You're Not in the Driver's Seat

This message was first delivered at Cove United Methodist Church in Coleman Falls, Virginia on September 3, 2017. It is based on the lectionary texts of Matthew 16:21-28 and Romans 12:9-21.

You're Not in the Driver's Seat

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Just a few verses before this – Peter is praised by Jesus for his response to the question “Who do YOU say that I am?” When Peter proclaims without hesitation that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God...Jesus blesses him. He says that he knows he didn't learn that from books or from teachers, but that knowledge came straight from God. He declares that Simon is Peter – the rock that his church will be built on.

Now we find Peter with his foot in his mouth again. When Jesus gets serious and begins to make it clear to the disciples what is ahead for him: going to Jerusalem, being tried by the religious leaders, death...but then resurrection – well, Peter is his usual passionate self. He protests and swears that this is impossible, that this should never happen to Jesus. I can almost hear Jesus banging his head quietly on a nearby wall... “Peter, Peter, Peter...I thought you had it for a minute there.” And he starts laying out what being the Messiah means. And what following the Messiah is going to mean for Peter and the rest of the disciples.

It's going to mean getting out of the driver's seat. Letting the Lord take the lead. If you're going to follow Jesus he wants to be perfectly clear about the expectations...“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Deny themselves. Let go of self and open yourself up to whatever God has in store.

That is a tall order for a control freak like me. I am used to being in the driver's seat. I like relying on my own understanding. I am stubbornly independent. I'm the first to say, “it's okay God, I got this. You've got more serious things to worry about.” Let go of self? Perish the thought. But that is what we have to do in order to be a follower of Jesus. I've got to let go of my plans and be ready to accept God's plan. That isn't easy but we are promised that he'll be with us and show us how.

The second sentence is the twist – those who want to save their life will lose it, those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For a long time I read that passage quite literally. Perhaps because I know what happens in Jerusalem or can picture the oppression of the Roman occupation – or maybe I've seen the movie Gladiator one too many times...I've always thought about that verse as LIFE or DEATH. Breathing vs. not. And that's not something I relate to, thank God. Probably few of us have had our life threatened for Jesus' sake. We live in a society where we can freely worship. So when I read that “those who lose their life for my sake will find it” - I don't feel a personal call to sacrifice my mortal life.

Then I thought about the definition of life in a different way. Instead of life as just not being dead – I thought about life in terms of how I live. The choices I make. The path I travel. Now the verse takes on a new meaning...if I sacrifice my selfish desires and instead focus on what God desires...I will find new life. A deeper and more meaningful life. BUT - If, instead, I hold onto the life that is focused on what is comfortable for ME...the things that I want...then I'll lose the prize. And that just doesn't compute! Jesus goes on to say, “what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?” To put it another way, What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?

I found a great illumination of that verse when I looked at a children's sermon – pretend you're kids...I won't even make you come down front and sit on the floor! “Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would give just about anything to have it? This morning I am going to tell you a story about a little boy and a whistle. The little boy in the story is named Ben. His full name was Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin later grew up to be one of the wisest men our world has ever known, but in our story today, he was a little boy who did something very foolish.

When Ben was seven years old some of his friends gave him some money. It was quite a bit of money for a small boy. As Ben told it, "They filled my pockets with coppers." That is what they used to call pennies. With his pockets full of money, Ben headed straight for a store where they sold toys. On the way to the store, he met a boy who had a whistle. When Ben heard the whistle, he liked the sound of it so much that he told the boy he would give him all of the money he had in his pockets if he would give him the whistle. The boy gave Ben the whistle and took the money.

Ben headed for home and when he got there, he went all around the house playing his whistle. His brothers, sisters, and cousins asked Ben where he got the whistle and he told them that he had bought it with the money he had been given. They all started to laugh at Ben and make fun of him. They told him that he had paid four times as much as the whistle was worth. Ben was so hurt and felt so foolish that he began to cry, but he learned a lesson that day that he would remember for the rest of his life. From then on, whenever he saw someone who had made a foolish choice in life, he would say, "That man paid too much for his whistle."

Some boys and girls (and men and women too) want to be popular with a certain group of kids at school (and work and the world). They may do things that they know are wrong because they think it will make them popular. They are paying too much for their whistle.

Some boys and girls want to be a winner more than anything. They are even willing to cheat if that's what it takes to win. They are paying too much for their whistle.

Some boys and girls think the most important thing in life is to have fun, so they spend all of their time playing and they never have time for God. They are paying too much for their whistle.

Is there something that you want so much that you are willing to do almost anything to get it? Jesus once asked the question, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his soul?" Are you paying too much for your whistle?

This is where I usually give the kids at Centenary a Hershey kiss. I hope you'll forgive me for not bringing any along.

We don't want to pay too much for our whistle. We want to have our minds on the things of God and not of men. We need to get out of the part-time follower business if we are going to follow Jesus. We need to embrace this new life in Christ, a God-focused life...

We have only to look to today's scripture from Romans to get some really good advice for living. Great examples of a life focused on God-things and away from Me-things. It is quite a list and it has an effect that I like to call the Chicken Soup Syndrome. How many of you have read any of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books? Did you know that there are over 250 of them?

I dearly love reading these real-life stories. The inspirational messages are truly touching...but you can only read so many of them in one sitting before it all begins to blur together. Goodness overload! I have the same challenge with Romans 12:9-21. So many powerful thoughts that they start running into each other and begin to sound like Chinese fortune cookies. I would challenge you to bookmark this passage and review just one or two each day for a couple of weeks. Find ones that really speak to you. Underline them, highlight them, put them on post-it notes and hang them on your bathroom mirror. Keep coming back to it from time to time and refresh your reflections.

You may connect in different ways to these verses depending on what you are going through in your life. Listen to these ways for living a God-focused life as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson's The Message:

• Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.
• Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.
• Be good friends who love deeply;
• Practice playing second fiddle.
• Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame.
• Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant.
• Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder.
• Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
• Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath.
• Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down.
• Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up.
• Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
• Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.
• If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody.
• Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”
• if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or
• if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness.
• Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

How do you want to be remembered? What is the legacy, the impact you want to make on the world? How will your life be measured? Are you willing to lose your life for Jesus sake in order to find REAL life IN Jesus?

We ask ourselves the question that Jesus asked his disciples. Who do you say that I am? We, like Peter, are there with the right answer – you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And, like Peter, we have to work to grasp how that knowledge changes us.

When Jesus started talking about the challenges that were ahead – Peter wanted to deny that such atrocities were even possible. After all, THIS is the Son of God! What could you be thinking, Jesus, to talk about going to Jerusalem to be condemned by the religious leaders and put to death? Inconceivable declares Peter!

In one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride, the bandit Vizzini proclaims each unlikely event as “Inconceivable.” When he cuts the rope that the man in black is climbing and he still doesn't fall, Vizzini says “Inconceivable!” and his companion Inigo Montoya says, “I do not think you know what this word means.”

Jesus keeps trying to explain to his disciples the path ahead. He refers to the scriptures and prophecies that clearly spell out what is going to happen. And Peter either doesn't get it – or he doesn't want to embrace it. Who can blame him? If you are living in the presence of the Son of God...the thought of losing him in such a way is not a concept that Peter wants to face. But he's forgetting the promise of the resurrection. Forgetting what comes after.

Jesus isn't patient in this case. He tells Peter exactly what he told the devil at the end of the trial in the desert – get behind me Satan. You are a stumbling block.

That had to sting. To go from The Rock that the church will be built upon to stumbling block. If I were Peter – I'd probably be thinking “dude, that was harsh.” I might be thinking, “look...I was just pointing out how impossible it is that the Son of God would be made to suffer that way. I mean, it was really me honoring your power!”

But Jesus says to Peter – and to us – get your head in the game. I need you on board with the whole process! You need to get your mind off human things and onto divine things.

It isn't the first or the last time that Jesus tells his followers that the road ahead isn't easy. But the promise is – it's worth the effort. After the crucifixion, there is the resurrection!

New life. Are we willing to sacrifice self in order to embrace the new life, the potential within us? To live, truly LIVE – abundantly. To make an impact in the world around us.

How do you want to be remembered? When you stand before Jesus Christ, I believe that one of the first questions Jesus may ask is: “Did you love my children?”

Remember Jesus’ words, “all people will know that we are His disciples if we have love for one another.” Love was VERY important to Jesus; it compelled Him to give up His life for us! He wants us to imitate Him in how we love others.

Identify those relationships where you need to grow in love—it may be a family member, a co-worker, a neighbor, or a person at church. Target specific people, not just everyone in general. Then commit to begin loving those people as Christ has commanded. Love God, Love who and what God loves. And leave the rest up to Him.

God Is Bigger Than You Think

This message was first delivered at Centenary United Methodist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia on July 30, 2017. It is based on the lectionary texts of Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 and Romans 8:26-39.

God Is Bigger Than You Think

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today." They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg. "Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail. "Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant. "It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant. "It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant. "It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said." "Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

You see, the way we know what things are like depends a lot on our experiences and point of view. And that changes from person to person and even can change over time as an individual has different life changes. When Jesus told these parables about what the kingdom of heaven is like – he knew that they would be relevant to the listener in different ways. He isn't describing seven different kingdoms – but approaching it from a variety of perspectives.

Matthew 13 begins with the parable of the sower that Pastor Doug preached on 2 weeks ago – you remember? Seeds on the path, seeds in rocky soil, seeds in thorns, good soil? The second parable has another farmer coping with weeds this time. The third is where we began with today's gospel reading. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It's like yeast. It's a treasure hidden in a field. It's like a pearl of great value. No, it's like sorting fish?

When Pastor Doug asked me to speak today, one of the first things that I did was to look up the lectionary scriptures for today. And when I read the four passages, Matthew made me stop and stare at my computer screen. During a recent lay servant training session I elected to take a class called “Go, Preach.” It was described as a class that would help me, a lay person, prepare a message. There were seven lay people and one pastor teaching us. Although he said several times that he wasn't saying that his way was the only way – I still had the impression he considered his sermon preparation process to be the best way. And we did not always see eye-to-eye on the process. First he said that he rarely uses the lectionary – and I nearly always preach from the lectionary! It is the connected worship of many denominations. A great many pastors look to those four weekly scriptures to determine their message topic for the week. Of course, there are also a great many who choose other topics to "preach on."

If you think about it though...if even 1% of the Christian congregations in the world preach on the same set of scriptures...that is 37,000 congregations all focusing on a particular aspect of our relationship with God and with each other. That can be very powerful, especially if we are intentional in the way we communicate with God - and with each other.

Then our instructor said that he rarely writes his sermons out. And I ALWAYS do! I'm a pretty good extemporaneous speaker but I am not going to walk into the sanctuary on Sunday morning and just wing it. I take this opportunity seriously and want you to leave today with some food for thought or insight or interesting perspective. I'll even settle for healthy disagreement with my interpretation! You can see that I'm heading for some head butting with this pastor.

So...we get our class assignment. We are going to work as a group to illuminate this scripture: He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

I must warn you – if you are going to craft a message...doing it by committee is a BAD idea. But the brainstorming commenced. And the elephant touching began right away. “Who does the woman represent?” Is it God? Is it the church? Is it me? Am I mixing the bread? “What is the bread?” Is it my life? Is it the world? Is the yeast the Word? Is the yeast the outreach of disciples? Why THREE measures of flour? Is this a trinity reference? Over the course of about eight hours we came up with a couple dozen different permutations – if the woman is God and the yeast is the church's influence then the bread is the realization of the kingdom. On more than one occasion I was even told my somewhat out-of-the-box thoughts were wrong!

Thirty words total. Hours of perspectives. Because we each brought to the discussion different points of view and experiences. I lost track of how many times I thought to myself - “oh, I hadn't considered it like that.” So it should be no surprise that Matthew 13 has seven stories of what the kingdom of heaven is like.

I don't think it is about a location, more about a belonging. Being part of something. Heaven is where “The King” reigns from, but His kingdom describes where His people live. It’s here and now –not somewhere that we go after we die.

The parables all begin with a phrase such as: “the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed…” They can be better understood by reading this as “The kingdom of heaven can be described by the story in which a man who sowed good seed…” It’s the entire story (told in seven different ways) that represents the kingdom. Each parable has a different context: a farmer, a gardener, a cook, a treasure seeker, a merchant, a fisherman. The intent is for the reader to identify himself with at least one of these so that the message is relevant to him.

The comparison to the mustard seed has always intrigued me. Just like our call to worship said today, why would something so tiny and insignificant be compared to the kingdom of God? But I've learned that there's a lot packed into the tiny seed. Tremendous potential.

As I showed the kids in the children's sermon – mustard seeds are little itty bitty things. But any of them who tasted the seeds can tell you, there is a burst of flavor when you chew them. Not quite like the potency of French's yellow mustard – because most of that tang comes from copious amounts of vinegar! But for such a small seed, it packs a punch. And the power doesn't stop there!

When I was working on a message based on Luke 17 – where Jesus tells the disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed they could get a tree to go jump in the sea – I learned a great deal about mustard weed. Do you know what mustard weed was like in Jesus' day? It was like the kudzu of Palestine. It grew wild. Birds ate it but didn't entirely digest the seeds – and the seeds were dropped everywhere. It would take over fields and crops. You could pull it up but more birds would eat more mustard weed and it would be back. It was persistent, irritating and fast-spreading.

This tiny seed has potential! It grows into the greatest of shrubs according to Matthew 13:32. Becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. It can take over fields. It seems so insignificant in seed form – but given the basics of soil, sun and water...boom! It's now substantial!

Now – who or what is the mustard seed? Is it faith that grows to be substantial enough to protect? Is it the church reaching out and spreading the love of God like kudzu? Am I a mustard seed? Is Centenary a tiny powerhouse of potential just needing soil, sun and water to grow? Who is the sower and why in the world would he go and purposely sow a FIELD with mustard seed?

We could spend eight hours discussing and debating every possible meaning of every aspect of this very short parable. And just about any combination would hold meaning for someone in this room. And we could let it dissolve into an argument just like the blind villagers who touched the elephant. But I would invite you to listen to the wise man who told those villagers they all had a different perspective of the same animal – we come to our understanding of the kingdom in a multitude of ways. I am not qualified to judge that your pathway is right or wrong. I am just as blind as the next guy. I can only share how I've come to my conclusions and embrace the core truth – that God loves us and wants to be in direct relationship with each of us as individuals. And I can hope that we believers get to the same spirit that the six blind villagers came to – after the wise man explained that they were all right – they just had touched a different part of the elephant. "Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right. Even when we disagree, can we hear the other perspective? Can we still see what God sees in the other person?

God can get tiny if we're not careful. Too often we fall into the trap of God being made in our image – instead of the other way around. We relate to God in our human understanding, putting God in a box that he simply can't be contained in! The hope is that our sense of God will grow as expansive as our God is. Each tiny conception gets obliterated as we discover more and more the God who is always greater.

I'd like to read a story for you from Tattoos on the Heart, a book by Jesuit Gregory Boyle who began Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, a gang intervention program in the gang capital of the world. Pastor G, as the homies call him, spends a great deal of time visiting with incarcerated youth – conducting services and just sitting and talking with these kids on the margins of society. In this instance he is at Camp Paige, a detention facility and is meeting with Rigo, a fifteen year old about to make his first communion. They have about ten minutes to kill and Pastor G asks him about his life and family. He gets around to asking about Rigo's father.

“Oh,” Rigo says, “he's a heroin addict and never really been in my life. Used to always beat me. Fact, he's in prison right now, barely ever lived with us.” Then something seemed to snap in him, an image brings him to attention.

Rigo continues, “I think I was in the fourth grade...I came home one day, sent home in the middle of the day. Got into some trouble at school Can't remember what. When I got home, my jefito was there. He was hardly ever there. My dad says, “Why they send you home?” And cuz my dad always beat me, I said. “If I tell you, promise you won't hit me?” He just said, “I'm your father. 'course I'm not gonna hit you.” So I told him.

Rigo is caught short in the telling. He bgins to cry, and in moments he's wailing and rocking back and forth. Father Greg put his arms around him. He was inconsolable. When Rigo is able to speak, and barely so, he says only, “He beat me with a pipe...with...a pipe.” When Rigo composes himself, Father Greg asked, “and your mother?” He points some distance across the room at a tiny woman standing by the gym's entrance.

“That's her over there.” He pauses for a beat. “There's no one like her.” Again, some image appears in his mind and a thought occurs to him. “I've been locked up for more than a year and a half. She comes to see me every Sunday. You know how many buses she takes to come here? To see my sorry self?”

Then he sobs again with the same ferocity as before. When he reclaims breath he gasps through his tears. “Seven buses. She takes... seven...buses. Imagine.”

Imagine. The expansive heart of this God – greater than God – who takes seven buses, just to arrive at us. Our image of who God is and what's on God's mind is limited to our understanding. Regardless, it doesn't change who God is – the wild, untamed God who created the universe can't be shut in our little box!

So when we feel discouraged or overwhelmed. When we feel at the end of our rope – God is there. Scripture promises that he will never leave us or forsake us. If we don't feel God's presence – it doesn't mean that he has left us to fend for ourselves. Usually it means we have fallen into the trap of humanity...and are relying on our understanding. We feel a distance that is not of God's making, but our own. All we have to do is turn back toward him, humble ourselves and recognize that we are not God.

I love the way the Eugene Peterson's The Message phrases Romans 8:26-27: Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our condition, and keeps us present before God.

The kingdom of heaven is like an elephant. And as I grow in understanding with every passing day help me to remember that there is one God – who loves us beyond measure – and I'm. Not. Him. 

Nothing to Boast Of

This message was first delivered at Main Street United Methodist Church in Bedford, Virginia on June 18, 2017. It is based on the lectionary text Romans 5:1-8.

Nothing to Boast Of

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. My Dad has always been quite the story and joke teller...with many of his jokes lasting much longer than really necessary...he tells one about a helicopter that goes on and on. He can make it last for five minutes with all his details and misdirection – but the joke could be told in three sentences: There was a new helicopter pilot who was showing off his skills to his superiors, going higher and higher as they became more impressed. They were stunned when he suddenly crashed and with a last breath before he fell unconscious, he explained what happened. “It got so cold up there, I turned the fan off.” Dad jokes. I'm glad we are celebrating Dads and all their unique charms today!

As a youth leader when I was just a kid...I could be mesmerized when he was teaching Bible study and would illustrate a point with a great story. One of my favorites was about Charles Blondin, a famous French tightrope walker.

Blondin's greatest fame came on September 14, 1860, when he became the first person to cross a tightrope stretched over a quarter of a mile across the mighty Niagara Falls. People from both Canada and America came from miles away to see this great feat. He walked across, 160 feet above the falls, several times... each time with a different daring feat - once in a sack, on stilts, on a bicycle, in the dark, and blindfolded. One time he even carried a stove and cooked an omelet in the middle of the rope!

A large crowd gathered and the buzz of excitement ran along both sides of the river bank. The crowd “Oohed and Aahed!” as Blondin carefully walked across - one dangerous step after another - pushing a wheelbarrow holding a sack of potatoes.

Then a one point, he asked for the participation of a volunteer. Upon reaching the other side, the crowd's applause was louder than the roar of the falls! Blondin suddenly stopped and addressed his audience: "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?" The crowd enthusiastically yelled, "Yes! You are the greatest tightrope walker in the world. We believe!" "Okay," said Blondin, "Who wants to get into the wheelbarrow?"

You see, they all believed he could do it...but it takes a different level of faith to get in the wheelbarrow.

Today's scripture is about faith. Paul is exploring the impact of Justification. That's not necessarily a term we use enough in modern times to immediately connect to a meaning. So I went to dictionary.com and found this meaning “the act of God whereby humankind is accounted just.” In personal terms – it is to be made right with God. We are justified by faith – made right with God by faith. And Paul thinks that is very important for people to understand. Paul uses the concept of justification more frequently than do the other writers of the New Testament. For Paul, justification was a central truth of the gospel.

Verse 1 in Romans 5 begins with the word “therefore.” Meaning that we look backward to see what comes before the therefore – to find the reason why the next thing happens. In chapter 4 Paul explains how Abraham was reckoned as righteous through faith, not anything that he, Abraham, could boast about. He says that the scripture is clear “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. The God-story is about a free gift … an Abraham-story or an Us-story is about how we earned something. Romans 4:4-5 from The Message spells out the difference, “If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.”

Righteous. To declare that a person is aligned with the heart and purpose of God. But how is it possible for sinful people to be justified before a holy God? That was the question then...it is a question that many ask now! And Paul gives us the answer in verse 1 – we are justified by faith. SINCE we are justified by faith, we have peace with God THROUGH our Lord Jesus Christ. All we have to do is to believe, there's not an initiation ritual or joining fee.

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted for us – to set us right with him – we have it all together because of Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door for us! Can you fathom how much God loves you?

Let's think about love for a minute...close your eyes and think back to the beginning of your first love. Some of us may have to think back longer than others! Remember when your heart would beat a little faster when the phone rang because you knew it was your love on the other end? Remember times that you spent on the front porch because kisses were like potato chips, you couldn't stop until you ate the whole bag. Maybe older ones can remember waking up and seeing your love asleep next to you and feeling the love so intensely that your breath caught in your throat and a tear came to your eye? Maybe it isn't a romantic love that you remember. Maybe it is the love for a child. Or a child for a parent. Just think right at this moment about an intense, heart-stopping love. Guess who loves you more than that?

A man named Bill was taking care of his father as he died of cancer. His father had become frail and depended on Bill to do everything for him. Although he was physically not what he had been, his mind remained alert and lively. In the role reversal common to adult children who care for their dying parents, Bill would put his father to bed and read him to sleep, exactly as his father had done for him in childhood. Bill would read from some novel and his father would lie there, staring at his son, smiling. Bill was exhausted from the day's care and work and would plead with his Dad, “look, here's the idea. I read to you, you fall asleep.” Bill's father would impishly apologize and dutifully close his eyes. But this wouldn't last long. Soon Bill's father would pop one eye open and smile at his son. Bill would catch him and whine, “now come on.” The father would again, oblige, until he couldn't anymore, and the other eye would open to catch a glimpse of his son. Bill knew that this evening ritual was really a story of a father who just couldn't take his eyes off his kid. How much more so God?

That justification – that making right with God...brings us into a relationship with the one who loves us. “We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.” to quote Paul as phrased in Eugene Peterson's The Message. To be “sharing the glory of God.” Verses 6-8 reinforce the good news of God's love, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners.

While we are still a mess...God loves us. If we can't accept this love then how can we possibly spread the news to others? It's a message the world needs to hear. It's a message I never tire of spreading. I'm going to admit something to you...I'm pretty imperfect. One imperfection that I'll tell you about is I'm lousy with sermon titles. Especially if I have to give the sermon a title before I've written the message. Which is why you can ignore the one in the bulletin.

I really thought when I read the lectionary scriptures as I started preparing for coming to speak to you today that I knew what the message was going to be...I was pretty sure I was going to focus on that part of the scripture about boasting in our sufferings and suffering producing endurance and endurance...character...etc. So when Rick asked me for hymns and scriptures...I confidently gave him what is in the bulletin today.

Then I sat down to write...and wrote 8 pages! And then the Holy Spirit said...nope. And I knew I was off track. And I had to stop and listen to what the spirit was leading me to say. And once I started over...I kept coming back to love. Unfathomable. Unexplainable. Incredible. And I remembered what I had heard about John.

Jerome, in his commentary on Galatians, tells that St. John continued preaching in Ephesus even when he was in his 90s. Even when he was so enfeebled that he had to be carried in on a stretcher, he would lean up on one elbow and deliver his message, “Little children, love one another.” Then he would lie back down and be carried out. One day, the story goes, someone asked him why he said the same thing week after week. John replied, “Because it is enough.” It is Christianity in a nutshell.

Love is the key.

When I first read the passage I got focused on the sufferings and endurance and character and hope stuff – because I was back in the human experience. It's easy to relate to sufferings. And to go back to the advice of my Dad who would probably tell me how suffering built character as I was doing yard work or trying to hold the flashlight steady on whatever car part he was trying to fix. And I can certainly agree that we can learn a lot from the hardships and obstacles that life throws our way. And maybe that is another sermon for another Sunday. Because this passage is more about a free gift from a loving father.

Paul is adamant that we understand this isn't anything that we earn or can boast about obtaining by our own skills. It is a matter of faith – believing that Jesus has wiped our slate clean and opened the door to a full relationship with God. We just have to believe in God's love.

And then watch out – it's going to overflow! Verse 5 from the Message: “we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

Now what? We've got to let it flow onto others.

We are called to love one another. To share love with everyone we encounter – in every aspect of our lives. Because, as the old hymn goes “They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” Who are they? They are the people on the outside who are just waiting to be invited in. Invited into the embrace of God's love. I've been reading the most incredible book, I hope that you will all take them time to pick it up...Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit who began Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. The book is a collection of stories from the gang-intervention program that was started in the poorest parish in LA, center of the gang capital of the world. You don't get much more “they” than that.

In this book, Pastor G (as the homies call him) tells about the instance in scripture where Jesus is in a house so packed that no one can come through the door anymore. So the people open the roof and lower this paralytic down through it so Jesus can heal him. Although the focus of the story is, understandably, the healing of the paralytic...there is something more significant happening. They're ripping the roof off the place, and those outside are being let in.

We need to rip some roofs off. We need to go outside and see the people who are hurting and need Jesus. We need to find every way possible to get them connected to the one who loves them – and let them know that he does.

First you grasp how much God loves you...If we can grasp that concept – then the rest is just making sure that light shines through you. Everyone needs to hear about Unfathomable. Unconditional. Love. We need to hear this too. We need to come to the place of accepting this for ourselves. We need to know – we are wholly acceptable to God. And he loves us. Right here. Right now.

Not when we do better.

Not when we get our checklist done: read bible daily, fast weekly, tithe, stop speeding, never lose our temper...

No, we are wholly acceptable. No conditions. Could not be one bit better.

When we dive into the depths of that unfathomable love, then we start to see the people around us differently. And this love thing starts to spread. And this just might catch on.