greed

Still They Endured

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Still They Endured

December 2025

by John Partridge

15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had,6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:4-6)

***********

Dear Friends,

As I was reading the scripture from our devotional guide today, I thought how important it was to our understanding of Christmas. In Romans 15:4-6, Paul says that every scripture that has been written was given to us to teach us that through the endurance taught by scripture, and the encouragement that we find there, we might find hope. Those are, honestly, not the words that we expected. We expect to hear that our hope comes from our faith in Jesus Christ, or from a future home in heaven, or from our confidence in an all-powerful, all-knowing God. But Paul teaches us that the entire purpose of the Old Testament (and we can include the New Testament as well) was to teach us that hope comes from the endurance that we witness in the people of the Bible and the encouragement that we find as we begin to understand it.

But why? How do we find hope in the stories of endurance that we find in scripture?

It’s simple when you think about it. I have often said that one thing that becomes obvious as we read history and scripture, is that human beings haven’t changed much. For as much as we pride ourselves on our enlightenment, knowledge, education, and technology, the things that motivate human beings, and the way that they behave, haven’t changed much, we are just as motivated by love, lust, money, greed, power, and pleasure as we were three thousand years ago. As much as we like to think that humanity has changed, it seems more like we’ve repainted the cover of the book and left the contents unchanged.

And that’s why we are encouraged by the endurance of the people that we find in the ancient writings of scripture. When we read the stories, we find people who are just like us. Sure, they lived in an entirely different culture but the desire for love and for children, the need for parents to provide for, and to protect their families, and many of the other emotion driven stories all resonate with us. It isn’t difficult at all for us to put ourselves in the place of the heroes and heroines that we find there. They seem familiar because in many ways they look just like us.

And that’s when we notice that the heroes of the Bible didn’t have perfect lives. Their entire world often was set against them. They weren’t perfect people. They had flaws. They struggled. They had everything they had taken away from them. And they waited, sometimes for times that must have seemed like forever.

And still they endured.

The greatest desire of Abraham and Sarah was to have children. And they waited for almost one hundred years to get one. Jacob fell in love with Leah and agreed to work for seven years to pay off her bride price. But he was tricked by his uncle and ended up working for fourteen years instead. David was anointed as the king of Israel when he was fifteen years old but didn’t actually become king until he was thirty. And much of that time, he was a fugitive that lived in the wastes of the desert as King Saul, and his entire army hunted him so that they could take his life. Over and over again we see the great heroes and heroines of scripture struggle, stumble, fall, wait, and endure.

And as we see their imperfections, their struggles, their endurance, and their faith, we are encouraged because we see that our struggles and failures aren’t new or unique. God’s people have been where we are before. They have felt what we feel. They have passed through the same trials in their lives that we face in our own.

And yet they endured.

Even in the Christmas story, the lives of Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and even Jesus, were far from perfect. They were poor, they were powerless, they struggled, and they endured. As Paul said, as we read these stories, we are encouraged by the endurance of the people that look just like us. And as we encouraged by their endurance…

…we find hope.

May we find hope, together, as we welcome the birth of the Prince of Peace this Christmas.

Blessings,

Pastor John

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It’s All for Me!

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It’s All for Me!

August 03, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:17-23                    Luke 12:13-21                        Colossians 3:1-11

When children have siblings, it seems like one of the first ten words that they learn is the word “Mine!” It reminds me of the scene from Finding Nemo, when the seagulls think that they have found food, and all of them are mobbing the beach shouting, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” And, I think for many of us, part of the humor in that scene of the movie is found in how much the seagulls remind us of children or, if we’re honest, some of the adults that we know. But it is exactly that mindset that we see on display, discussed, and critiqued in today’s scriptures. The first among these was written by King Solomon, one of history’s wealthiest kings, a man who had everything that money and power could bring, and yet, found that wealth wasn’t everything that we might imagine it to be. We begin by reading from Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:17-23

1:1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”

12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

2:17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22 What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? 23 All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

Solomon says that he gave himself to the study of wisdom, and what wisdom was taught under many nations of the world, and what he found was that the life of humanity was burdensome and difficult. Despite all that he had seen, and all his wealth, women, power, and other things available to him, he could not find any meaning in his life and began to hate everything that he had and everything for which he had worked. After all his study and all his labor, he knew that in the end he would die and leave it all behind to someone who didn’t understand what he had done and who had not done any work to get it. And so, Solomon finds that study, work, labor, wealth, power, pleasure, and even weariness, grief, and pain were all meaningless.

To be fair, these words are not the end of Solomon’s writings and ultimately Solomon’s opinion is not as dark and pessimistic as this passage might suggest. But clearly, Solomon felt that wealth and power were not the answer to finding a life of meaning, purpose, or happiness. And Jesus echoes this line of thinking as we read the story of Luke 12:13-21, where we hear a man who is unhappy with the way that his father has chosen to distribute his inheritance.

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

However much this man’s father had left him in his inheritance, he clearly thought that it wasn’t enough and that his brother ought to share some of what he had gotten. But Jesus warns that it isn’t money or possessions that make life worth living. Greed, and the constant lust for more, isn’t the thing that makes life better. And to add emphasis to that idea, Jesus tells a parable about a man who was already wealthy, but when faced with a bumper crop, decided to build bigger barns rather than share his bounty with others, because, in his mind, “All this is for me!” You can almost hear the seagulls crying, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” But before he could even make the deposit on the construction of his new barns, his life was forfeited and, as Solomon had noted, all his money was passed on to someone else.

And Jesus said the moral of the story that we should remember, is that wealth that isn’t shared abundantly with God can all be taken away. Now, I am certain that Jesus isn’t saying that being rich toward God means that we must give the lions share of our wealth to the church, but rather that we must use what God has given us to do the work of God on earth. Rather than crying out for what is mine, mine, mine, we are to share what we have with the church, with the poor, the hungry, the naked, the abused, the disadvantaged, and anyone else who might not have the things that we have been given.

We find a bit more guidance along this line of thinking in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae as we read Colossians 3:1-11 where he says:

3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways; in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Paul tell us that because we have been raised to a new life in Jesus Christ, we should find purpose in doing the work of God and of God’s kingdom rather than in the things in which our culture finds value, such as wealth, power, pleasure, and the accumulation of possessions and other earthly pleasures. Instead, we should set aside, or “put to death’ our earthly nature that craves sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed because all these things are forms of idolatry. Paul says that those are the things that we used to do before we chose to follow Jesus, and, as they say in the infomercials on television, “but that’s not all” because now that we follow Jesus, we must also rid ourselves of anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying to one another. As the body of Christ, we put aside all things that divide us and see one another as equal in value before God because Jesus is everything to us, and lives inside of all of us who believe.

I hope that you see the connections between these scriptures, but just to be sure, let’s connect the dots. Solomon had everything that anyone could possibly ask for, and more. He was fabulously wealthy, had hundreds of wives, consorts, and concubines, and ruled over what was one of the most powerful kingdoms of its time. He could have had, and did have, anything that he could ask for. And yet, despite all his wealth and power, Solomon grieved at the meaningless of life because his mortality meant that everything that he had would pass to someone else when he died. Jesus reinforces this same idea saying that we should avoid any and all kinds of greed because we will not find meaning or purpose in life by pursuing wealth, power, pleasure, or possessions. Instead, Jesus says, we will find purpose when we share what we have with God and use our wealth and possessions for the mission and vision of the kingdom of God.

But Paul expands on what it means to avoid greed and live for God, saying that because we have chosen to follow Jesus, have died with him, and have been raised to a new life, then we must turn our hearts toward God and find meaning and purpose by doing the things of God and pursuing the advancement of God’s kingdom. But to do that, Paul says, we must not live the way that our culture teaches us to live. Greed isn’t the only thing that we are called to leave behind with our old life but also sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language, as well as greed. In total, in exchange for a life that is filled with meaning and purpose, God calls us to live differently than the people around us so that they can catch a glimpse of a world in which there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, cultured or barbarian, citizen or foreigner, black or white, or any other division, but instead a world where all are equal, all contribute, all participate, and where everyone belongs.

My friends, that is a world that is worth fighting for, worth working towards, and worth making every effort to model and show to the people around us.

*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

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Greed, Death, and Finding Purpose

July 20, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

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

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

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

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

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

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.

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

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

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

5 saying,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Contentment or Envy?

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Contentment or Envy?

by John Partridge

December 2024

By the time you read this, Thanksgiving will be over. Already our church is decorated for Advent, and we will celebrate Christmas in just a few weeks. But, this past Sunday, I was reminded of a meme that said something like:

“Only in America can we fight over a discount just one day after giving thanks for what we already have.”

And that got me to thinking about both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Whether we sat down alone or with family and friends at Thanksgiving, most of us at least briefly considered just how blessed we are. We live in a nation that guarantees us many freedoms that other people in the world do not have. We have food, clothing, shelter, and family and friends that love and care about us. We could spend considerable time making a list of all the things for which we have to be grateful and principle among these is a loving God who cares for us and watches over us.

But with Christmas on the horizon, most of us are already shopping for gifts for family, friends and, if we’re honest, for ourselves. But since we’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving, we should consider how grateful we appear to be if an outsider were to witness our Christmas shopping.

In Hebrews 13:5 the Apostle Paul offers this advice:

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.””

As we give thanks to God, and as we shop for gifts, it is that middle part where Paul instructs the church to “be content with what you have” that should give us pause.

It not only causes us to pause, but it is also both concerning and troublesome for those of us who live in a culture that constantly preaches a message of unbridled consumerism.

The meme I mentioned earlier is meant as a joke but, at the same time, it pulls back the curtain and reveals a little of our culture’s dark underbelly. Only the day after we gather to give thanks for what we have, we set out in the wee hours of the morning to fight through crowds of others like-minded individuals to buy even more, consume more, and not because we do not already have enough, but only because we have been sold on the idea that no matter how much we have, we should want even more. We have been convinced that just because it’s new, just because someone else already had one, or just because it can be owned, that we should want one, or perhaps that we should feel that we need one (or several).

And unfortunately, that desire for more has a name (or two).

Wanting more than we really need, and wanting things just because other people have them, or simply because they exist, is either envy, or greed, or both.

This desire for more is the opposite of contentment.

Maybe this doesn’t happen in your home, but we are all familiar with family and friends that spend so much on gifts at Christmastime, that they live in fear of the credit card bills that will arrive in January. We all know people who drive themselves into debt, sometimes deeply, spending money that cannot really afford to spend, just so that they can give gifts that “measure up” to what our culture has convinced us is normal, or to what our friends, coworkers, and classmates will show off when we return to work or school.

Paul could not have envisioned the consumerism of our twenty-first century, but his world was familiar with greed and envy. There were many “haves” but far more “have-nots” that dreamed of more, and many of those dreamed of simply having enough to feed their families. And it was to these folks that Paul cautioned to “be content with what you have.”

And so, as we prepare for Advent and Christmas, let us pause, as we did at thanksgiving, and consider why we are shopping for Christmas, what sorts of gifts we are buying, and how much we are choosing to spend.

Let us consider Paul’s words and ask ourselves…

…Does our Christmas shopping show contentment?…

…Or envy?

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*You have been reading a message presented in the Christ United Methodist Church newsletter on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Dangerous Foolishness

PastorPartridge Sermon , , ,

“Dangerous Foolishness”

March 04, 2018

By John Partridge*

 

Exodus 20:1-17                                  John 2:13-22              1 Corinthians 1:18-25

 

 

Have you ever gotten some advice from your parents as you went out the door for an evening with your friends?

 

Of course, most of us have.  And for most of us, our parents said things like, “Be careful,” “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” “Stay with your friends and don’t go off alone,” and other advice that often boils down to simply saying, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

 

All of those things are good advice because our parents loved us and cared about our well-being.  But what if God gave us advice?  What would God say to us?  But of course, we know that God has done exactly that.  God gave his people plenty of advice and has been trying to teach us how to live, and how to live alongside one another, for thousands of years.  Among the earliest instances of God’s teaching is also among the most famous and well-known, the Ten Commandments, which we find in Exodus 20:1-17.

 

20:1 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

 

The commandments that we remember best are the big ones: do not murder, do not steal, and do not worship other gods.  But among all of these there are also some gems that are more commonly forgotten.: make your parents a priority, take one day a week to rest and think about something bigger than yourself, don’t lie in ways that hurt others, don’t behave in ways that hurt your spouse, and be content with what you have.  The coming of Jesus didn’t take away any of these commandment.  In fact, Jesus dedicated his life, not only to living in obedience to them, but to teaching how human beings, even church leaders, sometimes tried to cheat God by manipulating the meaning of his commandments.    We see that in John 2:13-22 where we find Jesus kicking butt and taking names because the leaders of the Temple forgot that God cared about outsiders.

 

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

 

By the time Jesus drove people from the Temple courts, he had already gathered his disciples, had already been preaching for a while, and people knew who he was, even in Jerusalem.  But Jesus took issue with all the buying and selling that was going on, but not because it was unnecessary.  You see, the animals that were being bought and sold were animals that people needed to take to the priests to offer sacrifices.  If you lived in town you probably didn’t own your own sheep or goats, or even your own doves and so, when you needed, or wanted, to offer a sacrifice, you had to buy an acceptable animal.  Likewise, the moneychangers were necessary because people came to Jerusalem from other nations and needed what we would call a currency exchange to change into local currency.  But there was still another reason because Greek and Roman currency often had the images of emperors or kings or other people on them, the Jewish faith prohibited such images from the temple courts and so the moneychangers offered an exchange of that currency into an acceptable Temple currency.  Even worse, all of these systems were rife with corruption that lined the pockets of the chief priests and their friends.

 

But, even knowing that these things were necessary, there was one thing that probably set Jesus off.  The Temple itself was laid out in concentric squares.  The innermost section was for the priests alone, the next outer section was for Jewish men to pray, the next for Jewish women and children to pray, and the outermost section was designated, by God, as a place for outsiders, unbelievers, and non-Jews to come to God’s house and pray.  It is likely that this was the place where all of the animals were being sold and where the moneychangers had set up shop, and in doing so, they had taken up all of the space that God intended to be a welcome place of prayer for the outsiders.   And so, Jesus singlehandedly drives out the entire crowd, and the response that he gets from the Temple leadership was, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”  Rather than refer back to their own scripture, which they most certainly knew, rather than admit that Jesus was the one who was obeying scripture, they instead ask Jesus to give them a sign to prove that God sent him.

 

Instead of being shaped by scripture and by the will of God, the leaders of Jesus’ church had allowed their values to be perverted by culture, greed, and power.  And with that in mind, as we read Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, we can better understand how the people in the world around us might think that we, and our faith in Jesus Christ, are weird.

 

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

 

Paul understood how the priests and the temple leaders had their values twisted and he understood that Christianity, from the outside, looked weird.  Just like the Temple leaders, the Jews wanted to see signs that proved that Jesus’ message was real and the Greeks wanted an answer that used logic and philosophy as proof.  To each of them, the message of Jesus Christ is foolishness and idiocy.  While those of us on the inside have come to understand that this is the truth and the message of God to his people, to those on the outside we are often seen as fools and what we preach as dangerous.  Scripture reminds us that this sort of foolishness can be dangerous.  Paul and many of the disciples were executed, murdered, or exiled because of the message they preached.  Jesus was hung on a cross for teaching the foolishness of scripture by people who had devoted their lives to studying it.

 

Jesus, the priests, the teachers of the law, and the other leaders of the Temple all knew the Ten Commandments and the teachings of scripture, and yet, some of them allowed themselves to be shaped by their culture, by their greed, and by their lust for power than by the scriptures.  We all run that same risk.  We all run the risk of being deceived by our own selfishness, or by the culture of cynicism that surrounds us.

 

This foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and this weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

 

To everyone on the outside, what we do, and what we believe, is a dangerous foolishness.

 

But to us, it is the way, the truth, and the life.

 

For no one can come to God except through his son, Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

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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.