See What Kind of Love -- A Message for June 30, 2024

Scripture Reading: 1 John 3:1-7 

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  

All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.  

But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.  

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. 

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 

 

Here ends this reading of the Word of God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

 

Let us pray.... 

 

Sermon

 See What Kind of Love

 

The Christian concept of Grace means that we receive salvation and blessings from God freely and without merit. So, no matter what we do, not matter how good we are or how many mistakes we make, God loves us, blesses us and forgives us. 

Paul wrote a lot about grace in his letters. He believed that we do not do anything to earn God’s grace – we cannot do anything to earn God’s grace. It is freely given to us, and we cannot do anything in exchange for it – it is so wonderful, and God is so generous that humans are not capable of earning it. No matter how many good works, no matter how many altruistic actions we take, we cannot do enough to earn God’s grace. God freely gives it to us. 

The New Testament letter we are focusing on over the next few weeks, the First Letter of John, was written by someone other than Paul – the author is often referred to by scholars as “the Elder.” This author was a knowledgeable encourager of the people of the growing Christian church – he was wise and wanted to share his wisdom with the baby Christians who were forming the first churches.  

Although the Elder did not write about Grace as a named concept, he wrote about grace. He wrote that God lavishes love on us – that we are called children of God and are the recipients of God’s love. And, as God children, Jesus came to take away our sins. So, we have everything covered, because God loves us, forgives us, and calls us God’s children. 

The Elder was worried about the corrosive nature of sin. He wanted Christians to lead exemplary lives and to become sin-free once we convert to Christianity. 

As we consider our own lives as Christians and consider the 2000 plus years of people throughout the world embracing Christianity, we know that the idealism of the Elder, is unfortunately impossible. As much as we work to be sinless and perfectly follow God, we still fall short and make mistakes – we sin. 

If only it was as simple as deciding to follow Jesus and then sinning no more. 

Jesus even addressed this. In the Gospel of John chapter 8, it is recorded that a group of Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught committing adultery. We do not know the details.... what exactly she had done, how they had caught her, where the other adulter was – although different rules applied to men than women, so maybe he was not considered a sinner like her. The Pharisees brought the woman to Jesus and said the law of Moses commanded them to stone the woman. They asked Jesus what he had to say about following the law? 

Jesus responded by leaning down and writing on the dirt of the ground with his finger. Then, he stood up, said, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” After Jesus made his statement, he leaned forward and continued writing on the ground without looking at the men. Gradually, the men walked away. Again, these were Pharisees – faithful men, religious scholars who had devoted their lives to following God. They were faithful, and yet they were not sin-free. After all the men walked away, Jesus stood up and talked to the terrified woman. He said that the men did not condemn her to death, he did not condemn her to death, and that she should go and sin no more. 

Jesus realized that no human being is capable of being sinless. But, as followers of God and Jesus, we still must strive to sin no more. We are constantly working on practicing our faith and working to not make mistakes that harm ourselves and others. We are not hardwired to be perfect – even little children struggle to avoid sinning – I got mad and hit my brother; I got frustrated and threw my sandwich off the table; I am tired and instead of going to sleep, I crawled out of bed and am playing with legos....even little children struggle to do the right thing and be obedient to parents and teachers and God.  

As we grow older, the possibilities of how to sin multiply. We must work on self-control, to be mature and thoughtful. We must strive to not intentionally make mistakes and avoid doing things that are harmful for ourselves, for others, and for the world. 

Fortunately, we are the beneficiaries of God’s love and God’s grace. God loves and forgives us even when we fail. Jesus came to earth to help us – to welcome all people to follow God, to help us understand how to be loving to each other, and to give of himself so that we know we are forgiven for our transgressions. We will make mistakes, but it is our challenge to work every day to be a little bit better.  

We are will do so because of God’s love and God’s grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.  

 

Our Joy Can Be Complete -- A Message for June 23, 2024

 

    Every once in a while, I have made jokes to the Lunch Bunch that we should focus on a book of the Bible no one knows anything about instead of our tried-and-true Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. When I made those quips, I suggested we study First John. I am not sure why it pops into my mind – perhaps the Holy Spirit has been sending me a message. 

    So, over the next six weeks, we are going to look at the First Letter of John. It is a book of the Bible I have read my way through in my annual practice of reading the Bible, but I have never studied deeply or preached about this book. So, this is a new portion of the Bible for all of us to study, unless there are scholars in the congregation who are holding out on me.  

The authorship of the First letter of John is anonymous. Many scholars believe it was written by a Christian who was part of the church that used the Gospel of John as their primary source of information about Jesus. It is thought to be written around the year 100 AD, so was composed about 70 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

    First John was a letter to fellow Christians. Unlike some of Paul’s letters, it was not written to a specific church to address their unique problems – it was instead intended to be passed along to many fledging Christian churches to encourage them as they worked for Christ and on behalf of God among their non-believing neighbors. 

    This letter would have been read aloud to the gathered congregations. We assume most of Christians were illiterate in the 2^nd century.... Therefore, the letter would have been read aloud repeatedly, just as we read scripture over and over again.  The people would have listened to it intensely, so that many of the phrases stated in the letter would be memorized. As I read the scripture, listen for phrases we still have memorized – many of the lines in this letter are found in hymns and Vacation Bible School songs we know from our childhoods. 

The letter of First John starts off as many letters do – with a greeting. Then, the author invites the readers and listeners to walk in the light of Jesus.  

Listen as we read the words of 1^st John, chapter 1 through chapter two, verse two, aloud: 

 

Scripture Reading: 1 John 1:1-2:2 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  

We write this to make our joy complete. 

Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness 

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen 

LET US PRAY.... 

Sermon Our Joy Can Be Complete 

The author of the letter of 1^st John starts with saying a few lines about God – God is light, and those who believe in God Walk in the light. Then, the author launches into a message about sin and forgiveness. Most of this letter concerns sin – our sins separate us from healthy relationship with God and with each other. Our sins cause our Christian communities to become fractured.  

To summarize chapter one of this letter: We all sin. If we deny that we sin, we are lying. If we lie and say we are sinless, we make Jesus out to be a liar, because Jesus came to advocate for us and atone for our sins and the sins of the people of the world. When we confess our sins, God is faithful and forgives us. 

“Sin” is a heavy word. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “a sin is an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.” It is “an act regarded as a serious or regrettable fault, offense, or omission.” We can knowingly sin by intentionally hurting someone or something. Sometimes, we unknowingly commit sins and later learn we have made a mistake. If you google “list of sins in the Bible,” a list of 82 sins appears. The list includes coveting, adultery, boasting, blasphemy, murder, false worship, stealing, and envy. Sins can be big acts like murdering someone or little acts like jesting. A rule of thumb to remember is that a sin is an act that causes you to harm someone else or yourself. Sin is wrong because it produces suffering and pain; leads to broken relationships, violence, and misery; and cuts us off from God. As much as we can, we must work to avoid sinning.  

The author of 1^st John was concerned that when we sin, we cause divisions and hurt within the community of the church. He or she was right to worry about this. As we have scanned the headlines in the news this week, we read stories of Christian’s whose sins have created disasters of their lives and the lives of other people – ministers admitting to infidelity in their marriages, Christians guilty of abusing children in orphanages, and Christians advocating for bigotry against people of other religions...stories about these situations and more are headlines this week. Every time a Christian or a group of Christians does something weird, it makes all of us look bad. People who are not Christians do not differentiate between types of Christians. Denominational backgrounds, evangelical verses mainline, prosperity gospel, Pentecostal, pietistic, pacifistic – none of the ways we organize ourselves and separate ourselves mean anything to people who are just learning about Christians from their news feed on their phone or tv. We are all lumped together – and when we sin and make mistakes, we all look bad. 

Sin also harms us within our individual Christian community. We all know of churches who have split apart because of disagreements. Churches can have bullies. Churches can have members who say mean and hurtful things to other members. Churches can have members who have trouble sharing spaces and responsibilities. Churches can have groups of friends who seem cliquish to those outside of the groups. Sin can harm and destroy churches

. 

The writer of the First letter of John wanted the members of the church to be reminded that we have both a privilege and a responsibility as Christians. We are privileged to be able to tell God everything – to tell God the good news of our lives and to also confess everything we do wrong. And God forgives us. But we are responsible to confess. And we are also responsible to work on ourselves and to try to refrain from making mistakes, from hurting each other, and from hurting the people of God’s church. Working together with other Christians, we work to create families, communities, and churches that are becoming the blessed communities God wants them to be.  

Let us do so with love in our hearts today and all days. Amen.  

Our Needs -- A Message for June 16, 2024

The Scripture Luke 11:2-4 

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 

He said to them, “When you pray, say:    

“‘Father, 
hallowed be your name, 
your kingdom come. 
Give us each day our daily bread. 
Forgive us our sins, 
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. 
And lead us not into temptation.’” 

 

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen 

 

Let us pray... 

 

The Message                                 Our Needs 

Give us today our daily bread. 

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 

And, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

The portion of the Lord’s Prayer we are discussing this morning is summed up as the “our needs” section. Over the past month, we have looked at the Our Father part of the prayer, where we lifted up that we are praying to Our Gracious God, the mother and father of all people and all of creation. Then, we focused on the “hallowed be thy name” portion of the prayer, we remembered that God is the source of all that is Holy. Last week, we focused on the part of the prayer when we ask for God’s kingdom to come more fully on earth, as it is present in heaven. And, now we turn to the part of the prayer when we focus on asking God to take care of the things we need. 

We start with sustenance.... we ask God to “give us this day our daily bread.” Do you notice how simple this is? We do not ask God to give us our daily bread, diamonds, pearls, and riches. We ask God to give us just what we need. 

Food, shelter, water, clothing, healthcare...all people require these basics to sustain our lives. We invoke God to help us have the essentials human life depends upon. As Americans who are constantly bombarded with advertisements, we are sometimes a little confused between what we need and what we want. We ask God to give us what we need—it is our work as Christians to make sure other people also have access to what they need. This is why our work to support the Daily Bread Food pantry locally and support offerings through the national church that help distribute food to the hungry and relief after natural disasters is so important. We ask God to help us to have what we need; it is our work to help others to have what they need. 

The next part of the prayer is: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This is another example of us saying a portion of the prayer using old-fashioned language. We mean to ask God to forgive us when we do things that are wrong and ask God to help us to forgive other people who wrong us. God knows that we are not perfect, and we make mistakes. But, that does not mean we have carte blanche to do things wrong on purpose. As people of faith, we must strive to do the right things in our actions and to say the right things when we talk to others. We ask God to forgive us when we fail to do and say the right things. 

We also ask God to help us forgive other people who have wronged us. This does not mean we have to forget what people have done. If others have crossed boundaries we are uncomfortable with, God does not demand we forget what they have done or open ourselves up to future violations. Forgiveness is important for our souls and our mental well-being. Sometimes, we carry our pain so tightly that we harm ourselves by obsessing about the past or the wounds of the past. As we pray, we are invited to talk to God about our feelings, our hurts, and our trials. Even if we do not feel safe opening up to other people about what we have experienced, we can talk to God about everything. We work to forgive others so that we are not burdened by the past. 

Part of forgiveness is also working to forgive ourselves. We all have experienced things that cause us to second-guess ourselves. We regret things we have said or things we did not say. We regret actions we have done and actions we wish we had done. I am guilty of waking up in the middle of the night and obsessing over things I said during conversations I had with co-workers when I was in high school. For the sake of our mental health and the well-being of our souls, we must work to forgive ourselves for our past mistakes.  

The next part of the prayer is a little tricky – what we say is “And, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Do we really think God is the one who leads people into temptation?  Again, we are using a version of the prayer that was translated into English hundreds of years ago, when we spoke differently than we do now. A more current translation from the Biblical Greek into English of this line would say: “And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.”  We are asking God to help us avoid temptation, to avoid things that are difficult for us to resist. We are asking God to protect us from evil. The evil could come from external sources – peer pressure, marketers, drug dealers, bartenders – and the evil can come from within us. I do not need an external tempter to invite me to eat a bar of chocolate or sleep through my alarm clock so that I do not get up and exercise – oftentimes, I am the source of my own problems.  When we ask God to help keep us from temptation and deliver us from evil, we are asking God to help us stay on the straight and narrow path, to help us be our best selves and avoid the things that cause us harm. 

When Jesus was asked how we should pray, he said a simple, succinct prayer in response to the question. His words cover the basics of how to begin our conversations with God. But they are just a beginning. In the hymn “What a Friend we have in Jesus,” we say that it is a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. When we pray, we can tell God everything.... our hopes, our struggles, our painful moments, our failures. When we talk to God, God encourages us, comforts us, and protects us. God listens to everything we say and helps us through everything we experience.  

For, God is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.  

 

Thy Kingdom Come -- A Message for June 9, 2024

 

Scripture Luke 11:2-4 

 

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 

² He said to them, “When you pray, say: 

“‘Father, 
hallowed be your name, 
your kingdom come. 
³ Give us each day our daily bread. 
⁴ Forgive us our sins, 
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. 
And lead us not into temptation.’” 

 

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen 

 

Let us pray. ... 

 

 

Message                                         The Kingdom 

 

May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Every time we gather for worship, we pray the Lord’s Prayer. We conclude our Consistory meetings by praying the Lord’s Prayer. We teach our littlest children to pray this prayer. We may personally pray it every day, perhaps as we conclude other prayers. It is the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray, and it covers all the points we feel are essential to mention when we talk to God. 

But, when I surveyed people this week and asked them what they think we mean when we say the line, “May thy kingdom come” everyone had different answers that covered different ideas. There is little unison among Trinity’s members about what we mean when we invite God’s kingdom to come – and when you read scholar’s theological interpretations of what this portion of the prayer means, you also find differing opinions and ideas. 

The Prophet Daniel prophesized about the kingdom of God. In the beginning of his book, he interpreted a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. The dream had warring kingdoms that would conquer each other in the future. At the end of the saga of the kingdoms, Daniel described the final kingdom. Daniel said: “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” 

The Book of Daniel was written about 2 centuries before the birth of Jesus. In the first century, many Jewish people saw the time in which they lived as the fulfillment of the book of Dainel’s prophesies – their land had been conquered by several larger countries...they were ruled by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The people of Israel wanted God to assert God’s rule over their land and they wanted the people of Israel to have power to rule over all the people of the earth. They wanted God to break into the world and set things right. 

When Jesus, God’s messiah and God-incarnate, walked the earth, he was asked about the Kingdom of God. Would God take over, cast out the Romans, and rule the people directly? 

In chapter 17 of the Gospel of Luke, it is written: 

Some of the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the kingdom of God come?” 

Jesus answered, “God’s kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you will be able to see with your eyes.  

People will not say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ because God’s kingdom is within you.” 

Jesus’ answer to the Pharisee’s question about the kingdom of God may have increased the mysteriousness about the kingdom of God....The kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you can see with your eyes. It is within you. 

When we commit to become Christians and follow God, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is within us. We, the followers of Jesus, are connected to each other through the presence of the Holy Spirit in each of us. We up the Kingdom of God on earth right now. We are God’s kingdom, God’s empire, God’s workers here on earth right now. 

We are also striving to have the kingdom of God even more present on earth—so it is here now, and it is coming. If Christians work together to evangelize and teach other people about God and the Christian message, we increase God’s kingdom on earth. Our goal is God’s goal – eventually, we want all people to have a relationship with God. Then, the kingdom of God will be present over all the earth, just as it is present in Heaven. 

The people of the first century may have been disappointed that God was not going to come to earth, sit on a throne, and rule. But, for us, the beneficiaries of the presence of the Holy Spirit, we are blessed by God’s presence within each of us. 

When we pray the words of the Lord’s prayer, we say: “May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” As followers of God, God’s kingdom is made up of us, God’s Holy Spirit filled people. We are God’s workers here on earth. It is important, therefore, for us to work to live out God’s teachings to us so that we can make God’s world a reflection of God’s kingdom in heaven. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcome to strangers, clothes for the naked, and visits to the sick and imprisoned. We are called to care for our neighbors, to care for people who are in need and people who are suffering. We are called to do the work of making our world a reflection of God’s kingdom in heaven. 

As the people of the kingdom of God, let us work together to make God’s kingdom more evident to the people of our world. Amen. 

Hallowed by Thy Name -- A Message for June 2, 2024

 

The Scripture Luke 11:2-411 

 

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 

² He said to them, “When you pray, say: 

“‘Father, 
hallowed be your name, 
your kingdom come. 
³ Give us each day our daily bread. 
⁴ Forgive us our sins, 
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. 
And lead us not into temptation.’” 

 

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

 

Let us pray... 

 

The Message The Holiness 

This Sunday is the second of our four week focus on the Lord’s Prayer. Last week, we were focused on the opening of the prayer, the greeting where we say: “Our Father.” This week, we are still looking at the first part of the prayer, as we say: “Hallowed by your name.”  

When little children memorize poetry and prayers, sometimes they say what they hear and not what we want them to learn. I have heard kids ask about the Halloween part of the Lord’s prayer in reference to this section. 

The version of the prayer we most often memorize is in Shakespearean or King James English. So, the words we memorize are not words we otherwise use – we do not say “thy” or “art” or “hallowed” when we speak to our friends or family members. Since we do not typically speak using the language of the Lord’s prayer, sometimes we do not really think deeply about what we are saying. 

When we say “hallowed,” we mean holy or respected. “Be thy” means yours. And, “name” means what we call you. So, “Hallowed be thy name” means “God, we respect you, and you are holy.” 

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we immediately say to God that God is the source of all holiness. We desire to speak to God and approach God with joyful reverence and love. Think about how you interacted with your school principal in kindergarten or first grade...with reverence and love. When Lucia was little, the students, teachers, and moms acted like the elementary school principal was like a movie star or a senator in how they revered him and treated him like a celebrity. We should joyfully approach God with love and respect, with reverence and adoration. Hallowed be God’s name! 

Throughout the Bible, we read many prayers and praises to God. Often, as a portion of the prayer, God is revered and celebrated as the source of all holiness in the universe. When Jesus’ mother Mary was pregnant, she visited her very pregnant cousin Elizabeth. Both women were amazed by their unexpected pregnancies. Mary broke into song after she met Elizabeth. While she was singing, she exclaimed: “...for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.” We revere God and respect God because God has done wonderful things for us and for generations of humanity. 

In parts of the New Testament, the Greek word translated as “hallowed” in the Lord’s Prayer is translated as “sanctified.” To sanctify something is to make it holy. God is holy, and God makes us holy because God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit. A few weeks ago on Pentecost Sunday, we were reminded that we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. God loves us so much that a part of God is with us all of the time. We are never separate from God because God’s Holy Spirit is with us. 

When I was a child, I felt like this was a little creepy. God was like the song about Santa Claus – “He sees you when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.” The idea of God watching over me made me feel like every mistake I made was going to be marked down on God’s naughty list. 

But, this simplistic vision of God is not what we mean when we say God is with us. God is with us, and God’s Holy Spirit is within us, to bring us comfort and to assure us in times of stress. God knows we make mistakes, that goes hand in hand with being born as humans. God wants us to take comfort and strength from God’s presence. God wants us to know we are never alone and we are never cut off or separated from God. 

God is the source of what is holy. God is the source of love. God is the source of compassion.  

Jesus wanted his followers to bring to God our joys and our concerns, our pains and our delights. When we talk to God in prayer, we appreciate that God is the source of all that is holy. Yet, God is approachable and God choses to be present with us to guide and assure us as we face the joys and challenges of this life and as we transition to eternal life with God.  

WE thank God for being both sanctified and holy and yet present and approachable. 

Amen.