When Legal is Wrong

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

“When Legal is Wrong”

August 27, 2017

By John Partridge*

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

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

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

Did you hear that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are You All In?

June 25, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon faith, God, heart, peace, transformation, violence

“Are You All In?”

June 25, 2017

By John Partridge*

Genesis 21:8-21 Matthew 10:24-39 Romans 6:1-11

Do you have a favorite NASCAR driver, football, baseball, or soccer player, or any other favorite sports figure? How committed are you to watching your favorite team?

Teams want you to support them financially, to buy tickets, and jerseys, and memorabilia, and they want you to cheer for them. The Cleveland Indians have favored the phrase, “Go big, or go home.” A few seasons back, their players were seen wearing shirts that predicted 100 wins. But during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ run for the national championship last year, the question that fans were asked was…

…“Are you all in?”

LeBron James and the rest of the Cavaliers wanted to know if your support for the team was wholehearted and hot-blooded, and not just lukewarm. And that’s a good way of thinking about the theme of today’s message and the thread that winds its way through our scripture lessons. We begin today in Genesis 21:8-21, where we find a jealous Sarah who is so enraged by the presence of her husband’s mistress and their semi-illegitimate child, as well as the fighting and sibling rivalry between their children, that she simply wants them gone from her life.

⁸The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. ⁹But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, ¹⁰and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

¹¹The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.¹²But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. ¹³I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

¹⁴Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.

¹⁵When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. ¹⁶Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.

¹⁷God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. ¹⁸Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

¹⁹Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. ²¹While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

If you aren’t familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah, here’s a quick summary: Despite God’s promise that their ancestors would become a great nation as numberless as the stars in the sky, Sarah was childless. And so, at some point, Abraham decided to help God out, and took Hagar, one of his slaves, as a mistress in order to father a child. This was an accepted practice at that time in order to preserve wealth and the family line. But then, as we discussed last week, long after Sarah was past the age of childbearing, God gave her a son of her own, Isaac. But now, as if looking at her husband’s mistress every day, as well as the child that they had together, wasn’t enough, Hagar’s son was mocking Isaac. And all of Sarah’s frustration, and rage, fear, and hope for the future exploded. She wanted them gone. And so Abraham packs Hagar a lunch and sends her out into the desert.

The core of this story is two-fold. First of all… people stink.

As good, and as godly as we are told that Abraham and Sara must be, they both stink. What they did is understandable, but still pretty horrible. Even though we look up to Abraham and revere him as the founder of our faith, sending his own son, along with his mother, out into the desert to die is an inexcusably horrible thing to do. But the second part of this story is that as bad as human beings stink, God doesn’t. God cares. Despite the fact that the blessing of God is on Isaac and it is through Isaac that God intends to bless the world, God still cares about Hagar and Ishmael. God finds them in the desert, saves their lives, gives them water to drink, leads them out of the wilderness, blesses them both, and promises that Ishmael will also be the father of a great nation.

And again, if you are unfamiliar with this story, Isaac becomes the patriarch of the nation of Israel and the people known as the Jews; while Ishmael becomes the patriarch of the people we now refer to as the Arab nations. Curiously, all of these peoples are referred to collectively, as the Semitic people.

So to summarize, people stink, God cares.

But God’s plan is to change that. God’s intent is to transform humanity into something better. And the coming of Jesus Christ is a huge part of that plan. Jesus came to earth to rescue humanity from its wickedness and sin so that we could become something better. In Romans 6:1-11, Paul puts it this way…

^6:1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ²By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

At the very beginning of this passage, Paul wants to eliminate the notion that Jesus’ sacrifice and the infinite grace of God might be used as an excuse to continue in our sin. In no way, shape, or form should we excuse our error and try to justify it by claiming that we are already forgiven for it. Instead, we must realize that our sinfulness was the cause of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, and it is our sinful nature, our “old self,” that was crucified with him. For that reason, Paul explains, that our “old self” is already dead and, as a result, we should do everything in our power to stop sinning, to break the bonds that sin and death have over us, and act like people who have been set free from sin.

Jesus didn’t die to give us an excuse to keep doing the same wrong stuff we’ve been doing all along, Jesus died so that our lives could be transformed into something better.

In Matthew 10:24-39, we hear Jesus echo that same sentiment.

²⁴“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!

²⁶“So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. ³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

³²“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

³⁴“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
³⁶ a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.^]

³⁷“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Do not be afraid.

God cares.

You are worth more than many sparrows; you are of incredible value to God.

The followers of Jesus Christ will turn against their families and against their parents, not because they are violent or because Jesus encourages them to be violent, but because Jesus intends to completely transform their lives into something new, different, and far better than we have ever been before. When we choose to follow Jesus, we want what he wants, we follow where he leads, we go where he goes, and we do what he calls us to do. And in doing these things, we will leave behind the people that won’t go with us. Families, friends, and others will turn against us because we have chosen to follow Jesus and because we are becoming something new and different than the people we once were. As we lose our old lives, we are transformed and we discover a new life that is lived through Jesus Christ.

Jesus calls for us to devote ourselves to him wholeheartedly and to walk away from a lukewarm faith. In the end, Jesus asks us a familiar question…

…Are you all in?

_________
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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.

Do the Impossible

June 18, 2017June 25, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon faith, God, Gospel, power, spirit

“Do the Impossible”

June 18, 2017

By John Partridge*

Genesis 18:1-15 Matthew 9:35 – 10:8 Romans 5:1-8

Have you ever been asked to do the impossible?

On this Father’s Day, I suppose it’s fair to ask all of you fathers, just how intimidated you were that first time someone put a tiny baby in your arms and you realized that you were responsible for their life. Did that seem to be a nearly impossible task at times?

One of the challenges facing our president and the Congress of the United States is to find a way to control spending, increase income, or in some other way, or combination of ways, to balance the budget and reduce not only our annual deficit, but to begin to repay the tens of trillions of dollars of our debt before our nation defaults on its obligations. While some politicians might argue about the necessity of repaying our debts, most politicians, from both major parties, would likely argue that doing what I just described, as an impossible task. Some mathematicians have already argued that it may soon be mathematically impossible to get out of the hole that we are digging for ourselves.

While this is obviously worrisome, many of us understand what it means to be told that something is impossible. Most of us, at one time or another have been asked to do things that were close to, if not totally impossible. We were frustrated when our bosses asked us to do too much with too little or asked us to convince a client of something we knew they wouldn’t like. But many of us also know of couples who have been told that they could not have children, and then did. We know of people who were told that loved ones would not survive, and then did. But no matter how it happened, we are all well acquainted with what it means to face an impossible task and this is the theme that we find woven throughout today’s message. We begin with the story of Abraham and Sarah found in Genesis 18:1-15.

^18:1 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. ²Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

³He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. ⁴Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. ⁵Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”

“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”

⁶So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”

⁷Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. ⁸He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.

⁹“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent,” he said.

¹⁰Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. ¹¹Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. ¹²So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

¹³Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ ¹⁴Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

¹⁵Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

Sarah is not afraid of the difficult. When three visitors come to their encampment, Abraham sends her to get three seahs of flour and bake bread and, chances are, that when we read this we are unimpressed. But we should be. If we take the time to read the marginal notes in our bibles, we discover that three seahs of flour amounts to about 36 pounds and so would make at least a similar amount of bread and perhaps even considerably more after accounting for all the other ingredients. Imagine not only making thirty six, but perhaps even fifty, loaves of bread, but mixing and kneading them, by hand, and then baking them over an open fire. While we know that Sarah had servants and almost certainly didn’t do this alone, this was a huge job and probably took the better part of the day to accomplish. Sarah was not intimidated by hard work or by a difficult task. But when she hears the Angel of God say that she will bear a child, when she is already well past the age when women have children, Sarah recognizes the impossible when she hears it. By some accounts Sarah was already almost one hundred years old, the very idea of her getting pregnant and having a baby at that age was so completely preposterous that when she heard it, she laughed at the idea. And even though she had not laughed out loud, and even though she had kept her thoughts to herself, God knew her thoughts.

And God’s question for Sarah was simple.

“Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

Clearly, this is a rhetorical question. Whenever anyone asks a question such as “Is anything impossible for God?” obviously we are intended to understand that the answer is “No.”

The God of creation, the God who spoke the universe into existence, is a god who does the impossible.

But what does that have to do with us?

What difference does it make, in my life, or in the life of the church, that we worship a god that does the impossible?

And in order to answer that question, let us first turn to the words of Romans 5:1-8, Paul says this:

^5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

For our purposes today there are two things that I want to point out. First, we have peace with God, through our faith in Jesus Christ, and second, that the Spirit of God has been given to us, and through him God’s love has been poured into our hearts. I also want to take a moment to consider what Paul says in verse six as he says, “When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Think about that. What does he mean by saying “when we were still powerless?” From the context of what Paul has written we can understand that we, the ungodly, were powerless at the time when Jesus gave his life to atone for our sin. But by saying so, Paul is also communicating that we are no longer powerless, and if we are no longer powerless, then we might wonder what power we now have that we did not have before. And the answer is one that Paul has already given to us when he said, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

We are no longer powerless, because the Spirit of God has been given to us and the love of God has been poured out into our hearts.

We are not powerless because God lives within us.

And with that in mind we come to Matthew 9:35 – 10:8, where we find Jesus sending his disciples out to continue the work that he had been doing.

^9:35Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

^10:1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

⁵These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ⁶Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Jesus gives his disciples the authority to drive out impure spirits, to heal disease, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, to rescue the lost sheep of Israel, and to proclaim the coming of the messiah.

All of these things are difficult.

Some would say that many of these things are impossible.

But the followers of Jesus Christ have been given the power of the Spirit of God that lives within us and we have been given the authority of Jesus Christ to do the work that he has given us to do.

Not only do we worship the God of the impossible, not only is our God the god who does the impossible, but that same God has equipped us and called us to do the impossible through the power of the Spirit of God that lives within us, and through the authority of Jesus Christ that has been given to us.

Jesus said, “proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

Go.

Go, and be good fathers to your children and to the children that you know that don’t have a father of their own.

Go and heal the sick, raise the dead, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the widows and the orphans, preach the Good News

Go, and do the Jesus thing in the Jesus way.

Go.

Do the impossible.

_________
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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.

Restoring the Planet… and Ourselves

June 11, 2017June 11, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon environment, faith, God, politics, restoration, spirit

“Restoring the Planet… and Ourselves”

June 11, 2017

By John Partridge*

Genesis 1:1 – 2:4 Matthew 28:16-20 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

On June first of this year (2017), President Donald Trump announced that the United States would cease to participate in the Paris climate agreement that had been signed by President Obama. Our news media has been full of stories on both sides of the issue. Naturally, Europe and leaders from around the world were opposed to him doing such a thing, but it also seems that the primary role of the United States under the Paris Agreement was to pay for other countries to comply. There have also been questions about whether the Paris Agreement was ever legally binding because it had twice failed to be ratified by the United States Senate as required by our Constitution.

I have to admit to some mixed feeling about what has been done for a variety of reasons and I find both good and bad points in the arguments of both sides. Regardless of your position or personal feelings about the Paris Agreement, or about climate change, or environmentalism, or any number of other hot button environmental issues, there are elements of scripture that require us to take a second look at the interests of environmentalism, but which also call us to look deeply into the mirror and consider who we are and what we have done with what we have been given.

Let’s begin at the beginning, at the creation of the world and all that exists. Let’s begin by reading the story of creation from Genesis 1:1 – 2:4.

^1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ²Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.⁵God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

⁶And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” ⁷So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

⁹And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

¹¹Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ¹²The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

²⁰And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ²¹So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.²²God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”²³And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

²⁸God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

²⁹Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

³¹God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

^2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

²By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

⁴This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

First, since this is Trinity Sunday, I want to point out that it was the Spirit of God that hovered over what had not yet been created, but I also want to point out that God’s command to humanity was not to fill the earth and destroy it, but to fill the earth and subdue it. When we subdue and animal, or even an enemy, the word subdue allows us to understand that what is subdued is not damaged, but repurposed or redirected. Wild horses are subdued so that they can be transformed into a creature that works side by side with humans to do things together that neither could ever do alone. Other animals are subdued so that they can be relocated away from populated areas. But in most cases, the act of subduing is done in a deliberate way so that the animal is not harmed. When God blesses humanity with the world that he has created, we are established as custodians and caretakers and not installed as overlords who are bent on domination and destruction.

But we know from the story of Adam and Eve, that our custodial care of the world quickly went disastrously wrong. Because of their sin, human beings were suddenly thrust from a garden in which their care was custodial, into a harsh world where every moment of their existence was focused on survival. What God saw at the end of the sixth day was “very good” but today, maybe not so much. After the sin of Adam and Eve and their ejection from the Garden of Eden, both humanity and the planet on which they lived began a serious decline. For thousands of years, not only did humanity struggle for survival, but we also struggled to rediscover the wonder of those early days in the garden, humanity has struggled to rediscover the kind of relationship and the closeness that Adam and Eve had with God but we were eternally separated from God by our sinfulness.

Until the arrival of Jesus.

The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was the one thing that could repair our relationship with God and return us to the kind of closeness that humanity once had with God. That return, rescue, and restoration, was such amazing news that Jesus’ final words to his disciples were about what they needed to with what they had learned. In Matthew 28:16-20, we hear these words:

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus’ instruction is to go into the world and make disciples in every nation and to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we’ve discussed before, the word, “Trinity” doesn’t appear in scripture, and isn’t invented by the church for almost a hundred years, but Jesus obviously understood the concept that God existed as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, regardless of what term you choose to describe it. But Jesus also cautions his disciples not to teach half-heartedly or with some kind of bias, but to teach everything that Jesus had taught them. And finally, as Jesus left, he reminded them that while he might be leaving the world physically, he would be with them always even until the end of the world. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Jesus’ words were intended for us just as they were for the first disciples. Since humans only live for a few dozen years and then pass their mission on to the next generation, Jesus’ promise to remain with the disciples is clearly a message that Jesus remains with us still today.

But there is one more thing I want to point out. Beyond Jesus’ command to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, there remains one more statement of purpose from the Apostle Paul that helps us to understand why we do the things we do. Besides simply obeying Jesus, or besides sharing because the story of Jesus, and the opportunity to repair our relationship with God, is best news ever (as that isn’t enough), Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 13:11-13,

¹¹Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

¹²Greet one another with a holy kiss. ¹³All God’s people here send their greetings.

Paul says that we should celebrate because the story contained in the gospels truly is Good News but he also tells us that our goal should be full restoration. Not only should we accept Jesus as our rescuer, but we should also work toward restoring who we are to the perfection that God intended. Far too often, we are less than we could be, and less than God intended for us to be, because of our struggle with sin, and so, although we have already been forgiven, we must constantly be at work trying to move ourselves closer to God and closer to becoming the people that God created us to be. Most of us know that we can do better. It isn’t difficult to imagine a version of us that is better than the one that we see in the mirror. Our mission is to try to move toward that goal. But I also think that because God gave us intelligence, power, and authority over the planet, we are still the custodians and caretakers of the earth. We must work toward restoring the earth, as much as humanly possible, to the perfection that it once was, and maintain it, in good condition, for future generations.

Perfect people would have no use for a ruined planet, and as we’ve already seen, a perfect planet could not last long if it’s filled with ruined people.

We need to restore our planet, and ourselves, at the same time.

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

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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.

Can You See?

March 26, 2017March 26, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon David, evil, expert, faith, God, good, justice, sight, understanding, vision

“Can You See?”

March 26, 2017

By John Partridge*

1 Samuel 16:1-13 John 9:1-41 Ephesians 5:8-14

What is it that you are good at?

Each of us is good at something.

With the possible exception of the very young, most people have invested enough time and effort into one or more subjects to have become reasonably good at them, and knowledgeable about them. It might not be rocket science, but just about everyone knows a lot about something. It might be engineering, or law, or medicine, but it might also be homeschooling, or auto repair, antique tractors, hair, jewelry, video games, coin collecting, home repair, or negotiating the convoluted steps of government grant writing. Whatever it is that you are good at, we all recognize that there is a difference between knowing a little, knowing a lot, and being an expert. We all know a little about filing our taxes, but if we’re smart, we know when it’s time to get our questions answered by an expert. Many of us can do basic home repairs, but we still keep the phone number of a good plumber handy.

With that in mind, think about those times when, you, as a person who knows a little, or even a lot, about one particular subject, have had a conversation with someone who was truly an expert. Wow. Sometimes these experts give speeches, and we go to large arenas and concert halls just to hear them talk about the things we are interested in. I follow Buzz Aldrin on Twitter and I read the blog written by Ben Witherington III. Why? Because Buzz Aldrin has forgotten more about space, astronauts, and astrophysics than I can ever hope to know, and Ben Witherington has forgotten more about the New Testament scholarship and proper Greek translation than I am likely to ever learn. When experts look at a problem, they see things that non-experts might not ever notice. The efforts of people like me and other fans or novices are not likely to impress the experts. What will impress the experts are not the things that might impress the rest of us and as a result, we sometimes notice that experts will make surprising choices because they can see and anticipate things that we cannot.

Not surprisingly, we see the same thing in scripture and we also see that when compared to God, even the experts are put to shame.

We begin this morning in 1 Samuel 16:1-13, where we hear the story of when God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint David as the king of Israel in place of King Saul.

^16:1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”

²But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.”

The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ ³Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”

⁴Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”

⁵Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

⁶When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.”

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

⁸Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.” ⁹Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the Lord chosen this one.”¹⁰Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.” ¹¹So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.”

Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.”

¹²So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features.

Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”

¹³So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah.

Throughout this story, everyone thinks and reacts only within the limits of what they know and of course, this is only natural. We can only use the tools that we have. We can’t use knowledge that we don’t have. And so what we see is town elders who are afraid of God’s prophet because in the past they have witnessed him only as the bearer of bad news. We have Jesse, the father of many sons, and the resident expert on what his children are capable of doing, who fails to call the youngest because someone has to watch the sheep, and who would imagine that the youngest would be of any value for anything that the prophet of God would want? And finally, we have Samuel, the prophet of God, who is indisputably the expert on God, but who is utterly wrong about what God is looking for in a new king.

The town elders were wrong about why Samuel had come because they thought of him only as a messenger of doom. Jesse was wrong because he assumed that David was too small and too young to be of any value. And Samuel was wrong because he was only capable of looking at the superficial realities of how men appeared on the outside. They were wrong because none of their expertise and knowledge came close to the expertise and knowledge of God. Because God knows everything that is know-able, his expertise rises to levels that exceed even our imagination. And because God’s expertise and knowledge so far exceeds our own, God sees differently than humans do. What impresses God is not what impresses human beings, and God’s choices are often not what we would expect.

And that brings us to this week’s gospel lesson from John 9:1-41. This is, as we noted last week, another story that is longer than usual, because it is one of the great stories of scripture. It is the story of Jesus healing a man that had been born blind and it is a story that deserves to be read as a whole and not broken up and studied in pieces.

^9:1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ⁷“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

⁸His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹Some claimed that he was.

Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”

But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”

¹⁰“How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.

¹¹He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”

¹²“Where is this man?” they asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said.

¹³They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. ¹⁴Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. ¹⁵Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”

¹⁶Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.

¹⁷Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”

The man replied, “He is a prophet.”

¹⁸They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. ¹⁹“Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”

²⁰“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. ²¹But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” ²²His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. ²³That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

²⁴A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”

²⁵He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

²⁶Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

²⁷He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

²⁸Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! ²⁹We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

³⁰The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. ³¹We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. ³²Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. ³³If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

³⁴To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

³⁵Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

³⁶“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

³⁷Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

³⁸Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

³⁹Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

⁴⁰Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

⁴¹Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

The Pharisees, despite being experts in the Jewish scriptures and writings, were baffled by the healing of the blind man. Their understanding led them to believe, just as the disciples had, that the man’s blindness, because blindness was bad, must have been a punishment from God. And, at the same time, they had never seen, nor heard, of anyone being healed after being born blind.

But God’s understanding goes far beyond that of the religious experts, and Jesus explains that this blindness had not been caused by the sin of the man, nor of his parents, but that sometimes God allows bad things to happen “so that the works of God might be displayed.” What Jesus is saying is hard for us to grasp. But in this passage he tells us that sometimes God allows bad things to happen because, somehow, in ways that we cannot understand or comprehend, these things pave the way for something better to happen later. Somehow, accidents, and even evil, are allowed by God because they fit into, and are a part of, the larger tapestry of God’s plan for the universe. Now I’m not going to even try to tell you that this is much comfort when children die or when the innocent suffer. It is impossible for us to even imagine what good could possibly be accomplished by such things. But somehow, even in our suffering, even in our hurt, even in our disbelief, we must trust that God knows and understands more than we are capable of understanding and far more than we are even able to imagine. Because God is all knowing, but also because God is loving, kind, and just, we must find a way to trust that these things are, somehow, a critical part of the plan of God because anything less would require us to believe that God is capricious and cruel instead of thoughtful and good.

But all of that brings us to the “So what?” part of the message. What difference does knowing these things make to me? And for that we arrive at Ephesians 5:8-14 where we hear these words:

⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord. ¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹²It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. ¹³But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. ¹⁴This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Paul says that because we believe, we have stepped out of darkness and into the light of God and as such we must live and act as if we are. We must be agents of light, goodness, righteousness and truth. Since God is the expert in everything, we must study the word of God to discover what things are pleasing to him and which of those things we can do. Paul says that we must not only avoid darkness and evil but we must work to make the world better, and we must fight against immorality and evil. We must not pass through the world as if we are asleep at the wheel. We must wake up, rise from the dead, and do those things that God has commanded because he is the expert, and our job… is to change the world.

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

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

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

Proof

March 22, 2017March 22, 2017 PastorPartridge Blogs death, God, life, miracle, witness

Miracle

Sometimes we are witnesses to proof of God’s existence.

On Sunday (March 19^th) I mentioned in both my message, and children’s message, that sometimes, when we pay attention, God provides evidence of his existence through answered prayers and miracles both large and small. We are witnesses to many “everyday” miracles like the birth of a baby, sunrises, sunsets, and spring flowers but we also see and experience other things that are scarier, bigger, and sometimes simply impossible. Our family all remembers the near miss that we had on interstate I-70 when a tractor trailer tire bounced across the median, missed our car by only a few feet, struck the cab of the tractor trailer we were passing and absolutely destroyed the left front wheel well like an explosion. Only the sharp eye of our son Noah and the grace of God brought us home that day instead of to a helicopter trip to a hospital in Columbus.

As I said on Sunday, just in the ten or twelve years that I have been a pastor, I have met several people who ought to be dead, people of whom the doctors said, “We can’t explain why you are alive.”

In our Johnsville church, our lay leader was a dairy farmer by named Jim McWilliams. One Sunday morning we interrupted our worship service to lay hands on Jim and pray for his brother. That week, Jim’s brother was as work and was asked to use a cutting torch to cut the stuck lid off of a 55 gallon steel drum. The labels on the drum and its documentation assured everyone that the contents of the drum were inert.

They weren’t.

Somehow, the documentation was all wrong and the contents of the drum, in reality, were highly volatile. When Jim’s brother began to cut the lid off of the drum, it exploded and he was rushed to the hospital. During the investigation they eventually found the lid of the drum. It had been thrown by the explosion, went through the roof of the building and was found about a half-mile away. The next week we heard that Jim’s brother, despite standing within inches of the explosion, received only bumps, bruises and minor burns to his face and hands. When the doctors heard what had happened, both they, and the explosion investigators from OSHA said that they couldn’t understand why he wasn’t dead.

Many of you can tell the same kinds of stories and since that sermon, some of you have shared your stories with me.

This is an invitation.

I would like to share your stories. I can help you write them and edit them if necessary. After they are written and edited, I will post them on my blog so that others can be blessed, uplifted, and have their faith reaffirmed through our collective, eyewitness testimony.

Please, even if you don’t think that you are a good writer, put your story on paper (or email) and share it with me.

And together, we’ll share it with the world.

The Surrender of Self

March 1, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon gifts, God, heart, Lent, money, offering, thanks

“The Surrender of Self”

March 01, 2017

(Ash Wednesday)

By John Partridge*

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Matthew 5:21-37 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

It happens every Sunday morning in practically every church in the United States, Canada, North America, Africa, Asia, and everywhere. It isn’t peculiar to the United Methodist Church but happens in Baptist Churches, and Presbyterian churches, Catholic churches, independent churches and every other denominational and non-denominational church you can find. In fact, it happens in Christian churches, Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues, and Buddhist temples. This thing that happens is the offering. At some point before, during, or after their services of worship, there will be an opportunity for the worshipers and visitors to make some contribution toward the religion, for the poor, or at least toward the upkeep of the building. Despite the fact that there are sometimes enormous differences between us, one of the things that make us all the same is that no matter where you are, or who you worship, it costs money to maintain the property and keep the lights on. And so, everywhere we go, even sometimes for secular events, we are asked to sacrifice a little of our hard earned cash. It’s so ordinary that we most often don’t give it a second thought if the American Legion needs to run a raffle, or the band boosters sell candy bars.

But suddenly we arrive at the season of Lent, and something changes.

Because although we will probably still be collecting offerings on Sunday mornings during Lent, an entirely different sort of giving and surrendering becomes the central focus as we spend time preparing our hearts for the resurrection of Jesus. That change in focus is found today in Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 where we hear these words:

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

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

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

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

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

Through Joel, God warns his people that the day of judgement will be a day of darkness and despair. But on the day of judgement, no one is going to be looking at your tax statements or your church giving receipts, and no one is really going to care very much how much you put in the offering plate. God said, “Rend your heart and not your garments.” In reading this, we understand that tearing one’s shirt, or robe, or other garment was a sign of mourning, repentance, and humility, but God declares that even these outward signs are not enough. Instead, what God really wants, is a broken heart. God doesn’t want us to show the world how much we’re sorry. God doesn’t want us to make grand gestures to show him how sorry we are. What God really wants, is for us to be genuinely sorry. What God wants, is for us to be so sorry that our hearts are broken so badly that we become changed people who live life differently. So important is this that God wants us to declare a fast, call a sacred assembly, gather the people, and call together all of God’s people in ways that symbolize a meeting of the utmost importance, even bridegrooms and priests serving in the temple will not be excused. Everyone is needed, because this change of heart is of utmost importance for the continued existence of God’s people and our inheritance from God.

Paul emphasizes this same level of importance in 2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10 where he says:

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

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

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

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

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

Paul encourages us to be reconciled with God, to be forgiven through the power of Jesus Christ and to become co-workers with God, working toward the same goals and objectives as God himself. More than that, Paul says that as servants of God we surrender ourselves, through trouble, hardship, distress, beatings, hard work, sleepless nights, hunger, purity, understanding, patience, through dishonor, bad reports, and in many other ways. Few of the things on Paul’s list are situations that we would ordinarily, on our own, seek out, but he encourages us to set aside our own desires, to surrender ourselves, in order to pursue the goals and objectives of the Kingdom of God.

And finally, in Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21, we hear Jesus as he challenges his followers to do good, not just for the sake of doing good, but to do good for the right reasons.

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

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

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

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

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

Much of what Jesus has to say in this passage is an encouragement to have our hearts in the right place, to do good, not for the sake of doing good, and certainly not to do good because it is of benefit to us, but simply to do good for the sake of the Kingdom of God. This is sometimes a little weird, but we are not called to be righteous so that we can go to heaven, we are called to be righteous in order to for God to be glorified. Our motives are everything because the condition of our hearts is everything. Our motives for everything that we do should be God’s motives. We are called to work, to volunteer, to donate money, to live lives of purity and righteousness, even suffer and sometimes die, not because we have any expectation that our lives will be wonderful, or even that there will be some earthly benefit to us. We simply do these things because our goals have come in line with God’s goals, our desires are becoming the same as God’s desires, and so we live our lives in ways that are of benefit to the Kingdom of God and not in ways that are necessarily of any benefit to us.

This is the call of the season of Lent, to “Rend your heart and not your garments,” to remember that the gift, the offering, that God truly desires, is not money, or time, or sacrifice, although it might look like any of those. The gift that God truly desires is for us to surrender ourselves, to surrender our desires, and to replace them with the goals and desires of God.

These are the things that we must think upon as we prepare our hearts for Easter.

This is what it means to surrender self.

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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.

The Reason for Rules

February 21, 2017February 21, 2017 PastorPartridge Sermon church, God, politics, rules, truth, understanding

“The Reason for Rules”

February 19, 2017

By John Partridge*

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 Matthew 5:38-48 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23

Have you ever thought that there are just too many rules to remember?

We have rules about etiquette, culture, language, law, and religion. There are rules and laws that govern the maintenance of our automobiles, how we drive, where we drive, what we drive, and who can ride in the car with us. We have rules about what kind of gas we can buy, where we can buy it, and how they are allowed to sell it. We have rules about who is allowed to drive, when they can drive, and what skills they have to have to get permission to drive. We have rules about how the cars that we drive are made, what they look like, what safety features are required, which are allowed but not required, and even which safety features are not allowed. We have rules about who is allowed to sell cars, how they can be sold, and who can’t sell cars and who is not allowed to sell them. There are simply tons of rules about even the simplest things in our lives and we are prone to wonder why we have so many rules, if there is any real necessity for so many rules, and if there is a reason that we have so many of them. But consider for a minute, what would happen if we encountered a stretch of highway where there were no rules.

I can assure you that in a very short amount of time, no one would want to go there.

What if you could drive as fast as you wanted, in any kind of vehicle you could imagine, and no one had to obey any traffic laws at all? You could not have any expectation of road safety or regular maintenance. The people around you might be riding bicycle, driving bulldozers, or drag racing jet powered semi-tractors. People could be driving fast, or be parked in the middle of the highway. Without rules, that stretch of road would be frighteningly dangerous and in a state of continuous chaos.

When you think about what driving would be like with no rules, we quickly realize that although there are some rules that might be questionable, there are generally good reasons that the rules exist.

That just seems to make sense to us, but at the same time, people ask the same sort of questions about our faith, Christianity, Judaism, and the Bible.

Why are there so many rules?

And as we read through scripture today, we discover that the answer is surprisingly simple. We begin in Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18, where we hear these words, many of which we remember as a part of the Ten Commandments:

^19:1 The Lord said to Moses, ²“Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

⁹“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. ¹⁰Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

¹¹“‘Do not steal.

“‘Do not lie.

“‘Do not deceive one another.

¹²“‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

¹³“‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.

“‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.

¹⁴“‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.

¹⁵“‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

¹⁶“‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people.

“‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.

¹⁷“‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.

Please note that this expands on the message that we heard last week. Do not hate a brother or sister in Christ, but if you know that they are doing something wrong, neither should you simply ignore what they are doing nor cover it up. If you knowingly ignore wrongdoing, or help to cover it up, you share the guilt of the people who are doing wrong.

¹⁸“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

This list offers a slightly different slant than the Ten Commandments, but I think the most important words in this passage are found in the introduction. God commands Moses to gather all of the people of Israel and it isn’t difficult to imagine that everyone’s first reaction, including Moses, would be to ask why. And so God says, “Speak to the entire assembly and say to them, be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

What we almost always forget when we think about the Ten Commandments is this introduction.

Be holy, because God is holy.

God does not say that he is giving his people a list of instructions because he loves rules, or because he enjoys burdening people with lots of restrictions on their behavior. What God says, is that he wants us to be like him, and then he gives us some examples of how we, imperfect and corrupt as we are, can do better. God doesn’t give us rules to follow because he loves bureaucracy, but because he wants to point us in a direction that leads to life and holiness instead of suffering and death.

Imagine God’s frustration in this. Imagine that someone comes to you, tells you that they are very sick, that they need to see a doctor, and asks for directions to the hospital. And when you tell them how to get there, they complain bitterly that you are putting too many restrictions on their freedom and insist that they can go any direction that they want to.

Of course, that seems ridiculous, but that is exactly what it must seem like to God when we complain about there being too many rules restricting our freedom, when the entire purpose of the rules was to give us directions that would save our lives.

Jesus says something similar in Matthew 5:38-48, where we hear these words:

³⁸“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

⁴³“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus says, I know that you’ve all heard about “conventional wisdom,” but the conventional wisdom is wrong. The only way to reduce violence is not to participate in it. Be willing to take a loss, be willing to look foolish, be willing to be disturbingly generous, even when it is costly to you. God has done good to you and has poured out his love upon you, even before you ever met him. 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. Our goal isn’t to be “just like everyone else,” our goal is to be perfect.

Paul emphasizes this difference in 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23, where he says…

¹⁰By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

¹⁶Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

¹⁸Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. ¹⁹For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; ²⁰and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” ²¹So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, ²²whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, ²³and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

Paul says that the foundation of everything that we do is Jesus Christ. Because the Spirit of God has taken up residence inside of us, we are the temple of God. This weekly gathering of fellow believers is sacred because this is God’s temple. It isn’t the building, it’s the people. Paul also echoes Jesus in fighting against the conventional wisdom or “the standards of the age,” and reminds the church that worldly wisdom is not the same as godly wisdom, and what God teaches is often ridiculed by conventional wisdom.

So what does this all mean?

In the end, what this means is that the foundation of everything that we do is Jesus Christ. We are called to be different because we belong to Jesus and through Jesus, we belong to God. We are called to be holy, not because God loves rules, or because God wants to take away your freedom, but because we want to be like God, and God is holy. We want to live, and God has given us a prescription that can lead us to health and wellness. We are moral free agents who are absolutely free to do whatever we choose, but God is abundantly clear that our choices can either lead us to God’s blessing and life, or to suffering and death.

You wouldn’t want to even try to drive on a highway that didn’t have any rules. It is the rules that maintain order and keep us safe. And so whenever we hear people complaining that God has too many rules, or that the church just wants to control your life, the question that you should ask is probably similar to the one you might ask someone who criticizes you for giving them directions to the hospital.

You can do whatever you want.

Do you want to get better?

Or not?

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

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

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

More Than a Man

December 25, 2016December 25, 2016 PastorPartridge Sermon Christmas, God, Jesus Christ

“More Than a Man”

December 25, 2016

(Christmas Day)

By John Partridge*

Isaiah 52:7-10 John 1: 1-14 Hebrews 1:1-4

If you’ve ever watched the 90’s television show, Walker Texas Ranger, and even if you haven’t, you’ve probably heard of Chuck Norris. Because of his various appearances in movies and on television, Chuck Norris developed a reputation as a tough guy but with the advent of the internet his reputation expanded to mythic proportions. There are hundreds of jokes about how tough Chuck Norris is. Jokes like:

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

Bigfoot claims he saw Chuck Norris.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks under the bed for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris threw a grenade and killed 50 people… then it exploded.

There once was a street called Chuck Norris, but the name was changed for public safety because nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives.

The Angel of Death once had a near-Chuck experience

At one point, Google even got into the act. For a while, if you typed “Find Chuck Norris” into their search box, the first answer that you got back said, “You don’t find Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris finds you.”

If you believed even a fraction of these, you would believe that Chuck Norris was the greatest human being to ever live and was, in fact, something more than human.

Of course he isn’t, but by now the jokes have taken on a life of their own and there are websites that have collected hundreds of them.

But why is the pastor talking about Chuck Norris on Christmas morning?

Because something much more impressive than even Chuck Norris happened on Christmas Day some two thousand years ago. More impressive still, we remember that the buildup for the arrival of Jesus began many hundreds of years before he arrived. In Isaiah 52:7-10, written more than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet wrote about the Messiah that would come.

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news, who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
⁸Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion.
⁹Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
¹⁰The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Isaiah said that the messiah would be so amazing, that even the feet of the people who carried the news of his arrival, and the arrival of peace, would be considered to be a thing of beauty. The news of the arrival of the messiah would be news of peace, salvation, rescue, and joy. So great would be that news, that people living within the ruins of the city of Jerusalem would spontaneously break into singing. And Isaiah goes on to say that on that day, God would bring comfort to his people, bring rescue to Jerusalem, reveal the strength of God to every nation, and every corner of the world would witness the salvation and rescue of God Almighty.

That, my friends, is a pretty big buildup. An event like that would be spectacular. Certainly, nothing ordinary, no everyday, common event, could ever be misunderstood as the day that Isaiah describes. Whoever the messiah would be, must be… more than a man.

And of course, during Advent, and last evening at Christmas Eve, we have been reading the stories of Jesus’ birth from the first three Gospels. But this morning I want to read the story of Jesus’ arrival from the words of his Disciple John, who told the Christmas story in a very different way. (John 1:1-14)

^1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

John wants to be sure that his readers understand that Jesus was not just a man, and not that Jesus was an extraordinary man, and not that Jesus was an incredible, even legendary, human being. John is insistent that this is not a man of legend like Chuck Norris. What John insists upon is that Jesus was not just more than a man, but that Jesus was, in fact, God in human flesh. John says that Jesus existed from the beginning of time, was with God, and was God, that Jesus was the creator of the world and everything in it, and that Jesus was the light of the world that could not be overcome by darkness.

In contrast, John the Disciple also describes the coming of John the Baptist and describes John the Baptist as a man, sent by God. This man, John says, came to be a witness to the light, but was not, himself, the light.

John is very clear. Jesus, the promised messiah, was more than a man. He was God in human flesh.

And then in Hebrews 1:1-4, Paul shared his understanding with us, saying…

¹ Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.³He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

I studied this passage because I wanted to understand this better. I wanted to make sure that I understood its meaning, and I discovered two things that are of great importance. First, scripturally, when a passage like this declared someone an heir, it is not used in the future tense. What I mean by that is when Jesus is called an “heir” it does not mean that he will inherit all things because the word “heir” directly describes ownership. That means that Paul is not saying Jesus will inherit all things, but that Jesus has already inherited all things, already owns all things, and already rules over everything and everyone in the entire universe. Second, Paul says that Jesus sacrificed himself in order to purify us and then sat down at the right hand of God. Clearly, Paul is not trying to say that God is a physical being with hands, but is using a common analogy that everyone would understand about the courts of princes and kings. Someone who sits on the throne is the ruler and the one who sits at their right hand is the person who has been singled out in the entire kingdom and given honor, power, and authority above all others and is second to the king alone.

And so, Isaiah, John, and Paul are all speaking with one voice and declare that the Messiah is someone who is much more than just a man. He is the one who will reveal God’s strength to the entire world, the one who was present at creation, who created all things, who was, in fact, God himself, and who, after putting on human flesh and sacrificing his own human life to purify and rescue all of humanity, sat down at the most honored position in all of creation.

The conclusion is inescapable. Isaiah was just a man, John the Baptist was just a man, John and all of the other disciples were no more than men, Paul was just a man, even Chuck Norris, however legendary, is just a man, but Jesus was much more than just a man. Jesus was, and is, the creator of all that is, the rescuer and redeemer of all humanity, and it is Jesus who sits at the right hand of God and rules over everything that exists.

John was absolutely clear about his conclusion from the very first sentence of his gospel and wanted to make absolutely certain that we understood exactly what he meant.

John’s Christmas story is different than the stories that are told in the other three gospels. Instead of telling about mangers, and angels, and shepherds, and wise men, John’s Christmas story sounds like this.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

__________
Did you benefit from reading this?
Click here if you would like to subscribe to these messages.

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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?

November 9, 2016December 28, 2016 PastorPartridge Blogs church, compassion, faith, future, God, justice, love, pain, peace, politics, power, truth

fear Earlier 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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“When Legal is Wrong”

August 27, 2017

By John Partridge*

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

“Are You All In?”

June 25, 2017

By John Partridge*

“Do the Impossible”

June 18, 2017

By John Partridge*

“Restoring the Planet… and Ourselves”

June 11, 2017

Genesis 1:1 – 2:4 Matthew 28:16-20 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

“Can You See?”

March 26, 2017

By John Partridge*

“The Surrender of Self”

March 01, 2017

(Ash Wednesday)

By John Partridge*

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Matthew 5:21-37 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

“The Reason for Rules”

February 19, 2017

By John Partridge*

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 Matthew 5:38-48 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23

“More Than a Man”

December 25, 2016

(Christmas Day)

By John Partridge*

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

Bigfoot claims he saw Chuck Norris.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks under the bed for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris threw a grenade and killed 50 people… then it exploded.

There once was a street called Chuck Norris, but the name was changed for public safety because nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives.

The Angel of Death once had a near-Chuck experience

At one point, Google even got into the act. For a while, if you typed “Find Chuck Norris” into their search box, the first answer that you got back said, “You don’t find Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris finds you.”

If you believed even a fraction of these, you would believe that Chuck Norris was the greatest human being to ever live and was, in fact, something more than human.

Of course he isn’t, but by now the jokes have taken on a life of their own and there are websites that have collected hundreds of them.

But why is the pastor talking about Chuck Norris on Christmas morning?

That, my friends, is a pretty big buildup. An event like that would be spectacular. Certainly, nothing ordinary, no everyday, common event, could ever be misunderstood as the day that Isaiah describes. Whoever the messiah would be, must be… more than a man.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

In contrast, John the Disciple also describes the coming of John the Baptist and describes John the Baptist as a man, sent by God. This man, John says, came to be a witness to the light, but was not, himself, the light.

John is very clear. Jesus, the promised messiah, was more than a man. He was God in human flesh.

And then in Hebrews 1:1-4, Paul shared his understanding with us, saying…

John was absolutely clear about his conclusion from the very first sentence of his gospel and wanted to make absolutely certain that we understood exactly what he meant.

John’s Christmas story is different than the stories that are told in the other three gospels. Instead of telling about mangers, and angels, and shepherds, and wise men, John’s Christmas story sounds like this.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.