trust

Do I Lie?

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Do I Lie?

May 07, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 14:1-14              Acts 7:55-60               1 Peter 2:2-10

During the fourth season of the television situation comedy, The Office, one member of the team refused to participate during a staff brainstorming session and clearly said “No” when asked to do so. When the office manager pressed him further for his participation, he angrily shouted “Did I stutter?” That line has since become an often-repeated internet meme applied to all sorts of other situations. We can relate to his frustration.

We are sometimes dumbfounded by the way that the people around us aren’t listening, or left speechless because, despite spending time with us, act as if they don’t know us at all. In those moments our brain is churning and our reaction is much like “Did I stutter?” We wonder how we could have spent so many hours, or years, with that friend, that coworker, or that family member, and somehow, they missed understanding something about us that we thought should have been pretty obvious.

These can be those moments when we just stop, stare, and think, “Are you serious right now?”

Just before the words of today’s reading from the gospel of John, Jesus had told his disciples that he was leaving, and where he was going they could not follow but would follow later. The disciples are distressed. Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

We usually read past that quickly and barely notice it. It doesn’t seem like much. But Jesus responds to the distress of Peter and the other disciples as if they have completely missed something important that he’s been trying to tell them for three years, which, if we’re honest, seemed to happen with some regularity.

But with that in mind, we join the story in John 14:1-14, where we hear Jesus say…

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will knowmy Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Jesus says, “…if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” And it is as if he is saying, ‘Did I stutter?’ ‘Do I lie?’ Haven’t you been with me for the last three years? Don’t you know you I am and what I represent? Would I ever be the kind of person that tells you that I am going to do something, that I wasn’t going to do? By now, after three years of ministry together, Jesus seems to have expected that the disciples would… trust.

This entire conversation is like that. Philip wants Jesus to show them the Father, but Jesus insists that showing them the Father is exactly what he’s been doing for the last three years. “Don’t you know me, Philip? Even after I have been among you for such a long time?” By now you know me. And because you know me, you know my father.

Most of us can weigh in on that from our own experience. Of the people in this room, there is Pastor Chris, my wife Patti, and maybe one or two others who met my father. But I would be willing to bet, that on the day that you meet him on the other side of glory, you will not be surprised. If you know me, you already know a lot about my father.

What Jesus is saying is, ‘You already know me. What you need to do now is to trust me and to believe in me.”

Not long afterwards, perhaps three to six months later, that is exactly what Stephen is doing. Stephen is not a disciple, at least, not one of the twelve disciples, but he has heard the good news of Jesus Christ, he has trusted Jesus, put his faith in Jesus, and Acts 6:8 says, “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.” But for doing good, for performing signs and wonders, probably healing the sick and casting out demons, and other things that the religious leaders couldn’t do, he gets arrested, put on trial, and condemned to death.  And at his trial the Sanhedrin ask him if there is truth to the accusations against him, and rather than defend himself, he preaches the truth and confronts them with the reality that they are responsible for the murder of Jesus but also for enabling his resurrection. They’re so furious that they rush outside to execute Stephen by stoning, in Acts 7:55-60.

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Stephen trusted, then he believed, and then he testified to the truth regardless of the cost.

But what should we do?

We have not been in the presence of Jesus, or his disciples. We do not yet have the faith to heal the sick and rarely have the opportunity to cast out demons. What should we do? That is exactly the question that Peter seems to be answering in his letter to the followers of Jesus Christ in Asia minor in 1 Peter 2:2-10 when he says…

2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual houseto be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.”

7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”

8 and,

“A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter says, “crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”

“Crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”

Crave pure spiritual milk.

Think about that.

Peter says, start small. You don’t start working in your profession and expect to start as the CEO. You start at the bottom and work your way up. You don’t start life by collecting your pension. You begin at the beginning. You start small, but you are expected to grow and to mature. You are being built into a spiritual house.  You aren’t there yet, but you are under construction and sometimes construction is messy. You are being built into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood so that you can offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the cornerstone of our church and everything that we do. But while some people will build on that cornerstone, others will only be able to trip over it. It’s the same stone but they stumble because they refuse to obey the instructions that came with it.

You are under construction but even in the messiness of the building process, you are already a chosen people, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.

First you trust.

After you trust, then you believe.

After you believe, then you testify.

And after you testify, then you build.

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.

Jesus said so. And if you doubt him, you might just hear him ask…

… Did I stutter?         

… “Do I lie?”

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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 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.™

What Faith Isn’t

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What Faith Isn’t

March 05, 2023*

(2nd Sunday of Lent)

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 12:1-4a                     John 3:1-17                Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Often when we are explaining what things are, and how they work, we pause from our explanations of what they are to spend some time explaining what they aren’t.  This was important when the Covid-19 vaccines began to come out because many people heard the word “vaccine” and their thoughts connected to the polio vaccines that we received as children.  Those vaccines essentially made us “immune” to polio… or so we thought.  But the fact is that those vaccines made us immune because all of us had them, and because each vaccine, and each disease, performs differently in the human body. And so, we had to take the time to explain what vaccines are, and what they are not so that our understanding could align with the reality that the Covid vaccine is a lot more like our annual flu shot than it is to our once or twice in a lifetime polio vaccination.

With that in mind, when I read our lectionary selections for today, it occurred to me that, for as often as we spend time in church explaining what faith is, sometimes it is useful for us to talk about what faith isn’t, and that’s exactly what we find in some of today’s scriptures.  We begin this morning in Genesis 12:1-4a, where we hear God call Abram to leave his home, his family, his people, and his nation, and go to a place that God won’t even name.

12:1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

God calls Abram from his home in the nation of Ur, to leave everything that he knows and just… go.  It’s a bit like the call from American history to just “Go West.”  God does not name a destination but promises to bless Abram and his descendants.  That’s it.  Just a promise.  And with that promise, Abram believes, Abram trusts, and Abram goes.

And as we will shortly see, as gentiles, that story is at the root of our eventual adoption into God’s family.

But first, we move on to John 3:1-17, where we find Jesus meeting with Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and a powerful member of the Sanhedrin.

3:1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[plural, as in “y’all”] must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So, it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still, you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

As a Pharisee, we know that Nicodemus was a devout man of faith who dedicated his life to doing what was right in the eyes of God.  But because he was a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, we also know that he was politically connected, respected, and well-known in the community.  Nicodemus says that he and the other leaders knew that Jesus must have been sent by God, because without God he would be unable to do the things that he had been doing.

Jesus explains to Nicodemus that the reason that he can do the things that he does, is because the he has received the Spirit of God and, more importantly, everyone who believes will receive the Spirit of God and will have eternal life.

And, once again, Jesus’ statement that “everyone” who believes may have eternal life, is of vital  importance to us as gentiles.

When Paul was called by God to minister to the Gentiles across the Roman world, there was debate as to whether this was even possible.  For Jews who had been raised on the teaching that they were loved by God because of the covenant that God had made with Abraham, it was difficult to understand how gentiles could be a part of God’s plan.  And so, Paul spent much of his time explaining how that could happen, and a part of that explanation included a definition of what faith in God is, as well as what faith in God isn’t.  We find one of those explanations in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, in Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 where he connects the dots from today’s scriptures saying…

4:1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

13 It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

Paul starts, as we did, with the story of Abraham.  When God called Abram, only one thing connected him to the promise of God.  There was, at that time, no covenant with God and Abraham had not yet done anything worth rewarding.  Remember that we said that with God’s promise, Abram believes, Abram trusts, and Abram goes.  The only thing that Abram had was faith.  But nonetheless, scripture records that God credited Abram with righteousness.  

That tells us something about what faith is not.  Faith is not connected to the works that we do for God or in God’s name.  Abraham was credited with righteousness before he could do anything.  And, if Abram received the promise of God through faith, and not through the Law of Moses, which obviously came much later, then God’s grace is not hereditary and is not inherited, such that it cannot be passed from one generation to another.  Paul argues that there is no such thing as inheriting the faith of your parents or your grandparents and that applied to Jews in the first century just as it does for Christians in the twenty-first century.  We do not, and cannot, claim that we are saved because we were born into a Christian family.

Abram received the promise of God because he had… faith.  He was, to borrow a more modern expression, saved by faith.  Jesus said that everyone who believes may have eternal life.  We are not saved by the things that we do, we are not saved by works.  We are not saved by anything that was done by our ancestors, by our grandparents, or by our parents.  Our salvation and rescue are not hereditary and cannot be inherited or passed down from one generation to another.

We are saved by our faith.  We are saved by faith… alone… by grace… alone.

Just as it was for Abraham, by faith, and because of our faith, we are adopted by God into his family and into his church.

And it is for that reason that Paul can say that by grace we are, even as gentiles, the children of Abraham.

And that is why Jesus said that everyone who believes may have eternal life.

May.  Not will.  May.  May have eternal life.  What about you?  Do you believe?

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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 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.™

Broken Trust

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Broken Trust

September 18, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1               Luke 16:1-13              1 Timothy 2:1-7

When our children were just beginning elementary school, our school district had a problem.  They had too many elementary school-age children and not enough space to fit them all.  That is not a unique problem.  The problem was that they had an additional elementary school building that was in good repair, that they couldn’t use.  Immediately behind the district administration building was an empty elementary school whose steam plant was active and supplied heat to the administration building. The problem, and the reason that the school was empty, was asbestos. 

Before the school could be safely filled with children and teachers, the district would need to spend a half a million dollars to remediate the asbestos.  At the same time, they couldn’t tear it down because it provided heat to the administration building and because… it would cost a half million dollars to remediate the asbestos.  The obvious solution would have been to ask the taxpayers for a one-time, emergency, tax levy to raise the half million dollars that would be needed to remove the asbestos and return that school to its useful purpose.  But, because taxpayers have been lied to by politicians for so long, it was impossible to pass a temporary tax levy because no one trusts a politician when they say that a new tax would be temporary.

The trust between taxpayers and their government has been broken so repeatedly, that we now simply assume politicians are lying most of the time.  Frank Sonnenberg said that “Trust is like blood pressure. It’s silent, vital to good health, and if abused it can be deadly.” And Dr. Jane Greer had this to say about trust, “Broken trust forces us, first, to acknowledge a painful reality we may have chosen to ignore, then, to make some difficult decisions.” That’s exactly what the taxpayers of our school district did.  They made some difficult decisions, which caused more problems and more difficult decisions later.  It is this cycle of broken trust that has complicated the administration of our government, the operation and conduct of our churches, our schools, and it creeps into every facet of our lives.

And, as we read the words of Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1, what we hear underneath the words of a nation mourning from its captivity in Babylon, is the pain of the trust that was broken between the people of Israel and their God.

18 You who are my Comforterin sorrow,
    my heart is faint within me.
19 Listen to the cry of my people
    from a land far away:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    Is her King no longer there?”

“Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
    with their worthless foreign idols?”

20 “The harvest is past,
    the summer has ended,
    and we are not saved.”

21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
    I mourn, and horror grips me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
    for the wound of my people?

9:1 Oh, that my head were a spring of water
    and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
    for the slain of my people.

Jeremiah speaks for his people and says that they faint with sorrow over the loss of their nation and their God but, at the same time, he is angry that his people broke their trust with God and aroused his anger by abandoning him and worshiping the idols of another nation.  The people are saying that “the harvest is past, and the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”  The realization of reality is finally hitting them that God isn’t going to bail them out easily and quickly this time and that they are not going home any time soon.  Jeremiah says that with this realization, horror grips him and there is no comfort, no physician, and no healing to be found as they mourn what they have lost, come to grips with their new reality, and weep for all those who died because of their rebellion and broken trust.

And then in Luke 16:1-13, Jesus tells a story about an entirely different kind of broken trust but compliments the man who does wrong because of the lesson that the church should learn from him about how we can operate within a system that often struggles with trust issues.

16:1 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

6 “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels[about thirty tons] of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Jesus praises the dishonest man for his shrewdness in using the tools that he had available to him.  Despite being fired, he had time left, and tools at his disposal, to prepare for, and to secure resources for his future.  Clearly his actions amount to fraud and theft, and certainly Jesus expects that we will not do those things.  But, although we are held to a higher standard, and expected to be trustworthy and live up to our promises to our employers and the people around us, we are encouraged to use the tools that we have been given by our employers, by our community, our leaders, our governments, and by our Constitution, to further the cause of the kingdom of God.  We are to prove ourselves trustworthy with what we have been given here, so that we can demonstrate to God that he can trust us with real wealth and true riches in heaven.

But how do we connect that story with the heartbreak experienced by Jeremiah and the people of Israel during their captivity in Babylon?  We begin with the idea that the phrase “we cannot serve two masters,” can be about money, it can also be about other things that take the place of God.  In a letter to his young friend and protégé Timothy, Paul briefly describes the relationship that we should be cultivating with the powers that surround us. (1 Timothy 2:1-7)

2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth; I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

Paul urges Timothy and the church to pray for kings and the people in authority in their governments even though, like now, those leaders had often broken trust with the people over whom they ruled.  Some had not only broken trust but had actively persecuted their citizens.  And yet, Paul’s encouragement isn’t to rebel, or to resist, but to pray for them, and to do whatever they could do to live peaceful and quiet lives of integrity and honesty that were both godly and holy.

Our goal is to peacefully coexist with our government, not to put our trust in the government and not to break our trust with God by putting our faith in money, power, or government officials.  Neither should we abdicate our responsibilities to God or entrust our government with do the work that God has commanded us to do.  Our calling is to shrewdly use the freedoms and the tools that we have been given, but to remain faithful to our God, to our integrity, honesty, and to the promises that we have made. 

The missionary journeys of Paul and the other disciples were made possible by the infrastructure and the safety and freedom to travel brought about by the Roman empire and its military.  In his letters, we sometimes see Paul use his Roman citizenship as a tool to accomplish his mission for Jesus Christ, but Paul never concedes that Caesar is lord, and he never puts his faith and trust in the Roman government.  For Paul, citizenship was a useful tool, but his loyalty was always firmly in Jesus Christ, and his faith and trust always belonged, without question, to the kingdom of God first.  We are similarly challenged.  Finding the balance that Paul had will be as challenging to us as it was for him.  But our calling is to remain faithful to Jesus Christ, to put our whole trust only in God, and to shrewdly use the rights, freedom, citizenship, money, and other tools at our disposal to further the interests of God’s kingdom wherever we can.  At the same time, we must live lives that are trustworthy, honest, filled with integrity, and remain faithful to the promises that we have made so that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

If he were here, I am certain that Paul would confess that finding that balance, while living in a powerful military empire, was challenging, and doing so is likely to be similarly challenging for us in twenty-first century United States.  But one thing we can learn from Jeremiah is that getting that balance wrong can have devastating, and sometimes eternal, consequences.

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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.

Two Big “Ifs” of Christianity

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Two Big “Ifs” of Christianity

August 07, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20                    Luke 12:32-40            Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

If you have ever programmed computers, you know that on the first day of your first programming class, you learn about the IF-THEN statement.  It is just what it sounds like.  The IF-THEN statement asks the computer to check some value and if that value is what you want, then you instruct it to do some other thing.  For example, IF the turnstile rotates one time, THEN add one to the memory location tracking the number of customers.

But outside of computer programming, we deal with if-then situations all the time.  If I want to earn interest on my savings, then I need to take our money out of my mattress and put it in the bank or invest it somewhere.  If we want to have a less difficult visit to the dentist, then we should brush our teeth every morning and do the things that our dentist asks us to do.  If we don’t want to run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, then we need to stop and buy fuel when the needle moves to toward empty.

We understand if-then decision making because we make those sorts of decisions every day.  But sometimes those “ifs” can be big and dangerous.  If we smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, then we run an exceedingly high risk of cancer and other health problems.  If we drive our automobile over one hundred miles per hour, then the odds of dying in the event of an accident are almost 100 percent.

We can find if-then choices throughout our laws and in every contract ever written.  They say, if you do this for us, then we will do that for you.  Or, if you do this to us, then we will do this to you.  And, not surprisingly, this is also the kind of language that God uses to explain our choices to us and, in Isaiah 1:1, 10-20, we find two really big “ifs” in God’s words to Israel, and despite the passage of time and the coming of Jesus, they remain important advice and instruction to which we should listen. 

1:1 The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah, son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

10 Hear the word of the Lord,
    you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the instruction of our God,
    you people of Gomorrah!
11 “The multitude of your sacrifices—
    what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
    of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
    in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me,
    who has asked this of you,
    this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
    Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
    I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
    I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
    I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
    I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
    stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.

18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
    you will eat the good things of the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
    you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

By describing Israel’s leaders and people as Sodom and Gomorrah, God accuses them of all sorts of sin and injustice.  And because of their actions, God says that he doesn’t care about their sacrifices, gifts, offerings, religious holidays, festivals, celebrations, meetings, gatherings, or even their prayers. 

What God really wants is for his people to stop doing evil, to defend the oppressed, to speak for the legally voiceless such as widows and orphans who, without a male family member, couldn’t even speak for themselves in court.

After that, God presents the two big “ifs” to his people.  “If you are willing and obedient,” then “you will eat the good things of the land.”  “But, if you resist and rebel,” then “you will be devoured by the sword.”  If you follow God, and do what God commands, then he will give you all sorts of blessings.  But, if you choose to ignore God, and do things your own way, then God will withdraw his protections and his blessings and let you face the world, and all the evil in it… alone.

The temptation for the people of Israel in the time of Isaiah, as well as the time of Jesus, is a temptation that still afflicts us in the twenty-first century, and that is to deceive ourselves into thinking that God isn’t watching, or that the return of Jesus Christ won’t happen any time soon.  Sure, we understand that Jesus is coming back, and we say that we believe that he is coming back, but do we really act like we expect that to happen any time soon?

That is exactly the point that Jesus is making in Luke 12:32-40 and as he makes his point, Jesus offers a warning to the people gathered in front of him that is just as relevant to us today.  Jesus said…

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near, and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

Jesus cautions us that we cannot act as if we are going to live forever.  When we say that we trust God, we must act as if we trust God, and that includes how we treat our wallets and our giving to the poor.  God’s call isn’t for us to give what is leftover or, only what we feel that we can spare, but to give to the poor as if we trust God to care for us like we say that we do.

That hits kind of close to home, doesn’t it?

Jesus continues by saying that we cannot act as if the master isn’t coming back until tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or sometime after we die.  We must take God at his word and behave as if we expect Jesus to return at any moment.  We must act as we would if we genuinely intended for Jesus to find us busy with the work of his kingdom upon his return.

Paul revisits this same idea in Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 by reminding his listeners about people who had great faith such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, and using those examples to illustrate how faith might look if applied to our lives if we choose to be obedient.

11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.

3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed, and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

God promised Abraham an inheritance that only his descendants would see, and yet he persisted and remained faithful.  And through that, and other examples, Paul reminds us that our promise is for a future that we may never see in this lifetime.  We look forward to something better, we look forward to a better future, but it is a future in a kingdom that is not of this world.  We may never see health, or wealth, or prosperity in this world, we will face trials, temptations, loss, betrayal, and all sorts of struggle in this life but through these examples, Paul reminds us not to give up hope.

Instead, we, like Abraham, must remain faithful as we hope for a future that we might only see in brief glimpses or shadows in this life.  We must act as if we trust God.  We must give to the poor, share with others, and seek justice as if we believed what we say that we believe.  We must keep watch for the return of our master, Jesus, and conduct our affairs as we would if he might return this very afternoon and we wanted him to find us busy caring for his kingdom and his kingdom business.

Because, in the end, we still face those two big “ifs” that we heard in the words of Isaiah.

“If you are willing and obedient,” then “you will eat the good things of the land.”

But, if you choose to ignore God, and do things your own way, then God will withdraw and let you face the world, and all the evil in it… alone.

Where will Jesus find you when he returns?

Choose wisely.

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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.

Whom Do You Trust?

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Whom Do You Trust?

February 13, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Luke6:17-26

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Do you remember the television game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

On that show, you earned money by answering multiple choice questions that increased in difficulty as you advanced.  And, as the questions got harder, players had the opportunity to use three “lifelines.”  They could ask the audience, they could reduce the number of possible answers from four to two, or they could phone a friend.  Today, I want to think about that last one.  Imagine that one question might stand between you and a million dollars.  And that’s what every contestant had to think about when they had the opportunity play the game.  Choose one person, and a million dollars hangs on their ability to answer one random question.  And in that moment of decision, those contestants had to ask themselves, “Whom do I trust?”

In a variety of ways, we answer that question all the time.  Whom do we trust to educate, or to babysit, or provide medical care, for our children?  Whom do we trust with the money that we save for our retirement?  Whom do we trust to run our government, church, or social club?  Whom do we trust with our friendship, or our medical care, or a host of other things?  The stakes of our decisions are high because our lives can, literally, hang in the balance.  That’s exactly what we find in our scriptures for today.  We begin with the words of God found in Jeremiah 17:5-10.  Lives hang in the balance, but whom do you trust? 

5 This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives.

7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

9 The heart is deceitful above all things
    and beyond cure.
    Who can understand it?

10 “I the Lord search the heart
    and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
    according to what their deeds deserve.”

This is incredibly relevant to us in the twenty-first century.  God doesn’t say that we are cursed for trusting any one person, but we can be cursed by God for putting the fundamental trust of our lives in any human, in any person, other than God.  We must not put our trust in politicians, or in human governments, or in television, radio, or internet personalities.  Humans fail.  Humans disappoint.  Humans can be selfish and turn away from God.  If we want our lives to be blessed by God, then we must trust our lives to God and put our confidence entirely in God.

At the end of the day, God says, our reward is based on merit.  Our reward isn’t based on what we thought, but on our deeds.  In other words, our reward is based upon what we do.  And please note, that this statement about rewards is not written in the past tense.  This is not a judgement by God after our lives are over, but rewards that God gives while we are alive.

In Luke 6:17-26, Jesus delivers a message that is known as the Sermon on the Plain, and in that message, Jesus also has something to say about trust.

17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

20 Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
    when they exclude you and insult you
    and reject your name as evil,
        because of the Son of Man.

23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24 “But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
    for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
    for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Untold thousands of sermons have, undoubtedly been written about Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain but let’s think about its meaning in light of today’s focus on trust.  Jesus says that the poor, the hungry, and the weeping are all blessed by God and most everyone will admit that this always sounds a bit odd.  But as we think about trust, doesn’t it make sense that the poor are blessed, because they trust God for their daily living.  The hungry trust God for their daily food.  Those who weep lean on God for strength and we all cling to God when the people around us hate us, exclude us, insult us, and reject us.  Likewise, the richer we are, the more comfortable we get, when our bellies are full, and when we are laughing and surrounded by friends, it is easy for us to put our trust somewhere other than God. 

The emphasis of Jesus’ message is that we needn’t worry when things aren’t going well.  None of us want to be poor, or hungry, filled with sorrow, or hated by the people around us, but our primary concern should never be for our comfort or our popularity.  Our primary concern should always be about our relationship with, and our trust in God.

And in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Paul shares a message for his church that remains strikingly relevant in a twenty first century world that doubts the resurrection just as much as it did two thousand years ago.  Paul says…

12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Then, like now, there were people, even preachers, that said Jesus had never been raised from the dead.  They may have said that Jesus never really died, or that the resurrection never happened, and Paul could find folks with either of those opinions, just as you can now.  But Paul makes it clear that if there is no resurrection, then all of Christianity falls apart.  Anyone, and certainly any preacher or teacher, that says that the resurrection didn’t happen is a false witness.  If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then we have no hope of resurrection, no hope of eternal life, and everything that we have believed, and our life’s work, has been a waste.  Were that true, Paul says, our trust would have been completely misplaced, and we would be the most pitiable people in the world.

But Jesus did rise from the dead.

And that, Paul says, is the foundation of our faith, our church, our mission, who we are, and everything that we do.  It is in Jesus Christ that we have placed our faith, and in whom we have put our whole trust.

Twenty centuries ago, the temptation was for people to put their faith and confidence in the Caesar, or the emperor, national governments, powerful armies, wealthy patrons, money, or false gods.  And, although the names of the politicians, nations, and false gods may have changed, the things that tempt people away from God haven’t really changed that much.  We’re still tempted to trust politicians, parties, national governments, powerful armies, employers, wealth, popularity, and other gods instead of the one true God, the creator of everything.  Poverty, hunger, sorrow, and persecution, are not now, nor have they ever been something that anyone wants for their life, but they all have a way of clarifying our trust.  The lesson isn’t that it’s good to be poor, but that the most important thing is to put our whole trust in God and to keep God in the center of all that we do, and all that we are.

We still wonder whom we can trust, but ultimately the answer is a lot more important than a game show and is worth a lot more than a million dollars.  Times changed and the people of the Old and New Testaments would feel lost in the world of the twenty-first century, but wisdom doesn’t change.  The wisdom of scripture is just a true today as it was two thousand, or even three thousand years ago.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

Did you enjoy reading this?

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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.com/.  All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Not (Im)Possible

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Not (Im)Possible

June 20, 2021*

By Pastor John Partridge

1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-49                         Mark 4:35-41             2 Corinthians 6:1-13

What do you do when you face the impossible?  Of course, that impossible thing could be all sorts of different situations from being outnumbered, to facing impending deadlines, to going back to school as an adult, to a difficult situation at work, to facing down a rival or a bully, or finding your way through a difficult financial situation, to being lost, alone, and afraid, and all sorts of other things.  And, naturally, since we’re talking about overcoming giants, we’re going to begin with the story that even secular writers talk about when they try to describe impossible situations, and that is, not surprisingly, the story of David and Goliath.  And because we’re starting with that familiar story, and because I don’t want to skip over too many important parts of it, today’s message is more Bible story than it is sermon, but I’m sure that I will manage to throw in a few good words along the way to tie thing together. 

But, because the story of David and Goliath is so long, we’re going to start somewhere in the middle.  We begin reading in 1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-49:

17:1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah.

4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. [about 9’ 9” – for reference, Shaquille O’Neill is 7’1”] 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels [125 lbs.]; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels [15 lbs.]. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” 10 Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

12 Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old. 13 Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. 14 David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, 15 but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

17 Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah [about 36 lbs.] of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. 18 Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance[token] from them. 19 They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”

20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. 21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines, and asked his brothers how they were. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

25 Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.”

26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

27 They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.

“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So, he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.

David was young.  His father didn’t yet place a lot of trust in him.  He was too young to go to war when King Saul had called the nation to arms to fight against the Philistines.  David’s brothers thought he was a useless little twerp with an oversized ego.  And worse yet, the enemy that Israel faced was literally so gigantic that even the best trained warriors ran and hid themselves whenever he showed up.  Goliath was a man who, today, could literally set his drink on the roof of a tractor trailer, climb a flight of stairs in two or three steps, and who carried, and could throw, a spear that was like a pole with a bowling ball on the end.  He was not just huge, but also immensely strong, everyone was afraid to even think about fighting against him, and no one who ever had ever done so had lived to tell the tale.

Except, out of all the farmers, shepherds, field hands, servants, and ordinary men who had answered Saul’s call to arms, and out of all the professional warriors and charioteers that were regularly employed, and trained, by the king, including King Saul himself, the only person that was willing to fight was the twerpy little brother whose brothers tried to send home.  And the reason that David wasn’t afraid, was because, as we discussed last week, David’s perspective was different.  David didn’t look at Goliath and see how much smaller David was in comparison, David looked at the wider perspective and saw how much smaller Goliath looked than God.

And in the story of Mark 4:35-41, Jesus takes on an even more impossible giant.

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

From the perspective of the Disciples, and almost any other “reasonable” person, the weather, and other natural forces, are the ultimate uncontrollable situation, the ultimate impossible opponent, or the ultimate Goliath.  Nature cannot be reasoned with, bullied, encouraged, persuaded, or controlled.  Nature will do what nature will do. 

But that wasn’t how Jesus saw it.

From Jesus’ perspective, nature was just one more part of creation that fell under God’s control.  Jesus scolded the wind as a parent rebukes a misbehaving child… and the wind stopped.

Often in our lives, we have been, and will be, faced with impossible situations.  We might be outnumbered, facing impending deadlines, going back to school, have struggles at work, be facing a rival or a bully, finding ourselves in a difficult financial situation, be lost, alone, and afraid, and all sorts of other things.  But whatever our Goliath may be, our perspective makes all the difference.  If all that we see is giant that rests his beer on the roof of a semi-trailer, or an uncontrollable storm that intends to leave us for dead, then we will hide from his threats or huddle in the bottom of the boat.  But if we remember that our God is bigger than any trouble in all of creation, all our problems, and all our “Goliaths” will seem far less frightening.  Jesus knew, and David trusted, that God was able to defeat their impossible Goliaths whether they were giants, or uncontrollable forces of nature.  Like them, the key to surviving, and even thriving, when we face the impossible, is to maintain the right perspective.  Instead of seeing that our giants are bigger than we are, we must remember that how small those giants really are in comparison to God.

Victory against the impossible is possible… with God.

We won’t win every time, but even when we don’t, we hold on to Jesus and remember that he said…

… “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/c_P203OfI5M

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

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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.

How Can This Be?

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How Can This Be?*

December 20, 2020

By Pastor John Partridge

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16                           Luke 1:26-38              Romans 16:25-27

If we’ve learned anything from this pandemic, and from the last couple of decades of our national politics, it should be an overdeveloped sense of skepticism.  I once had an engineering co-worker say that if our management said that the sky was blue, he would have to look out the window to check.  And lately, that describes how many of us are consuming the news about both the coronavirus and politics.  As Ronald Reagan once told Mikhail Gorbachev as they negotiated a new nuclear drawdown, “Trust, but verified.”  If you think about it, our suspicions aren’t limited to politics and pandemics.  You have probably noticed that many of our non-church friends view the stories of scripture with that same sort of skepticism.  And, if we’re honest, even as believers, some of those stories strain our ability to believe them.  But we aren’t alone.  The stories of scripture remind us that the main characters of the story often wondered how such things were possible.  And as our first example, let’s begin with a story found in 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, where we find King David having just completed his ascent to power as the king of a united twelve tribes if Israel, and the construction of his new palace in Jerusalem.

7:1 After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”

4 But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:

5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. 10 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leadersover my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.

“‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you:

16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”

David rests from his warfare with Israel’s neighbors, from his political battles, and from his palace construction project, and how his attention turns to the idea of building a temple for the God of Israel.  But God denies his request, vetoes his idea, and says that David is not the man for the job.  But, rather than allowing this to be a discouraging word, God continues by reassuring David of his love for him and makes him an impossible promise for the future.  God promises David that his kingdom will endure forever, and his throne will be established before God… forever.

And, although it doesn’t say so, and although we know that David was a great man of faith, and we know that David trusted God and was a man after God’s own heart, we also know that David was not naïve.  David had been around the block more than once.  He had been a part of King Saul’s inner circle and then fled for his life after Saul turned on him and sent his entire army into the countryside to hunt him.  He had lived for a time as an advisor to the king of one of Israel’s neighbors, he had been betrayed by his friends, by his wife, and would later be betrayed by his own son.  David understood that kingdoms do not last forever.  And so, it isn’t difficult to imagine that even though David trusted God to keep his promise, he had to be wondering…

… “How can this be?”

And the same thing is true at the beginning of the Christmas story.  In Luke 1:26-38, God sends the angel Gabriel to tell Mary that she would be the one whom God had selected to be the mother of the messiah that would fulfill God’s promise to David, as well as many of the prophecies of the Old Testament.  Luke says…

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the holy one to be born will be calledthe Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

God specifically selects Mary to be the mother of Jesus because of her great faith.  But even so, when she is told that she will bear a child, and she has never been with a man, she wonders aloud, “How can this be?”  And I suspect that even after Gabriel’s explanation, Mary still didn’t really understand how a woman could have a baby without a man, but she trusted that God could find a way.

And that sense of wonder, and of faith, continues in the amazing works of God today.  In Romans 16:25-27, Paul says this:

25 Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes fromfaith— 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

What Paul is saying, is that God is the one who can do things.  God was the one who could create a reality in which one of David’s descendants, Jesus, would rule over Israel, and over all the world, forever.  God was the one who could make a way for a virgin to have a baby and carry the creator of the universe, and the hope of the world, in her womb in the form a tiny baby human and, at the same time, fulfill hundreds of ancient prophecies and promises that he had made to his people.  And that same God is able to draw us toward him, to bring us to a relationship with him, and to establish us in faith and trust as he did with David, and with Mary, with the disciples, with Paul, and with countless others who now gather as a great cloud of witnesses to the unfolding of history.  As difficult as it is to believe, and as often as we ourselves might ask, “How can this be?”  God is the one who is able to reveal the truth and to unveil the mysteries of the Old Testament, to rescue all of humanity, and to give strength to his people as they struggle through the twenty-first century.  But as he always has, God does these tings so that all the Gentiles, all the people of the world, everyone, might come to faith and obedience to the God of creation and to his son Jesus Christ.

The answers to our question of “How can this be?”, is the same as it has always been, “Because God is able,” and “Because God cares for you,” and “Because of God’s great love for all people.”

How can this be?

Because…  God.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/q5ywQknu4os

Did you enjoy reading this?

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

Click here to subscribe to Pastor John’s blog.

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U*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.

Use It, Or Else!

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November 15, 2020*

By Pastor John Partridge

Judges 4:1-7  1 Thessalonians 5:1-11       Matthew 25:14-30

Have you ever had trouble making up your mind about something?

It can happen easily as you consider whether you want a red or a blue lollipop, or where you should take your next vacation.  Those of us who are musicians had a moment when we had to choose which instrument we wanted to learn.  But some decisions get more difficult, and more expensive, as we get older.  Choosing between a minivan and a pickup truck has consequences and it’s usually too expensive to choose both or to change your mind once you’ve chosen.  Choosing a major in college can be hard but changing your mind after you’ve already invested several years of your life can be expensive.  If you move to a new town, finding a church that you like can be difficult, but changing churches after you’ve established yourself and made friends can be painful.  We’ve all been through it and, at one time or another, we’ve all wrestled with indecision.  But when we read the book of Judges, we discover that the entire book was written during a time when the entire nation of Israel was having trouble making up its mind about God.  For a while Israel would love God, but after a generation or two, they would forget God and drift away.  And then, as life often happens, things would get hard, and the people would pray for God to rescue them, again, and God would send a judge, or a prophet, people would return to their faith and follow God… for a while, and then the cycle would start over again.  That is exactly the story that we see in chapter after chapter of the book of Judges, and that is what we see as we read this passage from Judges 4:1-7 as Ehud, the previous leader of Israel, dies and the people, once again, drift away from God.

4:1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3 Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.

4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leadingIsrael at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

So, as we joined the story, Ehud, Israel’s previous rescuer, who had rescued them from the nation of Moab, had died and, as they had often done, Israel drifted away from God.  Once that happened, they were captured and oppressed by the Canaanites.  But after praying for twenty years, God raised up the prophet Deborah to lead the people and to rescue them from their oppressors.  God speaks to Deborah, and she creates a plan to trap Sisera, the commander of the Canaanite armies, and all his troops and chariots.  In this plan, Deborah will get Sisera to chase her up Mount Tabor and when they reach the top, Barak would be waiting, on the strategic high ground, with an army of men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and would destroy Sisera and all of his troops from that region.

But imagine what would have happened if Deborah had trouble deciding whether she trusted God.  Or what if Barak couldn’t decide whether he could trust Deborah?  Or what if no one answered Barak’s call to arms so that there was no army waiting at the top of Mount Tabor?  At each step, every person had to believe in the power of God, trust that the message that they received was true, and be willing to take action, and risk their lives, based on what they heard.

And that brings us to Jesus’ parable about the unfaithful servant in Matthew 25:14-30 where we hear this:

14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag,[a] each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So, you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest.

28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The wealthy man could have easily entrusted his money to the bankers and received a modest profit when he returned.  But instead, each servant was given gold because their master trusted that they could manage his money better than the banker could.  While he did not believe that they had equal skills, he entrusted them with his money in proportion to the trust that he had in their abilities.  But the unfaithful servant was paralyzed by indecision.  He was unable to choose how he would invest the money, abandoned the mission, and failed in his duty.  Worse, as the master had pointed out, if the servant had so little confidence in their own abilities that they feared losing it, he could have, at the very least, invested the money with the bankers and received some small rate of interest on it until his master’s return.  But rather than use what had been entrusted to him, he buried it instead.

So, what should we be doing with our lives?  In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, the Apostle Paul explains it to the church this way:

5:1 Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Paul says that, of course, we don’t know exactly the day and time that the world will end, but we know that when that day comes, it will be a surprise to everyone and Jesus will come unexpectedly “like a thief in the night.”  And, when that day comes, as there always is, there will be politicians spouting campaign promises about peace and safety, but our calling to always be ready and prepared for the end.  We are to be the people who wear our faith, hope, and love where is it visible to everyone around us as if we were wearing armor.  Paul reminds us that Jesus died for us so that we could live, together, with him and for that reason, we are to encourage one another, and build each other up.

And if we use this perspective to help us understand Jesus story of the unfaithful servant, we begin to see that his failure was not only due to his lack of faith in himself, and not only due to his lack of trust in his master, but also due to the failure of his friends to encourage him, help him, and to build him up spiritually and intellectually. 

We are our brother’s keeper.

Our calling, that that of Deborah, Barak and the people of Israel, is not only to have faith in God, and to trust in his instructions, but to build up the people around us, to call them to Jesus, and to call them to action, so that they are prepared, willing, and ready for action when God has need of us.

We are our brother’s keeper.

We cannot stand idly by and watch as fellow believers, and unbelievers, lose trust in God and fall away from him.  We cannot be happy with our success as we watch the failures of the people around us.

Like the servants of the rich man, God has given us gifts, each in proportion to our abilities, and regardless of how much, or how little, we have been given, God expects us to use those gifts for his benefit, and for the benefit of the people around us.  We must not be deceived into thinking that we only have a “personal faith” or a “personal relationship” with Jesus.  We are called to use our gifts, both as individuals, and as a community, to lift up the people around us, to encourage them, help them, and to build them up emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually.

We must use the gifts that God has given to us or, like the unfaithful servant, God will take what we have and give it to someone else.  Instead, we must lift one another up and, work together to rescue the lost, heal the suffering and the hurting, bring hope to the hopeless, and to the build God’s kingdom until our master returns “like a thief in the night.”

 

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/ZLDcfVPWNp4

Did you enjoy reading this?

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

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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.

3 Stages of Trust

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3 Stages of Trust

September 13, 2020*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 14:19-31        Romans 14:1-12                     Matthew 18:21-35

Have you ever ranked your friends by how much you trust them?

There are friends that you trust will show up to have a good time, but there’s completely different, and much smaller, group of friends that will show up to help you move.  There are friends that you trust with a few dollars for lunch until payday, but a completely different, and again, much smaller, group of friends to whom you might consider loaning a few hundred, or a few thousand dollars.  There are friends that you trust enough to chaperone your kids for a few hours on a field trip, and a very select few, maybe only a tiny handful, that you would trust with your children for a few weeks in the event of an emergency.

Last week, we remembered how much we don’t like taking tests.  But this week, we find God pushing us to trust him, and his pushing feels a lot like a test.  God isn’t just asking “Do you trust me?”  God, is asking “How much do you trust me?”  We begin this morning in Exodus 14:19-31, where we find Moses leading the people of Israel as they escape from their slavery in Egypt but with Pharaoh’s armies and chariots pursuing and threatening them from the rear.

19 Then 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, 20 coming 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.

21 Then 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, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. 24 During 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. 25 He 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.”

26 Then 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.” 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward[c] it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. 28 The 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.

29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 30 That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. 31 And 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.

The situation didn’t look good.  The people had followed Moses out of Egypt and marched toward freedom, but suddenly they were trapped between the swords and chariots of Egypt and the sea.  And in that place, they watched as God intervened, stood between them and the soldiers of Egypt, separated the sea to the right and to the left, led them to freedom, and then destroyed Pharaoh’s chariots and horsemen.  The people saw God’s power, and because of what they had seen, they began to trust.  At first, they trusted God enough to follow, but now they might be ready for more.

The Disciples of Jesus had already left their homes and families behind to follow him, but Jesus wanted them to move to another level.  In Matthew 18:21-35, Peter struggles with forgiveness.  The disciples know that God has commanded them to forgive, but who should be forgiven, and what limits were there?

21 Then 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?”

22 Jesus 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. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of goldwas brought to him. 25 Since 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.’ 27 The 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. 31 When 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. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In 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.”

“Ten thousand bags of gold” is often translated as ten thousand talents, can be calculated as about 200,000 years of income.  So, since the median income in the United States this year (2020) is $33,706, ten thousand talents would be about $6.7 billion (yes, billion with a ‘B’).  This was, and is, an astronomical sum of money that a laborer, or even a supervisory white-collar worker, would have no hope of ever paying, let alone working for pennies per hour in prison.  The contrast between the two debts is obviously deliberate.  The second man owes the unforgiving servant a hundred silver coins or, a hundred denarii, which is the pay for one hundred days work or, about three to four months wages.  To most of us, three months wages would feel like a substantial amount of money, probably about eight or ten thousand dollars, but nothing compared to 6 billion dollars.  Jesus’ point is that what God has already forgiven in each one of us is so incredibly, outstandingly, magnificent that we have no hope of ever paying it back.  But in return, God asks us to trust him enough to forgive others.

Using this parable, Jesus says to his disciples, and to us, “Yes, I know that you have enough trust to follow, but do you trust me enough to forgive?  And, if that weren’t enough, Paul piles on with yet another question.  In Romans 14:1-12, he writes to a church that is filled with people from different points of view.  Men, women, Jews, Greeks, and people from many different nations, backgrounds, and who had come to faith in Jesus from many different religions.  And to that culturally mixed church, Paul asks why the people condemn one another for being different.  Paul says,

14:1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

This is even harder than Jesus’ parable about forgiveness.  Paul recognizes that in a diverse church with people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, people are going to be different and those differences will inevitably lead to different opinions.  And some of those differences of opinion are going to be about how we practice our faith.  But while our opinions about the practice of our faith are important, our differences should not give us reason to despise one another or hold others in contempt.  While the practice of our faith is, and should be, important to us, we are not responsible for how others practice theirs.

In Rome, the church was arguing about whether or not certain foods should be eaten, or which day of the week they should worship or celebrate a holy day, but each of those who were arguing were, to the best of their ability, trying to honor God.  Paul’s assessment of these arguments was that they were reasonably disputable, that faithful people, considering the same information and the same scriptures, could reasonably come to different conclusions.  But once they reached their conclusion, Paul says, then they must each live as faithfully as they could but not judge others for having reasoned differently.  Those who felt that Christians should not eat meat should not judge those who did, and people who wanted to worship on Saturday, or celebrate Christmas in December should not have contempt for people who worship on Sunday or celebrate Christmas in January.

For us in the twenty-first century, we argue about whether we should be Catholic of Protestant, whether there should be baptism for infants, how we should celebrate communion, whether we should ordain pastors who have been divorced, and over a whole host of issues related to sexual orientation.  But today, like in Paul’s church, these issues are reasonably disputable.  Faithful followers of Jesus Christ examine the same facts, and the same scriptures, and arrive at different conclusions.  But despite having reasoned differently, we must each live as faithfully as we can without judging others.  All of us will be judged.  Each of us will give an account of ourselves before God.  But none of us will be judged for the actions and choices of someone else.  Whatever our differences, our calling is to trust God enough to accept one another and to accept and honor our differences.  We must not hold others in contempt for thinking differently.  We cannot judge others for reasoning, or living, differently than we do.  “For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

God isn’t just asking us if we trust him.  God is asking us how much we trust him.

Do we trust God enough to follow?

Having been forgiven a great debt by God, do we trust him enough to forgive others?

And do we trust God enough to accept other believers that do not think, or believe the same way that we do?

We will all give an account of ourselves before God.

Will we trust God enough to love the people around us?

 

 

 

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/ZtrQw5u4chk

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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.

Brotherhood and Betrayal

PastorPartridge Sermon , , , , , , ,

Brotherhood and Betrayal

August 09, 2020*

By Pastor John Partridge

  

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

  

The news makes me sad.

Whether I watch the evening news on television or read it on my computer, in recent months the news just makes me sad.

While our news has almost always been dominated by bad news rather than good news, it seems that, lately, the news stories that we see, and read, are either reporting on, or contributing to, a sense of division within our nation.  We seem to be increasingly divided between white and black, between Christian and non-Christian, religious and non-religious, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, (and whatever else), Conservative and Liberal, masks and no-masks, face-to-face school and distance learning, and on and on it goes.  Things have gotten so bad that it seems like our only options for peace are to only associate with the shrinking number of people who agree with us on everything, or to become media hermits that just start to tune the world out and increasingly retreat into a tiny, quiet world of our own creation.

But are those our only options?

What should we, as individuals and as a church, be doing?

Does God want us to retreat from the world?  Or are we called to do something else entirely?

Let’s begin by returning to the story of Jacob, which has now leapt ahead in time as we hear the story of Jacob’s twelfth son, Joseph. (Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28)

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

2 This 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.

3 Now 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 ornate[a] robe for him. 4 When 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.

 12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and 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.

14 So 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, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

16 He 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. 18 But 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.”

21 When 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.

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

25 As 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.

26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, 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.

28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver [about 8 ounces, about $195 at this week’s spot price] to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

Joseph was obviously Jacob’s favorite.  He was, by far, the youngest child and was born to Jacob’s favorite wife, and Jacob gave Joseph a special robe of some kind.  This has been translated as a “coat of many colors” and in this reading it was translated as an “ornate” robe, but the truth is, the word that is rendered as “ornate” or “of many colors” is a word that is otherwise unknown to our modern Hebrew experts.  We don’t know what that word is, exactly, but whatever it is, the coat that Jacob gave to Joseph was special, it stood out, it marked him as the favorite, and it inspired and focused the pettiness, envy, and jealousy of his brothers to the point that they were willing to consider murdering him.  Reuben, the oldest, tries to calm his brothers enough to spare Joseph’s life and throw him into a cistern rather than kill him, and plans to return for him later.  But before he can, the rest of Joseph’s brothers decide to sell him to a caravan of merchants in their way to sell spices and other goods in Egypt.

Clearly, the bonds of brotherhood were betrayed and broken.

But, if you know anything at all about the story of Joseph in Egypt, this story in no way glamorizes that betrayal or the behavior of Joseph’s brothers.  Their actions are surprising, shocking, and become a cautionary tale to the world about the sins of hatred, betrayal, envy, and jealousy and the lifetime of danger, regret, and sorrow that flow from their actions.

In contrast, we can look at any number of stories from the life of Jesus but, for today, let’s look at Matthew 14:22-33, where Jesus and the disciples moving on after the execution of John the Baptist and Jesus’ feeding of fifteen thousand people (which is often called the “feeding of the five thousand.”  Remember that in that story, Jesus was trying to get away from the people to spend some time alone with God, and so after the people are fed, and finally go home, probably as evening and darkness approach, Jesus still wants to spend some time alone with God in prayer.

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

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

27 But 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. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

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

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

While, at first, this might not sound anything at all like the story about Joseph and his brothers, I want to think about the ways in which Jesus treats the people in this story, and in the story of the Jesus feeding the people who had come to hear him preach.  In every instance, Jesus treats the people in these stories with compassion, sympathy, and love even when the difficulties that the people found themselves in were caused by their own choices.  The people were hungry because they had traveled a considerable distance to see Jesus, stayed longer than they intended and, except for one young boy, did not bring anything with them to eat.  Peter was the one who stepped out of the boat, and it was Peter’s fear and lack of faith that caused him to sink, and yet, Jesus feeds the hungry people and he reaches out his hand and lifts Peter back into the boat.  The disciples, event the fishermen, are all afraid when they think that they see a ghost walking on the water, but Jesus soothes them and calls for them to take courage.  And, because of Jesus miracles, as well as his compassion, concern, and love for them, the disciples know that he must be the Son of God.

But how do we connect these dots?  What do either of these stories have to do with us, particularly in the twenty-first century, in the middle of a global pandemic, and a remarkably divisive culture war?

To connect those dots with today, I want to look at what Paul wrote to the church in Rome in Romans 10:5-15.  The church in Rome was a mixed-race church.  There were not only people who had come from all over the Roman Empire, there were a mixture of men and women, slaves, and free persons, as well as Jews and Gentiles who sometimes struggled to get along and find space for one another without the wrestling with the same kinds of jealousy and envy that Joseph’s brothers had felt.  And one of the things that they wrestled with, was how they should understand the laws of Moses and the writings of the prophets (what we call the Old Testament) and how the law applied to their lives in light of the ministry and teaching of Jesus Christ.  Paul says:

5 Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” 6 But 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). 8 But 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: 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For 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. 11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

14 How, 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? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

Paul explains that the shift from the prophets of old, to the teachings of Jesus Christ, was a shift in the way in which we seek righteousness.  Before, the pursuit of righteousness was an academic one.  We had to remember what all the rules were and how to follow them correctly.  But with the coming of Jesus, our pursuit of righteousness became an issue of the heart.  The word of God now lives in our hearts in such a way that we are saved by faith and express that faith by sharing it with others.  There is no longer a difference between Jews and Gentiles and, because Jesus saves everyone who puts their trust in him, neither group has an advantage over the other.

But Paul’s advice to those fighting against division wasn’t for them to take sides, or for them to retreat from the world, but to send them out into the chaos of the world to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with anyone and everyone who hadn’t yet heard it.

In a world filled with division, strained relationship, envy, arrogance, and chaos, the church, then and now, cannot retreat.  We must, as never before, move forward and share the good news.

Who do you know that needs to hear it?

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great week everybody.

 

 

 

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/gwzpTdJV0JU

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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.