Let us pray.
Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts together this morning be pleasing in your sight. May the words of my mouth not be my own, but may they be your words. Let our hearts be prepared now to receive your word, in Jesus name. Amen. So, as some of you might know, I come from a background which doesn’t place a great emphasis on judgment day, or even on judgment in general. So when I first came to Kobe Union Church, one of the things that most surprised me was encountering people from backgrounds unfamiliar to me, who seemed to focus so much of their spiritual life on the idea of evil spirits, Satan, and a fear of impending judgment. There were times where I found myself listening to conversations during Bible studies, or sitting in some other mid-week offering or event, and hearing this unfamiliar theology. In these moments, I heard about the great plans of Satan, the personality of Satan, and the ways in which Satan thrives in the world, ready to attack us from anywhere and everywhere. The personality of Satan….I found the very idea interesting because I had honestly never even imagined Satan as an evil spirit with a distinct personality and motivation at all. To be honest with you all, even talking about things like Satan, evil spirits, or the judgment day, is uncomfortable for me. Maybe it’s because I come from a background where we don’t really spend a lot of time with these ideas, or maybe it’s because I have so much more to say about God’s unending grace and mercy than I do about Satan, evil spirits, or that day of judgment which today’s Scripture calls “the day of the Lord.” But also, a lot of the discomfort I feel comes from how I have seen these words and ideas abused in Christian communities. I have so often heard people tell each other, “you are going to hell unless you believe!” I have seen and met people who were turned away from the Christian faith because Christians came to them with such powerful intensity, telling them that they had to believe in Jesus because the judgment day was coming, and if they didn’t have faith that they would go to hell. The impressions I have seen that leave on those unfamiliar with the Christian faith are strong, and hurtful. People leave encounters like this feeling that Christians are a judgmental people, following a judgmental God, and that doesn’t exactly move people to believe in God. It leaves them feeling unloved, and not cared for. Obviously, I can’t deny that God does bring judgment. It’s in the Bible, as bright and clear as day, and today’s Scripture reading is no exception. Joel 2:1 says “...the day of the Lord is coming, it is near.” And it is a scary day indeed! Joel describes this day as one of, “darkness and gloom (Joel 2:2),” where a great and powerful army comes (2:2) with the appearance of horses, charging as warriors ready for battle (2:4-5). They are well prepared, well trained, knowing exactly where to go (2:7). They come to attack all corners of the city, leaping, running, and climbing. This army doesn’t seem to have weapons, but they don’t really seem to need them, because even nature seems to be on their side, with fire devouring wherever they go leaving the land desolate (2:3) “The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining.” (Joel 2:10) Before this great and terrible army of judgment, the people seem stuck, unable to escape. “People are in anguish, all faces grow pale.” (Joel 2:6). “Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible indeed-who can endure it?” (Joel 2:11) There it is, verse upon verse with God talking about the violence and terror of judgment day. Hard as it might be to accept, when people talk so strongly to others about God’s judgment, they’re not making stuff up. They’re speaking of exactly the kind of thing that Joel is describing here. And I think it’s even more scary when we realize that the commander of this army of judgment is actually God! This is the Lord’s army, the Bible says, made up of countless warriors (Joel 2:11)! But isn’t God for us, and not against us, you might wonder? Is today’s reading trying to instill not hope, but fear into our hearts? Is God asking us to start from a place of terror, in order to move closer to God? If the chief planner and executioner of our judgment day is God, then there is no time to waste; we need to believe in Jesus Christ right now. What’s more, we need to make sure that our loved ones, parents, children, friends, co-workers, even our neighbors all believe in Christ right now too. Otherwise, no one will be spared the destruction! Look, it has already started to happen! Wars are happening all around the world, and natural disasters just keep coming! The day of the Lord, the day of darkness and gloom is coming soon! It might already even be here! It’s so scary and urgent, that we’ve gotta convert absolutely everyone we can! We need to act RIGHT NOW! Is that really it though? Is that really true? Does that sound like our God? Personally, I think there has to be more to it than that; more to God than that. After spending 11 verses describing just how this terrifying day of judgment is coming, and how God is the architect behind the whole thing, you might expect God’s next words to God’s people to be “Don’t be afraid. I am with you.” I know that’s what I would expect at least, and I think a lot of us would because that is what God very often says to God’s people in scary, fearful situations like this. But that isn’t what God says here. Instead God says, “Return to me. Return to me, because I am your God (Joel 2:12-13). In that moment of abiding fear, God doesn’t tell us not to be afraid, but to return to God. I think it’s important for us to see that we aren’t being told to return because of our fear of the judgment coming upon us. Joel 2:13 says “Return to the Lord, your God, FOR the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. “ Think about that for a second. “Return to the Lord, for the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Joel 2:13) In the midst f all that fear of judgment, our reason to return to God doesn’t have anything to do with fear or judgment. The day of judgment is coming, and God isn’t doing anything to hide that. But God wants us to return not as a result of how we feel, but of who God is. The personality of God is what is meant to drive us, even in our fear; that is, the personality of a God who is graceful, merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. That is who is calling us to return. To come back. To come home. Do you remember how you first came to know God? Was it because you were overwhelmed with fear and terror in your heart, the imminent press of incoming doom? Or was it because God reached past your fear, and showed you who God is in your life through grace, mercy, and love? It was probably that second one, wasn’t it? I think by now you’ve all heard my personal story, so there’s no need for me to tell it one more time in detail, but when I was in my darkest moment, when my life was truly shattered; when I felt buried by doom and fear after my mom died, when I was struggling with this intense, impossible, endless grief and depression in the psychiatric hospital, God sent a nurse who was on call that day and told me, “It’s ok, Akiko. You will be happy again. Everything happens for a reason and God will not give you more than you can handle.” God did not send someone to tell me, “All this happened because you sinned. And if you don’t believe it, you will be condemned to an eternity in hell.” If the nurse had said something like that to me, I wonder if I would have ever wanted to know God at all. But instead of fear, I was given grace. Compassion. Love. Through the words God put into her mouth I was shown the way to a God who is gracious, and who is merciful, and who loves unendingly. Through her words, I met God. Even while judgment stands ready at a moment’s notice, God still remains God, and never wants us to act out of terror or fear. God continues telling us that even in the face of impending doom, the curse of fear is meant to be turned into blessing (Joel 12:13-14), because that’s who God is. God is kind. God is compassionate. God does not give what you deserve based on your sinful nature and hurtful acts. God does not easily get angry, and God is the source of abundant love. I find it interesting that today’s reading, indeed the entire book of Joel, is very different from the other prophets because, even with all the judgment being discussed here, God doesn’t actually condemn us. God does not provide us with a list of offenses we have committed, crimes for which we are to be punished. Instead, like any good parent, God simply lays out the consequences that could come upon God’s people if we do not turn ourselves to the Lord, heart and soul. Return to God with all your heart. (Joel 2:12) And this word, “heart,” here in Hebrew is the word lēḇāḇ, which means emotions, thoughts or willpower. We tend to think that the heart is all about feelings and emotions, but in this case, it’s much more than that. God is asking us to return to God with all our emotions, thoughts and will – everything that we are. And in today’s text, God isn’t just talking about doing this on our own; God is specifically talking about returning as a congregational gathering, in a place like a worship service. Sometimes, when we’re talking about worship, we like to use the word “participate.” This is because when we come into God’s house, we’re not here just to be an audience, gathered in the sanctuary for a concert. Because that’s what it would be if we just came here to listen; a concert, with the offering as the price of admission. But that isn’t what we’re doing here at all. In a worship service, we are all participants in the work that God is actively doing in this time and place, within our church and our community. We bring our whole selves into this place where God is waiting to meet us. We sing together because God is graceful. We pray together because God is merciful. We ask forgiveness because God is slow to anger. We give thanks, praise, and even offerings together because God is abundant in steadfast love. And we trust, together, because God relents from the punishment we so completely deserve. Because God is completely unafraid to show us who God is in this space, and God asks us to be equally vulnerable when we gather together with God in this place. And, as scary as it might sound, that vulnerability of spirit has to come first. In today’s text, God doesn’t tell us to “gather” first, and then to show our heart. God stresses the importance of returning to God with all our hearts before mentioning gathering together as a community. And do you know why? Because it is very possible to show up at church, attend worship services, go to Bible studies, receive communion, and to be present among the community in every possible way, but still not be present, not giving your heart, not being vulnerable with your whole heart. When you come to church on Sunday, do you come into this space with your whole heart? Not just going through the motions of singing and dancing, standing and sitting, listening and giving offerings because it’s what’s expected of you, but bringing the whole of yourselves, opening your whole hearts to God in honesty and vulnerability? Are you letting God into all the emotions you’ve experienced? Your thoughts? Are laying bare your willpower to God, and your desire to lead and take action? Are you bringing your authentic self, or just putting on your best Sunday outfit, and leaving behind everything that happened to you, everything that’s been resting on your heart this past week? Of course none of this is easy. I know that it’s hard! Bringing your whole self, opening everything up before God…it’s supposed to be hard. But as hard as we think that is for ourselves, it’s even HARDER for the entire church to return to God with the fullness of their hearts, and then gather together. Living through this COVID pandemic, it has become harder and harder just to gather together as a church, period. When the pandemic hit, the church moved online, and going to church on Sunday routine was broken…how many of us really asked why we bothered going to church in the first place? We could just watch worship online, just give our offering through online tithing. If someone were to ask, we could turn up and help but…why would you want to just…go to church? After all, if God is wherever my heart is, what is the point of going so far out of my way anyways? But God isn’t asking us to return to church. God is asking us to return to God and God’s community, where we all come together with our whole hearts; young and old, men and women, infants at the breast, even couples waiting to get married (Joel 2:16). In today’s Scripture, there is a sense of urgency in the call to come together, not because of fear that judgment may be coming, but because when we make ourselves open to God, and open to each other in community, we encounter a God who is graceful, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love…and why would you want to wait another minute before experiencing that in your life? Our God wants us to know that we are desired, that we are loved, and that God wants to meet us, every one of us, as our true, authentic selves, united as a church with our hearts opened up to the Lord, gathered together in God’s sanctuary. Are we doing that? Are you doing that? By now, many of you have probably heard about the Asbury revival. In a small Christian college in Kentucky, USA, a group of students gathered to pray. In a brief period of time, the number of people gathered to pray grew and multiplied, and before long that group had grown to fill their chapel with non-stop worship, hearts lifted up to God for 2 consecutive weeks. Of course, I wasn’t physically there, and I’ve only come to know about it by watching some of their worship online, and reading about it in news articles. But in all that I have seen and read about it, I can see happening there the same thing we hear about in Joel, chapter 2. People returning to God with all their hearts. For all the many different opinions people have had about this revival, the people gathered together in that place all seem to have responded to God’s invitation to return to God, make themselves known before their God. I don’t believe that anyone went into that chapel out of fear of the coming judgment, out of fear for the punishment aimed at this dark and sinful world. I believe that people went into that chapel eagerly, hoping to meet the God who is graceful, merciful, slow to anger, abundant in steadfast love and relents from punishing. As a church, we need to ask ourselves whether we have arrived at that point yet, whether we have truly returned to God with all of our hearts. Have we experienced the fullness of God personally before throwing ourselves out into the world to share and preach the word of God? Have we truly experienced the light of a God who is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love within the halls of our own church? Are we reaching out to all the communities in and around Kobe, preaching the gospel of love and sharing the wondrous news of Christ Jesus from a place firm and rooted in this openness and vulnerability of heart, eager to help others to be transformed just as we have been transformed by the renewal of our spirits that comes from returning to God together, with all our hearts, gathered as one in God’s sanctuary? Are we really there yet? I know that there is so much to do, so many things that the different ministries of our church so want to do. We want to be active, to reach beyond where we are, and to see God’s kingdom grow beyond our walls to embrace the community of Kobe and the whole world. But in the midst of all the excitement of what we can do, let’s not neglect this fundamental call that God gives us through the prophet Joel, to return to God with our whole hearts, gathered together as a single, united church. Let us not neglect our corporate worship on Sundays. Let us not only come to join, but participate with our full hearts, with our authentic selves, tasting the goodness of the Lord together, before we separate and are sent out to go on with our different missions and ministries. Why should it be said among the peoples, “Where is their God?” Why should that ever be said, when we can return to God right here, right now, together. Let us pray, God thank you for your Word this morning. As hard it may be to hear and receive, may the Word you have given us dwell deep within our hearts, and continue to guide and lead our church as a community returned and gathered together. In your holy name, we pray, Amen
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Scripture: Matthew 17:1-19 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)
17 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Let us pray: Light of light, True God of true God, as you spoke from the bright cloud to Jesus and his disciples, may your Word live through us today. Amen. My husband’s last name is Yamamoto. The surname, Yamamoto, is derived from the place name “Yamamoto,” which can be found throughout Japan. “Yamamoto” means “at the foot of the mountain,” and is given as a place name in such places. Families who settled in the Yamamoto area took the surname Yamamoto. (Yamamoto = the origin or the foot of the mountain.) Since I am mentioning mountains, to begin my sermon today I’d like to show you some beautiful pictures of mountains. Maybe you could guess where some of these mountains are located? Kurohime Mountain, Nojiri-ko in Nagano — photos taken by Rev. Tim Boyle Mount Rokkō Kobe has lots of mountains and I live close to the mountains in Sumiyoshidai. I enjoy looking at mountains and when I look at them, I am reminded of this verse in Psalm 121:1, “I lift up my eyes to the hills (mountains) - where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.” I find it interesting that so many important events in the Bible happened on mountains. Mountains have held great significance for both Jewish and Christian cultures and were considered to be places that were “close to God.” I googled “mountains in the Old Testament and in the New Testament” and learned several things... such as the fact that mountains are mentioned more than 500 times in the Bible, and that about one-third of the mountains listed in Scriptures have had at least one major event occur on them. Here are a few examples of these places and events: Mount Ararat (where Noah’s ark rested after the flood), Mount Moriah (where Abraham was called to offer his son Isaac), Mount Sinai (where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments), Mount Horeb (where Moses saw a burning bush) Mount Nebo (where Moses saw the promised land), Mount Gerizim (where God was to pronounce blessings to the Jewish people and where it was a sacred place to the Samaritans), Mount Carmel (where Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal), Mount Zion (where God was said to dwell in the O.T. and the location of God’s spiritual kingdom in the N.T.), Mount of Olives (where Jesus went to pray before his crucifixion), Mount Calvary (which is also called Golgotha and where Jesus offered his life for us), and Mount Tabor also called the Mount of Transfiguration which was most likely the mountain we read about in today’s scripture reading. Some scholars disagree, however, and say the Transfiguration actually happened on Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in the region.) In any case, the mountain is not specifically named in today’s scripture. Maybe you can do your own research and decide, but it doesn’t really matter to my own faith which mountain it was. Still... it is interesting to learn the history of the mountains in the Bible. Some of you know the Amy Grant song, El Shaddai. (The refrain can be found in our hymn book, #123.) “El” comes from the word “Elohim,” which refers to God, or Yahweh, the holy name of God. The root word for “Shaddai” is “shaddu,” which means “mountain.” So, El Shaddai literally means: “God of the Mountain.” This has significance for today’s message. Today, is Transfiguration Sunday and we learn Jesus went up the mountain to talk to God. There, on the mountain, Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36) all describe the Transfiguration, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it (2 Peter 1:16–18). The Transfiguration is a defining moment in the life of Jesus that would come to determine the course of his mission to the world. From that point on, Jesus and his disciples are heading toward Jerusalem to the coming death and resurrection of Jesus. Transfiguration Sunday is celebrated immediately before Ash Wednesday (February 22 this year) which marks the beginning of Lent where, for forty days, we journey with Jesus to the cross and we prepare for the celebration of Easter. What do you think of the Transfiguration? I think that the Transfiguration was an amazing miracle. This miracle is unique among other miracles because it appears that this miracle happened to Jesus himself. But to really understand the Transfiguration, we have to go back six days (Matt. 17:1) from the Transfiguration, back several days in the life of Jesus and his disciples. Before going up the mountain with Peter, James, and John, Jesus had asked the disciples about his identity, “Who do people say that I am?” “Well, Jesus, some call you John the Baptist, and others call you Elijah or one of the prophets.” Jesus then asked, “Ok, but who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Messiah.” Jesus then taught his disciples about his impending death, and predicted his resurrection. Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Why did Jesus go up to the top of the mountain? Maybe Jesus needed some time away — a retreat. He may have been exhausted and in need of a little rest. If we go back and read earlier on in scripture up to Chapter 9, we see how he had been quite busy... traveling all over Galilee, healing, casting out demons, preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God. He also had raised a young girl from the dead, fed over 5,000 people and had even calmed a storm in the middle of a lake. He may have just chosen to get away from the crowds and to find a quiet place where he felt he could rest and pray to God. For this ascent, Jesus doesn’t go alone. He takes up the mountain with him, Peter, James and John. The disciples wait below for Jesus below and then see Jesus as he is transfigured before their very eyes. They see that Jesus’ clothes become “dazzling white” and that Jesus becomes radiant. They see on either side of Jesus, Elijah and Moses, both standing there with him. Then Peter says, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tents for you.” (Some Bible translations say “dwellings” or “altars” instead of tents). “Let’s make one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” No sooner are the words out of his mouth, than scripture tells us, “Suddenly, a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a great voice: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ And when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus alone.” Theologian Frederick Buechner says: “It is as strange a scene as there is in the Gospels. Even without the voice from the cloud to explain it, they had no doubt what they were witnessing. It was Jesus of Nazareth. But it was also the Messiah, the Christ, in his glory. It was the holiness of the man shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it they were almost blinded.” The disciples had an amazing experience; so amazing and wonderful that they wanted to stay up on the mountain. It would have been nice to stay on the top of the mountain. But once you have reached the summit, you cannot stay there and eventually you have to come down the mountain. Imagine you are on that mountain and then you turn to go back down. As you descend from the mountain to the valley below, you may notice along the way things that you didn’t notice as you were rushing up. This could include the landscape, the flowers and small living creatures that are part of God’s creation. The path might be difficult to walk – some parts might be dirty, rocky or slippery as you go down, but God will help us down the path. God is with you. Trust in him. Listen to him. Imagine with me, that once we reach the bottom of the mountain, it might not be as beautiful. We are not up in the pretty clouds anymore. The valley could represent our everyday life and hardships. But we should realize that mountains don’t exist without the valleys between them. Even Jesus knew that a return to the valley was imminent, and in verse 6, he told the disciples to “Get up.” He knew that they couldn’t stay on the mountain but that he and the disciples were to return to the work in the valley and do that which God had chosen for them to do. The Transfiguration was a special experience of grace that would strengthen the apostles’ faith for the challenges they would later endure. The disciples were told to listen to Jesus. But do we need to go to the mountain to find God and listen to God? Perhaps there are times when we need to be in a place with no distractions so that we can hear God’s voice. Is that true for you or not? Rest assured that God is with us everywhere – on the mountaintop and in the valley below, but we might have times in our lives where we simply need a place where we can focus and listen while we pray. It can simply be a quiet place. In one of my earlier sermons, I talked about a Prayer Room and I showed you a clip from the Christian movie “War Room” where the woman in the movie used a closet as her prayer sanctuary. So, you may need a quiet place to pray – it could be outside in the park or even in your car. You can pray anywhere and everywhere and with each breath you take, but there are times when having a place without distractions is also nice. You could find a place where you might practice what is known as “soaking prayer” in a place where you can rest in the Lord and dedicate yourself to God. It is there, where you let the Holy Spirit soak though you, and where you can experience an intimacy with God. Jesus needed the mountaintop at that time of his life. We need different things at different times in our lives. Sometimes we will be alone, and sometimes we will be with a group of people. The mountain or the valley; alone or with others - God is with us and God’s love is pouring over us. When and where have you had mountaintop experiences? I would be interested in hearing your stories. These “mountaintop” experiences often happen in our daily walk with Jesus. It might be a wonderful worship experience or a retreat. I know when I go away to a women’s retreat, I often come back renewed. For some of you, it might be your prayer time, attending Sunday School, singing or hearing a wonderful hymn or a song that touches you, or attending the “Praise for Jesus” service, or our Sunday Praise Worship, or when we have Holy Communion. Or maybe a mountaintop experience happens outside of the church when meeting a special friend for lunch, or even during a quiet time of prayer. It may, perhaps, be a time you are helping someone — maybe when you are out handing out food to the homeless... or handing out Bibles to people. Or, it might be a time when you listen to someone in need and can help them. I recall once when a friend was healed of a tumor through prayer, and how that was a mountaintop experience for not only her but for me as well to have witnessed this healing! When our prayers are answered, they can make us feel like we are on a mountain of hope and love. How does it feel to have a mountaintop experience? Maybe it feels like a little bit of heaven? We are given glimpses of grace – and maybe these are glimpses of heaven in our lives. We are blessed with these transfigured moments and mountaintop prayers. Praying is oftentimes a mountaintop experience. If you happen to cry while praying, your tears connect you with the Holy Spirit pouring over you and cleansing you. I would wish to remind you that we, the pastors at KUC, will always pray with and for you. People serving on Council along with others in KUC will also pray with you and for you. We also have a KUC Prayer List in our newsletter so please contact the pastors for prayer whenever it is needed. Like the disciples, we are called to listen to Jesus. We may have mountaintop experiences, but we also have to be connected to the reality of life in the valley. These mountaintop events are not meant to isolate us from others but rather, to connect us to others. Jesus understood this importance of connectedness to people, so when he descended from the mountain, what he saw was the crowd... and Jesus turned to the crowds to help them. Now when we hear the word “crowd,” we often think of something like a “group of many people,” but the “crowd” in the Bible is a bit different. A Biblical crowd is a group of people, but it is often made up of 'the poor', 'the afflicted', 'the sick', 'those who have pain in their lives,’ and those who need healing. The crowds that gathered to hear Jesus, or the crowds that followed him were people who were suffering from some kind of problem, or were in distress. These were people who may not be having mountaintop experiences at this time in their lives and they desperately needed Jesus. They needed God’s love. They needed to be connected to him in the valley. We are called to work in the valleys — where the rest of our brothers and sisters are. Those folk who need us - and whom we need - are meant to be whole and complete. In the valley and on the mountain, God’s love is always present with us.We share that love with others. We can share God’s love and experience transfigured moments all around us. For my friend Carol Sack, a Lutheran missionary in Tokyo, these holy moments are when she is helping someone. She will play her pastoral harp for people in a hospice, for the homeless, in hospitals, and in worship. Her mountaintop experience is when she plays her harp for others in need. Doing service for others and showing God’s love this way is a mountaintop experience but it is done in the valley. God is with us in both places and while transforming us. I pray that we can have a faith – “a transforming and renewing faith” that leads us to minister to others in service. We, ourselves, can not only be changed or transformed, but also rejuvenated by these experiences. Bishop Tutu said these transformative words, “God places us in a world as his fellow workers — agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so that there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God’s world.” How have you been transfigured or changed since becoming a Christian? Are there times you hear God’s voice? Are there times you don’t? In times of trouble and suffering, it might be a challenge to hear God until we come out of the trouble, even if we know that God is with us. This is where we need others to help us and pray for us. We may feel that we are lost in the valley, but the Lord is our Shepherd who guides us and finds us even when we feel lost in the valley. He restores us. (Psalm 23) Listening to Jesus and following Jesus is the message of the Transfiguration for us to remember today. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on February 22. Next Sunday, February 26, we celebrate the First Sunday of Lent. Lent is our time to listen to God and to hear God more clearly. The six weeks of Lent are a journey as we grow closer to Christ who is our light and hope. We know the great and wonderful love that God has for us will transfigure us. May we all go into this Lenten season finding ways to grow closer to God. I pray we can listen to God’s voice on our Lenten journey. We know that on mountaintops and in deep valleys, Jesus is the light of the world and his light guides us. Let us pray: Luminous God and Giver of all good things, help us to continue to hear and to see, and to do and be - all that you would have us hear and see and do and be. Help us to see the light of Christ in others and to be the light of Christ to all whom we meet. May we walk in the light and truth in the valleys, in the mountains, and wherever you would have us go. In the blessed name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. --------------- El Shaddai (lyrics) by Amy Grant El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El-Elyon na Adonai, Age to age You're still the same, By the power of the name. El Shaddai, El Shaddai, Erkamka na Adonai, We will praise and lift You high, El Shaddai. Let us pray. Lord, let the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts together this morning be pleasing in your sight O God. You are our rock and redeemer. In your holy name, we pray, Amen.
I really like the song we sang at the beginning of the service today. Here are the lyrics that we sang. “Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart.” “Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart.” “Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart.” This simple song and lyrics really hit me, and make me realize that I really need God in order to be this way - more loving and more holy, being like Jesus in my heart - because on my own, I can’t. Today’s Scripture reading is a tough one, isn’t it? I usually follow the lectionary - the assigned reading plan that goes along with the Christian calendar -when I preach, and when I looked at what was assigned for this Sunday, the first reaction I had was “Oh no. Shoot. I definitely do not want to preach on this!” Do you know why that might be? Full disclosure, I have not really mastered what Jesus is asking in today’s scripture passage. Sometimes, I really do get angry at my family in Christ. Sometimes I even insult them. Sure, I don’t think I do it in a visible, public way, but I have definitely done so privately; in my heart, and yes, I have used bad words to describe others. And, perhaps even worse than that, sometimes I don’t even think anything about it at all. Sometimes what I’ve done doesn’t even register until I’ve read God’s word again, because I get just so accustomed to the worldly, human ways in which we handle relationships. When you have trouble with another person, how do you handle it? Or what do your friends or family tell you that you ought to do, when you’re having a conflict with someone? For me, the big example of this in my life was about 15-20 years ago, when there was someone who I really struggled to like and appreciate; my new, soon-to-be stepmother. Oh it would be nice if I could describe her as some sort of Disney-like evil stepmother, if there were something about her that I could blame for my own anger and evil feelings, but the truth is that there wasn’t anything really unkind that she did or said that I struggled with. The truth is, she was - and is - a very nice person. It wasn’t her that I struggled with at all, but the nature of our relationship that I was struggling with. You see, I wasn’t emotionally ready for my dad to get married again. I couldn’t process all the painful and complex emotions that were rising up within me, so I put that all on her. I thought to myself, “it’s ok not to like her. How could I like her? I’m still grieving the death of my mother, and I am not at all ready for this next step in their relationship. It is OK,” I thought, “to hold bitter feelings towards her. I deserve to hold this bitterness for her.” I shared my feelings with my friends, and they even agreed with me. “Shoganai,” they said; It cannot be helped. After all, if Disney has taught us anything, stepmother relationships never seem to work, right? It was a long time before I began to realize that God was asking me to live a different way. Over a few years, as I held these heavy and bitter feelings towards her I sensed, deep in my heart, that this was not really OK. The ways in which I was feeling and acting were not right, especially in the eyes of a God who tells us to love always. But no matter what my heart said, no matter what my God said…I didn’t want to admit it. So, I spent a long time telling myself that I was the victim, that my feelings were totally understandable and excusable because they had hurt me; that by deciding to remarry, because I had suddenly been left out of my own family. I confess that, back in those days, I did not really read the Bible all that regularly, so God’s teaching about being angry with someone else, about insulting someone else, about saying bad words to another person, these things didn’t really sink into my head or my heart. “Ok,” I thought, “So what if I don’t like her? It’s not that big of a deal. After all, I am not actively hurting her.” But, of course, God does not think that way, Because God is merciful. God continues to present us with opportunities to learn, to grow, to train, and to become more like Jesus. Because of my hard-heartedness and self-righteousness, it took about 3 years before I was able to bring myself to face this hurt and anger within myself. I finally realized that the feelings I was holding on to, the feelings I had allowed to take root in my heart and my soul, were not OK and, as a result, I was not living the way God was calling me to live. And, in the perfect timing that God always seems to have, I was given not just the realization that I needed to reconcile, but an opportunity to put that reconciliation into practice. At the time, I was still living in America, but my step-mother was living in Japan. But despite the distance, God gave me the chance to meet her and speak with her at my grandmother’s funeral. After all the business of the funeral had ended, and it was just our family remaining at my grandmother’s home, I came to her and apologized for the ways in which I had been feeling towards her. I knew that, even if I hadn’t been obviously acting on my bitter feelings, she must have sensed that I had difficulties with her. So, I shared with her all that I had been feeling honestly. I told her that it wasn’t her in particular, but the fact that someone other than my mother had taken that place within my father’s life, which was hard for me to handle. And I apologized, said that I was sorry for the way I had acted around her. She said she understood how I must have felt. She said we are a family, so after all of this we can try to support one another. “You have heard that it was said to those ancient times, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council. If you say, ‘you fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22) Jesus here is giving a warning. Jesus is saying that if you think God’s commandment is only about the act of murder, and if you simply…don’t kill anyone, then you’ll be fine…you’re wrong. God does not differentiate between bigger and smaller sins. God holds those who are angry with another, those who insult another, to the same standard as someone who murders another person. Now this might seem excessive, but let’s remember the fundamental core idea at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It isn’t about following everything he says literally and precisely. It’s not about making sure we are following the letter of the law when it comes to the commandments of God. That isn’t Jesus’ point at all because, as you might remember, that’s the exact way the Scribes and Pharisees were following God’s law! The Scribes and the Pharisees approached the Word of God like a checklist for better living. “Ok,” they thought, “If I don’t kill people, don’t commit adultery, carry out my vows, and love my neighbor (but not necessarily my enemies), and do only those things, then I will be off the hook from God’s judgment, and should be able to walk right on in to God’s heavenly kingdom!” But Jesus clarifies in Matthew 5 that this isn’t what God means at all. Jesus says that he has come to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17), and that means embracing the fullness, the fundamental depth of God’s law. God’s law isn’t about the specific list of things you can or can’t do to another person; God’s law is about the perfecting and refining of our hearts. Our souls. Even if you hold anger for someone in ways that aren’t really obvious, even if you don’t insult them in public, even if you don’t toss around bad words to describe others, if the condition of your heart is salty, such that you act against others rather than for them, you are going to be held to the same standard by God as someone who commits murder. It’s a higher standard, yes, but as believers in Christ we are called to fulfill that higher standard, to live not in a worldly way, but in a way that fulfills and accomplishes God’s law. The world might tell you that it’s ok to hold on to your saltiness for others. Your friends, your co-workers, even your family might say there’s no problem being angry; that there’s nothing wrong with bad-mouthing someone just because they bad-mouthed you. The people surrounding you may urge you to embrace your hurt and anger, your friends and even your fellow church-goers might gossip along with you, but that isn’t the way. THAT IS NOT GOD’S WAY. We will be liable for these things. We will be held accountable by God, just as we should be held accountable by God’s community too, just as today’s Scripture reading tells us. But… you know what? It’s so hard! Especially when you think that you have done nothing wrong, just like I did with my step-mother earlier. When I was holding on so tightly to all my bitter feelings, which I thought were for her but were really more about their marriage itself, I kept thinking to myself, “I am not in the wrong here. I am not the one who remarried. It’s them. They should have approached me. They should have been kind to me, and not the other way around.” But when we look again at today’s scripture, we can see it plainly; as believers in God, as followers of Christ Jesus, we are held to a higher standard. Even when we think we are wronged, even when we think we are attacked, even when we think we are the victim, we don’t get to be angry with our accusers, insult them, or tear them down. And this gets even harder when we are the ones who truly were offended, attacked, bad-mouthed and torn down. This is something I’ve screwed up myself many, many times, and this is why I am so thankful for the mercy that God shows in verses 23-25. God knows that human relationships are hard. God knows that sometimes, we just don’t get along. God knows that sometimes we just don’t like some people. God knows that sometimes our relationships become so bitter, and even hostile, that we stop even talking to each other. And this is what God says. “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift. ” (Matthew 5:23-24) How amazing is that Jesus continues on past what is right and wrong, and shows us how to handle things when we get it wrong. How well God knows us! This means that our God realizes that we are imperfect followers of the law, that God realizes that we can, and will screw up. Even better, this means that our God realizes that there are times where we aren’t even aware that we’re failing to follow God’s law faithfully. This is why the verse continues here, why we are reminded that when the inevitable happens, when we are reminded of the broken condition of our hearts, we need to take action. We need to go and be reconciled to each other. (Matthew 5:24) The word “reconciled” here, by the way, refers to a mutual making up. It means a changing of everyone’s hearts from places of hostility to places of peace. And I want to emphasize, again, that this reconciliation is mutual in nature. It’s not enough that one person simply releases their feelings of hostility towards the other, not enough to pray forgiveness in your heart and walk away assuming that the case is over. What Jesus is telling us here is that the work of mutual reconciliation requires an end to hostilities, and the beginning of a true and just peace between people. And that is VERY hard work indeed! But the message of Christ is this: Carry on. Don’t give up. Keep working on reconciliation, on the bringing of peace, right up to the very moment that it becomes official, and legal. Even on the way to the courthouse, you should be doing everything you can to come to terms with your accuser. (Matthew 5:25) Don’t give up. The world might tell you that it’s ok to give up on reconciliation, that you have a right to your anger. Your heart might tell you that you have done nothing wrong, that they have accused you and that, in doing so, they have brought this enmity upon themselves. But this is the worldly way. The Godly way is this: “Be reconciled to your brother or sister. Come to terms quickly with your accuser.” (Matthew 5:24-25) It is up to you to embrace God’s law, and take action towards a just, lasting, reconciliation between people. I hope you know that by no means am I good at practicing what I’m preaching today. Quite the opposite, in fact. Without God reminding me constantly, I could easily be an angry, sinful person who has no problem saying cruel or unkind words, so long as I say them behind another person’s back. Without God reminding me constantly, I could be a bitter, sinful person who feels that reconciliation is unnecessary if I’m not in the wrong. I could so easily forget that I am meant to be held to a higher standard in terms of the condition of my heart and my soul. I need to be on my guard, to keep bitterness from taking root in my heart, because that bitterness can quickly grow fruits of anger, insults, and badmouthing. And I am called today to remind our church family that we are given in Christ a law that guides us, and tells us how we are expected to treat one another. We are a people who are accountable to God and each other. If you see someone acting out in anger against another in our church, as a follower of Christ you should say or do something. If you hear someone insulting another in our church, as a follower of Christ you should say or do something. If you see or hear someone gossiping, bad-mouthing another person in public or behind their back, as a follower of Christ Jesus you should say or do something. But don’t just jump into action! First, as in all things, pray, so that you might discern how God wants you to bring it up. We have to remember that we are not God, and we are not called upon to bring judgment. We hold each other lovingly accountable, so that we can encourage each other to keep following God’s law, even if we keep screwing it up again, and again, and again. Even when we feel like giving up. God’s law is unchanging, a higher standard given to us that doesn’t leave room for bitterness, hate and hostility. So we shouldn’t be silent, and we shouldn’t be the voice telling our friends and family in Christ that it’s ok to remain angry, that our insults or gossip/badmouthing are justified because of the hurt we have endured. When we witness that, and we will witness it throughout our Christian lives, we need to ask God what our role is in helping reconciliation to come into this place. We all know that God’s law is clear. Anger, gossip, and cruel and insulting words are not for us to do. But we also know that we just can’t do it. We all fail at this, because it is the very nature of our humanity to be imperfect like this. So we need to be there for our family in Christ. When we see people struggling with relationships, we shouldn’t just tell them “as a Christian you can’t act like that.” They know! Probably just as well as we know, but they’re struggling, and in need of our help, our love, and our support. The community that I fully believe God desires for us to be is one where we hold each other accountable with love. It means understanding the difficult path we walk in living up to this higher standard, praying with each other and encouraging each other so that we can join together in the hard work of building relationships together, being friends together, and becoming a reconciled people together, in the sight of God. This is the community I believe God wants us to be; the community I believe we can be, so long as we embrace the higher standard God has set for us, and face the challenges of reconciliation together with mercy and love for ourselves, for one another, and for our enemies too. Let us pray. Lord have mercy on us. We are a people who always seem to want to live in the ways the world tempts us to live, but we thank you for showing us that there is a different, better way to live. Be with us Lord, be patient with us, and help us never to give up on your call to reconciliation among your people. In your holy name we pray, Amen. Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts together this morning be pleasing in your sight O God. You are the one who blesses us. Teach us what it means to be blessed by you. In your holy name we pray, Amen.
As many of you already know, I became a Christian in my early 20’s and, at the time, I kept coming across a word that was being used a lot, but which I had never heard before; “blessing”. (SLIDE 1) I heard my Christian friends use this word all the time, and I noticed that sometimes people would write “blessings” as a way of signing off at the end of letters and emails. Since “blessing” seemed to be such a common word in the Christian community, once I became a Christian myself I started to use the word too. I would say “blessings to you,” when my friends and I parted ways, or I would say things like “I am blessed to have you in my life!”, or “I had such a blessed time!” Knowing how common this word is in our community here too, I imagine many of you have similar experiences when it comes to using this word. So, I want to ask you all a question; If you were given the phrase “I am truly blessed….” just like you see on the screen (SLIDE 2), and asked to complete the sentence, what would you write down? (pause) Don’t worry, we’re not going to have a quiz or anything! But, if you don’t mind, I’ll share some of the things that came to my mind.
I’m sure I could think of even more to add to this if I have time, but I think you get the idea. Let’s go back to the first slide we looked at together (SLIDE 1). Now if you look at the word “blessings” up on the slide, you might notice how it’s made up out of the word “count.” This is something we often hear people say, “count your blessings,” right? When we think of blessings, whether we do it intentionally or not, we often tend to think about them numerically. We count our blessings, and when we do, we often say that they’re too numerous to count. If we make a list of blessings, listing all the ways that we are blessed, I’m guessing that, for some of you, that would be a pretty long list. It might contain the number of friends you have, the number of children you have, the amount of money you earn or have saved, your degree (or degrees), job titles you’ve earned, the area you live, the type of house you live in, places you’ve been able to travel, or the victories of your partner, spouse, or children. We are Christians, so of course we don’t attribute these things to our own goodness. This is why we don’t brag, why we don’t walk around talking about how we deserve these things, but instead attribute them to God, and God’s kindness to us. I am blessed to have all these things by God! But, I want us to take a moment now to pause and think. Are the things we have what blessings are really all about? Let me put it another way, if having all these things are blessings, what about the people who don’t have these things? What about people who do not have a stable family, children, money, a secure job or a luxurious house? What about people who do not have a good marriage, or well behaved kids, or good friends or community? If you fall into this category, does that mean you are not blessed by God? Well why don’t we take a look at the gospel of Matthew, and see what Jesus says about blessings, shall we? Today’s chapter comes during the early stages of Jesus’ ministry. In chapter before today’s reading, in Matthew Chapter 4, we hear about the very beginnings of Jesus ministry. After he overcame the temptations in the wilderness, he called the very first disciples - Peter, Andrew, James, and John - and told them to leave their lives as fishermen and follow him instead. (Matthew 4:1-22) After that, he went around throughout Galilee, teaching and preaching the good news. He cured diseases and sickness among the people, (Matthew 4:23) becoming famous as a healer and a miracle worker. People brought all manner of sick people to him, and Jesus cured them all, and great crowds began to follow him. (Matthew 4:24-25). Think about that, for just a minute. What does your heart tell you about a situation like this? All these people who were sick, suffering with pain and disease, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics - all of them were cured! (Matthew 4:24) You might even consider them blessed, because they received a cure for their suffering from God, right? But according to Jesus, that is not how he defines blessedness at all. He does not refer to the cure as a blessing, nor to those who he had healed as blessed. So then the question remains then, who was it that Jesus did call blessed? Let’s take a look at what he said. Matthew chapter 5 starts with what is called “ Beatitudes.” It is a collection of sayings by Jesus that starts with, “Blessed are….” And the very first blessed people Jesus mentions are the poor in spirit. Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” (Matthew 5:3) Now the Greek word used here, which we translate as “blessed” is makarios, which more closely translates to “happy” or “fortunate.” (SLIDE 3). In ancient times, this word makarios meaning blessedness, was often used to describe someone as being free from the hardships and difficulties of life, someone who is so lucky that they don’t have a single care in the world. That would mean, of course, that the most “blessed” people in the world would be the most educated, those with the most wealth or resources. While we might not necessarily use “blessed” that way in English, it’s important to know that Jesus did understand it as being used this way, as it was used in Greek-speaking communities at the time. Knowing that, it becomes all the more powerful to realize that here, in Matthew 5, Jesus is using the word “blessed”in a whole new different way. Jesus says “Blessed are all those who are going through difficulties, challenges, and hardships. Wow, great, congratulations!” Think about that now, for a moment! Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit, and those who mourn (Matthew 5:3-4). This means that those most deserving of celebration are the broken-hearted people, those who push on for righteousness, those who show mercy, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted (Matthew 5:5-10). Jesus tells us that those who have to do all those hard things are worthy of congratulations. Being meek, pursuing righteousness, being merciful, being pure in heart, being a peacemaker, being persecuted, none of these things are easy and, because they aren’t easy, we never tend to think of them as being blessings. These are the things that Jesus wanted to teach us at the very beginning of his ministry, the things he thought were so important that he needed to bring them up first, even before sending the disciples out to do God’s work. As many of you know, my mother died unexpectedly when I was 21. I was devastated, and became severely depressed as I struggled with this loss. As a result, I was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Missouri (since I was living in the U.S. at the time), and I stayed there for a few weeks until I recovered. Now I imagine that many of you don’t really know what a psychiatric hospital in America is like, so allow me to share a little bit. Usually, the care and treatment of each patient is a team effort, involving psychiatrists, nurses, and social workers, and each one of these people has a check-in with the patient every day. One day, I had my regular check in with one of the psychiatrists assigned to me. He asked me how I had been doing, and I told him honestly what I had been reflecting on since I had arrived. I told him that, in the hospital, I had met a kind of people who I had never imagined meeting otherwise. I was going to college in the US at the time and, until that point, the type of people I encountered were mostly students, professors, and other reputable individuals with education, titles, and degrees. Most of my classmates had been raised by the sort of well-off families who could afford to send them to a private, all-girls college - myself included - but here in the psychiatric hospital, there were alcoholics and drug addicts, there were poor people, suffering people, people with crooked teeth and thinned hair, people who spoke differently, and carried themselves differently from all those I had interacted with in America up until that time. In that space, I realized that I had been in a much better place in my life, if I compared my life to theirs. I had family, I was receiving a good education, and I never struggled with money growing up. Compared to the people around me in that place, I was far better off; my blessings were numerous, while they struggled to count but a few. Seeing all this, I told my psychiatrist that by all accounts I should consider myself happy, because I had all these things that so many others did not. But when I told him that, he said, “Why are you thinking like that? It is not about comparing your happiness with that of others. It’s not about your pain being somehow more or less than the pain of others. Not many 21 year olds lose their mothers like this. Your pain is valid. Your pain should be embraced. Your pain should not be minimized.” In that moment, something clicked in me. For the first time, I felt like I was able to truly understand the depth of my grief as it existed within me, rather than how it existed in comparison to others. I felt like screaming out to the world in desperation, “I am hurt! I don’t know what to do! Someone help me!” In that moment, I had truly become poor in spirit. (Matthew 5:3) That word “poor” used here in Greek - the language of the New Testament - means absolute poverty. It is the type of poverty where no amount of working can drag you out from this level of poverty; you can only beg for help, waiting for someone or something else to provide you a way out because there is absolutely nothing you can do to work your way out of this level of poverty. When Jesus mentions the poor and spirit, he’s not talking about people who are just out of their spiritual luck; he’s describing people whose hearts are worn out with so much hurt and sadness that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can ease their pain; no material, no resources, no amount of rest or recuperation, no minimizing their pain by comparing it to someone who seems to have gone through something worse. Nothing can save the truly poor in spirit. Nothing that is, except our triune God. After my conversation with the psychiatrist, I stopped comparing my pain with that of others, and started trying to allow myself to be sad and hurt. I allowed myself to be poor in spirit, to embrace the fact that nothing would work, and that I couldn’t find my way out without help. I was given a notebook to write in, to keep track of my thoughts and feelings, and I just kept writing “Please help. This is too painful.” Now I have shared this part of the story before, so I imagine some of you already know, but it was at this point, my darkest moment, when a nurse found me sobbing uncontrollably, and sat down at my bedside with the words that would change my life. She said to me, “It’s ok. You are gonna be ok. You will be happy again. Everything happens for a reason and God will not give you more than you can handle.” “I will be happy again because God will show me a way?” I thought to myself. It was at that moment I felt there might actually be a light at the end of the tunnel. I felt God reached down, and started pulling me out when I couldn’t do it myself. In that moment, I was truly blessed. Of course, my 21-year-old mind which hadn’t yet met Christ couldn’t really understand ideas like grief, happiness/blessedness, and God. I couldn’t grasp how they fit together in the same sentence, and I definitely couldn’t understand how the deep and abiding poverty crushing my heart could in any way co-exist with even the idea of happiness. This was the very beginning of my journey with God. I found God and God found me when I allowed myself to be poor in spirit, when I realized that there was nothing else to do but to ask for help, nothing else left that I could count on; nothing but sheer desperation. I don’t know about you, but don’t you feel a little weird about how the passage talking about salt and light comes right after the beatitudes? What kind of relationship could there even be here? Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn…blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:3,4 and 11) And then, suddenly, he says “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?” (Matthew 5:13) Wait what? I have to admit, I couldn’t figure out how salt could lose its saltiness, so I turned to Google to try and figure it out. Basically, salt doesn’t really ever lose its taste. Salt is one of the most basic mineral compounds, and it doesn’t have an expiration date. There is, however, one condition in which salt can expire, to lose its taste, and to become “un-salty.” You see, salt is good AS LONG AS you do not mix it with something else. The type of salt you see in the store - table salt for instance - is salt that has been mixed with additives that prevent it from clumping (SLIDE 4). And while the salt on its own will not decay, over time those additives will degrade, leaving you with tasteless, useless salt. When we try to make ourselves look good, to keep our salt from clumping by hiding the fact that we’re overwhelmed and stressed, that we’re truly and deeply grieving, that we’re so desperate in our hearts; when we do not allow ourselves to be poor in spirit, we lose the chance to meet God in a truly transforming way. We stop being salty. We stop being salty when we try to become more than the salt we were made to be, when we try to make ourselves look better than the salt God made us to be by avoiding all that uncomfortable and painful clumping that salt naturally does. We lose our taste, and lose our ability to be what God made us to be in the first place: good, simple, plain salt. This is the blessing of salt. The blessing that comes when we stop hiding how truly desperate we are in the innermost depths of our hearts. When we stop minimizing the depths of our suffering, when we stop comparing ourselves with others and just allow ourselves to embrace who we are in the midst of our pain; God meets us there. God meets us there and blesses us most when we are poor in spirit, when we are mourning, when we are suffering, and when we stop trying to pretend that we are not. Our saltiness comes when we own our brokenness, and allow ourselves to be visible, and vulnerable in that brokenness. Be real about the condition of your soul; embrace the poverty of your spirit (SLIDE 5), and let your authentic, salty self shine out for all the world to see (SLIDE 6),(Matthew 5:15 and 16) But it’s not just us as individuals who experience salty moments in our lives, times in which we must allow our struggles to be brought to light. Our whole church as a community can experience these moments together; times when we can all embrace the brokenness we go through in life and allow God to give us the blessing of salt, so that we can shine all the brighter and give light not just to the whole house, but to the whole community around us. Last Sunday, right here in worship, we all prayed together for one of our members who was present, because we were guided to pray by the Holy Spirit. This too, was God’s blessing of salt; embracing the vulnerability of being prayed over by God’s community, not hiding our struggles or challenges; all these things are blessings. By allowing God’s light to shine through our brokenness, struggles, and our challenges, those who are prayed for and those who are praying; all are blessed, touched by the presence of God in our midst. Do you think we are a blessed church? If you measure blessedness in terms of numbers of people sitting in the pews, numbers of people attending Sunday School or other small groups, or even the amount of money we take in by tithes every week - as important as that is to the life and ministry of our church - if we measure in terms of these things, we are missing the point of today’s scripture completely. The blessing that Jesus is talking about, comes from embracing our poverty of spirit. How desperately, truly, and completely do we seek God’s face, and ask for God’s help in and among us? Are we all sharing the true condition of our lives with each other, allowing ourselves to be prayed over and loved by God and community? Do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, poor in spirit, so that we might retain our saltiness and be blessed by God as our vulnerability lights the way for all around us? These are blessings that do not show up in statistics, data, or numbers. But these are the things that can tell us if our church is truly blessed by God, or not. I want to encourage you today, and throughout this week, to ask the Holy Spirit to help you open up, to be vulnerable in your places of struggle, and to embrace the ways in which we struggle together as a community as well. Whatever that is, let us open ourselves up to the depths of our hearts, and allow ourselves, and our community, to be prayed for. A blessed church is poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let us pray. Lord, thank you for the blessing of being poor in spirit. Help our church to be truly blessed. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. |
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May 2024
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