Rheto-Rick

Scripture Text: Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16, 23-26

Preached at Combined Service of College UMC and North Oxnard UMC

October 1, 2017

Prayer – “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.”

Last Sunday’s Doonesbury cartoon reminded me of my age once again. In the cartoon the mother, Boopsie, walks in and her husband tells her, “You know what Sam just told me, Boopsie? She’s not a feminist.”

And Sam replies, “What’s the big deal? Most of my friends aren’t.”

To which the mother replies, “Oh really. So what do you think feminism is, Sam?”

“Simple,” says Sam “It’s the belief that women are superior to men.”

“Wrong.” Says the mother “It’s the belief that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men.”

“Are you sure, Mom? Why would there be a whole movement about something that obvious?”

Walking away the Mom says, “She’ll be fine” as the daughter says, “You might as well defend gravity.”

The reason that cartoon made me feel my age is that each generation thinks that the battles fought by their parents were won long ago.

The battles over Civil Rights for African Americans were fought in the ‘60s. There can’t be discrimination and bigotry today. The battles of Feminism were fought in the ‘70s. There can’t be any discrimination against women in the workplace today.

Of course those battles for the rights of blacks and women were not the battles of a previous generation to me. They were the battles of my generation. And I know that those battles were not won then and still need to be fought today.

I am a white, middle-class, middle-aged, male. I am aware that that status gives me privileges in our society that I completely take for granted. I cannot remember a single time in my entire life when I was told I could not do something because of my race or my gender. When I have privileges it is easy to assume that everyone else in the society shares those privileges.

The fact that I have privileges that are routinely denied to women was made very clear to me in the fall of 1973. That is when I entered Seminary – an institution that was previously a uniquely-male bastion.

But a third to a half of my Seminary entering class were women – by far the largest percentage in the school’s history up to that time. And they were not shy, retiring women. They made their presence known.

Every Wednesday there was a Chapel service on campus. An outside pastor was invited to preach and that preacher was invited to attend the preaching class and share his (they were all men of course) his view of the art of crafting a sermon. They expected questions about the use of Scripture in the sermon – about how you structure a sermon – about whether you should memorize a sermon or use a manuscript.

They expected that these up-and-coming preachers wanted to benefit from their years of experience.

But what they expected was not what they got. What they got were questions like, “Why did you say ‘man’ when you meant ‘humanity?’” “Why did you call God ‘he’ when the quality of God you were describing is usually considered feminine in our society?” “Why did you assume that all pastors would be male?”

I sat there being very thankful that I was not the one having to answer those questions because they were questions I had not even thought about – much less had answers for. I quickly learned to use inclusive language – not because it mattered to me – but because I learned it mattered deeply to others.

I learned to stop selecting certain hymns – some of which had great personal attachment for me – because of their language.

The hymn, “Rise Up, O Men of God,” has great memories for me. It was sung in my home church every year on “Layman’s Sunday” and William Schaffer – a man of my parents’ age that I knew nothing else about – would always accompany the hymn on his trombone. It was thrilling.

But I stopped using it in deference to the women who make up more than half our congregations.

And I stopped choosing “The Church’s One Foundation,” because the hymn considers the church to be female and calls the Church “she” throughout.

And I was not alone in the Church. By the 1990s inclusive language was well accepted in the church – particularly in the United Methodist Church. The version of the Bible that we commonly use – the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible – attempts to use inclusive language throughout. And the current hymnal, which was published in 1996, tries to strike a balance.

For one thing, the hymnal committee brought in a distinguished professor of preaching and worship – Laurence Hull Stookey – to rewrite many of the prayers to be more inclusive.

And a number of hymns were either dropped or modified.

Rise Up, O Men of God is still there (although a footnote suggests that you might want to sing “Rise Up Ye Saints of God.”)

And The Church’s One Foundation is still there, completely unchanged. But they did something very interesting in that case.

I invite you to pick up a hymnal and turn to #545 – The Church’s One Foundation. If you look across the page, you will find #546 – The Church’s One Foundation – printed without music – just the words.

This version is that same great hymn but reworked by that same Dr. Stookey to be more inclusive in its language. I think Dr. Stookey did a masterful job in crafting a hymn that we can all sing together.

But the new version does something else. And that something else reveals the real reason why I think that inclusive language is so important.

The original hymn – written by Samuel Stone in 1866 – speaks beautifully about the relationship of Jesus Christ to the Church.

Just look at the first verse:

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord,

She is his new creation, by water and the Word,

From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride

With his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.

Powerful stuff set to great music. It’s a joy to sing.

But look now at Dr. Stookey’s reworking of the hymn. That same verse in the new version reads:

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are his new creation by water and the Word

From heaven he came and sought us that we might ever be

His living servant people, by his own death set free.

By moving from the third person pronouns – she, her – to first person pronouns – we, us – Dr. Stookey does successfully get rid of the gender specific language of the original hymn. But he does something much more.

He reminds us – or maybe teaches us for the first time – that the Church is not a “she” – it is not even a “he” or much less an “it.”

The Church is not something out there to be viewed from afar.

No, the Church is us. Jesus did not come to seek the Church – Jesus came to seek us. Jesus was not looking for a bride but rather for a people – a living servant people in Dr. Stookey’s words.

That is the beauty of inclusive language. It does not separate us by nationality or by race or by social status or by gender. No, in the words of Paul there is neither Jew nor Greek – neither slave nor free – neither male nor female – but all are one in Christ Jesus.

Our use of inclusive language is not about being fair to women or to blacks or to anyone else. Inclusive language is not about the other. Inclusive language is about me. It is about you. It is about us.

It is not about the Church out there which we are called to join. It is about us – being called to follow Jesus and when I follow Jesus I will find myself in harmony and fellowship with other followers of Jesus Christ and together we will be Christ’s living servant people made free in Jesus Christ.

In the final verse of this hymn are words that, as a kid, I had no idea what they meant. The last verse begins:

Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One

And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.

It was the three words at the beginning of the second line that confused me. First of all I had no idea what “mystic” meant. “Sweet” just meant how much better anything tasted when you added sugar to it. And communion meant that little cube of bread and thimbleful of juice that we ate in Church some Sundays.

How to put those three words together made no sense to me.

But look at how Dr. Stookey has reworked them:

We now on earth have union with God the Three in One,

And share – through faith – communion with those whose rest is won.

We share communion – through our common faith and faithfulness – through our discipleship – with other followers of Jesus both those still living and those who have preceded us.

Today is World Communion Sunday and when we say that we usually think of the holy act that we celebrate together. Holy Communion – the Eucharist – the Lord’s Supper. Whatever we call it this act of coming together and sharing in a ritual meal has bound the followers of Jesus Christ together for two thousand years and throughout the world.

And this common act is so central to who we are as Christians that we sometimes forget that the word communion has a meaning that has nothing to do with this ritual act.

The primary meaning of the word communion – a meaning going back to the Latin of Jesus’ time – is a sharing together. Our communion as followers of Jesus Christ may be symbolized powerfully in our gathering to eat bread and drink from a common cup.

But our real communion – our real sharing together – is walking side by side and working for a common goal. It is sharing together being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

The Psalm that we heard read this morning harkens back to the experience of the people of God in the wilderness. The experience of the people who, by the grace of God, were free of the oppression in Egypt but were now in the wilderness seeking a new home.

But they were not alone in the wilderness. They were united in a common purpose and were endeavoring to follow together where God was leading them. They were always led by God – in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

They were led and they were nourished by God. Nourished by their communion with one another – their communion with God – and nourished by the bread – the manna – and the water which God supplied.

We are disciples of Jesus Christ. We seek to be – in Dr. Stookey’s words – God’s living servant people. We live in communion – sharing together the life that we find in Jesus Christ. And we celebrate that communion by sharing in this act of communion this morning – and in the act of communion in worshipping along side our brothers and sisters from another congregation – and in the act of communion as we gather for food and fellowship around tables when this time of worship is concluded.

We live in communion because when we leave this place we endeavor to faithfully follow Jesus Christ. When we leave this place, we will leave with the prayer of our closing hymn on our lips, “Guide us, O Thou Great Jehovah, pilgrims through a barren land. We are weak but you are mighty, hold us with your powerful hand. Bread of Heaven – Bread of heaven – feed us till we want no more – feed us till we want no more.”

The table is prepared. God invites us to come. Let us be in Communion together.

Amen.

Scripture Text: Galatians 2:16,19-20

Preached at College UMC and North Oxnard UMC

September 17, 2017

Prayer – “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.”

Listen for a minute to one of the great hymns of the Church. [Playing of the first verse of Great Is Thy Faithfulness]

Great is thy faithfulness, O God.

It is not just expressed in this one great hymn. It is expressed over and over again in Scripture. There are scores of references to God’s faithfulness in the Psalms alone. Just listen to the opening words of Psalm 89:

“I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.”

“I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.”

The theme runs throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

But this is where things get tricky, so bear with me.

You remember a few weeks ago when I talked about the three cleavers – Eldridge Cleaver, June Cleaver and meat cleaver?  I said that a word can change its meaning based on context.

Then I talked about the Greek word pistis. It is the word that is usually translated as “faith” or “believe” in English. And I talked about the way that pistis can also mean “trust.” And that it means something different to talk about “believing in something” and “trusting someone.”

Do you remember all that?

Well, that word pistis is back again. When the New Testament talks about the faithfulness of God it always uses the word pistis.

So this one little word – pistis – can mean “faith” and “believe” and “trust” and now “faithfulness.” That can be one confusing word for someone who is trying to translate the New Testament into English.

The only way to know is from the grammar and the context of the sentence in which the word appears.

So that brings us to the words of Paul that we heard this morning. Let me call your attention to one particular verse. It reads:

“Yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” It is a very familiar idea and we have heard it many times. So we often read it without noting that there is a footnote after the word, “Jesus Christ.”

Now I know that footnotes are a bother and we all usually ignore them but I hope you will humor me and look at this one with me.

First a comment about English grammar. If you read somewhere that this is “Mary’s book” the apostrophe s after Mary would tell you that this book belongs to Mary. In English grammar, its called the possessive and we know exactly what it means when there is an apostrophe s after a word.

Well, the same thing is true of Greek grammar and in this verse Jesus Christ is in the Greek equivalent of the possessive. So when you look at the footnote, it tells you that an alternative translation would be “Through the faith OF Jesus Christ.” Normally, there would be no question that “through the faith of Jesus Christ would be the translation – that is clearly what the words mean.

But that is confusing because to us faith means believe and what does it means to say that Jesus Christ believes something. How can we be saved through what Jesus has faith in?

But remember, when the word pistis is applied to God, we always translate it as “faithfulness.” Suppose we used that translation here.

Instead of talking about “the faith of Jesus” Paul is talking about “the faithfulness of Jesus.”

Certainly it makes sense to speak of Jesus’ faithfulness – even if it doesn’t make sense to speak of Jesus’ faith.

Jesus was certainly faithful – even faithful to death on a cross.

Paul is telling us that there is nothing we can do that will justify us with God – and to be justified with God means to be in a right relationship with God.

Throughout the Bible – throughout all of our encounters with God – God is a God of grace – God is a God of love – God is not and never has been about giving us laws that will help us earn God’s love.

There is no law – not the Hebrew laws that are found in the Old Testament – not the Christian laws that some people seem to find in the New Testament – not the Church laws that have been created and invented in the last two thousand years – there is no law that we can follow that will make God love us more. Because God already loves us more than we can imagine – more, even than we love ourselves.

And there is nothing that we can believe – believe about God or believe about Jesus or believe about the doctrines of any Church that have been created in the last two thousand years – nothing that we believe will make God love us more.

Paul is telling us that it is not what we believe about Jesus or even what Jesus believes about God or about himself or about us that is of vital importance. No, what we have in Jesus is a divine example of what we are supposed to do about the love that God has for us – we are to be faithful. We are to be faithful to the will of God because that is the only possible response – the only possible gift – that we can give to God for the inestimable gift of God’s unending – unimaginable – undying love for us.

Last week we closed remembering what our mission as a Church is. Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And in order to make disciples we must first become disciples.

A disciple of someone is one who follow the teacher – who emulates the teacher – who becomes like the teacher. If we are to become disciples of Jesus Christ, we must follow Jesus example and become like Jesus.

It is not enough to admire Jesus. It is not enough to look up to Jesus. It is not even enough to have faith in Jesus.

That little footnote in the passage this morning is vital. We are not justified with God through our faith IN Jesus. NO, we are made right with God through our participation in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

We live out our relationship with God by being faithful to God as Jesus was faithful to God.

This is the Good News. The good news is that we are not called to tell people about Jesus. That is good news indeed because most of us are not very good at telling other people about Jesus. And we are not very patient with others who try and tell US about Jesus.

The good news is that – by the grace of God – we are called – we are invited – we are welcomed – to become faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

That’s the good news. The hard part is doing it.

I hope you all get a chance to meet Ami Troedsson in a couple of weeks. Ami is a part of the North Oxnard community and she has seen more in her lifetime than most of us can even imagine.

Ami was born in Hungary in those difficult years after her country had been defeated in the First World War. She lived through the occupation of her country by the Nazis during the Second World War. She lived through the occupation of her country by the Soviet Union after the War. She fled her homeland – leaving her mother behind– and came to this country as a refugee.

Ami has an expression that she uses often and I have taken it as my own. She says, “Being a Christian is simple – it just isn’t easy.”

Being A Christian is as simple as being a disciple of Jesus Christ – it is as simple as that. But whatever else being a Christian is, it is much more than simply having faith in Jesus Christ. It is participating in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. It is living our lives so that God’s love – God’s grace – is revealed – not in our words – but in the faithful way that we live our lives.

I have a number of favorite passages in the Bible – as I know you do too. Some are among my favorites because they bring me comfort and encouragement. But some are among my favorites because they challenge me.

Among the latter is a passage from I Peter that reads, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

I find those words challenging because it assumes that my actions will make it so clear that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ that someone will ask me why I live the way I do. I won’t have to announce that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. It will be so clear that they will feel compelled to ask.

I have a plaque on the wall of my study that has the words of Saint Francis on it. It read, “Preach the Gospel at all times. If absolutely necessary, use words.”

We are not saved by what we do. What we do will not make God love us more.

We are also not saved by what we believe – nor even by in whom we believe. We are not saved by our faith in Jesus Christ – regardless of what our translations say Paul said. We are saved through the example of the faithful life revealed in Jesus Christ. We are saved by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ – faithfulness that led to his death on a cross.

Paul concluded the words we heard this morning like this: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

We are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Let us go from this place to live that calling faithfully.

Amen.

Preached By: Pastor Rick Pearson
Scripture Text: Romans 12:1-8
Preached at College UMC and North Oxnard UMC
September 3, 2017

Prayer – “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.”

There can be little doubt about the power of twentieth century advertising. In the 1960s, this image, all by itself, on an envelope [Screen shows Playboy Bunny logo] was sufficient to get a letter delivered to the headquarters of Playboy Magazine in Chicago.

And this “swoosh” [Screen shows Nike “swoosh] is sufficient to make most 21^st century Americans – and maybe those in every other country as well – think of Nike brand athletic wear.

This symbol is so ubiquitous, I am not even sure why Nike thought they needed to add a tag line but they did. So now you see their familiar “swoosh” with the words, “Just Do It.” [Screen shows Nike swoosh with tag line “Just Do It”]

I have to admit that I am not sure what the “it” is that I am supposed to do, but when I see this logo and tag line on an ad, it is usually accompanied by images of people – usually young, fit and attractive – pushing themselves to great feats of physical endurance by running fast or jumping high usually accompanied by a great deal of perspiration.

So I assume that I am supposed to buy Nike products and go out and exercise so I will be as fit and beautiful as the people in the ads.

Now I know that exercise is a good thing and sometimes I can even get myself to do it, but usually I have to trick myself into it by calling it something else. Like riding my bike and telling myself I am saving the planet.

But I am old enough to remember a time when there was a similar phrase that was not intended to sell shoes and T-shirts. Back in my youth there was a phrase that was sure to cause arguments between young people and their parents. You are probably old enough to remember it too, regardless of whether in those days you were the young people or the parents.

“If it feels good, do it!”

To the young people it was a breath of fresh air casting off all the repressive morals of their parents. And to the parents it was a casting off of all the moral truth that they held dear.

That phrase brought to the fore the Christian attitudes about the human body that had held sway for a long time. That the pleasures and desires of the human body were dangerous at best and evil at worst and they must be carefully controlled and regulated.

And in those tumultuous times I heard a number of sermons based on the Scripture we read this morning telling me, in effect, to bridle my body and nourish my Spirit. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

“Your body is a temple – don’t pollute it with sex and drugs. Tamp down those carnal desires and focus on your spiritual side. Sacrifice and pray and go to Church instead.”

Now my purpose here this morning is not to argue whether those sermons were good advice or not. My purpose this morning is to say that that was not what Paul was trying to say to the Romans.

Paul was not telling what we should NOT do with our bodies. He is telling what we SHOULD do with our bodies – and with our lives.

Paul was certainly aware that what we do with our bodies is what we do in our lives. Our bodies are simply part of who we are and – for better or worse – they are our only vehicles to live in the world.

Paul does not take this opportunity to list all the evil things we can possibly do with our bodies.

No, he tells us that we need to figure out is what is call calling us to do – what is, as he says, the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. And then – as Nike also reminds us – “Just Do It.”

It is not that the body is inherently evil. It is not that the Spirit is inherently good. The question is what is God’s will and am I doing it?

At the Bible Study at Bethel AME on Wednesday, Dr. Oden said something that, on its surface, is surprising coming from the mount of a Christian pastor. He said, “The four most useless words are, ‘I’m praying for you.’”

Now Dr. Oden did not mean that prayer is useless. He was certainly not suggesting that we not pray for each other and those in need. But he is saying that “I’m praying for you” is useless and meaningless if that is all we do.

In the Letter of James we read these words, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”

It is like the cartoon that I kept on my desk for a number of years at Project Understanding. It shows a preacher in a pulpit in prayer saying, “O Lord we remember the poor and the hungry in our midst and trust that, by remembering them in prayer, we have somehow fulfilled our obligation to them.”

In what I am going t say next, let me say that I do not know Joel Osteen. I have never heard Joel Osteen preach – even on television. I have never attended worship at the Lakewood Church where Joel Osteen is pastor. But Pastor Osteen and his Church were in the news this week.

This is Joel Osteen’s home in Houston, Texas. This is Joel Osteen’s Church in Houston Texas. It’s a big place. During the flooding in Houston last week, the Church was asked why it hadn’t made its buildings and grounds available as an evacuation site and shelter. The response was that the flooding made the campus inaccessible so it could not be used.

So someone went to the Church and made a video of the locked church and showed all the dry streets surrounding the campus. They posted the video on Facebook and it went viral. The Church was shamed into opening their doors. In an interview later, Joel Osteen said that they had not previously opened their doors because the City had not asked them to.

I am not trying to condemn Joel Osteen or the people of Lakewood Church. I just don’t want to make the same mistake. I do not want to have someone ask me, what are you and your people doing for the victims in Houston and the rest of Texas and Louisiana.

I do not want to have to say we simply did our spiritual duty – we prayed for them. I have prayed for them. I have prayed for them daily for the past week. I will continue to pray for them and I hope that you will do the same.

But we must also determine what the will of God is in this situation and then, “Just do it.”

I don’t want to just say to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill.”  In the bulletin this morning is the flyer from UMCOR about how to respond.

We will certainly do number one – continue to pray for those whose lives have been impacted by Harvey.

I am certainly open to seeing how we can respond to number two – making relief kits.

We will do number three this morning. During our receiving of Communion this morning, you are invited to make a special separate offering. Simply bring your gift with you when you come forward to receive and place it in the plate.

Numbers four and five are vital. In our desire to do something, we sometimes do a thing that is not helpful or even harmful. We will not be filling a rental truck with clothing and driving it down to Texas. The roads are clogged and there is not yet a process in place for distributing the items we might bring.

And we will not rush down to volunteer. If we go there now, we will simply add to the number of people who must be housed and fed when housing and food are in short supply.

But in the months ahead the interest of the media and the public will wane. Other news and other disasters will take their place. As the public interest wanes we will have the opportunity for our interest to increase. I am sure that our Conference and our District will be organizing relief and rebuilding efforts that will work long after the television cameras are turned off or turned in other directions. I hope that we will support these efforts with our gifts and where possible, our lives. We can pay forward something of the efforts of the Arizona work team that gave so generously to us a couple of months ago.

And as we do, I hope that we will keep in mind those who will suffer most in the long term (because they always suffer most in the long term.) The bulk of the recovery efforts of the government will be – as they usually are – aimed at restoring property. Aid will be given to the owners of homes to rebuild and repair damaged and destroyed houses. We need to be sure that those who rented and also lost everything, continue to have housing they can afford. We need to insure that, as businesses and industries are rebuilt to aid the economy, the workers who have lost their jobs and livelihoods, are also cared for and made whole.

It is often said in an economic recovery that, “A raising tide raises all boats.” We must also remember those whose boats were destroyed by that rising tide.

But lastly and perhaps most importantly, I want to be sure that we learn from the response of the Lakewood Church. We are not subject to hurricanes here in Ventura County. We are not subject to tornadoes. But we are subject to wild fires. And we are subject to earthquakes. I pledge to work with our trustees and Church Council to make our facility available to the County Disaster Relief Committee so that, in the event of a local emergency, we will not be found waiting for them to contact us. We will have already made the commitment to be available to share our space with those in need of comfort and shelter.

At the end of the reading this morning, Paul encourages those with special spiritual gifts to use those gifts – in prophesy and teaching and love and support.

We sometimes listen to that list and say, “Gee, I wish I had one of those gifts.” We need to remember that Paul is not singling out those gifts as being the best and saying we should strive for those gifts. He is reminding us that we need to identify those gifts that God has given us and then use them. We are all gifted by God with gifts and graces. Paul assumes that we each have gifts. That is not his point. His point is that if we have those gifts, God expects us to use them. To just do it.

We are about to gather around God’s table. We will commune with God and with each other. It is our spiritual worship. But Paul reminds us that our spiritual worship includes sacrifice. Our communion here today is God’s gift to us here and now to empower us to go forth into the world – with all its hurt and with all its needs – to go forth into the world as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

In the words of the Gospel according to Nike, “Just Do It.”

Amen.

Preached By: Pastor Rick Pearson
Scripture Text: Romans 10: 5-15
Preached at College UMC and North Oxnard UMC
August 20, 2017

Prayer – “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.”

This is a cleaver. [Image of Eldridge Cleaver on screen] Eldridge Cleaver. Author of Soul on Ice. A leader of the Black Panthers. Proponent of Black Power. A man who struck terror in the hearts of middle-aged, middle class adults in the 1960s.

This is a cleaver. [Image of June Cleaver on screen] June Cleaver. Mother of Beaver Cleaver. A middle-aged, middle class woman who struck terror in the hearts of no one in the 1960s.

And this is a cleaver. [Image of a meat cleaver on screen] An implement used in the meat-packing industry to separate joints. An implement that strikes terror only when wielded by homicidal maniacs in horror movies.

Three cleavers, but if you are trying to translate a story from English into another language, you had better know which cleaver the original author had in mind.

Nor does it get any better when we move to the verb form of the word.

If you open any dictionary to the word “Cleave” you will find these two definitions: First, Cleave: to adhere closely; stick; cling.

And then, right below it is Cleave – same spelling, same pronunciation – Cleave: to split or divide by or as if by a cutting blow.

So, which is it? To stick or to split? To adhere or to divide?

If you are trying to translate cleave into another language you had better be very sure what the author meant.

Of course, this problem is not unique to English. Every language has words that could be correctly translated into a number of words in a second language depending on context and situation.

So it is not too surprising that this can be a huge problem when attempting to translate the Greek in which the New Testament is written into English. It is estimated that there have been 400 different translations of the Bible into English in the last 400 years. If translation was an easy process, so many translations would not be necessary.

For those of us who speak only one language, it is easy to believe that translation is merely a process of taking a word in one language and substituting the corresponding word in the new language.

Just as a translator might have difficulty translating “cleave” into another language, we have trouble translating our old friend, the Greek word, pistis into English.

Now this is where I put a Greek word on the screen and your eyes glaze over and you start gazing out the window at the garden and wondering where you want to go for lunch, but bear with me.

Pistis is a word that the Apostle Paul used a lot. It is usually translated as faith, but it is also translated as belief, and faithfulness and trust.

So, in the midst of Paul’s Letter to the Church at Rome, Paul makes this statement that we heard this morning this way, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

I was taught that what happened to Jesus at the Resurrection was a miracle – a once in all time miracle – that proved that Jesus was the Son of God and that I had to believe in that miracle. God did this miracle as a test to see if I would believe.

Believe it – go to heaven. Don’t believe it – go to hell. When I read the words of Paul that way it seems pretty clear.

But you know what? Paul did not think that what happened to Jesus was some one-time miracle that happened only to Jesus which we either believe or don’t believe.

No, what happened to Jesus was what Paul expected to happen to him and to everyone else.

Paul said, “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”

For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus was not meant to be a proof of Jesus’ divinity. The resurrection of Jesus was a sign of how much God loves us all and that even death cannot separate us from God’s love. Resurrection is what will happen to all of us. It just happened to Jesus first.

Look again at those words on the screen. “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Now suppose we say that instead of believe we translate pistis as trust.

“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

For Paul, it is not about a test of believing something that seems unbelievable. It is about trusting the love of God to carry on well beyond our lifetime.

Let me give you an example that makes sense to me. What makes my 45-year relationship with Ellen special are not the things that I believe about her. I believe her to be a good person. I believe her to be extremely gifted and multi-talented. I believe her to be beautiful in every meaning of that word. I believe many things about her.

But when I pledged her my faith – when I made a vow to be faithful – I was not promising to believe those things about her. I was promising to place my trust – in her faithfulness as she promised to place her trust in my faithfulness.

When Paul tells us to have pistis in the resurrection of Jesus, he is not saying to believe that the resurrection happened in a certain way.

No, he is saying that we can trust that God’s faithfulness – God’s pistis – and God’s love of Jesus extends beyond Jesus lifetime and, in fact, into eternity. And he is saying that, the Resurrection is not a onetime event that happened only to Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus means that we can trust that God is faithful to us as well and loves each and every one of us just the same way.

Far from being a one-time event for Jesus, it is for all of us – we will all be changed. What will it look like? What will it feel like? I have no idea. Paul calls it a mystery.

But what Paul knows for certain – what he said just a few paragraphs before the words we have before us today – is that “nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And if I trust God with my own life, I must trust God with your life too. And not just your life, but the lives of all the other people I meet. And not just the people I meet but all the people I will never meet.

I trust that God’s love for me knows no bounds. That is a comforting thought.

I want to trust that God’s love for everyone else – and everyone means everyone – I want to trust that God’s love for everyone else also knows no bounds. That is a humbling and sobering thought.

I will admit that I have no trouble trusting that God loves each and everyone of you. I think you are all very lovable people.

But I will also admit that there are people in this world – some whom I have met and some that I have only heard about in the news – some people in this world I have great difficulty thinking of as lovable people.

As you know, I team-teach a Bible study on Wednesday evening with Pastor Clyde Oden of Bethel AME Church in Oxnard. The class is made up of about a dozen people from both Bethel AME and North Oxnard UMC and it meets at Bethel.

Many weeks, as we gather for dinner and fellowship – prayer and study – I am reminded of another Wednesday evening Bible study at another AME church on the other side of the country. I am reminded that, at a Bible study at Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina – a Bible study much like ours – Dylann Roof was welcomed. He prayed with the people. Studied with the people and after an hour together, pulled out a gun and shot nine of them dead.

Dylann Roof was trying to start a race war – that was his stated purpose. As a Christian – as a follower of Jesus Christ – I do not have to tolerate Dylann Roof’s beliefs. I must speak out in opposition to his beliefs and to the beliefs of the Neo-Nazis and white supremacists who gathered in Charlottesville and in Boston in recent days. I cannot remain silent.

And in speaking out I must also remember that – as hateful as those racist and bigoted ideas are, I have benefited from them and still benefit from them.

White privilege is a reality and I am an unwitting beneficiary of it. I can drive down the street without fear of being stopped for little or no reason. I can know that, if I have an encounter with an authority, I will most likely be treated with dignity and respect and that I will not be in personal physical danger.

And not only have I benefited from them, I have all too often incorporated these ideas into my own psyche. I must admit that I am not immune to feelings of discomfort – or even fear – when a large black man enters the room – and this despite the fact that my best friend is a large black male.

But, as repugnant as I find these feelings and ideas in myself and in others, I have to recognize that God loves Dylann Roof. Loves him in the present tense. Just as God loves the man who drove his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville a week ago. Just as God loves the people who drove a van into a crowd in Barcelona a few days ago.

Jesus meant it when he said, “Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew something about being hated. He knew something about being the object of violence. But in 1963 he wrote, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence . . . in a descending spiral of destruction.”

Dr. King died a violent death at the hands of one who hated him but he never stopped preaching love. Jesus died a violent death at the hands of those who hated him but never stopped preaching love.

Neither learned to hate but neither learned to tolerate hatred.

We live in a time when hatred is, all too often, being tolerated. We must not tolerate hate, but the only way to show our intolerance is to love.

Earlier I said that the Resurrection of Jesus is not a miracle to be believed but a reality to be trusted. And not just trusted but lived every day. And our entry to this reality is our baptism.

Paul told the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

I invite you – I challenge you – to walk in that newness of life. Let us be united to Jesus in a Resurrection like his. Let us relegate hatred to our former life and let us make love the source of power in our new life.

Let us “confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and trust – trust – in our hearts that God raised him from the dead.”

You don’t have to believe it. But you can definitely trust it.

Amen.

Preached by: Pastor Rick Pearson
Text: John 10:7-10
Preached at College UMC and North Oxnard UMC
August 6, 2017

Prayer – “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.”

“You can’t take it with you.” That’s what they say, “You can’t take it with you.” To which some reply, “If I can’t take it with me, I ain’t going.”

If, however, you were a Pharaoh in ancient Egypt, you didn’t believe that you can’t take it with you. Pharaohs like King Tut filled their burial chambers with incredible wealth so that they could enjoy comfort and ease in the next life.

It is like the story I head about a place where the custom was to sell all the possessions of a deceased person and fill the casket with cash. At the wake for a very wealthy man, the open casket was filled with a huge amount of cash. Just before the casket was to be closed, the man’s business partner went over and began taking the cash out.

The deceased man’s family was aghast and asked the man “What do you think you are doing?” The man replied, “It’s OK. I am going to write him a check.”

Well, the fact that we cannot take it with us, does not keep us from amassing it. You have probably seen the bumper sticker – usually on a huge pick-up truck or SUV – that says, “The one who dies with the most toys, wins.” It never says what the person wins.

I don’t think this kind of hunger after collecting and keeping wealth was what Jesus had in mind when he promised us abundant life. I mean that the stuff that I own – stuff that I think I have got to have just to survive – would have been unimaginable to even the wealthiest people alive at the time of Jesus.

Yet surely no one would suggest that most Americans have achieved the abundant life. I am sure you remember the poem “Richard Cory” written more than a century ago by Edwin Arlington Robinson. It goes like this:

And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Yes, we have all heard enough sermons on this passage about the abundant life to know that it is not about wealth and possessions. And we know that it is not about health or long life.

In fact, we are very good at saying what the abundant life is NOT, but when it comes to saying what the abundant life is, we are a little like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. When faced with the question of whether a particular movie was pornographic in 1964 he famously wrote, “[Pornography] is hard to define, but I know it when I see it.”

Well, we may have trouble defining what the abundant life is but we believe that we will know it when we see.

But the bigger question is not what the abundant life is. The question is how many of us – even those of us who have spent a life-time in the Church – how many of us would say that we enjoy an abundant life?

But if Jesus said that he came that we might have abundant life – and if the Church is where we find the followers of Jesus – wouldn’t we think that one of the goals of the Church would be to help people find that abundant life that Jesus promised?

Which brings us back to the book that has given this sermon series its theme – Missional Renaissance, by Reggie McNeal.

I hope you will remember that he said we need to remember that the Church is not a building or an institution but the Church is the people – the collection of faithful followers of Jesus Christ. McNeal says that for the Church to reshape and recapture this vision of itself, it must experience three paradigm shifts – three shifts in its priorities.

Last week I outlined the first of these, that the Church must shift from being internally focused to being externally focused. That we must stop trying to build and maintain an institution and begin living and working in the world outside our doors.

The second is that we must stop being program driven and become more people driven,

Somewhere along the line, we in the Church seem to have decided that the abundant life that Jesus promised was to be found within the walls of the Church building and the Church structure. That the goal of the Church was to convince people to leave the world and enter the Church.

To accomplish that goal we have seen the Church create more and more programs. We added programs for youth and young people – programs for seniors – programs for newly married people and new parents.

Now we started these programs to meet the needs of people, but our standards of success quickly became – not the change in the quality of life of the people – but the number of people involved. We seem to assume that if more people come to the program more people lives are being changed.

So we measure the success of the Church by how many people attend worship events. How many people become members of the Church. How much money do people give to the Church. But we never ask whether people’s lives are being changed. We never ask if people are living more abundantly.

Let me tell you the story of my penny. I know that some of you have heard the story but bear with me.

In his journal, John Wesley tells the story of trying to pay off the debt on the Methodist meeting house in Bristol. There was a congregational meeting and they were trying to figure out how to raise the money.

In the congregation was a Captain Foy. We don’t know much about Captain Foy but he seems to have been a bit of an engineer. Engineers are problem solvers. They look at problems, see where we are and where we need to be and figure out a path from here to there.

I have the feeling that Captain Foy sat in that meeting – looked at the size of the debt – looked at the size of the congregation – did some calculations on the back of an envelope – smart phones hadn’t been invented yet so he didn’t have a calculator readily available – and determined that a penny a week per person would do it. So he stood up and said let each person give a penny a week.

I told that story in a sermon once and got the expected reaction. Any Church that asked just a penny a week would have no problem raising the money.

But the next day a retired minister from the congregation came by my office and gave me a penny – the penny in the picture – this penny.

At the time of John Wesley, the penny was not the least valuable coin. There was the ha’ penny – and the farthing – and the mite – the coin from the parable about the widow’s mite.

The penny was a significant portion of a day’s wages for a worker.

Now apparently a penny a week was well within the means of Captain Foy, but others quickly pointed out that the majority of the members of that Methodist society were poor factory workers for whom a penny a week would have been a sizable contribution – well beyond the means of many.

Captain Foy saw the validity of this argument and quickly amended his plan. “Put the twelve poorest with me – let each give what they can – and I will make up the difference.”

Now the suggestion of a dozen in the group might bring to mind the twelve disciples or the twelve tribes of Israel, but I think it more likely that Captain Foy was driven by the British monetary system in which twelve pennies made a shilling. Captain Foy was publicly pledging a shilling a week to the Debt Retirement Fund.

Others made the same offer and the plan was quickly adopted by the body.

Now if that was the end of the story it would just be an example of a successful capital campaign. But there is a serendipitous ending to the story.

Because they still had to work out the details of how the contributions would be collected. Initially, Captain Foy went to each of his dozen teammates each week and collected their individual donations. Others did the same.

But this proved too time-consuming so they switched to a system where the people each brought their gifts to Captain Foy.

But the people needed to know when Captain Foy would be available to receive each of their donations so they set a single time when Captain Foy would be available to receive their donation.

When they all came together the actual handing in of their gifts took about 30 seconds but since they were together they began to talk. They would ask one another how their week had been and over time they began to share their concerns and their hurts.

And Wesley saw that these meeting had potential far beyond the paying of the debt on the meeting house. Remember these people were all Methodists. That meant that they had responded to the love of God that the early Methodists were preaching – the love of God that was greater than anything these people had done or thought that distanced them from God.

And in response, the people were called and challenged to follow Jesus – to change their behavior – to change their behavior not to earn God’s love but in response to God’s love.

And these weekly meetings became an opportunity to share with likeminded people the struggles and temptations that they had experienced in the preceding week in trying to live out this new life in the world.

In short, they were seeking ways to live life more abundantly right here and right now.

And so this idea that had begun as a way to raise money to pay off a debt quickly became a way to encourage people to grow in their discipleship to Jesus.

Wesley began to introduce this concept in places where there was no debt to pay.

And people, being people, grumbled because they saw this as a new obligation rather than a new opportunity to grow in their discipleship. In his writings, Wesley addressed these grumblings. He said, “Some of you say, ‘we didn’t have to go to these extra meetings when we first became Methodists.’ I say, it is too bad we didn’t have them then. We all would have benefited. But now, thanks be to God, we do have them and they will help you in your attempts to follow Jesus faithfully.

So here was a program of the Church – instituted strictly for practical, financial reasons – which had the result of leading people to a more abundant life.

The mission statement of the United Methodist Church is this: The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches and extension ministries of the Church provide the most significant arenas through which disciple-making occurs.

I am really happy to be with you. I am enjoying the ongoing programs of this congregation – the Thursday morning Bible study – the Tuesday afternoon Inquirers group – Family to Family – the new Bone Builders group – and, of course, our time together for worship. The fellowship – the service – the praise – these are vital to the vitality of the congregation. But we need to be sure that the intention – the focus – of all our programs and activities is to future our mission. To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

A disciple of Jesus Christ is one who – out of response to the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ – follows the commands of Jesus – to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When we live our lives out of these twin motivations – love of God and love of neighbor, we will indeed live more abundant lives – we are going to be faithful followers of Jesus – we will find ways to move beyond programs that will increase the size and stature of the institution to ways to change the lives of people. We will move from program development to people development. We will indeed have life – and have it abundantly.

Amen.