Forest for the Trees: Sermon Luke 13:10-17

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

The Church is in trouble. I do not mean just our church, but the entire Christian community. The United Methodist Church as well as many other mainline Protestant Churches has steadily declined in membership over the last 30 years. The United Methodist Church which once the most populous and active denominations in America, having 11 million strong have declined to just under 8 million. The problem is not just on the books, but in the churches themselves. A church might have 300 members, but only 80 or 90 attending on any given Sunday and of those 80 or 90 maybe 20% are active in ministries outside Sunday morning worship. If you were to ask Americans whether or not they believe in God around 90% would say yes and yet only 25% of Americans attend church regularly.

Why is this the case? Why do people stay at home on Sunday mornings rather than fill our pews? Some just don’t want to get up; some would rather watch TV or go to late brunch. Some others spend the day working on things that they did not get done earlier in the week. The Sabbath day has lost its meaning in America. However, there are other reasons why people do not attend church. Some have been hurt by someone in the church. Maybe it was a priest or pastor; perhaps it was a Sunday school teacher or just another member. Others do not like what they call “organized religion”. They do not feel that they need to come to Church to experience God. I have asked many people “what do think about church?” I have gotten answers like, “I was made to go to Church when I was a kid and so now that I am grown I don’t want to go.” “I am spiritual, but not religious.” Some see hypocrisy in the Church. They see pastors and preacher railing against all kinds of sin on Sunday morning and then committing those same sins later in the week.

How do we reach out to those who have left the Church or to those who do not trust the Church? One thing that we cannot do is to miss the forest for the trees. That is we cannot get so wrapped up in the everyday business of the Church that we forget to do the job of the Church. What is the job of the Church? To make disciples of Jesus Christ. All of us lose our focus from time to time. All of us have lost sight of our main goal as the Church. Now is the time to regain our focus and to renew ourselves as the pillar and cornerstone of our respective communities.

The folks in our story lost focus of the big picture. It was the Sabbath day, in the Jewish tradition held from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night. Where was Jesus? He was where he always spent Sabbath, at the Synagogue. He has going along teaching and preaching God’s word, when he noticed something or someone. A woman had entered the synagogue. It was not the fact she was a woman that struck Jesus, but the fact that she was hunched over almost at 90°.

She had been that way for 18 years, can you imagine? She was always late for service because it took her a long time to walk from home and she had no one there to help her. For 18 years she came and went, unnoticed by the other men in the synagogue. This day was different. Jesus came to her said “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” And he laid his hands on her and she was healed. The Bible says she had an evil spirit. Perhaps Luke was being literal or perhaps he meant a disease that crippled like and evil spirit, either way Jesus saw her and stopped what he was doing, right in the middle of the lesson and healed her. This was unique in two ways. One Jesus spoke to the woman, remember that women where considered second class citizens and no leader would dare talk to a woman. Second, Jesus healed on the Sabbath; both of these things were considered taboo.

The leader of the synagogue was indignant. He said “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” Here is a guy that can’t see the forest for the trees. The law was specific, there were certain things one could do and one could not do on the Sabbath. One could only carry a small amount or it was considered work. One could not cook or plow. It was a day of rest and it was a day that the Jewish people of the time held very sacred. Now the rest of the time was a different story, but the Sabbath was held to strict standards. This leader was so busy trying to obey God’s rules that he failed to see, for 18 years he failed to see, a woman in need of God.

Do we fail to see those who need the Church because we are too busy worrying about business of the Church? Can we not see the forest for the trees? The perception of Christian Church in America has changed in the last 20 years. Most of the Church is perceived to be the Religious Right or the Moral Majority. These are the men and women who see on the preaching channels. There the ones who get involved in Washington politics. Those people have narrowed the focus of the Church into two moral issues of today, homosexuality and abortion. Those are the two that everyone focuses on. You want to get folks riled up, start talking about homosexuality and abortion. We forget about everything else that God would have us do. Last election year we voted on an amendment to our state constitution that confirms that marriage is between one man and one woman. I saw one church sign afterwards that read “Congratulations! We have saved marriage.” Now I am not going to argue one side or the other that is not my point this morning. However think of this. The divorce rate in this country is about 50%. What that means is that 7.5 out of a 1,000 get married every year and about 3.6 out of 1,000 get divorce. I am not up here to preach against divorce, but if we are going to claim to be for the sanctity of marriage should we be as outraged about this statistic as some of us are about same sex unions. If we are going to save the sanctity of marriage we should begin by fixing this problem.

Also, abortion is a problem in this country. There are anywhere from 800,000 to over 1 million abortions performed in this country every year. That is 800,000 too many. We fight and scratch to make the procedure illegal. However, the real solution is to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. That is getting at the heart of the problem. That is a solution that does not demonize people, but lifts people, it educates people, and it helps to stop the problem from its very source.

The Church has to look beyond these two moral issues and once again be on the front lines for social justice. The biggest moral issue in our nation, in our world is poverty. Billions of people live on just a few cents a day. We should work as hard to eliminate poverty as we do on those two issues. If we narrow our focus we fail to see those in need who are right in front of our faces. The leader of the synagogue was so worried about keeping the Sabbath that he failed to meet the immediate need of one of God’s children right in front of him. Jesus did not fail to see. He heals the woman and after 18 years she stands upright and breathes a pain-free breath.

What does she do then? She begins to praise God unlike never before. Jesus reached out to her need and the woman’s reaction was praise and worship. This is what the Church should be doing, reaching out to those who are hurting. Do not condemn the gay person reaching out for help, but lift them up as a child of God. Do not condemn the pregnant teenager, but demonstrate God’s love to a worried soul. Do not ignore the poor among us in our very communities, but reach out with love. We are doing to do this and I want us to continue to do this. Ask someone, why don’t you come to church? They might say, “I was hurt long ago and the Church did nothing to help.” You can say “Come there is a home for you now.” They might say “I left the church because I felt too guilty.” You can say “Come, there is forgiveness and grace available to all.” When we do this an amazing thing will happen. Those who receive God’s healing, God’s forgiveness, God’s love will begin to rejoice in ways that we have not seen in many years.

We need to renew our commitment to reach out to all those who are in need. This is Jesus great commission. Go out into the world and make disciples of all the nations. The greatest need that people have in their lives is God’s love and a relationship with him. An absence of a relationship with God leaves people feeling empty, bitter, and crippled maybe not in the same way that the woman in our story was, but spiritually disabled. We know that God still loves them, God knows that he still loves them, but how will they know it if we don’t tell them? Don’t let anything stand in your way. Whether it is a Sunday or a Wednesday afternoon, sometimes all it takes is a word or a touch to heal someone who is hurting. Won’t you be they one to reaches out?

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sunday Morning Christian: Sermon Isaiah 1:10-20 and Luke 12:31-40

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

Most of us around these parts grew up on old country music. Even I, a child of the 1980s, can remember listening to Johnny Cash, the Chuck Wagon Gang, Boots Randolph, and Chet Adkins with my grandfather on an old record player. One great thing, especially about old country songs is the titles. You might remember such great songs like “If My Nose Were Full Of Nickels, I'd Blow It All On You”, “Her Teeth Were Stained, But Her Heart Was Pure”, “I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life”, “I Gave Her My Heart and a Diamond and She Clubbed Me with a Spade”, and who can forget the classic “Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life”. Now one of these old songs that I ran across this week is called “Sunday Morning Christian” and it was written by Harland Howard who wrote a lot of old country classics. Let me read some of the lyrics to you. Mr. Jones this car you sold me isn't all that I desired You swore it was young and healthy now I find it's old and tired But a deal's a deal you tell me and there's nothing to be done Mr. Jones I'd like you better if you robbed me with a gun You're a Sunday morning Christian sir singing louder than the rest Beg forgiveness at the altar with your chin down on your chest But tomorrow will be Monday you'll revert back to your ways Gougin' kickin' cheatin' shovin' with no thoughts of God or lovin' Don't let me stand in your way surely God will forgive you next Sunday. It is a simple song with a strong message. How many of us are guilty of being a Sunday morning Christian. We are all about God and justice and loving our neighbor and all the rest on Sunday morning, but by Tuesday afternoon we have forgotten all about our Christian beliefs and duties. I know I am guilty of it. Sometimes I forget during the week to do what I promise to do on Sunday morning and sometimes God reminds me in not so subtle ways that what I am doing doesn’t match up to what I was preaching or learning on Sunday.

Our Scripture lesson this morning talks about this kind of thing, about being godly on the surface but not in the heart. The lessons come from Isaiah and Luke and they are both warnings to the people, don’t pretend to worship God on the outside while you heart is in the wrong place. Don’t forget about your responsibilities as a child of God when you walk out the door.

Isaiah begins his prophecy by speaking to the people of Judah and Isaiah is not speaking on his own behalf but it is God who speaks through him. He calls the people of Judah the rulers and people of Sodom and Gomorrah. In other words the people have returned to the debauchery and ungodly behavior that was found in those two cities destroyed by God. Their behavior is sickening to God. Time after time God has saved them. God had brought the people abundance, a beautiful nation, years of peace and fruitfulness and for what, so the people could rebel against God’s teachings and laws. The people of Judah kept up appearances. They had their ceremonies, the made their sacrifices to God at the appointed times according to the law. They had the façade of Godly people, but their hearts were not towards God. They worshiped on the Sabbath day, but failed to serve God every other day. They made their sacrifices on the appointed days to make up for their behavior the rest of the time.

Do we do this today? Do we sing well on Sunday morning to make up for Saturday night? We might say to ourselves I can cheat someone a little bit this week, I’ll just put a little more in the plate on Sunday. I’ll serve on a committee to make up for the bad things I do during the week. God’s reaction to this kind of worship is the same now as it was at the time of Isaiah. God rejects it outright. God calls this kind of worship a burden, an abomination, and he is tired of it. He grows tired of worship without the heart of the people in the right place. He is tired of sacrifice without repentance. He grows tired of the same people wanting the same forgiveness without any intention of changing their lives. Worship is not on the outside. It is not about wearing a new dress or a new suit and tie. It is not about who puts the most money in the offering plate or who sings the loudest over everyone else. The kind of worship that God wants is true worship from the heart. God wants our hearts and our focus in the right place. Where is our focus this morning? Where is your heart?

We call the Sunday morning meeting time “worship”. I’m going to “worship” this morning. However, worship is not just one hour on Sunday morning. Being a Christian is a 24/7/365 lifestyle. So many times we think of being a Christian as something we do. We go to church, we give money, we help out our neighbor, we do this and that. But being a Christian is not something we do, but instead it is something we are. Let me repeat that being a Christian is not something we do but something we are. It is your life; it is something that is important and natural as breathing. Being a Christian means allowing God to affect every corner of your life, every decision that you make.

How do we worship God outside of church? Isaiah lists the ways. First, Isaiah tells the people to cease doing evil. This seems to be an obvious thing to do, cease to do evil, ok…fine. But this is much harder than it seems. We have to work on this every day. We have to purge ourselves of the bad habits we do. The evil in the world is not just the horrid atrocities we see on TV, but it is things like not helping another in need, or thinking of ourselves above others. Things like this are evil in the eyes of God as well.

What is the second thing? Learn to do good. Here again this seems like a simple thing, but often times it is the most difficult thing. If we look deeper at this we can see that it is more about an exchange or replacement than it is a stop and start. We replace the evil things with good things. We exchange a bad habit for a good one. Those who have ever had to quit smoking might have tried this method. Instead of smoking a cigarette you would take a walk, chew a piece of gum, drink a glass of water, or something good instead of smoking. The same is true here. We have to replace a bad habit with a good one.

Thirdly, we must rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. In other words, we must help those who cannot help themselves. We have a responsibility to help those who need help. I am so proud to be the pastor of a church who helps the community like we do. Our support of the Giles County Help Center allows them to help families all over the community. We should be proud of our accomplishments and continue our support of this great organization. We have also sent aid to help the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina; we have sent money to aid UMCOR in places all over the world. I thank you for all that you have done, but there is so much more left to be done. Remember as we help those who are in need, we are helping Christ. What we do to them we also do to Jesus. Our work is not just monetary in nature. We need to take action to let our government officials know that God calls for justice and prosperity for all people, not just for the elect few. We need to write letters expressing our Christian beliefs and most of all we need to keep our prayers flowing for those who need them.

The last way we worship God outside the church on Sunday mornings comes from our reading in Luke and that is to always be ready. We know that Christ is coming back and we need to be ready for his return. That is one way to look at that Scripture. Another way is to say always be ready to God’s work in the world. We should be prepared to act as God’s agents at a moments notice. Not just with food or money, but with a shoulder to cry on, and ear to listen with, and a hand to pick someone up. We never know who might need our help. Also, we should not put off until tomorrow what we can do today. Don’t put off love or forgiveness until later, we have to treat each day like it is our last, because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. If you have a beef with someone work it our, forgive one another. If there is someone who want to say “I love you” to, don’t put it off, do it today.

None of us are perfect and none of us do the right things all the time. We mess up, we make mistakes, we all fall short of the glory of God. Here is the good news for us. God still loves us and is always willing to forgive our mistakes. We are not left out in the cold, but we can always come back into the warmth of God’s love. Isaiah goes on to say that God is willing to forgive. Even though our sins are red as scarlet they will be wash clean as snow or the wool of a lamb. And more than this, God gives us renewed strength each day to make better choices. Jesus is our hope; we know that we are forgiven because we have the blessed assurance in the Lamb of God. Let us learn from our mistakes and try better in the future. Let us work hard not to be just a Sunday morning Christian, but to let the light of Christ shine from us all day and all night.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

You Can't Take It With You: Sermon Luke 12:13-21

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

I was on a trip to Washington DC about 15 years ago and on our way up there we stopped at a pottery and gift shop. While my mom and aunt and grandmother looked at the pottery I looked at postcards and shot glasses which I collect. I was looking for a postcard to send back home and I found one that caught my eye. It was a black and white picture of a hearse in a cemetery with a U-haul trailer hitched to the back. This was strange and so I flipped it over and the caption read “Who says you can’t take it with you when you go?”

We have heard that saying a lot, “you can’t take it with you”. However, our society acts as if the opposite is true. We work and work and save and save and buy and buy and collect and collect until we have a house, basement, garage, and storage until full of stuff. America is the land of stuff, gadgets and gizmos. If you are ever up late at night and watch the infomercials or turn to the home shopping channels you can buy anything from a flat screen TV to a motorized fishing pole and charge it to you credit card with 5 easy payments. We love stuff and we do not want to save and pay for it, we want it now. Luckily enough for us there are hundreds of banks and credit companies willing to send you a nice plastic card with your choice of football team, NASCAR driver, forest scene, or puppy dog on it. How many of us have credit cards? As a whole Americans owe $880 Billion dollars in credit card debt according to the Federal Reserve Bank. One in ten of those who have credit cards have more than 10 credit cards. About half of those who have credit card debt only pay the minimum monthly payment and one in 50 Americans have more than $20,000 in credit card debt. Over 40% of Americans spend more than they make in a year. Amazing statistics aren’t they? Why do we do this to ourselves? We have become a society that focuses on things rather than people. We look at the rich and famous with their champagne wishes and caviar dreams and we wish we could be like that. We imagine what we could buy if we won the lottery. There is a lot of greed in the world. Greed occurs when our love of money and things outweighs our love for anything else, even God.

Jesus warns us about greed in our story today. Jesus is speaking to a crowd and all of a sudden a man runs up to him and says “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Jesus responds by saying who made a judge or an arbitrator over you. The man was not far off by coming to Jesus because in those days a rabbi, which most of the people thought of Jesus as, would be the one to settle family financial disputes. Instead, Jesus uses this moment to teach and warn the people about greed, the love of possessions above the love of people and of God. “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” One’s life does not consist of possessions. You are not who you wear, or what you drive, or how big your house is. It does not make you a better person; it does not make you a worse person. The problem occurs when the obsession over things and money becomes so great that it breaks your relationships with not only your family but also with God.

Jesus tells a story to illustrate his warning. A man has an abundance of harvest, so much that he does not have room to store it all. He has a decision to make, he could give it to the needy, or he could give it to a neighbor whose crops might not have done as well. Instead he decides to tear down the existing barns and build bigger ones and so we won’t have to work for many years but just live off of the abundance of his harvest. There are two problems with this man’s decision.

First, at no point does this man give God thanks for the abundance of his harvest. He does not acknowledge that God is the source of his blessings. He has put his things about God and does not give credit where credit is due. He does not understand that what he has is not his own and so he becomes greedy, he becomes uncaring about other people. I worked hard for this harvest and I should be able to enjoy it myself and if these other people are too lazy to work hard then that is just too bad for them. How many times have we said something like that? When the homeless man asks for some spare change? When the Salvation Army volunteer is ringing the bell at Christmas? I think we have all said it from time to time. The truth is however, the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes that are on our back, the TV we watch, the gadgets and gizmos that light up for us are not our own. The money in our bank accounts are not our own. Everything that we had, have now, and will have in the future comes from God. It is God’s. The harvest the man reaped in abundance is God’s not his. Everything that we have down to the bacon and eggs in our bellies is thanks to God Almighty and we should praise him all day long for the blessing in our lives. If you are educated and know how to read, then you are more blessed that over two billion people in the world that cannot read anything at all. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won’t survive the week. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change lying in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy. We are blessed beyond words to describe it. Let us remember to thank God every day for it.

The second mistake he made was that he gave no thought to other people. He could have fed many people with his abundance. God’s law required that the farmer only go over the field once so to leave what is left for the widows and orphans, but this man had more than enough to feed his family, but decided to horde it up instead of helping out. Is it wrong to save money? No. Is it wrong to save food and supplies? No. The problem occurs when our focus is on the savings and not on those who need help. It always amazes me that when people die they give their church a large sum of money and I always think they could have given that money while they were alive and seen it put to good use. Why wait until it is too late?

You never see a U-haul behind a hearse do you? Why, because you can’t take it with you. The man is Jesus’ story thought he was set, ready to rock and roll, and live the good life, free and easy. He did not expect that his life would be cut short; it was demanded of him that very night. All the stuff you have collected, whose will it be now? You can’t take your TV, or Ipod, or brand new car with you when to meet God, you do take your deeds. God will ask you what you did with what he gave you. You better have a good answer and that answer better not be, “It’s sitting in First National Bank”. We are called to use the resources that God has given us to serve all of his people. God won’t ask you what your IRA portfolio looks like, God won’t look at your bank ledger or your CD statement. Instead God will ask, “How many people did you help?” “How many of the naked did you clothe?” “How many of the hungry did you feed?” “How many of the homeless did you shelter?” Those are the statistics that God is interested in.

Is it wrong to save money? No. Is it wrong to leave something behind for your kids and grandkids? No. Is it wrong to leave something for your church? No. Remember that everything that you and I have is thanks to God and we are called to use those resources that we have be so blessed with to help others who don’t have as much. John Wesley earned millions of dollars in today’s money and died with less than $10 to his name. He broke even and used the blessings to help others. We are so blessed in the United States and we should thank and praise God each day for it. You can’t take it with you when you go, so why not use it to help the world today.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.