Christian Extra-Terrestrials?

February 20, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Luke 6:27-38

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Many of you are old enough to have watched the Steven Spielberg movie, E.T. the Extraterrestrial and, even if you haven’t watched it, you probably at least know something about it. There’s also a good chance that E.T. is what you thought of when you saw today’s sermon title, “Christian Extraterrestrials.” But despite Elon Musk’s goal of establishing a colony on Mars, interplanetary Christians is not what I have in mind… at least for today. What I have in mind, however, is just a little bit different linguistically. I thought about using Superhuman, or Supernatural, but those words bring up mental images of Superman from the planet Krypton, or a couple of brothers on television who fight ghosts, demons, and other non-human creatures, so neither of those words really work either. But the definition of the prefix “extra” means “beyond” and so while “extra-terrestrial” can mean a person, or a creature, that is from beyond our planet, it might also mean someone from this planet whose abilities lie beyond the those of normal, or expected, people.

And besides, it made you curious.

In any case, “beyond terrestrial” is a legitimate translation of the language that is used in our scriptures today. But, before we get to that, let’s begin with the story of Joseph. Nearing the end of Joseph’s epic in Genesis, we join his story at the point where, having once been sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph is now, after Pharaoh, the second most powerful man in all of Egypt if not the second most powerful man on the planet. But at this moment, Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers, the same men who years earlier had beaten him, thrown him in an empty cistern, and sold him into slavery. And, understandably, when his brothers realize who he is, they are terrified. We rejoin that story in Genesis 45:3-11,15:

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

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

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

¹⁵And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.

Joseph’s brothers were terrified that, because he was now the most powerful man in Egypt, and not the pesky younger brother, they expected that he would take his revenge on them for what they had done. And, honestly, no one would be surprised if that had happened. Joseph had every right to be angry and it would have been fair for him to sell his brothers into slavery as they had done to him. But Joseph’s relationship with God gave him a different perspective. Rather than seeing this as an opportunity for revenge, Joseph sees that God has been intervening in human affairs, influencing events, and moving him into position so that he could rescue the entire nation of Egypt, and his family, the people that would one day become the nation of Israel. Joseph behaves in a way that is unexpected because his relationship with God has given him a vision of the world that is beyond human.

And we can see that same vision as Jesus teaches his disciples in Luke 6:27-38, as he says:

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

³²“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Jesus says that being ‘just as good’ as the evil people around you isn’t good enough. And being just as good as average and ordinary people isn’t good enough either. The standard for his followers is to do good even when no other reasonable person would do good, to be unreasonably good, or… beyond humanly good. Jesus wants his followers to love the people around them more than other reasonable people would love, to love in a way that is beyond humanly loving or, beyond earthly love.

And the examples that Jesus gives are so far beyond our understanding of normal, that they are understandably difficult. Jesus says that we should loan money, not just to people that we trust, and not just people that we believe can pay us back, but to loan money to people we don’t even like, people we regard as our enemies, and that includes people that we might be confident have no means, and possibly no intention, of ever paying us back. Jesus says that we should loan them the money with no expectation that we should get it back. In other words, just give money away to people that you hate, and who probably hate you back. Loving in ways that are beyond human, or beyond terrestrial, is exactly the point that Jesus is making. Our calling isn’t to love the people around us like ordinary, average, or even exceptional people love, our calling is to love the people around us the way that God loves. God is loving, kind, and merciful to the ungrateful and the wicked who neither like him nor even know him.

It’s worth noting here that “Do not judge” is currently one of the most commonly misquoted and misinterpreted verses of scripture. It most certainly does not mean that we should… never… judge. Matthew includes this same quote from Jesus, but records Jesus’ statement as saying, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1) To make this clear, some translations record this as “Do not judge unfairly” rather than simply do not judge. There are many times when Jesus asks, even commands us to judge between good and evil, honor and dishonor, to be discerning in all that we do, and other things. What Jesus clearly means is that we will be judged in the same way that we judge others. Don’t rush to judgement. Don’t judge without evidence. Or, as the translators have said, don’t judge unfairly. Likewise, we can expect to receive the generosity of God with the same, or better, generosity that we show others. Give and it will be given to you in an even more abundant and generous measure.

But why? Why is the standard for love, mercy, and compassion so much higher for Christians than it is for everyone else? Why does God demand that our behavior be beyond human, whether we call that super-human or extra-terrestrial? We find the answer to “why” in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth where he says (1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50) …

³⁵But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” ³⁶How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. ³⁸But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

⁴²So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam [aka Jesus], a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. ⁴⁸As was the earthly man [Adam], so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man [Jesus], so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall webear the image of the heavenly man.

And although Paul takes a while to get to his point, the answer really is simple. The reason that the followers of Jesus Christ are commanded, and empowered, to behave in ways that are beyond human, and the reason that it isn’t okay to just be the same as other people, is because earth and heaven are not the same. Adam and Jesus are not the same. When we choose to follow Jesus Christ, we become image bearers of God. Our calling is no longer to look like everyone else and reflect the image of the world in which we live, but rather to reflect the image of a merciful, just, compassionate, and loving God and to reflect an entirely different reality.

As the image bearers of God, we must love more than humanly possible, be impossibly forgiving, extraordinarily generous, inhumanly merciful, and in every other way that we can, be an accurate reflection the goodness and holiness of God.

God has called us, commanded us, and empowered us to behave in ways that are super-human, and beyond earthly.

In other words, we are called to be nothing less than Extra-Terrestrial Christians.

Did you enjoy reading this?

Please LIKE and SHARE!

Click here to subscribe to Pastor John’s blog.

Click here if you would like to subscribe to Pastor John’s weekly messages.

Click here to visit Pastor John’s YouTube channel.

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

Thanksgiving Overflow?

November 25, 2020December 2, 2020 PastorPartridge Blogs blessing, generosity, gratitude, overflow, thanks, thanksgiving

Click here to watch the video, or scroll down to continue reading.

Thanksgiving Overflow?

November 26, 2020

By Pastor John Partridge

Deuteronomy 8:7-18 Luke 17:11-19 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

In the middle of a global pandemic, we are taking a day out of our schedule to give thanks. For many of us, our traditional celebrations have been dramatically changed, reduced, or even cancelled, and yet still we pause to give thanks. And that’s a good thing. Despite all the weirdness, difficulty, hardship, and yes, even death, when we pause long enough to reflect, we remember that we are, indeed, blessed. That busyness causes us to forget our blessings is not new. Almost as soon as the people of Israel had escaped their 400 years of slavery they already knew that once a better life came, that they would begin to forget just how blessed they were to have a better life. In Deuteronomy 8:7-18 we hear these words:

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; ⁸a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; ⁹a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

¹⁰When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. ¹¹Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, and his decrees that I am giving you this day. ¹²Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, ¹³and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹⁵He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. ¹⁶He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. ¹⁷You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” ¹⁸But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

God tells the people that once they had arrived in the Promised Land, and once their lives were better, they needed to occasionally pause from their busyness and remember that it was God who had given them that life. Despite their sweat and hard work, they would not have been where they were had it not been for God. Yes, they busted their guts, and yes they invested their sweat and their hard work, but if it had not been for God, they would have been doing all those things for the benefit of Egypt’s Pharaoh, and not for themselves.

They were indeed blessed.

And God simply asked them to occasionally pause and remember that it was God who gave them the ability to do the things that they did and to have the things that they had. But Jesus tells us that thanksgiving is more than something that we put on the calendar to do one day each year. In Luke 17:11-19, we hear a story that should resonate with us during a pandemic, as Jesus meets ten men who were afflicted with an incurable disease.

¹¹Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

God has given us gifts. God has granted us health, and healthcare workers who struggle to make us well when we fall ill. But how often do we say thank you to those to whom we are indebted? Do we return to God and give thanks? Do we appreciate, and give thanks to our healthcare team? Do we bother to simply say “thank you” to the people around us who work to make our lives better, and easier?

It isn’t a question of setting aside a day to give thanks.

But do we live lives of thankfulness?

And, as you consider that, let us also remember Paul’s words in his letter to the church in Corinth that we find in 2 Corinthians 9:6-15.

⁶Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹As it is written:

“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever.”

¹⁰Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

¹²This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. ¹⁴And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. ¹⁵Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Paul reminds us that if we are to truly live lives of thankfulness, then we must also live lives of generosity. Our generosity is not a fee that we pay for God’s continued blessing and it is not a tax on the blessings that we have already received. Instead, our generosity should come from a heart that overflows with gratitude.

Generosity is a visible sign of genuine… thanksgiving.

And so, as we take time out to give thanks for the gifts that we have been given, as we give thanks for our homes, our lives, our health, our families, and everything else, let us remember to let out thanksgiving overflow into the lives of the people around us. Say “Thank you” to the people who make your life easier, say thank you to God for his indescribable gifts, and let us not insulate, segregate, and isolate our thanksgiving in one single day. Let us instead live lives of thanksgiving and allow that thanksgiving to overflow as gratitude and generosity.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Did you enjoy reading this?

Click here to subscribe to Pastor John’s blog.

Click here if you would like to subscribe to Pastor John’s weekly messages.

Click here to visit Pastor John’s YouTube channel.

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

Who Owns Your Success?

November 19, 2017November 19, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon generosity, gifts, giving, thanks

“Who Owns Your Success?”

November 19, 2017

By John Partridge*

Deuteronomy 8:7-18 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Luke 17:11-19

Have you ever owned your own home?

The process for applying for a mortgage is intimidating but the feeling of home ownership is a pretty good one. But unless you’ve owned your home for a long time, and made a lot of payments to the bank, we are reminded, at least once a month when our payment is due, that the real owner of our home is the bank.

When we have been employees, no matter how much we love our jobs and take pride in our work, and care for the facilities as if they were our very own, we are constantly reminded that they belong to someone else.

If you buy a new car, you have to have insurance, but if you wreck the car, the majority of the insurance money will go to the bank that owns most of the car.

In an episode of The Big Bang Theory (Application Deterioration), several of the characters, Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard, come up with an idea that is patentable and could make them millions of dollars. But when they go to their employer’s legal office to ask about pursuing a patent, they get that same sort of stunning reminder. The patent attorney declares that they

“Just need you to review and sign this document acknowledging that you understand the university will own 75% of the patent.

Howard: 75%?

Sheldon: That’s outrageous. This is our idea based on our research. How can you possibly justify owning a majority share?

Patent Attorney: It’s university policy.

Leonard: Hold on, hold on. So the three of us do all the work and only end up with 25%?

Patent Attorney: Dr. Hofstadter, this university has been paying your salaries for over ten years. Did you think we do that out of the goodness of our hearts?

Leonard: Well, until you just said that mean thing, kinda.

Three of the four men are reminded that because their research and knowledge grow out of work that their employer has already paid for, 75 percent of any profits belong to the employer. Even worse, since Howard is already an employee of the Federal government, he isn’t entitled to anything at all.

All of these types of stories remind us that we often fool ourselves into believing that we own things that rightly belong to someone else. We are also prone to take too much credit for work that we did as a group, or pass along too much blame to others for mistakes that we made for ourselves. And in Deuteronomy 8:7-18, Joshua reminds the people of Israel that they must be careful not to take credit for the work that was done by someone else.

¹⁰When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. ¹¹Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. ¹²Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, ¹³and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹⁵He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. ¹⁶He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. ¹⁷You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” ¹⁸But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

Joshua emphasizes that God has already given them much, and is about to give them even more. Their blessings will be wonderful and the land will be abundantly good to them in many ways. But they must be careful to remember that God has given all these things to them as a gift. Joshua warns that it is all too easy to forget the giver and allow our pride to fool ourselves into believing that we did it, that “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But that, Joshua says, is a lie because it is God who gives us the ability to produce, wealth. Ultimately, it is God who has given us everything that we have, and it is God to whom we should be grateful.

In 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, the Apostle Paul goes a step further. He reminds the people of God that not only should we be grateful for what we have been given, our thankfulness should be demonstrated through our generosity.

“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever.”

Paul has several points that are neatly sewn together. First, if our mission is to grow the church, then we must be generous in what we plant. When we garden, we plant seed in proportion to the harvest that we expect in the fall, and our ministry is no different. If our goal is to bring many people to faith in Jesus Christ, then we must plant seeds toward that end with the same generous abundance as the harvest for which we pray. But, at the same time, our trust must remain in God as we remember that the God who provides seeds to plant and bread to eat, is the same God who will lead us toward bountiful harvests of both rescued souls and personal righteousness. We cannot be stingy with the things that God has given to us, we must use them for our mission and ministry, and we must share what we have been given with those in need.

And of course, as we consider our success and the gifts that we have been given, we would be foolish to skip over the words of Jesus found in Luke 17:11-19, where we hear this:

¹⁴When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

Ten men begged for pity, for compassion, for help, and for healing. They begged that the lives that had been stolen from them by their incurable disease might be given back to them. And Jesus cures them all of an incurable disease. And yet, of the ten, only one, and he a foreigner who would have commonly been hated and mocked, only this one man returns to Jesus to gives thanks for the invaluable gift that he had been given.

These words of Jesus remind us all that our lives are a gift. As we celebrate our nation’s Thanksgiving holiday, let us never forget that our success doesn’t belong to us. Our lives do not belong to us. Our possessions do not belong to us. All that we have has been given to us as a gift from God.

Let us give thanks to God, and may we always be generous with what we have been given so that our harvest, both for the Kingdom of God, and for our own righteousness, might be equally generous.

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

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

_______________

^* 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.

Called Over the Top

February 22, 2017April 20, 2017 PastorPartridge Blogs church, faith, generosity, love, money, peace, violence

crazy

Be Outrageous. Be stupid.

Jesus said so.

Your friends are supposed to think that you’re crazy.

Seriously.

If you were here, I mentioned this on Sunday, but it’s worth saying again. In Matthew (5:38-48) Jesus makes a series of statements that often begin with “You have heard it said, but…” in which he tells his listeners that the conventional wisdom, the ordinary assumptions of daily life, were just plain wrong. Everyone assumed that the best defense against violence was to fight back, taking an eye for an eye, but Jesus says that the only way to reduce violence is to refuse to participate in it, to “turn the other cheek.”

Most of us have heard that before, but that was just the beginning. He also says that” if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” This is extraordinary. In our litigious, twenty-first century society most of us make two errors in reading this. First, we incorrectly assume that Jesus means for us to give a shirt to someone who won a lawsuit, but that isn’t it at all. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to sue you…” so his instruction is to do an end run around the legal system, call it a loss, and just give it to them. Our second mistake comes from our relative wealth and our expectation of the same on the Biblical story. But Jesus was talking to people who lived in an entirely different world, most of them probably only owned one coat. And so, Jesus’ instruction to “hand over your coat” is not only one of generosity, but one that is over-the-top, crazy, and disturbingly generous. This is generosity that expensive and costly, and not just giving that is comfortable and comes from our excess.

Jesus continues, saying “If anyone forces you to walk one mile, go with them two.” And, while this seems relatively straightforward, most of us still don’t understand the root of his comment. As I understand the history of it, under Roman occupation, one of the standing rules that the occupied nation lived under, was that if any Roman soldier asked, any citizen had to accompany them for one mile and carry their pack, or whatever else they demanded you to carry. So remembering that most people really resented the presence of the Roman soldiers in the first place, Jesus is saying that you need treat your enemies and the people you despise, and here it is again, with… disturbing generosity.

Why should we do all this?

Jesus answered that by saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” We are called to behave in these strange, unfamiliar, and unpopular ways because these are the things that God does. This is how God behaves. And if we have any desire to be associated with him, to be called “children of God” then we probably ought to act like God does.

But going this far still wasn’t enough. Jesus pounds the point several more times to make sure that we really begin to understand just how crazy we’re supposed to be. Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” That’s pretty plain, but if you need a modern translation, here it is.

It doesn’t impress anyone that your love is “just as good” as the tax collectors, or that you are “just as loving” as everyone else. Being “just like everyone else” means that you are no different than everyone else and that your faith is no better than their lack of faith. The followers of Jesus Christ have been called to be different; we are called to a higher standard. Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

So get out there. Go out into your neighborhoods, and your places of business. Be willing to take a loss. Go out into the world and be extravagantly, disturbingly, generous even when it is costly to you. Be so generous that people think you’re crazy. Be nice. But be so nice that everyone thinks that you must be crazy… or stupid… or both. Be friendly and outgoing. Be loving. But your friendliness and your love should be so over the top that it gets people talking about you.

Be outrageous.

Be stupid.

Your friends are supposed to think that you’re crazy.

Remember our goal isn’t to blend in; our goal is to stand out.

Our goal isn’t to be “just like everyone else,” our goal… is to be perfect.

_________
Did you benefit from reading this? Please share it.

Click here to subscribe to this blog.

Click here if you would like to subscribe to Pastor John’s Sunday sermons.

_______________

Pastor Partridge

Sermons, blogs and other things from Pastor John Partridge

generosity

Christian Extra-Terrestrials?