Category Archives: Year C

“What I Am Not Giving Up for Lent” (3) – Experience

Posted on by
Reply

This will be the “Back Page” for the bulletin at Fishkill UMC on March 24 , 2019 (3rd Sunday in Lent, Year C)

The nice thing about the Season of Lent is that we know where it leads us.  Because we know that, we can, should, and do reflect on our experience with God.

Was your first experience with God like that of Saul on the road to Damascus, a bright flash of thunder and light?  Or was it like that of John Newton (“Amazing Grace”) where the storms of life caused you to consider the direction of your life and change it?  Even our own John Wesley’s life began to change when he could not find God on a ship crossing the stormy Atlantic.  The episode at sea would lead Wesley to the Aldersgate Chapel where he would find his heart strangely warmed by the knowledge that Christ was a presence in his life.

Each of us has experienced God in our own unique way.  But, no matter how we came to know God through Christ, there was someone who, by their words, thoughts, deeds and actions, helped you to find Christ.

But today there are too many Christians whose words, thoughts, actions, and deeds give the message “we don’t like your kind here.”  Too many Christians today echo the words of the inn-keeper  when he told Mary and Joseph there was no room for them in the inn that night.

During this time of Lent, as I reflect on my own experience so many years ago, I know I cannot give up my faith or my church because, even though some would have closed the door, there were those who opened the door.  And I need to be there to open the doors for others.

In the remaining days of Lent, are you , through your words, thoughts, deeds, and actions helping people experience God?

~~ Tony Mitchell

Repeat Or Repent

Posted on by
4

A Meditation for 28 February 2016, the 3rd in Lent (Year C). The meditation is based on Isaiah 55: 1 – 9, 1 Corinthians 10: 1 – 13, and Luke 13: 1 – 9

One of the shows that is on my “favorite” list is “Leverage”, probably because of its contrarian viewpoint. In one of the early episodes, the Leverage team learned that Nate Ford, their leader, had been in seminary (“The Miracle Job”). In this episode, the villain is trying to foreclose on a Catholic church in Los Angeles (we will ignore the probability that the writers of this episode didn’t really understand the nature of Roman Catholic real estate proceedings). In what he assumes will be the last Mass held at the church, the priest (a friend of Nate’s) uses the Gospel reading for today as the basis for his homily.

Now, I have not heard that many homilies in my day so I am always surprised when this priest seems to be, as a former choir director of mine would say, is a bit more Pentecostal than usual. The priest tells the congregation that the message of the Gospel is that they must repent or perish.

I don’t think I have ever thought of that passage in those terms. For me, the central part of the message is the time-frame. In my own experiences, for any effective change to take place, you have to have a long-term plan and three years is not really that long. I am sure that someone will tell me that the three years in the Gospel story is related to the three years of Jesus’ Galilean ministry and the traditional three years that a Methodist pastor serves a congregation comes from those two ideas.

Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians in today’s New Testament reading reminds us that when we reflect on our past, it is very hard to move forward or even envision the future.

Balance this with the idea that Lent is the season of repentance and to repent is to change your life, totally and completely. For too many people, repentance, especially during Lent, simply means to ask forgiveness for whatever it is that they have done, try to avoid doing it for forty days, and then, after Lent is over, returning to that prior behavior.

Everything that is taking place today, in our society and throughout the world, seems to say that we have forgotten the lessons of the past and all that happened then. Or it is with the idea that yesterday was better than today and tomorrow can never be as good as today is.

In 1964, then Attorney General Robert Kennedy spoke to the students, faculty, and guests at an assembly at the California Institute of Technology about the role of science and technology in shaping the future. In what might be considered a rather prophetic statement, he said,

“To say that the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident.· I observe regretfully that in politics, however it can be heresy. It can be denounced as radicalism, or branded as subversion. There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed. It hardly seems necessary to point out in California – of all States — that change, although it involves risks, is the law of life.”

Nevertheless, there are those, frustrated by a difficult future, who grab out for the security of the non-existent past. Frustrated by change they condemn the wisdom, the motives, and even the patriotism of those who seek to contend with the realities of the future. (“The Opening To The Future”)

This is something I wrote about last week (“The Paradox Of Vision”). Some churches feel that the key to the future lies in repeating what was done in the past. Yet, the conditions that made the past successful are not always conditions that will work in the present and what might work today might not necessarily work tomorrow. If one does not understand the operating conditions, failure is almost certain.

Ultimately, it comes down to this, if you choose not to repent, to cast aside the past and begin anew, then you will surely repeat the past. And if it did not work then, it most certainly will not work today. And that means that there probably will not be a tomorrow.

On the other hand, if you repent and renounce that which ties you to the past and keeps you from moving forward, then you will have a future. It will be a future in which joy and hope abound beyond description; it will be a future that most definitely obtains the goals of the Gospel, to tell the Good News and bring relief to the downtrodden, good health to the sick, shelter for the homeless, and justice for the oppressed.

The choice is yours, repent and move forward or repeat the past and die in the backwaters of history.

“Growing the Faith”

Posted on by
Reply

Sunday was one of those times when I would have liked to be in the pulpit somewhere. But if you look, you would see that I have only been in the pulpit once in the past 8 years on this liturgical date. And that is to be expected since this is a time of year when most pastors prefer to be in the pulpit. (This was edited to take out a reference to a summary page that I deleted.)

Now, as it happens, I will be filling in for a pastor next Sunday, the 4th Sunday in Lent (10 March 2013) at Grace United Methodist Church in Slate Hill, NY. Service is at 10 am and you are invited to attend. On Saturday, I will provide the reading and message at Grannie Annie’s Kitchen. We open the doors at 8 on Saturdays and you are invited to be a part of this new community growing in Christ and faith.

The message for next Sunday is entitled “The Decision We Must Make” and is based on the Scriptures for the 4th Sunday in Lent – Joshua 5: 9 – 12, 2 Corinthians 5: 16 – 21, and Luke 1 – 3, 11 – 32.

The Scriptures for the 3rd Sunday in Lent were Isaiah 55: 1 – 9, 1 Corinthians 10: 1 – 13, and Luke 13: 1 – 9.

As I stated, because of the Gospel reading for Sunday, I would have liked to have been in the pulpit. A number of years ago I wrote a piece (“The Bottom Line”) in which I noted that M*A*S*H was my all-time favorite television show/series. The movie is also one of my top ten but that is for another time and piece. I also noted in the piece that the “Banacek” and “The Rogues” were among my favorite shows.

For me, there was a little bit of an anti-establishment flavor in them. Banacek, played by George Peppard, was an insurance investigator brought into cases that were seemingly impossible to solve and beyond the capabilities of the insurance companies investigators. “The Rogues” were a family of thieves who started off planning some sort of elaborate theft or con that would bring some more evil person to justice and bring them a little more wealth. Both shows had limited runs on television and I always suspected that one of the reasons was the intellectual level was perhaps a bit higher than normal television fare. Besides, many times shows with an anti-establishment attitude generally don’t last long anyway (with M*A*S*H clearly an exception to this rule).

Two current shows that have joined my favorites lists are “Leverage” and “White Collar”. “Leverage” was on for about four years and just recently ended (though I think there is the possibility of some sort of made-for-TV movie lurking in the future somewhere). “White Collar” started a year after that and is currently completing a series of episodes.

Both have that anti-establishment tone that I like and both involved someone on the wrong side of the law doing good.

The reason that I am referring to “Leverage” is that we find out in the third episode of the first season (“The Miracle Job”) that Nate Ford had once studied for the priesthood while growing up in Boston. In the pilot for the series Ford is brought together with three individuals whom he had chased as an insurance investigator – Parker, the thief; Hardison, the hacker, and Elliot Spencer, the hitter. Circumstances in the pilot episode bring Sophie Deveraux, a grifter, onto the team.

After the pilot episode, the team established Leverage Consulting in Los Angeles and begins going after individuals or groups that have abused their power and privilege. In the third episode, an unscrupulous real estate developer has engineered a deal that will close the church pastored by a good friend of Nate.

As the episode is ending and the Leverage Consulting team is finishing their plans to bring down the real estate developer, we hear part of the priest’s homily, which focused on the parable of the fig tree that is our Gospel reading for today. For the priest, the parable of the fig tree represents an opportunity to speak to the church authorities who have approved the closure of the church and the sale of the property to the developer, arguing that time is needed to see growth in the church, growth in an area where there isn’t much life or hope, topics that speak to many churches today.

Now, as it happens, the church is named after Saint Nicholas, whom Parker sees as Santa Claus. But as Nate Ford points out at the end of the episode, Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of thieves. And the priest added earlier that it was interesting how God used the work of Nate Ford and his crew, thieves themselves, to save a church.

I think that I could have easily found a way to use the other readings in this message because they speak of moving beyond the present. Whether I am thinking about an episode of “Banacek” or “The Rogues” or watching a past or current episode of “Leverage” or “White Collar”, there is that thought that the hero is working at a slightly higher level than the others.

When I look at the work of the church today I wonder how many people do that, work at a level slightly above normal.

When I began teaching high school chemistry I found myself in a situation far different from the six or seven classes a day, five days a week that most teachers encounter. Lewis County C-1 operated on a modular schedule that was more along the lines of a college schedule of lecture, recitation, and laboratory. The typical method of teaching didn’t always works and I found myself trying to develop lab experiments and exercises since the traditional high labs didn’t fit.

Unknowingly, my work to prepare those lab materials for my chemistry lab introduced me to the work of Jean Piaget and his theory on how children develop their thinking skills. When I began working on my doctorate, I was convinced that my dissertation studies would be in that area, especially since much of the research literature in chemical education at that time focused on intellectual development in chemistry.

While I was looking at this idea, I was also introduced, admittedly in passing, to Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Kohlberg argued that one’s moral development was in stages very similar to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.

Now, whether one is talking about cognitive development or intellectual development, it seems to me that it cannot be done independently. Each person develops at their own pace but for there to be progress it must be done in an environment that stimulates the development.

I cannot speak specifically to the ideas presented by Kohlberg but I do see too many people who, even completed college, have difficulty with abstract thought. Their entire educational process has been done without any stimulus and while they can respond to and solve basic problems, they are incapable of solving more complex problems or even thinking through problems with possibly no solution. All one has to do is look at what is happening in the world today and how we continually and constantly rely on old methods to solve new problems. In the end, the old methods don’t work and our general response is to force the solution instead of developing new ones. The problem is that we can’t develop new solutions because we don’t know how.

And I fear this is happening in the church today as well. There is a stage that every person has to go through when they grow in the faith – that of the child, learning about Christ and God.

There is a second stage, which I believe many people are in today. It is a stage where they have learned the Bible and the basic understanding of what it means to be a Christian but they haven’t done much with that learning. There is a need to learn the fundamentals of the Bible and we do that as children but there is also a need to understand those fundamentals and I fear that many adults do not do that.

They haven’t been placed in a situation where that was necessary and it will not come without stimulation. And because they haven’t been taught how to think beyond the walls of the room or outside the box, they are unwilling to grow their faith as well. The strength of those we call “fundamentalists” comes from the fact that they are able to state basic concepts of the Bible without fear of contradiction or questioning.

There is that third stage of Christian development. It is that stage where one takes the words of the Bible and makes them come alive; where they read of the people of the early church and how they helped others and seek to emulate that work in today’s society. Part of this might be found in the emerging church movement; part of this might be found in those who claim to be spiritual but not religious.

Those who look at the numbers that are generated by the church are still in that middle stage. They see the numbers as the indication of life and vitality. The only problems is that numbers speak to the size of the church and not the life.

Do the numbers tell you of the discussions that take place during a meeting, when individuals with varied backgrounds gather together for one reason but stay for another and discuss the meaning of God, Christ, and religion? How do you measure the change in life on an individual who comes to the meeting without knowledge of the love of God but leaves with perhaps some knowledge?

The numbers told the owner to cut down the fig tree because it wasn’t producing fruit. But the gardener argued that it needed just a bit more time and effort. If we are to be true to the Gospel and we want to grow the faith, shouldn’t we move beyond the walls of the sanctuary and into the fields and pay attention to the plants, trees, and individuals that live there? Our faith will not grow unless we do.

What is the value of the future?

Posted on by
1

Here are my thoughts for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, 7 March 2010.  The Scriptures for this Sunday were Isaiah 55: 1- 9, 1 Corinthians 10: 1- 13, and Luke 13: 1 – 9.

What value do we place on the future? I would say that we don’t place any value on it. After all, it is only something “out there” with no physical capabilities. And we know that the future changes and it is never what it might be.

But it isn’t so much that we place some sort of value on the future as it is we place too much value on the present. And we do everything we can to hold onto what we have now. And as the past months have shown, when the future does become a reality, it is something that we are neither prepared for or what we thought it might be.

Jesus tells the story about a man with a fig tree that had yet to produce any fruit. And a fig tree, or for that matter, any fruit tree that does not produce fruit is a useless tree. Oh, it does provide shade on a hot, sunny day and it does offer a place where the birds can build a nest but that’s not why we planted the tree. So, a fruit tree that does not produce fruit should be cut down. It isn’t just the owner of the vineyard in the Gospel reading who feels that way; it is the way we, as a society, feel today.

If you are not producing something of value now, then you should be just cast aside. Look at our schools. Several years ago, Congress passed the “No Child Left Behind” law as a means of determining the accountability of our schools. Now, more and more people are suddenly realizing what many of us knew several years ago, the law does not work. You cannot measure the success of any school by a single year’s test scores; the true measure of success is several years down the road and unless you cultivate the “soil”, i.e. the school environment, it will never produce the “fruit”. But when we see a school in trouble, society’s answer is to blame the teachers and fire them, dismantle the school, and create some sort of private school that will do a better job.

But if you spend time looking at what they are doing in these charter schools, you will see that (and again, this is something that I know that I have said time and time again) they are teaching the students the answers to the test. We see the scores go up but when the students are tested later, they don’t know the answers.

We fear the future more than we value it. It is an unknown that we are unwilling to face. So we live in the moment rather than for tomorrow. We need to hear the words of Isaiah from today’s Old Testament reading – we need to eat what is good instead of constantly eating junk food. But a lot of people aren’t going to get to those words in the passage; they will stop and turn away when Isaiah offers food and drink for free. We rebel at the idea that everyone gets the best food and the best drink. We cannot stand the thought that everyone will have the best because we really don’t care for others; all that we care about is ourselves.

We cannot see that unless we change our ways, unless we repent and begin anew, then we are going to be like those who Isaiah complains about, like those who Paul complains about and those whom Jesus flat out says will die.

When I looked at the translation of Isaiah from The Message, it included verses 10 & 11 –

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

We should not begin to think that we will think like God, for such thoughts are beyond our capability (verses 8 & 9) but we can hear the words that he speaks to us and it will be the words that change this world. The words were spoken to us, first by Jesus, then by the disciples and Paul, and then by everyone who has heard them down through the ages.

Yes, the words have changed over the years but we have the words before us and we can do great things with what those words mean, provided that we place some value on the future. If we do not care for the fig tree, it will not yield fruit. If we do not place a more intrinsic value on education, it will not bear fruit. If we do not begin to put value on the message of the Gospel, to heal the sick, to feed the poor, to free the oppressed, then there will be no value in our lives even if we, individually and/or collectively, are well-fed, healthy, and not oppressed.

It is time to take care of the fig tree. We are faced with a health care crisis in this country and it is one that will not be solved by any plan that does not put the people first. If the decision is made to let companies, driven by the bottom line of profit, make the decisions about health care then the fig tree will die.

We are faced with innumerable people in this world who are faced with little or no health care, inadequate or limited food supplies, inadequate or limited shelter. We know from history that nations have gone to war for these reasons and yet we are more willing to fight wars than provide health care, food, and shelter.

We profess outrage at the idea of abortion and say that “thou shall not murder” but are quite willing to let the state or federal government execute someone. We are quite willing to invade the bedroom and scream at what we see as sexual immorality but we will not invade the boardroom and scream at greed and avarice. (Yes, I know there is no degree of sin and sexual immorality is just as sinful as greed and avarice but who is hurt more by the actions of two people – two people in their bedroom or two bankers keeping all the money that they scammed from countless numbers of people.)

But, whether you read the words of Paul, Isaiah, or Jesus, you hear the same thing. There is an opportunity today to change the direction, to change the outcome, to change the world. Seek the Lord and abandon your previous thoughts and ways, Isaiah said. Do not test the Lord and he will not test you said Paul.

And “unless you repent, you will perish as the others did” said Christ. There is a value to the future; it is what lies before us and it contains so much more than we can imagine. But if we are caught up in the moment called now, we cannot get there. If we put all of our value in the present, there can be no value in the future.

We have a choice and we need to make that choice right now.

The Fruits of the Vineyard

Posted on by
1

This is the message that I presented at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, 14 March 2004.  The Scriptures for this Sunday were Isaiah 55: 1- 9, 1 Corinthians 10: 1- 13, and Luke 13: 1 – 9

————————————————————————————–

In light of the number of times that I have moved, it is very hard for me to say that I have an ancestral home. Oh, I have seen the house where my parents were living when I was born and I have gone by some of the places where I have lived in the past. Interestingly enough, there are no plaques on the door or signs in the yard that say “Tony Mitchell lived here from time to time.” Of all the places that are a part of my live, the closest I have to an ancestral home is my grandmother’s house in St. Louis, MO.

It is a place where my memories began, though in the pictures of a two-year old. And, unless the current owners have done something, there is a cast of one of my feet on a concrete slab in the backyard. Pictures over the span of time from 1950 to 2000 show the cumulative effect of a grandmother who loved flowers. When the property was first bought in the late 1940’s, it was over ten miles from downtown St. Louis and in the midst of the Missouri truck farms. Of course, in 2000, it was still ten miles from downtown St. Louis but the truck farms were gone, replaced by apartments, houses, malls, and interstate highways.

But my grandmother’s flowers remained. And the last time I looked, the grape arbor was still standing in the backyard. This particular arbor served more as a boundary between her property and the next door neighbor than it did as a source of grapes. Any grapes that we collected off the vines were small and almost tasteless. To be honest, I can never recall any great moments harvesting grapes in all the time that we visited my grandmother. But it was decorative and it served a purpose, so it stood as a place for grandchildren to play.

Since we never cared for the grapevine, we never got any grapes. The vineyard owner in the Gospel reading today is complaining that the fig tree is not producing any fruit. And he tells the gardener that if it doesn’t start producing soon, it will be chopped down.

Fig trees served as shade for the weary traveler. But it doesn’t do any good for a fig tree to be shady if it is not producing fruit. Figs are sweet and nourishing. And the seeds from the fruit are the source of future trees. So a fig tree that does nothing but shade the weary traveler is actually worthless, for it cannot provide for the future.

And fig trees also played another role. In this parable, as well as a similar reference in Mark (Mark 11: 14), the fig tree is a reference to the nation of Israel. The prophet Hosea uses the images of the fruit of the fig tree as a reference to God’s delight in Israel’s choice to follow the covenant made on Mount Sinai. But Hosea follows that with a description of God’s anger when the nation decides to follow other gods.

It is God’s anger that is the common thread of the three readings for today. But it is not the anger of God that we sometimes think it is. Even today, long after the Biblical times, we still think in terms of blaming the victims. If someone did something wrong, it was clearly because they were sinners of the greatest kind.

The people following Jesus that day asked Him if those killed in the political murders or natural disasters died because of their sins. To this Jesus replies with an emphatic “No!” But Jesus also added that unless one repented, unless one changed his or her way of living, then they would perish just as those who died did.

The danger is that we become like the Corinthians, safe in our belief that our actions protect us from sin. The Corinthians felt that because they had been baptized into Christ and partook of the communion that this protected them. But Paul is quick to point out that the Israelites in the desert also had their sacraments. Paul felt that by the crossing of the Red Sea and the direction provided by the pillar of fire and cloud that they were baptized into Moses and the covenant solidified on Mount Sinai. The Israelites had their own food and drink provided by God, just as the bread and juice that we use in our communion were provided by Jesus. But that covenant and those sacraments did not prevent them from sinning against God. Those who wandered in the desert died in the desert because they were not willing to completely follow God.

Paul is quick to compare the sins of the Corinthians to those of the Israelites in the desert. Remember that while Moses was with God on Mount Sinai, the people reverted to their old ways of worship and behavior. The description of these sins and actions were written as a warning of what would happen should future generations get too complacent. Paul’s warning is “if you think you are standing, be careful that you do not fall.”

Those are also Isaiah’s words and the words of invitation for today. “Come to the feast,” God calls to us, “Come to the waters!” Those in need of grace and God’s mercy are invited to receive it now. And that is the catch; for Isaiah is quick to warn us to “Seek the Lord while He may be found.”

We cannot assume that God’s invitation is ours to accept later, when it is more convenient for us. We cannot continue a life of foolishness, wasting our resources and abilities on trivial things when the most valuable thing that we will ever have is given to us today.

Jesus’ warning about the future of the fig tree is a warning to us. The fig tree will grow if it is nurtured and cared for but if it is ignored or it is assumed that it will grow on its own, it will die. Our faith will grow if it is nurtured, if it is in an environment of support. And the faith of others will grow because we are there to provide that environment of support.

When John Wesley began what has now become known as the Methodist Revival, he himself struggled with two questions: What was the nature of salvation and what was the role of the church in dealing with society’s problems.

In Wesley’s time, England was undergoing a series of rapid changes, changes that we would later call the Industrial Revolution. But though some gained from the results of this revolution, many did not. Pay was low, healthcare was limited if not non-existent, and there was no such thing as a retirement plan. You started working when you could, and for some that meant as young as ten, and you worked until the day you died. Your workday was sunup to sundown and your workweek was six days a week, with only Sunday off. You dared not take a day because you might get fired. If you owed someone, you were likely to be thrown into a debtor’s prison until your family could raise the money to pay off the debt. Welfare, as it were, was dependent on the whim of the rich and the patience of the poor. Alcoholism and drug abuse was not uncommon.

Against this background, the church supported the idea that being poor was a sin and if you were poor you were a sinner and to be pitied, laughed at for your lot in life. It was not an environment that brought people to Christ; it was an environment that could lead to social unrest.

As Jesus had done, so too did Wesley contend that the poor were not sinners because of their poverty nor should society ignore them. Through the Methodist Revival, the first Sunday school was started. It was not the Sunday school that we ourselves went to but rather the first organized educational system in England. Because they were working the rest of the week, Sunday was the only day that many children and adults had a chance to go to school. The first sustained efforts to deal with alcohol and drug abuse came because of the work of Wesley and his followers. And because Wesley and his followers sought to create an environment of growth and sustenance, there was not the social unrest and violent revolution that plagued France at the same time.

Sin is not a product of one’s status in life nor is it because of who someone is or where he or she was born. Unfortunately we tend to think so, even in our enlightened society of today. We cannot lead lives which say to someone that we are better simply because we have chosen to follow Christ, for choosing to follow Christ does not exempt us from the problems of the world.

We cannot make deals with God and expect them to hold. C. S. Lewis wrote

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, “If you keep a lot of rules, I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.” I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heaven creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other. (From Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis)

Lent is a time of repentance, a time of change. It is a time to change our lives and how we think. We come to the table today, knowing that when the Israelites grumbled about the lack of food, God provided food for them. When the Israelites grumbled about the lack of water, God provided water. The bread that we eat today and the juice that we drink are reminders of God’s grace and His willingness to provide when His people were in need.

The bread that we eat to date is also a reminder that Christ died for us so that we could live. The juice that we drink is also a reminder that Christ shed His blood for us so that our sins would be forgiven. These acts liberate us.

As we come to the table today, we come knowing that the very act of communion serves to liberate us from this world of sin and death.

As we walk away from the communion table today, we are a liberated people. But with our liberation comes a responsibility. The challenge is to accept this liberation and turn away from the false idols that we think protect us from pain and suffering. The challenge is to accept the liberation given through communion and cast away the idea that somehow we, individually, can control our lives and avoid the sufferings that plague others.

The owner of the vineyard gave the gardener a year to bring the fig tree back to life. Our own sense of liberation will quickly die if we do not work to sustain our faith. Others will not know the sense of liberation that we have today unless we reach out. The fruits of the vineyard will not grow in an environment that does not provide for growth; the fruits of the vineyard will not be harvested unless there is an effort to do the harvesting.

 

The Price We Pay

Posted on by
Reply

This is the message that I presented at Walker Valley United Methodist Church for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, 18 March 2001.  The Scriptures for this Sunday were Isaiah 55: 1- 9, 1 Corinthians 10: 1- 13, and Luke 13: 1 – 9

————————————————————————————–

The events of the last week, the fall of the tech stocks on the NASDAQ and the beginning of “March Madness”, bring a striking counterpart to the scripture lessons for today.

The rapid drop in the price of many tech stocks and the demise of companies whose names end in “.com” again show us that you cannot always get something for nothing and that when one seeks quick riches without little effort, the results may not be what they seem.

The opening weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament also reminds us that thinking that we are safe and secure doesn’t always guarantee that we will be. Just ask Iowa State, Virginia, Ohio State, or Wisconsin what safety they had with the seeding they received before the basketball tournament started.

In this day and time we try to find our security in the acquisition of possessions and status. This is not a new phenomenon by any means. Isaiah was speaking out against the consumer mentality of his people when he said, “Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy?” (Isaiah 55: 2) To gain security, meaningful relationships and a purpose in life would seem to be the major tasks of today’s society. But we are quickly learning, as the fall in stock prices might reflect, that these things are not available at any price. How timely is Isaiah’s call to “listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” (Isaiah 55: 2) Isaiah’s call to the people of Israel, held in bondage in Babylon, was to return to their ancient faith in God, where true happiness and security could be found.

Paul was warning the Corinthians not to get complacent with their spiritual security. Some of the Corinthians were so confident that they were spiritually secure that they were cautious about how they lived. Sure, they performed the proper rituals. They had all been baptized and regularly took communion. They had a theology that made them feel nice about themselves and safe and self-satisfied. But in this cozy world that they had constructed for themselves, they forgot to heed the lessons of the past where in similar situations, their ancestors had fallen by the wayside. Paul pointed out that even with their religious experience, they still fell away from God and met an unfortunate end.

Paul wrote “These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us . . . . So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (1 Corinthians 10: 11 – 12)  Paul is saying that we should not forget the blunders of the people of the past who were sure of their standing but still failed.

Being a Christian is more than simply doing certain things and saying certain things; it is about how one lives. If you knew that you had only one more year to live, what changes would you make in your life? Would your values suddenly change? Would you begin to think about spiritual things. Would you turn to Jesus for salvation? If, as a Christian, you knew you had one more year to bear spiritual fruit, where would you begin? If, as a church, we knew we had but one year to get serious about serving God, where would we start?

When we look at the story in Luke, we read about the mercy of God. The parable of the fig tree points out the patience and forbearance of God. So long as time shall last, God will stand with arms outstretched will to receive all those who would repent of their sins.

During this season of Lent, we are asked to consider where we have been and where we are going. In a world where we seek security and safety, we quickly find that security and safety are not always easily bought. But we also know that God’s mercy is free and that our salvation was bought and paid for on the cross at Calvary. We are called this day to rediscover that God’s love is available to us and that the safety and security that we so desperately seek is available in our relationship to God.

Verses 8 and 9 of Isaiah 55 may have a double meaning for us today. On the one hand, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way” (Isaiah 55: 8) draws the prophetic contrast between God’s perfection and the imperfect Israelites, who had fallen short of God’s intent.

But these verses also challenge us to seek a better, higher way, something like this: “My thoughts, ways, and even heaven are far beyond your limited understanding: To acknowledge that fact does not condemn us but is the key to ultimate redemption. If you want to get out of Babylon, look up to my thoughts and my ways.”

We can never buy the safety and security that will insure us happiness and we have to be careful to avoid a comfort zone of ritual and words that only gives us a false sense of security. Only by establishing or renewing our relationship with God can we truly gain security and safety. The good news this day is that the security and safety doesn’t cost us anything because it was paid for by Christ at Calvary.

 

The Fruits of Our Vineyard

Posted on by
Reply

Here are my thoughts for the 3rd Sunday in Lent.
———————————-
Whenever I read the Gospel reading for today (1) I wonder whatever happened to the fig tree of which Jesus spoke. I think this is because I have probably never seen a fig tree and I do not readily buy figs or eat them. But I understand the metaphor very easily.

When Clarence Jordan wrote his version of Luke for the Cotton Patch Gospels, he used a peach tree because that was the fruit that the people of Georgia were most familiar with. And I think of the grape arbor that was part of the property line of my grandmother’s house in St. Louis. For as long as I can remember, this grape arbor was simply part of the dividing line between my grandmother’s back yard and the next door neighbor. It yielded some grapes but never of the size or quantity that would provide the six grandchildren that played in the yard with any type of snack. But I have been told that my grandmother used to pick grapes from this arbor and make grape jam. So I knew that it once was a productive part of her garden. But, over the years the production declined and it simply became a part of the property, though still a place for children to play.

Jesus speaks of the owner of the garden telling the gardener to chop down the fig tree because it no longer produces any fruit. The gardener asks for one more year so that he may restore its productivity.

We know now that the owner of the garden is God; Jesus is the gardener; and we are the fig tree. We are being given one more year in which to regain our productivity. So, we might ask today, “What are the fruits of our vineyard?”

What are the fruits that we produce? What do people see today when they see the church? How do people react when they hear the word Christian? Unfortunately, I do not think that the answers to those questions are very positive.

People see a church that is closed and exclusive. They hear the word Christian and think of closed-minded people. They read where Jesus welcomed all but see churches that exclude people. They hear of people willing to face down an oppressive empire but see modern day preachers building their own political empires. They see people who claim allegiance to God through Christ but seek political gain for their own well-being. They see people who claim Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace but are willing to engage in destructive wars. They hear of a gentle soul who wandered Galilee two thousand years ago and spoke of taking care of the less fortunate but see ministers with salaries well beyond what most people earn in a lifetime and churches with operating budgets approaching the level of some nations.

They read of the first Christians and hear stories about how communities were formed for the betterment of all people, of people sharing their wealth with others so that all may prosper. But they see churches where the message is one of greed and selfishness, of keeping the gifts from God for one’s self and not sharing.

And most people will tell you that they are Christians, yet they cannot tell you what the first five books of the Old Testament are. They cannot identify the writers of the four Gospels. They think that the statement “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible and do not know that it was first coined by Benjamin Franklin. Is it any wonder that church membership is decreasing today?

The message of many churches today is hypocrisy and self-centeredness. The fruits of the church’s vineyard are sour tasting and almost inedible. Now, there are some churches today that are growing but they are growing because the people are so hungry for the nourishment of the Living Word that they will eat almost anything, no matter how bitter or sour or foul-tasting it is.

Like the Israelites wandering in the desert, we know what it means to follow God but we are not always willing to make the choices that are required. Paul reminds us, as he reminded the Corinthians that when Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God, the people reverted to their old ways of idol worship and immoral activity. (2) We are not, as Paul points out, supposed to test God with regards to His promises to us. Rather, as Isaiah spoke to the Israelites, we are to forsake our evil ways, forgo the thoughts of the unrighteous and return to God. (3)

Jesus tells us in the Gospel message today that sin is sin and death is death, no matter the cause or the form. Whoever dies simply dies; there is no gradient in death. But, Jesus also repeats the calls that were given by the Old Testament prophets and then by John the Baptist, repent of your old ways and choose a new path to walk.

To repent is to change, not merely to say you are sorry. To repent is to walk away from the old life and begin a new life. Repentance is the first step in a conversion. Repentance turns us away from sin, selfishness, darkness, idols, habits, bondage and demons. It turns us away from everything that binds and oppresses us and others, from the violence and evil in which we are so complacent, for the false worship that controls and corrupts us.

And with our repentance, we begin turning to faith. Faith is turning to belief, hope, and trust. Faith opens our future by restoring our sight, softening our hearts and bringing light into our darkness. (4)

What are the fruits of your vineyard? Has your vineyard become overgrown with weeds and neglect? The days of Lent are a time of preparation and a time to repent. If we heed the call that is given today by Christ to repent, we begin the process that will enable us to be restored. The fruits of our vineyard may not be very good today but we know that they will be restored if we heed the call of Christ. How shall you tend your garden?

(1) Luke 13: 1 – 9
(2) 1 Corinthians 10: 1 – 13
(3) Isaiah 55: 1 – 9
(4) Adapted from The Call to Conversion by Jim Wallis