Monthly Archives: May 2009

Planting the Garden

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This is the message I presented at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church for the 5th Sunday of Easter, 18 May 2003.  The Scriptures are Acts 8: 26 – 40, 1 John 4: 7 – 21, and John 15: 1 – 8.

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The number of flowers that we have had grace the altar of the church and our collars these past few Sundays prompts me to point out that if you give me flowers, it should be with the specific purpose of my giving them to either Ann or my mother. For in the simplest possible terms, I do not have a green thumb. This naturally is a great disappointment to my family where the growing of flowers and the tending of gardens is a natural family activity. I understand the nature of gardens and planting and I can do yard work with the best of them. But I don’t have the special feeling that turns a barren corner lot into a blaze of color and a place of comfort for people to visit and enjoy.

A garden is a place of life, a place of refreshment, a place from which growth can come. In that sense a church is a garden. Many times it is like the Garden of Gethsemane where people come to enjoy the smells and colors and get away from the troubles of the world, if but for a few moments. It is a place where one can renew their relationship with Christ.

During the sermon, I sang parts of Hymn 314

Not only is the church a garden for comfort, it can be a garden for sustenance, for growth. There are times when people need to find that something in their lives which allows them to grow, to become better aware of the world around them and the church serves that purpose.

The Ethiopian in the chariot was at such a point where his growth could not be accomplished individually; he needed the help of someone to fully understand and comprehend the meaning of the prophecy of Isaiah and its fulfillment through Christ. To that end, Philip was there to help in that growth process. The history of the Methodist Church speaks of its impact and role in the educational process with the founding of the first Sunday schools so that children and adults could learn to read and write. Many a time, the bishops of the early churches encouraged the circuit riders to read and study, so as to understand the Bible better and be able to carry the Gospel into the world.

If Phillip had not been there for the Ethiopian, he might not have come to know Christ. We are given many opportunities such as the one Phillip was given that day described in Acts, many opportunities to plant the seeds of a fruitful garden, and we cannot pass any of them by. We do not know what will grow from the seeds we help plant but we cannot sit idly by and not plant the seeds because of this uncertainty.

Yes, like in the parable of the sower, some of the seeds will land on rocky soil and wither and die. Some of the seeds will land among the weeds and be choked by the competing forces of life and die as well. But a good portion of the seeds, a good portion of our effort will land in the fertile soul of mankind and the results will be good.

As we plant our gardens, we also know that it will take great care and love to see the effort through. We cannot simply plant the seeds and go away; we must work to remove the weeds and the obstacles to ensure good growth; we must tend the ground with love and care. As I watched my grandmother tend the flower garden that was the definition of her home in St. Louis, I could see the love and care that she put into each part of it. Caring for a garden requires much love, a love for the task and a love to see that the fruits of the garden are shared with others.

So too must the garden of the church be tended with love and care. And here we have to be careful. For we do not want to confuse the care we give for things with the love we have for what is here. No matter what the organization might be, a church or otherwise, if there is no love for the members of the group, there can be no love for its work or its growth. The love that individual members of the organization have for one and another must be genuine and real; it cannot be artificial or solely for the benefits of those visiting or on the outside looking in. As John wrote in his letter to the churches, if our outward expressions of love belie what is in our hearts, we cannot truly love and whatever love we express will only be a love for ourselves and not for others.

Now, I think that these words of John were written from his heart. There may be no way to really know but it has been assumed throughout Christian history that John, the writer of the three pastoral letters, was the same author as the Book of Revelation and was the same John who wrote the Gospel of John. And if he was the author of the Gospel of John, then he is the same John who was the disciple of Jesus. This means that he was the John, who along with his brother James and with the aid of their mother Mary came to Jesus and asked to be placed at Jesus’ right hand when the Kingdom of Heaven was established.

It does not matter whether you read this story in Matthew or Mark because Jesus’ response was the same in both stories. Jesus pointed out that if one wanted to hold a seat of power in the heavenly kingdom, they must first work as a servant here on earth. Jesus pointed out that those in power at that time held the power of the office and the authority of that office over the people for their own good, not for the good of the people. This is a point many of our leaders today who claim to be Christian should well consider. The Gospel message would require a change in the values of the world. Power for and of itself would have no value if nothing were done to advance the good of the many. I hope that John remembered Jesus’ rebuke when he wrote to the various churches about the love of the members for each other and how that impacted on what they were doing.

Jesus used parables and stories to illustrate the power of the Gospel. For the images that were used in the parables and stories were the images that the people were likely to encounter in their daily lives. They understood the need for a shepherd to tend to his flocks; they could understand the need for gardener to trim and prune the dead branches from the vine so that the vine could grow and flourish.

Perhaps I should have entitled today’s sermon “Tending to the Garden” because we have a garden already planted. But there is still some planting to be done, for all the indications show that there are people out there who want to know about Christ and want to be a part of God’s kingdom. Unlike the seasons of the earth where planting must be done in the spring, the planting of the seeds in God’s kingdom can happen at any time.

And that means that the care for the garden, the love given to mankind is not limited to a specific time or a specific place. We cannot be like Phillip, directed to be at a specific time and place. Rather we must be ready at any time to help someone find Christ and then to help them grow in that life. We must also work to make sure that there is always a place where people can find Christ, where that seed of peace through the Holy Spirit can be found. And once we start, we cannot stop. We cannot think that it will grow on its own, for like the gardens of earth, the garden I have described can quickly be overgrown with weeds and brambles, choking the growth of the church.

John’s words speak to us today. He speaks of love, the love God had for us, the love we have for Christ, and most importantly the love we have for others because of the love God has for us. How we plant the garden and then how we tend it will show others the type of love that grows in us.

Following Instructions

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This is the message I presented at Walker Valley United Methodist Church for the 5th Sunday of Easter, 21 May 2000.  The Scriptures are Acts 8: 26 – 40, 1 John 4: 7 – 21, and John 15: 1 – 8.

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This part of the sermon could be called “Tales of the Internet.” When I worked at Federal Express several years ago, I was the lead analyst for one section of the technology support division. Because our work was primarily help in nature, we got some pretty interesting phone calls, ranging from the mundane to the very interesting. But not as interesting as other help desks though.

In the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago there was an article about the nature of help desk calls and technology in this country. It was reported that

  1. Compaq is considering changing the command “Press any key” to “Press return key” because of the flood of calls asking where the any key is.
  2. AST Technical Support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
  3. Another caller to Compaq complained that the system wouldn’t read word-processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was would that the customer put the labels on the diskettes and then rolled them into a typewriter to type the labels.
  4. A Dell technician advised the customer to put his trouble floppy back in the disk drive and close the door (to the drive). The customer asked the tech to hold on and was heard putting the phone down and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
  5. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the tech discovered that the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the “send” key.
  6. Another customer called tech support to say that her brand new computer wouldn’t work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked “What power switch?”
  7. And finally my favorite help desk call —

Caller — “Hello, is this Tech Support?”

Tech — “Yes, it is. How may I help you?”

Caller — “The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?”

Tech — “I’m sorry, but did you say ‘cup holder’?”

Caller — “Yes, it’s attached to the front of my computer.”

Tech — “Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It’s because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?”

Caller — “It came with my computer, I don’t know anything about a promotional. It just has ‘4x’ on it.”

At this point, the tech had to mute the call because he couldn’t help from laughing. The caller had been using the load drawer for the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and it had snapped off. There is no record as to whether it was repaired or not.

Now, I cannot speak for the validity of any these stories other than to say that my own experiences suggest that they are true. I do have one of my own from my Federal Express days. One person called in to report that there was a constant beeping on her telephone. So we wrote up a repair ticket and had Bell South send out a technician to check the phone. It turned out that the phone was okay and that the beeping sound was that of a bulldozer working on the construction site outside the office window backing up.

The problem with technology today is that it easily intimidates us. Many times we simply want someone else to fix the problem. When faced with a problem related to computers, VCRs, answering machines (I had to constantly remind my manager at Federal Express to change the message on his answering machine), we find it easier to just leave like it is rather than fixed it or set it correctly. How many of you (and you don’t have to really answer this question) know someone who has a VCR with a flashing time signal?

And to complicate matters, when we do try to read the instruction book, we find that it may be so complicated as to be impossible to follow.

That was the dilemma facing the Ethiopian in the first reading today. As was read this morning, the Ethiopian was reading from the book of Isaiah but not understanding what he read. This individual, a high official in the court of the Ethiopian government, had traveled to Jerusalem to worship. It was noted in my study commentary that many Gentiles had grown weary of the multiple gods and loose morals of their own countries. They were searching Judaism for the truth.

At the time of the writing of Acts, Jews did not speak of a suffering Messiah, as described in the passage from Isaiah. Faced with the yoke of Roman tyranny, the Jews believed in a Messiah that would come as the Lion of Judah, a delivering king, and not a weak lamb. They believed and taught that the suffering One spoken of by Isaiah was the suffering nation of Israel.

But Philip, prompted by the Spirit, explained that these words of prophecy were about Christ and that Christ had to die on the cross for the sins of all humanity.

There are two things to consider about this particular passage from Acts and what it means to us this day. First, understanding what we read in the Bible can be very difficult. Diligence is required for the study of scripture; the Spirit of God does not eliminate the need for human teachers or diligent study. Nor is the Spirit given to make study needless but rather to make study effective. For those who have never heard the Word of God, it is necessary to take the word to them. An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip and told to go to a place where he would meet this Ethiopian (verse 26). If Philip had not gone, then the Ethiopian would not have learned what the message of the prophecy was about.

But I think that this passage also speaks to us about the presence of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. As I noted in the calendar insert for today, this coming Wednesday, May 24th, is perhaps the most important day in Methodism. For it was on May 24, 1738, that John Wesley went to the meeting on Aldersgate Street.

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-street, where one was reading Luther’s preference to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. (John Wesley)

For all the study and hard work that John Wesley and the other early members of the Methodist movement, the movement was not successful until the Spirit came into their hearts. Shortly after John Wesley reported to his brother Charles and the others in their group what had happened, Charles himself had a similar experience.

Now, I do not think that we all have to be scholars of the Bible in order to explain what Christ means to us. Rather, it is as John wrote in his first letter and as we spoke in our opening words today, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4: 12)

In verse 8, John points out that knowing God is a intimate and experiential knowledge of God, not just knowing about God. The point that is being made throughout this letter is that it is impossible to know God intimately, to make God a part on one’s life, without loving others. If God dwells in you, it is reflected in your life and character. As John points out, to claim that you know God while not loving others is a false claim.

There is a simple enough challenge for us this day. If God is to be a part of this world, then He must be a part of our lives. As you go back and read the closing verses of this second lesson (verses 12 – 16), know that John is explaining how one can know that the Spirit is working in one’s own life.

And if others are to come to know Christ as their own personal Savior, it will be because they see how His presence in our lives has changed us.

Jesus spoke of the true vine, the one that would bear much fruit. If Christ abides in us, then our efforts will bear much fruit; if not, then the vine will wither and die.

The challenge that we have comes from something that Dennis Winkleblack wrote to churches of the Delaware Hudson District last week. He reported that he was watching a recent broadcast of the television show “Jeopardy” and that “The Bible” was one of the categories.

The three contestants had left this category to last and it became very clear why. Each of the questions was asked and unanswered. The $1000 question was “Whoever does not love does not know God, for _____ is love.”

And I would ask each of you today what that answer to this is, remembering of course to phrase your answer in the form of a question.

As Reverend Winkleblack noted, none of the contestants got this question correct and it made him wonder. Are there no churches near them where “God is love” is proclaimed each week? Haven’t they been intrigued by a church sometime in their lives that would have caused them to find out what goes on there? Haven’t they been impressed by Christian love in their neighborhoods, in their offices, in their schools? Has not someone done something so incredibly loving that caused them to inquire as to motive and then been told, “because I am a Christian.”

It is apparent that Christians and churches failed these three contestants. How many people in the audience, both in the studio and at home, also didn’t know the answer?

It may be that the instructions for programming a VCR are so complicated as to challenge even the best of us but the instructions for a good life are very simple.

Wesley noted that he could trust in Christ as his own personal savior. And when that happened, his life changed. The same is true today. If we trust in the Lord, if we allow Christ into our hearts, our efforts will bear much fruit. Through our actions, others will come to know that God is love and that it is a love that extends to all.

The Order of Things

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This Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter, I am  at Dover United Methodist Church in Dover Plains, NY (Location of church).  The service starts at 11 and you are welcome to attend.  The Scriptures are Acts 4:5 – 12, 1 John 3: 16 – 24, John 10: 11 – 18. 

Updated on 18 November 2017 to include reference to measurement of parallax

In “A Study in Scarlet” Sherlock Holmes tells Dr. Watson that “it is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence.” A corollary to this is that you cannot and should not make the facts fit the theory. Too often, I am afraid we do just that; force the facts in front of us to fit our pet theories and common concepts about life.

It would have been far easier for Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler if they had looked at the evidence that they had gathered on the motion of the planets and not tried to make it fit into their own ideas about the solar system as well as those of society, that is, the geo-centric or earth-centered solar system.

Brahe is best known in history for the detailed observations that he made of the planets and the stars prior to the invention of the telescope. His observations of a supernova in 1572 contradicted the accepted notion that the cosmos (or universe) was fixed and unchanging. His observations of the movement of a comet in 1577 showed that comets were further away from the earth than was the moon, a conclusion that also contradicted the teachings of Aristotle.

In his observations of the heavens, Brahe determined that there was no parallax for the stars. Parallax is the apparent movement of something when you look at the object with one eye open and the other shut and then change the eye which is open and the eye which is shut. As you blink your eyes, the object you are looking at appears to move; that is what is known as parallax. (see http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/lunar_parallax.html or http://spot.colorado.edu/~underwod/astr/para.html for a demonstration) Brahe showed that the stars did not exhibit such movement and this meant that either 1) the stars were very far away or 2) the earth was motionless at the center of the universe.

Like so many other instances of human thought, Brahe correctly formulated the responses to his thought but choose the wrong answer. He did not believe that the stars could be as far away from the earth as his observations suggested so he concluded that the earth was motionless and at the center of the universe. (adapted from http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/brahe.html)

Kepler took the observations that Brahe had collected and worked on the orbit of Mars. Unlike Brahe, Kepler accepted the Copernican view of the solar system that placed the Sun at the center of the solar system. But the Copernican system had the orbits of the various planets in circles, a relic of Aristotle’s ideas about the motion of planets, and the description of the motion of the observed planets (including Mars) required a manipulation of the data to fit the model.

Try as he might, he could not make the observations fit the theory of circular orbits. Ultimately, Kepler was forced to throw out the idea of circular orbits in favor of elliptical orbits and formulate the correct theory of the solar system. We know where this revelation led. In 1633 Galileo Galilei was tried and convicted of heresy for his public support of the Copernican view of the solar system.

See Annual Parallax and the debate over whether the Earth moves for further information about the measurement of parallax

But even today, with our knowledge of science greater than it was some four hundred years ago, we still have difficulty with scientific concepts, as the recent outbreak of H1N1 flu would suggest. The use of the popular term “swine flu” has lead to problems for the pork industry and there are cultural implications where some may have the virus but whose beliefs require that they avoid pork and pork products. It has been demonstrated that you cannot get the H1N1 virus by eating pork but the use of the term is causing problems not related to the virus.

It is also clear that many people today would rather hold onto a mythological explanation of the world and the universe while denying the truth of observed evidence. There is nothing in this statement about the role of a Supreme Being in the creation of this world and this universe. But the efforts of many today to deny the observed truth and force the teaching of altered truths to fit mythological explanations suggests a path that can only lead to a new “Dark Ages.” I would offer as evidence that we are on that path as our responses and reactions to this latest flu outbreak demonstrate.

I do not deny the existence of God and I believe that He did in fact create the world in which we live and the solar system of which we are a small part. But as I have said many times before, God created us in His image and He gave us the ability to think. If we did not have the ability to think, it would be very difficult for us to be created in His image.

In this month’s issue of Connections, “Curiosity that led to Growth”,Julie Fuschak tells her faith story and how she has grown in the church and her understanding of what it means to believe. She indicates that

I now understand that the Bible has been written by people of faith, out of their faith experience, their world view and their culture, as they felt led by the spirit of God. With that understanding, I find God speaking to me through their faith stories. I am free to question, doubt, ponder, experience, and listen to my heart and mind for the leading of the spirit.

The world in which we live and the church of which we are part is in the midst of a struggle right now; a struggle for the hearts and minds of the faithful and those without faith struggling right now. It is a struggle between a fundamentalist version of a faith and its prophetic vision. It is a struggle between a religion that promises easy certainty and one that prompts a deeper reflection. One version attacks all those outside the circle of faith while the other seeks a dialogue that does not compromise its sacred ground. One version seeks to maintain the status quo, just as it did some two thousand years ago; the other version seeks to root out the internal hypocrisy and religious dysfunction that so dominates our church and faith today.

Too often, we are like the sheep that the shepherd watches over. Or perhaps it is the idea of sheep as meek and mild creatures that follow the shepherd unquestioning where they are going and why they are going that way. We too often accept the ideas in the Bible at face value and do not think about what it is that we read. Now, there are those who will tell you that the words in the Bible are the inerrant words of God, fixed and unchangeable.

To be sure, the words of the Bible are true and they are a fine description of what this world was like some two thousand years ago and they are a fine basis for how we are to live in this world today and in the years to come. But if we are to walk the path that Jesus, the disciples, and the early church walked then we must understand that path and the direction it leads us.

And I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to not understanding the words that I have read in the Bible. I know that I have stood in the pulpit on many occasions, most notably during Advent, and pointed out that presence of the shepherds in the manger was a statement that there was a new order in the world. I just never understood how much the order was changed by their presence.

When we hear the words of the John the Evangelist telling us that Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, we have to understand how revolutionary and world changing this statement was. In Jesus’ time the general populace considered shepherds to be generally untrustworthy and ceremonially unclean. This was because they were in daily contact with the carcasses of animals and came into contact with all sorts of unclean animals.

The level of cleanliness that we are talking about in this case goes beyond the cleanliness that we are dealing with right now. The division between clean and unclean was a fundamental part of Jewish life. They were commanded by the Law to be physically clean, ritually and ceremonially clean, as well as morally clean. And when you became unclean, you had to wash yourself until the religious authorities deemed you clean again. It was a process that we have encountered time and time again in the Gospel readings. (Adapted from http://holyordinary.blogspot.com/2007/12/shepherds-of-sheep-and-lamb-advent.html)

And while shepherds held an esteemed status in the time of David, it was a status that was quickly lost in the time between David and Jesus. As the people settled into Palestine and acquired more farmland, pasturing and the shepherd lifestyle of the ancient Hebrews decreased, shepherding became a menial vocation for the labor class.

And while shepherds were the symbol of judgment and social desolation in the days of the Prophets, shepherds in the days of Jesus were despised and mistrusted. People were told not to buy wool, milk, or a baby goat from a shepherd because it was most likely stolen. Legal documents show that shepherds were deprived of all civil rights, could not hold judicial office, or be admitted to courts as witnesses. And for someone who grew up in the segregated south, that sounds all too familiar.

In the Jerusalem of Jesus’ day, rabbis would ask with amazement how, in light of David’s words of Psalm 23, God could be called the shepherd of His people. (Adapted from http://www.epm.org/artman2/publish/holidays/Shepherd_s_Status.shtml)

It must have been that way when Jesus told the crowds “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary.” These were words that did not fit the image of a shepherd in that society. They were words that challenged the people to think in a new and different way; they were words that suggested a new order to life.

In the same way, Jesus proclaimed a new life and a new way. To a people who saw a life of rules and regulation as the only way to Heaven, Jesus offered an alternative. He rejected ceremonial and external observances of religion to stress that religion was an inward matter of the heart, of a direct encounter with the Father through Jesus Himself.

He will tell Nicodemus that one’s inner rebirth is a matter of love, not law. He will tell the Samaritan woman that worship will no longer be determined by the place one worships but by the attitude that one has when they worship. Jesus will contrast the Bread of Life with the “clean” foods on the Holiness Code. He will tell the adulteress that her life is not forfeited to the external law if she has a saving love. And Jesus will engage the Temple authorities about their conduct in maintaining the Temple as the House of God. (Adapted from “What the Gospels Meant” by Gary Wills)

The proud religionists of Christ’s day should have faded from view and into obscurity but they are still with us today. They are the ones whose actions, words, thoughts, deeds, and inability to see what the Gospel means are driving people away from the church. People are leaving the church, not because they have something better to go to or because they do not believe but because the church’s actions, words, deeds, and thoughts do not match what they see and hear and what they know and feel. Those who are leaving the church are not dumb; they have heard the Gospel, they just do not believe that it can be found in many of the churches of today.

We know that there were those in the religious and political establishment of Jesus’ day who had the same thoughts. We remember the story of Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, who came to Jesus in the middle of the night so that society would not see him.

But he left that meeting confused about what Jesus told him about being reborn again. But we know that he must have thought about what Jesus said because, at Jesus’ trial, he suggested to the other members of the Sanhedrin that they should perhaps hear what Jesus had to say before condemning him. They are said to have responded “Don’t tell us that you are from Galilee, too.” Keep in mind that for the elite and powerful, Galileans were only one step above the shepherds so this was meant to shut up Nicodemus.

But Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, would see that Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb after He died on the Cross, even if it meant violating the very codes of cleanliness that so dominated his own life. In doing so, Nicodemus proclaimed that he believed in what Jesus was saying and doing and that there was a new order in his life.

It was that same new order that would allow Peter to proclaim that Jesus Christ was the cornerstone of the new faith and the new kingdom. It was this new order that allowed John to write to his followers and proclaim that our lives must be lead by love; that our lives must be identified by our actions and by the truth of the Gospel.

The order of life changed when Jesus came into this world. It seems to me that the church today must begin to think about what it has become and how it has forgotten what it once was. We have heard the words and we have seen the evidence. We can ignore what we have seen and heard and nothing will change. We can struggle to put what we have seen into place in the old order but we know that cannot work. Or we can open our hearts and our minds to the power of Christ to change the world, to bring a new order of things.