August 21, 2016
14th Sunday After Pentecost Year C

“Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.”  Luke 13:10-17

“Christians believe that Jesus is the whole about God. When we look at Jesus in action, we really believe that this is who God is and what God does. For some (the sick woman) that’s good news. For others (the religious authorities), the conviction, that Jesus is the whole truth about God is bad news. God? “God is high and lifted up, distant, great, all powerful but very far away,” most people seem to think. Listen to some of the words people use to describe God, big, abstract, high sounding words: omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, immortal. The sum of these words is this: God is a long way from here and, whatever God is doing, God is not doing that with us. Then we met Jesus, the truth about who God is and what God is up to in the world. One of Jesus’ names was Emmanuel, “God With Us.” Jesus is God up close and personal; God as God really is rather than whom we had imagined God to be; God (if you happen to be a religious authority like me!) too close for comfort. And one of the main things we learned about God after watching God With Us in action was this: God is merciful.

I know someone who says, “I spent the first thirty years of my life thinking God was mad at me for something. Then I saw Jesus.”  Jesus could have passed by that suffering woman that day, could have preached to her some sweet sermon on bearing up under misfortune. He could have averted his eyes from her and focused instead upon the well-heeled and more attractive people, the defenders of scripture, the keepers of religious rules. Jesus didn’t do any of that. What he did was to feel her pain and to respond to her in mercy.” One reason why we do business with the Bible is to submit our preconceptions and misperceptions about God to the facts about God in Jesus Christ. In my experience, when people open up the Bible, one over-riding question is on their minds: Who is God? That question is often related to an even more pressing question: Does God care?” (God, Have Mercy – Will Willimon is a bishop of the United Methodist Church, retired. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC.)

Who are the people we pass by and do not give one second of consideration – one second of consideration that they may be in need of some Jesus? We avert our eyes so much, anymore, that we often do not even realize that we do it. We come upon someone on the sidewalk, and concerned they may ask us for something or might even talk to us, we look the other way or look at our feet and hurry on by. And, these people are not just the ones standing at the entrance of a mall with a cardboard sign that says “Homeless and Hungry”. These people are the ones sitting on their porches watching us hurry along to services. These are the people who tell us they are going to the pool on a Sunday morning rather than attend a worship service.

My friends, there are a lot of people in the world who are asking themselves this question: “Does G-d care about me?” So, how do we show them that G-d does care? We show them by telling them how G-d has cared for us, how G-d has expressed love to us, and how G-d has come to you in your lives including how G-d comes to you in worship, in the sacraments of baptism and communion.

Jesus is not calling us so hurriedly that we need to pass by those who the world continues to pass them by. Jesus is calling us to stop once in a while and share the love of Jesus with them. The best excuse for missing worship or bible study is because you have stopped to show mercy, love and Grace of G-d through Jesus Christ to a person in need.

Pastor Dave

August 20 2016 – Devotions from Rio Olympics
Soccer

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:1-16

Did you know that the soccer team that has won the World Cup has not gone on to win the Gold medal in the Olympics? When watching the USA women’s team lose to Sweden the other day, they show a graphic on the television that show that since 1996, the soccer team that won the World Cup has never done better than a Silver Medal. Often they are eliminated before the medal round. Unfortunately, the USA women’s team has suffered the same defeat. No, the first are not last, but the first will not be first.

Hearing Jesus say the first will be last and the last will be first does not always sit well with me. It brings on a lot of questions. Who will be first? Who will be last? Where do I stand in the process? The best answer I can come up with for myself is: why worry? The more I worry about my place in the kingdom of G-d, the more I focus on my accomplishments rather than on my deeds. What does that mean? It means, the more I worry about my accomplishments, the more I may try to convince myself that G-d is keeping a score card. G-d is not keeping a score card in heaven. What G-d wants us to do, I believe, is live our lives as Christ-like as we can. You see, when we focus on the Christ-like life, rather than focus on our accomplishments, then we lose track of the accomplishments because the Christ-like life is lived always engaged in loving, forgiving and Grace-filled actions.

The USA women will move on from this defeat, and they will learn the lessons they are supposed to learn. Hopefully, they will learn that we cannot always be first, and in not being first, we can learn to focus more on deeds than accomplishments.

Pastor Dave (Happy Anniversary (28) to my loving wife)