What Would You Do?

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Reformation Sunday

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

We preach not ourselves, but Jesus

What does a German farmer in Ephrata PA in 1790 have in common with a lawyer from Chicago in 1873? And what do they have in common with a young Israelite king from three millennia earlier? Wait and see.

• Reformation Sunday (Martin Luther's desire to lead a life and a church of scriptural faith and not human dogma).

United Methodist Heritage. I'm a John Wesley fan. And while Methodism traces its heritage back to JW, several different flavors of Methodism preceded today’s UMC…

Who remembers what CUMC was before 1968? CEUB. (68: Evangelical United Brethren + Methodist Episcopal Church)

How about before 1946? CUB. (46: Evangelical Association + United Brethren)

Anybody know any of the stories of origins of EA or UB?

From the city of York, Reformed pastor PW Otterbein and Lancaster Mennonite M. Boehm famously declared "We Are Brothers" at Long’s Barn in Lancaster PA in 1767.

Berks County layman Lutheran-turned-Methodist Jacob Albright, father of the Evangelical Association, 1800:

• Jacob Albright was that German PA farmer I mentioned earlier. A Lutheran by heritage, Albright went through a spiritual crisis in 1790 when three of his children died of dysentery. While death drives some people away from God, it drives others TO God. Though he found no solace in the Lutheran Church, Jacob Albright DID find comfort through some local UB and Methodist church groups. He dug into the fellowship, immersed himself in Bible study, and spent long periods in prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and was motivated to preach the word. He organized Bible studies and discipleship groups, and his groups elected him as the first overseer or bishop of the Evangelical Association in 1807.  He had turned in his grief to God, and God worked great life through his discipleship.

• We read from 2 Samuel 12 earlier in the service… While David’s son lives, David pleads to God for his son’s life, taking neither food nor comfort for a week. But when the child dies, David takes a shower, worships God, and eats.

• I bet you’re figuring out the connection to the Chicago lawyer in 1873…

Horatio Spafford had had a few great years in the 1860s. Newly married, a prominent lawyer with a fair amount of real estate in Chicago, his life took a turn for the worse when his only son died of scarlet fever in 1870. Then in 1871 the Chicago fire destroyed his properties, consuming his life savings. Then in 1873 while traveling to England follow evangelist Dwight Moody, the ship carrying his wife and four daughters (ages 11, 9, 5, 2) sank in the Atlantic. His wife was among the survivors.

What did Horatio Spafford do in his grief? First, he wrote the hymn It Is Well With My Soul, and then he and his wife moved to Jerusalem (yes, that Jerusalem) and started the American Colony, a religious society and mission which served the needy of the community for three quarters of a century.

• I am amazed and inspired by the stories of these men, who, by the grace of God, in the midst of personal tragedy, turned to God in discipleship. I see in their lives the understanding that yes, death impacts our world, but God is greater, and while we yet have life and breath, we can serve and praise God. For we have something great, something priceless, and it’s not something physical or worldly, it is the love of God which calls us into mission and works our healing along the way.

• Your life is a gift, it is not something you own. All life around you is a gift. And the greatest gift is the invitation to eternal life, life without death, life without suffering, life in and through God’s son Jesus Christ. So use the gift of your life to point to the greatest gift.

• Hymn 493 It Is Well With My Soul

Loving People

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:34-46

Jesus tells the greatest commandment

• Charge Conference last week. District Superintendent Gary Nicholson shared about The United Methodist Church's mission statement (to make disciples of all nations, for the transformation of the world). We celebrated the missions and ministries of Ctown UMC

                                                                                                          Gary also shared some inspiring thoughts with our Staff/Parish Relations Committee...

                                                                                                          Preferential seating: make sure guests and visitors have a place to comfortably slide in without directing attention to them.

Your territory: Each church leader has responsibility to "watch out" for the ones sitting nearby, check up on them when they're not around, etc.

2-minute rule: For two minutes after church, don't talk to people you already know; instead, seek out new people to talk to.

Each one reach one Each member of the church focus on reaching one new person in a year and disciple-ing them.

Last week Deb K. presented a children's message in which she was dressed as a homeless person and she reported how well people actually received her. (we didn't do too good).

Gary’s virus scenario: Suppose there was a virus in the neighborhood (aka sin) and it guaranteed to infect and kill everybody and you learned of the antidote (Jesus). Would you wait for infected folks to knock on your door to give them the antidote or would you knock on their door to offer it?

1 Thessalonians 2:4, 8:   ⁴We have been examined and approved by God to be trusted with the good news, and that’s exactly how we speak. ... ⁸We were glad to share not only God’s good news with you but also our very lives because we cared for you so much.

• Closing Hymn: insert As A Fire is Meant for Burning

Does God Care What We Wear?

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:1-14

A man invites many to a wedding banquet, but throws out one who is "not wearing the wedding garment."

• First things first: What’s up with the invitation?

                                                                                                          Jesus has been speaking to the religious leaders, several parables back-to-back about how God’s invitation to the people of Israel has been rejected by Jewish lay and leadership alike, and that some of the initially invited (ii) even killed the messengers.

                                                                                                          Why did the ii reject the invitation? They had other things to do, they put other things first. Perhaps they took the invitation for granted. The passion of the early days was gone.

                                                                                                          Therefore the King invites everybody else.  Those who formerly had no invitation (the Gentiles) are now invited.

• Twenty centuries later, we Gentiles easily forget that we’re not the initially invited. We fall into complacency and a sense of entitlement (which is not unlike the downfall of the initially invited).

• Part 2: What’s up with the wedding clothes?

If part 1 is about invitation expansion, part 2 is about invitation acceptance.

It’s not so much about a wedding party, but about dressing the part.

It’s not so much about what do your clothes look like, but what impression do you leave on people? When people look at you do they see a person transformed by God, or is there nothing visible in you that marks you as belonging to God?

Story: There was a heavyset woman who went to an exercise and diet clinic. The first thing the supervisor did was draw a silhouette on a mirror in the shape she wished to become. As she stood before the mirror, she bulged out over the silhouette. The instructor told her, “Our goal is for you to fit this shape. We recommend this routine of diet and exercise.”

  For many weeks the woman dieted and exercised. Each week she would stand in front of the mirror, but her volume, while decreasing, still overflowed. But she persevered in her recommended diet and exercise routine. Finally one day, to everyone’s delight, as she stood in front of the mirror she was conformed to the image of the silhouette.

& when she went forth, she was a woman transformed, clothed in habits of healthy living.

• Galatians 3:26-27: You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

                                                                                                          Pictures of [laborer, runner, doctor, dancer] (tell by clothes)

                                                                                                          Picture of Christian (tell by actions)

• Colossians 3:12-17:

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Knowing Jesus

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

World Communion Sunday

Philippians 3:4b-14

• What excites Paul:

His impeccable credentials do not earn him righteousness with God. (that’s bad news except for the fact that righteousness is given to him, and that is good news.)

Any righteousness he has is God’s.

Any righteousness he has comes from knowing Christ and becoming like him. (and knowing Christ is eternal life, John 17:3)

• What excites me:

Story from Luke 24, Easter afternoon, 2 disciples headed home from Jerusalem, encounter with resurrected Jesus, who spends time with them and breaks bread with them   and in the breaking of the bread their eyes were opened and they recognized him (Luke 24:30+).

• What excites Jesus:

Relationship with you.

In communion, Jesus says, "I have a gift for you... I give to you my righteousness, in the form of the sacrifice of my own self for you.  Remember my sacrifice in somberness, yes, and celebrate my gift in joyful worship. Love me and learn me as though you were consuming me, let me sustain you like my Father sustained your fathers in the wilderness, let me be in you and in many so that many can be saved and many can be one, one with me and one with my Father."

• World Communion Sunday arose out of a time of suffering in American history, the Great Depression, between the great world wars.  A Presbyterian pastor from Pittsburgh sought to do something both real and symbolic to proclaim that God is God indeed, in spite of politics, economics and future shock... in spite of suffering beyond our comprehension.  The idea spread slowly but grew as its message of interconnectedness in Christ was picked up by churches and nations.  Through a unique kind of suffering, Jesus Christ offered himself for the reconciliation and redemption of the world, and across denomination and border and time we proclaim together that God is worthy of our praise, and that in all that we do, we, the children of God, need God every hour.     

• Hymn: In the Breaking of the Bread

The Thankful Tithe

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Stewardship / Financial Commitment Sunday

Genesis 28:10-22

God blesses Jacob in a vision ("Jacob's Ladder") and Jacob responds in worship and offering.

• Some statistics on the Bible and money… 500 verses on prayer, 500 on faith. 2,000 on money and possessions. Nearly half of Jesus’ parables, and 1 out of 10 gospel verses. 

• Take out page of scripture. Genesis 27 Jacob tricks Esau out of birthright and blessing by lying to dying father. Esau makes plans to kill Jacob (27:41). Rebekah sends Jacob off to her brother’s land 500 miles away (here to Montreal). It’s his first night running away. He receives a dream /vision / visit from God, who tells him I will protect you, I will multiply you, I will bring you back. Jacob’s response? Awesome. I will give you 1/10 of what I have.

(Two generations before, his grandfather Abram had given a similar spontaneous offering of a tenth of his resources in response to a divine blessing.)

Jacob’s motive? Thanksgiving to God. Praise, worship.

• Nearly 2,000 years after Jacob’s visit from the Lord and his spontaneous tithe, the author of the NT book of Hebrews recounts in chapter 7 how the tithe became standard, a way for one who loved God to honor God as well as a way of funding the Temple and the priesthood.

• These are some of the scriptures that have led the church across generations and millennia to teach the practice of the tithe as the standard giving for the faith practice of the Christian. (The UMC believes that tithing – setting aside of one-tenth of one’s income for God – is a biblical standard for the lives of disciples. The UMC expects its pastors and its members to tithe faithfully.)

• One of the radio stations I listen to is 88.7 WXPN, a member-supported public radio station of the University of Pennsylvania, and this past week was WXPN’s annual membership drive... They dedicated maybe a quarter of their broadcast time during this drive to tell their listeners about the benefits listeners receive for the free service, and how pledges of even as little as a dollar a day sustain the service.

The tithe is a way a Christian acknowledges that “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it...” Giving a tithe is like paying rent to God for living off his bounty.

• Tithe is personal investment in Great Commission of Matthew 28... If the church is about the business of going into all the world, baptizing and teaching, a person who tithes is saying I’m part of that.

• Tithing is a way of putting trust in the Lord. One time the disciples said to Jesus, Increase our faith. I imagine God saying: "I can think of a way to increase faith... give up some of your resources. I will help you rely not on your own devices but on me... "

• Tithing has the unexpected blessing of increasing joy. As an act of worship there’s an excitement about it, like Jacob when he awoke after his divine visit from the Lord.

• A Christian tithes to demonstrate love for God, to demonstrate that God comes first... "I love you, Lord, you get my firstfruits."

• Look in today's bulletin and you’ll see some 2011 budget info... the annual budget that provides for the mission and ministries of our church as well as our denominational support comes out to about $4400 a week. For most of 2011 we’ve come short of that mark.

The sad truth is, if every member of the church faithfully tithed (gave ten percent of their income), we wouldn’t have a budget deficit, we’d have a surplus.

Something like 5% of American adults tithe, and a Barna report shows that at best overall less than a quarter of Christians tithe (that’d be about 35 of the people in this room right now).  Average offering is not even half of that, it’s around 2.5%.  FYI I don’t know who does or doesn’t. I tithe & The UMC believes the practice to be biblical and the starting place for Christian giving.

• I invite you to consider tithing, or to commit to step towards tithing.  Maybe you're not ready to commit today, okay, take sheet home, talk and pray, talk and pray with trusted friends or with your pastor.

If you are uncomfortable filling sheet out because people will figure out your income, don’t fill in your name. or fill in your name and indicate whether you’re tithing or moving towards tithing.

• I invite you to join me...

• Response to the Word: Financial commitment cards and Offering

Heavenly Father, we acknowledge you as the giver of every good and perfect gift. We praise you for your generosity and kindness toward us. We rejoice over your grace as the basis of your dealings with us. Help us to recognize how blessed we are so that we might be moved by love in serving you. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Ready For Action

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
New Members received today, also Commitment Cards
and it's the tenth anniversary of September 11th.

1 Peter 1:13-25
We are given some words about holy living

• Today is about saying Yes to God,

Yes to God the Father, Yes, God, I will listen to you, Yes, I will obey, Yes, I will learn from you. Yes, I will let you set the course for my life.

Yes to God the Son, Yes, I will follow you, Yes, I confess you are Lord and savior and I need you and I love you, Yes, I will love as you loved, Yes, I will give of myself as you gave of yourself, Yes, I receive your forgiveness and I will forgive others

Yes to God the Spirit. Yes, I will pray as you move me, Yes, I will listen for your still small voice amongst the clamoring noises of the world, Yes, I accept the freedom and power you give me to resist evil, injustice, and oppression, Yes, I accept your encouragement and your marching orders.

• Why yes? Why Ready ourselves for Action?

For the same reason that firefighters and emergency responders are honored today, b/c they put their life on the line for others.... not knowing whether they will survive or not, not knowing whether they’ll successfully deal with the emergency to which they’re responding. And FFs&ERs don’t stop being FFs&ERs when they’re off duty, just like you don’t stop being a Christian when you aren’t in this building... they go forth as public servants and representatives. 

• Why yes? Why Ready ourselves for Action? b/c the Lord Jesus Christ put his life on the line for humankind,

        Knowing he’d be rejected by his people

        Knowing he’d be turned down countless times

        Knowing he’d suffer and die

        And knowing that YOU are worth it...

          knowing that he could set you free

Live in this way, knowing that you were not liberated by perishable things like silver or gold from the empty lifestyle you inherited from your ancestors. Instead you were liberated by the precious blood of Christ, like that of a flawless, spotless lamb. (1 Peter 1:18-19).

• When Jesus ascended into heaven after his resurrection, the angels gathered around, in all kinds of wonder... “Lord, you suffered terribly down there. Do the people understand how much you sacrificed for them? Do they know how great your love for them is?”

No, not yet. Just a handful of people know right now.

       

“Well how will you let everyone know?”

       

I’ve asked a P,J,&J, and a few others to spread the news. They’ll tell others, who will tell others, who will take the message to the ends of the earth.

       

Knowing the nature of human beings, the Angel Gabriel said, “What's your Plan B? If you want the message spread, I’ll go...”

       

There is no plan B... I’m counting on them.

       

Twenty centuries later, there is still no plan B. Jesus is counting on you and me...

• Response to the Word: Commitment cards and Offering

Body Work

Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost
Scripture: Matthew 18:15-20

• A man dies and goes to heaven. As St. Peter was giving him a tour, he pointed out one particular building where you could hear the music and shouts of praise.  "That's the independent church," explained St. Peter. "They are glorifying Jesus. Good stuff."
As the tour continued, they walked by another church that was filled with excitement and praise.  "That's the UCC church," explained Peter.  "They love to praise God, too."
As they continued touring, St. Peter suddenly indicated that they needed to go quietly by the next church: "That's the Methodist Church," he said. "They think they're the only ones here."

(Hey, if it's a potentially disparaging joke, I might as well place the shame on me, right?)

There will be perfect unity in heaven, as all will happily sing glory to the Lamb.

• Matthew 18 is about unity on earth and in the church. Reconciliation and humility.

• The mission of The United Methodist Church is to "Make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."  Everything The UMC does is to that goal.

The mission statements of some of the churches I know. Their mission statements are known and owned by the members, and everything they do is to the goal of living their missions...
 - Making gentle a bruised world.
 - Invite, Embrace, Empower

• What is our mission in Ctown?
Something we work towards together, gives glory to God, defines our purpose in Ctown, part of every thing we do.
Over next weeks and months I hope to examine our mission together.
Therefore Next week: commitment Sunday: how will YOU be involved in the life of CUMC?

May our worship services and the ministries and missions we are involved in bring about reconciliation and transformation

• Hymn 286 Blessed Be the Tie That Binds