“Known by our fruit.: kindness” July 29.2018 First UMC Carroll

The heart of this sermon was Walter Wangerin's  story The Rag Man.  I chose not to print it here out of respect for copyright concerns.  I have linked to a video of the author telling the story himself.  (He does a better job anyway)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNH0E4bmnOg

“Known by our fruit.: kindness”

July 29.2018

First UMC Carroll

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace patience… kindness.  This morning we are going to focus on “THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS . . . KINDNESS.”

In our series, “known by our fruit,” we have talked about how the church should be known by the way we love one another and by the Joy we show in worship.  We have talked about how the church should work for peace with justice and work to be a sanctuary where Patience and holy time can be experienced.

Today we explore what it means for the church to be a people who both experience and share kindness.

Interestingly enough the English word kind derives from Middle English and Old English words meaning “natural, native, or innate.”[1] Kindness then is the quality of being who we naturally are, who we were created to be, following the God created innate kindness within us.

That makes perfect sense since we are made in God’s image, because one of God’s primary characteristics in scripture is God’s loving-kindness.

So, we were created to be kind in the image of God’s loving-kindness.  So, what is kindness.

Listen to this parable.

I saw a strange sight…. (telling thestory) I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing in my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for. Hush, child. hush now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear tenor voice: 'Rags!' Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.

'Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!'

'Now this is a wonder,' I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn't disappointed.

Soon the ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, signing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

'Give me your rag,' he said gently. 'and I'll give you another.'

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.

'This is a wonder,' I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

'Rags! Rags! New Rags for old!"

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.

'Give me your rag,' he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, 'and I'll give you mine.'

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood -- his own!

'Rags! Rags! I take old rags!' cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.

The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry.

'Are you going to work?' he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: 'Do you have a job?"

'Are you crazy?' sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket -- flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

'So,' said the Ragman. 'Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine.'

So much quiet authority in his voice!

The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman -- and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on, he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

'Go to work,' he said.

After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I need to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.

The little old Ragman -- he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And I waited to help him in what he did but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he signed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.

Oh how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope -- because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know -- how could I know? -- that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night too.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.

Light -- pure, hard, demanding light -- slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow or age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

Well, then I lowered my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him.

Then he handed me new clothes. Shining and new.  My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!

Let me draw three lessons about kindness out of this story.

The center of kindness is personal relationship that never gives up on anyone. God’s kindness is not an abstract idea. It is not a theory. It is not an emotion.  God’s kindness is grounded in God’s personal investment in the lives of God’s people. And God’s kindness never gives up.

So, bearing the fruit of the spirit that is kindness starts with a purposeful, persistent, personal relationship with the other person. Kindness never gives up.

Not on a woman sitting with her arms and legs in a pathetic “x,” not on the girl with the bleeding head, not the man with only one arm, not the drunk, not you and not me.

No one is too far gone for gods kindness. We are likewise called to never consider anyone beyond the reach of the church’s kindness.

Second, we see that God’s loving-kindness is not limited to God’s favorite people.

Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back . . . because [God] is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” [2]Jesus doesn’t tell us to love our friends and treat them nicely. He says love your enemies and do good to them! Why? Because that is the nature of God’s lovingkindness. No one is shut out of God’s kingdom. God is kind to the ungrateful. God is kind to the wicked. God is even kind to those who have strayed off like a lost lamb… God’s kindness never shuts anyone out.

Kindness doesn’t shut out the immigrant, the poor family around the corner, the addict, the mentally ill person, the abuser, the convict or ex con or anyone else.  God’s kindness and therefore the kindness we bear as a fruit of God’s Spirit is a kindness that believes no one is too far gone.  No one is unlovable.  No one should be excluded from the kindness of the church’s ministry.

First Kindness never gives up. Second kind ness never shuts anyone out…

            Finally, Kindness makes a difference. By that I don’t mean kindness can change things… although it can… but I mean if you want to be kind, you have to be willing to change things.

The rag man took the tears, the wound, the disability, the affliction on himself… freeing those people. Kindness is not just feeling sorry for them, it is doing something about it… it means change.  Sometimes it is social structures. Sometimes it is economic or housing, or employment, or relationships. Kindness might be giving a bottle of cold water, insulating an old house, building a ramp, offering some money, or a better a job, giving a warm- or cool- place to rest, or a ride to the nearest shelter.

 or … or… most difficult of all… sometimes the greatest kindness is to change ourselves.  Change our biases, our prejudices, our assumptions, or our behavior. 

Kindness is not a feeling, it is not an emotion, it is not an idea… kindness is action.  Webster's definition of kindness as a noun is incorrect. The way I see it, Kindness is a Verb. It's an action. You have to do something in order to incite an uprising of kindness.

The fruit of the Spirit is kindness that never gives up.

The fruit of the spirit is kindness that never shuts anyone out. 

The fruit of the spirit of kindness that changes things.

---

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/kind

[2] Luke 6:35 (NIV)

Known by our fruit: patience First UMC Carroll Iowa July 22, 2018

Known by our fruit: patience

First UMC Carroll Iowa

July 22, 2018

 A man was walking through a supermarket with a screaming say: “Keep calm, Albert. Keep calm, Albert.” Finally, in admiration for the man’s patience as the child continued to wail, the woman walked up to him and said: “Sir, I must commend you for your patience with baby Albert.” To which the man replied, drawing himself up: “Madam, I am Albert!”

Patience.  There are a lot of people who would like to have patience… and have it right now as the old poster said

 This is part of this series I call “KNOWN BY OU FRUIT” 

So far, we have talked about the fruit of love. What did we hope people would say?...

“See how they love each other and others.”

Then we talked about Joy. What did we say we hope people will say?

“See their joy bubbling over in worship.”

Last week we talked about peace or Shalom and I hope people will say “See how they work toward Shalom.”

 This week I want to ask what it would mean for the church to be a place of patience.

 Patience has to do with how we understand time. There are different kinds of time. There is chronos time. That is what we measure by the clock.  That is what I call impatient time.

Martha was living in chronos time.  “We have to put the meat in at this time, and start the vegetables at this time, and there will be enough time do up a few dishes before I have to check the meat.”  You know what I mean.  Our calendars reflect chronos time.   It is linear, and it marches unforgiving into the future. And when the sand slips through the hourglass it is gone.

We live in a chronos world where patience is almost a quaint little idea relegated to the pages of ancient books.   We live in an instant dinner, microwave oven, information at our fingertips, 30 minutes or free, call in the next two minutes for the best deal, honk as soon as the light turns green culture.

OK I should qualify that… we all live in that world except my cell phone company I have to wait for them for so long, I can’t even guess what kind of time they are on.

Chronos time is time that can be managed and measured and it can be divided up to pack a few more things into the day. When a church runs on this impatient time they are constantly pushing. Racing to get more members, more money, more programs, more and more and more.  They have to have programs for everyone, offered multiple times to fit busy schedules. The staff works 7 days a week and volunteers are stretched as thin as possible to make sure everything is covered. 

A church like that might say they have a sense of urgency in their ministry… call it what you like, I think this kind of impatience may feed those who come, but leaders and volunteers burn out as fast as a 4th of July sparkler.

 To bear the fruit of patience is to understand that chronos time is a human invention to make sure the preacher didn’t run long on Sunday. It is also understanding that chronos is not the only way to understand time.  There is also kairos time. In Greek kairos is the “opportune time.” It is the eternal now. It is God’s time. The God who was, is, and always will be.  The eternal and infinite one looks at time differently. It is not necessarily linear. It is not to be managed.  And it is hard to measure or quantify…we might not all perceive it the same. Kairos is really more about quality than quantity. When Jesus said “the time is fulfilled” it was kairos time. When John the Baptist announced the time “was at hand,” it was kairos time.

To bear the fruit of patience is to understand that chronos time is not all there is. The fruit of patience is embracing kairos time as God’s sacred gift. In today’s scripture, while Martha was sweating away fighting the march of chronos time, Mary was on kairos time. Sitting at Jesus’ feet in the now… in the presence of the holy and not controlled by the schedule, not worried that the sand is slipping through the hourglass but being enveloped in the richness of the present. 

I picture Martha too hurried to even come out of the kitchen, flour on here nose, her hair mussed, her dress not perfect.  I picture her yelling out of the kitchen. “Mary, get in here.”… “Mary, where are you?”  “Mary, if you don’t get in here I’m telling Jesus.”  Mary, of course, didn’t hear her because she was in a different time zone. When there is no response she comes to the door wiping her hands and says, “Jesus, send that lazy sister of mine in here.  She hasn’t done anything all morning.”

Jesus response is classic. 

“Martha, Martha… you are worried about so many things.”  He might have meant “You are worried about the future. You are worried about what people will think.  You are worried that Mary won’t have to do her fair share of the work. You are stuck in chronos time.”  You are worried about many things, but Mary has chosen the better way. She has her priorities straight. She knows that this is the opportune moment that may never come again.  She knows that sometimes time just stops for a while and we take a break from being human DOERS so we can be human BEINGS.

What do you suppose Martha’s response was?  I could imagine her huffing and heading back into the kitchen grumbling.  I could also imagine the light bulb going on and she puts down her towel and sits down by Jesus.

Which do you think you would have done?

The hard thing about biblical patience is that we don’t leave any room for kairos time.  Many people have no margins in our lives. Picture this… We are created by God to have margins in life. The Sabbath is the most obvious margin God provided. Take time off for God, family, and self.  Just like a piece of paper has margins or empty space around the edges, we are intended to have some empty space too. 

Our lives are so chaotic and busy, however, that we have started squeezing the margins. The margins around work, and play, and family have all but disappeared.  The American workday has inched up past an 8 hour day to a 9 hour day.  The average person perpetually has 36 hours of work either piled on their desk, on their to-do list, or things they wish they could get to.  Add to that the fact that we sleep 2 ½ hours less per night than we used to.  We are pushing the white space that used to be around our lives further and further to the edges of the paper.

In order to experience Kairos time, we have to open up some white space in our lives.

I know that is a little hard to understand. Let me tell you what it means for me.

Personally, when I schedule my professional calendar with back to back appointments, I get stuck in chronos time and I am exhausted at the end of the day. I sit down and wonder what opportunities I rushed past. On the other hand, when I leave some white space in my calendar I see things I would not have seen. I see someone who stops by the office unexpectedly to share their vision of the future and I spend a half hour dreaming with them.  Or they come to share the pain they are experiencing and I pray with them. I have to leave some space for Kairos time to interject itself in my day. And I have to be committed to not passing by holy moments because I have something I think is more important. It is taking each moment as a sacred gift and we don’t know what Gift God will give us in that moment.

Kairos time is going for a visit and being ok with the fact that I didn’t get those other 5 things done that day because I had the unbelievable privilege of spending 2 1/2 hours with someone facing imminent death talking about life, God, fear, and hope. That time was kairos time and it was a sacred gift that I could have foolishly rushed past in order to keep an arbitrary schedule.

Kairos time is sitting on my swing after dark watching the stars and embracing the power and presence of God in prayer.

Kairos time is Sunday afternoon Sabbath when we don’t cook or work, but nap, talk, play games, enjoy nature and family

Let’s take a minute to reflect. What do you think you might have missed this last week because you were living in the impatient chronos time?  Lean over and give your neighbor just a quick description of what you might have missed. Like, “I did the dishes instead of playing with my grandkids and then it was time for them to go home.”  Or “I know someone wanted to talk to me, but I just made up an excuse to leave.”  Take a minute to share.<<<<   >>>>>

Now turn it around. How can you open up a little white space in your life, widen your margins just a little to allow you to engage in God’s wonderful gift of Kairos time. Maybe you have to let go of one chore… will anyone notice (when I did that a year ago no one notice what I stopped doing).  Perhaps you can just leave a little more time between appointments.  Share your idea of how you can open up to kairos time with that neighbor.

God’s time is patient time; karios time. Hopefully, you have a good sense of how you could live in patient time, or Kairos time. The focus of this series, however, is on the church. What does this have to do with the church?

Everything.  Who is the church?  You are. We are.

 If we are all running so fast that the only thing we see of God is just a blur in the rear-view mirror that shapes who we are as a church. Everyone… including me… needs to practice Godly patience.  We need to slow down a little, give ourselves a break and sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus in Kairos time.

 Second, we want to intentionally invite people into Kairos time. Come to sit quietly in the sanctuary.  I promise you God will meet you in this beautiful place. Instead of launching into your meeting. Take time to be open to God’s movement spend some time in silence or praying for one another. Invite someone to push the pause button on their life and come to meet God in a Bible study. Or come color with the color me pretty group. No pressure, just white space so we can breathe and God can work.

As we leave today let’s all pray for the freedom, patience, and openness to experience the margins of life and the Godly time we will find there.

Known by our fruit: peace July 15, 2018 Carroll First UMC

Known by our fruit: peace

July 15, 2018

Carroll First UMC

Sing with me “I’ve got peace like a river I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul. I’ve got peace like a river I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.”

Do you? Do we?  We all want peace.  Boy, do we want peace! It seems like life is so complicated and conflicted and controversial sometimes that we would do anything for peace.

People want peace so desperately that the try to find it by escaping into a bottle of alcohol or pills. That doesn’t work.

We try secluding ourselves away from news or relationships. That doesn’t work.

Some find peace in nature, but then there is a hurricane or an earthquake that is anything but peaceful.

No, there is only one source of peace…God.  God is the source and the goal of all peace. In the middle stands the church called to bear the fruit of God’s peace to all creation.

 This series is called “Known by Our Fruit.” The premise is that the fruit of the spirit not only fills us as individuals, but they fill our church. In fact, they pour out of our church in our various ministries.

 We talked about Love: and we want people to say “Look how they love one another.”  We talked about joy: and we want people to say “Look how the joy of the lord gushes out in their worship.”  Today we talk about peace.

 Galatians was, of course, written in Greek, but the biblical concept of peace goes back to the Hebrew word Shalom.  Now Shalom is bigger than lack of conflict. The Hebrew root for Shalom means “nothing broken… nothing missing.”

Shalom is better defined as “universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight.”

Look at shalom this way. “God created the world to be a fabric, for everything to be woven together and interdependent.

 If I throw a thousand threads onto the table, they wouldn't be a fabric. They'd just be threads lying in a big pile.

 Threads become a fabric when each one has been woven over, under, around, and through every other one. The more interdependent they are, the more beautiful they are. The more interwoven they are, the stronger and warmer they are. God made the world with billions of entities, but not individual entities. Rather, God made them to be in a beautiful, harmonious, knitted, web of interdependent relationship with one another."

Shalom is the beautifully woven… harmonious… knitted… webbed interdependence of all creation. It encompasses us and all of creation

People beautifully woven, harmoniously knitted, into a web of relationship with God.

Neighbors and strangers beautifully woven, harmoniously, knitted into a web of relationship with each other.

Friends and former enemies beautifully woven, harmoniously knitted into a web of relationship with one another.

The rich and the poor, people of all sexual orientations, theological bents, political camps, nationalities, the prisoner and the guard, the criminal and the victim, the Christians and Muslims and Jews, all beautifully woven, harmoniously knitted into a web of relationship with one another and everyone else in the world

 And all of us beautifully woven, harmoniously, knitted into a web of relationship with creation caring for all that God has given us; the land, the water, the air, the sky, the trees, the animals and all living plants celebrating the interdependence of all creation. 

That is the way God made us.  That is the shalom of God. That is the fruit of peace we sang about flowing like a river over all the earth.

 That is the fabric of God’s shalom.…

but the fabric is torn. The weaving is broken.

Men, women, children go hungry.

People are separated from one another by race, language, nationality, and religion.

Families are homeless.

People live in loneliness.

We neglect our care for the earth.

To bear the fruit of the spirit of peace is to work for the universal flourishing wholeness of all people and creation.

Micah 6:8 the new international version puts it this way, “act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  Until all people are treated justly there can be no shalom.  Until all people receive mercy… which means being treated better than they deserve… there can be no shalom.  Until all people are walking humbly with God there will be no shalom.

To bear the fruit of the spirit of peace means to treat all creation with justice, mercy, and holy humility.

This is the work of Christ. In Chapter three of Luke Jesus reads Isaiah’s vision of the work of shalom “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, (He said) because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

To bear the fruit of the spirit of peace means to work for the end of poverty, captivity, sickness, and judgment. And that spirit of peace is upon the church. It is upon us.

In Matthew 25 Jesus got very specific.  He told us it doesn’t start with politics and policy.  You can’t solve all the world’s problems all at one time.  But that when we love an individual with justice, mercy, and humility we are loving Jesus.  One person at a time is the road to Shalom.

Yes.  It might require political action or lobbying.  Yes, it might be creating a program or a new ministry.  But that is not where it starts.  It starts is with one thread at a time. One person at a time. Seeking justice and mercy for that one person. Seeking “not brokenness” for that one person. Sharing the shalom we know with them. Weaving our thread over and under and around their thread to include them in God’s beautifully woven, harmonious, knitted web of interdependence that is shalom.

 What would it mean for our church to bear the fruit of shalom for the child who doesn’t have enough to eat this summer because the school lunch is their only meal most of the year?  I guarantee that child lives here in Carroll.

 What would it mean for our church to bear the fruit of shalom for the family that moved into town with nothing, not even an ability to speak the language?  I don’t care where they are from or what their status is they are part of that beautiful fabric of Shalom.

 What would it mean for our church to bear the fruit of shalom for the homeless families in our midst?  You think there aren’t any… the percentage is low, but the best guess is that 16 families are homeless in Carroll county at any given time.   What would it mean for us to weave them into the fabric of shalom in our community?

 What would it mean for our church to bear the fruit of shalom for the child facing depression who has to go to Ames to get an appointment with a psychiatrist at a time a parent can take them? What would it look like to wrap them in a blanket of shalom?

 One more… What would it mean for our church to bear the fruit of shalom for the isolated elderly? For instance, their eyesight has deteriorated so they don’t drive. Their medicines are expensive so we don’t meet them at the restaurants.  It is hard for them to walk so they don’t do much but go to the doctor and Fareway because it is the smallest of the grocery stores. They are almost invisible to most of us.  But what would it mean to weave them back into the fabric of God’s shalom?

 I am not suggesting any specific ministry or legislation, or anything.  What I am calling for is for us to first be aware of the people around us… and then love them enough to walk humbly with them… to seek justice and mercy for them…and do whatever it takes to embrace their sacred worth and weave them into our lives, our church, our community, our state and nation and God’s kingdom.

The UMC has a long history of working for shalom as individual members and through the Board of Church and Society.   In fact, it is so important that we publish the social principles as a conversation guide and starting place for working for peace and justice for all people.

You will find a link to the social principles in your bulletin and up on the screen after the social creed.   Read them. Study them. Use them to guide you in your ministry of bearing the fruit of peace to all the world.

Let’s join together in reading the social creed.

OUR SOCIAL CREED (websites on back of bulletin)

Leader: God in the Spirit revealed in Jesus Christ, calls us by grace

People: to be renewed in the image of our Creator, that we may be one in divine love for the world.

Leader: Today is the day God cares for the integrity of creation, wills the healing and wholeness of all life, weeps at the plunder of earth’s goodness.

People: And so shall we.

Leader: Today is the day God embraces all hues of humanity, delights in diversity and difference, favors solidarity transforming strangers into friends.

People: And so shall we.

Leader: Today is the day God cries with the masses of starving people, despises growing disparity between rich and poor, demands justice for workers in the marketplace.

People: And so shall we.

Leader: Today is the day God calls for nations and peoples to live in peace, celebrates where justice and mercy embrace, exults when the wolf grazes with the lamb.

People: And so shall we. Today is the day God brings good news to the poor, proclaims release to the captives, gives sight to the blind, and sets the oppressed free. And so shall we.

Known by our fruit: joy July 7&8, 2018 Carroll First UMC

Known by our fruit: joy

July 7&8, 2018

Carroll First UMC

                            

What was that?  Seriously, what was that reading?  The thrones, and jewels and crowns and … those creatures… the lion, the ox, the human face, and the eagle… all with eyes in front and behind and with 6 wings each!!!  What in the world was that?

That was a description of worship in heaven.  There is lots of symbolism there all of which seems very strange to us. 

But is it really any stranger than our Sunday worship habits would appear to someone outside the church? When you stop and think about it, it must look pretty absurd. It almost defies logical explanation. Why would we voluntarily get up early on a weekend to go to church?  We gather in the same place with the same people every week. Kind of like a movie theatre, but without the popcorn.

Once we are together, we sing… Out loud. Sometimes even on-key. Where else would we do that? Maybe the 7th inning stretch at a ballgame but that’s about it. Then we listen while someone reads from a book and then talks…and talks…and talks. Nothing explodes, no aliens or monsters appear. In this visual age driven by soundbytes and computer graphics, just sitting and listening to someone talk must seem at best antiquated, and at worst a waste of time. If that is not strange enough, we do all of this in the shadow of an instrument of execution the cross.  And to top it all off, some of us even give away our money while we’re here. Are we completely out of our minds?

Some might think so.

So I guess it is a good thing that in some ways worship is not what it seems to be.

Worship does not come from the mind… it comes from the heart… worship comes from the heart overflowing with Joy.

In spite of the fact that we build churches like theatres, you are not the audience.  Actually, we are all actors and we have an audience of one…  God.

And contrary to the values of our consumer-driven culture, we don’t worship for what we can get out of it.

So why do we worship?

Why do I spend all week, … actually, many weeks planning for these two hours on Saturday and Sunday?  Why do we worship?

You might come to see your friends, but you can do that at the coffee shop.

You might come to relax and have a quiet hour, but you could get that by going for a walk in the woods.

You might come to learn something, but you can do that by reading a book.

You might come to be filled, but you can do that a pizza ranch… maybe in a different way but I guarantee you can be filled there!

You might come here because that is what you have always done on Sunday morning. But even old dogs can learn new tricks.

None of those are why we come to worship. 

We worship for one reason and one reason only.  When we encounter God our hearts overflow with joy. When we come into the presence of God we are so filled with joy that we can't help but worship. When the spirit of God touches our spirit as we are filled with the fruit of the spirit called joy and the natural response is WOW.

WOW may be the most authentic expression of worship.

When we have an experience of the living God we are literally Awed to Joy

We overflow with Joy. We ooze joy. That joy is deeper than happiness.  It is wider than gladness. It is higher than pleasure. Joy is the fruit of the spirit that makes us want to sing, and dance, and raise our hands, and whoop and holler, and shout from the mountaintop about the greatness of God… and the church that bears the fruit of joy lives that out in its worship.

 This series is called “known by our fruit.” Because when people see us we want them to know who we are by what we do. The fruit of the spirit is not a discipline we practice or a goal for which we strive.  They are what we become BECAUSE we have encountered the living God and because of that, our lives have been transformed.

Last week we talked about the fruit of love. Because we personally encounter the loving God, we are filled with love and people to say “look how they love one another and others.”

 This week we talk about the fruit of the spirit that is Joy.  Joy is the delight, the jubilation, the  exultation, the glee, the exhilaration, the exuberance, the euphoria that bubbles up inside of us because we have encountered the living God.   It is the result of the holy spirit bearing witness with our spirit…the Holy spirit touching our spirit.  Maybe you get shivers up your spine. Maybe you want to sing. Maybe you want to dance.  Maybe you want to stand on a mountain and tell everyone what you have experienced. Whatever form it takes the natural response to joy is to whisper “WOW.” And that WOW is at the heart of worship.

Worship means different things in different places.  Have any of you been in a church where they play tambourines and dance up and down the aisle?  That’s Joy, but so is the unprogrammed friends worship where they sit in pregnant silence for an hour listening for a word of the lord. 

Have any of you been to a worship where they pray in tongues and are slain in the spirit? That is joy-filled worship, but so is the 3-hour orthodox worship service in a 1500-year-old cold stone cathedral where everyone has to wear coats and stand because there are no pews. 

Have any of you seen the Nigerian worshippers dancing down the aisle with their offerings?  That is Joy, but so is the offering in churches like ours where people give generously and joyfully while their hearts are filled with beautiful music.

All of these are worship and all of them grow out of the joy we experience in an encounter with God. They are each unique as is each of us. None is better than the other. Because in their own way, each is expressing a joy-filled “wow.”

The 100th Psalm speaks of the relationship between joy and worship.  And it gives us at least three reasons to joyfully worship God.

The 100th Psalm starts out calling us into worship… “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.” See the Joyfulness, the gladness that leads us to worship?

 We are going to focus on three sources of Joy in verse three. It starts out “Know that the Lord is God.”  

The Lord is God… that word LORD is the word “Yahweh,” the great I am; the one who was, is, and will be; the almighty creator of heaven and earth; the humble suffering servant, and the spirit that equips calls and sends each of us to be servants of the king. To say that the Lord is God is to say that God is the one and only, eternal, all knowing, all powerful all loving and all judging Lord of all that has ever been and all that will be. What do we say when we stand in the presence of such a being besides “WOW.”

To back up a word or two, the psalmist says we should “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.”  Because we KNOW that the Lord Is God.  He is not talking about knowing God up here, but something that happens down here….deep, deep inside in ways that we can’t explain or describe. My cell phone doesn’t’ know who made it, or who is operating it but we KNOW the Lord. How many created things have the privilege of knowing and being in a relationship with their creator. We should not take that for granted. God is God and we are mere creatures, God is not required to let us know the divine, yet we are honored with the unbelievable opportunity as mere finite creatures to enter into the presence of the Almighty Lord God. 

I remember when the kids were small watching them when we picked them up from daycare or the nursery, and they were OK as long as they didn’t know we were there.  As soon as they knew we were in the room they would either squeal with delight or burst out in tears.  I always told myself they were tears of joy. Both the squeal and the tears are responses to being emotionally overwhelmed.

Our natural response when we realize that God is here is to be overwhelmed. Sometimes that means we sing in delight, other times we cry for the joy of it, other times we want to dance or lift our hands and hearts in joyful worship of the Lord our God. All are joyful responses to KNOWING that the Lord is God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.” 

 The next line of verse 3 of Psalm 100 gives us a second reason why we worship. It says “it is he that made us and we are his.”  So the second reason we worship is because of what God does.  The Psalm refers to God creating us, but if we keep going the reasons to worship keep piling up.  God created us, called us through Abraham to be a great nation, lead us out of slavery in the land of Egypt, guided us through 40 years in the wilderness, and spoke to us through judges, prophets, and kings.  If that isn’t enough, God is just getting started.  God CAME to us, as one of us in Jesus Christ….that is way beyond what anyone ever expected god to do. He came us as one of us and lived and taught, and healed.  Then God sacrificed for us.  Sacrificed his own son.  Sacrificed his own life for us and for our salvation.  Then 3 days later he won victory over sin and death that we could be gifted with that same victory through him.   God saved us, called us, sustained us. Walked with us, and guided us every day of our lives.  What a God we have. 

As a child unwraps a birthday or Christmas gift and runs to hug the giver saying it is just what I wanted…  we come to worship to throw our arms around God to say “thank you, you are just we needed… just what we wanted” as we joyfully worship the Lord our God.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.” 

 Finally, the psalm says in the next line of verse 3,  “we are the sheep of his pasture and we are his.” Did you hear that? Sometimes we hear things or read things and the significance does not really register.  We are the sheep of his pasture.  We are his.  We are God’s children. We belong to God.

Anyone can worship God because of what God is or what God does.  Not everyone can worship God because God has adopted them into his family.  To the folks to whom this Psalm was written, that meant they were Israel.  God’s Chosen people.  For us, it means that we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, Jesus died for me, even me!! And we are his children. “The spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him (not everyone, but those who believe in him) will not perish.  We are God's chosen, loved, and saved people.

The child lost in the mall rejoices over the reappearance of the parent,  they run to them as soon as they realize that they have been found. God has found us, saved us and claimed us.  We belong to God. That should make us overflow with Joy that turns into worship.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.” 

 How’s your heart?   Filled with joy?  I hope so.

I don’t preach this sermon to tell you that you need to do anything different, but to help you think about why you do what you do.

My experience of worship here, so far, is that it is an authentically joy-filled celebration of God and community and it is an offering of the best of ourselves to God as a holy and living sacrifice… Paul says “that is our spiritual worship.” Does It look like a charismatic congregation or a Nigerian congregation, NO, but that would not be authentic to who God has created us to be?

You have awesome worship here, and I am delighted to be part of that. But I just want you to step back for a moment and understand WHY we have awesome worship. We have awesome worship because each of you has the joy of encountering the living God in your daily life and we bring our joy here to share it in public worship. 

You know what I want people to say when they leave worship here?  I want them to say “WOW, look how they are filled with the joy of the lord.”

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, First United Methodist church. Worship the Lord with gladness; let us come into his presence with singing.” 

Known by our fruit:love

*Remember these texts are written in a verbal style that fits my preaching. Remember also that since I have started preaching without my text it doesn't always come out the same on Saturday and Sunday.  If you prefer to watch the video of the Sunday morning proclamation, you can do that by visiting  www.Carrollunitedmethodist.org and looking for the sermon videos.   You can also watch us live on youtube on Sunday at 10am. 

Known by our fruit UMC: Love

7/1/18

Carroll FUMC

I’m going to put you on the spot today. If you don’t want to answer just wave me off as I approach you.

What is your first thought when I say “FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH” <<<4-5 PEOPLE>>>

Isn’t it interesting all the different answers we give?

I’ll give you your homework early this week… Sometime this week I want each of you to ask two people outside our church “what comes to mind when I say Carroll first UMC?” Remember their answers because I will ask you next week.

 Our first series of sermons is called “known by our fruit.” It focuses on the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” We will be asking the question, “What fruit is our church known for?” “As a Church, what fruit are we bearing?” And”How can we be more fruitful?” We will examine one fruit each week.

 This week we talk about LOVE.

The ancient church father from North Africa, named Tertulian, imagined what others should see as they look at the church. He wrote “Let them say Look . . . how they love one another; and how they are ready to die for each other. ” You might wonder about dying for one another, but let’s talk about the meaning of Love.

 First, we have to understand that God is, at the heart of God’s being, LOVE. I John says, “God is LOVE!” The entire Bible is God’s love story. Not like a Harlequin romance, thankfully. But God creates the world, through love. God protects the Israelites because of love. God sends a Savior out of love. The cross is a sacrifice of love. The resurrection is perhaps the greatest miracle of love of all time. Even the consummation of the world in Revelation is out of love… “Behold I make all things new”, “I wipe away every tear from their eye …There will be no more crying, no more pain.” That sounds like love to me, from beginning to end the Bible is a love story… the story of God’s love for creation. .God’s love for us… and God’s yearning for us to love God and one another.

  As the Pharisee found out in Matthew 22 the two greatest commandments are “Love God and love neighbor.”

From beginning to end, this is a book that is trying to send us a simple but powerful message. God loves you more than you can ever imagine. There is nothing you can do to change that. That message calls for a response… which is, of course, to love God and love neighbor. When we do that perfectly, we have mastered the faith… but I for one, have a long ways to go.

 So what is this fruit of the spirit of love? Let’s just say, it is not a feeling, it is not words, it is not the romantic love which is an entirely different word in Greek. It is not brotherly love, because Greek has a different word for that too. I Corinthians 13 gives us a list of things that love is not: “Love is not envious, arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable, resentful, and it does not rejoice in wrongdoing.”

 So what is love? First, Love is a verb which means action… and second, it is sacrificial …third it is unearned or unqualified.

Our scripture this morning is the well known Good Samaritan.

When we read the story we can imagine the Levite ran by on the other side of the road pretending that he didn’t see the man. The priest may have gone by on the other side and even though it doesn’t say, it would not be out of character for the priest to pray for the man or offer a blessing from afar.

 The Samaritan, however, loved.

First, he acted. He stopped, knelt down, bandaged, comforted, carried the man to the inn, and paid for his care.

  Second, he acted sacrificially. He may even have put his own self in danger by stopping on that dangerous stretch of road. The man could have been a decoy so robbers could attack anyone who stopped to help. He sacrificed his own supplies, comfort, time, and even his money when he paid for the man’s care.

 Finally, it didn’t matter who these two men were…Samaritans and a Jews had a long-running hatred of each other) They could just as easily been rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white and all shades of brown, liberal and conservative, democrat or republican, man or woman; it just doesn’t matter to love. When we are showing Christian love… everyone and anyone deserves to be loved. No qualifications, not criteria,

James 2:15 says, “ If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,  and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”  Really! What good is it to say we love each other if we don’t visit when someone is in the hospital, or take soup when they get home? What good is it if we don’t provide food or rent assistance or a tank of gas to a family is struggling? What good is our love if we don’t comfort one another in our grief, support someone in the midst of an ugly divorce, help a parent worn out by the kids. Offer to relieve an exhausted caregiver. What good is our love if we avoid the unpleasantness of fighting an addiction or depression, or temptation?

•             What good is it to say “good luck,” or the Christian equivalent “we are praying for you and we love you” if we don’t act.  If we don’t put those prayers into action we are missing the point of love!

•             Loving always costs us something… either time, or energy, or money…love is always sacrificial.

•             And love does not discriminate.  It doesn’t matter who it is. It doesn’t matter what they have done to us.  It doesn’t matter how different we are.

Think of the person or group that is hardest for you to tolerate… they just make your skin crawl.  Now show them love… that is Christian love acting sacrificially to love anyone and everyone. We have to put the love into action by visiting them, feeding them, comforting them, encouraging them, offering to take the kids to a movie, or offering to sit with an ill loved one, or taking them to AA or helping them to make that first difficult call to a mental health center, or offering them an alternative to temptation. THAT is love. Not just fancy words in the bible, but letting those words bear the fruit of actually acting sacrificially on someone else’s behalf.

God’s love is sacrificial action the sacrificial action of creating, leading, protecting, coming, living, dying, being raised again for each and every one of us.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.”  God loved so much that he acted decisively, sacrificially, and on behalf of the world… each and every one of us.  And … and our love needs to be a decisive sacrificial action for anyone who needs to be loved… and isn’t that all of us?

Let’s get real with real with each other. If we want people to say, “See how they love one another” we have to actually love one another.

So, you know I am new here… what do we do in this church to love one another… people inside or related to our church family? <<< >>> SEE HOW THEY LOVE EACH OTHER <<<several times>>>

 And let’s take it a step further. What do we do in this church or in our lives to love others who are not yet part of the congregation? What do we do that makes people say “see how they love others?” <<< >>>SEE HOW THEY LOVE OTHERS <<<several times>>>

The fruit of the spirit is love. It sounds to me like we bear the fruit of love pretty well.  That is most of the battle… remember the most important commandments? LOVE GOD… LOVE NEIGHBOR.  I think that is why Paul put Love as the first fruit of the spirit. In fact, if the only fruit our church or our lives ever bore was love… the rest would fall in to place.

The apostle John is said to have gone deaf and spent the last years of his life repeating “Little children love one another.  Little children love one another.”  Let me leave you with a similar admonition. Love is the beginning and the end of being a church… friends, let us be a church about which they say… “See how they love” Go and love.