Sermon Together for All Time

Audio link: (opens Soundcloud online) Sermon-together-for-all-time

February 5, 2017 Together for All Time Pastor Carol P. Taylor

Jeremiah 31

“The days are coming,” declares the  Lord,
        “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
        and with the people of Judah.
32  It will not be like the covenant
        I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
        to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
        though I was a husband  to them,”
declares the  Lord.
33  “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
        after that time,” declares the  Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
        and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
        and they will be my people.
34  No longer will they teach  their neighbor,
        or say to one another, ‘Know the  Lord,’
because they will all know  me,
        from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the  Lord.
“For I will forgive  their wickedness
        and will remember their sins  no more.”

Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet, was quite young when called, prophesied at the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. He foretold and then witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.. remember the people believed that God actually lived in the Temple...so when it was destroyed, God had no home. God was no longer with them, or so they believed. Jeremiah was called to remind them that God was indeed with them even though the temple was gone and the people were in doubt and fear and so falling away from their beliefs and worship.

God's promise so important, it was given to Jeremiah AND to the prophet Ezekiel several years later! I will be their God, and they will be my people.

This prophecy was for the people living in exile, yet it is also a prophecy of a future time, when these promises would be fulfilled once and for all!

He uses imagery of marriage, the people being the bride! The covenant is a marriage of God and God's people-but not a legal contract. It is a a contract of the heart!

But, as happens so often when times are hard, the people fell away, fearing that they had been deserted by God.

There is a lot of use of marriage and wedding imagery in the Bible. The symbolism of marriage and of the wedding, is something that people across generations can identify with! The 'marriage' the covenant of God and God's people is an ideal, that is often not realized. Just as any relationship between two people has it ups and downs and challenges, the covenant between us and God has it's ups and down. WE have ups and downs. As Jeremiah promised- God is always here for us.

In the Bible in Revelation, the vision of heaven is of the New Jerusalem, the city...(the home of THE PEOPLE OF GOD!) as a 'bride adorned for her husband!”

in the Gospels, several time Jesus refers to himself as the bridegroom. ..and he spoke of heaven being a wedding banquet! When we are all finally united with God, through Jesus, it will be a huge celebration!

And since his disciples and followers didn't quite get it... finally on the evening before he was arrested. He told them 'This is my body given for you” “this is the blood of the new covenant!” This story is told in the 3 synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. John, written many years later, told other parts of that story. He told of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, at the last supper, and then telling them I am the vine you are the branches, abide in me and I will abide in you. The story was also told by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth... from 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, (part of this will sound very familiar!)

1 Corinthians 1123 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. (may God add a blessing to this reading of His holy word. Amen)  

We read the bible, we pray, we come to worship, we take communion, regularly, over and over, because we fail over and over. Once we have prayed and taken communion, it's not a one and done... because we will mess up again. As our lesson reminds us, we may even mess up DURING the communion, if we are not sincere about it!

Because WE, limited, finite, imperfect human beings can not fathom the unlimited, infinite, perfection that is God. Even though we have Jesus to show us―The Son of God, who gave up heaven to be with us, to be like us, we still can not quite imagine the perfection of God.  We can only see partially... as though we are looking at one facet of a beautiful diamond! We were created in the image in God...but we are not God. We are individual children of God, one facet of God. I think God just loves diversity. On our travels, Martin and I remark on the variety of nature, how many different kinds of trees, birds, in creation! God must just love diversity, he made so much of it! We are God's children, each of us an image, one facet of God. Each of us, every human is one of God's children and God loves every single one! 

So why does Jesus call this a new covenant? Does it replace the old covenant? Does it throw out “They will be my people and I will be their God!?” no not at all. This is not new in the sense of wiping out the old, it's a fulfillment of the original! It's bringing the covenant to its completion! All the stories of Abraham, Moses, and Jeremiah were steps along the road, part of the process! Now it is finished! “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Let me give you an example... I know someone who is doing some remodeling. When the work is completely done, they won't be living in a NEW house. They didn't bulldoze part of the house and start over! But they will have some rooms that are new..rooms that are better than ever, done to their specifications, fulfilling the promise that those rooms had before, but only now are just as they hoped!!

So too is the New covenant with Jesus. Jesus over and over in the Gospels used metaphors that people could understand, I am the bread of Life, I am the Good shepherd, I am the Light of the World! Jesus came to be with everyone, even regular people..not kings and governors, but ordinary folks living ordinary lives! And on the last night of his life as a human, he said “This is my Body given for you...” We are to take in Jesus..in communion... to be part of ourselves... to internalize that love.

Since Jesus was known to dine with 'tax collectors and sinners' (as we heard this past Sunday) and welcomed all to the table, not just at the Last Supper, but all thru the Gospels, we who profess to be His followers, must do the same. Just as our church has open table for Communion, our doors must be open to one and all. and so too must all kinds of 'doors' of our homes, places of worship, and our nation. Most of all, the doors of our HEARTS!

Speaker at a Presbyterian mission event...Rev. Jon Brown, pastor of  Old Bergen Church  in Jersey City, New Jersey―a union church of the Reformed Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ―at Thursday’s worship service of the  Association of Presbyterian Church Educators  (APCE) annual event meeting Jan. 25-28 in Denver, Colorado, this week.

Using the example of his daughter’s kindergarten assessment, he relayed the story of one of the questions asked of her, “What do you do when you want to go into a room that is dark?” His daughter replied, to the amazement of the instructor, “You hold someone’s hand.”

“The teacher looked at the booklet, flipped to the back, back up to the front, then she looked across the room and said to me, ‘It’s not in the book but it’s the best answer I’ve heard all day,’” Brown said.

“What do you do when you want to go into someplace that is dark? You hold someone’s hand,” he said. “That is what we do as the people of God. That is what we do as people of faith. Some people call it covenant. Some people call it community. Some people call it relationship or trust. It is how the church demonstrates to the world that God is with us in the chaos. We hold someone’s hand.”

After a mosque in the small town of Victoria, Texas,  burned to the ground  last weekend, the local Jewish and Christian communities there have come together to help those affected.

Members of the B’Nai Israel temple gave the keys to their synagogue to the Muslim community so they would have a place to worship,  USA Today  reports, and four churches in the town also offered space for the mosque's Muslim congregation to hold services, according to  NPR.

Children from the local Catholic school in Victoria also visited the mosque on Wednesday, forming what the Islamic Center called a "human chain of love and peace,"The students also presented the Muslim community with a tree.

"The tree will be planted in the grounds of our new mosque & prominently displayed to remind us of this beautiful moment," the post reads. "This is the spirit of love where the cross hugs the crescent."

Some call it covenant. Some call it community. Some call it relationship or trust

God says I Love You. “I will be their God and they will be my people!” “I am with you always, even to the end of time”!

This is why we worship together. Why we do mission and outreach together, helping the organizations that help our neighbors in need... we do it together. As individuals, as a church, with other churches and other organizations. Jesus said where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, I am there with them. When we hold someone's hand...Jesus is with us. God's son, God's own self, came to earth to be with us in every way possible! And then after his death and resurrection, gave us the Holy Spirit to empower us to truly be together with God and all of God's children for all time!

May it be so today, tomorrow and always. Amen.

How Rude!

August 28, 2016 Practicing Love: How Rude! Pastor Carol P. Taylor

We're working thru the aspects of Love as depicted in 1 Corinthians 13.

I must confess, this series on Practicing Love has got me thinking! One would think this morning's theme, Love is not rude, would be a piece of cake for us all!  We're from the MIDWEST! We are polite! Well unless someone cuts us off at the stoplight...

“Love is not rude” 1 Corinthians 13:5a

5  It does not dishonor others, NIV

5  does not behave rudely, NRSV?

5  love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; GNT

hmm, well irritable...yes sometimes..(this morning in fact when I overslept!). So again, we are looking at the Practice of Love. Why 'Practice”? Because sometimes we have to work at sharing the Love of God as well as we should!

Scripture Luke 17:11-19

11  Now on his way to Jerusalem,  Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  12  As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[b]  met him. They stood at a distance  13  and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master,  have pity on us!”

14  When he saw them, he said,  “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”  And as they went, they were cleansed.

15  One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God  in a loud voice.  16  He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him―and he was a Samaritan.

17  Jesus asked,  “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?18  Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”19  Then he said to him,  “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

17:12  lepers.  People with leprosy were required by law to keep away from healthy people (Lev. 13:46); these came as close as they dared and called out loudly.

Rules about leprosy,.. which may or may not have actually been “Hansen's disease! Any skin disease one was isolated until examination. Since skin conditions include disease and various sort of rashes. A rash that is caused by an allergy may look and feel terrible! But it's not contagious. It may well look like a condition that is contagious. So in this time, anyone with a skin condition was considered 'unclean', that is to be contagious or not allowed to interact with others.

The Samaritans thought of themselves as Jews - descendants of Joseph's line instead of Judah's, worshiping at the "true" center of faith at Mt. Gerizim - but Jews nonetheless. The rest of Judaism branded Samaritans as "Gentiles" - lumping them in with all the other pagan religions.

as they went.  Jesus’ command, when nothing had yet happened to the men, was a test of faith. They were healed as they went in obedience to Jesus’ word. They obeyed, they said yes, they followed his command and were healed as they went along.

The 10th leper, the samaritan, He was an outsider –outsider among outsiders! Yet he's the one who “saw' that he was healed as he went along and he turned back!

The health the Samaritan leper celebrates at Jesus' feet is a feeling of wholeness he has never before experienced. It is something no priest, no doctor, could measure or prescribe. The Samaritan returns to the source of his healing at Jesus' feet to offer praises of thanksgiving "with a loud voice." He whoops it up in joy!

 if all 10 were cured, then they all could have “seen” this much. What this one leper “sees,” then, is something more. We should recall that in Greek, the same term is used for “healing” as is used for “salvation.” This leper’s eyes are opened to the fact that he is not only “healed,” but “saved” as well.

Accordingly, he “returns” to Jesus and begins “praising” or “glorifying” God.

In these times, if you had any sort of illness, injury or hard times, it was believed to be due to some sort of sin in your life. Remember the disciples asked Jesus about the man born blind, did he sin or his parents? And what was JC response? Neither! This is for God's glory, and he healed him.

The word in the Bible for healing ” is Sozo. (sode'-zo) it means to be saved for eternity, but it means more than that. Remember the languages of this time had fewer words than our modern English, so each word had more than one meaning, actually layers of meaning. So looking at the layers of meaning of these words adds tremendously to our understanding of the Bible. Sozo, this great word, means to be saved for eternity. It also means to be protected or saved from danger, to be healed, made well, to be restored to health and wholeness. Sozo brings shalom! The perfect healing, wholeness and protection of God. When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, Shalom is what he meant!

This is what this Samaritan Leper discovered and and why he came back, praising God and worshiped at Jesus' feet. For when we have that powerful love and wholeness that only comes from God, it is only right to praise and worship, in fact I believe we are not completely healed until we DO! And then carry that love, and wholeness to others, in the Name of the One who loves and heals and helps us. .

This Samaritan Leper, an outsider among outsiders, was the only one of the 10 to get it, to understand that he was not just free of his skin disease, but that he was completely free of all that kept him from God and from others. He would never again be an outsider

Have you ever felt like an outsider?

Being the one of the last picked for the team? Being different from your friends, for whatever reason? We've all felt that way on some level, some because of family circumstances, or having a job that required night work, or not having a job. Maybe you had a health issue that affects your abilities, but isn't immediately obvious to others, so you might be called lazy when you are trying to get some needed rest?! How RUDE!

We all have STUFF, everyone of us has something we have had to deal with over the years. And sometimes we act out because of our stuff. We are irritible, or unloving.. And sometimes others act out -because of their stuff.

practice of love.... why call it 'practice'? Because living in love in faith, does not always come naturally to most of us. We may tend to react badly to others' bad behaviour. If someone yells, you may want to yell back. We have to think about how to react and even practice keeping our cool when things-and people- going bonkers, are acting out because of their stuff!

And we need to practice our faith life too. Worship, bible time, prayer, these are all ways to help us stay connected to Our Loving Lord, When we stay connected, then we are more likely to hear, to discern what we are being led to. We begin meetings with prayer, because it's a way for us to help center ourselves and focus on the reason we are here at a church meeting, to serve! Not for ourselves, but to serve!

And practice helps us to know when to say YES when there is an opportunity to reach out to others!

One of the best things about this church and you all, is the heart for mission and outreach. We say yes! We're quick to help when there is a need. We have a lot of missions that we help financially, enough that we have to be somewhat selective with our resources! I know of churches that are not particularly generous in their support of missions.. Need I say that those churches are struggling? In many ways! I confess to a fair amount of pride in the work that we do together with other churches! We take an active role in Caritas, with a few members who alternate attending their monthly meetings. We partner with a couple other churches during our week to host HOF, the local homeless ministry, which is supported by many churches in the area. John Pickart is current board chair of HOF. He also works closely with Meals on Wheels, which many of you help deliver!

And of course, we worked together with Faith Works and a dozen or so churches on the book bag bash. I' suspect you get tired of my going on about that, but it's a powerful example of God can do when a few people say YES to an opportunity to serve! And when we do, we make a difference.

Author Brennan Manning:

The greatest need for our time is for the church to become what it has seldom been: the body of Christ with its face to the world, loving others regardless of religion or culture, pouring itself out in a life of service, offering hope to a frightened world, and presenting itself as a real alternative to the existing arrangement.

This week, I was with a friend who works for a Catholic ministry. It's called Dismus Ministry and they give bibles and other materials to people incarcerated across the country. Dismus started small, and has grown to delivering materials and support in all 50 states, ministering both to the prisoners and the chaplains.  

Ron Zeilinger Sismus Minstry

THis week, prepping for today, our musician decided to play "What Wondrous Love is This?" as special music. 

Then yesterday, I looked for information about this ministry, the very first thing I found was a blog post...(a blog is an online journal) by Ron Z, a post from more than 3 years ago, in which he referneced “What Wondrous Love Is This?” 

NOT a coincidence! 

When requested by prison chaplains for their Catholic inmates, Dismas Ministry distributes free Scripture and faith resources, including Bibles, a unique prayer book for and by inmates, and faith study materials intended to support the faith-based rehabilitation of inmates. A goal is to provide the foundation for a healthy spiritual life that will serve them whether they remain behind bars or are eventually released.

“It tells them how to attend Mass, how to go to confession, how to pray the rosary, how to pray the stations, all of those different things,” Zeilinger explained about the material, which also includes a section on saints who also were incarcerated during their life.

“It’s wonderful stories of saints who you wouldn’t even imagine … being incarcerated for a period of time in their lives,” he said, naming St. Francis of Assisi, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. Peter and St. Paul. “Those are very fascinating stories for the men and women, and they really appreciate that there were these wonderful friends of God who had that prison experience.”

Despite being a prison ministry, Dismas does not focus solely on the needs of inmates. Ron emphasizes that Dismas Ministry “puts victims central.” “Sometimes inmates say ‘my crime is minor’ and they have not thought about how their crime impacted other people, including themselves and their own families. There are victims to all crimes. We need to be aware of and attentive to how to make amends and we do that by teaching scripture.” Ron notes that Old Testament stories like that of Jacob and Esau are powerful teachings on transgression and reconciliation. The philosophy of restorative justice is woven into many of the Dismas materials and into its very mission. As Ron says, when you think about it, “The whole light and ministry of Jesus is one act of restorative justice. Jesus is the mediator, the bridge, in restoring the broken relationship between God and humanity.”

the perfect healing, the Sozo, of Jesus encompasses this restoration that Dismus Ministry is teaching. Ron Zeilinger is a powerful example of someone who said YES to a chance to serve.

In researching him, the first thing I came across was actually an older blog post...a blog is an internet journal. “web log” that folks post online. I happened across this entry from Holy week, 3 years ago. Dismus Ministry is named for the “good thief” of the crucifixion story. Jesus was crucified between 2 criminals. One hurled insults at Him, the other asked, “remember me when you come into your kingdom” and Jesus replied, “today you will be with me in paradise!”

“The things that unfolded on the cross between this “good thief” as he has been called traditionally and Jesus is truly remarkable. The entire passage of Luke 23: 33-43 is so profound in meaning that centuries of reflection by many holy people have not plumbed the depths of it.

The words and melody of the great American southern hymn “What Wondrous Love Is This?” keeps running through my mind. It is wondrous that God went to such stupendous lengths to reveal to us the infinite, unconditional love that He has for us fumbling human beings.

If Dismas can make it into the kingdom as the saint of the last minute rescue, there is always hope for the likes of us too. That is why we call ourselves in this prison ministry business “messengers of hope.”

My hope for everyone is that hope abounds in your lives as Holy Week unfolds in all its wondrous love.”

My hope and prayer is that hope abounds in your lives always, that each of us finds an aspect of that perfect love and life from Jesus Christ, that we praise and worship well, and that we continue to reach out in that love to share the Hope, healing, wholeness and saving Grace of Jesus, today and everyday. Amen.