These are not the three Kings, woman and Child you are looking for - Isaiah 7:10-17

We have before us this morning a story of political intrigue, which involves three kings, a woman, and a child. However, the kings are not from the East, and although this woman and child point forward to another woman and child they are not woman and child you are looking for me to speak of. What you probably do not realize is that this story is ultimately a story of a cowardly king, who crouches afraid in his palace unsure what to do, and unwilling to ask the Lord for a sign, when the prophet of the Lord, tells him to ask for a sign.

Ahaz the king of Judah is afraid. Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the king of Israel came to him with a plan, best plan, the greatest plan, the plan to end all plans. They wanted Ahaz to join forces with them and attack the Great and Mighty Assyrian Empire. They thought that although each of them had three little ity bity armies that together their forces would be great and they could take down giant Assyria. Ahaz, who was afraid of Assyria, did not think this was such a good plan and refused to join them. So now, Aram and Israel had these armies all set up and ready to go to battle but nobody to fight. Well they could go fight Assyria but without Ahaz and the army Judah to join them, that was definitely not a battle to win. So there they were with these soldiers, all dressed up, with nothing to do.  They had a solution to that! They were mad about Ahaz for not joining them in their ultimate show down against big bad Assyria, so why not use these armies to show him just how mad they were.

So now, Ahaz is alone, with no allies and he is afraid. He was previously afraid of attempting to take down the great and mighty army of Assyria, but now he is afraid of the armies of Aram and Israel. Although, two little armies might not be as big and scary as one HUGE army, they were still two little armies joining together to form a slightly larger army coming after him and his little ity bity army.  Dead is still dead no matter what size the army is that kills you.

Ahaz does not know what to do. He is afraid. First, he was afraid of Assyria and now he is afraid of Aram and Israel. The world is full of so much fear! Earlier in this chapter we are told that when Ahaz heard about Aram’s and Israel’s plan to come after Judah, that his “heart shook as trees of the forest shake in the wind.” Therefore, when I say that our passage this morning finds Ahaz cowering in his palace, I do not think that I am taking too much poetic license.

I think we all know how Ahaz feels right now. The world is ganging up on him. He is faced with a choice. He has weighed the costs and the benefits. He checked the odds and analyzed all the equations. He did not make the decision lightly. He believes he has come to the good and logical way to handle the situation, but it was all for naught. In the end, the decision created two new problems, and they are big and burly and are coming at him with chariots and swords. We have all been there. We make the right choice, we were careful, thoughtful, we did what we thought was best, but it did not pay off. Things are worse now.

How many times have we felt like we were surrounded on all sides, that our allies have turned against us and there is nowhere to turn? It seems we cannot do anything right. Everything we do, do makes things worse. How many times have found ourselves in a no win situation? When there is no good way forward and turning back is not an option. There are enemies to the right and dangers to the left and all we can do is shake like a windblown tree. We have all had moments, heck entire seasons of our lives when we have been where Ahaz is right now.

So, Isaiah comes to Ahaz, as he shaking like the leaves of a tree in a strong wind. And the word of the Lord to Ahaz, as he is hunkered down, hiding, hands over his head, afraid of being demolished by armies on all sides, is “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint.” God is essentially telling him to stand up; stand strong. Do not hide, do not shake, there is nothing to fear. These two armies, these two kings are nothing more than smoldering stumps of firebrands (that’s what God says, go look it up). They are nothing more than firebrands who are just going to burn themselves out. They wanted a fight and when you refused to join in their game, they decided to take their ball and throw it at your head. They are hotheaded bullies, who are angry because you spoiled their fun when you would not join in their dangerous game. Let them do what they please. You have nothing to fear.

Apparently, although God tells Ahaz he does not need to be afraid of these two kings with their attacking armies. Ahaz sees their pointy swords and hears their clinking armor and the stomp of their boots and can feel the breath of their horses, and is afraid. Their armies are coming, they are fit for the battle they were looking for. They wanted a fight they could win and he can see that they believe they have found it. They seem to be a force with which to be reckoned.

Ahaz can see and hear the armies approaching. He trusts what he can see and hear. Ahaz can count the number of men who are coming to attack; he can number their weapons and their strength. He knows the odds are against him. He trusts facts figures.  He is a king who “is about to go to war against another king. . .” and has first sat, “. . .down and consider[ed] whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?”(Luke 14:31). He does not trust God.

So, Isaiah says, God wants you to trust. You do not need to be afraid. God wants to replace your fear with faith. So, ask God for a sign, any sign. It can be as great or as small as you like. Ask God for a sign and God will give it to you. Ahaz’s response? “I will not put the Lord to the test.” And Ahaz’s response sounds pious, it sounds righteous and good. (In fact, Jesus quotes Ahaz’s words in Matthew 4 he is tested in the wilderness) But it, like everything else Ahaz has been doing, is motivated by fear. He is afraid to ask God for a sign, afraid that he might not receive it, afraid that he might. Remaining where he is (in fear) is safer than stepping out, than going anywhere. He is much more willing to deal with the danger and turmoil he does know, instead of reaching out and taking a hold of the hope and the promise that come from faith and trust in the unknown, which he must embrace if he did so.

It is always easier to remain where we are. We might not like where we are. Where we are might be causing us to live in fear. We may be unhappy, unable to move forward. We may be surrounded on all sides by enemies and obstacles. “Here” might be absolutely awful, but we know “here.” “Here” is where we are, we understand “here,” no matter how awful (or even amazing) it might be over there, we know can live here. We know it, because we are “here” and we are alive. “Over there” is scary. We do not know what is “over there.” We do not know what it will be like, it could be better, but it could be worse. It could mean living in the light; it could mean living free of the pain we are now in, it could mean living without fear. It could be safe, it could be secure, it might possibly be the most amazing place we have ever been, but it might not. We do not know. “Here” is good. Let us stay “here.”

That is why when Isaiah says; ask for a sign, Ahaz responds from the place where he is. He is living in fear, and God is calling him to faith. Ask for any sign, anything at all. Show a little faith just a little bit, move from fear to faith, come over here where I am, come see what life can be like when you are a tree standing strong, deeply rooted, not turned this way or that by any gale that might come. Come learn to be strong, be brave, to be quiet, to trust, to have a heart full of hope, peace, joy, love and faith. Come here with me. Ahaz in his fear responds in fear, “I will not test the Lord.”

And Isaiah gets frustrated with him and completely loses it. It is too small a thing for you to drive the people around you mad with frustration; you must challenge yourself by attempting to do so to my God as well. It is almost like there is an unspoken if that is what you think of God, that when God is testing you, by giving you permission to put God to the test, you refuse to give God the test God is permitting, because you are afraid to trust God; then YOUR God must not be MY God.

I can completely understand Isaiah here. As a parent I know the tone he is using, when one of the girls refuses to listen to me and keeps on just doing whatever, even when instructed to not. I know how his blood must be boiling and I can almost hear the tone of voice he uses when he rounds on Ahaz. He is exasperated. He is frustrated beyond all get out. He wants to slap him silly but there are laws and guards with pointy sharp things, with which they will poke him, if he does. Ahaz will not listen. He is insisting on doing what he wants to do. He wants to cower before the nations who are opposing him. He wants to be weak and pitiful. He wants to be a tree bent over in a strong gale, snapped, broken and ruined. And will not hear any reason that will save him, make him stronger give him exactly what he needs to not only survive this but thrive in its wake.

So, God offers Ahaz a sign, even though Ahaz does not want one; refuses one. Isaiah tells Ahaz that a woman is with child. A woman they both knew. But not only that Isaiah tells Ahaz that the woman will bear a son, and that she will call him Immanuel. And that before that baby grows to be child, that the firebrands of both Aram and Israel will burn out, that their countries will be left empty, made barren. But, his country alone will remain. Aram and Israel my move against him today, but tomorrow Assyria will come and decimate them all, nothing will be left, their fires will be quenched. You and you alone will flourish; your land and your people will be spared and will live on.

Trust in the Lord and you will truly know the greatness, which God alone can provide. God calls Ahaz from a place of fear to a place of faith and his sign is Emmanuel. The sign is a child and the child is, “God with us.” Ahaz refused a sign because he is afraid and God’s sign is a reminder that God is with him, with the people. God with us, a call to faith when fear is what is easy. When surrounded by all that there is to fear. When the darkness threatens to overwhelm, God with us, the sign God gives, when it seems all is lost and there is nowhere to turn. You are not alone. You are not doing this on your own. Never alone, God is with you.

But it is not a new proclamation. The idea that God was with them was not new. “God with us”, was the very foundation of God’s relationship with God’s people. It was a reminder that God is always the God who is “with us.” From the time of the Exodus, through the times of the judges, all through the prophets, God was a God who was with the people. God was never far off, on a high mountain unreachable, unapproachable- looking down from a distance, seeing everything from afar. No, God was with us. Always, God with us.

From the moment God gave the staff to Moses at the burning bush, God was the God, “who is with.” Every time Moses used his staff, it was a sign that God was “with him.” When the people left Egypt, God was with them in the pillar of cloud and fire, always with them always leading them. But God did not leave them when they left the wilderness. God was with them in the sign of the arch that traveled with them not only in the desert but with them, going before them into the sea and into battle always parting the waters and the armies before them until they settled the land. But God did not leave them then, God was with through the judges and through the prophets, who reminded them of “God with us,” every time they said, “hear the word of the Lord.” The voice of God, speaking through the prophets speaking to them in their times of distress, giving them the words they needed. God was always with them, working for them, speaking to them, guiding and directing them. God was, is always, “God with us.”

The people always seemed to need reminding, God always found a new way to show them. Even if they got it for a little while, they like Ahaz in our passage today, always turned away. Faith is hard, trust is hard, believing in the always present, always active, always trustworthy God is hard. Especially hard, when things are not going our way, when our worlds are crashing down around us, when no matter which way we go, no matter what we do, what choice we make, it seems that disasters mount up around us. There never seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, our clouds have all lost their lining and we find ourselves in the middle of the longest darkest, most unending winter and begin to fear that Spring is never coming. There seems to never be any relief. These are the places we find ourselves and these are the places God’s people found themselves time and time again.  With God continually reminding them, I am here, I am here, I am here. I am the God who is with you.

So then, the woman was with child. But this time there were three different kings and instead of them fussing over armies, they come bearing gifts. And we hear the gospel writer reciting the words of this passage and telling us that the child is God with us, not merely named, not merely a symbol but actually, for really and truly God with us.

God has always been with us, God is always with us, but in Jesus, we see it even more clearly. God sent priests and prophets, signs and symbols but the people never got it. So God, Jesus Christ, became God with us, so that we would actually take notice. So that perhaps this time, when God says, “be still, be quiet, do not be overwhelmed.” We will hear. God is with us. A human with us, who is God. God with us, who is human. All the power of the universe in an itty-bitty baby. God with us.  

In the birth story of Christ, we find the words of the Isaiah to Ahaz, reiterated, redefined. In Christ, we see that God is serious about this being with us stuff. If we can’t believe Moses; if we can’t understand when we are guided by a pillar of cloud and fire; when we do not see God at work in the judges; hear God’s voice speaking to us through the prophets; when we do not understand the symbols God gives us or the signs presented; then God shows us.  God becomes us, so that we can see once and for all know that God IS with us. Do not be afraid, our God is with us. Not just when Christ walked the earth, not just b/c Christ left the spirit behind when he ascended. God is with us, because that IS WHO our God is. God’s name might be, “I am, who I am, I will be who I will be.” But who God IS is the God who is with us. With US. Always forever, where ever we are, never far away, always reachable, always touchable. Always here. Be quiet, do not shake like a tree in the wind, do not let your heart be trouble, I am with you always! Do not fear.

So we have a choice this morning we can stay where we are, in the place where we are. We can choose fear this morning, or we can trust, rely on, the God who not only promises to be with us, but has proved to be with us time and time again, if not in our own lives, throughout all of human history. God with us, in all things at all times, in all places. Do not be afraid! Trust, believe, have faith.

The Highway Home - Isaiah 35:1-10

We have all seen the “Holiday Movie.” You know the one, where someone is trying to get home for Christmas. Maybe there are obstacles in the way, maybe they are at home but they have to go through a series of events to find where home really is. Movies at this time of year focus on families coming together, finding one another, learning to love one another to find the “true meaning of Christmas.” Through the general parade of Christmas movies we learn that coming together and finding love amongst your family and friends is what really matters at this time of year; that “home” is where we find the true meaning of Christmas. I think I can hear your eyes roles and see your internal moans from here.

So there is this idea that “true meaning of Christmas “is about  homegoing or finding home, returning to the place where you belong, where love and security are found. This is actually very much a Biblical theme for this time of year. As sappy, as bland and as secular as some of these Christmas movies can be, they have actually somehow managed to stumble upon some amount of truth when it comes important things to think about at this time of year.

This passage is all about going home. The entire time Israel is in exile they are longing to go home; to live in the house and the cities in which their ancestors lived, to be near the friends and family they left behind, to be reunited with loved ones from whom they had been separated since the time of the exile. The idea of going home and being reunited with loved ones, finding safety, security, love and belonging in a beloved place. THIS is what passages like this one are about.

This is about the road home. Finding your way back to where you belong, to the place that is home, to the people that is home. But, it is more than that. In all the movies finding the place, the people, and the relationship that are “home” is always a struggle. The main characters have to go through a series of hardships, they have to work through several problems, or find their way to the other side of some kind of struggle to find “home.” The movies elevate the struggle, the hardships along the way, because where you end up is what matters. Finally finding your way home makes anything endured on the way there worth the hurt, the pain, and the struggle experienced along the way. But, this passage is not about the journey taken, the struggle overcome, the hardships endured, the pain experienced, problems solved that finally bring you home.

This passage is about going home. But it is not about the huge hot dessert one must cross to get there. It is not about the perilous wilderness one must go through. It not about the mountain one must scale, or the dangers, which come at you from all sides. It is not about getting lost along the way, learning an important lesson and then finally finding your way home. This is about going home, finding home, being in the place you were meant to be.

And how did you get there? Surely, the road one must traverse goes over the highest mountain, through the darkest valley, and the driest dessert, with steep cliff on one side with sharp pointy rocks at the bottom and another on the other that periodically throws immense boulder down at you. You mustgo through the forbidden forest, which houses the most notorious bandits and all the lions and tigers and bears. What kind of journey would it be without the dangerous road along which we all must travel to find our way home again? But, that is not the kind of story portrayed in this passage, there is no danger there is no puzzle, there is no unending peril. You just go home. You travel there along a wide smooth road, which passes through a dessert, which is a garden full of food; through a wilderness, which is filled with refreshing pools of water; down a road surrounded by fragrant blossoms, along a highway that does not twist or turn, through a land completely void of danger. There are no bandits to defeat, no wild animals to avoid. There is no danger of going hungry or thirsty or being killed by anything that would wish you harm. In fact, the path is so clear, the road so smooth and so straight that even a fool could not manage to seek out a way to get lost along it. This is a highway, wide, and straight, smooth and safe, which takes you all the way home; straight there with no detours, no danger, and no dashing deeds of heroism needed to earn your way there.

Not only is it a place of safety and security, but it is a place of healing and restoration. The blind, see; the deaf, hear; the lame walk, feeble hands are made strong, wobbly needs are made steady. This is a place of justice and vengeance, where wrongs are set right. Those who have caused others pain, who have done harm, those who have crushed the weak and taken advantage of others, will pay. And those to whom injustice has been dealt, will receive what they have lost, what was taken will be restored; they will receive all that was denied to them.

There is a story where the road home sounds like singing and smells like flowers, where there is rejoicing all along the way. This passage is full of freedom, full of safety, full of longing fulfilled, and full of joy. Joy because home has been found; joy because the lame leap and the mute sing; joy because restoration, reconciliation, redemption have been found, joy because brokenness has been mended and wholeness has been restored.

This is a healing road, one that heals bodies, minds and relationship. It brings restoration to our whole beings and puts us right with our creator. All on this road are righteous, are made clean, only those who are redeemed, who are living in right relationship with God can be found there. This is the road that restores all things, that ultimately sets everything right.

Israel was looking for a way home, way back to the land they loved, a way back to Israel, to Jerusalem. They wanted to go home and so God promises them a road home. God promises them a road like no other road; a holy highway, which encompasses a journey of Joy and leads them right to where they have always longed to be. But the road God promises is bigger than they could imagine, the way there is more amazing than they could dream and the place to which it will take them is nearly incomprehensible. The home to which this road leads, is bigger than Israel, bigger than Jerusalem, bigger than the temple, bigger than the land, this road leads to the holy of holies. It leads to place where we all live in right relationship with God. This is the Holy Highway, the road that leads to the heart of God.

This road IS Jesus Christ. All those found upon it are redeemed. In this passage the road is the way home. And as we look back and see this promise through the lens of the life, death, resurrection and promised return of Christ, when we understand who Christ is and what life lived as Christ calls us to live means, we cannot help but see that this road is not a thing, it not a path, it no mere highway, it IS Jesus Christ. He is the way. And the land to which the road takes us, the home to which we are going, is relationship with the one and only God of the universe. Advent is about finding home, it is about finding that relationships are what really matter, but not the relationship found around a fire, under a Christmas tree, around a cup of comforting cider, but the relationship we find in Jesus Christ, the relationship restored that we find when we are right with God. When that one relationship is made right, when we find ourselves walking along the highway that is belief in Jesus Christ and a life lived in the love of God, then we find that we are able to work out restoration, reconciliation, in the other relationships in our lives. Home is found in God, in Jesus Christ and when we find home in the creator of the universe, we are finally able to begin to find home in all the other areas of our life. When we walk along the road that is Jesus Christ, that is where reconciliation, restoration, redemption is found. When we travel along the highway that leads to the heart of God, we find wholeness and healing, it is in relationship with God that wrong are set right. In living our lives heading toward home we are able to be the people of God rejoicing together, we find that the journey we take is one filled with Joy that can only be found when we finally find where home is, who home is.

The Things I've Said . . .

I am a pastor, I am a wife, I am a mother. I am a good person. I am a decent person. I love Jesus with all my heart. I belong to a denomination, which believes in holiness of heart and life. As such, I live and strive to live out the holiness of God in my everyday life. It is my desire that all I do, all I say, all of my actions every day reflect the nature of God and the loving heart of Jesus Christ for this broken world in which I live.

I am also the kind of person who when talking about cussing and which words are words a “good Christian” should and should not use, it is not about a list of words we deem too unholy to be uttered but that such things go deeper than that. We should never use our language to hurt, harm or degrade another human being. Any word or phrase used as such should be deemed unholy, should never be uttered or used, whether that word or phrase was a part of any official or unofficial list of what is taboo. But there I was; I was explaining how I had been cheated out of something that I deserved and I said, “I was gypped.” I stuttered to a stop and looked up into her velvety chocolate eyes, at her beautiful olive skin and enviable dark brown ringletted curls. She was Roma, a gypsy. We were in Romania, and I knew what they said about the Roma. They lied, cheated and stole. I had been told once that I should never think about adopting a gypsy baby, because even if you took it from its mother on the day it was born, it would be stealing from you by the time it was two. It was in their nature, they could not help but lie, cheat, steal; it was inevitable spend much time with a gypsy and sooner or later you would be gypped. She was my friend I would never think any of those things about her, but with one word, I had just said ALL of that to her, about her. I may not have meant it, I would never have even thought it, but I had said it, I had participated in a deeply rooted racism I did not even fully understand.  

I could say that I did not mean it; I did not. I could say that I did not realize; I did not – not until that moment.  I could say that I would never say it again; I have tried not.  But in that moment I knew I was wrong and in many ways I could not believe that I could have been the kind of person who could do something, say something that mean, that offensive, because most of the time I was not.

Whether it is racism, or sexism or some other kind of prejudice, my guess is that all of us are the kind of person who would not seek out that kind of behavior, we would not purposefully say words, phrases, or participate in aspects of our society for the purpose of hurting, harming or deeming anyone else.  

We all want to believe we are good people, we all want to believe that we are enlightened, that we know our own true nature and we not “those” people. We are not sexist.  We are not racist. We do not perpetuate prejudice with our words or our actions. That is not who we are.  That is not who I am.  That is not who I want to be.

I still blush with embarrassment when I think of myself saying what I said in front of my friend. In that moment, at the time I was racist. I said a racist thing, not to my friend, not about my friend, but the remark included her anyway and it included her all the times I had said it previously in my lifetime, whether it was in her presence or not, whether I knew about its racist origins or not. It was wrong. I had said it before, it was wrong, and it just made it so very clear to me, when I said it in her presence how very wrong it was.

My guess is, whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not (to ourselves or to others), we all do and say things like this on a much more regular basis than we would care to think. There are words and phrases in our vernacular, which we do not think about, we have not actually heard what they mean, it has not occurred to us about what or to whom they are referring.

I think of the teens with whom I worked when I was at my first pastorate. I can remember having to talk to them about their use of the word, “Jewd.” Several of them would go to swap meets and pick up stuff and they would talk about how they “Jewd” someone else down from their original price. I can remember their faces the first time I explained to them that this was a racial slur against the Jews. None of them would purposefully use a racial slur. None of them harbored any ill will against the Jews. But they were commonly using a racial slur against a people whom they wished no harm.

Recently I heard someone, say from a pulpit, “Say to the devil, ‘get your cotton pickin’ hands . . .’” It may or may not be a phrase of which you are familiar.  It is a saying in the South, and bugs bunny said a version of it often in his 1940’s cartoons. But it is a phrase which is literally referencing the dark hands of the slaves who picked cotton in the South. I was shocked and distressed. We were in a multiracial gathering and this man was using a racial slur from the pulpit!  

That evening I got on Facebook and messaged my one of my dearest friends in the world, who had spent the first 10 years of her life in Georgia, to talk to her about it. Her response? She had used the phrase growing up. It was a phrase older people used more often than younger, but she has not ever thought about it that way before. In fact, if I had not written it out she would never had made the connection. She had always thought it was a nonsense word, “cotunpikin.” She did say now that knew, she would never use it again.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it means to be black person, much less a black man in America today. I can read the headlines, I can do what I can to be aware, but I am not black, I do not know, I can never know, I will never know. I do know what it means to be a woman in America today. I know what it feels like to be a 40-year-old woman who is called a “girl.” I know what it feels like when someone says, “ladies” in that tone of voice which seems to imply that that is something wrong with my hormones, or my temperament, or my reaction that needs to be soothed and coddled because it is somehow irrational. I know what it is like to be talked down to by others in my profession because I am a woman in a male dominated field. I have been told implicitly and explicitly that I will need to work harder and obtain better results to get the same kind of acclamation as my male counterparts. I have been at a gathering of my colleagues and be addressed as “gentlemen.” In fact I have on my desk, framed and given to as a gift, the covenant I made with my congregation when I was installed, which has me agreeing to be a “faithful husband and father” (rest assured the proper words were used in the ceremony). I will also tell you that most of the times I have been a recipient of sexism, it has been perpetrated upon me by well meaning, good people who did not mean it, and most of whom did not realize that their words and actions were hurtful much less sexist, but they were hurtful and sexist none-the-less.

It is my hope that I do not use language in my everyday speech, which is derogatory of another group of people. It is my hope that I am not going around pronouncing racial slurs.  It is my hope, it is my desire that I am not that person, but I have no assurances that I am not, that I do not. But, I know that at least at one point in my life I did. I do not know for sure but it is my guess that I continue to remain ignorant of other words, or common turns of phrase, which have deeper, darker meanings than I currently comprehend. It is possible that at some point during the course of this day, I have unknowingly said something racist or something prejudice against another human being. And if I have, I am truly sorry and hope that I will be enlightened so that I may not go on unwittingly hurting and harming other with my words and actions in the future. Inadvertent sexism, racism or prejudice is still sexism, racism or prejudice and in many ways is more insidious than that which is perpetrated purposefully, because it is perpetrated by good people over and over again. This is how sexism and racism is perpetrated and sown, watered and grown in our midst. This is unacceptable! This is not Christlike!

My guess is that you also believe yourself to be a “good person.” That you do work to do good and not harm in this world.   I would hope that you are of the same mind as myself; that you would never be the kind of person who would purposefully make sexist remarks, that you would never be the kind of person who would make a racist statement, that you would never purposefully perpetrate prejudice in any way. Neither of us are those kinds of people. But I think that although it is not our desire, it is not our intent that we all do. We have said things; we have done things; we have unknowingly, and unwittingly participated in prejudice in ways that have yet to be revealed to us. We are sexist, we are racist, we hold prejudicial attitudes, we just, as of yet, do not know how, or in what ways. The seeds are planted in our hearts, we water them with our words, we nurture them with our attitudes and harvest them with our actions. We cannot continue to allow this to happen. We cannot continue to allow these things to grow in us, be nurtured in us and by us and harvested among us. This must stop, and it must stop now.

But what can we do? We are all unwitting participants. It seems we are all doomed to fail! No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that we all can do better. Doing better begins by humbly admitting that although we may not be sexist people, we may not be racist people, we may not be people who see ourselves as defined by some kind of prejudice. In the core of our beings we are none of these things. Yet, we must admit that it is possible that we say racist things, that sometimes we have sexist attitudes, there are times in our lives when prejudice is behind some of our actions. It is possible that we have done one or more of these things today, this week, on a regular basis even. And in speaking those words, performing those actions, holding those attitudes we are being racist, sexist, prejudice. In those moments we are people we do not want to be, would never intentionally be, yet we are. And then, we should be open to be aware of the person we are in that moment, the things she said, the things he did, the attitudes I espoused. In order to hear ourselves, to see ourselves, to know ourselves, we must first be willing to admit it is possible, so that when we do, we may be able to catch ourselves, stop ourselves.  It is possible that simply by being conscious of the fact that we might do this, we are able to enact change in our own attitudes, in the words we use and the things we do.

We must also be willing to humbly hear them when others call us out. There are times when we are with a friend or a small group and we say, do or reflect attitudes that we did not realize were hurtful, that person calls out (either immediately or some time later). We may be confronted following sermon, a Bible Study, a public presentation or some other situation in which we were before a larger group of people. No matter the situation, there are times when someone will come to us and bring before us the harmful things we have said or done. It is easy to deflect, to come up with an excuse, “that is not what I meant.” “I do not think that is what that means.” “You know that is not what I mean when I say that.” “I would never do that.”  We might even be tempted to put it back on the person who has come to us. “You are being too sensitive.” “You are reading too much into what I said.”  “Come on you know that’s not what I meant.” “I think you misunderstood.” When this a happens we must be willing to see the ways in which we have failed. We must be willing to actually hear the person, their concern, their hurt. We must be willing to entertain the idea that we are wrong.

Like my friend who had no idea that she had been using a racial slur until it was pointed out to her, it may take someone else to tell us, to explain to us that what we just said was wrong, that our actions are sinful, that our attitude is wrong. We must be willing to hear these corrections whether they come kindly or whether they come from someone who is lashing out at us in their hurt and their pain (which I might add we inflicted upon them). We must be willing to hear them, to admit that we are wrong, and move to make changes for the future.

When we are made aware of the ways in which we have participated in prejudicial sin, then we must begin by humbly admitting that we are wrong. Before we can move forward before things can begin to be better, before we can work to be the Christlike people we desire to be, we must see these words, these actions, these attitudes for what they are, sinful.  We must admit that we have sinned.  We must be contrite, we need to confess that we have sinned, to ourselves; to God and to any person or persons we have hurt or harmed. And we must also repent, which means that we will need to work within ourselves (with the help of God) to change so that we will no longer sin in these ways in the future. Whenever we are confronted with our own prejudice our response should immediately be humility, contrition, and repentance, privately for private sins and publicly for public sins.

When we see the seeds of sexism inside of us; when we are made aware of how racism is being nurtured in our lives; when we come to know that we are growing attitudes of prejudice let us stomp them out, let cut them down and no longer allow them a place in our lives.

But, let us also cultivate a garden around us, which does no include these things. Although, we begin within ourselves, as we are made more and more aware of the sexist comments that come to our lips, the racial slurs that we might speak or the prejudice attitudes we espouse, we will more and more be made aware of these very things in the Christians (in the people) around us. We must work at finding ways to gently correct our loved ones and friends. We need to figure out brave and kind ways to bring these kinds of things to attention of those around us.

When we come to someone, we must assume that they, like ourselves do not realize what they are saying, what they are doing, what kinds of attitudes they are reflecting in this world. They too are good people; they too are not seeking to hurt and to harm those around them. They are not sexist at heart. In the core of their being they are not racist. They are not really the kind of people who desires to reflect prejudicial attitudes. They may not be as willing or as open to hear us, as we are seeking to be, but we should still work to gently, kindly, and humbly speak to those around us. Perhaps, they will hear us, perhaps they will not. It is possible, even if we do not receive the response we would hope, or we would like, that our words are the first of many which will eventually lead to change in that person’s life. When we find our kind correction is turned away, we should continue to pray that God will work within that person, and one day they will be able to see their own need for change.

Let us be better than this! Let us strive together to be the people we envision ourselves to be. Let us stop racism at its roots within each of us. Let us come together and work to make this world a world where the hearts, lives, words, actions and attitudes of Christians truly reflect those of Jesus Christ.  

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.