The Power of Belonging

May 18, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, belong, belonging, Broadway, Christ, church, Dorcas, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, Methodist, miracle, Ohio, Partridge, Peter, power, resurrection, spirit, Tabitha

The Power of Belonging

(Fourth Sunday after Easter)

May 18, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 10:22-30 Acts 9:36-43 Revelation 7:9-17

If you watched television, read newspapers or magazines, or even saw any roadside billboards between 1987 to 1996, you will remember the successful advertising campaign used by American Express. Everywhere you went, you were confronted with the message, “Membership has its privileges.” It was successful at high levels because it was a message that stuck in people’s heads, built brand awareness, drew new customers to their products, and became such a part of our culture that despite the end of the advertising campaign by American Express in 1996, the phrase is still widely remembered in the public consciousness, and is being used by other companies and organizations almost thirty years later.

The message that American Express wanted to communicate was that possessing their card conveyed advantages that their competitors’ cards did not. Amex card holders could get preferred travel arrangements, access to exclusive lounges, free travel insurance, global emergency services, free checked bags, concierge service, and all sorts of other things. For many people, the benefits given to Amex card holders may not be especially valuable but, if you are a frequent flyer or regular international business traveler, some of those rewards are worth having. But, what many of us have learned is that, aside from credit cards, there are advantages to belonging and having membership in any number of groups and organizations. If you want to be involved in eradicating global disease and contributing to local causes, groups like the Rotary Club, Lions Club, and Kiwanis can provide a place to do that while, at the same time, also providing a place to meet other people in your area and network with other businesses and community leaders.

But all of us have realized by now that there is a deeper kind of belonging. We made jokes when we were in our twenties and thirties that you can know who your friends are by watching who shows up to help you load the moving truck, or, who shows up when you build a deck, or paint your house, or who sits with you as you mourn the loss of a parent or child, or takes care of your cat when you are unexpectedly hospitalized, or shows up at your door with food when you return home. When we start to list the people in our lives who do those things, our list starts to get incredibly short. But it is that list of people, often family, and sometimes our closest friends, among whom we feel as if we truly belong. And it is this sense of belonging that we should keep in our minds as we read our scriptures for today because you will see it, hear it, or feel it in each of them. We begin this morning by reading from John 10:22-30 where we hear Jesus tell the people who had gathered around him one of the benefits of following him and belonging to God.

²²Then came the Festival of Dedicationat Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. ²⁴The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

²⁵Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, ²⁶but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. ²⁷My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. ³⁰I and the Father are one.”

This passage begins with people in the temple courts asking Jesus to tell them plainly whether he was or was not the Messiah promised by the prophets, and Jesus’ answer was that he had already done so, but they had chosen not to believe him. Jesus continues by saying that to anyone that was paying attention, the things that he had done were a testimony to who he was. The people who did believe in him saw clearly what he was doing and what he was, and because they did, they also listened to what he was teaching. Jesus points out that whatever he does, and has done, he gives the credit to God and not to himself, and this action also indicates who he is regarding his being, or not being, the Messiah.

But again, the people who do not follow Jesus do not recognize this evidence even when it stares them in the face. Just as each sheep knows the voice of their shepherd and can find him or her in a group of shepherds, those who follow Jesus know him, listen for his voice, and can pick him out of a crowd both literally and figuratively. This is often what we are doing when we ask, “What would Jesus do?” or when we question one another, or ourselves, and ask, was that action, or that decision, something that represents Jesus. Likewise, when we see and hear religious or political leaders who claim to be representatives of Jesus but who do and say things that are clearly not things that Jesus would do, then the sheep that follow Jesus can know that this is not someone that we should be following. But, this is also why it is so vitally important that we study, and know, scripture for ourselves so that we can know what Jesus looks and sounds like when we hear others who claim to speak for him.

It is at this point that Jesus offers one of our reasons for belonging. Jesus says that the sheep who follow him, who do more than offer him lip service and really follow him, listen for, and hear his voice, are given eternal life. Moreover, Jesus himself will guard them so that no one else can take them away and they can never lose their membership in God’s family so that they will always belong. But we should notice that Jesus goes a step further because he not only says that “no one will snatch them out of my hand,” he amplifies that statement by saying that anyone who follows him has been given to him by God and that “no one can snatch them” out of God’s hand because “I and the Father are one.” This clearly is a claim to being the Messiah, to being sent from God, to being a part of God, and that if you follow Jesus that you automatically belong to God. We see from Jesus’ own words that there is no separation between following Jesus and belonging to him and belonging to God’s family. These two are one and the same.

But belonging to Jesus is more than eternal life and a home in the sky, by and by. Belonging to Jesus also offers us gifts, graces, a mission, and a purpose during our mortal lives here on earth and some of those gifts can exceed our expectations and imagination. We witness this as the people of Joppa reach out to Peter and ask for his help while he is traveling in the city of Lydda in Acts 9:36-43:

³⁶In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. ³⁷About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. ³⁸Lydda was near Joppa; so, when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”

³⁹Peter went with them, and when he arrived, he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying, and showing him the robes and other clothing, that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

⁴⁰Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. ⁴¹He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. ⁴²This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. ⁴³Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.

There are many things that can be said about this passage, but for today I just want to focus on what Peter has just done. Tabitha’s friends did not seek out Peter because she was sick. It was too late because Tabitha was dead. I’m not certain what the widows of Joppa hoped that Peter would do, but I suspect that they may not have expected Tabitha to be raised from the dead. Given what they knew of Jesus, resurrection was certainly a possibility, but they also knew that Peter was not Jesus. Perhaps they hoped that he would mourn with them, or be an encouragement to them, or to pray that God would raise up another woman like Tabitha to become the kind of leader that she had been, but I doubt that they were certain of what Peter would do, or what he would be capable of doing.

But Peter does the most powerful, most extreme thing that they could have imagined. He prays, and then commands Tabitha to get up, and she does. Remember that Tabitha has, at this point, been dead for at least the better part of the day, and possibly more. She had already been stripped, washed, redressed, and taken upstairs in preparation for her mourners and her funeral. But while Jesus had walked with the disciples, taught them, given them the power to heal, cast out demons, and had even given them the gift of the Holy Spirit, this goes a step further. By raising Tabitha from the dead, Peter is demonstrating that he has, and by extension the disciples and all of Jesus’ followers (including us), have been given the same power as we had previously witnessed only in the person of Jesus Christ. When we choose to follow Jesus, when we put our trust in him and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are given the power to heal the sick, cast out demons, and even to raise the dead.

We are reminded that when Peter gives his speech at Pentecost in Acts 10:37-38, he explains to the crowd that Jesus’ power to perform miracles was power that was given to him by the Holy Spirit because he says:

³⁷You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— ³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

And then after his resurrection, Jesus gave the gift of the spirit to his disciples in John 20:21-22 when “Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²²And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And of course, we remember the story of God pouring out his spirit on the followers of Jesus on the day of Pentecost, after which they spoke in foreign languages and preached to a crowd that had gathered from all over the known world.

Taken together, we are reminded that following Jesus has never been a spectator sport where we look over the fence or down at the playing field to watch our heroes play the game and do the work of God’s kingdom. Instead, following Jesus requires our active participation down on the field where God shares with us the same gifts that he gave to Jesus and the disciples so that we can continue the work that Jesus began. Because we have been baptized and given the gift of the Holy Spirit, we share with Jesus the power to transform lives, heal the sick, and even to raise the dead.

We aren’t just outsiders looking in, we belong to God’s family.

Membership has its privileges……and its responsibilities.

That is the power of belonging.

How will you use your power this week?

*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.™

More Than Fish

May 4, 2025May 4, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, blind, Broadway, Christ, church, faith, fishermen, follow, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Partridge, love, Methodist, Ohio, Paul, Peter

More Than Fish

(Second Sunday after Easter)

May 04, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 21:1-19 Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)

Have you ever visited any of the Civil War battlefields in the United States?

Do you remember studying the American Civil War in school?

If so, here’s a one question quiz: What was the American Civil War about?

If you stood on a busy street and asked that question, you would likely get one of two answers. Either people will say that the American Civil War was about slavery, or they will say that it was about states’ rights. And while those are both partially correct answers, when we begin to dig even a little bit deeper, we find that yes, it was about slavery, and yes, it was about states’ right, but it was also about property rights, human rights, family law, interstate commerce, the role of the federal government, the authority of the federal government, and a whole bunch of other things. The same is true about most other wars and conflicts in which our nation has been involved throughout its history. Every conflict has a great many more root causes than one or two presenting issues that often appear on the surface. It’s easy to say that World War One was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, but it’s harder to explain, or understand, all the political and personal intrigue that led to that triggering event. And that concept is true of everything from high school bullying to divorce and all kinds of other things that we encounter and experience throughout our lives. And much like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, sometimes, the trigger or presenting issue that everyone talks about isn’t even the main issue.

And that is what we find as we read the story of Jesus’ third appearance to the disciples following his resurrection that we discover in John 21:1-19 where it says:

^21:1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: ²Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ³“I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So, they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

⁵He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

⁶He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

⁷Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. ⁸The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. ⁹When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

¹⁰Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. ¹²Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

¹⁵When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

¹⁶Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

There are a lot of things happening here, many of which I am sure that you have discussed in your Sunday school classes and heard your pastors preach about. There are the miracles of catching fish when professional fishermen had failed to do so all night long, as well as catching so many at one time, and also that although the fishermen were in the habit of mending tears in their nets every single day even from ordinary wear and tear, after an entire night of fishing, and after such a large catch, the net was not torn. There’s a lot there. But after the miracles that involve fish, Jesus looks at Peter, who had left Jerusalem, left off from following Jesus, and had returned to his profession of fishing, and asks him, do you love me more than these? Peter, do you love me more than fish? And Peter answers, “You know that I love you.”

But we all know that Jesus wasn’t really asking about fish, don’t we? Jesus may have met the disciples while they were fishing, he may have performed several miracles that involved fish and fishing nets, but his meeting with Peter and the disciples, and his question about fish, wasn’t ever about fish. Jesus tells Peter that if he loves him, then he should feed his lambs, and then asks the same question and answers himself saying “take care of my sheep” which, incidentally, has nothing to do with lambs or sheep but Jesus’ human flock. What Jesus is asking Peter isn’t about fish, or lambs, or sheep, it’s about more than fishing, or employment, or work, it about more than boats, more than vocation, or the camaraderie, beauty, or solitude of being out on the water. Jesus tells Peter that following him means that Peter will have to follow, even when he is led to places that he doesn’t want to go, just as an elderly person is dressed by someone else and led by the hand.

Keep that in mind because we hear echoes of that as we read the story of God’s call to Saul the persecutor, who will soon become Paul the apostle in Acts 9:1-20:

^9:1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest ²and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. ³As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

⁵“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. ⁶“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

⁷The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. ⁸Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So, they led him by the hand into Damascus. ⁹For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

¹⁰In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”

“Yes, Lord,” he answered.

¹¹The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. ¹²In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

¹³“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. ¹⁴And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”

¹⁵But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. ¹⁶I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

¹⁷Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁸Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, ¹⁹and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. ²⁰At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.

Although the influence of the temple leaders ebbed and flowed as their relationship with their Roman overseers shifted from generation to generation, we can see that at this moment, Jewish leadership in Jerusalem had been given significant latitude to the degree that they could write an arrest warrant for other Jews even when they were in an entirely different administrative district in another country. Typically, entirely different Roman rulers oversaw the provinces of Judea and Syria, so this is an interesting, and important, detail. In any case, as Saul is traveling north along the road from Jerusalem to Damascus, he is met my Jesus himself, knocked to the ground, struck blind, and sent into the city to wait for further instructions. And then, because of his blindness, he is led by the hand just as Jesus had described to Peter.

But there is one more character in this story that we need to consider, Ananias. Jesus comes to Ananias in a vision and sends him to the home where Saul is staying. At the same time, Saul received a similar vision and was told to expect the arrival of Ananias. But… and this is important, Ananias knew who Saul was. They hadn’t met, but Saul had a reputation for violence, and those who believed in Jesus had heard of how Saul had been arresting, torturing, imprisoning, and otherwise bringing harm to Jews who had chosen to follow Jesus. Ananias knew who Saul was and what he had done and, not surprisingly, didn’t want to do what Jesus was asking him to do. But Jesus emphatically orders Ananias to go… and he does, Saul is healed of his blindness, is baptized, spends several days learning from the disciples of Jesus in Damascus, and immediately begins to follow Jesus and preach in the synagogues about him.

Every disciple and every follower of Jesus from that time until now has been asked the same question, and it is important that we understand the question the way that Peter, Saul, and Ananias did. When Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?” he is not just asking us to love him. Jesus made it clear to the people in our scriptures this morning, as he essentially said, “If you love me, then you must follow me… even when I lead you to places that you don’t want to go, and even when I call you to do things that you don’t want to do.”

You can hear Jesus asking the question that has echoed down through the ages…

“Do you love me?”

How will you answer?

Hot Coals, Dead Fish, and Grace

February 9, 2025February 16, 2025 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, call, calling, Christ, church, faith, fish, God, Gospel, hot coals, Isaiah, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Byron, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Peter, teach

Hot Coals, Dead Fish, and Grace

February 09, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 6:1-8 Luke 5:1-11 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Have you ever studied physics? Even basic physics would do to understand what I want to ask, and I’m not sure that even the basics are necessary to get a grip on my next question. In physics, we talk about mass, momentum, velocity, and force. If a mass is moving in one direction, some force must be applied to change its velocity. One force that can be applied is if that mass collides with another mass that is moving in the opposite direction or is not moving at all. But then the age-old question arises, what if an irresistible force collides with an immovable object? Of course, there is nuance to how you can answer this, but the simple answer is that when an irresistible force collides with an immovable object, both are utterly destroyed. If you need a picture in your head, imagine a head-on collision of railroad trains. There are no winners, everyone loses.

So why does this matter?

Well, there is an analogy to this question that we encounter from time to time in scripture, and that is, what happens when an imperfect, flawed, and sinful human being encounters a perfect and holy God? And the answer for most of biblical history is simply… death. The underlying assumption throughout most of scripture is that an imperfect human being would not survive an encounter with God’s perfect holiness. Far from the mutual destruction we would expect in physics from a collision of an irresistible force and an immovable object, in the theological realm, nothing imperfect and sinful survives an encounter with God’s perfect holiness.

And that is exactly the assumption that Isaiah has in mind as we read Isaiah 6:1-8:

^6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ²Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Isaiah says that he had a vision in which he was transported to the throne room of the universe, saw God seated on his throne, and heard the worship and the praises of the seraphim. And as he took in this scene, Isaiah knew that he was a dead man. He knew that he was sinful, that he lived in a nation of sinful people, and he knew that, as such, he would not survive a meeting with a just and holy God. But just as Isaiah is expecting to die, the unexpected happens. A seraph, an angel with six wings, flies to Isaiah with a live coal from the altar, touches Isaiah’s mouth with this white-hot live coal, and declares that his guilt has been taken away and his sin has been forgiven. And it is at that moment when God asks, “Whom shall I send?” Having stood in the throne room of God, witnessed God’s holiness, seen the angels in attendance, heard their praises, and received God’s forgiveness, Isaiah answers God’s call by saying, “Here am I, Send me.”

And that, is how Isaiah left behind a life as a priest from a privileged family and became God’s prophet. But then as we move forward seven or eight hundred years, we see a similar reaction on the part of Peter when he meets Jesus after a hard, and unsuccessful night of fishing with his partners. We find that story in Luke 5:1-11 where it says:

^5:1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ²He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

⁵Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

The story begins with Jesus preaching and, having already become known in the region and having attracted a following of people curious to hear him speak, the crowd begins to press Jesus until he is up against the water. He asks that the fishermen, who are there repairing their nets after a night of fishing, would allow him the use of their boat so that he can preach from just offshore. As a matter of politeness and curiosity, they comply. But, after Jesus has finished preaching, he tells the fishermen, who had already worked all night, to load up their nets, go out into deep water… again, and do it all over again at a time that they were hoping to be going home to a warm meal and a comfortable bed. But again, out of politeness, and out of respect for this new wandering preacher, they do as he asked. (pause) And, despite having caught nothing the previous night, they caught more fish than they had ever caught before. Their nets were breaking, their boats were sinking, and Peter knew that what he was witnessing was not a normal circumstance. Although it wasn’t an angel with a hot coal from the altar of God, Peter knew that he was in the presence of the divine, he knew that Jesus was something more than human, and he fully expected something terrible to happen because he was a sinful man who stood in the presence of God. But much like the experience of Isaiah, Jesus tells Peter not to be afraid and calls the fishermen to leave behind their old lives and follow him.

And finally, we turn to Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth where he remembers the calling that God had put on his life and explains how God has called each one of us as well. As we read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, we hear this:

^15:1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ²By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Paul doesn’t mince words or dance around his point. He says “I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you” the one that you heard, accepted, and upon which you have taken a stand. This is the gospel that I was taught by Jesus and by the disciples in Jerusalem and I want you to remember and to hold tightly to the most important thing. Paul then offers a summary that is short, sweet, memorable, and easily memorized. He said that what we must remember is that Christ died just as the prophets said that he would, that he rose from the dead on the third day just as the prophets said that he would, and afterwards he was seen by Peter, the disciples, and more than five hundred others, and then he appeared to his brother James, to all of the apostles, who by definition were all of Jesus’ followers that were not disciples, and then finally he appeared to Paul as he traveled the road to Damascus.

Paul emphasizes that he was an enemy of Jesus and only became a follower of Jesus because of God’s grace. It is because of God’s grace that Paul has become the disciple and evangelist that he is, and it is because of God’s grace that he has done all that he has done. But notice that at the end, Paul changes the personal pronouns in his speech. Where before he was saying “by the grace of God I am what I am” he changes up the pronouns at the end and say, “Whether then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.” Suddenly, instead of speaking in the first person, Paul shifts from “I” to “we” and “you.” This is what we preach, and this is what you believed. And so we should not miss the point by thinking that Paul was only reminding the church about his history, but should remember that Paul’s intent, was to remind the people about the importance of the message, and then make it clear that preaching this message is something that all of us do.

Paul said that it is because of God’s grace that he was who he was, and that he had become the man that he had become. But Paul is also saying that:

We are alive because of God’s grace. We are forgiven because of God’s grace. We are called because of God’s grace. We follow, we preach, we share, we witness, we are bold, and we are unafraid because of God’s grace.

Isaiah was forgiven and sent out into the world by means of a white-hot coal from the altar of God.

Peter and his partners were called to follow Jesus by means of a net full of dead fish.

But Paul and all the rest of us are being sent out into the world by means of Jesus sacrificial death, resurrection, and the grace of God.

Like Isaiah, Peter, and Paul, let us answer God’s call upon our lives and tell the world the Good News of Jesus Christ.

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Pentecost and the Politics of Pain

May 19, 2024 PastorPartridge Sermon adoption, Alliance, alone, Broadway, Christ, church, disciples, God, groaning, Holy Spirit, Jesus, John, love, Methodist, Ohio, pain, Partridge, Pentecost, Peter, politics, pray, prayer, spirit, Street, suffering, truth, United, weakness

Pentecost and the Politics of Pain

(Pentecost)

May 19, 2024*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 15:26-16:15 Acts 2:1-21 Romans 8:22-27

If you have any empathy at all and have watched the news at any time in the last several years, you just might despair for the state of our planet and its people. The United States is struggling with issues of race more than 150 years after the Civil War. South Africa continues to grapple with their racial issues thirty years after the end of Apartheid. Russia remains intent upon regaining control of Ukraine and other nations over which it once held sway during the years of the Soviet Union. Israel and Hamas continue to fight one another with far reaching calamity in an enormous city filled with civilians. Genocidal acts continue to be perpetrated against Christians and their churches in Nigeria. China continues to persecute ethnic minorities, Christians, and anyone else that might be perceived as a thread to the communist party. Venezuela’s political conflict has so utterly crashed its economy that people are said to be eating rats, pigeons, and dogs to survive. And, unfortunately, that’s just the beginning. The more we read about what is going on, the more we weep over the state of our planet.

But surely it will get better, right? Or maybe we’re just in a bad place at this present moment and it goes in some kind of cycle. And, while that might seem to be true locally, I don’t know that such a thing has ever been true when we look at the world as a whole unless, of course, we simply go back to a time when there weren’t many people at all, but even then life, and survival, was often simply brutal.

That’s a harsh assessment, but is there any good news?

Of course there is. But before we get to the good news, let’s look at the promise that Jesus made to his disciples after the resurrection but before his ascension into heaven. For that, let’s begin with Jesus’ own words carried to us by the Apostle John in John 15:26-16:15, where Jesus says:

²⁶“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

^16:1 “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. ²They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. ³They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. ⁴I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, ⁵but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. ⁷But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹about sin, because people do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

¹²“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

Jesus foretells of his return to heaven but promises that when he goes, he will send the Spirit of God, the Advocate, to earth in his place. The Advocate, Jesus says, will prove to the world that they were wrong about sin and righteousness, and wrong about judgement. The Spirit will also guide the followers of Jesus toward the truth. That doesn’t mean that Christians will have any sort of monopoly on truth, but that, over time, as we follow him, we will move away from falsehood and closer to the truth.

These are important promises, not only because our world seems to be broken and we need to have some good news, but because both individually and collectively we find that its far too easy to wander into half-truths, falsehood, fake news, propaganda, and delusion and we need help to stay focused and guided toward the truth. But as important as Jesus’ promise was, perhaps even more important is the fulfillment of that promise on the day of Pentecost that we see in Acts 2:1-21, which says:

^2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ²Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tonguesas the Spirit enabled them.

⁵Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹²Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

¹³Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

¹⁴Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
¹⁹I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke. ²⁰The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
²¹And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Jesus returns to his home in heaven and, in fulfillment of his promise, sends the Spirit of God to earth and in a visible and unmistakable way, the Spirit arrives and enters into the disciples and other followers of Jesus Christ that were waiting for its arrival. Jews from all over the known world had gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate a Jewish holy day, and all of them heard the disciples preaching in their own unique languages and dialects.

This begins the fulfillment of the promise that Jesus made, but it is not the complete fulfillment. An undeniable miracle happens in full view of hundreds of unbelievers and the world sees that the power of God lives in the message of Jesus and the disciples. But has this proven the wrong of sin to the entire world? No. And has it guided them to the truth? Not everyone.

And what about the darkness and evil that we see throughout history and in the world in which we now live? It is obvious that pain and suffering and the politics that often perpetuate it haven’t gone away. And so, it’s fair to ask, “What role does the Spirit have in the world?” “What role does the church, and its members have?”, and “What does God expects of us?” We gain insight into these questions from the words of Paul in his letter to the church in Rome found in Romans 8:22-27 where he says:

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Paul openly admits that all of creation groans as if it were in labor and giving birth because of the pain, suffering, injustice, darkness, and evil that is in the world. In short, the world sucks. But amid that groaning of creation is the inward groaning and anticipation of our adoption, redemption, and a new life in God’s recreated and perfect world that is yet to come. Although we live in a world that is suffering and broken, we have hope in what is yet to come. And as we wait patiently in hope, the Spirit of God helps us in all our weaknesses, all our shortcomings, all our faults, and all the places that we just… aren’t enough. Even when we are so frightened, frustrated, angry, confused, irritated, broken, hurt, suffering, or otherwise unable to find words to pray, the Spirit of God intercedes for us and interprets our groans, and the feelings of our hearts, puts words to them, and carries those prayers to the throne of God.

Despite the constant barrage of unwelcome news and the politics of pain, the good news of Pentecost is that God is with us, that God loves us, cares for us, intercedes for us, and even puts words to our prayers of groaning even when we can’t find words for ourselves. In a world full of suffering and pain, the clear message of scripture is filled with hope because it tells us that…

… we… are not… alone.

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Ownership. Relationship. Commitment.

April 28, 2024 PastorPartridge Sermon action, Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, commitment, evil, God, good, Jesus, John, love, Methodist, Ohio, ownership, Partridge, Peter, relationship, share the story, shepherd, Street, United, witness

Ownership. Relationship. Commitment.

April 28, 2024*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 10:11-18 Acts 4:5-12 1 John 3:16-24

Have you ever driven a rental car? You can never be too sure about rental cars because, although they are usually new, people often drive them in ways that you would not drive your family car. I’ve heard stories about rental cars being destroyed because there are often no repercussions if you pay for the insurance in advance. Military vehicles are often in a comparable situation, although destroying them is punishable, it is not all uncommon for young soldiers to take vehicles off-road, bury them to the axles in mud, or worse, and just generally drive them… shall we say… harshly. Though in some cases, the motor sergeant is going to own you for a while.

There is a saying, “Drive it like you stole it” that might be applied to both rental cars and military vehicles. At the heart of this discussion is the issue of ownership. Ownership of the car makes a difference. If those same young soldiers spent several years working at the local fast food franchise to buy their own car, and then did a lot of their own labor to fix it up and add after-factory accessories and bling to it, the odds are good that they would drive that car in a vastly different way than a rental car or military motor pool vehicle.

Ownership makes a difference in many things. And it is that principle that we find at the core of our story this morning in John 10:11-18 when Jesus says…

¹¹“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹²The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So, when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

¹⁴“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— ¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd” and not a hired hand. The difference between the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, and the hired hand who runs away and allows the flock to be scattered, is ownership. The flock belongs to Jesus, and not only does he protect it and preserve it with his life, but he has a relationship with his sheep. He knows everything about his sheep, and they know him. And because they know him, and they trust him, they listen to his voice and follow his commands. And that illustration is accurate. Before we went into ministry, Patti and I had seven acres and, at one time, two sheep. Every day I let them out of the barn in the morning and they ran out to the pasture to graze. But every evening I opened the door to their stall, and then the barn door, and as soon as I called them, they ran in. If it was anybody but Patti or I, they didn’t come because they didn’t know them.

Ownership, and relationships, make a difference.

And so, when Peter and John are detained, if not arrested, and brought before the elders to make an accounting for the lame man that they healed at the temple gate, they don’t take the credit for anything, but instead point to the good shepherd. Let’s read the story in Acts 4:5-12:

⁵The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. ⁶Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and others of the high priest’s family. ⁷They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

⁸Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! ⁹If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, ¹⁰then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. ¹¹Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’

¹²Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Peter and John knew the good shepherd and had a relationship with him. And so, as his followers, or as John Bunyan said it in Pilgrim’s Progress, as under-shepherds, they knew from where their authority and power had come and gave credit and testimony to Jesus for the healing of the lame man who had begged at the gate to the temple.

But why? And why does knowing why matter to us? And how does knowing inform us, and instruct us, about how we should live our lives today? The Apostle John understood that these are legitimate questions, and they were questions that the church was asking two thousand years ago just as we ask them today. And that’s why we find John’s answer to the first century church, and to us, in 1 John 3:16-24, when he explains that…

¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

¹⁹This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²²and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Jesus said that he was the good shepherd, because the shepherd has ownership of his sheep, and is willing to lay down his life to protect them. Jesus did just that. He laid down his life so that we could be rescued from sin and death. Building on that, John makes the point that if Jesus laid down his life for us, then we should be ready to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If the followers of Jesus Christ are blessed enough to have money, cars, houses, and other material possessions, and have no pity for brothers and sisters that are in need, then how can we believe that the love of God is in them at all? Love, John says, isn’t about the words that we say, but in the actions that we take. Love isn’t saying that we care about the poor, or giving speeches about how much we love them. Love is making sure that they have food, clothing, and a place to live.

John says that “the one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” If we love God, if the Spirit of God truly lives in us, then we will keep God’s commandments, do the things that God asks us to do, and love the people around us in the way that Jesus loved them. The abridged version is that if we truly believe, then we will use what we have, to take action and love the people around us by caring for their needs.

Jesus is the good shepherd. He has ownership and is not a hired hand, so he was willing to lay down his life for his sheep. But a good shepherd also has a relationship with their sheep. He knows them, and they know him. And because we have a relationship with Jesus, as our good shepherd, we have made a commitment to follow him, to obey him, and to love the world the way that Jesus loved.

Love is not words; love is an action.

How will you show the people of your community the love of Jesus today?

That is a question we should ask ourselves every day, and every time we see people who are struggling.

How will we show them the love of Jesus today?

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At What Cost?

September 17, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, choice, choose, Christ, church, cost, disciples, faith, follow, God, Israel, Jesus, Methodist, Moses, Ohio, Partridge, patron, patronage, Peter, Red Sea, Street, United

At What Cost?

September 17, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 14:19-31 Matthew 18:21-35

I would guess that everyone here probably recalls the story in Luke chapter 14 in which Jesus challenges the crowd to count the cost of choosing to follow him and that choosing to do so means that they must take up their cross when they do. In that story, in Luke 14:28, Jesus says:

²⁸“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? ²⁹ For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, ³⁰ saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

That’s simply good advice for a great many things. Before we go on vacation, we should have a good idea of what it’s going to cost and what we might spend on souvenirs, snacks, drinks, and other incidentals. Before we choose a college major, we should consider how much that education will cost and what kind of a career, and salary, is likely to come from that career.

But although Jesus saying “take up your cross” is the story that springs to mind when we think about counting the cost of following Jesus, it isn’t the only scripture in which counting the cost is an important part of God’s message to us as his followers. We begin this morning in Exodus 14:19-31 as the people of Israel flee from their abuse at the hands of the Egyptians, and escape across the Red Sea.

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

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

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

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

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

Remember that although Israel was enslaved to the Egyptians, they had lived there for eight hundred years and, other than Moses, who had lived in Midian for forty years, there was no one who had known anything other than a life in Egypt. Following Moses, even in pursuit of freedom, meant leaving behind everything that they had ever known other than the family and the faith that they took with them. In this reading, the account of the exodus says that the pillar of cloud came between the armies of Egypt and Israel, and we must understand that describing Israel at this point as an “army” is figuratively describing Israel’s size and nothing else. No one on the side of Israel, again except for Moses, had any training with weapons other than farm implements and the slings that shepherds used to drive off wild animals. Egypt brought an army of soldiers and warriors, but they faced an Israel that was little more than a rabble of untrained men, women, children, and farm animals that had fled with little organization into the night.

As they did on the night that they painted the blood of lambs on the doorposts of their homes, the people of Israel faced a choice as they stood on the shores of the Red Sea. They had chosen to follow Moses into the wilderness, but now they were faced with the first accounting of the choice that they had made. They realized that the cost of following Moses might just be death at the hands of the Egyptian army. But at that moment they witnessed the presence of God, physically present as a pillar of cloud and of fire, standing between them and the Egyptians. And during the night, God divides the sea and makes for them a place to walk across the bottom of the sea on dry ground. And after they had reached the other side, they witnessed the destruction of the army that that, only hours earlier, had filled them with fear.

Witnessing these events was a turning point for the people of Israel. Before they had chosen to pursue freedom from their cruel taskmasters and from slavery. But now they chose to worship God and to put their trust in him, and in his servant, Moses.

Considering how long some of us have been following him, sometimes we still wonder just how much it’s going to cost us to follow Jesus. I’m not kidding. Even the disciples, after spending years with Jesus, were still trying to find the boundaries and limits to the cost of discipleship. That’s exactly what we see happening as Peter asks Jesus a question that has become famous in Matthew 18:21-35 where we hear this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peter asks a question about forgiveness, but Jesus knows that he is really asking about where the limits are and so he answers the first question, but he elaborates with the parable that follows. The parable that Jesus tells, expands our understanding of forgiveness, but also disabuses us of any thoughts that Peter, or us, might have had about limiting the cost of our choice to follow Jesus.

The example that Jesus used would have been, at least in principle, similar to what the disciples knew, understood, and witnessed every day in their culture as a part of the Greco-Roman system of patronage. In that system, almost everyone was a client of some patron, and clients were expected to mirror and emulate the values of their patron. If your patron was generous, and you wanted to please him, and you always wanted to please your patron, then you would also be generous to the same causes that he supported but at the level that would be expected for a person of your status. And so, in Jesus’ parable, it is unsurprising that the king, as well as the servants, all expected that the client who was shown mercy would, in turn, show mercy to someone who owed him money after being shown such extraordinary mercy by his own patron.

What may have been surprising to the disciples, and to anyone else hearing this story in the first century, was that our relationship with God was so much like the cultural system of patronage. Because we have chosen to follow Jesus and, pledged our loyalty to him as our patron, we are expected to adopt, and to mirror, his values. Because our God is merciful and forgiving, we are not just asked, but expected to be merciful and forgiving. So strong is this expectation, that Jesus says that he will reject us, and revoke his forgiveness of us, if we fail to be forgiving of others. That is not only a big deal regarding forgiveness, but if that is that standard by which we are judged regarding forgiveness, then it isn’t difficult to imagine that this is how God wants us, sorry, expects us, to mirror the other values that we have witnessed in God and in the life of Jesus Christ.

The people of Israel discovered that there was a cost to following Moses out of Egypt and that having done so, God expected something of them. There was a cost to following God.

Even though the disciples had known Jesus, walked with him, talked with him, listened to his teaching, and lived their lives with him for several years, they still sometimes grappled with what it meant to be his followers and to understand the cost of choosing to follow him.

As we read scripture, we discover the same things that the Israelites did as they crossed the Red Sea with Moses, and that the disciples did as they learned from Jesus. We discover that, like them, we cannot follow Jesus part-time or halfway. Following Jesus demands that we invest everything that we have, that we are 100 percent sold-out, and go all-in. We are expected to be as forgiving as Jesus, as merciful as Jesus, and in every other respect, model our lives after him and mirror his values.

Jesus expects nothing less. Because in the story we read from Matthew, Jesus was deadly serious. We’re either all in…

…or we’re out.

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I’m Not Worthy

September 3, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, burning bush, Christ, church, faith, God, I am, Jesus, Matthew, Methodist, Moses, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Peter, Street, United, unworthy, who am I, worthy

I’m Not Worthy!

September 03, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 3:1-15 Matthew 16:21-28 Romans 12:9-21

I’m almost certain that you are familiar with the phrase, “I’m not worthy.” It’s been used in the Marvel superhero movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, cartoons like The Simpsons, quite famously in the Wayne’s World sketches on Saturday Night Live, and in the movie of the same name. But of course, though re-popularized in our culture in movies and television, this phrase, or words like it, is hardly new. It appears in ancient literature from a host of time periods. Medieval monks were known to say that they weren’t worthy, and we even hear words a lot like it in scripture.

“I’m not worthy” is a phrase that could easily come with a warning label because while it can be used as an honest expression of humility, it can also be used, and frequently is used, as an excuse to avoid doing work that we don’t want to do. And so, as we read today’s scriptures, I want you to listen for the phrases that sound as if someone is saying “I’m not worthy,” though not in exactly those words, and then we will consider whether they are genuinely not worthy of the thing that has been asked of them, if they’re just trying to get out of doing something they don’t want to do, or if the answer is somewhere in between. We begin by returning to the story of Exodus, this time skipping from the infant Moses that we saw last week, all the way to the story of Moses and the burning bush eighty years later in Exodus 3:1-15.

^3:1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

⁴When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

⁵“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

¹¹But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

¹²And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, youwill worship God on this mountain.”

¹³Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

¹⁴God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

¹⁵God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.

When God calls Moses to return to Egypt after forty years in Midian, Moses’ answer is, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?” Who am I, that I should go, which, in other words, means I’m not worthy to go, I’m not important enough to go, nobody knows me there any longer, I’m wanted there for killing a man, or just more plainly, I don’t want to go or, I’m afraid to go.

Whether Moses’ actual words were, I don’t want to go, I’m afraid to go, who am I that I should go, or I’m not worthy… what Moses is doing is just making excuses to avoid doing what God was calling him to do. But God knew that. And so, God calms Moses’ fears and sets aside his excuses, and simply says “I will be with you.” Of course, Moses isn’t done making excuses, but God patiently responds, teaches Moses what he must do, and what he must say, so that he is prepared and equipped to do God’s work.

And when we read the story about Peter’s rebuke of Jesus in Matthew 16:21-28, and put it in context, instead of just reading a few verses at a time as we often do on Sunday morning, we discover that the motivation of Peter’s famous rebuke of Jesus could easily have had roots in his feelings of unworthiness. We remember that this story immediately follows the passage we read last week when Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter and declared that “on this rock I will build my church.” And with that in mind, let us continue reading with where it says…

²¹From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

²²Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

²³Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

²⁴Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

²⁸“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Knowing that Peter’s actions immediately follow the events we discussed last week in which Jesus told Peter that “on this rock I will build my church,” it isn’t hard to imagine that at least a part of his knee-jerk response to Jesus teaching that he must die, is a reaction to his understanding that without Jesus, Peter would be the one responsible to take charge of the other disciples and of Jesus’ ministry in general. It’s one thing to consider what might happen in the future, but our reaction, even to those events for which we planned, can be quite different when faced with the reality of them happening. It was one thing for Jesus to tell Peter that one day he would be in charge, and quite another to announce that he was on his way to Jerusalem to make that happen. In the latter case, Peter reacts by saying, “This shall never happen!” Peter says, ‘No way Jesus! I want you to always be in charge.’

Peter, like Moses, despite planning for the day when Jesus would no longer be with them, doesn’t want the responsibility of carrying out those plans and rebukes Jesus for saying that it was about to happen. No way Jesus, I don’t want to be in charge yet. But Jesus’ reaction to Peter is much sterner than God’s was to Moses. While God patiently told Moses that he would be with him, and answered many of his questions, Jesus calls Peter’s resistance an attack of Satan and calls Peter himself a stumbling block to Jesus and his ministry. Whether we say that Peter’s resistance was hesitancy, or reluctance, or making excuses, Jesus condemns his actions as being focused only on human concerns and not being sufficiently mindful of the concerns of God.

But once again, we ask ourselves, why does this matter? What do Moses’ excuses, or Peter’s reluctance, or any of this have to do with us? And that is what Paul is getting at in his letter to the church in Rome as we hear these words in Romans 12:9-21:

⁹Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹²Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. ¹⁸If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul emphasizes that love simply isn’t love unless it is sincere. Love that is faked might be beneficial, but it isn’t love and the recipients of that fake love will know the difference. Real love, honors others above ourselves. We cannot just be motivated; we must be zealous for our cause so that we can maintain our spiritual fervor.

Do you hear the words that Paul is using here? They aren’t average, common, boring, monotonous, or plain vanilla. Paul uses words like love, sincerity, hate, cling, devotion, zeal, and fervor. These are words that express strength, power, energy, and excitement. Our faith was never meant to be boring, and it shouldn’t be, if we’re doing it right. Paul encourages us to bless the people around us, even if they aren’t nice to us in return, to share life with others, to live in harmony and not to be proud or conceited, but to be willing to associate with “people of low position” who are often looked down upon by our culture.

But don’t be misled by Paul’s encouragement to honor others above ourselves, to not be proud, and to associate with people of low position. We should not misunderstand these instructions to mean that we are not worthy. Jesus often set aside his own needs so that he could care for the needs of others. He wasn’t proud, and he wasn’t afraid to associate with all sorts of outcasts.

Rather, it is because we are worthy, because God has chosen us, because we have been adopted into God’s family, that we should engage the people around us regardless of their social class. Like Moses and Peter, God will not allow us to use “worthiness” as an excuse to get out of the work he as placed in front of us.

It is because we are worthy that we must never be lacking in zeal and be continually motivated to serve others so that we can overcome evil with good and call all the worlds’ people to repentance.

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Get Out of the Boat!

August 13, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, boat, Broadway, Christ, church, get out, get out of the boat, God, Israel, Jesus, Joseph, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Peter, Reuben, Street, United, walk on water

Get Out of the Boat!

August 13, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 Matthew 14:22-33 Romans 10:5-15

During my last several years at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio, I tended bar at night at the Station House Inn downtown. Since I worked there for several years, I naturally got to know, and became friends with, many of our regular customers. And it was through some of these regular customers that I got invited to join what was jokingly referred to as the “Dunkirk Ski Team.” My friend Don Spar owned a small ski boat and, along with Gary, and several others, he would take his boat out to the abandoned Dunkirk quarry (that had filled with water when quarrying had accidentally struck a natural spring) and went water skiing around the quarry. At the time, I did not know how to water ski, but this did not deter my friends and they were determined to teach me. And they did. As they told me, it isn’t hard, all you have to do is stand up once the boat starts moving, and if you fall, you just fall into the water.

I fell a few times, but I did learn to ski. Perhaps not well, but I could do it, and we had a good time. But the very first thing to know about learning to water ski is that you can’t do it from shore, and you can’t do it from inside the boat. If you’re going to ski, you have to get out of the boat.

That seems obvious, and even a little silly. But that is an important lesson that we find several times in today’s scriptures. We begin with the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28, but while we often focus on Joseph when we read this story, today I want you to listen, and pay attention to the actions of Joseph’s oldest brother Reuben.

^37:1 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

²This is the account of Jacob’s family line.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

³Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornaterobe for him. ⁴When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

¹²Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, ¹³and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”

“Very well,” he replied.

¹⁴So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, ¹⁵a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”

¹⁷“They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”

So, Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. ¹⁸But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

¹⁹“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. ²⁰“Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

²¹When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. ²²“Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

²³So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— ²⁴and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

²⁵As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

²⁶Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.

²⁸So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekelsof silver [eight ounces @ $23.19/ oz = $185.52] to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

Most of you are familiar with Joseph’s story, and you can be sure that we’ll be hearing more about him in the coming weeks. But to cut right to the heart of today’s lesson, what did you hear Reuben do? Out of all of Joseph’s brothers, only Reuben thought that killing Joseph was wrong. Or, if he wasn’t the only one who thought it was wrong, then he is the only one who had the courage to act on his beliefs. Reuben convinced his brothers not to kill Joseph and hoped to return and set him free. Joseph still got sold into slavery, but he owed his life to Reuben.

More than one brother might have felt that murdering their brother was wrong…

…but Reuben was the one who got out of the boat.

An even more obvious example is Peter in the story of when Jesus walked on water in Matthew 14:22-33 where we hear this:

²²Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

³²And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

I cannot count the number times that I have heard this story read and at some point, someone tries to discredit Peter for his lack of faith. Pastors preach that Peter didn’t have enough faith, or that Peter took his eyes off of Jesus, or that Peter allowed himself to be distracted by the things of the world, or some other commentary that makes Peter somehow look like the bad guy. But folks, I’m here to tell you that I am completely impressed by Peter’s faith because, outside of folks in Minnesota in January, Peter is the only person in the history of our planet, other than Jesus, to walk on water. At the end of the day, fear or not, sinking or not, crying for help or not, Peter walked on water.

And the reason that Peter walked on water is that…

…Peter got out of the boat.

There were at least eleven other people on that boat, and more than one of them might have been wishing that they could do what Jesus was doing. More than one of them may have been wondering if they could walk on water. But Peter was the one who acted. Peter was the one who got out of the boat.

And hopefully, now that this idea of getting out of the boat is firmly implanted in your mind, I want to move on to Paul’s letter to the church in Rome as he teaches them something about the need to share their faith in Romans 10:5-15:

⁵Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” ⁶But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷“or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: ⁹If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. ¹¹As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”¹²For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, ¹³for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

¹⁴How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one, of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

Paul enumerates the story of our faith and how we were rescued by Jesus and reconciled to God, but then he insists that the only way that the people around us will ever know the joy of rescue and reconciliation that we have already found, is if we get out of the boat. How can they call on a God that they don’t know? How can they believe if no one tells them? How can they hear if no one preaches?

In the time of the New Testament, feet were ugly. Walking outside meant that by the end of the day, or any time that you came indoors, your feet were covered in dust, animal droppings, trash, and whatever filth had been laying or decaying in the streets. Many houses had special basins of water by the door for foot washing as soon as you came in from the street. But even then, Paul says “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” The news of Jesus Christ is so good, that the people who hear it will love you… and your ugly feet.

Just as we hear in the message of the Christmas story, the Good News of Jesus Christ is “good news of great joy that is for all the people.”

But all the good news in the world won’t make any difference if we don’t get out of the boat.

If we’re going to change the world, if we’re going to make a difference, if we’re going to grow our church, if we’re going to save the souls of the lost…

…We have to get out of the boat.

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Few. Many. You.

April 9, 2023June 1, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, carriers, Christ, church, death, Easter, friends, God, Heather Locklear, Jesus, John, Mary, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Peter, resurrection, rise, running, Street, Sunday, tell, United

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Few. Many. You.

April 09, 2023*

(Easter Sunday)

By Pastor John Partridge

John 20:1-18 Acts 10:34-43 Colossians 3:1-4

In 1984, the Faberge company hired popular actress and model, Heather Locklear to star in a commercial for their new line of Faberge Organics shampoo. In that commercial, Heather Locklear says that she was so impressed by the results of using this new shampoo, that she told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. And with each repletion of those words, the image of Heather Locklear doubles, and continues to multiply. Many of us remember that commercial.

But whether we remember seeing it or not, it is a good representation of what happens when we learn of new products that excite us, or hear juicy gossip, or any other kind of news that gets us excited. And this is the way that the news of the resurrection happened. There wasn’t a mobile television news crew from channel eight broadcasting live from Jesus’ tomb, nor were there any newspaper reporters or internet bloggers skulking around looking for a scoop that would sell newspapers or make their blog go viral. News, even incredibly exciting news, traveled the old fashioned way, one person told their friends, and they told their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. And that’s exactly what we see in the story of the resurrection recorded for us by the Apostle John in John 20:1-18.

^20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ²So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

³So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

¹¹Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹²and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

¹⁷Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

First, I want to notice that everyone is running. This isn’t the kind of news that is merely interesting and you think to yourself that you’ll need to tell someone the next time you see them. This is earth-shaking, life or death, call 911 and start CPR, kind of news. First, Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb, then Simon Peter and John run to join her and see for themselves. Then the disciples leave and Mary is left alone, only to be joined buy two angels, and then by Jesus. But, after Jesus leaves, Mary runs to the place where the disciples are staying so that she can tell as many people as possible.

The message of the resurrection began with only one, and then to only a few, but it didn’t end there or none of us would be here this morning. Not too long after the resurrection of Jesus, on the day of Pentecost, Peter and the disciples were still in Jerusalem. But now, instead of hiding, they shared the good news of Jesus’ resurrection with a crowd of many people as we hear in the story of Acts 10:34-43.

³⁴Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism ³⁵but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. ³⁶You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. ³⁷You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— ³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

³⁹“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, ⁴⁰but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. ⁴¹He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Rather than sharing the news with two friends, who can share with two more friends, Peter speaks to a crowd of people from every nation to which Jews had migrated. Being one of the required feasts, pilgrims from everywhere had come to Jerusalem and there, Peter and the disciples shared with them the story of Jesus and the news of his crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection. The reason that this story is good news is that it is not limited to one group of friends, to one group of people, or to one nation. Peter preaches that he now knows that “God does not show favoritism” so the people who had come there from Africa, and Asia, and everywhere, are just as known, and just as loved, by God as the people who live in Jerusalem. God’s love, grace, and forgiveness are not limited by ethnicity or geography, but are now available to everyone who believes.

But that wasn’t the end of the story either. Decades later, when Paul wrote his letter to the church that he had founded in the city of Colossae, in what is now the nation of Turkey, he says this in Colossians 3:1-4:

^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. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene discovered that she was the only one who knew the truth, but then she told two friends, and those friends told more friends, and eventually announced the good news to many, and soon that news was traveling all over the known world. And here, in the worlds of Paul, we find God’s call to us. “Since you” (that’s us) “have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above. Set your minds on things above and not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden in Christ with God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Like Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, and like the disciples at Pentecost, we are witnesses. We have received, and we are the carriers of the greatest pieces of good news ever shared from one human to another. Like Mary, and the disciples, and legions of people since then, we are still called to share the good news that we have received. Although millennia have passed, this news is so good, far better than the discovery of a new organic shampoo, that we are still called to tell our friends and our neighbors what we have seen, and what we have heard. And, like always, when we tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on, then our good news will find its way… to everyone.

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The Fire of Change

May 15, 2022July 26, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon actions, Acts, Alliance, Broadway, challenge, challenges, change, Christ, church, covid, denomination, fear, Gentiles, God, Holy Spirit, Methodist, mission, Ohio, Partridge, Pentecost, Peter, schism, shortage, shortages, spirit, split, Street, supply chain, Ukraine, United, war

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The Fire of Change

May 15, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Acts 11:1-18

Last week I shared a little about what is happening in our United Methodist denomination and what may or may not happen in the future. We are still at a place where much can change, and the situation could be quite different after the next General Conference in 2024. In the end, we still have no idea how that might affect us here at Christ Church but regardless of what happens, we can anticipate that whatever happens, there will, eventually, be some significant, and dramatic changes.

And it was last week’s conversation that struck me as I read this week’s scripture from Luke’s account of the Acts of the Apostles contained in Acts 11:1-18 where he says this:

^11:1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him ³and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

⁴Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: ⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance, I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. ⁶I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds. ⁷Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

⁸“I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹“The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ ¹⁰This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

¹¹“Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. ¹²The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. ¹⁴He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

¹⁵“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. ¹⁶Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

¹⁸When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

As I read this, I noticed something that we often skip past, and when I thought about it, that one thing reframed how I thought about the entire passage. The thing that we often fail to notice is in the very beginning when it says who had heard about what Peter was doing. It says that “the apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles” had received the word of God. When they heard these stories, they summoned Peter and criticized him for preaching to uncircumcised men or, in other words, Gentiles or, you know, those people. That doesn’t seem too surprising, but remembering that among the people having this conversation with Peter were the apostles, the eleven disciples of Jesus, and the other believers who were among those men and women who personally knew Jesus, their presence then becomes important to understanding Peter’s explanation of what he did, what he saw, and what happened.

And then we get to verse fifteen, Peter says that as he was speaking to the Gentiles that had gathered in Caesarea and “the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning.” And this is where it’s important to remember who was there. It was the disciples and the early followers of Jesus that were listening. When Peter says that the Spirit of God came upon the Gentiles just as it had come upon them, we remember that on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came with a “sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” And so, when Peter tells them that this is exactly the way that it happened to the Gentiles, this is what they all remember and I’m certain that’s why this passage concludes by saying, “When they heard this, they had no further objections.”

I’m certain, that the day, and the events, of Pentecost were something that none of them could ever forget. And hearing that the same thing had happened to the Gentiles immediately eliminated any other objections that they might have had as faithful, orthodox, and practicing Jews. It was obvious that the world was changing in ways that none of them had ever expected, or even imagined. But the message was also clear, that God was at work and that God could be found within those changes.

Today we are facing profound challenges and a world that is changing in ways that we never expected or imagined. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed, and continues to change, the world around us. The war in Ukraine has sent ripples of change around the world that has impacted fuel prices, supply chains, caused shortages in diapers, baby formula, fresh vegetables, sound system components, paper, floor wax, and all sorts of other things. And as we continue to watch the unfolding drama within our own denomination, regardless of where the future may carry us, the one thing of which we can be certain, is that we will see profound change.

But as we face these changes, and as we leave the old “normal” behind us forever, there remains one thing of which we can always be certain.

God is at work in the world and God can always be found within the changes.

Rather than worrying and living in fear, let us instead look for God, look to see what God is doing in the world, and seek to understand what work that God has for us to do as we move forward into a new normal.

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*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 references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Pastor Partridge

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