to allow her disease to change who she was no matter what.

My friends, if any of us have learned anything at all from Lann Ford, it’s this: If any of us can be half as brave, half as strong, half as determined, half as kind, half as compassionate, half as caring, and half as happy as she was, we will change the world.  I am certain of this because every one of us is here today because Lann Ford inspired us or changed us in some way, and every one of us that is here can name five more people who aren’t here for whom she did the same thing.  As we leave this place, the best way for us to honor Lann is for us to be for our families, our friends, our coworkers, and the people around us, the kind of a person, the kind of a blessing, that Lann was for us.

—————

Lann liked the words from Ecclesiastes 3:1-14, as well as the song, Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds which used that scripture as the basis for the lyrics.  We aren’t able to play the song for you today, but listen to these words recorded for us by King Solomon:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.

————–

lann-fordObituary

Lann N. Ford

November 4, 1955 – December 24, 2016
Resided in Canton, OH

 

Lann N. (Huntsman) Ford, 61, passed away December 24, 2016 following an extended illness. She was born November 4, 1955 in Canton to the late Robert and Dorothy (Tyrell) Huntsman.

Lann was a 1974 graduate of Perry High School. She was an elementary L.D. teacher for Perry Local Schools until she took disability retirement in 2007. Lann loved her work and was a devoted advocate for her L.D. students. Lann was a member of Trinity United Methodist Church in Perry Heights.

Lann was preceded in death by her parents. She is survived by her husband of 36 years, Larry K. Ford; daughter, Dara; son, Dustin and daughter-in-law, Megan; siblings, Lee Huntsman, Brent Huntsman, Brad Huntsman, Lynn Fay, Laynn Vaccani, Bard Huntsman, and Brett Huntsman; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Calling hours will be held in Reed Funeral Home Canton Chapel on Wednesday, December 28 from 6-8pm. Funeral service will be held in Trinity United Methodist Church (3757 Lincoln Way East Massillon, Ohio 44646) on Thursday, December 29 at 10am with Pastor John Partridge officiating. Interment will follow at Richville Cemetery. In Lieu of flowers family suggests donations to Trinity United Methodist Church in Perry Heights.

Finding Peace On Earth

PastorPartridge Uncategorized , , , , ,

earth-rise“Finding Peace On Earth”

December 24, 2016

By John Partridge*

 

 

Scripture: Isaiah 9:2-7                        Titus 2:11-14                             Luke 2:1-20

READINGS:

Reading 1 – Isaiah 9:2-5

2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
4 For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

Reading 2 – Isaiah 9:6-7

6 For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
 Reading 3 – Luke 2:1-7

2:1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Reading 4 – Luke 2:8-14

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

Reading 5 – Luke 2:15-20

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

MEDITATION:

Imagine with me the world to which the prophet Isaiah spoke.  Isaiah wrote from the land of Judah at a time when the Assyrian Empire was growing stronger by the day.  He watched as Judah’s King Ahaz, rather than stand together with Syria and the northern tribes of Israel, allied himself with the Assyrians instead.  Despite Isaiah’s warning to the contrary, Ahaz aided the Assyrians in conquering their neighbors and brothers in Israel.  Everyone could see the handwriting on the wall.  Everyone knew that, eventually, the Assyrians would come for them as well and, although it wouldn’t happen for more than a hundred years, Isaiah wrote about the eventual conquest of Judah, the captivity of both Israel and Judah in Babylon, the rise of power of Cyrus the Persian, and the return of the Jews to Israel and Judah after seventy years of captivity, as well as the Messiah that was to come.

Although these were dark days, Isaiah wrote about the light that was coming that would dispel the darkness.  Although the people were oppressed, Isaiah wrote about the freedom that would come.  Although they were surrounded by armies and warfare and bloodshed, Isaiah wrote about a child who would be the Prince of Peace.  Isaiah proclaimed that a day was coming when a rescuer would come from God who would have the authority to bring about endless peace and he would establish his kingdom not with force and oppression, but with justice and righteousness.

More than seven hundred years later, in a land occupied by foreign armies, and to a people who were also well acquainted with violence, oppression, warfare, and bloodshed,  angels appear in the skies over a band of shepherds and declare that the day prophecied by Isaiah had finally come.  “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Two thousand years later, we still remember that night and we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the rescuer and redeemer of all humanity, and yet, much like the people in the time of Isaiah, and in the time of the shepherds, we too are a people who are all too familiar with violence, oppression, warfare and bloodshed.  And we still look forward to the day when the boots of our soldiers and all of their bloodstained uniforms will be thrown into the fire.  We look forward to the end of darkness, and oppression, and death.  We look forward to the day when there will be endless peace and Jesus Christ will rule over all the earth with justice and righteousness.

But while we wait, we must also remember the instructions contained in the words of the prophet Titus who said (Titus 2:11-14):

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,12 training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly,13 while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

While we wait for the return of Jesus we have work to do.  Amid the chaos of the world in which we live, we are to pursue purity, and live lives that are self-controlled, righteous, and godly.  Jesus came, and surrendered his life, so that we could be rescued from sin and death, and to be transformed into a people who are passionate about doing good.

And so, while we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace, and while we look forward to the return of Jesus Christ, until that time, his work falls to us.  Until Jesus sits on the throne and brings peace and justice to the world, we are called by God to do whatever we can to bring godliness, justice, righteousness, purity, and yes, peace, into the world in which we live.

I admit it’s a big job.  It’s huge.  It’s enormous.

But it is possible.

With.        God’s.        Help.

 

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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.

Christmas Heroes

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hero“Christmas Heroes”

December 18, 2016

By John Partridge*

 

Scripture:       Matthew 2:1-13

 In 1959 a story appeared in Showcase comics and was retold in a July 1960 magazine entitled “The Planet of the Doomed Men.”  In this story, Abin Sur crashes his alien spaceship in a remote and desolate part of planet Earth.  He is dying.  And as he dies he searches for a man who is, at the same time, most outstanding and quite peculiar.  Abin Sur wears a ring of power that searches the world to find the type of man that he needs – and in all of planet Earth, only two such men are found, Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan.  Because time is of the essence, test pilot Hal Jordan is selected because he can be reached and summoned to the crash site more quickly.

And so, Hal Jordan becomes one of Earths greatest Super Heroes, The Green Lantern.

The thing that made Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner and later John Stewart and Kyle Raynor unique wasn’t their choice of career.  While Hal Jordan was a test pilot, Guy Gardner was a school teacher, Kyle Raynor an artist, John Stewart an architect, and Abin Sur was a professor of history.  Their careers were not what made these men unique.  What made these men worthy of being selected as member of the Green Lantern Corps was something that they lacked.  While every man and woman on Earth experiences fear, a Green Lantern has no such capacity.  Sometimes the banner heading of the comic magazine would say that, “Green Lantern, man without fear.”

 If you hadn’t guessed, I am a fan of Green Lantern, and for many years I collected comic books and there were things that I learned from them.  The comics of the Golden and Silver ages and to a lesser degree, still those of today, teach such things as integrity, chivalry, honesty, patriotism, the value of every intelligent being, teamwork, and freedom.

 The downside is that comic books aren’t real.  There really aren’t superheroes that we can call upon when we are in trouble.  There was no Superman or Green Lantern to help us on 9/11.  And there is no such thing as a man without fear.  There is an old phrase that says, “A hero isn’t a person that isn’t afraid, it’s a person that is afraid but does their duty anyway.”  A hero isn’t someone without fear, but someone who perseveres, who does their duty, who does their job, or who just does what has to be done despite their fear.  I challenge you to read sometime the stories of the men and women who have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Under the circumstances that arose for which they earned their medals, fear was natural and often pervasive.

 The difference is that a hero keeps moving when normal people are paralyzed with fear.

 As we read the Christmas story, we would do well to notice an underlying theme.  It is one that we know but probably haven’t thought about consciously.  Today I want to take a different look at the people of the Christmas story and I suppose the obvious people to start with would be Mary and Joseph.

 These two young people often did not understand what was happening to them, or to the son that God had given to them.  But do you suppose that Mary was afraid of what her father would think of her when she became pregnant before her wedding day?  Do you think that she was afraid that her future husband would demand that she be stoned to death outside the city gate, as was his right?  Do you suppose that she was afraid that Joseph would return her to her father and demand that the bride price be returned to him?  We read a lot about Mary, but we need to remind ourselves that she was still just a tiny, thirteen years old, little girl.  All of these things were real possibilities.  And ye, Mary trusted God and moved forward anyway.

 In Matthew 2:1-13 it says:

 1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

 3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6” ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'”

 7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

 9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

What about Joseph?  Did Joseph worry that his reputation, as well as his father’s and his family’s reputation, would be degraded because his betrothed had become pregnant before their marriage?  I’m sure that he did.  Everything I have read indicates that a family’s reputation, their honor, was literally worth money.  From how you were treated in the legal system, to what kind of kind of loans and interest rates you could get, to what kind of deals that you could make in the public market to whether of not you could do business as a tradesman, all depended on the appearance of your family’s honor.  I say ‘appearance,’ because honor was very much a thing of appearances.

 This system of honor goes a long way toward explaining how the system of law worked, and how even the sacrificial system worked.  If someone did something that dishonored another person, that dishonored the community or that dishonored God, some penalty had to be levied that would the system back into balance and that would restore honor and holiness to the people.  This is why an unfaithful woman could be stoned for bringing dishonor upon her family.  This is why the husband, father and brothers of the woman were permitted to hunt down a rapist and kill him, or demand from him the bride price and possibly, that he marry the girl.  These were all means by which the family’s honor could be restored.

 Did Joseph worry about that?  Was he afraid of what the people of his village would think of him and how it would affect his business?  You can bet that he did.  You can believe that despite the promises of an angel sent by God, that Joseph worried about being able to feed his family and you can be absolutely sure that he was afraid when he heard that Herod was sending his soldiers to kill his son.  Herod had done things like that before… and worse.  This story was entirely believable and their fear caused Mary and Joseph to make good speed in getting out of town in the middle of the night and fleeing to Egypt.  Was Joseph afraid?  I’m sure that he was, but it never stopped him from doing what God told him to do, or from doing what he needed to do.

 Were the shepherds afraid when the angels came to give them the good news of the birth of the savior?  We know that they were.  But were they afraid of what they would find in town?  Shepherds were among the bottom of the social classes right near the prostitutes and the tax collectors.  Shepherds smelled bad and they were most certainly not welcome in town.  Were the shepherds afraid of the reception that they might get in town?  Did they worry that angry townspeople would drive them out of town again?  They had cause to worry.  But the things that the angels had told them were so incredible that they had to see it with their own eyes anyway.

 Were the wise men afraid when they realized that all of their study and all of their data indicated that the new king that they had expected (because of the signs in the stars) would be born in Israel?  These men, government officials for a hostile government, would need to visit the Tetrarch of Judea, Herod, the man who was widely known as evil, vicious and cruel.  They would visit Herod while in the company of a token force of their own military, but while flying the flag of an enemy to Rome and they would visit Jerusalem, a city with an entire Roman legion in and around it.  Were they afraid?  I suspect that they would have been less than wise if they were not, but they pressed on anyway.

 Did Anna worry about how she would live when her husband of only seven years did and left her with no children and no way to support herself?  Did Simeon perhaps worry that he had misunderstood God and that he would not really live to see the salvation of Israel?

 And what about Herod?  Was Herod afraid when he heard the wise men say that a new King had been born?  What about when his own advisors searched their own scriptures and found pretty much the same information?  From everything that we know, from scripture, history and archaeology, Herod was desperate to protect his job.  An appointment within the Roman government was tenuous and subject to removal or assassination.  Herod was constantly afraid of any upset in the peace or in the status quo in the nation of Israel.  If there were unrest or civil war, the Romans would move into Jerusalem in force to restore order, and Herod would be sent back to Rome, or worse.  Was Herod afraid?  Absolutely.

 But here we have a dividing line of sorts.  When Herod was threatened and was afraid, he did not react the way that the other characters in this drama reacted.  Herod’s response to being threatened was to strike back at the source of his fear.  Instead of responding in love or in faith, he responded in violence.  When others were afraid, they prayed and they trusted.  When Herod was afraid he mis-trusted.  When Herod was afraid, his fear and mistrust brought death to hundreds of innocent children in a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere.  When Mary was afraid she trusted and her faith and her trust brought new life and salvation to all people.

 We need to remember that in our real world, babies from the planet Krypton don’t crash to earth.  In our reality Abin Sur didn’t give his ring of power to Hal Jordan, and none of the other amazing superheroes of the comic books are going to come to our aid.

 We do however, worship a powerful God who created the universe, who knows each and every one of us, and who loves us so much that he allowed his only son to die in our place.  We worship a God who orchestrates the movement of the planets and who answers the prayers of little children.  The good news is that although our world doesn’t have Superman or the Green Lantern or even mutant warriors like the X-men, God has sent us heroes.  God has sent us heroes throughout recorded history, people that we know from the Bible and from other books.  Even today there are often even heroes among us.  God has sent us heroes that have shown us how to be faithful and how to make good choices.  From our heroes we learn things like integrity, chivalry, honesty, patriotism, the value of every intelligent being, teamwork, and freedom.  All of us should have a hero.

 But although there is no such thing as a man without fear, the good news is that heroes are very real.

 The key to having worthwhile heroes is in how you will identify them.

Green Lantern Abin Sur searched the world for a hero using his amazing ring of power.

How will you search?

Who will be your heroes?

You might start with the Christmas story.  It’s full of them.

 

 

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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.

Eulogy and Obituary for Richard (Dick) Lewton

PastorPartridge Eulogy , , ,

Eulogy for Richard (Dick) Lewton

December 12, 2016

by Rev. John Partridge

 

In a way, this isn’t new.  Almost all of us have experienced loss before.  Most of us know what it is to lose people, friends, and family that we love.  But in many ways, this is different.  Richard (Dick) Lewton was a different sort of a man than many of the people we know and so losing him is an entirely different sort of a loss.  Regardless of who you are, and regardless of how you knew Dick, we have all lost something of great value.  Dick was one of the people that, regardless of whether we were family, or friends, or employers, or employees, or church family, or something else, Dick was on the incredibly short list of people that we knew, that no matter what happened, we could rely upon to keep his word, and to get things done.  But before we go too far in that direction, let’s go back to the beginning.

Dick was born on February of 1929 in Lisbon, Ohio and lived there until he was about 12 years old.  That was just long enough for him to pick up a few mannerisms and unique speech habits that although they may not, technically, have come from Lisbon, that’s where the blame has typically fallen.  And so, at the age of 12 his parents moved from Lisbon to Perry Township.  To make a little money, Dick became a paperboy, and curiously, one of the houses on his route was the home of Wanda and her parents.  Nothing really happened at that point, except we know that is the earliest that Dick and Wanda knew one another.

A few years later, after Dick had graduated from Lincoln High School and was about 20, his brother Ralph had returned home from his time of military service, Ralph asked Dick to be the best man in his wedding.  As it happened, Ralph was marrying Wanda’s sister, and Mary asked her to be her maid of honor.  Now before you go and think that this is some kind of fairy tale thing, Wanda clearly remembers asking her mother, “Do I have to spend the whole day with him?”  She was none too excited about the possibilities.  But, she told me, as the day wore on she discovered that this guy was actually pretty nice.  Three years after that, Dick and Wanda were married, at Trinity church, and bought a house together, and it was only then that Dick got drafted and left for the Korean Conflict.  He was gone for almost two years.  Oh, there’s something else I should mention, when Dick left for Korea he left a little something behind and Ron was born not long after he left.  As it happened, the Red Cross failed to notify him, and he only found out about the birth of his son from a letter from one of his relatives.  By the time Dick came home and got to meet his son, Ron was already 13 or 14 months old.

As I met with Dick’s family, his children told me that they never, in their entire lives, saw Dick and Wanda fight.  Of course, they are sure that there must have been the occasional disagreement between them, but if they did, it never happened in front of the kids.  In fact, their children told me that they could never remember a time when Dick even got particularly upset with them, although to be fair, Wanda admits that they were blessed by children who never really caused them any problems.

I’m not really sure, after delivering newspapers at the age of 12, when Dick really began working in retail.  When he was in Korea he ran the Post Exchange, or PX, which, for those of you who might not have experience military life, the PX is a sort of general store and is often the only connection with the “real world” and the only chance that men and women in uniform have to buy much of anything, particularly when they are in a combat zone.  And so, after Dick came home, he started working for the Acme grocery chain and did so for the next 43 years.  As manager, he worked lots of hours.  He worked 6 days a week and they were long days.   And then, with the family waiting in the car, he still had to stop at the store every Sunday after church to make sure that all of the freezers and refrigerators were working properly.  But then, after he checked that everything was okay, every Sunday during the summer, the whole family would drive to Atwood Lake where they would meet Ralph and Mary and the entire extended family and all the cousins would be together.  In all, work took a lot of Dick’s time, but any time that he wasn’t at work, you know that he would be with his family, or at church, or both.

As a family they would do things together any time they could.  They traveled together to Atwood Lake every Sunday in the summer, they went to the Outer Banks, and over the years they went camping in Michigan, West Virginia, Hocking Hills, Mohican and other places.  And the whole family went hiking, in all of those places, and wherever they could.  Later, Dick and Wanda organized 17 different bus trips to New York and Chicago and places all over.  Many of those trips were with the folks from their Sunday school class.  And on top of all that, Dick and Wanda still found time to be alone from time to time, and together, just the two of them, they traveled to Alaska and Hawaii.

By the time his grandchildren arrived on the scene, he had retired from Acme and he wasn’t about to miss a single minute of anything if he could help it.  He went to everything, every dance, every volleyball game, every football game, everything.  By now you probably have the impression that Dick Lewton had a strong work ethic, and you’d be right.  His work ethic was as strong as they come, but if you thing about it, it wasn’t just about work.  Whatever Dick did, he committed himself, he devoted himself, wholeheartedly, to doing it to the best of his ability with everything that he had.  He worked like crazy at Acme, even when he suffered from terrible headaches he would still go to work.  He joined the Canton Kiwanis club and became their president.  He spent hours and hours helping with the Genoa schoolhouse project.  He was the president of the condo association.  He still attended monthly lunches with his friends from Lincoln High School.  He enjoyed working at the church and he was, as I noted earlier, one of those people that you knew you could call to get things done, and you knew that if he agreed to do it, that it would absolutely get done.  He taught Sunday school for ten years, was the president of the Pathfinders class, and worked on almost all of the church committees at one time or another, although he liked working with the church finances more than the others things.

Richard Lewton was the kind of a man that could talk to anybody and nobody was a stranger, at least not for long.  Everyone who knew him, liked him, and that includes all of the employees who worked for him.  He was the kind of a man who didn’t talk about people behind their back and who, despite working six or even seven days a week, with long hours, never spoke negatively of his employer.  Dick always had to be busy with something or be busy talking to someone.  He was always busy with a hobby, or building something, or fixing something, or even planning something.  Even when he really couldn’t do a lot himself, he was still imagining what could be done and really seemed to enjoy proposing ideas to my sons for their Eagle Scout projects.

Just a moment ago, I mentioned that, as a family, they would do things together any time they could.  His children admitted that, learning from Dick’s example, and with some encouragement from him, they often would look for an excuse to get together.  They would have campfires, or bonfires, or picnics, or some other kind of gathering just so that family could get together.  And Dick loved every minute of it.  He once told them, “This is what it’s all about.”  It was all about the gathering.  It was all about being together.  It was all about family.  It was all about… love.

Everyone who knew Dick Lewton always felt both loved and valued.  And in the world in which we live, that is truly a special gift.  If I had to boil everything that I know about Dick Lewton into four words, I’d end up with words like family, committed, faithfulness, and… love.

I have no difficulty imagining that as Richard Lewton arrived at the gates of heaven, he heard the words of his master saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21)

 

 

Tyler Higgins (grandson):

Yesterday we lost the greatest grandpa anyone could ask for.  Thank you for introducing me to woodworking, taking me fishing when I was younger, and teaching me to golf (although I don’t know how much you taught me golfing if you look at my scorecard).  I’m going to miss your back cracking bear hugs and your amazing personality.  I just want to thank you for everything you have done for me and turning me into who I am today.

 

Jennifer (Jenni) Lewton-Yates (granddaughter):

The last time I lived in Ohio and got to see Grandpa more than maybe just once or twice a year was thirteen years ago, and writing this now I realize that almost everything I think and feel about him is focalized through my eyes as a either child or at best a “barely adult,” so I generally just come up with a feeling of warm fuzzy –and that’s difficult to put into words.  He had the best toys (usually battery operated and noise making), a pool when I was little (he could shoot amazing water jets with his hands), always had candy or cookies in the house, ice cream before bed when I spent the night, chocolate milk when we went out to eat, cable TV –almost like he was a giant kid.  I loved the way his eyes got extra sparkly when he smiled, which was a lot.  He taught me how to play checkers and the importance of antiques –that’s a lesson I may have internalized and taken to the extreme in my choice of career.  As an adult I see that he modeled, really without ever making an overt point of it, two thing that have been so important to me as I’ve learned to make a home so far from family.  First –he loved Grandma; that was so very, very clear.  Many of my memories of him are inextricably linked to thoughts of her because they were and are a pair. This steadfast companionship in a spouse –Grandpa got that and showed that.  Most of the time his eyes were sparkling at Grandma.  Second –he took participation in a church community seriously.  What to a child sounded like strange talk about renovations to a crazy place called the “northex” (one of Grandpa’s charming Lisbon pronunciations like “chimbly”) –Sunday school classes who made peanut brittle were much more up my ally—I now understand this as part of the work that keeps a church going.  Now that I’ve had to put down new roots far from home, I recognize how important being a part of a church community is to my sense of well-being.  Grandpa clearly got that, too.  I will forever be grateful for the fun, for the boundless love, and for the fantastic example you set forward.

Lauren Higgins (granddaughter):

My grandpa was an amazing, caring, and such a loveable person.  He was such an amazing person to look up to.  I am beyond blessed to be able to call him my grandpa.  Growing up, both of my grandparents were at every little league softball, cheerleading, and volleyball game.  If they weren’t at one of my games, they were watching my brother at one of his games.  We are so grateful to be able to say that.  Not a lot of people know what it is like to have grandparents that are willing to spoil you with their time rather than material things.  As we grow older, that is something that I will always cherish.  I can’t express how grateful that I will forever be to both of my grandparents for that.

Growing up, my favorite holiday was always Thanksgiving.  I loved this holiday because I got to spend the entire weekend at my grandparents’ house.  I would stay the night and we would watch Christmas movies and my grandpa and I would eat way too much ice cream.  Over the weekend we would help my grandma decorate Christmas cookies.  Now, if you know my grandpa, you know how ornery he was.  He would frost the cookies but he would “accidentally break them,” and say “Oh well, no one wants to eat a broken Santa Claus, looks like I have to eat it.”  After the 12th cookie, my grandma caught on to what he was doing.  These silly memories may have not seemed like anything, but they were everything to me.  I can’t even put into words how great of a person and grandfather he was.  I just want to thank both my grandpa and grandma for everything that they have ever done for me, and thank you grandpa for being such a positive impact in my life.

 

John 3:16-21 (one of Dick’s favorites)

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

 

 

richard-lewtonObituary

Richard (Dick) Lewton

February 24, 1929 – November 30, 2016
Resided in Perry Township, OH

Born 2/24/1929 in Lisbon, Ohio to Carl and Jessie Lewton. Moved as a teenager to Perry Township where he resided until his death on November 30.

Proceeded in death by his parents, sister Jean Evans, and brother Harold.

Dick leaves behind loving and devoted wife of 67+ years, Wanda. She has been at his side faithfully every day throughout his decline over the past 5 months. He is survived his older brother Ralph (Mary). His children are Ron (Kathy), Denny, and Kari (Dean) Higgins; grandchildren Jennifer (David) Yates, Tyler and Lauren Higgins, great-granddaughter Lily Yates. He was also very close to his extended family which includes many nieces and nephews.

Dick proudly served his country in the Korean War, was retired as a store manager from Acme Grocery after 43 years of service, and was always very active in his church (Trinity UMC) and community organizations. He was a past president of the Canton Kiwanis Club. He loved his family dearly; he was a friend to many.

We will miss him greatly.

His life will be celebrated on Monday, December 12th at 11 a.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church. The family will receive friends at the Paquelet & Arnold-Lynch Funeral Home on Sunday, December 11th from 2-4 p.m. and on Monday at the church from 10-11 a.m.

Contributions can be made in his memory to the Perry History Club for the renovation of the historic 1893 Genoa grade school building, P.O. BOX # 80575, Canton, OH 44708-0575. Renovating this building was his passion over the past many years.

Enemies United

PastorPartridge Sermon , ,

unity-racial-divide“Enemies United”

December 04, 2016

By John Partridge*

 

Scripture: Isaiah 11:1-10                    Romans 15:4-13                                 Matthew 3:1-12

 

Who was your worst enemy in high school?

Are you still mad at them, or did you finally make friends with them?

Although our personal lives can be messy and we can harbor grudges for a long time, in global politics, time has a way of shifting our opinions.  Our nation was once divided into factions of north and south, but people cross back and forth so freely today that it’s almost impossible to be in a place, north or south, that doesn’t have people who were born on the other “side” of that border.  The United States and its allies fought World War Two against Italy, Germany, and Japan, but those nations are, today, some of our closest friends and allies.  We fought the cold war against the Soviet Union, but now work together every day with Russia to keep the International Space Station, a joint project, up and running.  France, England, and Spain once fought generations of bloody wars against one another but now, despite England’s vote for “Brexit,” they all live and work together as a part of the European Union.

Our scriptures for today remind us that God has sent his Son, not only to rescue us, but to heal the divisions between his people.  In Isaiah 11:1-10, God said this about the coming Messiah:

11:1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

The messiah will come and he will have wisdom, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear of the Lord.  He will decide based on righteousness, aid the poor, strike down the wicked, and rule with righteousness and faithfulness.  And when the messiah comes, natural enemies will lay down their hostility forever.  Wolves and lambs, calves and bears, will be friends and even the lion, who is often the enemy of everyone, will become as harmless as an ox.  No longer will their hostility toward one another bring harm or destruction in God’s city.  And then Isaiah concludes with some very obvious military battle metaphors.  To those of us in the twenty first century, in a world of radios and instant communication, these may not be quite as obvious as they once were but if you’ve ever watched the history channel, or read stories about Richard the Lionheart, or even Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, these metaphors remain clear.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

The messiah will raise his banner for the people.  Before the advent of radio, armies went to war and the king, or commander, communicated with the disparate segments of his forces by using flags.  In the chaos of battle sometimes even the king had to move from place to place, and his forces could be scattered but, at some point, once a new position had been secured, the king’s banner, battle standard, or battle flag would be raised.  Everyone could see where the king was, and they would rally, warriors who had been scattered all over the battlefield would fight their way to where the king was and regroup.

This is the picture that Isaiah paints.  In that day, the messiah will raise his kingly banner, and nations from all over the world will join him and stand together.

In Romans 15:4-13, Paul reiterates this idea while both clarifying and amplifying it.

4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. 8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed 9 and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
I will sing the praises of your name.”

10 Again, it says,

“Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”

11 And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;
let all the peoples extol him.”

12 And again, Isaiah says,

“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
in him the Gentiles will hope.”

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul says that what had been written in the past was intended to encourage us and to teach us endurance so that we might all come to have the same attitude, or the same mindset, so that we might think like Jesus.  And even greater than that, Paul says that in having the mind of Christ, we would be able to accept one another just as Jesus has accepted each one of us.  But Paul wants to be sure that his readers understand exactly what he means and so he clarifies this with an example, Paul says that we shouldn’t just accept people who are like us, because Jesus had become a servant of both the Jews, who had received the promises of Abraham, as well as the Gentiles whom the Jews had considered to be the enemy for thousands of years.  And just to be sure that his readers really understood that this is what he meant, Paul quotes four different passages of Isaiah that remind them that God intended to invite the Gentiles, the outsiders, the enemy, into his camp alongside the Jews.

Paul concludes by saying “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” This once again reminds everyone that as we trust in Jesus Christ, our hope in God should fill us with joy and peace in such measure that our hope overflows into the people, and the world, around us.

But as the time approaches for the arrival of the messiah, John appears in the desert preparing a way for him by preaching a baptism of repentance. (Matthew 3:1-12)

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”

4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

John called God’s people to repent, and they came confessing their sins before God, except the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  Knowing their character, and how John reacted to their presence, it appears that these church leaders did not come to repent and to confess, but instead came as a group to see where all their people were going and what all the fuss was about.  To them, John says that is isn’t enough to claim the ancestry of Abraham for your salvation before God.  Simply being a member of the family, or being a member, or even a leader of the church wasn’t enough.  What was necessary was to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”  And what that means is, that real repentance looks like it made a difference in your life.  People who find real repentance live as if God, and his teaching, actually matter.  People who find real repentance produce fruit for the kingdom of God.

John ends his speech with a warning for everyone.  He says that although he has come to baptize and to issue a call for repentance, he is only preparing the way for the arrival of another.  The one who is coming is more powerful than John.  So much more powerful, that John is unworthy even to be the servant that carries his shoes.  John’s warning is that although he himself is calling for repentance, the one who is coming will come not to plant, but to harvest.  When the messiah comes to bring in the harvest, he will gather the wheat and burn the rest.

And so, as we prepare for the arrival of the Messiah at Christmas, we look forward to a day when all of God’s people are united, friends, strangers, and enemies, people of every language, and every color skin, and from every nation on earth.  We are encouraged to read the scriptures and to internalize their message so that we become like, and think like, Jesus.  We are called not only to read about Jesus, and not only to think about Jesus, but to act like Jesus.  And we are warned that failing to do so will come at a cost.

As we celebrate this season of Advent, may we all recommit ourselves to becoming more like Jesus, thinking more like Jesus, and acting more like Jesus so that on the day he raises his banner, we can stand with our brothers and sisters, from every nation of the world, at his side.

 

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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.

Season Meets Reason

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cow

“Season Meets Reason”

November 27, 2016

By John Partridge*

 

 

Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5                        Romans 13:11-14                               Matthew 24:36-44

The other day, Patti and I were traveling along the freeway when traffic suddenly came to a complete stop.  We immediately wondered what had happened because normally, even in the worst of construction zones, traffic keeps moving at least a little.  But this time we stopped dead and we were there long enough that I put the car in park.  As we sat there, we guessed that it might have been an accident and, sure enough, once we started moving again we saw two cars, a tractor trailer, and a police car all blocking the right lane.  Thankfully, even though there was a baby seat in one of the cars, everyone seemed to be okay.

As simple as it was, this common experience reminds us of the ripple effects of human events.  Traffic backs up because there was an accident.  Railroad gates drop because there is, somewhere down the line, an oncoming train.  One event causes another, and sometimes those ripples cascade far into the future.  We live here in North America because men like Amerigo Vespucci, Leif Erikson, Christopher Columbus, Henry Hudson, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Jacques Cartier, Hernando de Soto, John Cabot, and many others dared to cross the Atlantic and explore the New World.  What they did changed the world, and the ripples caused by their actions continue to impact our lives today.

And so, as we celebrate Advent, and begin the season of Christmas, we often talk about Jesus being the “reason for the season.”  We recognize that a huge part of our entire world has set aside time, religious or not, to celebrate this particular season of the year and we know that a ripple that enduring has to have had a cause.  But what we often miss, is that the reason for Christmas started long before the birth of Jesus, and the ripples caused by those events continue into the future, and impact our lives, far more than we appreciate.

We begin this morning by reading the words of the prophet Isaiah who lived nearly eight hundred years before the birth of Jesus. (Isaiah 2:1-5)

2:1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

2 In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.

3 Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Generations before Jesus’ birth, Isaiah proclaims that a day will come when God himself will live in Jerusalem, rule over the earth, and judge disputes between nations.  In those days, weapons of war will be reshaped into instruments of agriculture, and the world will finally know peace.

Isaiah not only saw the coming of the Messiah that we celebrate at Christmas, but also the messiah’s ultimate rule and reign to which we still look forward.  The ripple in time that we celebrate at Christmas did not begin with Jesus, and in fact did not begin with Isaiah.  What we remember when we read Isaiah is that the birth of the Messiah was God’s plan from the beginning of time itself.  All of creation was leading up to that moment, and continues to look forward to the ultimate conclusion of God’s story.

We all know the Christmas story.  We will spend plenty of time in the coming weeks remembering the stories about angels and shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and wise men from the East.  But while remembering the characters is important, we must also take time to remember that such a pivotal event in human history didn’t happen by accident.  The birth of Jesus, God’s Messiah, Savior, and rescuer of all humanity, happened for a reason.

In Matthew 24:36-44, Jesus tells the disciples about the day of his return.

36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Jesus reminds his followers, that his birth, life, death and resurrection were just the beginning.  Just as God’s people had looked forward to the arrival of the Messiah for thousands of years, we now look forward to his ultimate return.  And as we look forward, Jesus warns us to be prepared, to “be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

Jesus’ warning is two-fold.  First, we must keep watch for his coming and second, that we must be prepared for his arrival at all times because he will come when we do not expect him.  But what does it mean to “be prepared” for his arrival?  Honestly, it’s the same message that God has been telling his people since the very beginning.  In Romans 13:11-14, Paul puts it this way:


11 And 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. 12 The 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. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Paul reminds us that “being ready” is all about the way that we live our lives every day.  If we believe that Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, and we believe that his purpose for coming to earth was to live, die, and rise from the grave to pay the debt for our forgiveness, then our belief must not just be an abstract idea that we carry around in our heads, but a belief that is lived out every minute of every day.

The coming of Jesus was an event that sent ripples through time and that event was a part of God’s plan that began with creation itself.  While we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, we love to decorate our houses, our churches, shopping centers, and office cubicles, but if we fail to decorate our lives by living the way that Jesus taught, then all the trees, all the presents, all the worship services, and all the other trappings of Christmas are no better than wrapping tinsel around a cow pie.

At Christmas, it is vital for us to remember the reason for our celebration.

Jesus did not come to earth so that we could buy presents and decorate trees.

Jesus came to earth to transform lives.

Jesus came to transform my life.

Jesus came to transform your life.

And so, the best way that we can “decorate” for Christmas is to live every day of the year as if Jesus was real, as if we knew for certain that he was coming back tomorrow.

The best gift of Christmas is for each of us to actually do the things that Jesus taught us to do.

God’s gift to the world at Christmas wasn’t just a baby in a manger.

God’s gift to the world is a world full of followers who live like Jesus everyday.

 

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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.

Fear Not?

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fearEarlier today, my friend John Thro posted a question that, in light of this election, is worth taking the time for all of us to consider.  He said…

“I have gay relatives, relatives with gender identity issues, relatives with mental health issues. 

I have friends and coworkers who are immigrants, friends and coworkers who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, atheist.

How should they feel this morning?”

First off, I want to point out that throughout this election cycle I have not supported either candidate.  Professionally, I try very hard (with varying degrees of success) to keep my political opinions (though strongly held) to myself.  What I have to say, and what we do, on Sunday morning, and inside the walls of the church are far more important than whatever political differences that we might have.  Personally, I found both major candidates to be so deeply flawed that I could not, in good conscience, support either of them.  What button I pushed inside the election booth is not something I care to post publicly.

With that in mind, here is my perception. Despite the efforts of the opposing campaign to smear him, Mr. Trump’s history is not as bad as some would lead you to believe. Many of the things brought up were things that he had said, 20 or 30 years ago. People change. In general, as we age, we mellow.   For every accusation of hatred, there were employees, friends, associates, and others who countered with a story demonstrating the opposite.  Even so, I do not discount that some of the things said by Trump were troubling, some should not have been said, and these are things that we must watch for, and guard against.

What I fall back on is that we still live in a nation of laws, a nation in which the violent crime rate has been dropping for the last twenty years, and a nation that is full of good people. No laws will be enacted that violate anyone’s Constitutional rights, violence against minorities or others will be not tolerated under our laws any differently than it has been, and the law will be upheld. In the end, as it has almost always been, to the man or woman on the street, there will be little or no perceived difference.

You are as safe today as you were yesterday.

The Gallup research organization says that 58 percent of all Americans claim to be third generation Americans, the grandchildren of immigrants.  I am one.  Our conversation about immigration is not only important, for more than half of us, it is deeply personal.  For that reason alone, as well as others, there will be no gigantic shifts in immigration policy.  We will not ban immigration.  We will not hate immigrants.  How can we when half of us claim that as our heritage?  What we will (or at least should) have, is a discussion about what legal immigration ought to look like, what reasonable limits we should put in place, and how we can do it better.

Similarly, we are already such a culturally, religiously, and racially, diverse culture that I do not expect any huge, or dangerous, changes in public policy.  And, despite those who would seek to attack our neighbors with gender identity issues, or those whose gender identity is different than the mainstream, I really don’t see any significant changes happening.  As a nation, we are a good, kind, compassionate, generous, and yes, tolerant people… even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

I said many of these things to John in my reply to his post, but I also added something else.  We must remember that President Obama, even though he was well liked and widely supported by the Democrat members of the United States House and Senate, occasionally proposed legislation that went too far.  In those cases, even his friends and supporters could not agree with him, and that legislation did not pass.  What President Trump will face, although there will be a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate, is a Congress in which many establishment representatives neither like him nor support him.  I believe that they will be more than willing to oppose him on issues that they believe cross the line and go too far.

In the end, I also have faith.

I have faith that the ultimate power is not the man or woman who sits in the Oval Office.  God is in control.  And our God is a god who is passionately concerned about the poor, the outcast, the voiceless, immigrants, minorities, and every kind of oppressed people.  What is left to us is not to be afraid, but to choose what we will do.  We must not wait for the President, or the Congress, or the government at any level to do what we should do.  I have always, regardless of political party, committed to pray for the President of the United States and all of our leaders at every level and I will continue to do that.

I encourage you to do the same.

But we must also busy ourselves doing what is right, good, and just, particularly if we are people of faith. We must commit ourselves to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the outcasts, being a voice for the voiceless, showing mercy and compassion for immigrants and the oppressed, and seeking justice for everyone.

I believe that our nation is full of good, decent, hardworking, compassionate, faithful, and generous people.

I believe that we will do these things.

We will be vigilant.

There is no reason to fear.

 

 

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Blessed Are Those Who Weep

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“Blessed Are Those Who Weep”

(Seeing the Invisible)

November 06, 2016

(All Saints Sunday)

By John Partridge*

 

Scripture: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18            Ephesians 1:11-23                             Luke 6:20-31

 

I saw a story this week about an 18 year old that got a birthday letter from her long dead mother.  Apparently, as she was dying, her mother had the chance to write down some things that she wanted her daughter to know, but they were words of wisdom that she knew she wouldn’t live long enough to share.  So, she put pen to paper and began to write down the things that she wanted her daughter to know as she approached adulthood, graduated from high school, and headed for college.  It’s the sort of message that is bound to make an impression.

We wonder what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that sort of message.

But imagine.

If you could send a message to your 16 year old self, what would you say?

We might tell our younger selves to avoid some of our poor choices, or reaffirm some of our best ones.  We might tell them to eat better, or exercise more because of the pain we experienced or the heart attacks we survived.

But, imagine that you could go back in time.  Imagine you could walk into FDR’s, or Harry Truman’s Oval Office and tell them what the future held.  Imagine you could tell the American Indians what lay ahead of them as the Europeans began to land on their shores.  Imagine that you could talk to Amelia Earhart before she left on her attempt to circumnavigate the world, or Abraham Lincoln before he went to Ford’s Theater, or the Donner Party before they left on their journey west.

What would you tell them?  What would you tell them if you had to compact your message into one or two sentences?

Even more difficult, what would you tell George Washington about the Civil War that lay one hundred years in the future?  This is the challenge presented by many of the Old Testament prophets.  They could see what was to come, but in many cases what they saw was generations in the future.  What they saw was sometimes difficult to understand but the message that they carried, although often short on details, emphasized the most important pieces.

In Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18, God’s prophet, who is living in captivity in Babylon, is given a vision of Israel, hundreds of years in the future.  And while it isn’t specific enough to build armies, or develop battle plans, or to change the course of history, it is enough to carry a message of hope to God’s people.

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.

2 Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. 3 Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.

15 “I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. 16 I approached one of those standing there and asked him the meaning of all this.

“So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things: 17 ‘The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. 18 But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever.’

The future that Daniel saw would bring four great beasts which would arise.  Simply by his describing them as beasts implies that they were both large and frightening.  And when he asked who or what they were, he was told that these were great kings, with great empires, that would arise over the earth.

If that alone was the end of the prophecy, everyone would have reason to be afraid and to fear the future.  But Daniel is also told that despite the rise of these great kings, God’s people will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever.  Despite Babylon, despite Persia, despite Rome, despite the rise of human empires and kings, God rules over all the earth and the people of God will prevail in the end.

In a moment when Israel’s best days would seem to be behind them, God proclaims that the future will be better.

In the same way, during a time when Christians and Jews were not in the mainstream of society and even outcasts in some ways because of their belief in only one god, and also a time when increasing pressure from society and government was suggesting that open persecution may not be far away, Paul writes a message of hope.  In this case, instead foretelling the future, Paul explains what the coming of Jesus Christ means to the future. (Ephesians 1:11-23)

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Paul says that you were included, you were chosen, to be a part of God’s eternal kingdom at the moment that you believed.  As proof, Paul says that the Holy Spirit was given to us as a deposit in order to demonstrate God’s goodwill and intent to fulfill his promise.  Just as we make a deposit on a large purchase in order to seal the contract and to demonstrate our intent to complete that purchase, God has given us the Holy Spirit as a down payment to demonstrate his commitment to fulfill his promise.  Paul continues by saying that he is praying for three things, 1) that you may know how rock solid, how trustworthy, the future will be, 2) that you may understand how wonderful and how glorious our future will be, and 3) that you might know how powerfully God watches over us.

In a moment when the future seems dark, God says that it’s really better than anything you could have imagined.

And then in Luke 6:20-31, Jesus says this:

20 Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

As crowds gather to hear him speak, Jesus tells them that the world is not as it appears.  The poor will inherit the kingdom of God, the hungry will be satisfied, those who weep will laugh, and when people hate you, or insult you, or reject you, or say that the good things you do are evil, in all those times, you are, in God’s reality, blessed and not cursed.

In the day when the world tells you that you should be sad, rejoice instead because you know that your reward in the kingdom of heaven, is enormous.

But Jesus also warns that those who are well off must be careful because their world is not as it appears either.  When you are rich, or comfortable, or well fed, or surrounded by laughter, you may well be setting up a future that you will weep over.

The path that we must follow into the future, whether we are rich or poor, hungry or well fed, weeping or laughing, hated or loved, is exactly the same. The path that we are to follow into the future is not a path of despair, but a path of hope.  Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.  Give to those who steal from you.  Give to everyone who asks and do for others the things you would like others to do for you.

The way forward, the path that we are to follow into the future has always been a path of hope and a path of compassion.

In a moment when Israel’s best days would seem to be behind them, God proclaims that the future will be better.

In a moment when the future seems dark, God says that it’s really better than anything you could have imagined.

This is a message for All Saints Day as we remember those that we have lost, but also, perhaps, a message for all of us as we approach one of the ugliest, and gloomiest, presidential elections in history.  The message of Daniel, and Paul, and Jesus is that the world has never been quite as it appears because in the end, God wins.

Scripture invites us to see the invisible, to see that in reality, God owns the future.

To see that everyone who has put their faith in Jesus Christ and believed in him is greatly loved by God and the promise of our future has been backed by the deposit of God’s Holy Spirit.

To see that those believers that we have loved have already moved forward into God’s future, and that same future awaits the rest of us.

To see that it doesn’t matter if our nation’s best days sometimes seem to be behind us.    It doesn’t matter if the future seems dark.  It doesn’t matter if our present is unpleasant.  What matters is that God owns the future.

And Jesus tells us that the path from where we are to where God wants us to go is a path on which we must show love, compassion, and generosity to everyone…

…even those who don’t deserve it.

 

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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.

Eulogy and Obituary for Joy Reed

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Eulogy for Joy Reed

October 31, 2016

by Rev. John Partridge

 

From the stories I heard in the past few days, I think that with the loss of Joy Reed our world got a little less fun.  But before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s review a little.

Joy Price was born 84 years ago, graduated from Lincoln High School in 1950, and by all accounts, met the love of her life in third grade.  She and David were married on October 12, 1952.  Also playing into this story are the Genoa girls, some of whom I have met because several of them have attended, or continue to attend Trinity Church.  The Genoa girls are women like Joy, Audrey Fish, Pearl McKnight, and several others who have been close friends since first grade.  These women grew up together, vacationed together, raised their kids together and, in recent years, formed the ‘card club’ that met once a month.  On top of that, some of them are still going out to eat together on a regular basis.  Joy really liked to go out to eat.

Along the way, of course, David and Becky became a part of Joy’s story.  Becky remembered the family taking vacations together to Virginia Beach and Chesapeake Bay and other places but no matter what they did, or where they went, Becky said that Joy always had a way of making life fun.

But unlike the kind of fun we sometimes see, Joy didn’t just do things so that she could have fun, Joy did things so that everyone around her had fun.

And again, before I go any farther, I have to introduce you to Nellie Phelps.  Nellie was Joy’s best friend and they did everything together.  They worked together as the “lunch ladies” at Reedurban School and Joy worked for a while at Peifer School as well.  But whether they were at school or at church, or almost anywhere else, the two of them were almost always up to something.  Together they collected food for the food bank, organized funeral dinners at church, helped out at Vacation Bible School, (where Joy would do anything except teach), visited shut-ins, and more often than not, were working on a joke of some kind.

In one way, it’s a bit odd really, but in another it’s not.  I can’t really tell you a lot about Joy Reed without telling stories about Nellie Phelps.  They really were that close, and they really did that much together.  They were inseparable.  They did everything together.  Nellie would have ideas, and Joy would make them bigger.  The folks at church tell me that the two of them were an important part of the church.  They were in the women’s society together, and as I already mentioned, they did VBS together and volunteered to help with dinners, but they also created their own job description as church greeters.  At first, that doesn’t sound all that unusual except that the way Joy and Nellie did it wasn’t to greet people coming into church the way that everyone else did, they appointed themselves as the greeters for people coming out of church.  And they did it in such a way that everyone who came felt that they were really welcome.  In fact, when someone new came to Trinity, one of them, either Joy or Nellie, was sure to call them and invite them to come back.  We still have a number of people who became members of our church because of the work that these two ladies did.

Joy loved Halloween.  And, once again, that isn’t all that unusual, except that when you combine Joy’s love of Halloween, the way that she and Nellie played off of one another, and the way that they loved to help others have fun, what you end up with is a pair of ladies that can cause a bit of a stir.  These were the two who once dressed as clowns in the Hall of Fame parade and cleaned up behind one of the horse units.  I can only imagine.  They went to all of the Perry home football games together… with their cowbell… and they used it.  And everyone knew that they were there.  They tried hard to make every holiday at school memorable for the kids, and that included one Halloween when they somehow managed to get a real, full sized, coffin into the lunchroom at school… and then one of them hid in it… and in the middle of lunch the coffin began to open.  I’m told that they scared some of the kids half to death and the principle came to tell them that they might have overdone thing a little.  It didn’t matter.  There really wasn’t anyone that could stop those two once they got started.

But a big part of their focus was on doing things for other people.  They loved to serve others in whatever way they could.  Joy was a Girl Scout leader and together she and Nellie would go to the Hospitality House nursing home every week, for years, to play bingo with the residents there.  Every week they bought candy to give away to everyone and helped the folks who had trouble playing because of their eyesight or anything else.

Oh, and you remember the card club of the Genoa Girls that met once a month?  Every Halloween, Joy would dress up and go to lunch with her club in costume.  No one else did… just Joy.  But that’s just who she was.  However God arranged it with her parents, “Joy” was exactly the right name all along.

Audrey Fish was another one of those friends that Joy had forever.  They baked Christmas cookies together when their children were small, they saw each other every month at card club, and they saw one another every week at church.  But when Joy couldn’t come to church anymore, Audrey came to see Joy…  every week… for the last five years or so.

Joy just wanted to help.  She was a person who you could call to do almost anything.  I say almost, because there might just have been one thing that she wouldn’t do.  In a conversation at church one day, undoubtedly involving Nellie Phelps, they were talking about the houses that God has prepared for us in heaven and what a wonderful view there would be.  And, somehow, at that point someone thought that if there was such a great view, then there must be a lot of windows and, if there were a lot of windows, there must be someone to clean them.  So of course, Nellie suggested that this might be Joy’s contribution to the heavenly community… washing windows.  Joy was indignant and replied, “No! I’m not going to wash windows.  Not even for God!”  Everyone laughed and Nellie gently assured Joy that, for God, she probably would.

Joy loved to watch basketball, and Ohio State, and anything Perry whether it was sports, or theater or music, or anything else.  Joy was the kind of a person that everywhere she went, always made the people around her smile.  And even now, even in this time of sadness, the people that knew her can’t seem to remember her without smiling.  That is truly a gift that she has given to all of us.

As Becky said, Joy Reed had a way of making life fun.  She always had a smile and will be remembered by everyone who knew her for her sense of humor, her orneriness, warmth, friendliness, and her strong faith in Jesus Christ.  None of us have any doubts as to where she went the moment that she left her mortal dwelling place.  I am certain of her destination.  I am certain that Jesus and Nellie have given her a warm welcome.  I am sure that she is enjoying the view.

But I somehow doubt that she is washing windows.

 

 

Obituary

joy-reedJoy Reed (nee Price), 84, of Massillon, passed away October 27, 2016, at Meadow Winds Health Care Center. A lifelong resident of Perry Township, Joy made many waves throughout the community. She graduated from Lincoln High School in 1950, where she met David Reed, whom she was married to for 64 years on October 12, 2016.

Joy was employed with Perry Local Schools for 25 years as “the lunch lady.” Along with raising 2 children and her employment Joy still found plenty of time for her array of extracurricular events. She hosted parties for her card club friends, had lunches with her “Genoa Girls”, was active in both Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts and was president of the Richville School District PTA.

She was heavily involved in the Trinity United Methodist Women’s Club, where she selflessly worked to make sure ill members were provided with food and her ornery humor. After those long weeks with full schedules, you could be sure to find Joy and lifelong friend, Nellie Phelps at the Perry Panthers Football Games on Friday nights.

Joy is survived by her husband, David Reed; son David Reed; daughter Becky (Rick) Osborne; granddaughter Lindsey “sweetpea” Stephen; sister-in-law Gloria Deeser and special friend Audrey Fish.

Family and friends may call Sunday from 2 to 4:00PM at the Reed Funeral Home (CANTON CHAPEL) where services will be held Monday at 10:00AM with Pastor John Partridge officiating.

Interment will take place at West Lebanon Union Cemetery.

The family would like to extend a special thank you to the staff at Meadow Wind and Great Lakes for their love and support.