Sermon 8/23/2017

Wear Your Protection.

One week ago we worshiped at the Fair food stand and we had the joy joy joy down in our hearts.  It was a fun morning.  This morning, this week I have found to be a week and a world that is less joyful, less joy-filled in many ways.  We have a president who is…speaking of nuclear responses.  Stating that a stern response in what is called for in terms of our North Korea relations.  While that might be an acceptable response and question, nuclear responses never have winners.  To not acknowledge that any nuclear response or provocation will cost lives, from numerous countries, ages, and races is to seem short-sighted.  I look around as I walk down the street or the mall, I look into people’s faces and I fear changes that we all would face if any country would make a choice to engage nuclear weapons.  I am fearful.

Then we have news from Charlottesville, Virginia.  A demonstration, a “Unite The Right” rally?  Involving white supremacist.  Friday night as counter protestors gathered behind closed doors in churches, there was a march with torch bearing white nationalists shouting “white lives matter”, “you will not replace us”, and the Nazi associated phrase “blood and soil”.

The tally is one woman dead, 19 injured, 5 critically from someone backing a car into them….intentionally….two state troopers killed, others injured.

Is anyone else uncomfortable today.  I try to keep a low political profile.

But this week is not about politics…it is about hate.

I can not keep low about hate.

And then our text talked about armor.  Sounds like military stuff and while the image is cute for a sweaty mouse, I get uncomfortable.

We have been in the book of Ephesians for four weeks now.  Have you been reading the chapters?  In the opening chapters Paul tells us about God’s grace, about Jesus coming for our redemption.  Jesus came to love us, to adopt us, to share an inheritance with us….with the one who can do all things.

In Chapter four Paul makes a turn and lets us know that we have a response, a responsibility in all this also.  We are to be unified, not all the same but all in unity that comes with maturity.  We are not to be like children, tossed to and fro.  We must grow up…in Christ.

This week, Paul speaks about our protection.  This is so often a children’s text, with play knight’s swords and breast plate.  Yet this week I am not feeling child-like and I stand in sore need of protection.  Are you with me?

This is a reading that has an eschatological theme or taste.  Way back in the book of Isaiah it speaks of God putting on similar implements to judge.  Paul is speaking in the same vein-understanding that-it isn’t all that easy.  We as graced, forgiven, blessed disciples of Christ still have a struggle before us.  And it is not just a personal struggle, this is not a struggle to have a nice day or to get through your day.

It does not take our imagination, it just takes a look at the week’s news to see that when powers and countries, groups, organizations have greed and power as their requirements, there is a huge challenge of bringing justice in the face of such powers.

We are living in a time when objective truth has become completely devalued….it is time to put on the belt of truth.

In a time when might is mistaken for right,

I believe God’s righteous armor is essential.

In a time when aggression between nations and groups with communities is on the rise,

I believe it is time to slip on the shoes of peace.

In a time when so many struggle to see what the future might hold for them, especially our younger generation…

I believe the shield of faith is a necessity to see us through.

In a time when there are so many voices clamoring for our attention our money, and our time, may our assurance in the grace of God provide a helmet to protect our heave from being deceived…

and the Word of God be a sword to pierce the….crap, the pomposity, and the hollow promises that will never fulfill us.

We have protection!  God gives us protection for our fight, for our battles, for our growing and loving.

Look at your card.  It is a piece of armor.

How does it protect you?

Paul returns us to prayer….Quote

Paul means prayer to be our means to keep ourselves rooted….

To keep us rooted in the Way of Christ.

The world makes me fearful.  But I don’t want to leave here today being afraid, for I believe that God does not call us for fear.  God calls us to be protected, to be the protection for others who are without voice or voices are weakened or silenced.

What do we need to do to keep God’s protection near by?

Today, this morning, we will gather at Christ’s table.  We will come to gather strength.  Strength to go from here into the world prepared.  Prepared to be the church, to be a disciple of Christ, to have a voice

I want to read this from The Message Version Ephesians 6:10-20

Wear your protection!

Food stand Sunday

We survived!  We did it!

It feels so great to be here now, done with fair, worship God, singing praises….and just being with one another.

The reading is all about being together as church.  Some years ago you all gathered and formed a Mission/Vision Statement.  I think it might be written around her somewhere.  Might be in your bulletin!  There it is.

Can we read it together?

Our mission is to prayerfully:

Seek God

Grow in Faith

Love and serve others

For the transformation of lives.

So how do we do that?  As individuals?

More importantly today-how do we do that as a church, as one congregation?

Many, if not most, church have these statements.  I am not sure what Paul’s reaction would be to these statements but that is what he is getting at in this chapter of Ephesians.  What is your focus, together as all the people of FUMC, and as the church.

There is a rub, or a tenseness in a mission statement, in a epistle, even in Jesus ministry that he calls us too—individual, versus cooperate.  We all work our relationship with God.  Yet it is not a personal thing-we are called to be God’s church, the church universal, the church local-not the church individual.

The foodstand, the fair week is a week of working together.  It is not a week that I live that mission statement as an individual.  It is a together week.  I may have the love of Jesus in my heart but really it is about the love of Jesus in our hearts together as we run this food stand.

I want us to hear two sentences….I want us to hear the point.Read from verse 4.

You are…

One body

 And there is one Lord

One faith

One baptism and one God and Father of all (over all, through all, and in all)

One!

The subject is unity.  How do we as God followers be together, serve together and unify together?  I think we did this week.

A little bit about being unified when we are diversified.  I mean we are not all the same.

We are all different.

We are all to equip the saints for ministry-our gifts, our likes, our knowledge, our diversity.

About that word equip-greek katartismos meaning the setting of a bone.  It does not mean piling up knowledge, or skills.  It means to line things up, to reconcile, to restore, to create.

To grow our ministry mans to align ourselves with God’s intentions.

I asked last week-that we would see all the people.  How did that go?

Discussion.

There were a lot to see?  How did seeing “all” work when we got busy?

Did you have time to see all on both sides of the counter?

In the grill porch, through     the bitty windows?

God is speaking to us  ….not suggestions, not niceties, not busy work.  God is speaking…

God equips us.

Unity is our goal.  Not agreement, not a likeness, but unity.

God’s goal is our maturity

No tricks, no misleading.

Verse 15-16

It was a lovely fair, seeing all the people and uniting together.

The summer messages I have tried to make light, simple and perhaps shorter.  I think that fits summer.  Today is no different.  So much could be said about reconciliation in Christ Jesus, probably should be.

But this is a pointed sermon.  Not toward a person but toward our shared experience of the fair this year.  All of us will be there, either working, eating, or seeing who else is there.  It will be our common experience.

Our Food Stand is not a missional event, nor is the money donated to mission.  The money goes, profits, go to our trustee budget and to the UMW….both of which do good things.  So, that leaves the people.

I came from a home that was always in conflict.  It was not a great life.  I went to college and roomed with a good that I had nothing in common with.  We split the room in two, respected each other and as room-mates fared better than others that year.

The following year-sophomore year, I roomed with a friend.  Same thing room split.  It changed-we arranged the room so our desks could both face out the window.  Beds were in a L shape so groups could sit on them.  We got along great.  I learned so much that year.  I learned how to live with someone and more.

Learning to live and to love the other is what we are talking about today.

Gentiles and Jews were the other to each other!  Gentiles just couldn’t –ever-be right enough, good enough, clean enough for Jews to accept.  And Jews-well they were Jews and mothering else.

In the first paragraph listen to the descriptive words….

Without Christ

Aliens

strangers

no hope

no God

So remember!

Then along comes Christ.

Jews and Gentiles were reconciled.  It wasn’t an easy thing for Christ.  It took the cross.

This is good news-the good news of the cross.  Jesus announced this good news to those close to God-the Jews, and to those far away from God-the Gentiles.

Listen to the words used now:

No longer strangers/aliens

Fellow citizens-you belong to God’s household

With Jesus things have changed.  It is like living with a room mate that you like that you learn how to love and more than get along-You flourish with-you are of the same household.

Belleville is a community with some diversity.  Perhaps not compared to New York city but there is diversity.  Diversity is good, diversity adds strength.  But it is not always easy.

That is a nice way of saying-You are gonna see all kinds this week!  You will serve them, take their money-and will it end there.

The fair food stand needs to be in mission.  We need to serve and take money but it can’t end there.  We need to See All The People.  See them as different and the same.  Christ has already reconciled us.  So reach out and see them, really great them, make relationship.

I know…

Small community, see these folks for decades, it’s great….

#SeeAllThePeople

Make relationship.

The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord.

Christ has already joined people.  This isn’t our job, we don’t have to change anyone.  We just are called to join in relationship with people.  Talk to them, know how they are, greet them from the heart.  Recognize them from yesterday, then say so.

We are not fixing our church.  We are forming relationships with people.

Verse 22

Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit.

For the next few weeks we will be hearing the word from the book of Ephesians.  In our Sunday services you will hear several readings from the book…BUT what if you read the entire book of Ephesians?

Wesley taught us that we should study the scriptures.  Jesus taught us that we should study the Torah.  How much more could God speak to us if we read scripture everyday?  If you are like me you may fall short of that goal.

As a church we have the goal before us to read the entire book of Ephesians this month.  Don’t panic, Ephesians is only six chapters. As you read a chapter sign your name on the bulletin board.  Encourage each other to read each week!

Today is the first Sunday that we begin readings in the book of Ephesians.  The book of Ephesians is a book that celebrates the life of the church. It is a book that starts or is rooted in the idea that the church was established by God’s eternal propose and it’s believers already live in union with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit.  It is anticipated the full union of God and church in the life to come.

The book speaks of the reconciliation to God through the death of Christ, and ow that has broken the power of evil.  The book may or may not be written by Paul.  In verse 1 it identifies Paul as author, but likely it was a follower of Paul writing in Paul’s style and tradition.  This was perfectly acceptable in the time of the writing.

The entire book is about being the church, doing church and living in the grace that God destined the church and the community of the believers to.  Each of these weeks I want us to hear the reading the lection of the week but I also want you to keep the vision of the whole book.  God chose us.  Let that sink in, we were chosen by God for God’s grace before we even gave thought to it.  We were destined for God’s grace before any of us were a twinkle in our poppy’s eye.  God pegged us for God perfect grace before the creation of all that we know or imagine.

We might think that makes us pretty special….or special-er.  But the grace of God’s, this grace for us, calls us.  It is not about being God’s special church, it is about being called to specific tasks of serving God and serving neighbor.

That’s the message that I want your heart to return to in the coming weeks and months.

We as the church, are called to specific tasks of serving God and serving neighbor.  That is what it is to live under God’s grace….even before we knew.

So we begin in the book of Ephesians.  The salutations of verse one may have been as addition to the book.  This may have been a general writing and not just to a specific group.  No matter, it isn’t long before you realize this is beautiful and rich language.  It very likely might have been used for hymns or liturgies in the early church.  Whatever the use it is rich.

It begins with a blessing to God.

….then it begins with us-God chose us…before the creation of the world.  Chosen to be holy and blameless.  To be set aside for purpose without the mare of brokenness.

We are adopted children of God…because of Jesus love.  This was the plan of grace, grace given freely.

We are us-we are not God.  We are broken, we have failures, we sin.  It is the way the world is, not quite right.  By Jesus blood, we are ransomed…paid for with overflowing grace.  Hear that…overflowing grace, poured over us with wisdom and grace.

This is God’s choosing, this is God’s plan.  God accomplishes this by Jesus Christ.

The language is thick.  We hear the words blessed, chosen, adoption, grace and it is sweet to the ear.  Do you believe?

The language of the world may be different-fated, rejected, failure, shameful and guilty Those are the words of the world.  These words are at times hurled at us.  Some more than others but we have all heard the words, some have lived the words often. ** Know that these are not the words of scripture, they are not the words or the life or the heart that God has for us.  Open your hearts I pray to hear the words that have been written….the words written and flowing with grace for us.

The author goes on-vs 10-like an informercial on late night…But wait, there’s more. God plans the climax, the best of all time…..God will bring all things together in Christ.  All things in heaven, all things on earth.  What does that even mean?  I believe that I will see all things that have gone before me, all the saints, things and persons I do not know, along with all that I know but there will not be brokenness, not be sin.  All will be quite right.

We will receive an inheritance.  This will be God’s plan. God accomplishes God’s plans.

The verses continue…you heard the good news of Christ, which is the good news of your salvation.  You were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit.  Do you hear the baptismal promises in that?

This is our blessings.  This is what God has chosen for us, for our lives.  So in this beginning chapter of Ephesians, God choses us for God’s grace….before we even knew.  Before we even knew, and now we know

so let us live as ones who are graced by God,

and called by God to live out that grace.

Today is Everyone Serve Sunday-may we serve faithfully,

with glad hearts,

remembering for whom we serve.

I read a most interesting article the other day-The Greatest False Idol of Modern Christianity.  The article does not identify the idol up front but gives description of it.  ***share authors descriptions.  Then he says it….”Fear has become their false God.”

He goes on and describes the symptoms of Fear Idolatry.

***share examples.

The author’s last lines…I know how big my God is.  Do you?

I will go ahead and confess-you got me.  I try to rise about the fear.  Yet, in part I know I just try not to express it.  Fear is all around us.  Certainly in our political climate-this isn’t how anyone thought it would be.  But even in general-fear can get very large, with just a small feeding.  It doesn’t take long to hear fear in much of today’s conversation.

So I hate having idols!  God doesn’t want us to hold things tightly that do not lead us to God.  So what to do, what to do?

I think I have a Psalm for you.  Psalm 30.  According to Walter Bruggerman, it is a Psalm of New-Orientation.  You may recall his classification of Orientation, Disorientation, and New Orientation.

Psalm 30 describes, refers to much of the experience of disorientation but then moves us to new orientation.  I believe that we have to name the disorientation that we experience before we can move to a new orientation.

There is power in naming something.  We begin to understand it, or understand our experience of it.  I was brought up short to hear an author name the “new idol” fear.  There could be twenty other articles, essays, opinions that name the current political environment.  You could identify selfish, childish, faithless, or a host of unspoken terms even.  It is not in the exact name-it is in speaking of it, the claiming the experience, giving words to the emotional/thought experience.  By giving those words we are able to make the situation real.

This is what the psalmist has done.

His foes were rejoicing over him

He was sick.

He was crying.

His soul was in Sheol, in the Pit.

That sums up a stinking situation!  I wonder if when he re-read the words if he said-wow I had lost my way, I was disoriented (just as Bruggereman would classify it) You see that you can not depend on your own devices. Words are powerful and they identify the power of the suffering, loss, and fear.

Yet that is not what the psalm is about.  It is not a psalm of disorientation but of new-orientation.  Here the psalm- what God has done.  Responding to the despair the verses say-between the lines-we can not pretend that all will always be well or as it should be!

Yet ,they have experienced new life and grace — so they know that despair is not all powerful and evil does not have the last word.  the word sof the psalm beautifully describe our experiences in life.  The words remind us-suffering is not the absence of God, but encourages us to take refuge in God.

Nor-does suffering negate the good news that life is a gift from God.

I want to shift us at this point to our day.  The overall theme or name of this series on Psalms is “Being Church”.  How do we be church?  I think Bruggerman types it well and it is also fitting for being the church….there are chapters of orientation, disorientation and new orientation.

Today we have before us an example of new orientation-how can that inform or shape us as we be church?  We have suffering in the church and oh my do we ever name it-declining numbers, aging buildings, less money, higher cost of clergy, shortage of clergy, no interest in disciplining, busy, busy, busy.  Theological-we are all looking for bumper sticker theology that we can put on the tip of a sword and fight off every fear.

We are called to a new orientation.  We can not deny the above nor should we.  But how do we be church in a way that we faithful live out the gift of new life in Christ that God gives to us.  Our lives are busy and the world is changing.

If we die trying to Be the church, what will happen?  Will the dust praise God?  I don’t think so.  Let God turn our mourning into dancing.

Sermon from 7/2/2017

Today’s reading is likely one of your favorites from the Psalms.  Psalm 23-the shepherd’s Psalm is an image as our creator God being our shepherd, caring for us, leading us and loving us.  Many have the Psalm memorized.  We hear it frequently at funerals-where it gives us comfort and reminds us that God cares for us although we may not always feel or be aware of that.  I know I have preached on this Psalm at least twice in the past five years.  The Psalm washes over us as a salve, giving us comfort and rest for our wounded and ragged selves.

Today, I want to simply tell you a sheep story.  It is a real life, real sheep story and I will let you hear the Psalm on your own.

His name is Shrek!  Shrek did not like to be sheared.  Most sheep don’t mind being sheared.  It take about ten minutes with an experienced shearer…maybe twelve.  Most sheep are just chill about it, knowing it is part of being cared for.  They say the lambs are frisky.  Their inexperience with the process makes them more frightened but as they mature they settle into being sheared regularly.

About shearing-it’s not really that bad, or so I’ve read.  Shrek was a sheep type called Merino.  Their coat continues to grow.  The don’t shed it off or slow down on it’s growth.  Yes this can cause some problems.  The fur can become matted such that the sheep may not be able to walk.  Or if they fall onto their back they can’t get turned up right and may die.  Shrek had not read this facts and hadn’t thought of them himself.

Shrek hated shearing and devised a plan to run off, slipping out of the pen and making a break for it…..

He was “lost” for six years.  There were a series of near by caves and he roamed them without detection.  Well hidden in the caves, Shreks’s fur continued to grow, grow, and grown some more. When he was found, they were not sure what he was at first.  You couldn’t see his eyes.  But Shrek had successfully escaped being sheared.

And sheared he was then…..on national tv.  He had become a celebrity.  His wool weighed in at 60 pounds—enough to make 20 men’s suits-large men.  His wool was auctioned off for a children’s charity.

Shrek became a national favorite for the country of New Zealand.  He was loved by his owners and given private pen, reinforced no doubt and plenty of sheep chow.  Shrek passed away in 2011 at the age of 16.  Sixteen is a remarkable life for a Mirano sheep.

A slightly different story than Psalm 23.  I should remind us, you and myself, that we are the sheep in both stories.  We are lead, we are kept safe, and sometimes we think we need to slip the pen and hid out.

In some ways I saw Shrek as a hero, hiding out and doing as he wanted.  But what if he had fallen on his back.  What is his fur had matted making walking impossible! I have thought about him all week.  With a bit more honesty, I might say I have been thinking about me all week.  Perhaps recognizing my own sheep-ness.

God does lead us, and elsewhere in the scriptures we hear about the fold to keep sheep safe and following the shepherds voice.  Yet sheep are sheep and the shepherd loves the sheep but not keep them leashed or tied up.

It comes down to our freedom can allow us to be cared for and care for ourselves.  As it turns out for other sheep, freedom can lead to being left alone, but with a matted not so great load of wool to tote around.  How free is that?

This week-the 4^th of July-we celebrate our freedom.  Our freedom as a county, freedoms as individuals.  I understand the holiday, I get it.  But let’s remember that we are sheep, and our freedom is from God.  God is our shepherd who leads us, we need to recognize God’s voice.  God leads us not to be free American’s but to be the people of God, free to serve the last, the least and the lost, free to serve mercy, free to seek justice.

As we go to the table today to be served, let us go as God’s flock, giving thanks for the still waters and the green paths, knowing that surely the valleys will come, our cup will overflow and that our enemies—we will sit with them, speak with them, break bread with them.  It is a promise for a sheep such as us.  There is no need to hide in the caves, follow the voice and all shall be well and all shall be well.

Sermon from 6/4/2017

It is the Festival of First Harvest-fifty days after Passover, to give thanks for the harvest.  It was also ten days after Jesus ascension.  In the book of Acts we are about to see the fruit of the first harvest is about to begin.  There are many people there….many.

This idea of many caught my imagination.  Actually I should say it caught my reality in the past two weeks as I experienced Iowa City, Chicago, mid-town and down-town, Dayton Ohio, even small Tipp City Ohio.  There were many.  Many people, they were everywhere!  Coming out of the wood-work.  You just stared and wondered what could they all being doing?  What was their job? Their family? They interest? Their values?  How could there be that many stories in the world?  My daughter and her family live “out”-near the small town of Tipp City.  Yet more cars go past her house then go past Belleville on 81—and fast too.  And so many cars, bumper to bumper traffic.  Car horns are like a sport in downtown Chicago!

Many-when you begin to see past the sheer numbers you realized there were many cultures, many languages, contexts, homeless, workers, vacationers, blue collared, white collared, all of that and more.  All around me so many, just so many people, stories, cultures….so many.  Such diversity, more than I can even comprehend.

As we were driving home I begin wandering-was vacation my Pentecost lesson?  All that diversity, all those numbers of peoples…yet we were all in it together.  The four guys next to us at the concert were out to hear some good music and enjoy each others company, as we were.  The people having loud conversations on their phones, earbuds in, are just trying to communicate and get through their day.  The blind beggar, shaking is cup for change was just looking for his next meal, like me.  Even my own kids and family, just doing what they do to live and to love.

So many, so diverse, yet just making their way through life.

Not much different than our Acts scripture.  But then a rush of Spirit, tongues of fire, and many languages, and many understanding.  “Amazed and perplexed”  Peter spoke, he told God’s story.  Many asked what should we do-many repented, many were baptized.  3000!  That’s many.

This is a story that we are to treasure and to store in our hearts.  For despite the access to information, we find ourselves hearing so much, an array of competing voices.  The voices are all claiming to speak truth, however many are misleading and trying to obscure things using false evidence, and outright lies.

Last year-The word of the year as selected by Oxford English Dictionary was “post-truth.

Our world relies on some common language.  That is how we discuss import issues.  But in the last years we have move toward a word of “post-truth”.  Everything is based on personal feelings in regards to what is best and an ability to change things can be without any evidence.

Do you remember the story of Babel?

Pentecost gives God’s people to have the power that reverses the confusion of Babel.  The Holy Spirit comes to give us unity, to make us into community, to birth the church, God’s family, Jesus body on earth.  The Holy Spirit empowered on Pentecost to take MANY and make them one, one family, one body, one unity.  As children of God we are a community of family that gathers for worship, praise, to share sacraments, to share the Word and to share our mission, mercy and love to all-to many.

Paul writes in Galatians-in the 4^th chapter regarding our becoming children of God through the Spirit.  He continues in chapter5 describing our life in the Spirit.  Not a “life of flesh” or a life of selfish desires.  Paul says the acts of selfish motives are obvious.

In contrast there is life in the Spirit-which produces the fruit of the spirit.

With the reversal of the Babel and the pulling apart of the people-God gave God’s Holy Spirit to the very people who were separated to unite them.  The Holy Spirit came to many to give the gift of unity even in diversity.  Many came together as family crying out Abba, Father—empowered by the Holy Spirit, blessed to be the bearers of fruit.

Folks this is not history-this is life in the Sprit.  This is today that the Holy Spirit comes, that the Holy Spirit is in the house.  But is not for kicks and thrills.

It is to empower us with speech, language, story….the Holy Spirit is in us so that we can tell the story.  Peter on that Pentecost day preached, told the story and 3000 were brought into the community that day.  What can happen if this day with the filling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in we as the church if we share the story—of God’s love, of God’s only Son, of Jesus life, of Jesus teachings and his love.  What if we share the story of the resurrecting power and the power of the Holy Spirit to even one that we meet, to one that needs to hear of that love, of that power, of that saving action, the hope and the peace the HS promises.

If just even one-it would be many who would hear.  The fruits of the Sprit are many-

Love   Joy    Peace     Faithfulness    Gentleness    Self-control…..

The church that Paul spoke of was not perfect, they were trying to figure it out and certainly they did not all agree.  Paul said-if we live by the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit.

The Pentecost Spirit of God will empower many….many….many, each day we speak the story, speak the love of God to all we meet.

Sermon from Sunday May 14, 2017

Living in rural Kansas you know what dark is.  With night driving, you absolutely understand the use of headlights, high beam and regular.  In Salina I can go the entire length of 9^th and mistakenly have my lights off.  I can see to get home and other drivers may or may not signal me.  B-town is a bit different.  I need my headlights and drive  a quarter mile out of town and I can’t find my way without headlights.  Nor can I always see the next intersection or obstacle even with my head lights.  It just how night driving is.

Anne Lamont is a prolific writer.  She wrote a book called, Bird by Bird: Some Thoughts on Writing and Life.

There is a quote,

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night.  You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

You might recall that the book of Acts begins in that first chapter with Jesus instructing them that they would be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The book of Acts is about the spreading of that witness.  Yet the roads to the end of the earth are not illuminate all at once.

It is a good thought for the church, from the times in Acts.  Maybe more importantly, it is good for the church today to remember.

The church is doing well.  Last week we shared the story of Philip sharing the story of Jesus love with an Ethiopian Enuch, resulting in his baptism.  In the intervening chapters, there is more sharing, more people learning of Jesus, more work and witness of the Holy Spirit.

Paul and Barnabas are sharing the news with the church in Antioch.  Antioch is Gentiles and they are receiving the Good News.  Then in Chapter 15 we hear some others from Judea come to Antioch.  They say that The Gentile Christians must be circumcised in order to be saved.

This would have been a Jewish Christian experience.  They would have been circumcised according to Jewish law, and they would have been following the Jewish law although not perfectly.  Then they would have experienced God saving news of Jesus Christ.  This would have been normal.  This would have been the first Christian experience.

But now Gentiles are being saved, Gentiles who may or may not be circumcised.  For some I am sure the question was, or response was: But we have never done it that way before.  But the deeper questions was: Is the saving work of Christ effective for those who are not Jews and who never became law–observant?  Could Jesus be the Jewish Messiah and yet bring salvation apart from the Law?

In verse 2 it says the question too “no small dissension and debate” in Antioch.  This was not an easy question.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but the church is facing some not easy questions some 200 years later.  Listen and see if our hearts can pick up some hints about the process of being with hard questions.

The Process…

The conversations need to broaden. The church is local and it is always more than local.  The church at Antioch sends some of its leaders  and “some of the others” to Jerusalem.  We need a bigger conversation.

Standard divisions are examined.  “We” and “them” defines two groups but when you get to know each other….They begin to become more we and them is just not as much them anymore.  We hear Peter saying this in verse 8 and 9.

We and them become us.

The testimony of experience counts.  Barnabas and Paul give an account of signs and wonders in their ministry.  The Holy Spirit is at work in other places and with other people….umh…uncircumcised people.

Experience is confirmed by the testimony of Scripture.  When James finally speaks he addresses that even the prophets knew that God would use the Gentiles in God’s Kingdom.

What the Church Decides…

The church decides that God’s mercy is being extended to the Gentiles by God’s work.  Some would say—God is doing a new thing.  Rather God is doing what God has always done, showing mercy and creating a people for God’s self where none existed before.

We are the church on the way to the ends of the earth…

That is our instructions from Jesus….witness, share, love to the ends of the earth.

We the church can only see as far as the headlights light…..

and that alright.  We still know where we are going and we will get there.

We need to understand the sources of our light.  With our witness and our faith lives, that is our witness, we need some headlights.  Not actual car headlights but we need to understand our sources of light….that will illumine our way.

Scripture

Conversation/ Reason

Experience

Conversation/Reason

Tradition

Conversation/Reason