Isaiah 65:17-25 - God's New World

Right now might not look to great. It is possible that you may have approached this time of worship, upset, distraught, or even angry. Some of us may have come to church this morning thinking there is too much woe, too much inequity, too many injustices in our world. It seems that hurts and harms surround us from all sectors this morning. We may be sitting here this morning overwhelmed with financial burdens, our own failures, overcome by physical limitations or failings in our body, which simply will not be healed. We have all come to worship this morning broken people, living in a broken world, and all too often, we are overwhelmed by all the brokenness, all the destruction, all the chaos. Despondency threatens to engulf us. Is there no end?

We join the Psalmist and say:

Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you. I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. Psalm 130

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? Psalm 13:1-2

The idea of expectation is built into the fabric of the universe. Humans throughout history have known how to wait in hopeful expectation. We wait out the winter months in hopes of the first signs of spring. We all know the joy that the site of a bud on a tree, the pleasure of seeing the first soft green peeking up from the cold ground. When it is the coldest, darkest part of the winter, when we are heavy laden with snow and the cold bites our bones, we know that come April the weather will begin to turn. We know we can make it through. We know that there is a waiting period that comes before the birth of a child. We waited with anticipation before our own children were born, and have waited alongside friends and family, anticipating the joy we know a new child brings. But before that, we wait, but the waiting if full of hope.

The people of Israel at this time in history had forgotten how to hope, they did not know that expectation could be filled with joy. They lived each day in expectation, but it was a hopeless expectation. They had lived their whole lives waiting, but that for which they waited never came. Each spring reminded them that they had spent yet another year in exile. They were tenant farmers the land and the crops they grew did not ultimately belong to them. Each new planting season marked yet another year in which they would plant, tend and grow food from ground that was not their own. They would work to force the ground to give up her bounty and then only but the smallest portion of that bounty would return to them. Their labor was not their own, their work, their toil, their tears and their sweat all went to feed another and any profit made lined the pockets of someone else. Spring and the anticipated harvest did not bring joy, it was all a part of the harsh reminder that they are strangers in a strange land; they did not belong here, that home was far, far away.

Each child born also did not give joy, each one born did nothing more than to remind them that too many among them no longer held memories of their the land they loved, of the city of Jerusalem, of the homes they had left behind. The strange land was becoming home to their children and this hurt their hearts because although they could tell stories of the land they had left behind and to which they planned to return, home was foreign to their children, where they belonged was not was a place to which their children felt no connection. Each birth actually seemed to make home further and further away. If all those who remembered were gone and all their children had were stories of a place they had never been, what why would they ever return?

We currently live in a period of time when we generally take life for granted. When that long anticipated child is born, we expect that that child will live to adulthood. Children live. That is our expectation but this is a very recent expectation, in human history. At the turn of the century, at the time this building was built, this would not have necessarily been the expectation of those who sat in these pews before us.  At that time 1 out of every 5 children, 2 out of every ten failed to live to adulthood. A hundred years before it was half, only half of the children born lived to adulthood. Statistics tell us that for a city to remain stable in the year Christ was born, each woman would have needed to give birth to 10 children. We take the life throughout childhood as a given.

At the same time, we also live in a time period when we also expect to live a good long while. It is not rare or unheard of for a person to live to be 90 and beyond. All of us can hope to live to be a 100, and it is not a completely unreasonable expectation. Scientists tell us the person will live to be 150 years old has probably already been born. It was not that many generations ago that, if you made it past childhood, you could expect to live to be 50 or 55. Sure a few people lived longer than that, but most did not. At the time, this passage was written, most people lived to their mid-thirties. I would have been considered an old lady at that time. If a person lived to be 55 they were considered extra ordinarily lucky. It was not completely unheard of, but at the same time, not at all expected.

Our world is so different from the world, to which the prophet of Isaiah spoke that morning, that we must imagine the world into which the words of this passage were spoken. Children did not live. Only one out of every 5 made it to the age of 15. The expectation was that a child born would die. Even if it did live, it served as a physical reminder of how long they had been in exile. Each spring was not a time to celebrate that another year had passed, that they had made it through another dark, long, cold winter and could look forward to the warmth and productivity of the growing seasons. It only served as a reminder that the land in which they lived was not their own and further reminded that their work and their labor belonged to the people of the land in which they now lived. Children died, their harvests were taken away, home was far, far away and each year marked yet another year in which they lived in a broken world. In the past they might have lived in expectation. In a time before that they had lived in hopeful expectation. They had long ago forgotten how to hope. Even now, they had given up on expectation. They just lived. The world passed by, people died and life was just a thing to be endured. That was their reality and they could not see life any other way.

It is into a world that bleak, to a people completely devoid of all hope that the prophet speaks these words. He tells them that the world will be new! The dull dark grey bleakness in which they were now living would be replaced with a vibrant world FILLED with color, FILLED with life. THIS was not the way they were meant to live; God had something better for them, sometime unimaginable, something completely beyond fathoming.

In God’s world children lived, not just some of the children, not just most of the children, ALL of the children would live. No longer would a mother weep on her birthing bed knowing that this precious child would die, no she would weep from joy knowing that the child will live! Not only would ALL the children live, and not die before reaching adulthood, but adulthood would be redefined. People would live so long, that 100, twice the age to which a few blessed one lived, would be the years prior to full maturity, anyone who did not live at least that long would be considered accursed.

Not only would living and long life be an expectation, but how they lived would be radically different as well. The homes they built would be theirs and the land, which they work, would belong to them.  They shall live in houses that are their own, not lent or borrowed. No longer would they labor and toil for another. They shall plan fields and vineyards and all the bounty, which will come up out of the land, would be theirs.

The new world, which God was giving them, was a world of peace and stability. It would be a world without fear and without calamity. God gives them their greatest fears, the lion and the snake and renders them benign. The Lion shall be so gentle that it will live alongside, eating beside, sleeping next to the lamb. And the snake, which could strike, and kill not only you, but also your livestock, would eat nothing but dust. The prophet is presenting them with a world of peace, of prosperity, of hearth and home, where labor is not in vain, where children, as well as the elderly lived.

God was promising a world, which seemed impossible to them. What God was promising was so beyond what could be imagined, so unexpected that it could not be imagined, much less something for which even one among might dare to hope. They wanted to go home. They wanted to live in Jerusalem as it was. They might have dared dream of living in a peace-filled version of the land, as it was when David was king, but that might have been the most any of them dared dream, on their most optimistic day. But God was promising them their homes, their land filled with the bounty of the harvest, a land for all intents and purposes without out death, a world where neither the children or the very old do not die, where old age it but youth and to die before twice the expected age is calamity.

But, that’s not all! They would live in peace, not strife or conflict. There will be no threat from the lion or the snake, the world around them would live in harmony.

We live in world of chaos, a broken world, a world, which seems to continually be dark and bleak. Perhaps you came here this morning filled with despondency. Perhaps hope is beyond even the possibility of imagining. It would be a good day, if you could find yourself in a place where you might dare to hope. But God speaks into the chaos; God speaks into our despondency, in to our hopelessness. There is more, our God says. This is not how it will be forever. One day, one day soon you will live. Our God believes in hope, our God believe in expectations. Our God calls us to live lives that are grounded in hope and in the expectation that there is more than the darkness. But not only does God hoped but God wants us to live into those expectations. We should not live expecting to die; we should not plant expecting to be robbed of our harvest. We are not to enter each winter without expectation that the spring will come.

But we are not to wait, to expect, and to hope, while cowering in fear, in a locked room waiting for the world to magically become the world God tells us it can be. God calls us to hope, so that we can live into the hope. God calls us to live lives of expectation preparing and making ourselves, and our world ready. We are to live as if our hopes our expectations have come to be. We are to usher in the kingdom of God by living as if God is king and as if God’s kingdom has already come.

Living lives of expectation means that we live as if the world God promises is. We are the people of God and live our lives knowing that the bright and beautiful world God promises will one day come to be AND we live today, now, here in the midst of the brokenness, as if all is made whole, we lives which work to bring about wholeness and healing. We live into our expectations. We desire peace, we want peace, and we work to be agents of peace in our own lives, in the small worlds in which each of us live. We desire justice, we know that God promises justice, so we work to bring justice to our world, righting the wrong, which we have the power to right, working against systems which enslave and disempower people, and committing to not be complicit in participating in ways which perpetuate these wrongs. As the people of God, we live out God’s vision for this this world in our own lives, loving all those whom God loves, empowering the powerless, raising up those who are crushed beneath the heels of the systems in our world. When others call out, “fear, fear”, we say, “be not afraid.” When others see hopelessness, we work to bring hope. We are agents of change in our world, remaking this world in God’s image. God calls for us to envision a world where all is made right, where there is peace and life, and then we are to live this out in our daily lives. We bring the righteousness, justice and the love of God into our world by being the very image of God, each and every day, being righteous, living out God’s justice, and loving our world with the very righteousness, justice and love, which God instills within each of us. We dream of a better world and then live that dream so that all the can know the dream we dream and then and then only then will God’s reality become the very reality in which we all live.

The Cloud of Witnesses that surrounds us, at Cambridge Church of the Nazarene

Hebrews 11: 1-3, 32-12:2

Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (and Esau), Joseph, Moses, and all the people of Israel who followed God through the desert into the land of promise and then those listed here. When the early Christians needed examples of faith they looked to those who had gone before them. When they sought examples of what it looked like to live as God was calling to them to live they looked to the faith other who had gone before them. These are their examples, examples of how faith is lived out in life, through trial, through error, through failure and through victory. They saw what it looked like to be faithful in the tough times, and examples of how rise up from the dust of weakness when you fall short of the person God calls you to be and yet still rising to be a great example of faith. The ups and down, the glory and the mud, in the lives of the heroes of faith they saw reflections of what it meant to be followers of Christ. The lives those who had gone before spoke to them, showed them the way, and shined the light of faith on the paths they were walking.

Tuesday, the 1^st of November is All Saints Day. On which we remember the light of faith which is shone to us from all those who have gone on before us. We honor the lives of those who have lived faithfully through the centuries, countless Christians, who have gone on before us; all those who passed their faith down from generation to generation. Throughout the centuries God has been faithful to the Church, continually rising up Christians to carry the faith from generation to generation. Great and grand examples who have lived through the centuries, Paul and Peter, Basil the Great,  Macrina, Perpetua, Chrysostom, Augustine, Catherine of Sienna, Bridget of Kildare, Martin Luther, Joh and Charles Wesley, Phineas F Bresee, even John N. Short. As well as saints who have faithfully, quietly, and beautifully blessed those within their sphrere of influence, mothers, fathers, Sunday School teachers, board members, faithful church members each seeking the light of Christ in all things and working to be the person God was calling them to be in the places they lived, at work, in their Churches among their friends and to their family; their light of faith shining brightly on just a few, but brightly shining none-the-less.

Each week when sit or stand or pray or worship in our sanctuary at Cambridge Nazarene, we stand in the light of the legacy of the faith of those who have gone on before us, quite literally. If you came into our sanctuary one of the first thing you may notice  is the the windows which surround us. What you may or may not notice at first is that each one bears the name of a Christian long gone from this world. These Christians were honored and remembered by their friends, their families and their loved ones when they donated in the money for these windows their memory, to complete this Church building. Each time I stand in their reflective light I am thankful for the generosity of those who gave and in awe of the faithful, Christ-filled lives each window represents.
Each window represents the life a member of this congregation, an example of the Christian life. And a Paul said, "what more can I say?” Here are the lives of those we cannot forget, whose faith shines light on us each week as we gather to worship.

John Short  - The two windows in the back of the Sanctuary facing Franking Street is a memorial to Rev. John Short, who served as pastor from 1899-1922, twenty two years. He burned the mortgage before he died. He was preaching in the pulpit one Sunday morning in April 1922 and he sat down in his chair, A doctor was in the congregation an immediately went to him. They helped him from the Church to his home next door at, 240 Franklin Street, where he expired a month later. Mrs. Gwendolyn Spooner many times went to help Mrs. Short take care of him. Our communion Set was given memory of Mrs Spooner, who passed in 1972.

Albert Fiske – The window in the back in the foyer. Albert was Superintendent of building the Church. The window was given by his wife- a signatory on the deed of the Church and the loan taken out to build it. Albert came to an early death from a fall while doing work here at the Church.

George Haddow – A Sunday school teacher for 17 years (listed as a “Rev” in the window)

Elizabeth Alley – The window in the front near the Piano - Played the piano for 20 years, was the mother of George Haddow’s wife.

Mr. and Mrs. Waldo Brigham – Both were active early members. They grandparents of Walter Burgess for whom the education wing is named.

Cynthia Dean – This window was given by her daughter. She was the first African American person brought into membership early in the Church’s history. Since we know these windows were purchased in the 20s, this shows us that our congregation has always been an integrated congregation.

Ida Davis – This window was given by her daughter. She was active early member of our congregation.

Isabella Ford – This window was given by her husband. He was apparently not very social (being described as being “no mixer”), but well thought of by others.

Abbie Tibbett –- She was an active early member of the church. She is remember as having “never missed a meeting”

George Shea – Mr. Shea was an active member of the church. His son who donated the window was a doctor.

Everett & Warren Hatch – They were Father and Son, they were “friends” of the Church. The window was given in their memory by their daughter and sister.

Harvey Hanson – The window along the stairwell leading to the balcony given by his mother. Harvey was a physically disabled Harvard graduate; remembered as being quite brilliant. He contributed to the building of the Church by spending hours cleaning used bricks to be used for the foundation. The house he and his mother lived in was willed to the Church.

Sunday school window – The window in the coatroom was donated by money raised by the Sunday School.

Edna Gardiner – There was once a round window behind the pulpit. It was given by her son, the president of the Central Trust Company. Edna donated the first $1,000 to the building fund. When we built the education wing it was donated to the Wolfboro, NH Church of the Nazarene.

Each week we worship, we pray, we draw closer to God, basking in the light shone through these faith journeys of these saints who have gone one before, who light our way and show us how a race well run looks.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by, so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, let us run with perseverance the race God has set before us.”

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 - Paul says: "Read your Bible and Do your Devotions"

We are continuing to look at the second letter Paul wrote to Timothy, a young follower of Christ, to whom Paul is entrusting the future of the Church. Paul himself is in prison and has been sentenced to death, awaiting  his execution. Paul sees his demise in the not too distant future. He is doing what he can to invest in Timothy as a way of equipping the next generation to carry on the faith and assure that the truth of the Gospel will continue to spread. As Paul is doing what he can to assure the Faith and the Church will be able to continue into the future. Timothy, in many ways, is representative of the next generation. If Timothy can take on the responsibility to carry on the work of the first generation of Christians into the second, Paul will know that the work he and the other apostles began will carry on for one more generation.

Paul is equipping Timothy for the betterment of the Church. Timothy and his peers are the ones who will preserve the truth of the Gospel to the next generation. Paul wants to preserve the Church but he is very well aware of her shortcomings. At this time in the history of the Church, the church is facing struggles from within as well as from without.  At this point in his letter Paul is most concerned with a contingency of people who are going around teaching things that are contrary to the teachings of Paul and the apostles; contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. They are embellishing on the gospel and making it “new”; making it into something which is contrary to the truth of Jesus Christ. Paul is warning Timothy to not turn from the truth of the Gospel he learned as a child and follow this “new” gospel. He is calling for Timothy to stick to the good “old” gospel that he learned from his mother and his grandmother, who learned it from Paul and the apostles.

Here, Paul does this by pointing Timothy to Scripture, telling him that all Scripture is inspired. The word which is commonly translated “inspired” here, in the original language, literally means “God-breathed.”   Being God-breathed is what humans are. This is what God did for the first human at creation; God breathed God’s own life into us. Scripture being God breathed means that God breathes God’s own life into the words which were written and they become something more than mere words.

Now to be completely truthful when Paul said “scripture”, he was not exactly referring to what we mean when we say “scripture.” Those of us who live in the modern world who have nice little bound Bibles like the one I read from this morning, which we know to be God’s holy Scripture, we must all realized that Paul did not have this (holding up my Bible). Paul did not have a Bible. I mean I picked this up and turned to this letter which Paul wrote to Timothy. Paul is still in the process of writing what would later become the book of 2 Timothy. Paul could not at the time he was putting ink to paper (or velum or what ever it was they used), he could not have been referring to the New Testament as we know it. The only scripture Paul would have had, at the time, and the only scripture to which he could have been referring, was the OT Scriptures.

Paul is telling Timothy that all the Scripture with which he grew up, the Law, the Writings and the Prophets were “God-breathed.”  Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am not implying that the New Testament is any less Scripture than the Old Testament. In fact, neither Paul, the apostles or even Jesus Christ saw the Gospel as separate from the OT, but instead saw the Gospel as a continuation. Because the Gospel, which had not been formally written down, (there was no NT as we know it today) was considered a part of the OT story, it was not something separate. Therefore, God-breathed included the truth of the gospel; that is the life, death, resurrection and salvific mission of Jesus Christ. The truth gospel is not limited simply to the books the four Gospel writers penned, but extends to all of the NT scriptures. So, although Paul was not literally speaking of the Old and New Testaments, as we know them today, we can understand that Paul’s statement refers to the truth of the Gospel which can be found in the entirety of the Scriptures.

So Paul tells us that the Scriptures are God breathed, filled with the spirit of God, he also tells us that they are useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training. Paul gives us here a list of what scripture does. This is not a list of what we can do with scripture. Too often we look at this passage and think that Paul is telling us that Scripture is a tool which we can use. But Scripture is not ours to use. Scripture does not belong to us, it is not something we can ever possess. Scripture is God’s and it belongs solely to God. Paul is not telling us how we can use Scripture. Paul is telling us how scripture shapes and forms us, what Scripture does for us, not what we can do with Scripture.

Paul tells us that Scripture teaches, reproofs, corrects and trains. Scripture teaches us, it gives us a sound understanding of the gospel, the story of God’s love for humanity and the extent to which God will go to show God’s love for us, climaxing in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is also reproofs us, that is scripture shows false teaching for what it is. False teaching is any teaching, which strays from, or claims to add to the gospel.  Scripture corrects us. It instructs us in proper behavior as Christians, and shows us when our words, actions or attitudes do not reflect those of Jesus Christ or speak contrary to the character of God. They show us how God calls for us to live. It straightens us out and improves who we are as Christians.  And lastly, it trains, it educates us. We are its pupils, and from it we learn who we are, we learn who God is and we learn about our relationship with God and how best to work that relationship out.

Scripture is that which guides and directs us, it is through scriptures God is able to speak to the Church and show us what it means to live as we were meant to live; what it means to be who we were created to be. God calls to us, and draws us close to God’s self through scripture, and it is scripture which introduces us to the truth of the gospel and truly allows us to see the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; that is an act of desperate love of God for humanity. A love which is calling to us, begging for us to turn from the bent broken ways we are living, and turn to God, to love and be loved in return.

Paul establishes Scripture as that which holds the truth of Jesus Christ, the truth of the love of God, as that which calls us back to the created order. It is, also, that which calls for us to proclaim the message of the gospel. Paul is telling Timothy, “you know the truth, you need to share it.”  The fact of the matter is Timothy would not have known the gospel had it not been proclaimed to him. He would not have come to the Faith, if his mother and grandmother had not proclaimed the message to him in the first place. They would not have known if the apostles and Paul had not proclaimed the message to them. The only way anyone else will know is if someone who knows goes out and tells them!  Paul is calling for Timothy to go do for others what was done for him. That is proclaiming the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul sees Timothy as the future of the Church and God has called Timothy to live a life of proclamation.  It is not merely Paul is who is intrusting Timothy with the future of the Church but it is God who is entrusting Timothy with the future of the Church. As the lives of the first apostles expire it is up to the newer, younger Christians of the next generation to take up the mantle and proclaim the truth so that future generations may know as they know. God has set this task before you, go out and do what it is God is calling for you to do.

Paul reminds us that God has given us scripture. God had spoken through humans and they have written scriptures and God breathed God’s own life into those words and God uses the words of mere human beings to speak, to teach, to guide and direct the people of God. God has given us this gift and too often we don’t allow it to work in us and through us to change us and remake us.

I would guess that most of us have at least one Bible (if you don’t come to me after service and we will do what we can to remedy that). Yet, it is far too frequently we forget that God has given us scripture, not so we can have it on our shelf and pull it out and use it when we see fit. Scripture is not something we use, it is something God has given us scripture to shape us, change us. Through Scripture, is one of the many ways, God chooses to transform us, so we can be the people God created us to be. But in order for that to happen we need read it , and study it and allow God to breath through the words on the page and into our very souls, filling us with who Gods is, changing us through words, changing us through The Word. Unless we are reading, participating, in scriptures, it is just another book which rests on our self, collecting dust, which we say we should to get around reading at some point in our lives. But, it is not merely through opening it and reading it that God moves, it is by allowing scripture to open us. When we come to scripture ready to hear God, ready to receive God ready to participate in what God chooses to do in us and through us, then God breaths through mere human words and transforms us, and brings us to life through something which prior to the moment in which God moved was nothing more than ink and page.

But this is not merely about us. It is not simply about us knowing and being known by God through scripture but it is God calling us to move beyond ourselves and take the one whom we know, into the world and introduce others to the one whom we love, the one who loves us and the one who loves through us. We are transformed and changed by God and in turn we are called to proclaim the one who transforms and changes us, to the world around us with words and with lives which speak the love of God to those around us.

The church is always one generation from extinction. If this generation does not leave a gospel legacy for the next generation, there will be no church when we die. This is the simple fact. We gather here as the Church, we are known by God, we strive to understand who God is. But unless we actively seek to pass the truth of the gospel on, there will be no others when we like Paul find ourselves at the end of our lives.

Paul is calling to us from his jail cell this morning. Paul sees the end of Church. Paul sees how this could all die, as those who know and believe die and Paul is telling us, just as he is telling Timothy here, two very important things. First he is telling us to be people who are shaped and transformed by scripture. He is telling us that all scripture should participate in who we are as the people of God. We need to be people of the Word, living in the word, allowing the very breath of God to be breathed in us daily as we allow our lives to be shaped and transformed by scripture.

In short Paul is telling us, as so many pastors, Sunday school teachers and wise Christians have told us before, read you Bible.  But not just read it to read it. Don’t just read it to put a check in the check box in your list of Spiritual things you need to do today, but read Scripture because through it God speaks, teaches, corrects and changes us, infusing us with the very life of God. Paul is telling us to do our devotions. To read our Bibles first thing in the morning, on our lunch breaks, or last thing at night. Paul is telling us to dwell in the Scriptures, to live there so that through Scripture God will not only speak but shape, transform and remake us from the bent broken people we are into the holy people God created us to be.

Secondly, Paul tells us that once we are shaped and changed into the people God is calling us to be, we are to then take what has shaped us and changed us and bring that transformative power to others. We are to live lives which tell others who Jesus is. We are to speak words which tell others who Jesus is. We are to be people who love as Jesus loved, live as Jesus lives and proclaim the truth of the kingdom of God, just as Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God. The fact of the matter is being Christian is not just about what Jesus does for us. Being the people of God is not just about how God works for us and in us. We are Christians, we are the people of God, so that we can go out and share the one who we know, the truth of his life, teachings, death and resurrection with a world who is lost and broken without him. We know, are changed and transformed through the love and grace of God because someone told us, no one else will know unless we in turn tell them. 

A Poem in the Works

9/29/2016

We are a people

A called people

Called to differently live

Called to live the love

As seen

In Christ, alone; dying bleeding

Yet living once again

Called to something other, something else

Called bear the load and share the light

Called to bear the light and share the load

But. . .

Some are left fumbling in the dark

know not love

have not the ability to see

 left to bleed

Alone, laying in the road

Not a stranger or Samaritan in sight

Turning the world around them red

From their position they do not, can not know

what it means to rise just once

and never once again

No riches, nothing free

And so all there is 

to fumble, mumble, cry and die

Yet, we are a people called to share and bear and bring light

We wander off into the sun, shining our light

Shining light to those basking in the sun

Do not venture into the dark

Bringing the Light to all but some.

2 Timothy 1:1-14 - Seeing Backward, Moving Forward

We are people with eyes on the front of our heads. I know that sounds like a strange and obvious statement, but it is something that needs to be said in light of how we actually move through this world. None of us actually know what is ahead, we cannot say with any kind of certainty what tomorrow will hold. I have this sermon here written out before me, but there are things, which could prevent me from finishing it, and although it is my intention for you to hear it, you may never. We have intentions, we have plans we act like we know what our tomorrows hold. We have calendars, which mark the days and the years, they tell us the days for as far into the future as our hearts desire.

 My calendar tells me that I will go to the library tomorrow to begin work on next week’s sermon. It tells me that I have plans to hear Carla Sunberg speak on Wednesday and have a meeting directly following that. It says there is an event at Cidra’s school on Thursday evening. It tells me which days I plan to be in the office this week and reminds me of the list of things I need to get done as the weeks progresses. It reminds me at what time I need to pick Stella up from school each day and at what time I should expect Cidra to come home. It tells me that we pray on Saturday morning and then I have Stella’s 10^th birthday party that afternoon.

Whether you write it all out on a calendar or keep it in your head, most of us if asked, “What are you doing on Wednesday at 10am,” would speak with some amount of certainty. “I am at work.” “I am in class (I am at school).” “I will be at the doctors.” I will be, I am, we talk as if we know, as if it is a foregone conclusion. But, although I will tell you that I will be at ENC on Wednesday morning. There are any number of things, traumatic and mundane that would keep me from going to hear Carla speak that morning. I DO NOT KNOW what will be. I can not know what will be. I will never know what will be. And neither will you.

We with our eyes looking forward, act like we move through time looking at the path before us, just as we walk down the street, seeing what is ahead and adjusting our path accordingly. But, we with eyes on the front of our head, who walk on this earth looking at the path before us do not actually ever see what is before us. We go forward through our lives walking backward, seeing only the moment in which we currently reside and all those that have already past. We are always, continually, blinded to the moment that is to come. When it comes to life, when it comes to how we actually move through the universe, we move blindly, only seeing what has come and never what is to come. We move blindly forward, looking backwards, seeing what has past, but never able to turn, to grasp what it is which may come.

     Paul, being human just like the rest of us, is in the same boat. He stands on the eternal edge of the unknowable future only able to see what has come and not what is to be. The appeal he was hoping to make when he wrote his first letter to Timothy has come to be, and he lost. His hope of release and his hope of coming to see Timothy once again have been dashed to pieces, as our plans for the future so often are. Paul is once again under house arrest, but unlike before the shadow of the future which looms over him seems to be bleak. Losing his appeal means that execution is the event toward which he is moving.

Paul looks back and he sees the Church he has built. He sees the conversion of Eunice, Timothy’s grandmother, and then of Lois, his mother and then finally that of Timothy. He can remember the joy he knew as each one came to know Christ as Paul himself knows Christ. He can see the seeds of faith which began at Timothy’s conversion and can see how they have grown and blossomed.  Paul wishes he could see it and him once again with his own eyes, but the Roman decree which he holds says it will not be. Paul can remember the laying hands on Timothy at his ordination. He remembers how the spirit, a most precious gift in filled Timothy with power, love and self-discipline.

Paul’s heart is breaking. He cannot turn and see forward, he cannot know what is to be, but he like the rest of us can see the shadows of what will be and rests in the hope of what is to come in Christ Jesus and in Christ Jesus alone. He cannot see, his death or what lies beyond. He does not know what will become of Timothy, what will become of the Church in the years to come but he knows , “in whom [he] has believed, and is persuaded, that God is able, to keep that which [Paul has] committed.”

Paul, like the rest of us cannot see what will be. But always before his eyes is what has come. He sees the faith of those who have committed themselves to God. He sees how that faith has grown and blossomed, how one has become, how two has become more and how more has become many. He sees the power of the Spirit at work in each one, he sees the love given by Christ as it flows through his people and his Church, he sees the self-discipline of Christ’s followers which has led to the planting and growing of Churches from Jerusalem to Rome, in Asia, and Macedonia, in Greece and in the world beyond.

Paul remembers, Paul can see what has been. He can see, every time he prays for Timothy which is often, he is reminded of the tears on Timothy’s face when they last parted. Paul left Timothy there, tears on his face, and perhaps fear seeding in his heart. The weight of Paul’s ministry is being put on Timothy, Paul has all but passed on the mantle. And even as Paul rejoices in Timothy’s faith, he remembers Timothy’s face and sees his tears, sees his grief, his fear, his pain, his sorrow. He sees in Timothy’s face, all the questions that only the future can answer.

What will tomorrow hold? The world around seems so full of chaos. The leaders are not leaders we can trust. The system is broken. The courts are unreliable. There seems to be no justice found there or anywhere. The people of God are divided. Some seem to be following and listening to voices which preach, which teach a gospel foreign to the one we know in Jesus Christ. The moment in which we reside is so fraught with turmoil, confusion, uncertainty. What will tomorrow bring? How will our world change in the next month? The next year? No matter how much we strain our heads to look, to turn, to see, we cannot, way forward which is ever at our backs. All that tomorrows holds will not be revealed until tomorrow becomes today and we may not know what changes are being made until today is yesterday and we can look back and see what has happened more clearly.

Paul has a word for us today, it is the same word he gave to Timothy, who stood in the same place we do today. Our world is just as chaotic, uncertain, full of turmoil and confusion as his was then.  We do not know what is to come, and will not know what is to come, until what is to come becomes what has been done. But Paul says, it is O.K. don’t fear, don’t fret. See what I see, it is the same as what you can see. You can see the faith of those who have come before you. You can see where you have been and how God has brought you through. The same Spirit which is within me is the same gift of God which resides in you. The same power in which has brought us here is the same power which God will continue to grant us into the future. The love of God which has been our life’s blood in the past will continue to be the love that comforts, and surrounds us as we move forward. The self-discipline given to us through the Spirit which has grown our faith, and been the strength on which we have relied thus far will continue to be that for us.

Do not be ashamed. Your faith is your faith, remember your testimony, remember your story, remember where you have been and how God has brought you through. The God of your faith in the past, the God of the faith of all those around you, (your mother, your grandmother) is the faith that will lead you on. Let the past, and all that you have known, in your life, in the life of your parents of the faith, the faith seen in scripture, the faith of those in our community here today. Look to it, hear their testimony and do not be afraid, do not be ashamed. Although we all may know the tears, the uncertainty, the sorrow, the pain, the chaos, of being people who move forward through life, walking blindly backwards, know that what we have seen, what we have known CAN lead us faithfully into the future.

We are weeks from The Head of the Charles, the great international regatta held here on the Charles each Fall. The river will be filled with rowers. In fact almost any day between early Spring through late Fall they can been seen on the river practicing. I love seeing the rowers. I think the sight of them is beautiful. The way they move so quickly, so seamlessly through the water, gliding up and down the river with such ease. I also love the sight of them because they are a visual picture for me of what it is to move through this life, with Christ.

The row boats, they move forward up or down the river, while the rowers are facing backwards. All of the rowers, each and every one of them are backwards. They guide their boats, up or down the river, but never see what is before them. They go forward, always only seeing where they have been . BUT they do not do it alone. There is some in the boat with them, the coxswain. The coxswain, stands before them, and sees the way forward and guides the rowers along the path they must take. Let me tell you, we may be like rowers moving blindly forward, always, only seeing what is behind, but we are not alone in the boat. We have one in the boat with us who can see the way forward, who will guide and direct us through life’s unseen future. We have one who can be trusted, who can be relied upon. Who will tells us the way to go, who will see the obstacles which we cannot and will adjust our path accordingly. If we are the rowers and the boat is the Church, there is one who is within the Church, given to the Church, the gift which has been given to each of us, to all of us, who will guide and direct us. It is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here with us, although we can only know what we have seen, the Spirit can see that which we cannot see and if we rely on the power, the love and the self-discipline instilled within each of us, within God’s church we will not be lead astray. The one with eyes to see forward, who can see, what we cannot see, will guide and direct us into the future, on this we can rely.

We can join with Paul and say, “I know the one in whom I have put my trust, I am sure that he is able to guard, until that day, what I have entrusted to him.”

1 Timothy 6:6-19 - The Rules of Acquisition

Here in this country we are obsessed with money. Money is a huge part of how we value ourselves and how we value each other. Since World War II it has been how we gauge how well we are doing as a nation. We are doing well when our GDP grows. It is vitally important for the stability of our nation for us to buy more and more stuff.

Everything revolves around money, but we cannot talk about it. How much each of us spends is important to our vitality as a nation, but we cannot actually tell anyone how much we spent on anything. This can be seen in the fact that when we buy gifts, we take off the price tag before giving it. To not do so is seen as rude. We do not like talking about how much we make, or how much we spend or how much we give to others, to charity or even to the government. This is so much so that this election season, whether or not the political candidates reveal their tax information to the voting public is a big deal.  And we really do care about it.

Whether we like to talk about it or not, our relationship with money is an important part of our lives. Paul agrees. We do not like to talk about money and our relationship with money, but here in 1st Timothy, that is exactly what Paul does. Paul addresses the unspeakable and not only talks about money, but talks to us about our relationship with money. Our relationship with money matters, and it not only matters in how it affects the GDP, or how it effects the growth of our economy, but it matters to God. Our relationship with money affects our relationship with God.

Paul begins to talk about “gain.” What we gain; in what ways we profit, in this world matters, and the only profit, which matters is that we profit in is godliness. When it comes to the “Rules of Acquisition”, what we gain and how we gain it is the primary focal point in godliness. These “Rules of Acquisition” govern our relationship with money when we live by them our relationship with Jesus Christ is strengthened. When we do not live by them, wealth, money, riches, things become things which hinder and tear apart our relationship with our God, and lead us away from all that really matters in this world.

According to the “rules of godly acquisition,” the only gain that is substantial is gain that does not rust or fade. The only gain that matters is that which will last. Any gain that is not godliness is no gain at all. It is worthless and unsubstantial. The first rule of which we should be aware, is: we enter this world with nothing and we will leave this world likewise with nothing. So anything which we gain in between that does not and cannot transcend the barrier of death is worthless. All the stuff we care so much about; all the things, all the objects which money buys for us here in this world, reside wholly, solely and only in this world. The only gain which we can acquire in-between entering and leaving is godliness, righteousness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. These are the things which we are to pursue. These are the things which hold value in the life eternal.

Since we enter with absolutely nothing, we have nothing which commends us to acquire the love, the care, and all that we gain while we are here, all these things are provided for us. They is given to us and we gain them not on our own accord. For what can we, being the tiny helpless creatures, which we are upon our entry, do to gain the things we need for our very survival. All is given; all is gifted to us. It is gifted to us freely, and is ultimately given and gifted to us by God. All that is provided, given and gained, from our first breath to our last, which allows for our very survival, is not ours, it is the provision of God at work in our lives.

The second rule of acquisition therefore, is that we should be content with that which is provided, given, gifted to us. In fact when it comes to contentment, although it is not the first rule of acquisition (being dependent upon understanding the first), it is the most important rule. Godliness cannot be gained, unless we are content with that which God has provided for us.

If we have food and clothing, which was is a sort of ancient shorthand of saying all that is needed to survive. This includes food, shelter, clothing, water and warmth, all the basic necessities of life. Once provided with all that is needed to survive, we are to find contentment in simply having those things.  Being grateful and content for all that we have is the root of godly acquisition.

The third rule is this, “Do not want to be rich.” Our desire in this life should not be for riches, wealth, money or things. Just as contentment is the root of the acquisition of godliness, the love of money, (and all that goes with that) is the root of evil. Our desire in this the life, the things for which we long, is to be righteousness, godliness, faith, love and endurance – the things that set our sights on God and God alone.

Our desire is not for be for money and all that it can provide. This seems implicit in being content, but when we look at the world around us and we see all that can be had. When we see all that which money can buy, when we see the things which those who have more than us acquire, it is hard to not want, to not desire, that which we do not have, to strive to gain more things, thinking that they will make our lives better, easier, that there is profit in their gain. But there is no profit in the desire to gain that which is not needed. To want to be rich, to have more, is a trap. It’s a trap which is a sinking hole continuing to suck us in, causing us bit by bit, one more thing at a time to want more and more. There is no end to this kind of desire, it is insatiable and unending. There is always more to be had, always something else to gain. There always another item which we can acquire. In this unending circle of want, and gain; desire and acquisition, the focus on the gain of material things and riches leads to ruin and destruction.  There is truly no real profit in.

The corollary to this rule is that the ultimate result of the desire for wealth and the acquisition of things is that we will wander away from the faith. Since the ultimate goal is godliness, the point toward which we are aiming is God, the center of our life is Jesus Christ. This is not only seen when our goal or our aim is godliness, but in other things in life as well. This drifting toward where our focus is, can be seen when driving. Our focus is forward toward where we are going and as long as we continue looking forward we will move in that direction. When we shift our focus, when we look at something off to the side, we will find that we will shift our direction and begin to drift toward where our focus is. This is the same when we are walking or running. If you move your focus from where you are heading, you will begin to move in the direction you are looking. When it comes to our lives as Christians, if our focus is shifted off of God onto anything else, we will begin to head toward that that which we are focusing. If our desire is for riches, wealth, or the things which they can provide, our focus no longer remains on God and we will move away from the acquisition of godliness, we will wander from the faith, and we will find ourselves lost when it comes to the things of God.

The rules of Acquisition go on to discuss how we should think about the money and riches that we do have. The first rule of which we should be aware when it comes to owning, having wealth, is that we are to not be haughty. That is that we are to never think of ourselves as better than someone else because of the things which we have gained here on earth. We are not to find pride in the material things which we possess, we are not to see what we have, as making us superior to those around us who do not have what we have. Our money, our wealth, our things, and our possession of them does not make us better than those who do not have what we have. To ever come to believe that those who do not possess the things which our wealth affords us is due to moral failure or ultimate character flaw in another is the kind of haughty thinking which is to be avoided.

Since we know that our wealth, and all that we acquire here on earth is ultimately of no value, to then to believe that simply in the having of it, results in our possessing more value than another or that we possess these things because we are morally superior or more righteous in anyway, is to conflate our wealth with godliness. The only thing which adds value to ourselves is godliness, as seen in righteousness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness, which is what we are to pursue because these are the only things which endure beyond this world.

The next rule, for those who know the riches which having can bring, is that we are not to put our hope in these things. They are not that which will bring us joy or peace, or happiness. Finding hope in these things will not bring contentment. We are to be content with that which we have, not find hope in them. Seeking hope in wealth is seeking something in it, which it cannot ultimately provide. Hope can truly only be found in Jesus Christ. Setting our hope on money, creates in us the same down falls as setting our desires on acquiring the things which money can provide, it is an empty hole which will never be filled and always require more and more, until it has taken all, creating in us more and more discontentment, restlessness and it results in a joyless hopeless life. Seeking hope in the things which we have acquired in this world will ultimately lead to nothing more and nothing less than hope-less-ness.

All that we own beyond that which is needed to survive, food, shelter, clothing, water and warmth, are things which we have that for our enjoyment and even (perhaps especially) that which brings enjoyment is given, is provided to us by God. These things are not ours of which to be proud. And again when we pass from this world, like all else, they will remain. As a rule these things are not for us and for us alone, these are things which are given to us for a purpose.

These things of enjoyment are given to us, so that we might afford to do good; so that we are able to be rich in good works, and that we might be generous and ready to share. We are to be seeking to help those around us. This is the opposite of being haughty, and comes from finding hope in that ONE who gave all, so that we might live.  Realizing that our prosperity is given so that we may work to bring enjoyment to those around us, who might not have more than what is necessary in life, to raise them up and allow them the small enjoyments of life, of which we are familiar. These are not ours to keep and to hoard, they are ours with which to be generous, to share and to give so that our blessings may be the blessings of others, that through us God can give to others.

Finally the last rule of acquisition is the most important, that is that we are to at all times, “take hold of the life that is really life.” (I love that phrase – take hold of life that is really life). Live the life that is worth living. A life of working to gain all the things that can be gained and are worth gaining, that is righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. The life that is really life is what we truly gain when we live by the “Rules of Acquisition” as spelled out in this passage.

When we live by these rules which govern our relationship with money, our relationship with money will enhance our relationship with God instead of being a hindrance to our faith and will lead to godliness.

1 Timothy 1:12-17 - A Testimony of Grateful Praise

1 Timothy 1:12-17

I was called to ministry when I was 13. I look at Cidra now as she is 11. I was just two years older than she is. I cannot help but think about exactly at how young I was. I am amazed at how God must have been working in my young life, for me to have been so willing and obedient at such a young age. 13 is so young. So many things going on in a 13 year olds’ life, so much turmoil, so man changes, so much uncertainty about life and so many other things. Somehow, God got through all that, and I was able to hear God’s voice, when God spoke to me. God is really truly an awesome God, to have been able to speak to a 13 year old in such a way that she would understand and respond.

But, I want to go back to an evening a few months before that day, I had gone during a district winter retreat. We had just finished up an evening chapel service and I sat in my chair and cried, while asking God to take all of me, to take my life, my present, my past and my future, all my unknown days, who I was and who I was becoming. The speaker had spoken about this and I knew that is what I wanted. I told God that I did not just want to have God in my life, but I wanted everything I desired to be what God desired, for me, for those around me, for everything.

I was 13, I had attended Nazarene Church practically since I was born. I had gone to Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services as long as I can remember. I had always been surrounded by saved and sanctified Nazarenes. My parents were the kind of parents who got us to Church whenever there was something there for us. I have heard about holiness and sanctification for as long as I can remember.

When it came down to it, I did not realized what God was doing in me that evening, I did not walk away that evening thinking about sanctification or holiness, I just knew God had done something amazing in me and I was perfectly happy, perfectly content knowing that all things were really and truly right between myself and God. It was not until I looked back on it several months later, when someone asked me about sanctification that I was able to say, “Yes, yes I am and that is when it happened.” I tell you this because I believe that if I had not given God everything; if I had not given over to God all my tomorrows, all my hopes, all my dreams, all my fears; if as a frightened 13 year-old who could barely comprehend her place in this world had not handed all that over to God that day, three months later I would not have been able to hear the call God placed on my heart.

I am still amazed to this day, that God would call me, my 13 year-old self was astounded and to this day, I am amazed that at the call God has placed on my life. What is even more amazing, when God called me to be a preacher, is I said, “Yes.” The only reason I see that made this possible was that I had given myself over wholly to God, so if God wanted me to do this, I could. Now don’t get me wrong, it is not like I knew from that minute on that someday I would be here doing this. It is a long road from being 13 to pastoring. Years of exploring what it was God was calling me to do, a time period when I was certain I was called to youth ministry and a deep longing to be called to the mission field but in the end, God showed me my true call was to pastoral ministry. Between being 13 and now, there were five years of middle and high school, four years of college and four years of seminary, two years of pastoral ministry before I was ordained.  And that was 12 years ago. A lot of journeying has taken me from there to here. But, it began with a call to holiness, a call to give it all to God.

Paul in this passage speaks of being thankful to Jesus Christ for giving him strength, in fact he ends this passage with a snippet of a short hymn of praise, a sort of doxology, which gives glory and honor to God for the way God had worked in his life. Paul is able to give God thanks and praise because Paul sees the way God has worked in his life. His testimony is his praise, he pauses and acknowledges the work God has done for him and through him. Paul sees who he was and sees who is and knows that all the strength he found to be the person God was calling him to be was found in the grace and mercy of a God who takes sinners and transforms them and their lives.

The strength of which Paul speaks in this passage comes from living a live given wholly and completely over to Jesus Christ. At this point in his ministry, when he writes this letter to Timothy, Paul is in jail, he is not certain but the end is near, as he writes, he does it as a father to a son, a mentor to his mentee, wanting to impart, to pass on important knowledge and understanding about the faith. Pastoral epistles in general are instructions about the Church, given to instruct and guide the Church, Paul is imparting this kind of pastoral knowledge to Timothy. He wants Timothy to know that his ministry the work he has been doing is found only in the strength found in living wholly and completely for Jesus Christ.

Paul can trust the his future, no matter how uncertain it may be, and the future of the churches he has planted, because he knows that all the work he has done is not his work, that he is not entrusting all he had done to Timothy and others like him, but he is entrusting the Church to the ONE to whom the Church ultimately belongs, Jesus Christ.  He has lived his life given completely over to God, he has already given all the unknowns over to God, he knows that God can be trusted and is trustworthy in all things. He is calling for Timothy to live likewise, to find his strength in Jesus Christ, entrusting all the tomorrows and all the unknowns over to a God who IS trustworthy in all things.

Paul’s life, ministry and work, serve as an example to all of us what God can do in a person’s life. His life shows us what holiness looks like in action, what it looks like to truly trust all of your days, allow God to take a hold of all of your life, past, present and future, all of the unknowns that are and will come, everything. That is how Paul lived. Paul gained strength in Jesus Christ because he had given himself completely over to God, he allowed God to shape and change him so completely that Paul’s life and ministry became the life and ministry we now know. Paul’s strength is found in holy living, giving all his days, all his hopes, fears, dreams, tomorrows and all the unknowns that are and are to come over to God. Holiness is living wholly and absolutely for God. It is about allowing God’s desires in all things to be your desires. This thing we Nazarenes call Sanctification is living so that each and every day of your life is shaped and changed by God, so that your strength is found in God and God alone and who you are and are becoming is because of God’s grace and mercy overflowing in you and at work in all you do. And it is to this life to which Paul is pointing in this passage. This is the grace and mercy. This is what is overflowing. This life is what gives him strength, it is the work of God at work sanctifying Paul’s life creating in him and through him the holy life we see exemplified in scriptures.

Paul sites what his life was like before Jesus Christ, Paul calls himself a, “blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence,” he reminds us of who he was before, so that we could always know that we too can live victoriously as Paul did. Paul was not some kind of person of amazing faith. He was the person who held the coats of other men while they stoned Stephen, to death. He was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians when God got a hold of his life. God stopped Paul in his tracks, and because of Paul’s encounter with Jesus Christ on that Damascus road, Paul gave his life over to Jesus Christ and the Church as we know has never been the same. Paul’s strength is found in his utter devotion to Jesus Christ.

God does amazing things when we give ourselves completely and utterly over to God. Lives lived in this manner reflected the amazing strength of which Paul speaks. Blasphemers become founders of the church and 13 year-olds become preachers.

Paul can look back and see the strength in his life, I can look back at my life and see God at work. Each and every one of us should be able to look back and see how God’s mercy, love and grace have overflowed toward us strengthening us. We all like Paul should see our lives as testimonies to the strength which God gives. We all should be able to join with Paul and give thanks and praise to the one who raise us and changed us and gave us new life, who gave us strength to be the people God called us and is calling us to be.

This passage is just as much about sharing the testimony of what has been done in us and through us, for which we all have reason to be grateful and for which each of us can give God which belongs solely to God, as it is hope that God will continue to be our strength, hope that the love and mercy which has thus far overflowed up on us will continue.

Paul is in jail, there are so many unknowns. Will he die? (He is pretty sure the answer to that one is, “Yes”) When will he die? Who will carry on his work and his ministry? Is he leaving his churches in trustworthy hands? Will the church fail? This might not seem to be in doubt as we look back over two thousand years in which the Church has flourished, but at this time, this was a legitimate fear, the future of the new Church was yet to be seen. Would it survive the to the next generation? (as question we always seem to be asking) But, Paul could testify to the work God had done in him and through him. He was grateful to the mercy and love, which had overflowed to him, he knew the strength which could only be found in living the holy life, to which God called him. He had given all the unknowns, all his hopes, all his dreams, . . .all his fears over to God. He knew God would not fail, that God’s mission was to seek and save the lost and that as long as Christians like Timothy, like you and like me continued to live Holy lives completely given over to God, that the future of the Church was assured in this and this alone, God’s people living Godly lives.

The call of this passage is to Holy living. The call of this passage is to stand up and give grateful testimony to the who allows for us to live holy lives. I have shared the testimony of this pastor and the 13 year-old girl whom I once was. What is your testimony? What grateful testimony of the work God has done in you and through you? In what way can you stand up today and give god the glory and honor and praise for who it is God shaping and forming you to be?