Tweet or Re-Tweet?

Numbers 13:1-14:1

Matthew 9:1-8

I love this time of year.  I love the weather, the football games, the kids getting ready for Homecoming and all the traditions surrounding that.  I love the upsurge in energy. It’s harvest time.  It’s just a natural time of preparation.

What is God preparing his church for?  What is God calling His church to do?  Will we do as we have always done or will we add to the song of God’s chorus our own voice? There is nothing wrong with the song as it is. But God makes all things new.  No one says get rid of the song but rather how will we lend our voices to the beauty of what God is already doing? The flowers of the field and the birds of the air have their part, what will our part be?

The title of today’s message is “Tweet or Retweet” and as many of you know this is a reference to on-line social media, more specifically, Twitter. More of you are probably familiar with Facebook. But for those of you who are less familiar I will give an interpretation of both. 

Imagine Face book to be a big reunion of family and friends from all over.  You get together and open your photo albums and you share stories about your life.  The people at this reunion may comment on your photos or give an indication (a thumbs up) today that they like what you have or they may choose to say nothing at all.

A gathering of family and friends.
Photo by Holly Pohl posted on Facebook

Twitter, on the other hand is a bunch of people standing on a street corner shouting short phrases (140 characters max. including spaces and punctuation) to the world hoping someone will listen.  You can choose to listen to others and others can choose to listen to you. 

A “tweet” is something you write that goes out there, and those that follow you will have that added to the list of tweets of other people they follow.  People often follow hundreds of other people so it is safe to say that just because someone is following you, is no guarantee that they will read what you wrote.  It is likely that your tweet is buried in a pile of hundreds of other tweets. 

There are times though when I am reading through some of the tweets of the people that I follow that one will strike me as meaningful or funny and I will retweet it.  That means that tweet I liked is then passed on to all the people I follow. 

So you can either Tweet, write something original.  Or you can retweet, pass on something that someone else wrote.  Both are valid.  Both have a use. One without the other would be less than ideal.

It’s just like life in the church.  There are good and profitable thing that we do that have been handed down to us and we continue to do them.  Likewise there are new ideas, new directions, a new movement of the Spirit and we do those things as well.

The thing that gets difficult is what to do when someone is asking you to tweet and you think the best thing to do is to Retweet or vice versa.  What do you do when someone wants to diverge from the tried and true and go off into the unknown? What if you want to go where you know there will be blessings and some want to stay where they are?

Tweet or re-tweet?

There is value in both.  You have imagination, inspiration and intellect. And so do your brothers and sisters.  We each have and understanding of God’s revelation.  The Holy Spirit lives in each one of us who believe.  And each one of us has the capacity to listen for the voice God and be directed in the way we should go. At the same time we all have, to a greater or lesser extent have been taught many things about our faith.   We learn from each other through experience, and reason, and tradition.  God works through all those things to reveal who God is.  All those things are seen through the lens of the Holy Scriptures. 

In the Old Testament lesson we read about the spies.  Those that went on ahead to see what was in the land that was promised to them. 

Some saw danger. Some saw opportunity.  We have scripture. We have a record of what happened so we can say from this vantage point that the ones that saw danger were mistaken.  But that doesn’t mean that there is never danger.  That doesn’t mean that there is never risk.  There are plenty of circumstances in life where the warnings of danger were ignored and bad things happen.  The report of the spies was that the inhabitants of the land were strong.  Taking this land meant risking their lives.  I understand the apprehension.

We are being asked to risk something.

We are being asked, as a congregation to risk looking in the mirror and seeing ourselves just as we are and to ask the question.  “Could we be better?”

Could we be better at making disciples for Jesus Christ?  Could we be better at knowing Christ? Could we be better at making Christ known?  Can we risk hearing an honest answer to those questions?

We fear the unknown.  My kids are getting ready to go to Homecoming next week.  They have way less pressure than I had when I was in high school.  Back then no one went alone.  If you didn’t have a date you didn’t go. So that meant you had actually ask someone to go with you.  That meant you actually had to talk to someone. That meant that if you didn’t want to risk public rejection you had to use the phone, which was hooked to the wall where the whole family could hear you.  That call was so hard to make.  I was so stressed out about the possibility of hearing “no.”  We don’t like the unknown. We don’t like rejection.  And that is part of we are risking in this upcoming consultation.  We don’t know what they are going to say, and that is difficult.  They might say something negative about something we love. We don’t want that kind of rejection.  But you know I did go to home coming dances.  I won’t say I went with the fist girl I asked every time, but I went.  I enjoyed he punch and the treats my date may or may not have enjoyed the dancing, I never did. But I had the experience.  The fear of rejection and the unknown is dispelled the moment we decide to act. 

In the Gospel lesson the legal experts were getting upset with Jesus because he said the paralyzed man’s sins were forgiven.  Only God can forgive sins.  Who does this guy think he is? Hmm.

Okay, Jesus says if you don’t believe my words perhaps believe the action. He told the paralyzed man to take his cot and go home. And the man did just that.  With Jesus it wasn’t just talk there was always action.

Remember Jesus story of the Good Samaritan.  “What must I do?” love God

Who is my neighbor?

Go and do likewise.

Just asking someone on a date to a homecoming dance is nothing unless you go and participate in the dance.  And so I danced.  I am not a very expressive person, I am a bit of an introvert. Dancing is very uncomfortable for me but I went and I danced and I’m glad I did.  

The Hebrews walking in the desert were given the Promised Land.  They just had to go in and possess it.  If they just stayed on the border looking, if they never advanced they would never receive what was promised to them. 

We are called to press on. We are called to bring light into the darkness.  We are called to be the body of Christ on earth.  If we only stand our ground then there will be people who are missing out on the good news about Jesus Christ. We have to advance.  If we are not advancing we are retreating.

So, do we advance or retreat?  Do we dance or do we just eat the treats? Do we tweet or do retweet?

Jesus Prayed For You

John 17:1-26

Remember the scene in the movie The Lion King when the Rafiki the baboon told Simba the lion that his father was alive and he would take samba to him? Simba didn’t believe him.  As a cub Simba saw his father fall into the gorge.  He touched his lifeless body. Simba knew that he wasn’t alive. But the baboon’s words were so enticing.  He said “I will show him to you.” 

The baboon took the lion on a chase through the thick foliage, constantly pushing and prodding the lion to move faster. There were many confusing turns and frustrating obstacles.  Those were of no concern to the baboon; he just kept guiding the lion with his voice.  Disoriented and exhausted they came to a clearing near a pool of water.  The baboon hushed the lion and told him to look beyond the tall grass growing alongside the water. 

When Simba looked he saw only a reflection of himself and was disappointed. Rafiki told him to look harder.  He looked again and the image shifted and he clearly saw an image of his father.

It’s been 17 years since my grandpa’s journey ended on this earth, yet I see him frequently.  I see him in my mother; I seem him in by brother and in my sisters; I see him in myself.  Traits and characteristics are passed on.  Stories of success are blown up and become almost family legends. 

We pass things on to our children.  When they have success where we had similar success there is a feeling of pride.  The “chip off the ol’ block” thing. Where our kids have success where we had failures come a real sense of pride.  And when they have failures we want nothing more than to be there to guide them through it and realize their own potential. 

I love it when a movie can capture a truth about life.  Art imitates life, they say.  The thing is life, as we understand it, is actually a mere shadow of reality.  The life we live; the relationships we have, is a glimpse of the heavenly realm.  We cannot see clearly everything that God can see.  We cannot think God’s thoughts.  There is a more perfect way waiting for us to experience it. 

My children do not all share the same genetics but they are
brothers and sisters just the same. Their lives intertwine and affect
each other. When we are in Christ we belong to the family of God that
transforms the world while transforms ourselves.  

We may have the traits and characteristics of family members that went before us but within two or three generations, our names become items on a list.   The stories we lived and the impact we had will be forgotten.  But that is just a shadow of the reality that Jesus invites us to.  Just as my siblings, my uncles, my mother and I all have a common identity in Glenn Brown, each one of us who has faith in Jesus Christ have our identity in Him.

Each one of us who believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and confess with our mouth that he is Lord will find eternal life in him.  When we have faith in Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit resides in us. 

The message to Simba from Rafiki was “He lives in you.”

We believe that God lives in you when you come to believe and confess.  And when the Holy Spirit lives in you, you start to take on new traits.  You start to become stronger in the Lord.  You happiness and security come not from the earthly things but from heavenly things.  Your priorities change.  What was important before may start to fall away. 

God originally made us in his image.  We fell away.  The image was distorted. Now God wants to live in us and restore that image.  You ever hear someone say, “I don’t even know who you are anymore”? When someone has gone so far astray that they have betrayed even their own nature.  That’s where humanity found itself, which is where each of us finds ourselves before we come to know Christ.

God has something better for us.  But we will have to look beyond ourselves as we see our reflection in the mirror this morning and try to see what God sees.  Try to see what God intended for us.

It starts with Jesus.  In verse 10 of our scripture this morning Jesus says, “All mine (those that believe and confess) are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.  Jesus is glorified in those who are his.  With his own words Jesus says that we glorify him.  What does it mean to glorify? It means to give honor and praise.  It means to elevate, and to lift up.  It means to set higher than all other things. Those who belong to Jesus glorify him.  The fact that we belong to him glorifies him, and, in addition, all our words, thoughts and deeds should all be directed at glorifying him. 

We come to this place not primarily for fellowship or for service to others but first to Glorify and worship Jesus Christ our Lord.  We worship him for who he is and what he has done.  We bow down to him because he is a good God.  We praise him for his act of salvation.  We thank him for his great mercy.  It all starts with Jesus Christ and ends with Jesus and the whole time Jesus is our centerpiece.  Jesus is our standard, our focus, our goal.  Jesus is our all in all. 

But Jesus didn’t come for the adulation.  Jesus came to restore thing to the way they were designed to be.  Jesus came to fix some things.  Jesus came to change some things.  Remember the passage from the Gospel of Luke when Jesus was teaching in the synagogue?  The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
    that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
¹⁹     and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.

God the Father sent his son Jesus into the world to redeem it. Jesus didn’t come as a motivational speaker or a self-help guru.  Jesus came to restore the world to the way God designed it to be. 

God Sent Jesus and Jesus sends us to do the same.  In verse 18 of the Gospel lesson Jesus says, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. An essential part of what it means to glorify Jesus is by doing the work he sent us to do.

What were the things that Jesus listed?

Bring good news to the poor

Proclaim that the captives will be released that the blind will see and that the oppressed will be set free.

Our job is to ever point to Jesus as the lord of our lives while doing the work that he is sending us to do.

So we are doing the work Jesus sent us to do.  We are baptizing, we are teaching, we are bringing the Good news to the poor, we are caring for the widows, the orphans and the prisoners.  We are feeding the hungry, giving the water to the thirsty and clothing the naked.  We are doing all that, to what end?

Jesus said in his prayer to the Father for us in verse 26, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

It’s all about God’s love. It’s about receiving God’s love; It’s about demonstrating God’s love.  It’s about God’s love being in us, transforming us, making us better than we have ever been before. It was that radical, unconditional love of God that compelled Jesus to go to the cross and give up his own life for all of us

So, how is it with you today?   Will the same love that compelled Jesus to the cross move us to greater version of what God is doing in our lives?

How Will They Know?

Luke 15:1-10

I want to talk about reaching out with the message about Jesus Christ this morning.  I want to talk about our role as communicators of the Gospel.  You see, Jesus has given us the responsibility of pointing others to him.

He didn’t tell us to convert anyone.  He’ll do that.

He didn’t tell us to condemn anyone. People do that to themselves.

We all need healing.
We all need forgiveness.
We all need unconditional love. 

In the Gospel according to Matthew, “the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We are about making disciples.  Sunday school has started.  Good and faithful Brothers and sisters in Christ are teaching the youngest generation the stories of our faith; they are teaching what it means to worship our God. 

There are hot breakfast casseroles waiting for us to consume at the simple meal so that we can fellowship with each other and support the Haiti Hot Lunch Program. Through that program we are sharing the love of God with the most vulnerable. 

That is just today.  That is only a part of what is happening today in the life of the church.  God is at work through St. Paul United Methodist Church. 

There is something that concerns me though. Since 2001, our membership has dropped by 23.  That means if 100 new members were added during that time, then 123 have withdrawn, transferred or passed away. St. Paul isn’t doing anything wrong.  The fact is that we will all transfer our membership to the heavenly realm eventually. We just need to find a way to reverse that trend so the work God started in this place continues.

The in the gospel reading for today Jesus tells us about the rejoicing that happens in heaven when one who is lost is found. Or when one who has turned away from God turns back toward God. This is a big deal to God.  This is a big deal to the angels in heaven.  You and I matter to God.  Our spiritual condition matters to God.

If it matters so much to our God, shouldn’t the spiritual condition of those we love matter to us.  Shouldn’t the spiritual condition of those who live in our community matter to us? 

Jesus tells about the lost sheep and the lost coin.  The one who is lost is the one who is out there.  Either they are a sheep of this fold who has wondered off, or they were never a part of this fold to begin with.  Either way, it doesn’t matter; God cares for all the sheep.

Those of us who have found the joy of living a life of faith in Jesus Christ know the value of being under the watchful eye of The Good Shepherd.  Faith is a gift from God.  When we look to go out and make new disciples the biggest challenge, the obstacle I have found it not a rejection of faith, but apathy to it.

For many, Christmas presents, and having a church for weddings and funerals is just enough religion to inoculate them from the desire to have a vital relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s not that they have not heard the story of Jesus Christ. It’s that they have heard a version of it through various means like the television, their neighbors, their family and friends.  Many have that story of the Christian faith formed in their minds and have not found it compelling, at least not enough to open their hearts to the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

One of your brothers in this congregation said something to me this week, he said, “If we present the gospel of Jesus Christ as something ‘out there’ as something that we appreciate, something that we enjoy, something that we hold fast to, and just leave the story at that, then there is no compelling reason for anyone to seek it.” It might be interesting to some people.  Some people might decide to come and check it out. But the truth of the matter is there has to be a compelling need to go and seek Christ. 

Now of course we cannot seek Christ outside of his calling.  But what if Jesus is using us to call them?

What if the instrument of God’s will is to use His people? Is that Biblical?  Does that happen? Does God use his people to carry out his will?

Did the Hebrew slaves in Egypt just one day walk out because God said, “Go.”?

Or did God place a Hebrew boy in a position to be raised by the Pharaoh and to be in a position to go through a transformative process in which the Hebrew people would eventually make their way into the Promised Land?

Did God transmit the Good news about Jesus Christ telepathically or did he train up apostles and disciples that walked and talked and told the story?  Jesus called Paul from a life of persecuting Christians to a life of making disciples. 

It is, indeed, God’s plan to use us to carry out His will.

So, if there needs to be a decision.  If someone is to come to the knowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, and have a saving relationship with him, by understanding that He is the son of God and that he was raised from the dead, wouldn’t it be necessary that someone tell them why?

Why is it necessary to make a decision to follow Jesus?

The necessity is the fact that we all have brokenness. We all have sin. We all have things in our life that make us fall short and fall flat on our faces. By ourselves we are unholy.  

We all need what Jesus has to offer, every one of us.  We all need that unconditional love.  Everyone needs the healing that Jesus brings. Everyone needs to be fulfilled. Everyone needs it.

So will people know that they need it?

How will they know?

If they are the lost sheep, if they are the ones that are away from the flock, if they’re the valuable coin that has been lost, what’s to convince them that they are in the wrong place? If they thought they were wrong they would be in a different place right?

There is so much rejoicing in heaven over 1 that is found, over one that returns, over one that repents. The angels in heaven rejoice over one that turns back from wondering in the wilderness and into the safety of the Shepherds watchful eye.

God has something very special for our friends and neighbors.  He has plans to use them in powerful ways.  God wants to pour out his love on them to overflowing.  God wants to use them to bless others.  But how will they know? How will they know unless you tell them?

So, how is it with you today in the eternal security of God’s loving arms? May you feel safe enough to go out and share what God has to offer.  

Provisions

Luke 14:25-33
Whatever path we choose, God is offering a way to stay on course.
I was telling the Young Disciples earlier about the call to adventure from God.  God’s love is ever-present and ever wooing us, ever calling us and ever guiding us back, Calling us back to God’s love, Calling us back to demonstrating that love to each other.  Calling us back into harmony with God and the way we were intended to live.  Calling us to listen to God’s guiding voice.  God calls to everyone.  But not everyone listens, not everyone can hear.  Even those that hear sometimes stop listening because they as so distracted by the worries and concerns of this world.
I want to play a little bit of the move Brave for you.  The main Character Mirada is a young Scottish princess who is being prepared to be the future queen and as a part of that is expected to behave in particular ways which goes against her nature. But even more distasteful to her is the fact that she has to choose between one of four boys to marry from the various clans that make up the kingdom.  In this scene she is confronting her mother, the queen and then sets out on her own adventure.
Movie clip.

Ana doing the Robot on a pedestrian bridge after eating some
Ice cream.  Some distractions are just fun. 

This is not a true story.  This is a fanciful legend told for entertainment.  But I love how, even in a commercial movie such as this, there is a sense of leading a sense of calling to adventure.  But the will-o’-the-wisps do not represent the call of God.  They are the distractions in life.  They are those things we follow when we forget to listen for the voice of God.  She was led through the woods to a woodcarver’s house.  The wood carver turns out to be a conjuror who agrees to “Change” Mirada’s mother.  She was indeed changed and in the end so was Mirada.
Is the point of the story that we should listen to our mothers? Listening to our mothers is a good thing.  In fact it’s in the Ten Commandments, “honor your father and you mother, so that you may live long in the land the lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20)
When we fixate on the rule, we miss the point.  In the move mother, daughter and even the father was transformed.   Had Mirada not gone off with the intent to change her mother and honored her mother like she was supposed to she wouldn’t have had all the trouble she did. But there is another side to the coin. In the letter to the Ephesians Paul says to fathers and presumably to all parents, “do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
We can get so fixated on our own agendas and the way we want to see things that we become blind to the possibilities before us and we become deaf to what God is saying to us.
If we insist on perusing a course apart that is apart from God, we are free to do so. But we will also have to live with the consequences of those decisions.  We may separate ourselves from God and God’s way, but God still loves us and God will continually offer guidance and invitation to come back into his will.
Why is my life such a mess?  Why is there so much brokenness in the world?  Why does there have to be civil war in Syria?  Why does the president want to send misses down on them?  Why do some go hungry while others live a life of luxury and waste?  Why are the Copts in Egypt being targeted?  Why is it that Dennis Rodman is the only Westerner to be able to have a conversation with the president of North Korea?
It is because each one of us has free will.  We can choose to follow God or we can choose a myriad of seemingly easier paths, even if we are perfectly obedient, this life can be very difficult. Because it is not just us. We live in a world where we have to interact with those who also have the freedom to choose their own path. And though we may choose to follow gods will, that doesn’t mean that anyone else around us will and we will have to deal with the consequences of their sin. We are to deal with the consequences of their decisions.  Their path cuts across ours and we are forced to deal with it.
In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  This is harsh stuff! What did Jesus really mean?  Does this mean that when Mirada stormed out of the castle after her fight with her mother that she was the perfect candidate for discipleship under Jesus?  Is Jesus really calling us to reject our families and our lives? 

If we look at a similar saying of Jesus it might shed some light. In Matthew chapter 10 he says, “³⁷ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.³⁹ Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Jesus is not telling us to reject those earthly relationships and to despise our earthly life, but to love him more than those.  Our commitment and our love remains for our family but our love for God should exceed this. It needs to.  Our love for God needs to exceed our love for our family because, let’s face it, they aren’t perfect.  The will expect too much and offer too little.  They will let you down, they will judge you, they will make poor choices. You may be the exception and have an entire family where none of that happens.  But isn’t it nice to know that if you failed your family has the forgiveness of God in their hearts that they can look beyond it and love you anyway?  Loving Christ more means that you can love your family with an unconditional love.  They don’t have to measure up. They don’t have to be perfect. When Jesus is your first love you see the world as he sees it: Broken, flawed, but in desperate need of healing love.It is absolutely necessary for the individual, for you to put yourself in alignment with God’s will; to accept the free gift of God’s undeserved love; to confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Son of God and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. That is very important. But in addition to that, we are to look at our neighbors and not fix them, not judge them, not try to convert them but love them and forgive them and offer them the good news about Jesus Christ so that they can make that decision to put Jesus first in their lives. So that they can be open to God’s love and guidance. So that they can come to understand the immensity of what God had done for us. So that they can also believe in their heart and confess with their mouth.Jesus asks us to count the costs of being his disciple, of being fully devoted to him, to love him above all else. It’s a step of faith to follow him down the path that you don’t know where it’s going to lead.  But to trust that God will provide all that you need as you travel that path.God is a god of provisions.God provided the manna for the Hebrews as they wandered in the wilderness.  God provided a way for an unholy people to stand before a holy God.  God will lead us into his mission and if we follow he will provide all that we need.One way to have more confidence in walking down the path of faith and putting faith in Jesus Christ is to walk with a companion.  Walk with some other trusted faithful person to encourage and to be encouraged by.  Wouldn’t be even better if you had two companions on this faith journey to encourage and to be encouraged by?  Wouldn’t it be even better to have a dozen like the lord Jesus had?  How about the 85 or so that show up here every week at St. Paul to journey with or how about the 140 members of this faith community? If we walk this journey of faith together hand in hand, encouraging each other we can face anything any challenge that comes.So how is it with you today?  How is God providing for you?  Each one of has answered the call to adventure.  Each one of you will have all the provisions you will need on this journey with Christ. Each one of you has been lead to this place at this particular season of your life because God is living in you.  God wants to use you. God has gifted you. God has saved you and set you in this community so that we can hear your witness about what he has done in your life. 

Place Cards

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Have you ever been to a wedding that had place cards, you know assigned seating at the dinner? I have never been through the process of deciding such things as seating but I understand that certain people should be seated with certain other people and certainly not with some particular people.    Having 6 children, and up until Tuesday, having 5 of them in school has taught me that seating is also a strategic thing.  Who is sitting next to who matters as much as the one who is in the sight line of another.  This is true at the dinner table as well, by the way.

I guess it’s true of most assigned seating.  In a class room for example, it may be that seating is assigned for consistency and order.  We humans like consistency and order. Just look at where you are sitting you’re your seat much different than the last time you were in worship?

We want what we want.  We want to sit with who we want. We want to associate with who we want. We want to help who we want.

But is our Christian faith about what we want?

Who is in charge of setting the place cards at the banquet of life?  Is it God or is it us?  If God has set the place cards, how free are we to move them where we want them?

This church, St. Paul, is a part of a connectional system called the United Methodist Church.  Most of you know that.  In its current form this system had its birth in 1968 when the United Brethren and the Methodist churches merged.  Many of you know that as well.  The strength of the connectional system is that though our combined efforts, as a world-wide church, we can do things that we as an individual church could never do, such as disaster relief through UMCOR. Over these 40 some years of existence the greater church as asked of the individual church for funds to make this and many world-changing missions possible.  Over those same 40 some years there have been good and faithful Christians who have also pointed out that there is need right in their neighborhoods and sending money away makes it more difficult for the local church to server their communities. 

I had often heard it said that the larger church should be about strengthening the ministries of the local churches. 

Apparently someone was listening. The combined resources of the West Michigan conference of the United Methodist Church have made available a process where the local church can get expert guidance in being as effective as they can be in the mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformations of the world. 

Last week after worship, the leadership team met and approved entering the process of gathering information so that those consultants can come in and give us an objective assessment of how to move in the right direction as a local church.

The connectional system of the United Methodist Church is about to directly benefit St. Paul UMC and I am so thankful for that.

It’s going to mean a lot more work for me, but I look forward to it. The process may feel a little invasive at times. It may feel authoritarian at times.  But I have never had a life changing moment in my life that wasn’t preceded by a little discomfort. 

We have a great church.  Everything works together.  The thing is we have our place cards set ahead of time.  Not just where we sit in church but in almost everything we do.  I have the feeling that God wants to re-arrange our place cards.  I have a feeling that we can benefit from a new perspective.

Jesus went to a dinner party at the leader of the Pharisees house, on the Sabbath no less! I think they wanted to grill him.  I think they wanted find out what he was all about.  The part of the scripture that I didn’t read was about a man that Jesus healed and dismissed.   Jesus healed and dismissed the man and before anyone could protest he asked, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this.

If Jesus were there to prove that he could watch his Ps and Qs he has already started off on the wrong foot. He didn’t do any better after that.  Jesus noticed the Pharisees trying to jostle for position and get the best seats.  If being polite were the order of the day Jesus would just sit quietly and find a seat out of the way, but he saw it as an opportunity to teach! Don’t embarrass yourself by taking the seat of honor and then be asked to move.  Sit in a lowly position and you will be honored if the host re-seats you in a better place. 

Can you imagine?  You invite someone to your party so that you can scrutinize, control and perhaps intimidate them into towing the line and they start like this?  Healing on the Sabbath, criticizing the seating arrangement, but that’s not all.  Jesus goes on to criticize the guest list. He was in a group of Pharisees, a highly respected and powerful group of men.  But Jesus said, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

You know, God can really hit you where it hurts.  Just yesterday Diane and I had a get together for some friends and family.  It was a great time, but did it really have to be on the day before this scripture came up? If we take scripture seriously we have to apply it to our everyday life.  Should I have thrown a dinner party for the poor, the crippled the lame and the blind?  I can make excuses why I didn’t, or I can say, “Yes, I should have.”  Following Jesus is not easy. Read what Jesus says about what discipleship means and he never says it is easy.  Jesus went to the party and disrupted the whole thing.

That’s what Jesus did and that’s what Jesus does.  He upsets the apple-cart.  Jesus takes our spiritual blindness and opens our eyes. He takes our complacency and moves us into action. Jesus disrupts, disorients, discombobulates…when it comes to our desire to set our own place cards in life.

The good news is Jesus doesn’t upset the apple-cart and leave it at that. 

Jesus, as the invited guest to the banquet, doesn’t just ruin the party and leave it at that.

Jesus invites us to his table.  Jesus demonstrates what he really wants.

Though he may upset the apple cart of our lives he gives us something better to replace what we feel like we have lost.  Jesus gives us forgiveness.  Jesus sacrificed his own life.  Jesus bled and died so that those who believe that defeated death and was raised to life, and confess that he is the son of God, can have eternal life. 

When Jesus upsets our lives and makes things uncomfortable, it’s not to push us away it’s to make us more like him. 

So, how is it with you today?  Does the talk of changes in the church make you uncomfortable?  It makes me a little uncomfortable. But know that through our shared struggle, God will bless us and use our efforts to glorify him.