Full of Hope

  

Text: Matthew 25:1-13

Focus: perseverance

Function: to encourage hope

25:¹“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young women took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. ²Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. ³When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, ⁴but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. ⁵As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. ⁶But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ ⁷Then all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ ⁹But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ ¹⁰And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. ¹¹Later the other young women came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ ¹²But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ ¹³Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Good morning God's beloved children! Ephesians 2 tells us that God has restored us to do good works. And then so that in the ages to come God can pour out on us their abundant blessings!

When the apostle Paul had a vision of heaven, he described it as a place too wonderful to understand.

This is about the kingdom of heaven. I have a hard time understanding this parable, but since he introduces it as about the Kingdom of Heaven, he doesn’t call it the Kingdom of God, instead Jesus uses the kingdom of heaven.

He is referring to the way that God does things in the spiritual realm. And we, being spiritual people can learn a lesson from the telling of this story.

It is about perseverance until the end without losing hope. It is about our choice to hang on to hope.

Remember in 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle says there three important things for us to focus on. They are: Faith, Hope, and Love. The most important being love.

But those three things are the pegs of a three legged stool that supports our Spiritual journey.

I focus my preaching on love because of this, but without faith and hope, our love is not coming from the power of God inside of us but is manufactured by our own will power.

It is ironic that faith is not something we can manufacture. It is given to us by God. And it increases when we fellowship with Christ, the Word of God, through prayer, study and being busy doing God’s work in our lives.

When we are exercising our love through faith with hope, we are experiencing the renewing flowing of the Holy Spirit inside of us.

That is why I encourage your gifts, talents and abilities, because in them, we are moving in the power of God in our lives.

So, faith comes from God and as we allow it to flow, it increases.

Hope, on the other hand, is something that we have some control over. We choose to hope, or we choose to despair.

And it is linked to faith. I think of us here at Painter Creek, we can choose to believe that we are the church God planted and promises to grow or we can despair.

And that leads us to the parable about 10 bridesmaids who were waiting for the bridegroom to attend the wedding ceremony.

I believe the bridegroom represents the coming of Christ and the wedding celebration is a metaphor for the church carrying out the will of God on earth.

5 of the bridesmaids were not prepared to wait for the coming of the groom.

They did not have, what I believe is the power to endure until the end.

For some reason they lost their perspective and didn’t think through what it takes to participate in God’s kingdom.

They didn’t persevere. And I wonder if the main reason people do not persevere is because they lose hope.

We have all met believers who started out strong with a lot of zeal and then lost interest.

Jesus gave another parable about it with the sower sowing seed on and some of it spread onto the road and didn’t grow, some in the ditch with the weeds and grew withered, and others were sown in the plowed field and produced the desired result.

He tells the parable to encourage us to count the cost of discipleship so that when hard times come, and we are tempted to give up hope, we don’t.

You know the footsteps in the sand story about a man who came to understand that during the hard times when he thought God abandoned him, God was actually carrying him through.

God keeps God’s promises to us.

And my experience is that in the hard times, when I was confused about what God was doing and tempted to give up faith, in the end, God took me through. In the end, I saw the hand of God.

I mentioned the story when you hired me that I turned in a sexual predator who was indited for statutory rape of a 15 year child. A third of the church left because it wasn’t a safe place. A third left because they believed the predator and blamed me and then the remaining third fired me.

I had a crisis of faith because I believe in the church and I had hoped that those remaining would come together with me and enjoy the process of healing together in Christian community. Instead I got blame.

I understand that the church is a family system and when the family is hurting, they blame the head. I understand they reacted out of pain and just wanting to move past it. Sadly, the church soon closed.

So, my crisis of faith, wondering how God could let them blame me and virtually destroy my career, finally ended in a Kairos forgiveness ceremony when I was able to forgive them.

Some people choose pain and unforgiveness instead of the freedom that following God brings.

It isn’t easy at times to obey the master and walk in love of Christian community. But God is faithful and even when I was in severe doubt, God brought me back.

So, let us make the commitment to love each other here. We are not perfect people. Every one of us has faults and foibles that we have to forgive and make allowances for. That is the oil we need in our lamps, it is the power of the Spirit to love and forgive.

This kind of walking in love is the oil that keeps our lamps burning until the end.

The blessings

  

Text: Matthew 5:1-12

Focus: beatitudes

Function: to see how Jesus changes things

5:¹When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²And he began to speak and taught them, saying:

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Good morning to God’s beloved! Through the Holy Spirit, we share the divine nature of God and are given the power to love others as much as we love our own.

Today we are looking at what is called the Beatitudes. This is the core of what it means for us to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I notice that it isn’t so much about what we believe as it is in what we do and the attitude that we have toward others as a reflection of the Spirit of Christ inside of us.

It starts out with Jesus leaving the city and going to a remote place on the mountainside. It is the beginning of what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

The significance of leaving the city has to do with the way that God’s kingdom sets itself apart from the kingdoms, and attitudes of mankind and its political structures of government.

I don’t believe Jesus was an anarchist, but there is anarchy in this revolutionary teaching.

Because we live in a capitalistic society, we are taught to value and honor the rich as if they are somehow morally superior because of their ability to exploit an opportunity.

For some reason, we believe amassing great wealth is a moral good.

Jesus has a lot to say about greed and hoarding wealth and it doesn’t agree with that philosophy.

I believe that people were as much in love with money back then as they are now since we need it to survive, especially in our interdependent economic social structure.

And Jesus comes on the scene and boldly takes a stand against what we have come to call worldliness.

These beatitudes are a beautiful way for him to introduce the values of the Kingdom of God.

They are what we call the values of an upside down kingdom. A kingdom that honors not the wealthy but the poor and the downtrodden for their ability to survive when the odd are stacked against them.

And Luke, in his gospel, picks up this theme. When he gets to the first way to be blessed, he says in his account that being poor is a path to blessing.

It is because the poor depend on God, just like the birds of the air to provide for them daily. And we go on to pray: “Give us this day our daily needs.”

But when Matthew uses the words Poor in Spirit, we get the meaning that blessed are the humble. Or those who refuse to be proud.

Blessed are those who mourn. I believe that when they follow Jesus, they will be comforted by his presence in the Holy Spirit.

Prayer and contemplation go a long way. Also, the beloved community here and the community of faith across the world.

Then: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Isn’t that just backwards? We believe and we watch it in movies all the time where it is the bold risk takers who inherit the blessings.

But Jesus says stop thinking that way and by faith, be meek. By faith, trust God. By faith, take right place in life.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. I got to share this one down at the prison during our six month retreat. The men in prison are both crying out for justice and are victims of the system of justice.

They are victims of a system of revenge. Jesus is the lord of restoration. His justice is never about revenge, but always about healing for both the victim and the oppressor.

Understand, by the way, the the word for righteousness in this passage is best translated as those who hunger for justice.

Carol got it right in the liturgy.

Most of the men in the prison accept that justice needed to be done for their crimes. If they aren’t sorry for the action, they are sorry for the consequences. But most are sorry for their actions, and they want justice to be restored for both them and their victim or their families.

Jesus promises justice for the oppressed in this passage. Right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he proclaimed the prophecy from Isaiah 61 that God sent him to proclaim justice for the oppressed.

And it happened. The early church did not concern themselves with buildings and their collections went to feed the poor in their areas. They distributed charity by living on only what they needed instead of hoarding wealth for retirement. When the retired, they took care of the elderly. It became a huge practice of mercy and it caused the church to grow quickly across the world.

The oppressed who need justice cry out to God and God gives it to them.

The world we live in tells us that the reason they are poor is because they are either lazy or stupid. It judges the poor for being poor and honors the rich for exploiting them. Jesus says the opposite.

This verse gives me hope to not give up on God’s justice. I see the evil going on with refugees and the way it contradicts the teachings of Christ and I cry out for justice. And God promises it to us.

Blessed are the merciful This is where forgiveness comes in for me. In order to give mercy toward someone, I need to forgive them.

Even if it isn’t me they have harmed. We judge people easily and most often it comes simply because they are different from us in some small or large way. But we forgive. We forgive the transgressors and that releases the power of the Holy Spirit to transform both them and us.

I have learned not to judge in my Uber driving. For example, Lyft has a contract with an agency that helps Methamphetamine victims recover. And they are a wild bunch. Some of them are faithfully working the program and others are taking a free ride. I find that not judging them and giving them mercy opens the door for blessings to both me and them. It is a spiritual transaction taking place.

Blessed are the pure in heart. I believe he is telling us to ground ourselves in the love that God is pouring into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Keep your hearts pure by abiding in love instead of hatred, bitterness or jealousy. That means we examine our hearts to see if there is bitterness or unforgiveness in us. We forgive and our hearts are made pure again. Remember, we are forgiven to the extent we forgive.

Blessed are those who can make peace. Instead of war or revenge, find a merciful, loving solution. And it happens by simply refusing to fight back.

I was raised by Christian standards and I knew that if I started a fight, I was in trouble at home. I also knew that if I didn’t turn the other cheek, when someone struck me, I would get in trouble.

And I was never big or athletic, just average. But because I was a pacifist, I became a target for the short kid who had something to prove.

One kid made up something to attack me and told me to prepare to fight. I told him I would not fight him. He approached me for the first blow and I reached out an grabbed his neck so that his fists couldn’t reach me. And then I smiled at him and kept repeating that I had no reason to fight him.

And finally he quit.

It worked out. However, I did take a few beatings.

We were raised to do as much as possible to make peace with others.

And finally, he tells them that keeping up this attitude even when people mock and criticize us is also a path to blessing in our lives. Endure and I believe that if we keep our hearts pure in love we will live the peaceful life.

Faith of Steel

  

Text: 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10

Focus: conversion

Function: to talk about being born anew

^2-5Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night you’re in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in following our Master, Jesus Christ, before God our Father. It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special. When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn’t just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions.

^5-6You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you, and determined to live that way yourselves. In imitating us, you imitated the Master. Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit!—taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.

^7-10Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.

Good morning to the beloved children of God.

I hope you don’t get tired of hearing that every Sunday morning. But I choose this passage of scripture because it reiterates the theme of us being the beloved children of God.

God choose you to be their follower and God has placed the power of the Spirit inside of you so that you will not fail in your desire to please and follow the master.

Paul opens the letter with this greeting that commends the strength of their faith reminded them that God is with them.

He mentions how they willingly received the message in spite of the fact that preaching the message brought him and th en them, persecution.

When you read through the book you read that they were subject to mob violence and legal action against them.

They came preaching Jesus and the fact that Jesus shows us the new way of living that God, the living God -not a creation of humanity, wants people to live.

And it was the idea of the living God who created the universe that upset them because the people still worshipped the pantheon of Greek gods .

And that was a problem because all of a sudden the message of Christ became political. It became political because the Roman government had set up a pluralistic sort of Government whereby all the different conquered people could retain worship of their individual idols and gods without fear. However, all they had to do was accept that idea that Caesar, who was still in human form, was also a god. And they were forced to pay homage to Caeser by saying: :Caesar is Lord.”

When they accepted Christ and they realized that Christ actually is the Lord and through Christ everything was created. They rejected the idea that Caesar was a lord because that would be an insult to Christ.

Among themselves and publicly they said Jesus is Lord. And that got them into great trouble.

You heard how Christians were persecuted the first three centuries of the faith because they were considered insurrectionists since they refused to acknowledge the lordship of Caesar.

So, the story is that Paul is here in Thessalonica preaching that only Jesus is Lord and that upsets the locals, especially the silversmiths who made their living producing idols for people to purchase and worship. People don’t like to be told that they are wrong and people are passionate about their faith. And he upset the Roman authorities who worship Caesar as god.

He is attacked from both sides and is falsely beaten and imprisoned but he doesn’t give up preaching and the Holy Spirit is right there beside him convincing people that they way of Jesus is much better than the authoritarian form of government that Rome gave them.

The way of Jesus was completely different from the system of government that the people lived under.

It said that the slave is equal to the king in God’s eyes.

That ideology threatened the very core of society.

Paul, in the name of Jesus was telling people to love their neighbors, to give up greed and selfishness and to live in a form of community that is interdependent on each other. And at the same time give up their idols.

God asked a lot of these people and they followed because the Holy Spirit showed them the truth of Paul’s message.

When he reports to the other apostles his mission trips he reports to the apostles the gospel message and they tell him that his message is good as long as it leads to people caring for the poor.

And Paul talks of his eagerness to preach this kind of message in a culture that believes it is okay to mistreat fellow humans as if they are worth less than others.

He was preaching Jesus who proclaimed that when we live in this kind of brotherhood, we will be the healing agent against the powers that be that are willing to enslave others as if their lives don’t count.

He was bold in his preaching and it did land him in trouble but he didn’t stop preaching Jesus and the message of God’s love for everyone.

They eventually killed him for doing it.

But he mentions in this passage how his boldness is an inspiration to others, to the Thessalonians and all the way down to us.

People hated him because his message pricked their conscience and exposed their greed or ignorance.

Wise people, when confronted with another idea will take the time to consider the idea before rejecting it. They may embrace the idea completely or in part. But they are open minded enough to listen and to hear the Spirit of God leading them into what we call in the Church of the Brethren, another way of living.

Kingdom First

  

Text: Matthew 22:15-22

Focus: spiritual devotion

Function: to contrast zeal for God with patriotism.

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. ¹⁶So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality. ¹⁷Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” ¹⁸But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰Then he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose title?” ²¹They answered, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” ²²When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.

Good morning to God’s beloved chilcren. Remember that God describes God’s own self as LOVE and according to Ephesians 2, is going to spend eternity showering us with God’s love.

This passage of scripture has been used to try to enforce all kinds of rules and regulations about our faith and our relationship toward the government.

But when Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, Jesus said he was the king of God’s spiritual kingdom that rises above mere human politics and considerations.

The Church is the embassy of the Kingdom of God. The Church is the body of Christ and it is universal and when one reads the epistles of the Apostle Paul and his collection for the saints from across the world, one can see how the Church is here to care for each other so that no one lacks.

Our allegiance is to the kngdom of God and our political considerations should be in relationship to the principles of God’s kingdom of love, mercy, and welcome. It is fueled by the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self contrl. These are traits of the follower of Jesus and there are no laws in any governments against these traits. When the kingdom of God is in its proper balance, focusing on the love of God instead of power, the Kingdom of God rises above human kingdoms.

That frames how we understand this passage.

It comes in a section of Matthew where Jesus is being tested right before he is sacrificed for us. Matthew wrote his gospel for the Jewish people and in this chapter, he shows the Jewish people how Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for our sins by passing all the tests that the leaders throw at him during holy week.

The story is that they are trying to trip him up by making him admit that Rome has more power over Israel than God. They want him to deny the power of God.

And Jesus outsmarts them by pointing out to them that they have already accepted Roman occupation by the fact that they use the Roman coin for their business.

The trap had to do with a form of religions purity whereby the Jewish people distinguished themselves from non Jew by not associating with others. Remember the money changers in the temple that Jesus overthrew? They made a fortune trading Roman coins for Jewish coins because a Roman coin was impure and couldn’t be used for a temple offering. They charged a high price for the “Right kind” of coin.

It was a way of exploiting the poor with religion and Jesus was offended by it.

And Jesus’ answer is not some sort of regulation in scripture about paying taxes, it is a condemnation of people using religion to exploit others financially.

God’s love is freely given and received. We can’t charge for it. That offends God.

And yet, this passage of scripture has become political in the way that it is used as a metaphor for us to support our government.

The scripture says that God gave government and we are to obey unless it violates our conscience or our faith.

However, we have to seperate our passion for Christ and our patriotism. Patriotism is an heartfelt passion. We are raised to love our country and to believe in it or otherwise, we have chaos.

My dad was raised like us with the belief that war is sin because it clearly violates the principle of love, even for our enemies.

But Hitler and the Axis power in WWII were evil. My dad was faced with a moral dilemna. Did he join the fight againt evil or not? He ultimately enlisted in the navy. For him, choosing to fight was the moral choice of the lesser of two evils.

I underst and that my dad’s choice was not born out of patriotism so much as it was a moral choice of conscience in that he thought that he could contribute to the good cause of stopping evil.

Many of our Brethren and Mennonite brothers participated but choose otherwise in WWII. They became conscientious objectors to war. But that didn’t mean that they were not willing to give their lives for the cause of justice. The best story told is how around100 of them were emaciated nearly to the point of death in order to learn how to treat victims of the concentration camps. If memory serves me correctly, I believe 14 of them gave their lives for the experiment.

I’m not preaching about war. I speaking about patriotic passion verses our Christian faith. I mention my dad and my gratefulness for the sacrifices made in WWII because it gave me a great sense of patriotism growing up.

And it leads to the problem: how do we order our love for country and our allegiance to the kingdom of God when they conflict?

C. S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters writes how easy it is to get believers distracted from the command to follow Jesus to love others through their patriotic fervor.

What does it mean for us to love country? And what if our country is not on the side of the moral good and is complicit in war crimes?

I think of the civil war and how both sides were told by the one slinging the propoganda that they were on God’s righteous side. And yet one side believed that black people were sub human and worth exploiting. They forget that jesus was black.

I don’t say that to offend, but to provoke us to consider how we too may lose focus on what was important.

Render unto Caesar does not mean blind faith in a human nation state, we must obey God rather than man, according to the book of Acts.

Let us be discerning when it comes to our patriotism vs. our love for Christ because Christ calls us to a different kind of kingdom, one that is commanded to love, even its enemies.

Lord, help us to discern good from evil by your Spirit. Amen.

The Good Fruit

  

Text: Matthew 21:33-46

Focus: the fruit

Function: to help people discern good vs evil

³³ “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. ³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
    and it is amazing in our eyes’?

⁴³“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. ⁴⁴The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Good morning to the beloved children of God.

This passage is about those who reject Jesus. And it is an interesting passage because it isn’t about what people are saying about the Christ, it is about what the people are doing with what He is teaching them. It points to the fact that believing in him means that we have changed our lives to prosper by living in the community that Jesus established and we call the Church. We produce the fruit of love.

On a Kairos weekend, we focus on who we are as a Church. And in yesterday’s wrap-up session from the previous week, the leader gave a talk on the importance of the church and I would like to share the essence of that talk as a way to understand this scripture. I choose it because it is timely for our church and our future.

Brothers/sisters in Christ.  We have come together today to talk about just what that phrase means.  "Brothers/Sisters in Christ."  Christ, of course, is in all Christians.  If you've opened your heart to him and invited him in, he's there.

It is us being “in Christ” which we sometimes find difficult to understand and accept.  The phrase, "in Christ," refers to the fact that Jesus calls us to be the Church, His body.

The Church, scriptures tell us, is the body of Christ.  In Paul's letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verse 18, we read:  "He (Christ) is the head of his body, the Church, he is the source of the body's life." 

It is a concept which Paul uses repeatedly. In First John 1:7, the author of this letter says, "But if we walk in the light ... just as he is in the light ... then we have fellowship with one another."   

It is also important for us to understand this phrase, "have fellowship with one another." The Greek word from which the phrase is translated is "koinonia.”  It has been said that God "wills" community.  "He intervenes in human history to heal the brokenness and disruption we have created." Let me repeat that: God intervenes in human history to heal...

Or said another way: "To say Christ means to say community , coexistence, a new life, peace." 

In Christianity there is no "Jesus and me" closed community.  True Christianity, like Jesus, always includes others, and never excludes. That is why I print Inclusive sermons on our sermon page, I want people to know that everyone who is seeking is welcome.

Jesus himself is repeatedly portrayed in community.  Even when he withdrew to pray he was in the habit of taking his own small community with him ... Peter, James and John.  Our relationship with Jesus always takes place in community; it is a triangular relationship ... God, self, and at least one other person.  Even when we are alone and talking to God, the other people with whom we share the world are a part of our relationship with him, for our relationship with him is necessarily tied to our relationship with each other. We don't gather in community because it is more fun ... sometimes it is not. We don't gather in community because it is safer ... sometimes it is not. My desire is to create a safe place where everyone can seek out what Christ is doing in their lives. But we are human and we are not perfect and we are not in a perfect community, but one inspired by God to be loving and forgiving. Forgiveness is the key.

The Apostle Paul who wrote this suffered the consequences of conflict in his ministry and he pressed on without giving up. Instead, he called us to walk in forgiveness   We gather in community because it is the starting place for the redemptive activity of God.  It is in community that healing occurs, that we find our wholeness

We gather to find community and as it happens on the Kairos weekend, it focuses on forgiveness.

God’s Spirit calls us to forgiveness. Here is a story about how important forgiveness is. One of the residents in the room was having a private conversation with our table leader. It was distracting.

Meanwhile, the rest of us at the table had a sort of lull in the conversation. And all of a sudden, our of nowhere I had this thought pop into my head. It didn’t seem related so I kept it to myself. But it persisted, so I blurted it out and by then the private conversation that was distracting our table ended and I said my piece.

I said, “Imagine how hard it was for Adam and Eve to forgive Cain for murdering Abel.”

I wasn’t aware of the private conversation but it was about about how it felt impossible to for this resident to forgive his brother for befriending the man who shot him 6 times over a woman. He was pouring out his heart in distress because he didn’t think he could forgive.

It was a God moment because forgiving family was the point and it convinced him that forgiving his brother will set him free.

Forgiveness sets us free. It helps to release the pain of the hurt. All we have to do is ask God not to hold them accountable for the harm they have done to us.

It is a step of faith because it believes that God will ultimately judge with the same mercy we ourselves need.

When we walk in forgiveness, we walk in the faith that God wants to heal and restore this world.

Or, as our text declares, we are the ones who produce the fruit of love for the Savior.

The Power of Faith

  

Text: Matthew 21: 23-32

Focus: obedience

Function: to see that faith is proven by obedience

²³When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” ²⁴Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

²⁸“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

Good morning to the beloved of God.

The Spirit behind the questions of those questioning Jesus compared to the answers that Jesus gives indicates a way for us to understand just what it means for us to believe in Jesus for our salvation.

The events in this story today take place right after Palm Sunday and Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

His entry caused quite a stir and the leaders who were questioning Jesus were upset that he was so popular and they were threatened by his presence.

And in these chapters of Matthew, we get several incidents during Holy Week where Jesus is called into question and he answers them all tactfully with a spiritual redirection component to his answer.

If you spend time reading through the book of Numbers, you will find that the Jewish people are big on genealogy and who belongs to who and what family and tribe they are from and who has proper standing when it comes to serving God in the priesthood or political roles.

In order to lead one had to have the right credentials, training and genes. The leaders knew that Jesus didn’t qualify based on his birthright or education and training, so they try to humiliate him publicly and call his leadership into question.

So, they ask him for his credentials and instead of giving them to him, he asks them to validate the prophet John’s credentials because he wants them to know that this is a move of God and he is tied to John’s movement that started with this new ritual, baptism for the cleansing away of sins.

And again, I pride myself on keeping politics out of our church and here is one of the reasons. The leaders were religions, but they were also politicians and they knew that they couldn’t do the right thing by Jesus or John, so they refused to answer in order to do the political dodge.

When Jesus was asked by Pilate if he was a politician, Jesus answer was that we are part of a Spiritual kingdom and it doesn’t adhere to human politics.

And just like the head of the Church today, the Pope, and today’s political leaders who clash, Jesus kingdom raises above human politics. It is Spiritual and not subject to the powers and authorities about which the leaders are trying to question Jesus in this story.

And look at the next paragraph. Jesus’ answer. It doesn’t seem to follow the question. It doesn’t seem to make sense unless one understands that Jesus is indeed here to establish a spiritual kingdom of love that finally breaks down the power structures of humans that keep us in bondage.

They question Jesus about authority and he answers with a parable about obedience. What does the disobedience and obedience of these two sons have to do Jesus authority to ride into Jerusalem, cleanse the temple and start this following?

It is a mystery until one understands what Jesus is trying to do with his life and ministry here on earth. He wants to transform humanity into a loving place.

The leaders were reverting back to a legal argument of authority about Jesus’ actions and Jesus answers with a story that gets them thinking about what is really important?

And the parable is interesting. One son answers with obedience and then disobeys. The other son answers disobediently and then obeys. The one that actually obeyed is the one who is in a right relationship with the father.

And I believe the point is that it isn’t what you say that justifies you before God, it is what you do.

It helps us to see what faith really is. Faith is not mere mental acknowledgment of God’s existence. Faith is trusting and following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Faith is trust. Faith is rest. Faith is acknowledging that God knows best for us and following God’s way.

Faith is the action of trusting God’s ways over our own understanding.

So, for example, when we have been wronged, the world’s way is revenge, God’s way is forgiveness. It takes faith to rest in God’s justice instead of demanding our own revenge.

So, the leaders are trying to bring the letter of the law down on Jesus and accuse him of stepping beyond his place in society. And Jesus’ answer is to get them to reflect on the condition of their own hearts. Are they obeying or merely following ritual?

The leaders were all about their own religious practices as if those rituals set them apart from other people.

But when the leaders do finally answer the question from Jesus, they make his point that obedience isn’t in talk, it is in the walk.

I get to give the final clergy talk on Sunday next week at Kairos and the slang title of the talk is “walking your talk.” Jesus points out that they are essentially all talk, but no action.

God is leading people to live in the power of faith and walk in obedience by loving others.

It takes faith to walk in love. And then he says that prostitutes and tax collectors have a closer relationship with God than they do.

Later on in John, Jesus says, If you love me, you will obey me. And he says in 1 John that obeying him is loving others.

He goes so far as to say that the one who loves walks in God and knows God, again, because God is love.

The son who obeyed is the son who has the power of faith to walk in love and thusly walk in God.