Who is a member? Are there any standards??

Please read this very thoughtful article about an important decision the church will need to make by clicking here.

 

 

In his May 18th article Rev. Andrew C. Thompson has done a tremendous job of outlining the history, and possible ramifications of one of the constitutional amendments for which we will be voting at next week's annual conference.

 

Though I appreciate Rev. Thompson's analysis I believe he gives the authors of the amendment too much credit.  He writes as though there is doubt about the way it will be interpreted- ultimately by Judicial Council.  I believe the words "all" and "shall" in the second to last sentence ("All persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ shall be eligible to become professing members in any local church in the connection.")  leave little doubt as to the intention of the amendment.  It is intended to prohibit pastors and congregations from making any spiritually discerning, doctrinal or moral judgments with regard to church membership.  

 

I will be the first to say that discrimination has absolutely no place in the church if discrimination is understood in the sense of Webster's first definition: "unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice."  I would also like to point out that as Christians we are called to discriminate in the sense of the second definition:  "discriminate - recognize or perceive the difference.” 

 

Jesus understands that not all sheep are of his fold  (John 10:16.)  John calls us to discriminate between true and false teachers (1 John 4:1)  and Paul understood that there are different kinds of motivations and “spirits”  (2 Cor 11).

 

We are in an age when we are attempting to move past prejudice.  But in moving past the evil of prejudice, we cannot allow ourselves to be forced to condone the very evil we abhor.   The new and acceptable prejudice is against those who take a stand for right and wrong, truth and falseness, good and evil.  When the church gives up the responsibility of pointing to “right,” “truth” and “goodness” she has lost the battle against the kind of milk toast religion Jesus condemned so long ago.  And we might as well stock up on whitewash.  Out tombs will soon need it.

 

We cannot vote affirmatively on Constitutional Amendment #1.

 

 ((FYI the UMC has a constitution and there are 32 ammendments approved by general conference that must be ratified by 2/3 majority of the voting members in order to be ratified.))

WOW

Last night I had the privilege of leading the first Wednesday night worship of the summer. With nearly 30 people in attendance it was such a blessing. As I stood listening to the prayers of the people I couldn't help but feel the hunger, the need, and the pain of God's people and feel so blessed to be in a place of quiet, peace, and worship.

I hope you too were blessed by the evening and if you weren't able to be with us. Come next week.

Terry

The ascension sermon 5/24/09

RUMC
5/24 and 5/27 (WOW)
Ascension Sunday

When you think of Christ, how do you think of Him? As the babe lying in the manger? Do you think of Him in terms of His ministry on earth and His mighty words and works? Or perhaps you think of Him as the one who died and rose again. There are many ways we can (and should) think about Jesus Christ
I hope you have enjoyed the service of readings and song. I designed it to help us think especially of the ascension of Jesus Christ. We want to be able to answer our Lord’s very provocative question from the Gospel of John , “What then if you should see the Son of Man ascending where He was before?” In other words, what does the ascension mean to us? What differences should it make in our belief and behavior?
Look at all the passages we read that refer to the ascension. That is only the tip of the iceberg. The ascension is a central biblical doctrine, but sometimes it is forgotten because of our focus on the incarnation and the resurrection- his birth and return from the dead.
We can’t afford to forget the ascension though, the truth is that the Christ of the prophets is an unrealized hope. The Christ in the manger is a romantic memory. The Christ of the gospel is the Christ of the distant past, the resurrected Christ is a man who cheated death. It is only after the ascension- Christ’s leaving the earth and all that the self imposed limits of the incarnation in order the return to sit in glory at God’s right hand, that we have the savior we have come to know and love. The ascension is required if we are to have a complete picture of a savior who came, lived, died, lives again and walks with us and talks with us and reigns in our lives and over his kingdom at the right hand of the almighty and eternal God- the creator.

You heard the story from Luke. Now I would like to read the story of the ascension the way Luke tells it in Acts.
Acts 1:6-11 And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8 but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. “ 9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them; 11 and they also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”
What are the important lessons for our lives and discipleship from this story?

The very first thing I hope you noticed about the songs today is they are about the lordship or kingship of Christ. The ascension is the period on the end of the incarnation. It is the end of the self imposed limits of being in human flesh and blood. We believe that God was fully human in Jesus Christ. Humans are limited. There were, therefore limits to what God could do in Jesus Christ. Self imposed limits, albeit, but limits all the same. In the ascension, Christ shed those self-imposed, earthly limits and took his rightful place at the right hand of God from where The Apostles creed says, “he shall come to judge the living and the dead.” The ascension was necessary in order for Jesus to return to his place as the king, the judge and the ruler of all hearts that turn to him.

Second we need to hold up the ascension as part of our fundamental understanding of Jesus Christ because it, along with Pentecost marks the beginning of the age of he church. Christ is no longer locked into the limitations of the flesh, but that does not mean that he does not have a body. The body is you and me. Notice in Acts Jesus directly commands the disciples to be his witnesses to the remotest parts of the earth. In other words he commands them to have the first “be the church Sunday,” and Monday and Tuesday. In fact he just charges them to be the church in every day and every way. By extension we receive the same command. To be the hands and feet and mouth of Jesus every day of our lives.

So first, the ascension is the beginning of Christ’s reign over the promised kingdom. Second it is out of necessity the beginning of the age of the church and our mission for Christ. And finally the ascension of Jesus Christ celebrates that we will never do his work alone. If Jesus would have continued to live on the earth in his resurrected body, how could be here with us today? Because if he was with us today, how could he be with anyone else? In the ascension, our Jesus moved out of the self imposed limits of time and space to become the Lord of time and space who walks with me and talks with me, while he is crying with you, and laughing with you, and healing someone in the hospital, and grieving with a mother who’s child was just stillborn, while he is working to change the hearts of people all over the world. The Ascension of Jesus Christ does not take Christ out of this world, but by makes him even more widely present by the power of his Holy Spirit working in our lives. It means that Jesus is real and present whenever and wherever you need him, day and night..

To take a shortcut past the ascension is the miss Jesus ascending to be King
To take a shortcut past the ascension is the miss Jesus ascending to be the head of his body the church.
To take a shortcut past the ascension is the miss Jesus ascending to be lord of your life and mine.

It is a hard doctrine to grasp. It is a hard doctrine to swallow. But listen to Jesus own words on that matter.
53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"
61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[a] and they are life.

Blank faces

Tonight I found myself staring into the blank faces of the GR class of 2009. It wasn’t the “dear in the headlights” blankness. It wasn’t the “I don’t know what’s going on” blankness. It wasn’t even the “I wish this were over” blankness. (As a preacher that one is all too familiar!)

It was a blankness of dismay. The “how did I get here” blankness. Life passes so quickly. When we are young a day seems like a long time. The seniors are now at the point where in 4 days they will graduate from High School and be considered adults in many respects. Those 4 days don’t seem like very long at all.

It was a reminder to me that the author of Ecclesiastes was right.

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:”

If he were writing to the seniors he might write:
A time to be a child, and a time to be mature.
A time to act young, and a time to think like an adult.
A time to text your friends, and a time to refrain from texting.
A time to anticipate the future, and a time to be surprised at how quickly the future became today.

And for parents

A time to remember our children as children, and a time to treat them as adults.
A time to hope, and a time to fear.
A time to hold on, and a time to let go.

Spring is a season of changes. Changes in the weather, the scenery and the environment. Changes in the church year from lent to Easter and finally Pentecost.
Changes in routine from the structure of the school year to the relative freedom of summer.

That all pales in comparison, though, to the greatest change we experience from child of the world to child of God.

Enjoy the changes. Enjoy the season. And while you are at it, look for the changes and the newness God makes in you whether you are a High School senior becoming an adult, a senior citizen learning satisfaction in the slower pace of retirement, or somewhere in between. There is a

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:”

"Sorting out the voices" May 17

Sorting out the voices

RUMC

May 17, 2009

I John 4

 

You may have heard the saying “you can only believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”  In today’s media and internet culture I wonder if that is a little optimistic? 

You have been pretty lucky here.  I hope and believe that for the most part the things you have heard here have been true because you seem to have a history of fine Godly preachers and teachers.   But these are not the only voices you hear. You are exposed to hundreds of messages a day.  It is estimated that the average American is exposed 240 commercial messages a day of one kind or another.  In addition, the average person is exposed to another 200 opinion messages a day.

These 4-500 voices per day just scream at us don’t they? Sometimes it is as if they are screaming right in our ear.  Shouting to the top of their lungs “LISTEN TO ME”  “PAY ATTENTION TO ME.” To make matters worse all of these voices seem to scream at us at the same time.  Some days are just a cacophony of disharmonious voices competing for our attention.

Don’t feel too sorry for yourself though.  Apparently we are not that different from the first century readers to whom John was writing.  John starts this 4th chapter of the book of First John by saying that many “false prophets” have gone into the world.  John mostly battled a group of teachers called the Gnostics.  He describes the criteria or measuring stick to be used in differentiating between Gnostic doctrine and true doctrine, “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”  Though that is a good measuring stick, I haven’t had to debate a Gnostic for a long time.  So let’s come at this passage from just a little different direction.

 

Just as John dealt primarily with Gnosticism, I think there is a single voice that echoes above others today.  One of the most persistent voices in our own culture is the voice of universalist tolerance.  In religion that voice says all religions contain truth.   It is a type of universalism that says many roads lead to heaven.  It is political correctness that spills into the church saying “we can’t step on anyone’s toes.”  It is individualism that spilling over into spirituality saying no matter what we believe “I’m OK and you’re OK.”  It is a kind of "laissez-faire" religion that says “to each his own.” 

This message is so pervasive in our world that I saw it described by at least 5 different names, including omnidoxy, hetrodoxy , polydoxy and multidoxy.

. . .  Let’s see, John 14:6 say I am A way, A truth and A life?  There are many ways to the father besides me?  NO- “I am THE way- THE truth and THE life- NO ONE comes to the father except by me.”

Did Jesus say there are many entrance ramps that lead to life eternal?  NO, he said “the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it.” (Mtt 7:14)

Finally Jesus says "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”   Matthew 7:15. 

Both john and Jesus agree- there is only one truth.  If there is only one truth then everything else is false, a lie or a deception. Every other voice we hear is false, a lie, or deception. And it is our job as disciples to be able to sort them out. Which brings us back to John’s first measuring stick. “Does it acknowledge or reflect or proclaim Christ?”

On the surface that seems like a pretty simple question but this is a very complex world and the voices scream at us from every direction, every waking moment of every day of our lives.  So let me break that down a little for you.

 

As John and I both said, the first measuring stick is the asking does it line up with the Jesus we see in the Bible. I just told you if we take the “all roads lead to heaven” teaching and set it beside the historical Jesus when he says “no one comes to the Father except by me” both cannot be true. “All religions lead to God or all roads lead to heaven” therefore cannot be a true statement.  It is that simple. Bring on the next doctrine.    Let me warn you, though.  They are not all that simple- sometimes our issues and decision are much more complex, and obviously if you don’t know the Bible you are kind of stuck here.  So get to know your Bible inside as well as out- it is the first measuring stick we use in making faith decisions.  “Does the doctrine, idea or decision fit with the faith, teachings and life of the Jesus we know from the Bible?”

 

Second, does it fit with the Jesus of tradition?  Does it reflect the God I learned about in Sunday school and sermons, from my parents and grandma?  Does it fit with the Jesus we read about in the upper room and the Jesus that Harold Selby taught and lived? 

When we apply this question to our example “Do all roads lead to heaven?”  The tradition clearly says “NO.”

One of the traditional songs I remember singing in Sunday School and Bible School, though I find it mildly offensive today because it is so judgmental, is “One door and only one and yet its sides are two.  I’m on the inside on which side are you?”  The message is clear. There is no alternative road.  There is no omnidoxy or pluradoxy or whatever word you use for it.    Not all roads, all beliefs, all traditions, all churches or all religions are created equally.  Saints have died in defense of this fundamental position and no message we hear today can change that.

 

When examining true and false teaching, the first two questions are. . . . Does that fit with the Jesus you met in Sunday school, and does it fit with the Jesus you know from the Bible? 

 

The Third criteria we can use to make decisions is “does this teaching or the sermon or the idea fit with the Jesus who saved you from sin.”  Does it fit with the Jesus who walks with you and talks with you?  Does it fit with the Jesus you know personally - the one who saved you from your sin and lives in your heart each and every day? Does it fit with the “What Would Jesus Do bracelets” we all wore a few years back? 

This is a much more personal criterion than the first two.  The first two about the Bible and Tradition are pretty objective.  This one can vary some from person to person, within the bounds of that Biblical and traditional truth. Honest, intelligent people disagree about this sometimes, but as United Methodists that is OK.

Does the Jesus you know and with whom you live open the door to all beliefs and perspectives and practices?  Maybe he does.  You have to decide that.  I look at the Jesus of my experience and see a Jesus who loves me desperately.  A Jesus who will go to any lengths to bring me into relationship with God, but also a Jesus who says that there is only one way to really know God.  I have to ask “How could I know God if I didn’t have Jesus’ life and example to follow?  How could I know God if I couldn’t see him in his son Jesus Christ?  How could I know the depth of God’s love for me outside of the most extreme act of love which was offering his son on the cross in order to overcome the barrier of my sin and bring me into relationship with him?”

I don’t know about your experience but mine says- I can’t imagine coming to God outside of Jesus.  Though I would not limit God’s love by saying God couldn’t save someone who travels a different road, I would not doubt that in the unfathomable depths of God’s love for people, it just might be possible to come to salvation without Jesus Christ- but I myself can’t imagine it.  I can’t even imagine how they would get there.  So my experience has to say “no” not all roads are equal.  Not all roads lead to God.

 

The final criterion in our spiritual discernment is reason.  Does it make Sense with the Jesus you know?  God gave us heads and brains for a reason. 

Think carefully for a minute.  Do you think it is likely that God would send his only son to die on a cross if there were so many other routes to God?  Do you think if there were 100, 50, 10, 5 or even one other way to get to heaven, that God would have made that kind of sacrifice?  It doesn’t make any sense to me. 

Now that is not a definitive reason to reject the possibility that there may be many different roads to God or heaven, but along with the testimony of the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus of tradition, and the Jesus of our experience the fact that it “just wouldn’t make sense” is kind of the last straw in the analysis of this doctrine.

 

We live in a world where some of the many voices we hear are true and some are not.  Some voices speak truth, others do not.  How in the world do we sort out which voices are trustworthy and which are not? 

The United Methodist Church holds that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, is lived in personal experience, and is confirmed by reason: Scripture, tradition, experience and reason.  Do those measuring sticks sound familiar to you?  They might because they are pretty fundamental to United Methodist thought:  Scripture, tradition, reason and experience.

 

With so many voices screaming in our ears every day we have to be able to measure them and sort them out quickly and efficiently.  These four criteria for spiritual truth are both easy and memorable.  They are themselves proven by the test of time having their grounding in the methods of our founder John Wesley.

Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  Whether you decision is one of doctrine, morals, ethics, or political positioning these for fundamental principles provide the guidelines you need to make faithful and truth filled decisions.  They provide all the guidance you need to hear among the hundreds of voices in your head right now- the voice of truth.

Summer slump or retreat??

I have always thought it strange that the church “slows down” (some churches almost stop) during the summer.  Shouldn’t our faith and ministry be a year- round proposition?  This spring I have a little different perspective on that.   Read Ecclesiastes Chapter 3

 

There is a time for everything, 
       and a season for every activity under heaven:

 ² a time to be born and a time to die, 
       a time to plant and a time to uproot,

 ³ a time to kill and a time to heal, 
       a time to tear down and a time to build,

 ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, 
       a time to mourn and a time to dance,

 ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 
       a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

 ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up, 
       a time to keep and a time to throw away,

 ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend, 
       a time to be silent and a time to speak,

 ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, 
       a time for war and a time for peace. (NIV)

I used to fight the summer slump.  When I was in youth ministry I worked and worked to make sure we had programs almost as often and almost as big as during the school year.  It never made sense to me that the church would shut down during the summer.

Look around you. The trees are blooming, the grass is greening, and the rhubarb is sprouting (YUM).  Why wouldn't the church sprout too?  I got to thinking this morning, what had to happen for the trees, the grass and the rhubarb to sprout new?  They had to have a time of dormancy. (For everything there is a season)  In spirituality we call a period of dormancy "retreat." (For everything there is a season)

If the trees had never lost their leaves and gone dormant, if the grass hadn't slept under the blanket of snow and if the rhubarb hadn’t refreshed itself all winter where would we be?  If the church doesn't take some time to refresh itself occasionally, where would we be?  I'll tell you. . .  burned out.

As a preacher I need a change once in a while. . . As a Bible Study teacher I need a few weeks off occasionally. . . .As Sunday school Teachers you need a break . . .  the choir, the band, the confirmation class, Wednesday night live and everyone else needs to have a break.

But it is useless if you don't take advantage of it.

Here are a couple of rules for our summer retreat

1.  If you fill the "extra" time with "extra" stuff and are just as busy as you were during the school year you are violating the spirit of the retreat.  Give yourself time to renew!

2.  Do something different.  If you are a Sunday school teacher, read for your own growth rather than your students.  If you are a choir or band member listen to music for your own health rather than performing for others.  

3. Don’t' be afraid to program your retreat.  Committee chairs, can your committee take a month off this summer?  If so do it.  

Bible Study participants; can you spend extra time reading scripture for your own growth this summer?  Do it.

Choir members; if you hear of a concert that sounds like it will renew and refresh you, go hear it.

As a leader in the church I am really looking forward to the School for Congregational Development to renew and refresh my own vision of who we can be and how we can get there.

3.  Take retreat from program and project, not prayer and praise.  Don't slack off on worship and devotions just because we are letting our programs slow down for a season.

 Blessings on our summer retreat.  For everything there is a season.

 

Terry

 

 

"Love in action" Sermon May 10th, 2009

The story is told that St John lived to be very old.  Some say 95, other say 104.  Either way, that was almost unimaginable in the first century.  When he got old, the story goes, he could no longer walk.  His disciples would carry him into the room where younger disciples would gather around him to hear his words of wisdom.

He would clear his throat, look them in the eye and muster all the energy he had, raise his hand and say “Little children, love one another.” And he would collapse exhaustion.

When St. John had to boil it all down into one sentence- the man who had been called from his father’s fishing boat to follow the Christ, the one known as the beloved disciple, the one who saw all the miracles, heard all the teachings, entered in all the debates, shared the last supper with Jesus, had his feet washed by the master, watched in horror as Jesus was arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified, the one to whom Jesus left the care of his precious mother, the second most prolific author in our New Testament; when he had to boil it all down to one sentence he sais,  “My little children, love one another.”

Think about all the things he could have said.  Think about all the stories he could have told.  Think about the profound mysteries to which he might have pointed.  But no-- he says “Little children, love one another.”

Do you find that just a little disappointing?  Some might, but not me.  I love that story because it cuts through all the garbage- cuts through all the millions of words that have been written about the faith- it cuts through all the human rules and expectations and judgments- it goes to the core of both our relationship with God and our relationship with others. “Little children, love one another.”

The love of which John wrote is not an abstract love.  It is probably not something we can do sitting here comfortably in our pews this morning.  It is not something that I am likely to do sitting in my comfortable office.  It is not an intellectual exercise like talking among ourselves what it means to love terrorists, or immigrants, or alcoholics or homosexuals.  This love is not a love that we feel, but one that we do.

In  verse 17 of I John 3, John writes according to my NIV Bible, “IF ANYONE HAS MATERIAL POSSESSIONS AND SEES HIS BROTHER IN NEED BUT HAS NO PITY ON HIM, HOW CAN THE LOVE OF GOD BE IN HIM?”

Let me ask you,

·         If you have a good job and income and you happen to know someone who is struggling- but you pretend not to notice, how can the love of God be in you?

·         If you are an average person you are very busy doing the things that are important to you.  If you know someone who is lonely- but you say “Someone else will visit them.”   Where is the Love of God in you?

·         If you receive a call from the youth group- “we really need someone to come spend an hour with the youth at this event.” But you make up some excuse about not being sure what your plans are yet, where is the love of God in you?

·         If you drive a car, and you have a neighbor who doesn’t- but you are always making excuses to yourself about why you are too busy to offer her ride to church or the store, where is the love of God in you?

·         If you know someone who is discouraged and really emotionally down and out- but you just don’t want to listen to their problems, where is the love of God in you?

·         If you are asked to be on a committee here to help lead the church- and you say to yourself “I’ve got better things to do,” where is the love of God in you?

Notice. . . none of these things require you to spend a lot of time, or money- - - they are all just little things, but if we will not show love in the little things, who are we fooling when we say we will show love the big things?    And if we fail, or refuse to show love in either the little ways or the big ways, where is the love of God in us?

 

Finally John goes on to say, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and truth.” 

·         To say with words and tongue that you are a Christian is not enough- you have to show it with actions and truth.

·         To say with words or tongue that you are a member of this church or any church means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth

·         To say with words or tongue that you are loving means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth.

·         To say with words or tongue that you are accepting of immigrants, or homosexuals is easy but it means nothing- until you show it with actions and truth. Join a rally- write a letter offer a hug.

·         To say with words or tongue that you think mission is important means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth. Get off your wallet and donate, or better yet get out of your easy chair and go on a mission trip.

·         To say with words or tongue that you support evangelism means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth.  Get up and plan an outreach event or invite a friend to church.

·         To say with words or tongue that you love your neighbor means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth.--- wait a  minute- 24 of you did that with love your neighbor day last Sunday.  Good for you.

·         To say with words or tongue that you are giving means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth.  Wait a minute, 30 of you did that on Tuesday when we collected 27 units of blood.  Good for you.

·         To say with words or tongue that you care for the hungry means nothing- you have to show it with actions and truth.  Wait some of us did that by donating or collecting for the Postal Carriers food drive yesterday.

Hm, that’s three good opportunities we have been given in the last week.  I don’t want to see hands, because I pretty much know who you are anyway, more importantly you know who you are and I promise you are not alone.  But many of you did not participate in any of those things?  Why didn’t you.  Was one hour of your time, one unit of blood, a few phone calls, one plate of cookies, or one can of green beans more love than you could muster?  I hope not.

Each of you were probably offered at least one additional opportunity each day to show God’s love.  I suspect if you are honest you had dozens of opportunities each day. Did you show God’s love in word and truth?  If not, why not?   Was one hug, one phone call, one dollar, one kind word, one smile, or one whatever too much to ask?

 

If you showed God’s love in action and truth last week good for you! Go do it again this week.

If you didn’t I want you to go home feeling guilty.  I want you to go home feeling guilty for missing the opportunity to show God’s love.  But I also what you to go home feeling hopeful, because no matter what God shows God loves you, and because this is a new week.  You have a whole new set of opportunities to share God’s love this week.

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and truth.” 

 

A brand new same old-- Rethink Church

A brand new “Same old”

RUMC

May 3, 2009

 

How confused can one man be?  John writes “I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.” Not two sentences lager he is writing “Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you”

In one breath John is God has not changed from the first day of creation until now.  God's hopes for humanity have not changed; God's love for you has not changed.  God has loved every bit of you since way before you were just a two-celled bag of potential.  And God's love for you will last long after the cells that make up your body have returned to the dust and ooze from which they came.  There are some things that never change. 

Yet, John goes on, “Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you”

Kind of like a bride at a wedding your know, “Something old, something new.”  But how can this be an old command and a new command at the same time?  In order to understand that, we need to know what the command is.

 

In the preceding verse, makes t clear that the command is to love.

In creation God wanted nothing more than Adam and Eve to love Him enough to respect his wish and not eat of the tree.  That didn’t work out so well.  Then there is Cain and Able the first brothers- brotherly love- well that didn’t work out so well.

The story of God’s love and man’s failure is a constant theme in the Old testament- well in all of history and our lives today.  How many times and in how many ways did God say, “All I ask is love me and love each other. There is nothing new about the idea that we are to love God and love Neighbor.  We first see them paired up in the 19^th chapter of Leviticus.

What clearer message of love could God have given us than his son Jesus.  Even Jesus didn’t bring a completely new commandment he so said himself in Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn't come to destroy them, but to fulfill them,”

Not to destroy, or abolish or replace the law, or the commandments or the loving nature of God, but to fulfill it.  To be the living model that is filled full of the truth of God's commands and God's love.  And that is where 1 John picks up and writes that “if we are in God, we must walk as Jesus walked” we must “live as Jesus lived” We must love as Jesus loved.

 

So the next logical question is “How did Jesus love?”  He didn’t love the way people expected him to love. 

·         They expected Jesus to love the children of God- the Israelites and he did--but he loved the foreigners too.

·         They expected Jesus to love the ritually clean, and he did, but he loved the leper and the woman with the hemorrhage too.

·         They expected him to love the upright and moral, religious crowd, and he did—but he loved the tax collector and prostitute too.

Jesus’ love was grounded in the age old love of God, but it was not confined by the norms and expectations of his day.  Even though many churches cite it as scripture, you will not find Jesus saying “But we’ve never done it that way before” anywhere in the Bible.  

Instead you find Jesus saying things like:

·         I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

·         You don’t put new wine in old wineskins

·         You must be born again

Jesus brought that age old, love of God and he set it free! He took the stale old rules that men had built in order to contain it and smashed them to smithereens.  He exploded the rigid old traditions people had constructed in order to control who was lovable and who was not.  He picked up all the limits human beings had put on God's love and went (blow) blowing them away in the wind like so much dust.

 

1 John is pointing us to what it left.  John says the commandment is very old, but:

·         It is new every day when it is lived out in the lives of God's people. 

·         God's love is New for every generation as it is set free from their parent’s norms and expectations to reach people in a new way. 

·         God's love is new in every single congregation as it is lived out in the lives of the unique people who gather to worship and serve at that time and that place.

Ø  When was the last time you had a box lunch social?  Maybe you had one for nostalgia sake, but it has been years since that was the way to show God's love, and that’s OK

Ø  You used to serve the Bahamians lunch in the basement of the church, why don’t you do that anymore?  Because times are different and that’s OK.

Ø  You used to have to open the windows and turn on the fans in order to keep people comfortable in the summer- why don’t you do that any more.  Because there is a better way to say we are glad you are here- it is called air conditioning. And that’s really OK.

Ø  You used to have youth group on Sunday night.  That was the totality of your youth program.  When transportation became safe and affordable and flannel graphs and crafts didn’t hold the attention of the youth you started confirmation trips and mission trips and service projects.  And that’s great.

Ø  You used to leave the building unlocked, to say you are welcome here.  Now you can have the technology to be open to anyone who needs in and still be good stewards protecting the beautiful building and stuff God has given you. And that is good too.

Over the years you have done a wonderful job adapting to changes in society and improving the building as it became feasible.  Over the years you have done a wonderful job adapting your ministry as the needs, skills, and desires of the congregation and community changed.  And that’s great.  Not every church has done that!  You are progressive and ahead of the curve.

 

Now the denomination comes out with a new campaign called “rethink church” that is asking you to keep doing that, but now --do it on purpose.  You may have seen as I have TV commercials in the last 2 or 3 weeks that talk about open doors and end with – the people of the United Methodist church.  And if you are like me you hear that tag line and that’s when you start listening and wondering what that was about.

What it is about is this...  it is about --Just like John says-- knowing that we have a very old commandment:  LOVE.  Love God and love one another.   But just as Jesus brought it to life by living it new ways; just as Jesus made the commandment new by rethinking love we are called today, not just by the denomination but by this scripture, and I would argue by Jesus himself to step out of our comfort zone and rethink what it means to be God’s church in this place.

It is time to step forward and say “We’ve been thinking about what faith means for people today and here’s what we need to do differently.”

“We’ve been thinking about our neighbors and friends and here’s what we think it means to love them today.”

“We’ve been thinking about what the church should be doing—we know we’ve never done this before but here’s where we are going to step out in faithfulness.”

The church in general has settled into a “field of faith” mentality, if we build it they will come.  I say today we can’t wait to build something and wait for them to come; because our neighbors, friends and family so desperately need to experience the reality of this old commandment in their hopeless and hurting lives in new and grace-filled ways.

I challenge you today- and I will continue to challenge you in the coming months and years to:

Ø  Rethink God's love.

Ø  Rethink what it means to be God's people here in Reinbeck.

Ø  And Rethink church.

A blog from "United Methodeviations"

United Methodeviations

presents the opinions of Dan R. Dick, and in no way reflects the position of any agency, conference, or congregation. It is a blog aimed at sharing personal thoughts and perspectives on The United Methodist Church.

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What Do You Think ReThink is Thinking? April 28, 2009

Posted by doroteos2 in Church Leadership, Mission of the Church, The United Methodist Church. 
Tags: Church Leadership, Mission & Purpose, The United Methodist Church
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The prefix “re” usually implies “again,” — return, turn again; review, view again; regain, gain again; reframe, frame again – so in the case of ReThink Church, the implication is that we have thought church through at least once.  (It doesn’t work so well with regret, gret again?, rebate, bate again?, rebut, but again???)  Upon reflection, some believe it is time to rethink church — to take a careful look at what we’ve got and ask the question, “is this the best we can do?”  The deeper question is, “are we reallyre-thinking or just dressing up the same old thing so it looks different?”  As with most things in life, the answer is not a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

ReThink Church is a branding package — a promotional ploy to update and/or replace the problematic “open hearts/minds/doors” sound bite of Igniting Ministry — designed to get more people to want to join The United Methodist Church.  To this extent, it is simply same-old, same-old — nothing new, just a retread.  If it becomes nothing more than a pleasant website and a logo on a bumper sticker or a coffee mug, then we’re no further along than we’ve been with whatever Ministries we’ve Ignited over the past eight years.  Each time I visit the website, I come away dismayed that there really isn’t anything new or innovative.  It seems to me to be a fresh coat of paint on the old, familiar structure.  To me, and I emphasize that this is (as always) just a personal opinion, it smacks of the tired “Venus fly-trap” approach to snagging young people to bolster the sagging attendance stats of the UMC.  So much is geared to getting people in our doors — the main foundation of the “institutional preservation paradigm” of our denomination.

This calls to mind the business book battle of the 1980s and 90s between “re-engineering” vs. “reinventing.”  The United Methodist Church cannot afford re-engineering in a time demanding reinvention.  Our denomination accepts as given the historical and traditional practices of itineracy, connectionalism, governance, judicial review, episcopal oversight, appointive orders, apportionments and disciplinary obligations, and resourcing.  None of these should be summarily dismissed, but all have more validity for 18th, 19th, and 20th century realities than relevancy in the 21st.  It sometimes seems that we are trying so hard to be a Sony Walkman church in an iPod world.  This is more than an “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” thing — it’s more an “I’m a Mac, I’m an IBM Selectric” (with self-correcting ribbon cartridge!) distinction.

The idea that The United Methodist Church might actually be doing a new thing falls apart under close scrutiny.  ReThink Church, at least what has appeared so far, is the same old institution parading around in a new suit of clothes.  Unfortunately, like the emperor of the children’s tale, this new suit is imaginary and what is underneath is shining through — the church we’ve always had, unaware that it’s not fooling anyone.

We need a new United Methodist Church — drawing from its strengths, its theological roots, and its commitment to transformation – to create a Christian presence in the world that is different.  The key to this difference is that we stop focusing so much on “Methodist” and we start focusing more on “United.”  Rather than airing all of our grievances, disputes, controversies, and conflicts, we need a witness to the world that unity in Christ is greater than our petty squabbles.  Instead of fixating on our sins, failures, losses, and weaknesses, we need a vision for God’s healing grace, inclusive justice, unmerited mercy, and boundless love.  We need to get up out of our pews, stop hiding in our sanctuaries, drop our clergy-laity competitions, and take our faith into the world — especially the ugly, dirty, broken, diseased, and hopeless corners and crannies.  We need to stop believing we are the gravitational center of the Church, and become the presence of Christ reaching to the fringes, the margins, and the boundaries where the children of God are disenfranchised and ignored.  We need to break from the “mainline” to and draw a “newline” that encompasses more of those on the outside — increase our definition of “us” while significantly decreasing the number of people we marginalize as “them.”  Perhaps what we need most is to stop listening to those calling for revision and pay a little more attention to those crying out for a revolution.  It’s not too late.  Let’s rethink our rethinking before all we end up with is a repeat of what we’ve already done.