It is the time of lists. We have all sorts of lists. We have chores that must be done, decorations to put out, cookies to bake, gifts to buy for the kids’ gift exchanges at school, gifts to buy for the gift exchange at Sunday school, or Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions Club, bridge club, train club (actually we don’t have one), open houses, bowling team, things to do before our visiting relatives arrive, packing that must be done before we leave to visit other relatives, last minute projects that need to be completed for school or for work, and of course a list of gifts to buy for family, friends, your letter carrier, newspaper person, lawn service, fitness coach, more gift exchanges, employees, pets, neighbors, and who knows what else.
But amid all the busyness of the season, and among the lists of things we have to do, and gifts we have to buy, where is Jesus?
Will coming to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas, be the only time that you remember to check Jesus off your list? Will you put a few dollars in the offering plate at church, or a few coins in the red kettle at the drug store, and check that off your list too?
As we spend time with family, friends, co-workers, and parties for clubs and other activities, how much time will you spend with Jesus? If we made a list of all the places you spend time this season, where will Jesus rate on that list? As we spend money, and buy gifts, where will our gifts to Jesus rate? Will our gifts to Jesus match what we spent on our spouse or our children? Will he be measured more closely to the tip we give to our letter carrier? Or will our gifts to Jesus rank closer to what we’re spending on gifts and outfits for our pets?
I’m not saying that you should, necessarily, give those gifts to Christ Church, but when the season is over, how will Jesus rank? How much time will you spend with him? What gifts will you bring him? How will you honor him? Will you feed the hungry? Clothe the naked? Comfort the troubled? Heal the wounded? Love the unloved?
Before we get too wrapped up in our busy-ness let us seriously consider…
My dear friend, Rev. Chris Martin, heard that our son Jonah and his girlfriend would be visiting from Texas, took me aside, and essentially told me that he would be preaching this week so that I could take the time to enjoy being with my family and not worry about preparing a message. As it turned out, there would be another, more tragic reason that I would need to be with my family that week. My sincere thanks to Pastor Chris as he was not only listening to his heart as he made his generous offer to preach, but must also have been listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit who knew that our family would need it.
Click on the links below to watch this worship service or listen to the podcast as Pastor Chris explain why…
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 Luke 9:57-62 Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Have you seen the demonstrations of the capabilities of some of the new cameras? I’m talking about the new phones with three lenses and a few other high-end cameras. One of the neat tricks that they can do is known as “variable focus.” In days past, you could turn the lens to change the focus, but whatever you focused on, once you took the picture, that was what you had to live with.
But variable focus cameras not only take the picture that you saw, but several more, from different angles, and the technology allows you to change the focus of the picture after you’ve already saved it in memory. For example, you take a picture of some friends at a wedding, and after you get home you notice another person, in the background, doing something interesting. A few years ago, you would just have to wonder who that was, or what it was that they were doing. But with this technology you can open yesterday’s picture, zoom in, and refocus on the person in the background.
It’s a lot like real life. We can choose what we want to focus upon. Our eyes do that naturally, but we do that with the way that we live our lives as well. I used to work as an engineer, but the focus of my life changed. Or consider Alfred Nobel. Mr. Nobel was a brilliant scientist who spoke six languages, earned his first patent at the age of twenty-four and eventually held 355 patents for a wide variety of discoveries. But his best know patent was for a safe method of using nitroglycerine as an explosive, in other words… dynamite. That patent made him a wealthy man, but when a newspaper erroneously wrote his obituary before his death, they referred to him as a “war profiteer” and he didn’t like it. Mr. Nobel didn’t want his legacy to be one of destruction, and so he created, and gave his entire fortune to, the Nobel institution, so that annual prizes would be given to those persons who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Alfred Nobel changed the focus of his life, and it made a difference to the world.
With that in mind, let’s read today’s scriptures and, as we do, let’s look for where we can see the focus of the people in them. We begin with 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 and the story of how Elijah ends his time on earth and passes the mantle of his ministry onward to his apprentice Elisha.
2:1 When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”
But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, they went down to Bethel.
6 Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.”
And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, the two of them walked on.
7 Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. 8 Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
10 “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. 12 Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.
13 Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.
Everyone knew that today was the day that God would take Elijah from the earth. Elijah knew, Elisha knew and, in the verses of scripture that we skipped, hundreds of Israel’s prophets along the path of their journey also knew and asked Elisha to be sure that he knew (He did). But along the way, several times, Elijah tells his apprentice to stay behind and Elisha, however obedient he might normally have been, flatly refuses to be anywhere except where Elijah is.
Elisha is completely focused on loyalty, respect, and honor.
As a result, Elijah asks what he can do for Elisha before God takes him away, and Elisha asks that he be twice as spiritual, twice as godly, twice as powerful, twice as devoted, and twice as close to, and twice as focused on God as Elijah had been. Elijah knows that this is not a gift that he can give and so he tells his friend that if God allows him to see him as he is taken from the earth, then he will know that God has given him this gift. And he does. As proof that God has given him this gift, on his way home Elisha repeats the miracle that Elijah had just performed when he slaps the Jordan River with Elijah’s coat, the water parts like the Red Sea in front of Moses, and he walks to the other side on dry land.
We see the same focus on priorities and… well… focus, in Luke 9:57-62, as the time came for Jesus to be taken up from the earth.
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
This passage draws a distinction between the different sorts of people who followed Jesus. We usually talk about Jesus’ disciples, but in this passage, we also meet people that we would, in modern language, refer to as Jesus’ groupies. They were enamored of Jesus and what Jesus was doing but Jesus makes it clear that they are only attracted to the idea of what he is doing and not to the reality of what he was doing. To the first case, Jesus simply reminds the man that Jesus and all who follow him, are homeless. There is no healthcare plan, there is no home base of ministry, there is no wealth, and there isn’t even a definitive destination for their journey together. And in the next three cases, Jesus’ responses all ask that these groupies reconsider what their priorities really are. To be a disciple, rather than a groupie, requires a complete and dedicated focus. A farmer that looks back, or becomes distracted, while plowing a field will not be able to plow straight lines but will instead plow a field with wandering furrows.
But why is that important? Why do wandering furrows matter? Why does focus matter?
Those questions are answered by Paul as he writes to the church in Galatia to explain how the followers of Jesus Christ should use the freedom that Jesus paid for with his life (Galatians 5:1, 13-25).
5:1It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateveryou want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Paul reminds the church that Jesus has purchased our freedom and the reason that he spent his life to do that was… freedom. Paul cleverly repeats those words, saying that we were set free for freedom, in order to remind us that if we do not stand firm in what we believe, then we will give up what we have gained, give away our freedom, and return to our slavery voluntarily. Yes, we are free. But Paul’s reminder is that using our freedom to serve ourselves, to pursue a life of pleasure, or to be argumentative, angry, and destructive with one another, takes us back to the slavery that we once escaped. Rather than practicing immorality, impurity, worshipping idols of stone, fame, money, or work, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfishness, division, envy, drunkenness, and free sex, the followers of Jesus Christ are called to live lives of service to the people around us, to love our neighbors, and be loving, joyful, kind, agents of peace, goodness, and faithfulness, and to be calm, faithful to God, and to one another.
How we use our freedom, is what distinguishes Jesus’ disciples from groupies.
How we use our freedom reveals our priorities and our focus.
If we focus on the wrong things, we throw away the freedom for which Jesus paid so dearly and return, voluntarily, to a life of slavery to sin and death.
Our freedom has been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus. But the only way that we will be able to keep it is to stand firm and keep our focus on the mission in front of us. If we lose our focus, our paths will wander and take us places that we never want to go.
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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.
Three months from today, July 4th, is our nation’s birthday and a grand celebration of freedom and independence.
An in that sense, our celebration today, on April 4th, is three months early. But our celebration today is the celebration of a freedom that is far grander, and far more amazing, that our independence from King George and the nation of England.
The freedom that we celebrate today has been the subject of our sermons for the last seven and a half weeks and even then, we’ve barely scratched the surface of why our remembrance of this day is the cause of so much joy, gladness, and celebration. But make no mistake, like the celebration of July 4th for the citizens of the United States of America, the Easter celebration for the citizens of the Kingdom of God and of Jesus Christ, is a celebration of freedom. I’m going to briefly recap the last seven weeks and remind you of a few of the freedoms that we are celebrating in a little while, but first I want to read words of Mark 16:1-8 and add to our remembrance of the story of Easter that our youth began this morning in our sunrise service.
16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
As the two Marys and Salome walked to the tomb, they were worried about what Jesus body would smell like, they were worried that the stone was too large for the tree of them to move, worried that there might not be anyone to help them move it, and worried that the Roman soldiers, or whomever was guarding it, would refuse to help them, or even refuse to allow them to re-wrap Jesus’ body with the spices, incense, and aromatic tree sap that they had brought with them. But upon their arrival, the two-thousand-pound stone had already been moved and they worried about why it had been moved. But when they entered the tomb to look inside, instead of finding Jesus, they found a messenger from God whose first words were, “Don’t be afraid.” But after he had given them their instructions and sent them on their way, they were still trembling, confused, and afraid.
But that initial reaction changed as they met Jesus face-to-face and realized that Jesus was alive. As time passed, they began to understand the things that Jesus had taught them, including the things about death, burial, and resurrection that had always been confusing. They began to understand that everything that they had seen, had happened exactly as Jesus had said that it would happen, and exactly as the ancient prophets had described hundreds of years earlier. And, by the time that Peter stays in the home of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius in Caesarea, he has processed the lessons that he learned from Jesus in an even deeper way (Acts 10:34-43).
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how 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, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He 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. 42 He 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. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Peter realized that Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament had begun something entirely new and changed the way that God’s people would engage the world around them and change the way their entire relationship with God. The new covenant, this new contract with God, was a contract without favoritism, without nepotism, without racism, and without judgement except for the judgement of the one person who understood us best, and who was perfect, just, and infinitely wise.
And just a few decades later, Paul, having learned from the disciples, as well as through his own experience, and having had even more time to process what he had learned, seen, and heard, writes to the church in Corinth to help them to understand what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus meant to them, and still means to each one of us (I Corinthians 15:1-11).
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. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After 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. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But 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. 11 Whether then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Paul reminds us that it was by this gospel, this story of life, death, and resurrection, through which we were saved… if we hold firmly to what we have learned. Paul knows what his life was like before he met Jesus. Paul knows that he is utterly undeserving of God’s rescue, let alone the honor of being counted among the disciples of Jesus Christ. Paul remembers that he had been so anti-Jesus that he had become known as the hunter of Christ followers who had them arrested, tortured, and worse. And because of who he was, and the life that he had once lived, Paul understands the depth of God’s mercy and grace.
Through the story of Easter, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, Paul had found freedom. And that freedom has flowed down through history to us. It is a freedom that is far grander than anything that we celebrate on July fourth. It is more than our freedom from King George and the nation of England. It is more than the freedoms enumerated in the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
The message of the gospel is a message of many freedoms.
Mary, Mary, and Salome learned that it is a message of freedom from fear.
Peter learned that it was a message of freedom from favoritism, nepotism, and racism.
Paul learned that it is a message of mercy, grace, and freedom from our past.
And as we’ve learned over the last seven and a half weeks, it is a message of freedom from corruption, rescue from the flood, freedom from the Law of Moses, freedom from the demands of other gods, a message of keeping God at the center of our lives, freedom from the misplaced priorities and wisdom of the world, freedom from our failures, freedom from our guilt, freedom from suffering, freedom from sin, and even freedom from death.
And that is why we repeat the story every year, and why Easter should be filled with joy.
The message of Easter was a story about freedom long before the events of the Revolutionary War and long before July fourth had any meaning to the citizens of North America.
We celebrate Easter because today is the day when God gave us the immeasurable gift of freedom.
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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. If you have questions, you can ask them in our discussion forum on Facebook (search for Pastor John Online). These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.
Today, Governor John Kasich added Ohio to the list of several other states that are refusing to accept even one refugee from the war torn areas of Syria and other nations.This announcement is purely political and is entirely lacking in common sense and human compassion.
Judging by the Facebook posts I’ve been reading for two days, I’ve just offended many of my friends.
I don’t care.
Why? Because if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are completely ignoring nearly every instruction that Jesus ever gave.
Let me explain.
It is obviously apparent that terrorists have infiltrated the flood of refugees landing in Europe and elsewhere.But while estimates of how many terrorists might be among them range from a few to as many as 15 percent, most estimates go no higher than 7 percent.Still, considering that there are hundreds of thousands of refugees, 7 percent is a lot.Allowing 10,000 refugees into the United States could mean admitting 700 terrorists.
That is unacceptable.
So why do I think that Governor Kasich and a whole host of other politicians have it wrong?
Because closing the doors on legal immigrants, even in the face of this enormous threat, conveniently ignores too much human pain and suffering.Before I get around to Jesus, let’s first take a look at who these refugees are and why they are fleeing to other countries.
The civil war in Syria isn’t just about one group of radicals who are fighting against the government.We think that way because we think of the Confederate States fighting against the Union, but that example is just wrong.In Syria, there are literally dozens of armed factions that are warring, not only with Syria’s government, but against one another.And so thinking that this is like the Rebs against the Yankees doesn’t really do it justice.Instead, imagine that every church that you passed this week represented the headquarters of a different armed group.Imagine that, in your community, the Baptists are fighting the Lutherans, the Catholics are killing Pentecostals, and the Republicans are at war with Democrats.Not only is your neighborhood a war zone, every week or two, another group tries to capture it from the group that captured it the last time.Some towns have been blown up and shot up multiple times, churches have been burned, women raped, and entire towns lined up in the streets and murdered.
This is daily life in much of Syria.
And so, not surprisingly, a lot of people, both Christian and Muslim, have left their homes, their families, and all that they own, to literally walk across several entire countries in hope of finding something better.
Are there “bad guys” mixed in with the “regular” refugees?Yes.
But those of us who claim to follow Jesus are called to see the world in a different way.Not through the lens of Democrat or Republican, but through the lens of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.
If we look at what Jesus taught, we won’t find words like revenge, retaliation, or retribution.We won’t find instructions to hate our neighbor or to fear the foreigners.Instead, what we find are instructions to be merciful, compassionate, loving, and helpful.Our mission is to rescue the lost, heal the sick, clothe the naked, and help others find hope and a future so that they too might hear the message of the Prince of Peace.
We have every right to be concerned about the possibility of allowing hundreds of jihadi terrorists into our country, but that fear cannot allow us to slam the door on the 93 percent who are only looking for a place to live that won’t get blown up next week.
It is convenient and easy for politicians to preach from a pulpit of fear and xenophobia.But as Christians, we are not called to follow the teachings of John Kasich or any other politician.We are called to follow the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t expect us to be stupid or act foolishly.
We remember that Jesus teaches love, mercy, and compassion, but he also said,
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”(Matthew 10:16 NIV)
We are called to be merciful, but to be smart about how we do it.
Governor Kasich and other politicians are looking for easy, and popular, solutions but in doing so they sell Ohio, and the people of the United States short.
We are smarter than they give us credit for.
We are more than capable of sorting through the refugees and discerning which ones can be allowed in safely.
First, I want to congratulate all of the young people who have recently graduated from high school.
Second, as hard as it is to say, tomorrow, no one will care.
That doesn’t mean that what you have done for the last twelve years of your life doesn’t matter, but that what you have done is just the beginning.You have accomplished an important milestone, but it is a milestone that we all expected you to reach.You have achieved what most people consider to be the minimum standard for education.
And so you ask, “What’s next?”While your recent accomplishments are important, they are just the beginning. We expect you to do something with them.Up until now, what you have done has been mandated and required.Nearly every step along the way has been mapped out.Your education was paid for by your family, your friends and your neighbors because we believe in its importance.We paid for the teachers, the buildings, the administration, sports, protective gear, and the buses to get you there and back.
But tomorrow is up to you.
Tomorrow, a new chapter begins.This fall (or sooner) many of you will start your freshman year in college or begin trade school.Some of you will become apprentices to master trades people, some of you will begin working in a job of some sort, and a few of you may spend some time trying to “find yourself.”All of those things are okay but be warned, you have been given great gifts, life, health, education, and many other things, but the world is watching to see what you will do with them.
Of course, not every high school education, nor every student, is the same as every other.Some schools provided phenomenal opportunities and others struggled to exist.Some of you worked hard and some coasted through school.
But tomorrow is a new day, and the question everyone is asking is, “What will you do with it?”
Think of it this way.Every one of you has been given a home, a building, a place to being a new life.Granted some of you, by virtue of your parents, your school, or your own hard work, have been given more than others.Some of you have a small apartment and others a more spacious home, but all of you have a place to start.Today that home that you have been given is unfinished.The drywall isn’t finished, there’s no siding on the outside and nothing has been painted.Your new place, your life, is just a shell.
What it will become is up to you.
The building you have been given can become a library, museum, bank, school, hospital, factory… or a crack house.
By your eighteenth birthday, between your parents and your community, statisticians tell us that we have invested nearly a half million dollars in your life and education.
We have high hopes for your future.
Two or three months from now, no one will care where you went to high school or what your grades were like.What everyone cares about is your destination and how well you are doing.If you start working your boss will only care about how hard you work and how well you help her to accomplish her goals.Your past won’t matter.If you skip class, get drunk and flunk out of college it won’t matter whether or not you were a great student in high school.Likewise, if you work hard, at whatever you choose to do, no one will notice, or care, if you were a poor student in high school, if you had poor parents, or grew up in a town with two hundred people.
Tomorrow is entirely up to you.
We have invested in your life because we believe in you.We believe that you are capable of building something amazing.We believe that you can change the world.We believe that you can build factories, hospitals, banks or something entirely new and wonderful that none of us have ever imagined.
But today, none of that matters.Our hopes for you, our investment in you, don’t matter. All of your hard world yesterday doesn’t matter.
From here on we can only offer encouragement and the occasional helping hand.
This week, in the span of twenty four hours, I received two invitations; one from an Atheist friend, and a second from a good Christian friend.The atheist invitation was for International Blasphemy Rights Day (held on September 30th of each year) which “is a day to promote the rights to freedom of belief and expression and stand up in a show of solidarity for the liberty to challenge reigning religious beliefs without fear of murder, litigation, or reprisal.”The Christian invitation was to sign a petition to force Youtube to stop a video that was blasphemous to the name of Jesus Christ.
Wow.
It isn’t often that this sort of thing drops into my lap. What’s more rare, is a situation in which I agree so strongly with the atheists and so clearly disagree with the (well-intentioned) Christians.To me, the atheists ‘get it’ and these particular Christians just don’t (however well-intentioned) particularly in light of recent events in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The United States is an amazing place.Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of speech like nowhere else in the world and that gives us, as Christians, an unprecedented opportunity to compete in the arena of ideas.I believe, as the Apostle Paul did, that Christianity is absolutely able to stand on its own in any such competition if it is given the ability to speak clearly.Our freedom allows us to do exactly that.My atheist friends may disagree with me on matters of faith but they understand that this same freedom allows them to disbelieve without fear of punishment or reprisal, whether from Christians, or Muslims, or anyone else.My Christian friends want someone to protect Jesus from being defamed when, I believe, Jesus doesn’t need protecting.First of all, Jesus is completely able to defend himself if he chooses to do so and second, Jesus chose not to defend himself when his accusers defamed him face to face.
In recent days the entire Middle East has been in an uproar over a video produced by an American and released on YouTube.In it, the Muslin prophet, Mohammad, is presented in a negative light.This, the Islamists claim, is blasphemous.They demand that YouTube remove the video, that the United States government require that the video be removed from the Internet and pass blasphemy laws preventing such things from happening in the future (sound familiar?).Free speech on the other hand requires that none of this happen.Free speech allows any of us to say things, to present a range of ideas, even offensive ones, without fear of punishment or reprisals.If the government were to prohibit us from blaspheming Jesus, then why not do the same for Mohammad?
Already our friends in Canada have passed hate speech laws that make it illegal for Christian pastors to preach what the Bible says about homosexuality (even if preached compassionately and not being deliberately inflammatory) but that same speech, unpopular or not, is still legal in the United States.If free speech is constrained to protect Christians today, it may very well be used to harm us tomorrow. I don’t like it when people burn flags, but I believe that it is a protected form of free speech that I am willing to protect. I don’t like it when the KKK or other hateful groups march and spout their venom from the public square, but it too is an important example of free speech. Just because I don’t like it isn’t a good reason to make it stop. After all, I have things to say that other people don’t like very much and I wouldn’t want someone to decide that my speech was no longer legal.
In this case, I think the Christians are wrong and the atheists are right.
Jesus is not threatened by the people who oppose him.Christianity doesn’t need the law to protect us from blasphemy.Jesus is more than able to compete in the arena of ideas.
On Sunday I made reference to an excellent blog by Scott Linscott who argues that the lack of a deep spiritual life in our children has a lot to do with the choices that we made (and are making) as we raised them.(see the original blog here http://scottlinscott.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/your-kids-an-all-star-wow-someday-hell-be-average-like-the-rest-of-us/and my sermon here http://www.scribd.com/doc/38170459/Love-Misplaced-2010-09-26)I left a comment on Linscott’s blog and let him know that I had borrowed from him (and yes, I gave him credit).Since then I have been following the conversation that he is having with other readers who are leaving their comments.One focus has been the way in which busy professionals find balance between a demanding and time-consuming career and time spent in their church and with their families.I completely understand.I faced that same challenge both in a secular career and now in ministry.What intrigues me is how often, as human beings, we are able to rationalize the difference between “Cannot” and “Will Not.”“Cannot” means we have no choice, “Will not” implies that we have chosen.
Several busy people argued that their jobs demand 60 hour work weeks and since God has given them these careers then their dedication was a measure of their devotion.An example given was the medical resident who is working 100 hours a week.In order to pursue a career as a doctor they have given up time for a social life, dating, family, church and nearly everything else.Others pointed out friends and church members that were medical professionals.They noted how these folk made time to spend in church, to volunteer and to go on mission trips.What I see is a difference between “Cannot” and “Will not.”Residents and Interns don’t really get a choice.Their schools, hospitals and others decide what is required in order to, eventually, gain the title of Doctor.If they don’t do what is required they will not ever attain the goal that they are pursuing but the sacrifice is intended to be temporary.Regardless of how much a career paid, I doubt that many would choose it if celibacy and 100 hour work weeks were expected for life.
At some point, how we spend our time becomes a choice.It is at that point that we all must choose whether we want to choose long hours at work or to use those hours for recreation or family or church. This is point at which everyone will eventually arrive.When we arrive at this moment, whether we are aware of it or not, we must make a choice.Some choose to spend more time at work and others choose to spend it elsewhere. For each choice there is a cost.If we work more, we may advance more quickly, get more raises, perks and bonuses. Working less may mean that we sacrifice these things.Working less may also mean that we are able to spend more time with friends and family and have more time to volunteer, attend church and other spiritual activities.Each choice comes at a price.
As I have watched friends, colleagues and church members make these choices I have often seen the line between “Cannot” and “Will not” get pretty blurry. I have had farmers tell me that they had to be in the fields on Sunday because of a recent stretch of bad weather.I have heard other farmers, in the same community, insist that it wasn’t necessary.There are two differences: priorities and trust.While some saw a break in the weather as a gift from God, others saw it as a test of faith.One group went into the fields to work and the others trusted that God was in control and would balance the scales at harvest time if they made God a priority.
However we want to rationalize it, for each of us there is a gap between “Cannot” and “Will not” but, however we choose, God wants us to make him our first priority.In Matthew 22:37 Jesus teaches that the greatest commandment of the law is to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’We find a very similar verse in Proverbs 3:5 with a very important twist.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart…
…and lean not on your own understanding.”
I know that doctors and funeral home directors (and many others) need to work when they are called.My point is that each of us needs to be aware of when our priorities are shifting.We need to be aware of when we begin to trust money, power or our own ability more than we trust God.God asks that we put him first and not to ‘lean on our own understanding.’
Putting God first can be expensive and it can be painful but God asks that we trust him to span the distance between “Cannot” and “Will not.”
Pastor Partridge 